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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 |
| a discomfort so comfy and familiar between this earth and sky when you and I point fingers at each other and blame the venom on the snake or the apple then we bite into our sorrows unaware of the magical filling slipping out to the ground ---- Prompt: base a poem on an eponym, that is, a word that comes from a person’s name. Examples: sandwich, diesel, guillotine, cardigan, leotard, bloomer, martinet, mesmerize, silhouette, shrapnel, draconian, etc. |
| tiny wisteria blossom on the trellis mends my frayed heart without a needle ========== Prompt: a very small poem |
| when your pace slows, you notice on each curve designs unfolding as traps smudges, words, lines, tints pompous, pretentious, hostile bullies but you rise toward skylight without a glance at the abyss down wondering if people could tell you never left behind what they trespassed: dense depths inside your shadow and you climb realizing how life lies in balance with each step you take and designs you cannot evade for the path on the ascent is always perilous =========== Prompt: Stairwell |
| See now, how stars nod at the window to ease my lassitude, to bounce doldrums away in memory-drifts while my words cling to my hands and the desk-lamp’s light flickers. So much to rant about, life in my face, crotchety days lost like dreams, spreading around in ravines of years, in vain my pen on paper, letters like nightshades urging me to detect myself. ---------------- Prompt—poem that contains a confidence (private info shared in trust with an equal) |
| such cowardice, I now confess, when I lied to all to say my mission called me and fled, split into fractions in fright of a fight oracles of bamboo or steel they sang in gentle tones chanting injustices in my choice for flight rash decision with no vision since more theater was there than facts the day I left for good the day I rang the wind chimes when there was no wind oracles of bamboo or steel they sang in gentle tones chanting injustices in my choice for flight ============ Prompt: poem that contains a confession (private truth told to powerful entity) |
| Back in the vast city. I’m nowhere and everywhere, tunnels, canals, tankers, taxis, slums, skyscrapers webbed, veined, and no skin transparent. Crooks and junkies in this dark metropolis? But no, only phantoms smelling of fish ghosts from a graphic story--singed, somber and tragically misread—still hiding in the tenements of my mind. This city has been a bloody slaughterhouse littered with noise, and I still writhe in a corner park, watching the 59th street bridge with steel biceps where she once said they met in secret and broke all circuits inside me, and voiceless I screamed underground poetry to inflame the avenues in my roiled solitude igniting the Hudson River. -------------------- Prompt: underlying emotion you never name |
| blissful yellow flames slow dancing in the wind covering the sand in compassion a field of tight-petal tutus parted by a cement path leading to the ocean such disdain in the name False Dandelions for almost asters in silken threads cultivating untamed land soon to be replaced with fancier blooms what a pyrrhic victory their hope before defeat ------------ Prompt: wildflower of your choice  |
| (For Nefertiti) Should I whip a meaning for eagle eyes with the kind of light Orion’s belt catches at night its smallest star offside, two others askew, adrift like Nile’s path? Do they watch lost souls with three-king egos or dead-bird carcasses hidden under Giza’s Pyramids telling tales with ancient punctuation? Do they obsess with stuff they can’t handle such as my life hunted out by years, to which shadows have been merciful snubbing the sun god with the curved beak who wished to watch me fade out like him? ---------------------- Prompt: Birds |
| rain, a woodpecker on the windowpane, while I read Gone Girl later, a deluge insensate flow of blues music until cloud edges beamed with light its bird eyes now beg forgiveness for which I cannot tell: back porch or feet soaking under water, or the shadow on the puddle, mine yet it was me who didn’t close the door it was me who let things flounder and it is me who can never stop the falling =========== Prompt: rain, showers, and/or clouds |
| In Emergency, I wait for hours for my neighbor Carmen’s outcome after her affair with the treadmill. Later, I sit at the edge of the bed to hold her hand, and she cries out, while dazed, for her son, el Nino Jesus, her mamacita, and sunbeams slant through blinds, and I reflect. Eighty-six degrees on April six a gem of a day in subtropics where I am a mere stray among orchids, fake talk, fraud, old women silver hair with flair, and Medicare. Then Carmen awakens to my relief in such delicacy of mind’s openings to faint glints of light sneaking into the room, for sunshine outside spirals in ribbons through palms’ fronds letting all things shimmer in transience. ======== Prompt: Sunshine |
| Wandering albatrosses your eyes as they pirouette over puckered pages. Inside me floods rise, then ebb leaving back debris under caustic light. And that smirk on your face? Yet, no pointing at mismatched lines as you grasp my hands in yours like cocoons. Empathy through your fingers... So, why worry? Even if on paper I can’t capture me, I can still love the world. ======= Prompt: Fingers, hands, or both hands |
| (Rear Window 1954 Hitchcock movie) how easy it is to watch from afar, theatrical people warring in their distant holes akin to afflictions within my underworld for I sail like a pendulum between thoughts and doubts so silent and veiled yet affection lights your simplest gestures in my enigmatic darkness if I could pattern my feet to stand on their own, I would open a rear window to mirrors inside me to reveal your angelic image ======= Prompt: incorporate something from a film into your poem |
| (A John Pike watercolor) wilderness covered by an incandescent dragon in diamonds of ice wide girth and hues of white perhaps a dark story, but, no a transient light --light, powerful light-- whirling through snow-laden branches trapping the monster’s plot so tiny in this fluid scene, ant-like in a blue snorkel, and possibly a cap, its fur earflaps down, a hardy, gruff hunter trudges devising complicated dooms with his own plot snatch the rifle from his hand turn him around invent him a face comfort him with a warm touch soften him up so I can dwell in this widespread vista without mourning ------------ prompt: respond to a work of visual art in your poem  |
| Dear Director of Human Resources With due respect to your high wall of blind diligence wandering generalities tidied cheer for competitive advantage, Just how do you weigh people while you hold your breath in your birdcage and recruit for approach, measure for skill while you resist passion, a time-tested, specific energy? What if I tried reverse psychology? What if I made you believe people are magical and tattooed on their senses is the world? Could I seduce you with vision, with humanity? Would the art of it teach you to exhale? -- Prompt: use a phrase from an actual letter in title, epigraph, and/or poem |
| writing wild words, a deluge outside all of a sudden, the world created anew nothing subtle in tempo, rivers running downward cool liquid seeps within, spills out Noah’s spirit booms on two of us spurred by flashes over high branches letting lines trudge two by two falling cold and mute on laptop’s screen in one single desolate desire not a pinch of hope what about pretending to be an artist instead or an architect to bridge earth and sky but giving up, I rise for a cup of tea so hot, it burns, tunneling through throat tiny bumps on tongue, and I wonder why are some things like this, so difficult, yet so tempting? --------- Prompt: “changing your tune” |
| Under the fan’s breeze, she reaches with giant hands to pour coffee, the aroma pervasive as perfume. “Pancakes, no eggs, coming up!” She’d serve roses, if she could for my notes on the napkin about our fortunes deranged, as we both would do anything for a good story. |
| In the dark of the moon, Water Wisteria’s leaves with liquid, fan-like fears half-close their eyes to hold just a glimpse of stars with hesitant light. |
| A Prose-Poem: In and out of my body I roll, as my murky mirror distorts any image to a shadow in a silent scene and my reflection provokes an angry momentum before I enter the kitchen, tripping, in slow motion, through a glass darkly, with eyes half-open. But I fear not because I sense my early morning’s transient, sinister emotions will be washed away once the opulent coffee brews in its seductive honey-pot, and I look forward to what rapture its first sip will bring. Possibly, a vista of the secret city inside me, of fluid neon reflections, complete with road maps and directives on the huge dim board of its courthouse. With that in mind, I strip and open myself to the ballistic baptism of the shower head. Water’s tone deliberately turns to morning drum rolls. The trouble is, today is not just limited to feeding and entanglements, but it flaunts a purpose of change to outstrip the hollow alleyways and slums I have kept hidden. ----------------- Prompt: The trouble with Mondays... |
| This morning dawned in gray, dolefully, on the golf course in the back of our house, as I imagined it mourning for the disarranged lives wandering in spirit circles over smokestacks, burned cities, and those ugly things we'd rather forget and throw away. Yet, can we leave cobwebs undisturbed? What happens when everyone moves away from someone, one way or another, and how much escapes us when six million stars sink into that black space inside us all, in our reluctance to admit our wrongs? |
| "I'll go. Big Hula festival in Hilo," he says, "Best thing about the whole place." His lips are still warm with Pinot Noir and he winces at the sweetness, memory or wine, I cannot tell, yet throw a ragged lifeline to our chat, "In Hilo? And the occasion?" "Merrie Monarch, if you must know, to pick Miss Aloha Hula,"he says, as if she's fruit, ripe and toothsome. I imagine a pageant for unsolved puzzles, women dancing as a single force to give up their crown for the male eye, and singing, words draped in flowers, flowing in liquid music to a tragic sea masked beneath an ashen moon, and beauty bucking on just one face. Then I wonder: Is she shattered inside, watching a volcano, her jam-packed crowd of bronze shadows swirling hips, mastering the fire in dramatic distances? ----------------- Prompt: A difficult conversation |
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