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Saturday, September 30, 2017
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This Poem Has Been Censored by the FBI*
Yesterday I got eaten by a bear.
It wasn’t even a particularly ferocious bear.
More like a natty brown rug
full of cat fur & crumbs propped
up on some old broomsticks.
I think he was even missing some crucial teeth.
Maybe an eye.
I didn’t run very fast trying to get away either.
I made a kind of lazy, left-handed lope of my escape.
I don’t know why. I can’t explain my curious lassitude.
I guess I just didn't care very much.
I guess I couldn’t be bothered.
I was out hunting 1916 biplanes in the forest.
It's a hobby of mine.
The Sikorsky, the Sopwith, the Halberstadt.
The names roll off the tongue like a mouse pad
& a helmet.
The Junkers, the Nieuport, the Sopwith Pup.
I had with me a box of tissues, a portable drill press &
my untreatable ophthalmophobia.
Yesterday it was—a day a lot like this one.
You could have cut it with a knife,
but who would want to
with the mess it would make?
There. The scene is set.
I don’t know much about the digestive system
of a bear. What I do know
is a lot of useless stuff about Keanu Reeves.
Biplanes are like insults. When you start
looking for them, you find them everywhere.
A bear’s digestive tract is short,
only 40% the length of a normal herbivore.
It cannot digest mature plants.
It’s the cellulose that give it trouble, buster.
Keanu Reeves, however, does not appear to suffer
the same problem.
I wish I’d known all this before I was eaten.
I, myself, have often been accused of immaturity.
You can be the judge of that.
There are a lot of things that have crashed
unheard in the forest
A bear could be one of them.
So could Keanu Reeves.
The supersonic jet of the future will be a biplane
according to the Japanese
who should know as well anyone.
If it flew 100 years ago,
it will fly again.
We must somehow keep the faith.
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Friday, September 29, 2017
Thursday, September 28, 2017
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Tuesday, September 26, 2017
Monday, September 25, 2017
Friday, September 22, 2017
Thalassemia
Let’s never think about it
or cross that river
when we run from it
just because it’s a good place to hide
in the mist drifting sideways.
For years now, we’ve evacuated
for all we were worth.
It’s like we’ve been struggling
outside the frame of our own picture.
It’s exhausting to say the least
& a fat lot of good it’s done us.
A crow in the street
has had more to say about it all
than we ever did.
Still, it’s no cross to bear;
the underside of all things
held us fast, thank god, like bombs on a mission.
We were clowns then, but the championship
was still within our grasp.
Sometimes they do come back
like pandas, she promised,
the bamboo so sweet & green.
Hello, again.
Hello, again.
It’s so quiet tonight;
you don’t even realize you’re been waiting
all these years to hear them say it.
all these years to hear them say it.
Wednesday, September 20, 2017
Tuesday, September 19, 2017
Monday, September 18, 2017
Sunday, September 17, 2017
Friday, September 15, 2017
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
The Sad Pandas
Old
men with pens
in paneled rooms
tight smiles
the passage of checks
across a desk polished
by the passage of checks
the final documents
out the window
out the window
rooftops
wires
black scribble of tree tops
walls with other windows
shadows flying upwards
oh the sad pandas
how do we bear their stupendous sadness
if i chewed
a stick of thousand-year gum
i could not chew
more cherry flavor
out of it than i have already
There are deer prints
in the carpet
beneath our feet
what if all of us noticed them & said nothing
said nothing like i said nothing
what if we were all terrified
what if we were all keeping the same secret
what if all of us could never forgive ourselves
what if we were all ashamed of we knew not what
what if we all wanted to say it
say it out loud just once
say it out loud just once & get it off our chest
what would we want to say
Go on, say it
go on, it's time
go on, I won't tell a soul, I promise
go on, for god's sake,
the pandas are listening
the pandas are listening
Tuesday, September 12, 2017
A Few Times in the Recent Past
Same time as yesterday
the handtrucks
carry it away. We were masked
in anticipation of the rain.
We’d already renamed all the months of the year
starting with Reptile.
Our records
were sealed.
The gang had gotten lost
amongst all that dubious new construction
out back in the cornfield;
we didn’t hear from them for a week,
maybe more.
We were drawing giraffes
on sheets of graph paper
when the helicopters arrived.
We’d shed our horns by then;
We’d shed our horns by then;
it wasn’t like we needed them
to tell us that!
Talk about irony
is outlawed around here now.
“It’s a pity,” she said, “and the roses
were just coming into bloom.”
They don’t post the speed limit
for just that reason.
Sunday, September 10, 2017
The Nasty Hedonist Clears His Throat
Really, I’m only watching this
with half an eyeball. He quickly covered up
the last of the trapdoors
and said goodnite. You look so cute
in your profile picture, too,
but then, who are you?
Questions are for someone else.
So how come we can never
see her face?
It’s so boring to be constantly degraded.
Dramamine in the trophy room,
it was necessary
to keep from falling prey to the gaze
of all those glass-eyed heads.
You have to admire the effort
all considered. We didn’t know the cat’s name
so we contented ourselves
with offerings of melted cheese.
Well, that last line was a mistake
but she wasn’t good with make-up
and wished to learn. Mistakes
are stepping stones
to slipping overboard.
Then what?
Don’t ask.
Every girl should be that way,
George said.
That was ages ago.
Before the end of the story
became obvious, let’s say,
as a frayed knot
and we were doused in cartoon.
Meanwhile, the wildfires were still burning
as if anyone had to ask.
Yet they did.
Saturday, September 9, 2017
Thursday, September 7, 2017
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