*

*
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. Leonard Cohen

Friday, June 29, 2012

A New Spin on an Old Tale

Little Miss Muffet
climbed on her tuffet
to sit on a branch of an oak
With her curds and her whey
she watched butterflies play
when a spider dared give her a poke!

Little Miss Muffet
suffered a buffet
when she saw its four pairs of mean eyes
But she quick gained her wit
and before she got bit
gave the spider a bit of surprise!

Little Miss Muffet
told the spider to stuff it
when he tried to put her in his web
A lassoed arachnid
that does just what she bids
Makes Muffet a certain celeb!

submitted for Thursday Think Tank #103 Fractured Fairy Tales at Poets United


Thursday, June 28, 2012

Queer by Frank Bidart

A tad late for LGBT Pride Month but wow, what a poem...

Queer
by Frank Bidart

Lie to yourself about this and you will
forever lie about everything.


Everybody already knows everything

so you can
lie to them. That's what they want.

But lie to yourself, what you will

lose is yourself. Then you
turn into them.

*

For each gay kid whose adolescence

was America in the forties or fifties
the primary, the crucial

scenario

forever is coming out—
or not. Or not. Or not. Or not. Or not.

*

Involuted velleities of self-erasure.

*

Quickly after my parents
died, I came out. Foundational narrative

designed to confer existence.

If I had managed to come out to my
mother, she would have blamed not

me, but herself.

The door through which you were shoved out
into the light

was self-loathing and terror
.

*

Thank you, terror!

You learned early that adults' genteel
fantasies about human life

were not, for you, life. You think sex

is a knife
driven into you to teach you that.

Sometimes We Must



Sometimes we must destroy to build
Let go of the common to find the rare
Old structures upturned and new soil tilled

Though we may not believe we are skilled
We haven't the strength and do not dare
Sometimes we must destroy to build

So difficult to be strong willed
But inertia is too much to bear
Old structures upturned and new soil tilled

Though we breathe, the heart is stilled
We can not grow in stagnant air
Sometimes we must destroy to build

Create a place to feel fulfilled
Where one finds joy beyond compare
Old structures upturned and new soil tilled

Too many spirits silenced and killed
Find that thing for which you care
Sometimes we must destroy to build
Old structures upturned and new soil tilled.


Monday, June 25, 2012

She Floats

  Photo by Zena Holloway

Waif upon water
Blondness rises, spreads like blood
Then she floats, just floats.

The Dude Abides

His given name was Jeff
but everyone called him Dude
It has been said that he was lazy and profane
and that may be true
But the Dude had a keen sense of fairness
and of friendship
and of how a rug could tie a room together
The Dude's belly and his smokes
were both pot
and he liked his White Russians
Too laid back for employment
he courted enjoyment
"bowling
driving around
the occasional acid flashback"
But when the need arose for action
the Dude responded
grudgingly and
ineptly
It may be said that he was a loser
and that may be true
But the Dude abides.
Jeff "The Dude" Lebowski from The Big Lebowski


Thursday, June 21, 2012

Walk On the Ocean

Lavallette beach, NJ
Slate grey sea, wet sand
Footprints beside seagull tracks
Jagged shells, smooth stones
My soul holds abundant calm
Hand in hand, lacking nothing.

Monday, June 18, 2012

Dichotomies

image by Nata Ibragimov
I love our dichotomies
Your dark bristled face
against my fair cheek
Tender lips
crashing together in a violent kiss 
Your hardness
against my soft
And when our bodies part
sizzling droplets of sweat
become cool puddles on our skin 
tiny swells
under the turning fan blades.

Puddle, 1952, M. C. Escher
submitted for The Mag, Mag 122

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Love Letter To the Turtles

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Kenia's Wed. Challenge (Poetry In Motion)

All Good Things

source
If all good things must end
then how to explain us?

I used to be afraid
to feel too good
Kept myself tethered
so the inevitable fall 
wouldn't hit too hard

Now 
I let my joy fly 
like a newly fledged bird
and I need not grieve
its ending
for each ending creates 
Space
for the beginning 
of something even
Better.

Monday, June 11, 2012

Trompe de la Coeur

Still Life, 1670, detail by Jean François de Le Motte
Last night I made a bonfire
with last season's leaves
and your love letters

You were a master with words
I believed every lie you wrote
because you wrote it so beautifully
and I want to believe
in beauty

A trompe de l'oeil painting
seems so real until
you look closely and see your mistake

Your words were a trompe de la coeur
a trick of the heart

I burned your words
with the dead leaves

The fireflies blinked crazy fiesta lights
around the fire
and I toasted a marshmallow over the blaze

It tasted so sweet.

submitted for The MagMag 121

Thursday, June 7, 2012

Circles

Circles by lolamouse
Spinning thoughts
on an exhausting journey
going nowhere
Stuck
on an obsessive mind carousel
Mad horses racing
to a nonexistent finish line
while the music plays on
and on
and on

submitted for Theme Thursday, Full Circle

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

It's Not Easy Being Green (Another Cautionary Tale)

image by Klaus Enrique Gerdes
Mabel's mother has always said
"No veggies, no pie, and to bed!"
But Mabel just balks like a mule
and finds dozens of ways 'round the rule
Ever since she was quite young
Not a vegetable slips past her tongue
Anything green is rejected
Her vitamin intake neglected
No carrots, no peas, and no cuke
If forced, it will make Mabel puke
It's even a battle of wills
Over her daily vitamin pills
Now her mother has just had enough
Says to Mabel "I'm sick of this stuff!"
Gives her veggies and says, "I can't bear it!"
"Here's your choice--you can eat it or wear it!"

submitted for The Mag 120
 

Monday, June 4, 2012

Low Down, No Good Jezebel Blues

Women 'spose be sistas, women 'spose be tight
Women 'spose be sistas, yeah we 'spose be tight
But you a twisted sista, you know you ain't acting right.

Thought that I could trust you, really thought I could
Thought that I could trust you, thought I really could
But you been sneakin' round, doin' things ain't no damn good.

You been sayin' I just don't know how to treat a man
You been sayin' I just don't know how to treat my man
Believin' no one else could ever do it to 'em like you can.

You talk behind my back, say I neglectin' my guy
You been spreadin' rumors I neglectin' my guy
So you open up your heart to him and then you open up your thighs.

Well, you can have him now and I wish you both well
You deserve each other; hope you burn up in Hell.




Sunday, June 3, 2012

Illusions

Pablo Picasso: Girl Before a Mirror, 1932

I try on words like
 clothes in a bargain basement
department store
Under the harsh lights
my bare feet on grimy, threadbare carpet
I imagine a perfect fit
Beauty
One look in the mirror shatters
the illusion
Excess verbiage
Underdeveloped ideas
Loose phrases hanging off the body
The words looked so much sexier
in my head than
on the paper
With a sigh, I hang them back up
with all the other rejects.


Don't Poke the Tiger (A Cautionary Tale [Tail?])

Lady Ravendale, a Steampunk Girl by DPI Studios

Perhaps it was her uncanny feats of gymnastic swordsmanship

without messing her hair or popping her corset

or perhaps it was only fortuitous pheromones

but the moment young Felix Francis Fussbudget V lay eyes upon 

the lovely lass Lady Ravendale

he was totally and eternally smitten.

The feeling was mutual.

Luck with with the lad, as Lady Ravendale’s beloved pet tiger, 

Aloysius Fishbreath, took an instant liking to Felix,

for previous suitors had found themselves shredded

like cabbage heads for a carnivorous coleslaw.

Mrs. Millicent Filomena Fussbudget, long suffering wife of 

the Grim and Righteous Reverend Felix Francis Fussbudget IV, 

did not, however, approve of the impending union.

“The girl is haughty and proud, naughty and loud,”

 Mrs. Fussbudget decried. 

“And she dresses herself like an armadillo!  

Felix will marry her over my dead body!”

That evening, the Somewhat Less Grim but still Righteous 

Reverend Felix Francis Fussbudget IV performed the marriage

 of his son Felix Francis Fussbudget V and the Lady Ravendale.

Their pet tiger, Aloysius Fishbreath, was the ring bearer.

He was still licking his chops upon the altar.


Friday, June 1, 2012

Too Young

Little girls lost
Stumbling in the middle school maze
Dazed
Braces and bras
Awkward and powerful
Stuck between Barbies and birth control pills
Summer lemonade stands and summer lovers
Looking for suburban supermen
to fly us away
take us anywhere but where we were
Magic men
to perform an alchemy
transform us
We found instead snot nosed boys
with dirty fingernails
men with wandering hands
and dirty minds
The music promised
lipstick and leather
adrenaline fueled dreams
We knew the words like
our own heartbeats
Sang them like a prayer
a supplication
Waiting for a divine god, goddess
to answer as we waited
for our confidence to grow
with our breasts
We watched the wild ones
studied them with awe and envy
and a little fear
Denim and leather
Mullets and swagger
We didn't know if we wanted to
be them
or be their girlfriends
Barracudas or
butterflies
but we ached to be free.

submitted for Imaginary Garden With Real Toads, Friday Music Prompt, Rock Hard (Suzi Quatro tribute w/ a bit of Heart)

Nature's Music

source
Serenity surrender to restless ruminations
I return to the feral forest where rests make music's metre
Wooden sun bleached boards carry me through sighing Cypress
Moments and measures play longer by the cadence of the creek
Waterstriders wade like tiny persons paddling
Raucous red bellied woodpecker spies russet red tailed hawk
Bullfrogs burp; spring beauties blush. Senses soar like swallowtails.