Wednesday, February 29, 2012

You Did Say Abbott and Costello, Didn't You?


“That person”, that demonstrative impersonal 
Third person singular who’s lost

His identity, why would anybody speak 
Of himself like that? 

In the first place, you might ask 
Who is going to answer? 

In the second—man oh man forget it— 
Here comes the Babe 

Who’s just cleaned the bases and is now
Rounding third, headed for home! 

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Common Ground


Muse, I’m at a loss for words— 
Each step I take towards you, 
You take one back—please, 
Don’t be so mean—like everyone else, 
I too wonder what all this artful dodging means. 


Sunday, February 26, 2012

Cupid's Arrow, Deflected


You said you were going 
To show me how 

Much you needed me. And me? 
I turned away and missed 

Your point completely. 

Saturday, February 25, 2012

Hamming It Up at Grauman's Chinese Theater

After hands-down performance, 
head temporarily in firmament— 

feat soon to be cast 
permanently in cement.

Friday, February 24, 2012

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Et Leviathan Ego


I swear if I were God, I’d tear a hole 
In the heavens to hide myself, 

Knowing full well that blasphemy 
And evil so dark 

The universe would rend itself asunder to know. 



Tuesday, February 21, 2012

On I-90 in Big Sky Country, 1976


A below zero morning somewhere between 
Bozeman and Billings, a small blue-colored bird 
On a wire fence with the road ice keeping us moving along 
Slow enough to see its breath another cumulus cloud forming. 



Sunday, February 19, 2012

Haunt


Time to get a move on, ghostbusters— 
Though the soda jerk’s a jack-off 
In spotless white, Pop’s soda fountain’s still 
A dark threat waiting round the corner, 
His Wurlitzer bubbles wet dreams 
Of youthful effervescence, it’s now or never— 
The old gang’s dying to get back there. 


Saturday, February 18, 2012

Universal Poetic Aspirations


These galaxies keep spiraling 
Towards an infinite number 

Of impenetrable black holes— 
Don’t they know 

They can only go in so deep. 

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Eating out of Our Hands


No matter where
They may be hiding
In the wilderness,

Every once in a great while
Little creatures venture out
And make us feel very small. 


Felled


Forget about that conundrum— 
Nothing sounds 

As clear-cut 

As a voice crashing 
In the wilderness. 


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Reverberations


Cicadas? 

Long after you stop wondering 
Where they’ve gone, the air’s still 

Thrumming underground. 

Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Sunday, February 12, 2012

Passing Glance in a Mirror


Once a child, always 
A child they say but how 
Was it when you saw that 
Boy growing into a man 
You didn’t stop to ask. 


Saturday, February 11, 2012

Timeworn


Sick to death—maudlin enough 
A phrase and oh too common— 

But how many suffer 
To live through it. 


Friday, February 10, 2012

Take It or Leave It


Lethe bound, I’d rather give 
The shirt off my back to bring back 
Those remnants of memory 
Than be dressed to kill 
And leave it at that.

Thursday, February 9, 2012

Gone with the Wind


O most aery spirit 

Of the vaunted avant-garde mooning 
Around your emanations, amass 

Enough asses about and soon 
You’ll be at the rear swooning 

Over their moons too.

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Fallen Leaves Redux


Eve? Plain as day— 
Something about her 

Nature made me want 
To swirl round her ankles 

So she could sweep me away. 



Tuesday, February 7, 2012

Up the Down Staircase on the Stairway to Heaven


There I was in the back of a tiny delicatessen in an aisle jammed between racks of Italian pasta when the front door opened and an old man went up to the counter where the owner greeted him with a Hiya buddy, what’ll you have? The old man asked Where’re the stairs? What stairs, buddy? Why, the ones that go upstairs, the old man answered indignantly. There’s no upstairs, Pop, there’s only this one floor, the owner shot back condescendingly, then turned his back on the old man, who though standing motionless, now looked like he was descending some great unfathomable abyss. 


NB: Edited notebook entry, Seattle 1976.

Monday, February 6, 2012

Autopsy


Bones, 

Not enough evidence here, I’m afraid 
We’ll have to go back to where 

We last saw our bodies 
Alive and kicking. 



Sunday, February 5, 2012

Ceremony of Succesion


Before the celebrated 
Rape scene, Mammon dressed 

As a swan, proceeds 
To preen his feathers 

Before offering all 
His overweening pride 

To his coming, 
Gilded offspring— 

Let us toast the occasion. 


Saturday, February 4, 2012

Crickets in Bluegrass Country, 1959


Oh, I got that bug about colors— 
Blue’s one of my sweeties, 
Green too and I love hearing them 
Rocking and rolling 

On my back on the grass 
On my way to school—so 
No ding-dong bell for me,
Buddy, I’m gonna be cool 

Just like you.

Friday, February 3, 2012

Flagellant


I know 

It hurts, trying 
To be so 

Smart only to find 
Even a pachyderm 

Can whip you at that. 



Thursday, February 2, 2012

Prostituting One's Self


As I sd 
to my friend, John I sd, 
because he wasn’t

buying, how come 
when we want 
to sell 

words, they always 
pimp us to do 
the trick.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Huuklyeand Cinquor on the MO of Underground Poets


Surreptitiously 

Erase each step, better 
Still, don’t move at all. 


Moderator’s comment: The Apotheosis of the Absurd? At first glance, it might appear so to readers unfamiliar with Cinquor’s modus operandi and who might be thinking he’s being a bit facetious here; on the contrary, if we dig a bit deeper, we’ll see he’s earnestly but very carefully exploring new levels of meaning vis-à-vis the creative urge underlying the so-called school of Underground Poetry. 

Unlike his archaeologically pioneering European antipode Heinrich Schliemann—who, in his great haste to find Ancient Troy, dug right through it without realizing it—Cinquor here posits a daring New World approach in which he proposes that poets who wish to explore ancient subterranean passages leading to Hades, and who wish to do so without the fear of being detected and therefore ratted on by weasels or moles, should do nothing but stand perfectly still—a quintessential move on Cinquor’s part, if you ask me. 

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