"alpaca" poems
I've had enough of all this wind and reindeer
We otter go away
Holidays are important, my parents tortoise that
Weasel have to look on the internet
You know I can't bear the heat
But here's a spa hotel where I'm sure they would panda to your every need
Alpaca suitcase right away
Toothpaste tube, cattle class
Purple stripes, rows of lights
A newly formed castle white
In concrete, steel and glass
Cloud-high halls, giant pots
Re-charging bodies strewn around
Turning deeper shades of brown
Volcanic sand, hot black rock
We watch a floating city, blazing light
Like a dying star, fade into the night
-
Ali, where do these bananas go?
What kind of tree is this?
How far does this levada flow?
Ali takes the tourists out
He throws some breadcrumbs in the water
He likes to feed the trout
Madeira born in forty five
Ali told me many things
Ali, our levada walking guide
His family was very poor
He collected mussels from the shore
And sticks to burn for heat
For today his mother said
I have no food and we must eat
We have to eat
Ali, where are all the vines?
How long before your boots wear out?
Do you drink the local wine?
Do the tourists drive you mad
With all the questions that they ask?
Ali smiles, shuffles us aside
To let some others pass
Nov 18, 2013
Nov 18, 2013 at 9:02 AM UTC
meggie
was thumbing
through her
fair trade
“style with a
conscience”
holiday catalog
eyeing
baby organics
indulgent Alpaca’s
green gear for guys
dining as nature intended, and
the best reusable shopping bags, period!
“What do you want for
Christmas Dad?”
“just be a good girl, meggie.”
I answered.
“I’m gonna get you a pair of socks
for Christmas Dad.”
“I don’t need an expensive
pair of socks. megs...
After a couple of washes
one always gets lost
inside the bottomless
tumbler.
Leaving only one to lay
inside a chest of drawers,
in the company of
happy matched pairs,
waiting to warm my
Lamisil wanting toes
One sock
alone and unhappy
its a really sad story.
Radio Arcade: Socks Song
Suffern
11/8/13
jbm
Nov 8, 2013
Nov 8, 2013 at 11:16 AM UTC
It starts like a beige tuft of fibre
Protruding from a large burlap sack.
As we pull it from the hidden source
It gradually reveals itself.
Simple and unassuming,
A uniform, coloured strand
Which we gather up into a tidy ball.
Sometimes another strand is tied
Onto the one we pull.
A different colour?
A change of texture?
And so we pull that one anew,
We build another coil,
While the original strand awaits.
The interesting new thread,
Reveals itself from the hidden reservoir.
The fibre slides through our fingers.
Slowly, when there is resistance.
Quicker, when it comes loosely.
Now coarse and wiry
Now soft and slippery,
Now thick and tufted.
Tough Scottish highlands perhaps?
Or rural Ontario?
Sometimes the hidden source seems like it may be
A hand-knit sweater that we are pulling apart.
The strands are still kinked and twisted in places,
Echoing a memory of a shape it has held for years.
We recognize bits here and there too.
Colours and textures from our own story.
"I had a pair of socks like that."
"Remember our scarves from those cold childhood winters?"
The collection of small skeins increases.
From a sheep's fleece, yes, but now too
From Alpaca, camel and rabbit.
Cashmere from Pashmina goats in Nepal?
But at last the final strand comes free.
You feel the weight of the coiled wool,
And see the diversity of the colours.
And for each coil
We remember again how it appeared
How it felt.
How the strands
Came together
And apart.
Aug 12, 2013
Aug 12, 2013 at 10:13 AM UTC
Neener, neener, neener
Your daddy is a wiener
A peener, a geener
A ***** magaziner.
Nanny, nanny boo boo
Stick your head in doo doo
Your granny has got put in jail
For practicing at voodoo.
Olly Olly Oxen Fee
I see you, you can’t see me.
I am smart, you are not.
Just how stupid can you be?
Waka, waka, waka
You look like an alpaca
Your mama should have taken you
And stuffed you in a locker.
Zimmy, zimmy, zim
Your luck is getting slim.
Bad Luck Billy says you’re
You’re almost bad as him.
Hardy hardy har
You think you are a star
But an extra in a walk-on role
Is what you really are.
Clunkety clunk clunk
Your dreamboat has sunk
You think you smell like roses
But it’s more like a skunk.
Sniggley, sniggley snurt
The truth is bound to hurt
You invested in yourself
And then you lost your shirt.
Jun 6, 2015
Jun 6, 2015 at 5:04 PM UTC
My heart cried out as she did
And bled out when her teeth sank into her arm
Muffling her screams... This kid
Desperately searching for a key
I picked up my pink and fluffy, bite sized alpaca
And ran back to her side... I can not leave her be
Wrapped in the arms of a friend
Her eyes stared right into mine, almost pleading
I hand her the alpaca... Hoping her sadness will end
"Is this important to you?" "No"
With tremendous rage, she rips off it's tags, it's clothes, and it's chain
My heart sinks as my fluffy friend is torn apart... But these feelings I stow
Because when she asked, distraught
"Is this important to you?"
I immediately thought
Yes... But not nearly as much as you.
Jan 28, 2016
Jan 28, 2016 at 6:36 PM UTC
. Today walking around town I met Alfred, my father, the pianist
he had gone very old his alpaca jacket was now too big for him.
Time is a cruel master he had arthritis in his hands could not play
Anymore, except in summers when he played the piano for the old.
at homes were where the washed-up of stream of life rested
before crossing the river Styx, he could have moved into a home
but preferred to rent a little room in town.
Alfred, my father, the pianist was often cold he could only switch
on the heating for a short time in the evening, and I remembered
a time when I followed him around town saw him cross the street
And traffic stopped when I did that I was shouted at; once I fell over
a pollard he helped me up and said: I'm not your father but since
you need on I can be one, and the strange thing was he only showed
up when I was alone. In a shimmer of tears, I saw him disappear
I knew I was not going to see Alfred, my father, again.
Mar 2, 2017
Mar 2, 2017 at 11:36 AM UTC
I sat criss crossed on the top
of a rock before it tipped,
an alpaca spots me from afar.
I see his brother bathe in the dirt,
his cotton ball fur soaks in the Sun,
rubs himself with the color of the Earth,
squints his eyes and whispers to his brother –
This is a disguise.
The fresh mountain water streams
below me, dissolves into breeze
the hillside crumbles where it was once cut
and layered with stones ripped out of the ridge
but now the Earth is taking back
her natural shape, round and wise.
This was an Inca trail, after all.
I ran into a human skull.
lying beside it was,
a fresh bouquet of flowers
a box of lucky strikes,
a few empty water bottles,
the skull was fairly ripe
and to this day it haunts me still,
that skull that whispered –
This is a disguise.
Yet even amongst the plastic residue,
the burning embers of the holocene,
the battery acid in the belly of my backpack,
I looked to where it would squint its eyes,
and It felt ancient.
Corn fields that peek from the tops of these hills
cower beneath a great mountain that speaks
through symbols sculpted in its face,
I squint my eyes –
This is a disguise.
Sep 19, 2016
Sep 19, 2016 at 5:32 PM UTC
warm is the fire that burns under stovetops
warmer is your knitted alpaca coat
you made us a dinner
yams,
veal,
whiskey and cornbread...
let me assist you,
enjoying your labor
honey, you are deserving of ev-er-y welcome
ev-er-y welcome deserving and true
if we could keep this warm autumn night
always,
i'd choose to have it,
always with you.
Nov 19, 2019
Nov 19, 2019 at 1:21 PM UTC
A summer evening in late June, light paling into dusk and colours lessen
Rattles from the kitchen as the ritual teas are prepared
I sit making a cardigan for a baby’s birth-
Knowing what it is to be a mother, I think of she who will carefully fasten the buttons
She who will, like me, cry at the news nowadays and lay her hands on a softly breathing body to find peace
Here I sit, fingers hitching and flicking the yarn between needles
Knitting is a kind of prayer
Each stitch a supplication. Each turn a fresh appeal:
Let this mother meet her baby.
Let this mother meet herself, arriving
The prayer grows, row by row
This mothering is an unhealable wound
This mothering is a cardigan, made to fasten.
Aug 16, 2022
Aug 16, 2022 at 4:59 PM UTC
My baby's got the weight of the world
carved into her brow and you can see
it for yourself; she cuts her own bangs.
She loves me tall, she loves me thin, she
loves me in what she calls an "Ethiopian way";
you can see it for yourself in the dark corners of
the internet.
She holds the Guinness-certified record for the
highest use of the hashtag "#vegan." I believe
her when she says cheese is the unitary measure
of loneliness. I'm sure you do too.
She used to substitute teach for Cameron Christian.
She'd take selfies with autistic children and some
called her profane and some called her dangerous
but I thought her posts about the effects of vaccinations
made her seem so in touch with the world, so pure in spirit.
And on those slow nights when we're in bed
with the incense hanging above us, between
her considerations of transitioning into a man
and her considerations of starting an alpaca rescue,
I think about how winning the lottery would be
a disappointment.
Mar 8, 2019
Mar 8, 2019 at 12:16 PM UTC
rebellion lamb mist
floss sand
jazz alpaca sneeze
Mar 17, 2020
Mar 17, 2020 at 7:02 AM UTC
Alfred has Arthritis
Since Alfred, the man who strenuously denies
fatherhood got arthritis in his hands, it often happens
when it gets cold. He sleeps to noon take forever
in the bathroom before going to town looking like an artist
in his alpaca jacket and French beret.
He eats lunch in town alone never think of inviting me
and in the evening watches Bulgarian soap opera,
having him here has put a strain I'm thinking of sending
he at home didn't think it would come to that.
He sits by the fire I buy the wood, I will tell him he is not
my father and tell him to leave; perhaps next winter.
Apr 7, 2018
Apr 7, 2018 at 7:20 AM UTC
Alfred
Alfred, the pianist who is also my father
although he denies the paternity vehemently,
was in Hawaii and played the ukulele with
little success and went back to Europe.
Alfred the pianist and also my father, could
get the sweetest tones when he played and
women swooned in other men’s arms,
was when not playing of a rather sullen nature
he spent the day walking around town with
alpaca jacket end French bonnet, he looked ever
artistic and I followed him around; once when I fell
a bollard got in the way; he did help me up
and said; I'm not your father!
Alfred, the pianist and also my father, got to be
ninety-two and in the last years of his life was glad
to have a son even if it was a fake one as Alfred
was fond of pointing out
Feb 3, 2018
Feb 3, 2018 at 4:58 AM UTC
When Alfred was witty
Alfred, the pianist who insist he is not my father
Told me he could walk on water,
to prove it we went to where the water is shallow
he sank slowly, legs, torso and his head
I was not unduly worried,
at the bottom, he walked back to shore
and I gave him back his alpaca and French Beret, but I said nothing
he hadn't stepped on water only walked on it.
He borrowed my shoes to get home I; his son had to walk barefoot
and he never returned my shoes
Feb 6, 2018
Feb 6, 2018 at 7:52 AM UTC