#285 - day of one hour less

 

4.x.20

285

day of one hour less

 

did I say stolen?

 

start early

it’s a day on steroids!

and lends a certain urgency

 

do little things today

turn pockets out

know the hours to sing

 

an hour to sleep

one hour for breakfast

a day dream

how we go

 

something’s misplaced in such a day

lost when I threw myself off

idea won’t come back the same

time takes its toll

 

seven is the new six and so on

this goes on all through the day

 

no one’s watching

 

in sunshine still a day diminished

 

this much less of me

all one hour older we were

 

as much as the saying of summer

for every here a now

 

and here in my head

always too much to see

 

a city in the clock

and this decree

no leaf

nor blade of grass

to heed

 

a harvest of weeds

make mulch

 

and quickly quickly

scratch your poem down

the garden is going again

#284 - four poems -- two trumperies + call and response + pillow talk

 

3.x.20

284

four poems

(including two trumperies)

 

 

 

call and response

 

moon takes the roofs

and Mars behind

most stars dim to the fullness

 

not even a little misted

but here-and-there glint

shone tin

night’s clear

 

rabbit, Old Man, cheese, Chang E

and must we moon for?

 

Jupiter crowned with its own

no naked eye from here will find

little Saturn has a few

run rings

 

everyone’s looking up to see

does this moon of ours have a ding in?

 

bats wings it

with a little whoosh

 

are we pondshone bright to be?

every frog says so

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

pillow talk

 

and this one snores

one lulls

another is for lewd suggestion

 

the pillows talk!

have a whole range

 

will you be first for the fable?

 

between the pillow and the slip

gossamer – you decide

 

here lay a head

and thought wash

 

nothings are sweet

but we have as well

vistas collected from back in the day

dream suggestions

deeps of meaning

 

some pillows talk the thing up

do an anxious agitation

 

we have for doom

and fits of dark

this one’s presage

roll over

 

who will make the first leap?

or trampoline this

all for one

and me for you

 

a special erogenous zoned model

with Aphrodite’s nightie
and a flying Spaniard flew

 

one will pleasantly support

and does a lovely groan

 

we go by Agra to it

Taj me a mahal –

(but that’s too expensive)

 

prop you up

no, not the elbows

 

say also

bring a stethoscope

trick wits

part with grammar

 

and swallow this

it’s mechanical

with haunches

and all pride

 

jazz pillow

classical with storms

 

nobody wants the poetry pillow

won’t let you think

would you rather Jung’s or Freud’s?

 

my side or yours?

smooth for the dying

 

here we have predictions

there’s ticker tape as well

contemporary account I mean

though much is punk

bid and offer

given voice

the market on its bell

get set

bulls, bears

and you go hunting up

 

here’s one wept for grief

self-sobbing

 

crick in yours

tingle too

everyone has a story

 

famous places

flowers remembered

everyone put to their own private shame

 

 

and we’ll sing

 

of course the pillow is recording too

there will be a DNA trace

and we know who you are

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

two trumperies

to celebrate the corona-potus’ triumphant entry

into the Walter Reed National Military Medical Centre

(Cretan Liar Series)

 

 

he gives himself an excuse to lose

 

privilege to breathe the very air

sent

out of an abundance of caution

 

in good spirits and mercy mild

still might yet smite

 

it’s a beat up

fakes his own

why should we believe it?

 

does a catastrophe end?

can we cram all into a single skin?

this one has its own hospital cocktail

sweet suite

 

remember decency?

 

everyone – even his vilest foe –

is praying hard for him

 

I feel great again

don’t you?

 

 

 

 

after Trump

 

nothing ever the same

 

a hunger of bridesmaids

 

here at them

octopus Houdini

the greatest con artist of the century so far

 

insult to the species (among all others)

he is a one man extinction

 

after Trump

(so aptly named)

 

what can be done to tweet?

 

the clown pope

the queen cross dressed, done up in tatts

the Virgin Whoring Mary

there’ll be Justices of War not peace

manic Buddha

Jesus on the make

Confucius say what the fuck

ride a rocket cowboy

 

from now on it’s all tripping up cripples

poking the blind in the eye

 

feed the bubbas stolen candy

grow up smug like Him  

 

this is how time there will be measured

before and after Trump

 

compare him with God the Father

old Testament time

spiteful and vengeful and jealous and numb

 

the happy bomb

the darling bullet

these will save your life

 

here, have some animal rage

there isn’t a compass at all

 

after and because of

shake your hand

and shake you you down

 

none dare say there’s no conspiracy

 

tongue down your throat

and a grope

it’s like this

it’s a pussy grab

 

after Trump

nothing ever the same

love in the time of COVID (Aotearoa)

 

https://loveinthetimeofcovidchronicle.com/2020/10/02/a-recital-of-poems-4-manfred-malzahn-les-wicks-michael-oleary-kit-kelen/

#283 - a blossom pause

 

2.x.20

283

a blossom pause

 

and snooze it

under a dripping sky

with such whiff

 

think thunder to cause things

and find myself in tune in time

 

geranium hum

under sunbrim

 

garden midst

signs no one’s yet read

 

at Peach Creek

in orange blossom

and by lemonade

rose red to leaf and tip

but no bloom for a while

 

a hornpipe in the reedy bits

and sat on a frond for song

 

some chatter in the limbs avow

explorers’ lines dot the gone

what’s in their wake?

 

limit the palette so as to croon

here we are building like the storm

 

mock orange too

vine climb

heights of let-me-guess

 

brought with the bees

because we’re here

 

a coleus call

all leaf to trick

 

past paths grow over

now who is it here?

 

have you seen time standing –

this treasure –

it’s there in the stillness beside ourselves

 

stand, unfold, my friends

come into the conversation

 

where, known minutely

each more than the map

no one sees the mountain now

 

lay down among

eyes up

pants falling

 

ephemera to

skies are faster

 

it’s how we survive ourselves 

#282 - we're here to

 

282

1.x.20

we’re here to…

(teleology [boys’ own])

 

make up worlds

unword this one

 

here to cloud

 

knock the planets off their courses

circulate a sun

 

mock system

make up lie to bed

be rude, occlude

 

we fashion windows doors

to show so seldom open

 

ever brinking storm with fire

and call ourselves the hope

 

here to play

not put the toys away

never to resile

 

but find an end in things themselves

 

go gently in the elsewhere yet

to be legend

in the bones

 

carry the chaos on

and easy over

 

though we must not observe

 

here for a spin and dizzy

tell secrets

keep them from ourselves

 

to offer and to be refused

to honey moon

see stars

 

a good time

do the darkening

like that

populate and perish

the wisdom of the young

to populate and perish

 

lie fallow

in mere wonder

 

to plot and foil

cook things up

and eat them raw

with bile and guile and spite

 

we’re here to lend an ear

 

call rain

and rest ye merry

 

if in light

cast shadow

 

name the hunches

and carry off spoils

 

be spirited

 

to tell the devil

and shame the truth

 

make it all up as we go

 

to raise a sweat

and pulse and polish

(careful how to turn)

 

here for the doling out

brink wisdom

 

mend and patch

purse lips

sip

be cast into the chorus

catch flame, fly

and much admired

 

tree seed each equally meant

 

come closer real

come closer

feed from my open hand

 

we’re here

 

to read and to be written

never to find out how things are purposed

 

to guess a way and go

 

to blink and know we’re gone 

#281 - they have come

 

281

30.ix.20

they have come

 

breathe the thing in

too many for the naming     

 

yet I call friends

 

and with them

the feeling of to do

 

go away and things happen

that’s nature for you

 

almost October still in a jumper

 

I have seen the mind’s eye 

spears of fire

and pinch myself

 

are we hearing their side of the story?

 

a forest in the garden grew –

this moment’s inattention

 

I bite the end off of the carrot

I peel off the carrot’s little hairs too

 

a doddle

 

consider the power of things to be

how no one can know where that’s from

or whether a why will be permitted

 

must not say as if thought

(a little solips there)

 

find a way through the words

as ever

just our way with the world

 

stroke we

 

they are come

and delight is to watch

 

everything better with age

 

the song and dance

has to have dreamt so far as now

 

we vanish from the time of it

 

cosmos something past the counting

deictics

turn to an instrument

and tune

and let the notes

 

they have come

shall we say

things go back

 

now lit without the words

 

just this idea

itself aware

 

we’re hidden from ourselves

 

#280 - the all day singing

 

29.ix.20

280

the all day singing

a brownie afternoon in floruit

(pan-psychist ponder)

thanks Cat

 

round a forest, wings

and edge it – greater and the less

 

the all-day dance

that’s how we’re here

by random addition

wallaby scramble

 

reaching my secret goal is to sit

 

for privet whiff

and pondshow

hear them

 

of course I know could easily burst

and cannot but imagine they seem

with a lilt and a loll and a swagger

 

birdsung and wattled

grow ourselves in

I breathe the thing

 

know the all sensate as system

from the farthest mute stone

flung round its obscure fire

 

draw the line? why?

rings run round me

ellipses, tangents tell

 

there is a knowing cannot help but call

though nothing of the kind

 

bower bird, channel bill

friendly in tussle

or they are inventing the race?

 

plant it and they will come

 

I disbelieve my difference here

mean to say they’re people too

 

riffle through the paddock moo

(wonder why are things spelled that way)

 

up in the cheese tree travelling

colour in out of the sun