Poet of the Day: Inuo Taguchi (1967 - Present) ** Japan. Very much the story teller.

AN INVISIBLE WAITER

Maitreya Bodhisattva, raising a bite of rare steak to his mouth, said,
“Even we sometimes get hungry.
Mere peace of mind doesn’t satisfy the flesh,
though, on the contrary, the sense of fullness at times does lead to peace of mind.”

“Each of us is aware that we should avoid eating unbalanced meals.
Our calling requires nothing but the capital of soul and body.
The American way of taking nutritional pills, however,
is severely prohibited by Buddha.”

Maitreya Bodhisattva, using knife and fork quite adeptly,
talked on and on with the accent of Pure Land Buddhism.
“I had a very hard time learning European table manners.
Anyway we had to master all at once
in a three-night training session
what Europeans had developed over hundreds of years.”

“Of course even we are not perfect.
Like you, we have our troubles.
There are some anorexic ascetics and some depressive goddesses of mercy.”
A Bodhisattva I met the other day in a Laundromat has insomnia,
so at night he seems to read by reading lamp
Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
He said he hadn’t slept for an entire month
and had now read 3,000 pages.

“And a nirvana incarnation I know well
who seems to be categorized by the present administration
as ‘a bed-ridden old man’
was high-handedly removed
to a special old folks’ home in Shibuya.
I saw him for the first time ever crying, ‘No! No!’”

It was already late at night.
All the waiters had gone home.
All that remained was people’s sighs,
like the laughter of the Cheshire cat.

In front of Maitreya Bodhisattva now fallen silent,
I put a non-existent cigarette in my mouth. Just then,
a transparent waiter appeared
and gently lighted it for me.

Poet of the Day: Sara Teasdale (1884 - 1933) ** Reality and truth. Rather disconcerting.

There Will Come Soft Rains

by Sara Teasdale

(War Time)

There will come soft rains and the smell of the ground,
And swallows circling with their shimmering sound;

And frogs in the pools singing at night,
And wild plum trees in tremulous white,

Robins will wear their feathery fire
Whistling their whims on a low fence-wire;

And not one will know of the war, not one
Will care at last when it is done.

Not one would mind, neither bird nor tree
If mankind perished utterly;

And Spring herself, when she woke at dawn,
Would scarcely know that we were gone.

Poet of the Day: Gregory Orr (1947 - Present) ** I would give a lot to study under this guy. Sometimes its not the length, but the brevity.

To be alive

by Gregory Orr

To be alive: not just the carcass
But the spark.
That's crudely put, but…

If we're not supposed to dance,
Why all this music?

Poet of the Day: Hettie Jones (1934 - Present) **It took a time to find the right one today, but it was worth the scouring.

Weather

by Hettie Jones

My folder of poems
labeled "weather" holds
no clues as to whether
or not there’ll be any

weather to count on, say,
a hard rain like "little nails," or
that deluge "plunging radiant"

now that we’ve plunged into war
and wars don’t stop like rain stops

like that last slow drizzle
onto the old tin bathroom vent

sweet hint of growth
in the soft wet drift north

fire or ice, fire or ice

are you breathing, are you lucky enough
to be breathing

Poet of the Day: Marie Ponsot (1921 - Present) ** Just discovered her poetry and already love it. Enjoy if you have the mind to do so.

Springing

by Marie Ponsot

In a skiff on a sunrisen lake we are watchers.

Swimming aimlessly is luxury just as walking
loudly up a shallow stream is.

As we lean over the deep well, we whisper.

Friends at hearths are drawn to the one warm air;
strangers meet on beaches drawn to the one wet sea.

What wd it be to be water, one body of water
(what water is is another mystery) (We are
water divided.) It wd be a self without walls,
with surface tension, specific gravity a local
exchange between bedrock and cloud of falling and rising,
rising to fall, falling to rise.

(1962)

Poet of the Day: Kelli Russell Agodon (1969 - present)

A Mermaid Questions God

by Kelli Russell Agodon


As a girl, she hated the grain of anything
on her fins. Now she is part fire ant, part centipede.
Where dunes stretch into pathways, arteries appear.
Her blood pressure is temperature plus wind speed.

Where religion is a thousand miles of coastline,
she is familiar with moon size, with tide changes.
She wears the cream of waves like a vestment,
knows undertow is imaginary, not something to pray to.

Now her questions involve fairytales, begin
in a garden and lead to hands painted on a chapel's ceiling.
She wants to hold the ribbon grass, the shadow of angels
across the shore. She steals a Bible from the Seashore Inn;

she will trust it only if it floats.

Poet of the Day: Jackson Mac Low (1922 - 2004) ** Very interesting style. Check it out and enjoy...or not. Its up to you.

Insect Assassins

--by Jackson Mac Low

Injects no survive. Efforts control the
Animal survive. Survive. Animal survive. Survive. Injects no survive.

In nasty spitting eye cost. This
Assassin spitting spitting assassin spitting spitting in nasty spitting

Insectivorous nutriment species encounter Charles to
Are species species are species species insectivorous nutriment species

Into notoriety. Sweeping eastern capture testimony
As sweeping sweeping as sweeping sweeping into
notoriety. Sweeping

Interest nervous succumb easily: composed tube
Adhesive succumb succumb adhesive succumb succumb interest
nervous succumb

It near spider East closes thorax.
And spider spider and spider spider it near spider

Its needle. Specialized enlarged? Cutting tough
A specialized specialized a specialized specialized its needle.
Specialized

Is nontoxic secretion extremely contains that
Assassin-bug secretion secretion assassin-bug secretion secretion
is nontoxic secretion

I needle-like snake. Enzymes compound TENDON
ANCHORING snake, snake, ANCHORING snake, snake, I
needle-like snake,

INLET not significant, effect cockroach. Thus
About significant, significant, about significant, significant,
INLET not significant,

Insect "natural" surround enzyme constituents time
After surround surround after surround surround insect "natural"
surround

Internal nerve. Sucks especially contents through.
Against sucks sucks. Against sucks sucks. Internal nerve. Sucks

Immediate now share extinguishing controlling them.
Arises: share share arises: share share immediate now share

Insecticide? Needs. Sap; episode. Cimicidae thoroughly
Attributed sap; sap; attributed sap; sap; insecticide? Needs. Sap;

Insects numbing seconds. Each channels. They.
Accordingly seconds. Seconds. Accordingly seconds. Seconds.
Insects numbing seconds.

Poet of the Day: Charles Simic (1938 - Present) ** Three for today because this guy is so good.

Secret History


Of the light in my room:
Its mood swings,
Dark-morning glooms,
Summer ecstasies.

Spider on the wall,
Lamp burning late,
Shoes left by the bed,
I'm your humble scribe.

Dust balls, simple souls
Conferring in the corner.
The pearl earring she lost,
Still to be found.

Silence of falling snow,
Night vanishing without trace,
Only to return.
I'm your humble scribe.

..................................................

Eyes Fastened With Pins


How much death works,
No one knows what a long
Day he puts in. The little
Wife always alone
Ironing death's laundry.
The beautiful daughters
Setting death's supper table.
The neighbors playing
Pinochle in the backyard
Or just sitting on the steps
Drinking beer. Death,
Meanwhile, in a strange
Part of town looking for
Someone with a bad cough,
But the address somehow wrong,
Even death can't figure it out
Among all the locked doors...
And the rain beginning to fall.
Long windy night ahead.
Death with not even a newspaper
To cover his head, not even
A dime to call the one pining away,
Undressing slowly, sleepily,
And stretching naked
On death's side of the bed.

......................................

My Shoes


Shoes, secret face of my inner life:
Two gaping toothless mouths,
Two partly decomposed animal skins
Smelling of mice-nests.

My brother and sister who died at birth
Continuing their existence in you,
Guiding my life
Toward their incomprehensible innocence.

What use are books to me
When in you it is possible to read
The Gospel of my life on earth
And still beyond, of things to come?

I want to proclaim the religion
I have devised for your perfect humility
And the strange church I am building
With you as the altar.

Ascetic and maternal, you endure:
Kin to oxen, to Saints, to condemned men,
With your mute patience, forming
The only true likeness of myself.

Poet of the Day: Nikki Giovanni (1943 - Present) ** I can relate

Possum Crossing

by Nikki Giovanni

Backing out the driveway
the car lights cast an eerie glow
in the morning fog centering
on movement in the rain slick street

Hitting brakes I anticipate a squirrel or a cat or sometimes
a little raccoon
I once braked for a blind little mole who try though he did
could not escape the cat toying with his life
Mother-to-be possum occasionally lopes home . . . being
naturally . . . slow her condition makes her even more ginger

We need a sign POSSUM CROSSING to warn coffee-gurgling neighbors:
we share the streets with more than trucks and vans and
railroad crossings

All birds being the living kin of dinosaurs
think themselves invincible and pay no heed
to the rolling wheels while they dine
on an unlucky rabbit

I hit brakes for the flutter of the lights hoping it's not a deer
or a skunk or a groundhog
coffee splashes over the cup which I quickly put away from me
and into the empty passenger seat
I look . . .
relieved and exasperated ...
to discover I have just missed a big wet leaf
struggling . . . to lift itself into the wind
and live

Poet of the Day: Edward Gorey (1925 - 2000) **Gorey is one of my favorites. This is brilliant and displays my sentiments about children.

The Gashlycrumb Tinies

By Edward Gorey

A is for Amy who fell down the stairs.
B is for Basil assaulted by bears.
C is for Clara who wasted away.
D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh.
E is for Ernest who choked on a peach.
F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech.
G is for George smothered under a rug.
H is for Hector done in by a thug.
I is for Ida who drowned in a lake.
J is for James who took lye by mistake.
K is for Kate who was struck with an axe.
L is for Leo who swallowed some tacks.
M is for Maud who was swept out to sea.
N is for Neville who died of ennui.
O is for Olive run through with an awl.
P is for Prue trampled flat in a brawl.
Q is for Quentin who sank in a mire.
R is for Rhoda consumed by a fire.
S is for Sue who perished of fits.
T is for Titus who flew into bits.
U is for Uma who slipped down a drain.
V is for Victor squised under a train.
W is for Winnie imbedded in ice.
X is for Xerxes devoured by mice.
Y is for Yorick whose head was knocked in.
And Z is for Zillah who drank too much gin.

Poet of the Day: Ogden Nash (1902 - 1971) ** Fun stuff

A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor


The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly bum from an ancient slum
Crept furtively past the desk.
His footsteps sift into the lift
As a knife in the sheath is slipped,
Stealthy and swift into the lift
As a vampire into a crypt.

Old Maxie, the elevator boy,
Was reading an ode by Shelley,
But he dropped the ode as it were a toad
When the gun jammed into his belly.
There came a whisper as soft as mud
In the bed of an old canal:
"Take me up to the suite of Pinball Pete,
The rat who betrayed my gal."

The lift doth rise with groans and sighs
Like a duchess for the waltz,
Then in middle shaft, like a duchess daft,
It changes its mind and halts.
The bum bites lip as the landlocked ship
Doth neither fall nor rise,
But Maxie the elevator boy
Regards him with burning eyes.
"First, to explore the thirteenth floor,"
Says Maxie, "would be wise."

Quoth the bum, "There is moss on your double cross,
I have been this way before,
I have cased the joint at every point,
And there is no thirteenth floor.
The architect he skipped direct
From twelve unto fourteen,
There is twelve below and fourteen above,
And nothing in between,
For the vermin who dwell in this hotel
Could never abide thirteen."

Said Max, "Thirteen, that floor obscene,
Is hidden from human sight;
But once a year it doth appear,
On this Walpurgis Night.
Ere you peril your soul in murderer's role,
Heed those who sinned of yore;
The path they trod led away from God,
And onto the thirteenth floor,
Where those they slew, a grisly crew,
Reproach them forevermore.

"We are higher than twelve and below fourteen,"
Said Maxie to the bum,
"And the sickening draft that taints the shaft
Is a whiff of kingdom come.
The sickening draft that taints the shaft
Blows through the devil's door!"
And he squashed the latch like a fungus patch,
And revealed the thirteenth floor.

It was cheap cigars like lurid scars
That glowed in the rancid gloom,
The murk was a-boil with fusel oil
And the reek of stale perfume.
And round and round there dragged and wound
A loathsome conga chain,
The square and the hep in slow lock step,
The slayer and the slain.
(For the souls of the victims ascend on high,
But their bodies below remain.)

The clean souls fly to their home in the sky,
But their bodies remain below
To pursue the Cain who each has slain
And harry him to and fro.
When life is extinct each corpse is linked
To its gibbering murderer,
As a chicken is bound with wire around
The neck of a killer cur.

Handcuffed to Hate come Doctor Waite
(He tastes the poison now),
And Ruth and Judd and a head of blood
With horns upon its brow.
Up sashays Nan with her feathery fan
From Floradora bright;
She never hung for Caesar Young
But she's dancing with him tonight.

Here's the bulging hip and the foam-flecked lip
Of the mad dog, Vincent Coll,
And over there that ill-met pair,
Becker and Rosenthal,
Here's Legs and Dutch and a dozen such
Of braggart bullies and brutes,
And each one bends 'neath the weight of friends
Who are wearing concrete suits.

Now the damned make way for the double-damned
Who emerge with shuffling pace
From the nightmare zone of persons unknown,
With neither name nor face.
And poor Dot King to one doth cling,
Joined in a ghastly jig,
While Elwell doth jape at a goblin shape
And tickle it with his wig.

See Rothstein pass like breath on a glass,
The original Black Sox kid;
He riffles the pack, riding piggyback
On the killer whose name he hid.
And smeared like brine on a slavering swine,
Starr Faithful, once so fair,
Drawn from the sea to her debauchee,
With the salt sand in her hair.

And still they come, and from the bum
The icy sweat doth spray;
His white lips scream as in a dream,
"For God's sake, let's away!
If ever I meet with Pinball Pete
I will not seek his gore,
Lest a treadmill grim I must trudge with him
On the hideous thirteenth floor."

"For you I rejoice," said Maxie's voice,
"And I bid you go in peace,
But I am late for a dancing date
That nevermore will cease.
So remember, friend, as your way you wend,
That it would have happened to you,
But I turned the heat on Pinball Pete;
You see - I had a daughter, too!"

The bum reached out and he tried to shout,
But the door in his face was slammed,
And silent as stone he rode down alone
From the floor of the double-damned.

Poet of the Day: Ezra Pound (1885 -1972) **Was thinking of Pound Cake when I thought of Julie's cat which made me think of this poet. Enjoy.

The Return

--by Ezra Pound

See, they return; ah, see the tentative
Movements, and the slow feet,
The trouble in the pace and the uncertain
Wavering!

See, they return, one, and by one,
With fear, as half-awakened;
As if the snow should hesitate
And murmur in the wind,
and half turn back;
These were the "Wing'd-with-Awe,"
inviolable.

Gods of that wingèd shoe!
With them the silver hounds,
sniffing the trace of air!

Haie! Haie!
These were the swift to harry;
These the keen-scented;
These were the souls of blood.

Slow on the leash,
pallid the leash-men!

Poet of the Day: Billy Collins (1941 - Present) **Oh to dream. To be this good. Damn. I may never try again.

Litany

--by Billy Collins

You are the bread and the knife,
The crystal goblet and the wine...
—Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.
There is just no way that you are the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's tea cup.
But don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.

You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and—somehow—the wine.

Poet of the Day: John Ashberry (1927 - Present) **Wow, oh wow, oh WOW!

Into the Dusk-Charged Air

by John Ashbery

Far from the Rappahannock, the silent
Danube moves along toward the sea.
The brown and green Nile rolls slowly
Like the Niagara's welling descent.
Tractors stood on the green banks of the Loire
Near where it joined the Cher.
The St. Lawrence prods among black stones
And mud. But the Arno is all stones.
Wind ruffles the Hudson's
Surface. The Irawaddy is overflowing.
But the yellowish, gray Tiber
Is contained within steep banks. The Isar
Flows too fast to swim in, the Jordan's water
Courses over the flat land. The Allegheny and its boats
Were dark blue. The Moskowa is
Gray boats. The Amstel flows slowly.
Leaves fall into the Connecticut as it passes
Underneath. The Liffey is full of sewage,
Like the Seine, but unlike
The brownish-yellow Dordogne.
Mountains hem in the Colorado
And the Oder is very deep, almost
As deep as the Congo is wide.
The plain banks of the Neva are
Gray. The dark Saône flows silently.
And the Volga is long and wide
As it flows across the brownish land. The Ebro
Is blue, and slow. The Shannon flows
Swiftly between its banks. The Mississippi
Is one of the world's longest rivers, like the Amazon.
It has the Missouri for a tributary.
The Harlem flows amid factories
And buildings. The Nelson is in Canada,
Flowing. Through hard banks the Dubawnt
Forces its way. People walk near the Trent.
The landscape around the Mohawk stretches away;
The Rubicon is merely a brook.
In winter the Main
Surges; the Rhine sings its eternal song.
The Rhône slogs along through whitish banks
And the Rio Grande spins tales of the past.
The Loir bursts its frozen shackles
But the Moldau's wet mud ensnares it.
The East catches the light.
Near the Escaut the noise of factories echoes
And the sinuous Humboldt gurgles wildly.
The Po too flows, and the many-colored
Thames. Into the Atlantic Ocean
Pours the Garonne. Few ships navigate
On the Housatonic, but quite a few can be seen
On the Elbe. For centuries
The Afton has flowed.
If the Rio Negro
Could abandon its song, and the Magdalena
The jungle flowers, the Tagus
Would still flow serenely, and the Ohio
Abrade its slate banks. The tan Euphrates would
Sidle silently across the world. The Yukon
Was choked with ice, but the Susquehanna still pushed
Bravely along. The Dee caught the day's last flares
Like the Pilcomayo's carrion rose.
The Peace offered eternal fragrance
Perhaps, but the Mackenzie churned livid mud
Like tan chalk-marks. Near where
The Brahmaputra slapped swollen dikes
And the Pechora? The São Francisco
Skulks amid gray, rubbery nettles. The Liard's
Reflexes are slow, and the Arkansas erodes
Anthracite hummocks. The Paraná stinks.
The Ottawa is light emerald green
Among grays. Better that the Indus fade
In steaming sands! Let the Brazos
Freeze solid! And the Wabash turn to a leaden
Cinder of ice! The Marañón is too tepid, we must
Find a way to freeze it hard. The Ural
Is freezing slowly in the blasts. The black Yonne
Congeals nicely. And the Petit-Morin
Curls up on the solid earth. The Inn
Does not remember better times, and the Merrimack's
Galvanized. The Ganges is liquid snow by now;
The Vyatka's ice-gray. The once-molten Tennessee's
Curdled. The Japurá is a pack of ice. Gelid
The Columbia's gray loam banks. The Don's merely
A giant icicle. The Niger freezes, slowly.
The interminable Lena plods on
But the Purus' mercurial waters are icy, grim
With cold. The Loing is choked with fragments of ice.
The Weser is frozen, like liquid air.
And so is the Kama. And the beige, thickly flowing
Tocantins. The rivers bask in the cold.
The stern Uruguay chafes its banks,
A mass of ice. The Hooghly is solid
Ice. The Adour is silent, motionless.
The lovely Tigris is nothing but scratchy ice
Like the Yellowstone, with its osier-clustered banks.
The Mekong is beginning to thaw out a little
And the Donets gurgles beneath the
Huge blocks of ice. The Manzanares gushes free.
The Illinois darts through the sunny air again.
But the Dnieper is still ice-bound. Somewhere
The Salado propels its floes, but the Roosevelt's
Frozen. The Oka is frozen solider
Than the Somme. The Minho slumbers
In winter, nor does the Snake
Remember August. Hilarious, the Canadian
Is solid ice. The Madeira slavers
Across the thawing fields, and the Plata laughs.
The Dvina soaks up the snow. The Sava's
Temperature is above freezing. The Avon
Carols noiselessly. The Drôme presses
Grass banks; the Adige's frozen
Surface is like gray pebbles.

Birds circle the Ticino. In winter
The Var was dark blue, unfrozen. The
Thwaite, cold, is choked with sandy ice;
The Ardèche glistens feebly through the freezing rain.

Poet of the Day: Uwe Kolbe (Germany, 1957 - Present) **I got up thinking of bratwurst and sauerkraut so....

Ingredients of Sleeplessness

It was the gnat, I heard it.
And it was – didn’t the grass grow there
between two wars?
It was similar to the reason why I seriously left the city
for the first time.
And it was, that love rejected
to be as simple as a flick of the wrist,
beautiful like a word game,
funny and inexplicable, like the attacking
cat, which, after the attack, continues
to walk elegantly in moderate pace, or
to clean itself, licking the paw with the tongue,
then stroking the back of its head with the wet paw,
with this unimitable care.
It was, that the noise of my city
destroys the remains of the old plaster,
tips the last grey-brown
of the fire wall on to the monstrous lorry,
that nearly ran me over yesterday.
It was, that remnants of the former certainty
decomposed each other, the new one
remains private, the heavily pounding heart
– in our part of the world this is the result
of excessive consumption.
It was, you wake up and mumble,
will you close that window.

Poet of the Day: Daisy Fried (1967 - Present) **I took some time before deciding on this one for today.

She Didn't Mean To Do It

by Daisy Fried

Oh, she was sad, oh, she was sad.
She didn't mean to do it.

Certain thrills stay tucked in your limbs,
go no further than your fingers, move your legs through their paces,
but no more. Certain thrills knock you flat
on your sheets on your bed in your room and you fade
and they fade. You falter and they're gone, gone, gone.
Certain thrills puff off you like smoke rings,
some like bell rings growing out, out, turning
brass, steel, gold, till the whole world's filled
with the gonging of your thrills.

But oh, she was sad, she was just sad, sad,
and she didn't mean to do it.

Poet of the Day: Mark Doty (1953 - present) *Very visual

A Display Of Mackeral

by Mark Doty


They lie in parallel rows,
on ice, head to tail,
each a foot of luminosity
barred with black bands,
which divide the scales'
radiant sections

like seams of lead
in a Tiffany window.
Iridescent, watery

prismatics: think abalone,
the wildly rainbowed
mirror of a soap-bubble sphere,

think sun on gasoline.
Splendor, and splendor,
and not a one in any way

distinguished from the other
--nothing about them
of individuality. Instead

they're all exact expressions
of the one soul,
each a perfect fulfillment

of heaven's template,
mackerel essence. As if,
after a lifetime arriving

at this enameling, the jeweler's
made uncountable examples
each as intricate

in its oily fabulation
as the one before;
a cosmos of champleve.

Suppose we could iridesce,
like these, and lose ourselves
entirely in the universe

of shimmer--would you want
to be yourself only,
unduplicatable, doomed

to be lost? They'd prefer,
plainly, to be flashing participants,
multitudinous. Even on ice

they seem to be bolting
forward, heedless of stasis.
They don't care they're dead

and nearly frozen,
just as, presumably,
they didn't care that they were living:

all, all for all,
the rainbowed school
and its acres of brilliant classrooms,

in which no verb is singular,
or every one is. How happy they seem,
even on ice, to be together, selfless,

which is the price of gleaming.

Poet of the Day: Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967) ** I think we could all use a little happiness today and Sandburg got the idea right

Happiness

by Carl Sandburg

I ASKED the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
their women and children
and a keg of beer and an
accordion.

Poet of the Day: Bret Harte (1836 - 1902) ** One from my favorite early 'cowboy', though in reality, he was much more.

What the Bullet sang

by Bret Harte

O JOY of creation,
To be!
O rapture, to fly
And be free!
Be the battle lost or won,
Though its smoke shall hide the sun,
I shall find my love--the one
Born for me!

I shall know him where he stands
All alone,
With the power in his hands
Not o'erthrown;
I shall know him by his face,
By his godlike front and grace;
I shall hold him for a space
All my own!

It is he--O my love!
So bold!
It is I--all thy love
Foretold!
It is I--O love, what bliss!
Dost thou answer to my kiss?
O sweetheart! what is this
Lieth there so cold?

Poet of the Day: A. R. Ammons (1926 - 2001) ** Interesting

Identity

by A. R. Ammons

1) An individual spider web
identifies a species:

an order of instinct prevails
through all accidents of circumstance,
though possibility is
high along the peripheries of
spider
webs:
you can go all
around the fringing attachments

and find
disorder ripe,
entropy rich, high levels of random,
numerous occasions of accident:

2) the possible settings
of a web are infinite:

how does
the spider keep
identity
while creating the web
in a particular place?

how and to what extent
and by what modes of chemistry
and control?

it is
wonderful
how things work: I will tell you
about it
because

it is interesting
and because whatever is
moves in weeds
and stars and spider webs
and known
is loved:
in that love,
each of us knowing it,
I love you,

for it moves within and beyond us,
sizzles in
to winter grasses, darts and hangs with bumblebees
by summer windowsills:

I will show you
the underlying that takes no image to itself,
cannot be shown or said,
but weaves in and out of moons and bladderweeds,
is all and
beyond destruction
because created fully in no
particular form:

if the web were perfectly pre-set,
the spider could
never find
a perfect place to set it in: and

if the web were
perfectly adaptable,
if freedom and possibility were without limit,
the web would
lose its special identity:

the row-strung garden web
keeps order at the center
where space is freest (intersecting that the freest
"medium" should
accept the firmest order)

and that
order
diminishes toward the
periphery
allowing at the points of contact
entropy equal to entropy.

Poet of the Day: Shel Silverstein (1932 - 1999) **A Sad Story

Cloony The Clown

by Shel Silverstein

I'll tell you the story of Cloony the Clown
Who worked in a circus that came through town.
His shoes were too big and his hat was too small,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
He had a trombone to play loud silly tunes,
He had a green dog and a thousand balloons.
He was floppy and sloppy and skinny and tall,
But he just wasn't, just wasn't funny at all.
And every time he did a trick,
Everyone felt a little sick.
And every time he told a joke,
Folks sighed as if their hearts were broke.
And every time he lost a shoe,
Everyone looked awfully blue.
And every time he stood on his head,
Everyone screamed, "Go back to bed!"
And every time he made a leap,
Everybody fell asleep.
And every time he ate his tie,
Everyone began to cry.
And Cloony could not make any money
Simply because he was not funny.
One day he said, "I'll tell this town
How it feels to be an unfunny clown."
And he told them all why he looked so sad,
And he told them all why he felt so bad.
He told of Pain and Rain and Cold,
He told of Darkness in his soul,
And after he finished his tale of woe,
Did everyone cry? Oh no, no, no,
They laughed until they shook the trees
With "Hah-Hah-Hahs" and "Hee-Hee-Hees."
They laughed with howls and yowls and shrieks,
They laughed all day, they laughed all week,
They laughed until they had a fit,
They laughed until their jackets split.
The laughter spread for miles around
To every city, every town,
Over mountains, 'cross the sea,
From Saint Tropez to Mun San Nee.
And soon the whole world rang with laughter,
Lasting till forever after,
While Cloony stood in the circus tent,
With his head drooped low and his shoulders bent.
And he said,"THAT IS NOT WHAT I MEANT -
I'M FUNNY JUST BY ACCIDENT."
And while the world laughed outside.
Cloony the Clown sat down and cried.

Poet of the Day: Philomena van Rijswijk (She isn't telling and I'm not asking - Present) **Tasmanian

THE LIE OF THE LAND

I swore she'd grow up like a fat swamp gum lacing a hundred-acre paddock,
not a maidenhair, mildewed with mediocrity, in a two dollar pot.
Having only just begun to finger my own barbed wire fences
when she came along, the questing whips of my tender digits
had been butchered back
by the cutting edge of pragmatism.

Every 3 a.m. I worried the beads of her being female as though
she had been born with a congenital defect that would soon
magnetize pigshooters spotlighters torturers beach rapists
broken beer glass and well-behaved silent rage.
She would have run off, if I had let her- I caught her one day
heading for the thistled horse paddocks; after that I kept her tender feet
unshod and let the bindi-eyes do the policing with their
peculiarly masculine and wordless perseverance.

Hush little baby, wimminsingin's the word, I lullabied her,
the cicadas screaming like lunatics,
hating my own oxlike body that had grown twice as foreboding
in the blinking of an I.
Papa don't need to find us no mockinbird, I drilled,
hanging over the stained stone sink
while the drainhole torpedoed my life/liness away
with ricochetting bubbles of Sunlight and grease.

Pushing his worn underpants into unexplored corners with my toes,
haphazardly swiping an equator of bath scum
a million times a zillion times without even caring,
my planet shrunk smaller and duller like a helium balloon left to itself
in the corner of a vacated galaxy - heavier and heavier -
heavier than breath, when always, before, it had seemed lighter.

And if mumma's mockinbird don't sing,
mumma don't need no diamond ring, I lied
while she elbowed against my side in the double bed -
that polyester/cotton battleground of the bloody corpulent feud,
the silent tug-o'-war in which the rope is not of jute but teased and plied
from a female body my own pulled this way that way this way
though the man always has an advantage his pale soft imperial feet planted
square in tough tradition and the whole macho muscled universe on his side.

Oh! how she listened while I lied!
Her eyes paterson's-curse-blue and pig-bristled clean and prised-open
like the sky when you're thirsty far away from home and you're somewhere
you've never been before but familiar-smelling.
How she gobbled my lies, and I did too;
they fed her and she grew and grew!
You can, she bullies at me now.
You are, she shoulders me with triumph.
You've taught me the Braille map of the world, she cries.
While all along I know she's watched me fumbling
my own flat wasteland
of endless, gutless lies.

Poet of the Day: Sharmagne Leland-St. John (1953 - present) **Oh wow.

I Said Coffee

by Sharmagne Leland-St. John

I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to cup
my warm
soft breasts
in your
un-calloused,
long,
tapered,
ring less fingered
hands?"

I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to
run your tongue
along my neck
just below
my left ear-lobe?"

I said coffee
I didn't say,
"would you
like to
hold me
in your arms
and feel my heart
skip beats
as you press your
hard, lean body
up against mine
until I melt
into you
with desire?"

I said coffee
as we stood there
in the jasmine
scented night
my car door
like some modern day
bundling board
separating us,
protecting us
from ourselves
and lust

I said,
"would you
like to go for
a cup of coffee?"
I didn't say,
"would you
like to brush
your lips
across mine
as you move
silently
to bury your face
in my long, silky,
raven black hair?"

But you said,
"I can't
I'm married
I can't trust myself
to be alone
with you."
So I looked you
dead in the eye
and repeated
"I said coffee"

Poet of the Day: Bernadette Geyer (1968 - present) * Found this today. It is very, very cool.

Train

by Bernadette Geyer


Train. Distant Train. Praise the glorious distance of Train.

Dogs bark, reply to the mournful echo of Train's whistle. Train looks back, keeps moving. Train carries its boxcars of secrets further and further away (and even further still) from those who profess to love Train, but who do not run after him. Eyes brimmed with glassy reflections of Train.

To watch Train pass is to feel your life as a single low note quiver from the rough pads of your toes to the stooped hunch of your shoulders. To watch Train pass is to feel the vibrato of your first singular thought trilling in your ears, casting inward to slide the escarpment of your throat, until Train shudders the memory in the hollow of your belly.

Train leaves and returns like an abusive lover: the completion of necessary cycles. Machinery joined, unjoined, loud and effusive. Belligerent Train no sooner announces his arrival and is gone again, to another town, another set of rails against which to preen.

Can you feel Train's fist inside you? Can you feel the assault with the strength of ten thousand wishes blown from the head of a dandelion?

Train is gone and not gone. For us, Train is the still-warm track we know does not disappear, but even continues to exist outside our sight range. We trust in the existence of Train, even when we can no longer see him. We believe in Train even when the night's silence fights our ears. We await the coming of Train even when the unbelievers tell us Train is not expected.

We imagine Train's call and response like a cantor and a choir. We pray to Train for the cleansing of our sins.

Train was. Train is. Train shall be evermore. We sit on the tracks. We wait.

Poet of the Day: Carl Sandburg (1878 - 1967) **Todays Blue Plate Special: A classy and classic poet.

Grass

by Carl Sandburg

PILE the bodies high at Austerlitz and Waterloo.
Shovel them under and let me work—
I am the grass; I cover all.

And pile them high at Gettysburg
And pile them high at Ypres and Verdun.
Shovel them under and let me work.
Two years, ten years, and passengers ask the conductor:
What place is this?
Where are we now?

I am the grass.
Let me work.

Poet of the Day: Norman Dubie (1945 - Present) ** Simply f'n awesome!

Sky Harbor

by Norman Dubie

The flock of pigeons rises over the roof,
and just beyond them, the shimmering asphalt fields
gather their dull colored airliners.

It is the very early night,
a young brunette sits before the long
darkening glass of the airport's west wall.

She smells coffee burning
and something else-- her old mother's
bureau filled with mothballs.

Her nearly silver blouse smells of anise
and the heat of an iron.
She suddenly brushes sleep from her hair.

I have been dead for hours. The brunette
witness to nothing studies her new lipstick
smeared on a gray napkin.

The fires of a cremation tank are rising...
she descends into Seattle
nervous over the blinking city lights

that are climbing to meet her flight.
The old man seated next to her closes his book.
He has recognized her.

And leans into the window
to whisper, nothing happens. Nothing
ever happens.

Poet of the Day: Yoko Tawada (1960 - Present) Japan, **Very cool

THE FLIGHT OF THE MOON

I was singing on the toilet
when the moon
came rolling in

bare naked
on a bicycle
racing through a forest of metaphor
the moon came to meet me.

Along the road outside
a beautiful woman walks by, brushing her teeth.
On a park bench
a man in a maternity dress is drinking apple juice.
At the end of the century health is always in full phase.

A hole in the sky drops open.
Distress like the moon, a gloom like the moon are gone
and the likes
fly brightly round and round that hole.

The deep folds of the abyss smooth.
Across the now-blank suffering face
poets start to skate.

The moon... mine... another.

Poet of the Day: Richard Brautigan (1935 - 1984) **Todays special: five short but effective pieces of a mans mind

Romeo and Juliet

If you will die for me,
I will die for you
and our graves will be like two lovers washing
their clothes together
in a laundromat
If you will bring the soap
I will bring the bleach.
**************************

The Fever Monument

I walked across the park to the fever monument.
It was in the center of a glass square surrounded
by red flowers and fountains. The monument
was in the shape of a sea horse and the plaque read
We got hot and died.
***************************

Xerox Candy Bar

Ah,
you're just a copy
of all the candy bars
I've ever eaten.
**************************

-2

Everybody wants to go to bed
with everybody else, they're
lined up for blocks, so I'll
go to bed with you. They won't
miss us.
****************************

Boo, Forever

Spinning like a ghost
on the bottom of a
top,
I'm haunted by all
the space that I
will live without
you.

Poet of the Day: Marvin Bell (1937 - present) **Good Stuff.

I, or Someone Like Me

by Marvin Bell

In a wilderness, in some orchestral swing
through trees, with a wind playing all the high notes,
and the prospect of a string bass inside the wood,
I, or someone like me, had a kind of vision.
As the person on the ground moved, bursting halos
topped first one tree, then another and another,
till the work of sight was forced to go lower
into a dark lair of fallen logs and fungi.

His was the wordless death of words, worse
for he remembered exactly where the words were
on his tongue, and before that how they fell
effortlessly from the brainpan behind his eyes.
But the music continued and the valley of forest floor
became itself an interval in a natural melody
attuned to the wind, embedded in the bass of boughs,
the tenor of branches, the percussion of twigs.

He, or someone like him, laughed at first,
dismissing what had happened as the incandescence
of youthful metabolism, as the slight fermentation
of the last of the wine, or as each excuse of love.
Learning then the constancy of music and of mind,
now he takes seriously that visionary wood
where he saw his being and his future underfoot
and someone like me listening for a resolution.

Poet of the Day: Natasha Trethewey (1966 - present) **Some poems have a 'voice' of their own. This would be a classic example. Wow.

Flounder

by Natasha Trethewey

Here, she said, put this on your head.
She handed me a hat.
you 'bout as white as your dad,
and you gone stay like that.
Aunt Sugar rolled her nylons down
around each bony ankle,
and I rolled down my white knee socks
letting my thin legs dangle,
circling them just above water
and silver backs of minnows
flitting here then there between
the sun spots and the shadows.
This is how you hold the pole
to cast the line out straight.
Now put that worm on your hook,
throw it out and wait.
She sat spitting tobacco juice
into a coffee cup.
Hunkered down when she felt the bite,
jerked the pole straight up
reeling and tugging hard at the fish
that wriggled and tried to fight back.
A flounder, she said, and you can tell
'cause one of its sides is black.
The other is white, she said.
It landed with a thump.
I stood there watching that fish flip-flop,
switch sides with every jump.

Poet of the Day: Kobayashi Issa (1763 - 1828) **I hope your New Year is as simple as this poem and has as much meaning. A lesson worth noting.

Having slept, the cat gets up

by Kobayashi Issa

Having slept, the cat gets up,
yawns, goes out
to make love.