007 Challenge

002

Chinatown Fair only brings the Chicken
out during holidays to peck her tic
tac or toe for feed until she is full
and another Chicken is plucked
from the pen, plopped in the glass box
to awe arcade players. They used
to have the Chicken every day but supposed
everyday chicken gaming was considered
cruelty to animals. I'd think it better
tic tac toe in a glass house than
sedatives and slaughter in a dark warehouse.
Better odds of whatever happiness
a chicken can glean from a man made world.
 
On nights they hung the moon
In the tree
I saw feet kicking like a
Fish flipping on a dry dock.
A half-moon of a dispelled toenail.

[I return the letter to the envelope. Pick up the opener to make the edge sing]

The old man was in the neighbor's
House playing their piano
His legs pumping the pedals
Like he was in a paddle boat.
The floorboards were awash
in tambourines, nutcrackers, false teeth.

I laughed.

Down on Shotgun, I heard the mailman's
Scooter backfire. I roiled down the drive.
Where I opened the mailbox, where I placed the letters
I was met by a hallow of wasps.
 
2

Elegy
et mutam nequiquam alloquerer cinerem¹
—Catullus


Somewhere, each day, Evil
runs foul and oily
over life.

If I knew God, any God, I would pray.
I don’t, so I will try
insignificance

instead. I’ll be a parking meter
on an unused street,
a broken one,

my dial stuck eternally on 21
minutes, so someone
can park for free.



¹ “and speak in vain to silent ash”
 
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7. Before The Well

The weary rest
shaded and cooled
by the bell-like tones
that bounce upward
from a placid surface

Shaded and cooled
the depths sing
for a pail lowered
and dipped and drops
ripple where they fall

A drink lifts to parched
lips and the traveller
rouses to a short
story of refreshment
and a woman at a well.
 
Pen Stroke

Oh, Argentina! With your brown and greens.
Your waiters in their butcher aprons
Where are you now?

I looked in the scalded apartments,
asked the lobster fishermen, haunted
all your phone booths.

I know where you are!
I can feel your pings
In the Nothing where
I am No-Thing.
I can feel you in my hallways,
at the T-necks.
Keep going! All this is yours.

Oh, Argentina! You are Love
and that is all you will
Ever be!
 
3

Marianne Moore’s “Poetry”

Her final version cut beyond bone,
shaved down to where marrow
was left smeared on the knife.

Perhaps this was simply her eccentricity,
like that cape and tricorn hat
she wore,

the baseball lore
(e.g., that ball
signed by Mickey Mantle). Anyway,

they were her words always to erase.
but always ours
to choose which will be read.
 
Tzara you must be psychic. I was at Kettle of Fish last night where there is, next to the pinball machine, a copy of a Marianne Moore poem hanging on the wall.
 
Tzara you must be psychic. I was at Kettle of Fish last night where there is, next to the pinball machine, a copy of a Marianne Moore poem hanging on the wall.
Now if only I were telekinetic, I could win at pinball as well. ;)
 
4

Anniversary

The votive candles on the steps,
the small clutch
of flowers

are a headache that won’t go away,
pain down the left arm
or along the jaw.

Dizzy and faint, I wish
to eat foxglove,
swim

the wide expanse of Lethe.
I don’t need to reach the other bank.
I’ve already been to Hell.
 
003

Parse it and pare it, knife
spare no fat as you cut
this poem because later
I will throw it in my wok with
peanut oil and everything
in it will shine, every letter
folded in gold, holding oil
in its belly or behind its back.

This is a multi rinse process.
I have brought the heat:
peppers fly fry bright
over fingernails of blue
scratching skillet sides
until a little iron sticks
to the poem. I recommend
accompanying it with a fine
European blend that tastes
better than the twist top
that held it.

Pare this poem with me before we get
too many mouthfuls
before we pass
kisses across the doorstep.
 
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On "The night is darkening round me"

Emily put the phone down and come to the window
(Looking) What are these bindings you parade?

Come to the window and see. I see your bed covered
In things needing to be packed. Take this minute

Put your hands down and come to the window
Clouds, waste...just mist on a mirror. Run, if you must.

Come to the window, Emily and in this scorching hole
raise your arms and burn.

(Thanks to Tzara for the idea)
 
004

Winding out through low doors
to the face of the cliff, the rooms
emerge petal after petal
relaxing to the light
until we reach the first room.
The big room. This is where
we will lay together
on hot nights
sung to sleep by the wind
folding herself and tumbling
over rock.

When the sun wakes us
toes first.
We will wait until the shadow
edges back into smaller
chambers of this cave,
knee walk to the edge
and peer out at the Canyon
Wren who announces the
completion of her nest.
 
005

None of our cells are shaded.
Only the frail shadow of the laser
points to our dissasembling.
Until then we are piece by piece,
completing the shadow of the drape.

Completing the light on the apple.
Where we fit,
the fit is perfect.
 
006

Any picture can be manufactured
to raise the pulse the calculated
necessary amount
to complete the sale.

No one is completely in
susceptible. And I tend to love
people with pores

so I know it is pointless to ask
you to stop moaning
fuck me to my lover,

magazine cover. I know you
don't even give change
that he is there in the hallway
stroking your paper thigh
and getting ink on his cock.

It is pointless to wish
he were immune. Pupils
are taught to respect the light
but crave the shadow.

The only remedy
is further out
into day, to make my own shadows
where the cameras live.
 
5

Night

The poet whispers verses to the Night,
and dreams of fevered coupling through the night.

We navigate by heat, by fiery touch;
its embers burn us late into the night.

How insubstantial are you? Demon, ghost,
will-o’-the-wisp—I will pursue the Night.

The very name marks love as holy rite,
with celebration I renew the night.

Tzara is this drunken poet’s name.
Tonight his dreams are only you—the Night.



One of the books I picked up at Powell's last week was a remaindered copy of the collected poems of Agha Shalid Ali, who is often credited with introducing the traditional ghazal into English. I've been thinking about trying to write a ghazal for a week or so, and this poor thing is the first result.

I know Champie is fond of the ghazal. Maybe she'll write a better one for us.
 
6

It’s not your curves that I’m attracted to.

I know. I know. That is a lie,
but only partially,
for I really want to grope your mind

and settle in between your legs,
your breasts, simply
so we can discuss the syncretism

of “Sex as Emotive Aneurysm,”
carefully as moving a nest
of endangered seabirds

from onshore to offshore rock.
The anxiety of that slow-paced walk
reminds me

how your soft skin is soft
as down and feathers.
God, I know this is inappropriate,

and I want to make sure I say
how much I appreciated your analysis
of the Eurobond market

but—damn—your legs look great
in that skirt, and I hope this Latin is correct:
Cogito volo vobis.
 
Love this little bit of guacherie and stammering poetry T-zed. You have the conversational tone I enjoy when I read on this topic, in this sort of style. ... One question? "how your soft skin is soft" intentional double soft, like purelle bathroom tissue or a fortuitous error?
 
Baguio City

Fan-stirred, the air budges.
I leaf through the blinds
in a city where
Jeepneys decorated with
Screaming Bald Eagles
The Virgin, race back
to Loakan for more fares.

Thin arms hanging out the window
of some of these
are pinching cigarettes
on their way to sign some papers,
take a handshake.

"Do you like the photos (you will have to let me know)?
We are down on Blue beach. We are so dark now that
We disappear in shade! (Have I wasted my time?)"

I have come for you. The front desk said you just left
for the Flower festival. I run, here in our
Summer Capital.
 
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007

dark weather squats
over eyebrows spawning
squints at the day

nothing looks pink
squinted at

wrinkles appear that connect
lines to the many
from the one hot chakra
pulsing in your pants

until the whole world
of women and even
some men are tethered
to the kite strings
tied to your penis

then the dark weather
rains red and I sigh relief
Oh it was just cycle.
 
Love this little bit of guacherie and stammering poetry T-zed. You have the conversational tone I enjoy when I read on this topic, in this sort of style. ... One question? "how your soft skin is soft" intentional double soft, like purelle bathroom tissue or a fortuitous error?
Thanks, Champ. The repetition was intentional--it's kind of a tic I use to suggest confusion or distraction in the narrator.

Since I am often confused and distracted, I kind of use it way too frequently. :)
 
x

We are grown children in the mountains.
We feel damp, and smell like earth.
There is a forest in our big eyes-
We are looking up at Daddy,
While we stand naked for the nightly skin tick inspection.
We are shivering through a routine.
 
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