long distance (2005ish)

One foot, and then the other -- God!
I'm no good at this,
no long dist-
ance runner.

It hurts so much to fall --
Stumble on sin
again, and again
taste dust.

If I could see the end -- but it's
the middle of the day,
and a long, long way
until the end.

long road

This one dates i believe from shortly before i started college, so 2004-5.
So far i am resisting the temptation to edit this old stuff.

~

"Take up your cross, and follow Me," you said.
But oh, Lord Jesus, I'm weak,
and oh, Lord Jesus, I am frightened.
It's a long long road up to that black hill.
Those harsh and rusted nails, waiting
to skewer a familiar pleasure --
That little habit --
what harm did it do to anyone,
that it should be spread out to scream and
shrivel in the sun?
All those little loves too? to be hammered
there to bleed, drop by drop? to die?
Oh, Jesus, this black burden on my back
is my own self crucified,
and it's a long long road up that black hill.

Bouts-Rhymes, also administrative stuffs

Hello, my faithful two readers. Thank you for all the cheerleading! I love you both monstrously.

I am about to start dumping "poems" (if i can call them that) from pre-2005 or so. Just so you know i'm not all depressed or anything. Anymore :P

Also may be playing around with re-labelling stuff. For my own delectation. Since i have been spending so much time ignoring the sticky spots on my floor anyway.

OK, glad that's out of the way.

So i haven't forgotten about the Handbook of Poetic Forms. The next one on the list is BOUTS-RHYMES, which is another fun game to play!! This is easier to show than to tell.

BOUTS-RHYMES -- a how-to
(1) Challenger: "hey, have some words i just made up with my brain. Betcha can't write a poem using them as the line ends."
(2) Poet: "EXCEPT I CAN."

(The end)

Ex. g:

Challenger: "rose, chose, spill, glows, fill, mill, doze"
Poet: "Earlier than the sun she rose
          To meet the one her own heart chose --
          That made her lips to spill
          Such silly giggles. Oh, the rosy glows
          Of infant romance -- they could fill
          A room with light. I could write a mil-
          lion lines like this, but it would make me doze."
Challenger: "You totally cheated. Also, your meter changes like 3 times in 7 lines."
Poet: "You suck."

So if you want to challenge me, toss me some words. Any other parameters (it has to be funny! It has to be sad! It has to be in the first person! It has to be a found poem!) are optional. I will write a poem of it.

QUALITY NOT GUARANTEED.

faucet

some One turned on the faucet
left it running --
water's pouring
from the warblers' throats --
Burbling -- bubbling -- pip! pip! dribbling --
a warm gush gurgling
a liquid spill of notes --

Brrr-eeep! interrupted
a robot tone -- brr--eep!
Brr-eep!
a cell phone trill --
a giggling bill --

and another bird still
chuckles from the grass
chuckles and giggles
telling jokes to himself
with a hitch! and a buckle
in his voice
as he laughs --

Then another trickle
drips down from the tree top
an inquiry in 
every liquid syllable --
Drip! drip! dribble --

some One turned on the faucet
and didn't turn it off -- 

encroached

The sugar ants are back. The wall is crawling
that same serrated line, that seethe of black
bodies, rambling, diverging, resolute. Some crumb,
some sticky patch, a crumb of catfood, and
they've come. Again. The sugar ants are back

and there's a roach -- but we don't call it that,
it's a palmetto bug -- a roach by any other name
will perch still, fistbig, on the wall above the shelf,
until it sprints -- it skitters -- worst, it flies --
to shadow. God help me, there's a roach

and fruit flies. All the fruit lives in the fridge,
and we have flies. They dance around the dish
of soap and vinegar. They razz their little wings,
they shrill, they whine their tiny little whines.
I pray for spiders, pray for lizards. I have flies

and omens lurking in the bathrooms. Shadows
that ring drains and faucets. I scrub them
once a week, with bleach, and then the shadows
gray, vague, drift relentless millimeters back.
Their armies seep through every drip and crack.

Our walls are permeable, our floors, traversed,
our seals unsealed and tender to the world.
Next week we could be split and opened wide
to the great, the wet, the crawling, wild,
exultant world. We will be Eden.

this is a poem for the cockroach poisoned

How crisp how frail its limbs
twitching still fluidrich

clicking twitching inchlong
too long alien such

a small beast overturned
to turn such revoltings

glossy smooth as wellturned
wood i cannot will not

call it beautiful its
carapace mahoga-

ny impossible the
ladys eyebrow arch

its elegant anten-
nae parabolae and

its small inscrutable
face eyes and mouthparts un

speaking moving clicking
it is this this endless mind

less moving that revolts
tomorrow ended in

the stiff brittle incurl
messageless the last mo-

tion perhaps of us all
i cannot will not call

it beautiful in death --

August

Since we're getting all seasonal. An old scraplet (2004?) from the Black Book

~

It's August, and we're sitting on the porch
Each in a slick
and sticky
second skin.

It's August, and we're sitting on the porch
Freezing our teeth
with sweet iced
Lemonade.

It's August, and we're sitting on the porch
dreaming hot
and hazy
lazy
dreams.

September breathes

The wind is changing. September breathes
A new beginning onto every leaf --
A story not yet read. A golden door
Where never was before

And in your hand a sudden weight. A key
Heavy with years and secrets. Anything
Waits behind the door -- Quick, unsure
Your heart, your hand, extend --

September breathes encounters -- whispers roads
Unknown their ends -- a thread of cold
Unflowered yet -- And not yet told
Tree to tree, that "Once --"