ALL RESPONSES |
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Peg has the news on. I never have the TV on while I write. It’s time to get that office set up. Instead, I wired and set up surround sound in the living room. It really does sound good, though, and there are no wires showing. Maybe I could do this type of thing for a living. Wait a minute --- I did. Ok, now we’re moving furniture and shit into the attic and now we’re reprogramming the TV in the spare bedroom and now the Twins are playing Tampa Bay and now I’m drinking a glass of Chardonnay out of a box. It’s Sunday. Don and Donna don’t work on Sunday. Maybe that’s why my writing is lame, my energy is lame, my brain is lame and the Twins are lame. But we have to clean, clean, clean because I invited family over to watch the Mankato big city fireworks tonight. Maybe they can walk over to a park or maybe they can watch from our backyard where the big cottonwood blocks the view. We can start a fire in our backyard and light the fireworks we bought two years ago. I am a bottle rocket that was never lit, but I’m still a bottle rocket. I’d rather be a rocket that travels forever through the mists of the crab nebula and Andromeda and the rings of Saturn and dives into black holes and re-emerges in another dimension where I meet King Arthur.
Now for the fireworks. |
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Scent
She is preparing for you
there in the pitch of it
black
Her curves are as
perfect as need
be
Her whiteness
in virginity almost
shines
And you can see
in the dark
Fly |
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She undresses. She
has an impossible white
shoulder.
Her body bends
at her scapula,
her ribs. Finally,
her sternum.
Her ears are filled with wind.
She is a night cactus. A food choice.
The turn of first her ankle. Then
her leg. She looks nice
in the exploding light
of fireworks. |
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Make your strokes intentional, he said over my shoulder, his breath tracing the nape of my neck.
But I can't halt my hands because the flower she'll bloom at the sun's first blush, the moment will dissolve in the light.
My brush traces the tendrils to the tip before he grasps my hand.
Wait, he said, until you can't anymore, then go slow. Be like God when he made this perfect bloom.
I submit, but don't want to, even though I know he's right. |
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Carp eat your hooks,
vines and stinkers.
Why tempt the carp?
Too ugly to eat.
Get a lure: Hawaiian wiggler,
with a green ruffled
skirt and a pink hook.
Carp hate those.
But bass take them.
Bass are tastier. Can't resist
a pointed radish. You get
a fry-up, floured
and buttered. Contrariwise,
you could pull a handful,
and strew them out
to poison ground squirrels. |
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I told you
of the myth of Daedalus and his son Icarus,
how imagination made them grace the sky
only to succumb to the power of the sun.
The lake in which Icarus tumbled bears his name
like the poem I wrote to you when you were born.
I want to tell you that the force
that makes us fall, or turn or bend
is the desire to reach
something that doesn't quite belong to us
the light ray just above the window,
the anchor to the vine, the water droplets...
There is so much neither you nor the flower knows
the obstacles hidden in this route of yours
the distractions within.
Your young restless mind is not quite ready
for the often ugly realism behind life's struggles
but nature and the myths of gods have given you
stories to build upon, bridges to raise you there
wherever you choose to go. |
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Look through the lens of the moment.
She halts in mid-dream.
The dream is yours and hers.
This is prom night, graduation,
wedding, first child. And see
the wind-rippled dress,
the curve of a breast,
the promised thorn,
a life unfolding. And taste
the language of hope,
the perfumed destiny,
the horseback hero.
This is poise, an absolute value.
It exists when it is, and when it is not.
Its dark blood surges in night black,
endless lake in which the heart seeks an end.
The moment will always be there,
even as the last petal falls. |
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indian pipe
legend says
where early man
knocked pipe ashes on the forest floor
a ghost arose
a ghost still rises
in shade and seclusion
bends over
solitary bloom
inspects an ashen stalk-self
pinkish-white clamminess
bruises black under thumb pressure
from another world
how can this be a flower
without green
without respectable leaves, only scales
no fragrance, only dank earth odor
pushing up from decay
shunning sun
convulsion weed corpse plant ice flower
folk names hide a success story
ascendance out of ruin
symbiosis in an underground realm
woods woman watches ghost form emerge
oblivious to green
the universe recurves
looks back on itself
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(Modifications made to S4, L3-4)
Look through the lens of the moment.
She halts in mid-dream.
The dream is yours and hers.
This is prom night, graduation,
wedding, first child. And see
the wind-rippled dress,
the curve of a breast,
the promised thorn,
a life unfolding. And taste
the language of hope,
the perfumed destiny,
the horseback hero.
This is poise, an absolute value.
It exists when it is, and when it is not.
Its blood surges into the dark lake,
Where the heart seeks an end.
The moment will always be there,
even as the last petal falls. |
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The night disguised
as earth–or is it earth
disguised as night–
has made this root,
this pod, all white,
a strange coffin
for seed or flesh,
a crooked leg
growing down.
You don’t come
easily
to such scenes,
too other wordy.
Nothing like the silent
house where you grew
up. |
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Underneath the satin lies a queen -
- flushed deep pink: the shade of peonies
at full bloom. Her laugh rings
like a doorbell. Tiny, unfinished.
her future manipulated with a hand saw.
I saw that girl in the mirror - the one
you used to know. She believed in unicorns,
in forgiveness. She laid her head down at prayer.
She actually closed her eyes.
Between the numerous freckles and scars
a map is drawn of my fate; my chipped nails and
empty photo albums, the avenues and boulevards
that lead to the negatives and the lace-
all that’s left to speak to the past.
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Pulsating energy illuminates auras,
suspended orbs of radiance intertwined.
Passing through fields of perception,
organic roots hold grounded reality,
as we know it. |
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It is mid-morning; he is still
showering
She is wearing his favorite blue dress,
her blonde hair pulled back pertly,
ponytail style; only last evening
she was again his prom date;
she with the soft voice, no screams
when he hit her; the apologies,
the flowers...carnations, maybe
will come later
The bruises are shined, mixed
with heavy make-up; no one
will notice
It’s funny how she remembers
the blue and red lights in the back-
ground last night, the lyrics
of some forgotten melody,
playing from the bed stand |
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the last finger of dark times
the last pressure of earth
the last definite movement
the last thing born of birth
the last whisper between mouths
the last curse before grace
the last grapple of long looks
the last feather to be smoothed
the last love unknown
the last laughter in moment
the last lightness in space
the last figure of chance
the last chaos of place |
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There’s heterosex and homosex and right now I just want to get back
to your sex.
Stereo plays some song,
might mean as much to me, as any other about it,
'The Suburbs.'
But for your grace,
and for your shape,
at once I understand,
the right kind of sprawl. |
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I am writing
at my desk
trying to make
a woman
I cannot find
a name for her
I have been
writing the same
about her
for years
Somewhere
on her body
should be
the words
I will go
to the train
overpass
late
Wednesday
wait for her
to contact me
like never
before |
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The quiet of the night
is broken by the sound of your high heels,
echoing duet played on the sidewalk.
Your cigarette lit in the darkness,
a little lantern,
the signal you are waiting.
There is no paradise for you,
no dreams, or happy ending...
Hard earned cash, a warm car,
maybe.
The stranger’s breath on your neck,
is filth blocked,
in your mind,
by the same halo of darkness that surrounds you
while your skin glows under the streetlight.
Your body may be bought
but your soul is not,
and even when soiled by life
still holds something sacred,
the shadow of innocence
the beauty and tender appearance
of the flower you once were.
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A dim light, a small flickering flame
thin as a lizard’s tongue. A lizard’s tongue
chasing the one thought, gnat-ish in form.
And green gills rippling, the only movement
worth mentioning, but please do not look too long.
Air too warm for the space it’s in,
The walls too tall, the windowsills caked with ash and
The bodies of dead flies.
The door jammed, the knob broken, the words
I seek just skittered underneath it
shaking their heads, wiping their hands of me.
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and so it begins
this descent into earth
this splitting open while the future
is still unknown
unknowable
and so it is unfolds
this thirst for air
this push upwards in search of moisture,
patina of dew on bowed head,
the desire to be wholly unfurled
in darkness, embraced by night
and so it exists
the fragile petaled star,
this lovely crown of gleaming,
kisses thrown to the moon
and the milky way
scattered along the rocky path,
this curling
back inward under sun’s harsh glare
and so it was
exquisite scent
drifts on a delicate desert breeze
to the wanderers of the night: coyote,
owl, tarantella
on this night of secret beauty
and does Persephone know
she has a rival?
Did the Queen arise to stretch forth
her hand and touch the star-lit
petal and did she forbid
it to bloom again?
Is this why its pleasure
is allowed only
a one night stand?
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I cannot place the leaves
driven from the snout--
the holy atmosphere
of breath brought into
darkness after a shout
is made far off away
under trees, in the last
light of mostly stars,
in the wooded glee
of glowing bugs, and
the snippet left of Mars
after the moon is empty
enough to not have cool
pooling in its pail. The seed
rises in the warmth
beneath my feet. I move
away, never seeing
it greet the day. |
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During the evening’s rain shower,
a lady opens her umbrella;
she bustles from her cab to the theatre’s foyer
and closes again.
Or a doorman removes his hat, bowing,
then replaces it on his head.
How does one introduce oneself today?
The briefest gesture suffices. The opening,
and the closing thereafter, says it all.
It says all of it: I’d rather not be working.
I’m in love, is it plain to see?
I am rich.
I am not.
I would like to be romantic about the Queen,
to say I aspire to make impressions like hers—
conserving my bright face, becoming
the debutant at the right moment. Lingering
perfume tempting the pack rats, my words
a tuber and delicacy,
the prompt disappearance.
I would like to say, through articulation
of my fingers and wrist during a wave:
Not a stick. Not another zombie in the field
of the dead. A butterfly, perhaps.
But I am not rich. And I’d rather be working
than not. My introduction is a morning glory,
common though elegant,
on cue. |
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