Death in a bookstore

They could be playing a funeral
dirge from the music sectional:
a few people roam
amongst the gravestones
of codices. No one would buy.
Nearby,
a display of the Nook^®,
like the Grim Reaper's hook.




Notes:
1. The New York Times, August 30, 2010: At bookstore, even non-buyers regret its end
2. famous poems on death

Lovely Brita

Lovely Brita^®
                        filter made

my insides so much fresher:
raining queen of the water pitcher;
nothing could be much cleaner.

But when her power
                        began to fade

I knew her reign was finally over

and it was time to replace her:
lovely Brita,
                        pitcher maid.




Notes:
1. placed in Poets United Think Tank #12, topic: water
2. famous poems about water
3. pace tua, "Rita"

Chrysalis

Thoracic segments, coarse to human touch;
as caterpillar, crept to spoil the fruit —
from under bush, it roved with snake-like head.

Leaf's fleshy underside within its clutch,
it lay in chrysalis to grow a suit
of rainbow-colored silken wings instead.

But will it now bring nutrient to such,
or will its nature turn it back to root
new pesty caterpillars in its tread?



ref: Ken Mehlman: The Sad Gay Republican Still Donating To Anti-Gay Candidates

My stories

"my stories"
my grandmother would say,
"I've got to watch my stories"

that's all I knew they were called
when I was six going on seven
and my World Turns around

Captain Kangaroo       Concentration
           Art Linkletter's House Party       The Millionaire
                  et cetera

but between these were
her "stories"

I never really watched the "stories"
then, or ever, but occasionally, now

I'll peek and I see there is some steamy
gay romancing mixed in on the few that are left

stuff certainly my grandmother never saw
on day-time tv, or wouldn't see on prime-time tv
even now, not like that

but all these stories are dying
and just when things are getting interesting

and when they are all gone
I'll miss what I missed

What is?

It's important that we know
what is that so-and-so:
a Muslim? a Christian? a Jew?
a Buddhist? Confucian? Hindu?
For the way we deal with unknowns
is to split into fictional zones.

Bullfighting

My reign in Spain lies mainly in the pain
of a manly beast: subdued by dandy men,
his shoulders stabbed while still within his pen,
infused with drugs that flow within his brain.
My theater, no sport so inhumane:
a foppish cape flung round and round again,
a dance macabre of man and bull and then
cheered on by crowds 'til weakened beast is slain.

Poetic justice steals my drama's end
when bull presumes to improvise his part
in man v. beast, and my faux dance is spurned:
The costumed fighters cannot apprehend
the maddened bull with pick and drug-filled dart ...
and then the tables turn and pain's returned.



placed in Poets United Think Tank #11

Refs:
1. Bull escapes ring and charges into stands
2. Bull gores matador through the neck and throat

I saw Dick Armey

I saw^* Dick Armey
        (no, not a triple-x gay movie),
the manifesto of the Tea Party
        (no, not the man-fest of a tearoom party),
with a skin tanned so Boehnery
        (no, he'll never hold a Tony)
and stuffed full of baloney.


^* Dick Armey interview (The Daily Show, Aug 17, 2010): Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

What good is philosophy?

What
good is
philosophy
inside a poem
that   holds its
words    in    a
vacuum-sealed
bottle   of soda
that doesn't fizz
until the cap   is
unscrewed  and
it's poured   out
into clean cups?

Dowd about Obama

Now is the August of our glum disgust,
this simm'ring month of Gibbsian entropy:
tea-publicans united stand behind
confederation battle flags of yore;
the King's rule undefended by his left,
his victories unrewarded, now attacked.
But these thermodynamic melting points
do little to unfreeze a populace
frozen in absent determination.



ref: No Love from the Lefties, Maureen Dowd, The New York Times (Aug 14, 2010)

Rosebuds

possessions lost

I no longer ride beneath the trees
on my red-frame bike that buzzed like bees,
or go out by dark to view Aries
with my telescope on bended knees,
or slide down hills at flying speeds
on my flexible sled with waxened skis,
or read my Batman magazines
by dim flashlight on sleepless eves.

I dream I hold the things that these
nostalgic memories reprise.



posted to Big Tent Poetry, Possessions (Aug 13, 2010)

Written in sand

My own sandbox looks sparse and neat
where many may not come to dig,
while others are the main attractions.
So with a weakness for distractions,
I pick up my shovel and I take my rig
hauling a humble load of conceit.

How many times did I play today
in other sandboxes around the sphere,
and dig into them with pundit prose,
then flinging some sand around with my toes,
and leaving a track that says "I was here,"
but knowing it's written in sand, not clay?




Notes:
1. This was written after wondering why I would waste time posting a comment on big blogs like the ones at The New York Times and The Huffington Post, where it would be one comment among hundreds — Who does such things?
2. placed in Poets United Poetry Pantry #6 (Aug 29, 2010)

paleo/electro

The paleo-poets pursue the day to put their books in print

like vampires stalk the night to brand the living dead,

to hold their trophies triumphantly in their hands,

to seize their fancy jackets and bend their spines

as the blood of trees drools down from their lips

and near-death print-presses are drained dry of ink,

to see them stacked like corpses in mausoleums

in the bookstores and libraries that the electro-poets pass by.

His three-cornered hat

To quit the turmoils of his life
he hides beneath his three-nooked hat
of God and gun and liberty
to flee 'those fedrul powers' rife
... and other things like that ...

to teeth on tenth-er sovereignty
to bite the beast (Don't Tread On Me)
that God-forsaken devil's rat,
the bane of his beleaguered strife
... and other things like that ...

to march to drum and sprightly fife,
with a Yankie Doodle rat-a-tat-tat
and The Girl I Left Behind Me,
to dwell in bygone fantasy
... and other things like that.

The Sarah Palin saga

        The ex-half-govena'
        from Wassila Alaska,
        the bane of Tripp's papa,
        the grizzly den mama,
        the Tea Party (Lady) Gaga,
        the bard of the bubba —

that's the Sarah Palin saga.

Where are you, David Bromstad?

Where are you, David Bromstad,
                       to decor my homestead,

    to rule your tool
    to style my tile,

    to blush your brush
    to enthrall my wall,

    to flair my chair
    to grace my space,

    to take off your shirt
    with your Color Splash flirt?

Where are you, David Bromstad,
                       to decor my homestead?




placed in Poets United Poetry Pantry #9