Q: What do you see as the future of poetry?
A: Oblivion.
Ever since I first noticed “my blood
setting out on its long journey beyond the skin”
I have been pondering that line.
I wrote it, sure, but
What the hell does it mean, you know?
Must be part of the dark speech of silence,
I guess.
But it’s here, and so are we.
So I keep rephrasing the question
Endlessly,
Hoping the answer might somehow change,
Becoming accessible.
Or at least that, you know,
It might make sense
One day.
Flim was thin as a chicken wing
Flam was fat as a toad.
Flim walked east and Flam walked north
They met along the western road.
Flam had a bag of noodles;
He spilt them on the ground.
Flim just smiled and shook his hand
And gave his head a friendly pound.
And both of them were in the way
And neither stepped aside
So no one else could come along
To offer either one a ride.
Flam was bowing from the waist
Clicking his heels together
Flim was staring at the sky
Wondering about the weather.
And both of them were in the way
And both were at a loss.
And neither one would give an inch
So both of them were cross.
Flam was standing in the path
And fussing with his hat
Flim was sitting diligently
Where the ground was nice and flat.
And no one cared to solve the mess
And no one cared to stay
And what with one thing and another
That is how things are today.
I’ve seen you out there by the barn,
surreptitiously tucking away your meditative, image-driven lyrics
Between hard covers,
Thinking that absolves you, that it’s enough.
Well, no, goddammit.
I mean, really, I don’t have to explain it to you, do I?
God damn it, get out there and sell us some poetry!
Are you with us, or against us?
Since that first phone call
I’ve been somewhat confused, sure. But finally
things are back to normal, I think.
Anyway, I awoke this morning
then didn’t bother to get up.
The sun was shining anyway,
like always. So, I thought… after a while…
why bother
getting up?
I just lay there for a while,
thinking about nothing in particular,
and not wondering why things weren’t really going anywhere.
I don’t care about progress, anyway,
it doesn’t interest me. Never has,
even though I’ve somehow lived to see my seventies anyway. You see?
You don’t really have to try.
And really, why get up, after all is said and done?
Well, said, anyway.
Although, one gets hungry
eventually.
And the people at school aren’t really waiting for me to show up.
They already know where I am,
or suspect that I am
probably just lying in bed, or dead.
Lily Lake
Loved her snake.
Leroy Lay
Stole it away.
Lucas Lops
Called the cops.
Laura Leaf
Chased the thief.
Lenny Loun
Knocked him down.
Lamia Lake
(That was the snake)
Swallowed him whole.
That’s all.
This is what awful Yeitse said
At the moccasin game,
That great destroyer,
That bad fucking news:
Woe! Woe!
You should have left it where it was!
I would have played it there,
You should have let it lie!
Striking the ground hugely
So that the tent-rags shook,
He guessed wrong,
Knowing someone had moved the stone.
Some of the people were
Always up to no good,
Making up evil games.
Pretty soon they made some monsters.
Oh, women, women!
What did you need so badly,
What midnight things did you practice?
Now what will become of your own children?
Oh, men, men!
What did you want so much,
Why did you never stop?
Now what will become of your own children?
She jumped up high but fell into a hole
As deep as night, as dark as low.
She climbed back out, it took all day.
By then her friends had gone away:
Some to build,
Some to earn,
Some to gather things to burn.
Some to work,
Some to school,
Some to follow the golden rule.
She laughed, and got on out of there.
But she kept the hole as a souvenir.
on the waterside path
by the levy familiar geese
gaggle along
while a fat boy rests on the bridge
while his backpack rests beside him on the bridge
while the train goes by
that jackrabbit lolloping headlong
that reaches cover in the tall grass
and runs out the other side of the tall grass
toward the shack with walls no longer square
whose roof is rows of weathered slats that gap
to sunlight and the morning air
while two crows black and black
perch atop two dirty chunks of broken concrete
upon a low mound of broken concrete
and me watching
me watching
as if my heart would break
My Nana gave me jelly beans
And so of course I went and ate ‘em
I don’t know how to tell her this
But – oh, my gosh, I hate ‘em!
I wouldn’t say that they were bad
I’d say that they were worse than awful:
They’re gruesome, noisome, smelly beans
And ought to be unlawful.
One tastes like bile; one tastes like grout;
And one’s like liver mixed with trout.
But while my Nana’s watching me
I daren’t spit ‘em out.
Some taste like toadstools on my tongue
Some taste like vipers might have viped ‘em
Some may have come from Baby’s diaper
After Baby diaped ‘em.
I wish I had a time machine
So I could tell her not to buy ‘em
… And those are all the reasons why
I will not let you try ‘em.
Bag of Anything 