Paint Poem

 

Day Thirty

I like a poem because it's not like a painting.

Because I'll confidently cradle something

stainless; hold the exceptional eye of it,

which is sarsen grey. It's accurate masonry.

A poem is trapezoidal.

It will sit on the ground, you can walk

around, point prosodic

right at the solidity of the stanza.

The straight line in a meter, go -

run your thumb assuredly

all along the perfect surface;

Any line with a defect

lies forgotten in the quarry.

That's why I like a poem. At least

in theory, shaped pure and

fine-finished as a citadel.

But I wonder if Machu Picchu thinks

- or even knows - about the faults

in her foundation. She's sitting up there

on the nerve of a natural defect,

and she don't give a damn.

So I did some painting, to be like the Inca.

To be painted, myself, whimsical-like.

And the acrylics were so alien, they

were such a clamour of colour, they

were howling! All striving -

Idiots! - mucking and muddling

and setting themselves too previous.

I almost kicked over the easel.

But, like the Inca, I learned

a bit about building. About drainage.

I began to see the sky bloom purple,

fruit ripening in stone,

an uncertainty of green in the grass.

I built something new, and I found 

I did not so much mind the cracks. 

 

Okay, it's a little skew whiff.

My brush, he forgets the meter;  

only knows a ruffled rhythm 

of colour, that might?

breathe life to a sarsen stone.

Even, perhaps, in purple tones,

refute the sky and its blueness.

So step back, squint your eyes;

It looks just like a poem.

The Underestimated Lettuce

Day Twenty-Nine

People call me

The Underestimated Lettuce

Not out loud but

I see it in the way

They discard me from their burger at the barbecue

 

An Uncoupling

Day Twenty-Eight

With the tiniest throbs and wobbles,

the Moon is slipping from our grasp.

Incandescent with rage but

carefully swept clean.

With a very precise curve,

she might make herself invisible

or a puff of distant gossamer,

perfectly arrayed for the creation of stars.

She has suddenly found out about the wind,

setting hurricanes to spin off like tops.

In some sense, gravity does not exist.

It makes the Moon no less interesting,

or odd, just more explicable.

The work of science is at an end,

like confessing a murder.

How stupid of me not to have thought of it -

the single best idea that anyone ever had;

to merely predict future events exactly.

She won't reach the Oort cloud for another ten thousand years.

Assembled from notes in Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.

The Fox of Gluttony

 

Day Twenty-Seven

It had been a hot day

And Lizzy was glad she'd worn linen.

Having put in a jolly good shift, soon,

the sun would be heading for bed

and the blackbirds, 

with the conclusion of their encores,

sang Goodnight, God bless.

Then, a peculiar quietude

slunk into the evening.

As though the venerable ash

had taken up, lightly, a knife and

crystal flute, and tinkle-tapped the day.

There was not a soul at the bus stop.

The air hung, as if trampolining.

Into this stillness, there sauntered

a fox. Brazen as the moon is full and

russet, with a deadpan panache.

From the clasp of her jaw was slung

an extraordinarily plump hen.

The fox noted Lizzy by the bus stop.

And seeing there were no buses

nor cars, nor dogs, nor children,

and seeing that the dusk was ripe for walking,

she stepped oh-so softly into twilight,

taking home her remarkably fat chicken.

Portrait of an Un-known Woman

 

Day Twenty-Six

Let me exhibit a woman,

it's not important who.

Notice her hair has altered since

it was familiar with my fingers.

Her cheek is very bare, due

to the removal of my thumb.

Don't you think it's troubling, how

her glacier eye will not meet mine?

Just forget about who she is, and

don't ask what made this

wrinkle manifest.

All I know is a cruelty

around her mouth,

always asking

Why did you not kiss me?

 

Cactus Flower

 

Day Twenty-Five

I'd lain so long, bones in the sand,

desolate. Bloodless. How - 

a morning mutes the half-light

(just twinkling) 'til

the detonation of a blackbird.

Such a fury/joy eruption, I've

not felt since I was startled

by the cactus flower.

Clarion plume from the habit

of a Mandarin duck, fanning

an eye (sudden) at the sun.

And I blazed orange,

like the cock-of-the-rock, and

gnashed my teeth white-

hot, delirious with

the waxy fat of a succulent

squeezed between my fingers

(juice running).

Come dusk, the show was over.

The flower left me

mute as the morning,

A palm full of spines.

Q Review

 

Day Twenty-Four

Hello and welcome

to the Capital Letter Review

The issue is Q.

A letter of élan

accented French

with an august axis

distinguished from your

humdrum Cs or Es.

The undisputed

aristocracy of alphabet.

But we're so font-full,

some have begun

to doubt this heritage, 

feeling words

containing Q

carry a certain pretence.

Younger generations

increasingly observe

its reliance on u.

Let's look at Qs on the market:

The Georgian Q

It sits, a

doltish dog, asking

Shall I fetch a u?

The Courier Q

Just look at this loafer, this

Four-twenty surfer, just

Go get a job

(and a u).

Old-man Arial Q, who

has strayed the nursing home

stick-leaning, wondering

where'd I put my u?

Our quarterly review has qualms

About this quaint and quirky quantity, it

Hardly qualifies quintessential, say,

Even within this quick quintuple, it's

Quietly become quite antiquated.

Let us be honest

with letters

it's all about character.

This convoluted O, so

co-dependent is

redundant and rare but

overabundant;

It's hardly worth

waiting in line.

How Q pales in the

high-kick dynamic 

of wonderkid K

Awarded five-stars in September.

Which never vulgar eye would again behold

Day Twenty-Three

I.

I am Foremost of Noble Ladies

Hatshepsut, of the

Eighteenth Dynasty of Egypt.

They call mine a female kingship;

Fool, History claims me

As the first of His Great Women.

In the Valley of the Kings,

I am obliged to wear a beard.

II.

I am Sacagawea

Indentured to a useless man

And married to

An undertaking of men, who

Concern themselves with maps

And botony. My only office is

The daily prevention of their murders

By the many deadly perils

of the Bitterroot Mountains.

This will be known

As the Lewis and Clark Expedition.

III.

I was barely given provenance of Mrs.

The remainder of my name

Drowning in the drink

With my no-good husband.

So, as with any bravery 

or wit that was mine,

Whatever I was Christened is now lost.

For two hundred years

he lurked in a ledger

Before being digitised.

Sandwiches

I love sammitches, me

I'm in love with 'em

If you don't like sammitches

You're doin' 'em wrong

I know a little girl

Obsessed, putting pegs

in a pot. Too many, and

I'm the same with sammitches

I'll stuff 'em right full

'til the lid won't go on

Do you want to hear

my tip - do you - my

Prime directive,

Premier league,

Numero uno

Tip? For making

top-notch

tip-top

sammitches?

'kay I'll tell you and -

- I'm telling you, this

will help. You shall think

no more - of

lonely, long-tailed

Snow Leopards

Or all those hooked

on meth -

You'll only think omg

I'm so wholly glad

of reading

a delicious tip of toasting

sliced sammitch bread, on

one side only -

and the toastiness goes on the inside!

I never speak but words escape

Day Twenty-Two

I never speak

but rather

words escape

a cut of blood -

a sudden exhalation -

of flying uncertainty.

I never think

as traffic bound

by systematic

thoroughfares, but

I careen - gawky

at the peddles -

only to catch up later.

Shaped from I never hear the word “Escape”, by Emily Dickinson

Confusion / Calm

 

Day Twenty-One

In scatter-time

moments,

swelling yellow-

olive odium.

Or the green-

pea quease

of scarlet rising,

If every

sleep-fiend

smother-blue

night shade

crawls, tight 

violet at

your collar,

Feel the breeze

with this;

They are rainbows

tailing rainfall.

Light, in

the squall.

See /

 

Swallow

this cool

Strawb'ry blush.

The harmonite,

Forget-Me-Not,

Sea-Greenity

of it all.

Permit

a breadth

of rainbow

overlooping.

You're okay.

Proto-Motorola

 

Day Twenty

Fantastic style designs on pottery

from Hacilar. Image from Yakar 2005.

The ancients believed

That culture was

Construed by pot

The trash

From which folk sipped

How kooky!

Moonstruck, the

Levantine Fantastic

Geometric Halaf

What misplaced faith

They put

In the Wadi Rabah

We have calculated

There was no Khirokitia

Instead the ancient ones

Were supplicate to slates 

Of glass and plastic

The Apple fashion

Samsung civilisation

The culture of the

Proto-Motorola

They all would pray

To paperweights

These multi-functional

Plastic hand-axes

Could repel a predator

Or even spark real fire

We now believe

They were used to move menhirs

These cultures knew no want

Nor hierarchy. For, running barefoot

In such a palm-oil paradise

Every ancient would accumulate

All the many paperweights

They ever might desire

Inspired by the very lovely Pre-History Podcast

Miglena's Tales

 

Day Nineteen

In our village by the mountain, there lived

A man people called The Wrestler,

It was long ago, when my dad was a kid.

He - The Wrestler - (though not yet named so),

Went to the forest and I can't remember now,

Why he went into the bear hollow.

While he was there the bear returned home,

And to get inside the hollow, the bear 

Goes ass-first. Can you imagine?

So the man is there, yes, and

- because he can't get out -

He grabs the bear by the belly!

And she - straight away - Jumps! 

Outside,

(The weak spot of the bear is the belly).

So from this day,

He was nicknamed The Wrestler.

A woman, same. She went to the forest,

Alone, because

She could earn a living picking mushrooms.

But coming a bear in front of her, and

Just growling and the lady, her

Blood pressure - you know when you're scared -

And ten days later she died of fright.

My father told me these things. I was

Ten years old, seeing in the newspaper

About some girl who could fly,

I memorised her name, Dora,

And,

Dora's belly grew like a balloon

And she flew!

And she is flying!

That was very frightening, so

You see why I'm scared from the dark, 

When my cousin would whisper, 

Go to sleep!
Or Baba Duda will take you!
I, covering my face with a blanket.

I too remember everyone talked,

About aliens,

That they are flying all around,

Around.

They took people.

So when my sister and I visited our parents,

In Russia. We travelled the Metro,

Around,

I, looking sideways at my father,

Thinking this is not my dad,

This is an alien.

And so I tell the stories my father told,

But I can't explain in English.

And not so funny

As my dad, the bear,

The alien,
In our village by the mountain.