Burn a poem and
Write a new one in its place.
Coal-black ink phoenix.
Category: NaPoWriMo 2015 (page 2 of 3)
What art and what pain? A
What brings the sculptor’s knife B
down against the stone’s grain? A
What internal strife B
Fuels the long-winded nights? C
What is the artist’s life B
Without its turgid fights? C
What drought and what rain A
Freshens the flower and fills the root
But leaves it wanting in its train
like perfume falling from a flute.
a melody bleeding from a flute
makes me love and kills the pain? A
What wind sings sweetly for my sight
pine over water
dam dipping under
the curvature of the river
pebbles clatter into place
without ever splashing the surface
the clouds sunder the sun
for a moment that hangs upon the air
like the hovering eagles
still in place
yet always roving
brilliant in their loftiness
peat perched upon the penumbra
of the forest sees the gradient forces
between night and day
intermeshing network
of blind insects governed by pheromones
harvests the decomposed detritus
of the forest floor
insular universe
sewn between the seams
of our urban
biospheres
coagulated concrete
coal fumes
these are the branches of our nest
pushed out across the wild west
and into every nook and cranny
fluid species
permeating endlessly
until there is no more room to fill
bacteria duplicating in a vial
Sing a song of me
and I will sing a song of you.
The sun is still shining
and drying all the dew.
There are no stories here
save the ones that we recite.
So, I will choose a major key
To make you lovely, soft, and bright.
We shall have the faith of sailors
in our journey for a timeless tune,
grown out of a tone, that could
resonate with you. Someday soon,
Air Ballad Concerto Dixieland Jazz –
whatever it is that makes you spaz,
we will find it. And we will sing
and it will be of me and you.
The rocking chair, is sitting there, alone
Amid the darkness. How long has it been
Since it last swayed gently? It has been prone
And waiting patiently in the den.
One wonders what moves in this silent space.
Whether critters skitter in this glib gloom;
Whether Time grew chill here and could not chase
The tune it had pursued from room to room.
One wonders because one has time to think.
One has time to think when one has been dead
As long as I. Listen, and drink the night
Dry like the wine on the day I was wed.
We fashioned this house into our family’s home
And, all through the years, we stood side-by-side
But, now, my spirit has no hearth to roam
Because of that woman and her arachnid lies.
It was here she took me, when time had had
its toll – on our dreams, our love, our marriage.
But there was no love lost when she stabbed
Me while I dozed in my father’s carriage.
This curved wood had been carved by his olive hands.
He made it for Sam when he was just born,
To help lull him to sleep. That man understands
The need for precious things to be well-worn.
And, from our firstborn to our granddaughter,
This chair has borne babes and mothers, laughter,
Yet here I lay, the victim of vile slaughter.
If only I knew what you were after.
But, I will never know. For I have thought
On it long and hard. And my mind has turned
To other things. After I died, wild rot
Raked my skin back. It was then that I learned
That the mind lives on after death. What rage,
What horror, and I had no mouth to scream.
Each wall a misty mirror, ghostly cage,
And I, its prisoner – stuck in a dream.
And when my skull fell and I bit the dust,
I knew that no one would ever find me.
I will disintegrate like red rust
From this world and eternal memory.
My only wish is to feel that chair rock
like it used to so I can let this life go.
That pendulum is the key to my lock
So, please, sit, and rock, knowing what you know.
Quiet breath
Nighttime sky
Beating heart
Lover’s sigh
Cradled arm
Soft, still gaze
Supple mind
While we laze.
The quinzee caved in on itself after Springtime leaned its weight against its melting dome.
The layers of ice shards – which resisted the hooks of our reversed hammer more than the hard-compacted snow – were now too infirm to support the rays of the beaming sun.
The cardboard boxes, robed in black garbage bags, were pinioned beneath the still-great weight of the quinzee’s concentric ceiling. On all sides, save for the tubular entrance that I had bludgeoned into a gaping orifice which escaped all our flimsy body heat like a thieving knave, the walls rose around the pinned seats, that were used once only, for they could not keep the cold from our freezing buttocks.
Instead of digging a hole and filling it in, we built a hill and dug it out. Our stay was brief in this hovel, for we found the edges were too sharp and too cold. Some homes made out of snow will always be cold, no matter the amount of effort or warmth that are breathed into them. And, when the season changes, and the paltry union falls to pieces under the purveyance of the sun, then summer will come at last to breathe rejuvenation into the hearts of lovers.
The dream that begins outside the house of my father’s dynasty
is full of empty space – a quiet barn emptied of all its hay.
And it burns in my restless, roving mind like a candle
flickering on a table. A toy zephyr breathes oxygenated fuel like a nurse
upon the flame’s flickering lips as its puny engine stirs the air.
Firmly saddled, with my finger on the pulse of the fawn I had stolen from a steel trap,
I bolted to the finish line and danced out upon the lawn.
This stallion’s owners had closed the doors a moment too late.
I purchased some freedom from the sharp night air, flaring my nostrils.
I have slept through quieter nights than this before.
Mary’s butt is firm
From all the Jiu-Jitsu –
We fight every day.
The words that you believe in –
Where did they come from?
Do you remember a time when you were just forming in your mind
the phrase that you now espouse in perfect meter and perfect rhyme?
You didn’t always believe those things.
Those frightened, feeble things.
You used to be cool.
Someone that I could believe in.
But those words, those wild, weird words that you believe in,
Wherever did they come from?
I took stock once of all the things that I did not know
and I found that I could not keep count –
I would rather tally stars.
But when I recalled all of the things that I knew
to be true,
Well,
I could not help but celebrate myself for my perceptive genius,
my wit, and my prophetic vision, let’s call it?
I mean, I’m quite sure that I was the first child ever
to realize that light could bounce off water.
And I kept this sweet, sweet knowledge to myself
and didn’t tell anybody.
Not even my grade six French Immersion teacher,
When she slipped on ice and broke her elbow.
Because knowledge is power. And I know knowledge.
I have seen books. On and off shelves.
Open and closed. And, let me tell you,
There’s nothing more arousing than an open book
– you know what I mean?
Those hard covers, the playful dog-ears,
the aging pages dressed all in black – ink.
I could tear it all up!
And set it on fire, it gets me so hot!
And I wrote this poem in the ashes of Ulysses,
The Odyssey, and the Metamorphoses
because the best way to write a poem is when
you mix it right in with the old, moldy books
that have been cooked to a crisp.
How do you think Khubla Khan was written?
With the help of opium? Pbbt
No!
Coleridge just burned a bunch of books behind the barn.
Took a stick and wrote away until the wind blew half the poem away!
And I know that this particular historical fact is true because I believe it.
And I only believe things that are true, so, therefore,
I am right all the time.
And, trust me, I don’t mean to brag but,
it truly is an incredible feeling to know everything all the time.
I don’t need tutors, instructors, coaches, “spiritual” leaders, life coaches,
professional advisers, OR accountants.
I can do my own taxes because I understand ALL of the law, in its entirety,
and not even some judges can say that. Just sayin’..
Now, I may be getting audited, but that’s ok
because I know why I’m getting audited,
and it’s because the government doesn’t like
my wardrobe of black leather.
Or, my history of library arson.
But, you buy one Daddy collar too many and suddenly
the CRA is all up in your ass – figuratively, of course.
And, I hope you can all sit on what I’ve said, and think it over.
Because every word is true, right down to the book-burning.