30 Poems in 30 Days (Redux)

[Tzara]

3-15

Materialism

I miss your posts. The repartee
of our flirtation seemed to not
be simply sampled potpourri,
mere herbs, but a love strongly wrought

from welded A's and B's and C's.
Your body, laid out casually,
I love to walk along and seize—
for bodies are causality.

.

 

[Tzara]

3-16

Small Poem

Although you live quite far away
I think about you oftentimes.
I do not wish to overplay
this. It's not love. Well, is, sometimes.

.

 

[Tzara]

3-17

Bop

I leave a can of paint.
Blue paint, if it matters,
to cover the sidewalk.

When I walk it, I hear a trumpet.
Kind of off-beat, on-beat
fooling with the tune

like anyway this would be
the rhythm of my life
so when I spill the can on my street

it's alright.

 

[Tzara]

3-18

Spring

The way some bird calls curl into the air—like aural flowers, yellow.

 

[Tzara]

3-19

Little Red Riding Hood

She left tracks as she walked into the woods. Temptation, perhaps. Or sex.

 

[Tzara]

3-20

February

and any flowers
that open themselves this early
remind me of you

.





I know. It's now March.It's like a poem, OK?

 

[Tzara]

3-21

Divorce

The plums are blooming,
ecstatic, wonderful,
that way that spring is. Bursting

with life. So why don't
we take this verdant opportunity.
Can we finally decide how to share Jay's life?

.

 

[Desejo]

4-1 Still, I will try

this attempt is doomed
to email, missed flights and time changes
Nollywood sagas, Skype messages and SMS

doomed to hotel sheets
a room service knock, groaning air con
and reading the world
alphabetically (B: Barbados)
it takes time, you know

this attempt is doomed
to consideration of increasing silver hair
and an upcoming half century mark
of being female

Lean in to that.

 

[Tzara]

3-22

Love: A Kind of Sonnet

I could assemble all my happiness
like a pile of old clothing
to be donated to those needing

anything at all to wear.
But when I leave my heart to you,
this little nest of kindling

that you could light with
simply a scratched match
becomes a bonfire,

something celebratory,
like the way that we can talk
about baseball or even politics.

I'd love to say my love for you would burn,
but it might only smolder, like a fire that just refuses to go out.


.

 

[Tzara]

3-23

Double

We circle each other like a closed system,
a binary star, two bodies yoked
by an invisible attraction, yet kept
apart by the stubbornness of inertia.
Celestial mechanics rule us, its harsh laws
unmoved by our plight, our distance
ordained by variables we cannot change,
by values of which we are only dimly aware.
So, locked into our orbital dance,
forever spinning about a common center
that neither of us will ever touch,
never able to approach, never wanting
to recede, all we can do is bask
in each other's distant, brilliant light.

.

 

[Desejo]

4-2 Misplaced Winter

I'm trying, really
to fit in this tiny seat
made for warm weather
sweaty legs and butts
not woolen shrink wrapped
T-Rex arms around
a wooly mammoth body

I'm not trying, really
to touch Madame's boobs or belly
under purple poof coat, though
she leans her whole body
against the center pole
like Xena wielding a sword
ai yai yai yai yai

I'm trying, really
to keep in my lane
on the escalator but
I am not a horse and the
blinder of my hat,scarf and
hair isn't helping

Then, of all things, a seagull
at the exit, barefoot in the snow.

 

[Tzara]

3-24

Broken English

is often only chipped, a platter
whose rim's defaced by one small nick
that happened long ago. No matter
how unintentional the snick
the errant knife of Old World lingo
was that marred this surface—bingo!
The egg or dish, once damaged, can't
be remade whole, again enchant
the prejudicial native speaker,
whose nose juts skyward in disgust
(for language limns the Upper Crust
and separates them from those meeker).

Unless, of course, yon maid is French
and really quite a pretty wench.

.

 

[Desejo]

4-3 Daydreams

subjunctive memories,
the maybe ones,
unexpected names in margins
occult coffee break research:
must Leo eat Pisces, or
could they swim together
in parallel waves
communicate in clicks, howls
and sighs like dolphins?

 

[Desejo]

4-4 Women's day

Women's day

Her directness is appreciated…
but can be off-putting
to those who do not know her​

 

[Tzara]

3-25

Problems with Sculpture

I could never afford a girl
like you, one
chiseled from perfect stone.

Marble is cold
and wholly unlike flesh.
and while I can touch these carved folds,

they are not fresh.

.

 

[Desejo]

4-5 Morning Commute

eyes closed, listen:
the drone of Ta toom ta toom

muffled-echoes of tunneled rhythm, here
deeper moans, stretched, here

a lurch, adjustment,the
possibility of another route
another way

Ta toom ta ta toom

Opening my eyes is difficult.

 

[Tzara]

3-26

Kind of Blue (Interpretation 1)

mournful little trumpet notes,
like slow flies narcotized by heat
drift idly by

................beat


........................by


.............................beat

 

[Desejo]

4-6 Bedside Manner

A growth, he says, white
maggot fingers plying
brown wrinkles of skin
we cannot treat this, not
here

cataract blue eyes serious,
He takes her hands
speaks softly
as if this village woman understands,
Please,

tell her
We will make her comfortable
Do what we can for the pain
And give her what care we can

He says many things, but
I say

Go home, mama,
you will die soon

Because there is nothing more to say.

 

[Tzara]

3-27

Seventeen Syllables

The blue veil compliments your eyes.
I would rather, though, see your loosed hair.

 

[Desejo]

4-6 Why the Dutch Doctor learned Seswatu

I held her hands
work cracked, dry
and low-toned explanations
to sooth, to soften such an
unkind diagnosis, unkinder still
As it could not be delivered directly

I chose words
carefully, important words
to be remembered, refined, rendered,
communicated in a traditional phrase, perhaps
to comfort

I paused, waited
and became a character in a kung fu movie,
one sentence barked, and lips moving
With no corespondent sound.

One sentence.

The bloodshot brown eyes unreadable
the slow gathering of her things
The final slap of threadbare flip flops
On hospital concrete,

I could not even say goodbye.

 

[Tzara]

3-28

Meter
A Poem for Todski, sort of.

I think that sound itself's exciting,
the ups and downs of English stress
that constitutes metrical writing
especially in poems. No less
authority than Frost asserted
that he would be not so diverted
by poeming with form unset:
"That's playing tennis without net!"
The crusty Vermonter, assaying
what had become of modern verse,
like Cummings, Eliot, and worse,
was likely crying, perhaps praying
for a return to simple rhyme
and meter. Could now be it's time?

.

 

[Desejo]

4-7 Existing Protocols

I stand upon existing protocol
Welcome this august delegation
…….though it is July
to the land of uncommon transformation!

(Applause)

These ladies here, all HIV positive
……. had no hope.
listen:

Aie - yoo, I am finished! I am done
they say I have the virus,
……..No sister, it is not the end
I was like you but look at me, now
I have medicine and, now
work to feed my family
reason to live

uncommon transformation.

In the hotel, I consider this.
uncommonly tall hookers
uncommonly long blonde extensions
Prancing around me in heels,
uncommonly high.

 

[Tzara]

3-29

The question is though do I really want to write poetry about (for example) Valvoline Motor Oil?

You probably don't, but I'm quite happy to:

Last Dance Texaco

Now is it really unaesthetic
to pen a poem on motor oil?
Especially Valvoline Synthetic,
the Petrol Product Poster Goil!
She battles sludge and keeps things running
with purity and native cunning
in single- or in multi-grade
your engine's parts she'll serenade.
So if you find performance plodding
and things aren't working right inside,
just try some Auto-Astroglide
to perk things up with little prodding.
So when your engine starts to groan,
please lube with V. before it's blown.​

Madison Avenue here I, uh, come.

 

[Desejo]

4-8 Eris, on Eros

Tiresome, this love
one pledges pledges to protect,
sealing the deal in champagne
drunk toasts, joint-checking and
rings that grow tighter yearly; no
hem to let out to allow one to
breathe.

I do, admit — it adds sweet edges
to nibble, fugu sushi style,
tongues tentative - wondering which
bite will be fatal.

When, instead of minestrone,
you will find a boiled pet rabbit
in the stock pot, its dead eye
floating accusingly in a bath
of bridal fur.

 

[Tzara]

3-30

Finis

Think of this poem as my wave
from the back window
of a receding car traveling
away along the Interstate,
my hand blessing you all
in the manner of a clueless priest:
Be good in my absence.
Remember how we laughed
and swore and argued and how
we all loved language as if it were
mother of us all. As, of course it is.
And please do not be irritated
with the small bits of paper,
the pencil nubs, I've left around.
Use them as tinder to ignite
another—your—kind of sound.

יְבָרֶכְךָ יהוה, וְיִשְׁמְרֶךָ
יָאֵר יהוה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וִיחֻנֶּךָּ
יִשָּׂא יהוה פָּנָיו אֵלֶיךָ, וְיָשֵׂם לְךָ שָׁלוֹם

.