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.
Samara Samsara (from Mammal, new in February)
Mammalian Dilemma (from Mammal, new in February)
Sun Sonnet (from Mammal, new in February)
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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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This fine February of 2024, I’m featuring a few teaser poems from my recent collection Mammal, which was published by Roof Books in October. Like ’em? Click on Mammal for more info, including who to purchase a copy of your very own. You’ll find three mammalian pieces below. Here’s the first.
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SAMARA SAMSARA
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leaves the tit for oblivion, off into
whatever it is, don’t fuck with me
I know your words are fatuous,
how free she feels, unbound
and flowing like life—is it a moment,
is it eternity—breathes all the air
as it breathes her, nothingness mama,
forever ash and seed, winged womb,
matriarch—you sing a well-wrung tithe
that rings us as the elm rings itself,
staying a moment, then leaving, staying, then
we all ask at once: how can we live with vicissitude,
how can we plunge into dark, how can we be
while sliding away, how can we be at all?
Don’t tell me what I am. You’re wrong.
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Here’s Teaser Poem #2 from Mammal.
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MAMMALIAN DILEMMA
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A wondrous bungle reaps the royal rump:
a beaming lump of ectoplasm sings
the praises of a newborn ring of gunk
that spawns a new regime, a culture e’en.
O give us spleen enough to hump the Dog
of Night that holds us down in Lizard Town,
mewling and praying in our goat-hair suits to take
another gobble of the randy cake.
Sweet rake, you know not whence your genes protrude
into the arching day, nor how to ride
the psi-ing wave, nor which bright spark to rude
in perfect rhythm on the blooming world—
and yet I love you more than worms aspire,
just as my love makes our disease more dire.
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And a third a final piece from Mammal, right here for you on the Fresh Words page.
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SUN SONNET
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A naked tree can tell us everything:
chained to the earth, grappling with sky,
we flaunt our imperfections in the rain
as budding eyes. Craven and verklempt,
it’s all we can to writhe, stolidly, fatefully
arching vesicles toward luscious liquid,
saturated air, toward instant light.
And in the wind, twisting, clattering arms,
we find the flexibility of heart
to wind us for the true imbroglio,
the quickening. Oh yes, you know you know:
what roots you have, not disparate, reclaim
the mortal trunk we have and have again,
pulled upward, out, beyond our living ken.
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