"askance" poems
Time and risk caught up to you;
Gagged you into silence.
Chasing down the dragon was
Your favorite form of violence.
I saw its markings on your skin;
The gauntness of your eyes
Your searching fingers scratching down
To truth, as you breathed lies
China white won this round, love
You thought you'd always dance
The dragon chose another one
And turned its gaze askance.
Feb 5, 2015
Feb 5, 2015 at 9:15 AM UTC
"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail,
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won' t you, won' t you join the dance?
"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to sea!"
But the snail replied, "Too far, too far!" and gave a look askance--
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join the dance.
Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join the dance.
"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France--
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance?
Will you, won' t you, will you, won't you, won't you join the dance ?"
4.8k
A dancing Bear grotesque and funny
Earned for his master heaps of money,
Gruff yet good-natured, fond of honey,
And cheerful if the day was sunny.
Past hedge and ditch, past pond and wood
He tramped, and on some common stood;
There, cottage children circling gaily,
He in their midmost footed daily.
Pandean pipes and drum and muzzle
Were quite enough his brain to puzzle:
But like a philosophic bear
He let alone extraneous care
And danced contented anywhere.
Still, year on year, and wear and tear,
Age even the gruffest, bluffest bear.
A day came when he scarce could prance,
And when his master looked askance
On dancing Bear who would not dance.
To looks succeeded blows; hard blows
Battered his ears and poor old nose.
From bluff and gruff he waxed curmudgeon;
He danced indeed, but danced in dudgeon,
Capered in fury fast and faster.
Ah, could he once but hug his master
And perish in one joint disaster!
But deafness, blindness, weakness growing,
Not fury's self could keep him going.
One dark day when the snow was snowing
His cup was brimmed to overflowing:
He tottered, toppled on one side,
Growled once, and shook his head, and died.
The master kicked and struck in vain,
The weary drudge had distanced pain
And never now would wince again.
The master growled; he might have howled
Or coaxed,--that slave's last growl was growled.
So gnawed by rancor and chagrin
One thing remained: he sold the skin.
What next the man did is not worth
Your notice or my setting forth,
But hearken what befell at last.
His idle working days gone past,
And not one friend and not one penny
Stored up (if ever he had any
Friends; but his coppers had been many),
All doors stood shut against him but
The workhouse door, which cannot shut.
There he droned on,--a grim old sinner,
Toothless, and grumbling for his dinner,
Unpitied quite, uncared for much
(The rate-payers not favoring such),
Hungry and gaunt, with time to spare;
Perhaps the hungry, gaunt old Bear
Danced back, a haunting memory.
Indeed, I hope so, for you see
If once the hard old heart relented,
The hard old man may have repented.
4.6k
A bird in an aurulent billed mud-face,Living as a four foot two inch dragon in a San Franciscan cave,
Lifts off from a hot breathed murmur of Gideon.
Even in night the whole grandeur of movement
Soaking in red beeping heart-pangs
Fasten to the thrusts of his arms.
This post of vainglory was the opening of the year.
In July's open pores,
On a spatial plateau of Dodonian oak.
The Penguin
Unveils his weakened voice.
Flattening into a wide arrow
Draped from Carina he
Sails Westward. Barefooted through the Anavros
Molting under deep helplessness and melancholia.
With his inlaid eyes faced askance
The penguin broods
Among the day's songs
Cast into the poetry of the lyre,
Stretched upwards from Paradise Bay to Colchis,
Where his ebony wings
Soak into the palms of Peleus
Suffering only where the arrows have flung.
Downside up, with children in a pocket of blood,
Among supergigantic siren songs and muse poems
Sewing teeth into a spot of Earth
Races towards a column of toppling strakes.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 5:48 AM UTC
In a strange mood - see/write art
in a strange way, disorganized but straight on,
light tinted magenta, issuing, in frothy large pours, from my mouth,
knowing what to say, and the meaning too,
I can more than walk, can write, on water,
where all can read weeping, Mary-miracles of seeing, living words,
themselves, on light waves lapping in a
shifting rotunda vision, color reorienting spatial senses.^
in a strange, strange stitch, seasonal spirits and witches,
Chagall, Baez, Dylan Thomas, Donovan, Richie Havens
doing their knitting in my brain, from Montmartre to the Midwest to Monterey,
painters and poets in lockstep head-messing with me,
imperfect clarity but still one voice,
see/write art,
so went and caught the wind, going gently into night
to banish the hodgepodge of uncertainty from inside out.
knowing well you don't understand fully, but jumbling tumbling
verses are sliding off my rusted tongue as fiddlers fly above,
roughened words, hewn from a paper cup, spilling diamonds uncut, imported from Sarajevo, Montparnasse, the Lower East Side.
wretched me, in the hour I first believed, this amalgamated conception conceded,
seceded from my mind into your palate for a tasting,
tho neither drugged, nor deaf and dumb, just slammed poetical-like, this write is
all I have to portend is your affections, your attentions, to yours, am beholden.
a ***** well respected man in daylight,
the hidden references accuse,
woke up to see Wednes-day Caesarian born,
askance glanced at the prior passages of the night before,
when my palate clefted,
when eyes chose not to distinguish
between right and lefted,
in the nightlight,
a ***** man disrespects language convection/convention,
and lays before you activating stanzas and his mind, prone,
but always the truth, speaking,
the visions, leaking, mind to eye,
recombinant, into our minds eye.
^ http://www.guggenheim.org/new-york/exhibitions/on-view/james-turrell
Rather than write extensive notes on the many references, inspirations in this poem, if there is a line that intrigues, ask me
Aug 28, 2013
Aug 28, 2013 at 2:49 PM UTC
Three-legged spider on a ***** tile
Eyeball rolls, clean in hand
Massive metal door opens, up top a hill
Graveyard of ever-ringing cells.
What's real creepy to you?
Enclose the city, lock us out ..for good
Condemned as doomed, living dead
Big guns survive in metallic domes
See the crass ******** shoot us down!
Wanna talk about what's creepy, huh?
Plunderers now lay down new laws
Can't fight the sick, red sway
Random acts of violence bay
Armoured eyes see all from lofty towers.
Creepy autocrats hide the truth, right?
No soaring when blood runs rivers
Tripping over rotting corpses
Decaying stench of hope dying
Help will come, we must believe!
Do you believe lies to your face?
Infrastructure's down, no services
Power's out, no more flushing
Car carcasses aflame on every corner, yet
How come big brother's eyes still move?
Are the gullible ones really stupid and feeble?
Sun shines, but nothing grows
Rain seeps red away into sewers
Crops of twisted metal, hoards of guns
Skeletal trees adorn our landscape.
Why hold askance your glance skyward?
The gates will open to let us in
Surely, they witness our hardship!
There must exist a life beyond this strife
Uproar, bombard, gas, artillery....then no more....
Can you ever cease to have temerity?
In face of adversity, calamity and injustice
We should NEVER cease to be exasperated!
Hope must prevail; faith must live;
Thoughts expressed; love and respect must survive.
Can you afford your spirit just to let go....?
Think about it. Creepy autocrats eternally rank ...
Chronically..........Insidious
Repressively........Deleterious
Egotistically.........Inadequate
Eruptively............Odious
Pretentiously.......Tedious
Yucky...................Scum!
S T, 31 May 2013
May 31, 2013
May 31, 2013 at 10:30 AM UTC
i
a wee shaft of beam
across
a sea of chilly darkness:
dashing on, dashing long
a chain
of disturbing crispy waves.
a haunting pitch
of sirens, of winging gulls.
…then
a whistle in the dark
ii
i have bled.
and ever bleeding
is resurgence.
the stones are stained now
not all are stained yet.
but i can hold no more.
no more.
iii
to listen would have been enough
but spoke i
to deaf-mutes, clayey forms.
and every uttered little word
faded like receding undertone.
and then
conspiracy of silence,
misquotations,
sharing of once
too friendly shoulders.
a nod would have been enough,
or a pat,
or any like gesture;
they turned askance
and i fled… fled away.
iv
back to my chambered shell
back to my cradle
where there are many whispers.
and every fateful swing
of the pendulum
i reel and ride the wheel of fancy,
embrace false idols
like one fearful of his god
if only to escape the haunts
of conscience;
tremble at approaching footsteps,
shriek at every shadow.
v
i shall walk barefoot again
past leafless stumps
windborn, heated, and bowed,
‘cross an oasis grown desert dry,
past anthills now dunghills,
‘neath rapid flutter
of widespread murky wings,
past cliff edges
where resound pampered echoes,
while arched in deceitful hues
a rainbow.
…i scan the blue… i pause…
vi
i await a lily-white stork
or there shall be no curtain speech.
May 5, 2015
May 5, 2015 at 8:02 PM UTC
England you had your chance to dance
on soccers biggest stage with France
you had your chance to advance
but you fell to Croatia's lance
how two stricken spears quelled the romance
and now cinderellas laugh at your trance
as a sorry Big Ben now sits in a prance
while the Croats sip your tea and perchance
To continue.
Oh, my. Now Belgium takes third in your belly up dance
You reign now like a fish at the surface with its sad eyes askance
Where did it all go Big Ben, the spirited stance
Sigh. To wait four years lost to be tickled with waning happenstance
Logan Robertson
7/12/2018
Jul 12, 2018
Jul 12, 2018 at 4:58 AM UTC
On that bright day his mind was unusually calm
He stopped by the beggar to offer him some alms
Feeling at peace with himself without a trace of qualm
He took a deep breath, with life he was coming to term.
Goodness he pondered was quite an achievable feat
A small spark that made him offer the old man a seat
Each familiar face he smiled at such easy was to greet
Inside him he grew healthier being good was great benefit.
Why men suffer jealousy fight for one-upmanship
Instead of trading for goodness most precious human keep
Just not burn to earn his food comfort and restful sleep
But live in shining goodness make life a rewarding trip.
Being good with one’s own kind he felt wouldn’t do
Other lives around him must kindly be treated too
A crumb of bread for the street dog on its head a little pat
Pints of milk and a little care for the weak and ailing cat.
As he walked the road thoughts like these lighted up his face
He found waiting on wayside many things begging goodness
Determined he would reach them all do them a little good
He sprinted along in a sprightly gait his mind in deep brood.
Back home when she opened the door he gave her a broad smile
She glowered a little askance for he hadn’t done it a while
*What brings you this sheepish smile what for the elation?
Don’t even think you can ever make on me a good impression!*
Dec 6, 2013
Dec 6, 2013 at 2:45 AM UTC
Wicked nether-land. Nether world, white, askance. Capitulating mangroves, verdant trees spliced with hyperbole, onomatopoeia, and manilla envelopes; her world is stuffed with secrets, she listens to gorillas cracking mussels a kilometer away, near a rill. Never she thought. Nothing that could provide....providence. Mangled heliographs sprayed all over the everywhereworld.
"Don't be S.A.F.E.," she whispered. A bouquet of gorse, cistus, and pimpernels squished in her small fingers. She climbed her way through the pedimented stairway, then collapsing on the porch. Legs spent, and spread out upon the desiccate grayed four by four planks of the portico.
And as time elapses, the shuttering shake of the hemlock, which writhes through her skinny nimble dactyls, upwards straining the heart as its toxic bends appendages- crisp cerise lumens bend on the Titanium White walls, where only shadows bend time. The hour, still nine. Every adornment, furnished with red and its hues. Not purple, periwinkle, or any masked enhancement.
These are the symbols that reticulate splines, that curve temperatures, perverse hemispheres and debunk worlds. Upped antes, verbs that terns flirt worth, birth words. Ooh. Aah. Camera. The forest wraps her in its verdant pasture, where at last the moribund tamarisks disperse.
While at the plateau she is quiet and longing. Arms astride, dangling. Vaunt with highs and bliss- a kiss of withstanding pleasure serves her the cure for a lifetime of whining. This, yesterday where her body rattled through crooked vines. Square ships toasting her vocal melancholy in the sweet-waters of Time. So that all of her ripened limbs could grow, no more sheepishly than the magic she knew as a child. Stress free. First among the Earth-words, verbed-up and made jealous by pronouns that encompassed her joy-brimming hide. Closing down her voice and hugging her from behind.
Apr 26, 2014
Apr 26, 2014 at 4:44 AM UTC
OUR POVERTY HAS COLOUR
Alexander K Opicho
(Eldoret, Kenya; [email protected])
Most illusive and elusive
Like the devils of Congo forest
Is the impish poverty
Permeating all seals with vicious wily
Into the midst of callous humanity
Biting country men and country women
With carnivorous dentalities so ruthless
Putting man to a forlorn shame
As the wife looks in desperate flaggerbastation
Putting matriarchal womenfolk to humiliation
As the expectant sire wallow in the askance of looks
Condemning communities to status ad absurdum initio
Thinning man from man, culling woman from woman
Eating flesh by flesh social koprpers of man
Eating the native flesh in the farms of Brazil
Tearing the ***** steak into ghetto lacerations of Chicago
Whizzling sombre morning tunes to the Zulus in the black tundra
Cementing pale casted clusters for the Patels of India
Commanding suave drills to poor (wo) menfolk; left! Left! Left! –abouuuuturn!
With its accomplice Mr. Hunger son of starvation, they both command drills
For black factory workers, Maids and gravediggers to dance
Watchmen, thieves and prostitutes to match
In the hinterland of Africa all the riff-raff in deep despair
Dance in a tandem to the irritating drills of the duo;
You come on! Left! Right! Left! Right!—fowaaard match!
Backward match! Left! Right! Left! Right! Sharpp uuuuuuuturn!
The duo communiqué; Go home and wait for your pay announcement.
Surely; what colour is our poverty?
Nov 29, 2013
Nov 29, 2013 at 11:13 AM UTC
Come, my darling, let us dance
To the moon that beckons us
To dissolve our love in trance
Heedless of the hideous
Heat & hate of Sirius-
Shun his baneful brilliance!
Let us dance beneath the palm
Moving in the moonlight, frond
Wooing frond above the calm
Of the ocean diamond
Sparkling to the sky beyond
The enchantment of our psalm.
Let us dance, my mirror of
Perfect passion won to peace,
Let us dance, my treasure trove,
On the marble terraces
Carved in pallid embroeideries
For the vestal veil of Love.
Heaven awakes to encompass us,
Hell awakes its jubilance
In our hearts mysterious
Marriage of the azure expanse,
With the scarlet brilliance
Of the Moon with Sirius.
Velvet swatches our lissome limbs
Languid lapped by sky & sea
Soul through sense & spirit swims
Through the pregnant porphyry
Dome of lapiz-lazuli:-
Heart of silence, hush our hymns.
Come my darling; let us dance
Through the golden galaxies
Rhythmic swell of circumstance
Beaming passion’s argosies:
Ecstacy entwined with ease,
Terrene joy transcending trance!
Thou my scarlet concubine
Draining heart’s blood to the lees
To empurple those divine
Lips with living luxuries
Life importunate to appease
Drought insatiable of wine!
Tunis in the tremendous trance
Rests from day’s incestuous
Traffic with the radiance
Of her sire-& over us
Gleams the intoxicating glance
Of the Moon & Sirius.
Take the ardour of my impearled
Essence that my shoulders seek
To intensify the curled
Candour of the eyes oblique,
Eyes that see the seraphic sleek
Lust bewitch the wanton world.
Come, my love, my dove, & pour
From thy cup the serpent wine
Brimmed & breathless -secret store
Of my crimson concubine
Surfeit spirit in the shrine-
Devil -Goddess ****** *****
Afric sands ensorcel us,
Afric seas & skies entrance
Velvet, lewd & luminous
Night surveys our soul askance!
Come my love, & let us dance
To the Moon and Sirius!
2.9k
The sleet is drawing boxes 'round
our mud-and-snow sashed towns.
We'll check 'em off
with crunching footsteps,
slash our gallows grins through static
weather. Nervous laughter fights off winter
while somnambulist nights
hold the anthill days at bay.
And each repeated conversation
coats a thrumming undercurrent
echoed by the groaning rivers
in their arthritic fatigue.
where the ice piles up
like car wrecks.
And, out of those disastrous angles,
jumps up and trips back down.
Blinking eyelids, right then left.
Sunrises. Sunsets.
Dusks and dawns in places familiar
wading through liminal space.
Circles darkened. Footprints filled in.
The heat just circles lazily.
Our flushed and clammy brows
will **** askance
and sweat while footsteps
melt our swaying way through boiling
sidewalks. Nervous laughter dulls the impact
of seared, rapid fire nights.
"Ha." "Ha." Shrug off another.
And all repeated reminiscence
does is hamstring overthinking
of the closing jaws of traps
in these rusting western towns.
where winds breathe dust
by mouthfuls
So, into our familiar mishaps,
***** up and falls back down
melting into neighborhoods
dress down, upbraid us.
'Til our feet do not walk circles
'round these wilting Western towns.
Jan 9, 2015
Jan 9, 2015 at 6:09 PM UTC
(... And i like you.)
We never tire
Of trying to fit everyone
Into the shape of voids
Our hearts have carved
And that's fine.
It's still not something I'd do to you.
(..And i like you)
Love has made a ghost
Out of the best of us
And we anchor to the memories
To save our entities.
And honestly who am i to judge?
But you knock new air into my dead, dusty lungs
(..And i like you)
We ache,
And we mould our ache into arts.
Abusing and devouring love,
Like scorched land tasting the first rain drop.
And I'm one of the many inked hearts.
I would leave my pen though, you make me want to.
(..And i like you)
We all have been loved,
And we all have been lonely,
Some of us feel the presence,
More when it starts to ebb.
And I've always felt myself overstaying my welcome, even before arrival.
But I'd leave my pieces on your door, as an excuse for you to call me.
(..And i like you)
We are always
looking for a replacement.
Disguising our sadness with a new skin
Trading one addiction for another; a vicious cycle.
All these temporary fixes and the perpetual sadness.
But you could be a detour from this dead-end I'm leading to.
(And i like you.)
Fistful of mosaic desires,
Confessions barely held in by my teeth
Future is easier to swallow than salvage
Your intoxicated lips smirk in agreement.
All these loving hearts with eyes askance.
But something tells me if i showed you my palm, you'd understand.
(..And i like you)
Sep 4, 2017
Sep 4, 2017 at 4:33 AM UTC
Where's your lady?
asked the chimpanzee
the bear looked askance
the tiger growled
zebras rolled
macaws looked in trance.
Where's she
your lady pretty
queried the lone rhino
it's not good
this solitude
roared the lion with raised eyebrow.
Did you lose your way
this November day
when the sky's blazing blue
this fair weather
you aren't together
how come asked the shrew.
Your face it shows
shouted hippos
this fine day of November
boars did grunt
scowled elephant
you're lost without her.
They were so true
alone at the zoo
emptiness surrounded me
daylight though gold
sky blue bold
I roamed unhappily.
Nov 3, 2015
Nov 3, 2015 at 9:13 AM UTC
the early riser guider, pastel orb of high color value,
looks askance at the two men watching it,
for fresh and clean, it, the sun, from
the horizon born and bathed and toweled blue terry sky dry
the men, well they stinkin'
from body sweat hikin' and grease and drinkin'
Mr. Coffee and cheap *****
an expensive high, when next day payback comes due
but none better for inspire to hire and
merging men's alternative verses writ in alternating styles,
trading stanzas under a lighting-felled inspiration tree,
waiting for that insightful light that comes too brief
how can it be each thinks, that tho never in the flesh met,
thank to Mr. Coffee and cheap *****
the bond just gets stronger every day way,
the poetry better with each sippin',
as many rivers confluent on their way home
to the slightly jealous observing Pacific sea,
the original mother lode of all creation,
well, She says:
*"boys,
good job and good luck remembering anything
and getting home safe and sound!"*
to which we drink a toast of Mr. Coffee and cheap *****
and it ocurs to one, perhaps both,
this is kinda a love poem after all
May 14, 2017
May 14, 2017 at 11:15 AM UTC
His shadowy brim tipped down and in
No face to place, no trace of chin
Revolver cradled loose and low
Cylinder whirs, chambers roll
Trench coat long, dark, and lean
Black boots gleam with choicest sheen
Right hand rested 'round bony grips
Left hand fans and never slips
Who are you?
What do you want from me?
Why are you here?
Your purpose is hidden
Your message unclear
Never a word muttered
Not even a sound
It's always the same
When you come around
Got to find my keys
Get out of this place
I'm weak in the knees
My heart's losing pace
Jump in the car
Pedal meets metal
Check my rear-view
For signs of that devil
At the stoplight
A peripheral glance
A sideways glint
A figure askance
Shotgun rider
A figment with a plan
The devil may care
But my mind made the man
©Jason Cole
Jun 25, 2015
Jun 25, 2015 at 7:45 PM UTC
billboard's calligraph --
past the haze of Manila infested
by car sprawls and belching machines.
magnanimous treatise of tarpaulins,
people chin-up asking God
with askance
something like this
"o god make this bearable
like a mound of fresh fruits
from ****** labour."
maniacal sensurround:
earth-shattering frequency
of footsteps trampling the mouth
of monolith shadows - the peak
of this quake is our complete silence.
rain's catharsis in effect
sousing us in the blood of unreal light.
this diastolic shrinkage
jamming the beat of constricting vessels.
the adrenaline surges
within the dermis of this pretension.
a collective of tired beings heeding
the recherché of voice metamorphosing
into form, a dagger-butterfly
paring us skin to bone, cranial
to visceral, soul to nothing -
catapult of a trajectory spit
plummeting in eased-up pace
from Taft Avenue flyover
to a subjugated wagon of scraps
and empty wine bottles.
today's paper reads:
"Palace hits hiring
of **** dancers"
fancying to fall right in the
spanked curved of this
insatiate melodrama - something
prayer could not save from
this land's mutinous ignominy.
we resume to fulfill our madness,
hundreds of tack-headed people
rolling down the streets of Makati,
drenched with rain's trilling aftermath.
squinting to look at
no sun, only the grieving of skyscrape,
thumbing down unidentified objects
in the depth of loose pockets,
desperate for home.
Oct 2, 2015
Oct 2, 2015 at 12:39 AM UTC
My wife is a most knowing woman,
She always is finding me out,
She never will hear explanations
But instantly puts me to rout,
There's no use to try and deceive her,
If out with my friends night or day,
In a most inconceivable manner,
She tells where I've been right away,
She says that I'm 'mean' and 'inhuman.'
Oh! My wife is a most knowing woman.
She would've been hung up for witchcraft
If she had lived sooner, I know,
There's no hiding anything from her,
She knows what I do -- where I go;
And if I come in after midnight
And say 'I have been to the lodge,'
Oh, she says while she flies in a fury,
'Now don't think to play such a dodge!
It's all very fine, but won't do, man,'
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman.
Not often I go out to dinner
And come home a little 'so so,'
I try to creep up through the hall-way,
As still as a mouse, on tip-toe,
She's sure to be waiting up for me
And then comes a nice little scene,
'What, you tell me you're sober, you wretch you,
Now don't think that I am so green!
My life is quite worn out with you, man,'
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman!
She knows me much better than I do,
Her eyes are like those of a lynx,
Though how she discovers my secrets
Is a riddle would puzzle a sphynx,
On fair days, when we go out walking,
If ladies look at me askance,
In the most harmless way, I assure you,
My wife gives me, oh! such a glance,
And says 'all these insults you'll rue, man,'
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman.
Yes, I must give all of my friends up
If I would live happy and quiet;
One might as well be 'neath a tombstone
As live in confusion and riot.
This life we all know is a short one,
While some tongues are long, heaven knows,
And a miserable life is a husband's
Who numbers his wife with his foes;
I'll stay at home now like a true man,
Oh, my wife is a most knowing woman.
2.2k
believe in ants
believe in trees
believe in plants
that please the bees
believe in chants
that ease disease
believe in rants
that seize the seas
believe in stance
that breed decrees
believe in pants
pulled past your knees
some aberrants
all kinds deceive
believe beliefs
in grief relieve
beliefs I see askance
ennui ennui
ennui
©2017 Lyn
Sep 18, 2017
Sep 18, 2017 at 9:54 AM UTC
Claus, Santa, the
Is a huge enigma to me
And probably many others
My enigmatized sisters and brothers.
Enigmatized, possibly stigmatized,
It beggars logical thought
All the confusion and pain
This concept has brought.
For over two centuries
Surrounded with mysteries
An alternately jovial and evil guy
Brought bounteous gifts, could fly!
Gave coal to the misbehaving,
Or nothing much at all, saving
All the good stuff for good kids
Who were careful with what they did.
We have read of Saint Nick
And Sinterklaas; take your pick
Of which legend blended with what
To become the guy we were taught
Sneaked down chimneys at night
It you kids didn’t sleep tight.
While this is all very typical
It seems rather biblical.
Claus’s eye is on the sparrow
So we must walk the straight and narrow
Or go down into his big naughty book
And he will ultimately decide to look
Askance at any chance of gifts for you
No matter how much begging you do
Write to his eternal rotund self.
He’s an unforgiving old elf.
And there’s that flying reindeer thing
And the way he’s rumored to go zipping
Around the entire blessed world in one night.
That, to me just never seemed quite right.
It’s bizarre and incredible is exactly what.
Do the reindeer have jet engines in their ****
And how can one tiny sleight and eight beasts
Tote those thousands of truckloads at least?
No, the whole thing sounds bogus, in its base.
And that whole North Pole/tiny people place
Where they slave on making toys all the year
And thrive on hot chocolate instead of beer?
Elves must be a rather dim gang of workers.
No union leaders? No malingerers? No lurkers?
I have tried for decades, but it doesn’t add up.
There’s too much questionable in this holiday cup.
I’m going back to the idea I thought as a child.
It’s easier to believe and not nearly as wild:
It’s Mom and Dad behind it all, it’s a big lie.
And my final bit of skepticism? I can tell you why.
The kids in my little neighborhood get given
Gifts with no relationship to how they are living.
If all this hogwash were actually true
Bunches of them would get coal too.
Dec 12, 2015
Dec 12, 2015 at 6:39 PM UTC
do you think
cloaks of normalcy
societal smiles
wash away reality -
that screens pulled close
pious veils drawn
means all is well -
that children next door
from 'respectable' homes
aren't used like so much spoil
displayed with polish
to the highest bidder -
what tales do you keep
to sleep at night
in perfumed air -
'it's far away
some hapless child
not where I drive
with tinted glass
they're lower class
don't know the Lord
mere runts down town
where father drinks
can't pay their rent
make decent wage
so sell the kid
for sordid nights -
- n - o -
it happens
to tender buds
in wealthy
suites
and poorer shacks
in any
place
and every age
from dot to
grown
they stay unseen
stare at their
sums
are ***** this night
sob off to
sleep
as mother too
walks right on
by
deaf to the screams
he wants his
due
so he will take
her brother
too
'now be a man'
says worm to
prince
he lies to all
most to his
face
and no one sees
and no one
hears
the silent screams
with veil drawn
close
they look askance
and walk on
by
Sep 2, 2017
Sep 2, 2017 at 12:10 AM UTC
This is dedicated to whomever (“’whom,’ he said, for he had been to night school.”) mentioned existential angst the other day. At first I misread “existential angst” as “existential ants,” and so for you and for all who suffer existential angst and existential ants:
Existential Ants
All creepy ants are existential ants
If ants across your old blue jeans advance
And bite into your tender skin by chance
You leap into an existential dance
And swear profane, wild, existential chants
Your good companions look at you askance
Each with a wondering existential glance
They seem to be in an existential trance
As you flail among the flowering plants
Because of those wicked existential ants!
May 31, 2018
May 31, 2018 at 3:43 PM UTC
I mean, it felt like I was a dead fish
Or something, left to rot out there in the sun,
Left there on purpose, you know, like it was
A threat—and Charles, it stinks—you know that?—
—the stench of all those old thoughts—
Yeah, thoughts…you know,
Like guppies maybe, sturgeon, or flounder.
You laugh? Why? Fish can think, can’t they? They flounder.
Suppose as we grow old the ancient thoughts
Appear as songs a child might sing—sotto voce.
Suppose they’re like the masks the actors wore
In some Commedia dell’Arte farce,
Or like the web a spider strings across
A road, hidden, dark, all subtle tension,
The strands still wet with the coagulate air…
Too wet to breath, Charles, way too wet.
There’s more. Suppose a face inside that mask
Looks back, looks out. Suppose the rings run circles round
The eyes, for fear. Suppose it’s an old face of yours,
Charles, smiling too, with all that sullen pride
You once were so capable of…so proud.
This is not the Lone Ranger, kimosabi.
Not Zorro either. Man is least himself
When he talks in his own person. So let’s
Try on that mask, shall we?
One for you and one for me.
Masks aplenty, masks abound,
Masks askance…
There, it fits. Welcome, Charles. Welcome back.
And welcome ghost.
…a ghost to prompt you in your mask, a ghost
off stage, and hoarse from shouting, diaphanous,
just like the real thing: for curiously,
at that moment while he is in you,
in situ, as it were, I will be left
au naturel—yeah, me—king for a day.
We were all meant to crawl away from the sea,
were we not?
…and I count the collective ghosts here too,
Charles…
… atavistic, frightened, unaneled,
and openly integumentary
(thus, open to the sea, but repellant
to air)
—owls, Orion, a star-scarred sky,
too cold to breath that night,
too cold not to, eh, Charles?
Like Don Quixote and Sancho Panza,
like Hamlet and Horatio,
out with the watch, in search
of ghosts and fathers…
ghosts and fathers, Charles.
You remember that?
Back then, when you used to listen to me
when I spoke. You did listen, then, Charles when
I said things, right?
All those old thoughts…
When I could sing…
Charles?
Feb 15, 2010
Feb 15, 2010 at 8:52 AM UTC
Like you were a first trip to NYC,
or a perfect view of the cosmos
from that clearing on Sylvan Avenue,
I was agape and fawning while you sauntered
out from your double doors, to the end of your driveway,
to where I rocked on my heels eagerly
on Allen Dr. at 6:23
Come 7:15, we bedecked your body
with stripped and frayed Armani
in tribute to the Walkers we've seen;
cool-white fluorescence drew emphasis
on the harmony between your ivory simper
and each cobalt marble that rolled
and flicked beneath your tuckered eyelids
by some sort of beatnik artistry.
Frankly, my chest swelled with fever
when I noted the scrunch of your nose
askance to liquid-latex applications,
or the way black cherry sap wept
from the corners of your mouth
while dislodging the blood-capsule
in-between your molars
and your stately, hollow cheek at 7:50
And I noticed around 8:00,
when I had slowed you to a halt
near the crosswalk on Montauk
between Coastal and Le Soir
to fix the scar-tissue on your chin,
that if I ever knew there to be one,
you made a most stunning zombie
with my Tom & Jerry cap lining your scalp;
Which made the stain left by the makeup
worth the trade of my hat
in exchange for your company,
as we picked up a twelve-pack
at the 7-11 just down the street
before we returned to the party.
Dec 17, 2013
Dec 17, 2013 at 8:05 PM UTC