Poems written by me.
like Guthrie his
guitar screams
this machine
kills fascists
this guitar
is an animal’s bite
imperfect neck gripped
tight to sparse
applause for a
street busker
trying to change
the world
each measure
a fool’s gamble
might as well
ask the planets
change orbits
for a few coins?
a loose needle
some matches
a few bucks
in the guitar case
open like a mouth
in mid-phrase
///
red bud blossoms
flickers of warmth
in grey fog
the stiff-legged dog still
wants to play and race
old bones, stretched
taut muscles like lightning
through molasses across
the yard like she tore up
the house as a puppy once
a white storm with black ears
and teeth she flinches
when I put the ointment on
the scrapes from falling, but
I think she knows I’m helping
her know I understand you
are not having fun if
you’re not getting hurt
///
The polished geniuses on TV talked relativity the day my favorite chili joint closed down. Rumors say it’ll be resurrected someday inside a luxury condo retail office project, which just reminds me of the punk clubs of my youth—old warehouses now torn down as the knights of progress routed the nights of rock n roll, leaving behind one faint note, the endless sustain of a beautifully overdriven pawn shop guitar fading forever beneath silent city stars, a ripple in passing gravity waves.
///
This Is Not a Literary Journal :: The Prompt that Keeps on Prompting
Blue eyes mean avalanches, the old climber warned. Passersby glanced up at condos rising downtown like fingers set to claw the sun. So little light filtered down through the shadows, everyone shivered in the heat. Two panhandlers played the same song in different keys on opposite sides of the street. One man, with crampons and ice axe, started to scale the tallest condo. His friend watched him begin his ascent then ducked into a Thai restaurant where members of his support group met on Tuesdays to start a new political movement. Avalanches could be metal, bricks or piles of trash, stony absences where everything that mattered used to be.
///
This Is Not a Literary Journal :: Leaving Mount Everest Alone
the cold doesn’t respect
you. the tattoo hides
behind your jacket. the wind
goes digging sharktoothed
nibbling skin. everything
hidden surfaces. revealed
true-love shark tattoos swim
deep away from weekend
fisherman cold and insolent
on seas they claim they own.
—
This is for the “True love shop” prompt at This Is Not a Literary Journal.
Regulations demand
our silence. We must bear
the barbed weight of law.
Statutes and tradition
compel us to remain
quiet, blind, mute. We
become security cameras
with corrupted hard-drives
and though rules must
be followed, the hackers
are getting in. Let there
be light, more light, noise
and outrage, memory for all.
///
This is for the prompt at This Is Not a Literary Journal, Carolee Bennett’s new poetry effort. I’m helping out as an occasional “Provider of Prompts,” and I did provide this one called The Rules. And, lemme tell ya, it’s hard to write to your own prompt. Come check it out and join the fun.
When the fog began to clear off, I noticed that the reflection of a tree in the smooth water of an overflowed bank, six hundred yards away, was stronger and blacker than the ghostly tree itself.
faint spectral trees
dimly glimpsed
through the shredding fog
///
found haibun from Life on the Mississippi (1883) by Mark Twain, Chapter 51: “Reminiscences”
rain lilies dawn’s fading stars
the remnants of wreaths
and bouquets
still
preserved after a century
and a half. A single leaf
of laurel, a rose bud
faded to rusty orange: slain
offerings,
as if springtime itself
had been offered
as a sacrifice.
///
found poem from Goodheart, Adam. “Lincoln.” National Geographic April (2015): 50. Print.