My poem “Candid” is up today in the Father’s Day edition of the online journal/blog “Salamander Cove.” I really like what Annie does with this blog, and encourage you to add it to your regular reading. My thanks to her for the opportunity.
Category Archives: poetry
Ticks
Look — a childhood
with explosives
attached.
It’s
waiting. Might be
waiting a while.
Might not go off
at all.
It’s a little one —
it has blue marks
on it. It’s hard to see
in there but it’s there
all right,
under the fat,
under the gray.
It’s mighty strong.
It’s got a bad
sting. It’s
whiny and terrible
and soft.
It’s a childhood
laced up with bombs
and it’s waiting to blow.
It’s a fussy thing.
It’s OK, it doesn’t hurt
any more. Needs
a mommy kiss.
Not likely to get one,
which
doesn’t shift the need.
And when the childhood
goes to work? It thinks
kiss. When it drinks?
It thinks kiss. When it is
kissed? It thinks
not this — and
it ticks.
Select Pleasant Certainties
Select pleasant certainties
of my prospective daily
routine
I can spend my day listening
to a variety of songs
comprised of three chords
strummed or plucked
on one or more guitars
more or less accompanied
by other instruments
and wed to
comforting lyrics
There will be
televised
affirmations
of my lifestyle choices
People’s perception
of my race and class
won’t change much
My blood
will mostly likely
stay inside my body
Anything I say
will likely not
be used against me
as long as I affirm
what is obvious
and accepted
Select
pleasant uncertainties
of the day
are likely to include
a mutterworried monologue
about the success or failure of
my bitterflying
attempts at
allying my regulated smile
to an actual good mood and
probably pre-damned gimmereaching
in the name of the spiritchore
it is alleged I am
devoted to accomplishing
this wordcoining of
magnifications
for tiny cells of soulpoo
that render them
stardanglers for decorating
the select pleasant certainties
of a daily routine
I could not do the latter
without having the former
I do not know how there are those
who do not
yet who can
A select unpleasant certainty
is that I don’t have to think about them
unless I deliberately decide to
The daily public affirmation of my being
assures me of that
again and again
but I select
caring
and more to the point
I choose to identify outside the certainties
stardangling
myself
in the source of soulpoo
praying to become
a certaintybomb
If this is rejected
I am
certain
it will be
a source of
unnecessary
mutterworrying
although
it will be no doubt
deathlaughable
to some observers
Velocity
We live
in a net
knotted from lies.
Occasionally,
as it’s dragged along,
it catches on truths.
We reach for them
through the web,
grasp them for a second,
watch them disappear,
our hands torn from them
by velocity.
But now
we know they’re there.
And now
the net
seems weaker,
the knots looser,
the speed of the ride
tolerable, our tangle
less torture, more puzzle to be solved.
Children On Fire
They stand around, looking for the source of the smoke,
wondering how far away it is. When the first child
ignites, they are amazed at first,
then push through disbelief to try and extinguish
the small blue flames racing up her back. She seems
unfazed, more upset by the frantic patting and pushing
and rolling than by the fire. Once it’s out, another child
starts to burn, and the process is repeated though
the boy’s reaction is the same: no fear of the fire,
discomfort and fear at the rush to put it out,
the prescribed violence of the response. Eventually,
all the kids are burning although they continue
to swing and climb the jungle gyms
as the smell of meat fills the air. The parents
are nonplussed but do what they’ve been doing all along
even as the kids protest and say, “It’s no big deal! Stop!
We’re fine! You’re hurting me! Stop!” A learned expert
proclaims it a generational miracle and says that
perhaps this is the next stage of evolution: a species
of burning humans who don’t care if they burn. None
of the children have an opinion. They’re just kids, after all:
what do they know? Something, I guess,
that the rest of us don’t, with their blue flaming hair
and their blue flaming lips, singing hot songs
as they play and dance
and see the earth
changing.
Absolutes
In the bluest eye,
a dot of brown.
In the whitest snow,
a gray morsel.
In the darkest night,
a light shining just to be seen.
In this second,
a small eternity.
Imagine, now,
purity. Pretend it exists.
Pretend flight
is endless, that what flies
never lands. Pretend
you never land.
Pretend earth under you
is invisible — no down to define
up. See how far
you get. In what direction
are you flying? How far
have you gone?
In the clouds,
rain, lightning, hail;
in your wings, now,
an aching for rest.
Poet Wars
They go to war over a word or two,
sharing their opinions and
an unwillngness to bend.
When no one’s looking,
they fire off an angry word or two
about this trivia at close hand —
and then they spit into the wind
and end up damp and vile and mad
over a word or two that no one heard,
yet again.
Rose, Swastika, Bomb
You repeat to me
and everyone else who can hear
that poetry will save the world,
poetry is the full expression of love,
poets are the unelected legislators,
men die from not having the news from poems,
and so on, and so on…
and so on.
Are you serious?
Can you hear yourselves?
Can you hear yourselves
over the sound of the Sharpie
scrawling lines from a jihadist poem
onto the stock
of an AK-47?
Over the loudspeakers broadcasting
“The Eurhythmics Of Ancient Poetry”
to a mass of Chinese schoolchildren
synchronizing their calisthenics
to pre-approved poems
while bureaucrats nod?
Over the grinding
of three chords and hate
as the skinhead misspells his vitriol
in a screed on a screen devoted
to race war?
Over the screech
of a doggerel verse about
the President and his birthplace?
Over death-eyed rhymes of bling
and Glock and casual idolized
gangster dreams?
Can you hear yourselves?
Can you hear yourselves
over commerce forced-pentameter
and the sound of ideals clinking against
sonnets run foul with coin?
How do you understand, how do you explain away
poetry brought to bear on behalf of evil
and venal, in service to war and pain,
built to enflame blood
and rattle down weak walls
in time with the rounds from the guns?
Not every poem springs from love.
Not every poet is a snowflake,
unique and perfect; some write to honor
viler climates, but everyone’s
a poet too. We forget
that men die every day
from bullets and lack of bread;
women die every day
from bayonet rape and circumcision;
children die every day
from starvation and public policy,
and among the killers
there are certainly poets
as possessed by this urge to write
as any of us who see windows
where they see walls,
and gates
where they see razor wire.
No telling what a poet
keeps in the pocket
next to the pen —
a rose,
a swastika,
or a bomb.
Ribbon And Bell
Ribbon on the ground
and a bell on the ribbon.
One of my pets will chase it
if I pull it, leave it on the floor
waiting for me to pull it again
if I stop. The other
will chase it too, but if I leave it
she’ll steal it and hide it
and I’ll hear it later when she pulls it
herself. One old, patient cat;
one young, impetuous ferret.
One who trusts in the future
and in me; one who trusts
me in the moment and handles
the future for herself. I”m so reliable
that I pull the ribbon and the bell
whenever either one’s around.
But I try to remember
to pick it up when I’m done.
Coddle age and patience,
thwart youth and skill —
she’ll never remember it anyway
the next time I pull it for her.
She’ll just chase it around,
waiting to see how long it takes
before memory fails me, and she takes over.
Husks
the Work
took so much from him
that when he finally rested
he blew away.
where the husk landed
was a husk.
a heap of husks.
the Work stepped lightly
on them when it came that way
and they powdered.
they ended up as dust
on the sole of the Work’s foot.
in the steps of the Work
was the dust
of the husks.
if you look,
you can see the whorls
of the Work’s
bare footprint.
if you ask,
the Work has no
one human name.
the husks
remain somewhere
back on the trail of
the Work.
if you seek them,
you will be
disappointed
when you see the pile
and unable to explain
the Work
by sifting the shreds
through your fingers.
you will learn
how little you knew of him
that made him any different
from anyone else
whose husk
is now mingled with the others.
perhaps that news
is on the feet of the Work
but it is now
so far along
there will be no point
in trying to catch up.
Incident At A Gentleman’s Club
She had a last vision
of a Brazilian river.
His last words
were of the endangered
Confederate trillium,
glimpsed in the Florida Panhandle
on a college hiking trip.
Then he lost the marbles
and there were bullet holes
in the pole, the stripper,
the back wall…
fortunately,
they kept a shotgun
under the bar.
He’d just wanted to shoot marbles again,
the game he’d learned from his grandfather…
He was no good as a shooter then.
She’d wanted to see the Rio Formoso again,
wanted to see her mother…
She was no stripper then.
Lost his archaic marbles, then:
bullet holes,
dented poles,
the woman
vanishing. It’s to him
as if she wasn’t there
but she was. A marble
to be shot, so she was.
Wow, said the newspaper.
This is not making much sense.
Why would he do this, was there a grudge
or a vengeance?
A brain scientist will be called in
to explain. It’s fractal, she’ll say.
It’s got
infinite dust
to be cleaned up.
It’s revenge for the vanishing
Confederate Trillium, yes.
Revenge for lost marbles.
He forgot that at once.
She forgot the Brazilian river,
the beautiful
Formoso.
It’s fractal. It cleans up
beautifully. They
cleaned up beautifully.
Nothing new in the story:
crazy person, tragic
person…
just this,
unspoken:
Mama,
are you here?
Grandfather,
are you here?
No one plays marbles
anymore, and
no one here knows
how lovely
the Rio Formoso
can be in the right light —
oh for the right light
once again on the leaves,
through
the translucent
vanishing flowers;
no one here
can explain to anyone else
how beautiful…
A Great Day
Ever-circling demands of sickness and hanging ruin
keep him sitting in the window looking out
at birds and squirrels and the kids across the street.
When a pigeon falls dead to the sidewalk
from the wire, he blames himself yet again
for every natural disaster, forgetting that for nature,
there is no such thing as a disaster
as it contains every death, mutation,
storm, volcano, and flood; puts the emphasis always
on natural, not disaster; shakes everything
off as just another great day. Nature’s
infinitely happy with itself and does not grieve.
Meanwhile, back in the window, our intrepid hero
of despair is telling the ledge that he’s going
to do it this time, he really is, no stopping him…
standing in the window
measuring his potential descent
against the light of morning…it’s true:
nothing’s going to stop him. A heavy soul
always sinks unopposed at its appointed time.
Nature will not stop smiling even as he turns away
and goes to his bathroom.
Whatever happens next,
it’s going to be a great day.
J’Accuse
It’s not fair
that you’re alive.
What desire
is under your foot
to be stepped on
and muddied
beyond recognition,
what stern longing
will not leave you
despite your flight
from it,
what fatal question
will you refuse to answer
if you do what you think
you must do
and never consider
what is present
and screaming for you
before you
and inside you
and in your path?
Can you be any less
of a man whether you
are spitting or slipping
along? When you stop
how do you dare
to move again?
It’s not fair that you are
alive.
There’s no justice in you
for all those who died unfulfilled.
When they look at you,
what betrayals they see
that you are nonetheless
comfortable
carrying!
Are you
even breathing right now?
Can you call yourself
and dare to answer
to the name you were given?
Do you even exist, or are you
a ghost, a broken spoke,
a derailment? It’s not fair
that you’re even alive
when better men
are not.
Everything I Know Of Life (I Learned From Marijuana) — old poem, revised
1. decision
when it was first offered
to pass it
or hit it
made it clear
as to where I would stand
in certain battles.
2. buy
no trust
is complete.
trust
anyway.
3. tools
what you work with
is not as important
as the end result.
4. process
anything worth doing
is worth doing well.
every loose end tightened,
every tear repaired,
clean up meticulous.
anything left over?
saved or shared.
5. sharing
it’s never
100 %
reciprocal; someone
will always
take more
than they should —
share anyway;
it comes back around
often enough.
6. nostalgia
haze
makes everything
golden.
7. paranoia
yes, they’re watching.
you are suspect.
they are too.
all good things
are suspect
to someone.
8. appetite
if you can swallow it,
it’ll do the job. all
that matters is empty.
9. once it’s done
it can be revisited,
but it will never
be the same.
Old Love
Their hands
fold into one another
as do paper dolls:
not two separate but
one continuous; this
is not the love
of silk and
fire
but that of
welded breaks made
strong, stronger
than before,
steel
that may yet be defeated
but refuses to lose,
becomes plastic
under pressure,
reforms, sculpture
garden hands,
could be called
great art if it were not
natural for these two.
And their eyes!
Set into mapped
faces, clear
as seafront mornings
after fog’s burned away,
but they are so still,
so still…
Alive? Yes.
Whatever comes next
they are alive now
and no telling,
they may remain so
after what we call death.
Whatever you say
of this, however you
call out or disregard
the forged hands
and the still eyes,
old love is alive here.
And to prove it,
with his free hand
he
(trembling)
brushes a crumb
from her chin.
