Posts for June 9, 2020 (page 7)

George Carlin’s routine featured a fictitious book club that included the titles:
“Rid Yourself of Doubt–or Should You?,” “Reorganizing Your Pockets,” “Why Hawaii and Norway Are Not Near Each Other” and “How to Kill a Rat With an Oboe.”
Mr. Carlin is no longer with us.

Here are books I’d like to read that haven’t been written yet:
“Save Your Toenail Clippings,”
“How Muenster Cheese Saved My Marriage,”
“The World According to My Idiot Son-in-Law,”
“Weaning Myself off of Food in Thirty Days,”
“Zen and the Art of Corn and Callous Removal,”
“Changing the World One Spatula at a Time,”
“The Mathlete I Couldn’t Count On,”
And “Why Sweden and Norway Are Next to Each Other.”

If any of these turn out to be real titles of real books,
My real apologies.

Throws me off balance
I slip on slick grass. You say
Maybe you’re too polite to be a poet
Too nice to learn to slice
Off the ends of leaves
As you yank away
The ivy from the house,
Tough old vines
Clung on like ticks attached
To the underarm

My silence is the knife
You need to finish the job

Excess her specialty: too much
food, drink, attitude.  Passionate
in idolizing celebrity and if her hero
was a woman athlete, all the better.
She loved to pose with her best friend
and post for the world to see.
Everything in her life a superlative,
the best or the worst.  Fiercely loyal,
she celebrated the birthday
of her pets years after their deaths.

She delighted in wheelies
on ice and preferred riding her chopper
with no helmet, the better to feel
the breeze in her hair.
She had pride in everything:
the best boat, car, yard, neighbors. 
Under a tough facade, quick to cry,
blubbering over any loss or injustice.

When she got sick she thought
if only she got a new fridge
that would get things cold
enough, all would be well.
And if she could get chicken
noodle soup hot enough
she would be strong again.

Honeybees plunge their stinger deeply
die 
never to harm again.
Not that I wish someone to 
die
when they cause pain.
Potential lies within me
to diminish their sting.
En guard
Advance
Lunge
Counter parry
Stopthrust
Disengage
from
apoptosis.

next door dog/ is barking/ again/
incessantly/ sounds like/
let  me  in/ let  me  in

why not just/ plop down/
on warm wood deck/ sniff
infinite green/ let bee hum/ lull/
linger/ in long lazy stretch/
sunshine lacing/ in and out/
of leaf waves

what is this want/ of stale/
artificial cool/ denied sunlight/
TV blair?

there/ it’s stopped/ no more
jarring/ poor dog/ lost
to nature/ like the human/
it lives with

A farmer’s market find-
At home, I liberate the herb
From its plastic confinement
My fingers eternally eager
For the lush sculpt of soil                              
The tangle of root and pulse                               
As I transport it to a larger pot
Its spirit soft and savory  

If only the homophone
Were as simple to manage   
If only I could take that time
Within my hands and shape it
To these hungered wants  

Once more
Looking into someone’s eyes without a Zoom lens
Hugging friends gathered around a meal
At her bedside soothing the faded hand          
Kissing his shoulder on a summer morning
In the midst of whippoorwills igniting the stars
Cherishing the baby burbling in my arms
Your laugh in the cave we discovered
Sharing moonlight before he went to war  

But life moves on      as it should
As it must  

I brush the earth off my fingers
Thank herb and moment
And head into the day  

i don’t enjoy one-night stands.
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I prefer lying down.

we wage this war 
with wisdom-
we’ll never
be the same.
wading deep
into the water,
we’re
drowning
in the mud.
stifled voices.
smothered songs.
dying
from dissent.

my hair brushes my hips,
long and glossy
with hundreds of split ends,
it is my pride and joy
in two years it’s grown a foot and a half
to make up for my freshman haircut mistake
I haven’t used heat on it in six months
and I’ve hair masqued, all naturaled, and oiled it up

but it’s holding me down,
tying me to this earth
the very weight of it,
the tension on my scalp,
causes a constant headache

vanity is a strange thing
I despise it and yet I weep every night
as my haircut comes closer and closer

for the first time in my life
I will have short hair and I dread it

I will tell the hairdresser that I’m sorry about the tears,
it’s nothing personal,
I’m just cutting off a two foot piece of myself.

I know he loves me like a hunter loves game.

That my neck is exposed and my eyes are wild.

That only swaying or collapsed I am beauty.

I know he loves me as a murdered and heavy thing.

Bloated and swelling and covered in dirt, in moss.

He hunts out of necessity, yet kills for fun in feral despise.