"kokomo" poems
THE BALLOONS hang on wires in the Marigold Gardens.
They spot their yellow and gold, they juggle their blue and red, they float their faces on the face of the sky.
Balloon face eaters sit by hundreds reading the eat cards, asking, "What shall we eat?"-and the waiters, "Have you ordered?" they are sixty ballon faces sifting white over the tuxedoes.
Poets, lawyers, ad men, mason contractors, smartalecks discussing "educated ********* here they put ***** into their balloon faces.
Here sit the heavy balloon face women lifting crimson lobsters into their crimson faces, lobsters out of Sargossa sea bottoms.
Here sits a man cross-examining a woman, "Where were you last night? What do you do with all your money? Who's buying your shoes now, anyhow?"
So they sit eating whitefish, two balloon faces swept on God's night wind.
And all the time the balloon spots on the wires, a little mile of festoons, they play their own silence play of film yellow and film gold, bubble blue and bubble red.
The wind crosses the town, the wind from the west side comes to the banks of marigolds boxed in the Marigold Gardens.
Night moths fly and fix their feet in the leaves and eat and are seen by the eaters.
The jazz outfit sweats and the drums and the saxophones reach for the ears of the eaters.
The chorus brought from Broadway works at the fun and the slouch of their shoulders, the kick of their ankles, reach for the eyes of the eaters.
These girls from Kokomo and Peoria, these hungry girls, since they are paid-for, let us look on and listen, let us get their number.
Why do I go again to the balloons on the wires, something for nothing, kin women of the half-moon, dream women?
And the half-moon swinging on the wind crossing the town-these two, the half-moon and the wind-this will be about all, this will be about all.
Eaters, go to it; your mazuma pays for it all; it's a knockout, a classy knockout-and payday always comes.
The moths in the marigolds will do for me, the half-moon, the wishing wind and the little mile of balloon spots on wires-this will be about all, this will be about all.
5.5k
twenty minutes to write a poem
to stop and think and scribe
to create an etude, a vignette
from daily life,
minutea
teapot sits
still warm
rendolent
of terraces
of camelias
in foreign lands
crumbs sit in clusters
on the worn pine table
survivors of the toast and jam war
underneath the tuxedo cat
basks in a sliver of stainedglassgreen sunlight
hopeful of something wonderful
the clattering of the boychild
can be heard, akin to rollerblading rhino's
as he prepares for another day of learning
I sit, running fingertip around teacup lip
as I contemplate procrastination
with regard to all things domestic
outside, the world reverberates
as some one begins to cut grass
and the the Beach Boys sing Kokomo
Dec 5, 2016
Dec 5, 2016 at 3:54 PM UTC
When I was young my mother painted the ceiling with every color there was.
She made the falling stucco and sealant into clouds and rainbows and horses;
horses of blue and purple and green.
One time I left my room and stared all night at the stars,
they were so much more vivid.
You couldn't deny their presence,
they were like little beings coming straight toward you.
Didn't need to look up, you could stare straight forward out of the window and it's like they were looking at you too.
But cautious, they never came close enough for me to grab them and trap them in my hand like a rolli-polly.
There were fireflies that loved to gather like tiny self supporting oil lamps by the tree next to our house.
They would swim around me because they knew they were far too clever for me.
There were toadstools that I would kick out of principal and river rocks that were never smooth enough for the current hadn't the will.
Caves where the ivy would circle for no reason but to give me the best hiding place of all time.
We ate snow that one time, when it had snowed for the one time it would in 7 years.
There was a single stoplight in a square of one tiny block where I would get dizzy riding my bike.
Then the Crawfords would let me ride their horse.
That's where I got stung by a bee for the first time and I fell on the red dirt road and cried and cried.
One time a tornado almost swallowed me whole while my trailer baby-sitter wasn't looking.
I remember asking with all sincerity for the third time how to spell cat.
Lolly-pops adorned the daycare where I watched trolls singing Kokomo.
These are all the good things I can remember,
so I cherish them.
Jul 23, 2013
Jul 23, 2013 at 1:56 AM UTC
It Could Happen To You And Probably Has
Step one:
You meet or met;
The Internet.
Not long ago.
You from somewhere in Kokomo, (that’s Indiana),
Or in Goa, India.
Or goodness knows - it happened anyhow.
Warmth turned to passion,
Fashioned from that crossing passage
Into one another’s lives.
Pair-tners waxing like the moon.
Step two:
The snoring, interruptions,
Mannerisms, quirks, needs, those discussions,
Frame of mind.
You find
Its whole attire tiring.
Time scale of no import,
Both or one
Work out, discover, come to grips :
Passion gone,
And too, the pair-tnership.
Step three:
You fire him or her,
Or he or she fires you
From love that turned into a job.
Although you sob you’ve not been robbed.
It’s fair to say
And not deride
The faults, blemishes on either side,
For condemnation’s not the way.
The plot and play’s scenario
Are all too
Recognizable.
It Could Happen To You And Probably Has 9.26.2016
Love Relationships II;
Arlene Corwin
Sep 26, 2016
Sep 26, 2016 at 6:53 AM UTC