2013 Challenge: One Poem a Week

[Angeline]

46 11/10/13

Pomme

When he's hungry it tastes perfect.
He'll lick the Sun-blushed skin and
sniff imagining the deep core
a flower he must ultimately plunder
unleash the stem careen his
tongue into the worm hole then
he'll have all the juice.
All of it.

 

[bogusagain]

fraud

I have little time for poetry
which has little time for me
poetry that is aloof
which thinks itself too smart
for ordinary folk like me

poetry which mistakes itself for wisdom
which lectures me on love and hate
and claims to expose the flaws
within the human race

the poet is an arse, the poet is a fraud
the poet who writes from above
looking down upon us all
the poet who claims to understand the world
while never having lived in it at all

the poet who shapes words
the poet who shapes thought
the poet who has never strayed
beyond shelves of dusty books

straight out of university
straight into a world of words
like silver words of politicians
they’re polished, confident and right
but hollow as an empty can
kicked down a shitty city street

 

[Tzara]

46

Archaic Torso of Apollo
—After Rilke

Guy’s dick’s been whacked off, for sure,
though his abs are textbook
and those obliques run down

like a freeway,
funneling girls to the off-ramp
of Apollonic ecstasy

or something like that.
Dude, no one changes their life
when they’re getting laid.

 

[corndog_]

My Friends Keep Saying Theory When They Mean Hypothesis

A hypothesis is a prediction;
y will follow x no matter
the consequences. y is the dependent
variable and cannot for itself
decide to leave or close a bank account.
x is independent, and therefore free
to be at once father, lover, cur. Vary x
at your peril: just watch
what happens. Control
the drinking and calculate the time
spent waiting for a text or call.

My friends say they have a theory
about chaos: if you move often,
you’ll love the thing that remains
constant. But that’s really a hypothesis.
The theory: we all need somebody
to lean on. A theory is an explanation: why
did the kids miss school today? Why
is the cable turned off? Observation
is the key to good science. Prove it
wrong. Refute the hypothesis.


....
NB: the title is taken from a t-shirt slogan

 

[greenmountaineer]

47

is here.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

47 - Demarcation

There’s a bitter
autumnal taste
twixt teeth and cheek,
tongue and numbness.

Arms ache with
unaccustomed fatigue
and the beat goes on
day after dread day.

Agonizing over you,
your absence, my betrayal
that seems more like
prayer, is a cul-de-sac
sucking me dry, desiccating
your presence to trail mix
to be consumed when
starved.

 

[Angeline]

47 11/20/13

Fourteen Wasted Lines

There's nothing like a breeze in there
the metronome ticks, air expires
even the room shrinks yellow near
the bottom of pages I've acquired
shuffling sentences tossing lines
in yarrow sticks patterned in dust
(dead space between rune and rhyme).
I'm not afraid to fail or fall or thirst
but these were lies, your twisted words
your mouth of ashes my mistrust--
abandon me abandon your guttering
flame your bloody rudderless thrust.
One of us petal the other one thorn.
One of us dying the other one born.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

48 - Suspended Beliefs

(Jesus, Buddha and Grandma)

He hung
crucified
above her
bed starved
of love I felt
sorry for him in his sadness and pain
we had caused she told me off-handedly
and I felt worse but Buddha sat on
her dresser
and laughed
I liked him
best wanted
him to release
Jesus, lift him
down out of
his misery
feed him so
he’d get fat
and jolly like
Buddha then
he'd get better
and so would
my Grandma.​

 

[Tzara]

47

.....

 

[greenmountaineer]

48

TURP

Epigraph:

“The mind of the dreaming man is fully satisfied with whatever happens to it. The agonizing question of possibility does not arise.”
― André Breton, Manifestoes of Surrealism

As I was saying "I love you"
to my anesthesiologist,

Darth Vadar tested his lightsaber wand
which in medico-Italian

is called a resectoscopio
because it looks like Pinocchio's nose.

"I wouldn't lie to you, Cara," I said
to my love who was talking to Darth

about a subarachnoid
which, if memory serves correct,

is what they called the love child of
Ungoliant and Vala Melkor

or the centipede from "The Tingler,"
starring Vincent Price.

"Don't touch" said Darth,
"Oui, oui, I said,
having reality well in hand,

when, Eureka! my urethra
got reacquainted with my glans!

"Such an exquisite corpse!"

Epitaph:

"I pity the fool who messes with my prostate."
― Mr. T
(surreal attribution)

 

[Angeline]

48 11/30/13

Fourteen Found Lines

Such ignorance bred into our disguise,
its storms passing ceaselessly. My sleep
submerged in streaming quiet and sadder
than memories I have, flotsam I keep--
just two girls, cocoa, mittens and a dad
all of us under the lopsided skies
still years from elegy or epitaph
skating on thin ice, awaiting what seems
a plague on both houses, capricious and
pink depression glass, a faded globe
a blot of time that spread across the land
conjures dreams of you. Remember the snow?
It is a dream, nothing waking to fear
from nameless shadows that wave, disappear.

 

[Tzara]

48

Lighter

When I used to smoke,
I could make that work—
the tired woman
sitting next to me, the one
with the rumpled suit
whose mascara had run,
the one who had a beer
in front of her, not
a dirty martini or
some frothy pink drink,
that woman who’d been
married but it didn’t take.
She always wore
too much lipstick
of the wrong shade,
but I knew when
she pulled out a pack
of Gitanes that she’d
go for that Zippo lighter
I’d inherited from Dad,
who’d carried it
through all kinds of Hell
in the forties. Now,
maybe, and then too, it’s
just a way to hook up,
that thing that humans do.
Afterwards, when I snick
the flame for her to light
another, I wonder why
we’re together, on these
rumpled, cheap sheets.
And then I think of her lips
on me and it’s flame, baby,
flame. Flame on, baby.

 

[greenmountaineer]

49

Disfigurement

Unaccustomed to strangers,
I didn't speak. He said nothing

but looked at me. It felt deep,
as beautiful a look I ever did see.

My face would turn your bowels to water.
He chose instead to envelop me,

and my face flushed a great warmth.
We didn't speak, but I did quiver.

Life taught me to always look down
where suddenly I thought I might find

a calm on the Sea of Galilee
or the shoes of a fisherman.

Instead I found two empty loafers
beside his disfigured feet.

 

[corndog_]

1963 World Octopus Wrestling Championships

What draws us into the watery world of a monster?
........-Modern Mechanix Magazine​

To slip beneath the rippled glass
and drift, amniotic. To reject the rules
of gravity and bone. To expose yourself
in rainbow skin. To stare unblinking
into a brilliant eye. To sink
and rise in gasping rhythm.
To coil and thrash and pull.
To wrap another’s arms
around you. To be left
damp and trembling.
To be touched.


....

 

[Tzara]

49

I Just Wanted You to Know

that I recovered those pics
off that damaged hard drive
from that night last July
when the A/C failed, when you
decided we were too hot, anyway,
for it to make any difference.

I don't care that you've been with Bobby
these last three months,
but you don't really want to
find yourself a star,
now, do you? Do you?

 

[Angeline]

49 12/4/13

Number 49 is here.

 

[greenmountaineer]

50

María Comes in from the Cold

María whose gray hair's festooned
with droplets of Hackensack snow
will eat frijoles cold tonight
unless someone fixes her stove

while no one in Boca Ratón,
the big rats, fat cats, or landlord
will pick up el teléfono
or has to come in from the cold

speaking Spanglish in el Welfare
Office rattling por favor
una pildora in el bottle
por la vagina, Señor,

for petty crimes from laid back times
or on her knees in Mayaguez
where lips once teased Hola Muchacho
and never had to say please.

 

[bogusagain]

desecration

in Pigalle, the hotel window frames
the kitsch moon ballooning
over the Eiffel Tower
your reflection imposed
on this picture postcard image

for a woman of your age
your body hasn’t let you down
you could still cat walk
along the beaches of southern France
your haughty breasts carried like trophies

your buttocks having resisted gravity
are more smug than snug
your overall posture is self satisfied
that you have entered your fifth decade
with a body half your age

so what is the reason for my discontent
why do I look at you and shudder
what stops my celebration
I have colonized your love
but this conquest feels like surrender

you make love like a holy whore
a missionary handing out charity
expecting the recipient’s gratitude
to worship at the altar of your cunt
each day you feel more like a cross

outside there are barbarian hordes
whores and shemales working the street
their clients besieging the walls of this citadel
I want them to breach these walls
and carry you off like loot

 

[Angeline]

50 12/10/13

Dexter's Dream

Darn that dream
that drifts into your eyes
and fills the aching air with
satin slipping clouds to dance in
honey beams bide the breeze to
warm the trees and sway the limbs.

Darn that dream
a tenor man who breathes to
slide his sound into
your willing skin the world
comes pouring in gardenias soft as
whispers wave and sail the setting
Sun's big eyes. Darn that dream
but love you love your eyes.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

49 - Him-agination

Even before her features
become clear he
has removed her
clothing. Not much
to do there, snug white tee
and tight blue jeans
with little imagination left.

She carries a stack of papers
pressed to her chest
behind defensibly crossed arms.
Dispatches?
Legal briefs?
The manuscript of an unpublished novel?

Anyway, he gives her small, pert tits
with those puffy, suck-able nipples
he has salivated over on Saturday night
Red Tube. He sees her mound
as unshaven, dark
and mossy, cup-able,
fragrant.

And then she has passed,
he does not look back
for confirmation
knowing her ass swells
from her thighs, twin orbs
tick-tocking smoothly as she walks.

 

[Tzara]

50

Conservation

Oh, that “fall in love” thing
Where simply your voice

In some ordinary poem
Rings something in me

Like a twelfth fret harmonic
At crazy volume.

And, then, of course, I want
To fuck you, but

What I really want
Is to cradle your face

As if you were your own species,
Unknown before,

And I a biologist, careful
To preserve your strange, genetic beauty.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

50 - Buk and Purdy

Bukowski said,

I don't know of any
good living poets,
but there's this
tough som' bitch
way up in Canada
that treads the line.

He’s a drinker too, a ruffian,
loves his women
young ‘n sassy,
likes ‘em hard to handle.
A real wrangler
and gentleman,
we’re a couple-a peas.

Met by chance,
mutual admiration then
a decade long friendship, two
poets on the same page.

They’re selling our letters
on Amazon now.
Fifty bucks, American,
per used, paperback copy
fer God’s sake!
Two self-confessed dirty old men
sharing poetic smut.

A letter from Al always
pulled me out of my
hung-over, blue funk,
less-than-appealing life
and lent some steadiness,
hope and hard-rock wisdom
to the occasion at hand.

Our letters screamed from our
cages, the gambling and booze,
the poetry and painting helped us
to feel free. We slagged other poets
elaborately and often, holding
nothing back. It’s all there, if
you’ve got fifty bucks you
can see for yourselves.

 

[greenmountaineer]

51

Rosie's a December Bride, Daddy
I whispered when I heard To Sir with Love
during the second waltz with Bobby
as the spotlight fell on an empty seat
just like the lady said it would
at The Spuyten Duyvil Ballroom East.

Later at midnight after the bliss
Frankie said, "Glad we got hitched
up in the Bronx instead of Queens.
Tomorrow it's Vegas, Baby,"

who fell asleep 4 hours from
JFK airport coffee, no cream,
but I don't mind because the IKEA
end table smells like lemon perfume

and the digital fonts on the clock
shimmer like red votive candles
of happiness where we got hitched
one of which was a sugar plum fairy
dancing in Bobby's hockey skates
with you and three pair of Bobby's socks on.

 

[Angeline]

51 12/18/13

Dexter Suite

....................I.

Have you heard that long-headed
man curved on the night who swings
on the moon smooths it out slow

paints it blue with gold a long flash
that falls and flutters down and down

town baby the city rolls we finger
snap and pat our feet to hurry
midnight hurry dreamland warm--

Daddy plays the horn

at the Royal Roost
a chicken shack on Broadway
and 47th ivey-divey down
town, not The Street, but close
enough for jazz and otherwise
known as the Metropolitan Bopera
House.

Duke tilts an ironic smile
Diz gapes and jives. The First
Lady of Song is coiffed in a halo
of fur, eyes closed somewhere
there's heaven (how faint the tune)

the hi-hat shimmers the spot
shrinks and here's Dex
behatted, a rumpled punctuation
a horn and plumes of smoke
a tone poem. New York City, 1948.

 

[Tzara]

51

Several poems this week, of course. What the hay--I pick this one as this week's poem.