Dirty 30 in 30

10

harbinger

death is not
a hooded figure
in black

the image
of a skull
on a moth's soft wing

death is the pencil
you can't quite
pick up

the finger
that refuses to curl
into a fist

death is the business card
left
on your desk

the one that was blank
on both sides
crisp and white

.
 
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11

Japanese Stab Binding

I have bound these poems
in a dragonfly’s spread wings
for they are fragile
in that they speak of our love,
now withered, though once it flew.

Yes, I know. Not a dragonfly. Closest to it I could find, though.
 
12

At the Grocery Store

Her yoga pants are very tight;
they fit her like a spandex skin.
They're striped in black and red and white
(and yoga pants are very tight).
The colors shift, now left, now right,
to this observer's great delight
for yoga pants, when very tight,
cling to her rear like second skin.

.
 
13

Wide Beauty
After a form by Gerard Manley Hopkins

Glory be for bodies not so slim,
.........For women whose full curves one hopes to know
..................At twilight, half-night, on bedroom springs
Or in warm-watered Jacuzzis, bubbles bursting to brim
.........As we sip Chardonnay, drowsy-dreamy and slow,
..................Drawing sultry out of sex the way Nina Simone sings.
This is my hope of how heaven is. Bliss
.........With soft limbs, softer lips, a sweet soundtrack, stereo,
..................As delicate and downy as the swish of swan's wings
Over my brow, fingers free to feign one final, profane kiss—
....................................Love's hymn.

.
 
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14

A Sentimental Poem

You ask me to ask
for any special intimacy
that is in your power to give.

Pure simplicity:

Grow old with me
and live at least as long
as I have left to live
.

.
 
15

Untitled

Higgledy piggledy
Marcus Aurelius,
Fifth Roman Emperor
Known as the Good.

Stoic philosopher,
Ideologically.
His Meditations's oft
Misunderstood.

.
 
I wont speak of death,
misplaced attentions or long absences,
taxes, duties, the care and feeding of poets,
but I will say,
Deity save you all my friends, be well.
 
16

Explanation Tanka

Fresh from her bath, skin
dewy, hair wet and tangled.
We should be somewhere
in an hour, but I withhold
her towel. Now very late.

.
 
17

Villanelle Composed of Random Statements

You'll leave it short unless you follow through.
The comment shocked—it seemed a bit risqué.
This sentence, as a statement, is untrue.

Let's meet up at the Centre Pompidou.
We found the diamonds in their hideaway.
You'll leave it short unless you follow through.

Marsupials include the kangaroo.
You're right! This is a saucy chardonnay!
This sentence, as a statement, is untrue.

I think there's too much kirsch in her fondue.
Sal drove a rusty, beat-up Chevrolet.
You'll leave it short unless you follow through.

I worry how I'll fare in peer review.
My children love to sing and play croquet.
This sentence, as a statement, is untrue.

What wine would best be paired with Brunswick stew?
Marie will never serve us goose pâté.
You'll leave it short unless you follow through.
This sentence, as a statement, is untrue.

.
 
18

Evidence

This is how
my own body betrays me—

the one recalcitrant finger
refusing to fist,

my lethargic tongue
that's even now slurring my name.

I am left wanting to embalm
each palm in clay

like a five-year old in Craft Class:
Hand print. Fingerprint.

Recording ridges no one else can mimic,
not that anyone would want to,

so that I can leave
something like a fossil,

though much less permanent,
behind.

.
 
19

Celestial Mechanics

Here I am, a dull planet
circling a dark and near-dead star.

While there may have been a time
when her soft light birthed

a bit of life in my seas,
that has long since gone cold;

frozen over, like my fate.
Gravity, that stern, eternal mistress

and friction seal my doom—to die,
finally gathered

into the dense press
of her withered, stellar heart.

.
 
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20

MRI

Oh, the sound. It is music,
pulsing, harmonic,
energetic, filling the tube

you live in--
that private dance floor
where you boogie

still as a field mouse
while an owl
flies low over your crouched body.

Seven minutes,
then four and a half minutes,
then six minutes,

and all you can think about is how
you have to sneeze
or how your neck

is cramped or
how you don't want to open your eyes
because all you would see

is the smooth white inside of your coffin.

.
 
21

4:00 AM

The candles snuffed out,
yet moonlight illuminates
my now silent room,
our tangled bedsheets. How cold
the white light now seems. How dead.



Filling in for Tzara, who is unavailable today.
 
22

Neatness

On the floor, his damp
footprint, a crumpled towel.
Water in the sink.
To tidy up would erase
even these slight memories.



In substitution for Tzara, again.
 
23

Monk

if we could somehow have kept him
contained within
his lyrical brilliance

and not have him stand up to dance
in medias res
because his god made him move

like a beautiful marionette,
could we have
saved him?

Or would we just be more wires
wrapped around his body
while he tried to hit

the right/wrong keys
that sounded the way he heard life
in all its awkward, disjoint, jazzy, minor keys.

.
 
24

Lionel Hampton

Clean lines.
Crisp as a fresh apple's
snap and bite.

That's the beauty of the vibraphone,
its butterfly tremolo
a subtle tonal wiggle

to preserve that struck metal
sound. Think
of dancing on a loose steel

pavement and you get
something of the idea: strike
strike strike strike strike.

So like tires running over expansion joints,
hammering an anvil
in a syncopated 4/4 time.

It's a kind of love,
double sticked; a thing playing tuning forks
held against your bare foot,

a thing that makes you
want to dance even when you can't. Even
because you can't or because you don't want to.

.
 
25

Quietus

A soft word—one gentle, even
in its sibilant slide
into nothingness.

Perhaps Shakespeare chose
it for this quality, this
soothing

away of life,
an appealing, easy
option when troubled.

Even the necessary violence
of the thrust dagger,
if it is very sharp

and done quickly enough,
is only just a little more pain
in the end.

.
 
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26

Telephony

Mr. Watson – Come here – I want to see you.
—Alexander Graham Bell, March 10, 1876


And bang with that
our species could talk leagues away,
avoid all contact

save voice. Now the Internet
has even taken
this last small nuance

of tone and trashed
it like the Edsel
or a can of Vanilla Metrecal and we

inherit rudeness
and anxiety and anger
because we no longer have to speak

face to face with
anyone we want to complement
or disgrace,

including all you assholes
who don’t like this poem.
{here insert smiley, though somewhat aggressive, emoji}

.
 
28

Skagit_Valley_Tulip_Festival_Planning_Guide.jpg


The Tulips

stand in severe rows, ordered like
mercenaries prepared to kill
their consumers.

We cheerfully pay
for the privilege of gathering
their dead, their dying,

their beautiful corpses
and spread
them in vases across living rooms.

It’s like a song—
Death is Beauty, Beauty is Death.
And we all sing along.

.
 
29

Exercise in Trochaic Meter

Some conclusions do not follow
Logic but are simple, shallow
Arguments that turn out hollow.

Socrates is not immortal,
Nor are mirrors Mayan portals
(That idea makes me chortle).

Earth's not borne by giant turtles.
Aphrodite's love of myrtle
Will not make the childless fertile.

Men did not tame pterodactyls.
Pollock forgers—tricky, tactile—
Fail the master's use of fractals.

Question arguments too facile;
Accuracy's not a hassle,
Truth is no one's spineless vassal.

.
 
1

I spose I ought to have a go
at what might make the muse juice flow.

Here's as good a place to start
to ferret out what's in my heart

or even getting down and dirty,
hopefully the first of thirty. :D
 
2

Where is the fun in wanting to run?
Something that's just used for busses
speeding away, no hope for delay
leading to foulmouthed loud cusses.
I see no point in busting a joint
or choosing to run for the pleasure.
So give me a book and a warm cosy nook,
you take your run, I'll take the leisure.

..............................................
Yes over here leisure does rhyme with pleasure :D
 
30

440x298.jpg


Dream of the Fisherman's Wife
After Hokusai, in dactylic meter

Think of these octopi and all their tentacles
Twining about the nude fisherman’s wife—
Is this erotic for the missing fisherman?
Or does it aggravate marital strife?

.
 
3

Futility ....... noun
The last toilet roll bouncing across the bathroom floor out of reach.
 
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