Sunday, July 27, 2008

Poem Talkies

everything i can think of to say comes in poems, that happens to me sometimes, i'm not saying they are good poems, but there they are---

the grass out back is burnt
turning it's rosy wheats to the sky
like the bottoms of my daughter's feet

the kittens three
pounce through the toes of sprout
chewing silently on a brother's tail

the birds are chorusing
so loudly today, the sky is pale faced
and bald, my spirit could be soothed

but i am too fragile
my nerves rock in clumsy rows
like boats left out in storm

i am eager for life
and also hiding in the closet
' very well, i contradict myself '

some journals
don't like poems that say ' i '
so much as this

the same journals,
probably, that would
have thought Walt's poems were subversive

and not in a good way.

---

are you sleeping, brother john?
everything is metaphorical
when my mind opens all drawers
at once, i am tumbling in old clothes
stained and smelling of mold
sicked up and cleaned, to be kept
here, where you keep items you'd
like to forget, but refuse to be forgotten.


the phrase WORD VOMIT comes to mind.

coo coo.
the bird cleans itself
hard knocks into the plume.

he shakes his red
head, the cat swings her eye.
he nods to her, hello

what a very polite fellow.

mme
Shannon said...

I love this about you.

Anonymous said...

"but i am too fragile
my nerves rock in clumsy rows
like boats left out in storm"

I like this part. I worked on a marina--and I can see it as well as feel it as it is a familiar condition for me.

Thanks for sharing.

Talia Reed said...

love this:

but i am too fragile
my nerves rock in clumsy rows
like boats left out in storm

Carol Mac said...

I love the figuration of the mind opening all drawers at once. There's a careful anxiety in this poem.

Chandini Santosh said...

You said it. Poems come uninvited. And without labor pains.

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