20200229.0430

The unique jewel of the tetrennium
Shining out amid the years
Result of the math not matching up
But all of us are off in our reckoning
So we should be as quick to excuse the fault
As we are to make it
In such years as this

20200228.0430

She bounces from one thing to another
And to another
And to yet another
Bouncing back again
Before caroming off in
Another direction still
And the eye will waver in following the
Course of a ball not thrown
The neck breaking that holds up the
Head that swivels to
Keep it in sight

20200227.0430

The petals of multicolored flowers
Blowing about buoyed
By random winds
Erratic exhalations that
Ring with joys yet new and
Apt for sharing more broadly than
The more muted happinesses that
Riper fruits can still stand to enjoy
And less bounded

20200226.0430

Childishly, I
Look forward to a trip to the zoo
Where I will walk among many
Removed from their accustomed places
Performing for passers-by
And hoping for some scraps of something or other
Gaudy peacocks strutting arrogantly
Their discordant cries ringing and disturbing
And barking hyenas waiting to
Clamp down on the younger children of
Others
And sometimes they are the same
But I will still go again
And eat my popcorn
And go back home
Thinking how much fun it would be to be
Them
If perhaps back in their never really natural habitats

20200225.0430

Some of John Bull's sons have borne a white feather with shame
But the spawn of Uncle Sam have no such symbol of acclaim
When no laud for valor saves those who their duties do
From temper tantrums from on high, screamed out to their rue.
Small wonder, then, that many, looking on, will turn away,
Knowing that no good will come from deciding to stay.

20200224.0430

Reading the words
Of blunted joys
And having to wonder who
Hones the edges of happiness
Sharpens the blade
Makes them Marlowe over the bar tab
Who is the stingray to their Steve Irwin
Running them through and poisoning the wound
Wearing armor to turn that blade aside
Even the strongest hand behind it
Does not drive the point in
Or make more than a scratch that but
Itches a little
While others writhe as
Something spreads through them
With each throb of their hearts

20200223.0430

You say you are the sons of brave fathers
And perhaps you are so
But you are not brave
Hiding your faces from mild winds
Hiding behind the laws you claim are corrupt
Because you are afraid that the consequences of your actions
Will be the same that you seek to inflict on those
Who have already suffered and whose families suffered
Longer than you and yours under the pretense of oppression
Because they fought a battle you want to fight again
And lost and lost badly
But you take up their battered banners and bunting
And let the flap flaccidly in the wind
And they are not all of yours that fail tumescence
However they are blown
They lost
Get over it
Go back where you came from
Aren't they the things you say
To those who would oppose you
But it was yours who lost
Whose bodies ate bullets and were buried
With more dignity than they deserved
Failures generations after failures fled
And they chose their flight
They knew they could not make it on their own where they were
And they fled
And at least the others you would see oppressed again
Had no choice in the matter
But were taken
And wrongly no matter by whom
Rather than fleeing from their homes as you chide others for doing now
No wonder you are afraid
You fear that it will be done to you as you have done to others
As you would happily have done again
Unless you lie with your fourteen words as much as you do with your cries of loving country
While you wave a banner of treason
And claim it is heritage while espousing hate
It is no less my heritage to see your homes burned
Your fields sown with salt that nothing grow in them again
Than for you to fly your little flags on their oh-so-tiny flagpoles
But I do not call for a return to what was
Because I would be happy to let it rest once corrected
Rather than to fight the fight again and again and again
I would be happy for us to be better than we were
Because we were not good
You cannot make a thing again that never was

20200222.0430

They hear the sloppy-plumaged cock crowing from
Another farm whose fields are well manured with the
Shit from generations of overeating
And strut and crow themselves
Bantam roosters who do not understand
The hatchet that's been pulled from the stump because
The gripping hand is not at their throats
Yet

20200221.0430 "Suggested Text"

We all fall into habits and patterns
Beginning from the beating of our hearts
And continuing with more and less comfort
Until they cease at length
The words we will speak are no different
Wearing paths in the grounds our minds might cover
Bespeaking the boundaries beyond which we seldom go
And making us machine-like
Until each of us can be replaced
And each of us will be
Though it remains uncertain what will succeed
It is certain that we fail.

20200220.0430

How the new flowers sway
Their bright young blooms glinting in the light
While their gardeners tend to them
Pruning away leaves growing stale
Shaping stalks to simple straight lines
A bouquet in the making yet unseen
But glimpsed each day in fits and starts

20200219.0430

There's one thing that I think that I need to say;
There's one thing that sends greatest joy out my way.
There's one thing I'll utter with no more delay:
I love you, dear daughter, and happy birthday!

20200218.0430

Though I may stand steadily and firmly
Ready and waiting for my tasks to do
Know that a tongue-lashing will undo me
Make me to weep and stagger, falling

20200217.0430

I’d gladly rest and jeremiad cease
If Stupid God would but my world release,
But until then, I cannot hold my peace
Because I have no peace within my heart.
Peace cannot come until the smallest part
Has justice. We have yet to truly start
To offer it, but turn to face away
From th’ light it shines into our long decay,
And, facing darkness, stupidly we pray
To Stupid God, whom all should well abjure,
Whose depredations we too much endure
Because some think that they will be secure
Despite the Stupid God’s long fickle act;
Never has it held to any pact.

20200216.0430

I do not have a Muse
I have many such
Not so much the fields and forests and fountaining springs
That many make much of
Nor yet always or necessarily often
The soft swellings of hip and thigh and breast
Or the harder swellings of rippling muscle and tumescent cock
I enjoy such, certainly
Delight in them and their exercise
And their use to exorcise from myself
No few things that I have shown and that I have yet to show
But what I have most had in mind as I have spilled my creative juices
Working with a shaft that might seem too narrow and short to that purpose
Is not so happy a thing as that
Oh, no
It is a multitude
A ravening horde about which I write most
Often and voluminously
Ejaculating my anger onto the page
Onan come again
And just as beloved by the god I abjure
As he by the god he had been thought to serve

20200215.0430

This is the 2500th post to this webspace.

Shall I loan you my pen
Though it be a small thing
Small in the hand and thin in the barrel?
Will it suit your grasp, do you think?
Will it serve you as you handle it deftly
Leading curling trails to come from its end?

20200214.0430

I kneel before your glory
Put my tongue to the service of your praise
Heedless of any audience but you
And the sounds of you enjoying my performance
Are as good a reward as any applause
And the drink you pour me after
Is better yet

20200213.0430

Should I be to you what
Roe left behind her in Dallas?
Am I so badly born as that
That I might be a shirt stuffed into the back of a closet
For all that you care about me
Perhaps Tamar's son who never was
Though his uncle should have made him so?

20200212.0430

How hard it is to find a still place
Amid the twirling dancers
Whose limber limbs kick and fan
Drawing shifting lines that draw the eye
And vanish into others
Yet still must it be done
Because the smiling faces need to see
Themselves reflected joyfully

20200211.0430

There is satisfaction in watching artists
At their work in other media
Their own efforts invoking the muse
And the spillover of her illumination
Lighting the way to my own work
Terpsichore the lantern for Clio or Erato
And maybe the bare glimpse of Calliope in time

20200210.0430

Bearing the marks to
Present an image in accord with
Those about
But refused to be shaped in earlier times
As the ones putting the puzzle together would have had it

20200209.0430

Sweating in the one-piece garment
Hands scrabbling for purchase on sweaty flesh
I struggle to pin what opposes me
But I think it will be me held with my back to the mat
Conquered by the work I mean to do

20200208.0430

Why do you chafe at the idea of
Social justice
When liberty and
Justice for all
Is in the creed you say you espouse?
Wherein lies the lie,
In justice or
In all,
That you complain of it?

20200207.0430

It boots me nothing to
Rage in my impotence
There is no blue pill to
Help with that dysfunction and
I'll be damned if I take
The red one

20200206.0430

Awkwardly working to attain their new positions
Following a leader, going through the motions
But things will smooth over in time
And they will move on and struggle once again

20200205.0430

Millstones under my pockets
Grinding a grist I never meant to offer them
I rue the exchange that fills those certain stacks
With a meal I cannot use to make any bread

20200204.0430

Edwards had it wrong.
We are not sinners in the hands of an angry god
With wrath-bow strung and
Supposedly just arrow nocked
We are toys on the floor
Kicked about by the Stupid God as
It throws its tantrums
Slobbered upon by the drooling babes that are
Its wrinkled citrus avatars under tripled cross and stars and stripes
And all too many delight in the sputum that
Drips onto faces and down chins
Beading on the heaving chests of those who
Hyperventilate in exulting in
The sticky fluids bathing them

20200203.0430 "Staining the Paneling"

Watching him work with the wood in his hand
Hairs standing out from the bottom end of it
Spreading the sticky fluid on another waiting wood that
Stands up proud and broad with its
Folds and ridges showing where something has dripped down
Caught by a cloth laid out to that purpose so that
The only mark that remains of what is done
Is the impregnation

20200202.0430

There is much talk of the
Cutting edge
But
There is all too little of the
Bleeding such an edge leaves behind
Or of the stitches that must be sewn to close the wounds
Or of the scars that remain
However fine the needle-work
And keep the flesh formerly sound from moving as it ought

20200201.0430

They demand that the loops and swirls be taught again
Much as I learned them in days gone by
Though they cannot say why
Save "it was done to me thus in my day"
But the world has changed since then
For the better in the main and save where it has not
And though I write in such script
However poorly
I cannot help but think that it was and it is
Another thing that will be used to punish
As if another was needed