Blinking cursors

live singularities
like the Big Bang
suddenly cannot
abide themselves
a moment longer
start to expand
their burst bonds
start to populate
adjacent space
with every kind
of flown detritus
from light to iron
totally incapable
and uninterested
in making sense
of itself so here
we spin in eddies
screaming Wait
Yes We Can See
Wait No We Can't
Wait Yes We Can
but all we do see
are some other
dots of detritus
and the cursors
themselves are
still just cursors
blinking steadily
as if in warning
[glow] l [/glow]


Considering that all

Considering that all
it takes to put me right
in Alice in Wonderland
is one squirrel on the deck
who appears to stand
almost two feet tall,

it is small wonder indeed
when this or that
convinces me
you're not and never were
to be trusted
even after fifteen years.

I am what I think is called
“highly suggestible.”
It came in handy the day
I correctly interpreted
your puking into the shower
stall as a come-on,

but ever since then
it's been a liability.
Of course you're allowed
to smile at other men.
Of course you're free
to lightly touch a knee

in the course of conversation,
but it always looks to me
as though you're flirting
or want to be flirting
or at the very least
want me to think you're flirting.

Of course there is a possibility
you do commit one, two or three
of those romantic crimes.
But most likely, it's just me.


O exigente um Fogo

Flinty, as ill-ground
as shattered clay,
grayish, tastes like
dry dirt with a hint
of caramel—burnt
dirt—this is coffee?
 
Cream pours into it
without a trace—
three, four times more
than any coffee takes.
That almost fits my
definition of a demon!
 
The bushes that bear
it are genus Coffea,
but some apples fall
far from the tree—
not every Homo
is humane, yes?
 
I know you slave
to grow it, and a
caldera, no measurable
rain, just two nightly
drops of condensation,
is a far cry from Kona.

Still—this isn't coffee—
a stench certainly of
garbage, almost sewage,
it is carrion of coffee,
monstrosity of coffee,
unfortunate seed

of poor plants with nothing
at all within them to offer.


such monsters

poets are such monsters. - cheryl leverette

the men who pinch our eyelids
twist them up
take instruments of torture
with tiny steel rings at the end
and lift off the specks of dirt
that scrape our eyeballs

are such monsters

the bowling alley waitresses
who say we aren't good enough
to sniff their lady skulls
but if we ever take our tongues
up off the floor
we can come back and ask again

are such monsters

our own children
who demand to know
why we are mean to them

our own children


Self Help

The day after yesterday
came and went and then
came back to haunt me

like one of them mosquitos
in the bedroom who won't
get it over with and bite
but won't go away either

I just want to sleep I got
no bright ideas for making any
improvement but isn't there
always the slight chance

that a new day will dawn
and bring something with it
that the old day didn't have

like when FedEx shows up
out of the blue and leaves
a package outside the door

that could possibly be for you
even though time after time
you pick it up to see that Lu

is just wasting more money
on self-help books and bras
that aren't going to fit right

and even if they did who is
going to care enough to say

Hey Lu your new self-help has
really lightened your existence

and by the way your husband
also seems a bit more cheerful

do you think it has anything
to do with that new bra
you're wearing wink wink

like they say, at least you still have your sense of humor.  Just kills me when 'they' say that.

arising wondering

arising
wondering
How is my
posting doing

raises the
question
Is this mainly
vanity

then the
more diverting
question
So what


we have now
cleared off
the bookstand
by the toilet
for our laptops

no I am not


those

med-
ieval
cathe-
drals
 french
 snow
 globe
 cities
built
over
many
years
 look
 like
 those
 ochre
 earth
 spires
termite
poetry
circles
raise
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Re: those
« Reply #1 on: January 16, 2010, 10:33:29 PM » by cherylleverette©
awesome.  The secret here 'built over many years'.  Thanks for posting this.
cheryl
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
   Re: those
« Reply #2 on: January 16, 2010, 10:35:43 PM » by Tom Riordan
Thanks for reading, Cheryl - and to PoetryCircle collectively.

Paradox 19

Perfect contrition
is the miraculous
shrinking powder
that cuts a camel
down to the size
of a needle's eye.

Scott, so it is! What would constitute perfect contrition for the rich man Jesus spoke of...once he threw off his debentures? Tom

Crotch, beckoning


stateroom

for a moment
i think my bedroom

blinds down
stocked with books
and cacao from peru

an interior stateroom
on a ship taking me
where I don't want to go

the crooked finger
of antarctica trying
to stick itself in chile's butt

if it falls into the wrong hands
it'll be curtains for sure for
me

and for you
hard to say

but if you walk in
i would imagine
i am in my bedroom

and you are here
to help me
sleep


Theft of Services

They kept watch
for an over-sooty possum
or raccoon: just eyes
if all had gone as planned.
They never saw one
but the hunk of pork
they'd lashed as bait
onto the damper knob
had made a clean escape.


Multidisciplinary

What's left unsaid in the philosophy
of art for its own sake speaks volumes.

Although the medium is the message
why claim that something lovely as a tree

just struts and frets its hour on the stage,
an apple in the eye of the beholder?

To sweep the heart use new brooms,
but to clean the corners use the older.

=====

Why turn the earth over
....to the next generation
without stripping it bare?

=====

I ski, but

I ski, but the worst injury
I ever got was craning
for a box of pretzels.

You cannot get cocky
and over-extend yourself,
no matter the activity.

When she said Do you
want to put your whosit
to my whatsit, I said No.

tramp stamp

her sweet 16th
she says

i want to get
a tramp stamp

it's who I am
being promiscuous
& advertising it

crop top
lowriders
tramp stamp
the whole
package

but...but...
but...
i stutter

you guyz
are liberals
right
the hippie
generation

is there
something
wrong with
getting off on
being horny

it depends
i start

depends on

i don't know

i take
precautions
dad
i didn't say i
was a re

don't use
that word

dad don't be
such a wimp

you gonna
give consent
for the tattoo
or not

it's not the
tattoo
honey

dad yes it is
i'm asking if
you'll give
consent for
a tattoo

i'm also telling
you that yes
i do stuff with
a lot of kids
& really like it

but i'm asking
if you'll sign for
the tattoo

i realize
when i call it
tramp stamp
i can't ask for
you to pay for it

does this girl
have her head
on straight
or what


Jubilee

There's just one benefit and just one cost to time;
and how they balance one another is entirely sad.
The benefit—each year we mix new cob and add
a recess to this sturdy house of honesty and trust.
The cost—it tires us, puts aches in us, makes bright
events so distant, they might never have shed light.
They're equal, so that finally the extra sec  inside
the glasses that we raise in celebration is but dust.

Hooking

What I do for a living is disgusting, dangerous,
illegal, low status and exhausting—the opposite
of white collar office work. But I have the best
and funniest colleagues in the universe. Lecher
after lecher last night, then just when my crest
is at its ebb, two comrades in arms grab my purse
and make me chase them down Grand Concourse
while they bellow Help! A crack whore's after us!
Big brother asks why I do what I do—is it just
the money? some kind of thrill? unbridled lust?
I really have no clue. No, I don't it like it much;
and yes, I'd rather do most anything than this.
But on the other hand, unpleasant experience
is fortifying in a way, its own kind of abundance.

thank you, cheryl. you're entirely right,, but this N is not a crack whore -- that's her two friends goofing on her. she's an intelligent, literate woman. I'll go back see if there's a way this should be clearer. tom

Unexamined Life

Unexamined life can be a lot of fun—
what gushes straight out of the earth
like a sweet cold spring, or slimy oil,
or even falls to earth as a reflection
from a face that's been dust for eons.
A poets searches these plain virgins,

looks at them from five or six angles,
and then leaves them on the ground
again lost, ransacked and despoiled
so others passing by will see and say
He got here first, he had his way —
but he is gone, who had that fun,

gone plundering some other ingenue,
making her a tart for the likes of you.


Bio Lab Lothario
 
1.

They say we can't see microbes
with the naked eye, but the eye
is awash with Staphylococcus
epidermidis, Propionibacterium
acnes, and when we look down
at our hands, which are coated
with mini-life forms, we peer
through two microbial prisms
at a body whose cells are over
90% commensal fauna and flora.

Even our brains give shelter to
anaerobic Phocaeicola abscessus
and Borrelia duttonii spirochetes
whose participation in thinking
is not thought to be as massive
as microbial agency in digestion
or the vaginal environment—but
homo-centrism begins at home.
We are more trellis than clematis.

All this by way of prefacing my
proposition: what harm would it
do if we kissed? It may not be
my own idea entirely, may strike
you as a wee bit out of left field,
but there were odder thoughts
you acted on, with pretty good
results at times. My fauna and
your flora might get a big bang
out of it, a new species will be
born most likely—seriously, true.

And the downside...frankly, I can't
think of any downside, can you?

2.

I do have one other idea. I'll wash
my hands and gargle Listerine, then
how about I take you the movies?
Warm, dark environments are often
wombs to new developments—

3.

Okay, I'm a pimply, clueless geek—
possibly repulsive on several levels
but sincere in wanting to find out
what it's like to be your boyfriend.



To my kids, for now

In some far future
we'll have just these
words to reach out
to make each other
feel safe, important
and warmly loved.

Everyone will have
stopped asking me
why I do what I do
and why I don't go
take the dog out or
work longer hours
at the pretzel plant.

Everyone will know
why each metrical
scheme, line length
and word choice is
critical if human life
is to survive beyond
the reach of touch.

Until then, all of you
will have to content
yourselves with the
explanation that this
sort of thing is more
fun for me than salt
distribution systems
or even Rollie's poop.


Watching my dear poem

Watching my dear poem
drop straight down the board
to the bottom and then
on to the second page of its
long plummet to oblivion

reminds me of when I felt
the wedding band slip off
my finger in the ocean and
I foresaw a long afternoon
of futile diving ahead of me,

the difference being that
the value of the diving was
clear to my wife if not to me,
the poem's value clear to
me but not to anyone else.

beech

Mom planted the year-old beech
on the day Hirohito surrendered.
That makes it a few years older
than I am and so an older sibling.
Now, the tree-planting promised,
our marriage shall at last begin.

Dad stayed in Japan three more
years. We all think he had some
kind of fling with a Tokyo woman
for the duration of his time there.
On his return the beech was mom's
height and I was soon conceived.

All this makes me feel illegitimate,
second or third hand. My brothers
both joined an established family
but I a ménage à trois and a tree.
All of them, all of us, are still alive
and it still feels very strange to me

because whenever I see the beech
I think about the Japanese woman
that was loving my dad as it grew
instead of me, in my place. Folds
of smooth gray bark gather around
its current and lost limbs; squirrels

with an oriental cast to their eyes
live in a knothole they gnawed wider
and sometimes stand on a little limb
just next to it, in this sort of oriental
prayer-crouch with their paws joined
as if to express humility and greed

and fake piety. Why am I still living
here? I've been asking myself this
question for decades now and finally
today I see the answer in the beech
and the squirrels and mom and dad
and me: my older sibling is in Japan.

Dad looks at the beech so sadly.
Mom looks at the beech so sadly.


luge

as the news broke
nodar kumaritashvili
hurled from his sled
at the olympics dead

outside the window
here in south orange
the neighborhood kids
stood on their sleds

and shrieked down
the small slick slope
toward a maple tree
and the fire hydrant

he flew from georgia
to sacrifice himself
just as surely as jesus
died for all our sins

and i would rather
have my sins back
than lose my child
in a sledding crash

but it's complicated
because i am still
letting her ride so
the last thing i want

to do as long as she
is still out there is
tick off jesus's father
even the slightest bit

richard

a bubbly. social boy
peals of laughter
but his parents call
him autistic
and brag about how
well he does

none of my business
I just want to go
on record calling
him an angel
who stumbles more
than you'd expect


francine

breast brims with love
but mind a mire

of bitterness
spite
and suspicion

she does her best

not well liked
but well meaning.

the one who loves her
is her husband

he gets short-tempered
but adores her

accepts her
relies on her
watches out for her.

i'm coming around too
poisonous gossip

not the worst
crime in the shire.


Sleigh

As we sit she explains how
the snow bends the limbs
of the shrubs into the walk
and the driveway, and they
get pruned, then the snow
disappears but it's too late,
the cuttings can't be stuck
back on: unfair, but bushes
must get pruned sometime.

She settles her boots onto
the steering boards, and I
settle my legs around her.
Then I push my gloves on
the snow and put my arms
around her too as the sleigh
starts to slip down the slope.
As we gain speed and start
to whoop, I appreciate the
rationale behind the wound
she inflicted on me an hour
earlier during our breakfast.


Ronda

Those who pursue the beautiful
and those who pursue the ugly
and evil just disagree esthetically,
according to a Hell's Angel chick
who hangs out and hawks weed
at the bodega near Radio Shack.
You think that pain is like all bad
and shit, but we think it is worth
a lot, and all your pretty-ditty art
is repulsive. Flies in reality's face.

Her name's Ronda and the tattoo
she appears to wear instead of a
bra proclaims one fealty to a Bob
and one to a Jim. She's truly nice,
the pot she sells is excellent, and
her view is worth taking seriously.
I can get pretty tired of beauty at
times, can't you? Get a jones for
something really ugly? We all do
and we needn't be ashamed of it.

I want to say that ugly is another
form of beauty, but it could just
as easily be vice versa, which is
her point. Evil an esthetic​? I can
see that. Some definitely have a
taste for it. We all know its allure.
Do evil-doers feel as happy as
do-gooders? Very subjective, but
apparently. So she isn't so wrong.

I say, There's something beautiful
in your idea. I know, she says, and
that's the fucking problem with it.


Old Jogging Lady

The old jogging lady
inspires everyone
including the kids
but she's spooky too:
she's always out there
jogging, mornings,
afternoons, evenings.

If she dies one day
as even joggers do
they may discover
she has no home,
ID, or next of kin
but was a kind of alien
who just jogged—

unless a vigilante
posse nets her first,
pins her down and
demands some answers.
What do you eat?
Where do you pee?
Do you ever watch TV?

It's none of my business,
I know that.
It's a free country
for old jogging ladies
as well as anyone else,
but she troubles me.
She troubles me.


Tribute

Both of the smart, vivacious sisters
married rich men who soon were
completely debilitated by disease
and required decades of nursing.

When the husbands finally died,
Bea and Flo began their new lives
as kindly, well-preserved widows
on New York's Upper West Side.

It was too late for jitterbugging,
but they went to Barney Greengrass
and shared lox heads and wings
broiled up with Valencia onions.

first warm day

lawn chairs
on the front stoops

gin & tonics
in tall thin glasses

it hardly mattered
the spectacle

was all the boys
on the block

cudgeling each other
off their bikes

with trimmed off
pine limbs

salvaged
late in january

from the crèche
at st. joe's


pleasant street

the 'mount' fell out
of usage

not even a hill
for miles

the new sign
just plain 'pleasant'

new immigrants
moving in

from points both
east and south

i've heard 'there goes
the neighborhood'

but where is
it going

and who ever
would notice


greta

a small version
of michelle obama

girlish smile
white bobby socks

level headed
she's quite wonderful

and everyone's
left her


bonita

they used to
send her

out to smother
mastodons

with enthusiasm
and affection

or if that failed
a tantrum

but these days
she drives

babysitters
crazy and paints

her own
face like a lion's


randall

tall
well groomed
pulls off handsome

sense of humor
but
watchful

generous

a first lieutenant
at home

in war
a meticulous killer


her topaz

his aura
of pure sex

sucked
the oxygen

right out of
her topaz

leaving
a residue of

aluminum
and silicon

smudging
her neck

and tiny
flecks of

bifluoride

gleaming
like sweat


mai

the little dragon
inside her

sometimes cool
sometimes hot

grows as she grows

as if it were part
of her

and not
as her grandpa says

the birth gift
of a rebel warlord

hunted
but never caught


jim

beer
and sports

are what
he wears

inside he
is pearl

block party

everyone took him
for someone's cousin

but when he and his
bike lay stove in

on the pavement
no one came up and

said, he's mine.
none of the kids

he had been racing with
knew who he was.

sawhorses at the corner
were moved

for the police
and ambulance.

ten wanted to go with him
he was ours now

but the officer said no
you can't

you did the right thing
to call us

we have to
take charge now.


andrew

twins, she says,
one born live,
one born dead.
identical twins.

don't that
beat all, she all but
says.

surely she knows
no one knows
how to answer

except andrew
who gathered her
head to his shoulder

and patted her
shoulder blade.


maria

how two
self second-guessers

produce a daughter
of such passions

is anyone's guess
but

if she doesn't kill them
she will make them

wish she had


scott

atheist jew
scientist

cokebottle
glasses

pleasant
matter of fact

considerate
and kind

a detestable
man


ji-min

perfect haircut and
perfectly shaved

tall and stiff as
a walkingstick insect

sonorous and
highly methodist

a mercedes benz he
doesn't really fit in

a chic bag of
knit-hatted golf clubs

as beloved as his
children

moved a pile of these to Workshop as "formerly mount pleasant street" series

Later Love

Ten years ago
I would have
said, No, you
can't do that
to me. Today,
I don't know
what to say.
Maybe nothing.
You did do it
to me, so the
only question
is how much
I'll punish you.


Karen's Blind Date

“The flip side of all
this tenderness is,
I'm afraid, violence,”
he says. “I learned
that about myself in

my court ordered
therapy, and I'm
telling you, I'm not
cured, I have some
pretty silly strategies

to control my rages,
but unless I control
my love in the first place,
I can't say I'm not
going to blow up.”

“You serious?” she says.
“Doll, I appreciate
your telling me all this,
it's a really good sign,
but you need to go

back, find yourself
another therapist,
and then find yourself
a different word for
what you're calling love.

Sweet-talking me,
then telling me you
might well beat me up,
that isn't love
where I come from.

To maybe get hit
I don't really need
to ask my friends
to fix me up, do I?”


A Modest Proposal for Love

How great was Cheadle in Crash?
The inattentive, even narcissistic,
merit attention and appreciation.
What are “the good sons” anyway
except palms held out differently,
passive aggressive? Better “Me, me, me”
than “You, you, you” with a rider.

All three feel sorry for themselves,
nobody gets enough, greed saw to that.
The only love to be practiced is a
restraint on bickering and complaint,
and sparing with requests—only when
your nickel is worth a dollar to me.
No, not even then, the math's unstable.

So you just go about your business—
you beg your way, while I beg mine—
both of us admitting the mouthfuls
are not what matter at all. However
the cookie crumbles, we're still going
to raven. But let's do so together,
share the nest, remain brothers.


That Early Love We Mourn

What exactly was that
early love we mourn?

I think it was
largely inattention.

We drove around
more with friends,
drank more, fucked more

inattentively

and it was you and me
and romantic gestures
against the world, more;

but is there any chance
we actually loved more

before we took the plunge
and traded all that in
to get to know each other?

We did choose that, right?

An Upstanding Establishment

“Dick Hertz, Dick Hertz,
and Connie Lingus, Connie Lingus,
your tables are ready.”

The new hostess blares
away on the PA system
and everyone else has their laugh.

Welcome to the restaurant business.

Over here, the head waiter
is burying every third check
and keeping the cash.

Over here, the bartender
is swallowing every third pour
and getting smashed.

In the back, the grill-man
is recycling unfinished steaks
as beef kebabs,

and the prep staff trims
the mold off bargain basement
blocks of cheddar.

The sommelier passes out
her business card
with a unblushing wink,

the waitress in the lounge
asks the Texan businessmen,
'Do you cocks want some tail?'

All kinds of magic and mischief
are made here, it's pretty much
anything goes, name your poison.

Cash is king. At one end of the bar
is the chief of police, at the other
the Monsignor and his chippie.

Balk

If you can stroll into my bedroom
of walls covered with very cool
maps and not look at a single one
what will we be fucking about?
You're with some nerdy weirdo
and I some flatlined numbskull
who won't know north from south.


Of Love and Charmin

Since Jesus, since Juliet,
love is a mad dog
rabid for each ism,
swallowing some whole,
torturing some for
the rest of our lives.
In this case, what it's
come down to is your
buying that expensive,
non-recycled toilet paper.


Reply to Your Question, as Politely as I Can Manage

The poems were hit-or-miss
and badly needed editing.
I used to read it, though,
because we shared a job
and because you said it would
be my publishing house too.
Now only one of those three
situations still pertains.


An Upstanding Establishment

“Dick Hertz, Dick Hertz,
and Connie Lingus, Connie Lingus,
your tables are ready.”

The new hostess blares
away on the PA system
and everyone else has their laugh.

Welcome to the restaurant business.

Over here, the head waiter
is burying every third check
and keeping the cash.

Over here, the bartender
is swallowing every third pour
and getting smashed.

In the back, the grill-man
is recycling unfinished steaks
as beef kebabs,

and the prep staff trims
the mold off bargain basement
blocks of cheddar.

The sommelier passes out
her business card
with a unblushing wink,

the waitress in the lounge
asks the Texan businessmen,
'Do you cocks want some tail?'

All kinds of magic and mischief
are made here, it's pretty much
anything goes, name your poison.

Cash is king. At one end of the bar
is the chief of police, at the other
the Monsignor and his chippie.

Paeon Peon Paean

Peons work hard!
People, say thanks!
They grow the corn!


Ivan Bashriu became famous
for his marvelous paeans
to the writing of Andre Volez,
which was otherwise ignored.
In First Heaven, the situation
reversed; and so it continues.


fucking tree

the 90-foot tree
is dead

for reasons of its
own died

didn't tell anyone
or leave

any sign of why
or how

and I'm angry
because now

I have to come up
with a lot of cash

to take it down
before it falls

on someone's
house

and the group of
rhododendron

at its feet will be
destroyed

because it
just selfishly died


ah, the crocuses
but only crocuses
no crested iris, snowdrops or chionodoxa

the crocuses alone
can harbing spring just fine

but seem so slight
to have that weight
on their shoulders alone


shahrazad

please get up
off the floor

don't grovel
for what's yours

there are words
you can speak

whose truth
is ready now

to pull the carpet
out from under

that musnud


new world order 21

canadia kicks
russia's butt
and medvedev
nixes his trip
to vancouver
vowing bear
heads will roll

while back in
the u.s. of a.
hand-wringing
over poor
lindsey jacobellis
snowboarding
off the course

leads straight to
president obama
calling for
the end to sports
as we know them
and a change
to something

more like how his
daughters' playmates
and the bankers
skiing wall street
always get to
take home gold
no matter what

Those Shabby Regulars

So this small group of
bored professional poets
gets together once a
week at the coffee-shop

and talk about the jobs
they used to have before
they “sold”: one waitress,
one grade-school teacher,
two small-paper reporters.

After the pie plates are
cleared and cups refilled,
they turn to “big moments
vs. small moments.”


The End of Life as We Knew It

Yeah, some had swelled heads

Oh look! Yeah! Can't you still see
the traces of cherry-red paint?

and some the opposite

Do I smell? Am I dirty? Bacteria-ridden?

but for the most part we were pretty chill,
swapped stories, laughed a lot

She tried to clip me with the kitchen
scissors! Look at this shit!

until this one sharp crescent said

We've suffered loss!
We are not longer part of living bodies!

Whoa. Wait. Well,
the whole tenor of the place changed.

We didn't die when we were clipped!
We died when we extended from the cuticle!

No, you're full of shit! The nail, like hair,
was never animate! We're exactly like this
motherfucking plastic!

Then where did that thought itself come from?

It was like the Theologians' ring of hell.

Who cares? I said. Let's tell some jokes!
Knock back some brews!

Stick our heads in the sand? Denial?

No! I said. I'm not denying! Yes, we all were
once attached to the end of some finger! OK?

Or toe!

Or toe! Yes, mea culpa too for that! But
who the fuck cares? Can't we have fun now?

You're being fatalistic!

What? You think you can get reattached?

Let's not just scoff at the idea! Stranger
shit has happened!

Baby, deal with it! You're the one in denial!
You're a clipping, plain and simple! Put you
back on the rest of the nail, and next thing
you'll be whining for the eponychium!

Dude, if lying in a landfill shouting at each other
over steaming piles of garbage is your idea of
the perfect existence, more power to you!
But I have a dream of something better! Okay?

And it just sort of all went downhill from there,
day by day, each one a little worse than the last.


This little guy
works really
hard every day
to have fun.

It's not easy,
but if you give
it your all and
you know how

to push when
things need
to be pushed,
you can have

a pretty high
success level,
although it can
be draining.


taste

read five more poets
tonight and they all
sucked

somebody likes them
i know
and sees what i don't

like the loving wife of
that asshole
down the block

or the academy award
voters who
picked sandra bullock

That wind can blow
whenever and wherever
it wants to

and anyone
who doesn't like it
can go indoors

and just listen

to the sweep of trees
windowpanes rattling
and their own desire.


resident v. city hall

the new garage roof
put on illegally
looks great

and it's hard to see
the harm we did
in doing it

admittedly we didn't
file forms or pay
the fees

to file forms

that are the file clerk
and cashier's
livelihood

the life blood of
good governance

but

it is such a nice roof
and the bicycles
stay dry now

i don't know...call me
a what? it seemed
like such a big

decision at the time


Little Gray Poets

When the cellar floods
the mice come upstairs
and run in circles under
the dining room table

as if remonstrating with
us for letting leaves
clog up the roof gutters
and putting them out so.

It's cute how naive they
are vigorously expressing
themselves like this as
we put out the snaptraps.


lazy poem with pretzels

over there on my new desk
are my notes for a new poem.
I can't remember at all what
it's about and I'm too lazy
to go look. so here we are.

instead I can offer you some
of these pretzels or a draught
of my Coke Zero. I could
scootch over and let you sit
beside me. we may well nap.

no? let me try to remember
then. I jotted them down just
before I ran to pick up Stevie
from his best friend's house—
jotted them down lest I did

forget them. I recall leaving the
last word of the first line blank.
it was about five lines. not too
exciting but it had possibilities.
okay I do have to go look now.

when I imagine being a _____,
I imagine living in a skin that
is not tight but comfortable,
almost like you don't really
feel it containing you at all

this was slated to be narrated
by an animal I imagined to have
uncomfortably tight skin, maybe
an eft or a hippo. my point was
that animals may not be especially

comfortable, maybe live in a state
of constant irritation or bother
that natural selection doesn't care
about too much. maybe a walrus's
tusks are as painful as they look.

it could actually be a series. now,
though, this is what it is. a little
conversation while I'm chillaxing.
not exciting. no real possibilities.
but everything doesn't have to be.


Hippo Hippocrates

I can't say too much good
about the lion,
but I envy its skin.
It looks so comfortable,
it's hard to imagine
how it holds its content in,
but it does.

And how an ostrich
flaunts the lightness
of its head,
a giraffe
the spryness of its teeth
and tongue,
an impala, twinkletoes!

Throw any of them
in the river
and say Browse,
cruise around, survive—
then no, I wouldn't change
a thing about my kind;
but still, I wouldn't mind

a moment in their minds,
just long enough
to learn if
their skin, head, feet, teeth
ache anything like ours do,
or if their discomforts
are species specific.

endangered species bullshit

bluefin
if you want to be safe
re-color your fins red

polar bears
just pole down to Antarctica

God
helps those who help themselves

and God
we sure do


Wish Come True

At midnight my coach
reverts to a pumpkin,
my ball-gown to tatters
and everything to shit

but it's only eleven now
and I'm going to keep
dancing with you right
to the stroke of twelve.

There I'll be, a servant
in your astonished arms
and everyone aghast
at the cheeky deception

but if you had wanted
an imperial princess all
you had to do was snap
your fingers.


Long Boring Nuthatch Story (Which At Least I Got Down to One Page)

A bunch of my big old rhododendrons died.
One day, a guy was walking around in them
and I went out and asked him who he was.
He said the neighbor
had hired him to treat the rhododendrons
and he was applying an insecticide
for rhododendron borers.
He showed me their frass.
I told him to take his insecticide
and please stay off my property.

I read up on these borers.
I learned that nuthatches eat them.
I had never seen nuthatches here.
I researched nuthatch birdhouses
and my young son helped me build
and nail two of them up.

A couple years pass,
half the rhododendrons are dead
and I'm sitting on the front stoop
keeping my little guy company
while he scans the neighborhood
for distractions from his homework.
He says, “Look, dad,”
and points at the street-side maple.
A pair of birds scamper down its trunk.
One ducks into a knothole.
“Uh oh,” he says. “Squirrels live in there.”
The bird hightails back out.

Little guy runs inside to get the Peterson's Guide.
I'm so pleased he's interested.
He tries to find a picture of the bird.
I look too. Then, there it is.
The white-breasted nuthatch.

We spot them again
on the beech near the house.
One pops into a knothole there
where I know squirrels also live,
and pops back out. At this point
they're 10 feet from the birdhouses,
15 feet from the rhododendron.
"Dad," little guy says.


my balls

shrink
and expand

putty
in your hands

A brief notice about something that went well in the public education system

We met on Sixties Hippie Day.
The Vice Principal was Grace Slick,
the Reading Specialist Jimi Hendrix,
the Social Worker one of the mamas
from The Mamas & the Papas—
“the skinny one,” she said.
It was the sweetest meeting, a love fest.
They all thought the world of my daughter
and we agreed about what to do next.


the giant frozen into the lake

the blades
of your skates

trace
figure eights

around my
breasts

and the ice
sheet cracks

but doesn't
break

as I crane
my face

to try to
catch a look.

you stop
to listen

and for that
moment

I feel
recognized.

my heart-
beat quickens

and a whale-
like song

fills up the
glacial basin,

awing you.
I'm right here

underneath
your feet

but the song
you hear

unlocked
comes from

that very
distant year

when all
the giants

lay down in
the great gale.


The Last Giant Standing

What makes anyone think
smaller stature is the key
to weathering an ice age,
and what if it isn't?
It all seems like superstition,
a mass-extinction death-wish
based on some old witch
and a roll of mammoth teeth:
Let's lay down and die
so that the mini people
have a chance to survive?
It's been a year since I have
run across a male of my kind
but if I ever do again,
I'm going to try to breed.

In the meantime, I will hide.
The little people's mass hysteria
has overwhelmed little brains
and they're intent on hunting
down the last of us, as if
we brought the snow and ice.
Out with the old, in with the new
is now the desperate mantra.
The saber-tooth, the mastodon,
the cave bears, giant sloths,
Neanderthals...the whole Earth
downsizing, a fauna of mice
in the making!

I don't want to be a Luddite,
don't want to stand in the way
of progress, and I will bow
to the inevitable, whatever
it is, when that time comes.
The gale is strong and bitter
and, frankly, laying down this life
will probably be a relief.
I wish the little people well.
But I do want somebody to know
that at least one of us
asked questions, one of us
stood for rationality.


MARCH 21, 2010

Your steady hand
prevails again,
unshaken by
skeptic and critic,
friends demanding
a changed course.

But you are no
riverboat gambler,
the nation is as one
of your daughters,
calm and steady is
how you will raise it.


nobody

nobody
dares
to die
near me

i'll smack
the living
daylights
out of
them
for just
skipping
one beat

there's
an old
saying

about
a stitch
in time

it's true
as far as
it goes

but it
don't
go far
enough

raptors fill the skies
and war the valleys.
seas and winds rise.
diseases bloom in
shell-shocked soil.

some of us look for
the second coming,
others are booking
passage off-planet,
while another party
butcher each other
as if there were no
tomorrow.

everyone knew this
was coming sooner
or later but no one
was terribly afraid.

the elements leapt
and raptors smiled.
viruses, microbes,
apocalypts, elitists
and barbarians all
saw opportunities.


next age prayer

we've had you
bottled up 200
generations
now

given the right
of way
to civilization's
parade

but that stage
is over
now
we can't get any

more
civilized on this
budget
so come on out

old hairy genie
with a big club

kick some butt
and lead us

from this age
into our next


Greta L. Ballinger, 59

   Greta L. Ballinger, the last woman known to have given birth vaginally in the United States (to a girl, Rose Ann Ballinger, in 2026), died on Sunday from complications from uterine cancer.
   A native of Baltimore, Maryland, Ms. Ballinger campaigned stridently against the Barbarian Birth Act, which first criminalized vaginal birth in 2021. Her sensational trial, conviction and incarceration in 2028 are credited with reducing the barbarian birth rate in the United States from just over 1% to today's estimate of less than .0001%.
   President Dr. Jules Parsigian issued a brief statement through Press Secretary Dr. Ali McGomery, lamenting Ms. Ballinger's death but declaring that “her passage removes us one more step from the caves of our savage past” and renewing his call for “jihad by any means necessary against the perpetuation and even the defense of this barbarian practice in many backward areas around the globe.”
   Ms. Ballinger is survived by two grandchildren, William Ballinger Lopez and Annie V. Ballinger, both of Taos, New Mexico. Her daughter Rose Ann Ballinger took her own life in 2051 — the result, medical authorities believe, of both psychological and physical trauma stemming from the violent and unsanitary nature of barbarian birth.


Out-weighed Costs

Note: When we first interspeciated, pure human and dolphin each had a laundry list of fears and philosophical objections, which gradually washed away with time and tide. Now there is little conflict or regret; benefits clearly outweigh the costs. There is such a comfortable consensus that the time has come to acknowledge those outweighed costs.

The snap of a twig underfoot.
 Each time I read about one, it is almost as if I remember—
 the sound so sharp and clear.
 Old books are graveyards of ghosts like that, and they hurt.

The astonishment of learning
 that humans who swam so badly could carry on a conversation—
 and other exhilarating surprises.
 We seem to know too much now to ever really be astonished.

The avarice for more cojoining.
 Already, after only 200 years, people want to be able to roll
 into interspeciation boutiques
 and just enhance themselves—aggrandize themselves—more.


Mole-Rat

Your trunk looks like a larva,
your hands like those of a fetus,
your ears like intubations,
eyes scabbed-over pimples,
and...not a nose but a huge
city of cancerous pink moles
that has been bombed out
by everything the Luftwaffe had.
You don't look happy, dude,
but you were not made to be seen,
not made to ever come to light.
Go back in your hole.
Go back to the dark
where you are Clark Gable
and Tigger all rolled into one.


Walk to the White House

Several surprising things.

We'd never walked to the White House before,
but instead of looking for a restaurant, we did.

It was late on a Friday afternoon
and no one but no one was there.
At the back fence there was one young cop
leaning on his car and staring into space,
and three vivacious 20-year-olds who told
us that this modest 2-storey building was,
indeed, the back side of the White House.

All the windows looked empty. Not a soul
on the lawn or the walks. We could have
hit the windows with a well-thrown rock,
pulled out pistols or created some havoc
any one of a number of ways, and
it seemed like we were welcome to try it.

From the front the house was grander—
3 or 4 storeys tall, and quite a distance
from the fences. On the great lawn was
a lonely patch dug up for vegetables,
and some of the gardening right at the edge
was disgraceful—little heaps of waste dirt
and dead vegetation. No security there either,
but maybe a dozen foreign tourists taking
pictures, making it very difficult to walk by.

At the center of the fence, waist high,
a little metal button on a little metal box
attached to a rusted metal tube that went
into the ground: “Welcome to the White House.
Push Button”! I hesitated and then pushed it.
How very Through the Looking Glass!
Absolutely nothing happened.

No magic.
No homeland security.
No participatory democracy.
Just somebody's house who didn't seem
to be in.

if there was an applecore
in the puddle in the front
of the elementary school,

the vice principle couldn't
be faulted for concluding
that a student had eaten

a nutritious lunch but
really needed to develop
better manners in public.

she would be considered
overly cynical for thinking
that one of her teachers

was expressing contempt
for the innocent gesture
of his new kindergartner.


Open Season

The urbane doe
leisurely strolls
up the sidewalk

as if to indicate
she has no urge
to eat our tulips

or transmit ticks
or atrophy from
over-population

or anything else
for which we'd
need to kill her.


Catholic School

They don't know
how magnets
do their work,
they don't know
how gravity
does its work
or what makes
the universe
soar outward in
every direction,
how the mind
interprets energy
as information
or who put the
T in Tallahassee.

But they can
teach you what
you need to know
about the rings
of hell or deadly
sins or just how
many years'
indulgence three
Hail Marys net—
education made
simple. Everything
under the sun
is unknown, so
rules are the only
thing that matter.


Sound Check

I know we have
“digital music”

but something
still must vibrate
something else

or I don't hear it

right?


Chez Nous

Your heart is barley, mine
is chick pea—love is good
cheap food that's chewy,
insipid, and keeps well—
three stars at the most,
but it makes money and
has served a loyal clientele
reliably since 1990.

indenture

let me man-
ipulate you.
if you don't
resist, i wo-
n't hurt you
& if you do,
when you s-
cream I will
cease & de-
sist.


snap your
head off.
I wouldn't
ask, if it
was silly.

now slip
one hand
in and pull
out what
you find.

you see
that gook?
I'm crazy
about all
that stuff.

lay it on
the table
right here
and let's
look at it.


To My Little Muskrat - SUBMITTED 4-1

I'll tell you,
nothing is ever
going to hurt you,
not while I'm around.

My wing
stretches over you
like babble over
a brook

or the silence
stretched over
a gnat pond.

Don't look up,
you won't see me,
but neither will you
ever spot a goshawk.


Pachyderm

There's comfort when
most of your life
together is past

and now you live
like two rhinoceros
who stared down

lion so many times
haunch to haunch
that being stalked

by—what? old age?—
holds no more
terror than hyenas

grimacing because
your hide's tough,
meat protected

and thews proven.

My Heisenberg or Not

after Ken Robson's “My Heisenberg” www.poetrycircle.com/index.php/topic,17316

When Luanna said
Why not a Heisenberg?
I thought it was a joke
but the brochure
from the kennel
she shoved in my hand
had the cutest pictures
of what looked like a
dachshund/terrier cross
posing open-mouthed
and leaping into the air
after one of those
yellowgreen tennis balls.
Luanna said
Look, it's one photo,
the face-shot is just
a cropped blow-up!
but I said
Sweetheart, it's not
even the same dog!
She said
What difference
does it make?
and I said
It sure seemed to have
made some kind of
difference to you
when you first said it.
She said
If we can't even agree
about something trivial
like this, how could we
possibly train a puppy?


All these
years later
the daffodils
the previous
owners put in
the lawn
and then
kept mowed
every spring
so that their
leaves were
barely bigger
than blades
of grass
when we
bought the
house and
started to
protect them
so they gained
back a little
strength each
year have
announced
they are
grape hyacinths.


The two white pines
the twins grew
from seed in dixie cups
in kindergarten
and planted by the stoop
are 11 years old now,
one 4 feet tall
and one 6 feet tall
with its long arms on its
little brother's shoulders.


dead, beat dad

i'm so exhausted
a week's vacation
for the kids the
opposite for me

i can't complain
i planned it all
i want it all but
sometimes too

i want to fall on
my face and beg
O, let this cup
pass from me

but i don't since
that's ridiculous
it's not like
God the Father

parted clouds
and said Can't
someone else
keep tabs on

him for just a
couple hours?


Overkill by Doolittle

Extruding
the artery,
he blew
back into it
so hard,
chambers
and ventricles
collapsed.
The poor
kid would
have died
on the spot
if it hadn't
had a spare
heart hidden
inside its
psalterium.


The Only Guy Without a Hat

The only guy without a hat in a roomful
of butchers is the one to watch out for!
Grandpa warned me more than once.
I said I wouldn't forget, and today
I see a photo in the New York Times
that brings it back:

Ahmed Wali Karzai, brother of
Afghanistan's President, alone
turban-less and kufi-less at a
meeting of pretty tough customers.

When I was in that railroad wreck,
who took the engine off my neck?
was Grandpa's other favorite apothegm.
Nobody! was the correct response.
What he did for a living before he retired
was always referred to as “police work.”

untitled

if there was
one thing
no one has
ever been
able to say

this poem
would be
a perfect
place to
let it loose

it is not
too busy
doing
anything
else

nor does
it set up
any kind
of formal
require-
ments

let's just
say it will
be here if
we ever
need it


It's ten years and
the dogwood triplets
haven't bloomed

but there you are
again with pruners
snipping back

the intertwining
honeysuckle
and false grape

as if the barren trees
were princesses
whose tailoring

must never lapse
against the day
the Dauphin

and his frères royaux
prance into town
corsaging.

You don't give up.
You still believe
I'll also bloom

if you just treat me
like I've always
been a winner.


Out in space,
no one stops
to pass the time
like you do here.

We're whiz,
whiz, whiz,
whiz, crash,
then whiz,
whiz, whiz
some more.

I never stopped
to think. What
was there
to think about?

Still, here's what
I miss: the
straight-ahead-ness
of it all.

No tying shoes.
No winding road.
No setting clocks.
No go to bed.


The little boys trample
the tulips as heedlessly
as tulips would trample
them too if the shoes
were on the other feet.
Then I would be thinking
Oh, my beautiful boys!
But why put a crimp
in the tulips' gamboling?


that junk tree
now just my height
bloomed this year

inch-wide white
five-petal blossoms
and a sweet
fragrance as strong
as a tough nun's
rebuke

neither daylilies nor
pachysandra have
seemed to mind

the big beech has
barely noticed
much less objected

and now five or six
periwinkle are
giving it a peek

you could call this
a success story

a minor triumph
of one laissez-faire
style of gardening

or you could say

thank you for tipping
your hand now
where's the hatchet


driving lesson

the engine cut out
so the steering and
the brakes cut out

and she threw it
back into Park  as
we rolled backward

which didn't even
slow us down and
I couldn't think fast
enough to tell her
where the parking
brake was—

—nobody got hurt
as we slipped into
the busy avenue

but we both have
a painful knot just
next to the heart

that we can't shake
no matter how hard
we try to convince

each other it's just
one of those things

won't happen again

Lineup at Bank of America HR

Big smiley-face brother in the Brooks Brothers suit,
he don't have one thought inside that shiny bald head of his.

This other smiley-face Bill Cosby brother in Armani? He do.

That nappy-headed pants-on-the-floor nigger there,
he got the kind of brain we looking for and we boaf know it.

All them other brothers, 'nuff said.
But that big-weave sister over there, she do the the job too.

You takes your pick, Boss Man.
It all depends how much of that diversity you looking for.


star & navel gazing

it's been so long
since I've looked up
into the skies at night.

what's with that?

i spend more time
watching ants than stars.
i'm a terrible ancient.
i guess i don't believe
there's anything
to learn up there.

and late night time
is just for sleeping now,
or i'm exhausted
in the morning.

but if i can sit an hour
staring at a ten word
classical chinese poem

surely i could
gaze into the heavens
and see something
of interest.


yes honeysuckle
chokes you like
a python to steal
most your sun
   but its iron coils
   make thin limbs
   strong and when
   the borers come
who do you
conjecture is
going to take
it on the chin

   so buck up
   suck it in
   be stoic
   let the vine
be the vine
and devote
yourself to
being the best
   scaffolding
   you
   absolutely
   can

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star & navel gazing

it's been so long
since I've looked up
into the skies at night.

what's with that?

i spend more time
watching ants than stars.
i'm a terrible ancient.
i guess i don't believe
there's anything
to learn up there.

and late night time
is just for sleeping now,
or i'm exhausted
in the morning.

but if i can sit an hour
staring at a ten word
classical chinese poem

surely i could
gaze into the heavens
and see something
of interest.

They're only dangerous if submitted
they're wounded or rabid
or backed into a corner—
then the vanity gives way
to what-the-fuck ferocity!
Don't try to mount them,
pet them, feed them, run.
The only safe thing to do
is to look them in the eye
and say, Go on now, take
the gloves off and write it.


Shelling peanuts submitted
                            for Lavonne

Shelling peanuts &
looking for a pearl.

That was my line,
it was my only line,
it was the truth,
and it never worked.

Sure, I got blushes.
Hell, I got laid—
but I always wound up
right back here

shelling peanuts &
looking for that pearl

until the night you
answered me,

If I was you, Mister,
I'd start looking
for peanuts.


Self-Hating Poem

let's bag the capital letters
andthespacesbetweentheletters
a d v r o h r e t r l o e h r
 n e e y t e l t e a t g t e
   everyotherletteraltogether

let's measure our new freedom
not by inch or millimeter but
in syncopated sixteenth notes
of eyelashes dancing on brick
and sell it for a nickel like
lemonade to people passing by

then let's send the nickel to
an enslaved girl of the sudan
and ask her if she wants more


there are no words
there is no song[/i]
          --kitty donohoe

the voices
singing harmony

the little catches
in the tempo

and the pipes
the pipes

are words
and songs


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when I was finally deaf
I broke down and went
to the doctor.
                    he pulled
out everything that ever
got stuck inside my ear.

a little pink eraser from
a pencil.
            a baby praying
mantis now fossilized in
amber colored ear wax.

a word dad misplaced
there when I was four.

Ahr's stinking pile
of pig manure stinks up
the whole street
but to see his
wonderful tulips you
have to climb the fence.


The alphabet no more ends
at Z than Christian scripture
ends with Divine's prophecy.
There are second, third and
fourth chains of letters that
spell out sounds too potent
for our brains to bear, words
that will slice you ear to ear
and shrieks to silence sirens.

The tongues of gods, angels
and demons are not sharper
than our own; but alphabets
they know allow them biting
thoughts let loose in syntax
we half-hear as grass blades
muttering beneath a rabbit's
tred, the whistling of comets
or the odd farts of the dead.


The News Today

After stripping Europe's banks,
the Vikings of Iceland overran
London, Warsaw and Moscow
like a great black cloud of ash
from Eyjafjallajokul's stomach.

In other news today, American
hospitals were ordered to relax
rules that deny visitation rights
to same-sex partners. Love is
like love, the president claimed.


fetti's archimedes

i don't give a shit about math
but what's cool is archimedes
with his big blond beard
and handsome forehead lines

his stubby fingers feeling for pi
from a small globe of the earth
as he stares into a framed mirror
at his chipped wooden desk

at first it looks like sunglasses
perched on his head but closer
inspection reveals it to be
some kind of branch with leaves

he is a man you would like
to have for a father or a friend
kindly if impecunious
but hardly any kind of a genius




Riddle (a tree)

You make a mockery of seasons:
in autumn a mind-dazzling blonde,
but now it's spring, you're brown.
You're a stubborn color contrarian.
No other tree has your shade skin,
gray on the outside, carrot within.


These Long Lines

For no apparent reason your tongue arrived at dread in me when we passed surprises
and it's hard for me to watch an octopus turn quickly through anxiety and then reach out.
Moments pass and at this age I need you but my worry eases love back into the sea
that is so similar on television when it lifts its body out like swells or doesn't listen inside.

Watch an octopus turn love back into the sea. No reason is apparent when it lifts me in.
My worry eases and at this age I reach out when moments pass and then it's so hard for me
to need you but your tongue swells quickly on television like at anxiety or dread.
We arrived and passed through that. Its body doesn't listen for similar inside out surprises.

At this age my worry passed quickly through anxiety and arrived at dread that doesn't pass.
It lifts in moments when love surprises me and then eases back into the sea like swells.
I need you but it's hard for me to reach out or listen when your tongue is so similar.
On television we watch an octopus turn its body inside out and for no apparent reason.

holly rolled her $100 chevy pickup
up the driveway & promised to sell it
for $5 to Gabe as soon as he got
his license & waved to the 2 badasses
low-riding up the sidewalk & they
waved back & said Hey you goin'
downtown? & she said No I'm goin'
to see my good friend Tom here but
you 2 stay out of trouble ok & Gabe
disappeared off to where he was goin' &
she rolled up her sleeves & rolled into
the house & rolled her ass in a chair &
started rolling out tales about her kids &
& her dogs & & & & & the next thing
you know it's 2:30 & she got to roll


The Gardener's Tale

I finally just asked the damn tree
what kind it was, where it came from
and what its intentions were there
in the middle of my precious garden.
And do you know what it answered?
None of your fricking business.

I said, I'll show you what my business is.
Do you see this mini bow-saw here?
Its teeth are dying to drink your sap!
But the upstart didn't even flinch.
I put one hand around its inch of trunk
and touched the saw an inch below.

Don't, spoke up one of the calico asters.
That was the last straw.
Who tends a garden so its plants
can stick their green thumbs in his eye?
I pulled the aster right out of the earth,
reset my hand about the junk tree's girth.

The chance, says my statistician daughter,
of any one hickory nut hitting my head
is approximately one in a hundred; the chance
of twenty pelting me at once, 100²⁰.
Tom, she said, if I were you, I'd go right
out and beg forgiveness of that flower.

Let me explain something: I'm a male.
When you trail by 30 in the 4th quarter
you don't beg your opponent's pardon.
Maybe you should—but you don't.
You go right back out and try to kick ass.
You go down swinging, if you must.

The next day was cold and pouring rain
but I had hot vengeance on my brain.
As soon as I had finished up my All-Bran
I went screaming outside like a banshee
waving the bow-saw, a sickle and shears,
but the sight there reduced me to tears.

The little tree was gone, a pathetic little
hole filled with water where it had grown,
and a dozen calico asters mown
and wilted beside it on the ground.
That must be my daughter, I thought
while the hickory nuts rained down.


Alphaphobic

Zero, one, two, three,
four, six, seven, eight...
not a single “a” shows
up until one thousand.


A Clatter of Shovels

   In first light,
   a clatter of shovels
   on sidewalks pierced
   the white wall of silence -
   while she slept. - Marion Alice Poirier, “A Killing Frost”

a clatter of shovels
wakes me
a clattering of shovels
on rocks

and I think It's me
for whom the bell tolls
bell of shovels
clattering on rocks

then the clattering
of rocks on wood
somebody's thick fists
on the door

I think, Oh death,
but then I think,
Oh no, that's nonsense,
those are rocks

thudding down with
dirt on the lid
of the coffin, and I've
left death behind

and am awake now
thoughts rewired
and free again, an
exhilarating racket


here I am laying the groundwork

here I am laying the groundwork
for my life beyond death

there are, the renowned guru says,
exercises for the imagination

that will get the spirit ready
able and willing to find its way

out of the confines of old flesh
and up into the empyrean

he says, focus closely on your hands
and your knees and the tip

of your nose and try to melt them
into disappearance

and the bed and the walls of the room
and the house and the forest

and the day you succeed
will be the birth of independence

which, if exercised and honored,
will one day open like a silent lotus


Series of Fortunate Events

The Tiloollans monitor Earth
carefully. It's late 1010 A.D.
Their explorers are covering
their tracks and preparing to
go home. Avicenna promises
to share as much knowledge
as he can and gets the aliens
to promise to visit again in a
thousand years. He tries to
explain that he will be gone
then and they say something
along the lines of Nonsense.

One of the Tibetan boys the
monks interview in search
of their lama surprises them
by answering their questions
in Classical Isfahani Persian.
Though he babbles nonsense
it's interesting nonsense. His
mother takes a slip of paper
from one of the monks and
gives her son a goodbye kiss.
No sooner have they set out
in secret toward Lhasa than

the sky is lit up by a comet.
Signs and portents, someone
mumbles in a California haze.
There is a freak, unnoticed
moment when a combination
of snack runs, bathroom runs,
doorbells ringing, chattering
birds and charging horseflies
results in a full second when
no one has their eyes on CBS
and no one sees what miracles
occur.

you think of the grand canyon
as grand looking or grandly steep
but it is three hundred miles long, ten miles
wide on average, thousands of square miles
of sand, rock, air, falls and river

almost two billion years ago
when the floor of the canyon was sea level
over it galloped our ancestors
astride the ancestors of the handsome
white-striped merychippus

and as the canyon walls gave birth
to themselves foot by foot
we respected them and we still do
we are yuman people of blue-green pools
and we dwell on the level of the river

and if the canyon even rises to the sky
we will continue right here where we are
beneath the eyes of sentry milk vetch
the roaring waters prickly poppies
and faint yellow canyon spurge

devoting ourselves to accompanying
the bleeding tiger beetles who have
stubbornly walked with us during a history
nearly as long as legends of flat shadow
in the fleeting instant before sunset


fresh air
is not a metaphor
just cracking
the window
changes everything
calls and sings
brings life inside

watching two
rhinoceros hump
on an internet clip
makes you
wonder about
nature's
sick mind

but it's a drop
in the bucket
compared to sweet
fresh air
and birds and
rustling trees
and cicada cries


Do I like my new doctor?

My new doctor stuck out
her hand and introduced
herself as Dr. Schneider.
It seemed foolish to say
I'm Mr. Riordan, so I said
Nice to meet you. Anne.

My new doctor smiled
approvingly because I
hadn't gained an ounce,
then knocked my height
down half an inch
and said I'm now obese.

My new doctor showered
me with slips of paper to
go get a stress test, rash
ointment, tetanus shot
and colonoscopy I said
I wasn't interested in.

My new doctor is younger
than my old doctor, who,
before he died, would tell
me stories about grandkids
and tell me not to worry
about my weird skin spots.

She asked why I don't get
blood work. I said I won't
make a new appointment
at a lab. She fixed a stern
gaze on me, took out the
gear, and pulled the blood.

I do like my new doctor.


if you are reading this, you are

overly concerned about
what other people think of you
when maybe you should be
asking who this writer thinks he is
where cute ends and rude begins
and why you are still reading this


The Four Mothers

Nana was a tough little gnome
who gave everyone a nervous stomach
and then a plateful of bad food
with foreseeable results.

Her daughter Kitty drank iced beer
and tapped her ashes in her palm
as if heaven was right there
in her overstuffed living room.

Grandma Darleen recanted
when we were seventeen and told us
that we maybe weren't
quite as bad as she had thought.

Mom—well, Mom is Mom.
She has her good points and her bad
but when she pulls her cowboy boots on
she's one hell of a shit-kicker.


Leaf Monkey submitted

Here I am.
You are my only predator,
so go ahead, prey away.
This little floppy orange
ragamuffin?
This tiny, loose-jointed,
big-eyed teddy bear?
Don't worry.
Not much meat on him,
but maybe make a stock.
Take the fur
for a genital ornament.
Or let him go,
the monkey eagles will
take care of him.

It's me you want.
My meat.
You see me as demonic,
child-snatcher,
big black eyes ringed
in orange,
too hairy, all black
except big orange lips,
guilty holes for eyes and
clutching an infant
who looks infinitely
more human,
even wistful.
I don't look nice;
he does.

So aim and shoot.
I'm alien to you,
I'm thirteen pounds
of decent meat,
and people say
I stuff myself with
valuable plantation leaf.
Maybe I am mean.
Maybe I would rip
you limb from limb
and eat you too
if the shoes were
on the other feet.
What else is there to say?
Here I am.

we can't tell the wind
to keep it down
we can't tell the birds
to keep it down
so what makes us
think we can tell dogs
or our own kids
to keep it down
except we can punish
them if they don't

the man who punished
the wind
is licking his wounds
the man who punished
the birds
is grieving in the dell
and the man
who punishes dogs
and his own kids
is gnawing bloodroot


Public Enemy No. 1: South Park

   “We warn Matt and Trey that they will probably wind up like Theo van Gogh
   for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what
   will likely happen to them.” —Abu Talhah Al-Amrikee, Revolution Muslim

Matt Stone and Trey Parker are writing. Three assassins are lurking ouside. One wears an
I♂TomCruise t-shirt, one an I♥Ayatollah taqiyah, one a WWJD2JonStewart? belt buckle.
Huddled there in the azaleas, they are uncomfortably close, and keep sneaking suspicious
glances at each other while they wait for a clean shot at the two blasphemous archliberals.

Matt and Trey's bodyguard is none other than Kevin Costner mimicking a cord of firewood.
But he is having trouble with his pacemaker. It transmits up to the minute information on
his heart function through the wireless receiver in his left ear, and the device in his right ear
monitors the local police band. The pacemaker is transmitting static and Kevin is distracted
by the fear that he is having what his star-struck doctor insists on calling “a cardiac event.”

The soundproof South Park writers' room is swept for bugs daily to deter TV espionage
but the buzz around the Starbucks kiosk in the cafeteria is that they are working on a new
series of episodes exploring the scope of Obama's crypto-Islamic sex games with Michelle.
Kevin is painfully aware that any of the three assassins might be undercover Secret Service.
Maybe they put his pacemaker into a tizzy or maybe Christine is using the hair dryer again.

About equidistant from Kevin, the assassins, and the cornerstone of the South Park building,
the First Amendment hangs from a majestic oak tree, ingeniously camouflaged as a piñata.
Below it on the cold grass lie a baseball bat, crow bar, taser stick, and length of rubber pipe.
It's very cold. Everybody is starting to shiver. One of the assassins pulls a thermos from the
webbing of his gun bag, shrugs, and passes it to the second, who passes it on to the third.


River Clean-Up

A small pink bicycle
with a snapped chain,
one third of a 10 ball,
a muffler and tailpipe,
a Speedo, a tennis hat,
a rusted rake head,
a huge steel wrench
maybe for fireplugs,
an animal skeleton,
cinderblocks, bricks,
an archipelago of welts
from stinging nettle.


Letter to Mma Ramotswe

Dear Mma Ramotswe, we traditionally built
people don't all like to drink red bush tea,
but we agree about tea generally.
We do not all beam with pride
about the goodness of our nation,
but we agree in general about goodness.
We do not actually have much
in common at all, Mma,
but I do feel enough like your brother
to ask you to do me a favor.

There is man here who breeds hundreds of
greyhounds to chase down coyotes,
who then savagely rip each other up.
He proclaims that if greyhounds didn't hunt
“you would be denying what
they were bred to do.” It has something
to do with the Good Lord, he says. I would
like you to speak with him and tell
him what your father would have said
if he was asked to speak to such a man.

Would you do that?
It is fair of you to ask why I do not speak
to this man myself. Why must I ask
the help of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective?
Mma, I do not know what to say to this man.
My own father would not have said
anything to him. He would have said to me
something like, “Mind your own business.”
Would your father have said that too?
You see? I did not think so.

If your father had told you to mind
your own business you would not be
who you are today, Mma Ramotswe,
and if you were not who you are,
I would not be asking you for this favor.
Your father owned many beautiful cattle
all of whom he protected from leopards, lions,
painted dogs, brown hyenas and cheetahs.
How did he accomplish this without
sending his own hounds out to slaughter?

I apologize that my letter is going on so long.
I do not know how to end it.
I think I can only end it if you will promise
to talk to this man. His name is John Hardzog
and he lives in Elgin, Oklahoma here in America.
His wife is Charlette. His 3-year-old grandson is
Canyon. He is 65. That is all I know about him.
Tell him that I read about him in the newspaper.
Maybe you could suggest, Mma, that if he stops
breeding greyhounds to hunt coyotes, he could
stop worrying about what they were bred to do.


No Joke

My brother quipped, apropos
of resignations over the pedophile
scandal in the Catholic Church,
that bishops were dropping like flies.
At a family reunion last month,
he advised my teenage kids to say
“And you too!” when the relatives
gushed at how old they had gotten.

They say economists are people who
don't have the personality to be
accountants, but he's a very funny guy.
When it was time tonight for him to go,
he got all the kids to help him search
for the beloved Sea Isle cotton scarf
his wife had given him before she died.
For once, he couldn't think of a joke.

Things that can't walk:

rabbits
sparrows
kangaroos

Things that can't walk
without head bopping:

pigeons
chickens
old hipsters


The Next Lilacs

Thank God
his lilacs
are short-lived--

surfeit of perfume,
as on aged dames,
spells death smell
by a sweeter name.
         --Ken Robson, “Lilacs”

Of all the arrogance
and ignorance—
the life we know is eighty years,
and yet we are convinced
the next stage is eternal.

For all we know, it's a moment.
A weekend.
For all we know, it's getting our
passports stamped
and being waved through customs.


the new plant

the new plant
a present from my brother and his wife
spent two days
on the front stoop
and goes
into the ground today

golden groundsel or ragwort
senecio aureus  they call it
height 20-30”
flower color yellow
blooms in may and
bristling with buds now

the instructions say
it's thirsty
so I find a place for it
not too far from
the mouth of the rainwater drain
from the gutters

right next to
the also thirsty
rare
wild azalea bush
half smothered this year
by rampant rambler rose

like most new plants
its odds of thriving are slim
in this unforgiving patch
of rarely sunlit sterile dirt
but possibilities
invade the air


Twisted Task Post

I'm testy when I test her
and pesky when I pester
her to paste her tasty pastry
pasties to my toasty testes.


HMOmance

My high blood sugar
means fewer pretzels
homefries and bagels,
and less watermelon,
pineapple and pasta.
But I can eat barley,
coleslaw, grapefruits,
fresh ham, sauerkraut,
cherries and peanuts
to my heart's content.

My new doctor must
have said “diabetes”
ten times: You don't
have diabetes. You
don't want to end up
with diabetes. Some
people have diabetes
for years before they
realize it. Diabetes is
a very vile business!

I like a tough woman.
This one looked me in
the eye and promised
me big trouble unless
I do exactly what she
tells me. So I'm going
to. She is pretty much
saying that if I do get
my blood sugar down,
all I have to do is ask.


Wissen über Würmer

Fearing the Palouse earthworm was extinct,
we used the octet method of electro-shock
and drove a large worm to the surface. After
dissecting its digestive organs, we're pleased
to confirm this worm isn't extinct. Last week
it wasn't, anyway.


Fill in the Blanks

1. The prospect of driving
to Mellon Park to pick up a
form they won't mail to me
is clouding a beautiful day.
It will take 15 minutes and
I should just do it and get
it over with but instead I'm
hoping to reduce the sting
by combining it with some
other car trip in the same
direction—and ruining my
entire day. This disorder is
called _______________.

2. Struggling with my son
over all the homework his
school insists on giving him
makes me dread his coming
home from school. I wish I
had the courage to just say
Go out and play, little man,
but I don't. This disorder is
called ________________.

3. Cataloging my problems
as if they were of interest
to complete strangers eats
up a big chunk of the day,
and of course does nothing
to solve the problems. This
disorder is called _______.


Mainstream

If everyone was in the mainstream
it would have no flow,
and what's more,
have noplace to go.

The rills and rivulets,
the babbling brooks,
even the seeping springs
where willows weep secluded
have their say: all mainstream
does is carry them away
to empty them in ocean.

More than one sad trickle
has eventually concluded
the whole trip's but misspent motion.

Yes, I agree, Cheryl. Maybe only #3 has a name.
Thanks for looking in --Tom

I told lies
but you came
anyway

and heard
fresh lies
undo the old

you saw
I was
unmoored

no longer
who had
unmoored you

which
re-moored you
not me


UPS & FedEX

toe to toe
on the street

facing east
a 6-gallon pail
Pearl Barley

facing west
a 35-pound bag
Split Chickpea

my blood sugar
the winner


The Tao of Zen

Open arms.
Open heart.
Open blouse.

Bend, bend.
At the last moment,
fart.

Sing.
Harbor no grudge
against me.


On Pursuing the Extinction of Problem Species

The last members of the species Variola major and Variola minor
Are maintained for research purposes in bio-containment labs
In Koltsova, Russia, and Atlanta, in the United States.

Soon the last members of the species Dracunculus medinensis
Will find themselves in a similar confinement,
Thanks in large part to Jimmy Carter

Who like Beowulf has pursued this deadly monster
To the very ends of the earth:
The distinctly uncuddly

And ingenious nematode known as the Guinea worm
Must spend part of its life cycle
Inside the human body

Where it gives rise to painful burning
That drives its hosts to submerge their legs in water
So it can release its aquatic larvae.

In this day and age when great efforts are made
To protect endangered species from extinction
Great efforts

Are also being made to eradicate other species.
Extinction of Dracunculus medinensis not only
Deprives its host humans of endosymbiotic

Health benefits that have maintained this interspecies
Relationship for over a million years but also denies
Copepod crustaceans a year-round food source,

While the copedods themselves are a food source
For fish, birds and other crustaceans
As well as being seasonal predators of the larvae

Of mosquitos that spread human diseases.
Of course great efforts are also being made
To eradicate those mosquito species

As well as the Plasmodium protists and other
Disease-bearing species that the mosquitos carry.
If the Martians arrive and find us contagious

Let us hope they don't look to our practices
For a final solution
To their problem.


An Apparition

after fifty years of
looking heavenward

for the first time

in a sky entirely blue
as far as I could see
in every direction

one solitary birthmark
of white cloud

which after a moment
dissipated into thin air
right before my eyes

and then a helicopter
thundered up as if
dispatched to investigate

but it found nothing
at all and loudly whirled
back off in the direction
it had come from


the hot young couple
rolled on the blanket
shirtless and shameless
for several hours
certain beach-goers
seemed to move away
and certain others
closer
but we stayed
just where we were
just as shamelessly
watched them
and thought thoughts
we won't ever discuss

I'm weighing moving "lot" to start of next S:

the here and now
might make a whole

lot of the past
water under the bridge

What do you think? Thanks, Tom

bound bound

not kangaroo
bound bound

but captives
of our own
desires
choices

hesitance

not hesitance
of hummingbird
at flower's lip

not hesitance
before the rain


Mock-orange's green peas
will rupture into blossoms
without surprising anybody
anymore, but do it anyway—
a trusted evolutionary stunt,
so why change horses now?

Maybe the cardinals—what
feeds on flower buds?—see
them as unripe fruit; maybe
the perfect orb shape lends
them better sleep on windy
days; maybe it's just for me.


۞

God's original creation,
to illuminate the seas:
divided from the dark,
and called Day; lit His
division of water from
water, water from land;
I light a lot more than
you'll ever understand.

Not angel nor demon:
a nonentity that glows.
Was disobedient? Not
possible. Not my fault
God regretted making
me, one unusually brief
night, a flaw exposed.

Lucifer, Light-Ferrier—
Ringleader of Rebels,
the Satan? O please!
Does conveying truth
make me Arch-Enemy
to Deity? If so, I bear
that guilt; otherwise,
my conscience is clear.


Bald Spot the Size of a Cake Plate & Green Toupee

There was a bald spot the size of a cake plate in the grass
just on my side of the property line. Neighbors being neighbors,
mine asked me politely to fill it in. Neighbors being neighbors,
I said fine. I dug up a plate of turf from my backyard and reset it,
but they came caterwauling down their driveway, incredibly irate.
This was not what they had in mind! I still couldn't tell you why.

I removed the toupee and put dirt back into the shallow hole
into which I had transplanted it. They said they would take care
of it properly but they never attempted to take care of it at all.
Some smartweed and some chickweed spill out of it in summer
and then it is bare again over the winter. This year the neighbor
husband died and his wife put the house for sale. That's the story.


After “you're a string” by cheryl leverette www.poetrycircle.com/index.php/topic,17633

you are a writer, not a person.
I get that.

when you go to the grocery store
or blow up at your children

you are a person,
but here in your body of writing

where I come to delight in you
you are not.

you are a writer
and the writer loves not people,

loves ideas sometimes
of loving people

but not people themselves.
people themselves provide ideas

to you,
and when a reader like me reaches

toward you,
it is as unilateral as when you reach

toward me.
I get all that and I don't care,

I still am going to tell you something.
I want to say

that if you were entirely here,
a person

and not just the words you write,
I would reach out

in case the words are listening.


Carpenter Bee, Orchard Park

You built it.
You killed a tree
to build it
but you built it.

You used it.
You sat on it
to watch your young
play games.

But we inhabit it.
Twelve families of us
live inside it
year-round now.

We do not sting
but we will hover
in your face
until you leave.

Do find another
place to sit:
this bench
belongs to us.

divine beings

it looks like spinning rods
of pure white light
arrayed two feet apart
are dropping downward
diagonally toward the
invisible sea bed waiting
so far below but it is
just an optical illusion

sunlight seeming to rotate
and fall through the water

the young fish smile
imagining sea turtles
gliding past and clouds
of star-dust plankton

when the humans come
above the rhombohedral
shadow of a shallow dory
turning idyll to concern

the last time they arrived
and dropped into the sea
with masks and air-tanks

one dove much too deeply
and resurfaced too quickly
leaving the bigeyes scared
the bends would hit her
hard when she returned
to the faraway boatyard


Daylily of Death

H. dumortieri I thought
was the daylily of death
until my friend Inés
corrected me: of mortar.


The Competent Tourist

Until perhaps I am reborn
I'll never be a native here:
my great ambition is just
to be a competent tourist,
not to stick out like a sore
thumb or caught too often
snapping photos. To order
dishes where the locals eat
with correct pronunciation.
To not turn the city upside
down to find a daily paper
in an idiom my own. I just
want to live here quietly in
quiet love with every alley.


Mehmet Ali Ağca in His Own Words submitted

I never tried to kill the pope.
If I had wanted to kill him,
believe me, he'd be dead.
What I wanted to find out
was whether Jesus would
protect him or not. He didn't.

It's so good to be out of jail
at last and busy executing
my next plan, to find out if
the Shroud of Turin is or isn't
real. Damn gendarmes put it
in a bulletproof frame but

that could just be paranoia.
I doubt they had the nerve
or the intelligence to find out
if the shroud itself is bulletproof
or not--but my plan won't be
stopped by polycarbonate!

Does anybody really think
the Roman soldiers hammered
spikes through İsa Mesih's
palms and feet without His willing it?
The gunman who rushed up
to Him as He spoke to a child

could have halted His Heart
with a bullet?


you'd think the last thing mice
would want to do is move into
an old garage where possums
rule the roost

but that's just
what the cocky lilliputians did
and nightly from the clapboard
echo chamber we heard cries
and crashes from the chase

though didn't any morning find
the slightest evidence of death

until of course the young were
born and dug out of their nest
as leisurely as
box-turtles creep up on snails
or sloths hunt pumpwood leaf

we're quicker than the beasts
who hunt us
but because they always need
to catch us less than we need
to out-fox them they succeed


After “MUTE” by Khe Iem www.poetrycircle.com/index.php/topic,17647

   if only speaking
   would make us aware of what it is to be ignited

          “Make us aware of what it is to be ignited, Lord. We have stood like clay pigeons on the ground and seen the orange flash of hawks wheel past an insubstantial moon; seen red fires in the iris of a murderous panther; seen flame itself leap, avariciously alive. Come to us, Paraclete! Touch your burning finger to our eager, fervent tinder! Only when we lick at your Spirit will we be real!”
          The pastor's prayer all by itself raised the heat in the temple by a couple degrees. A few threw themselves down on the carpet and gave glory. The entire ark felt cut off from the city outside, felt as if it had lifted up into the sky. Sunbeams caught the windows just so and they blindingly gleamed red. Great song erupted from the choir and the elders and the enflamed congregation.
          I remembered I had played with matches early in the morning. I remembered the invention of fire and of wickedness. What flame was of God and which of Satan? My father sang with all his heart. My mother sang with all her lungs. I saw that fire was the reigning principle--better to be afire than not to be afire, because burning was infinitely finer than being unchosen cord-wood.