My darlings, I am waaaay too fucking lazy to post a poem a day here on this blog as well as on Facebook and on Youtube where I am posting video readings of them, so I will link all my Facebook NaPoWriMo posts to this blog… I have 27 so far & counting on Facebook:…
Pixelated (NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day 16)
After dusk I take the long way home, it’s an uphill climb, the sky does its best Tower of Pisa, leaning in to remind me to look up and watch the Chinese whispers of you quiring your cryptic origami shadow puppetry to the hungry stars, all kaleidoscoped-callioped-christopher columbused-collage. Fold by fold, the constellations get tangled…
BANZAI, Motherfucker!!!! (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 15 – Write a Monologue)
Sitting in Peets sipping from a hot cup of morning courage laced with cocoa, cinnamon, and doused with cream, I’m waiting for inspiration. Of course, you never receive inspiration when you’re ready for it. Inspiration likes to ambush you when you are least prepared, preferably when you’re in the shower with shampoo in your hair…
Fiat Lux (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 14 – Homonyms)
Light the light in me Sing all the old lies Settle me softly in some dusty corner of your mind I weigh less than your conscience My love is ether cherry blossom snow white shadow a cirrus cloud dandled by your rope – that floats and glows.
His Knees Deep In Your Mind (NapoWriMo 2019, Day 13 – Magic)
She looks at her handiwork and frowns. She’s tried to capture him as best she can. The warp and the weft of him – the flesh in the mirror that won’t relent – the stippled pelt, that brute essence: all blood and saltmilk; the sweetmeat of his lust; his white stag heart, dagger grin, and…
Granular (NaPoWriMo 2019 – Day 12)
We think ahead and live behind, whistling our broken music, succeeding to fail the moment with our self-fulfilling prophesies. I can taste the vinegar in fruit before it ever blooms. Have I doomed myself to a life of sour grapes? “Live in the moment”, they say. But each moment recoils in the vibrating brane of…
Agartha (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 11)
She walked alone. Always. Along the path in that abandoned place where emptiness is codified… She was a scattering of herself thoughts pulled up by their roots weeded out of planters and windowboxes tossed to the curb, heedlessly discarded with all the rest of yesterday’s garbage. The endless walks, the incessant dialogue with herself –…
La Bruja Se Esta Casando (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 10 – Sunshowers in Regional Dialect)
“El ocaso llega, el agua dormida Hay en el ambiente silencio de ermite La tarde está triste porque estoy sin ti,” el marinero’s voice perfumed the air with the glissade of that sad bolero: scent of ocean brine mixed con pura mamey. On the beach, solito, borracho and al garete he took another swig of…
The Tunguska Explosion (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 9 – “Things That Make Your Heart Beat Faster.” )
“There the tree rises. Oh pure surpassing! Oh Orpheus sings! Oh great tree of sound! And all is silent, And from this silence arise New beginnings, intimations, changings. A refuge fashioned out of darkest longing Entered, tremulo, the doorpost aquiver, – There You have fashioned them a temple for their hearing.” ~Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus,…
“Fungibly Myocardinate User Friendly Services” (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 8 – Business Jargon Generator)
Why can’t humans murmurate? Much as I prize my individuality, I would love all my iron filings of weirdness to be so magnetized and synchronized to another living being. Would be even better if we had wings, of course…maybe we’d finally sprout wings if we were more willing to fall. I feel the longing in…
Portal (NaPoWriMo – Day 7)
“What do you deserve? Name it. All of it. What are you ready to let go of? Name that too. Then name the most gentle gift for yourself. Name the brightest song your body’s ever held. Summon joy like you would a child; call it home. It wanders, yes. But it’s still yours.” I’m sick…
Our Future Was Full Of It (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 6 – If)
requirement, stipulation condition, supposition or a choice expressing a polite request expressing an opinion expressing surprise or regret a hypothetical situation (an indirect question) whether despite the possibility that no matter whether whenever even though every time… given that in the event that (with implied reservation) and perhaps not admitting being possible but relatively insignificant……
La Llorona (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 5 – Write A Villanelle Using Lines From Other Songs and/or Poems)
At dawn, in the crying wind, all alone Knitting night into mossy hut, I become A wild river to take you home Hear the old owl calling, feel the Gathering of deer, don’t fear me At dawn, in the crying wind, all alone Through the misty veil of May I roam Singing tales of dark…
She Told Him She Only Dreamed About Escape, That’s All She Dreamed About – Escape. (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 4 – Sadness)
“The slow but steady progression of another grey day… The sun is not allowed to shine for long in San Francisco. It’s the law. I guess I’ll keep walking. This fucking wind is a pushy bastard. I’m getting sandblasted out here. Pretty soon the sand worms will show and it’ll all be over. I won’t even…
The Fossil (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 3 – Digressions)
Would you lay with me? The ossification has been slow but steady. 6 million years of evolution and 100, 000 years of culture have amounted to little more than the bare tip of earth’s scales. Can you see me through this vitrine window? This is not my body. This is a terrarium. Fed by a…
Maybe The Gloaming Is Nothing But A Groaning Glow-Worm Who Thinks It’s A Firefly (NaPoWriMo, Day 2 – Questions)
And the air bends in slow arcs with a Midas touch It’s murder at the gallop. Every gust is a minefield gilded with potential to explode. How do I explain this feeling, as I watch the sun die again? With a Venn diagram of irrational nonsense? With another pointless poem? In a Godless universe, one…
Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (NaPoWriMo 2019, Day 1 – Write a “How-To” Poem)
Discover your first bonafide wrinkle Then spy those ten evil grey hairs Bride-of-Frankensteining your temples. Wind yourself into a Wilhelm Scream Let your mind Hitchcock-zoom out of focus Keep the perspective tilted at Vertigo’s acute angle of doom with Bernard Herrmann’s violins trilling their promissory note of Devil’s tritones: Notes sounded by fog horns blaring…
I Rode to the Desert on a Man With No Name
There are writers who like to take their words and cut them to the bone, splice them to the marrow, remove that and leave only a hollow encasing, so that it might ring sweet its truest truth when struck by the hammer of Time. Yet there are still others that wish to blur those…
Dangling On A Vine, Caught In A Koan Between Two Tigers, A Couple of Vine-Eating Mice, And One Sweet Sweet Strawberry
The wind is a tyrant today The sun shines its blades Cutting a path in me Smacked around by sun and wind Worn down I trudge along East Crissy Field Beach Dragging my feet Imagining all the bluffs That have been pounded to sand Wave after wave after wave Slaves to a cycle they never…
Kick Lying Dogs Awake (NaPoWriMo Day 13)
I could feel his eyes on me from half a block away, he was standing in the middle of the Chestnut Street hill, facing west, looking down. Just standing there. Suspended mid-flight. For no earthly reason. 6 foot, four inches in height. Legs splayed wide, both feet and hands pointing south directly at…
A Haibun (NaPoWriMo Day 12)
He came at her sideways as was his wont, framed by Marin’s rocky peaks through the west window’s wide wings of glass. He loomed large and majestic: a pelican embracing the wind while soaring over the blue blue bay; a vision filtered through the fish-eyed lens of an impossible dream; an angel fallen from…
Eternal, unseen (NaPoWriMo Day 11)
“And I, remaining in this self – same place, Will, for myself but one, make seven appear, When my shrill whistle shall be heard; for so Our custom is to call each other up.” ~excerpt from Dante, Canto XXII (Argument) Buzzsaws are whirring in my head. My throat is burning. The air is…
Santana (NaPoWriMo Day 10)
“I didn’t know skin could sizzle until then… Beware the devil wind Santana.” The birds are nesting in my hair again My toes have rooted to the shore of your absence. Waves rise and fall over me fissuring in the ruins of my ego’s temple but everything’s alright, yes everything’s fine my tongue continues…
Anyone For Tennis? (NaPoWriMo Day 9)
And the night flows through you beetle-winged and buzzing air rising vanilla-wafted and languorous all yeasty breaded promise midnight at the zoo glow humming and staffed with life But christopher-robined into a briar patch on the way to the county fair your blackberry preserves done spilleth over, rover… Here, let me help pick…
Beatrice (NaPoWriMo Day 6)
And now as always, the exaggerated breath the pretense the false show of exertions a bravura performance for imaginary audience hot air blasts out of spent mouth she moans and groans and groans and moans and moans and groans what source such loneliness such need for attention with every wipe of dustcloth, every brush of…
The Oblivion Of Adam
Ibn al-Qarih told him He was the first poet But he wouldn’t recollect He wanted to forget all of it How his hands felt like clay As he wrapped them round The heft of the fruit The meeting of tooth With skin and flesh The surge of bittersweetness The trail of tentative footsteps He left…the…
Spichernstraße
If it could be written on the back of a postcard, was it worth the trip? Weigh a feather against my heart, then tell me as I float skywards mine was nothing but a bicycle pump trying to resuscitate a dying star, I’d still instagram those moments, have them tattooed on my retinas, create…
Building Steam With A Grain Of Salt
So what is it? I don’t know, not exactly, but I’m not sure I am inhabiting this body. Not really. Not to capacity. Not anymore. I feel soft, soft, soft… fluid in my boundaries, all air pockets and waterfall rushes, I struggle to catch the drips of myself but I’m using cracked crystal to…
Nocturne: Flip To Side B
The sun falls across your face. Yet somehow you remain in shadow. I step into the eclipse… Always and still, splashing in the puddles of every unwilling yes. You haven’t quite gotten the hang of the gentle no. Your Libra blazing high in the night. Meting out and weighing love on far too balanced…
One Burn, One Red, One Grin
I pluck a memory like I would the petal of a daisy, “He loves me… He loves me not…” I won’t let a flower determine anything. So… I choose “he loves me…” Against all common sense, in revolt against reason, against memory, my desire a fist – white hot – smashing time’s clock face,…
Though I Can’t Swim
My head is twirling, Which is no surprise, Since I have Umbrella-stepped My way through life, Landing like Mary Poppins On every rooftop, one by one. Razing days like sugarcane From sun to sun. I was born in mid-air. Tip-toeing over tightropes. Slicing past all the pigeon-wire. Shredding skin, black quills Erupting from my…
Frank Stanford: A poet’s dreams, death and legacy
Originally posted on Stage & Scream in Kansas City:
By ROBERT TRUSSELL He lived a poet’s life and died a poet’s death. Poets see the word in ways the rest of us do not. Within the mundane they find mystery. Within the grotesque they find beauty. So it was with Frank Stanford, a Southern writer…
Howling At The Moment
Night begins day, day begins night – these cycles of construction are useless measures we use to fracture the moments that soften our bones, there is no true separation, only segregation. Day and night are one and the same. Somehow we recreate creation in our image. To conform to our limited vision. It’s always dark…
Down The Waterspout
I remember running my hand over your scales. The slow crawl of time. My hand’s heedlessness echoing reptilian, limbic brain recognizing that call to the dark, that nod to the nothing, transmitting from your body’s music through the maze that imprints an identity on the whorls of my fingertips, humming and hiccoughing awkward messages…
Casanova
So… You scooped out the seeds And left me A hollowed-out shell Then served them as ashes Tasteless relics of hell. You speak of the flesh Let me speak of the wine Sweet droughts of precious nectar Proffered drams of my being Divine. Take your sword and your lyre Then sing old songs of reprieve…
Put the needle on the record
No future for you Beyond this Bridge of sighs Dharma lies There is no karma police Because there is no karma No eternal return No reincarnation No ticket, no laundry Set the cycle to spin Nobody loses Nobody wins This is all we have This now which is only The then of the when…
Sahara
I trace lines in my palm the whorls of my fingertips become magnetized The sway of concentric circles Within circles within circles The geometry of endlessness always soothing and hypnotic casts its irrecoverable spell I flower with fractal certainty Here is where I seek the for in an ever: that deep dark longing for…
Let’s turn this malice into melody
Oh son of Adam, you do Bring out my evil Eve, Just one little bite of you Might be worth a hundred Falls from heaven. Jesus was a Jew. Karl and Groucho Marx were, too. Theirs is a simple history Devoid of mystery. Unlike you with your Blue latitudes Secret oars, man-o-war Floating terrors Into…
Re-Composition
Words are such messy things. They lie and when they do they are scattered everywhere. Just when you think you’ve picked them all up, bits of them appear between sofa cushions, under rugs falling in all the hard to reach places. I bet you find pieces of yourself in everyone. Don’t you, my blue-eyed…
Zombie Fungus Enslaves His Own Ant Heart But Doesn’t Spore On One Leaf
Trending… Last rites of Spring Persephone is taking a swan dive Into the big brawny arms of Summer Saturn is spinning its rings Princess Leia had cocaine, methadone and heroin In her star system one lonely night, but at least she died in ecstasy. In London, van plows into pedestrians – muslims near a mosque…
Exist Extant
Let us be still, you and I Keep our contract with the sky; Settle our score at this day’s end. You never said what you meant; Nor meant what you said. Perhaps That is the distance propagated by Discontent: the bijou memories strewn like so much rice and…
Negative Space
Did you know it only takes 20 seconds to destroy the dream? Standing by the kitchen window coffee beans and thoughts a blur; the whirr of the grinder my morning ritual comfort – the only time I ever take the time to count time 1 2 3 4 5 I count as I gaze outside…
F.Y.I.
So… I deactivated all my Facebook pages (again) except one little gif page where I have no pals and post random animated graphics as a form of sedative. My husband laughs at me for getting so overwrought about social media sites, “Better you than me.” is all he says. Bob Costas once said he’s…
M.C. Escher Is Not A D.J.
“And those who were seen dancing were said to be insane by those who could not hear the music…” The rain fell, black clouds blew the past away, the ocean tried to drown the sky but all it did was swallow pride. This is only the second day of creation. The…
Akeldama
It began as a dream. A dandelion sea For us to float wishes on. A magic mountain to climb sugar-topped peaks cotton candy clouds I was a child again. Trust was a given. There you stood tall Pewter shield And honed sword. A Titan. 30 pieces of silver weighting down your pockets. I never asked how…
Lazar
Words poured like lac from your mouth. Their meaning thick crimson – crushed and constringed – straining through the march of red ants that always fed them. I stormed through ivory gates – my claudicating limbs carefully avoiding the sticky word puddles that swelled up around me. But it was Sunday and I was…
Vagaries
She wore her mind loosely. Like a garment carelessly tossed Over a hanger on a sales rack. Its threads slightly unraveling at the seams, picked over and discarded by more discerning shoppers. The cut of her cranial cloth was no longer fashionable. It lacked bold clean lines, but its shirred diaphanous folds draped her…
We The Urbane
Whether I’m under the frost, or blooming at the end of the garden where time slept, the hour is horribly gaudy. My earth bleeds copious amounts to you. I am the warm blush of Sincerity’s medicine, lips bruised like soft fruit under truth. Am I here at the table of someone? Some thing? Feed…
Love Is Really Just Kreb’s Cycle Suckage Or Maybe I Just Had Too Much Coffee Today: NaPoWriMo (Day 30 – Recurrences)
I am feeling combative lately Yet simultaneously worn from battle fatigue This mental and physical self-flagellation is subtle hidden from prying eyes and barbed tongues that explode with their riddled tripwire of bee stung words Outfoxing outmoded methods of lie detection my own tongue wrapped by a vermilion veil of bridal-laced angst and greed…
Overstand (NaPoWriMo Day 29)
Silence skins the moon the stars float along lost in the stark like shit summering in the Mississippi River I look into your eyes But your vision is clouded reflecting the storm of butterflies that tries to win your dandelion love one cellophane-wing flutter at a time I like to tease the lizard from your…
Closed Captioned For The Thinking Impaired 