Kneading
her diamond knucklestar,
the widow stood
like every woman stands:
immortal.
|
Comments:
|
December |
"So this is where
we will have met."
She smiled beneath
her cancer wig,
avoiding all
the politics
of corset, crease
and cummerbund.
|
Comments:
|
The Faces of Eve |
Martian winds sandblast the beacon
rockface onto ice lenses.
It becomes the sunbreak
eyelid of greenhouse home.
From Neanderthal graves the refugees watch us
burrowing deeper, denying that journeys are born
in the garden.
At night our sight, no longer bound
by eyes or canon, falls well short
of Iberian tombs.
|
Comments:
|
A Tourist in India |
Bring on the filthy cleansing
waters of the Ganges,
cow dung feeding
water lilies.
Bring on the huntress,
striped to the skin,
genes filtered
through miacis membranes.
Bring on the tie-dye sunsets,
cooler ambers,
toes etching sand scripts
on the beaches of Goa.
At 63,
I am ready.
|
Comments:
|
Last Waltz |
Nothing new among the old.
There was no music,
no blue shirt tuxedo.
Only his breath
was borrowed.
He was a switchboard now
of monitor wires, a feeding
tube, respirator
and IV vines.
Over the rattle
of tooth and bone
she heard the crazy
hoarse whisperer say:
"It was a nice dance."
|
Comments:
|
Bobby (1925-1968) |
with los angeles lurking
your rail car runs
out of wisconsin
to plateaus west
as prairie skies wait
you wonder what
an "epaulet horizon" is
until you can see the stars
without looking up
|
Comments:
Erbsenzähler
(Figuratively: Bean Counter, Literally: Inheritance Counter) |
Standing in the showers
she thought of him.
"More raisins," he'd teased,
looking at her pastries
with a dark Senti scowl
before devouring--
Was geht hier vor?
Soon she was gold
fillings, hair and ash.
"Hurry," someone said.
"Three more batches to quota and
we have so little time."
|
Comments:
|
Still Life |
Two pomegranates hoard the light
Prunes miss it
but capture the shadows
to ransom for water
Two pears flush with green
Prance before the pale orange
Grapes conjure wine
sampled on that Rostov shore
The dawn floods in
blinding us to vines of traffic
seeking something greener
than chlorophyll
|
Comments:
|
The Real Life Death of Sam McGee |
He'd died so many deaths by then
as all could plainly see
in grade school rhymers written when
he'd dreamt of Tennessee.
Sam fixed the widow's car that night
(of course, a Model-T)
then trudged into the blizzard's might
and dreamt of Tennessee.
Across the narrow bridge he walked
the tenspot would soon be
misspent in hotels as he talked
and dreamt of Tennessee.
Sam did not hear the coming car
(that very Model-T)
and never made it to the bar
to dream of Tennessee.
|
Comments:
|
Matryoshka's Prom |
She wears a Butterick patterned dress,
one stitched with care by Mother's hands.
She seems to crave a mere caress,
but at her core another stands.
She's seen the hunt and knows the game:
a mongoose dance towards détente;
that unborn question still the same:
to be desired or dare to want?
Across the room she glances, glides;
her body: braces, pads and paints,
where swollen moon and rising tides
are left to test their own restraints.
She'll pick the night, the site, the season,
leaving him to choose the reason.
|
Comments:
|
The Commissar in Havana |
Corona retinas flare
as he shills a stillborn
future drawn and draped
in bread-line banners
The past parades
glorious come cometas
sucking blood energy
into gaol drains
While Spanish has two
no word exists for the present
tense of "to be"
in Russian
"Come cometas" means "kite-eaters" in Spanish.
|
Comments:
|
The Virgin Queen's Portrait |
Her corset ribbed
like Spanish galleons
back stiff straight
as Tower walls
no sign of Sir Francis
in her eyes
Lips like Mary's
slip-stitched shut
each abscess pimped
the Siren grave
in days before
novocain smiles
|
Comments:
|
Holly Would |
As leaves in moonlight dream of golden sun
I see her there, adorned in lace, all white.
Another pearl black button comes undone.
She brings to mind that view from old Verdun
Where wooden boxcars lumber through the night
As leaves in moonlight dream of golden sun.
So free from pin, silk bow or schoolmarm bun
Her silver hair, like tinsel, teases light.
Another pearl black button comes undone.
Still sleepy lips ask: "Has the day begun?"
Sweet Holly stands before my morning flight
As leaves in moonlight dream of golden sun.
Though I, like Pyrrhus, wonder what I've won,
I watch as she becomes my appetite.
Another pearl black button comes undone.
She tilts her head and says "Good morning, Hon."
The budding dawn's light turns her blue eyes bright.
As leaves in moonlight dream of golden sun
Another pearl black button comes undone.
|
Comments:
Embracing
Arms
|
 |
He scrawls in smoke
across a craven sky.
Approaching the calm
like a rash
on tsunami skin, he drops
shells onto the shore.
Such a salesman
can speak through muzzles
in Apache,
but can afford pale silence
no more
than poets.
|
Comments:
|
Why We Never Knew Grandpa
|
A mobile home, a tortoise god,
her snapshot caught a gray adieu.
Too old for Rome, she'd hoped to plod
along the beach on Peleliu.
|
Comments:
The spring retreats, its promise spent
on tulip kiss and poplar musk.
The summer's greening rays relent
when day meets dark at purpling dusk.
Twin tumbleweeds roll past and part
the dirt to sketch in chicken tracks,
so soon obscured: convectional art
mandalas till the winds
relax.
Come autumn, combines comb the fields
to harvest gold canola oil
for toast before November yields
its cold. Like whitened coffee, soil
beneath integument snow extols
the blood and bone of remnant souls.
|
Comments:
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Ward's Rules of Poetry
| 1. |
Never say anything in a poem that you wouldn't say in a bar. |
| 2. |
If you can't be profound be vague. |
| 3. |
Learn the difference between poetry and hebephrenia. |
| 4. |
The McNeilley Rule:Cut off the last line! This will make your poem better!
(If this doesn't work, keep cutting off the last line.) |
| 5. |
Sloganeering is about what you said and how you said it.
Poetry is about how you avoided saying it. |
| 6. |
Poetry lies between synonyms. |
| 7. |
The difference between self-expression and communication is poetry. |
| 8. |
If you can't spell a word don't use it. |
| 9. |
Bad poetry haunts the writer.
Good poetry haunts the reader. |
| 10. |
Don't express. Evoke. |
| 11. |
Technique is the difference between a good story and a good poem. |
| 12. |
The trick isn't to avoid being understood.
The trick is to be understood too quickly. |
| 13. |
If it doesn't sound like poetry to a Lower Slobovian it isn't. |
| 14. |
Every modern poem must contain at least one em dash abuse. |
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