Sunday, October 31, 2010

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.

Saturday, October 30, 2010

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!

Friday, October 29, 2010

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.

Thursday, October 28, 2010

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.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

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”

Monday, October 25, 2010

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.

Sunday, October 24, 2010

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.


Saturday, October 23, 2010

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.

Friday, October 22, 2010

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.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

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.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

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.



Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Monday, October 18, 2010

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.



Sunday, October 17, 2010

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!

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Justice

Sorrow has

A way of breaking unjustly
A part of our heart, leaving us

The rest we need
To keep our peace.


Friday, October 15, 2010

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.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

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.


Wednesday, October 13, 2010

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.



Tuesday, October 12, 2010

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.

Monday, October 11, 2010

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.

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Saturday, October 9, 2010

Friday, October 8, 2010

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.

Thursday, October 7, 2010

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.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

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.




Sunday, October 3, 2010

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.

Saturday, October 2, 2010

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. 

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