wither, thou goest
all over my body
make crepe-scapes in skinfolds
and fishflesh so scroddy
thou growest in nostrils
a junglish forest
make innocent toenails
into quasimodos
make brown hair albino
put ground glass in elbows
install in the brain box
a dense fog machine;
we are walking freak shows
who live unto ninety
reward for unrecklessness:
age wreckfully–
but it beats oblivion
if we get coffee
so bring it on, Old Age,
i wither with glee.
your mind: trapped in a decaying brain.
brain: trapped in a body hurtling toward decrepitude.
body: in a creaking bed in a crammed apartment in a chancy neighborhood in a corruptible city.
city: in a state in a state of chaos, in a country that has lost her way.
country: vulnerable and hellbound, commandeered by a tantrumming madman whose deceit is enabled and championed by “very good people,” betraying allies and making flinders of “liberty and justice for all,” becoming an enemy of the civilized world.
world: wars and rumors of wars, famine, pestilence, death and destruction.
what does this trapped mind in a defective body in a rude and barbarous country in an apocalyptic world do?
it remembers and finds heroes, gathers friends, sounds the alarm, petitions a kindly Universe for redress.
fights with every fiber.
loves in the face of the Beast.
it would be charming if he were a little boy playing the world-domination game known as Risk and popular in my own childhood
where patience gains you armies and positioning gives you a defensible base of operations and dice-throws are used to conduct warfare
but history records the great injustices and sufferings that accompany empire-building
and reichs and manifest destinies and conquer-we-must correlate with genocide
but this not-a-little-boy anymore says “even bad publicity can be good”
and he casts his acquisitive eye on twenty-first-century turf
because his idea of positive thinking is “we wants it”
and his armies and armaments are a little boy’s toys
1
mister chairman/jerking off is not a crime/but since you ask/yes/repeatedly
much less so in recent years though/i mean look around/it is downright apocalyptic
but yes/in the last 46 years/5000 times is a conservative estimate/nowhere near the record/but indicative of either compulsion or unrequited love
may i be excused?
what? could you repeat the question?
to the best of my recollection/four days ago/in the restroom of the urologist’s office/to obtain a sample/to test sperm motility
may i NOW be excused??
thank you.
[headline of ny post: FORMER AG COMES CLEAN]
2
“he annoys me. destroy him. go all the way back to his childhood. there is a fact that will lead to many facts that will lead to his downfall. get it and get it by midnight.”
“already done, boss. sworn affidavits, photos, audio.”
[file is opened and perused]
“oh, man. great stuff. can’t wait to use it on that greek bastard. who did this excellent work?”
“an algorithm, sir. calls itself a. i. buddie.”
“give the coders a bonus.”
[awkward pause]
“boss, the coder was also an algorithm.”
3
trim your eyebrows lose that paunch/make a splash sartorial/gussie up for they’ll soon launch/your not-quite-dead memorial.
even thoughts expressed online/make you someone’s foe/this our culture’s in decline/as down the drain we go.
when poets collide
sara teasdale
met edna st. vincent millay
near the front desk
of the martha washington hotel
in new york city
in february 1913.
they had tea and hit it off,
later cruising 5th avenue on the top of a bus.
sara was established,
vincent had just won acclaim for “Renascence,”
and yet though sara was eight years older
they were both in their twenties.
later vincent wrote her mom
that “I call her Sara and she me Vincent”
and “. . . I love her . . .”
and quoted these teasdale lines:
“I hoped that he would love me,/And he has kissed my mouth,/But I am like a stricken bird/That cannot reach the south/For tho’ I know he loves me/Tonight my heart is sad,/His kiss was not so wonderful/As all the dreams I had.”
and sometime near the end of 1917
vincent wrote “First Fig”
which contained what her sister norma said
was “surely the most quoted and mis-quoted quatrain in America”:
“My candle burns at both ends;/It will not last the night;/But ah, my foes, and oh, my friends—/It gives a lovely light!”
the meter and rhyme
are strikingly similar to teasdale’s
and so these lines of mine humbly suggest
that the one would not exist without the other.
once upon a time certain honorees
were given a key to the city
by the city’s grateful mayor
in phoenix arizona where i now live
my town waited till 2019
and gave its first key to randy johnson
johnson has become a photographer
but in the fall classic of 2001
he won the world series for the arizona diamondbacks
he was our paul bunyan
stilt-leggedly striding to the pitcher’s mound
a lawnmower mowing down the opposition
he killed a pigeon once
fastball turning an unlucky bird to feathers
the ball he threw was also ruled dead
so we gave this freak of nature a free key
and phoenix became the land of the freak,
home of the bravo, in the key of d-backs
we are told space is curved
and that gravity does it
and it gets us unnerved
when they show us a dimple
on a 2D flat page
yet there’re three Ds in space/and our brains reach a stage/thatbringschaos to simple
but let e I n s t e I n conceive it
&in 19nineteen
we a l. . .l came tbleevit
though it seemed dis
intuitive
good
bye newton
hello weirdos
grab a futon
warp away
to pull a story out of the twining woodbine/front-load your title to force storytelling
let’s get started
there must have been seven other solved mysteries involving the last betrayal
there must be an imperiled female for whom dawn is the literal deadline
there must be a protagonist thrust into this because they love the imperiled female
it better have been a good and unexpected betrayal
and due to the culturally short attention spans of late we better wrap it up quick
the protagonist is a woman named joelle
she’s desperate to save deena, twin sister of her lost love ed
she’s deduced no footprints because dropped by helicopter
back-stabbing knife must have been whisked away by a drone
motive to exact revenge part-one-of-two for joelle’s falling for ed
whodunit therefore is–sorry kids
out of time
but it’ll be a better story if you write it youself
Today I saw the surgeon/Who’d sliced into my hands/To help my hand health burgeon/And sculpt as clay demands.
The good doctor says that the healing meets expectations and will likely continue for the rest of the year. After a year, he says, I can’t expect any more improvement. As of now, the only two symptoms of significance are a slight stiffness in my right middle finger and continued tingling of the fingers of my left hand.
I set the wheel to spinning/And formed a mug or two/With confidence a-ginning/And symbiosis true.
The clay body, Ironstone by name, was wonderfully supple and cooperative, and results felt more collaborative than solo-showish.
The serviceable Wareboard/Took on the two with glee/Then Thusséd and then Therefored/”Three fourths of Four is Three.”
The sound of the wheel’s motor augmented with the earcup-like acoustics of the splash tray can sometimes seem like the hum of the Cosmos itself. It is a lovely Alpha Wave maker when the wheel-throwing is smooth sailing.
Alas, the Fourth went sideways/A clay wall bent, then tore./The Clay Gods’ sometimes snide ways/So humble Potter’s core.
Here is when Failure and Success prove they are brother and sister. Big Bro says “Ah well, three out of four beats a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.” But Little Sis whispers, “Let’s take the scrap clay, which is plenty enough for another mug, to the wedging table and reconstitute it better than new. It’s a good exercise, and it’s also good exercise.”
The scrap clay resurrected/Was centered, shaped, and trimmed/And Gloom was redirected/With Wareboard’s glee undimmed.
“Try, Try Again” is ancient wisdom well suited to artisans. Every effort, be it success, failure, or “learning experience” mix, is another rung on the “ladder to the stars” that Bob Dylan sang of in the song “Forever Young.”
Now wrap them, keeping moistness/For handle-adds tomorrow./You’re happy, and your poisedness/Is free from theft and borrow.
The clunky last lines reflect giddiness and satisfaction. Time well spent is truly priceless.
Addiction and Angst go with Zero and Zapped: A to Z
Becoming a high-voltage journey through love’s urgency
Connecting a daughter a lawsuit some roadblocks that vex
Delivering pain then relief from the opposite sex. W
E watch as the narrating damsel’s distressed POV
Fast-forwards to new love and new need; in her you see you
Get tangled as drug use holds daughter as hostage and yet
Hope’s there, always peeking and promising no more regrets
In dealing with grief and pursuit of joy, grieving pursuer
Just skin-of-teeth holds it together, and not PDQ
Knapsacking her grief for a time to get comfort and sleep
Lift, calibrate–back to the fray–fraidy-cats, welcome in–O
May Heaven have mercy and Luminousness ever limn.
***”
Afterword: My superbly talented poet friend Susan Vespoli sent me a copy of her new book Therefore, Illuminated. It is a continuation of One of Them was Mine, which told in voltaic verse of her unhoused, struggling son’s last few hours of life, and his death by handgun by a (now former) police officer who was later judged to be acting “out of policy.” We learn of the trial and grueling machinations that follow Vespoli’s wrongful death suit; of her daughter in the grip of drugs and depression, who paradoxically views being unhoused and drugged-up as “freedom” and has Vespoli walk a tightrope of helping without enabling; of a search through eHarmony for connection, and finding such with a tall, thin man who gives her, and her journey, much-needed relief and joy; and finally the coinciding of the delivery of the wrongful-death settlement check with a solar eclipse, as if the Universe was writing a poem of its own with a punchline of stunning metaphor.
Friends, I hope you will find Ms. Vespoli’s book on Amazon or via Kelsey Books, her publisher. It tells her compelling journey with brilliant verse, with some in the Abecedarian form as I used above with less grace than she wields.
One with Clay, Image and Text 