Archive for the ‘poetry’ category

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Lining the Seams

September 29, 2016

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Lining the Seams

Music lined the seams of him, though they frayed increasingly. Scales no longer enough, he had to move right out into Debussy.  Even if the fingering was off, the waterfall of it seemed to darn the breaking cross-threads.

How does a waterfall darn? Hard to say, only that what hurt him fell away.

Take Mozart. Life with Mozart could not feel unfair.  Let it end, he thought, as but a poppy in potters’ field–the poppy would be  incandescent, its centering eye as velvet as a doe’s.

He bought a small harmonica that he could whip out when waiting for the train.

He could not in truth well play the harmonica, and he could hardly play it at all on the subway platform.  The collection of coins was not his intent, and, with his limp, he hated to draw attention to himself.  But, soon, all it took to bring relief was a couple of blows; even a note would serve as the bridge to a sonata, hunker a composer about his back.  (In the subway, it was usually Beethoven– Beethoven a natural hunkerer, and, perhaps, he thought, less bothered by the noise.)

Then life changed, as it does, or rather his apartment building changed–new neighbors.  They had stout poles–broomsticks, he guessed.  They banged upon their ceilings, his floors; they banged upon their floors, his ceilings–they were friends of each other, or had become friends; each couple as glossy as glass, each stare a swish shutting of glass door.

The disturbances should have been minor. (Certainly, he had been stared at often enough in his life.)

But his spine shuddered at the broomstick bangs; his legs.

Of course, he told himself, it was his nerves.

City ordinances, he told himself, allowed you to play music at reasonable volumes until 10 pm.

Soon, even at 7:00, he could only run his fingers silently over the keys.

He contented himself with the harmonica; he paced the closet; it was more of a two-step.

They did not, it turned out, like two-steps.

He played the harmonica then into his pillow. Its small square air holes may have checkered the fabric with a blue print of its own, but he was too close to really see it.

 

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A bit of a story for Real Toads Open Link Night hosted by the wonderful Kerry O’ Connor.  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 6 Comments

GOP Spelling Bee (Old Guard vs. New)

September 25, 2016

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GOP Spelling Bee (Old Guard vs. New)

Hey, I’m Dan Quayle, and I’m peeved!
All I didn’t know was how to spell “potato,”
while this old wheeze wouldn’t even try,
just morphed the word
into “fry.”

And they don’t even give him any heat!
She–eeet!
When they said, ‘but the word was
“potato,”’ he said, “some people
heard it as ‘fry’–

“And besides,” he asided,
“a lot of people like fries–”

Okay, but the word
was potato!

So, now, let’s pretend
this isn’t the rendering
of a spelling bee word
but of being and the world–
he still would spell it,
fry.

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A very belated offering for Rommy’s prompt on Real Toads to write of a famous “sidekick.”  In this case, Dan Quayle, who was George W. Bush’s Vice President, got into trouble at one point by mis-correcting school children’s misspelling of potato.  (He added an e to the end.)  Drawing, such as it is, is mine–all rights reserved. 

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Strange Ways of Old Grief

September 25, 2016

 

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Strange Ways of Old Grief

When you touch me like
full summer,
I should, like grass, glow heedless
of what’s mown,
you as full of rest
as those rusting dusks
that hillsides carry
in their arms, and I am in
your arms,

but some just part of me
rears inside
like an accuser at the back
of a wedding pew,
remembering those who lost such bliss
too soon–
what do I even know of their bliss?–those friends
I loved–

and in that would-be sweetness, I weep,
brain a jungled heap
of their mounded flowers, the waxed
moon blooms–how could you leave me, I think to them,
though I was the least
death left behind–

while you, like those dusks whose only rustling
is warmth, just hold me closer
than passing day, as closely as the hillsides hold
their indigoed grass,
we two also
turns of earth.

 

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Here’s a draft poem of sorts for Kerry O’ Connor’s reprising “Play it Again, Sam” prompt on With Real Toads -this one influenced by the remarkable poetry of James Wright (original prompt by Grace.)  I’m calling it a draft as still revising it even as posting–the pic is mine.  All rights to both poem and pic reserved. 

 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Saved Maple Leaf

September 17, 2016

Saved Maple Leaf

The maple leaf found itself
in a dresser drawer.
It was not crinkled into
the plastic pin box,
which once snagged jewelry in a slice of sponge,
but now held only a small tooth
gullied by sienna.

It was not slipped
into the envelope of cut hair whose strands stuck together
as if still attached
at the roots.

It did not bind to the rippled chorus programs, flapped homework, rustle
of candy wrappers,

nor tuft in the ruffled kleenex,
wind around the purple crayon, nor nestle
in the slightly sandy scatter
of shells, each too small
to sound the sea.

No; it lucked into
a flattened smear of lotion (containing lanolin),
which (as is somehow the task allotted to sheep), shawled it
in a protective lawyer, so that its veins retained
their suppleness; its crimson its red.

Though, still, the drawer grew dead,
for reasons the leaf could not fathom,
even as it dreamed when sun warmed the wood overhead
of pancakes–
it felt a curious kinship with pancakes–until,

over time, the lanolin shedding
its fat, the leaf mourned
its pine life,
crimping painfully
as it remembered the chatter of the tooth’s
rattled box, and the touch that used to rifle
through the programs, searching
for a last piece
of that candy,
remembering too the proud “ooh”
that proclaimed the enveloped hair,
and the blue that would show there, in
the opening, some of the sky
fallen through.

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Here’s a narrative poem of sorts for my own prompt on Real Toads.   The pic is mine, though the wood background not the raw pine I imagine for this dresser. 

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Comments: 13 Comments

9/11 (Villanelle)

September 11, 2016

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9/11

The burning buildings woke me from a sleep
of what I thought important, nothing now.
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street,

praying that my child was mine to keep,
dear god oh please dear god I whispered loud;
the burning buildings woke me from a sleep.

Some stopped to stare, all of us to weep
as eyes replayed the towers’ brutal bow.
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street.

North sky a startling blue, the south a heap
of man-wrought cloud; I pushed against the crowd;
the burning buildings woke me from a sleep.

I’d never complain again, never treat
with trivial despair–or so I vowed.
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street.

I’d change, give thanks—I saw them leap—
and begged for all the grace God would allow.
The burning buildings woke me from a sleep;
I ran hard down the smoking, crumbling street.

 

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This is an old poem (approximately 15 years old in fact).  Am posting in memoriam and gratitude too, for the grace that I was allowed that day.

Pic is slightly newer, also mine, al rights reserved. 

 

Categories: 9/11, poetry, villanelle
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Comments: 3 Comments

Too Heavy a Freight

September 6, 2016

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Too Heavy a Freight

I tried to put our love
upon a scale,
but not wishing to be weighed,
it swam away, slipping on
slick fins, scales then only armor,
though too flimsy, oh mon amour,
to repel much ill.

Yet, how that brittle mail lightened
each swish-sway,
my sun, moon, hanging
in the balance.

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55 word poem of sorts for Kerry O’ Connor’s week-end prompt on Real Toads, special bonus for poems inspired by the marvelous paintings of the Nigerian painter, sculptor and musician known as Twins Seven Seven, born Prince Taiwo Olaniyi Oyewale-Toyeje Oyelale Osuntoki (3 May 1944 – 16 June 2011) in Ogidi, Kogi State, Nigeria.  This painting is “Golden Fishes in Dark Sea.” 

Categories: 55, poetry, Uncategorized
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Some Not Quite Nirvana Urbanas

August 12, 2016

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Some Not Quite Nirvana Urbanas

The Buddha pestering,
I grew hungry for change–
but re-wiring desire’s no easy matter
for a serial committer
of the sidelong-look-in-the-mirror sin, sins of nattiness too–vanity, pride-
oh, I, oh
how I tried–as mad for affirmation
as a hatter for a brim–

Me-walking here,
me-walking there
where still some wish constantly
swirled about head/hair–

till finally going back
to good old Houston and Mott,
climbing to my flat,
my fifth-floor walk-up spot,

where, from the bathtub in the kitchen,
I looked out to a night
jeweled by cars that waited only
for a light
to change,

just sat there, feeling pruny
but intrepid, adding hot
when the water tepid

(did I mention it was rent-
stabilized?)

content enough
for a time.

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A bit of silliness for Grapeling’s prompt on Real Toads to write a poem using the names of three cities.  I think I have five here–AND a couple of states.  Have a nice weekend!

Ps pic is mine as well.  As always, all rights reserved in all content.

pps I’m pretty sure a desire for natty clothes is not one of my particular sins, and I tend not to look for myself in mirrors.  All that said, I did have a flat with the bath tub in the kitchen for some time.

ppps check out my new book:  Dogspell!  Also check out my other books!  1 Mississippi, Going on Somewhere, Nose Dive, and Nice.  

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Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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Ashen

August 9, 2016


Ashen

He husbanded her ash for years; when the wind blew, he’d place some,
as if it were pollen and he a reverse bee,
upon a plant or low-hanging tree, and wait, downwind,
for its caress.
He would feel himself then weeping
into her hands, though it would seem to others
(if anyone had seen) just wind in his eyes.

But he worried as he aged
that he was using the ash too fast, that it wouldn’t last him, or worse–
and this was worse–
that he’d been self-indulgent with his machinations, and that in his wish to hold on to her, he’d never let her rest, that he had wrested her from
the singular life of ash, one eddying release, the possibility
of well-spring–

So he took the ash to a lake she’d loved
and sat there with the box–he’d never been able to transfer her
to an urn, she hated the taste
of metal–
which held inside the tied plastic, and inside that, the ash,
just sat there for some time,

with no leaves that could blow, just lake, and ripples of lake,

until he opened the box, the plastic, dipping palms into the soft remains,

until, not even looking–late for a lakeside–he pulled off shirt and shorts, and rubbed the ash like some tribal warrior over his thighs and calves, his knees and the backs of his knees, arms and belly, chest and shoulders, neck and nape of neck, and
his face.

He did cry–for her, for himself, and for the ridiculousness of himself, standing there not a warrior, on even a beach that was embarrassed, and the tears made rivulets
in the tightness of drying ash;

and he looked down at his legs, his torso, at the hair that was flattened by the ash, and at the hair that sprouted through the ashen mats, trying to feel something other than
the crusted rim of his own skin

until, slowly, he walked into the water, which took him aback with its warmth–

It was water that still held the day, water that held him too now with the day,
water where grey unwound.

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Prosish poem for Real Toads Open Platform.  I am also linking to dVerse Poets Pub, for Whimsygizmo’s prompt about blue (one suggestion: to write a sad poem.) Pic is mine.  All rights reserved.  

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
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55s – Female Laocoon; In a Laconic Moment

August 7, 2016

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Below two 55 word poems for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on Real Toads, to think about the word “lacuna,” meaning gap, cavity.

Please don’t feel obliged to read both!   (Or either!)  As a process note, Laocoon was a Trojan who warned his fellow Trojans against the Trojan Horse. The Trojans did not believe him, and the gods who favored the Greeks (Athena, Poseidon) struck him and sons down with great snakes rising from the sea.

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Female Laocoon

She warned against the gift horse, but some people like
gift horses, think that they deserve
gift horses–gifts
only what they are owed, and any horse of theirs
a sure winner–so those joined in
with the forked tongues, circling
muscle, as they rolled the enemy right
into their sleep-folded night, walled
darkness.

 

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In a Laconic Moment

When, in the heat, even the grass lies down
and brain’s buzz stills,
into the wilt creep words
like rape;
though creep is correct enough,
the words come more
in flashes, teeth
in a leer, fear collared
by bone,
and she screws up her eyes
at the flattened lawn, roots showing pale
where mowed.

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Both pics mine; all rights reserved. 

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Categories: 55, poetry, Uncategorized
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