I Never Said That

Hannah over at 

imaginary garden with real toads

invites us to take inspiration for new poetry from Brainy Quote... so I find this...

I Never Said That

since when did I ever tell you you were insatiable?

okay so i said you could not be satisfied. okay. same same. i see,

well wait now just hold it right there I never... okay, nevermind, yes I did.

I never said that.

No Mere Breeze

When the craving comes around again

oh, forty-five minutes after the last

(such an addict) I step outside

Cocking a shoulder against a pesky breeze

ducking my head into the lee of me

for all the world like a bird, head-in-wing

I light up, puff…

My thoughts are still on inside things – work mostly

But over that cocked shoulder comes a little whispering song

“No mere breeze am I; I am spring’s very zephyr!

And he who feels me sees: trees budding pink as ever.”

Bemused, I take a gander around

and sure enough I spy a few small trees

just urging into first bloom

So fleeting… just a few days and the buds will be gone

beauty I’d never have noticed

but for the wind’s soft song

This ABC Wednesday, "J" is for...

When I sat down to consider what I might contribute for this week's ABC Wednesday, the first word that came to mind was jubilant. I am not feeling particularly jubilant today, however, so I gave that one a pass. By way of explanation there, I have been fighting some fatigue lately. I work a swingshift, and every few weeks, it catches up with me and all I want to do is sleep. So... not jubilant. More somnambulant, really. But, times like these, it's especially good to have some stimulation of the sort that this hop provides, so... I press on.

The second "J"which came to mind today was "Juicy Fruit." You know, the gum? I thought of the seminal scene from One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest when the enormous Native American whom Jack Nicholson's character calls Chief first speaks. Jack gives him a couple of pieces of Juicy Fruit, and Chief says, "Yeah. Juicy Fruit." Jack goes nuts. I thought of embedding that scene, but when I found it on YouTube, I realized that it entails some language which may not be appropriate for the hop here. Certainly don't want to offend anyone...

So here I am, wracking my brain for "J" number three. Oh, I know. Carl Jung. I devoted some time to the study of Jung some years back, and was fascinated to find that he had his own break with reality at one point. I wrote a poem about it. Here 'tis.

My Friend Showed Me His Painting
The eminent psychologist Carl Gustav Jung
When he was thirty-eight years of age
Went bananas
Just temporarily
He talked to himself -- ranting and raving
And played in his garden like a little boy

During the three years or so that he was bonkers
Dr. Jung wrote a weird little book
He said was dictated to him by
A wise, winged old man in his head
The book was about emptiness and fullness
About the devil and God and being human

Like I say, it's a weird little book
But there's this one part of it I'll mention
Because it fits well in my mind with
A painting my friend made and showed me
The painting, which is called 'Molt', is of an owl that died --
all whirring white & purple, drooping brown & blue

So the passage from Carl Jung's crazy book
Goes, "The daemon of spirituality
descendeth into our soul as the white bird...
The white bird... bideth with the mother"
The word 'daemon' sounds bad, but can mean
'divine power' or 'guardian spirit' too

Looking at this wild painting 'Molt' -- which is
What birds do to make room for a new growth
Of feathers, I'm thinking of Jung, who went on
to famously influence our science of the mind
It's as though he had to go good and mad himself
To get to where he could help us all stay sane  

I Dream a Flower

I dream a flower

Made of water

Full of wonder

I listen to it shine

Upon awakening

I rise to my desk

And transform the dream

With the greatest of ease

Into an object

Made of words

To present

To you

Among the Mirrors

Winter mornings of my childhood

The warmest place in the house

Is my parents’ empty bathroom

The vent beneath the sink there

Roars out hot air

Thawing me from the feet up

Above the sink are three mirrors

Behind them all the products

Which scent the room

The two side-mirrors are on hinges

And can be pulled in

To reflect one another

As I lean in among the mirrors

My bent body echoes into infinity

Like a flesh question mark

Enter my big brother

To snare my ear between thumb and forefinger

Give a tug and say

“Those mirrors will make you blind!”

Enter my mother

To kiss the crown of my head

And with her softness ask

“Do you hear the birds?”

And now I do hear them

Just outside the window’s shades

Interrogating the morning

"only the things I didn't do"

Yesterday, Mary posted a cool challenge in dVerse Poets Pub. We are to choose one line from the poem “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye and to use the line in a poem of our own. I chose the line "only the things I didn't do" and composed the following untitled poem - a sort of bucket list.

Most all regrets I eschew

Moments performed poorly

When I was off or boorish

Or just plain wrong

I don’t hold on to

Those memories I swallow hard

Choke on down

To acidic dissolution

So (occasional reflux aside)

Only the things I didn’t do

Stay stubbornly stuck

In my craw

Like cud

I didn’t see

The southern hemisphere

Became husband nor father

Doctor nor professor

Never drove a big rig

Didn’t jog, let alone run

A marathon

Haven’t body-built or surfed

Flown a plane or skydived

I did not learn karate or how to box

Or to kick ass in any way at all

How to draw, paint

Read music or really play

An instrument

I hold no patents

Owned never a boat

Nor land

And

I didn’t help other people enough

Didn’t say enough, “I’m sorry”

“I love you”

“Thanks”

You may say, it’s not too late!

You can still buy a boat

Pick up the guitar, find a wife,

Spend some time at the YMCA, then

Jog around Australia until you find a small, feeble man

And kick his ass

I’m not dying after all

Except in the slow, everyday way

Barely over the hill, really

But I smart at the sting of opportunity forgone

I hear the shudder of closing windows

The creak of closing doors upon which

Knocks will come no more

wee ditty

a little bit of tapwater in my coffee
little bit of menthol in my smoke
little bit of you to make me feel happy
call me up at midnight, tell me a joke

The Silent Pines

In a stand of fine, tall pines I stood

Bemused by all the unused wood

So very many multipurpose shelves

Could be made by the IKEA elves

All those shelves and all they could hold

Books and bottles and knickknacks untold

All crowded together there in my mind

As I stood among the silent pines

It was the silence that got to me finally

Quieted my imaginings and let me see

That the trees, all unused, just as they were

Were worth much more than furniture

We see potential and want to put a thing to use

But often, like love, it’s better to turn it loose

Instead of grabbing it like the handle of a tool

Or loading its back like some poor mule

Love’s not a mule, and a tree’s not a shelf

That’s what I remind myself

These days, when I catch myself thinking

Of whys, wherefores, and the purpose of things

One More Down The Conveyor

Are my eyes picking up the light from this screen

Or is the screen drinking in my light?

I’ve been at it all day again

All. Damn. Day.

Hunched over the keys in this ratty old chair

Working my way through yet another pot of coffee

And filling up the filthy glass ashtray

There are so few people in my life

In real life

It’s got to be good for me to interact online

But damn

So many hours of nothing but computing

Today I am a poetry machine

I found a site replete with ideas of what to write about

And I’ve been cranking out poems one after the other

Over a dozen other users of the site have commented kindly on my work

Strokes the old ego, no bones about it

Thing is, this idea site I’m using actually forces you to read other people’s poetry

It’s brilliant, really, how it works

For every poem you submit, you have to comment on two others

So I know that these dozen comments I’ve gotten are somewhat…

Artificial? Superficial? What do you call a mandatory compliment?

At least you get to pick which poems you feel like remarking on

They picked mine. That much is true

Every time I finish a poem and submit it to the site

I’m prompted to share it throughout my social networks

And I do. Sure – why not?

I check every once in a while to see whether anyone’s liked my Facebook posts

Or favorited or retweeted me on Twitter

How is it that this is simultaneously so supercool and so pitiful?

I’m engaged in the creation of a species of art

And not in a vacuum; I have an audience

Yet there’s something so contrived about the whole process

And technology has a way of cheapening art, doesn’t it

Plus there’s desperation in my bidding for and lapping up attention

I have thousands of followers on Twitter

My Facebook posts show up in scads of people’s feeds

My social networking popularity is not because of my poems

One of my hobbies  is seeking out contests and giveaways all over the web

And tweeting and posting about where and how to enter them

That’s how I built up such a substantial following

Everybody loves a chance at something for nothing

So but now I’m ticker-taping all these giveaway enthusiasts with poetry

Art-spamming the prize-seekers

I just traded the coffee mug for a brandy snifter

Which will put me to bed before long

A whole damn lonesome day of conveyor belt poetry

How fraught with paradox, how queer, how postmodern

Delivering Virginia's Invitation (for a contest for noobs on AllPoetry.com)

Delivering Virginia's Invitation


tap tap tap
...
tap tap tap
...

you've got your eye to the peephole, but see no one at your door
give me a break; I'm short

tap tap tap

"Who's there?" sounding maybe surlier than you meant to

this whole apartment building smells like a hospital
and your floor is the worst

tap tap tap

"Look, I'm not going to open the door until you say who you are."

perfectly reasonable... except you're assuming I can speak

an old lady comes wheezing out of the stairwell
as she passes, her eyes are glued to me
it unsettles me how beautiful they are, her eyes
a rare pale green, flecked with gold

tap tap tap

i hear your muttered curses as you work the chain to open the door
i have always had very good ears. too good. when i turned ten
and mom let me leave the trailer to go bunk in the bigtop
with the other performers
i had a hard time sleeping because of the breathing
of the dancing bear

"I'm going to open the door now." why bother saying that
you silly goose, daft old bint, just open the door already

"Oh!" is all you say when you see me
i don't mind
i'm used to wide eyes and tangled tongues

i try my winningest smile as I hold out the printed card

thank heavens you have the presence of mind to accept it
after only a moment's pause
i don't want to spend any more time than i have to
in the antiseptic fug of this god-forsaken building

YOU ARE CORDIALLY INVITED, reads one side of the card

as you turn it over, i wonder
whether the tremble of your hand is just old age
or whether you know already somehow

have we got plans for you!

"Dear Virginia DeMore," you read aloud,
"Your presence is most humbly requested
"At tonight's exclusive private performance
"Of Hucklethorpe's Travelling Menagerie."

you look up from the card
then down at me
standing here with my teeth hanging out

you're not shaking anymore
and the way you stand
just a little taller than a moment ago
tells me you're remembering

regaining a certain forgotten dignity

you don't know though, not yet
no, you haven't really a clue

what lies in store for you

Wooden-hearted Daughter

wooden-hearted daughter

breathing down his neck

crisp words of concern for his health

pure hatred only halfway beneath

finally rocking back on her heels

and slapping the glass from his hand

to shatter and splash across the floor

the whiskey that he’s needing so

to keep from coming apart

at the seams

(click pic for more takes on this 12-word prompt)

She Blows the Candle Early Cold

She Blows the Candle Early Cold


That Autumn, I tell you! You see
She’s so hard on herself it’s killing me

Would-be lazy morning-afters, now I startle wakeful
At the awful, bitter laughter, so self-hateful
That she hurls at the mirror as she stands
Probing grays and wrinkles with hard hands
“Where’s your green going?” she’ll say
“Less and less and less each day!”

Would-be romantic dinners she sits
Poking scornfully at her tits
“Not so perky are we now?”
And my love won’t eat, calls herself a cow
Won’t hear otherwise; heedless of all the times she’s told
She’s lovely, she blows the candle early cold

And now the lights have always to be off
Her lips are hard where once so soft
Then she’ll toss, then rise and pace
No peace no more in our poor place
“Please my love, come back to bed…”
“You’ll love another when I’m dead.”

Maybe I will! Maybe I’ll start tomorrow
And leave her in her spiteful sorrow
Go find me a fey, flowershop girl
Who’ll giggle and pull on a shy curl

When I pat her plump bum and wink

Still got in in me! (leastwise I think)

I’d leave right now, I would, I’d go
If I only didn’t love Autumn so

Some Spookiness for Phoenix Rising

No Tricks This Year


The savor of turkey sat still on our palates, there under the sweet of apple tarts

As we perambulated our bellies, which really would rather be still

Out of our houses and into our yards.


In the streets, at first there was just a sort of…

A sort of a whispering, wheezy, dustily rattley

Rustle, rustle rustle…

Then pretty quick those little rustles were a whistle - a shriller and shriller, building whistle

And before we knew it, wow, that whistle was a hooooowl! A shrieeeek! A waaail! A whomp!


Thus presaged, in gradually increasing grades of noise

Out of the darker surrounding darkness, into our own shadowy outside spaces

Came…


Children?


Is that what they were?


All we could see were the orangey sheens of the hollow plastic pumpkins they presented to be filled.

All we could smell was their billowing, collective breath: like unto burnt spices and breads it was.

All we could feel was the cold brush of their little hands, the rasp of their scratchy sweaters

As they reached past our wrists and into our bowls, those innumerable enormous bowls we bore

Full of candy!

Brimming full of all manner of treats – of the little sweet bribes with which we sought to appease them

(“No tricks,” we whispered - whether to them, to each other or ourselves, there was no real knowing.)

(“No tricks this year,” we repeated, over and over – our mantra, our poem, our plea…)

Not a word did they reply.


And soon – not soon enough, mind you, but soon – when the last deathly chill little hand had snatched

The last of the coveted treats from the last of the bowls – those innumerable, enormous bowls –

Out of our shadowy outside spaces, back into the darker surrounding darkness, they rushed

Like vapors drawn into a void

And were gone.

{click the image to visit the guild}

Linking in also to dVerse, where you will find other Halloween poems...

Verse First + Poetics = Moonshine Grid

The Poets United prompt is "patterns"...

And dVerse suggests this format -

 AB AB rhyme scheme in 10-syllable lines, with an odd duck 13-syllable line in between. 

Here's what Hobgoblin2011 has to allow about that one-off middle line:

The single line does not fit any of the criteria, it is thirteen-syllables (symbolic for bad luck) and delivers a third end rhyme (an odd number), one that will not find it’s match. So, in it, just by breaking form, we turn this line into the focus of the piece, it stands alone, and also acts as a recap of the stanza prior and a lead-in to the stanza yet to come. The fact it has no match is both symbolic of loneliness and foreshadows what will be. Then, there is the case of where the line is placed. The line splits the past and the future. It acts as a physical split to a poem where a break is indeed what takes place and lingers overhead, a symbol/metaphor once again. Yet being in between, it also adds symmetry and a mirrored effect, where the image is returned conversely.

I dig his involved conceptualization. So here's my (untitled) offering, which I'm also linking up with yeah write:

Cute Zen garden his boss says is 'foreign'

He patterns the sand with the rake a while 

It really works. He feels his breath. He calms, becomes still 

Opening the tiny book called Koan 

He loosens his necktie and his eyes smile

Writing the Fibonacci: On Being and the Tao

Oh my - over at Poets United, they've challenged all comers to write a Fibonacci poem...