If Pegasus Could Talk: The Last Word in Poetry!

Okay, jocks, have it your way—

Whinny nicker whicker neigh,

No words and all play.

Invasion of the Snail People et al.

Believe it or not , before these people 'et  all of us on this here saucer, they also devoured two pans full of our kinfolk!

Your Friendly, Inviting Bird Feeder

Chirping in a whirring

Circle in the branches

Above the table where

I sit and watch, it looks like

My friends are thinking

Twice about attacking

The crumbs

I’ve most kindly left

On the slab of wood hanging

Like a swing from the leafless

Judas tree.

.

As long as I’m here, I know

They’ll keep their distance,

Springing on my offering only

After I leave them alone.

Such ungrateful wretches.

Don’t these birds understand?

They should be eating out of my hand.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Means and Ends

Dying to pen

Eternal verse?

Just pretend

Each word’s a step

Towards that end.

Moderator’s comments: Huuk’s got me where he wants me—I need to brush up on my dialectic!

Maybe Tomorrow

—after Cavafy

Please

Old man, do not entreat me

To change my ways—

One of these days, perhaps

Today even, I shall

Make sense of what

I learned from yesterday;

Until that day, let me bask

In that full-bodied, sensuous

Knowledge of my ignorance.

Soap as Poetic Metaphor

be

cause

it

is

an

agent

so

cleansing, even

more so when not

bubbling over,

swallowing

so much sop. 

Huuklyeand Cinquor on the Real Meaning of Realpolitik

You clogged up assholes—

You sit here saying how shitty everything is

When the real shit has yet to hit the fan.

Moderator’s comments: Merde alors!

Commemorative

Racked by pain, still

The innocent wheel-

Chairs swear on

A campaign

Against a mounting

Stack of dog-eared bibles,

Everyone gets the picture—

Nothing's framed.

NB: Lest we forget, today marks the 37th anniversary of the beginning of the fall of the infamous junta that ruled Greece from 1967 to 1974. 

Before the Ruby-throated Hummingbird Stood Still

When not composing on the computer (and before that on a Remington Quiet- Riter exactly like this
one which my parents bought me as a junior high graduation gift), I jot down bits and pieces of rantings and ravings on a 7 1/8 x 5 1/4 inch account book--the perfect size for my miniscule scribblings. 

Number one starts on January 11, 1975 in Seattle and finishes (with stopovers in London and Paris) in Greece in July 1976; the one I'm currently scribbling in is number twelve. That's not much of an output but what can you expect from a humming bird.

 

Full Circle

Fall’s half-moon

Waxing through

Judas tree leaves,

Jasmine flowers all

Ready on ground.

Poem

Like that ruby-throated humming

Bird that moves by

Making us stand still.

Huuklyeand Cinquor on Abandoning One's Craft in the Middle of the Sea of Doldrums

When that wan

But overblown lubberly poet told me

He was ready to set forth boldly

Out of the calms of obscurity

And take the world by storm,

I told him to batten the hatches,

Remain at his station and please

Wait for the lull to blow over.

Moderator’s comments: Aye-aye, O Captain! My Captain!

Sweet 'n' Sour

I remember

Mom had a habit

Of enticing her

Granddaughter into the store-

Room where she’d ply

The kid with all kinds of sweet

Whatnots till she was caught

Red-handed by a red-

Faced son who thought

She was trying

To pull a fast one

On the sourpuss dad
Who had all but forgotten

He once had parents

As sweet as she was.

Lullaby of Birdland

Our darling

Sweet bird of youth

Has turned in

To a dark gray crow cawing on

A blackened limb.

ΤΡΙΑ ΠΟΙΗΜΑΤΑ/TRES POEMAS

My thanks to Mario Domínguez Parra for translating three of my Greek poems into Spanish and sending them to the prestigious online poetry magazine of the National Autonomous University of Mexico(UNAM); if neither Greek nor Spanish is “Greek” to you, you can read them here.

AAHH, The IMF!

A poem adapted from a classic moving picture starring Archilochos, Aristophanes, Hitchcock, and The Hellenes in flight from the clutches of despicable harpies desperate for a piece of the action!

Huuklyeand Cinquor on the Light at the End of the Tunnel

Hallelujah, brethren!

I tell you things

Just keep gettin’ better

And better—

Ain’t no stopping that gravy

Train headed our way, just

You wait and see.

Moderator’s comments: Okey-dokey, Huuklyeand, we poor, stranded, unenlightened masses get the picture. We have to wait in this here dark passageway till the second coming of The Super Chief.