Mistaken Presumption

The poem does not ask to be 

Taken for granted simply because 

You think you’ve put it down so 

Rightly in black and white— 

It wants to know if you will 

Ever learn to tell the difference 

Between that which is before you 

And that lying between the lines 

Left in pieces behind you.

 

 

 

 

 

A Poem Should Be (21)

 

Fiercely and mercifully just—

As balm is to a wounded heart,

And bane to an incurably sick one.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Over The Moon Darkly

On nights

Without a moon, I fear

 

The sight of the heavens fills me 

To surfeit. 

 

 

 

Huuklyeand Cinquor's "Full Medal Jackoffs"

Duty calls the poets 

To the front whenever hard- 

Line rabble-rousers appear— 

 

Dishonor awaits 

Those that dawdle, 

Displaying their pussy- 

 

Whipped corpuses to the other 

Pussies in the rear. 

 

 

 

Moderator’s comments: My beret goes off to il miglio fabbro* Huuk for this long-overdue devastating little bombshell of a poem aimed straight at the wishy-washy, nay, empurpled hearts of so many of my fellow poets who choose to sit out conflicts of conscience astride barbed wire fences—and to whom I can only say—have a goddamn heart, you blasted cockscombs, you’re getting too near! 

 

 *https://wasteland.windingway.org/dedication/il-miglior-fabbro

 

 

 

Coming Down To Earth (After Seferis)

Always oppressive 

Seemingly never- 

Ending slate 

Of charcoal grey 

Sky, let us all 

 

Rise a little 

Higher each day so 

We can see it’s never 

A question of arriving 

Too late.

Solid Solitary Projective Verse

Coming upon Cavafy’s 'Walls,"

One is struck not so much 

By its masterful construction— 

 

Each word firmly in its rightful place, 

As befits a master word mason—but how 

At the end of that brief monologue

 

On loss and involuntary solitude, 

If the reader has indeed attended 

To what is rightly taking place,

 

He finds himself right at home, 

Next to a singular silence 

He never dreamt was coming. 

 

 

 

 

 

Doublets (Les Misérables)

 

Such a waste always 

To never love to surfeit— 

 

Such a life wasted, 

To never know it.

 

 

 

 

 

Libretto Of Suspended Animation

 

One stifling moment you are 

Here, the other else- 

Where, the persistent 

 

Question of why remains 

Hanging, ambivalent 

In the unmoving 

 

Liberating air. 

 

 

 

 

 

Empathetic Interior Landscape

 

Deep down 

 

In the terrified heart, 

Suffering festers and hides, 

 

And everybody wants it 

Ripped out and out 

 

Into the open without wounding 

The innocent beast 

 

Cowering inside. 

 

 

Real Heavy Stuff, This Gardening

 

Another morning out here well- 

Spent watching drunken bees staggering 

 

From one pollen-filled flower 

To the other while inside I bet 

 

You’re wondering again how it is 

I’m always stupefied from taking all this in 

 

In what might pass as a stupor 

Yet clearly mistaken 

 

Light.