30 Poems in 30 Days (Redux)

1-14

wabi-sabi transformation
change in every permutation
beauty in the broken bowl
in the scar when it's made whole

change in every breath I take
change like thunder sky asunder
or little like a plip of pebble
leaving ripples in its wake

age is a construct of time
time is only real in space
wabi-sabi Kemosabe
imperfect life in perfect
place
 
1-14

the tree is afire
shining in the darkened room
burning my memory
with such seasonality
that I cannot help but smile
 
1-15

285px-Shabbybooz_nuxalpina.jpg


Nocino

When first I touched you,
you were green, unripe,
willing to be steeped

in any new intoxicants.
But time has turned you bitter,
even black

and I fear that no amount of syrup
can be added
to turn this attitude around.
 
1-12 No rest

His path is a strange one indeed.
Going nowhere, no one to meet,
He meets the day with a smile,
Weary eyes and stumbling feet.

Closing his eyes gives him no rest,
For rest isn't sleep,
It is his head on her chest
And his mind soaked in dreams.
 
1-14

Unresolved

Left to you
It will be left
Hanging

Unspoken because
nothing to speak
Silent

Stored options
Encrypted on a hard drive
Replay

On demand
Dial up as needed
Or not.
 
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2-4

Under The Wire

I see you there all wrapped
in glee with your cheeks
apples and your smile
a curved delight on your face

You thought that I'd begin
all over again from one
on number three
but oh no! Not me

I've come in just under
the wire to set you back
upon your heels and crack
your neobolical plan

to make me keep on trying.
 
1-14

vanilla flavor
smooth cool,
the taste of you

lips divine
to drink of them,
my hands in your hair
as if you are there

but I'm just at work
and the taste of dust
is drowning
 
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1-15

It's a not so secret
society you just don't
see. No eyes says Prez
and that's the heart of it
no eyes for separate and un
no eyes for back door
dinner freight elevator
hole in a board out back.

No eyes. Jim Crow stand down
up front is a badge and a gun
no eyes for that son. Ask Mingus
about freedom. Ah Um.
 
1-13

Met the Buddha on the road
Killed him, as I was told
Burned him too, just to be sure.

Three miles down I wandered astray,
And as I was bold, crossed a river
For no reason, then lost the way.

There is a lingering feeling
That I might have missed something,
But I wouldn't know.

'He was too old to live
and too young to die',
They later said.
 
1-16

ouzo.jpg


Ouzo

Anne met us in the Hilton bar after she got off work. Christos and I were not too shredded as we'd been picking at some kind of finger food—grilled lamb, I think, and vegetables—drizzled with tzatziki sauce while we downed Irish whisky. It was only later, at a taverna in the basement of an office building on First Hill, when we'd made our way through retsina and Metaxa to Ouzo that the belly dancers didn't even have to be moving for me to see their bodies shake. Anne sent me home in a cab where I lay like a felled ox on the bed, too drunk to sleep. Later, when Christos returned to my apartment with her, I could hear the couch rhythmically thumping against the wall. This is why the taste of anise always makes me lonely.


.
 
1-15

when poets whisper
is it because
they want
you to lean closer
bend your ear to intimate lips
that breathe living words
sounds that bid you close your eyes
focus
open your mind

?
if no ear is willing
who can tell if a shout
let alone a whisper
works
?
 
3/6 - The Romance of the Steam Train

It isn’t the same anymore
he sighs. The rhythm is gone,
the lullaby that rocked me
in the wagon-lit speeding
through the night from Paris
to Nice has become a one-note
nonentity. Even the hooting
hello and goodbye is dim-
-inished to an unmusical mew.

We used to travel to school
each week, an unruly rabble
wild from unstructured week-
-ends rioting on the platform
until the heaving, wheezing
locomotive drowned out our
excess and we boarded in
orderly lines bidding brief
freedom farewell.

Later as young adults we’d
cheat on fares, lavatory bound
as the collector did his round.
Often making the whole journey
standing and shaken in the
no-mans-land between carriages.
First longings and loves, partings
and pain all happened on trains.
On our honeymoon we travelled
from Paris to Turkey on the Or-
ient Express, sparing no expense.

Now I prefer the road to rail and
seldom see a platform. Even as
an electric substitute passes through
the double arms at a crossing
dragging its uninspired rolling
stock there is no passion in the
pulse of wheel on metal line.
 
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1-15

Such an insanity,
against humanity, it's clear,
that all that we hold near
and dear to our very hearts will
have to come forth, to spill
itself unfiltered on the page
making us fool and sage;
Why wage such a calamity?
 
1-15

Sleeping things, #1

Finally, wild energy
exhausted-- an if only I had
a moment of peace and
quiet
Quiet
compelling
a nightlight-soft
visit, path picked
via dirty clothes and
vicious Lego

Just to look
just to see
but it's so
quiet
Just to be sure
rumple curls in a
too-strong touch

and a gentle kiss
Like that

that
opens a sweet-dreaming eye:
Mommy?
 
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2-5

Christmas Cactus

Brilliant variegated
petals grown long
like a spiked pink tongue
sticking out like punk
piercings above
a sweater of itchy
green foliage
 
1-16

Revelation

Laid out, naked and vulnerable
we fear the unveil of everything ugly
We find there is beauty,
a tangible love. It's intensity
makes us tremble, pull back
but we are left with want for more

The more dear, don't you see,
between fear and love is passion,
for which we are nearly there. Nearly.
 
1-15

it is what it is
is it what it should be,
the way it is now,
the way it was then
is it all even worth

worth the sighs
the struggles
those moments where,
where we are on
the same page,
were on the same page

we know the same things
share thoughts, dreams
moments when
we weren't strangers
at a dinner, that left me
feeling old and awkward
where family have

have become at odds
we were bound together
each others strengths
I was everyone's
rock the island in the storm
that sheltered and protected
never rejected any of you

now I'm an island deserted
you share inside jokes
I smile and pretend to understand
where it all went, and at what point
I was jettisoned as flotsam
and left to sink like all rocks do.
 
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1-14

A dome fluffy and sweet
It bends in your hands,
Melts in your mouth,
Soft and sour suddenly undone;
A river of collected memories,
And little sugary gems running
Down the stream.

Oh panettone, how I love you.
 
1-16

Tess's Luc Bat

PoeTess can be sly,
she slips a new form by and then
she disappears again
and here I am with words like toys
I rack my brains--Now boys,
line up! Make noise and show some sense,
my poem must be a fence,
neat rows as I commence to rhyme
(though fearing this a crime),
hoping for time again to try.
 
1-16

took me by surprise
this roaring surf of sleep that
breaks upon my enigmatic cliffs i
find it hard to type on
through the hiss where sands are dragged and flung awry
erratic hit
or miss
i
miss low tidal pools
i
.
.
.
bye
i *snooze*
 
2-6

Crown Of Thorns

It's said those lovely buds
are drops of precious blood
shed as you wore this kingly
coronet. The angels wept
to see such pain but it was
not enough to wash
the sorrow out of your going.
 
1-17

on new cat eve - nothing against the new princess but...

she says she wants another cat.
it's an innocent child thing to say
natural, she's eight. she wants
to call her princess, a baby kitty
to mother, to grow up with like i had.

but i can't, at least not yet.
i'm mourning my boy.

i knew the moment he left me
and not because the vet said.
i had held him as his fur
cooled and the rumble of his
purr against my chest went silent

i'm still missing him,
doubtful if he could ever be replaced.

and this is when i remember,
it's her request, her choosing
the new cat at a shelter. her cat,
not mine as i keep mine in
eighteen years worth of memories.
 
3/7 - Don't Luc Bat - in my defence

I’m usually shy
But Ange says I’m sly in her post.
I am poetic toast
And only host a teaching thread
To clear my hazy head.
I’m struggling instead to write
A Luc Bat here tonight
That’s not a fright, passes muster,
Even may be just a
Kind of bluster, distract readers.
Bottom-feeder’s tactic
Anticlimactic, don’t know why.
 
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1-17

mintd-mojito.jpg


Peppermint Schnapps

Some prefer to do you straight—
one quick slam and done.
But I like your sweet muddle,
with maybe a little twist or something,
to enjoy you slowly, under summer sun.



.
 
1-15

Unexpectedly
I find my slumber disturbed
staggering in a fog
unsure of my wakefulness
until Nature confirms it
 
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