OTI:25 poems and notes:3/25/18

Happy Birthday, Robert Frost!

Open To Interpretation

Memorial

How can I be someone found

If you are not even looking?

These mean streets

Can be distracting:

Memorial wilted flowers

And tall glass candles

In the sunlight

Surround the base

Of the dark creosote

Telephone pole

With taped colored papers'

Memorial messages written.

I walk by often,

A stranger on the sidewalk,

To a favorite coffee shop's

Greetings and breakfast orders.

Time to time,

The telephone pole grave stone

Has new additions, fresh flowers,

Changes, and is slowly fading,

But has persisted for months.

You dropped me like

Trash on a McDonald's tray.

Numbers

The numbers confuse

There being so many

But then each is a composite

One being made from another

So a familiar family

Save for solitary solitude

Found in each

And the incomprehensible,

Infinity's container.

I could be talking about stars

Or atomic minutiae

Or fish in the sea

Or you and me.

Well, it is

A myopic kind of faith

To know just one language,

My words my Town's talk.

I regard the reports

Of foreign planets

The translators' focused endeavors

But who am I to say

What they see

Is what is there.

Marvel enough

You read this and smile

Even in China.

Cello Player

Oh,

I could be a cello player,

Make those long low slow tones

For the scary movies

Step by step through haunted rooms

 

 

Lost Dogs

Tossed out

Abandoned beside the roads

Or maybe jumped the fences,

However it comes

We're hungry and thirsty.

Soon enough,

Our eyes with a bewildered look,

Found begins an incarceration

With the other refugees

Doomed to a homeless fate.

Cats at night

Dart across in headlights

Wise in the ways of streets.

Us lost dogs

End up

Lost dogs,

However maybe adopted,

Remembering our fear

Of being no one

In no where.

 

 

Archivist

An archivist of my own collection

Scattered musings gathered together

I looked carefully at the beehive nation

See if they are stirring, or their

Queen has perished and so all orphaned.

What does an empty hive portend?

The kitten has just learned to climb,

Startled runs down back to inside home,

On the tip of its tail a bee.

A bric a brac hexagon shadow box

For a librarian taken by honey.

 

 

Funk

I'm in a funk

And taken to my bunk.

In this gloom

I'm surrounded by tombs.

Engraved cement

To graffiti lent.

Passing by ghosts

This graveyard hosts.

Tip tip tip

The stone chisel's lisp.

Tell me where I am

And I'll show you

Where you've been.

We are in the same place

Held in dream lace.

The black mirrored pyramid silhouette

Joins the slow silver bee stars,

A taste in my senses banquette

For my hovering eye cars.

The moon passes over,

Slides down the black slope

And I await the sun to climb the east

And cast the chevron shadow,

Sisyphus' hope.

Terrain

 

What rain can fall on a desert terrain?

Flowers wilted colors.

Oh, what faith have you to perform before empty seats?

I don't know.

Do flowers live for bees

Or bees for flowers?

They don't know too?

Enchanted by the story

I found I had no story time of my own

 

 

Two Caches

Oh,

So, I do have two caches,

Albeit ignoble,

That qualified me

For our prolonged combat:

A stolen self

And magic wand.

With the moon above

The night mirrored crater lake

We rest our arms and consider:

A toppled tree,

A planted seed,

Or branches grown rank.

 

 

On The Leash

This way and that way

On the leash

Until we find

The corbeled corridor-

"Sufi sufi"

We breath evenly,

Fearless of the fumes

 

 

To Be Read

Oh,

To want be read

Rather than dead

And hear it said

Overhead

"Not to be repeated."

Intrinsic

They're intrinsic,

All the things I do

Or not do,

To knowing you.

Cat's Fur

Cat's fur like

A hilly forest of black pines,

The tops dusted with snow.

A purring endothermic

Thermocline.

Miss
 

I miss the ear nibbling.

The punching claw tips

Of incredulity at

Such as me.

 

 

Things To Do

With a "boom" and a "woosh"

The circled BlackSpace Ships,

Bejeweled flashing,

Flew up in the morning sky,

A colorful ring formation

Returning to the Stars.

The fog vanished,

As well the circling current,

And BlackShip Liz

Sailed to the Pinnacle Peak

To gather in

The White Whale racing pod crews.

The Pods secured themselves

To Liz's hull and Petra

Assembled the crew.

"Quickly, we return to Harbor,

Things to do...

We have an invitation

To beyond beyond!"

At Times

At times in dreams I'm visiting traveling and trespassing

Which is okay I think

Such are dreams

And needing places to stay

Like any vacationer

I stay in many places

And annoy and trouble

Those whose these places belong

So was this dream

My tent in the back yard

I'm making my camp

And leave out the drive way

In the white truck

While she comes out

And closes the wide white gate

To keep away any return

Now I'm in the neighborhood park

Behind I see flames

Endangering everyone's homes

And on a platform before a crowd

Dark against the flames

The girl with pale blond hair

Is protesting against

The fire makers

Encouraging

The people understand

And the fire goes out

Across a row of theater marquees

Now charred.

By a cosp of Eucalyptus trees,

Beside me she stands

The girl with the pale blond hair

And I explain I don't do that

Go public speak out

Rather avoid trouble

And wait with my sympathies

She is surprised she could speak

And the attentive understood

But here look, I say,

I'm not without effort

Here is proof of things

And refer above the giant rocket

We can see above between the trees.

Remember this, I say,

The rocket looks a still photo,

Like spellbound in rising,

Smoke billowing beneath,

We see in detail it's assembled

Skin and markings and fins.

Along its left side

Smokey firework blossoms

Like on tree limb traceries,

And on the right

King Kong the giant gorilla

Tethered hanging on

The rocket begins spinning

The still spell broken

And King Kong flung away

And is gone, the rocket too.

The girl returns to the crowd.

Remember, I say, believe,

Like I know what I'm about

And not just a sneaky

Trespassing dream tourist.

 

 

Wild Ride

We stopped in our wild ride

Down the forested slope

Throw down by its difficulty

You remember once

When I explained my name?

He asks, yes I say,

It was a mystical moment

In tears he says

I love you

And like getting out of a net

I say It can't be so

You can't love

You can only be loved:

Your destiny.

In each of our falls on this ride

I found in the fallen leaves

First an insect

Then a bird

Then another bird

Like this one now

Brown with big eyes.

I show him cupped in my hands

They are the same and different

Like your names

We continue on our mountain bikes

A small harvested pine

Strapped to my back

And reach the work place

Storage garage

And a work friend greets me

And I say, See what I brought,

The tree behind the garage.

On the ground is the giant ax

I used, fallen from my pack,

The blade damaged,

Now more like a hammer,

And I take it inside

Where we ready for work

A wooden cabin with dirt floor

And find an out of the way niche

For the long handled ax.

 

Concern

Concerned I was

You would be distressed

On my account

So set aside

Bold overtures.

And those who would

Encourage them?

I set them aside too.

"Given my daily bread,

I set aside ambition for

More and more."

A sage once said.

My ambition stews

But I've always

Anchored myself to you

Sharing what little I have

A given roof

And sustenance.

The few play

In their garish ways

We most will never know.

I set aside selfish risks

After all

I'm not alone in this Town.

It

It is almost too simple

The inner workings of it all

One word associates another

So dreams improvise

On some prompt

From the day

And day

Ponders night's dream leavings

Like the teacher

Considering

Their students' prompted

Expressions gone astray

Like in that word game

Until they come around

By their own word stepping way

Back to it.

NAR

They spray paint their banners

On the cement river slopes

An aggression met with

Town's Services' erasures.

Their capture too.

Odd the incomprehensibility

Of 'who cares?'

Doesn't deter them.

The one thing unites them:

'No apparent reason',

Enough unreason

To make them unapparent.

Golf Gallery

For gawd's sake

You follow him about

Like Jesus approaching the mount.

Jesus Wept.

Oh, Jesus forsook magic,

And wept to see unreason

Plead from the depths of their sorrow.

Jennifer

Jennifer

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence Boots

Touch

Touch Touch

Touch Touch Caterpillar

Hear Hear Tiger

Since Since Snow

Rain Rain Puddle

Feet Feet Sore

Cheese Cheese Melted

Peel Peel Banana

Cold Cold Eyes

Gun Gun Factory

Palm Palm Sway

Down Down Stairs

Love Love Butterflies

Wind Wind Hat

Hand Hand Loyal

June June Blue

Pray Pray You

Blue Blue Lapizlazuli

Bee Bee Buzz

Suds Suds Bubble

Lisp Lisp Twist

Tiny Tiny Terrors

Slip Slip Snake

Ate Ate Air

Red Red Black

Came Came Car

Run Run Turtle

Lilt Lilt Laugh

Fin Fin Fish

Ship Ship Sank

Clam Clam Closer

Earth Earth Early

Eat Eat Lettuce

Bounce Bounce Bobble

Bubble Bubble Blossom

Bosom Bosom Bounce

Flounce Flounce Loud

Cloud Cloud Rolls

Foals Foals Whinny

Skinny Skinny Jeans

Means Means Tomorrow

Harrow Harrow Hell

Bell Bell Gong

Song Song Heaven

Leaven Leaven Dust

Trust Trust Tea

Me Me You

You You Me

 

 

Another Dream

Well, this one went like this,

Sorta,

I lost my car, or it was stolen,

Or something,

And I say,

Not to worry,

I have another,

And go to where it is parked,

A small station wagon

With ladder on top,

And inside seated,

Surprise!

A police officer,

Some dream demi god

That compels me

To tell all

And I admit freely my misdeeds

WTH

He knows all anyway.

And we scene shift inside a house

And people I may have known appear

Sorts I've offended

Unhappy ghosts following

And one appears

That has all our attention

Staggering forward

Crippled

The crippling a peripheral

In a dust up I relate

Maybe of my doing

I don't know.

How do we know

The damages we've

Thrown out

From our missteps?

I face his judgment

And he leans forward to say,

In spite of the hurt,

I love you.

I answer

I love you too.

 

Bikini

Bikini exposed it all.

From atoms to the Milky Way,

The inquiry held sway.

Too hot to be near,

The islanders relocated,

Twice,

As if to get the measure

Of how far is enough.

Kept indoors,

Or on forays in public

Dressed in black

Head to toe--

An archaic solution

Not likely to succeed.

But who is to say,

Someday,

The stark naked

May begin to pray

In awe of judgment day.

 

 History

The encyclopedic have command

Of their subjects far beyond my remand.

Monkish scribe Etruscan banqueters.

Battleship Washington victory cheers.

Museum labelers tend our pathways'

Wend through Histories' forgotten inlays.

Pelicans in a row one by one flaps.

Pony tailed girls' oars rest on their laps.

Reports of last night's sport's highlight and score

Added to the accumulated lore.

Cat, so patient intent your upward look!

Bird, startled in winged fury skyward took!

What is behind is reminded by me

Following, your unbeknownst history.

DolphinWords

Notes: hmmph...the routine has been to post as I go along, but I left off awhile back...see previous post...so things have just accumulated...best I go back to posting as I go along!...there's a terrible long backlog of reference notes that go with each of these poems...like how to explain how 'corbelled corridor' has anything to do with the HBO series the Sopranos, Robert Graves' poem Return of the Goddess (Artemis), the first recorded poet, a girl, and much else...clue: the Sybil of Cumae....and then there is the midnightmovies backlog...last night saw Disney's Wrinkle in Time...what an annoying mess!...with a 'corbelled corridor' of its own no less!...anyway, we live in thought crowded times...