Polaroid Poetry

Sunday Morning

polaroidpoetry — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:53:43 +0000

It’s Sunday morning,
and Death is doing the crossword,
there, in his flannel sweatpants-
teeth rattling with droughts
from his mug of bitterness,
(taken with a dash of cinnamon).

Raising a bony eyebrow, he suggests,
It’s not you; it’s me.
It wasn’t a long-term thing, he said,
Just a bit of fun for the evening.
He runs an icy finger up my spine, grabs his coat,
and leaves.

- 2/07/08

Appreciation

polaroidpoetry — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:51:12 +0000

Dump trucks, scabs, bits of wool -
all the things that never got a line,
this is for you.

- 1/26/08

On Reading the Menu in a Fancy French Restaurant

polaroidpoetry — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:49:19 +0000

When I am tumbled, hung to dry,
will they baste me with white wine
or just let me fry?

- 1/13/08

Bacchanal

polaroidpoetry — Sat, 01 Nov 2008 19:48:01 +0000

Come, those lingering in coffee mugs,
sucked into the isolation of society.
Dance with me in secret groves;
pluck the fruit from its burdened vine,
and we will gorge ourselves together-
fingers sticky with purple nectar.

- 12/10/07

Stir-Fry of the Ages

polaroidpoetry — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:25:36 +0000

Seasoning us first with fragrant spices,
Time lines us up on countertops for dicing-
Vegetal beings: cold, unfeeling,
He cuts us into little shapes with his gleaming knife
and scrapes our souls from the cutting board,
sliding us neatly into our graves.

- 10/29/08

Big Tent, Vernacular

polaroidpoetry — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:23:38 +0000

To people raised in other tongues,
English sounds, I hear, like grumbling
rumbled out from bearish lungs,
which let pregnant “r”s clatter
to the floor of a thousand conversations,
and growl every syllable without hesitating.
Yet methinks we bears dance not for cosmic circuses;
but rather, blanketed in downy fuzz,
call out directly to the stars,
rattling our cage’s gloomy bars with the reverberations
of one hundred lovely voices.

- 10/29/08

Beauty

polaroidpoetry — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:19:45 +0000

Tonight my nerves are torn,
fraying like a wire nibbled by rats,
and I’m no Plato; I’m tired of ideals only
and of hobbling through life forlorn
on my two legs -
as useless now as yellowed spats
from ancient days.

Imaginings don’t satisfy,
nor pictures in books
or potatoes boiling on the stove -
only the illusion of your body next to mine
and the jazz pouring out of the radio.

- 10/29/08

Au Lecteur

polaroidpoetry — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:15:20 +0000

I have waited for you a long time, my reader -
seated at my desk in an empty room,
peering shyly through the slatted blinds
or pressing quarters one by one
into a ticking meter-
carefully bending, crafting lines.

I have sat while rain fell
like rhymes to the pavement -
wondering whether time might find
an answer to my bereavement:
cast off, folded, draped over a spindly chair-
If one day I might look and see you there,
a portrait only, framed in the doorway,
and holding my work in your hands.

- 10/29/08

A Heavy Haul

polaroidpoetry — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:11:08 +0000

I dip into history,
pulling up its tiny fish
with my glistening net:
Generals, battles, dates-

I heave them all dripping
onto the table,
and, without a glance
for their intricate stripes & patterns,
begin filleting them one by one.

- 10/28/08

A Taste

polaroidpoetry — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 06:07:19 +0000

I wonder how philosophy never dreamt of it -
Its simple way, always before us
seen and unseen after so many dictions and contradictions,
after the great rolling together of many wits
like tobaccos in a cigarette, fuming fictions in tired doorways,
but at last the universe has spread itself on my antique bed
lying out to profess:
Love is like a basket of rolls,
set down on your lonely table–
there for the taking beneath a checkered napkin,
waiting quietly beside the salt shaker,
and best enjoyed hot.

- 10/28/08