8/23/21 - But What Does It Mean?

​

like soft hands

like soft hands
stroking

sweet-breath
summer breezes

midnight lover
​

Transitions

Shadrach in the Fiery Pit

This poem is by Cynthia Zarin, from her first book, The Swordfish Tooth, published by Knopf in 1989.



Snail

In the breeze of the propped-open green door
I lay my head against your leg
and tasted salt.

And in the last light I felt myself
close kin to the snail you found.
Amber, primordial,

lossed from the lettuce tongues
it crawled across your palm,
its searching head a sure

iambic bob, then quivering -
shining breast wheel
turned pull-toy, dragooned

by a lucid, creeping milky finger.
All week, my mind interior,

I watched the snail
lit by its whorl
traveling along your sun-tanned hand;

cartographer of the myserious
male life,
its loping, upward arching line.
​

Autumn light

MOONWALK

walking
under a full November moon,
a bright, shadow-casting moon,
the stone steps down to the creek
shining liquid white
as I step from stone to stone
carefully, barefoot,
conscious of the caution to diabetics,
"watch you feet, always guard your feet
"
but the moon is too full,
the night too bright to watch anywhere but up,
neck-stretching , to the bright disc,
gleaming in the sky like a silver dime in the sky,
passing as I walk beneath the bottom side of tree branches
gasping black against the glare of the moon

bright moon eclipsing the stars
as I open the creaking gate
to walk beside the creek...

it's 4 a.m. - the frogs and birds still sleeping,
the water stumbles over limestone rocks,
tremnbles as it flows through the grassy creek...

I stand, showered in moon-shine,
turn, climb back up the hill
on the gleaming white stones,
back to bed,
having drunk my fill of November night
and moonglow

​

Best friend's best friend

adrift in cold storage
I'm looking
for a poem
this morning
but can't find it
because of all the
other crap
cluttering my head
that I don't want
to write about

it's like trying
to listen
to a Chopin etude
in a thin-walled apartment
while your neighbor
is pushing Metallica to the max
but perhaps it's possible
to push tiny balloons
between the prickly bushes
without getting pricked

`````
cold morning,
a fur-bundle of huddled cats
at my doorstep,
winter-fat cats demand food
every time they see me

`````
dark all day,
winter vistas gray
and dreary

`````
trees
skeletal
against roiling sky -
bony limbs over-reaching

`````
birds outside my window -
their winter song,
"turn up the heat"{
"turn up the heat"

`````
ice on the birdbath -
no skating allowed

`````
search the drawer
for winter socks...
big toe arctic explorer
poking out

`````
dog scratches at the back door,
wants out,
but not for long

`````
man walking dog,
bundled-wrapped
with hat and gloves
dog lover in winter-
best friend's
best friend

`````
with snow,
beauty in the mornng -
without,
just cold and bare
​
`````
chill winds
blow shivers and sneezes -
better still
than August or July

​

THE BEGINNING OF THE END OR THE END OF THE BEGINNING OR JUST ANOTHER DAMN DAY IN THE LIFE OF BEGINNINGS-ENDINGS

I was going to write a poem
about how miserable everything is
how the lunatics have taken over the asylum

how good things everywhere are hightailing it
for the low hills and high gulches
how the bad guys have stolen
all the white hats
and posture and preen and pretend
they are the good guys who are off somewhere
eating crackerjacks and drinking lattes
and smoking rose-tipped cigarettes,
mute and blind to the ravages of their absence,
content in their philosophy of okey dokey
pass the smokeys while the world burns
with the riders of the apocalypse going eehaw
through the great divide of hip and hop
and spit and spot
and drip and drop and
pip and pop and duck and fuck
and chickety cluck

and eeehaw we ride, they say
our grim teeth gnashing and you run
your white ass flashing in the light
of the dying moon

you had your chances, they say,
now it's our time to ride,
gnashing
eeehawing
in the light of the dying moon,
we are the riders of you inconsequential doom

you betcha

and I've gone old and my damn coffee's gone cold
and my left foot's gone sleepy,
twitching like jello in a junk-jar from jiom-jam jarheads,
and I don't know jack, spratt
garage
sales

and that's just the beginning of it...
but nobody wants to hear all that
so I'll just start over, junk this jerky poem
and write a new one about blue birds
and puffy-fluffy clouds
and shit like
that

​

​From 2017/18 , in the midst of the Trumpian attack on everything decent and wise. I was thinking the photo above of the greedy winged beach rats was appropriate illustration.

JUST BECAUSE THIS POEM IS ABOUT IDIOTS DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN IT'S A POLITICAL POEM THOUGH I ADMIT IT DOES MAKE IT MORE LIKELY

trying to write a poem this morning,
maybe something
about how the wind is blowing,
shaking up the trees,
snapping the flag over at USAA
(I bet if I was outside I could hear it pop in the wind)
and the possibility of thunderstorms,
welcome rain, and if it does come, a good strong rain,
I'll be out in my backyard, naked,
stomping and sliding in the mud when the first raindrop falls,
flapping and rolling in the grass
like a bird chasing worms,
and the biscuit and gravy I had for breakfast
was especially good this morning...

but politics continue to invade, steady against the wind,
not the national stuff about which I have given up in despair,
resigned to waiting for the next election,
retaining some hope that all those insane fucks
from the last election will be sent packing back
to whatever hole they crawled out of...

no, not talking about those national intellectual
and moral abominations, but the more local type,
the Texas Legislature winding up
its bi-annual 180 day session, dominated
by Republicans, the same kind of slime-sucking snakes
brought to us nationally by the last election,
ending one of the most dishonorable sessions since secession

like yesterday, heading into the las frantic days of the session,
three pieces of last minute skullduggery -

the "let's go-shoot-our-professors" guns in classroom bill,
and the "too-damn-many-poor-democrats" voter ID bill,
and the "let's-send-all-them-damn-meskins-back-to-Arizona"
sanctuary cities bill

and the months to the next elections seem to stretch
further and further away every day,
especially when I hear a couple of Democrats
at the table next to me yesterday
about how we shot bin Laden when we should have given him
a party hat and a party horn and brougt him back here
for questioning, like in "Law and Order," but only after
having his rights read to him in seven languages,
including Sign and I'm thinking, holy shit! are these the idiots
who I have to look to to get rid of the other idiots
and, see, that's why I'm tired of thinking about politics
cause it seems all you ever have is a choice of which idiots
you're going to let give you heartburn next...

but then it might rain
and I might go sloshing in it
and I've heard some folks are trying to talk
Tommy Lee Jones into running for Senate
in Texas and that'd be almost as much fun

THE BEAUTY OF ORIGINAL SIN

"Abyss of Eros,
beauty of original sin."
wrote the Korean poet

think
how exciting
it must have been,
how delectable, delightful,
outright beautiful that first sin,
the original sin, the concept , “sin” unknown
until the thing, the sin, was done…

doesn’t make any difference
what it was…

maybe it was the eating
of forbidden fruit
like the book
says
or maybe it was sex,
or less complicated than that,
maybe it was when he first noticed the curve of her breast,
the round perfection of her ass, and liked it,
or maybe it was her sin, seeing
the arrogance of his massive cock, erect,
so different, she thought, from the little nubbin
that hung so humbly between his legs before,
and she imagined so many uses for it…
or maybe it was something more abstract,
maybe just a random thought, the one or the other
or the both thinking something
that hadn’t been inserted for them to think,
something that they thought up all on their own, maybe
it was just that creativity, impinging on the realm
of he who created all and reserved creation
as a thing only for him…
or maybe it wasn’t that complicated…
it could have been something as simple and small
as putting a slug in a parking meter -
but no difference, a thing large or small, it was wonderful,
it was new, it was the first and it was original,
the first original thing for them, and, thus, by the rules
it was, in its originality, a sin, the original sin, and it was
beautiful…

they may have wondered later if that sin was worth
its consequence, but to no avail, for in their wonder they sinned
again, there was no turning back..

​

My backyard several year back. It was a really good year, no freeze, no drought, and things just grew and grew.

FAST TIMES AT THE FLATONIA FOLLIES

BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

sky
hanging low and
heavy
this morning,
clouds dark and deep -
something's up

`````
that's the way
this poem begins
what's next?
what are these
heavy
low
dark and deep
clouds predicting
this morning?

~~~~~

are the
heavy
low
etc.
clouds
a representation
of smoke, the fires of the apocalypse
burning again today,
the first sparks
here in the Texas hill country
of the conflagration
that will sweep the world
in the final throes of
judgement
day,
brimstones
next on the agenda
I know some hardshell
ecclesiasticals
who would buy into that
in a minute,
unquestioning believers
in every chapter,
verse, word, period, comma and colon
of the Word
which says and they agree,
we're due our heavenly smiteance
andy day now
and all these
low
heavy
etc.
clouds prove the time is here

hallelujah, praise be to He who smites


~~~~~

on the other hand
all these etc. clouds could be
sign of the first wave
of alien invasion,
like in that movie,
huge alien spaceships
pushing their broad gray noses
out of the clouds any minute now
aliens
with teeth and tentacles and tiny feet
with twisted talons
come to eat our brains,
rape our women, and
abduct our children for slave labor
in the potato mines
of the barren planet
Bitselboogerish -
aliens
come to cut down our trees,
build massive pulp factories
to turn our trees into cardboard
for cheap tinnis shoes to sell in China
before they eat their brains,
rape their children,
abduct their women
for slave labor in pasta mines
on the other side of Bitselboogerish
where buffalo no long roam
and skies are cloudy all day,
where seldom is heard a discouraging word
since everyone is under ground
digging for potatoes and pasta
and you can't hear them moaning
discouragingly
topside...

I have a brother-in-law
who would buy into that,
a watcher-for-aliens in the night,
discouraged because he's never seen one
except in the movies where they always get it wrong,
waiting every night for his inevitable abduction
for weird alien science
sexual experiments on the average
alien-believing male when awarded conjugal visits
with their Lady Gaga simulation,
plastikiey, but pliable
and open to new ideas as to
more unusual practices of conjugality,
they just want to see how it all works
and he's willing to show them
if they're willing to take him back with them
to their fantastical home planet
of noodle and
noze

~~~~~

or it could just be that the clouds,
all low
and heavy
and dark
and deep
are just the precursor to rain...

but that's just one crazy idea too many...
if I was you, I'd go with the apocalyps or aliens
if you're wanting to bet
with the odds

​

This poem is by Robert Bonazzi and is taken from his book, Maestro of Solitude, published by Wings Press in 2007.

The poem startled me as I read it because it seemed it could be me, about me.



from Unframed Portraits

III

Forgive if I seem to be
talking to myself -

I do not write for an ideal reader
or contemplate a classic muse

Today a fellow poet declared
that I'm not really a poet

Characterizing my efforts as
fragments more or less in
the manner of Pascal

I burst into several meanings of laughter
secretly honored and humbled

Forgive if I seem to be trapped in a monologue -

I belong to a species most endangered:
I do no know my name.

​

Waiting for promised lightning

pumping gas

pumping iron

pumping my fist
upon receiving a $5 coupon
at Bar-B-Que is us

pumping Mary Sue
in the back seat of a '48 Hudson -
oh, how soft those seats
and Mary Sue

(you don't have to read the above,
it's what I call "priming the pump" -
dropping a few irrelevnat words
down the well
with the hope that the addition to the well
of irrelevant
words
will,
through force of the
Heimlich Manuever - or some such sciency word-thing
having to do with one force activating a
counter-vailing force -
will cause good words to rise to the surface,
being irresistibly pushed there by the irrelevant words)
meaning, according to the Heimlich equation,
that an actual poem will start
somewhere
below -

.....patience may be required
being
it's
a process thing
and process things
must
process
else they would be called "miracles"
like Jesus' face of a tortilla,
or Jimmy not cracking corn when the master's gone away,
or my 1906 computer suddenly humming and buzzing
and computing again, or the phone company guy
arriving at 11:59 for a service visit
promised between 8 a.m. and noon,
or me getting a hot date when I was fifteen years old
or next week, whichever comes first


`````

miracles,
you know,
where would we be without them,
the miracle of conception and birth,
the miracle of divining wisdom,
the miracle of Slinkies and Hula Hoops and Rice Crispies
snapping and cracking and popping every time,
the miracle of meteors not crashing into the earth
like last time, except this time making us
the new dinosaurs, converting in the tar pits
into some future form of fuel
for the finally and again ascendant cockroach,
no longer getting squashed in kitchen corners -
that's why cowboy boots have pointy toes, you know -
cockroaches in cowboy boot doing the squashing
this time instead

`````and the little circley thing is circling on a blue screen
which means the aforementined pending poem
is still processing, but not so quickly
so if you have
something else
to do
you should go ahead
and take care
of it
and I'll give you a call
when the processing poem
is processed, arisen, so to speak,
from the depths by the force of the
Heimlich
processing
primal
push
to relevancy in this portion
of the universe

but, maybe, since the phone guy
hasn't come yet, I'll just email you,
or maybe send a tweet
which I almost never do,
fearing being pigeon-holed as just another tweeting
twit
​
waiting for promised lightning

​

Adios