Huuklyeand Cinquor on Negative Capability

When you think

You can’t

Swim.

Moderator’s comments: C’mon Huuklyeand, are we supposed to swallow this hook, line and sinker? No way.

Allegory of the High and the Mighty

Can’t see the forest for the trees?

Well, it goes something like this:

The lowly saplings spring forth,

The noble old growth keeps

A watchful eye out in hopes

That nothing goes wrong,

Till the lords of the aerie

In one fell swoop

Bring everything down.

Definitely Not Lemmings #28

A warm welcome to woman in a window who becomes DNL #28. Much appreciated!

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Myopia and Its Existential Problems

Dude, I know it’s tough being

The butt of ugly jokes,

But look at it this way, man—

You could’ve been born with four eyes.

Moderator’s comments: In the rush to post my newest poem and to welcome two new Definitely Not Lemmings, I almost overlooked this latest Cinquor offering. Now that would have been an oversight on my part and an inexcusable one at that, seeing that I’ve been wearing glasses since the second grade and pride myself on being—I think—the oldest, shortest, most farsighted poet writing poetry in English in the Peloponnese.

The Seasons

Never really desert us, take summer

For example, it just turns its coat

Round the corner and springs

Down the street, leaving us

Reeling on the sidewalk

Praying for autumn

To deck us once and for all

For winter’s stark,

Naked fall.

Definitely Not Lemmings #26 and #27

A warm welcome to DNL 26 and 27: Kevin McCollister, a photographer who says he wants "to photograph L.A, all of it" and has made a great start with his book East of West L. A., and a very talented artist from Vienna, Laura Tedeschi. Thank you both for coming on board.

The "Perfect" Poem

—for William Michaelian, again

Of course we know there is

No such thing but

If there was it would be

How

Shall I say it?

Wise

Beyond words.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Devious Marketing of GM Foods

You perverted Monsanto

Sodbusters just keep on

Swallowing this bull

Shit and ya’ll be corn

Holed

By the Grim Reaper.

Moderator’s comments: Well, now we know where Cinquor stands re GM foods; still

The question is: how does one hold an apple

Who likes apples

And how does one handle

Filth? The question is

How does one hold something

In the mind which he intends

To grasp and how does the salesman

Hold a bauble he intends

To sell? The question is

When will there not be a hundred

Poets who mistake that gesture

For a style.

—George Oppen, “The Gesture”

A Partial History in Two Poems

Whereupon the poet muses over remnants of memory and ends up wondering if seeing is believing.

Ties That Bind

—for Eleni

O

Beautiful the unbounded

Clichés, the limitless 

Vows of lovers, the ties that keep

Darkness light-years away from girdling

The unbound earth

In a single leap.

Of Love's Eternal Feast

Oh, dear lusting ones—

time and time again insatiable

countless gourmands gorge themselves

before regurgitating, lick their lips and go back

for seconds.

Brief Meditation on the Nature of Being

I don’t have to

Wonder when I look on

The unmoving grass

Hopper fro

Zen on my window sill

Why the more I look,

The stiller

Everything becomes.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Running with the Devil

Hell,

It’s easier than walking barefoot

Over hot coals on the way

To paradise.

Moderator’s comments: I wonder if Cinquor had the Anastenarides in mind when writing this iconoclastic little piece.

Ancient Vessel

of

the

heart’s

age

old

turbulence

over

flowing

over

the

edge

to

ward

a

new

found

earth.

Definitely Not Lemmings #25

It’s always a pleasure welcoming another follower to this blog; Jean Spitzer is an artist currently living in Austin, Texas and when Jean isn't busy painting or drawing, she's out taking pictures of life in suburban Austin. Thank you, Jean, for not becoming another lemming.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Ingratitude

When we have more than we need,

We never say we have enough;

When we have less, we always forget

What we had enough of.

Summit

white

peaks

in sight

above

the

clouds

billowing

the

imagination

in flight.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Seeing Eye Dogs

I once had one that walked blindly in front

Of a speeding car and got himself run over.

Looking back, all I can say is good riddance—

That worthless son of a bitch

Almost got me killed.

Moderator's comments: Ouch! I have to say this one really hurt; if I hadn’t given my word to Cinquor that I would  post everything he sent my way, I don’t think I would have published this cruel, callous, ungrateful and extremely unwarranted piece. There should be limits to artists, even to one of Cinquor’s towering stature, but then again, a promise is a promise, and I shall abide by it.

Definitely Not Lemmings #24

Rounding out an even two-dozen followers, I'd like to welcome
Mario Dominguez Parra who hails from the Canary Islands and who is also an ardent fan/translator of Modern Greek literature--kalosorises, file mou!

Justice

Sorrow has

A way of breaking unjustly

A part of our heart, leaving us

The rest we need

To keep our peace.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Dead Ends

The last thing I want you to tell me

Is how I got here in the first place.

Moderator’s comments: At last, something that leaves no loose ends as to where Cinquor’s thought wants to take us.

Steeple Seen Through Mist in Early Morning

--for Bob Arnold

ah

in

spire

ring.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Skeletons in Closets

—after Fernando Pessoa

Heteronym,

If someone called you out

With all your hidden names,

Which one would dare to answer,

And which would take the blame?

Moderator’s comments: Readers of this blog may remember Joe Hutchison's comments on Huuklyeand Cinquor’s first offering a day ago directly below this entry and my answer back. True to form, Cinquor shot back with the above bone-chilling reply which leaves little room for evasive maneuvering by anyone, let alone the poet revealed for what he is—a skeleton in the foul rag and bone shop of the telltale heart.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Gravity in Poets

Tied fast

To a slow-moving zeppelin,

What these heavyweights need

Is an anchor.

Moderator's comments: As expected, this comes at us fast and furiously cynical; who could wish for more in a debut piece? And the ludicrous image of self-anointed Olympian poets strapped to the side of a cumbersome gargantuan dirigible like the Hindenburg, for example, makes it even more fiery. Speaking of images, if one wished to delve further into this piece, one could even find allusions, i.e. zeppelin, heavyweights, to the legendary rock group, Led Zeppelin. What a tour de force! One can only wonder if his next offering will be as riveting.

Two Poems from the Greek Underground

Let sleeping dogs lie? Perhaps. But if the Germans paid the Greeks the WWII reparations they still owe them, they wouldn't have to wake their dead.

Coming Soon: The Apophtegmata of Huuklyeand Cinquor

Imagine my surprise when I opened my email inbox a few days ago and found a rather lengthy letter from someone I’ve always admired: Huuklyeand Cinquor. At first I really couldn’t believe a maverick poet/writer/philosopher/critic of Cinquor’s stature would stoop so low as to address such an inferior—yea—lowly paper-pushing poet such as yours truly but sure enough he’d gone up and did it. But wait—there’s more!

Not only had he written a letter in which he addressed many of those thorny issues that have pricked the fancy of seriously tormented thinkers since time immemorial, he proposed I do something no poet in his right mind would ever refuse, to wit: From time to time, he would send me original apophtegmata which I would post on my blog—MY blog, mind you—together with permission to comment on them as I might see fit. Just the thought of having that illustrious name appear on Vazambam was enough to send wave after wave of tadpoles wriggling up my nose as I dived headlong into those dizzying depths of reflective narcissism. Of course I assented right off and the intermittent thoughts that Cinquor shall send my way promise to rewrite the wrongs that my blog has impressed upon an unsuspecting public. It’s about time.

Pyromaniac

You write

As if poetry were a religion

And you

Its Grand Inquisitor.

While the Barbarians Were Grossly Expectorating (With Apologies to Cavafy)

The herald

Ran ahead with the news

Our tongues would soon be

Hanging out in the forum

Exquisitely exsiccating.

Some Say the Heart is a Garden

And yours is large

And needs not

Question

Why each new flower,

Once in bloom,

Will not wilt

Before you answer

Dear heart,

There is no room.

Basket Case

Blue with all malice, like a madman’s flash

“Arms and the Boy,” Wilfred Owen

When I dwell on what

This wretched body

Politic has yet to offer,

I see myself bearing

Baskets of arms wrenched

From boys that have been

Appropriated solely

To appease it.

Dead in Its Tracks

Suddenly we saw

The world had stopped

And we started,
Our eyes startled

By the absolute
Beauty of all

That naked stillness.

Gearing up for the Next Poem

When you know the humble

Snail’s left a trail

Of silver

For you to follow,

Remember before

You put it in low,

It has no high gear

And can’t

Reverse.

Fireworks For The Downtrodden Masses

That dazzling

Independence Day light show was over

In a flash—

In its place, a mass

Of black

                  

Boot heels treading holes left 

Right between the whites 

 

Of once fiery eyes.