ALL RESPONSES |
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Just when Ursula thought things had improved
with her digestive track something fishy
revealed itself and all hope for a pleasant
evening at the theatre with her new love
interest went up in smoke. To prevent a huge
flame from escaping she threw out a red
herring by fastening the martingale
to her clenched jaw. |
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i tell them i eat red herring,
kipper snacks from a tin
i wait for the mailman, the news
paper, anything with print
i travel from upstairs mirror
to downstairs mirror, write a letter
to Elizabeth Stabenow: stork
teacher who plucked words
from my sleeves in 12th grade
and made me rewrite them:
exercises for anger management
i tell them i order Happy Meals
from the drive-up window
and pretend my children
are still young and snotty
i recall strange things: my pants
hanging over my honeymoon head
board or sitting at my mother’s funeral
when one of the flowers in a red bouquet
wilted and dropped on an air vent
or drinking Mad Dog 20/20 in 1972
with Rae Ann under school bleachers
at a September football game; me later puking
and Rae Ann cradling my head
between her exquisite breasts beneath
her soft white hooded sweatshirt,
stroking my neck with her small hands
my father’s English Leather, the smell
of Pall Mall cigarettes in his left coat pocket,
the burning leaves of October in our back
yard behind the Beach Road house
frying bacon, vanilla, French toast: maple syrup
in the middle, just the way my father liked it
i tell them there are stories in me, stacked
like attic boxes and i’m trying to write them
down before i forget the syllables of my words |
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London doesn't have them any more.
If you went to the south coast, Margate,
Hastings, you might find some up a small
disused mews down by the beachfront.
Not that people think it's un-cool now,
or un-tasty, but because the North Atlantic
is fished out. Cod have gone forever,
can jellied eels be far behind? Who'd
want chips and vinegar by themselves?
Now and then, a seal pops up with half a
dun-gold herring in its mouth. I've seen
gulls dive, and snatch poor selkie's lunch.
But Fish & Chips, luv? Not today! Not on.
Try and find some -- mark my words, they're gone.
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i.
It was twenty-eight years ago,
in the hills of north Georgia,
that we watched the seasons pass.
Winter was cool and rainy;
my shoes worn through to wet feet.
My nose ran, infections set in;
there was no substance
to allay ignorance.
But the puddles would dry,
and there was always enough money
for breakfast at two A.M.
ii.
Two eggs over-easy stared me down,
their edges diaphanous, lacy flares
around binary bodies.
They urged me to break them both.
My plate became a palette --
Rivers of yolk flowed
over dark-peppered sausage
and grits drenched in butter.
Threads of hot sauce flew flaming
through the greasy cosmos.
The product looked like Pollock,
a work of art, fit to eat.
iii.
Full of cholesterol and coffee,
we walked beneath the stars,
waiting for the sun to rise
on our bright and hazy world.
Sleep afflicted debtors in their beds,
a learned behavior we swore
we would never assume.
Life was, and is, art,
the buffet on which we feast
without reservation or schedule,
hungering for variety, and more.
It causes us to ignore
cold, wet rain, passing elements
on our way to the next good meal,
after which we hopefully,
at last, sleep well. |
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One day I shall swim away like a herring,
he said.
And be eaten like a fish by death,
she said.
At high tea, high tide,
she pours, he divides the fish.
Outside a gull shrieks. A roof shingle
flaps in the wind like a lonely flag.
An hour ticks by.
The hour preceding, heavy
with growling belly, the hour
following, calmer, the murmuring sea. |
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“That meal was dust,” she said,
Hiding her mouth behind a little hand,
“Dust and ashes.” I knew it was the day
Her mother told her it was not all right
Between her and Daddy. The grinning Hamburger
Did not amuse, the fries were not quite perfect,
She twisted the strange toy in its plastic package,
Knowing now that she would never get it right. |
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Three squares a day
will do it for me,
but there is no better way
for a day-starter
than easy over.
Three or four will do
as long as you
throw in some hash-browns
and bacon never hurt my feelings
if you set some catsup nearby.
But be sure
to skip the Hollandaise.
Plain toast
butter and jam included
will tide me over
till lunch.
I believe
a real good hamburger
is America's best kept secret,
and it does not hurt if
it is served with raw onions
plus melted cheese
all over
the whole served on a plate
still hot from the stove.
If she relents,
I'll have those darlings
the good old pelmeni,
from Russia. And if you don't
know what they are
you have not lived
but all I can do is,
like ecstasy.
Of course,
now,
that I have had supper,
it is my bedtime.
I'll do the chores tomorrow. |
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Inspired by Tim Brennan's poem, "What I Tell People about Turning Fifty"
I tell them I like routines now. Each morning,
I breakfast on yogurt, banana, and English muffin
with butter and low-fat strawberry jam.
I say I’m best with silence
and simplicity. The weather entertains
my thoughts more often than I want to admit
but doesn’t yet keep me home.
Every day, I think I ought to be doing something
I’m not doing. But time and again, my attention
is drawn off by the shape of some lovely cloud.
I am content to stare into vivid sunsets,
without needing a drink. And when I see palsy
in tree branches shaking with wind,
I have no fear of the wild and unusual.
I say I rarely abandon people anymore.
Friendships are delicate. Over the years,
I’ve lost too many to inattention.
I look at my family so differently now.
There, too, is wisdom in years dividing events.
And shadows that come behind me in twilight
are not my dear departed following,
nor a dark slave of a god,
not the spawn of my sins,
only the day-old ghost of myself.
But there’s power in death.
I love them better now they’re gone.
Everything is purest in distillation.
When I wake restless from an uncharitable dream,
or become displeased by some small morning trifle,
often by afternoon, I could skip or leap.
And always have to choke back the urge
to shout riotously in any quiet room.
Mostly, I say I’ve wasted my life.
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(An article in the Los Angeles Times described how American soldiers in Iraq found a trace of chemicals but they don’t know if they were used for weapons or fertilizer.)
When I wanted strawberries, I visited the store.
Now in Southern California when I pop one
of these luscious reds, these subjects of poetry
into my mouth I see dark figures, question
marks swaying above green plants, the same
bent figures I see every day early on my way
to school with heads and necks covered
sometimes wearing masks over noses
and mouths, in the afternoon still there.
Some days a man in a white space suit and helmet
sprays the plants with something that makes me
shut my windows but the workers a few feet away
are still picking. Today as I drive through the field
young men trudge to cars parked along the road.
As they laugh and shake the mud from their boots
part of me longs to stop, call each by name and part
of me wants to drive faster, away from the ones
whose backs are the tables from which we eat.
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we had tea
fish tea
(I thought it was fitting
for
post Christmas,
behavior
being that fish
are sly
symbols of
Christiani-
tea ;)
and my Buddah smile
said
it was time for
fresh
attitudes of dress
when it came to steeping
something
so
fish it is, smoked once
steeped twice.
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Tonight I feel like ice, and about to shatter.
My body now shards, free of this shell
I inhabit, I sparkle, gem-like
in the moonlight, am now
a thousand pieces, each
one stunning, each one
small enough to hold
in your hand. Place
me on your tongue
please, let me
melt there.
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a white-out
on the highway
((ice wind snow
snow ice wind
cold words
coagulate on the way out
of my mouth ((a true tundra
silence
for brief spats of time nothing
exists: no trees, no birds, no
road
only white passes: my past,
not even the future
is ahead of me
the present, i keep telling myself,
should stay open to warm opportunity
((focus on road that isn’t there,
drive truck no one can see,
((live a life suggested by chance
daddy once told me sometimes
one has to take on the cold,
to escape the heat
((right now…i believe him
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A fish
A table
Inside a bag
Giant pretzel sticks
A towel
Holding
A fish, around
The pot of tea is often
Too much
Wooden, grained, scaled, planed
To smoothness, muck
Scraped from the fish's side, again scales,
As if they were being used somewhere
As silver plates
For mice to eat from
Once they are disjointed
I am sure that the Happy Meal
Was meant to make
More money
Than this
But today it is homely
More so than the way my heart
Is involved with the past.
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Why is Buddha here?
His belly full of gold
Showing up a mages globe--
Not staying where he is
Told;
Why does he smile,
Unresigned,
And wait
For a Filipino mother
To offer him an orange
And a stick of incense--a way to rinse
With vapors--
To smolder
Near this table
Of America
And of the cold North Sea,
Of pretense and
Simplicity. How ironic
You might say, but really
He is as lonely
As the fish, the kettle, the bag, as
You and I being you, and i.
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In his happy meal
Marcus received the Buddha
I got Thor's hammer |
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Great-Grandmother:
Have some lutefisk, pickled herring, lefse-
No. I want McDonald's.
But that's not food-
At least it tastes good.
But it's not good for you-
What do you know? You use potato flakes for mashed potatoes.
It's a shortcut-
So is McDonald's.
When you're grown, you'll know.
I know.
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Fresh walleye, hot tea,
Ted Kooser's poems to muse upon.
Sit, we'll read aloud. |
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There he is, The God of Blair Avenue
at the kitchen table
hard pressed in army fatigues
reading aloud to my mother
some obscure scientific theory.
She’s in the process of overcooking
our dinner the way he likes it
and the way we’d better too
if we know what’s good for us.
She’s only half-listening, but pretending
to agree in all the right places.
We are not to interrupt when he reads aloud
and know what would happen if we did.
After he’s done, my mother declares
the text “interesting” and says she’s happy
to have heard it. Satisfied, The God returns
to his finished crossword puzzle
to black out all the lettered boxes
business-like with a felt-tipped pen.
The God’s job in World War II
was to protect the half-track,
walk beside it and pick off stray Germans.
In Korea, he interrogated prisoners
and helped rewrite the CIA code.
Here, he’s Director of Lessons.
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