Old Country Derelicts Gone Fishing: Raymond, Washington, ca 1950

On the stinking mud 
Flats of the Willapa, 

Old houseboats inhabited 
By leaky old men once 

Forever young. 

Discrete Aegean Sequence

More than enough

Here of what a sea 
Bird’s kept 

Folded be 
Neath 

Its wings. 

. 

                inland urchin 

Ringed by mountains 
Strange that 

I should have been thus 
So drawn to the sea 

I don’t remember 
Whatever became of me. 

. 

               inlet 

Salt sprays 

In the recesses 
The mind 

Tastes of brine. 

. 

               katabasis 

In a poem 
I once wrote 

Conches nest 

And thinking 
The sea, the sea 

Engulfed me. 

. 

                tail end of evening 

Of sails in the sunset 
Small white cries 

Of gulls sailing over 
The edge of the world 

Unfathomable. 

. 

               archipelago 

I shall pave 
The wide blue 

Sea with slates 
Of marble 

And keep on 
Striding 

Till I find you— 
Wait and see. 

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Minor Underground Poets

Oh, the ignominy of it all! 
To die as they lived, revolting 

And buried underneath rotting 
Sheaves of subversive verse. 

Moderator’s comment: As this is Cinquor’s first communiqué in almost a year, I trust he isn’t having second thoughts about continuing our five-year cooperative venture as set forth in this initial blog entry of October 11, 2010; worse yet, I’m worried to death he’s approaching terminal burn-out phase and will soon be beyond saving. Perish the thought! I don’t know what I’d do without his horseplay poetic and gadfly manner rearing their heads now and then and injecting some sorely needed life into this deadly lackluster blog. 

NB: I hope I’m wrong but why do I sense Huuk is describing himself here rather than some nameless poetic pencil-pushers pushing for world revolution through the medium of putrefying polemic verse?

Maven's Vigil

Keep a watch 
Out for the flickering 
Of the first evening 

Star and stare 
As if it were 
Your last. 

Coign of Vantage

This fragile young 
Unruly bitter lemon 
Tree weighed 

Down with more runaway 
Fruit than it can bear 
Needs a rod to spare it— 

Let him who is full 
Of plenty be the first 
To provide it.