The Massive Poetic Time Bomb Missive

Dear Tom, Dick and Harry:

Strange you should ask 
What it is that makes us 
Tick—and boy have you 
Ever got me there— 

But I do want you 
To note that 
No sooner do 
We think we’re close 

To taking apart that 
Blankety-blank clock 
Than the alarm goes off— 
No time 

To gather the odd 
Bits and pieces, no 
Time for no 
Bodies like us 

To even blink, 
Let alone think. 

On a Phrase of Aeschylus*

No sea in Syria, no sea 
In Afghanistan, only 
A sea of suffering 
Humanity and if it is 
With difficulty we see 
‘The Aegean flower 
With corpses’, it is not 
Because we have to 
Wade through 
A sea of the world’s 
Indifference to witness 
It but also because 
We do not wish to hear 
The siren-beset ship we are 
Sailing on is well 
On its way to Lethe. 

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
 *Agamemnon, l. 659
 
 cf. the following link to see how George Seferis uses this phrase in one of his poems: 

http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/in-the-manner-of-g-s/

Stopping by a Grove of Ancient Olive Trees Near Twilight, I Think Myself Fortunate

Lost in recollection
Amidst deep ancient wrinkles, 
This is where one should spend 
The dying minutes of each wasted day.

Autumn of My Mother-in-Law

In straight- 
Backed chair, crumpled 

Wispy hands on lap, 
Mind gone 

To the rocky hills and sheep 
She used to tend to 

On the slopes spring 
To summer behind 

The village up here, now 
All behind her she waits 

For the fog to lift 
For a glimpse 

Of winter approaching 
In the lowland 

Meadows that must be 
Somewhere she says—slowly 

Lifting her right arm 
And pointing 

Straight ahead— 
Down there. 

Heraclitus on the Boob Tube

First notice that 
Nothing is as 
It used to be, 
Thus everything is 
No longer on 
Familiar ground—even that 
Couch potato you once 
Thought was impervious 
To change now 
Looks to be sprouting 
Eyes in the back 
Of its cabbage head. 

Rainy Day Exploit

“. . .the poet— 
brats in the street fling shit at him. . .” 

—George Seferis, “Three Secret Poems” 


The drops keep pelting quite 
Poetic the tarmac stupid sheep 

Keep dropping glazed 
Pellets that end up stuck 

Smartly to your feet. 

View of the Ithome Mountains (with Bats) at Crepuscule

In lieu of a poem--my favorite crepuscular vantage point--a poem in itself. (Please use headphones at high volume.)

Why Some Poets Have No Business Calling Themselves Angels

Oblivious to all 
That’s ugly 

On the face of the earth, 
They call forth heavenly 

Strains of pizzicato, expansive 
And graceful picking 

Within a modicum of space, 
There where 

They dance stark 
Naked with demons 

On the head of a pin. 

On the Refugee Problem Besetting the European Union

Dear brothers 
In a common cause, 
These teeming masses 
Of supplicants besieging 
Our sacred borders 
Seek nothing 
Save a sanctuary where 
They can rest their weary heads; 
Their plight does indeed cut 
Us to the quick—pray 
Let us show compassion, 
Home in on each and every one 
With heaven-sent teargas, plenty
Of angelic cudgels and lay 
Their worries to rest before 
The final, merciful kill. 

Orgasm of Greed: All or Nothing

Jack of all trades, master at abating 
All save avarice, no need 

To squirrel all the precious fun— 
Just work those nuts off silly 

Neutered all the way 
To no kingdom cum. 

Approaching Knowing Night Birds from Afar

Strange we should be so taken in 
By warm, childish cries alighting 

On our shoulders on the wings 
Of a sultry summer night, 

Only to have them turn palish 
Cold without our knowing it,

Grey silent owls taking flight.

 

Banner Year

This was another one 
Of those years 

That had something 
For everybody— 

Even the homeless 
Have-nots had the usual 

Copious shares of nothing. 

Young She-goat in Well Still Wet behind Ears

Hearing her 
Owner’s frantic 
Yells for help and before we ran 
To raise her and she romped off 
To dry in sun-drenched meadow, 
She was down there a drowning 
Blatting bobbing waterlogged pandemonium, 
Dog-paddling round stony ring of death accompanied 
By chorus of cacophonous frogs stoically croaking 
In deadpan disbelief. 

A Childhood Lost, Just Like That

That classic Greek landscape you left’s done 
A disappearing act. You recall 

A just man like many long dead saying 
It won’t be here when you get back 

With you still homeless, 
Twice an immigrant. 

On Piscine Poets out of Water

--for Huuklyeand Cinquor, il miglior fabbro 


Don’t piddle precious time 
Sounding your position out— 
Your next line is always 
Easier to swallow 
If you don’t know 
You’re hooked. 

Melanoma

All you bigoted zealots rejoice! Whatever 
Blemish defies washing away keeps 

Sinking further into the skin 
Till it turns purple, drowning 

In its own unfathomable joy juice. 

Natura Apocalyptica

Astounding— 

Under the umbrella pines the crowd 
Of revelers moved ecstatically 

By the buzzing of its own 
Voice does not hear the mass 

Of cicadas busily burying it. 

Manunkind Unrattled

It’s time to dispense with the usual 
Time-consuming formalities 
And tell you right off that 

Just as you live unfazed and breathe 
In your man-made stench, so 
Shall you expire before you know it. 

Think about it. In the meantime, 
Kindly grab all the quality 
Time you need, mensch. 

The Weight

Up in the village 
Watching my wife doting 
On her mother sliding quickly 
Downhill into oblivious senility, 
I cannot but recall how 
Many times she’d made 
The long haul from the village 
To that little summer garden 
Two twisting miles straight 
Down to the gorgeous 
Gorge and back, a straw 
Basket in each hand laden 
With freshly-harvested vegetables 
And hauling more often than not, 
The latest of her six 
Children in a sling 
Across her now 
Bent-over back, 
And looking on all 
That had to be 
Done each day as inevitable 
As the sun rising and setting 
And never once asking why 
It had to be that way. 

Intangible Air of Reciprocity

The wind believes 

It has an aura 
As long as the pines 

Long to hear it. 

Straight from the Horse's Mouth: Huuklyeand Cinquor on Why Valéry Is Still Valid

One thing is clear 
In your work, dude— 
This insistence on purity 

Validates absolutely nothing, 
For nothing is pure 
And it’s certainly not 

Unadulterated horseshit. 


Moderator’s comments: "Hi-ho, Cinquor away!"


 

One Way or Another, Wisdom Grows on One with Age

My father was old enough 
To be my grandfather 

And I too young to know 
It made no difference. 

Mendicants Toeing the Capitalist Line

Don’t breathe a word— 
You can’t see it but that 
Rucksack on your back 
Has just enough 
To carry you through 
Another day, 
But no need to worry— 
That other beggar 
With a rucksack 
Just like yours 
Walking before you 
Will never give you away. 

Phenomenologically Speaking

In the dim 
Cramped light of the old 
Folks’ home there was 

Still enough room 
For the shadows 
To come alive. 

Tsunami Crisis Management, Hellas 2015 A.D.

What do we Hellenes do when a crisis is over?
We go back to a life with more crises,
One life with one crisis after another,
But we despair not!

Millenniums basking
On the sun-drenched shores
Of the Mediterranean have taught us how
To perform wonders as long as we persevere

In sitting back in our beach chairs,
All the while making like a wave.