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2013 Challenge: One Poem a Week

32 8/8/13

Appalachian Pantoum

My window open like a mouth
breathing the night the scented air
August full grown, round
peach flare, the thrasher's evening prayer

breathing the night, the scented air
of Jewel Weed, Bluet, Appalachian Gold
peach flare, the thrasher's evening prayer,
southern mythos resting in the knoll

of Jewel Weed, Bluet, Appalachian Gold
moonshine still and Cherokee,
southern mythos resting in the knoll,
rising fog speaking to me.

Moonshine still and Cherokee
August full grown, round
rising fog speaking to me,
my window open like a mouth.
 
33

The City of Mommy is Dying, Darling.

After Peggy Ann left for college
to major in neuroscience
my neurons synapsed PTA

dreaming last night she still needs an A,
silly me, down from the attic
with pics on the fridge of orthodontics.

Bam! goes the can on the counter, Daddy!
I left the shrimp in the freezer. Sue me!
And furthermore, don't laugh but I,

I dreamed of their little brown poopy lines.
 
32 8/11/13

Afternoon Ennui Pantoum

The poets come to write pantoums:
they vent, declaim or versify.
I start some threads and write my words.
I'm walking on a different path.

They vent, declaim or versify,
allegiance comes or friendship goes.
I'm walking on a different path,
I'm following my words alone.

Allegiance comes or friendship goes.
Some lives perforce live on in me.
I'm following my words alone,
I carry those that cannot speak.

Some lives perforce live on in me.
Lest their voices cease to be,
I carry those that cannot speak
and from them something new is born.

Lest their voices cease to be
I start some threads and write my words
and from them something new is born:
The poets come to write pantoums.
 
33 8/14/13

They're everywhere. Sisters.
Not those parochial iron crows
with rulers, Srs Theodora
Beneficent Malevolent
beady and punitive. No,
the earnest brides of Christ
who smile without rancor,
smile and feed the hungry
surely are familial.

Sisters burning bras and cookies,
sisters in arms parading--
Betty, Bella, Gloria
past hoots and jeers working
the network or the drill gun,
solidarity of motherhood
of bodies that grow life
that nourish bodies
that are property.

There are sisters one loses
in a flash, a private Hiroshima
that blows up the world
although no one else sees
the slow half-life that follows,
the quiet decay in which one tries
to animate moments.

The father's sister one discovers
almost too late, probably too late
to do anything but resemble
from a distance, recognize a smile,
an expression. Connections
are tenuous but real

unlike sisters of the mind,
forever there if only
for imagination, one or two
of whom could be corporeal,
if only one believed the confession
of a dying man.
 
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33

Villanelle of the Romance-Challenged Male

For all I’ve learned of love, I’m none the wiser.
You’d think by now I’d learn a thing or two.
Perhaps I need to find a Sex Advisor

With intuition sharp as an incisor
To give this clueless male—at last—a Clue.
(For all I’ve learned of love I’m none the wiser.)

It’s not, I think, I need to be chastised, for
I’m neither Weiner nor that Filner dude.
I think I need a Sexual Advisor

To help me be more open, less a miser,
With emotional expressions and like cues.
For all I’ve learned of love, I’ve nothing wiser

Than Be a multiplier, not divisor
And Math and Love conjoin a bit askew.
That’s why I need to find a Sex Advisor.

Not to teach me to get off like Lion Geyser,
But show me how to love her—how to woo.
For though I’ve learned to love, I’m hardly wiser;
Perhaps I need a Sexual Advisor.
 
34 8/18/2013

Minton's Ghazal

The dream was sepia. It was a velvet tone poem,
a minor key, a smoky ennui all alone poem.

Picture a crowded stage, a barroom haze and mirrors
gazing at the crowd, bewitched, spotlight on a moan poem.

Tenor man says "Take another helping," then he winks,
steps to the shadow, lets the thin man play his bone poem.

Am I blue? I'm telling you darling you're mean to me--
when you sing soft and low I hear a should have known poem.

The record pops and skips, suddenly the past recedes
and yet the song plays on in me for it's my own poem.
 
34 - A House Divided

Here we are together,
apart.

In a room
strewn with stuff.

Yours?

Mine.

Here are books once loved,
found
together
in dusty stores.
I see you still,
in pools of dusty sunlight
grinning to yourself at Leacock.

"Remember this?"

"Yes, I do."


Smiling faces,
photographs from a time
we have rejected.
Friends stacked face to the wall,
waiting to remind us.

Waiting to be held,

to hold.

This china dog,
the Fowler's gift.
They watched us, arm in arm,
at the reveal.
Your eyes met mine, flew apart,
and afterwards
we laughed.

So hideous.

So kind.


Our love, once strong,
weakened from neglect,
we were not looking,
ignored warnings.

Lives evolve in
tangled, thoughtless gestures,
exploding, unforgiveable,
unforgettable.
Egos clashed,
harsh words
that created this
divided house.
 
34

Pantoum for Pseudo-Debutantes

Pretending to have been a debutant,
she isn't much more than hoi polloi,
trying to act so nonchalant.
You'd think she was Helen of Troy.

She isn't much more than hoi polloi,
having worked her way through college.
You'd think she was Helen of Troy,
resplendent with beauty and knowledge.

Having worked her way through college,
she's better than that prissy Ruth,
resplendent with beauty and knowledge,
born with a silver spoon in her mouth.

She's better than that prissy Ruth
in and out of the boss's office,
born with a silver spoon in her mouth,
so prim and proper and cautious

in and out of the boss's office,
resplendent with beauty and knowledge,
trying to act so nonchalant,
pretending to have been a debutant.
 
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34 (second try)

Goofy’s Love Rondeau, with Canadian Accent¹

The way I feel, I think you know.
You’d better, for I’ve told you so
But here I’ll tell you once again,
To test your temper and disdain
This time in form. Voilà, rondeau.

How you affect me, here, below
(And even here I hear your Whoa!)
Is just confessional, my pain,
The way I feel.

You may be flattered, all aglow
Or angered, chainsaw out to mow
My fine parts flat as Euclid’s plane.
I hope you’ll not. Let me explain:
I just want to (gawrsh!) be your beau—
It’s how I feel.




¹ The "accent" is to get the reader to pronounce "again" as "ah GAIN," though probably not a requirement. Also gives the poem a weirder title. Weird is, in tzworld, a good thing. Usually.
 
35 8/20/13

St. Marks Ghazal

You'd think the Bowery might lack real art--
buncha drunks, street crack maybe they steal art.

10th St seedy steps, where Stuyvesant meets
Second ghostly gods waft in surreal art.

Kerouac jeans Red Camels rolled back
modest as a prayer buzzed to conceal art.

Burroughs knife sharp prairie high knot tremble
gravel-voiced, spare. His was no genteel art.

Ginsberg concertina bells flim flam dance
man could sing a blue streak. Prayer wheel art.

Raw angel in earth shirt sings Gloria
rocks the words, burns the stage. My ideal art.
 
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35 - Legacies

His lover died
emaciated
AIDS survivor
no more
the light stayed on
in that upper window
for nine nights
lone beacon of grief
born bravely
mute fear of
morbid thoughts
I brought
him baking futile effort
to ease his load
and we sat
in the pristine kitchen
his hands lying on the
spotless pine
pale wilted flowers until
I took them to
hold while he talked
of twenty shared years
how all his tears were used
while Lady Day sang
lullabies
from the next room

Three years on
his lover's legacy
bloomed bringing
with it weight loss
and serial 'flu
his sister came as nurse
"to watch me die"
but life refused
to let him go for
five long years
he left me his
Billie Holiday albums.
 
36 8/24/13

Motown Tritina

When I tell you everything is alright,
theme is but a dream and don't be uptight--
dharma laze and praise the day. Outtasite.

Drove your red Mustang, we were outtasite
tires screaming wind and it was alright
on the mountaintop I had you uptight

against an oak pushed close and uptight,
moving like the leaves bare and outtasite,
rapping you in song until it's alright.

Everything is alright. Uptight. Outtasite.
 
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35

There's a Lady in the Men's Room Today

While draining a café au lait today,
lady's wishing me a "Good day" today.

Dick in his Dickies, who's starting to spray,
says "Hey! This ain't no Lady's Day today!"

"You want me, Joey?" she says to the stall
to which Lady's making her way today.

Dick, who's finishing, says "squeeze play is all,
or, if he's lucky, a b-j today."

Don't know what to say, haven't a notion.
Dick, who's still dripping, walks away today.

Door flies open. I'm next to be chosen
by lady of the night who's turned into day.

Saint Lady, wheeling her Joey away,
smiles, says "Every day's Mother's Day" today.
 
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37 8/28/13

For A.S.

Yesterday was sketchy.
The rain had not quit falling.
I still have your letter
saved inside some pages.
Today is little better.
Kaddish follows Howl.

Better read Catullus,
giggle at translations--
silly girls with naughty words,
nighttime talk like wine.
I still have your letter,
just no will to read it.
You're not going anywhere.
I'm always just here.

Somewhere is a photograph
I don't want to look for,
(only make me lonely,
nothing in your eyes.)

Welcome to the Dreamtime,
join the dancing ghostline,
outer life to inner world
where you shall survive. I will
keep the letter. Maybe
I will read it, think
about the live time.

I tire of the rhyme time.

I'd rather hear you laugh.
I'd rather eat a plum.
 
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36

September 1, 1969

Since the Birds of Baltimore
dumped on pinstripes all year long,
now I like to watch the Mets,
Shorty's Bar, Far Rockaway,
with good fella working stiffs,
baseball babes who know the score,
even whores with their tricks.
All are faithful after all.

Seventh inning, guy comes in,
"Breaking news! says "CBS!"
until a Bronx cheer razzes him.
"Ho Chi Minh is dead is all"
makes a painted lady pause,
painting Later, Baby lips.

LA's winning 10 to 6.
Two men out. Duffy's up.
 
38 9/1/13

Beyond The Pale

I could tell you a million ghost stories.
Everywhere I look I see ghost stories.

When they enter my room ghosts flutter, moths
that brush their wings at me. They leave no room

you see, they leave no room inside of me
and once within they don't rest peaceably,

but state their case and capture bits of me
swallowed in smoky swirling tragedy

for that is how their voices sound to me--
quiet anarchy, a kaleidoscope.

There was a ghost on Crematory Hill
(some said the Jersey Devil). No. A ghost.

Devils are different more like demons.
I have my demons, too, but prefer ghosts.

I try to love my ghosts. I try to see
the me that isn't there when I'm a ghost.
 
36 - The Artist's Daughter

Through a fog of grief
the funeral is grey noise

Her father looks away
from the small white resting place
up at the simple cross above
once a comfort
it seems a mockery now

Six stained glass squares
each one a primary colour
back lit by buzzing fluorescence
faux stained glass that erases
any thoughts of faith.

Those who knew her
eulogize her
each in their own way
one with a tender pencil sketch
another with softly spoken words
poetry to picture her life
Then in music
a lullaby
for the already sleeping.

But he chooses to paint her life
with colours rioting together
red for the joy she brought
yellows and greens for hope and sanctuary
purple contemplation
frail peaceful blues to remind him
white for her laughter
and black for her early death

A frenzied chorus of colour
blended by sunlight
redemptive and rich
singing of Sophie
and his emptiness.

I've molded and fiddled with this for years. I'm cutting it loose and dusting off my hands.
 
39 9/6/13

Beyond That Point

Invent a number for not quite yet.
When you're ready place it on a line,
move it forward, back. Don't look away.

Don't keep a thing under changing skies,
nothing fancied nothing damp with smears
of rain, incidents of tears. Don't count
sounds but blur concordant notes, twine
them twice with blaring condemnation.

Ask an echo's impression. Ignore
the sum of falling leaves. Conceive what
can't be counted, crumble it to dust--
infinite not by loss but absent
of whim wherein wind totals nothing.

Now stand in the center of zero
and bend to the curve of circumstance.
 
37

Indian Summer

We dream of castles in the air
the while we trod on fallen leaves.
Brown whitens on the snowshoe hare.
The creeping thyme no longer creeps.

The while we trod on fallen leaves
as does the banded wooly bear,
the creeping thyme no longer creeps.
The tiger moth has disappeared.

As does the banded wooly bear,
the field mice soon repair to sleep.
The tiger moth has disappeared,
and peeper frogs no longer peep.

The field mice soon repair to sleep.
The only green's the balsam fir,
and peeper frogs no longer peep.
A stone cold hail will soon appear.

The only green's the balsam fir.
The field mice soon repair to sleep.
The creeping time no longer creeps.
We dream of castles in the air.
 
37 Ghost

No rattle of chains or evil deeds
just a gentle reminder of what I was
in limbo following ancient creeds
to be felt or heard without the cause.

It's a gentle reminder of what I was
a shadow of my previous form
to be felt or heard without the cause
a vague remembrance of the norm.

A shadow of my previous form
a sound, a sigh, perhaps a thought
a vague remembrance of the norm
a situation never sought.

A sound, a sigh, perhaps a thought
a sob so soft, so full of sorrow
a situation never sought
an emptiness of No Tomorrow.

No rattle of chains or evil deeds
a sob so soft, so full of sorrow
in limbo following ancient creeds
an emptiness of No Tomorrow.
__________________
 
37

Blues for Lucille

I’d love to get a woman to groan right like that.
Ain’t never got a woman to groan quite like that.
How you makin’ your guitar weep, sigh, and moan like that?

You got to learn the way to use your fingers, boy.
It’s all in how you learn to use your fingers, boy,
How you tickle, slide, and bend her with your fingers, boy.

Will you teach me how to play that way? Please, Mr. King,
I really want to learn to play some licks that swing.
(And to really make them hurt, I’d love to make them sting.)

You need a pretty lady with long, lovely neck,
Then using your left hand, tap out a light caress.
Nestle up behind her body, hold yourself in check.

My Sarah’s awful pretty, and her neck is long.
So if I love her gently, love her not too strong,
Even I can get her ringin’? Get to hear her song?

The left hand does the lovin’. The right one holds the pick.
The left one shapes the melody. The right one drives the lick.
You use those two together, boy, your gal will shriek and kick.
 
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