Monday, August 31, 2020

20200831.0430

With plodding heavy legs I move ahead
And if each stride is one small step
I still take a damned lot of them
So I will get to some strange "there" in time
Even if I do not know the way

Sunday, August 30, 2020

20200830.0430

Cheer the sprinter now
And know the greatest of them
But recognize that the marathon
Is harder on the body
And less likely to be set aside next season

Saturday, August 29, 2020

20200829.0430

Not every sacred cow is gilded
But every one should be fed to the fire
And if it does not melt or char
Then might there be some value in it
For steel is sronger after forging
And clay more useful after kiln

Friday, August 28, 2020

20200828.0430

Every word is a contract
Grown up over time and
Forced upon its speaker
A metaphor someone made up
And with which others go along
But use forces adjustment as it should
And though some with the courts disagree
There is no judge to overturn the ruling

Thursday, August 27, 2020

20200827.0430

A thing oft seen to sound delight
That does far different than benight
And most when comes down from the height
From which it spreads itself to sight
And on the world's face will alight--
Who can its name in truth recite?

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

20200826.0430

It always galls
When someone calls
The work sent in
Not good enough
But it's not all
I must recall
As I begin
Some other stuff

Tuesday, August 25, 2020

20200825.0430

Too often
I give the nod
Unwillingly
Only to find I
Cannot find it to give
When I mean to

Monday, August 24, 2020

20200824.0430

How does your heart not burn within you
Your blood boil and bubble with fury
Your hand clench and tighten till tendons will crack
Seeing what happens?
Yet you will not even
Lift up your voice against a clear evil
A mill grinds no flour if given no grain
And such silence serves to furnish no grist

Sunday, August 23, 2020

20200823.0430

The stink of onion in the next day's sweat
An old adage said suddenly to surprise
Husks of corn-kernels seen after eating
Father's voice or mother's from the child's own mouth
Belches of beer taken into the belly
A letter written after another's fashion
Asparagus smell in the morning outpouring
Smile that can come from only one source
Puzzle it out who can

Saturday, August 22, 2020

20200822.0430

I might lay my head in Summer's lap
And put my tongue to country matters
Tasting juicy bush-borne fruit
Or instead let her unaccustomed softness
Lull me to a lustless sleep
I would be refreshed either way I lie with her

Friday, August 21, 2020

20200821.0430

I glimpsed the pages once
That her pen had left behind
And she
Saw the lines inscribed
Heard only later that
There had been more
Destroyed across the years and
Once again in a final fury of flame
Save for a very few held by one
And never shared
Because she and they were scared
But not for why they should have been

Thursday, August 20, 2020

20200820.0430

I till no field and herd no stock
But sit sedate in shade and cooled air
As sciatica flares up and subsides
I am no son of farming folk
Scarce recalling grandparents who grew
Amid grain and grit and gristle
Never amid the corn-rows or a hundred head of cattle
I do not suffice to such food-making
But my pen still tends thence often

Wednesday, August 19, 2020

20200819.0430

I plant the seeds of poems in many places
And often forget where I have sown them
Leaving them to molder away from sun and soil
Where they might grow and spread
Bearing fruit for others' hands and mouths
But at least no shut spreads on them where they lie
Forgotten

Tuesday, August 18, 2020

20200818.0430

I almost long to hear again
That fae cry that hides
Amid the squeals of subways' wheels
That I have felt called to answer before
But there are no such screams here
The caterwauling of feral housecats
Howls of dogs and of coyotes
Grunts of pigs and farting of so many bucks
Do not thus compel

Monday, August 17, 2020

20200817.0430

I should be sitting inside
Enjoying conditioned air and
The efforst expended, but
That coin buys more when I am not around
And I want her to have the better bargain

Sunday, August 16, 2020

20200816.0430

It is less an exhalation
Less winding a horn
Than having drawn the breath too soon
And not knowing when the cue will come
Or a focus on the fingering
As vision shrinks and dims
Breathe in

Saturday, August 15, 2020

20200815.0430

It is only in fits and starts that I find time to write
Small times amid large distractions and
Larger tasks that demand attention
And such conditions do not admit of
Deeper visions that
Sustain themselves upon themselves and
Reveal greater truths by what they do not say
If I can move the curtain for a moment
I have to hope that it will be enough

Friday, August 14, 2020

20200814.0430

I have sat in a study with a pen in my hand
Hunched at a desk staring at a bright screen
Wandered in woodlands and paced out the meadows
Stopping at benches to jot some words down
And each has yielded its own novel vision
But now, for the moment,
I park in my car and find the words flowing
Yes, some rust has caught in the pipes
But turning the tap on flushes it away
And the water is sweeter and colder afterward

Thursday, August 13, 2020

20200813.0430

Some things suggest solemnity.
Grand works gather gravitas,
Demand devotion through decorum,
And such shows a sense of awe
Fitting what is felt the finest.
Much in manners manifests,
Follows from the forms thus used,
But best is not always most baroque,
And any tool is an easy weapon
In hands hard-set to hold it so.
Courtesy can cut, of course,
And bludgeon.

Wednesday, August 12, 2020

20200812.0430

Who would have thought that
This would be the product of
Time working a shaft in
The seat of a car?

Tuesday, August 11, 2020

20200811.0430

Oblique references
Reducing so many things to
Thrusting and splatting
Finding fucking in as much as can
What, then, does the sex stand in for
What metonym or synecdoche
Whole for its dangling parts?

Monday, August 10, 2020

20200810.0430 "Not a Good Day"

Chest tight and
Heart racing raggedly in it
Despite sitting still in the quiet
The dim
And adding the fear of an
Overactive anus
Too much cabbage taken in, perhaps,
Or sauerkraut just a little older than was ideal
And wondering if I would shit myself
Or had
And rubbed my ass raw with wiping
Rare meat not to be eaten if it ever passed inspection

Sunday, August 9, 2020

20200809.0430

Voluptuous and clad in a red and green plaid that
The sun has bleached to browns
The whiff of a petrichor perfume thrills
Teasing with the offer of warmth and wet to come
One not always fulfilled in days like these
But often enough that hope remains for
Drinking the juices that will flow

Saturday, August 8, 2020

20200808.0430

Two temples show the labors done between them
Windows letting light into the rooms they share
Backing up against each other
Three ports for passing out and in
And through both ways
With two more balanced for ingress only
Unless something goes wrong, like
Cotton not turning away soon enough
What is this complex called
That stands as capital to its attendant body?

Friday, August 7, 2020

20200807.0430

Answer it who can
That which covers beds but none turn down
Who live at every occasion
And which sees sleepers stir to meet
The lines cast out by often-quiet actors
Not seldom seated or standing on
Platforms for which they are paid
And which runs in season but stops
When too much gold is given it--
Gold is given for it then--
And which is ever never the same
What is it called?

Thursday, August 6, 2020

20200806.0430

As some, more formal, might switch to dinner jackets
Four-in-hand exchange for bow
In red amid a short white coat
The hills here, now, mark little difference
What angle offsets made up by the return
Of what was given through the day
Gift going back whence it came

Wednesday, August 5, 2020

20200805.0430

I have not been selected for a crown
And I do not want the
Mimicry of a halo on me as I
Sit upon the throne I claim daily
Or kneel before it in an hour of need
Besides
It is only a flimsy castle in which I live
A poor fief to which I have no title
And where I have remained too long

Tuesday, August 4, 2020

20200804.0430

The rolling green carpet grows thin
Its pile wearing away
But people are still walking across it
There is yet comfort in it for tired feet
Seeking solace from the yards
Grown prickly and clinging

Monday, August 3, 2020

20200803.0430

Be complacent
And endure
And all of this will remain
Because it should be good enough
For you
Or that's the story
Anyway

Sunday, August 2, 2020

20200802.0430

Remember
When they tell you
Speak good English
The way it used to be
Shit
Was in the language centuries before
Beautiful entered it

Saturday, August 1, 2020

20200801.0430

Again
I do not appreciate the implication in
The eyes of many mothers when
I sit and watch my daughter learn to dance
Along with her classmates
I mean
I am a lecher
But my tastes run otherwise