today's poem - "Loud Elf"

Loud Elf

so - Full Penny Elvette’s voice-volumized circle amplifies prayer-flag-flapping night train sound canyon loudness in chronic whirlwinds across centuries of borrowed wandering

     so nothing standstills wind and sound nothing

     heartbeatlessly aught squelch her noninterruptibility

 

and so into garrets shouts belfried id bound flying creature sounds in cyclotronic reactions of human clatter-phonic displacement

 

so too shouldn’t never want nother nothing known shoulda look forever seeing frantic fancy should ever stray

 

so to encompass Half Penny Elffa takes-one-to-know-invisible-one transparent hurricanes of unwound sound words blimping together overhead subtopical micro air navies of uncommunicable speak

 

so Loud Elf shouten parse-i-cal rafters of dust slat motes snow fall dingles downrupture broadcast loudmouth sound

 

all night and all day long

today's poem - "Napoleon in Exile"

Napoleon in Exile

 

not much yeah

I go outside

at noon rain ice

remaining sludge

Tuesday again

I thought she was

 

This is all wopperjawed

 

I click TV, cable is splat

I decide to whittle

it sounds like work

At 3, I open the radio

news sucks

I’m always waiting

 

Suffering succotash

 

Stare-into-space-porch

the mail arrives

I need a window here

if banana boats dock

tarantulas and scorpions

are company for lunch

 

is this a flux capacitor?

 

oh well. the dog barks

nature call of the wild

not really a revolution

walk dog one more time

the sun abandons

as day wanes

 

like infernal monologue

today's poem - "View Master"

 View Master

 

Spin the wheel and broken elevators descend dark slopes

seen as if through the wrong end of a sailor’s spyglass

 

Click and behold a decaying hillside subsistence Eden  

carved like stairways of greenery glimpsed from a ship

 

Peek into galleries of suffering, disaster, and reduction

scribed on reels of a world collapsing and wave-imperiled

 

Crank past spectral mills and lopsided warehouses

tilted open-sky roofs and ribbed steel dripping rust

 

Sort and spindle storm-damaged border town images

scraped scenes impoverished, windblown, and flooded

 

Inspect instead a city’s cracked eyes holding back tears

slithering murkily out decrepit, dimly lit portals  

Today's poem - "One Second in Spring"

One Second in Spring

 

In her voice a million stars  

ride the cricket sizzle and beesong

lofted by breeze and chat of birds

in the overture of peace threading

sung nature-blent in om and chant

and spirit-hung in sun and shade

far from war memorial and concourse

 

Forever joins to a single breathing moment

an instant infinitely spreading

composed of anarchy and spring glades

hidden below rural melodic calm

as day moves standstill-slow upon the lea

 

Face to face he joins her embroidery

of meadow, tree, ground, and sky

Today's poem - "Mr. Natural"

Mr. Natural

As I knelt in the dirt to touch the hem of his garment, he said, Get up, brother.  What do you want?  I said I only want to be free. Free? From what? I said I didn’t know. Then know yourself to be free, and go and be free. As I looked up he headed down the path to the well.

gratuitous second poem - "Little Fellers from the Flying Saucer"

Little Fellers from the Flying Saucer

 

This is the story:

 

When the saucers came they took us all for a ride

It was a sad day, nobody the same after that day

because we all got the Flying Saucer PTSD

I realized how close to being just a monkey I was

 

It started with the steel saucer going over and over

then a two foot tall little feller in a black force

He made a really big sound, then waited, then another

I was thinking how bad this situation was and was shook

 

I yelled at the little feller, but he made me quiet

I guess it was with his brain – I couldn’t yell any more

My get up and go had got up and went – I got stiffened

They lifted us with air pockets into the Flying Saucer

 

Like coots in a cage we went riding around on board

while the little fellers put the hurt on our minds

and showed us spikey color things that sucked out thoughts

and pretty soon I must have been put to sleep, I can’t remember

 

When I woke up we were all outstanding in our field as before

listening to insect music and slowly working up to moving

Some of us could remember some of it some of us recalled other

and some of us couldn’t remember nothing at all like dopes

 

But now:

 

That was forty years ago, and now I think it was all just hooey

I can’t credit being flown around in a saucer anymore

even if Eddie and Marj and Del still talk about it on TV

I want to think we got hypnotized and bullshitted by scientists

 

Life slowly got better the less I thought about it

The Little Fellers seemed less real

The Flying Saucer seemed stupider

and I grew up and moved off to Nebraska

Today's poem - "Chaos in the Brass Section"

 

Chaos in the Brass Section

 

M. Comartin grimaces from the side of his mouth

The string scherzo ends at just the wrong moment

(stifled giggles ripple up and down the rows)

-he gestures a bit stiffly, turning a shade of green

 

I note a slight drag distressing the second movement

causing the conductor’s eyebrow to elevate

I see this as if a drawing, a police artist’s sketch

My embouchure starts to degrade, my lips rubberize

 

Faithful season subscribers shift in their plush seats

Hm, I think, this score sure looks blurry

Now the woodwinds go sour and slightly out of time

Well, I might as well improvise – this won’t sound bad

 

The Maestro looks distressed, twitches, grits his teeth

The other brasses sputter and splay erratically

Catcalls from the balcony and grumbles rumble throughout

I start to freewheel emote, chasing the woodwinds

 

My mind wanders to a funny un-funny middle school concert

     Now I think: Where the heck was I? I’ll drop in HERE!

But something is out of whack, we’re in different modes

-I’m looking forward to that after party at Jeannette’s

 

Pursuing the wayward strings, we blunder into novel spaces

Haphazardly it segues into a long, droning crescendo

It’s FUBAR: the audience is yelling and throwing things

Suddenly I’m in a full-tilt white tie riot- What a feeling!

 

Inferno Red Faced, M. Comartin issues steam jets from his ears

     The orchestra is bolting prematurely, not taking bows

Eyes like wild horses, my fellow artists are fleeing in panic

Patrons, clutching jewels and canes, rush the shocked stage

 

I shout, The greatest season finale in company history!