Poet, Poet, Burning Bright

With a short match or
hot pen clenched in raw fingers,
burn words behind you.
Poets, middling, live only
to stoke the Phoenix's fire.

American Tanka

Dressing Your Age

When a gust of wind arrives, the flow and billow and cling of a full-skirted, long-sleeved, white gauze dress swaddles like a cocoon or a shroud with wings.

You would not die for this dress, but you'll want to take it with you.

"I Love Everyone"

A few days ago, I saw part of the Harvey Milk documentary and spotted my uncle marching beside him. A poet, artist, performer, and mentor of creatives, he led a very rich life privately, professionally and politically. Of all my relatives, he set the best example for me of how to be a whole person. His last words were "I love everyone."

Po Mo To Go

If we learn that

“A plethora
of palpable
bugs in the belfry,
albeit
inexorable,
excoriated
the word salad dressing
to no contrary effect whatsoever,”

replaces

“An excessive superfluity
of tangible,
noticeable
—nay manifest—
bugs in the belfry,
even though
relentless and inflexible,
censured scathingly
the word salad dressing
to no contrary effect whatsoever,”

to no contrary effect whatsoever,

it may seem that

we must write
a terse verse
and sign it—

Parsifal, The;
Post Modern
Post Doc
Poet, Parsed . . .

lest we bleed
laughing in our cups.

Ten Years

I first read Speak To Me by J. M. Munsil in a workshop setting almost two years ago.

I replied: Damn, you are one hell of a poet. Why does kindness hurt? Why is beauty so unendurably sad? Why aren't you here to hug me while I cry for these words you've pulled from his mouth?

And then I said: Anyone can say another's words, and it's all the same . . . I've been talking around that, just that, for months. Exactly that is the deep honest way of speaking I've been after. It's all about our words.

Three months later I wrote he tells me.

I love Speak To Me. I visit it often. I always will.

The Meadow

A resting place came into view
while rafting on life's dream, just be-
yond heart stopping rapids. Now firm,
that sighting has become mine own

rising sun, to warm
loamy earth, to cup
vital roots, to leaf
sleepy shade, to dapple
beetle backs, to dance
silken grass, to tickle
restless rocks, to tumble
bright water, to laugh!
 
I squint its light, shiver its breeze,
feed singing birds my worms, my words.
And Jitterbug with those beetles
who taught me to dance on the bones.

Last Places

I've been looking for a certain mood for days.

It wasn't in the vegetable crisper with the dry green bits that were slimed after reaching too far for a last moment of freshness.

Under the sofa I found only pens, including a blue one someone must have left for me to find. But why? I can't even read blue ink, and have never hidden that fact.

Hung over the bed were road signs and traffic lights; no help there. I can navigate my way out of a paper bag without such an abundance of directions, thank you very much.

So where is it?

Side-By-Side

Two photos side-by-side on a
philosophy professor's office wall:
 
On the left, from behind, we see two
old ones on an empty beach
in canvas sling chairs
gazing out to sea.

On the right,
the chairs are empty,
the canvas billowed by wind.

~

Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation

Our task is not to find the maximum amount of content in a work of art, much less to squeeze more content out of the work than is already there. Our task is to cut back on content so that we can see the thing at all. The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art – and, by analogy, our own experience – more, rather than less, real to us.

Word Limits

After bio-diesel technology came along, the crematorium could actually send power into the grid and make money from it. Fat people were cremated for free.

What the patrons liked best though, was being able to say things like, “I’ll show you! When I kill myself, your goose will be cooked.”

ShowMeYourLits

REM

the alarm went off
one night's demise just about
the time that I was

hangin' loose, stretching
the point all across the page
until it snapped back

quick and smart between
wrinkled slept-in eyes peeking
through blinds into glare