V.1
Wading
through the mind’s sludge,
You see, a search light
drag across
the jagged waters,
you onward trod, ever vigilant,
hoping (against hope) to
find something
of value
to your own
thrashing executioner.
Chiffon air rapture
She screamed as
she fell,
thirty stories
down, down
her mad judo skillz couldn’t
help her now.
Squalid asphalt caught her
archipelago of emotion
(Did she bounce?)
He looked at the calendar,
too many lonely years
ahead. He put down his
fork, and jumped.
They could not prevent
the closing of
his palendrome.
What is lemonade?
Two jiggers of kick and a shot of pizzazz.
[Each of these poems was written after moving to a piece of music, then writing this while listening to the music again. Each number corresponds to a different song. If anyone else posted theirs, link to here so we can read how they're similar...]
Freewheeling and dealing, we’ll swoon together now
Blossom and bright in clear fresh [...]
Translation of this poem by Han Shan. (The top one)
Musical ocean lightning
Disenchanted flame
Falling tree of smoke
The tadpole flies over demon bats
Squat man watches
As the butterfly lights
Flits about
He ponders the lightness of being
His wife of virtue and fertility jagged
Climbing
The heart
Points towards
the heavens’ ascent.
Version 2.
The hard silence
of lost balance,
the flight of an early amphibian.
You taunt, but
the butterfly [...]
Green is grass
Green is prepubescent flowers
Green is a new recruit
Green is seasickness
Green is camouflage
Green is burning copper
Green is guacamole
Green is St. Patrick
Green is a blackboard
Joan was cool;
she was just young enough to
still relate, still have enough
spark to indulge in childness,
but responsible and rock solid.
Her car, the tank she called it
and old boat of a buick
that swung wide when she
spun the pizza sized steering wheel.
—//—
Her name was Adrianna
but we called her Ahh-dee,
That was her name and she helped raise me.
She [...]
Leroy
Solitude of living
the myth of a jungle paradise
jamborees with all our lemur pals
playing exotic disney songs and
swinging from the branches.
100% polyester. No fingers, just a
flat palm
stitched lines no movement.
Yet he has more than that already.
The power to transport—to a fantastic
dimension, away from the horrors
of this world.
But ignoring, too, the horrors
of the polyester jungle—
No malaria, dengue, [...]
nanda
She waited
Parked patiently on the road across from school
for the bell to ring, and the stream of eager children spilled
out of the large green front doors
I spotted her car without trying,
it was hard not to. I wasn’t sure
how to explain, or whether to do anything
but shrug as she ____ to carve enough room in her [...]
RAGE
Hippopotamus swimming in a still lagoon
sweetly large and curved,
hiding its rage
Solitude
An empty rowboat floating
listlessly—embedded in the glassine
surface of the lake.
History
Epstein with his hunch, hump
still full of fire
though not even 60
