Poem-A-Day #353 : Trigger

Trigger

from the Dutch trekken "to pull"
the rope is attached to your spine - your spine
fleshless taken exposed lost tail that it is
you are a dog on a chain you are
a dog sniffing the crotches
of every man in the place
from Latin catena it was always just a link
to be held closed soldered
silver shadowing the fence hides a monster - you
are the monster
here a needle thread floss make a wish
a bullet of yarn a trigger of hemp
beads of silk and bone the teeth of every dead soul
that burned across this earth

Poem-A-Day #332 : [I don't write political poetry - but]

[I don't write political poetry - but]

I don't write political poetry - but
breathing is political

Take it through the mouth - in - to - you
as a cave
draw rope - and tie it to the nearest tree that bends to the east
that wakes with dawn and serves only the sun

It will lower inside you - a bee
in the throat of a lily

Oddly gentle - it will come - with caveats

Words don't become politics - unless
they are traded outside these walls

The caught ball of air in your throat - will
not carbon dioxide - unless
you keep breathing

Poem-A-Day #328 : The Gay Looks Like Snow

The Gay Looks Like Snow

I set my gay on the table, it spills
napkins only spread it around

A gay comes on that reminds me of the 90s

Working on my gay becomes a problem
when the wifi goes out

All the heads look up, turn to the counter
watch as they gay the router

Outside, on the phone, I hear reports
on the gay of my grandfather

He was gay then out of the hospital
grumpy but well

The gay looks like snow

Poem-A-Day #318 : It Is What The Brain Does In Response That Causes Concern

It Is What The Brain Does In Response That Causes Concern

In the stark light of January it is hard to predict where it will come from
the broken man missing all of his teeth or the men in their "nice" clothes
coming out of the diner

Conversation in the parking lot our gayness on display by virtue of existence
the voices may come harsh and faggoting or they will whisper followed
by laughter and stares and cackling as doors to cars open and shut

And in that moment everyone who is a target will be hushed and silenced
and kept from being as loud and real as those people who get to drive
out of the accident that just occurred

A cell phone may go off the ringtone a Tina Turner song and someone will
have to decide to answer it the cars will move silently by the small pressed
selves and eyes will lock

On the phone a parent or friend or sibling and they will be asking what's up
the moment will elongate time stopping a hung phrase looping itself to death
there could be a fire in that rubbing second

"Fine" will be the answer because there is nothing finer than coming through
the micro without a fat lip or a worse screeching of tires or blood on the snow
there is only fine here

Poem-A-Day #294 : English

English

Let's again discuss language

It is unable to explain the noise of cars on the road
the color of breath in cold

Language does not know how to talk about feelings

It muddles across the page the best it can

A sort of clawing thing a hand
reaching never quite reaching

Poem-A-Day #291 : If

If

Write beautifully
words that could sear and pop
with the light of stars

They will cause palpitations
be boxes opening into boxes
revealing one lone puzzle piece

Rend yourself
the scraps of white cloth
will be made into scarves

Language will fill sails
or at least bring to mind
the image of full sails

Fragility
everything should wreak of breakage
and the feeling of tears on fingers

These true blunt instruments
these lines could be claw-footed bathtubs
that would fill with blood and flowers

Poem-A-Day #287 : Some Days

Some Days

Clouds are striating
they form a road into the distance - telescoping
there is a forgotten city beyond the horizon
where everything is perfect

Some days I just don't know

The letters lay themselves across the tracks
they tie themselves down
and they wait for the train to come

This isn't about poetry - that is tired
this is about the break along the horizon
that birds peel themselves out of - a cartwheel of fire
contained in the barrel of the sky

Let's plant things there
see if the line melts if perspective will allow
the flowers to look like skyscrapers

Words cannot stand today

Or any day really

Language tries to reach - to unfathom
it calls to us from a distance unmanageable

The lines of clouds race themselves
like soap down a drain

Poem-A-Day #248 : Mute

Mute

Angela Davis is talking about Palestine - again - still - forever
she is the dynamo at the end of the universe
spinning wildly free of man - and she is talking about Palestine

That word - Palestine - it renders us incapable
it drops into the already formed puddle and only renders itself mute
part of the unknowable whole - but we clap and nod in agreement with it

It is Tibet - Putin - hunger in Africa - it is the inescapable
destruction of cancer - it mutates with the passage of time
it is hard not to hear all human voices as records helplessly in groove

History is nothing if not unclean - at best
perhaps the broken turntable is a metaphor - the stupid cycle is stupid
the needle dull - the speakers are geese demanding your sandwich

The water in the pool of Palestine is unclear - still - reflections numerous
there are endless ampersands - their barbs catch in the back of the throat
they render everything as ellipses

Poem-A-Day #223 : Bibelot

Bibelot

Beside the bed is the book the pages covered in woodcuts covered in twisted faces they are mouthing words in the sleeping ears around them they are silent but their silence is also hugely exploding they are forming themselves into solid objects these objects are letters that form and unform words the letters sing in a voice that cracks the sky the sky cracks and cracks and the bowl of it cannot hold enough cherries cannot hold enough cannot not the sound of voices the sound of wings the sound of a child listening...

Poem-A-Day #115 : Poem for Thursday

Poem for Thursday

Can we all just agree that Thor is boring ?

Here - on the life-blood of fated men - paint your doors in crimson gore
the sun will beam black and everything will fallow treacherously

Or something like that - the end of gods - the twilight of myth
the sun setting over the hill on every damn thing created

Whether we want it to or not

Thursday is the turn day - the hinge - it is the day things will be decided
you will have to strike the hammer or not - what is being fashioned ?

Do you still seek to know ?

A wedder is a gambler

          A wether is a castrated goat

                    A bellwether is the sheep who leads the flock

Weather is what is happening right this moment

The serpent who circles itself around the equator and holds its own tail in its mouth is feeling tired - hungry for another kind of flesh - it is going to let go

And what ?

Thor in Hymir's boat battling the Midgard Serpent (1788) by Henry Fuseli

Poem-A-Day #37 : Doesn't tho' look poetic?

Doesn't tho' look poetic?

Burned skin - not blackened - not chicken on a grill
          just red - blistered even - but red

It smells like a hairdryer left on until overheating

Cocoa butter - sand - the blankness of sky

          Words look poetic - letters aligned up down circular -
logic breaks before a podium and a room hanging on the ledge
of heard and not heard -

           language falls to its doom -

This is a sandcastle - not actually made of sand or castle
          but of the memories of the land

That is once held those things within it

It is the hangover of dinosaurs roaming the earth

Once this space had to deal with all of that weight - it's
sinister but true -

          The smell of that burning - of that oil in that car

!?

This - ‽ - is an interrobang. It asks an excited question or expresses excitement as a question. It can also be used to ask rhetorical questions.

It's your punctuation of the day!