A thread where you commission a poem from ILE

Ode To A Clydesdale

O! Equine brute of might and mane!
Beast of massive hoof and thews!
How thy massy tail doth lift
To greet this morn of frosty hues.

How thy farts erupt like thunder,
Startling mice and men and muse,
Tearing quietude asunder,
Raising clouds like smoke from flues.

Thy oat-crammed guts, like shots from guns,
Send volleys shattering the peace.
One might suspect thou hast the runs,
And 'stead of oats, have fed on grease,

So steady drum thy rumbling roars,
As each is birthed, comes two a-borning!
Yet thou thyself stands quietly,
As stolid as a stone this morning.

there was a young man called tuomas
whose bollocks were simply enormous
when hassled by boize
who listen to noize
he said: "fuck off, i'm a non-conformist".

nb: this is predicated, perhaps, on a misunderstanding of how to pronounce "tuomas". sorry, tuomas. in mitigation: it did only take me 30 seconds to write.

I am myself available for sonnets.

These nephews of mine! I cannot control
what bubbles up in me
such - such uncontrollable

something as can only
(when my handle is lost)
send me flying, fowlly

flapping! Rage-engorged
my face, my feet slapping
side-by-side both up and

down and up and down -
twinned, as these triplet
nephews are my - death of me!

Apoplectic me! I have cracked
in three. I can only
Quack! Quack!

Quack! Quack! Quack!
Quack! Slap feet!
Beat again! I beeten!

Burst all to bits,
last feathers lost and floating.
My kvetch fatal.

Alas! Ack!

I would like to read a poem entitled "My days with the possible penguin". It needn't be about birds. It could be about architecture.

Yes, that would be nice. Will it happen, I wonder??

Across the golden plains of Nebraska
In bounding glory drunk on wine and youth
Approach three lads, and An'thny in mask, a
small marsupial baring, just, a tooth
The boys, all strapping strong and bronze with sun,
Now loosed from labors turn with brightened eyes
Upon the prospects of night not begun
Aching of arms and breath, thrusting of thighs
In rows of corn, chest high and kernel rich,
And watched with furtive glee by faux wombat,
The trinity tumbles through hedge and ditch
A verse from some Midwestern Rubaiyat
Not ten miles from Omaha is this:
A masque of red state dappled farmboy bliss.

it needn't be about birds you see
or the ride on the lexington IRT
past the carwash and the street kebab
to the seals that slap against the stucco slab
to the bright bay window den of cats
where students peer past stainless slats
the birds don't have to walk on poles
there's ice atop the infill holes

(and thx, peeps)

Those times are a half-forgotten potraiture
of whatever objects must have been before me,
under a soft light shed from a certain angle -
I can't quite recall. I might, trying hard

Remember them. Slatted sides that loomed
Ever higher than I stood - stocking-footed?
It is an ever-deepening puzzle that I lived
Or half-lived and might have dreamed it all.

My friends seem more knowing than I, more
Tuned, more recollective, when we foregather
And speak of those times. What could they
Mean, being so certain, so bound, determined?

If penguins had arrived and waddled past us
As we went our merry ways among the walls,
the asphalt planes, the dim-shapen foliage -
Planted as I have no doubt they all were,

Then maybe they might understand my reluctance
To settle on this story we all nod at,
This story of our mutual thrust and glory,
Wherein I alone find room for a possible penguin.

I have some further commissions for anyone who might want them:

- A poem titled "Wearing the Corporate Wig", which should include the word 'vermicelli'.

- A poem that somehow incorporates these near-rhyming pairs: fondue/phoned you, municipal/kissable, laughter/pap smear, garbled/gargled.

- A poem in couplets that discusses mass transit. Wit and style counts, if you please.

- Three haiku suggested by a supermarket.

- A poem entitled "Counting up to a hundred by quarters"

Thank you.

***

The best cereal
is the easiest to reach.
Every child knows this.

***

Open the glass door,
the frost will make it opaque.
Think before you act.

in the macy's basement
by the dutch ovens and the wedding-gift fondue
is where she phoned you
from the hundred-dollar burger
on the field at morristown municipal
she seemed so kissable
if you remembered one thing
it was the choppy cadence of her laughter
awkward as a pap smear
the reception was spotty
two bars, one bar, half of it was garbled
half of it was gargled

a poem about standing in line for a tv taping, and please use the words "hirsute," "almond roca," and "clip art"

Etant pauvre, le seul moyen de réaliser ma bacchanale
De me reveiller le teint blême, les yeux rouges, la voix rauque
Est de boire goulûment ce produit d’un vigneron banal
Qui n’etant ni fin ni recherché est peu cher mais bien glauque

Ces viticulteurs qui préferent l’argent facile au fruits de l’art
De nous bénir d’un vin mémorable, ces minables scélérats
Si j’avais leurs fric au lieu de leur vilain pinard
Je vous assure, leur vinasse, je ne le boirai certainement pas

Etant pauvre je n’ai pas de choix mais du vin il me faut
Vous me dites, “n’en bois point.” C’est facile à dire
Je ne peux me contenter d’un simple verre d’eau.
Car entre le vin mauvais et rien, c’est rien le pire

what e’er it takes to bring the package through.
Go leave a trail of bodies in your wake,
stomp flat the foe beneath your spikéd shoe.

The bones of thine own teammates do not break;
you’ll know them by the shirts that look like yours.
Yon brave crusaders crush the evil snake,

and after battle’s won, one quest endures;
some Spice Girls yet unwed, oh wild frontier!
Tabloids yet to litter with your spoor,

a mighty thirst to slake with pints of beer,
and hearts to fill with envy and with fear.

there once was a man from nantucket
who bought some corn and did shuck it
shucked his hands to the bone
cuz he lived all alone
shooting husks into a KFC bucket

Is this my chance? Three hours in line
To say "Nothing says pudding like My-T-Fine"
I'm cornfed America, I'm broke and it's Christmas
I'll work these lines like nobody's business

The girl in front of me's a little too cute
The girl in front of her, a little hirsute.
I got a zit on my nose, fucking Almond Roca
Ben and Jerry's Cookie Dough and Mocha Mocha Mocha

Hell with this, I'm going home
Fuck this Corporate Amerika Pleasure-Dome
Where the rent-a-cop with his can of mace
Knows my socks don't match my clip-art face

- "Thirteen Ways of Looking at Me in My Underwear"
- a spoken-word piece based on the collected literature of the wobblies
- A poem titled "Wearing the Corporate Wig", which should include the word 'vermicelli'.
- A poem in couplets that discusses mass transit
- "Counting up to a hundred by quarters"
- poems about Sailor Moon

To these I will add:

- A poem that includes a scientifically sound description of the aurora borealis or aurora australis (rather like the product of a mini-Lucretius).

- Alternative lyrics to "A Horse With No Name". God knows it needs some better lyrics.

- A bitter invective against Cabbage Patch dolls.

Foul Cabbage Patch Dolls
Stupid failed experiment
We still hate uglies.

Beg for costly toy
Ignore the wretched beggar
Greedy little shit

Get it for me now
The other girls all have them
Soon I will be bored

A syphlitic all covered with chancres
After the ladies still hankered
when nearing the end
He shucked his Depends
But the nurse still said no so he spanked her

A drunk whose prognosis was grim
Was urged to atone for his sin
Though bedsores were oozing
He kept up the boozing
And pickled inside of his skin

A lecher whose health had grown worse
Was entranced by the night-duty nurse
In his hospital johnny
He reeked of Armani
And offered a ride in his hearse

Over halfway there, hang on...

Amuse yourself, my sweet, with this odd view:
Zippers on underwear are daft, it's true.

Behold then with disgust my grimy, old
Y-fronts -- they never fail to leave you cold.

Clean, crisp black boxer shorts I know you prize:
X-rated thoughts then in your fair head rise.

Distraught, you note my insufficient nethers.
(Warm woollies might be better for such weathers.)

Embarrassed at your unforeseen reaction:
"Velvet is kinda camp, but oh, the taction!"

"For heaven's sake, go put on some more clothes!
Unless you want our guests' remarks on those?"

Grinning while dressing for the wedding do:
"Too long, too long till I see those anew!"

"Honestly, love, I do despair at times.
Surely you're far above such fashion crimes?"

Ignoring if you loathe'em or you love'em,
Requiring only to get me out of'em.

Johns, shorts, briefs, thermals, skivvies, underpants?
"Quit pest'ring me, I'm watering the plants!"

Keen-edg'd rebuke you give, molto sforzando:
"Promised you not, you twat, to go commando?"

Lace, garters, bra -- good thing she's out of town!
Oh shit, you're home? Say, why the puzzled frown?

Most often, though, no laughs, nor gasps galore,
Nor anger -- what I wear you just ignore.

Admiring his reflection
in the boardroom table’s sheen
He gave no thought to how his soul
had grown so pinched and mean

Shrivelling as his manhood swelled
inside his pinstripe suit
For like a greedy truffle pig
He’d learned to sniff and root

To elbow competition
and abuse the coffee girl
To crave the corner office
At the center of the world

And through at times his guts would writhe
like crazy vermicelli
He always took it for ambition’s
fire in the belly

Suit-and-tie drag suited him,
He’d always worn it well
And though the flies were swarming round
He kind of liked the smell

Embrace your failure, reader
Never be the Alpha Male
Lest your striving make of you
a cautionary tale

(OK. I might be more pleased if I were to discover my piss was a really good riesling, but I consider that unlikely.)

q:u?

     il!

   b—r

         i;u;m...

i, u; m...

of course.

I've been through dessert with a guest with no name
It sucked when we ran out of creme
After dessert, you need some coffee with creme
Cause your tummy is there for to give you some pain
La la la la la la la la

After two hours with the dessert plate
My skin began to turn red
After three hours with the pies and fun
I was thinking of my comfy bed
And my brothers friend, from a distant land
whose name I seemed to forget

You see I've been through dessert with a guest with no name
It sucked when we ran out of creme
After dessert you need some coffee with creme
Cause your tummy is there for to give you some pain
La la la la la la la la

After three hours I let my bowels run free
And dessert returned to the sea
There were plants and birds and pies and things
Leftovers aplenty
Thanksgiving is dessert and stuffing and potatos
But also the turkey
I dragged my carcass to the rental car
because that place I had to flee

You see, I'd been to dessert with a guest with no name....

Your pinched-potato visages look sad --
Imagine what it's like to be a dad,
Who can't see "Berlin Alexanderplatz"
Because he has to please two mewling brats
By buying you with money, corp'rate-won,
His dam too stupid to have had a son.
I long for mid-life crisis, and release.
Until then, you are mine, "Jane" and "Deniece."

The Wobbliad

Long long ago,
in the same galaxy we’re living in now,
at the end of the century before the last century
three thousand miles from Newport hostess
Mrs. Stuyvesant Fish
and her Dogs’ Dinner party, a three-course meal
for a hundred dogs,
three thousand miles from the Ocean Drive ladies
playing Sifting for Gems,
running their hands through beach-sand
for a sapphire to tuck in the bones of their bodice,
miners blacked their lungs twelve hours a day in the shaft,
this job is your inheritance, son, after I die,
which looks to be soon, especially if I organize—
remember the Chinese railroad laborers
dropping like flies so the last golden spike
could be rammed home on time?
They tried, having come through the Sierras
the winter before and the winter before that,
clawing their way with hand tools
through the Donner Pass which we all know had
killed before and wasn’t shy about repeating,
3,000 of them living and working in
tunnels dug beneath 40-foot snowdrifts,
1,200 dead by the day that East met West,
but it was on the eastern slope,
heading into the high desert,
that they peaceably struck and the bosses
made a counter-offer of starvation.
This railroad’s getting built with you or without you,
and it was,
but put your ear to the rail,
the train’s a comin’,
workers of the world unite,
do The Locomotive with me,
you got to form that line
come on!
The Wobblies opened up their Little Red Songbook
and sang,
and songwriter/spittoon cleaner/organiser/
spuriously convicted murderer Joe Hill
was given a choice of firing squad or a hanging.
‘I’ll take the shooting.
I’ve been shot a couple of times before and
I think I can take it,’
They supplied the Ready, Aim,
and Joe Hill
supplied the Fire.
In 2005 New Solidarity Magazine has disappeared so thoroughly,
even Google can’t find a motheaten copy,
and just last century Aaron Spelling’s minions
walked the beach ahead of young Tori,
scattering store-bought seashells
for her to find in the sand.
My job sucks,
your job sucks,
Dan Perry’s job sucks and he’s bone-tired
on the train going home,
the train built and tended by union men,
dropping dead when bone-tired
even worse than Dan they
step on the third rail.
But until that day they’re taking home the overtime
and doin’ The Locomotive on the weekend.
Oh yeah.
You got to move your feet.

dropping dead when, bone-tired
even worse than Dan, they
step on the third rail.

i chose to wear elbows of
protection on my hairing daring
sparing licked off wary air.

like kung fu on a weltodoo sandwich
i was better slipped on as a pair
of lemon-flavored dockers thrice marked
down, served with stale gravy and packet o barbiecute
sauce on tonic longest awesome to a
femang with 700 hobo blaming shames.

i'll be the charing coal brisket and
she'll b the bird hurling short skirts
on the curdling urge and i just stood
back and drew up my carbon wings and and and.

you can kiss a cartoon,
but the and um and can't you?

no you can't.

well,

a little neatly sloozed tongue is all and right,
but leave
the sleave
in the perfected weave.

and heave.

you and your elbows back to the home bomb riding
a little penguin's bicycle back for some unagi
and soda kong.
m.

Sadly, I cannot write such a poem, being too ignorant of the raw materials. I expect Ned or some other ILM habitues could make a go of it.

I am working on the aurora borealis poem, but it stinks so far and I need a better approach.

At twenty-five the fontanelle is firm
and like a hard-boiled egg,
you're done.
The hole in the hull
knits together, and you're seaworthy.
A quarter, unless it's a quarter
of a gazillion, is not much.
Two quarters is fifty cents,
fifty stars, fifty percent of Americans
blue, fifty percent red.
It's the tipping point, the center
of the see-saw,
that the mean kid jumps off of,
and you smash your spine on the
hard ground of the playground.
Three-quarters of the way home
you're still out of luck,
if one quarter of the way
is a gazillion miles,
or if you're snowblind,
or if you divide the distance
between you and home
in half, and step that far,
then divide the remaining distance in half
and step that far,
and so on.
But Xeno got home anyway,
because his feet were just
crude instruments.
What did the Greeks know about math?
They just wanted to chase each other
around amphorae, with their crazy beards and
their enormous erections.
My own home may be
the pot of gold at nine-hundred millionth
of a billionth of the way to the end of the rainbow
But I'll get there, quarter by quarter.
I empty the coins from my pocket each night.
Quarters, nickles, dimes.
The jar on my bedside table
has a hundred of them,
at least.
Someday
I'm gonna be rich.

A NON-LIMERICK PLEA

Like Mary Baker Eddy with the phone in her coffin
I hope communication from the dead's in the offing
Oh thread! Thou art the one I cherish
By dint of will thou shalt not perish
while I sleep, let others slave
to resurrect thee from the grave!

The whole idea here is to toss off a fair number of possibilities and let the poets choose which ones click with them, which ones inspire enough so that you start to doodle with it and a poem gushes out. I've felt some reticence about poetizing my own suggestions. I would love for you to dump the first three wierd ideas that bounce past your brain so I could take a crack at them.

Meanwhile, without premeditation, here are the first brain farts I can produce:

- a poem about giving an animal a makeover
- a poem comparing a potato to a lawyer
- a Ginsburgian chant on the war in Iraq
- a poem about Tom DeLay's mug shot
- an elegy for the rotary phone
- an abecedary based around the topic of sex

I could probably spout a few more but I'll keep my baby powder dry.

you say potato
i say abogado

him idahoan and
sweet
salted
and flirtaciously peppered
totally cheesed
buttered
frenched
and baked
oh mashed
baconed
creamed
then smothered
fried
sliced
hashed
and diced
to smashed
and twice baked
home style
he was chicken gravied
on stale brocoli shafts

ah waiter, there's way too much hair in his chowder.
m.

Lacking lawyers, the
Immigrants streamed westward.
How’d they manage to get in
such a fix? Such a hapless
inability to sue?
Most of us have learned
by hard experience to
keep a lawyer or two
planted in the family plot.
What they lack in piquancy
they make up in starchy rectitude.
But rotate your crops! Never
let them twine their twisting
vines too far along the branches
of the family tree.
Let a crop of destitute oil-painters
revitalise the soil,
before the sharky barrister,
his hair all buttered and chived
returns to leave his greasy headprints
on the wall behind his chair.
But of course, you don’t do that
because he holds your leash
And you hold his, and he
married your college
roommate’s sister
and when their son and heir
gets busted selling weed,
he calls his Dad,
who makes it go away,
fixing his green, budding eye
on the kid, and saying
“That deadbeat oil-painter’s
going have to find a
new supplier.
It’s law school for you,
sonny-boy.”

sorry. bit simple, like.

no no no. i'm sorry.
m.

The boreal aurora or northern lights,
once seen, can do no other than excite
deep wonder in the one who views them -
One must ask whence and why this bold display,
these godlike towers of frailest light?

The answer, one time hidden and occult,
has been teased out by men and women
who can trace their axioms and observations
from common and self-obvious grounds to
the limits of what measurement can measure.

Such people scientists are, or hope to be.
In mutual league they compare and correct
each one the other, finding errors out
and cross-binding their truthes to facts
more numerous than sands. And they say:

Particles of shattered atoms pour off
from our violent sun, a bitter wind
spewed hot from out that fusile core -
that furnace able to blind and burn us,
we who stand full ninety million miles off.

This dust more thin than air speeds out,
traversing the great void, not slowed
by friction, suffering no deflection;
it is flung every where into the terrific
blank of space, our local where no different.

These particles of mighty littleness
strike the earth's magnetosphere,
a hovering influence hard to describe
that hangs out at a distance from what
gives rise to it, the dense earth's mass.

This tenuous field aligns itself in lines
imperfect, with edges as fretful as roving ghosts,
which couple and uncouple with the sun's
magnetosphere, its own dancing field of lines,
and in so doing opens entryways here and there.

The pressures pushing the solar winds crams
its particles onto and along these unseen lines
whose ends embrace and unembrace out there.
From unaimed clouds these particles gather
now their end; earth bids them come; they do.

Pouring now to earth these streams of particles
are aimed particularly at each pole,
their target and intended landing spot an area
shaped like an oval hovering atop both poles.
Sometimes this spot is bigger, sometimes smaller.

Almost at once the energetic fragments collide
with earth's frail outrider, the ionosphere,
our outmost envelope of impossibly thin air.
Here the sun's far travelling electrons meet
the barrier of neutral atoms, bursting them.

Broken off in this unlooked-for collision,
electrons from the neutral atoms detach,
and release some surplus energy as photons.
These are that which strike our wondering eyes
as light and color and delicate motion.

These violent visitors our earth receives
as shocks, which cascade as awe-inviting colors
that shimmer in the arctic and antarctic nights.
Arcs, curtains, rays of red and green that
fluidly slide from sky's one side to the other.

Hard as it is to countenance, this matchless show,
this glowing march of beauty and inspiration
that touches our wonder as if electrified,
cannot be said to have an origin in purpose,
or if asserted, cannot be proved by reason.

In each corner of the globe or outer universe
where we look, no diety can be detected working
in this hour, guiding by present decisions
what lives, dies, is or can be. If such a god
ever was, he made once and quietly waits the issue.

in the flickering glow
of a dying monitor lizard's tongue
clicking and tapping
letters and points
on it's leg like
amateur hour
at the
acupuncture clinic
i poking holes
shaped like sound pictures
mostly of boats trips to lunar destinations
and halloween dates that would be every nerd's dream
until a web browser
told me:

"Turn Back You Poxy Fule" or something i deserved.

the lotus hits itself on the head three times
before rhyming
and after it's hind quarters
lurch above the ship.

"we're clicking again" they sang on golden ponds.

and the ray tracer, shining a light down on
the foggy hopping turning us into three dimensions said,

"You've all depressed me *rips sestina up*"

and i thought, "what the hell did that sestina ever do to you ms. ray tracer!

oh happy dig dug dagger, i could be pumping up and exploding subterranean fire breathing dragons, but no, i had to click and press.

prose mess.
m.

ps all due respect to ile, but i've enjoyed this thread more than most i can remember. how about a poem about a love triangle between people with the initials wtf, lol, and otm?

lol otm

how
did
this
triangle of love
become
this
blade
in
our
hearts?

That aurora poem! Yowza! Now you can teach poetry at MIT!

Trayce, now that you've ripped up the sestina, you can shuffle the pieces!

A is for the animal we say we want in bed
B, the Bed itself, where we are often tired instead.

C is for Capriciousness of sexual response
D is for Desire so often masked by nonchalance

E for Eye the roving spy that guides them to my door
F the Funk, the whiff of skunk that makes them beg for more

G for Groundhog day. More winter! Let’s go back to bed
H for Horseback riding, rubbing young girls raw and red

I for indoor sports, when girls outgrow the horsey phase
J for Jealousy! Or Jelly! Friction starts a blaze!

K for K.Y. that’s the brand that doctors recommend
L for Lesions, sores and boils, from these you must defend

M for Men! Long may they lust, beneath polite veneers
N for Nipples, nibbles, naughty, nice to see you, dear

O for Oh! and Oh! and Oh! and Oh! and Oh! and Oh!
P, the Pleasure that is better when you move just so

Q: how Quickly it is over though we’ve just begun
R: Return to duty—where’s my wallet? Gotta run

S is for the Sex of course, so slippery and sly
T is for the Troubles that will come to make you cry

U is for the Upside-Down this lust will make of life
V is for the Vow you make to save it for your wife

W is for the Wedding, though you chafe and gripe
X-rated thrills will follow if you wed a lusty type

Y for Years of wedded bliss, has boredom found you yet?
Z for Zipper, down it comes! Who are you? I forget.

Just in case anyone else is tempted to leap up off their laurels and get back to wasting time, here are the suggested poems yet to write:

- a sestina in which a pear-shaped object is referenced.
- a poem in couplets that discusses mass transit.
- a poem consisting of nothing but the names of musical groups.
- a poem about giving an animal a makeover
- a Ginsburgian chant on the war in Iraq
- a poem about Tom DeLay's mug shot
- an elegy for the rotary phone
- a VERY ROMANTIC craigslist personals ad, in which the supporting characters include a container of sour cream, an autistic sibling, and a small bottle of nasal spray
- a poem for those men who walk the beach with metal detectors

There is nothing stopping anyone from revisiting one of the subjects already written on, either. Now, get to work - or, if you're at work, get to lollygagging!

You may need to declare a personal moratorium, Beth. You are obviously having too much fun.

Replace the tawdry rhinestones
With sturdy leather in a dark tone
This canine is not a topiary
For Seuss like cuts. So scary!
A noble bird-dog’s trim
Neither prissy nor too prim

Lest anybody fret
That we’ve bedulled your pet
We’ll paint the nails with lacquer
Since when a smidgen blacker
The contrast on the paw
Will fill all cats with awe

Stop feeding him that store bought swill
To prevent your pooch from getting ill
This homemade pheasant stew’s quite dear
But worth it withal. Have no fear.
Your pet’s elite, exotic breath
Will help prevent his social death

Let’s peruse these photos: before and after
Please try to stifle your vulgar laughter
You only barely deserve to be seen
With a hound of such impressive mien
We thought of making you over too
But gave it up as peine perdue

Red house painters blur
the new pornographers palace.

At the drive-in, primitives ride
Sacred cowboys

...and you shall know us by the trail
of the dead !!!

There’s no worse-off situation
Than the public transportation
Babies howl because the plane
Gives their tiny ears a pain
Pity’s running short, alas
They’re a pain in all our ass
Children play on railroad tracks
Walk to school and don't come back
Should have done what they were told
There’s a price for being bold
Subway cars are much afeared
Riders sinister and weird
Talking to themselves and shouting
What a lovely Sunday outing
Those who sit at back of bus
Fill me with a staunch disgust
Hoodlums sit with legs all splayed
Geezers with their hearing aids
But the ride I find most scary
Is the ocean-going ferry
Pitching through the salty waves
Stuffed with SUV’s and knaves
East to West then West to East
In the belly of the beast

What I see first is triangles:
The collar, the white space on either side
Of his tie, the tie itself,
The lapel --

No, that's not true: what I see first
Is his eyes, too far apart,
Homely, as an old cottage --

And that's not true either: it was the smile,
The smile that took me by surprise (what did I expect?
Tight lips, under an angry, lidded gaze?)
That I saw first. Yes.

(And this is what he thought, and didn't say,
In those first moments:
It's like the face of a woman familiar to me...
And then, later:
Is it someone I know? Was I her lover?
And finally:
I was.)

You will often see me walking,
my detector swinging free,
That's because I am out stalking
bits of metal by the sea.

Refrain:

I'm a rambling man,
just a shambling man,
I'm a man who gives no quarter
but expects one.

Bits of metal are my passion
Bits of metal make my day
Bits of metal I can cash in,
Even though it doesn't pay.

You may wonder why I do this.
You may wonder what's the hook.
Could this pastime that amuses
Me be funner than it looks?

Well it isn't fun I'm after
And it ain't some kind of game.
And my days aren't full of laughter
And my ways are awfully lame.

But when I dig my treasures
Lying latent in the sands
It's a damn sight more of pleasure
Than old age is, understand.

It's a damn sight more engaging
When I hope to hear that beep
Than to spend my hours in raging
when my piss bag starts to seep.

It's a damn good way to spend the day
Creeping up and down this beach
Than to mope and moan my life away
Til my life is out of reach.

So the moral that I put across
As I seek out my worthless crap:
Is it's better to ramble and search for dross
Than to drool with your hands in your lap.

An elegy for the rotary phone

Always the tip of her ring finger,
fit roundly seven times in a row,
slow and with a smile on her face,
all the time in the world, she'd take
her coffee with one cream and wake
up at her desk like some soft beast,
as if the morning were a dial
that only she could push.

And when you touch her now,
she is instant, won't look you in the eye,
takes her espresso black, her waking fast,
her smile full of teeth you've begun to hate
for how they match the fluorescent lights,
bright as minutes, separate as seconds,
false as systems we love for their efficience
instead of their mazed, murmuring hearts.

To these I will add:
- a military cadence extolling the virtues of condiments
- a Shakespearean sonnet to your favorite cashier
- a day in the life of a hibernating bear

Ver = worm
Vert = green
Vers = toward

I like to think that Cendrillion was wearing worm slippers.

I just want you to know that it would not be out of bounds to translate this as, "I am extremely without panties."

in the wintertime here
when the food supply's low
no point getting hungry
there's nothing but snow

slow breathing and sleep
are the only means of copin'
i might have some canned goods
but i can't get them open

i hear in new york
they get freshdirect
but i was out of their delivery range
last time i checked

i sleep through the breakfasts
that once used to boost me
i sleep through the dreams
and forget who seduced me

i sleep through late lunches
my nights are a blur
i've stored so much vodka
you can smell it in my fur

if you wake me i'll DIE!!
i'll go into shock
so please leave me sleeping
under my rock.

I was the disheveled guy in the park, playing chess with my autistic brother, who kept beating me in under two minutes. You were Jean Seberg’s lost identical twin, returning home from the grocery store, who paused to watch our game. Your bag of groceries split open when a large dog collided with you, an event you handled with consummate grace. Sour cream spattered onto my shoe from a burst container. You assured me it was good for the leather. My brother laughed a beat too late and pocketed a small bottle of nasal spray. Do you need someone to protect you from the ill-mannered curs of this world? Obviously I’m not very good at that. But please, come watch us play again. The distraction of your presence enabled me to hold my ground for five whole minutes before losing the whole royal family and retinue. Plus we owe you some Flonase.

It's obvious who should do this – wikipedia redirects "Cadence call" to "Jody call"! ;)

- a Ginsburgian (sort of, not really) chant on the war in Iraq

Georgie porgie,
look at him,
one minute he’s drawing
dirty pictures in his math book,
the next he’s teacher’s pet,
drawing right on the blackboard!
His dry-drunk face
stuck forever in the moment
when things turn bad,
when back-slapping spills over
into mean,
that split second when party boy
finds out the girl’s going home
with the other guy.
Like fruit that goes from green
to rotten overnight,
suddenly he’s bad,
calling you nicknames and
poking your chest to make his point.
Mum and Dad suck air
through clenched teeth & keep polite distance
from their boys-will-be-boys
boy, as,
ringed by Christian scoutmasters
in Jamboree drag,
he raises his finger, still gin-scented after
years of born-again sobriety,
and sends the troops,
the kids kicked out by their folks,
young guys mortgaged up to their
quivering adam’s apples,
saddled with perpetually pregnant wives
in pastel tracksuits, gangbangers
shipped off for the good of the ghetto,
the nation’s baby lab monkeys,
strapped to a TV dressed up like their mama,
weaned on the blazing bullets romance
of Tupac and Biggie, nuzzling
the silicone swell
of the milkless breast,
empty-calorie olestra moviesex,
no matter how much they eat and buy and
fuck and forget they can’t be satisfied,
and they puke it back out
through the barrel of a gun,
bulimic attack-dog America,
America, land of freedom to
see titties any damn time you want
and drive a big-ass car
and drink scorpion bowls and mudslides and
Jaeger bombs and raspberry martinis, hey!
beach blanket beer-bong babe—
I forget your name,
but you and me are motherfucking FREE.
From all the poor points of the compass
they come, from every
underfunded dog pound, malnourished,
ribs showing, dangerous when cornered.
Learning disabled, ADHD, PTSD,
anger-management challenged,
medicated medicated medicated,
they file onboard with their
diagnoses tucked under their arm,
ready to be all that they can be,
ready to piss in the cradle
of civilization, where crazy
Nebuchadnezzar
and his swarthy henchmen are
running amok again.
Time for a Babylon beat-down,
time to bring it on,
democracy delivery-boys,
straight to these piece o’ shits’ door,
and if you choke on that, you can
take it from the other end,
we’ll shove a freedom suppository
up your ass,
we’re gonna beat you with the
freedom stick, beat you
red white and blue,
and we’ll keep on
beating,
steady as our big
bloodfilled
American heart
until you say
Uncle Sam,
even if it takes
forever.

- a sestina in which a pear-shaped object is referenced.
- a military cadence extolling the virtues of condiments
- a Shakespearean sonnet to your favorite cashier

We don't want anyone held back due to lack of choices.

- limericks about bad food
- a chest-beating rant entitled "my dog is better than your new car"
- 3 haiku about holiday despair
- a poem entitled "I am not a stalker"

that sucked like a grand tinfoil
guarantee ripped and rained
over my trust
over my sanity.

no i'm not a stalker
i just want an answer

too bad it's "asshole".
m.

Twinkling lights, green trees
We try to conceal the truth
The world is dead now

I'm supposed to like
My fellow family members
Our smiles are not true

***

The eggnog is not,
I say, the eggnog is not
adequately spiked!

***

That's it exactly,
the perfect gift for my dad!
Too bad it's mid-March.

I missed the party!
What a fool,
Not worth my pillow
soaked with drool.
The reason I
was so unstrong—
The night had promised
to be long.
Two, not one, bands
playing later
So I played
the nightlife hater,
traitor to good times
and fun,
disappointer
of your son.
Separate cars we
could have brought
and I an early
exit sought,
after cake and
birthday song—
but between our homes
is long
if you’re tired and
weak at heart,
if you’re worthless
as a fart.
So Donald left and
I stayed home,
vegetating
all alone.
He drove out
into the night,
I turned in and
dimmed the light
What a wretch!
I own it now.
I missed the party!
holy cow.

The wolf’s at the door.
No, the wolf’s on the roof—
jaws wide for reindeer

Santa, I swear, I’m
sorry about the fire.
There’s some stuff I want

you used to shit in my
backyard mr. syllable count.

we put you through school
and bought you clean sheets.

i taught you latin
i taught you yeats.

and then when the preceptor
of mt. veritibleditor
came with writ
and letter
and permission slip,
you did not barf
you did not larf
you bowed and sowed
so regally
so proud
obviously endowed
with a royal thonk
a nobility skronk
to honk
like a blue blood
in the cud
of a rudderless
hovering ocean liner of feudal mud.

Count A.S. Bull.

you counted like death
leaving no sound alive
and ruined several parties
our hearts did contrive.

you got Lucy an F
and the whole village too
with a unfortunately ignorant pronunciation
of Ildeverenturarapappyappypoo.

our spell checkers were remiss
at our once messy friend we did hiss

"you can forget about a kiss"

and so he burned our little fruplet now called Freevers

our houses erased
our lines marred
our capital letter A's
print rendered and charred.
stamped by his masculine cattle
to range all over
little marks everywhere
in the sharp
and in the rare
of untimeless
chaotic freeverse
a word for hair
of revelation
of revolution
of
of
of

[liquor bottles getting knocked over by stray goats totally derailing the greatest poem of my entire life! the inhumanity! the exaggeration! the boss sitting over my shoulder wondering when i'm going to GET TO WORK!]

m.

To the horse and buggy days
With dripping candles all ablaze

A fearsome wind the house was lashing
Trees like ninepins down came crashing

Boston Globe and New York Times
I read each page, but wrote no rhymes

Read the Business, read the Sports
Slurped down Pinot by the quart

Renteria to Atlanta
Georgia's got a damn good Santa

Now, by day, I view the scene
Senses sharpened by caffeine

Shall I pick the wreckage up?
Maybe after one more cup.

And probably not even then,
As long as ink is in my pen.

My Favorite Cashier

Fatima was my favorite.
Weekday morning shift, delighted
as a kid on Christmas by each transaction,
her new English a toy she?d wanted all her life.
Her name pronounced Fahtch-ma, in the
Brazilian way, a cha-cha on your tongue.
A gray-haired grandma in a My Little Pony
sweatshirt, barely five feet tall.

We customers her raw material—“Hello!
How are you today?” She?d say,
her r?s so rolled they almost got away
from her, somersaulting down a grassy hill
to a spot where language becomes laughter.
She noticed my dirty hands. “You
are gardener! I love garden!”
And when the store manager
complained about a vet bill for her dog,
Fatima just laughed, “I like dog!
Dog is good friend!” growling the “r”
in friend like a pup tugging a stick.

She would often mistake me for
another customer, my twin, apparently—
a woman with a daughter and a horse.
“I have two sons and no horse!” I?d say,
and we would laugh, and laugh more
when it happened again, the confusion
like a 3-D tic tac toe game
of new country, new people, new job,
but no matter—she forged ahead
in giddy baby steps of language.
She knew that I knew—the important
thing—that with your handful of words,
you find the joke.

The day before Fatima went back
to Brazil (homesick, a
new grandchild) I ran into her
in the hardware store. We hugged,
tearful. “Thank you for the smile
every day,” she said, and I thought
for a second that I would like to slug
anyone who did not smile at Fatima.
“I will miss you,” I said, measuring
my words. “You are my favorite.”
The next day the store manager
worked the register for Fatima?s shift.
I said “You?re going to miss her,”
and she said, “Yes. It?s been
terrible around here.”

A Bad Day’s Shopping

The mesclun is wilting in the bin
And we are not allowed to take
extra virgin olive oil from the shelves
in order to dress our salad-bar salads.
Somebody put up a sign. We have to
use the thin yellow frying oil from the
cruet supplied by management.
This is Martha’s fucking Vineyard, I say,
and there is going to be blood flowing
in the aisles if they
keep this up.

Children released from SUV carseats run
amok, spewing snot and screaming, and once
I saw a codger clipping his nails in the
produce aisle. That really takes the cake.

A plastic Santa perched atop the cut-flower cooler
plays piercing electronic Christmas
carols, which clash with some girl singer
mewling on the store-wide speakers,
piped into every lucky aisle, even over the
toilet paper and diapers and ibuprofen,
which I’ll need before long. Throw a couple bottles
into the basket, one for the car, one for the house.
Fifty tablets for god knows how many bucks,
I'm paying for the ambience. I'll use my
Cronig’s card and get ten percent off.
That card has already paid for itself.

sorry to be absent. weird couple of days.
m.

Beautiful.

I would like someone to write something in iambs about the sky.

[ducks and runs]

I will be here tomorow to deny I ever said this... and to deny that I am a lazy writer for using ellipses. And to emphatically assert THIS POST NEVER HAPPENED! (I am sure I spelled "happened" correctly, BTW, so don't get on my tits for this, OK?) Toodle-oo!

(FORGET I EVER SAID THAT!) Happy poetizing, folks.

I shall return.

We're waiting...

i don't even know what i mean, that's how bad it was.
m.

THE WRECK OF THE POLAR EXPRESS

What’s this
Come crawling from
Beneath the glittering tree?
A present or a project?
Assembly required? For me?
Nobody told me this
Would involve math,
Let alone a fucking
Allen wrench. My wrath
Pours forth a curseword stream.
And the sweetmeats!
A sad bulimic’s dream,
Just look and see—
The yellow brick road
To prediabetic epiphany!
Where’s the wizard
When you need him
To make it go away?
Crestfallen at the crinkle
Of the wrapping,
I mean it when I say
You shouldn’t have.

Rabid rebel
Gone to ground
My gratitude, it
Knows all bounds.
Feeding the animals
Is frowned upon
When all they’ve had to do
All the already-long
Off-season in this joint
Is file their teeth
To tiny points.
Offer a handout,
Summon all your
Lion-tamer charm,
I warn you, mister,
You might lose an arm.

Surrounded by more gewgaws
Than dead king Tut,
Whatever can rid me of
This awful glut?
We opened all those packages,
Lost every shred of Calvinist control—
Peeled back the shiny paper to reveal
The tiny time-bomb ticking in our soul.
It gnaws at my peace, my sleep it deprives
It festers like cookies from Sony
Hidden in my hard drive.
Spyware spyware everywhere
Entering the system! Buyer beware!

Yet hark! Like lutes of
Distant angels on the breeze,
The landfill sings! Calls out—for
Fudge and port-wine cheese!
The earth receives our potlatch curse.
Oh beneficent bastards! Though
To give may quench your moral thirst,
In this case the rule’s reversed,
Each truck-load makes
Our world the worse.

Just walk away! Stand tall!
Wouldn’t that be the most
Blessed thing of all?
Now, I can only speak for myself,
But this shopworn Messiah
Should be put on the shelf.
A poisonous cure pushed
by industry crooks
Like a wrong blood-type
kidney, this one
Never took.
And tell me again,
As I bitch and I yelp—
How is all this
Peanut brittle
Supposed
To help?

- a sestina in which a pear-shaped object is referenced.
- a military cadence extolling the virtues of condiments
- a chest-beating rant entitled "my dog is better than your new car"
- limericks about bad food

- an ode to, or satire upon, the noize board entitled "Rude Boys Have No Fear (In Shantytown)"
- a meditation (or maceration) on the face of George W. Bush
- think about rope, lots and lots of rope
- an exhortation to lose weight that does not use the words: pounds, inches, fat, or cow.

Condiments make us smack our lips!
Condiments make us pucker our buns!
Condiments bravely combat the bland,
Like bayonets fixed to foodies' guns.
Roll on, condiments, roll on!

Mustard's as fine as hair on frogs.
Mustard is sharp and spicy and hot.
Mustard can be either sour or sweet.
It's everything that a hot dog's not.
Roll on, condiments, roll on!

Ketchup is like a blood-red splash.
Ketchup flows like tomato-y cream
Ketchup delivers a flavorful blow
Beneath which tater tots cringe and scream.
Roll on, condiments, roll on!

Chutney's the compote's apotheosis.
Chutney's a must with a curried lamb.
Chutney's what we want on our plates
When a pork tenderloin needs a body slam.
Roll on, condiments, roll on!

Let the condiments muster in ranks,
From Worcestershire to mayonnaise,
To slather our food and cover our flanks
And win the day 'gainst food malaise.
Roll on, condiments, roll on!

I see you working on your car
While Rex and I head to the bar
You wash and wax and polish it
But I still say the thing's for shit
It doesn't wag its tail not bark
It's cumbersome and hard to park
Does it welcome you home at night,
The gas guzzling stupid blight?
Can you take it for a lovely stroll,
Or is it a vapid money hole?
Your life will soon have passed you by
You'll have passed it with an eye
Only out for soulless parts
No wagging tongues, no loyal hearts
Another living creature's span
The measure of an age of a man
When Rex and I, we stumble back
Guinness-filled, yes quite the craic
You've buggered off, I don't care where
and left your gleaming hot-rod there
So Rex and I, we check it out
I eye the gloss, he uses his snout
I check around (Rex knows the deal)
A lifted leg, piss on your wheel

The Lute
-- or, A Tortuous Set-up Deflated by an Easy Punch-line --

O lute, of all Caecilia's stock-in-trade,
Thou art most like a pear, yet shape and form
Deceives; not opulent like great church organs,
Which, like the fruit, do saturate the sense
to which they most pertain -- that is, the ear --
No, but a morsel is thy fragile sound.

Yet, when I first perceived that fragile sound,
My thoughts did stray from commerce, sales and trade.
A freshness seemed to permeate my ear
Not noticed until then in any form --
And I felt, in a metaphorick sense
A greenness reach my auditory organs,

Not unlike that of pears. (Those other organs
Of smell and feel -- since I have sung of sound
Perceived by ears, mouth's gustatory sense
And sight, the business in which eyes do trade --
May still appear, dear reader, while I form
Yet one and twenty verses for thine ear.

Or not.) An affront to the tender ear
Are those pear-sized atrocities, mouth-organs!
Blithe Fortune yet has given them a form
That does not rival thine, her judgment sound --
Whence, not even a fool would gaily trade
thee in for one of them -- through common sense.

A rival worse, and closer in a sense,
(Though somewhat less offensive to the ear):
The ocarina -- brought to us by trade
With distant lands (claim creditable organs),
and hither brought by ocean, strait and sound --
doth share some of thy pyrimorphic form.

Yet who spurns not good etiquette and form
Avoids its chirps, though charming in a sense.
And if some rogue does try to make it sound,
He firmly takes the villain by his ear,
While warning of abuse to vital organs,
Not leaving doubts about his terms of trade.

But lend an ear, musician, form firm fears:
As organs sense when reading of New Orleans:
Sound men of trade will always fear -- a luter.

*bows goodnight*

In the high-tide wrack line
on this rockiest point of the island
there’s more than the the usual driftwood
and seashells, dried-up seaweed
hopping with sand fleas, splintered palettes
wedged in the rocks, fishnets
and rope. Way more than the usual amount
of rope: multicolored lobstermans’ line
winding so deep in the sand you can’t pull it
loose, snaking through the dune
of man-made storm litter, through the smashed
remains of someone’s staircase to the beach,
through brittle bungee cords, bait buckets,
mop buckets, 5-gallon buckets, single boots and
and single flipflops and the occasional huge tire
that would take me an hour to dig up, and what then?
Walk atop it like a circus dog, to the applause
of my drunken friends? Too much trouble
when the car is a good mile from where I scramble
rock-to rock like a mountain goat,
this beach where no one ever goes,
not even caretakers from the estates
up above. No one else to catalog this bounty:
Tampon applicators by the thousands,
ribbon, too, in delicate pastels—
remnants of a shipboard birthday.
Anchor-line thick as your thigh,
dish soap bottles, clorox bottles,
detergent bottles—someone keeps a clean ship.
Motor-oil bottles, and here’s more rope, purple
with strands of green. Bottles of those drinks
that come in different colors, depending
on the artificial fruit flavoring, still sealed tight,
half-finished. Lobster pots, floats and buoys,
dairy crates and fishboxes, an entire dune
of bleached wood and plastic, and rope and
rope and rope, flotsam and jetsam tied and tangled
at every turn by rope, a different color for
every boat, the better to avoid mistakes. Rope
washed up by storms, fibers stiff
and prickly as a Yankee at a tea party,
wrapping his rope-tough fingers
around a bone-china cup.
It’s no wonder men take to the sea.
As their wives have always known,
you’ve got to give them enough rope.

It seems we are once more short of unfilled commissions. I feel like a pin-setter in a bowling alley. But maybe tomorrow in the ayem I will cogitate a bit on some new ones. I am loath to 'raise the bar' in order to slow down the pace of this juggernaut, if only because I don't want to discourage anyone from participation, and demanding a Petrarchian sonnet that forms an acrostic of "YO! DON'T HAVE A COW!" seems a bit much to impose on lesser mortals than Beth or The Vintner's Lipogram.

Once more, happiness all round.

I've noticed dear how you've grown.
Where once was chamber, now full orchestra,
And the percussion of your steps,
Has gradually crescendo'd,

And while I admire your Double-bass front
And marvel at your kettle drum bum.
What's said about the wind section,
Is better kept to the imagination,

I dearly plea that your symphony,
Has later movements shifting,
To something with a solo,
Maybe me and your cello.

The first one is entitled "six unbroken lines (aka 1. Ch'ien/the Creative)"

It should include at least some of these elements:
six unbroken lines
dragon
clouds/heaven
earth
electricity
clocks
time
thread
ruler
'twas the days before the summer solstice
sun at its zenith
Confucius
Great Harmony
Thunder and lightning
Hidden dragon
light bulb
Dragon in a field
flying dragon
headless dragons

"broken lines only (2. K'un/The Receptive); six in the first place"

This one should be about riding a mare tirelessly over the plains, looking for friends in the south and west, then finding helpers and friends. It should be about recognizing the hoarfrost underfoot and the coming of winter.

- an ode to, or satire upon, the noize board entitled "Rude Boys Have No Fear (In Shantytown)"
- a meditation (or maceration) on the face of George W. Bush
- a poem cycle based on the I Ching
- a poem entitled "Many Happy Returns of the Day"

To which I add:

- a tragic poem about structural rot
- an ode to General Tso's Chicken
- a set of three New Year's Resolution haikus
- a poem entitled "It was a mistake to wear these clothes to the party"

Ira Lightman has done one, I think.

Anyway, three NY resolution Haiku:

My gut extended
My thighs chafing together;
Fewer chips for me

I really must do
something about the corpses
that the cat brings in

My resolutions
fade as morning dew by lunch
when the pubs open

AAADEEFHHMNNOPPRRSTTUYYY
N.Y? phat farms, nude therapy, yo

Any ally gets het up over amy
Many hope port ruins fat head

Many happy my dear the day, old, etc
Men ha’pee, reet? Turns off tha dear

Any happy returns of the day?
Many happy returns of the dray

Many happily return the day
Few miserably keep a night

a meditation (or maceration) on the face of George W. Bush

Squinting down the fence-line to where the sun sets
at the edge of his spread, his brow furled
in befuddlement, like a beagle
wondering which hand holds the biscuit,
or if there even is a biscuit.

His face the rodeo clown’s,
precisely designed by the fair and balanced god
of the Right to distract the mighty
but distractable bull of the people.

Even if the beast throws off his tormenter
he’s unable to finish the job. The crowd laughs
and prays, drinks another paper cup of beer
and goes home to beget baby cowboys
with baby spurs.

It doesn’t take long, staring at the clownface,
before you see the mean float to the surface
like fat on a stew.

Kids cringe behind their mama’s skirts
when the clown approaches,
his half-sneer smile the rictus
of a low-rank chimp who’s had to make do
with green bananas his whole life.
A bottom-feeder somehow stumbled to the top,
sore winner written across his forehead.

Just under the happy greasepaint
of the big-shoe buffoon
festers the surly dump-the-chump carny,
mocking the little kid who aims the baseball.

Looking at his face on the front page,
we can’t understand why our other half
can’t recognize their mistake.
We ourselves can’t tear our eyes away,
as if therein lies the key to forcing a mass apology,
as if filling our eyes will make the horror leak out
like dye in the wash, and redden the minds of the willfully blind.

The face is a red herring. So red it would madden
the most placid, meadowgrass-fat bull.
Turn away, before we grow so bewildered
that only a blind man could set us free.

All levity expires when I remove
my Members Only jacket. Records scratch
to standstills. Hands slacken,
paper plates lilt, cubes of white cheese
tumble through onion dip to splash the carpet.

These days we are all of us busy.
Between the office and the nightly bash
we pine for the days of our loneliness.

Forgive me, gracious host, for what I've done:
I live uptown, the leatherman ball was in the Village,
and your PETA fundraiser was on my way.

when i hit the jackpot
(you'll think that i'm a crackpot)
i'm gonna get my kicks-a
and turn into a shiksa

"post- almost post not post (oat flake bran squares)"

there aren't words
for the disgust
i've got
on a subject
or five
we've
over-
simplified
to ring out the
oil from the rag
i'd have to trample upon an ill-nicked lad
and lose half my work day
fighting the way our
eyes misread t's and how
i use the letters "qu"
for "sh" harrangued by
the hangman "_ _ i t" scattered
in the quandry of word
mystics versus forensics,
"yo, can i hit this?"

so i'd rather not speak
to seek an inner qwerty peace
and leave you heathens
in the temple of
psuedosophis,
the god of, "wait, hold this snake dung, i quit!"

my mind is like a seal,
and i like to swim.
like the prophet dori,
"just keep swimming!
just keep swimming!"
not winning
not spinning
just flip
for fish sticks
in sea world lady's hot lips.
m.

Solitary fleshblob
wails angrily at Reagan
Dylan Thomas explodes
I am covered in poet's offal

So sir, shall I take your coat
Kippers for breakfast today
I feel that 'tis my duty to sieve (sic)
Until my dieing day (sic)

Now you can clearly see that Kazuo Ishiguro couldn't quite cut it as a conceptualist.

See! Nobody likes their nose!

I hereby add:

- a graduation address to the Harvard Class of 2006
- a poem entitled "Dear Random Stranger I Saw Today: I Hate You"
- an ode to the oil-cured olive

My curséd Parker family nose
Is not as lovely as a rose
And o'er the years, I swear, it grows!

My grandmother bequeathed it
My mouth in shadows moves beneath it
And ruddiness oft-times does wreath it.

My husband doesn't seem to mind—
The dog as well likes me just fine
Is it possible they're blind?

More bulbous than it's long—
No one sings its praise in song
Yet to change it would be wrong.

To take that step I'm disinclined
For the price to sculpt it fine
Is better-spent on food and wine.

Drink my schnozzy blues away
Imperfection's here to stay
Big or little, all decay.

But in my nostrils, dimly lit and warm
Little birds find shelter from the storm.

A readymade. A found, or sought-out, text recontextualized as poetry.

Notes whip my face like sapling twigs
as I ride hard through the forest, blood
to my cheeks, and in between songs
the crazy popcorn machine of people
could lift you, if you would let it, if you
would only spread your arms to make wings.

I’ve cleared a space on the table, amid
the peanut shells, amid the dinner leftovers
packed up to go, amid empty and half-full
glasses. A space just big enough for a
deposit slip from my checkbook,
the only paper I’ve got on me—
bar napkins only rip when you
write fast with this kind of pen,
my drawing pen—like a junkie’s
hypodermic.
All this to write
a poem for Luna.
Happy Saturday.
So far, it’s been
a good day.

A) a rhyming lyric or a sonnet about spelunking

B) a poem about childhood illness

C) a poem [in the voice of] or [observing] a store clerk or a hairdresser at the end of a working day

D) a poem incorporating these word pairings either in adjacent or in alternating lines: famous/squamous, bickerer/stickler, trestle/fascile, lap dog/eggnog. (Note: these words needn't be used as end-rhymes.)

E) a poem where the line-ending words that have the same final vowel sound (for example: bleed, leak, creel, steamy). Note: This rule doesn't exclude end-rhymes, but does not require them. Each time a new final vowel sound appears, it must appear in at least five consecutive lines. Note: a new vowel sound may be established after each run of five or more consecutive lines, if desired. Every line should contain an equal number of syllables (for example, all lines have 12 syllables). Every line should have a natural caesura falling in the same position in the line. The entire poemmust have a minmum of 18 lines.

F) some prophetic quatrains in the style of Nostradamus.

G) a poem that is the exact opposite of Shelley's To a Skylark. I leave it as an exercise to the poet to figure out what that could possibly mean.

H) a poem describing the most horrid person on earth today, real or imagined

I) a poem wholly consisting of florid compliments and flattery for your boss

J) an acrostic poem on CLOSE COVER BEFORE STRIKING

A poorly-paid barman's love song

Miss J Harrison, Miss J Harrison
Furnish'd and burnish'd by merseyside sun
What strenuous graft I'll freely endure
So smitten am I by feminine lures

Line-cleaning, keg lifting, oh! weakness of joy
Your impudent bosom transforms man to boy
gibbering, weak-kneed, helpless with lust
Driven to tears by your fabulous bust

Miss J Harrison, Miss J Harrison
The grace of Salome, the calm of a nun
The limbs of a panther, as wise as an owl
How dearly I wish I was with you right now

The Land Rover's waiting, the lights in the hall
My pictures of Ormskirk are bright on the wall
My sweet, for your kiss I ceaselessly hunger
(But your daughter's quite hot, and twenty years younger)

Not quite a readymade, but as an extended exercise in limited-vocabulary construction i direct your attention to AAD's: The News As Expressed As A Japanese Hardcore Lyric

I'd love to write a poem for Luna
Speaking of her grace and beauty
But Beth wrote one, and so much sooner
was it better? Absolutely!

I walk. I reach this place. I stop.
Out here in this pasture What looks to me
like a boulder, buried in glacial till,
is no doubt a sunken dragon's skull.

This is quietly surprising, worth a stop.
It seems good to sit down when finding
a dragon sunk deep beneath a pasture, and
sitting, I find I am supplied with thread.

Everything reaches back to this stone, I discover.
Such as, each cloud that nears it overhead,
when I investigate it closer, has a new insides.
This stone has talents, powers, surprises.

I ruminate on whether I should dig it up,
this abyssal stone, this dragon that hovers
in the earth below me, as if in flight or suspense.
I rehearse the enterprise quietly; my shovel flies.

To my extreme surprise the unearthed dragon,
radiant and electric, instantly leaps
and removes itself into the middle of the clouds.
Beyond expectation, this outcome is happy.

The head of the dragon is lost in joy.
The earth and I are undisturbed.
It seems beyond all my understanding
that this one day could contain what it does.

My fellow silent human beings
you are sitting there on your buttocks, looking at me
I know you want me to tell you things majestic yet flamboyant
I'm afraid I must let you down
I have come here not to inspire you but to revoke your faith
hand me your souls on a black tongue
dripping oils and spicey ofal and merangue drip
WHATCH YOURSELVES!
You have failed to amuse me class of 2006
I curse you all. You will all fail to make over 30,000$ a year
sit on your thrones of yuk and tell me this
how did you emulate human garbage so readily!!!
I LovE YOU ALL

An afterthought of a child
Born to parents pushing middle-age
Two-headed sperm meets an egg that’s slightly off
Nine months then me!
Their precious bundle of frailty—
A catalog of subtle malady
Not audible by stethoscope
Or visible inside the tunnel of the ear
Or in the barium glow of the looping gut
But nonetheless, something convulsed
In the middle of me when the horrid yellow
Schoolbus hove into view, with the usual mix
Of predators and prey.

Like a poster child for hypersensitivity
Who’d been in the mailing tube too long,
My body had a memory of curling into itself,
And forever tried to return to that position,
Arms folded over the belly, knees folded up to the chin
Like an armadillo, with my bony back to the wind.
What you can’t see can’t bewilder you with its
Unbreakable code.

The principal gave me Pepto Bismol.
I sat in a soft armchair in her office
and waited for my mother to pick me up.
Dr. Salomon, with his German accent
And numbers tattooed on his wrist,
Must have known how his hypodermic needles
And rubbing-alcohol swabs terrified me.
Fear is part of the pediatric package. The fear
Of the illness, the fear that is the illness.

I think of how it must been for him
To subject a dying child to the tortures
Of a failing cure, as surely must have happened.
There was that girl I saw, whose wig fell off
When someone shoved her in the schoolyard.
Maybe she never lived to stop fearing him.

Evil has a mirror-good, each act a perversion
of another. There’s only so much in the repertoire.
Doctoring a corrective to the camps—
Cruel procedures in the service of life,
Cancelling out the shadow-twin. Or not.

For me this time there was no shot.
I spun on the stool in Dr. Salomon’s office,
Around and around and around, and when I stopped
He applied a perfect band of white adhesive tape
Around my belly. One length, meeting itself in the middle.
To support the abdominal muscles, he said.
Somehow it helped, and I went back to school,
To learn to write this down, to be shoved and to
Learn to do some shoving of my own. An education.
But I never learned that girl’s name. The wig
Was red, to match her lost, true color.
She wasn’t in my grade.

The International Convention on Apologies clearly requires all signatories to apologize "only upon the post hoc conviction of harmful wrongdoing, unprovoked maledictions or purposeful spleen." Your apology obviously falls under the clause banning "the craven or timid forestalling of imaginary offense through the use of agressive contrition."

BTW, great poem.

A cave holds secrets in the black
Unbeknownst to most on the surface
I hope to drop my rope and tack
down holes that make most people nervous

we're at the beginning of beginnings
or the ending of that end.

your dress has started grinning
from the tossing of our bends.

we're at the ending of your ending
or the being of my rend.

my pants have started spinning
from the glossing of our ends.

and what will i do tomorrow?
or wait, what did we do today?

my head is run sun-dried hollow
and my heart'll soon start to splay.

i'm at the beings of the beginnings
or the mending of that end.

my shoes half-forgot about winning
yet my feet have a stamp to send.

I've always been uptight about stalactites
Not to mention stalagmites.
There's the chance one might
Inadvertently
Sit on one.

Children love a match’s flare
Love the smell of sulfur
Oh they love the “sssssst�
Sound of a dunked match, its
Extinguishing glare
Children love the dangerous game
Of who can hold the fire the
Very longest, shaking it out last minute,
Enduring singed fingertips
Redolent and stained
But the trick reserved for older
Experts is to light the Lucifer
Folded away from its bookmates standing
On alert, without detaching the match
Really snappy maneuver, that is,
Except one false move and
Surprise!
The whole shebang catches the contagion
Remember, a cool trick
Is not worth a skin graft
Kindly close cover before striking
In case children are watching
Now let’s talk about your pyromania
Good idea to quit, now, innit?

- continuation of the poem cycle based on the I Ching

- a tragic poem about structural rot

- an ode to General Tso's Chicken

- a poem entitled "Dear Random Stranger I Saw Today: I Hate You"

- a poem incorporating these word pairings either in adjacent or in alternating lines: famous/squamous, bickerer/stickler, trestle/fascile, lap dog/eggnog. (Note: these words needn't be used as end-rhymes.)

- a poem where the line-ending words that have the same final vowel sound (for example: bleed, leak, creel, steamy). Note: This rule doesn't exclude end-rhymes, but does not require them. Each time a new final vowel sound appears, it must appear in at least five consecutive lines. Note: a new vowel sound may be established after each run of five or more consecutive lines, if desired. Every line should contain an equal number of syllables (for example, all lines have 12 syllables). Every line should have a natural caesura falling in the same position in the line. The entire poemmust have a minmum of 18 lines.

- some prophetic quatrains in the style of Nostradamus.

- a poem describing the most horrid person on earth today, real or imagined

They have no fear in Shantytown
All comers must be shouted down
They’ll smash your glasses, hapless piggy
Kill you dead as Kurt and Biggie

Those who tell their latest picks
Are told to eat a bag of dicks
What’s the secret handshake here?
Who knew I was such a queer?

Yet I long to join their club
At the counterculture hub
Nerve center of the disenchanted
Amnesty is rarely granted

I could pass the test I swear!
Shave off all my graying hair
Practice my derisive snort
Gain admittance to their fort.

There they dance around the pyre
Who’s that writhing in the fire?
David Gray? No! Even worse!
Conor “bambi-eyes” Oberst!

Rude Boyz circle round the flames
Burning Man! Their favorite game!
They’re the super-duper winners!
Till their mom calls them to dinner.

as long as you
don a pair of dice
and lurch about
y'si
revenge of sum(nerdz) C-jpeg bunny light.

good furry huemurs icy treats.

a lark might find their noise a curio
a lark mite twine at der frank further dicto
a lark myTTT.scatter(); from prankster lather
but his her rud buoy floats 1.0f into big cuddly daddymommy huggz say "bunches!"
scatterbrained for bong jokes
on whiskey tonic islands
of no bugbear return
into urban eccen-tri-cities
like an echo of furry ferns
playing not preying,
just hanging minus
the forced friendliness
of
of of
of of of
of of of of
(a higher archie of preed-positions.)

loot the puns and get our your gifs,
the trogg pics are blazing,
but if then
and when
while the do
of the morn() sub
will skip to the rare GODZ vinyl
i'm smiling for hits a while.

rood peeps have faerun nothin to feer
cause fee is the mindkillah
so says the prophet
wolf into the eyez
of a gangle woot
upon google's
hole-iest pop up shroud,
REBOOT!

m.

i think your opinion rules.

things like the pickle bar often feel prepackaged as a thing to misunderstand tho. that would be my one caveat/response. seeing as a good majority of pickle bar posters also post at ilm or ile, i think there's a lot to find in common, it's perhaps just presented in a different flavor. like lime-chile bubblegum. it may look exotic or even taste so, but it's not really. that's my misguided take at least!

sorry, POEM ON!
m.

What lies beneath
that pastel wallpaper,
faux-iris bedecked,
nor flocked, nor flecked,
and the laquered pigments
in hues more somber than
pedicure-inspired, is
what undermines it.

The sentimental would dwell
upon its several teddy bears,
the portraits of fleshly joy
or rectitude hung on view,
but these are part
and parcel of the larger hope
of building - permanence,
outlasting the resonance
of the minor key.

But that is not to be.
The rot's already lodged
within; like trees in the wood
who long ago learned to keel,
fall and melt as shapeless
lumps, subsiding, dead,
gone back to mould and moss,
these beams and boards
embrace the dissolution.

The fall of this house
is certain, eating its bones.
Not one stick standing,
nor one inhabitant,
no gaiety, no soft lips,
no memory of what was here.
Rot recks our doom, an in-
questing conqueror worm
before whom form itself
dies to the upper world.

The waitress pursed her ruby lips
The lonely sailor rubbed his eyes
She brushed against him with her hips
He asked her for a steak and fries

The lonely sailor rubbed his eyes
Was she really standing there?
He asked her for a steak and fries
The neon danced upon her hair

Was she really standing there?
He’d had a lot to drink last night
The neon danced upon her hair
Like confetti made of light

He’d had a lot to drink last night
Her face was looking kind of weird
Like confetti made of light
Sweet illusion disappeared

Her face was looking kind of weird
She brushed against him with her hips
Such big hands, and look! A beard!
The waitress pursed her ruby lips

Sports Mom

Boys need a mentor to stop all confusion
Presidents, athletes, astronauts, men!
Consistency, role models, manhood transfusion
No walkabout wonders or bookwormy friends

If you were a good mom you'd line it all up
Little League, hockey, Pop Warner and track
Hell Week and hazings to toughen the pup
Victory! victory! Never look back!

Believe in the dollar, the muscle, the creed
Supremacy bought at the outlet, reduced
Prenatally steeped in the gravy of greed
Load it up, lock it down, give it some juice

Her womb an industrial washing machine
Churning out infantry, quarterbacks, stars
Breeding the godly, the hard and the clean
Born with their eyes covered over with scars

Launder the uniform, pack up the snacks
Banish all thinking and conquer all fears
Volunteer cheerfully, plaster the cracks
Hurt him good! Hurt him good! Good mother cheers

Shampooed and shoe-shined and blindingly bright
Biggest and shiniest car in the lot
Elbows all sharpened and itching to fight
Everything buyable's already bought

Blood-crazed and chipper she leaps from her seat
Ripping her lungs out and pumping her fists
Knocking the teeth down the throat of defeat
If it takes rigor mortis she'll stiffen his wrist.

If it takes her last breath, she will offer this shout
If it takes her last decibel she will give cry
Drum out the dreaming and drown out the doubt
She's waiting to see if he'll do, or will die.

Brava! Brava! Bravissima!

I was considering re-titling this thread as: The thread where Beth Parker writes a poem (and we all stand and applaud!) - but that would be wrong, since it would apply undue pressure on Beth, and we all have a stake in creating the optimal conditions where Beth's talents may burgeon and prosper, thereby bringing a new sense of life and happiness to her fellow creatures, us. This may be our purpose for being on this earth, I suspect.

Beth, I would like a quinzaine about pudding.

Beth, a poem about bulbs in the shape of a flower bulb.

- a poem [in the voice of] or [observing] a store clerk or a hairdresser at the end of a working day

- a poem incorporating these word pairings either in adjacent or in alternating lines: famous/squamous, bickerer/stickler, trestle/fascile, lap dog/eggnog. (Note: these words needn't be used as end-rhymes.)

- a poem where the line-ending words that have the same final vowel sound (for example: bleed, leak, creel, steamy). Note: This rule doesn't exclude end-rhymes, but does not require them. Each time a new final vowel sound appears, it must appear in at least five consecutive lines. Note: a new vowel sound may be established after each run of five or more consecutive lines, if desired. Every line should contain an equal number of syllables (for example, all lines have 12 syllables). Every line should have a natural caesura falling in the same position in the line. The entire poemmust have a minmum of 18 lines.

- A readymade. A found, or sought-out, text recontextualized as poetry.

- a poem entitled "Dear Random Stranger I Saw Today: I Hate You"

- some prophetic quatrains in the style of Nostradamus.

- continuation of the poem cycle based on the I Ching

- a poem about dogs getting to know each other

- a quinzaine about pudding.

- a poem about bulbs in the shape of a flower bulb.

1
And at the close of the fifth decade of her reign
The queen of backyard midden-heap will cast about;
Benumbed by numberless days of dumb toil
On the ivy-strewn acres of tightfisted plutocrats.

2
All will convulse themselves with gratitude;
Bear salvers of gifts in trade for her grudging labor;
Yet this swag shall fail to calm her restless army
Rattling their rusty swords at yet unconquered shores.

3
In the Year of the Dog the sun will climb to the roof;
Killing rays like prison searchlights will sweep the yard in vain
For her bowed head, insufficiently veiled; For her scabbed ankles,
Poorly defended against bloodthirsty Ixodes damminii.

4
Fresh armies will come to take her place, and they
Their own scars and pains accumulate, but of this
She will never hear; deafened by songbirds
In the cage of her newfound freedom.

Off-Leash Love

We could take off you and I,
When the sun's low in the sky.
Humans turn their backs, capeesh?
Loosen hands upon the leash.

From yonder forest game-smell drifts
Wrong to turn down such a gift.
Musk of ocean on your flanks—
Seagull corpse! Ah yes! Give thanks!

Snout the leaf-mold, oh so thorough,
Noses shovel through the burrows,
Unearth rodent, snap his spine,
Slake our throats with warm blood wine.

Go back to our separate homes,
Promise nevermore to roam.
Tails between our craven legs,
For table scraps, reduced to beg.

But as I lie before the fire,
Ears all torn from thorny briars,
Coat all filthy, full of burrs,
Your scent lies upon my fur.

Tapioca nurtures me.
Will it still love me
When I'm fat?

Miracle Worker

Where is that lady who wants the hair clippings
To keep deer out of her garden?
I'm gonna throw it away.
She can get it out of the dumpster
If she's so fired up about it.
I myself would just put up a fence,
Having seen the heads from which this hair came,
And listened to them all day long.
"Shorter than last time, okay? I want that pixie look, like
Audrey Hepburn in that movie. You know the one I mean."
Lady, in your dreams! Okay. Tapering to a V
At the nape of your neck. Perfect. Beautiful.
God, tomorrow is already bearing down on me,
Dark as the dye-job on a deluded sixty-year old.
May as well leave all this hair on the floor.
More's just gonna fall. And while we're on the subject
Of pointlessness, what's the point of all these haircuts?
More's just gonna grow. And, My Fair Lady,
No matter how many times you watch the movie,
Your future bulldog face is coming true, pushing
Through the gauze a little more each week.
There's only so much I can do.
But don't worry, sweetheart.
That look works for you.

I apologize for not tending better to this, the thread I began, but writing poetry has not been in the cards I'm turning up, lately. Perhaps my luck will turn. I hope so.

you are always tossing me out
the window right into the flower
'ed, the neon 'reeding 'olted onto
the 'uilding next to our rickety
place, the place you 'ring our children
up in, out of the darkness i can only unright
at the next street in a taxi trying to
rays home on to THEE vegas 'eatnick light fence
i used to live in not quite live girls
stro'ing in some 'oo' pair flashing, missing
'ul's caving into some 'onnie nether shaped
originating defensive destined aerie nation
of six to twelve little dough larks tweeting
and kissing the 'lue sky even when it was one
smog 'irthe kicking me out the winding holes
perching from flora to flora up and up, out
'alconies, into glass filaments popping in
dramatic, repeating inconclusion.

the authorities don't listen
to me not minding the sign
i'm down the 'arred loop in minute
'ig, nasty dog that i am
diggin up my wive's roses.

some letters i could not afford,
she gave me my dream,
only literally.

m.

Ha, I was teaching about McClure and his card generative methods just the other day.

Okay, a card assignment, then!
- a poem inspired by the Tarot.

no spell start
we put ask
Or swim fly
it turn on live
go tell clean
For sit think
he drink sing
yes live wakeup
awake start buy
you do stand
My ask need

it's the general tso's chicken
on your shiny red dress that's stickin
not my guts
not my love
not the edge of the bed
not his shove

you cheat on me
and call me "out"
it's not the chicken
"you're such a lout."
his fist on my face
his fist on my face

it's the general tso's chicken
it's the general tso's chicken
it's the general tso's chicken

yeah.

m.

Smam = spam ofc, nerf my typing skillz.

m.

I'm always Sleepy these days, what with the little one
the immune system suffers and soon I'm Sneezy
if I take cold medicine I'll act too Dopey
but if I don't I might be Grumpy
I guess I'm Bashful because I almost deleted this post
I'll be Happy
Once my kids are in school, Doc

Lame, lame, lame. But there you go. Somebody must do better. (I am half-asleep and half-intoxicated from white wine I dispensed out of a cardboard box (because there were leftovers from our last radio fundrasier.) Going to sleep now. Should I revive the "stand up and applaud" thread? ~ m

Beth, I'm not local to you, I'm in Manchester, England. Sorry I can't come over and help! Shellfish reports just intrigued me, and the more I thought about it the more I wanted to see what you could do with one. Don't go to too much trouble though!

Of all the seven dwarves
I am so happy
to have married
Sleepy
instead of his sidekick
Sneezy,
or camera-shy Bashful,
even though his dopey snoring
makes me
grumpy, doc.

I love that both of them are in the form of a confidence to Doc, like we're at the shrink.
More dwarf poems, people!

As we close the year 1941
and look to 1942
one dares not stop long to ponder.
Do you know
that there have been more men
rejected by Selective Service Boards
than have passed?
By the middle of July
a little over 64,000 had been
called in Massachusetts.
Of this number
almost 35,000 were rejected
because they could not meet
the high standards set
by the board.

The school stands ready to help
in every way
but the real job rests
with the parents
in the home.

In these trying times
children must have proper food,
rest,
exercise,
sleep,
and defects remedied.
Let’s all put our shoulder to the wheel
for an all-out victory.
Place the youth of today first,
for they are the citizens of tomorrow!

I wish to express
my appreciation to all
who in any way helped
with our corrective program.

Report of the Police Department

In the year 1969
I would like to stress
the growing increase of Drug Abuse
with our teenagers. This is a problem
that cannot be swept under our rugs,
it must be dealt with right now
before it gets any worse.
In July of this year
I brought to an end
a seven month investigation,
during which time we hired
a payed informer
to work for us.
I must say
that I have very deep
and mixed feelings
about using a payed informer,
this method like others
has good
and bad points.
In the past I have worked
with some of these kids
quietly,
they call
when they need someone
to talk to,
when they need
to take a drug.
I listen to them
and try to help them.
Maybe
this is working
and maybe
it isn’t
but at least
I am trying.
What are you doing?

Respectfully submitted,
C. V. M.
Chief of Police

Shellfish Department, 2001

To the Citizens of Chilmark:

The shellfish have had a good year.
Shellfishing efforts have been
at an all-time low this year.
Again thanks to the trades.
How long can this building boom last?
Not as long as the shellfish
that’s for sure.
- The Quahogs do appear
to be increasing in numbers.
- An extremely abundant,
perpetuating
colony of mussels
are taking over.
- Scallops could have been had,
but were not,
yet will.
- The multiplying,
delicious razor clam
is becoming common.
-Oysters are doing
their oyster thing.

Capt. Herbert Hancock
inspired dreams
of Menemsha ponds full of scallops.
In God’s new world order,
when the dead are resurrected
back to life here on earth,
as God has promised in the bible,
I believe Herbert
will see this happening
and have some good sport
capturing these creatures
in Menemsha Pond again.

Shellfish propagation
has many variables,
but one thing that keeps
my mind occupied
is the tides.
They come and go
with such exact precisions,
they can be predicted
to the minute,
years in advance.
Even every creation
in the heavens and on earth
can be measured in some way.
Accidents?
I don’t think so.

Respectfully submitted,

CAPT. STANLEY L. LARSEN
Chilmark Shellfish Constable

Postscript:
In the early part of last century there was an epidemic of congenital deafness in Chilmark brought on by inbreeding. Everyone in the town knew how to sign. Was this one of the “defects” to be “remedied?”

Captain M. was an enthusiastic pot-smoker. He lost his position when a large number of stolen televisions and other valuables were discovered in his house.

Stanley Larsen, once a large part of the town’s teen Drug Problem, is now clean and sober and a Jehovah’s Witness.

wow! i love those found poems, beth! herb hancock built our house, you know.

\o/

- a poem incorporating these word pairings either in adjacent or in alternating lines: famous/squamous, bickerer/stickler, trestle/fascile, lap dog/eggnog. (Note: these words needn't be used as end-rhymes.)

- a poem where the line-ending words that have the same final vowel sound (for example: bleed, leak, creel, steamy). Note: This rule doesn't exclude end-rhymes, but does not require them. Each time a new final vowel sound appears, it must appear in at least five consecutive lines. Note: a new vowel sound may be established after each run of five or more consecutive lines, if desired. Every line should contain an equal number of syllables (for example, all lines have 12 syllables). Every line should have a natural caesura falling in the same position in the line. The entire poem must have a minmum of 18 lines.

- a poem entitled "Dear Random Stranger I Saw Today: I Hate You"

- continuation of the poem cycle based on the I Ching

and these:

- a cautionary nursery rhyme on the death of rock stars

- a still-life poem about your workspace

- a poem about your shoe collection

- a poem entitled "Accidents in Time Travel"

- a poem about President Bush where every line begins with the words "I Apologize."

- limericks about hypochondria

i am a shouting lout.

i am a missing link between stupid and hungry.

are you shot?

or are you bent?

in the cave. farted. no vent?
m.

ps non-comm'ed random report from R section. re dacto, red act oh!

ttfn!
m.

Janice and Jimi,
and drummers galore
had bad screaming mimis
until they could score.

They mixed drugs together
that didn't belong
and when veins would wither
shot under their tongues.

Now, instead of gigging
Or dancing at raves,
Because of their swigging
They're snug in their graves.

So, don't you turn feeble
before twenty-five,
and don't mess with speedballs -
you might stay alive.

While gobbling his cartload of pills,
John packed them in up to his gills,
'Til so overloaded
He fairly exploded,
And, dying, he murmured "Life kills!"

The doctor told Jill she was fit.
Riposting, she told him, "You tit!
I've symptoms galore",
Wrestled him to the floor
And proceed to show him her zit.

A desktop, two laptops, three phones and a stapler
An ashtray, a candle, a big stack of paper
A stuffed mouse, a mouse mouse, books and cd's
Tissues and postcards and oh- what are these?
I don't know what they are, I don't know where they came from
I don't think they're mine and they're covered in
Something disgusting, I'll throw them away
And, while I'm at it, empty the ashtray.
I should take the mugs down, they've been there a while
And sort out what's under the cat, in a pile
But when I try to move her, it's not on your life
So I have to leave her; it's not worth the strife.
There are socks on the scanner, two mags and a drill
- I'm putting up shelves sometime soon, but there'll still
Be no place for it all, not a thing in it's place
It's just how I like it; my lovely workspace.

I'm not liking the word 'lovely' but I got fed up trying to think of something better. I'm too impatient for poetry, really.

The resultant child was an odd one.
You see, the woman apparently was my Mom.
Thus, I fathered myself.
This is why I am always so stern with myself
and I am nervous to talk to myself about sex.

He died. Yep. I sawr it.
They found his body legless and silly.
Ladies were biting it, especially the
not-to-be-mentioned part
He was such a big star, whoooo!!
Big deal asshole.
now you sleep with the normal people.
You used to lube yourself up and attack the world.
Now you ain't goin' nowhere baby.
But I love you , I kiss your bubble.

Unicornucopia

Guess who’s at the door again?
My niece, my chickadee, come to check
the feeder—cheeks pinked by winter
and by seven years—
though it’s not her birthday yet.
Still there should be cake.
Round here she’s famous, and though small,
she towers above the snips and snails and
squamous fascinations of her brother’s
puppydog-tail friends.
Queen of etiquette corrections,
curator of her own collections,
a princess not by birth but by vocation
and popular vote, a landslide.
We’re putty in her chubby hands,
and the conquest makes her beam—
light leaking through the seams
of her fledgling school-taught cool.
She knows the rules, she wrote the book—
selling cookies, telling on the boys.
A stickler for procedure, she brooks
no bickerers or shirkers,
but first things first:
she needs to take a look—
is the jewelry box restocked? To paw
and plunder, stuff her plastic purse.
Ladybird, her woven nest of party streamers, tinsel,
silly string, a silver cloud for dreamers.
Her fortress fine with fancy dresses,
gilt and mirrored vanity where Barbie braids
her lustrous tresses. Baubles, booty—
have it all!
Lay the downy lining thick
to cushion any little falls.
Lavender kittens and rabbit-fur lap-dogs,
Barbie serving Ken some eggnog.
Candy hearts and fairy wings,
things and things and things and things.
Her greed is still a kind of truth—
not yet a curse, and perhaps, with luck
will always soothe
and never segue into
lipstick on a leper.
For now, embrace the gift.
Heap the groaning trestle high
with facile girlish goods.
She’s no sucker, take a look—
she plucked the lure but not the hook.

- a poem about President Bush where every line begins with the words "I Apologize."

I apologize for flinging stones at you, you little shit.
I apologize for flinging them wide, not making a clean hit.
I apologize for your existance. I don't know why you're there.
I apologize for how you've gotten tangled in our hair.
I apologize for your being a fool, a knave and a mountebank.
I apologize for how you fill the nation with your stank.
I apologize most insincerely. I have my fingers crossed.
I apologize, for I must grieve, regarding what we've lost.

Fish Tale

Her husband said, I'm feeling sick
Your lustrous hair, your luscious lips
You make me tired; please call it quits
Your language fades, the breaker's tripped
The sickening glow, the swiveling hips
The face that sank a thousand ships—
I'm turning green about the gills
From mal-de-mer and mounting bills.

Let's hold your tits up to your ears—
Do nipples talk? Just listen, dear—
They whisper soft; the coast is clear,
No one to see, no one to hear.
She's not so cruel as she may seem;
Her perfect crime: no blood, no scream—
Just numbskulls sure they've hooked a dream;
Dumb lobsters cooked in their own steam.

A trophy catch! What shiny scales!
The wedding dress conceals her tail;
On land, alas, mermaids lose grace,
Gain avarice, paint their faces,
Fret constantly about their waists
Complain, complain, and file their nails.
Ripeness withers like a raisin;
Beauty begets impersonation.

Home-fires and furs, my darling's cold.
The yacht comes next—but will it float?
Count the lifeboats and plot your course;
Some sailors just don't get the joke,
Don't see the rocks, don't heed the lore.
Tall tales are told but are ignored;
All fear's forgot, let's raise a toast
To those who've lost what they prized most,
To splintered wrecks that line the coast,
To Lorelei, to lovelorn ghosts.

m.

- a poem entitled "Dear Random Stranger I Saw Today: I Hate You"

- a poem about your shoe collection

All right then, here's my attempt at 'Dear Random Stranger I Saw Today: I Hate You'

You stood in front of me on the escalator
Talking to your friend
I could not get past.

You put your feet up on the tram seat
And lit a cigarette
Under the 'No Smoking' sign.

Sitting in the square at lunchtime
You kicked out viciously at a passing pigeon
And kept your crumbs in their wrapping.

When you walked past the begger, who smiled
His patter ready on his lips, never bitter, always in the same spot
You sneered and flinched.

In the cafe where I was reading
Not two feet from my ear, you bellowed
Into your phone about 'that slapper' you pulled at the weekend.
For twenty minutes.

If I beleived in God, I'd ask him
For a gun, a fast one
With a good silencer,
Or maybe
An island to myself
Just me and the seagulls
Or maybe (as a last resort)
The patience not to hate you, Random Stranger.

Okay, Shoe-Bards, step up!!!!

but i don't have a shoe collection.

perhaps they might be
really smart shoes.
or very elegant shoes.
not very clumsy shoes.
or shoes that are always the
wrong size or taking me
to the worst places
out my control.

but i don't have a shoe collection.

they wouldn't be falling
apart because i would replace
them to keep taking me
to all those important
places doing all those
vitally important things
i do.

but i don't.

perhaps if i had feet
for walking i might have
some shoes. perhaps if i
had lungs for breathing i
might run a little bit more
than stumble in the rubble
on troubly grumble humbloridgible
scribble tips of flippering,
but i'm so to sit.

hair feet fantasy grit.

shoeless to wit.

whither to wit, whittlin one by two sets
of clogs for her to do.

doing the walking she deserves to do
i to sever
i server
i my toes clipped to better myself as herder.

i'm lost anyway.

m.

We have arrived! It's time to get going! (But not until after we have stopped a moment to admire the retrospective view, which now takes in Zora and msp's fine poems.)

6666666!!!!!!!!!!

- an abecedary on the subject of drugs

- a sonnet entitled "why you should hire me"

- a poem incorporating the rhymes ice water/fly swatter, sour mash/car crash, Bavarian/aquarium and toothpaste/MySpace

- an ode to the cheeseburger

- a bad record review, in rhyming couplets

- three haiku about spring

- A poem that rhymes "not whole" with "knot hole".

- A poem to be sung by a chorus of Beefeaters on the Queen's birthday (seperate tenor and bass parts are optional).

- A poem that references a placenta, a spatula, and a Toyota Camry.

i want a poem about candy. i want it to tell a story about how candy ruined a man's life.

Here you go, miss grumpy.

Sugar Ruin

Candy was the book
I found in my father's sock drawer.
That and the Bell Jar, given to me
by my eighth grade English teacher,
did the fox-trot in my brain all that year.
Innocent flowers, rotten fruit, sex, death.
What more do you need?
Mr. Blydenburgh used to come to class
reeking of last night's whiskey.
It didn't take much to set him off
on a bellowing, eye-bulging rage.
Sometimes just the look of us—
our rows of lazy faces. One day
He handed me that book.
He didn't expect a paper.
Later that year, after a night of drinking,
he fell off a dock and drowned.
I don't think his trash-fed students
ruined his life,
but we didn't save it, either.

I never got into the poetry of Sylvia Plath.
But I kept my sweet tooth for the dirty treats.
What happens to our parents' pornography?
Does it rot back to the earth after so many moist
page-turnings? Do our mothers shovel it
into the garden? Who wants to think about it?
Now I'm their age, and I sneak looks
at my son's porno while he's off at college.
Shameful, but not ruining anyone's life.

Terry Southern went on to write more books
and screenplays. Candy didn't ruin his life either.
But somewhere in America, in some basement bedroom
there's a pimple-faced kid sitting with his laptop
in a sea of candy wrappers and stroke magazines.
He's impersonating a movie director, heating it up
with some other kid who's impersonating an actress
on the casting couch, giving her all to the role,
Sugar Mama to his Sugar Daddy
until his mom calls him for dinner,
and tells him to wash his sticky hands.
His father wonders why he won't go out for sports,
And the kid can't tell the truth, that it's too late.
Rot starts in the tooth and moves to the nerve.
Candy has already ruined his life.

the band's name i can't quite recall
they didn't sound like much at all
an indie boy, some minor chords,
a song about the brit awards
like blur without the melodies
or pulp if they'd never spread their knees
a little twee, a lot of mope
an unconvincing ode to dope
the nme, of course, said "8!"
out of 20, maybe, mate
there's a hidden track, a dance remix,
or so they say -- it sounds like styx
it would only count as funky
to your average arctic monkey

Paint it Blue

Is that my coffee?
I said skim, not whole.
How many times do you
need to be told?
And while we're on the
subject of fuck-up-itude,
which one of you assholes
forgot to Zinsser the knot holes?
They're ghosting through
the paint like blood
through gauze.
Heads are gonna roll.
I swear, this job
will finish me
before I finish it.

I wasn't supposed to be doing this
at my age. This wasn't
the plan. You kids
think you've got
nothing but time. So did I,
but I turned my back and they
reamed out the neck of my hourglass.
Now the sand falls through like an avalanche;
like your backyard sliding into a sinkhole.
There goes the doghouse, there goes the car.
I forgot plan B.
Never learned programming,
or married well.
And speaking of unspeakable omissions,
who's the asshole who forgot
the anti-gravity boots? Well,
don't let the customer see you
with coffee in your hand.
Steady the ladder.
Tomorrow I'm gonna be sore.
But tomorrow we should be done in time
to make it to the beach. One more coat
and this house will be beautiful.

- a poem incorporating the rhymes ice water/fly swatter, sour mash/car crash, Bavarian/aquarium and toothpaste/MySpace

His front room sported a cracked aquarium,
The flaw in it was nothing, merely a hairline,
Nevertheless, it wouldn't hold water,
Becoming another thing to be overlooked.

He sometimes claimed he was Bavarian,
Descended from a Count or maybe Margrave,
It was something along that line.
(He always drew his lines a little crooked.)

He sweated like a pitcher of ice water
When he drank. And when he drank, he drank
And made no bones about it. Sour mash.
His breath a car crash, in dire need of toothpaste.

His stories (they were tales) he punctuated
With stabs of his fly swatter. Failure
And success were met on equal terms: a snort.
Nowadays (fine word!) we all can meet on MySpace

Perpetually tidy as zitless adolescents,
Equipped with mirrors and endless grooming time
To tend our hairlines - a far, far better place
Where we can all be Counts or maybe Margraves.

You feel it, I can tell: you felt it from
The moment I walked in, a newfound sense
Of poise, the sudden clearing of a lens,
The ears that pop -- when you saw me come,
It felt as if someone had, in a soft
And sibilant voice: Ah, this is something else.
And you, a man who daily buys and sells
The gifts of blood -- the coal that miners coughed
Their life out to bring up, the Russian steel
Kept cheap by torture, rape -- you had been checked,
Made still by something you did not expect,
A thing you never thought could e'er be real:
And you can have it near you, every day,
You can have me -- if you'll consent to pay.

--

I know spring is here
When the rain blown on my face
Is slightly warmer.

Amphetamines were never my cup of tea
Barbiturates held no sway for me
Cocaine never took hold of my mind, but
Dope I do love (the leafy kind)

Ecstasy I relished with dangerous glee
Freebasing was too seedy for me
GHB makes scary drink blends
Heroin stole the lives of some friends

Indo – now that’s just my speed
Juana have it but it’s not a need
K holes must be scary to drop in
LSD -- ummmm where to begin?

MDMA did a number on my jaw, but
Narcotics needn’t be against the law
Opiates never had a big grip on me, but
Percoset brought on a religious epiphany

Quartz has ravaged too many towns and teeth
Robitussin doesn’t cause that much grief
Salvia can take you back in time
THC is better though you can’t buy it on-line

Uppers, as I told you, I just turn down
Valium-popping pop-in-law drives too slow round town
Weed is the winner, all the rest are detrimental
X would be fine if it didn't harm my dental
Yayo can cause a nose-wrenching addiction
Zoloft might be nice if I had a prescription.

The Yodeler

O! Radio Lady who
Sings yodelayheehoo,
rapidly twiddling
your tonsils around

Your arts epiglottal
incline me to startle,
to blink, gulp and throttle
an impulse to run.

O! Radio Lady, you
Hew at my noodle, too
Crudely up-heaping new
leather-lunged tunes.

Throat-open giggles mash
in a mess, madly dash
Backwards and lastly crash
Tripped like buffoons.

Vowels you flay into rags
Shredded like wind-blown flags
Breathless as racing nags
Whipped for a mile.

Spurning you I should spin
Radio dial again.
Damn! My excuse is thin:
You make me smile.

Yowza! You should fulfill your own commissions more often!

Maria, how did I not guess that you'd step up to the plate for that drug poem? Especially after you made that acrostic matchbook commission YOUR BITCH.

I would also like to request a poem about having a headache where none of the words used in it exceeds a length of five letters.

I am very interested in somehow launching a communally-written series of linked poems, but I do not yet have a simple way for this to happen that can easily coexist with the natural and necessary anarchy of ILE. I will continue to think on this.

I am keen on the idea of reading a set of modern nursery rhymes. They needn't be cynical or topical (althought they might be). To give an example of what I have in mind, here are two I wrote very long ago:

Sad John had a penny bun,
One hard bun to put in his pocket,
Sad John walked along the road,
Kept his bun and wouldn't gnaw it.

--

The ladies that come
From Boston town
Put lace in the windows
And pull the shades down.

The Last Martini

Dahlia said "Darling, did you pick up the dry-cleaning?
I hope they didn't chip the gold leaf off my epaulets.
I need that jacket for Joe and Jeannette's party."
Darren could barely hear her over the clinking
of the rocks in his perfect martini, the martini
that took him one entire summer to perfect,
totaling his roommate's Toyota Camry
in the process, walking away without a bruise.
Dahlia lay on the chaise-longue beside the pool,
cucumber slices plastered to the pouches under
her eyes, waging the never-ending holy war
against the inevitable, which she was winning,
lean as a cheetah in her sixth decade.
Was it the gelcaps of placenta
Or the weekly hot-stone massage?
Darren sure didn't know. But
whatever it was, she glowed
like a comet, blazing her icy trail
through empty space,
brilliance like a blade in the eye,
preventing close inspection
of fissures and gaping craters