Yips

Yips (Jyllands-Posten publishes drawings of Muhammed 2005) 9/30

And you raise the club – you swing –

You biff it –

With everyone watching
you miss downhill
from 10 feet away
with no wind –

And you blame everyone – your caddy –

The time of day – this climate
of war –

The fact that you receive death threats
at work –

The fact that you draw cartoons for a living –

That you didn’t sign on for this –

That the whole thing is kinda stupid –

Lump

I have a sinus infection. So that explains the lateness this week.
I will do my best to keep it going.

Lump (Washington National Cathedral built 1907/1990) 9/29

In 83 years
not much occurred really

Theodore Roosevelt
laid the first stone
before 20,000 people

George H. W. Bush
watched the last finial
rise into place

Between
a few wars with little
to show for themselves

The invention
of television

Space flight etc.

Strap

Strap (William the Conqueror invades England 1066) 9/28

A body
on metal table
wrapped in
the flags
of the dead

Until
it is mummy
of color

Release it
into the water
or soak it
in honey
until soft enough
to eat

Color

Color (Rosetta Stone is translated 1822) 9/27

And there was understanding
across this great world

Things that we once knew were returned to us
and things we thought were known
were shown false

Everything turned an onyx reflection
inwards and then outwards

Like a ghostly version of your own face
staring out from behind the mirror
after a hot shower

I've discovered a snag in my word of the day.

The e-mail with the days word arrived at 8:30PM in my inbox.

I am at work Sunday nights until after midnight.

SO

Monday will have 2 poems. One early, one late.

Mira (Francis Drake completes his trip around the world 1580) 9/26

The Concorde landed in Texas today
493 years to the day
that Francis Drake completed his
3-year trip around the world

And what monsters were found
at such high altitudes
floating belly up like otters among clouds

That night we were looking at the stars
and just below Pisces you pointed
the sea monster Cetus with its star Mira
demanding us to look

There is the beast that swallowed Jonas

The hunger of deep space must be gigantic

We will keep our noses down to avoid our fate

Scratch-off

Happy Anniversary to me!

Starting today, every poem will be written as it is posted. So each poem will be unedited and posted as soon as it is done.

Wish me luck.

And be kind!

For the rest of the month I'm going to write a poem about a historical event that happened on that day as well as using the word of the day for the title.


Scratch-off (the last Magdelene Asylum closes 1996) 9/25

This is how it happens :

These nuns sell some land

This is in 1993

The land developers find 155 bodies

Like some horror movie

They take the bodies and cremate them
toss them into a mass grave

These women
most of them just young pregnant
or mentally handicapped “socially dysfunctional”

They washed clothes and sewed

Weren’t allowed to talk

It started in 1767

30,000 women
most never allowed to leave again

Not one eye blinking

Not one word raised
for 200 years

It took a land deal

And the invention of cheap washing machines

Mapuche

Ladies and Gentlemen it is this website's first anniversary.

Send me something nice.

Or buy a book.


Mapuche 9/24

I don’t want to be a white man writing another guilty poem about brown men

I don’t want to be a gay man writing about anal sex on a subway

I don’t want to be an English man writing about history or the way things were

I don’t want to be a young man writing in emoticons

I don’t want to be any man writing about breasts and vaginas with teeth

I don’t want to be a son writing about fucking my mother or killing my father

I don’t want to be an educated man writing about the less educated like they are dicks

I don’t want to be a man writing about the low classes or high classes

I don’t want to be a poet man writing poetry about poetry

I don’t want to be a man trying desperately to leave the shadow of the 20th century

I don’t want to be anything to anyone

I don’t want to be a white man writing about other white men

I don’t want to be a man writing for other men writing