***** mist
hiss of tires
wiper blades reveal
a jet black grackle
landing lightly
on the overpass rail


Tom Spencer © 2018

How many poetry books = 1 Nissan Pathfinder exhaust
      system.
How many bluebirds? Money is how we thank people for
      what makes them special
How we express our love and gratitude.

Weight and moods, up and down, with weather and outcome
      of meetings.
I am so sick of humanity, people. Wouldn't I prefer
      chickadees?
Then I get home, that is the comfortable tree hole I've been
      longing for.

Aaron pitches and plays piano. Zach likes lacrosse and math.
The mound was soft, sand, with a hole big enough for an urn
      or to hide a plover
But Aaron pitched carefully anyway, slow strikes and the
      opposing team scored.

What would God's work be? Meaningless question. Today's
      schedule:
Write fund raising letters, conserve small farms. Local food,
      local jobs. Don't transport food coast to coast. Save fuel,
      less CO2.
In my opinion the dislocations resulting from climate change
      and global warming will be within man's adaptive capacity.
      On the other hand.
Also, green industry will open a vast employment market, a
      job for every grackle, crow.

The good life, unsustainable, we're poisoning our children
      although my children are not so poisoned. They're bald.
      Unusually bald. Good looking bald. Future of man bald.
      Happy bald.
Bald eagle. Nesting, mating near Karen Sheldon's, a
      conservationist, philanthropist, on the river, whose
      husband recently died. During romantic dinner on a
      second honeymoon in Paris, so I've heard.
That's Jake's spirit come home as an eagle, Karen said. Isn't
      that great, I said, and the she-eagle he's nesting with!
--I'm gonna **** that *****.

Compare Captain Carpenter and In a Prominent Bar in
      Secaucus One Day. In each case the hero's (heroine's)
      body declining
Under life's duress. Anything located in Secaucus, NJ could
      not be considered prominent, could it?
In the end, clack clack takes all. Hard to end a poem better
      than that. Clack clack the crow's beak, upper and lower
      mandibles meeting. From hunger, or it just does. Crows
      clack clack to communicate.
Whitman's greatest poem is Out of the Cradle . . . also
      involving communicating birds, in what is initially an
      embarrassingly emotional display. All that italicized
      moaning and yearning. Get away.
Then, clack clack, he turns on you. Death lisping, straight into
      your eyes. Suddenly you realize you should have taken
      him seriously, been paying attention.

In the meantime, traffic, corn, new exhaust system, ask for
      money, save farms, poor people, sun on garden, whole
      wide world, wars, stars.
I gave up long ago on a quiet world. Now going deaf. Then it
      will be quiet, too quiet.
No more birding by ear. "No more *******." I mean really . . .
      I was moved as anyone by Hall's honest poem about Jane
      dying and I guess ******* can be music to someone's
      melody, stand for living, but not me.
No more birding would have had more meaning. I'd rather
      bird than ****. No more *******, no more worry, no more
      war.

Which is why I'm gonna **** that ***** is so funny, such a
      life-affirming comeback.
At first I worried Karen really believed the eagle is her
      husband. Maybe she does,
But that punch line makes her the kind of woman I want to
      know.

birthed into a golden birdcage
safe behind upstanding spindles
endless nectars and suet at your beckon
knowing only the showcase of your plumage
and the sound of your tunes

layers remain
between you and the grackles
painted a nuisance
yet they stay unshackled
only poisoned and disregarded.

still they know the freedoms
not found atop
swings and perches
dig deeper
until you find what lurches.

the gate can be opened
when you realize yourself
to be the gatekeeper
yielding what's mine
using wings of more than feathers
making up for lost time.

looking back at the captivity
you couldn't see from inside.
entering a new world
with the grackle as my guide.

meditation retreat -
breaking silence to talk
to a deaf dog

chasing dragonflies-
the little boy stops to check
his empty hand

loosening the rusted gate
in the grackle's throat -
rare winter sun

a passing bus
fills my window with
its emptiness

pear blossoms scattered
on the pavement -
white petals drifting
on an oily stream

london

sunday morning, empty streets -
the clicking of unseen heels
against damp pavement

blind man

old blind man on the
street - a pretty little girl
tosses you a glance

only the wind

only the wind flows
through this dry creek bed-
it was your glance
that set me adrift

westcave

echoing against
the walls of the cave -
the silence of our embrace

one by one these words
fall - paper stars burning in
the fire of your arms

cow creek

silhouette of pine
against the moonlit sky -
from this motionless cloud
the voice of an owl

winter sun

stretching out to fill
a sliver of sun
as it arcs across the floor
the cat watches me
through narrowing eyes.

cold front clouds

cold front clouds
blown taut across the sky -
blue grey skin
stretched thin
over the exposed ribs
of the season

empty branches black with rain -
but the stream is filled with gold


Tom Spencer © 2018

We felt as if we’d been born in the desert
Passing shoelace factory prostitutes
Veering memories of Crab Nebula up-skirts
& Slowly obtained convoluted attitudes

“(In our sleep) We let the lizards lick our teeth”:
The grackle chatter from Four Hand Weaver
Met the ears of Guest, who’d arrived in Portsmeth
Riding on deep banjo drones from within the ether

What else can words be but propellants?
They are TLC to mad minds of the 90’s
Coaxing the Guest out of hell with mad chants
& we, the kids, following blindly

“He tried to get me to turn off the electricity
Chanting Southeast Asian Countries with Four Hands
Somehow part of an insane Sun/Moon allegory”
Cries Morgie Saturday morning &

We saw a vision: the Guest up in a crescent
Cast down from the sky and into the sea
Cascading over into a flooding depressant
& cut open the fat man who whispered of banshees

As his steaming intestines float down by the riverside
The boys were passing jolly jokes & joints
“They’ll never figure out how to catch a bride
When they’ve forgotten how to find the celestial point!”

Screeched the Guest with his candle strap
Attached to his banjofrigerator filled with Game Fuel
“It’s in my veins, it’s in my blood like a death cap!”
No longer just a Kentucky Gentleman covered in drool

All in all, a teacher, a preacher, a joke
A gravel eater, unlike the lizards underground
“I don’t eat dirt!  That’s a lie I’d never invoke
Lizards eat dirt & I ain’t like that crowd!”

Men are lizards & lizards are men
“& I ain’t a lizard no way, no how!
That’s the truest fact there ever has been
Aside from something being seriously wrong with me"

Blackbird your wings like ashen skies
iridescent as blue morpho butterflies
the impaling of your sharpened eyes
all knowing, you cackle
shapeshifter Yaqui man
desert bird, a grackle

Stirring, you stare me down
shaking mesquite leaves to the ground
the air is thick grey sage
smudged with prayers of peace
a wish to cease
the wars we wage

a vision pure of heart
this message of love unfurls
breathe peace - peace
in this world.

I am fond of "Spackle"
and all "ackle" words.
That makes him cackle
and it tickles my tackle
I scream like a grackle
and my ******* crackle
which raises some hackles.

crossing from
the park
to the bank,
stepping over
the remains
of a grackle
on the grass
that glides
into the sidewalk
and

suddenly

dissolves
at the verge
of the

road

81–100 of 11462 Poems
«3456»Viewsshow detailshide detailsSort by  
From “The Sonnagrams”
BY K. SILEM MOHAMMAD
on thoth’s ****
From Sonnet 75 (“So are you to my thoughts as food to life”)


A groovy day, a fish fillet, an elf hair, . . .
Homer
BY TROY JOLLIMORE
Schliemann is outside, digging. He’s not
not calling a ***** a *****.
The stadium where the Greeks once played . . .
Ocean Park #17, 1968: Homage to Diebenkorn
BY LARRY LEVIS
What I remember is a carhop on Pico hurrying
Toward a blue Chevy,
. . .
Per Fumum
BY JAMAAL MAY
My mother became an ornithologist
when the grackle tumbled through barbecue smoke
and fell at her feet. Soon she learned . . .
The Archaeologists
BY JULIA SHIPLEY
found pins
by the millions
while meticulously . . .
The Break
BY FRANZ WRIGHT
Then he stopped
dead on the sidewalk
astounded . . .
The Companions of Odysseus in Hades
BY A. E. STALLINGS
Since we still had a little
Of the rusk left, what fools
To eat, against the rules, . . .
There Are Birds Here
BY JAMAAL MAY
There are birds here,
so many birds here
is what I was trying to say . . .
Twelve Thirty One Nineteen Ninety Nine
BY LARRY LEVIS
First Architect of the jungle & Author of pastel slums,
Patron Saint of rust,
You have become too famous to be read. . . .
Whethering
BY A. E. STALLINGS
The rain is haunted;
I had forgotten.
My children are two hours abed . . .
Make a Law So That the Spine Remembers Wings
BY LARRY LEVIS
So that the truant boy may go steady with the State,
So that in his spine a memory of wings
Will make his shoulders tense & bend . . .
A Midsummer Night’s Stroll
BY PHILIP NIKOLAYEV
I.

I am a man.  I’ve lived alone.  I’ve been  in  love.  I’ve  played  with . . .
[The water was rising...]
BY LYN HEJINIAN
The water was rising, I got up on the bed
Still wearing the Hawaiian shirt he had on yesterday
He used his thoughts to draw a rudimentary circle on the wall . . .
[A straight rain is rare...]
BY LYN HEJINIAN
A straight rain is rare and doors have suspicions
and I hold that names begin histories
and that the last century was a cruel one. I am pretending . . .
[But isn’t midnight intermittent]
BY LYN HEJINIAN
But isn’t midnight intermittent
Or was that just a whispered nine
A snap of blown light low against the flank of a cow . . .
Third Poem for the Catastrophe
BY JOYELLE MCSWEENEY
O
melting rainbow that embrace this roof
O . . .
Dear Fi Jae 2 (Ms. Merongrongrong)
BY JOYELLE MCSWEENEY
Now I know what it is to bite the tongue inside

the mink stole: I do not want . . .
Self Portrait
BY CYNTHIA CRUZ
I did not want my body
Spackled in the world’s
Black beads and broke . . .
Kingdom of Dirt
BY CYNTHIA CRUZ
Soon the ambassadors from the Netherworld
Will begin
. . .
King Prion
BY JOYELLE MCSWEENEY
—Hoooooooo
Lay in an array of pixels
Fat, simulated proteins . . .
«3456»

waiting weightless
waitless
1/18/15
8:43am

' hand rest chest
thumpthump
thump ''

' that heartbeat is a
metronome of waxing and waning
rhythmic tides and it's an '
everchanging time signature
to my overture overture and '
hand off and unsettle and '
thrown into uncontrolled rubato~ ''

' fizzy brain
spinnin dizzy
spinnin circles
spiral spiral ''

' life over my shoulder
strapped to my back and
I'm flowing like a river
down the elevator ''

' opening down
the seam and out ''
I step and roll heel toe
heel toe '
eyes flick side and side
glass door push open and
box and glass door push open and
push open push open and
open... ''

' cold streets are
the downbeat to sleet '' — '

it's frozen roads going backwards
and I'm going backwards with all my lackwords ''

...slushroadslick. '

I'm returning and leaving
like a medicine wheel spinning
and there's a dead grackle soaking
next to the curb slippery
with toxic runoff... '

...crystal water
melting '

my shoes slide from left
to left and I've up and left and
I'm climbing down the
right side of a staircase
and it's a case and it's a way
that stairway

and that last step
is 9:13am last step flat
and platform dead and
sleepy benches waiting for
the listless waiting
for the waitless ''

' waiting , waiting ''
I hop on and hide... '

the silence is sacred ''
the eyes are averted
and it's one of the
thousand different silences '
it's one of the rumbling ones
but then it's broken and
it's broken by an angry one '
and we're all alone in a railcar
with seven others, we're all alone
and she breaks it, ' she breaks it by
spilling angry nothings into the phone
that she pushes tightly to her skull '
and she grips it and she breaks it and '
and she breaks it and '
I hop off and run...

and once again I'm a
thousand different faces waiting '
but right now we're two
watching watching the
hopping sparrow ' and
it is so alive with it's
warm fluffy feathers
soaked with life ''
'

and everyone is shuffle shuffle pacing ''
' but every body stands still with eyes saccading...
sweep sweep, '

stay where you are,
in your lateness ''
and your action
is in your inaction
weightless... '

waiting to
hop on

My redemptive acts float
above recognition.
They are rooted in desire,
and need, and love.
They are impossible to eulogize
because they are as common as
shrugs or affirmations
delivered by my timid eyes.

You all know these acts.
You have no life without them.
A baby knows them soon as he, or she,
grabs teddy, and bites
his soft brown nose.
They are nothing moments.
They are valueless commodities
disregarded on the markets
of pride and sentiment.
They give no lessons.
They're just dumb and true
and they fear the advance of death
no more than boulders fear
the waters of a lake.

During a good long life you get
about a thousand or so such moments.
In one of those brief, tragic lives
you get maybe a hundred,
maybe even less. But of course,
tabulating them near or at the end
is about as smart and useful
as shoveling that lake.

They tell me that I am,
just like you, the way a grackle
is just like a grackle, or a lion cub
is just like all other lion cubs.
They tell me, that yes, life is pretty cool,
and that I will miss it,
and I will miss you.

In the basement,
I dance
the five animals
every day,
and one
of the animals
is a bird,
so I become
something like
a grackle
with its purple head,
and soar
in the mind
as I am walking
in a figure eight
around a small area
with my arms outstretched,
and this exercise
is an trip to wonder land
for me
and it's good
for the old ticker
which could use
some help.

Dawn will crackle with
madness, and a sad
soul sickness, that
breeds an all too
familiar
incomprehensible fear.

It's such hard
work to get that
click, to be okay;
to see the squirrels and
smell the leaves,
to lick the lice off the
sparrows and the grackle.

It's so very quiet tonight,
The mist makes no sound
The creatures are bedded,
Not a soul to be found.
There's a stillness around,
A spirit could get lost
Above the ground.
Only the glam of stars
Pierce the velvet backdrop.
Like a slender grackle,
I **** my head
To hear distant horns and whistles.

Iridescence on the neck
of the boat-tailed grackle
is a trick of light.

Much the same
as the swirled acid
rainbow slitherings
of oils on water -
slick - metallic
the call.

Much the same
as the prismed arches,
aloof,
heavy airs slashed
by gut level
blades of low suns -
never there, but chaste
and chased by the eye.

The blue jay hoards
no pigment blue,
but gray conspires
the barbules,

interlocked
to lift the remains
of the speckled shell
under any light or lack,
slackened back,
flashed on limbs and wire:

back to the clutch,
back to the hatch,
back to the wide red cups,
back to the ratcheting call -
the screech of all things blue.