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.
November (old but new in November)
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November is my birth month, so I am required by natural law to post this poem from, gosh, long ago, titled “November” before the month is out. And damn do I not want to get on November’s bad side, so here it is. Maybe you like it.
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NOVEMBER
November is the lilac growing from my grave.
November is the cinnamon of the veins.
November is a tea steeped of dried brain stem.
November is the sockdolager of autumn, the final blow, the sting and fraud of blowing leaves.
November is the leech of winter at the base of the spine.
November is the sleep-droozed giant peering over the hill.
November is the net of remembrance, tangling you in its weave, or cast before you leaping to a new place. You choose.
November is the sperm joining egg in the desperate womb of February.
November is the roadkill trampled rank after rank by the students of high-tech self-satisfaction. And I mean rank.
November is you naked in the downtown streets.
November is the crunch of gravel in the teeth.
November is the rattle of love in the chilled heart.
November is the exoskeleton of grace.
November is the eyelid of indifference.
November cracks the bricks of tradition.
November drowns flies in a freezing well.
November eats the molehills of the mind; shits moles.
November spins the outer shell of the cocoon.
November shrinks the man to mud, swells the mind to myth.
November mothers tapestries, innocently wove, that alter human history.
November fathers broken sticks, axeheads, the worms of survival.
November lashes out at pride with a weathered vengeance of humility.
November spits in the Fascist’s face.
November coins the lash, strips the hide, kills the pig.
November is the whisper of the blade.
November glances at death.
November is the sharp seeing.
November gives what the ungrateful cannot see.
November is the state of alert.
November is the aria of strength.
November is the cruelest month, insofar as cruelty is the greatest gift.
Let us give thanks.
No sun
No moon
No peace of mind
November.
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My fave poem in a while came out of a workshop prompt and an article in the Guardian about a small and one might say eccentric Icelandic publisher who puts out tiny editions of 69 copies only during a full moon, then burns whatever has not sold when the moon goes down. Yes, you read that right and you can read more in the article here. The press is named Tunglið, one of the Icelandic words for moon (surprise!), and is pronounced (near as I can transcribe for Amuricans): /toon-glid/ with the accent on the first syllable and a very hard “d”, which is apparently the sound of that lovely Icelandic letter. So I wrote a bewitching little poemsong called “Tunglið”, and here it is.
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Tunglið
I must go to Iceland for a full moon
because I will learn how to swoon and succumb
to my eldritch desire to oil and slide
my body back into the cave.
And once I am rock-sworn I’ll breathe by a candle
in order to handle my mind in the dark
of the first incantation of stone-breath and sanctum
that keeps me alive for a day.
And as the moon rises aloft of the mantle
I strive along with it to bay and to shine
as the sun breaches vacuum and ricochets hither
I know it’s my time to arrive.
And so I refind my resound and my whither
and catapult tendon and spine to the sky,
upon which I gather my sally and story
and flame away, flame away, flame.
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And here’s another recent in which, for some reason, I take apart the word “purchase” etymologically, syllabically, and etymologically by syllable. Go figure.
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PURPOSE
Not to chase but to pose, one purrs forth
purchase of a future, formless bursa filled
with anomalous currents. Such pie to vie for,
one might posit, a fortuitous fractal of firth,
unbegone berry clung to a bough with a fork
that reposes toward thriving or morte. Further
pure purpose, I say, lest fang be fractured
and fallow the marrow will lie. Now fly!
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Though posting this as new in May, it’s actually a poem written sometime in the 1980’s that I recently stumbled across in an old folder and printed in dot-matrix. No kidding. It was one of my faves at one time and might be again; how well it fits this age. Interesting detail (to some): this poem can be printed as five lines of tetrameter OR as four lines of pentameter, and it rhymes in each. What what? So for kibbles and giggles, and because I can, I’ve included both versions here. Which one do you prefer?
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TETRAPENT
I must admit, I cannot spit
without some jerk exploiting it
into a bout of dogma-fu.
Eventually it’s it or you.
And why live life ignoring shit?
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TETRAPENT
I must admit, I cannot spit without
some jerk exploiting it into a bout
of dogma-fu. Eventually it’s it
or you. And why live life ignoring shit?
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Ain’t writin too many poemas lately, but here’s a new one that’s kinda pretty or ponderous or somethin. And yes, I use “ravine” here as a verb. So sue me.
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LOCUS
O locus, are you lepidoptera or crone,
how does your beauty carve
a glyph in stone as rain and streams,
ravining through ancient strata,
wreak the arteries of earth?
Are you canyon or meat, irideal
bulbs about to burst? Rhizomes
creep and twine, relaying labyrinths and
orchestrating melodies to bare bone
as a great storm rises, rips and churns,
slurring its way across the scape
as an entity unbound. Some say that storm
is sound, some say it’s fire, some say
a manic dew. I say that storm is you.
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