Strange Design
pink tea cups rattle
every time train passes
along tracks like licorice
spider-like cracks on saucers
trace designs black widows
spin before descending
crystal strand to oak floor
scuttling under china cabinet
pink tea cups rattle
every time train passes
along tracks like licorice
spider-like cracks on saucers
trace designs black widows
spin before descending
crystal strand to oak floor
scuttling under china cabinet
for Jim Hall
Milosz lectured
that books on poetry
find more readers,
in the new old West,
than poetry itself. This
is not a good sign.
A competing poet
would have to pretend
more self knowledge
than poets are allowed
to possess. This
is not a good sign either.
School, said Jim
one dark November
slice, is about
putting things in. Poetry
is about taking it out.
But a lesser, essentially evil
spirit, writes my
poems, Milosz confessed.
Who can draw out creation
with a magnet? Poetry
needs more contrast.
And if the litera, the
moralis, the allegoria,
diagrams a scene, the
anagoria fleshes it
with spirit. This is the
domain of theory.
So here I am, June.
Laid once again in rain
and wetness, grateful
words still arrive
in the cricket mail. This is
me taking things out.
Earthen Circle
1965 Knowing nothing
I named the place the end of the world.
Everything colorless: grass, trees
broken footbridge, flowing stream
limestone buildings
In that fluid, perfect light in which artists paint
not seeing
I sat in the barren scatter of displaced stones.
2017
Knowing something
remembering
I hear the hungry ghosts speak,
“Where are our graves?
The bones here are not ours.”
The cuckoo has breached their earthworks,
stripped them of their flesh and meaning,
laid in their nest spoiled eggs and monsters.
It is the male bird who wakes me
Every morning.
He’s telling me that he is awake
And prepared to defend what is his.
A wake up call, if you will,
To any would-be predator.
I always assumed it was the females who sang
But I suppose they sleep in,
having nothing to do but
Provide vulnerability.
/*
* In program code,
*
* $variables are things you’re uncertain of,
* and they start with dollar signs,
* and
* {
* braces group different situations
* }
*
* If (you need conditions) {
* you use this syntax
* }
*
* And exclamation points (!) mean “Not”
* e.g. 3 != 2 (3 is not equal to 2),
* lines of code end with semi-colons (;), never periods,
* and the answer always comes after “return”
*/
So,
function life() {
if ($artist->needs($salary)) {
in order to make ($belly != ‘hungry’) && ($family != ‘hungry’) {
// and
if ($art != $salary) {
//but
if ($computer_code = $large_salary) && ($life_quality = ‘boring’) {
fuck($art);
return $family;
}
// or
else if ($computer_art = $large_salary && $family != ‘hungry’) {
return $family . $computer_art;
}
// but
realize ($computer_art != $large_salary);
// but also
realize ($family + $large_salary != ‘happiness’)
// because
// this isn’t an equation
// or a simple choice
// between “this” or “that”
realize (life()->is_not_a_program()) {
// so
return $family . $art . $salary . $whatever_else_you_want;
}
// because you can always
}
}
rewrite the program.
NOTE: inspired by Writing Prompt #4 from Beatrice Underwood-Sweet
After vomiting nightly for over a week
I need a pill to settle my tum tum I need
something to keep the bile down I try
antacids I try Mylanta but they taste
like cherry chalk on the way back up
I try to force the burning back down
into my stomach try to suck on the heartburn
until it cools into a lozenge but eventually
the urge comes and I kick the covers away
and run to the bathroom and wretch until
my eyes bleed into themselves wretch until
veins burst around my nose and cheeks
wretch until a pointless amount of acid trickles
from my tongue and I can lie down beside
the toilet and chill my sweating forehead
on the porcelain this is a memory though
this is fading from thought this is weeks
and weeks ago thank mercy thank some god
thank you thank you thank you
First, they’ll capture you,
barter for you, exchange
money, the mark of ownership.
feathers falling
And then, they’ll name you;
your spirit locked in
English avarice, and manacaled history.
Two birds of one stone
Your days of “living wildly”
of self-reliance,
of cold and hot,
of sparse and plenty,
come to an end.
Clipped wings
For now, you’ll sleep safely,
eyes blinking in the soft drape of dependency,
But somewhere,
in the distant recesses of your mind,
you’ll remind yourself that
you have everything you could want
in a cage.
The World War 2 planes came back
Flying low, as to attack
Don’t know why I felt so sad
Seeing them there in vintage clad
Of an era I know not – True!
But heard tales from those who knew
They claim they fought till mornings dawn
“all them others – long since gone”
I watch the men who rode those planes
walking gently with their canes
Old Spiced up in fresh ironed shirts
with looks of pride and deep, deep hurt
Don’t know why I like to go
to see those planes and watch the show
gets me centered – don’t know why
and when I leave, I always cry.
Raindrops slowly tap at my window
telling me it’s a new day.
Karen Carpenter sang, “Rainy days
and Mondays always get me down,”
but not me. I welcome the cool morning
knowing there’s no schedule,
or “to-do” list to follow.
I leisurely sip my Veranda Blend,
and stare out the window.
No point to prove, no rant to make.
God is good.
