30 Poems in 30 Days

Fly 2::3

I.
Why do you smell the paper? Mary asks.
Mary Small White Man, whose name probably means
something ironic, but I refuse to discuss it.
I want to know how it got here.
She shakes her head. It came in an envelope.

Outside air is thick like shampoo I think I could fall
fifteen stories
like a pearl but it is an illusion: there is nothing
to stop me. Below
eighteen wheels creep north, concentrating
at O’Hare. Paper planes blink their electric, gravid
bellies. Jet fuel streaks the sky.

II.
At Rocky Boy they’re starving
for money. Our Savior’s Lutheran Food Pantry
makes you sign a form: I haven’t been here
for 3 months. Christ the Redeemer says
Wednesdays Hot Meal but the line is longer
than the food.

You go to school today?
.....No.
Why not?
.....Heenu is sick.
She send you over here?
.....Yeah.
You take this plate home. Tell her to make you go tomorrow.
.....OK.

The cook tics the paper.

Bill One Horn shows a college degree
on an adhesive hook stuck
to the wall by his desk. Most expensive paper
I ever saw, he grins. I should put it on eBay.
I grin, too. We drive his truck passed the Boys & Girls Club
closed two years but left a nice basketball court.

Around many hills we turn down one
and squeak the doors open at a trailer with many dogs.
Open up, we’re ‘skins! Bill yells after silence.

On the Frito bag-less table we write name and
date of last Dr. visit for everyone
under twelve which is everyone
except one.

III.
Paperwork is like commodity
oatmeal: gooey and gray and maybe as good
for you, too. Bill pushes
his pen through it all and finds
a stamp and gas and a mailbox
for every agency reaching down to help
themselves feel better which is
three this week.

IV.
In Federal hands the paper moves
quickly and spills its guts all over
the silent table. Application sixteen is missing
the evaluation phase so we can’t know
if resources are accounted for. Recommend deny.
I am ready to deny but the paper smells
faintly of grease and gasoline and I remember I have not eaten anything
since the airport in Minneapolis.

1 - 19

There is nothing in my stomach
but I sip on cool words
without cream or sugar

I've always liked iced frappuccinos
day or night, it suppresses
an appetite

The deep down growl
of caffeine fix worn off, makes me
order up one more cup

I like to stay hungry

1-2

Where is Dharma again?

You thought me rude
to suggest that dharma
was just fate
with an extra syllable
and a wasted “h”

But Sophie laughed
saying I should leave
my Judeo-Christian paradigm
behind
in the last century
where it belongs

And poor Wendy
was confused
thinking
of Dharma
only in terms
of Greg

You stop to sip
the pale and tepid muck
that fate has served
as cappuccino
and notice
I’m not listening
and offer up
a penny for my thoughts

Aloud
I wonder if
there is any of the marsala left
and if so
for dessert
perhaps
I’ll whip
a zabaglione
into submission.

::

3.2

Lumi Blood


Grandma didn't speak
of it, like a social disease
hidden from sight.
We could pass for white

that's all that mattered then.
I was more than that,
French nose
Irish skin and eye.
Big toe:

just enough Indian blood
to fill the big toe,
the rest wonderbread.

Tribally unemployed twice
for looking too white.

Darkmaas Rag 1-19

Speed kills devil hills,
wright bro? (You know)
snowed off the freeway
on a wrong rune sand dune.

Sixer blew all outta tune:
oughta pitch er in the ocean,
lawd I gotta take a notion
to drag off race away
snake oil potion ain't the answer--
save your money honey
for another gray frost day.

My man Darkmaas
rode in, gimme some big eyes
new spin, new day tryin,
so I might take another chance
listen up when he say
stay up little girl, chin up,
totter these sad pegs once more
dance your tickle toes
ripple rise up, bear down
grounded on steady legs.

Pour scotch, single malt
platterfied Salome
absence makes the heart
bump sideways anyways
ain't nobody's damn fault
my eyes shored up.
I'm butterfly pinned
solid state hollow gold,
always here the collection
was bought, but I can't be
sold.

1:19

.
.

Children’s Children

They’re so young
full of energy,
yet they carry
the weight of the world
in swollen bellies
bought for the price
of a pill slipped
in drink, sipped and slid
in shop doorways
where smiles and deft fingers
find the quick thrill
that purges the possibilities
of their future.
.
.
.

SelenaKittyn said:

thank you...
I have a little birdy friend I hold in my heart-hands every day...

Click to expand...

That Higher Light
for Selena

Slow, after unincubated warmth,
no false full spectrum, but the deep radiance
of dawn softening and
cracking open your calcified heart,
you follow the penetrating light through
brittle translucense into
your chaliced hands.

Above fear, you raise up the
new bird of your heart, trembling
beneath curled wet crimson wings, trusting
that higher light and the free wind of its
breath to enter you, a dessication of
that old dark unshelled blood.

Your ancient bones, stronger, feeding
on the dust of your blood, arc through
the canopy of your wings, exposing
your soft doved breast, the pulse
of your new heart quickening
beneath that white fluttering down.

1-19

Midnight sun june
is dusk peaked in january
and still, life blares orange
from a few degrees abobe the edge
at tea time.

With a snap, crackle, pop
and a whine from the hall
a fuse wire snapped
due to fultile attempts
to fuel the kilowatt furnace
warming popsicle toes.

And soon, darkness,
because in spike of climax,
wire fried delicate tungsten
in every socket.

How many Swedes does it take
to screw in a lightbulb?

Just one, baby, if you hold the candle.

1-20 silly love song

you whisper stories
to my fingertips
and when you are gone,
they whisper back
against my cheeks
my lips taste your tales retold
before your whispers
shiver me into gooseflesh
and turn into more

1-19

At The Track

Roll over me as if protests
were merely ants beneath
the mass of steamroller
I want to be overwhelmed
by this personality.

Flatten each obstacle
I put in your way
inexhorable strength
bringing me to that place
you've decided on.

Once the way is smooth
roll over me as if need
were a banked corner oval
you race your sportscar on
to the checkered flag.

1 - 19

1-20

finally
a slip slide back
into each other's laps
nineteen day lapse
left us both malnourished
i could see my ribs baby,
from the lack of you
getting back to you
as if i never left
and you forgive me
as if i never left...
home is where you are.

1:20 Kitty Porn

Black fur and
white boots,
she is all
salient swish,
whiskers whetted to
fine-tuned frequencies.
Roguish rising arch,
a tail-up display
of tender pink flesh
as she begs
for your attention,
her rough, dry tongue
scratching every surface
as she rubs
a haughty dance
between your legs.

1-21 Not for crib mattresses either

the government warned us
over and over again

this bag is not a toy
(come on, really?)
this bag is not a toy
(but, but think of the possibilities)
seriously, I mean it, go get another toy

surfside deep 1-20

surfside deep in amber long necks?
baby I have more depth than that
how about margaritas at sunset
a little splash of Jack Black
somewhere in the midnight hour
after glow is a memory
waking up to three minute eggs
and a hardy Bloody Mary
let's do lunch over Long Island
Ice Teas, two apiece for effect
Oh Yeah! I'm way deeper....
or am I walking on my knees ?




thanks Sabina

3.2

Hoko River

You, silent stalk the bank
on sponged toes over quiet moss,

plunge hand quick
through forearm rippled
spring waters.

Pull the dark coho
from fresh depths
and turn with the prize

a boastful smile
coating your jaw
always the hunting brave,

blind in dogma
but I know,
his brilliance
is a sign of his impending
soft fleshed death.

1-3

from the desert
via Eden
to Jerusalem
from savanna
to suburbia
carrying shards
of almonds
and the trinkets
gleaned from
forty centuries

nothing changes
my Venus on the half shell
sharp objects may vary
but the universal centre
remains
that hidden cleft
of moisture
kept from prying eyes
by burka
or bikini

::

Fly 2::4

Gymnasium air thick with heat
and throbbing beat, the dark
so soft you could fall
into its arms. Pink poodles swirl
around hip-high hipsters in Harley
gear. They move like electrons
around a nucleus of sound, unknowable
speed or position. Their breath waits
for each moment like torn giftwrap;
an evening burns
with the furious fire of youth.

1-20

you da man now

strut
scream
snort

bang your drum
and your groupies
til sunrise

and wake up weeping

it all comes around
and there is no sin
for the sleeping

1-20

Compassion

I have seen that tears
do not make a happier
world nor does violence
beget peace on our small
blue planet but what
does seem to work when
these things fail
is laughter over sorrow
and tenderness above
war and above all
the cure for every evil
is found in the embrace
of compassionate love.

Summer Vacation 1-20

What to do with a broken day
whipped by winter? March
forward heads bowed
by wind and humility. We endure
the gray landscape, crunch
through midweek, sweatered
and double-socked, blown
weary through unthinkable
doors to one brief kindness:

She gave me honeydew melon,
pale green as torn linden branch
and carved for a banquet. One
half melon heaped with strawberries
ripe as July. No one wanted it
but me, and I scooped the flesh,
gulped like a greedy gus, saved
the berries for last just to stain
my mouth with a sunburnt respite
of summer in the eye of our storm.

1:20

Sundown and Cinnamon Buns

They find it hard to settle
on Sundays when rain
sweeps across the countryside
and they’re expected to wait
until their lovers are ready
to taunt and tease soft sighs
from the night,
to taste the bitterness
on the breeze that weaves
its way between sundown
and the cinnamon buns of breakfast
by a fireside that glows
copper streaks through a room
laden with sheepskin rugs
and wine.

1 - 20

1 - 20 Dirty Talk

oOo wee

clouds and memories 1-21

clouds and memories