Posted tagged ‘http://withrealtoads.blogspot.com’

« ManicDDaily home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Talking of Shorter Days

July 17, 2015

DSC00387

Talking of Shorter Days

We are shortened.
An invisible hand presses
upon us.

Sometimes, it’s the hand
of the market–
Adam Smith’s dowser–
its forked-tongue stick-thumb heavy
on our heads.

Other times, it’s the gravity of Newton,
the gravity of events, the grave, and, of course,
the grave. 

But, then, there’s also
the gravy–
that soppy flow of marrow and stock
that runs between us, you
holding my hand.

I tell you that when I grow even more
demented,
you must put stones
in my pockets,
then prod me towards
the pond.

You answer that you’ll photoshop
the Monday crossword–that’s the easy one–
so that it looks
like an impossible Saturday’s–

I revert
to the stones.
We’ll get so strong, you say,
walking around with rocks
in our pockets.

I picture you, then, leading me on hikes
through the forest, the legs of our weighted pants dragging
through the leaf mold, our pants
that already need to be hemmed,
though somehow we never get around
to it;
for the invisible hand does not hold, just now,
a needle.
(Good.) 

 

********************************

A draftish poem for Kerry O’Connor’s Real Toads’ prompt on writing with “voice.”  This one, with all its convolution and goofiness seems to be mine, or at least one of them.  The pic is mine as well as the poem; all rights reserved. 

I call it a draft because still changing. (I think maybe the “Good” should read as “Ah”–any thoughts? ) 

Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 15 Comments

Begins With S

July 12, 2015

DSC00409

Begins with S

Then there is the slithering
of snakes inside–
those stretches when Esses
eat you, slit
your “it,” style a switchblade
as salvation.

You mishear their hiss
as ‘yes,’ sliced
permission.  It’s also the hiss
of histrionic, suffering’s
seductive backwash; still,
it speaks to you–

until, at last–before
at last if you’re lucky–
you see, as if unhooded,
how unoriginal are
your sins.

Re-surfacing, you stitch.
Sew tight the lips
of the wound.
Smear the stains into some swath of something,
scarf the scar with some swath of something,
something busy, patterned,
something that won’t
show dirt.

 

*************************

Poem of sorts influenced by the brilliant but very dark poet, Paul Antschel, who wrote under the name Paul Celan in response to Grace’s prompt on With Real Toads.   Grace gives a brief biography of Celan, a Romanian Jew who survived World War II to become a poet, professor and translator, dying of  suicide in 1970.

The pic (of a turkey vulture) as well as the poem is mine.  All rights reserved.

PS – process note–Ess is a spelling of “S” and “esses” –S plural.  Esse is also the German word for eat (I think?)  and Latin for to be? (I think.)  (Not completely sure how that relates to the poem, but why I spelled it out.) 

Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 21 Comments

(Book) Skywalker

July 9, 2015

(Book) Skywalker

Overcast.
Still, there’s sky in the air,
and, light on the blacktop
of this country road,
I say that what I’d like to be
is a person who walks all day.
Preferably holding a book, I add
with unusual frankness, to you
for whom the world outside
is usually enough–

And you, who knows what I do
when alone, especially in the City when not
in the fold of you–how I follow an arrow of page
through lines of print and people, cross blocks
of blocks, that is,
how I read, walking,

grow serious, saying,
you better watch out down there,
you’ll make yourself a target–

not understanding the cover
of cover,
the shield of
one’s own corner, carried,
how those there, yet not there,
(like the sky in this grey day’s air),
(I’m talking about characters) serve
as my personal pages,
while the page itself makes
my weather–
and how can anyone who holds
a small separate sky
in their hands, be harmed, I want to protest.

But don’t.
Don’t even tell you how surprisingly well
my feet read the street
with my other soles–

Because I must confess, thinking it through,
that wheeled fenders seem
extraordinarily insensitive
to sky,
so vow silently to look both ways
on those read streets,
and also, you know,
up–

**********************************
A rather odd poem for multi-taskers or escape artists (like myself).  I am talking here about reading a real book, not phone, which I have done for many many years.  I am posting  for the With Real Toads prompt of Ella about things you’ll never grow out of.

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 18 Comments

Not Bird (55)

July 4, 2015

Not Bird

I swung into the early
of my life, pumping the vine-veins
of its woods with sweat-salted limbs
that could rewind,
I thought, warped
arcs–

Swallows swoop
to rise,
but what humans swallow,
they tend
to keep down.

Too much of my flight
a fleeing,
soars sorry, fleeting–you
not there–
nor me hardly–

*****************************

A 55 word poem of sorts influenced by Dante Alighieri, poet of The Divine Comedy, for Kerry O’ Connor’s prompt on With Real Toads–

The pic is from the recent Plains Indians exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC ==a ghost dance drum.

Categories: 55, poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 22 Comments

Field

July 3, 2015

IMG_7918

Field

Pressing myself against your bared back
feels like the idea
of lying down in a golden field
only there is no stalk
poking my arm–

well, that is not completely true–

except that my skin is not incipient
with crawl, with twitch, some
itch, and the craving
to (not exactly) scratch it–

maybe
forget that too–

but certainly there’s no filigree of fern or even hair
along the horn of your nape, spine,
the ridges of ribs that like me
reach round you,
the crests of shoulders
my nose climbs–

For it’s only the idea
of a golden field,
this warmth where I lay
me down, or at least
the idea of me,
this expanse where we both
become quite other–

not true again–

for your skin
always holds gold
when I look closely–
you, my
mister glister–
you, where I lay
me
down,
you, who loves that me–
we,
glowing–


***************************

I’m back with this draftish poem for Hannah’s prompt on nature’s wonders on With Real Toads.  The pic is an older one of a much wetter field than I imagine for this poem!  

Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: 12 Comments

Giving Thanks (on Train)

June 17, 2015

Giving Thanks (on train)

What has been a day thick
with humidity
blossoms mist
over the Hudson.

Oh, father, why did I never thank you
for the incidental
kindnesses?

I do not write here of God–
at least, not mainly, of God, I add,
as I look back out the window
where an archetypal depiction of heaven
halos hills, a godhead’s parting
of cloud by sun over water.

How long he would wait
to drive me home–after school, after
rehearsals–all that seemed
so important–me, who could not stand
to wait–

Do I think of this because the river shines
like a windshield swept by night,
because the train drums the tracks
with the rhythms
of tires’ turn,
or, because the sky, so big at heart,
asks so little of me?

Do it now–give
thanks–and often.
Do it knowing
that the oncoming
has already passed, that in
the endless revolution of then,
no amount of clackety
can take you back.

Do it for the mist
and the missed
and in the midst of all
that you will not
then miss,
you with your eyes
full of sun
and cloud
and water.

***********************************************

Though much revised, this is still very much a draft poem for Real Toads open platform, hosted by the wonderful Kerry O’Connor–

The pics are in fact from my train ride (Metro North) along the Hudson yesterday evening. 

Categories: New York City, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 10 Comments

Thinking About Scott Walker in Eleven Haiku

June 14, 2015

Thinking About Scott Walker in Eleven Haiku

Why workers joined?  Locking them in from smoking breaks
was worth their death by fire.

One hundred and twenty-three petticoats; twenty-three shirts–
what a waste–

Some will abase themselves for money.  I’m not talking about
employees.

How about I scotch pensions?  Will you give me
one hundred mill?

Chicken farmers are not allowed to balk.  They talk? No
bucks, far worse fowl–

The Company Store kept them in the mines, all spent
before even coughed up.

So.  At least, garment workers crushed in Bangladesh
had the right to work.

Maybe… we degrade education, no one will know enough
to know–

Hey!  Who likes teachers anyhoo?  Says the guy who could never
finished school.

Who can I cut? What can I gut? What hard-fought battle can I
betray?

What future can I flush?  And since you’re flush–another
hundred mill, please?

**************************************

Very much a draft poem for Grace’s prompt on With Real Toads to write something in the style of Marilyn Chin.  This was influenced by a series of one-line haikus she wrote–each of the above 17 syllables. 

Process note, especially for those outside the U.S.:  Scott Walker is a GOP (Republican) candidate for President of the U.S.  His claim to fame as Governor of Wisconsin is breaking down unions and attacking the University of Wisconsin, through budget cuts,targeted attacks on professors (especially it seems those with an environmental outlook)  and attacks on the institution of tenure (though this is actually enshrined in the Wisconsin State constitution.)   He is supposedly the chosen candidate of the Koch Brothers, oil billionaires, who plan to spend hundreds of millions in upcoming elections.  The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire in 1911 was a factory fire in New York City which 123 women garment workers and 23 men died largely because they were locked into their factory floors.   

Poultry farming is a big business in the U.S., with actual farmers under the thumb of big corporate chicken producers.  An interesting clip on this subject by Jon Oliver may be found here. 

Composite pic is mine–all rights reserved; no copyright infringement intended in underlying pic. 

Categories: news, poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 17 Comments

Not-Yet-Missed Flight

June 7, 2015
IMG_6153

Me, with fellow flyers. Guess who’s who? (Ha!)

Not-Yet-Missed Flight

“The knack of flying is throwing yourself at the ground and missing.”
Douglas Adams

I’ve long proved capable
of missing much–
deadlines, typos, you,
a last best chance,
the writing-on-the-wall dance–that diagram
of there
to somewhere
that didn’t look like here–

Yet, here
is where I am,
with only my feet (maybe)
scraping ground, my head increasingly shy
of six feet above–
Could be worse.

**********************

Another 55 for Kerry O’Connor’s prompt on Real Toads to write a 55 word poem, using a quote from “Brainy Quotes.” 

PS  – I think I was about 5’6″ and a half or so at max;  not sure now!  Pic is mine, all rights reserved. 

Categories: elephants, poetry
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 12 Comments

From the Mouth of Irazú Volcano

June 5, 2015

 

Unknown

Image by Sony

images

Image by Sony

From the Mouth of the Irazú Volcano (Costa Rica) Filled with Flower Petals
by McCann, Filmed by Sony  (No Help From Chekhov)

I’d as lief they left
my lava alone.

If I wanted petals,
I’d live under a cherry tree–
hell, I’d live under a whole
cherry orchard.
I’d write plays
of gloomy paralysis,
the intellectual class going
kaput.

But my harvest
is soot, and my flow glows
even in the eyes of those
wearing little round glasses.

I’ve grown a hole
in this mountain,
filled it
with sky,
limned it
with fire,
rooted it
in rock–charging ahead
to the blossoming of ash
that all cultivate
in the end,
even ad men,
women,
playwrights,
and when I use the word ‘lief’,
it has an I in it.

************************
A rather silly draft poem for the wonderful Susie Clevenger’s prompt on Real Toads about a quite remarkable video made of flower petals dropped in a volcano (the idea to show the high quality of the color of the computer screen.)  All my best wishes to Susie and her family. 

 

Categories: poetry
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: 18 Comments

Also, a Girl

May 27, 2015

Also, a Girl

When a woman is property,
she’s part of the furniture.

A table where men
dig elbows, take
their fill.

A wastebasket, kicked
to a corner, place
to spit.

Shelf where scuffed
shoes sit.

Her vagina, keyhole crowbarred;
pillows, sweated, punched.

When a woman is property,
she also serves
as a means of production.
Run through
an assembly line, busily dis-
assembled.

Oh, how rich they are,
who can destroy
their property
like that.

Who blames a table
because it is scratched, one leg
broken?
But she feels blame, certain
no one wants
such a table–

She feels too
the table leg–still jammed
inside her–

She does not want it to touch
her inner thighs
so splays her own legs stiffly
to its sides
as if they were stilts,
as if they were splints,
as if they too
were wooden.

******************************

I’m back with a rather grim poem, sorry.  This one inspired by (i) reading about the girls released or escaped from Boko Haram in Nigeria, many of whom seem compelled to deny some of their terrible ordeal out of fear that they will themselves be censured or stigmatized.  (ii) This was also inspired by Shay/Fireblossom’s prompt on Real Toads to write a list poem.  I am linking to Real Toads Open Platform. The pic is my drawing; all rights reserved for it, and, of course, for poem.

Note that I was thinking specifically of Boko Haram in Nigeria when writing this poem, but women are treated like property all over the world.  

In terms of my own break–ah–not a good time for it!  Thanks for your real world indulgence.   

Categories: poetry, Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: 17 Comments

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »