for Harold Norse
1.

sí, I quit
the night I had to ask a man
in the club dining room
to tuck a guayabera shirt
into his pants

that's the problem with having
different kinds of people
in a fucking nutshell

2.

we Jews come full of zeal for you
for who
we think you are
or were
or ought to be
or might become

the kind of thoughts ascribed to poets
but more apt to readers of poems

at Whittier Baptist's
singles bingo night
we had just shaken hands
when kindred opinions sparked
the hot-wired couplet we hoped to be
if we played all our cards right

nothing will be found there
but rocks
if we come without dreams

3.

with a jeweler's glass and tweezers
you code each ant in dots
of model aircraft paint

ten plodders lug the food
the rest just run in circles
while the queen, you joke,
dabs fairy-flies with dots of paint

you should see your face through my eyes
no mascara rouge or lipstick
all the guava
placed inside my mouth over the years

you enter and I can't stop ogling
you until I eat my fill again

4.

brothers
take the wallet
take the phone

take note of how
you both look like
you have a gun at your jaw

take note of
how you mouth a thank you
and you nod

5.

with his bad red toupee
and threadbare pants

he doesn't recognize
his marvelous granddaughter
but administers
a long hug anyway

Canaan trod
the earth for ten millennia
and ruinous Jericho still stands
because she drops her skirt
each time an army asks

ask Dido
if Pygmalion ever had a qualm
from love or blood or greed

he grins
at the back of the church
as if expecting a bonanza

6.

they come slowly up the same aisle
they walked when they got married

she follows as if following
a display of captive apes
she stalked for many years

he rolls in front of her without a sound
she thinks she hears
her own chest beating

7.

We and you have such a marriage.
Shameless in love
we weather every breach of
romance.
Incredible boredom, egoism,
clumsy feet and miscue after
miscue, for the occasion
when second shoes fall
at that magical interval.

8.

I can't hold you?

don't let murder
come between us

your father demanded
no less than he gave

was no less cruel than
what was given him

and though I can't
give this voice either

your mother's free now
better off

this is an opportunity

the only soul
who smiled on him
forgot his face
a year ago

9.

No. Stop. Now.

I don't want to be
part of your poem.

No, I don't have
to tell you why.

You can't create me
against my will

put words in
my mouth

give me some
shitty personality
to make a fool
of myself while

you tell everyone
“your” “character”
is not you but has
somehow assumed
a life of their own,
even surprises you,
stands up to you.

I am not you.
I don't like you.
And I refuse to
let you make me
not you, either.
The answer is no.
Just no.

Stop. Now.

10.

It had me
in the library
near four smooth
Haitian men
playing the
quietest game
of dominos
in history

while a sleek
librarian
just glared
at them
rather than
practice her
flirtatious
smile on me.

11.

I don't mean you
when I say
I wish people would pay
more attention to what I write.

Look, here you are listening
while I gripe,
something no one else will do.

You're here. You showed up.
It's up to me now to make
it worth your while.

This could be the only chance
I get. Who goes on second dates
with bores?

But really,
what the hell do you want?
Go home,
as someone said somewhere.

It's already been written,
you already heard it
& it didn't scratch the itch.

The utter uselessness of poetry
is the gorilla in the room.

Yes, yes, it once was
movies, TV, iTunes & YouTube
all rolled into one, but
it isn't anymore.

I write the stuff
God knows why
but that's no reason for you
to read it. I'd rather talk.

What's your name?
What do you have to say for yourself?

How is that big toe, Harold?

12.

-It's about Leland! He'll be tickled pink!

Should I give him a heads up, you think?

-He probably knows already. When I told Anouk
he was googling her, Leland knew in 10 minutes.
She was flattered. He has her totally bamboozled.

He's got his snout up everybody's ass.
What does he do that I don't do? Bad jokes?

-He doesn't do poems.

This isn't exactly a poem--more a complaint.

-Don't be defensive! He would just announce,
'I wrote a poem!' He's not high maintenance.

I'm high maintenance?

-Yes. Say it Leland-style: 'You bet your bippy I am!'

He's such a damn cliché.

-We love clichés. That's how they get to be clichés.

I thought you liked men sensitive.

-No one wants 'sensitive' around the water-cooler.
It's like those African riverbanks where lions hunt—
way too much 'vulnerable' already. It's okay for...

When? Late nights between the sheets?

-No, we prefer a more devil-may-care
approach there too. Sensitivity is more for...

Dinks? Stop.

-So shoot me! He's a fun guy! Why does he
have to be brilliant? He—

Makes you feel smart, like a pet?

-Yes, an adorable mutt, a harmless mutt!

Okay, can we please stop this game?

We? Did you forget I'm just your character here—
anonymous. But, oh, your Leland has a name!

13.

A lit laptop silhouettes one loose curl,
the right angle under your shoulder,
two slant parallel lines to the elbow.

It would be an abominable drawing,
though Leonardo might conceivably
have fleshed it out in sanguine.

It's a poor poem too: you're tending
to your email and I'm just waiting to
go up to the bathroom with you—no

drama, all purely routine. You lean in
slightly to read something I imagine
is particularly interesting. This poem

could really use it, but how do I find
out what it says without surrendering
the illusion that I am object, you are

subject, or I subject and you object—
something—not just a guy asking his
wife 'What's that you're reading now?'

Then you type and your slanted upper
arm vibrates ever so delicately, from
my vantage behind you; and then you

type faster and your head jiggles a bit
as if there is an earthquake going on,
a 2.5 on the Richter scale, or possibly     

3.0. Please finish up quickly, my dear!
There's several of us waiting for you;
a bit impatient, imperceptibly, but so.

14.

You trust me, just a little,
maybe you think I've a treat
hidden in my hand. No, it's not
that we're both dog people,
I hate dogs. I've been sizing
you up for eleven minutes
now, and I don't think we're
going to bond over anything,
to tell you the truth. Is that
it, truth? Is that what you're
looking for, here? It's no false
modesty to say the only truth
I know is probably of little
use to somebody like you.
I could agonize a dab from my
over-squeezed toothpaste tube
but if by some fluke
yours is even flatter than mine,
do you think I'd share? It's slim
pickings here, in case you
haven't noticed. Does that
make you feel superior?

Don't waste your sympathy.
Your life is pretty damn
screwed up too, and here's
how I know: Look who you're
fucking spending it with.
No, that's not going to be
a punchline to end this sour
poem with. I wish I did have one
for you, I really do, then we
both walk off feeling pretty good,
for a change. Maybe next
time it'll work out that way.
Really, I hope it does. It hasn't
been that bad, believe me,
I've been read by a lot worse!
Maybe you just take some
getting used to.

15.

A friend invites you to come over
to watch Obama speak and meet her
husband, Tom Something-or-other.
But instead of sitting having a beer together,
he's off in the kitchen “writing
as we speak,” she says soft-voiced.
“And just a moment
ago, he gave me this.”
                                It's a poem
sprawled on yellow paper. “I'm in it!”
she cries in a whisper, still tickled
to have this asshole scrawl her name
on his blank page. It's one of those
“Here I am in the kitchen” poems,
very matter of fact, except it assumes
its author's modest existence is worth
your reading. Wouldn't that beer
do just as well?
                     You're almost done
when she timidly clears her throat,
ahem. “Barack's on,” she says.
You hand the yellow sheet back
to her. She's your friend, Obama's
your president, and there's Tom,
studying the TV remote. It's no
big deal. The poem can wait.

16.

All of you
do need to know
one thing about this man.

He talks a great game and I married
him and I'd do it again
but still I got to tell you, he's—

Don't you dare interrupt me!!

17.

'All words, no action'
is what they always say
about me. My first wife
said it. My second wife
said it. My third wife
hasn't yet but she will.

What can I say? I
don't lift a finger, not
even to type myself
up. Somebody else
does it. But wanna talk
sex? Sure. Can do!

I'd love to be a
man of action, believe
me—now I'll tell you
another one! Yeah,
I'd love to bend
you over my knee and

talk dirty until
you fall writhing onto
the floor, thump. Sorry,
I don't even have a
knee, much less know
how to use one.

18.

Drive slow, Tom.
What's the hurry?
He isn't going to know
if we're on time or not.

My period's on time.
I know, I know:
adopt, adopt.
It's more than that.

I can't go into it.
Maybe tomorrow night.
I know the mood
swings got to stop.

19.

who isn't clear
whom isn't any clearer
words tumble
from a mouth

who'll is unclear
nobody looks
it isn't any of their business

whose is unclear

whoever stops
will quickly fill the buckets in their ears

but the tires so familiar
broad, wide-set, soft

bearing a bit less weight
at a more mournful rate of travel

how hard it is
having to tell him
every week
his boy is dead

20.

Each was me in the sense
that it welled in my veins.

What you see—playing ball
in the park, eating a hotdog
in the German greasy spoon
next to the depot—is a form
as peculiar to me as to you.

One day when they fill the blood of lovers
and I have become only an eavesdropper,
I will remember with all kinds of feelings,
Once my mouth held the brawl of their ink.

21.

Finally, finally. A chilly
wet air full of thought
and the lull as cicadas
hope for wings to dry,

the patter not droplets
falling from leaf to grass
but dropping leaf to leaf
through a 60-foot beech.

Hold out your tongue
and at the same time
close your dewy eyes
and begin to roll over,

an empty leaf makes
this sound, and a leaf
with another drop on
it already, this, before
they both roll off, this
this, but the beech is
not 60 feet at all, but
600,000,000 feet tall.

Bring your love here,
bring every kind of it
in every combination
and bring it only half
a day from ripeness.

What ripens at night
on a night like this—

love has a rhythm and reason to it,
eventually you get the hang of it, if
not in time for impeccable marriage,
then one night, late in life, like this,

the rowdy freight train skirting one
edge of Ritchmond Pond like a God
bereft His universe is nearly black—

one night, like this—

when you thought I was asleep
and I thought you were resting
up from fucking someone else—

nothing dramatic happened
and nothing dramatic had to
happen—we both got horny
when the cicadas started up
again, and that was enough,
it was just what we wanted.

So now you ask me what I think
about it all, and I tell you about
the guayabera shirt, and laughing
you say, “You quit?” And laughing
my ass off, I tell you, “Sí, I quit.”

Am experimenting with bringing reader into poem etc. The 4th one "To You, Why Not" was submitted, but I want to group them all here for now for thinking about them, hearing ideas...Thanks, Tom

Adding "Life Writing/Killing Time", which was also submitted, to this lab.

I really like this idea, and like what you've come up with.  My only suggestion is that you might lose the reader with length, and I don't say that just because it's long, but there are points when the discussions lose interest.  Yet, it does pick up again.  So whole thing still a good idea & worth work.

cheryl

Thanks, Cheryl. I don't intend to Submit these as one poem or anything - they're grouped here as a lab - but even so, some of the individual poems are pretty long. I am very keen to find out where the discussions lose interest. Tom

[p.s. July 7: Cheryl, I'm afraid I am going to Submit the whole thing one of these days...have been molding them into a unit....]

In #1 second paragraph the discussion wanes for me at 'it takes it as a given'.  Maybe you could change that to 'it's a given'.  Otherwise it seems troublesome to decipher.  Then you realize the writer is talking about a poem, not a poet, yet you go on to mention his modest existence.  Something about all of the last part of the second paragraph loses me, but I'm not sure what.  But as I said, the 3rd paragraph brings the energy back.

In the second piece I get lost at the 'utter uselessness'--I think because then the speaker becomes or makes an attempt to philosophize poetry--a different voice, in other words.

Some parts in the 'Harold' piece are really so good, you want to keep reading them just the way they are but the personableness of the piece comes and goes, even though you tell the reader in the beginning 'I don't mean you', it still feels like you're talking to 'you' which is good, and makes the point interesting.  It's like watching a Woody Allen movie--even though he's a good actor & you get lost in the character, you still feel like he's acting just for you.

All I'll say for now.  I guess that's plenty for you to digest and plenty for me to mention at one time.

hoping I make a little sense,
cheryl

Thanks! Shortened those dull stretches. Tom

Like this and the length doesn't bother me at all. Think book-length poem. Done often, and they succeed.

Just rid it of excess, Tom.

Your Harold is messing with my muse, btw.

Maggie

Thank you for your interest, and encouragement, Maggie.

So delighted to hear that about "Harold". As you well know, messing with your Muse is what I live for! --Tom

Yes, and I appreciate it.

Leaving you a line in Deli poems.

Mags

Tom;
     obviously these poems would work best as a chap-book and should be considered as such.  i see some relationship between some of the poems, but the overall picture escapes me.  that's not to say that each and every one of the poems i read (and i read most but not all of them) isn't fine and even excellent...it just says that asking folks to consider them as a group is asking a bit too much, i think.  i also think that your best bet is to start sending these around to publishers as a group for chap-book consideration.  i'd certainly buy it.
take care.
john

John, I appreciate your taking a serious look at these, and your view about them. I'm just sketching them all out now, but making their relationships to one another clearer will be a priority once I edit and re-order them. The initial relationship is formal: the whole group is, in part, an exploration of person, or point of view, looking at poems (and the human relationships within them) inside out, from various angles etc. But I know I will need to sequence the final batch in such a way that other relationships carry the read from one to the other, and toward a conclusion.

It was Maggie's idea, a week or so ago, to keep these "person" poems together. We'll see how it works. In the meantime, John, I'm very pleased to put your name beside hers on my index card of interested parties.

If anyone else is going to join you, I'll make sure to tell them to knock! -Tom

Tom:

Wow!  It’s kinda like a hovering mobile with multiple revolving strands.  It was a grand read.

1. Super
2. I think you can do without this line:

and don't jump the gun

3 super
4 super
5. I think you can do without these lines:

one, he jokes
dabs fairy-flies
with aircraft paint
6.nice

Loved section 7

8. Has some damn fine dialogue needs to be trimmed... no need to explain as much, let the strands of dialogue create the movement toward the destination... sometimes the detail spoils the fun... remember that dialogue is spoken action.
9. This doesn’t quite “fly” for me... davinci/sanquine
I think a fix is needed here.

It would be an abominable drawing,
though Leonardo might conceivably
have done something with sanguine.

10.  And as diabolical as I am, I would cut

No, that's not
going to be like a punchline
to end this sour poem with.
I wish I did have one for
you, I really do. Then we both
walk off feeling pretty good,
for a change. Maybe next
time it'll work out that way.
Really, I hope it does. It hasn't
been that bad, believe me,
I've been read by a lot
worse! Maybe you just
take some getting used to.

You have a kicker just above... don’t waste a kicker.

11. Actually you might think on a better kicker for this

you’ve already pricked the poem once... a little bloodletting to end it would be nice.

12.  I am very abusive here... totally brutal... but you have to remember as a reader I need to keep the pace and the read is quite interesting... I need to move along with point.

I don't mean you
when I say
I wish readers
would pay more
careful attention
to me.

Look, here you
are listening
while I gripe,
something no
one in my
family will do.

Nor do I mean you
when I wish
readers would read
what I write
more often—
even buy it!

You're here.
You showed up.
It's up to me
now to make
it worth your
while.

This could be
the only chance
I get with you.
Who goes on
second dates
with bores?

The utter
uselessness
of poetry is
the dying gorilla
in the room.

I write the stuff
God knows why
but that's no
reason for you
to read it.

I'd rather talk.
So what do you
have to say
for yourself? Harold,
how is that
big toe doing?


I apologize profusely!

13.

You might think about losing

stands up to you,
denounces you:

14.  Lovely... and something to remember... your reader needs breaks, transitions, slight changes of lighting and venue to keep the ball shiny, attractive, and alluring.

15.  This mebbe should go.

Wanna talk love,
sex? Sure, why not?

16.  Nice.


You have a hot tamale here. And though I only gave it 2 reads I think that if you want this as a collection then you must have in your head the direction and have it mapped out to do the project justice.  You have to have a frame by frame scene synopsis to plot... then develop it as you would chapters and how they work with the overall concept.  Perhaps you do... but I love this so far in the rough... keep it going.

Tidings
Ron

Ron, thank you very much for the time you put into your suggestions here. I look forward to giving each of them my attention as soon as I can. -Tom