I use this page to post a variety of pieces, both those just out of the sluice, and older pieces that feel fresh to me at the moment. I generally keep them up for a month, or a few at the most.
Look for new poems (and more) at the start of each month.
Deck the Posthumanist Halls (new in December)
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The Bay Area lost a much-loved foundation-rock poet on March 6, Jeanne Lupton. I only tend to write memorial pieces if one wants to leak out. This one wanted to leak out.
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TANKA QUEEN
for Jeannie Lupton: rest peacefully, woman
–to the tune of some song–
If your mind ain’t all it could be now
This girl will make it fine
If your heart could use a boost or two
Just give her five lines
She’s the gypsy, the tanka queen
Silence before she starts
She’s the gypsy, she’s guaranteed
To give you a younger heart
Give her the room and then the floor
Leave your self behind
You may cry and you may roar
Her song will fill your mind
She’s the gypsy, the tanka queen
Silence before she starts
She’s the gypsy, she’s guaranteed
To gently take your soul apart so that you can see how it works then carefully put it back together
Gather your wits and hold on fast
Your mind must learn to roam
Just as the gypsy queen must do
You’re gonna hit the road
Her work is done and there you are
More alive than when you came
More you than you have been before
And maybe even sane
She’s the gypsy, the tanka queen
Silence before she starts
She’s the gypsy, she’s guaranteed
To gently take your heart and mind and soul apart so that you can see how lovely they are then with great care put them back together
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I’ve recently taken an interest in posthumanism—not the whole transhuman-can’t-wait-to-be-part-cyborg thing but the whole who-the-fuck-were-these-humanists-to-claim-that-people-are-superior-to-other-forms-of-life-and-matter-for-that-matter-and-cursed-the-planet-with-the-catastrophic-hubris-of-the-individual thing. That kind of posthumanism. So here’s a little holiday cheer.
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DECK THE POSTHUMANIST HALLS
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‘Tis the season to re-peal
Tra la loo li lay, ho ho hee hay
Everything we think is re-al
Foe fee fee fuh fuh, yippie-kai-ay
Don we now our feral souls
Pee pee pee, poo poo poo, play play play
For the lip-smacking carousals
Yum yum nudie day, hooray yay yay!
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Though I’ve not been posting since my old WordPress theme broke, here’s a new poem anyway for November 2022. Hope to have everything back in order come the new year.
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APOCALYPSE
The month of rotting pumpkins is upon us.
We don our jackets, lose our keys
while smoke waits at the horizon,
wanting in. How many knocks at the door do we need
before we just leave it open, asking only
to be asked? Is it too much to ask for? The engines
rev, controlled explosions exploding in the avenue
as we treat ourselves to tricks and tell ourselves
our souls are in the wings. They say the future
is in our hands but they don’t say what they mean by “hands”.
What hands? What year? The eventide comes in
belying the neap as dark water rises in our throat
and wind howls in the rafters, Get me! Get me!
troubling cats and the oil index. Meanwhile
stars burn or so they say and deep earth rumbles,
spewing magma and archaea as cities shine
and the axis takes another turn in the night.
Our gourds may be failing, all rue to that,
but if we step out of ourselves for a minute we might recall
without our hands the seeds will plant themselves.
Let’s dance and sing, at least for tonight. It’s what we do best.
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I recently stumbled across this silly little piece in a notebook, which I seem to have written sometime last fall. So here ya go.
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AMOEBA QUATRAIN
My tongue is like an amoeba.
My amoeba is like a tongue.
Oh, how they love each other
rung by ravenous rung.
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Just a little wistful thing that leaked out, in the course of which I learned a couple of interesting etymologies. Turns out that “requiem”, meaning of course “rest” as in “rest in peace”, in Latin (and quite clearly to the eye if not the mind) means “re-quiet”, which nicely suggests a sense of cycle. And “amaranth”, which just came out as an image on its own, in Greek means “never fading”, perfect for this piece as well.
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REQUIEM
So frail, so frail a leaf we are
as sunlight caves to evening
and gnats descend and embers cool
for the industry we once held
strong as a towering oak, and hale
as any granite peak under snow
as if naught would ever fall, nothing fall
nor bone crumble to dust.
So full, so full our veins have been
in lavish fields of amaranth
of a May that dared to seem so fair
and never to trouble, never,
as on we rared aglare in glee
and dashed our clocks to the burgeoning ground
laughing and charging and weaving about
just on the cusp of bloom.
So rare, so rare the flesh becomes
stacked in the towers of bustle and charm
while documents pile and rockpiles slide
and no one remembers the crown
was once an achievement and once was a groom
ruddy and full-cheeked and terribly spry,
now thin as a web, thin as a web
this November afternoon.
So shorn, so shorn, the leaf cracks in two
and lets an aroma of drywood and grain
as rain falls and mud runs and all the pretty hair
seems murkily mattedly one,
and streams run together and the leaf joins the others
that once were their sisters through membrane and branch
and remain, remain a field and a barrow
for the morrow a yarrow to seed.
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