Friday, May 31, 2019

20190531.0430

An album that has thirty songs on it
Songs that do not work the same theme
That do not seem to relate to one another
More than two or three at a go
And those groups disconnected
Would not be a successful one
Even if a single dropped from it
Might get a lot of play
It is no compliment to the audience
To ask
For buying the whole
For the sake of one
How fortunate that
No cost accrues to the listening
That can be done
Here

Thursday, May 30, 2019

20190530.0430

Do I do poorly in that my verse
Will not often in metered rhyme rehearse
Some obscure reference to some ancient lore
That others have noted oft before?
Do I do poorly that instead
Of reaching back into my own head
To dredge up stories I have heard told,
Which in my inner mind I may still hold,
Use them as common reference for the lines
I write at too-far spread-out times?
Should I, instead of penning my musing
Through repeating keystrokes that don't sing
But offer syncopation under thought,
Rehearse the many things that I've been taught
By years of readings broad and deep,
And, in so doing, myself still keep
In elitist mode I did once seek
But for which, I have found, I am too meek?

Wednesday, May 29, 2019

20190529.0430

An homage might begin
Fittingly
When in the middle of the month of May
The senior students have gone on their way
To find, when topaz comes, that debts accrued
Will suddenly begin to be pursued
And lusty presses on the aging year
As equinoxes soon will draw more near,
When flowers bloom from showers in those lands
Where they are gathered into waiting hands
And woven into wreaths for round-poles dance
At which no few have found a new romance,
Then scholars who have sought the middle age
Will go to gather on a central stage
Not far from where a lake a mitten laves
And speak and eat and drink and ill behave
For going to a zoo, as they long did,
And in that going feel again as kids.

Tuesday, May 28, 2019

20190528.0430

She said to me
She doesn't get out much
Going only to work and church
And talking ears off when she ventures outside them
I do not doubt it
My glasses tilted upward when she was here
And I had the damnedest time
Dusting them off from the dirt on the ground

Monday, May 27, 2019

20190527.0430

It is often said that
Truth lies in wine
That the blood of one god
That the serum of another
Compels honesty
Honesty and truth are not the same
Honesty is a matter of belief
And truth
Is
Not
Even if none can access the whole of it
Seeing but never touching
Touching something too small for nerves to detect it
However heavily it may sit in the hand
Or on the shoulders
I am sober as I think such thoughts
As might be thought not to be
It would not be the first time such a thought has been thought

Sunday, May 26, 2019

20190526.0430

I am not a short man
I am not particularly tall
But I do not have to tilt my head back
To speak to many people
Face to face
That does not mean I do not look up to people
That does not mean I have not seen the bottoms of many people's noses
But why it is not an old adage
Not to turn up a nose
Lest others see the green growths within
I do not know
I've seen far too many such
I never enjoy the sight

Saturday, May 25, 2019

20190525.0430

Someone I know
Commented--
Not about me
I am sure
But where I could see it--
"He kept clicking everything
Except the buttons I told him to press
I hope he doesn't have a wife"
And I wondered
If it would somehow be
Better
If the he thus mentioned
Had a husband

Friday, May 24, 2019

20190524.0430

How often have I said
I know better
Or I ought to
And I ought to know better
I am supposed to
I am supposed to be
Educated
Intelligent
Erudite
After all
After all I have done
After all the years I spent
Trying to be the kind of person
Utz suggests I ought to have been
And finding myself turned out from those ivory walls
Expelled from the cells
I am no longer imprisoned
I also ought to know better
Than to think
I know better
Experience shows
I clearly do not

Thursday, May 23, 2019

20190523.0430

I revel in words when I write
Celebrating them by bringing them into the light
Of pixelated screens and seldom-turned pages
Showing them off as they dance--
Haltingly in the rhythms and rhymes in which
I constrain them--
Delighting when I can take words rarely used
In my experience--
And
If there is a place in which
I have experience
I can claim expertise
It lies in using words--
And setting them again upon the world
Where they can set their teeth into the
Flesh of minds
And shake them
But
What I write requires resources to read
As does all reading
And I wonder who might look
And see
And turn away
Not knowing how to knock at a door
I might readily open

Wednesday, May 22, 2019

20190522.0430

When I write
I like to have music playing

Whether I use the ur-Muse to spur another
Or use the one to other sounds smother
The effect is the same
And I write better
Insofar as what I write can be called
Better
I am not always able to do so
I have more chances to write
Than I do to listen
But listening is the better thing
There are words enough in the world
Without my adding to them
And if I am going to make more of them
Then I ought to know what has been said
So that I speak well
Or write it
As I hope

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

20190521.0430

I find I often wonder
If my best days are behind me
If I missed the chance for fortunes
And for fame to come and find me
But I look at what I have about
And it serves to remind me
That I am far more lucky that
Such trappings do not bind me
That does not mean I do not think
I could stand to have more
Than what I have in hand right now
I'd like to have a store
Of things set back to tide me through
If problems come before
I am quite set to face them
As is the likely score
But still, I know the likely cost
Of having things to hand
More than can easily be spent
Being known through the land
So while I might not always like
To face my own demand
I am at least close to at ease
Left at my own command.

Monday, May 20, 2019

20190520.0430

Lalochezia is often decried
By those who think they know better
Held akin to allochezia
Copremesis in action
By those who think that only
Sesquipedalian lexica befit
But I have found instead
That it is those who decry
Such things as
Stercorous ejaculations
Who do most to spread
Bullshit

Sunday, May 19, 2019

20190519.0430

Phonetic codes that soldiers know
Include Juliett and her Romeo
And it seems a strange thing that
In their messaging
They who opt to fight
Refer back to teenage idiots
Again and again
It is not only
The uniformed
Who do such things
So
It is not only
The uniformed
Who seem to revel in foolishness
Hormonal angst allowed to go too far
Sometimes
I do not think things through
But I sometimes think through them too much

Saturday, May 18, 2019

20190518.0430

I write as if shooting from the hip
Drawing and firing
Fast as my hand can slap leather
Fast as my hand can feather the hammer
Though I rarely wear a hat of any color
I wonder how things would be different
If I shot a long-gun instead of a sidearm
If I took the time to line up a shot
Instead of sending a spread down range
Would I benefit from a tighter grouping
Nearer center mass
Or in that strange, small space where snipers aim
When showing off?

Friday, May 17, 2019

20190517.0430

There was water falling from the sky
Coming down unevenly
Both in its descent
And upon the ground
I did not complain of it
I know the time will come again
And soon
When every drop becomes precious
And few drops are on offer
It always does
It comes here every year
And every year
People act like it won't
I understand the folks who're new
Not having their heads on right
But I've been here a while
And I've seen others
Who've been here longer
Make the same mistake
I shouldn't be surprised anymore

Thursday, May 16, 2019

20190516.0430

My belly swells often
Far more than it ought
Dragging the rest of me behind
As it were a shaped bolt of cloth
Bound to me
As I struggle to run forward
I do not run
Unless I must
And I have not had to in some time
Perhaps that is why the swelling does not subside
Much
Even if I expel from me
What I have taken in to make me swell
Or at least as much of it
As I cannot use
I am not a character of Keanu Reeves'
Pale-skinned and black-jacketed
Given to acrobatics
And messianics
But I still hear Morpheus call me
And I cannot help but see that vision
When I think on the name
Perhaps I will enter a realm
Where I can do what was filmed
It would be no more real than that
But still the better for being mine
Unlike my swelling belly

Wednesday, May 15, 2019

20190515.0430

Technology
Is supposed to make things
Easier
And I know it is
A small thing
But when my mouse
Decides to double-click
When I move my finger
Once
It does not make easier
What it ought to
Or at least
Not as easy as should be
The effort
Such as it is
Is not the problem
The feeling that
I was promised
Something
And it has not been delivered
Is

Tuesday, May 14, 2019

20190514.0430

There are single words that stick with me
Somehow
Gelid
Long has lodged with me
As have
Roynish
Loquacious
Lugubrious
Callipygian
And others
I think
Quiscaline
Has joined them
Perhaps because the damned grackles
Flit and flutter about
And shit on as much as they do
Whatever the reason
It has been much on my mind
Calling within
As what it describes calls without

Monday, May 13, 2019

20190513.0430

The work is done
For now
And now
I am on my way back to where I belong
My kind is not welcome here
Not for long
And I am soon to overstay my welcome
Which would not be helpful
If I want to come again
And
Damn me
I do

Sunday, May 12, 2019

20190512.0430

Today, I talk
And talk again
As I have spoken before
Rehashing topics I have treated
Even if I am addressing different bits of them
One day
I will pull my words together
Set them down
Improve them
And there is much room for improvement
Push them out into the world
Where I know they are more likely to die than anything else
But dead things often give new life to others
Corpses feeding the soil
Shit making plants grow that we eat in turn

Saturday, May 11, 2019

20190511.0430

Today, again, I fly
Crossing times as I pass over
The lands that spread below
Beribboned by rivers
Hidden by clouds
And I once again find my way
To a place where I have been
Before
Many times, now
And seem to be expected
It is a comfort to be looked for
To have folks waiting
Happily
To see me arriving
I have been looked for
For other causes
Far less pleasant to me in their effects

Friday, May 10, 2019

20190510.0430

Five dozen years marked
Three-score trips around the sun made
At half that many, monkeys danced;
This time's not by that portrayed
Transplanted soil from which I rose
Who Mothers' Day mother's gift made
Glad are we that we you know
Who for us mother's role's not played
But been, inscribed, and held to fast
And added thereto, grandma made
In turn. Happy birthday
Mother dear
And let fears of pranking be allayed!

Thursday, May 9, 2019

20190509.0430

Sifting through the leaves that have been taken from trees
Though no bough yields them directly
Often occasions complaint
But those piles of leaves
Marked with stains not caused by nature
Protect those who gather them
And those who mar them
Insulating each from other
When they would otherwise sharply impact
And that cannot be thought a small thing

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

20190508.0430

Town of a flag
County of a flag
Standing in a state that's boasted six
I have labored in you
Fed you
But you did not value me
And no wonder
I am not the sort of person you would prize
Being at home more in city than in countryside
And you are of the country
Making much of the wilds barely tamed
Little restrained even now
After a hundred years and more
Though you make much of those
Who would have tamed it if they could
Calling yourself their head-place
Are you but a pillow that bids them to sleep?

Tuesday, May 7, 2019

20190507.0430

Where dolphins swim and eagles soar
Where mustangs buck and scorpions sting
Where wildcats prowl in the name
Of a bass player now dead
Where spikes grow into antlers
And there is delight in seeing
Four-point racks bound across a field
One last time
Where cougars called by mountaineers
Stalk where armies used to march
Where folk gather every year
To celebrate in story and song
In festival going three weeks long
Where butts came forward
To spread across the state
Where silversmiths started
To span across the globe
Where virgin's waters flow
And many other things beside them stand
In fire and flood
In drought and downpour
In lingering life that trails away
There I remain
There I will remain
For I do not think I will be called away again
And even if I am
As I once was
I will return
As I once did

Monday, May 6, 2019

20190506.0430

Squatting in a squared-off cave
With slim sun-beams streaming in
Plumage trimmed and thinned and growing paler by the day
He croaks out his obscene song
Sounding notes in different keys
Lyrics in different languages
And every word profane
Yet he is the quiscaline center of a flock
That comes and goes
Shrinks and grows
And he knows
That the song he sings will stick with some
While others will hear and not heed
And others yet will heed for a time
Before losing the melodic line
And having to come back again
After they had thought to migrate away

Sunday, May 5, 2019

20190505.0430

Nearby are the lands where Cimmeria rose
And they are not more fair than these
Yet no songs of swords and sorceries
No boasting in brilliant bard-craft
Extolls the excellence eyes can take in
Here
I have not the skill in words to correct the failing
I have not the skill in many things to correct failings
As is clear from my own many failings
But I can look with hope for a time when
Someone
Who has skill enough to make it happen
Turns to the task
And does it justice

Saturday, May 4, 2019

20190504.0430

A song sung often before has started again
The whining refrain beginning in one voice
Plaintive, nasal, grating on the ears
And there will soon be other voices added
Striving for unison
But being just far enough off for dissonance they will claim not to hear
I have laid down the baton
But still the singing sounds out
Comes the call
Can I have extra credit?
And the response
You had the chance throughout the course.
Maybe I can redo an assignment
I scored low on?
That option is not available at this time.
But I need this class to graduate.
The response follows John Cage and Alphonse Allais.
How can it be otherwise?
Anything else but adds to a painful cacophony
And there is enough such noise in the world already.

Friday, May 3, 2019

20190503.0430

Rhyme schemes can be tyrannies
Paths often trod that become ruts
Closing off vision in time
Save only for the next step
And not the realization
Of going again and again
To the same place
And thinking to find something new in it
When it has been explored
Many times before
There is comfort in returning
Solace in seeking again
What has been seen before
And there are times when the old
Reveals something
Always there
But not necessarily seen
Or remembered if seen
Eyes and minds take time to develop
Holes hold more when they are made wider
And deeper
And digging is not soon done
But going back is more often
A way to pass the time
Nothing more
And it is often a failed attempt
To touch again a thing
That burned the first time
Even if the pain was not recognized
Or that was glorious once
If not so much as later accounts make it

Thursday, May 2, 2019

20190502.0430

Among the flowing river
Filled with fish in its stiller parts
Rushing loudly in those that move
A cypress knee
Rising solemnly above the flow
But not standing tall enough or broad enough
To make much of a difference
Except to passing boats
Whose hulls it might scrape
Or serve as tying-off point
There is some comfort in these:
It stands where it can be seen
And so it is not treacherous
Even if it is often to avoided;
It does not make of itself the sort
Others might cut down
For timber and shingles.

Wednesday, May 1, 2019

20190501.0430

Where I have known her--
Named after a virgin
Patron saint of a nation that used to be here
And that many fear
Without need
Will be here again--
Best
It has been early in her flow
Not far from where she rises
And where she curves
Gently
Amid whiter curves
That sometimes bedeck themselves
In topaz, ruby, and sapphire,
And sometimes in emeralds
But more often wear drab browns and dusty grays
She--
But I perhaps err in calling her
Her
And she
Though he and him
Sit oddly on the page
As pronouns for the venerable--
Is often mild here
But sometimes rages
Reminding those of us who live with her
Daily
That there is more to her than the face she usually shows us
It is a lesson none do well to forget.