POEM FORUM
NOCTURNE
The distant sea reaches us here
A tide of will to mane every call
Feeding search-mates to the tree branches
So no voice knows the air it moves thru hair
Sheared from dreams of a part-time
Nightmare working its way thru college
Into careers where full-time fears reside…
Far from the sea, whose mystery
Upon treeless branches
Combs the rays of its moonlight.
Note - Alternate title for this poem is: Consolatory Night
* * *
GRADUATION
The huge corsage of mums
Was a cruel joke
The senior boys pinned on
Glori, who nevertheless
Wore it with pride
On her graduation death-gown.
This poem is from Quintet for a Murdered Outcast
* * * *
PARAGON SANCTUARY
no others of whom i know
share this for stare
lying amidst still dwellers
inside forgotten fields
where grasses are wild as
windswept above their beds.
consolatory ailment,
facing near the budds
flowering pure as blinding
sunlight shone daily to soothe
abandoned dayton sea-blooms
of a truck lot only an accident
can dream in a find the found
contentment is a rustling
of those relics in thoughts
led by my entrapped eyes.
custodian of a solitary spirit
within this earthen vessel
keeper composed of garnered
multiples of the inanimate
inhabitants of an infantined mind
these lines flow from dictation
of some omni-directional quest
as insight sees my own high.
—————————————————-
MISS CLAIR’S CLASS
pupils behind closed eyelids are students of clairvoyance
————————————-
VIBRA-DREAM CURRENTS
Nocturnal notes arose melodious bars
Clouds fed intoxicant angels of solitude.
Sleep woke my dream to dance a suicide
Death-charm only the deepest secret knows.
How even the weakest of my breaths
Invest upon the void something with song.
Will music die or will it survive all these
Hip broken chords floating on night waves…?
Once my fall wed currents the moon said
Among resonators carry a perverse chorus.
To dream death while awake can often be
A willful rejection of what’s felt denied.
Lucidity prays in its sleep to rest ever still
Until this magic trance not break it awake.
————————————————————-
THE MUTE LEFT… NO FOUND NOTEBOOK
while he was here
he did not speak
did not we think
he could not speak?
his leave has left
a stay unknown.
—————————————-
ACCOMPLICE
The crowd takes aim and fires
while I turn
my indifferent face.
————————————————-
1938 FORD
The jalopy out back
Lulls me to raindrops
Tasting earth in its bliss
In childhood shadows
Where each sigh gives cause
For narcissistic nature
Stirring to breeze herself.
———————-
DIVERSION NO. 2
From a herd-flock overhead their calls
So under-heard by the heavy mooing throng
They swoop thru the dust to dine
At fresh hoof prints
Then go back upward to by
Dusty skies fly dusty trails
I heard the cowbirds call their own…
———————————
CARRIAGE FOR DREAM WORDS
Slumber lines sway baskets dropping omens
Stalking dark alleys into doorways of decay
That flick ticks and tocks from clocks,
And slap still wristwatch hands…
Immobile stranded moment-in-time wears out
The chair in destiny’s waiting room
Cloaked in linens discarded by death
Amorous always, plotting a tryst
For each split second, leaving what’s
Left further than ever in the non beyond.
———————————
STILL LOST: THE FOUND MEMO
Lambs in limbo kneel before a graze
I place your curtsy at stone eyestops
Menace sliding with amorphous sheen
Where near whose marina your cries
Hear their absence in the seafarer’s ear…
Firearms on lease have hired sitters
For their empty arsenals.
Nicotine invades plastered hallways,
Bastions of alabastard invalids who grind
Your wings in mesmerized foot slippers
Coaxing escape into an imaginetic field,
Its daisies drawn by magnets taking art lessons.
The smile of the crazed slips from my lips.
—————————
MYSTERY OF THE MISSING TRESPASSER
For a giant jellyroll the bear
Mistakes you in your bedroll.
Later, his camp covers your tracks.
* * * *
AN UNDONE MUNDANE
One native son rose in northeast Texas enduring
Seasons of sun and rain where our concurrent
Lives tread nurturing untold paths led heartward
Amidst small towns and boundless plains
Wet fields emit an intoxicant grass
And wild brush made fragrant by the rain
I often let always fight bouts lost to nostalgia
Some country music born of this region evokes
A remembered landscape
Where plaintive songs wear leather
Gloves and deliver rural gates their wide
Openings into the wanderings of
Paradise bedazzled in a common pasture
Oh throat vent of the hurt country boy
Tell countless turns and twists the yearns
Of a populace insist be with love tales told as
The long slow dance you behold romance in song
How ageless the pain - tears weep how endless
Your song. words notes wed so long now this night’s
Darkest passage weaves kisses unreceived its
Moist leaves in sorrowful refrain the hidden deep
Corners cover earhorns gone to vacant guides across
Our forlorn landscape where another’s bride
Came to us and stood fair fresh upon the gaze
Said wiltings writing stone
Her day’s own turn into a stare of veils
————————————
BUM STEER
Stray words have chased away
The rightful occupants they
Replace in misleading guides.
———————————-
THE GIFT
An unexpected arrival on a summer’s day
Left to await my oncoming acceptance
still in motion (holding enchanted
maze eggs some cherubs disperse) like
Feather-wrapped deep inducing
folds I’ve grown dream into.
This all-season daze tries
To retrace its footsteps, not realizing it came
Through the air…
The next song the most grave of songs
Long entombed in the silent vaults
Of the unuttered, the unheard
May this addictive verse find its way
Out from the throe of my thirst.
————————————————-
HAVE NO FEAR
If one
of us
survives
the other
all
our love
will stay
alive
inside
our one
remaining
heart.
————————————
SOCIAL STRATUM
In order to view their victims,
people who abuse animals
look upward from their lower rung.
————————————————————
BEYOND THE ACCOLADES
…far into quietude grows
joyous my sorrow’s muse.
————————————————
SUITE OF EXCERPTS
From trees a feather brush scene leaves clues
Wailing choirs have cast in robin hues.
*
Once my fall wed currents the moon said
Amidst resonators carry a perverse chorus.
*
Lies are bearing falseness upon the void
Near why won’t lie your purest heart.
*
Quite comfortable in his thug skin
Outcast harbors far past the end roads
Enfold the cold absence of remorse.
*
Faces confound gear in packed straw.
Her manifestation hides among models
Talking mannequins to sleepwalking cars.
*
From school each noon swiftly
To the daily knelt devotion
Until newsprint images of a mute
Taboo led sorrow’s morning
Dew into a quiet rapture.
*
Only what’s inside her walls
May glimpse Garbo
Stillness at a leave robbing
Every breeze its breath…
*
Note: The stanzas above are taken from
the following poems in this order:
TAKING OUT THE HEAD, VIBRA-DREAM
CURRENTS, DELIRIOUS DIVERSIONS,
GRAMMAR SCHOOL REMEMBRANCE,
UNTITLED POEM,
THE VINE-COVERED TRELLIS,
YOUR SPREAD OF CARES SHEARED OF SUN.
————————————————
THE CAPTIVE SONG
So long held silent
Under lock and key…
Who will fall captive
To his song now free?
—————————————
STAY AWAY
I have been called a cat but I am not really that!
neither feline nor canine
I also do not belong where you
would lump me with the species “hue-mine”
so ghastly well-known for its unkind deeds
known for spoiling all the world
if you are among so-called humankind…
mostly I stay where you seldom see me
high in the mountains, a Llama grazing in peace.
(Stay Away is a declaration of species
by the poet Ima Llama)
———————————————-
WITH MY OWN OSTRACIZED KIND
Someone please take me
To where the loathed
Ideals take refuge.
———————————
THE UNKNOWN MISSING
They are kind to the head-count,
Glad to give slated numbers!
What need of the searching comb?
Here we hear nothing at all…
From where strays never call home.
———————————————-
CONVALESCENCE
Turnabout split foghorn muzzles twilight kite patrols
Rummaging their plunged eyes digitized snoopers.
No more passing you always wake distant ores for my
Every captured note’s escape plot to seize at sundown,
Holding curtains of a morning certain to follow wave-indented
Water betrays its unspoken course for consolation.
——————————————————————
RESIGNED TO IMPLOSION
Hear ye the world groan, weary
Of her trashy tenants we.
—————————————-
KILLER ASSEMBLY
As their language of preference
Under a revolving spell cast
Iron turns upon assembled rims
They encircle spider-webbing
Assigned a non-speaking role.
The black veil of no avail will play
Tragic mishap’s mourners courtesy
The widow maker. we call back
Whichever cast spoke truck wheel.
——————————————————
HENRY
It seems a perfect place of honor
So fitting for our valiant Henry
Lying next to the stately lion.
The brave fight his to own,
Sure to lose, so surely as
Angels see how playfully
Heaven bats the cat’s
Presence back to me.
Henry once more above
The soil wherein I wept…
Soft, feline attendant
To my aching loss.
————————————
NIL’S NUPIALS
I stay by the wayside.
Where else to witness
Unfailing union?
The now forgotten
Weds the never known.
——————————————
REMORSE
When first I saw my worst misdeed
(I closed your eyes)
—————————————————
VIGIL
Nightmares have cured my addiction to sleep
To usher in grin this fear of lying down.
—————————————————————
VACATED FROM WILD ABANDON
Of all the must-see sights of we 3 vacationers,
Mine alone proved to be the only lonely one.
Chateau de sade above la coste
Shadows the village populace,
Yet a summer festival each year
Fills the grounds with music…
Crowding also the village below
All as in homage to the ruins!
At other times of the year
Seldom found here is good cheer.
Its town folk stay mostly hidden
Except for the friendly few who
Will point the way up the mountain
Where i try to peer thru stone walls
Into revels forbidden be seen
By the successive repressive broods
(an entire age would follow to
try eradicate all trace of
an epoch of debauchery!)
The path now leads into the past.
Behaviors of the marquis
Surpassed his century’s muse.
Why should he care if some find his
Excesses intolerable?
His mind disperses what others
See as a cruel philosophy.
No scrawled “viva sade!” can be
Seen for the king of libertines.
Rain pours upon the fallen reign.
Angry winds rage in deterrence…
They vanquish my need to defy.
As in others’ eyes i glean
A strange exuding stain that spreads
To veil lovely la coste in shame.
There’s only vacancy within these
Ruins…no ghost, no felt spirits
Unless my own obsessive mind
Whips up images that suck me
Into the chateau’s life…a void.
Today i’ve come to a lonely place.
From here the view stares back at me.
Fierce elements in turbulent
Skies pound hard to drive me away.
Qui god, ye love not the marquis de sade.
France, 21 - 5 - 2013
—————————————————————-
MEMO FROM AMNESIA
Windswept memos go beneath feet underwhere
Culls my soil’s grave to tuck dreamt longings
Further sown than never known to shoot up blades.
Like any other cover…
All soil is a veil of no avail.
No season escapes frequent returns of
Thoughts leaving soon to nest with the loner child
Who, as a wayward summer rose, up may
Spring through the snowdrift…
My heartbeats are servant drum-chants
Raising huge aural trestles to guide
Safely strayward my infantine preoccupations
That navigate this vessel of flesh
Distilling a tranquil boyhood unhappiness
Into bottles lying near the dry ravine
Where paper food-wrappers tease mourning
Fingers to caress as abandoned floats
The debris of don’t-forget-me notes
Left by the vanished water, its absent
Flow aroma of irretrievable rhythms
Takes nature home everywhere.
———————————————————————
TIME OUT… (To Acknowledge or
Confess the Fruits of
Stolen Escapees)
my lyrics are parasites…
feeding on forgetful hummingbird
word droppings.
—————————————————-
THE REALM OF ABANDONED THINGS
a motionless work at rest enshrines
its variant other manifestations
entrancing inanimate inhabitants
they dwell within a quiet never heard
————————————————————
IRONY
Authenticity is oblivious to the trust courted in deception’s lair.
—————————————————————
FLORAL NIGHTFALL
Plaintive olive gum patch, where you ply a mute mate
To tie hidden reams the secret worm nails side-split
A flooded sun room watches float their umbrella
Chanting lethargic hand drum lacking a tome found
Suited as doom enshrouds the forsaken scholar
Who fails at grading noon sink stopper webs of rum.
Lilac omen, come nudge a circus clown until
No heart left unrehearsed can tread in whispers
Attic antics too fresh to fold - let autumn not
Beckon to death this raincoat incognito dome.
Ancestral valley where i in sleepwalk devour nocturnal
Shrubbery backdrop for one stray moonflower dealt
In night’s light no sweeter fragrance than its own.
Sift the fine particles of slumber dust for dreams
To stuff young vine under a cloaked float into
Mist for new blooms inhaled at every loss site.
Degrading compost nether-furled addendum wake
For leapt carnies drummed amok with fillies thrown
Dank pool jumper loosen a fallen heap untold…
Glazed notes crazed to unbound the slug influx lines.
Pacing, a recently dead composer heads up
The ghoul’s mandatory decomposition class.
I never claimed authorship under false lies,
Now i’m scolded into one embodied as weird
Walker of passageways deemed non-existent
To whom taste buds in a bed of robust red blooms
Veiling a sight to grant an enlightenment bulb
In a pile where sits my haze of a former fate.
*
Rigorous kennel waiver, send free the boat rye
Over daring trestles nasal for galoot rash
Cargo untouched since youthful Carlo broke in
To slip garnets thru the bridge of his violin.
Hull held one haughty chest of languishing suds
A seaman caught shading another escapade…
These summer clothes go fare adieu dare indigo
Blow lyrics without sight feather drifts endlessly.
Armature grating moose earned swamp calibrated
Intensity fermented roam con broom hailer pond
Sake shaken witches banquet farming glue as tended
Bequeathed greenhouse where moonlit murders gravitate
In stories composed by ghost-worries a fall floors.
Message carrier gags your bullhorn gone power trip
Over wire trimmers alit by encoded frolic
Which is where at the feet we worship table sable
Mapped out a rounder sonic brood among pea gnomes
Hiding wound worms for a certain future unearthing.
Worst of all tips a hat to its bester of no name
In depths below comprehension our identity’s null…
Bereft of any tangible existence it holds hands
Until the soil breaks doubt upon hallowed halls sent
Love letters crumpled beneath obliteration’s feet.
Granite and marble vie for my expiration date.
Fire’s brazen as a bull, whose song for the cruel
Thrashes gluttonous sod marionettes prying open
Yesterdays to peer windward another dread goon sty
Staked clock without baby carriage oiler drop cloth
Hung drafting weightier evening tides dull at broadside.
*
Hawk spray cycles a boulder for tunnel vision tomb
Set for sail where falls bare angles streams alight
Your darkened fart enabler clawed in dud fits
Major obstacles place helpful directions out back
Near all exit doors leading from a drama queen bee.
Seething crane in goner’s last firewall. oak stakes point
In advance of a spin harried as wood that’s split
Fake mistakes upon dirt flung to holy heights bound.
The word “why” deserts its query’s post sunken ala
Sabotage to in disdain announce “why is the answer”
Long sought amid her furthermost masquerade.
Teeming parasol ginger tone thief stops a clock’s
Offspring watch to garner once the pregnant pauses…
Save them for courting laurel-planted undergrowth.
Out from some stray deck the winning hand rose to hold
Each gambler’s head spellbound before a fate foretold.
Floral leaves with no trace making winner-take-all
So clean a completion in total absence loss.
Thus the specter bequeaths a surprise appearance
To explain losers’ disappearance as clearance.
What greater loss can there be than your own?
Within the words of these lines no answer is found.
Hindrance crows will mock the echoes of mockingbirds
Knit ruination easel hefty prompt romper
Eatery at sundial cross your paths aflame egging
Your onward traits not bound for loaves at smoke-rise.
*
Prancing manners gone to horn bug popcorn flinch bait
Due halogen rupture dungeon caper shroud
Fondle crescent brooks out of repertoire songbook
Endless goes the hearth walkers, daze looking past a float.
A trail patch of needle bricks cast back flash word crumbs
Kneading none shown growing amidst sprout tangles shorn
While water screen clad streams calculate deterrence
In scholarly foam slept into ponds of measure.
Olive huntress plunge nearsighted a frayed queen
Hammer salt court informed barricade jumper
Recalls ancestors out clamoring to save schemes
Branched along sled led zone fables snooker hedge
Stake up thru a loner rake nesting bird calls
Their dark omen twisted moon rays delighted
In slumber knelt pastures where dare fireflies to stray
Sharpened an internal fount of windswept blades.
Sail the downturn some ought once to speak rodent urns
Moments unleashed inhaler slipped bygone
Barbells roll out intent to pester a mind lost
Mine, yes indented by its riverside sludge gun.
Lope sonar gazer black hole filter lets stardust
Rudely slip by spilling out into nothingness
More empty than the thoughts go poof spiraling deep
As naught is immersed the celestial drain.
*
Brick yard dazzler dripping clone dice in won abundance
Restless spray of jaw birds negating wobble froth
At a crosswalk prom cell hazed applicants who
Cough back centuries plunged to sea-bottom
Indignant horse pen straddled pinewood flakes reserve
Mope tons glazed galore you’ve nailed shut the door
Overcast onion peeling toxic laughing butt
When Huns built my breezeway so to steal the breeze away
All left to linger sways by wild emotion grunge
Seahorses on bookshelves neither gallop nor swim
Waters weathered crammed against dark boulders
Masking a watchtower unmanned yet occupied
Thus by what’s the unspoken among those who
Know the timeless truth of supernatural queer things
As a lighthouse of darkness whose host is a ghost
Guilty beyond court’s grasping robe-enveloped arms
Drift netting a bonnet forgotten makes free the world.
Sand zilch saves empty pockets beamed by a tan mine
Levitating near luminescent pendants and quail
Heard calling unbeknownst to Audubon’s patrol crane
Wracked with bird seed run wild in the streets on fire curb
Never preen outlasted salt mines loping tack bale
Season fearing its ending hides to escape gawkers
Drunk with yester-leaves of morbid curiosity
Cumbersome earthen muzzle turnabout burn stuffer.
Others sense nothing while I recognize a lone spirit
Coming into view revealing to me alone the fact
That he’s a wheel man much like myself, fond (to
a fault you insist) of groveling before them on my
Knees trying in vain to replicate childhood’s enchanting
One-on-one intimacy I knew so well when I was
The lad who loved those huge fragrant dudes, mighty
Truck wheels be they disc or cast spoke - o the front convexes
O the rear concaves, those tempting shadowed wells!
*
This racing heart at every chance to smell the mingling of
Axle and hub grease with the aromatic tire rubber so
Filling did thrill. Yes confess I must: recessed rears
Enveloped me lad’s curious head invading the sunken
Space where exploration brought an oddling rapture.
Budds and Daytons sanctify the austerity of their habitat.
They share the phenomenon: rears are inversions of
Fronts which are inversions of rears which are inversions
Of fronts and so on ad infinitum, whether speaking of
Five-holers or six or eight for the Budd disc truck wheels
Or speaking “that’s a five-spoker” or a six-spoke Dayton
Cast iron spoke truck wheel - the rears are inset enticements
Of a geometric splendor only the utilitarian world will offer
The artful eye thru which my child’s vision is transfixed.
Once the spell is broken it’s easy to discover other veins:
Vacancies needn’t apply where needs are concerned
Mostly with chandeliers counting fiberboard splash heat
A likely rendezvous rodent explains in language springs
Tightened to degrees seeking approval as a mouthful
Says okay when sputtered wink toads fuss over won ore.
Musing on one’s surroundings cracks the stoned lower
Stall withering past sun spot parking lots needling a spark
Closing its vaulted Uranus grain darkened twixt a boastful
Double-dare hunting furrier a syndicate wants to implode
At least I’ve got the word from my inside tracker tramps
Travail upon a mezzanine held panic in frozen motion
Staid plate angler moon goon nabbing froth dodger crowed
Its mysterious sign of occurrence, the absence of any trace.
*
After their heist, all seven peacocks fled the town square
Awaiting the precise time, safe from pursuant cops,
When at last in some farmer’s tank
They’d quench their thirst -
Another entry in a most unsavory collective fowl diary.
Mine foundlings define my trove’s opuses,
Treasures doomed to slow-fall into the abyss, so
Unloved languish they.
We’re shown blown-to-bits roadside bomb casualties
As tomorrow’s memories omit the foundling dead.
*
Steps ascending highlighter find crayons stolen past some
School kid’s magnifying pranks pulled last weekend off.
Color her priceless in annoyance motets spayed lineage
Tied to salvage spindle in cleavage window scenes.
Memorials of strewn poppies wait, wait, wait……
(for lasting peace to come
clean up the mess.
No need to wait, or make a later return
)
*
Vie forevermore elicit implication gone dryly bone sunk
To haze basking counterfeit folding money around
A currency circulation meant for brown paper bags
With a few wrinkles and creases I fell hopelessly in spell
Cast captivation so taken was this sad child lusting
So for a handful of hand-held coins safe in authoritarian
Display of possession to grow onward this envy.
The tyke on his bike stops for reflection and eyes the
Wide Fives: ford cars from 1936 thru 1939 rolled on or
Rested on those geometric wonders, so prone to
Inspire my lechery I aspired to horde them.
*
Where was the lad when last seen? Peering thru
A workplace window to reaffirm his discovery
Of the two large metal horn loudspeakers
He’d known from their appearance at the county
Fair, followed by an unplanned rescue mission
Of re-enforced sound at a mid-fifties Elvis
Performance, to combat the deafening crowd
Noise generated by excited and unruly attendees.
Next sighting over one year later at the next county
Fair: no longer yellow, clearly to my eyes the dual
Red horns (mounted on the same two utility poles
As seen the year before) were freshly repainted.
If my eye focused on a single horn, my footsteps
Would take me to its mate, mounted high
On another side of their shared exposition building.
*
Such lament as fallen far from the snow
Whence cold takes downturns sliding south in
Cross passage of times fleeting abreast an over
Burden summit that’s cloud-enveloped to mock
The shy pinnacle of alien guarded sky
Of heaven’s bequeathing - Villa maidens in
Slow unison dance encircle one to death.
*
Corrugated disaster tins struck by weighs
of the third world upon
Once a kingdom faulty memory conjures
as blissful
Unreality threading past desertion will
Navigate your sought aspirations down
Thru the dregs of a wayside alley amidst where
Be found shanty town of the oppressed
expressed by makeshift shelters
Their montage walls made of tin,
Cardboard, scrap metal erected to collect
Tales made from brutal sunrays on sweltering days
or merciless relief
From ominous darkness, drowning from cloudbursts.
——————————————————————————
THIS COLLECTOR’S DISC SELECTOR
In looking through the bins of old
We’ve found several of the type things
Of no interest to our other readers
Yet as time has taught us, treasures
Among those peculiar you fixations.
Now to innumerate, here’s the lot
Offered to channel yesteryear’s vault
All which then seemed special not
Except to you even back to and beyond
Infancy tapping into a former life.
—————————————————
THE POETRY THING
i always wanted to be weird.
it was the most appealing thing
i suppose because i’m just such
a normal guy. therefore being
weird didn’t come naturally.
yet all that was needed was some
activity for me to do
that would achieve this objective.
then one day the idea hit me.
i know, i said to myself, i’ll
write poetry, or better yet…
i’ll just be someone who attempts
to write poetry - that way i
needn’t worry about whether
or not it’s any good, or if
it’s even poetry. bingo!
my idea when implemented
worked like a charm. now people
who don’t even know this little
fact about me think i’m real weird.
—————————————————
MUSK ON THE GO
Elon is starting a new
Car line…
Inspired by Chrysler products
Of the past.
His is called DOGE.
It’s loaded with
Get up and go…
But requires GUTTING!
———————————————
HOW I CAME TO KNOW
THE SOLITARY ONE
After his demise, I alone ventured into
The old man’s two-room shack
Where I found a panoramic view into
An isolated paradise reflected for
My finding in writings left behind by
He whom I will call Himert Hermit.
Him kept a journal, several journals
Spanning many years. I have condensed
Their contents after reading every page
Into the following sorrowful verses:
*
The old hermit (I have named Himert)
Goes to the truck lot of his formative
Years. He does this without leaving
His house because his mind knows
It’s gone. He also seldom leaves his
House because he’s a hermit. Him’s
Fascinated by the mind, for that’s where
He can still find the truck lot so long gone.
————————————————————-