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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 |
| this fake decadent shell only a secondary home I carry on my back like my troubles since as a scavenger, doddering alone on water’s edge, I recycle after others wishing to fight the tides and convert darkness into blessings ------ Prompt: April 11-- aquatic creature |
| a river foams white into a blue-stained moat and detergent’s suds pop and dishes cling, clang, and jangle inside the dishpan while I listen to the faucet as if it is the rush of a waterfall and imagine us camping downriver, watching otters paddle chittering and chattering with one another, and later pines, junipers, and cottonwoods bend to tolerate a rainstorm... until I stab my finger with the tip of a steak knife ----- April 10—water |
| (The Grand Bazaar in Istanbul, with 61 covered streets and over 4000 shops, is one of the largest and oldest covered markets in the world.) Thin pastry so crispy stuffed with cheese and aroma so fine the vendor called it borek while uttering what I suspect was a rhymed sales pitch right outside the gate of the Grand Bazaar with domed roofs and many alleyways where hassling is a must. And I might have insulted the merchant when I paid the exact amount he asked for gilded harem slippers because he said, chuckling, he just reduced the price for my pretty face, thus, braving the hassling for me this amateur clown with a happy darkness steady in ribaldry confusing the seller with the buyer. as if his trade were some child’s play. Now, I sit still and nudge that memory out of decades to find under the splendor of ancient façades many a nameless face mimicking court jesters with an off-beat marketing style for in that antique bazaar where, crafted in cartoonish surprise, my true stories were born. ---------- Prompt: April 9—market |
| ( Space News: On September 15, 2017, the Cassini spacecraft plunged into Saturn, after proving the planet’s moon Prometheus created the inner ring alone and not together with Pandora as previously believed.) Falling in line with saturnine effect Cassini, the spacecraft crashed on Saturn’s surface, after crediting Prometheus in shaping a narrow ring, and canceling Pandora’s part. A dizzy tumble for Cassini yet, well-deserved heavenly justice and Pandora with the bruised ego, though she is afloat on the silent sky, I feel like reaching out to touch in empathy. -------------- Prompt: April 8--celestial body |
they claim it must have been the change in tides or the food fish forcing you wander off-course but I suspect the herd cast you off as herds punish their precocious ones or maybe the beachfront at Blind Creek Park and sandy, wild shoreline beckoned you to hike along the Indian River Lagoon for you envied the volunteer naturalists walking about in dramatic curiosity as if the beach were a stage thus, you received huge acclaim, larger than your size, through their photos and a eulogy on the front page of St.Lucie News recognizing your vision for it was not the length of your life but the depth of it and the ripples you caused along the way, drifting away from the herd ----------- Prompt: April 7—hike |
| I used to smell the fresh intent in the earthy scent of the rain just before the Azaleas bloomed but I don’t belong there now where the Azaleas bloom not even to the greenish grass of powdered cheeks with the early morning dew for I have mutated into a place where I lose air slowly and where palms tear their fronds into ribbons, mirroring my heart ------- Prompt: April 6 -- bloom |
| it must have been the moonlight making ordinary stones sparkle and the night to lie for wearing me on your skin you lit a bright table lamp in a strange city your language of many tongues or the hissing of tunes yet so believable how could I know you were fattening me for slaughter in sublime sacrifice in lapsed time calibrating hours at dawn you were the dream I once had ==== Prompt: April 5--dream(s) |
| After I drift into sleep, the mind now set free, throws outlandish fits popping out things in tiny fragments of uprooted old scripts battling with trifles provoking longing for vacant rooms, windsongs, deserted loves, and roads with sinkholes that wrap their tenacious roots around my feet exposing my past to the light of the moon ------- Prompt: April 4--fitful sleep |
| Let them come with bulldozers for what will be left: winding hills, forever grass, coiled ribbon snakes, voracious squirrels, undrinkable water from the treacherous creek surrounded by wild, burly bushes with piercing teeth, and ghostly echoes of ancient laughter in the backyard of my childhood home. ---- Prompt: April 3--place |
| akin to a lame bird you perch on a park bench to watch scrub jays and warblers sprint from thin twigs chirping tunes at you, the lost one who never learned to fly then, when their songs drift flute-like in longing and desire so deeply felt into flower beds, rose petals uncurl to dance but you still refuse to move --- Prompt: April 2—birdsong |
| memory is all the home to start from on altered routes since in the rearview window only half my head appears and at every bump on the road, down-slopes, and danger signs this old body riots in rebellion a culprit is the timing or possibly the driving making my knees rattle and neither can be undone -- Prompt: April 1--road trip |
| savvy chef that you are ignoring I am ticklish, will you sift them like flour add sugar, cinnamon, butter to impress people in complete silence? wait till my ashes talk |
| me and you glued together or separated by large distances neither dependent nor independent spatial proximity our quantum state |
| the days deepened, at first, their surface rippling with the toss of a wishful coin and me imagining —what did I imagine? a month that would never end and while the clock moved its hands, time’s jaws would clench? still, I wonder why the fine-grained calendar surprised me so, sending tides of sorrow sweetened with handouts enveloped in friends’ heartbeats, lines, verse, flashbacks, and cascading brilliance could it be to light up my way because the hours lengthened today? --------- prompt: parting is such sweet sorrow |
| I auditioned for life before being born since it scared me to stare at the darkness non-stop --as it still does-- then, approved in the tryouts, though I fell off the nest, my pulse has been ticking ever since now, using my underling script, I still have the moments to finish my dissertation in defense of why I jumbled my lines on stage before the curtain falls === Prompt: audition, tryout, job interview, dissertation defense, test |
| Hey there, World! Are you the prince of darkness or the prince of light when you bury bodies or dreams while you strut like a peacock? Sometimes, you produce a healing and gain momentum, for when I stare at your dark side, you let me see a billion tiny lights, with a tendency to stroke your own ego as you keep on worshipping yourself. Even if one is subordinate to your base material, your specialty I find to be a sort of brilliance that disorients,ransacks, blacks out, or dazzles, and is secretly or openly savage. Really, your story is a bit of cliché, a beauty hiding its ugliness, but then, isn’t it the same for every being? Who knows what’s under each skin, including mine? ------------ Prompt: letter to the world |
| wine trapped by cork, like geyser springing from the deep in fire and fury, rebukes in haughty narcissism, --now resting in a silver chalice-- “how dare you seal me for so long, you, such a small thing!” and the cork from the oak replies, “you make more noise from your fluid mouth than mind, in the theatrics of dim deficiency your title is a grant, mine is inheritance” and the cork shrugs off the wine thinking how its blush resembles snooty maple’s pomegranate-red foliage shedding to the ground, come winter, and how the evergreen cork-oaks rise to the sun, in mystical tradition to produce bark nonstop and dream of eternity -------- Prompt: tree(s) |
| just when you seem lost to me l feel your breath hot on my neck unraveling what’s knotted inside nothing slips by your tendrils reaching out, connecting to, stirring up what I’ve forgotten, what I’d like to forget faded bruises, specks of joys, veiled loves, you weave as if fragrant dreams, your touch matching my not-knowing, wrapped-up fears, my contrite innocence, erratic pulse making me bite hard on words when you rise from the green like a lone blood rose you, the poem I hide in my pocket ------------ prompt: poem in your pocket |
| once she tried to run away on a cryptic morning while pillows muffled her thoughts and she rose out of twisted sheets when nobody else was home but they were never there in the first place she knew the route but her nose bled yet she ran leaving tracks of blood and specific drops of grief then cars curved past her suffering her flight beyond their grasp but they were never there in the first place her eyes half-shut she found it hard to disappear inside a faultline with knots waterlogged roads, cities of fogs and, her grief moving at high speed, she switched lanes and ran back to them but they were never there in the first place -------- Prompt: a story poem |
| oh, the comfort of feeling safe within me as I am merely a branch of a host tree references are my twigs dangling in space I favor self-serve, apples without cores or purple hellebores and the mind, not worth a dime at this age but a dirge I can sing for this world so torn by rage for my calling’s in the bag, no need of a warning flag so, take your pick, all yours this schtick ----------- Prompt: resume |
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