When I last posted here it was summer, and now it is not,
prompting a haiku:
now is winter woe
winds creep past cracks and
crevices
I dream weatherstrips
Which is sort of the point of this post which is focused on
some of my shorter poetry. Mostly I find
that I am informed by the neighborhood or life around us, or maybe the past,
but also sometimes it is just imagination and the voice or persona may shift
from poem to poem. But what I find
consistent is that you cannot entirely escape self and self speaks in
perspective, theme, or metaphor regardless of the surface from which it
emulates. Life is both great and also a
place for a certain amount of cynicism where it serves well to examine before
trust, especially if dealing with government or commercial enterprise. And even with people because not everyone’s
interests are going to sync up with ours.
Then there is empathy – which hopefully can exist irrespective of
cynicism because this is not a linear algebraic world of two variables which
are mutually exclusive of each other – after all, aren’t all the people we like
or love flawed as well and what about us?
Perspective is then always to be considered and I think I am
saying too much, let the poems speak for themselves……..
The
Fog
Dawn replaced
headlight tunnels
with white ocean of fog,
I saw oasis ahead –
intersection, stop sign,
grey and faint,
then gone – visage falsehood,
mind’s eye stronger than any lens;
I wonder about my beliefs.
The
Theory of Relativity Confirmed
The room stops,
I am in your arms,
time moves too fast,
Einstein was right.
7
years
Each day the man limps, left hand flapping,
lurch by lurch
As he passes under my ladder
His bad luck has already happened.
Patterns
of the Mind
She says she doesn’t know dreams
unless feverish,
the cave too deep --
chilled, she hibernates,
patterns pressed on her skin
the only clues
to the night,
clear fresh eyes
she goes into the day,
nothing resolved.
We
Hope You Like Her
and yes, she is
quite something,
we all agree
but what works for you
is what you don’t know –
what we won’t say,
with whom she has screamed,
those failed men,
her mistakes,
when she was terminated for
wrong emotions --
history prevents us
from seeing her now --
it is up to you.
Back
in Memory
I am jealous of your back
does it remember
other fingers, past stroking?
I remember other backs
it is not the same.
The
Subtleties of Existentialism
Mr. Ching walks stooped
endlessly looking down
to where
the cans and bottles live
now
they come from the table
where there are long debates
nuanced discussions of
of others
shaded carefully
until it is time
to take out
the recycling
and Mr. Ching knows
somehow
instinctively
to arrive.
Stolen
Line
you can hardly jump
she whips the rope like a storm;
clothes will miss it soon
The
Angle To Fragile Repose
as the light tilted your shadow became long
before you faded from view
leaving behind only void
I will find some other awe
for the pedestal tomorrow.
Old Dry Eyes
those man tears cloaked
bountiful springs lost to dust;
now I cry from need
The
Symbiosis Of The Therapist
you know I’m happy but
I hope I don’t confuse
listen to me when
I say that I am
really partial to the blues.
tell me more about your
sadness….
The
Rape Of Her Face
in that field she was tender on the rocks,
her fingers ending in polished jade
held near her breast
as she arched her back
in the shade hole of the umbrella,
their long lenses poking
until her smile was worn off her face,
what an excuse,
no one could stare that hard and long
without a machine.
Some
of you may imagine the lawn full of accent plants
arranged through employment underground to
governments not knowing the rats above in the palms
where breeding takes place at a more rapid pace so
who will die first is not who lives last in the long run
long after lawns are gone the way of governments
probably chewed up by the them they will be super
with a big S on their pesticide resistant shirts and
as strong as cockroaches lifting boulders out of pits
you gotta give it to them rats often unseen yet still
in your life and yard all the time so is that why you
pay taxes thinking it keeps the lawn cut and clean
What
Color Are Values
the traffic light blinks green yellow red green
over my friend as she cries
Street Spirit, dollar paper, help feed the homeless
do you drop a dollar?
blink on this --
what if she takes her kids to Disneyland
and your beamer needs gas
My
Girl Skye
skye you are so indifferent to me
with your blues and twinkles
preoccupied, you conceal our relationship
with fog and clouded judgments
but then you weep
and I know you care.
Amazon
the if-then logic of the bee
is difficult to follow,
how does it choose the next flower?
bet you better understand
“recommendations for you in fiction and literature”
as they blossom in your in-box
seeking nectar.
What
Time
time you are but spilled gasoline on the pavement
vanishing as I watch,
I should light a match to better understand
your violence.
Weather
Theory
do you feel the vibrations, the flutter of those wings?
touch them to know the butterfly dust
on your skin,
thousands of miles away,
that is why the wind blows here.
Slime
Mold, I Love You
Slime Mold, I love you,
we are crawling together on this dirt,
you might tell me who I am
if I would listen.
Now
We Go To The Y
sweat dripping onto the machine
which doesn’t know I am alive --
I am only trying to remember
the savanna, the hunt, the sun.
Chores
wrinkled I mop
floors
doing chores mom taught long ago
childhood felt again.
Senseless
what a puzzle sleep
you vacant before fleeing shards
the day jumble-tossed
to violence and extremes
while in body still-bound
your shifty eyes search for truth.
Garden
Generations
flinty life in the small trees of tribe
shouting cuts of love
oh, the
reasons given while the blood leaks out
leaving but worm husks
in the root-tangled earth
igniting new growth as the tribe flowers again,
with razor leaves.
Fear
sudden sweat in dark tunnel
with pictures of spiders and rats
painted invisibly on the walls
and looming large
until a glimmer of light
was seen at the other end
like so many moments in life.
Weightless
the water pillowed
fleshy
against my hands
I slide
an eel at play
poured through the
shockingly blue pool
as I remember you from the night before
how
strange it is
to escape from gravity yet again.
A glance in a Dark Bar (Tanka)
did you try the past
I brought to you at first glance?
I wrote appetites
into your skin with wild
eyes
too bad it might not be
real.
Canyons
here we are across
little canyons
with light moving
wall messages from etched
sharp rock outcrops of disappointment
and into later dark,
the edges unseen,
we cannot step for fear of falling
into another belief
Tanka
Hope
Are you done with Hope,
after watching our friend die?
Hope has no muscles
damn damn ethereal thing
starting with caps, like a God.
Haiku After Neruda
Neruda was not
poisoned so now we can walk
close to where he sleeps
Before
and After Melting
1.
Enjoy
Life
your leaf pile larger
before flame but mourn all the
colors then unseen.
2.
Expansion:
you culmination
of box top life toys, plastic
television mind
until; the epiphany
found liner notes on fall trees.
3.
Blowup:
in empty space
breath in a balloon expands
past atmospheric restraints –
huge as a mortgage bubble suburban house
with motel decorations and unread fake-leather bound
books
near the football-loaded flat screen in the man-den,
meanwhile
her powders and potions dusting upstairs pink closets
where you don’t dare inhale toxic, perfume laden air,
what a pile of dead leaves --
that and what is due,
the hair-spray platitudes
and crinkled dry love are going to explode
poof
from the heat,
balloons melt
close to the sun,
but as you fall you will see all the colors burning.
4.
Surprise
at last came a day
he woke up feeling normal --
what the fuck is this?
Haiku: Silicon Valley Women
rich internet man
says many fours
think they are nines
now his flesh hangs torn
