Posts for 2020 (page 79)

Parenting and ‘kus 
Creativity abounds
when given with rules

Lord, you said
love is blind,
but that means
it still smells.

From the back porch
we know that some
are deterred and others
attracted by the pungent
perfume of defense, strength
of this seeking species.
Amorous and aromatic, our
den friends spray before
continuing to their coupling,
safe in their pursuit.

We relax,
noses wrinkled,
judgments withheld. 

To each their odor,
or so it goes.

I must have been 5 and sleeping
in a bed on the floor,

the new baby with them up above
cuddling and together,
 
me replaced.  Alone in a peed-wet bed.
I didn’t know I could move

or ask for help.  Abandoned to myself.
A child’s eternity passed.

When they realized I was wet, alone,
Get out of those wet things and come up here.

Oh, why didn’t I think of that?

I carried your sins
Sewed them into my skin, so I could remember all the wrongs
 I thought that if I took your pain and made it mine that I could heal you
But all I did was darken myself in your shadow 
I dampened my light and neither of us could shine

We are the haunted men
Standing apart we keep it all together

Hearts filled with anger. Alas!
Our thoughts when
They find us alone
Are hot and agitated
As a spark in dry grass
or memories cutting glass
And diamonds

Mass without frame, sound without noise,
Pent up force, motion without intention;

Those who are also chased
With hungry eyes, by life’s tempting vices
Consider us – if at all – as fevered
Angry souls, and
As the wounded men
The haunted men.

         She kneels beside her fire glow
         Hair blowing in the wind, there is no
         Sound but the crackle in the heat

         She boils the water in the stone
         And mixes into paste her own
         Concoction of the bitter, and the sweet

         “Get back you fiend, or you’ll be beat!”

         She puts the potion in his hand
         His agitation stirs but then
         He drinks it, a necessary feat.

         His brow bursts into sweat he finds
         His paper once again and takes to     
         writing. The magic is complete

“Hope is the thing with Feathers
Hope is the thing
Hope is
Hope is the

Avoiding the trouble that craves us
Hope is a dream that enslaves us
This is how poetry saves us
Not with a burst, but a glimmer.”

________

Hope is the thing with Feathers – Emily Dickinson

I climb Jack’s Knob

here on the page,
for it rises up
from my memories
of it.

It
sighs. Its trees
lean, growing up
as they age.

I sit on its top,
a fine point where
a hawk’s view
is 360 degrees.

The reader who sees
it is not the new
climber, but has been there
before–seen leaves drop–

felt snow on the face–
heard the far off sound
of a coon hound treeing,
calling “come see

this poetry,
tired of fleeing,
I found
in this place”.

Cave drawings were found in Borneo.
We listen to poems about trees at Artsplace
while dancers above us  drum the floor
to a Fauré mashup. A plaque in Iceland
commemorates the last iceberg.

Hummingbird fledglings
set out for a nonstop flight south,
but the Amazon forests are burning
as Notre Dame goes up in flames.
We prospect for water on Saturn’s moon.

Behind the garage, we bury the chipmunk
caught by the cat. We’ve gone from burying
the dead, to stacking them, to recycling
their ashes. The landfills are overflowing.
The possum scavanges at dusk.

We do fifty repetitions on our yoga balls.
We hug tight to our therapy dogs.

What’s left is an unkindness of ravens
imitating human speech. They somersault
down from the sky to break our skin.
Shorebirds saved Columbus.
If we live forever, we’ll need a new planet.

Some folks rewrite
history so their skeletons can
dance to a familiar jig

some rewrite it
because they can’t 
see themselves
for what they are

some rewrite it
because the truth
dictated was never an option
to swallow

last looks through information
about users.
from most to least.

special users
(surprise)
last record times.

This is different

lets you dash

instead of
complain

Set the time warp leniency
slightly out of order.

problem is assigned to users

unless the suspicious machine hasn’t been used in a year.

don’t chop the part off of ‘XXXX entries.

run.

—
Found poem (erasure) from the Linux Man Pages
Complete text at:

https://man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/last.1.html

The GNU accounting utilities were written by Noel Cragg
<noel@gnu.ai.mit.edu>. The man page was added by Dirk Eddelbuettel <edd@qed.econ.queensu.ca>.
 

I wish I could tune into her like a pop
song. But no, she wants me to look inside
uncommonly quiet places — the crow’s
small torpedo beak or the cozy new
pod of wild blue indigo. Mother,

where are you? Gone 13 years
& still playing hide
& seek. In another dream, I
search for recognizable
whispers. Maybe you are a bonfire

in Gujarat or a black
hole at heart of the Milky Way
& the dusty interstellar
cloud surrounding it. Are you studying
thermodynamics or gliding

with stingrays on the Baja Coast?
Whatever you are up to it must be damn
good. Must be magnificent as rubies
& gold where you are, but why, why,
why can’t you visit me?