ALL RESPONSES |
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I will never come out of my shell.
It’s here I live by pull of moon
And filter salty soup for food,
Secure in my secreted cell -
Defense against both beak and claw.
I have no Wanderlust,
No desire or love at all,
Nor do I quest for gold or truth -
But let the world come to me instead
While I grow a precious jewel for you. |
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It is possible more
poets would come
to this fucking place
if only someone would
turn the lights down,
put a bucket of raw
oysters on the table,
a short shot of tobasco,
& some iced Chardonnay
Of course no napkins
or eating utensils
would be provided
and the only requirement
would be for every poet
to write at least one poem
by the next morning’s cock
crow that didn’t mention ocean,
a hangover, rich wooden flavor
an ex-lover, an old lover,
an I-left-my-lover-and-
now-I’m-sad lover
or any number of words
that refer to male or female
anatomy appendages
Then and only then
would the words be real,
the paper would smell
a bit fishy, and everyone
who still could would leave
for home happy & content.
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You’ve probably seen signs
the world is getting smaller,
the universe crumbling in on itself.
Record heat around the globe
(just atoms huddling together for warmth).
Water stumbles over itself
to get to the bottom of it all.
Rocks crumble; trying to make
themselves so small
maybe time will miss them.
I’m getting old. You’re dying. |
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ice cold bucket full,
salt in the eye, on the skin,
brought by the sun, the breeze
unnoticed until you lick your
lip and taste all that mixed
with tabasco and sunburn
your glasses left the mark
of how you looked before
you left, the mark
of how you will look
when you return |
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Shells lined with the sunset
at five in August: if you had that,
would you want to come out?
If pearls are caused by stray
flecks in the flesh, we ought to be
swimming in them. Men in wet
suits and flippers snuffle up
the grey-white cups from off
the Carolinas, with hi-tech vacs.
Only the Japanese want pearls.
A few old women on Park Avenue--
an earring-maker in San Francisco.
Hardly enough to warrant
a bucketful. And they either slide
or slime, depending how you spell it.
Americans like them half-shelled,
raw. No guarantees. Oysters ingest
more poison than blowfish, and cannot
be trusted to process it all. If only we
had enough buckets and boiling tabasco
to cauterize the seas! A cauldron, garlic
chives, an R in the month, a hearty
moo---a box of little hexagons,
a beach fire, and good New England stew.
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Itasca tobasco
A bucket of oysters
And a checkered tablecloth by a lake….
Ah, wilderness….
Wait, what? No lemon?
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There once was a boy from Oy,
who really knew how to annoy.
When friends were around,
he would make this weird sound:
woywoywoywoywoywoywoy |
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Las ostras con limones,
there is only one true story about this
how you licked the rim of my heart
how many times I asked for it
how I soaked my sunshine into the
dregs of your whispers, wired for
love and silted by the sand,
townside work, beachside lazy.
There is only one true story about oysters:
how many you ate that day
and then the cramps later,
the explosion of fire.
There is only one true story
about love that found a home
for a minute, an hour, a month
a year, four years:
it is four years later and I never did
learn to eat oysters, fresh on a plate
sailing past in a graceful brown hand
down the beach, the vendor’s cries,
the sunglasses hiding the last
tears I would shed here for
what I sacrificed so we could be
full of cerveza y pescado y tortillas
y camarones and how you insisted
on oysters every time, how you
walked in front of me naked
and alone, how I asked for a miracle
to take me all the way back to the
first time I watched your mouth
make those crazy shapes to slurp
back the succulence of sea dreams
and salt.
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I ate an oyster from that bucket
it tasted better than a mucket
and with a glass of wine
oh it went down so fine
but not again 'cuz i upchucked et
/;-D |
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Why
Do you
Not come close
feel my touch, light
As a butterfly
Who sips sweet nectar
From flower hearts
As you may
From me
Now
Do
You not
Feel my love
Reach out to you
Come close to me, love
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it was fairly easy to tell
this great picnic-get-together
we want this to come off well
It needs just a tad
of assistance, so friend
now don’t get mad
nothing to serve
but a bucket of oysters
takes some nerve
with the screwballs
expected to come
I have had a dozen calls
these guys are as diverse
they expect more to eat
as any group in this universe
we'll be there soon
with ciabotta sandwiches
probably before noon
the fried chicken, salads, pickles,
olives, cupcakes, beer, water
the gang will arrive in trickles
as well as the case of wine
plates, cups napkins, utensils
everyone will be on time
a much fun will be had
with good food, music and friends
what more could we add
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if you're already gone
and can't relax with these
my Gonzo will find you without purpose
grimaced eyeing you down
and with terrible sound
Attend Attend to the
hot smoke upon you
high tension upon me
i'll cream helplessly
loathing the subway
as Gonzo...
jocker jumps on a bus
throws off driver
curses others back down
begins his quick swades through town
my God knows they have got to go
Rinji news o moshiagemasu!
Rinji news o moshiagemasu!
Emergency Emergency
Gonzo going toward the Ginza area!
Immediately escape, catch up,
find shelter please!
Oh no,
nowhere does he not go
showing up again and again
economics Gonzo now points up the folly of men
...go Gonzo! |
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I got a birthday
card in the mail
from you saying,
Get away from me
because you
look GREAT.
Are you
ok?
Waited a month to reply.
Got on the phone..
Yes, I'm ok..
another quick good bye..
I realize your childhood
was horrific
I realize you are afraid
of connection..
But, you are wrong..
wrong to treat
people this way.
I'm not the only one.
Think of all the love
you've lost
you're afraid
you're alone
All of the lives
running claimed..
All in the name
of your fear.
Each one like
a little shell
with little pearls
inside.
Waiting to give
a life of love
to someone
scared and blind.
Running will not
solve your plight
For you will
plainly see
Each time you try
To hide from life
A mirror
will there be
Full of shells
With little pearls
You never knew
were here
In it there
Will be your face
And all will
Be made clear.
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I set this table for you,
I set this table for two
After hearing the early
morning fuck you! and I'm sorry,
I'm sorry batted about between
two lovers like a little ball with feathers,
rising up through the thin floorboards
so close, could be us
instead, we lie in bed, trying
not to listen, trying not to learn
thankful for that brief
moment the radiators clanked awake,
hissing and spitting, pissed at the disruption
drawing our attention inwards,
to that table set for two
romantic even without candles,
romantic even without you |
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in Act 1 in a darkness breakdown with the peril of Stilleto
Andre thinks
Brave soft carizone find my dancing pulse
- brutally owned thing once moved - a heart not hot, only smoking
- have Italian's forgotten this desire's knocking
- for the Phaedra and the pleasing of Aphrodisian acts.
if plans are hatched to turn her away from wedded chalice
"he will be stabbed!" in stilleto true form
dieing again, beautiful and true, "she is a wonderful thing,"
this thorn bird will sing. |
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spring song held in mouth
the journey; oysters packed
sung by blades of grass |
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(I posted the poem above from memory. See where that got me! Maybe I shouldn't do that at work anymore?)
Spring song held in mouth
oysters packed, the journey
sung by blades of grass |
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i had something
to tell you,
but i forgot
what it was
you aren't
even here
should i
remember
oh oh oh!
nevermind. |
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In these barely warm spring mornings
when the fog covers this lake that faces us
I find myself still dreaming of kissing you, each day;
this urban mist is more magical when lifted
to reveal the awaken cardinals, their sharp songs
firing wishes across the blue sky.
In days like these I still think
of tracing my favorite steps earnestly
down the middle of your back
smiling distracted by the familiar;
instead, I stop halfway
craving littles pieces of your skin
frustrated by the reality of us.
In the background of our current lives
the depth of k.d. lang's voice reminds me
that I have been outside of you
for far too long
and further yet outside of myself,
at each step more unforgiving
to the fragile crystals of desire
I occasionally see in your eyes.
I have been trying to tell you for years now
that this lake is too empty without you
that this air lacks the humidity of your breath
but you won't listen
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The whites of your eyes set fire to a great mind.
Your skin is leather,
melted, your wax fingertips are curled in pain.
You used to strum the House of the Rising Sun,
sing passionately towards the sky.
In your wildest dreams you were dangerous, famous.
We are more aware of you now
Although your voice is not as loud-
your bite is not as sharp or toothy.
Mom shucks her pearly oysters and grins
throws them back in the clanking tin.
A beer for you, for dinner,
is as good as it’s gonna get.
March 20, 2009
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Twice a month, one Mr. F., foisters
An enigmatic, provocative stimulus
Onto the resourceful heads of Minnesota poets.
Undaunted they rise up, hoisters
Of banners of artistic response
And noble effort, defying his efforts to confound.
Daily, weekly, poets are joisters
Firming the flooring of North Country
Lyricism, not tongue-in-groove, but tongue-in-cheek.
Poetic nuns might leave their cloisters,
In droves, in pilgrimage, to join the ranks
Of versifying contenders and rhyming roisters.
Nice photograph, Britt.
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a silver bucket
filled with uncracked
clams;
the evening sun
lifting her dress,
tawdry and teasing,
and me
unable to touch her
in that one place
she gleams |
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if your salt was my sea, and free fast rhythms
of nature--grass, and trees, and leaves built
by ants--
if my pants were insane for you,
like my brain, and my brain
was sane for you, like my pants,
I might enjoy oysters
more than the salt
on the roads here,
in Saint Paul Minnesota.
freedom from seasons
would be my quite reason
for stranding myself
on an island. and old men
in hats--so old that
they
remember how
Jurassic
plants
were grown--would own me
my love--my goggled life.
if I were a was,
and you were my is,
and steady reflections stood tall
on the ground
of a downtown fountain,
or a wave on the ocean--
if anything was true, ever, I
would love you, you.
oysters.
and maybe I do. you
cannot know--I tell you
the truth,
but somewhere between
my soul and lips
the meaning
of my breath
slips,
and even in a picture
of death these sweet
aphrodisious myths
make sweet kisster-chris-kisses
for less than a dollar.
a penny. a breath.
and the mess
of string theory
I see on a PBS broadcast
pictured screen can’t tie me
to you, because I’m not
looking for pearls, or plastic or
gold--I just want
the lies that you tell me
inmutters
at three in the morning
when we are both alive
here,
not placid.
not roiling or
boiling,
but choosing
even in sleep, or
dreams, or sifting sighs,
to live in between
the door and the kitchen,
the bedroom, how strange
that we reason in actions
instead of slip pictures
of someone’s other
and season.
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Tell them about ice-fishing. If the eyes don’t glaze over, there is some interest. Continue. Say “We slept on the ice for a few days in January.”
“In a house – RIGHT?”
“Huh – what?”
“In a house? Right? In a house?”
“Uh – yes, right, of course – in a house! With heat and insulation and sleeping bags! It was warm. There were holes in the floor, holes drilled in the ice, and we fished through them for walleye using an electronic fish-finder, jigging reels and sticks – hand lines-- with live bait.”
Now – you hadn’t given much thought to what it meant to sleep on the ice in January in Minnesota. Why would you say “in a house?” We’re not trying to make ourselves out to be genetically altered Übermensch who can sleep naked on a frozen lake. No. Just people, who need to get out of musty homes that recycle bad breath and farts for months until the windows open. You can’t explain the cold, though. Impossible. How do you describe the absence of something, until you know it? It’s like trying to describe Nothing. They can imagine the shivering, the slippery roads, the pain. Leave it at that.
Maybe speak of other things. Dreams of running for miles on a icy lake towards a burning horizon, holding out your arms in the thin air, being lifted above the tiny fish-houses, the flat expanse, the pines, aflame with sunset – the thunderbird. Of the loud crack ice makes when it freezes, starting miles away and ending under your shack. Of fear and love and fish. But mostly of love, and how it keeps us here. |
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Fishing the ring through my eyebrow
I wonder about the song I sing;
of lips pouting,
yet beautiful enough
to steal the words from
your mouth.
Caressing you with
bubbles
of hope.
I am not the one
to last.
Not the one
to come home to.
I am
the
one
you want to fuck
Now go home
to inertia |
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She tells him she’s in the mood for oysters
Raw with lemon and Tabasco, wants the grit
Between her teeth, the smooth body
On the back of her tongue.
He tells her there is nothing like a cold beer
Afterwards. Tilts his back
And swallows.
The sun is about to set, slip
below the curve of the earth—she does not know
which is more beautiful, this sky or his face--
which she loves more, the surging river of his body
or the quiet pool of his words.
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You stand there with a grin
The same smile I’ve always known
On the cliff with arms outstretched
And fall slowly backwards
Towards the rocks and gulls
Out over the great lake
Your face meets setting sun
Your arms embrace earth
Taking secrets with you
Leaving only the grin behind |
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Finally it is read allover
under your dress flowing down in Season
undoing
pouring gently over the green floor.
and being only Phaedra
who'd tried to stop it
no more.
My little laugh didn't surprise you
- my puppy truly knew
how beautiful smiles going for miles
to hugly
bump ugly with you
:)
your eyes bullying brown from under a mean brow
Stubbornly good looking for looking out
pooring me fast falling allover the green floor
Lips and hips move with a swagger
how to have such smiling and lick them
clutching
try not for self caring write this leave this
without
necessarily obsessing your whereabouts when leaving.
You are here and throughout space
along a string of mine not alone
for awhile until you’re needing
watering them shoes with your tongue
over at Mars halls coming out
the stiletto topping it
then sticking it
here upon our landing on Mars. |
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I’ve heard that sea wives cook
oysters into a stew that bleeds;
they fill white bowls with green
onions, chopped, plus slices
for garnish; two tablespoons
butter, white pepper, cayenne
pepper and one quart half
-and-half; the onions are sauted
in butter until tender; remaining
ingrediants are added and cooked
until edges of oysters are curling,
not boiling, looking more like shrunken
ears: awful looking things, devoured
before the hunger leaves; poor things
that cannot seal themselves against
the boil and roll, placidly, past huge
wooden spoons; who wouldn’t consider
staying longer on an ocean avoiding
a sea wife with a face so small
it could fit easily inside a closed fist. |
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To be in the moment,
with a silver bucket of oysters,
some Tabasco and cocktail sauce,
a six-pack of Dixie longnecks,
and a book of James Wright
complete poems.
To sit at a picnic table
covered by a checkered blue,
plastic table cloth, and face
toward the tidewaters,
in which only nature
and corpses swim.
To smile then,
and lift her eyes upward
into the power of the sun,
until bright lily pad shapes
float across her sight.
To feel lifted by a breeze,
to desire the touch
of fingers not her own.
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I've been circling
this thought
secreted deep in my mind
like an oyster
cemented to ganglia
for weeks now,
moving closer, ever closer,
yet finding its halves
forever closed
on the waking mind.
Where is the knife
that may
shuck a shell such
as this?
But at night my dreams
are all
soft flesh and nacre;
bodies rolled
in tumbled glass
and the sea-sucked
foam rush between us.
In the mornings
I drink coffee,
flip the radio
dial, and worry
over a bit of nail
as the sun fills
my rearview mirror. |
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Not so much to be said about cabbages and kings,
sitting near among Gull droppings and jagged rocks on the shore of a taupe-sand beach.
The Walrus babbles about cornflakes and eggs; the Carpenter speaks only Spanish, so God knows what he's talking about.
But the oysters man, they hit the spot,
conveniently served with a Coke and a smile. |
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To be in the moment,
with a bucket of oysters,
Tabasco and cocktail sauce,
a six-pack of Dixie longnecks,
and a book of James Wright poems.
At a picnic table
covered by a checkered blue,
plastic table cloth,
facing the tidewaters,
in which only nature swims.
Smiling then,
with eyes upward
into the power of the sun,
until bright lily pads
float across her sight.
To feel lifted by a breeze,
and desire the touch
of fingers not her own.
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i)
i think of you
when i use my fingers
to trace certain stars
or chase dreams across
a varnished sunset
i think of you
eating an oyster
in your red dress
at that table
in Georgetown
your smile; a candle
burns behind you
outloud, in words
with reverence
and silence
ii)
i’ll think of you
when i hold out hands
and can’t touch you
anymore
in sadness, empty
my deepest space
at that certain table,
during that certain light |
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We’re across a table, drinking the wine
in the bar of the St. Paul Grill.
God is seated behind us, with the conductor
and a tenor with the ghostly eyes of an angel.
In this part of the world
beauty and goodness
and that certain something in your expression
are the only song.
But still there are the minor gods
chatting, flipping through the menu, ordering oysters.
You’ve had your other lives. I’m out on parole.
Still it’s a lovely evening, lovely
in the dark colossal sky that somehow pours
a few white flecks to dance around us.
We stop by their table as we leave
a little drunk. I thank them for the performance.
When the gods give you something
take it—and run for the door. |
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She will leave the porchlight off
For the moon, like a full mouth
in the belly of the sky, spills
its way to her front door.
The air is honey tonight. She breathes it in,
remembers the first time she felt his body’s heat,
remembers too, the brush of a bumblebee
cupped in two hands, how her stomach tumbled
in anticipation, back when summer lasted long enough
to forget about shoes and how to write in cursive.
She loved clouds then, and how each blade
of grass was a different shade of green.
He has amazing hands. He has
this way of capturing words and releasing them.
Has this way of opening the night, unfolding
each star, point by point and laying them
on the table. She lifts one to her lips
and gently blows, watches how it rides the air,
realizes, that even stars know not to hurry, know
how to linger, how to love even this late winter night.
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Summer days spent in the backyard
sharing time and food with friends,
pouring a glass of water and one of wine,
sipping, joking, comparing life against life
while kids run and play,
while tending the barbeque,
or sitting, talking together.
The right things in life are the ones we feel.
The gestures, the warmth,
the tenderness a gaze brings.
The hand of a child
showing us a treasure made of pebbles,
the heat of a night without mosquitoes,
watching the bonfire
and the roasting marshmallows.
The safe things in life are the ones we cherish.
The hand holding ours,
a voice singing from the next room,
the scent of coffee percolating,
signs of a life within ours.
We live holding big dreams and wishes,
but the small ones are the oysters of life,
flavorful and delicate in texture,
daily presents, beads of love,
the good things,
the simple ones.
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a blinking eye
flips shadows into light
turning them into soft kisses
grazing my cheek
while the suckling root of my heart
runs red from Tabasco splattered oysters
laying in a belly of beer
I am a fattened calf, laid upon an alter
of discarded skins – roughened and dried–
armor no more
tears chance their escape from every pore
while tendon and muscle settle to dust;
bones bleach a lighter shade of pale
compliments of a mid day sun
suffering no fools
pregnant with ideas,
we choose to stay close enough
to speak; without saying a word
day summersaults; landing in twilights refrain
all the while, summer plays on the radio |
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Where under the Bayreuth, villains reason
Find a red river song of trust for the season
Wanting to eschew the eyes of March's men
Measure by pivot under Norse Star saga
Pour me now directly upon them!
Listen for Milky clams from Heaven’s Ides
Paint to compose a wedded ring
Sleigh the institution of vanity's death
Run now as aprons or togas within.
Forth from thy Master Caesar’s commission
Push to end as baritone in the month of Mars
Implore your eyes; I’m not without God’s direction
Release Phaedra as thin ice upon melting.
What a fragile line I walk and pray
Pry not my desire to covet her as mine
Not to ess or swizzle stick her recipes or Cinderella’s by Giuseppe
Not without wanting to know her own Ides of beauty
Keep to your children's names, ages, and things.
Self serve to fondle your feelings on canvas
Turn the mirror to Me the younger
Confide with women's over confidence
Spring the faults hiding what you’ve been hating.
Eros like shivers helps you to find me
Wanting just for you to love yourself too
Wondering where your shadow leaves
TO BE as art – not for if it’s real – just so that we can see it.
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A friend of mine would die
if she consumed these.
My mother would slide,
smoothly, the mollusks from their husks,
and slip them onto her tongue
as if they were the only pleasure
she'd ever taste, again.
I, well, I eat them only for dinner,
if it's polite. |
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