Monday, April 18, 2016

Spring cleaning


It was eighty degrees in April,
calamities abounding on fractured plates,
like earthquakes
and the old lady
wearing a black tank top, her arms propped on her knees,
sits on a curb
outside the white medical office
with her frizzy white hair
clenched in her hands...
and she quakes quietly,
her skin ripples in the white noon light.
Mexican fan palms crackling in the white hot breeze
seem to say
just another day in paradise.
The pollen has fallen,
she could smell it in the air
while dripping salt water on the blacktop.




Image of painting by By Carl Heuser (1827-1892) (Bonhams) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Saturday, April 16, 2016

Mining Stars (from here)


The President said
plutonium supplies
were good in the pits.
I wondered what it meant-
so I dug 963 feet
below the surface
seeking that sinking
heavy metal, heaving
twice its weight in gold,
yet primeval and silvery-
precious.

First made by supernovae,
naturally stardust,
radioactively broadcast
its position
through in the universe
-this one
time
expansion.

Discovered in Berkley,
in a February-
back then, 75 years ago, by a Glenn
Seaborg-not a Cyborg,
who then sent it to Los Alamos
in another February
for further detonation
and investigation
of astronomic instability.

With seven crystallographic phases
it elementary amazes scientists
in its fractalized dynamic destinies.
With differing densities, quite capably
able to decimate cities,
by morphing its own mass;
molten, hyper-reactive,
subject to spontaneous ignition,
irradiated with vaporous
breath, like making plus
molecules
ad-here
plutonic at the core.

Mass casualties of the atomic age
Man as kin, or mannequins staged
as markers amongst
the desert blooms
carbon footprints on the floral carpet
show we were here
in Plutonic Purgatory
hunting and gathering
wishing upon stars and
digging up disasters
in the diabolical desert
seeking forgiveness
in a cactus bloom.



Image of butterfly on desert bloom of zinnia By Mike Howard, BLM New Mexico State Office Botanist [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Twelve-Thirty (12:30)


1 o'clock
Atmosphere insists itself
autocratically outside the lines.
Cold-blooded,
the reptile, a racketeer of ends denies inclusion
by magnitude of malice, patents pend on the Platypus.
The 21st question,
What is shod and tastes like magnesium?

o'clock
Ring the cymbalism;
Reverberating amplifier,
a muffled box,
caulking thoughts with expansive foam
sealed door of hostility.
Inside the tank, a goblet and gimlet-
Meeting drunk.

o'clock
In a position, in position, to posit-
Impossible, made
For Hand Use-
Heretofore-
Be Fore we knew for
Reduce the cost on cutting corners -of a box,
Dyeing and finishing done.

o'clock
Appeal and appear, steal and pretend, forthwith
under arbors twines loving affection.
In him, cinnamon, sin a hymn,
my pleasure frontage blooms
in thou fruitful delight-
Behold!
The Glacier Garden melts itself.

o'clock (shadow)
A tour of the mast-head-quarters with the devil as a guide reveals
Below the belt of venus in abasement where the insubordinates
Are on lunch, they heard like cattle hay was coming their way
You sea things were going swell in hell
Until the little bird heard about another word “alee” says he
In the front row, tornadoes blow down tornado row and hurricanes stain souvenirs
Stubs with acetous rain, recycled, in epicycles.

o'clock (rocks)
The Apocalypse is a place, not just a disaster.
I was relieved to learn the ambulance only took a couple minutes.
The length of her body,
I see a contorted creature, lays in the dirt
Nonsense, Get Up the army man self-combusts, blonde dirt
Increments come at all intervals and in between
Fret and not yet, creatures, we wait. 

o'clock
 Lolly gagging a long nettles together
The seams were connected bisymmetry
The appearance of disparity,
Between butterfly and beast
Plants sap milk and wine
Sweat in the sweet fun sun
Lemonades liquor laughter.

o'clock
Free lemonade and bibles,
Their stand, bi-polarity
Inducement of concentrate,
unmixed lumps give it away
By Law and throughout the Dell
These comrade, are against a stand
Hypervigilance during the day.

o'clock
Relationships are board games, like Life, a Monopoly, losing marbles, and saying Sorry.
There are fact checkers and there are Clues for management that we are pupils
Learning how to move on a plane. The contract or instructions say anyone can play.
Numero Uno y Dos Pasos over, a revolver, in the library. 
The clock points, lightening goes out.
Starting a new game starting new winners and losers of brassiere-women’s lib. 

10 o'clock
Putting on the big shoes we know
We are not ready for the added weight
My mother said she found me
Eating butter from the tub,
Of course it was just an anecdote
For the glory of glib
Like she did with her other belongings
In the toy chest, listening to my Bohemian rhapsody.

11 o'clock
Solitude sealed, enveloped in a moment.
An epistle declares a confession where virtue
is undeliverable, an encoded will
and testament in pulp.
The banner blares aggression
in the steel drum metropolis,
abdicating lyrics and lines

Mid-night
The party commences at six o’clock 
that was all then again
steel stringed blisters fester still
building pressure the pistons count to 

30
Time...................unable to heal......in such a short...day.

Image of painting by Paul Klee [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons (Asiatische Gaukler. Dated '1919 150).

*The title of this poem 12:30, refers to the 30/30 Poetry challenge of April writing thirty poems in thirty days. This is 12, and all I will be doing (maybe) since I found it to feel stilting, discouraging and artificially contrived some days, although it is an interesting undertaking indeed. I used 7 words from the poetry generator designed by Robert Peake, a talented poet and technical wizard. 

Deep breathing lessons


In a fit of (out)rage-
directed at self-
via repeat rejections
and the subsequent dejection
received-
I could only see (in the) red.
The message was loud and clear, I fear
they all might be right and
I almost entertained
a harebrained
nasty notion, deranged desperate thought
that I could spend my days in drudgery
earning regular poor money
working for someone else’s benefit(s)-
Then I remembered 
that doesn’t work-for me
though it would make some others
(beyond) happy-it'd be
at my expense,hence,  I’d be in debt, 
lacking value, 
inherently strangled spiritually.
And after a moment of light
reflection-
I can now breathe
asymptomatically.




Image of painting by Frederick Sandys, Love's shadow, 1867 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.



The man who cried False Alarm



Every morning this week
the neighbors car alarm has gone off-
beeping, blinking, blaring, whining, wailing-
in the darkest neighborhood of morn.

Parked across the street
it goes on and off for two full cycles,
at least,
someone is trying to snooze.
Already awake at that time,
I am still disturbed by the ruckus,
my tail feathers are ruffled,
and the worm has been scared off.

It could have been an accident-
if it wasn’t a recurrence.
And it could have been a real robbery,
since much sleep has been stolen
in our neighborhood.

Or perhaps it's petty theft-
left bereft of quiescent courtesy...
Likely, a case of false alarm was set
to scare the wolves away, 
(the wrong) buttons have been pushed-
not all alarms work the same. 


Image credit By Internet Archive Book Images [No restrictions], via Wikimedia Commons. The second jungle book., 1895.

Thursday, April 14, 2016

Pequeño Sueño


Like waking...
When the material world
flashes its things, solid as snapshots;
clock, window, truck, cat, plumbing,
stretch toes, sigh deeply, lay, sheets,
sweat, stir. It comes. Solid. Heavy and Material.
You've fallen awake. In the thick of It.
Exit bed, feet float, glide along, smooth tile
and enter your dream…world.
The motions-you move through-
seeking any signs of a new day.
Yes, this is all too familiar.
Here you are again.
And then you realize, rationalize;

a dream is to pretend. I pretend
Practicing the motions
with a lingering notion
nothing you do is new.
All that you think and say
was there before you.
This is no nightmare, but awakening
is scary. It is your secret
when you weep-while you smile.
Playing your part, stage set,
cast into type, lost into words
you've memorized
but have no idea
how they got there
and seem suddenly, today
something new,
or just acted out
by the other 
dreaming You...



Composed 12/3/15
Image of painting by József Borsos, The Artists Dream (The Little Painter), 1851 [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Mid-April 2016



I hear but cannot see
                            coming from behind me
I go on reading
                           like this
Anyway,
                           I hear
                           (in a deep voice)
"Cuz 'nigger' is a weird word-'
                            "Yeah-yeah-yeah, I mean..." squeaks
                              another
And I look up to see
                            a preppy young black teen
accompanied by two of his friends
                           (a fast-talking Filipino
                           and a shy brunette, buried in her phone.)

The black youth is pushing a Diamondback,
                            (not the snake, the bicycle)
wears square-rimmed glasses, his hair is tightly trimmed.

Seagulls bitch and moan in the back-ground tarmac
bickering over scraps
                            (maybe sushi)
in the adjacent high school parking lot atop the hill
                             over-looking the ocean
(a
ffluent
beach town.)
He looks over
                              to the sea,
                              sighs and says,
"To me, it just means 'slave'"
They have moved on.




Image credit USMC [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.

Tres (trace)

Water Today, warm raindrops glass blurs, the blurry glassy, sharp sparkles sugar. Behind Evening, it was good. Leaves all turned into shadow...