Daily Poetry & Prose

Shoes clacking on the sidewalk, almost like fish's fins. The small town was a fish tank, and Germaine sat in the fake seaweed, the pharmacy, at the soda fountain, when he walked in with those shoes. The yellow brick was made of clay, from when the land was usurped and turned upside down. The clay was burnt and made into bricks, stacked up tall and protected the people from the wind. The town sprung up on the shore of the lake, and the people like colorful fish just breathed on land.  Meanwhile in the middle of the lake, there sat the giant lizard queen, her green skin toady and ruined by hundreds of years of floating through the murk. She stuck her long neck out every now and then, scaring a small child on the shore, making an old man think he might be losing it--but it was not a figment of imagination, it was real, it was her. She too, thought the people on land were fish, and she was hungry. She ate fish and there were only so many in the lake. The people seemed rather stiff and ...

Intention and the pegasus both fly we pull the arrow back and hold the bow the puffy clouds are rolling through the sky we understand the why but not the how let it fly into the air like a bird shot from a cannon at the brink of war the road to hell is paved it is not dirt the movie on the screen is just a bore commercial suicide is such a flirt the finest blacktop lines the way for us we walk awhile then we start to turn weight cannot be held on a single truss the architecture sometimes starts to burn our radical compassion helps us learn

If dinosaurs in amber still could speak and time could step outside itself and hum the tune and melody of days gone by when the world was young and buzzing with trees taller than the skyscrapers above us I'd lose my mind with curiousity and lean in to hear the symphony start If the caveman trapped in ice could blink twice and tell us of his time and how he walked the strange brow on his forehead would begin to tell a story, I'd listen closely Alas, the museum is silent now all I hear is the footsteps of the guard keeping careful watch on all the treasures a monument to the unknown is here.

At some point in my youth I became good at "accepting my fate" instead of "affecting my future." These things are very different, and this isn't a poem, it's a thought, and an important one at that. The person in the tower, vs. the person climbing the tower. What does each sound like? One looks out the window and sighs, and one grunts while reaching for the next handhold. 

Looking out at the lake where the waves whip the shore the sand churned up in its belly  while I stare with steel eyes It's raining and my shoes are wet but I don't mind I'm walking by the lake thinking of Putin, NATO and the war I have a cup of coffee which I am lucky to have considering all things in the world  chaos could have welcomed me this morning just as easily as the water I sip it slowly in the rain pacing by the lake I did not come up with a solution but I fkn tried.

Vases of vinegar make the flowers wilt and moan meanwhile the honey makes the bees not roam Best to catch the train before the sun goes down I'll be on the line, riding out of town Shake your structure, fuss and falter lay the wilted flowers down at the altar Incense meant that the smoke was rising underwater where the fish aren't biting Westward expansion and colonization decimated the beautiful Indian nations stirrup that boot firmly and pull the halter pull that wild horse next to the altar Laying with the stones and twigs hands folded heartbeat like butterfly wings with bullets loaded Sit up straight and paste the collage down spin the globe with one finger, around and around drinking wine with the dining satyr you best move your party off the altar

Bittersweet & Busted yellow crocodiles  shipyard funk swimming in the ministry of preaching deaf dogs shipwrecked junk Kierkegaard and Kant  walk into a bar... Yellowstone National Park. Meowing cats and superficial magazines Yesmen and yo-yo's  Branches of religions torn off and scattered while the tree is unseen what mattered when you were mean tomatoes fell grimace and fruit flies loud laughter red fists pounding Gutenberg type just like  this .

It has occurred to me that for a long time I haven't said exactly what I am thinking about anything. My lyrics became some postmodern poetry slam, where I am against the wall, breathing rhymes into the window, making the glass fog up while cigarette smoke curls around me like Medusa's hair, and I can only wish my words would turn people to stone, but when their mouths are open, all they are doing is yawning. Where did my mojo beans go?  By skirting the issue I may have thought I was being clever, better yet a running back, dodging the oncoming team, jumping over defensive linemen and landing on my feet, ducking, and swaying back and forth to fake them out, but I wasn't moving the ball down the field. If I was, it all would have made sense. No, I was shadowboxing, and all I was dodging was the truth. Where did my mojo beans go? 

Definitely keep the faith I said to him and him to me Definitely don't let the deal go down and leave you on the stone cold sea Definitely, definitely definitely Definitely lift your spirit and hear the birds out the window Definitely close your eyes and feel the wind blow Definitely, definitely, definitely 

 Dear Doctor, I wish I had some wisdom to report, since I had seen you last. I wish I had some maturity to show you evidence of, but the truth is, I am exactly the same. I have been eating candy when I am not hungry, and drawing in the mud, hoping that the face of Rembrandt, the portrait he did of himself when he was older, would ooze out of it, and rise, like a serpent out of the deep. Not the serpent of Eve, but the inevitable serpent of Darwin, the one with feet, not quite the Lochness monster but still in that vein of mystery and worry we have when we realize there is so much we do not know. Supernatural, it is called.  That portrait, it has nothing to do with style. His face, his age, his countenance, is rising up out of the raw umber and burnt Sienna not like a God, but a man, a humble man, made in his own image. Until next time,  Desdemona Havanna, Cuba 1906

I will go where there are singing bowls, high up in the mountains step by step I will take my leather shoes up the rocks  at the peak there will be nothing but fog and in the fog I will hear singing bowls, reverberating through time and space to my ears I'm really hoping it's the guru about to lay something heavy on me and not just tinnitus from watching rock gods on stage blast their solos like grenades into my ear drums as I sit chained to the work gang of their superego.

 The.      stars.     are.   sc.   a                   t         t                      e r                                e                                         d    i    n                  the                     sky these days,   and I am down here   looking up. I remember doing this sitting by the silo and the barn watching a large cloud move across the sky, it was really more of a smudge, but it was moving, slowly. How foolish to measure time with a craned neck and not busy hands. Are the constellations correct? ...

I thought that to be unjust was better than to be untrue but now I am not so sure. The sun is hitting the roofs and they are glaring at me, at an angle as the shadows are bound to disappear as the morning continues.

It pleases me to no end that the silence on the front is appeasing the gods of destruction who wait quietly with baited breath to swoop in like vultures, the question is, whose bodies will they take? The dictator sat squarely, his back against the wall, avoiding bullets from top advisors. It seems the grim face is not out in the battlefield, but there, on the large white wall. 

I had been trying to write every day and then I stopped. I realized I didn't want to keep writing only to have it be an exercise in writing badly. A horrible poem each day. How undevine. No, I had started the mission because I want my words to have power. Power must be yielded wisely.  Now what?