Goats are great.
So is poetry.
What if they put them together?
First
They’d have to exhume Lovecraft.
Then
They’d have to learn to make goat cheese
& how to do goat foo.
Next
They’d have to learn blank verse
& read Shakespeare backeards.
They’d have to grow a goatee.
And finally
They’d have to get me off
this damned boat.
On Wittland Street you rise to paint the night—
Lift too, my summer heart, that loves this sight.
A sign on the toilet
at Stella’s says,
Depress handle until
flush is complete.
If the handle wants to be
depressed, the right
person is taking
a shit.
Because I could not stop for Death –
He kindly ran me over –
His Undercarriage held but just my guts –
Sprayed underneath his Range Rover™
We quickly drove – He had much haste
And I had passed away,
My soul and my body too,
For His Eternal Sway.
We passed the Jail, where Convicts fight
At Recess – in the pen –
We passed the Fields of Standing Stone –
We passed the Shooting Range –
Or rather – They passed us –
The Bullets flew quietly and fast –
For only Chiffon, my Kevlar™ –
My Sustenance – only SlimFast© –
We stopped before a Waffle House® that seemed
An Oasis of the Town –
Red Roof Inn® was scarcely visible –
Three Starbucks™ – all Around –
Since then – ’tis Centuries – and yet
Feels shorter than a Tweet
I first realized the Michelin Men™
Were toward Eternity –
Landlocked in Kentucky, I looked forward to summer visits home to Cape Cod.
Pop and I would walk the sandy trails, play chess, and enjoy their garden
but each year my mother grew more fretful if I strayed from her side.
Near the end of one summer, while preparing polenta and roasted vegetables,
I hatched a plan. I charmed Mom into allowing me to bring our neighbor Helen a plate.
After slipping a bathing suit on under my clothes, I let Helen in on my ruse and ran to the beach.
A decade later, I remember how the salty water held me up in the bright midday sun,
my body floating on the shimmering waves, the tide rocking me back and forth,
how on my last trip to the ocean, I felt weightless.
(Being a scrap of paper found in a library book.
Will anyone knowing the full story please get in touch.)
On the front:
s in
geldin
olding a
n :57 1-5.
ses to be a
ned by Arno
cently brough
Hollywood Pa
West Coast trad
n 1:03 2-5.
t more than a
On the back,
and more mysterious
(depending largely on how you feel):
Two possibly Oriental eyes and
a nose, topped by a wedge of hair.
This little wing impinged,
flat noodles stretched along a foot,
thin strings over knees.
My neighbor groans with her hair brush,
heart pumping half a quarter of its time.
Rocks convince us to build,
and clocks convince us otherwise
to run with hairs and tubes and plates
jalloped and gangled and gamboled
down the home stretch.
In front of her dresser, she swears
that the grain who dies bears a stalk.
The spindled dangling bones
in a slipper whistle of a sack
hurtle over the ground.
One thousand pounds velocited
on a single thumb of a hoof
at speeds of young boys in fast cars
There’s ointments for long walks,
and hot lathered washes in citrus.
An act of trust
unmatched in history
She has once again brushed out her hair,
bound it in a bun, clipped secure,
and halted resolute into the kitchen.
Poem 5, June 5
Morning Walk
Before daylight can chase
night to its death,
I walk alone,
chilled to the bone.
Watching my breath
rise, I quicken my pace.
Never have I seen
birds so tame on the ground.
I come so close to one
I could easily
reach down
& put salt on its tail.
May Day
May Day and doesn’t some ancient part of my brain
remember a grade school flag pole
bare legged girls winding crepe paper around it?
May Day, the first day we could go barefoot,
exhilarating freedom.
To think of it now feels like visiting
a foreign country, is that really me
in all those scenes?
tanka
“Circus of the Soul”
starring Midnight Butterfly
run away with me
to the light show of your mind
join the poetry bizarre
