Poem: Three Sisters

 

Three Sisters

 

distaff of spine,

spindle of ribs,

bread of the blood

of the warmth

spreading from the hearth.

 

clay of muscles,

fiery of kiln

with inhales and songs,

milk of nipples,

cradle of hips,

swish of grass and scythe

and sentences braiding strides

and fronds from sown seeds

wild in windy hair

 

… strawberry, squash, bean,

asphodel, amaranth, corn …

 

oracle of irises

to guide the weave:

weft of fingers graceful

to warp, salve, hope, dream, nurture,

escape.

 

fix.

fascinate.

decide.

 

sway of gait,

herb of lips,

birth, dance, ardor, thunder

of thighs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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12/31/25... eds

Poem: Back Too Soon

 

Back Too Soon

 

whether god or dog

savored my body or song,

they had enough to judge me

before i even believed.

 

that part of me

which concocted desire

made me a stranger

in my own unfaithful brain.

 

it seemed as if the universe

could assume any sort of sex.

any sort of sun or galaxy

could orbit any X or Y

 

or you.

 

to be honest,

i inclined that way,

a trajectory of predestined flesh.

like everybody else,

like the first prokaryote,

i was a swift faulty wish. 

a remote controlled blaze.

 

but it was you.

 

through all my lusting, stripping,

animalistic travels,

i found only your one special

longstanding, heart-hugging moon.

 

despite our cloak of magetism, despite

the vortices of passion

which forever whirled us wild and up

and up and up,

it became a brutal carnal gambit,

 

so much that we were part of something

on the social chessboard

of sacrifice and fuck,

but we were too isolated,

spun too far out.

 

it had to come apart.

 

and when i touched others,

the more my nucleus shriveled down,

far beneath those illimitable spells

which cherished you.

 

 

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12/29/25 more mods

12/28.. .changed some phrases..

Orpheus-Eurydice theme

Poem: Actor Afield

 

Actor Afield

 

dazed

under a mist-tripped

totter of stars,

 

each footstep a void

which a breath chases,

paradise lost!

 

what light yonder?  why

a world so shabby

it daunts proof?

 

can god not fairly

scatter rain?

or yoricks?

 

it’s trafficky out,

fuddles of drizzle.

 

lunar sips

of dewdroppy curves

must give us pause 

from gropes.

 

what Virgil to guide me

through these woods?

what mystical nymph?

 

some flinching exeunt?

a Cupid’s bow of comet?

a sorcery of cowslip?

 

 

 

=================================

12/26/25... changed an article

Midsummer Night's Dream themes in last stanza 

Long, brutal grading/marking of papers ended on xmas day, about half way through.  Still in shock and daze from immersion in a tunnel of student papers.

Poem: Plato

 

 

Plato

 

a dented trowel, this tongue.

the story had fought back

with the sludge of mortar.

this tongue that had built this lie,

burden by burden,

refusal by refusal,

over a latticework of once fresh heart,

within uncharted skies now fallen, fossilized,

long-sunk remnants of a meteor blaze.

the only sledgehammer

was a lover who once

maybe still loved.  who once

maybe still danced with butterflies

galaxies off:  a lover

whose voice danced 

bird-tender-sotto-sparkle

with light.

and it was this fruit, these gardens,

the ripeness of such love, this lover,

which had trellised with

blossoms and vines of

sunsets and dawns to

crack the walls of the 

unintended cave.

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12/16/25

Cave metaphor from The Republic

Have some covid-like thing, plus 200 assignments to grade before xmas, can't afford doctor, timewise or money, no right to a doctor in the USA.  

Quote: If you bow down ...

If you bow down to fear and fear gains total control, backed by all-powerful technology, you create Hell itself.

https://owlwholaughs.blogspot.com/2025/10/one-of-worst-days-in-human-history.html 

===========================

Poem: Mimes

 

Mimes

 

trees mime

the pain of what was lost.

 

they could have been left alone

to live and combine.

 

birds could have

supplied a robust pulse.

 

the wind might have strummed,

lush of balalaika.

 

not splintered guitars.

not cracked cellos.

 

but screechy saws keep moving the trees

to build pricey cubes.

 

humans and humans and humans 

grow to consume thrice as much.

 

can they feel the distant hum?

trembles from topples of distant tremors

 

in their bones?

 

===================

12/10/25 mods

My brother liked the book, Invisible Man, but this poem, in his honor, wasn't quite on topic.  Similar, though, in the invisibility.

Poem: Ads

 

Ads

 

flickering soothsayers,

conga lines of clowns on sprees,

 

half images,

sleights,

lewd phantasmagoria

 

whirlpooling to tapdance

 

and drag human eyes

through a sordid gyre—

 

as if we ‘consumers’

were victims of dangerous urges.

 

but really

 

we baptized ourselves

in this syrup,

 

this vomit of jingles

which twists unctuous as eels

 

through our infiltrated

minds.

 

 

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12/5/25 ... "unctuous" replaces "slippery"