Monday, February 27, 2023

Poem: Bridge

 Bridge


more tired than anytime,

unable to excuse his hate,

he stood at the vertical crossroads,

and uncaged the demons that tormented him,

for no other reason than the curse of his conscience:

the paradox of a love that faltered

in the grip of its own pain.

 

the illusion was good,

the pleasure of wolves,

vanity’s masquerade.

but the truth, it was rabbits.

and rabbits, it was true,

existed because their ancestors

sometimes dodged jaws.

 

the people he saw

did not know what they were. 

they had forgotten if they were base.

they had forgotten if they had trapped themselves

without intending to dig a pit.

especially he couldn’t trust

the most convincing smiles.

 

monsters swore they did nothing wrong,

such as the one who befriended him

and raped and raped and raped.


the wealthy raped the poor, the Earth,

and whatever else they could

while praising each other

for their generous and wonderful hearts.

 

beauty was precious,

but liars stole the light,

and used it to lead the innocent,

because, because, because

no one wanted to raise their voice,

more than they wanted safety from the cold. 

 

only a few angels had the will 

to look and see how corrupted it all was,

the gilded glow of glamourous towers,

and not jump.

 




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3/19 significant changes to body of poem

3/4  "crossroads" replaces "cross-roads" [sic]

Thursday, February 23, 2023

Poem: Doors

 

Doors

 

in my mind,

more mouth than entryway,

these doors that taste whatever comes through.

 

doors more lonely than a library has pages.

hungry mirrors of each other,

positioned to kiss.

 

one door excites another,

until they find a room

within a whirlwind of shocks.

 

when i tire from all the hurt

the doors flow simple,

and drift in an odd museum--

 

smitten sculptures,

arrows through their hearts.

 

they point toward more arrows

and arteries and journeys

and many more signposts,


until the  doors resolve 

at the same destination.




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3/21 "and drift" replaces "and i drift"

3/13 ... sculptural mods


3/3   "toward" replaces "at" ... 

2/6 ... really hard poem ... I tried... 

2/6 "doors" replaces "signposts" ... "come" replaces "collide"

 2/23 .. titled changed to "Doors" from "Mind Doors"

Sunday, February 19, 2023

Poem: What Interview

What Interview


i wrote something great,

which took me years

to sprinkle on the page. 

 

after a few bouts of hope

i knew i was going to die like this.

my crowning moment

 

would mean nothing, say nothing,

uncopied, unused

by any other mind.

 

should i have volunteered

to help starving children instead?

i sat in a room, day after day,

 

and no one listened,

my success languished,

burning bright in an empty corner,

 

warming no one,

hotter and hotter,

eager for hell.




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Thursday, February 16, 2023

Poem: Perspective

 

Perspective

 

termites don’t woo wolves.

a humpback whale

can’t jackknife with worms

in the muck.

 

azotobacters, even,

in hierachies of rot,

take a stand.

traces of apatosaurs 

scream in petroleum.

 

no beetle speaks

salamander speaks chub. 

an eon for an organelle

whispers midnight to a raven.

 

angels envy songbirds,

or even humans, sometimes,

moved by the variations on loneliness

in the notes.



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8/11 ... more edits ... lots

2/17  ... "whispers midnight to" replaces "means midnight for" ... "the variations" replaces "variations"

Monday, February 13, 2023

Poem: Cyber

 

Cyber

 

romance is not intimate,

intimate is not touch.

touch seeks the center of a screen,

a fake fulsome stare,

glow of the ethereal real.

my spine, neck, arms, face

propped and pert as ninepins,

alert as the pixel-pixie simulacrums,

avatars in photons, young and busty,

how they strut,

pandering to orgasms lite.

 

outside, Earth’s fearful tides

of swift implication,

brute vicissitude, and ignorant threat

rave on.





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Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Poem: Dying, Hears Thrush

 

Dying, Hears Thrush

 

mild lute,

mellifluous of peace-tuned

arpeggio.

 

sorcery of sonata

dispels grids, street lattices,

rectangular crypts.

 

luscious of lulalby,

nuanced of note,

this fingerboard of throat--

 

yes, a warbler!


each luscious resonance

to reminisce.

 what purity of touch!


these inlays of sound,

my body uplifted

in the dulcet, jewelled sigh,

 

and i see why now 

trees cherish such songs,

as i melt into delight,

 

this ancient, sensual immersion.





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5/17 cosmetic changes 

4/20 tons of changes

3/3 changed some prepositions ... 


Foot hurts, can't walk.  Might as well write what I wish.

Monday, February 6, 2023

Poem: Relentless

 

Relentless

 

hungry ladder of ribs

not guarding a name,

climbing itself

to rummage where arteries slept.

 

to pinch bones

and scrounge for fossils:

a fragment of a lover,

a figment of past fear,

a crumble of fingertip.

 

the genie of last breath

breaches the skull and

wishes forth a special time,

where kisses once misbehaved.

 

and then it no longer matters,

 

the whiffles and gusts,

or the whistles that scurry in circles,

through the cracked, chalky pottery

of a vanished face.

 

what matters to such empty sockets

are the wealthy yesterdays.

the kind a ghost could scour for hope. 

 

and so it stumbles

 

through a sarcophagus for the senses,

amid warrens of half-truth,

mumbling a semblance of thought,

never to rest.




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2/9  "slept" replaces "once slept" ... "matters" replaces "matters now"

2/7  "past" replaces "gone" ... "crumble" replaces "last crumb"  (the sound of a single word can wreck the whole thing, just like in music) ... "vanished" replaces "lost" 

2/6 ... "time" replaces "place" 





Friday, February 3, 2023

Poem: Comparison

 

Comparison

 

the blush

of a phoenix burning blights?

 

of a grasshopper

that dons a checkerspot’s cape?

 

of a swarm of nacre-hued wings,

glint-greased in a revel of sun?

 

can you?

 

swans that expound silent

on a silk-blue lake?

 

an owl who questions,

bold as the rhyme of meadowlarks?


will you?


no schooner more magical

than a porpoise.

 

no eagle less astral, supernal, laudable

than a jet plane.

 

what wind feckless, sunset dishonest, wave sterile, or cloud simple,

compared to a poet's prate?






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Coldest it's been in four decades here in Maine, gusts to -50F, on this 23rd anniversary of my brother's death.