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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 |
Maybe it is good to grow spines to dodge marauders, pierce reptile tongues, bounce unhurt when you hit the ground after a climb. But don’t you think sharp things would be your undoing when you sink to the bottom of a pit and hands cannot hold you? prompt: hedgehogs in the wild or as pets |
| How can you endure this earth? You must feel you’re buried alive like a low mood. And skirting the snow in tight burrows, you must dream of an early spring and irrelevance of things. But do perform for prediction, seeing what I cannot see or do for I am not at ease with shadows as this is not the planet I wanted. prompt: groundhog |
| distant music in dark rooms a golden candle, smoldered, bent to a penumbra, heavy on child shoulders the figure saddens me unlike the gutsy original a flaming reflection on stained screen wandering wild bitter sweet, this life subdues dreams to burn another relic into space chasing nowhere circles on a slow dance to oblivion Prompt:Tuesday Weld |
| Back to work, one more day... Go chase papers on your cluttered desk and forget the layoffs, but you’re a mallard bobbing on choppy water, and you might grow wings at the sides of your head to dodge the hunters, aiming to put you away. The ringing phone… Just hope the secretary doesn’t forget you’re out of reach. But what if she does? Do not hedge but stay low Keep your cool. No one ever gets paid for angst, and if you avoid the shots, your achievement award for lifetime is Eighteen thousand breaths a day. Prompt: Back to work |
| Vision with eyes closed: Vulture, a clown-faced trickster cawing. Vast message: shadow, the fear, yours and mine, stiff as carrion. Funny, how we confront the secret blotch, brandishing swords in unison at parallel images and call it confusion! Then, we throw questions in the air… Why can’t you listen what I have been trying to say? Why don’t I accept your explanation? While the pathogen distrust hides in the mind’s immune system to forbid awakening. Prompt: group dreaming. Google Inception (a film) or Jung/Jungian archetypes in dreams |
| Right off the laundry basket: crumpled jeans, twisted T-shirt still a bit damp. Never mind, my body heat will iron them to shape unlike my wrinkled skin and the jagged words I couldn't hold back. Prompt: Slatternly Tendencies |
| Whirring, the blender bumps and grinds ice with vodka and schnapps while the bartender flings things, squeezes taps, and stirs, letting only the clinks speak with people around the bar who watch him measure nothing, except with his sixth sense. And I, as always, check my watch to see if he'll beat his earlier record of speed, then I sip my iced tea. My folly: Checking how fast anyone does anything. Prompt: Personal folly |
| I’ve been at this before. I’ve shifted the scene many times over, a tiger after the hunt, after spotting the prey, sneaking close, sprinting then pulling apart with claws. Since I’ve had my fill, I’ll cover the carcass with dead leaves to return to it, if need be, so I can lie in the sun where the field quivers in haze and a flock of vultures circle above. I’ll wait for the next start and open my eyes to new dreams to watch a savage spirit dance, telling human tales in another realm. |
| Some perch on benches shadow-warmed under the trees, watching fountains spout up and down on green grass and kids to make shrieks born. The pier reaches eight hundred feet over the sea, and I walk on water with the wind at my face. From the stone gazebo, the sounds of a sax swoop upon us all, their spell spiraling. An old man in red breathes the blues into polished brass, sober from a distance. Ever so grateful, I want more of this music, and there is nothing else I'd rather do than lean on the railing and listen. |
| “Nothing will come of nothing: speak again.” King Lear to Cordelia Past the frog’s song and its thumping leaps in the middle of the night, I know nothing about chasing an amphibian without unnerving both of us, though I can see me in fantasy moves, a vaudeville princess running after a frog, saying, “My love for you is like water; please, scram, get out!” Oh, Frog, teach me the way, for I ask What do I know? Inward answer: “Nothing!” What I know parades in front of me now meaning not a thing, and if I speak again, I‘ll say nothing because my nothing has hornets in the eaves, fat spiders in corners, and bats in the attic. My nothing burns with passion, its ashes in black ink, which does not free me from pain, and a frog still thumps inside my house. ------------------------------------ True story. |
| Glass enamel and marble one see-through, the other hard stone, you and I, for perspective, side by side, cut with edges sharp; a design envelops us no longer through luck but with grout forced into openings. The deal complete, a squeegee drags across our surface. The finished product, rich with possibility, mocking the silence that lingers along the lines where colors do not match. What if those who observe say, “How original!” |
| Pummeling the roof, grasping and rasping obsessed with a plan, one grisly storm sifts from the night my haunting dream. My childhood dream leaks through the roof, wobbling in the night, its low voice, rasping, drones with the storm in a wrinkled plan. This faceless plan of my reckless dream, fertile in the storm, captive beneath the roof, ravenous and rasping, devours the night. The resurrected night ravages the plan, overgrown and rasping, and my shadowed dream claws at the roof, blinding the storm. Tossing in the storm, the low-voiced night hammers from the roof the broken plan of my fateful dream on a crucifix, rasping. Exiled and rasping, I hide a storm inside my dream, tied to the night, shrouded by the plan, cursing at the roof. I storm to the roof, rasping, as dawn lights plan shackles for the dreams of the night. ==================================== Sestina From poets.org The sestina follows a strict pattern of the repetition of the initial six end-words of the first stanza through the remaining five six-line stanzas, culminating in a three-line envoi. The lines may be of any length, though in its initial incarnation, the sestina followed a syllabic restriction. The form is as follows, where each numeral indicates the stanza position and the letters represent end-words: 1. ABCDEF 2. FAEBDC 3. CFDABE 4. ECBFAD 5. DEACFB 6. BDFECA 7. (envoi) ECA or ACE The envoi, sometimes known as the tornada, must also include the remaining three end-words, BDF |
| You reinvent your musical persona from bebop to hip-hop, sipping strong coffee, Colombiano Supremo, from a white ceramic mug to postpone the conversation for another unforgiving gathering. “Have to talk to the kids about stuff before the final you-know-what.” Yet, you’re with Alex on the trombone with bluesy inflection. “Just for a moment, remind yourself to face things.” Not now, for Sonny’s on the sax, freewheeling. Still, you listen to clichés, later to avoid them for the sake of melody, chord progression, improvisation. Then, you create on the spot, leaving him on his own with his you-know-what, to make Louis Armstrong proud. |
| The wind circles about me, raking into my hair, as I stroll in the middle of our easy street; rarely a car passes by. A neighbor waves, calling me over. He talks of Arizona, the immigration law, Leonardo DaVinci, the recent bat infestation, a restless night, and life overwhelming. “Happy to see you,” he says, retreating. The instant he stops, I think Did he think he made a failed joke? but his eyes reveal that I reminded him of his wife, dead eleven months who once showed me how to crochet, and with Chanel No. 5 pouring from her pores, picked up the plates to freeze leftovers. My good-bye dies in echoes, and the wind still circles about me, raking into my hair. |
| Fragrant flowers under five dollars, four nights in Disney World, sugar cookies, promise rings, "You're the love of my life." Such a chore, this force of will, to push away and ignore baits harboring falsehoods, then to celebrate yet another day, like the wild, holy mountain man saying, "Water overcomes fire." Or "Love with passion." Not true. There are fires water will hearten, and passion cradles possessing. Possess? Not so, but I never forget those I weep with or the ones waiting with blades drawn. Still, when the pentagram pivots on its axis, I tell the best lies to myself with a hundred thousand welcomes. ------------------------------------------------------------ the pentagram pivoting on its axis. = the clash of the elements. The Earth subdues Water, Water subdues fire etc. Motto of Gaelic hero Caelte: Truth in our hearts, strength in our arms and fulfillment in our tongues. Ceud M`ile Failte'! (kee-ut mee-luh faltchuh) (A hundred thousand welcomes!) |
| Last night, standing on solid ground, I looked at the stars in space infinite as desert sand, the half-moon trying to mend, and the fracas under our skins endless as the ocean. Then, I thumped on sharp rock, stepped on the shadows of trees, and heard the anemic voice of the tilting earth, asking that we keep our side of the bargain instead of one hot motto after another with our pitchfork still stuck in the prairie grass. |
| Stars dress up the night, stitching through its dark with a roll of Valencia lace, and the mystical spread curls into a slow dance, where the hush is and a pure light flows to align years of patience applying a decoyed glitter to whatever can be seen whatever is knowable like the welcome in your eyes. Such good this does to the heart and how serious delight is! |
| “Midway in our life’s journey, I went astray from the straight road and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.” Dante Canto One- Inferno Sometime peculiar in my life, I knew him well before the perforated stub, before I boarded at gate four, before a briefcase sat between my knees hiding my itinerary, but lacking the time to make amends, he never realized I watched straight roads curve, dark woods burn, and that I never cleared any wreckage, for what I own is my journey. . |
| I’m tied up. The culprit: the law of the heart but not a figment of my mind. Glued to the seat, I give in to this power I can’t control. Across my shoulder strapped, I tap on the keyboard, for I’m locked in place with zest and abandon, and echoing inside my head, a poem forces me to write it. |
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