With Illustrations
Image:Sō Shiseki’s Flowers and Birds in the Snow
A Suite of Poems in Five Movements
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” Romans 12:19
Image: Cat
I First Movement
In the beginning, only two . . .
On the Pond
(Appeared in Manna, West Valley City, UT, Fall 1992)
Fog lifts morning off the pond.
A fish flops up out of the water,
Fires the early-bird fisherman’s hopes.
He sees his pole bend, almost break
Against the weight of his haul.
Noon sun bleaches the rocks along the bank.
The little girl dips her toe in the shallows
Sees her sister crossing the bridge
Coming home from town.
The frogs begin around sundown.
Their chorus performs long into the night.
Campfires rim the edge of the water.
Beer shouting dies down around two.
Fog settles night over the pond.
Fishermen doze over their fishing poles.
The little girl sleeps in the house on the hill.
Her sister gets up early
To watch the fog lift again.
Image: The Big Pond
As Long as Gravel Bitterness Rattles
(A slightly different version of this poem appeared in Struggle, Vol 8 No 4, Winter 1992-93)
So she warned you about the natural hierarchy:
First: White men, Second: White women, Third: Black men, Fourth: Black women
And she stands on his blackness with tall heels? And warns you that your granddad Will disown you If you spring off a black baby?
And your dad will kill you
For calling him friend?
What can I say to you?
You are a child, battered by bigotry:
You are staring in the face of a monster
That will eat your heart and spit out the love,
If you don’t stare it down.
You are walking into a wall
That is harder to tear down
Than the one in Berlin,
You’d better start chipping away now.
You are caught in a vice that will squeeze out
Your mind and leave you an empty skull,
If you don’t push back.
You are sinking farther out at sea than the Titanic
And without a lifeboat,
You’d better become a tireless swimmer.
You are chained to a stake whose root
Shoots out the other side of the earth,
Better learn to see visions in the dirt like Sesshu.
In this world, there are those who split their souls
Into hate-fragments. They cannot know love
As long as gravel bitterness rattles in their hearts.
One foot is out the door waiting for the other to follow:
Even if your heart has to bed down on the porch,
See that your mind escapes that prison house
Or else your soul will be the final victim.
Image 4: Sesshu and at the Rat
II Second Movement
“Be glad you don’t have a sister who’s a poet!”
The Terrible Fish
(Original version, October 2008)
owed to Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror”
The nightmare repeats itself:
A daughter clamped tight to each foot
Pulling her down under
The brute waters of her biggest lake;
She gasps,
Imagines she’s drowning
While her husband watching from the bank
Keels over from a heart attack.
A colossal carp looms under her nose;
She smells blood
Dripping from a dozen hooks dangling
From his mouth.
His eyeballs slide out easy
As the drawer of a cash register.
Each eye-socket a window
To her own soul — $ bills
With little jackpots on them
Jump up and dance like clowns
Poking out their tongues,
Flapping campaign signs
With hammers, sickles, swastikas —
She believes yes she can.
Morning shivers her awake again,
Stumbling to the bathroom
Where the mirror flashes
In her face that same ugly carp
That has been catching her dreams
And throwing them back
As she chases each $,
Never quite able to grasp enough.
Image: Carp at Elkhorn Lakes
The Terrible Bottomfeeder
owed to Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror“
Again, the nightmare begins:
A child clamped tight to each foot
Pulling her down under
The dark, brute waters of the river;
She gasps, imagines she’s
Drowning while some bloke
Watching from the bank
Collapses from a gunshot to the head.
A terrible bottomfeeder looms
Under her nose; she smells blood
Dripping from a dozen hooks
Dangling from his mouth.
His eyeballs slide out easy
As a cash drawer.
Each eye-socket a window
To her soul—$ bills
With goose-stepping Nazi clowns,
Goose-stepping Russian clowns.
Goose-stepping for Kim Jong Il—
Why do all totalitarians goose-step?—
Signs with hammers and sickles
Pound and slash across her sight.
A Che Guevara T-shirt floats by.
She bleeds tax dollars through dilated veins.
Morning shivers her awake again,
Stumbling to the bathroom
Where the mirror flashes
In her face that same terrible
Bottomfeeder that for years has been
Catching her dreams and throwing
Them back as she chases each $,
Never quite able to grasp enough.
Image: Bottomfeeder
The Colossal Flowerhorn
owed to Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror“
Again, the nightmare begins:
A son clamped tight to each foot
Pulling him down under
The brute waters of the river;
He gasps,
Imagines he’s drowning
As his wife stands on the bank
Shaking a canoe paddle.
A colossal flowerhorn blooms from his nose;
He spews blood
Imagines a dozen hooks dangling
From his mouth.
His eyeballs slide out
Searching the reaches of a netherworld.
Each eye-socket a window
Of some monster’s soul.
His pink fins twirl and become knives.
A yellow finch pecks at his first son’s ears
A green finch pecks at his second son’s eyes.
He cannot feel his hands
Asleep on his pillow behind his head—
He snores but does not wake
Until morning blasts of sunlight pierce the window.
Stumbling to the bathroom
Nearly falling over the calico cat
He turns on the shower tap
And is relieved again that
The liquid is water and not blood—
A quick glance in the mirror,
And the colossal flowerhorn blooms again from his nose.
He is ready to shower now.
Image: Flowerhorn
The Terrible Fish
(Final version, November 2012)
owed to Sylvia Plath’s “Mirror“
The nightmare repeats itself:
Her house clamped tight to her right foot
Her car to her left pulling her down under
The brute waters of a big pond
Way out in the middle of nowhere.
She gasps,
Imagines she’s drowning
While a vagrant lifts the cover
Of the water peeking at her.
A huge fish looms under her nose;
She smells blood dripping
From a smaller fish hanging
Out of his mouth.
His eyeballs slide out easy
As the drawer of a cash register.
Each eye-socket a big government
Window to her pain: losing her $ bills
To statist minnows gliding in
And out of those windows.
On the slippery bank
Taxes, gasoline, and the price
Of beans and rice
Rocket beyond the blue of blues.
Morning shivers her awake,
Stumbling to the bathroom
Where the mirror flashes
In her face that same enormous fish
That keeps catching her dreams
And throwing them back
As she struggles for each $,
Never quite able to grasp enough.
Image: “Big Fish Eat Little Fish,” engraving, by the Flemish artist Pieter van der Heyden after Pieter Bruegel the Elder. The engraving is signed with the name of Hieronymus Bosch, who was dead when the engraving was produced. The engraving was likely the work of Pieter Bruegel the Elder. Dated 1557. 9 x 11 5/8 in. (22.9 x 29.6 cm). Image courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
III Third Movement
ilk & counting
a postmodernist masque for robert bly & that ilk; after a poetry workshop on translation, Ball State University, 1977
ephemeral saxifrage
blowing through
field after field
somewhere iron robert
translates heaven into fog
ripening to scant
scent fruit twirling
into a whirl
even iron robert
cannot bend the wind
stars back-biters
bromides rock
rock in barrel
where does iron robert
keeps his semi-colons
after barrel
somewhere a magic bee
stood on green pollen
iron robert floats
like a goat in a moat
Image: Robert “Iron Robert” Blur Bly: After a Painting of the Poetaster
ilk & painting
a postmodernist masque for robert bly & that ilk; after the painting titled, “Ceremonial Orgies by Dog-eaters”
ephemeral saxifrage
blossoming
field after field
& barack hussein obama II ate dog flesh
nota bene he was barry soetoro
when he did so chow down
ripening to scant
scent fruit twirling
into a whirl
& barack hussein obama II ate dog flesh
nota bene he was barry soetoro
when he did so chow down
stars bitters
bromides rock on
rock in barrel
& barack hussein obama II ate dog flesh
nota bene he was barry soetoro
when he did so chow down
after barrel
somewhere a magic bee
stood on green pollen
& barack hussein obama II ate dog flesh
nota bene he was barry soetoro
when he did so chow down
Image: Ceremonial Orgies by Dog-eaters
periwinkle
for carlene
ephemeral saxifrage
blossoming
field after field
ripening to scant
scent fruit twirling
into a whirl
stars bitters
bromides rock on
rock in barrel
after barrel
somewhere a magic bee
stood on green pollen
Image: Periwinkle
emoticon con/m/n/mie
owed to “a liberal sprinkler of semi-colons and half parentheses” in PCish & some text-talk
s/he recognizes sewer talk when s/he talks it
& ever since that useful little tool
presented itself in cyber-space,
s/he’s employed its dots and hooks
to mitigate the vile vermin of her/is own verbiage.
wanna call someone a slut :)
stick a smiley face next to the sticky word
& the slut will think U’v praised
her/is slut choices & thus are willing
to pay for her/is slut supplies.
wanna smack down that stuck up sibling ;)
give him/er a smiley face winky-dink
while U tell him/er how much smarter
ur mom thought U were. s/he’ll think
u r just kidding ;) Ha! Ha! Ha! :0)
wanna deliver a solid fist to the solar plexus
about animal molestation, child battery, incest, etc . . .
& make it seem like a tap on the wrist—
U guessed it, a trusty little :)
nothing is off limits to the liberal sprinkler
of semi-colons & half parentheses.
good grief! s/he could even express sorrow :(
if sewer talkers ever felt that emotion.
NOTA BENE: No PC in the following stanza . . .
Advice to the emoticonned: Words matter. Only
Words matter. Look at the words.
Emoticons are just that, cons.
Make Connie know you are on to her.
Image emoticon
IV Fourth Movement
“you will love your crooked neighbour . . . ”
Easy Liar
for S. B., swooning as Auden sings,
“O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.”
“False words are not only evil in themselves,
but they infect the soul with evil.” —Plato
“A lie can travel halfway around the world
while the truth is putting on its shoes.” –Mark Twain
The nose grows longer
As each lie grows easier to tell:
She swears through straight, but yellowing teeth,
“I can’t recall that.”
Of course, if she can’t re-call it,
She never called it at all. She can’t remember
A thing about all those cheap shots she took
At you when you were kids. She can’t remember
Calling you a bimbo and then insinuating you
Might have aids. Or telling a dying grandmother that you
Were dying of bulimia. No, she will never remember
Her bald-face brazen lies!
Bait and switch:
“I was not referring to myself
But to society in general. Personally,
I find nothing wrong with her marrying
Another woman. Maybe a little creepy,
But nothing wrong, nothing at all!”
All the while claiming to possess an open mind
And soft heart for all humankind, regardless
Of how different “they” are from “us.”
Flame-throw and run away:
He’s taking an overload this semester,
He’s working 36 hours at the Student Union,
He’s taking his sister to ballet,
And his mom to cardiac therapy—
But only after he’s deep in deficit
Of making the case to support
His latest whopper—leaving you
Wondering why/how the conversation
Went on as long as it did.
Break it off, break off Pinocchio’s nose,
And close the gates of your attention.
Image: Pinocchio by Enrico Mazzanti (1852-1910) – the first illustrator (1883) of Le avventure di Pinocchio. Storia di un burattino – colored by Daniel DONNA
V Fifth Movement
“Vengeance is mine; I will repay, saith the Lord.” —Romans 12:19
Dr Frankenstink Crafts His Whimsy
Fixated on fashioning life
With unliving things, he
Falls in love with Whimsy,
Codifies her, imbues her
With the stench of personality
That he can sleep with
Without sleep cocking her
To unconsciousness.
Rummage, rummage the trash heaps,
The garbage bins, the dumps,
And rotting flow of swill and sewage:
Whimsy takes her ungodly shape—
Big cardboard box head
Empty except for butt
Of chamber pot for mouth
Needle-nose pliers for a snout
Cash register $ $ for eyes.
Short stature in height
But makes up for it in width.
Mold-speckled cabbage leaves cover
Her big cardboard box head
Broken wine bottles about her neck
Her huge tree-stump legs mock
The act of walking
Flea collar of rabid dog around each wrist
Barrel-drum arms that rub against
Shag fecal-smattered carpet glued
Against her sides
Faking a dress, monstrous cum-stained sheets
Swaddle her middle region—more an equator than a waist—
Drooping down over the stumps, flowing with blood and urine
Onto the ground.
Dr Frankenstink loves his Whimsy,
Locks her in his arms, croons to her
A misbegotten lullaby that reminds him
Of his murdered fiancée, after her last abortion.
Image: Frontispiece to Mary Shelley, Frankenstein published by Colburn and Bentley, London 1831
Finis
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