Monday, September 30, 2019

20190930.0430

Seven made nine comes to an end
The equation still out of balance perhaps
But there is no more time to solve it today
And it will be a year until I can work on it again

Sunday, September 29, 2019

20190929.0430

A few letters after a name
A fancy title with
Executive or
Director or
President in it
And many find they need larger hats
I already took a bigger hat-band than most
Should I be concerned that I haven't needed to visit a haberdasher?

Saturday, September 28, 2019

20190928.0430

Hearing the songs that were sung
In what would have been the days of my older brother
If I had an older brother
And that I would likely have heard booming from his speakers
Either through the walls or out around his ears
I am almost tempted to think
I was born in the wrong time
Almost
But I would have done no better then than I do now
And I can still listen to the music as I wish
And more that the theorized he
Could never have heard

Friday, September 27, 2019

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Bubbling hot water
Salted already and
Churning
Pieces of meat are placed in it
Left to soak for a while
Though the chunks stay on the bone

Thursday, September 26, 2019

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Clear shades to brown shades to a deep garnet
I drink the jewel gladly in the afternoon
Astringent bitterness refreshment steaming hot
More inside than in the summer that yet lingers

Wednesday, September 25, 2019

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The light of a lamp
Fueled by gas
Is better than darkness
It lets a person see
Who can look
But that light only shines so bright
And it comes in a color that skews the view
And it must be remembered
That one stray spark
Or one leak
Can blow the whole thing to hell and back

Tuesday, September 24, 2019

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He tries too hard
One of the kids who
Used to be cool
Coasting on the reputation he gained then
But those who know him know
He is not the hype
With his ponytail and big bald spot
As he sits unshaven in socks and sandals
Behind a big bock of a desk--
And is no kinds than those who
Wear their anger openly

Monday, September 23, 2019

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Keats lays out a path that might begin again today
Two hundred years on or thereabouts
Showing plenty and labor and decline
But what he wrote is for a season in another place
And while the path may still run true there
As it did then
Amid the limestone hills that drape themselves in oak and cedar and mesquite
The summer heat lingers yet
And will for long
And as it passes there will not be multicolored revelry
Emerald and jade do not pass into garnet and topaz here
Not often and not for long
If at all
But we are compensated with sapphires in the spring
And rubies and gold for carpets instead of the ceiling

Sunday, September 22, 2019

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Aestas dances her last today
Shakes the golden garland and her slim hips
Hands still stroking flesh and bringing heat
Even in her last performance this year
Before she leaves for other lands
There to dance again where Polaris cannot look

Saturday, September 21, 2019

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The uniforms go marching by
Shining in the sunlight
Sweating beneath
And it is easy to love such things on sight
But less
Perhaps
To love the things not present in parade
Sometimes needed
Sometimes not
Unless the desires of the greedy
Whom struggle never touches
Count as need
But far from pleasant
Even when needed
Flowers grow well from shit
But what does a flower do?

Friday, September 20, 2019

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The boxes sit
Unopened
Or if opened
Still packed
Their contents hidden away
As they have for years now
And I have to wonder
Why I still keep them
Why I have kept them
Dragging them from place to place
And leaving them closed
With few exceptions
One or two things dragged out into the light of day
And the rest tucked away again
Such that I do not remember anymore what is in them
What a fool I am
To labor so
Working to no end

Thursday, September 19, 2019

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Controlled and restrained
Kept in clear confines
Surrounded by stone or steel
Regarded at remove
The fire feels good
Does work that needs doing
But left to itself
It rushes out
Eats to excess
And wastes both itself
And all it touches
It is to be feared thus
And I have always been afraid

Wednesday, September 18, 2019

20190918.0430

Life is breath
And breath is life
And that which gives life is often called a god
So what manner of maker is it
Whose hands and inblown breath
Make such discordant squawking
And what veneration is due such a deity
That does so poorly
What a god is supposed to do?

Tuesday, September 17, 2019

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The test seems always to come back negative
It doesn't matter what it's for
Every time
It's been clean
Or clean enough
For what was checked
And I do not know why I bother to check
Even though the test will show
Something
Sometime
I won't be able to do a damned thing about it then
I have enough useless knowledge already
Know things that do me no good
That I cannot act upon
Or dare not

Monday, September 16, 2019

20190916.0430

Behind the rolling hills
Limestone clad in oak and cedar and mesquite
I saw towering white mountains
Peaks limned in rose gold
Looking down from far away
They melt away under the skies growing blue
But I know they shall come again

Sunday, September 15, 2019

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The best of all bard-craft I dare not to boast;
The skills of a skald I scarcely can claim,
Yet delight in the doing of deeds of the poets
Is still mine to savor. Their songs bring me joy,
Though croaking, not crooning, crookedly flows
From ends of my fingers fast on the keys,
And worse yet wends out when I lift up voice.

Saturday, September 14, 2019

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What is a poem?
The question is trite
Its answer is not
Necessarily
It is an object of hatred
The recipient of the agent's action
Inculcated through bad work in the classroom
Across many years
Because if there is one student
At college
Who will ask
Will this be on the test
Or
Do I really need to know this
It will be the one who goes on to teach later
And it shows in the work
It is a gift
A package wrapped in filler
And boxes
And tape
And paper
That may or may not be pretty
For different types of pretty
And there always seems to be some other fold to open
Some other layer to be peeled back
Or something scrawled upon the wrapping
That had not been noticed before
But not all gifts are welcome
Some are given
Well intended
But ill considered
And some are the reverse
And some are last-minute purchases at a drugstore
Recalling that a gift is owed
If a gift can be owed
But not recalling why in time to make it a good one
So it is a token payment
Though what is purchased thereby is not certain
It is a screaming into the void
An assertion against the world that
I
Am
Here
And a confession that
I
Do
Not
Know
And an assertion that
Neither
Do
You
And an avenue through which we can both figure it out
If we try
But not so many want to make the attempt
As should
It is other things too
And in so being
Frustrates
Many
Who seek to have one answer to one question
Always and every time
Even though there is more often
More than one answer
Than one
And the answers change with passing years
What is a poem, then?
It will depend on who asks
And who answers
And where
And when
And that is as it ought to be

Friday, September 13, 2019

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The heavens align
With the artificial construction of our time
Because the slowly dying orbits of
Selene trying to reach Gaea
And Gaea striving for Helios
And Helios slowly bloating as he
Seeks a deep dark hole to plunge into
Care not for a Friday or viernes or Freitag
Or whatever we might care to call it
And they reck not the number of the day
Know it not
Or mock us for our little knowing if they indeed know
Máni may show his pock-marked face
Pitted and stained from abuse in ages long gone
But if people act differently for seeing it
The fault is not his
But perhaps their recognition that
They are wrong
To abuse others in the ways that they do
That all of us do
And need to amend

Thursday, September 12, 2019

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Lacking the stamina I remember having
I appreciate a slow day
Now and again
But when there are many such
All in a row
I have to wonder what is coming
I have to fear it

Wednesday, September 11, 2019

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Eighteen years on
And we're still in the middle of it
Even more so now than then
Perhaps
Since those afflicting us
Are us
Or are close enough to us that
No security theater will stop them
Nor will a regular theater
Or a schoolhouse door
Or a church door
Even if they should be glad to die there
If they really believe what they purport to believe
Or they are the actors in that play
Making themselves worse than Miles Gloriosus
Because they can back their boasts
And walk away
When black men and children cannot
And brown men, women, and children can walk no further
We have lost the "war" we thought to fight
Becoming too much like that we thought to fight
And sliding closer to it every day
As a canceled dinner plan suggests

Tuesday, September 10, 2019

20190910.0430

I evidently have a mark on my forehead
Despite sacrificing no sheep
And my brother yet living
But it might be worth noting
That another who is said to have had such a mark
Wandered
And did not return home

Monday, September 9, 2019

20190909.0430

I carry a torch
As I think most do
But that lover has spurned me
Long since
Having a light of her own
A dim and flickering flame from an oil lamp
Once brightly polished but tarnished now
And I wonder what it obscures
When it used to be my bad vision
That kept things about her hidden

Sunday, September 8, 2019

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It is not a great weight I carry
Not against the weights others bear
But I still do not know if I am strong enough to carry it
And I do not know how I can become stronger
If I can do so

Saturday, September 7, 2019

20190907.0430

It is a strange thing
Having worked the work
To no longer do so
But to watch as others do it
It is a stranger thing
That sitting and watching
Becomes so easy
So quickly

Friday, September 6, 2019

20190906.0430

The cry is often raised
We have rights!
Respect our rights!
We can bear arms!
The Constitution says so!
But
That right matters little
Against a thin blue line that hides behind
A golden shield
And claims to serve and protect
But whose interests are never stated
And the youth fall dead because of it

Thursday, September 5, 2019

20190905.0430

Even in West Texas
A place renowned in story and song
For frontier spirit and self-reliance
For fast draws and sharp shots
Rough and ready riders with pistols at hand
The good guys with guns were not good enough
And vengeance is cold comfort to those left behind

Wednesday, September 4, 2019

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Time and again
They surround me and celebrate
But even when the celebration is of me
For me
About me
I find it hard to smile

Tuesday, September 3, 2019

20190903.0430

Swollen throat and running nose
Are signs expected, I suppose,
Of cold from summer's final throes
Flung messily upon me
I neither cough nor sneeze as yet
Though I would not against it bet
That of cough and sneeze I have a set
To be soon discharged by me

Monday, September 2, 2019

20190902.0430

On this day that labor won
It might be thought the fight is done
Since the work week is set by law--
But such thought is beset by flaw
For no law in itself is good
And often evil in law's stood
And that a thing has a marked day
Means not that its foe's gone away
Indeed, more often past its end
Does observance a thing defend
Despite what others may pretend
And what labor unions may oppose
Still fights on, no in death throes
But once again does dire threat pose

Sunday, September 1, 2019

20190901.0430

With the new month just now begun
Might be thought comes new chance for fun
But far more likely sorrow comes
As each new indignity numbs
And constant onslaught batters down
The brave, and jumps up a preening clown
Who struts and frets upon the stage
And in clowning ends an age
By laying bare all of its sins--
But no new era thus begins