30 Poems in 30 Days (Redux)

[Desejo]

3-5 Village Dance, Senegal

They dance
forest people, in
formations, tightly coiled
tendrils of motion
cornrowed in circles
turning in upon themselves.

They dance
sweat slicked vertebrae in the
village backbone, linking
four hundred kin, souls
shoulder to shoulder
turning in upon themselves.

They dance
slipping sideways through
sacred trees,
so tall that it is faster
to reach ancestors
than the invisible horizon
turning in upon itself

They dance
movement, stomp, step
the sound of blood
heartbeat in a fire
Rush in veins

Communal thump
of hearts and ritual
swallowing its own tail.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-23

Removed

 

[Tzara]

2-6

Souvenirs

Her poems are like her kiss, this one
Shy, delicate. Or fierce,
Depending on her mood. Small moons,
Each as if carved from quartz.

 

[Desejo]

3-6 That thing in my inbox

Starting at the top
Reply, delete, file
Almost to mythical
Zero inbox

Except that one

Past due. Flagged.
In red font.

That one never
Gets done, and if
You delete it
A status update will be received
The workplace albatross
That thing in my inbox.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-24

Removed

 

[Tzara]

2-7

The Beach

I laid my heart upon a beach
.....To bask in the warm sand
And see what love that it might fetch
.....What depths it might there sound.

Into the sand my lifeblood leached—
.....Osmotic pressure and
Abandonment were its dispatch—
.....The organ's loveless ruin.

 

[Desejo]

3-7 Woman on the train

I look up and see her
she is trying to hold it in,
but her insides have burst apart
and pain must find exits somehow
it's barbed teeth cut through every pore
and this is why saints cry teardrops of blood

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-25

Removed

 

[Tzara]

3-8

Trivial Pursuit

A simple pastime, poetry.
Its interlocking rhyme
Can be sometimes as grating as
Encountering a mime.





I know. Even worse than usual, but I went to the ball game today. Felix threw a one-hitter and I don't much feel poemic.

 

[Desejo]

3-8 Meditation

That sound rushing
In my head
What is it?
If I knew I could
Step back
Watch it run away.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-26

Removed

 

[Tzara]

3-9

Roué

My love life's like a thermostat
That's always turned up high.
It seems I can't stop shivering
When women wander by.

This trait has proven costly, one
That's never satisfied.
A glance, a wink, a whiff of scent—
My nerves hit overdrive

And off I go, just like a cat
Whose catnipped brain is fried.
Drop money, time, and common sense,
And last of all, my Pride.

Pursuit is all I think about
From Morn to Eventide,
Conniving with intelligence
To worm my way inside

Each lovely Belle whose bell has wrung
My waters to flood tide.
At last, when on her Loveliness
I'm finally astride,

The fever that has mastered me
Will suddenly subside
And just when I could use him most,
I'm Jekyll and not Hyde.

I'm hoping some prescription, say,
A pill you can provide
Will help with this predicament,
Put "up" in my Upside.

 

[Desejo]

3-9 Damn password

Again, I've forgotten
the iftah ya simsim
magic words tapped out
to crack open my thoughts
and let the genie expand
EXPAND, hear him laugh uproariously
tossing his pigtail back and stomping
a curled slipper.

I have lost Sheherazade's
secret skill of drawing out the
message, making it last forever
forgotten like a hidden theif
in a clay jar

Someone has poured
hot searing oil
on my memory, and
only my mothers maiden name
will iftah ya gmail.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-27

Removed

 

[Tzara]

3-10

Self-Explanatory

It's ballad meter: One beat, two
In the first line, and then
You beat the ballad back into
Simplistic rhyme again.




The great thing about formal verse is that you just have to satisfy the rule.

That makes it a poem, but not a good poem. Making it a good poem is harder. Like, way.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-28

Removed

 

[Desejo]

3-10 Why Rip Van Winkle slept

it was temptation in greens
and browns, heat radiating
off the boulders that an
angry glacier seeded
to form a mountain
it was a soft place of fir trees
whispering runes and
blueberry bushes waiting for
birds in the hush of
summer, and he was
alone, so he
slept.

 

[Tzara]

2-11

Ornithology

A bird calls for his mate, and she
Lands on a distant branch.
Were I to call my mate to me,
I’d likely feel her punch.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-29

Removed

 

[Tzara]

2-12

Song Sparrow

She flits about the tree like love
lives on another limb,
not on the one that she is on.
Her branch is just a slum.

 

[Trixareforkids]

1-30

Removed

 

[Tzara]

2-13

Late for Work

We've left the bed in disarray
And lie now on the floor.
And when I think we're finally done,
You smile and whisper, More.

 

[Tzara]

2-14

Darwin's Finches

In fifteen birds' diversity,
Young Darwin realized,
Descended from one common tree—
How speciation thrived.

 

[Tzara]

2-15

Drunk, on Poetry

I wandered lonely as a cloud
Through half-deserted streets,
For I was lost and really plowed—
My head fresh-poured concrete.

A yellow fog surrounded me,
Not cat nor daffodil.
And this is crap, not poetry.
I'll stop now and be ill.

 

[Tzara]

2-16

A Worker Blames His Tools

One rhyme, four lines. It alternates
First four, then three strong beats.
What kills the ballad stanza is
It endlessly repeats.