Someone's Got Your Number, Dummy

Right

There where
Your noodle smarts,

Pinhead.

Stonewalled: The Poet As Culprit

--for Joe Hutchison, master sleuth

For years, I’d been trying
To trace the poem’s origins

And had come up against a blank
Wall every time: Where

Had I seen it before?

.

It must have been somewhere
In the recesses of what passes

Plausibly as my mind but the more
I looked, the less I saw

Until I saw nothing and then
I saw there was no need

Of any further investigation—
I had stolen the poem

From myself.

Window on a World

The linked title above will take you down a narrow, cobblestone street where you will witness an old woman looking down at the poet as he passes below her window. This is familiar territory for some of you, as the photograph of the old woman and the poem were the subjects of previous blog posts; however, you will now have the chance to follow the poet as he reconstructs how the poem was written.

Artful Dodger

Nothing artful left—
Not even a trace,

An honest evocation.

Morning Moon over Mt. Ithome

This photograph is for Joe Hutchison and William Michaelian for their generous comments on my previous post, and for all those other friends and unknown people who drop by my blog: May your days always begin likewise.

Dedicated to Dawn

I could wait

For you forever,
No matter what

The day promises.

Definitely Not Lemmings #22

A very warm welcome indeed to Kass who hails from Salt Lake City and whose profile must be one of the koolest around --I kid you knot!

Duly Noted and Transcribed

well, I tell you

man, when he
get a notion

to sing he got to
do just that,

and that is what
he do

good, you got that?

Poetic Criteria

From what I hear,
It sounds like some cry

Baby prodding critic shedding
A crock of tears

Over the decrepit
Still twitching body

Of Jiminy.

The Grim Reaper Leaves

An Optimistic Calling Card


Hi, Claude Hopper—

Sorry to hear you were out plowing
The poor-yielding lower forty when I called,

Better luck next year.

Dichotomies of a Lesser God

If it is not good that so much evil exists,
Is it not evil to think even less

Of the opposite?

Definitely Not Lemmings #21

A very warm welcome to Jim Murdoch for coming on board. Believe me, if you want to know the truth about lies, there's no better place to look than his blog!

Scenes of the Crime

ZICL (Zambaras Institute for the Corruption of Language aka Zambaras School of English). The perfect spot for executing what aspires to pass as passable composition, whether it be fiction, non-fiction or (egad!) piddling poesy masquerading as profundity.

The "Milk and Honey" House. The poet's chief hideout and inner sanctum. Witnesses are kindly requested to focus on the fireplace, the existence of which makes it child's play to destroy any incriminating evidence, i.e the stacks of earlier drafts of poetry which, if found by literary ghouls after the poet has departed the scene, will certainly be used against him when he is put on postmortem trial for debasing the currency.

Bukofsky Strikes Again

There is and there is not
A right way to write
A poem—

Which is like saying
Excuse me if I'm wrong but
Would it be all right

If I just say “Fuck it”?

Reunion

You seemed lovely then,
you with your shadow-breaking smile
and so much light beneath the skin,
beneath the sun that spun above us
and the wind.

There is no hiding it: This sun
is not the sun we knew,
or ever hope to know,
now that our coming near again
after our letting go, leads only
to shadows, dried-up landscapes,
last summer's cicadas stunned into silence.

(from Sentences, 1976)

Wanna Be a Poet?

Choose your words

Carefully if you must,
But never lose track of how

Many have been rejected.

Song of Civilization

Nothing sounds

As clear-cut as your voice shouting
Timber in the wilderness.

Kismet

Though fearing

The inevitable, for the love
Of one more moment

Of living, I will not perish
The thought.

Blind Faith

--for Jenny

Trails. And in the distance, dust, and the sun
floating through and down to the mountains
beyond us, boundaries of light and darkness,
what do we know of love? Only that it binds us.

(from Sentences, 1976)

The Summoning

In the end,

There’s nothing to doubt,
Nothing to question,

Not even the vaguest idea
Of equivocation.

The Whites of Our Eyes

It is a wise man who plants a tree in the shade
of which he knows he will never sit.
—Greek proverb

That vainglorious

Gunmetal grey sky you keep
Seeing in your mind’s eye?

A revelation is at hand, carved
In glorious black and white,

With orders from on high
To plant it.

Fending off the Slings and Arrows of Outrageous Fortune

Think you

Don’t have a ghost of a chance?
Try passing yourself off

As an apparition.

Before the Shit Hits the Fan

You

Just give us what you want,
Word-slinger—

But don’t give us what
You have to give us,

Give us what we want.

Dire Straits

As if in a stupor, the doves do nothing
But reel in air in front of the fledglings,

Whereas the hawk-like crows fly straight
Into the heart of the matter.