Tag Archives: poetry

JUST

JUST

poem is a
     thing

one does not just
should not just
               staple
together

wind, rain
solar            flare
whatever the weather

whether enjambment
can just run
away with it
rhyme
   superimpose itself
or superposition you
wave and
    molecule in
relation to its pattern

breath blow
       like electricity flowing
out
of a jug

magnetic pole, spin
see it be pulled and pushed
hither and thither

mussed up like
coiffure suddenly exposed
to what
    storm can do

making it worse, much worse,
and thereby
   intriguing reading

touching your chimes as
it wafts through your pagoda

appearing
   out of nowhere, inviting
itself for
main course

settling down
            prepared for sacrifice
ready
to give its all

pretty much
holding forth
holding the fort

conforming
to the topography
of your tiny plate
at your gigantic table

ZADIE INSISTS

ZADIE INSISTS

Zadie insists
here lie
weapons of
mass destruction

vehicles
of terror

but I check my words
for the monstrous
genocidal
do not
seem to find them

no sign of bacilli,
nothing that
seriously Geiger counters

no anthrax
lurking
between the lines

no plague about
the launch itself
between the lines

no Bond PPK Walther
with screw-on silencer

unless
      I am misguided
mistaken

and you see it, feel it,
smell it, taste it
hear it
all here

planning some small,
strictly limited, quiet
(and quite nonsensical
operation)

to eliminate some person
or persons

in the cause
of poetic self-interest

or the more entirely
delusional inclination

towards
         liberating you all

whole of humanity

MAINSTREAM NARRATIVE

MAINSTREAM NARRATIVE
(for the students)

the great locomotive
steamed out of the station

built up
momentum
determined to cross
from
ocean to
ocean

but
ran out of track
and crashed

unable to
hold up that weight
on its cardboard wheels

OFF THE SCALE

OFF THE SCALE

the Sun
beamed through my window
only to
take issue with me
scorch the files
on my computer

leaving me desperate
to get a handle on
electromagnetism

so much fire out there
in here
    as chatbot and I
argue the toss
over philosopher
Catherine Malabou
and other
anarchist thinkers

wondering about
the Sun’s role
in authority, Apollonian
regal power
       and how that
might avail itself
to tyranny

especially the kind
with solar ring of confidence
branded by beaming smile

A BONE TO PICK

A BONE TO PICK

what you said
on TV months early
if not sanctimoniously
then with astonishing conviction

I sat on your front lawn
my campfellows battling
to resurrect children
fitting mashed
body parts together

I sat there Googling
desperately for
a technology of salvation

when the ghosts of those
slain when you made
your case
that for reasons of
defensive measure
the slaughter
must continue

marched up silently
to your front door
informing you
ever so
ever so
politely

that if
could spare the time
they did indeed
have a bone
to pick with you