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 |   Poetry in April -- in celebration |
 This is my Second Book of poems. I may not have eaten the plums from the icebox, but I am guilty of writing poetry without thinking too much, without laboring over words and lines. This Is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold by William Carlos Williams You, too, forgive me for I only love the writing process; the result is secondary...And please never mind that I am also aping William Carlos Williams's false apology.    From where does the title Beetlebung and Kettlehorn come from? The name Beetlebung and Kettlehorn has to do with ancient whaling practices and Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. During the nineteenth century, because of its dense white wood, the tupelo tree was used in whale oil casks made of copper. Beetle was the mallet made from the Tupelo tree and bung was the stopper in the cask hole. In Martha’s vineyard, the Tupelo tree is still known as the Beetlebung tree, and at Chilmark there, is a Beetlebung Corner, with shops at Chilmark Center, from where roads lead to other interesting points. Kettlehorn, as well as being an ancient surname, refers to a piece of equipment resembling to but much bigger than a shoe-horn, used to stir the hot blubber and separate the fine oil from the denser particles. Whale oil was a popular commodity and, as a fuel, was used for lighting the dark, burning to provide heat and as an aid in cooking. After the whale was hunted, men in a boat cut strips of blubber from the whale's back, tied them together and rowed ashore. There the fat was cut into smaller pieces to be boiled into oil in large copper kettles. In addition there exists kettle corn in Cape Cod which are corn chips fried in kettles and sometimes mistakenly called kettlehorns. For some reason, way back when, the words Beetlebung and Kettlehorn were used together and, at one time or another, were given to shops and other things that go together as titles. I adopted the name for my on-the-spot poetry in reference to the idea of blubber. "Poetry the shortest distance between two humans" Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
| Easy breeze on palm trees, fronds open up, to a purple sky, reaching for alms, and my claim on a conch shell, staked earlier between my fingers and thumb, vanishes with the sea foam, while I settle on a stone seat topping the promontory. I've lost my grip and feel jinxed, but the ocean’s chorus sings in one eccentric tongue, twisting with tunes of mystery, empty shells’ tales, and perforated reveries. In awe, I press my hand to my lips and still my breath, to hear a wave rise high and whisper, “If it is lost, it can't be found, and you’re too old to live a lie.” |
| Don’t turn away from me. This game’s in play, gathering us and racquets, all carbon-based, so very human. I don’t know if I can bear it your service tight, inside four walls, my ultrasound in quarks and photons and us, cramped, side by side, with your strained smile. My revulsion ripples before your kill, and smashing at the front wall, ball bounces at reverse angle below the out line. All scar tissue. No clouds drift inside, just a healing slash backing to a boast… ------------------ Squash terms used: Service, front wall, bounce, reverse angle, out line, boast, kill . |
| He grabs her by the wrist, as if yanking a big vine using his weight for mastery, as if in middle ages, to check for the knife inside her sleeve, as if to evade her seductive touch or his obsession for weak women, weak women who conceal their venom, until he touches. |
My words, lily-livered debutantes unsure of their accoutrements, perch on the bench too silly to come out. |
Playacting, your heart unlocks fairy-tale secrets for this fool. |
| Since nothing is left of this interval, your shadow veils the page and the steam of your ardor rises to leave. But you, the poet, writer, learned scholar, you the lover, cannot disappear, even if you cross the street and follow other avenues of your invention. This moment at night under the weight of time may stage a spectral play in your theater of thoughts, but you’ll keep on producing colorful illusions, with splendor as their charm, and you’ll wake up like the beautiful Shahrazade, with a new story to tell, each day. == Prompt: Nothing left |
| First fish, tiny with soft spine, thin scales, no jaws cheeks rising to pleasure in limitless ocean, a rippling fragment of heaven’s light while every wave of the sea erases the sky’s memory. First friend, a mate with no name like the light from dream to vigil communication in silence, rivers of joy flow within then the blazing touch in the center of the night. First land, one little hell of hope thirsty for invisible mountains can it climb, on a slow trek from gullibility to clout? Zeal erupts for new promises it muscles up, sharpens, to adapt to a vicious world to come. *ostracoderm—first fish of 530 million years ago ------------- Prompt: a specific kind of fish |
| Aroused by sunbeams in the lap of greens sapphire jewels wake up plump, wearing the morning dew to hear a slow creek's blues. Lopsided, they ease into my hands tender, angelic, naïve, before the bird beaks chisel through their skin to tattoo towering verses of blue. Lining them in a pendant of beads I'm reluctant to crush them into the dough, for they'll leave a trail of purple tears on their final destination. I ought to be indifferent but now, I'm stupidly blue for there's no way to re-attach a fruit to its branch or find illusions once you lose them. ----------- Prompt: The color blue |
| needles and spools lamp black, steel green, silver grey... I thread through the eye while he watches the needle drift in the button, out the cloth and I'm wandering in and out, in and out... fragments of memory was it just yesterday when we were held hostage by corporate dreams bitten by the snake of champagne wishes and I'm wandering in and out, in and out... fragments of memory was it my friend or his sister who talked about the woman scented with sweaty nylons, the lie dismantled, delusional, all maggots and worms and I'm wandering in and out, in and out... fragments of memory I couldn't see well, but neither could he their sealed tears, tribal fears deceits, hanging over us like spiked stalactites and I'm wandering in and out, in and out... fragments of memory was it my mother or his who said I never fix his buttons? I look at him, he grins with how-nice-this-is eyes. I smile in personalized silence and I'm wandering in and out, in and out... fragments of memory yet, not a dram of bitterness as it's almost over and the sun's setting I tie the knot and pull the needle fastening the button in place ---------------- Prompt: It's almost over |
| fevered ocean, cool earth moaning creek, humid moon Apaganthus, moss, lichens, dust, weeds that shatter blistering rocks not quite the same, this year, spring’s slanted for something subtle is departing more precious than gold or fame with what is vintage forming new ties nothing of the old we knew, and yes, not quite the same, this year, spring’s slanted your wavering self, my vague regret our love akin to a hothouse bloom bright colors and no scent bursting and vanishing like a shooting star not quite the same, this year, spring’s slanted -------------------------- Prompt: Slanted |
| Rain, with hidden ambition comes back again, more often than not, just a touch, a drizzle at first, but being vain, when least expected, it pours over the roof to make you move against me like a wave. Funny how zealous drops do not break grass blades and flower buds but wake us from our dreams to let our bodies coil around each other, before we resume to sink toward sleep, listening to the twisted tongues of rain. ---------- Prompt: We resume |
| There’s something due hard to figure what as this could be the last days of pleading cries when ragged ribbons of rivers snake in the Everglades liquid mirrors ever so slow through browned-green sawgrass Mangrove roots in mud, like stilts, grow downward from branches Gators stretch still with turtles clamped in teeth; yet, pythons wreak havoc extorting terrorized tunes boats rush to landing ramps with no regard to otters, ospreys, spatterdock lilies and nature distorts in human hands losing proportion. There’s something due hard to figure what. ------------ Prompt: There’s something due |
| Stars are pigmented, science claims but I see only brilliance ridiculing the dark that hangs over the backyard and the golf course, as spring blooms send gardenia scents through the half-open windows regardless of this planet's pains. Pleasant hours of night but with false-colored eyes watching an unchaste world, a world, at times, I've held back from in fear or remorse, and yet the poet* said, "this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided." *Rumi Exact quote: "You can hold back from suffering of the world, you have permission to do so, and it is in accordance with your nature, but perhaps this very holding back is the one suffering you could have avoided." ----- Prompt: You know who |
| Did I ever believe my mind was clear? Once I swore I’d never forget his face every facet of its expressions but now, do I even remember the color of his hair or his laugh? This thing I’m born into, this being human, flounders between forgetting and remembering staying awake or asleep seeing and not-seeing. Part of me wishes to crawl backward like crawfish; part of me wants to lunge forward Icarus-wise to melt in your arms still thinking about him, one heart divided by two. Did I ever believe my mind was clear? -------- Prompt: divided by two |
| the new you, a piece of candy in a mother-of pearl dish, welcomes you no more drama, no more tantrums no more steam rising, sulfurous, from inner volcanos no more fear of falling in this new place for now you know, frights hide behind taboos and an implacable sweetness knowing its unknowing coils in your depths as interior walls gain dozens of vigilant eyes watching you ------------------ Prompt: What it really means to be an adult |
| Come to me far from your silent place of grey skies and snow-covered hills with rising smoke and hardening hearts where all is lost in winning and hopes lay abandoned in burial sites. Come to me, seeking shelter on soft sands by the sea, where tropical winds boogie with Sego palms' fronds and find this crystal desire of white sugar canes egret songs and days of feasting. Come to me for I'll build a smile, fluttering adrift in front of your eyes, and under a blossoming orange tree my words will emerge like soft moss and culantrillos to show you what is left behind is waiting ahead. Come to me with your gentle greeting richer than gestures filled with honey and offer me your lips to open the universe of guava and eucalyptus to make me shiver, wishing your body will burn akin to those days anchored in my memory. ======== Prompt: Then come kiss me |
| Clinging to hours, clouding and clearing my throat strings, with the elusive wish to sing while musing how the world is so full and so empty, how the mind drifts, how rain falls, how the wind changes so freely bringing pollens and scents of flowers into my nostrils. How creative everything is, yet, how mundane! And still, what I want to sing remains unsung. Without my song, no breath. --------------- Prompt: But not quite there yet |
| This will be a new life for that photo of years ago as I no longer search my hollow obscurity in sepia. There is nothing there but my old name and your shadow and if a door opens, I won’t go back in. Time will decompose, forming new wrinkles, and my steps will quicken forward while I'll still think about you. -------------------- Prompt: Coming of age |
| gathering speed, she makes her way to the mirror, nodding yes, self-possessed she waves to her image she was her own whole world wrapped in the brazen myth that she existed alone a second look her eyes deepen with a discovery the mirror reflects other things primitive slow motion the walls, her dresser, her bed, the bird on the tree branch in front of the window the shadows lingering on the bed hers and the man’s who left in the weak gray light before dawn the bird starts to sing, its song chaotic contralto, a requiem pushing out the night transfixed, she stares in the mirror now a witness to bird songs and many other reflections besides her own ----------------- Prompt:Virginity, or loss thereof |
| No sweets for me take every grace away for honeyed laughter can be wicked behind witch-eyes and charms No sweets for me not from your cauldron hanging over our children’s heads let no one know such savor No sweets for me sugarplums do not dance while bats fly about our faces and bombs terrify the innocent folk No sweets for me for I am a staring wreck at this flood of shame and blood, unforgiving the all-forgetting No sweets for me but give me wisdom from the cracked bones of terror in this world of fear and shock No sweets for me place me among the outlaws followers of a lost cause for a planet at peace. ------------ Prompt: Sweets for the sweet |
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