A child asked Emily-

Where do tears come from?

Wet-I've been-Where

Tears come from-You have

dipped in the Abyss too?

Sprung from spaces-unseen-

Joy has never been-There

to melt away the bitterness

of an icy raw day

Seeping and Weeping push through-

guarded Gates-solid as Blinking

little trifles-Tears-like watercolors

Bleeding flowers drooping wet in the Garden

Image of painting by Winslow Homer (1878) 'Girl in Garden' [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Out Stealing Poetry, Be Back Red-handed

“Lowell and Behold! What do have we here?!-Move it a Longfellow!
Hayden-what in the Dickinson is going on here?"
                                                                         “I'm almost Donne. I'm causing no Millay, so there's little need to act so Wilde. I simply must be Thoreau in solving this riddle. Let me Goethe and figure out what are these Wordsworth-"

“I'll give you a Pound to quit right now!"
                                                                         “Keats your panties from bunchin'-Imma cummings Imma cummings-wouldja just be a bit more Patient?"

“Use your Whitman! I'm getting Frost-bit in here with these Dead Poets."
                                                                         “I feel a chill too but you Dante have to be so pushy-could you be Neruda 'bout it!"

****************************
Skipping through beads asunder.
Towers fall like the ominous night.
Fearing the chronic angers of lonely offices.
But Faith remains fine then too.
One saucy pedantic wretch coming up,
with or without, since my candle burns at both ends.
And all men kill the things they love most.
But Men Say They Know Many Things.
Listen to the cricket, crisp with delight,
perched with the free lovely little flower.
Cocorico-There is no high road to the Muses.
No flowery tale sweeter than rhyme,
in time(s) of daffodils (forgetting), lilacs (proclaiming)
and roses (to amaze thee)
in the leaves of grass, to sing any body electric
down two roads diverged in yellow
for the straightforward path had been lost-where was I?
Writing the saddest lines that were never mine...

*The poetry lines following the asterisks proceed with a line(s) from each of the famous poets mentioned in the dialogue with a corresponding line of their poetry in the sequential order that they are named.  (excluding T.S. Eliot, who actually used Cocorico in  “The Wasteland" and is not named explicitly).


Image By Uusi Suomi, V.A. Koskenniemi circa 1945 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.


                                                                 

Toilet paper tree

In the 80's everyone was wearing a Swatch watch
and rockin' a Sony Sports Walkman.
I didn't obey schedules then.
I carried a poetry journal instead.
Nobody could hear my music either,
but it wasn't shock proof like the Sony.

In high school my English teacher
was also the football coach.
Mr. Morris would recite poetry
like he was doing drills, his veins
protruding on his tomato Red-neck-
"I am the Captain of my Soul!"

My first boyfriend was gay,
peers used to say I turned him that way.
We made a deal in the forest.
His parents wanted us to get married someday.
He lived in San Francisco,
before he died that May.

One afternoon cutting school I was
hitch-hiking to the beach, I got a ride
from a perverted old man who was also
drunk, but the roads wind-
so you couldn't tell he was swerving...
He took my journal and wallet.

I was broke without a journal.

Those poems were so young
they didn't have time to matter.
I found paper scraps with my words-
swimming, rivers, tears, bleeding
hanging on branches like toilet paper-
where the bus stops.

The leaves whispered, reciting them,
nobody heard but me.




Image of painting by Zygmunt Waliszewski (1897-1936), "The Toilet of Venus"[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

An Orchard of Golden Apples for Eris

Haiku IX
Independence is
a fruitless tree of no-ledge
fallen far from roots














Image of painting by Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882), "My Lady Greensleeves" c. 1864 (w/apple blossoms)[Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

A bee told me, that a bird heard...

Of the thousands of amorous sounds of Spring
the birds seem happiest in the songs they sing
vacationing  and splashing in bird baths
maneuvering along their migratory paths
Free as a bird
I'm sure you've heard

Yet anticipating change is quite strange
a cyclical flow that may go
from sun to snow
even so, flowers gaily grow
eager to show and make a bright display
to bloom  and perfume in the warm suns ray
the boisterous bud wont slow down
while all the bees are buzzin aroun'

Pollinated air rife from seasonal flings
it's not the bees fault love stings
all bugs and colors are abuzz
drunk with Natures nectar on Peach fuzz
intoxicating & liberating, under the influence
Over Winter

You've heard about the birds and the bees
and smelt pregnant blooms in the breezes
but feel for those with virgin allergies
whom Spring sneezes never pleases



Image by By Thomas Wolf (Der Wolf im Wald) (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0], via Wikimedia Commons (3/2008).

Infectious invidia

You would suspect she was blind

if you didn't smell the rat

Her tactile groping, 

compliment invoking

ego stroking

was really an attempt to steal

rob you blind

This thief with sight

She wants your life

since Hers is so laden in strife

Going by the monogram of N.V.

She ogles your trifles

She begs for your leftovers

She pines for your lover

She loves your waste

Like a thief in the night

She'll ruin your life

since Hers is so laden in strife

Her name was N.V.

She takes your stories

She moves her head like you

She boasts of your assets

She asserts your stories are moving

Posing as a friendly Knight

She begs alms for her plight

while wielding a knife

Her name was N.V.

Seemingly in-kind

yet the rabbits out of the hat-

Her fruitless hoping

Her gun still smoking

Her empty air choking

looking for a free meal

while stabbing you from behind

Do not breathe the air of N.V. -

whose full name was Noxious Venom-

and watch your back!

"En garde", alert to Her sneak attack.

Image of painting by François-Guillaume Ménageot, "Invidia" 1906 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

At Hawthorne's Hearth: A Bonfire of Vanity

Nate the great told many a horrific short story,
this particular one though, not as gory.

'Twas about a great bonfire of his own vanity,
in a tale he ignited with damned Infernal humanity.

The time and place, were are told, both shrouded in haze,
and specifically irrelevant for recounting this great blaze.

So, a weary traveler espies, this intense glowing light,
and is drawn to it, like a moth, blind to personable fright.

Haze of dust and soot circle the pit of this mad pyro place.
Heaps piling up all that remains is a cremated odorous trace.

The materials we collect, amass and one stashes
for later, for greed not need, is reduced to mere ashes.

Both receipts of binding debts and bombast assets-
Both conceits of boastful pride and bashful regrets-

An inquisitive observer, a ticking watch-man,
A weaver of words, the nightmares of Nathan,

Who dreamt of books burning,
seeking his own with yearning.

Everything and All goes on to the raging pyre!
Cauterizing people from their acquired mire!

Stoking and invoking 'The Fire Sermon',
Recalling amnesia through an act of arson,

Smelting the ore of material need,
Any need reduced to basic greed.

This episodic dream penned as Hawthorne's parable,
A rhapsodic rant, worthy of Kant, was truly not so terrible.

With a glimmer of phosphoric radiance,
Reason, Philanthropy, Philosophic brilliance.

And any little idiosyncratic whim Nathaniel should desire,
Nonchalantly gets thrown into the 'Earths Holocaustic' bonfire.



Image of painting by Peder Severin Krøyer [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons. "Midsummer Eve, Bonfire on Skagen's Beach" (1906).