Thursday, December 14, 2017

Thin, Yellow Line- Another Poemy Thang

Thin, Yellow Line

It’s a shift worth mentioning, when the mind sees the end
of a line of code and it makes as much sense as the
process it took to get there,
an alarm ought to sound somewhere-
just anywhere, anywhere
so that songwriters can begin a suitable eulogy
for all bluebirds lost in flight and
spiders pinned wriggling to the wall,
every hopeful decision come to and sent packing like a vagrant
camped by a church.

In a sign worth noticing, my threat has constricted
and my voice subsumed to the process of keening for the
bruises and death it took to get here,
the alarm still blaring like a car alarm in a mail parking lot
so that marketers, whose ignorance is complete, have a campaign
keeping broadcasts lit and telephones ringing and pinging
all mindful creatures pinned and wriggling on the wall
so that most every prudent decision is parsed for inclusion in a blueprint
and used by exclusive accountants and schoolhouse administrator.

I know you’ve a party to attend, my dear,
and the evening is drawing to an inevitable conclusion we’ve seen
for longer than the earth’s been deep in grief from the game-
revel in this hot, thin soup
because we have a date to keep,
a pleasure and a trenchant vision retinal and long-abandoned
by real estate agents, politicians, administrators, and profiteers-
blessed are the meek and the peacemakers, once again.





Sunday, November 26, 2017

Bowie's Ghost

Bowie’s Ghost

Relinquishing memory, a faint one at that
a day-old creation, only ripened like fruit
begotten backwards and in an old style;
brinksmanship is the goal, and trickery the background
for all rhythm and blues behind the curtain-
beyond speech and flown to the moon, you know,
like a train and pitiful passion-
it’s what we know, and we know it well.

The pulse of the world brings my loins to the brink of disease,
of languor, of fury;
and all talk is made to kneel and pray
to your new horizon, my bastion of faith, your memory of guts,
our own DNA shot to hell,
my only blessed constancy placed within a crystal goblet-
only you know.
Only you know.

So are you pleased?
Will the Scandal bring you forth from the fold
and from my second son and toward a fetal memory
having broken into a song of gilded prophesy
begotten upside down and with purposeful style,
the window blackened by smoke and soul.
Will you ever know?

Will we understand?

Sunday, October 29, 2017

The Far Horizon, or the Photogenic Generation

Here's one I worked on and am still at. No guarantees.


The Far Horizon, or a Photogenic Defenestration
When was the building raised?
Who taught us the lie and promise of a profit?
I only remember the gracious living of a yesterday on the sea,
The 38th parallel at a sweeping fifty-foot height above O…

Ours was the salmon pink, squat home, with a small
herb garden to the side, a patio out back looking to the mountains,
and on the porch, a lemon tree and table.
The Sea stretching to the southwest-
No sun or stars; only the waves, the wind and the forgotten beginnings
and pits from rotten fruit.

The smell, heavy and grating
as only industrial sound in recent memory
is dropped like a piano from above.
The rocket is my only inheritance,
my only table on which to create any broad stroke and lasting impression-
this fear is Olympic-sized and as deep as a well-
an extended stay, a frequent flyer,
posi-traction for the paralytic soul.
So now, as youve already disposed of the label and wrapper and receipt,

we wait for the darkened show to begin.

It's sort of an perturbed feeling;
low-down and resonant, like the rumble of low-flying B-52s.
...Only much deeper.
An emotion raised in water and brought down from high snow-
it's still good, walks long and far and remains deeply aligned toward the future, 
but perhaps not-
because food for thought isn't always food for the soul, 
and vice versa.