Newspaper Blackout Poem #2

Calendar

what the fuck
am i supposed to
do with a sci-
fi date like
twenty-ten?

A Queer Kind of Virgin

Slowly pulling her downward
Curious most curious
Recalling the boy’s face
As much as his balls
Nude, small form
Rocking on his heels
Relax, holding
Legs and arms slack
Once, twice; her body
Her shoulders and arms
Powerfully stroking
And then letting his cock
Dribble on her breast

Youth Is Wasted

but quite determined he scaled the
banks of the universe arriving to make
what he feared cease to exist in an
an instant, he often asked his friends:

under what circumstances are you
known?

Since the young so often
shift, so they want
an ample shielding, a
full cavity so much

Camera Obscura

You make a pin-hole camera
from an old cardboard box
with film stuck inside at one end
and a hole pricked in the other

You uncover the hole and
light streams in exposing
the film and then magic
and science work it out
and a picture is made

Exposure of the film to light
can be minutes
not seconds or even
fractions of seconds
more than time enough

The still is captured sharply
but the moving
blurs and becomes
indistinct

After your camera is made
someone says
hey, let's make a picture of us
fucking

And so you do and the picture
shows skin on skin, yes
but neither bulging veins
nor butterfly labia
are revealed and clearly
no penetration is revealed

On the periphery but not out of sight
captured in their quotidian glory are
a broom and a dustpan full
it is true

Sins of Omission

up after a moment of

laying in bed wondering

money has to be dispersed

owed to a list of general

strangers desiring to

get a few leads.

information neither created
nor destroyed.

revision of characteristics

Poontang

"poontang, poontang" the girls chant

sitting in a circle as luna doles out the goods

i sit listening happy with my wine
ecstasy supposedly but cat -- cathy to family

-- later reports that it was more like speed keeping

her up all night watering plants in the dark

Salesmen

stone the free-wheeling

a proposal; an action
neither man wants to compete
though to get a few leads
they had absorbed
a set of instructions

this and the spacer button

factions were taken over
an "L" and a "A"
and then it's every man
for himself!

Myth

rubbing his eyes, hercules saw
nessus' hooves as he turned
to carry deianira across the river
as though he'd given her up
to the flood

and she barefoot, too, why
would he do such a thing?

arrow hydra-dipped loosed
across the river at the two
strikes but does not kill
and poisoned blood turns
white shirt to red

from nessus to deinira

a charm to make love bloom

to hercules far from home
and in the arms of another

hercules wears the shirt and starts
to sweat and swear and he understands
as the poison burns his skin

fire to stop the fire
burn to stop the fire

Strategy

she came to him
and he carefully
built a chance

but knowing his
foe he tried to
insure his success

before finally she
saw that her hostile
country would suddenly
come to defeat

Do We Cheat 'Em?

Poetry books are filed in the library under
non-fiction.

Why?

Do poets tell only the truth?

And To See

he's mad enough at
society -- a good deal.

what about the sin?

then comes home too late. greet
it then. she may be staggering.

with his hands he threw the
rocks pelting the window.
dark outside but inside
light as he watches them;

as he logged everything.

Damn the Daylight

it gets
light too early.

grandmother up
first and cursing

damn the daylight

the hour
when they were in back
dreaming all by themselves

while she
looked at the clock
and shivered, thinking of
the early morning chill

Trouble (Disrupted)

out looking for trouble? do you need
to be reeled in?

it had been
all shades of restless
delicate nuances
no explanation, but we
had a word -- an inflection --
aware of the pressure
built up and counting
to two hundred and...

"now within seconds of it!"
just put it in like a torpedo
and keep him the man
he slept for about
half an hour as was required
like a capsule
disrupted

Newspaper Blackout Poem #1

The Office

"welcome"
amiable, careful

"up to date"
i didn't listen

"pay attention"
completely out of touch

"listen please"
jabbering at me

"manager," he said

[revised 3-14-10; originally posted 6-12-09]

The Past, Remembered

[originally posted 5-19-09]

Not too many years ago
well, maybe a hundred
or maybe less
well, sometime

Kitchen

[originally posted 6-10-09]

hard-board prone on the kitchen floor
immediately your words raised
from inaudible
so quickly i understand at last
having been yourself

honey
again and across and back

Times Square, 1973

[originally posted 7-16-09]

This poem was written to be submitted to a poetry contest (see below) but I missed the deadline by a day. Oh, well, I don't think this is exactly what they were looking for.

Bright Lights Big Verse: Poems of Times Square sponsored by the The Poetry Society of America and the Times Square Alliance to help celebrate Times Square, and the qualities that Times Square represents —- diversity, desire, dynamism and the marriage of commerce and culture —-through poetry.

A smell barely remembered reminds her
of the day when the two of them met
and went to a Times Square hotel. She
should have known better than to skip
lunch and pick him up. He sometimes
complained when she did. But the fashion
has changed, she said. In the room,
she imagined rather than felt
the breeze from an open window
that he gazed out, humming quietly.
She asked him to come nearer and like
a long fall slowed she reached out
and touched him and it stood up and
went hard into the pink and together
they moved rhythmically. They could not
stay with it long but he could move
as she moved and then he shivered slightly
and with delight shuddered. They turned
aside and she stared at the lights beyond
as if awakened on the other side.

Roldo the Fish-Headed Boy

[originally posted 10-22-09; written circa 1982]

Roldo was a boy
(that is, he was a young human
with a penis)
who differed from the rest of his society
in that he had the head of a fish

Roldo was a bright boy
he was good at math
and at reading and writing
and he could ride a bicycle like
nothing
but, still, he had the head of a fish

Other boys were often cruel to Roldo
girls, (young humans with vaginas)
were also cruel to him
they (the boys and girls) made up a song

The song was about Roldo
when he would ride by on his bicycle
they would sing:
Roldo the fish-headed boy
he’s so ugly we want to cry
he’s a fish and he should fry
and then they would laugh

The singing and laughing hurt Roldo
but he loved riding his bike too much to
stop

Roldo would often ride blocks
and blocks out of his way to avoid
other children and thus was sometimes
late in arriving at home
where he mother and father would be
anxiously awaiting his return

Mother and Father were worried about Roldo
they felt guilty about inflicting a fish-headed child
on the world and the world
on a fish-headed child
and they were afraid that something would
happen to him and somehow their guilt would be
revealed

But, still, they loved Roldo and when he would
return in tears they would hug and kiss him
and tell him that everything would be alright
and though they hadn’t really believed it
as the years passed things did begin to get better

Roldo’s fish-headedness became less and less
Until one day Roldo was just an average
boy
and went out riding his bike
and no one laughed or sang