"perfunctorily" poems
He has taken rake and shovel in hand,
Taking advantage of the light,
Rare in these climes this time of year,
Still welcomed, though rendered severe
By the sun's reluctant trudge above the horizon,
The type which, sauntering through a window pane
(Falling upon a crucifix anchored above a cradle
Or some ancient, gilded frame
Containing a photo of some grandparent's wedding day,
Exploding into full undifferentiated diffusion)
May possess a dram of warmth, albeit resigned, nostalgic
A bittersweet reminder of what has gone by
(And in the shade, the air is filled
With the portentous chill of what lies a few months hence)
But there nonetheless as he tends to those final farewells
From the trees bowing to December's inevitability,
The droppings not the Pollock-esque bursts of October
(Those having been collected and consigned
To the normal corner of the back lot)
But dreary brown-hued things, not welcomed by eye nor heart,
Simply corralled perfunctorily and dismissed.
One could contend that such activity is unnecessary,
The mere vanity of all endeavor,
As the snow will come soon, and steady as well,
Performing the seasonal, cyclical function in its own time,
But he soldiers on nonetheless, a unseen one-act nearly-farce,
Painstakingly raking and bending and scraping
To leave his patch of green uncovered for a little while
Until the locking time comes to seal the earth's secrets once more,
To be revealed to those
Who shall receive the teasing ministrations
Of the fickle, fitful March equinox.
Jul 23, 2018
Jul 23, 2018 at 1:44 PM UTC
A little bag of bones and ***** skin crawls lackadaisically,
Looking every inch like a moving mass of biltong,
With one arm weakly clasped on the protruding belly,
Looks for somewhere to lie,
Some water tank explodes from inside of her,
Writhes in unimaginable agony,
Screams the screams of death,
Spreads her bony legs sickly,
Out comes an object,
Yes, a baby is born,
In extreme poverty,
It cries and cries,
The shallow cries of a newcomer,
It cries the cries of not being well,
It opens its tiny eyes to a new world,
A world extensively pregnant of poverty,
It dies in the weak sickly mother’s arms,
Veins-wrapped boney powerless arms,
The death of a missed call desperately wanted,
Ended before it even started,
In extreme poverty, it dies,
Just like it was born,
It is eaten by starving dogs,
Dogs in extreme poverty,
Perfunctorily torn apart like a rag doll,
As the mother helplessly watches,
Too weak to do anything,
Born and died in poverty.
Apr 29, 2016
Apr 29, 2016 at 7:34 AM UTC
We were reapers in a past life
I was the cape and you were the scythe
We pulled the wool over their eyes
And made their dreams death in disguise
Wrapped up lilies reaching for shade,
a familiar tragedy,
even they cannot bear the sun's gaze
Wretched.
Reaching for the wool and the knife
In the heaven-less night
Where the shades of confessions danced,
we walked
But, I was not there to get them to talk
The Reverend and the pew
Never did what they were meant to
Tangled lilies reluctantly reaching for shade
Ashamed to accept the slight--decaying hope
and disparate daydreams
Reaching for the cape and the scythe
For the heaven-less sight
Here lies a city
Of flowers-the lilies
In the dark its clarity profoundly makes
A sunlit city dreary
And, we were reapers in our last life
I, your loveless lover,
you with another spouse
Drove me into despair, dragging
the night-sky into our love
made-up of lies
So, we perfunctorily made death
a heaven-less guise
Death, made out of dreams and lies
Be careful, of love's cape and scythe,
If you're to keep your life.
***Sui Caedere translated from Latin, "of oneself ****
" Suicide in a Sunlit City."
Aug 22, 2013
Aug 22, 2013 at 1:23 PM UTC
He’d been able, after some gentle persistence,
To wheedle his way into the place
(He’d been vaguely recognized by the caretaker,
A certain affable familiarity his stock in trade, after all)
And he had been decidedly deliberate in his search for the shoes,
Though he’d been quite certain where he’d left them,
Simply hoping to drink this all in just one more time
But though the rooms were ostensibly unchanged
(He'd noted the odd knick-knack and piece of bric-a-brac
Had been secreted out, to be preserved or pawned)
They held no fascination for him now,
Simply concoctions of hardwood flooring,
Decorative wall coverings, staid pieces of furniture
(Indeed, the paterfamilias of this whole mélange
Increasingly beyond his recall-- he could hearken back
To a certain hail-fellow-well-met in his demeanor,
And he'd had an affecting smile,
But he was unable to conjure any further details
From the recesses of his memory)
And with nothing else to moor him to these silent rooms,
He'd slipped on the ostensible reasons he'd come in the first place
(Their uppers maintaining their whiteness
Through any number of bleachings,
The soles worn to a near smoothness)
And, nodding perfunctorily to the mansion's steward,
He slipped away, heading to some other party
Carrying on in more or less perpetuity,
The battered bottoms of his shoes
Leaving just the faintest marks as he crossed the dunes,
Soon to be buffed away altogether by the breeze.
Oct 29, 2018
Oct 29, 2018 at 11:29 AM UTC
Heartbeat limps
into my ears as I perfunctorily
greet your memory.
The slate of recollection wiped
clean
by a year-long flood.
Good.
Passersby on the street - your
memory and me.
Heartbeat finally caught
up to steady-drum-wit.
I'm glad, I am glad now -
you exist
only as a breath-steam image
on my glasses.
I got a new pair this year
so I could see more clearly.
Aug 8, 2015
Aug 8, 2015 at 4:10 AM UTC
There is no longer any excuse.
In fact, there hasn’t been for a
very long time.
We have seen bloodshed
on soil around the world.
Over one million lives,
in the name of
freedom,
democracy,
capitalism,
& I can’t quite recall the others
at the moment.
We have connected
through time and space.
We heard and we watched
Bell & Lindbergh
Ford & Armstrong
Gates & Jobs
transform the very fabric of our realities,
uncovering expanding realms
of possibility.
We have healed and protected
our fragile bodies.
Decades ago,
Mr. Salk became part of evening
prayers.
We began having less babies,
and we marveled for 112 days
at the beating of the first
artificial heart.
Wondering or not
whether new bionic inclinations
had affected our humanity.
We have evolved
collective creeds
through unexpected revolutionaries
and in spite of dragging feet.
While AFL & CIO
became household names,
Ms. Anthony and Dr. King
made us cry
and shake
and question
our very foundations.
And yet,
after 165 years of change,
I say, with a heavy heart,
and millions of people,
and billions of dollars,
and a dream,
that the 1850’s schoolhouse
has been only
feebly & perfunctorily
remodeled.
From their graves,
Mr. Mann & Mr. Dewey ask,
“What will it take?”
Nov 1, 2016
Nov 1, 2016 at 3:01 PM UTC
I dreamt and I saw the sky,
The sky above the trees
I saw the truth among the stars
The truth about you and me
I dreamt and I saw the world,
The world for what it was
I found you there in everything
The happiness and the chaos.
I dreamt and I saw from height,
A bird eye view of all
I saw you, higher, stronger and better
Than every brazen wall.
I dreamt and I saw a flower sweet,
A simple beauty alone
I felt you there, nurturing it.
Beautifying every ugly seed sown.
I dreamt and I saw a story,
A story yet untold
It was a beautiful myth, full of colors
About us, audacious and bold.
And thus I dreamt on and on,
Floating perfunctorily
I felt you there in my heart
Dreaming along with me.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 5:01 AM UTC
Lately I've been thinking
About all the hairpin
Turns I've gone around
Too quickly
And almost eaten
My own ***
Straight into
A tree
And mostly
I've been thinking
About all the
Ships I've sunk
With tiny
Needle. point
Holes
Thousands
Of perforated
Perfunctorily placed
Sailor sabotage
All of those ships
resting at the bottom
Of my halfway conscious
Self
Because I'm afraid
Of being the barnacle
Brained woman
That I am
Clinging to the bellies
Of the sinking
Ships I've carefully
Cast into
The depths
And lately I've
Been wondering
Why I've never been so
Lucky as to
Hit one of
Those needle poked turns
As fast as I could
Oct 30, 2016
Oct 30, 2016 at 2:29 AM UTC
Oh! Enigmatic mother,
Capturing the unsuspecting we,
Trapped in thy surreal embrace,
Wondrous charms possess thee.
Ensnaring senses,
Thy promiscuous beauty,
Yet, the fools flee,
Beholding thy ******
Earthy and bare,
Rustic and rare,
Thy charms lay unparalleled,
Polluted, slight, by repulse,
The ignominious souls,
From doors not crafted by thee,
Leave them ajar and welcome,
The mighty spirits of darkness,
Where evil makes thy heart numb,
And weaves it's sickly web,
Conjuring abominations and spells,
That the good man shall hope,
Never to hear, and terrible sights,
Never to see.
Cold azure skies transition,
To that which befits,
Our prosaic existence,
Shying away from thy brilliance,
Concealed within deep-seated layers,
Of well-practised pretence.
Thy pertilance, remains commendable,
Thou, the mother of all,
Now, perfunctorily cast aside,
Yet, it is thou, who shall mourn our fall.
Oh! Exuberant mother,
Let not the ship, be destined to doom,
Let the fresh buds bask, in eternal bloom,
And if the glorious fire of the sun,
Is ever to cease,
Let it be, for only, a new dawn,
For we, thy blood and thy flesh,
In all our greed and petulance,
Lay down and pay obeisance to thee,
And thee, alone.
Our fate awaits thy perusal,
Oh forgiving mother! Let humanity prevail.
Jan 30, 2016
Jan 30, 2016 at 3:47 AM UTC
I couldn't help but wonder how the day began.
Did he spend precious moments on his knees,
Searching for the toothpaste cap.
Perhaps behind the toilet.
Meanwhile, the wife was going on about her job interview
While changing the baby, when, from down the hall, she hears,
Aha!
I'm sure he looked out the bathroom window and cursed
The snow-packed driveway needing shoveling
Before leaving for the forty minute commute.
His older girl was talking about her weird gymnastics coach,
And he rubbed his cheeks after shaving.
He hardly noticed the clink of coffee brought to rest on the baby-blue sink.
He was glad he clipped his nose hairs, but paid no heed to the softness of his facecloth.
He poured a re-fill after shoveling, kissed his wife perfunctorily,
And poked the kids.
When I saw the crushed metal at the crossroads,
I wondered if his day began like mine.
Feb 10, 2018
Feb 10, 2018 at 10:29 AM UTC
81
To Morrissey: I’m not mad
(I saw you
once
strolling up the Venice boardwalk
at sundown
You had the biggest biggest smile
On your face
Which even at that time seemed
Out of character
I had in my hand
What i had come for
The six white athletic socks for 10 dollars pack sold on tables under nylon tarps
And as we both walked up the boardwalk
I thought to myself
What do you have to smile about?)
It is my wish that when you
Revisit this earth again
In your next incarnation
And adventure
That you return not
as an overripe spire of blooms
but as a
Small piece of iceberg lettuce leaf
Too young
too immature
to reach the others alongside you
Your curl a little anemic and so very very delicate.
Just a bitter yellowish bud.
Or you could be the stalk of Iceberg
that’s chopped away
And perfunctorily discarded
pretending to be cabbage in a cole slaw that nobody wants
At the end of the day
The staff may try to hurl you into the dumpster behind the Greek Diner or Chinese
But you won’t make it
You will slip out of the ******* bags
And fall onto the gravel drive
In the spitzing rain.
Growing more
Translucent
Inspected by rats and old hungry pigeons
And maybe a lost snail
And even they will walk away
This won’t be like Wembley at all
As the sun rises the trash men come
But you’re stuck on your back
or twisted on your side
appearing smaller than you are
are overlooked
Bags are tossed into the truck
yet you remain
Waiting
Later that morning
The hose comes out to wash away debris
That would be you
And you reluctantly perhaps
and bit painfully
peel most of yourself away and flow down
the sidewalk with all the leaves
and cigarette butts
and orange peels
To the gutter
And then into the sewer
And then before you’re even aware
The River
Where a fishes’s mouth quickly opens and scoops you in
and just as quickly
Spits you out again
(Your little bits)
To float slowly
Since you’re so light
Transparent
Really ephemeral now!
Your very last traces.
You float down to the bottom
To this other side of the clear blue sky
and dissolve gradually
Not gracefully
into a chilling primordial smear
of muck and sludge.
Here may you find Stillness.
Here may you find Rest.
Dec 26, 2019
Dec 26, 2019 at 3:18 PM UTC
The scrawny, slump-shouldered kid in the sweatshirt
grabbed as many Double AA batteries as he could hug
into the waiting ***** of his faded, ratty hoodie
from the display rack at the pharmacy down the block.
He made a run for it, slipping out the sliding doors,
into the starless night splashed across that inky empyrean.
It wasn’t necessary at all, he got out of there scot-free.
No one noticed any pilfering until they did the nightly inventory.
But his world was small, and he went back the next day for a juice.
The manager who was being interviewed perfunctorily by a cop
recognized him from his review of the security footage.
The kid got caught unawares, was arrested on the spot.
When he bonded out, he had to repay his brother the surety
so he headed to the other corporate pharmacy across the street
and grabbed armfuls of cartons of cigarettes he knew he could sell
on the corner, for he had no other means of repayment.
He had no job, no car, no degree, no nothing, nada, nada, nada.
His blinkered world was circumscribed, limited, hemmed in,
circled by how far he could walk, trudge in a blizzard.
He made it out the whooshing door, again faced flashing lights.
In that moment, as the booked him back in county lockup
behind the thick slab of plexiglass, the guard smirked,
“haven’t I seen you here before, just like a day ago?”
He then knew it was all hopeless, oh so hopeless, an endless cycle.
Feb 27, 2018
Feb 27, 2018 at 3:48 AM UTC