words of a people aligned in their perfect order
I have loved
now I love
I shall lie betwixt her breasts
in the mood merriment of playful jazz
lust or longing, a wandering
a melancholy jest.
the star of Venus of Heaven
the tragedy of Euridice
we dance the dance of Polyhumnia
and write the words of Callopie.
we are like children
under cover of moon’s somber reflections
memories vouchsafed lying
on night’s dewy grasses.
– Hoc Scripsi
There is little I want to write. That is a lie. There is a lot I want to write with no ideas of where to start. Looking for the in and cross wire of the brain athwart the limbic inhibitors, the shorted fuse of creation.
once this happened:
while at work
in the backroom
I heard the opening air of Nina Simone
singing ‘Lilac Wine’ and fell in love.
I wept openly listening and made record of singer and song.
going out that night I bought her catalog
and weep still every time I hear her voice.
this is unrelated:
My throat blisters from the burned soy in four shots of espresso.
I write the best when I am clear minded and mood stable.
I am having an off day, if I were more able I would spend the day in bed and slumber it away but cannot.
but that was the other day and this is a different odd day where nothing of much import is happening.
But here is a poem.
tenuous best
three thirty comes on too fast
echoing distant
distant heard
the world the way it is
tenuous best
mark of a truth
scorned, proffered
alone in a room
and you think Allen Ginsberg had it tough
writing, holy beard hanging down
poems about cock, assholes
poems about plutonium bombs
at least Jeffers offered his Judas
who suffered, agon
meant to be played out, on stage
offering to the thousands.
– Hoc Scripsi
Meditation on the death of a soldier
life ended abruptly by the
bullet of another’s weapon
paid for by a master neither
one of you has ever met
weapon that was cleaned
with as much care as yours
and placed firmly in hand by
another country such as yours
and without thought, fired to
bring ends to ideals and have
certain glory from gods or God
fired a bullet that ended it’s
own journey in your body
your body, which lies there
weapon in hand that surely would
have ended the bullets owner
if given the chance
this is the death that you have chosen
as if picked out from a catalogue
listed under ‘means of dispatch’
and you nation mourns forgetting
your choice
never blaming the decisions
that placed you there
yours and your masters
but I am colder and I cheer
not at your death but
at the end you were able to choose
for yourself
I am not so lucky and
I will die unknowing from where
the bullets came
a short, bad poem
I look back through my notebook
and find no poetry.
apples, pears
peaches, penumbras, oranges
mangoes
pomegranates
fruits of the grove stand at
the local grocer.
I find bananas in several local cafes.
in dream I am at this
fruit supermarket;
counting the aisles and cashiers,
wearing pajamas
and blue memory foam slippers.
unselfconscious of naked shoppers
who fail to wear fig leaves
hiding their shame
the platitudes of willful resemblance 