007 Challenge

[Angeline]

1-4

On Buckingham Mountain
we laid a plaid blanket on the grass.
The wind blew and whispered
through the eaves of St. Gilead's
as if the runaway slaves, free
at last under the broken stones
would tell us their stories
if only we'd listen.

They say when wind blows hard
there you can race the devil,
but we ate our sandwiches
and got each other too scared,
for the clouds loomed gray
and the hour late enough
to dim the sky, so we raced
each other to the car, laughing
so hard we gasped.

 

[Angeline]

Angeline, beautiful cadence and complexity. Thank you.

Thank you, dear girl. That was an old one I rewrote. Some of yours are putting me back in NYC and you know how I love that.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another three

Faking brave is
Necessary as black coffee
To brush and shoe and leave
Each day and believe the same key
That locks behind me will let me home.
The secret stone
In the pocket with the smaller hole
Is calcified but fingers read
Words you spoke and
The breaths between.

 

[Angeline]

Faking brave is
Necessary as black coffee
To brush and shoe and leave
Each day and believe the same key
That locks behind me will let me home.
The secret stone
In the pocket with the smaller hole
Is calcified but fingers read
Words you spoke and
The breaths between.

This is excellent!

 

[cherries_on_snow]

You inspired it with the poem before. Such elegance in the reframing of terror.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Also Tzara, such haunting and precise poems. You are a skilled surgeon, sir.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another four

Confession often poses as the truth.
Red dress, black shoes, and similar in gait
As reconstructed from projection booth
Can make residual guilt articulate.

The tall one did it. Everybody knew.
"Come on," the jury said. "That isn't grief!"
"He bought a sports car. Joined up with a crew."
Consensus conjures fact from its belief.

The breadless circus then takes custody
And shadow puppets narrative to fit
The prejuduce du jour 'till rhapsody:
"I guess I must have done. I did. I did it."

The hidden camera finishes the trick.
Meanwhile the real fox slays another chick.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Sorry the topic of that one is so unsexy. I have been warching The Confession Tapes. I will walk in the park before I write the next one.

 

[Angeline]

1-5

We climbed the stone steps
up Bowman's Hill Tower,
high up and narrow, the last
a scary spiral to the parapets.

We saw neither Hessian soldiers
nor ghosts of Revolutionary men
whose bones lay far below
beneath pitted gray markers

set in the ground, just fields
of asters, spiderwort, spice bushes
spread out toward farms, toward
the low rock walls that divided them.

The Delaware is still a silver needle
threading through giants oaks
and whip thin beeches. We'd lean
over the parapet and holler any

thing that popped in our fool heads--
just imagine what went on up there
and no one cared or even seemed
to notice, but

that was long ago

before farmers sold their land
to developers, before the Tower
was rehabbed, before the parking
lot, the admission booth, guards.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Ange, that should be published. Solid goosebumps.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another five

Some years there were letters,
Tens of them in any given month.
Some years there were airplanes
The teacher crushed.
Some years notes from a bus,
prayers of a monk.
Some years just got swallowed whole
Words and all.
Soon my friend will land right
In my page. I will see your words
Before you say them.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another five

Some years there were letters,
Tens of them in any given month.
Some years there were airplanes
The teacher crushed.
Some years notes from a bus,
prayers of a monk.
Some years just got swallowed whole
Words and all.
Soon my friend will land right
In my page. I will see his words
Before they are said.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another six

Citywide, subways are serviced by micro
Entrepreneurs who carry fruit snacks and chips
Car to car, two for a dollar.
A mother explains an honest job
Is an honest job. Her boy asks
Does he want to do it?
Mother poses
Does he want to live?
I buy a dollar Pringles.
The boy gets a Welches.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another five

Some years there were letters,
Tens of them in any given month.
Some years there were airplanes
The teacher crushed.
Some years notes from a bus,
prayers of a monk.
Some years just got swallowed whole
Words and all.
Soon my friend will land right
In my page. I will see his words
Before they are said.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Another seven

Hats By Bunn

A crooner at The Shrine agrees
Noone beats Bunn's fedora.
Finest hat you ever wore
Down Autumn as it fell.
It's late for straw outside but in
One jazz we sway. Ride
Out the minor storm to drink
Resolve. At the foot of 7 pm
A hat will pass, but not
The one by Bunn.

 

[Angeline]

1-6 (crawling to the finish line)

Childhood

I ate fat purple grapes
off the vine on Mr. DiGeorgio's roof,
a sweet, juicy pleasure
to sit among the green
rows, Sun and shadow in diamond
patterns, the deep earth
scent rising around me three
flights up above cars and street noise.

There were no computers,
not even Pong, not even ping pong.
No fooseball. All the whiz bang
gimcrack carny games, the tilt-a-whirl
and painted horses were miles away,
down the shore. I didn't have
appointments or scheduled
enrichment, but I could climb

in Hank and Jane's cherry orchard
any time I wanted to perch
up high and pick the sweet bings,
rouge my mouth with them
sucking on the fruit spitting
the pits at my long lost

sister.

There was a bench
in the sideyard. Daddy planted
climbing roses on the trellis
surrounding it and I had
a thousand magic adventures
there, wrinkles in time, rides
on the Damon Runyon Omnibus.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Ange, I love reading your poems. Thank you.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

1

Kiss or bite
From sinking couches?
Whatever.

No harm done.
Words rise to fall regardless of
How clever.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

2

Imagine it broken already.
Already dust. Gone.
Then fury finds no harbor.
Walk
Nude. New. Atomize
A better story
Under bare feet.

 

[Angeline]

Ange, I love reading your poems. Thank you.

And I love reading you and hearing you read. You have such a wonderful reading voice imho. You should record something for our Let's Hear It thread here. Maybe a few selections from this thread? I love your hat poem. Now I have to check out Bunn hats!

 

[cherries_on_snow]

3

Admittedly, I have been biased--
Rooting for mammals from the go.

But roaches die legs up
Offering the tender center
To whom? To what?
Do they acquiesce or
Is armor just too heavy
At last.

I hated, sprayed, stomped
Years and years. Screeched!

Now it's quiet.
I acquit anything
Beyond the sacred bed, sink
Or tub.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

4

Allegedly the shop sells chandeliers
On Bowery. Ride the lift to second floor
Where members pass the desk as cavalier
As unicorns or those who played before.
BYOB but tip before you climb
The stairs to limbo: men who came alone
On full moon hope and hundred dollar shine.
Ignore the lot. They weigh as ragged bone.
Ascend to outer sanctum. Lose the crowd.
Still, couches couch the breathless safe as shade.
Beyond the curtain, those few who're allowed
Are bonfire lit with lust at last obeyed.
The morning ashes whisper only this
Lit code for chandelier: remember bliss.

 

[Angeline]

Lovely sonnet, D. Really good.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

Thanks. Bowery Bliss is one of my favorite late night spots.

 

[cherries_on_snow]

5

Low light Sunday
Says call him. Get more
Crackle in.

Monday head says wait
Up. Pass that number
Over here.

Good gets better
Stewed.