Knapweed

...because even a rusty skillet is of some use

I was alive when this coin was minted

Gone now, you forget
until you find an old worn quarter
and think of how I spoke of the unknown
past some future
when I would write those silly verses
for you sons, the ones
that grandsons snicker over.
Now, cold sun glints off snow
and your hair glints back.
And you cast
a moments thought my way
...but he was alive when this coin was minted...
skeining a past you'd most forgotten.

© Kåre Enga 2011-10-10 [168.162]

Accountant at Age 22

He lounges then lengthens
a slick form that slides through water
slices through snow
drifts here before me
transformed into a human hairball
speaking the language of numbers
(languid additions, slippery ciphers)
contained in columns,
a division into dialects
I'll never know.
I swear he's otter or bear,
belongs in the mountains,
snug in a cave,
close by a cold water dream,
a consciousness streaming,
flowing besides me.
Now he grows beyond the weak grasp
of youth with each growth of hair.
Will he become the father of otters,
or father of bears?

© Kåre Enga 2011-10-10 [168.163]

Slowpoke

She snails her way through letters
taht dance on a page,
counts ceaselessly towards ten,
stuck on seven
She twirls dandelions into her hair
and swirls through sunshiny youth
unaware she's alone.
She crawled into shadow
as others pass by her,
running to reach their goal.
She slithers past their young bloated bodies,
wends her way through old bones.
Age treats her well,
her soft worn wrinkles crinkle at dandelions
the play of shadow and sun.
She snails her way under headstones,
choses one.
With no one to remember
she's crossed the finish line
long after the crowds have gone home.

© Kåre Enga 2011-10-10 [168.164]

No easy target

They want it straight and narrow
no bumpy ride:
down a degree,
up a degree.
They wanted immunity from a system
that kept kicking them out
just as they were settling in
making a home,
getting comfortable. No.
My Kingdom wasn't for them.
This roller-coaster of temps: 97.6, a feverish 99,
changing day-to-day
seldom hovering at 98.6 for more than a week
I was an ungracious host, they said,
and took their misery elsewhere,
took the next ship I passed,
set sail with no regrets.
Nope, none from me.
I was the tempest tossed boat,
now disease free!

© Kåre Enga 2011-10-10 [168.165]

To be edited, worked on as soon as I can. Must run. This place is closing.

TO ALL OUR AUDIENCES WHO DISRESPECT US

To you who do not wish to hush, to hear our voices,
who do not want our gift of words nor wisdom.

We promise, if ever we receive one small reward:

We will not hear your false applause:
and we'll've long forgotten your faces.

© Kåre Enga 2011-10-07 [168.161]



Written during the Poetry Slam at the Top Hat. The last line may need tweaking for rhythm's sake... The idea? Well, if I ever feel I can't read what I intended because of the audience, I may just be tempted to read this instead... than leave.

[untitled tanka]

Orange moon.
Smoke through pine.
One heavy bag.

The old poet mumbles.
The fire within must be fed.

© Kåre Enga [168.141a] 2011-09-10

Barbara at Fact & Fiction mentioned haiku on Saturday so I wrote 3 "tankas". This was the first one, based on having left Orange Food Farm with a heavy sack of groceries. The almost full moon was orange from smoke in the air. I saw it through tall pines.

It needs to be tweaked and edited. And it is best thought of as tanka-like.

However, this is the version I chalked in orange on the sidewalk in front of Fact & Fiction on Sunday.

3 poems read and critiqued this week:

Near the Soul’s swift river

         an homage to Langston Hughes

It was in the blood:
the A positive aristocratic blood,
the O negative donor they cried out for.

At the Dawn:
my soul sang among pyramids
as bloody sweat raised stone above stone,
festooned my bosom with their mud-daub huts.

In my veins
bathed in ancient sunsets grown deep,
lulled to sleep near the Soul’s swift river,
wept a blueblood running seep;
my flood tinged gold.

It was in the blood:
the B positive Celts,
the AB negative mongrel hordes;
both raised the sword, heard humans bleat,
opened veins to let blood flow.

Older than the unknown world,
my dusky voice
filled with the thrill of sickle-cells
in crescendos as bold as a clot,
young as a blood-stained dawn
singing of pomegranates.

© Kåre Enga 2011-08-07 [168.123]



A word scramble of Langston Hughes' poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers".

Banishing the shadow between us

Once every two blue moons
when Earth cast her shadow between us
you whispered in the language of rocks;
I lisped in a song of water;
we cackled when the sun grew hot.
There was no life here
beyond the bacteria we had brought.

And then that First Day
when we felt our two moons collide,
the First Time I heard you utter,
“What hath God wrought!”
you smiled when I replied
“Only what two spheres must suffer
when they dare not stay apart.”

As we wondered you whispered to me
in the language of sundered rock
and I sang to you of ice and water,
how I would never forget your face,
that look of shock.

Then Earth graced us both with shadow
and we dreamed as our two moons,
glued back to back,
cooled off.

© Kåre Enga 2011-08-03 [168.122.Z]



This is a "Zmitri" poem written in a response to an article postulating that there originally were two moons orbiting the Earth that collided and fused as one, explaining the very different faces of the Moon. "Earth's 2 Moons? It's Not Lunacy, But New Theory" in the Huffington Post:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/03/earth-two-moons-theory_n_917464.html

To the unknown love of my life

To wake up to the fragrance of honey and sweat
The name of your flower expectant on my lips

To know it’s right to hug you flesh to flesh
A soft rose held tight, silk-petaled and fresh

Then, what privilege to be embraced at the hour of death
My last whisper inhaled by your ever-patient breath

© Kåre Enga ed. 2011-08-11 [168.124]



Three couplets scribbled in my notepad and today edited into a poem. Nancy really loved it and kept a copy for her refrigerator. It was the best received of the three.

Lead detector

Lead leaches into blood,
hides in bones.
So much pushing and shoving
as chemicals
reduce my calcic Cliffs of Dover
to marshmallow mud,
my skeleton to a maddened tale
of a poisoned generation lost
to heavy metal’s insidious beat,
a rhythm to which the soul succumbs.
What ichors already ooze though veins,
O Bloodsuckers all!
Quick! Put this chalice to my lips
that in a final craze
I might forgive before I lose sight of
the bones of what once was.

© Kåre Enga [168.109] 2011-07-17

Crow, corn and comb

Panting-Dog combed the cornsilk as if it were hair, as if Fish-Crow hadn’t spoken to her, as if the fog would part in this Month of Umbrellas. She sat on moist leaf litter, listened to the waterfall. It could not drown out what Crow had foretold. She watched the zig-zag patterns of the water gliders skate over the pool, gently lay down the comb and the corn.

Panting-Dog picked up the stone beads instead, their green striations mesmerizing her as they rolled between wet fingers. Tiny spheres of malachite had broken free as corn kernels when her anklet snapped, as she had been grabbed from her lover’s arms and abandoned for dead. She had gathered each one and now carried them in a pouch instead. She would restring them when the sky opened up and the stars twinkled again.

Wait till then, Crow had muttered. Wait till the sour taste of disappointment turns sweet with new expectations, until what has been lost becomes just another echo of water glimpsed vaguely as through fog. Wait till her heart could bend like cornsilk, wait till like the flow of water it could never be broken.

In the green shade, Panting-Dog put beads back in their pouch, caressed the corn silk, lifted the comb to her hair, parted the fine strands.

© Kåre Enga [168.110] 2011-07-17

What binds

The brick shit house had no door. It looked upon sage, inhaled the fragrance of sage, exhaled last night’s dinner. It was greasy. Too much butter in the elbow macaroni and peas, the winds cackled this second day of Spring. Sitting in short sleeves he grunted back and forth, rocking it out, squeezing. A plastic bottle of deodorizer gleamed vermillion as he rose to give it a squirt. He had sat there nearly an hour mesmerized by mist, the slant of sun, a rainbow to the west. A morning shit, shave and a cold shower would help. But the hot-tub beckoned. He reckoned he had nothing better to do but listen to the whisper of pine waking up. He slipped into warm water and glanced at a necklace his wife had left there the day before she’d left in a blizzard. He picked it up, caressing each bead like a rosary, said a prayer that her wanderlust had exhausted the limits of this mortal life, that he would remember to buy cheese to bind the macaroni tonight.

© Kåre Enga [168.111] 2011-05-15

"What binds": thinking of Parris' outhouse. From Sunday Prompts.
"Lead Detector": I worked as an inspector of lead paint in housing.
"Crow, corn and comb": Sunday Prompts.

"Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be broken." ~ Albert Camus.



Dawn's pockets fill with prose

Two vines bloom yellow trumpets
sweet scent of honeyed suckle
faint path of stony dust

that leads you to my bower
where arms and lips ensnare you
where words can not describe you
in stanza's lilt and rhyme

warmth thrills the muse within us
on mats of moss and blossoms
clothes strewn among crushed petals
night's blanket of stars' shine

two vines entwine till sunrise
sing evening's whispered verses
Dawn's pockets fill with prose.

© Kåre Enga [168.108] 2011-07-16



Oh, the line, "a pocket full of prose". I gave an earlier version to Chris as he was working in Butterfly Herbs as I wrote this. Note: it does have a certain rhythm and rhyme. 14 lines with the meter: 7/7/6 7/7/7/6 7/7/7/6 7/7/6. The sixth syllable is stressed (never the seventh). Can you hear it?



Been reading mostly Costa Rican poetry. Now Poesía escogida by Ana Istarú.



A thunder storm brewing ...later.

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Aún se secan las lágrimas

Ayer una mujer se murió de hambre.
Anteayer un hombre mató a su hijo.
Y mañana se suicidará el otro.

¿Que te importa si me muero hoy o mañana?
Me muero algún día.
Al dia siguiente nadie llorará.
Después de una semana sigue la vida
como si nunca hubiera vivido.
Dentro de un siglo no le importará a nadie.
Ayer una mujer se murió de hambre.
Aún las lágrimas se secan hoy.


Abono orgánico

Tu tez:

cómo cubre los músculos,
cómo esconde los sesos,
aún el dolor de los huesos.

¿Qué querés mi amor?

No agradecés de lo que tenés
De lo que te ofrezco...
menos.

Por vos,
yo como mis deseos y los defeco.
Te doy mi abono orgánico
que te florezcas.


Erguimiento

Como me erguís:
la camisa, la opinion, la sonrisa.
No podés erguir la vida ya arrasada.
No soy Lázaro.
No sos Cristo.
Y el barbero bárbaro Jesús María no sabe
como ayudarnos tampoco.
Me quita las pestañas y corta las cejas,
aún las canas que me molestan.
Deslizan sobre el cuello
como un recuerdo de tu amor.


Fruta de San Vito

Pudren por donde caen
allá por la colina de los cafeteros,
allí por la buena vista,
aquí al otro lado de los obreros sin mausoleos
y sobre los descalzos somnolientos.

Donde el zacate no se corta,
donde se desliza el barro rojo,
el fruto olvidado de San Vito
caídos en el olvido.

Así que se pudren con lágrimas
entre los huesos que no son visitados.
Ungen con llantos azucarados.
Aquellos que no pueden llorar.

 

elephant ear = tequisque
paccary = zahíno
howler = mono congo
letting go of my love for you = *no translation

KE



Logjam

Smack up against your favorite willow:
one log, two.
The river rages. Smack.
Another.
Flood waters go around them
then flow over,
deposit shrubs, sticks and big fat stumps,
facsimile of a beaver's dam.
As if I give a damn.
I do.

More rain falls and then
uncompromising sun
smiling warmer than your face.
The memory of your face,
a willow wand,
wan within it.

More melt and the logjam rises
becoming one with the unrelenting flood,
lifting before moving on,
letting go.

© Kåre Enga 2011-06-03



The Clark Fork of the Columbia was flooding, then receding (it is flooding again). Logs jam against most anything in the channel. But a higher flood can dislodge the logs. It's the story of the river, of life of letting go.

Rain.

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Vanessa's Haiku

Chickens are out Ma
an' yo red wheelbarrow's full
too bad it's raining

As I wrote V. Burkett-Jenkins: A "haiku" for U? K.E. She wanted a "redneck" haiku so I gave her one. Actually, it's not a proper haiku, but I could tinker with it and make it a better "whatever-it-is" ...and keep the title. [168.B2]

"O my soul, do not aspire to immortal life, but exhaust the limits of the possible." Pindar, Pythian iii



Rosary

The brick shit house had no door. It looked out upon the sage, inhaled the fragrance of the sage, exhaled last night's dinner. It was greasy... too much butter in the elbow macaroni and peas.

The wind whispered this second day of Spring. Sitting in short sleeves he grunted back and forth like a monk, rocking it out, squeezing. The plastic bottle of deodorizer gleamed vermilion as he rose to give it a squirt.

He had sat there nearly an hour mesmerized by the mist that Alice-Rose had loved so well, the slant of sun, the rainbow to the west. A morning shit, shave and a shower would do. The hot tub beckoned.

He reckoned he had nothing better to do but to listen to the whispers of the pine waking up to the post-winter warmth. He slipped into the water and glanced at Rose's necklace. She had left it there the day before she died. He picked it up, caressing each bead like a rosary, said a prayer that her soul had exhausted the limits of rainbows and dawns.

© Kåre Enga 2011-05-15 [168.xx]



Shannon and I sat down at Bernice's and wrote. The above was done in about 12 minutes (lightly edited since).

The prompts:

color: vermilion
shape: elbow
sound: whisper
fragrance: sage
movement: repetitive ("he grunted back and forth")
touch: greasy
taste: citrus
air: blizzard
fire: hot tub
water: rainbow
earth: brick
season: equinox ("second day of Spring")
month: of short sleeves and skirts

We also used the quote above and an object. Shannon had a necklace with purplish beads.

The idea was to use whatever prompts inspired and write for 20 minutes. We both only used about 12. We read what we wrote (optional) then we did a second one.

We will meet again May 22nd @ 6 pm. at Bernice's. It's open... so hopefully someone will join us.



Whatever... too much internet distraction. Still on Tico poetry. I read constantly. At least I got done with a movie and can move on to another.

Warmer! Green in the hills

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