30 Poems in 30 Days

[Tzara]

love this, specially the first two verses. the title, though, leaves me bemused - can you make it link up for me as i am floundering

"Used for trolling............

Thank you both for your comments. GM has the correct reference; there was an article in the Seattle paper about this company yesterday, which is where the reference is from.

It also seems to me to have a double entendre as a kind of adolescent smutty joke, but that is probably just me being juvenile, as usual.

Odd thing: I always seem to think of water (rivers, lakes, seas) as inherently female.

 

[Tzara]

8

Persephone, in Her Cotton Shift

Around us, the fallen leaves cup,
crabbed hands

that, amber, dot the flat green grass—
topaz strewn over lawn.

When you stand with your back to the waning sun
I see your thighs

through the perilously thin fabric
of your skirt. Higher still, there is a hint of dark

into which I hope to venture,
which speaks to me more Spring than Autumn.

 

[4degrees]

21

Love festers, an infection
To those who would rather
Not feel, can't be rubbed
Away with antiseptic or
Cut out crudely with a
Knife or scissors
It's an invisible sore
Only a witch doctor can cure.

 

[Tzara]

9

Poem for Marichiko
after Rexroth

There is a season for all blooms
To be full and fleshed,
And time when delicate petals
Must fade and fall.
Even here, in our new autumn,
Can I coddle your roots
And hope for one more Spring.

 

[The_Fool]

1

Sort among the detritus.
Careful for discarded words,
sharp as glass
thrown against the wall,
Shattered in anger.

Stung by our embarrassment,
our barbs polished
by years of practice
and knowledge
of each other’s pain points.

Like open wounds,
Over which our hands spill out
jagged salt;
which we then grind in.
Slow sadistic rhythm.

 

[4degrees]

22

pushed up tight against
sugar skulls and the living dead
a rustle is felt, something is alive
behind a toothy vertical silver smile
and wants to escape, to find
the assortment of holes
natural or man-made
to invade and leave
the stain of my
distant conscience.

 

[The_Fool]

2

It is hard to articulate
with words,
without allowing some
morose melodrama
into the conversation.
And yet here I am,
trying to do just that.
Not worth the effort
to backspace.
And yes,
I will keep my sullen sighs
to a minimum.

 

[Tzara]

10

To Cathy & Gretchen, Sue & Ann

Forty years ago, I wanted
nothing more than to slip those tight jeans
over the hips of any one of you

(or some or all if my thought swelled grand),
for an eighteen year old boy
has little

on his mind other than sports and sex
and you all offered both, at least in principle.
But now on Facebook, you shove grandchildren

in my face like they were puppies
and I’m left feeling I should write silly captions,
flowery notes with heart-dotted i’s

when what I really want is to go back to dope,
Hendrix played really loud
and the hope one of you will open your thighs.

 

[4degrees]

23

a mist settles in
dead leaves brown
underfoot
the dirt disturbed
and soft, a footprint
marks the spot
where i kissed you
into oblivion
and loved you
into forever.

 

[The_Fool]

Say your sunset wishes,
it's autumn.

Chill drab broken
by occasional rays
cascading over bright blue.

Some tints of color,
enough to deflect
from the dismal brown

of decay.
Seems that trees in fall
groan more

as the winds blow.
And I shiver
at the chills down my back.

Not ready for this.
Not ready to face the dead
of winter.

Not ready for the cold.
The cold
that freezes your very soul.

 

[Tzara]

11

.....

 

[4degrees]

24

The clock ticks slower until
A final sound echos
in between the roar of silence
Time dies every day
The ticks are like breaths
Shallow water is still a danger
My careless heart tempts death
With sweets and trinkets
Drawing close enough to kiss
Then fleeing only to
Taunt it another day

 

[Tzara]

12

Walk a Straight, a Terrible, Line
Sleep comes like a drug
in God's country.
—U2

Rest is that I can always sleep
in a quiet place
where I don’t have to think,

or even couldn’t.
Where I let fate, or opportunity, decide
what my ranch looks like.

There could be a wide field
of dead cows or alfalfa, dead sage
and still I’d be able to nod,

blessed by acreage,
walk my surviving animals to the farm’s line
and yet not be ready

for anything more than cartoon.
I cannot believe in God
any more than that slag turns gold

for the saintly, and that Abraham
wants my crops especially to die
for not singing hymns.





High on the Suck-O-Meter, I know. But the 30/30 is like a Poetic Death March and some times you just have to be bad.

Or even most times, like me.

 

[AChild]

1 Taunt it another day

Taunt it another day

my pimple is a nipple
a nipple on my face
it has puss milk
to feed the squeamish
inner child

I roll it with my
greasy hands
the steam sweat
locked in
the dirty dishes

it cums hard
popping
white then red

I stop,

let it cool off
let the flesh sink normal
teeth chatter
as if the bite out the rest
of bad blood

I stop,
taunt it another day

 

[Tzara]

13

Perhaps You Should Exit Here

You all know
that I, boy, look at women
through the pinup that is their poems

and their glyphed grime and sighs
always makes me want
to run a finger

long along their literary hips.
Because simply words can slip
quite trippingly along

a tolled roadway
requiring pocket change or a ticket
for another mile's continuance.

 

[4degrees]

25

Teeth like little shovels
To bite out the rest of bad blood
Gnawing like a mongrel
At those spots that itch endlessly
I am raw the whole week through
Exposed and attracting more germs
Reinfecting myself with bad x 10
And I always have something
To chew on.

 

[AChild]

2

she was always old earth
waiting to teach me smile
lashes frame flawless
jewels of brown
so many types of dirt
right under my surface

she shakes my mood
for nourish bulges
bubble glum strata
nocturnal clouds
lost to to clock work
play not dirty, not ashy,
not even sane

just the snow balling laughter
the knowledge that her touch
will peel some pain away from
day,

stain me with the copper eye
from the yellow flower song voice

she my earth with teeth rock
Archipelago
she call me her sky god, I ask why
"cause I need something good
to chew on"

 

[Tzara]

14

Library of Congress Section HA-HB,
the University of N—, Some Fall Afternoon

Your back against the bookcase,
my tongue in your ear, your right foot
hitched on a shelf
like you’re trying to climb the stacks backwards—

where else can I descend to but your belly?
Sliding aside cotton, rayon, or (oh how perfect) silk,
I lick a land better than hearing,
hoping no professors assigned early quizzes
in macroeconomics, and no grad students are puzzled
just who “Student” was.

But by now, my dignity is a sunk cost,
so, oh baby, I soldier, soldier on.



After Beth Gylys, kinda

 

[4degrees]

26

words like locks
chaining together
impossibilities and teacup hearts
mouths move,
masters at speaking in silent
grammatical errors
making me laugh
as if it's known
as if i'm real
as if the copper eye
reflects some virtue
staining then shattering
a mirror made of brittle
imperfections and
knotted hair.

 

[AChild]

3

cook sick
steaming piles of oogie loogie
bandolier bash
private parts
this cough right here
is insured for 11.95 an hour
this throat is sour, but
coming out in razor wire
lung cuts, cold fog splotches
layered over ache
layered over head spin
layered over clear nose drip
layered over impossibilites
and tea cup hearts

my belly is a shaman
my belly is a upside down esqueleto
my belly is a rolling thunder
sticky with syrup
chalky with blue and white pills

dreams of fucked out Alice
no more
let me be the door mouse
with the tea cup heart
that is really a magic carpet
flying up the rabbit/larynx hole
shooting out snot rocket
going back again in another form
to warn the hatter of all the
mad impossibilities in reality

 

[Tzara]

15

The Ontological Argument, Distressed

You knew I wasn’t Catholic, but
because you were,
I aped your motions during Mass

and bent my knee when you did.
To not embarrass you, I did not descend
further to the beauty of that fork

between your ready thighs. Anselm speaks
of “being than which no greater can be conceived,”
which, bang, is you, right here, so perfectly

open to my argument.
Can we maybe ditch this church,
and just find a quiet room,

where we can ignore the Gideon Bible
in the bedstand and simply consume
each other in a way Darwin would think true?

 

[4degrees]

27

stepping out of the form
a quick snake shed and
shake away the dead
in free flight until ready
to be reborn
the ultimate voyeur
sees every fuck and murder
each sickening sequence
blinking in disbelief
no reprieve release relief
my belly is rolling thunder
my rain pisses down on
your charade
my god's eye sees that
nothing was ever really
real.

 

[AChild]

4

at the meta phor
checkin ph
acid base

the artist will love anything
excuse me
fuck anything

a painter is just as likely
to wake up next
to a oil spill as a rainbow

watch your meta daughters
around poets, they true trisexual
crushin the whole whole
with occupy life, with life occupation

we cock and cunt
blunt blaze blush hush
rubbing forward cutical

Plath oven mother may i
see every murder and fuck
on a cool slab taking
blusey
greensy
orangey oragams

 

[Tzara]

16

Poem for Marichiko

A sudden rain pastes your thin shift
tight to your body
and my wish is to be water.

 

[4degrees]

28

eyelashes whisper reluctance
and advantage is mine
a thief is restless in knowing
the artist will love anything
the picture painted is worthless
but the bite comes, a teasing
rubber glowing lure
tastes nothing like fresh
baked bread or seaweed sushi
but the artist will love anything
for he is always starving