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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 |
| The slimy tools unravel themselves while the spotlight attacks my eyes, and the hygienist floats down to test the quality of my flossing technique, her mask and eyeglasses covering the map of her face. Her hands descend into my mouth as her metallic swords leap and stab, slashing their way through the jungle to find the bandits I hid in there somewhere. Misery excites her, and she opens her traps of fluoride, grinding and rubbing, grinding and rubbing into my gums. Then the churning water… a cascade? But no, this must be water torture. And the sound? Alpha Centauri expanding. Meanwhile she complains. Seventy-five degrees are not good enough for her swollen joints. She wishes she could be in the valley of Rio Grande under the hot sun, I, too, wish she were there. |
| They burst forth into the light, disguised as choices for shape and looks, butterflies dreaming inside a gilded night. In their half-open eyes winds and tides, many a road, many a track, a sunlit life. The young girls strut at the cusp of womanhood, as this old one watches them on TV, thinking, when it matters, at the end, the judge will probably be a man. |
At four, she sneaked a sip from someone’s beer; at eight, an uncle let her have some wine. Funny, she never got tipsy then... She cannot tell if she ever lost her head to anything liquid, except the subtle rain, the tones and shadows on crashing waves, and tears on friendly faces, for she has tied her faith to the affable bartender pouring perception to customers on swivel chairs, who take in enchantment to pass out on living, and she inhales anise, rum, and gin as if rose petals while she pushes her broom on the barroom floor. |
| The cake, out of the oven, the icing, smooth, just the way he likes it, even if he can’t taste it from thirteen hundred miles away, but what the heck, he is weaned for good after he turned taller than me. Now, his looks, still naïve, find horizons of promise while women around him melt, and he still whimpers on the phone, wanting to be himself, with his books and scratchy music, silently wishing for that extra slice. Strange, how everything stays the same. Strange, how everything floats away. |
You are the whirlwind. Books, keyboard, Orange Crush, laughter, crises, depths, you go foraging as if fungi in the forest. Then, in a moment, magic opens your eyes, and you fishtail, transforming into human flesh, to imagine what it could be like in Morocco or in Afghanistan to live through a day at sweet sixteen. You sense that silence can be a fatal choice, and in your jalopy, you wonder what you can give or if you can rev any faster. Still, you cannot tell between here and there or the future and the past; so you ask yourself if you should jump from the world’s edge, while Diana Ross sings, “Do you know where you’re going?” |
| Like an Olympian god, you lord over my purse, but chicken-hearted to the core, you stall in seizing fly-by-nights and Ponzi’s of the world. Those who have a say quiver with fear to look into you, and I’m too scared to look out of you, after I’ve been to your strip club twice where threats--clinical and somber-- beat like drums, as if I’m not taxed enough by my own expectations. Yet, “I’ve grown accustomed to your looks,” not in a sing-song way but akin to pain or pitiless allergies. What if the monster that lurks in me swallows you whole, or what if I just flattened your face? Would you dare call my name? |
| “Age appears to be best in four things, - old wood best to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust, and old authors to read.” Alonso of Aragon Over the hill you wander, rising, playing timeless games with no measurable dimension and the strangest outlook, to find your breath unheard, and you rest your head inside the place your trail led where only you’ll know you are in slow gear where your poems sleep with old wine to dream themselves awake and you slump over The Idiot in front of the ashes, like being filmed in a clip in the late night show, until an usher enters to address you. This will be the moment you’ll understand you were only on the screen for a flash when you meant to be shiny but you were just lusterless, and all you can do will be to leave after the usher and your old friends. |
| An old crow pecking at dead bark, she rakes lifeless leaves left over from fall, as she holds on to fragments of regret. Her baby grandson she couldn’t see once more before he was shipped to Iraq; her best friend Joan, unrecognizable at the old folks home; her husband’s clothes she meant to send to Goodwill after the funeral; and how could she break her favorite mug, in rage? Just the ways of life, nothing to dread. But… her sudden shriek the unexpected pain… The rake has cut into a spring bloom with abrupt brutality, a parting so painful for her soft heart. “Why isn’t anyone here to protect the flowers?” |
| Morning A cool plan! So you’ll start small, stretching to firm up the tummy; cellulite galore in need of a fat ban. “I’m not hungry!” Affirmations do not work anymore. Too effing flabby, gotta get the body in shape. That said, only the insane would scheme such a thing, while half-asleep and prone, and still in bed. Noon Having lunch with friends who float on Beaujolais, with confessions that smell of methane from the burning around the landfill. They search you for what you’ve got. Slouching toward your plate, you admit to envy, your coveting Martha Stewart in a struck-by-lightning, housewifery moment. Laughter ringing wild, your words come down, drifting like some new off-human species. Afternoon You walk in the mall and buy stuff from Borders, downsizing, forty percent off, even if, under economy’s gales, you act a rock but feel the cry of the waves. Then, inside the GAP, a little girl smiles and waves at you…you think; her image, certainly you’ll keep, for nothing else today can match up to that, a child of the stars shining her light from her pearly whites. Evening The boldest thing you did today, as you turned people’s wits inside out, was to eat an apple with two breadsticks for supper, while others feasted on chicken cutlets and macaroni. Luckily, the crowd did not turn on you, but your own battlement tactics will, for you know how much you’ll devour after everyone sleeps. "Only a fool --like you-- tests the depth of the water with both feet." |
dog language---just having fun The dog talks in silence with a stare that breaks in- to my awareness, his tail changing the direction of the air in the room and his ears twitching as if to say he is my guru, as he leads me to Nirvana or to the leash that will lead him to something red like a hydrant. So he can let go and relax, once more, with the renewed grace of an avatar incarnate to guide and educate this human apprentice with telepathic tutoring to acknowledge the need for a full bowl of Kibbles and Bits. |
| The northern rim of summer marks the inverted bowl of night in a crystal's pattern on the glistening shore as the world stands agape, thrashing about in perspiration, while some contemplate the future of their daily bread in vain, and others, the luminous soul of the universe, inconsequential couples engrave love in each other’s starry eyes, holding the light of the moon. |
| A chunk of gold from a newly excavated ore, I am a hit! Still, I shall need an alloy --an ally really-- to make me stand up straight without the cane, for now I can endure the heat or the ice or the tightness of any storm, and my eyes see without the light or the glasses. Pleased with what I can remember, delighted with what I forgot, the tasks I used to complete I don’t need to start. I do not plead, or apologize, or state my case, and I do not whisper to balance my breath, but I yell to raise Cain, and throw away comforters. For I am a newborn into old age, embracing my metal. (mettle? ) |
| The resolute shellfish, closing itself, as if to reject air, or to deny any exchange of meaning with the eels. It thinks it can live like this with the hardness of its crust hiding its inner softness, so private only the pearl finds out when it rents its cushy apartment for its weighty body to sink in to mark its days until the clam digger breaks through its lustrous slumber. |
| Imagine dipping, by Jove, into the energy of a deep crystal glass as its wine seduces and the vivid bands play a celestial tune since the helix of light gyrates in and out of the dark somber rings, feeling guilt and strength at the same time. Then, messengers from many moons and significant dreams, seek out…me, a woman so resolutely antique rising from her fetal position to a slow dance back into her unknown origin. |
| On your first day under the sun, burnt too badly by afterbirth pains, you type away your dreams; while you could do a zillion other things, nothing else gets your motor going. For the petals you scattered, they say, “God’s Will.” You ask, “Is it?” when you see the tears inside rainbows that stain the sky, which curtains trillions of soiled suns. Your gypsy hands click clack on the keyboard --a sorceress taking refuge in a place of calm-- where the best in your kind are now but shadows. Prompt: “The best in this kind are but shadows.” Shakespeare --A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Act V. Scene 1. For "Poets' Practice Pad"  |
| .I. My words of glacial drift meandering, as if torn apart from a continent of artsy people, homeless, on their death march with ashen faces praying for grace, so I may lock them away inside my wooden chest in order not to mock them. .II. Someone said do not knit for a lover until you are sure of him. But I knit and purl, knit and purl with two needles, using feisty red illusions for yarn and wrap their strings around my fingers until the blush on my skin fades to regret. |
| Not all is of the wind erasing the sand when it brings voices of the past with thorns blooming, like mistaken tunes. Thirst torments, begging for a drop as I walk by clouds of silence, and I stare at the ominous horizon where the ocean, for re-plotting, surveys its coordinates, the waters of death ready to charge at oblivious shores. |
| So difficult those--others-- invading my shoulders with their weight, while their rebukes blind the view, just when I am about to live… Their floating mouths join ghosts with orphans of dead dreams, and then they cower and wither like fallen petals, but when I search for their true whereabouts, I find them hiding in agony inside the hospice of my heart. Prompt: “Hell is--other people!” From No Exit by Jean Paul Sartre |
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