Tunnel
there is a cliche
at the end of the tunnel
be all you can be.
Stock Exchange
a bear is on the loose
the once priapic market
losing altitude.
Counting Time
one two three four five
the Mississippi silent
but just for a while.
A Tanka for the Memory
that familiar ache
the sun is a bawling fire
in the western sky
a grand stretch to the evenings
my mother would say, in Spring
Taking part in Frank Tassone’s weekly haikai challenge…….March Equinox
Also linking to Open Link Night over at dverse.
That Poetic Hum
that poetic hum
that poetic drone
your ear always on the alert
for that cadence in the every day
that unconscious internal rhyme
there’s a barber shop on Dunbar Street
or that line that requires a non sequitur
she was a woman before her time
and you say
in a town lost to time
to everyone’s irritation
then when you find that seed
that germ of a poem
you are lost to all around
family, colleagues, friends
your head in the clouds
and when you poke your head through
the accumulated cumulus
you come face to face
with another poet who says
that last line’s a bugger, eh?
and you say
it most certainly is
it most certainly is.
Over at dVerse, Gina’s challenge is to write a poem around the notion that the poetic mind never turns off, that it’s always there in the background as we engage with the every day. Check out her excellent post here.
Vulture on the Outfall
There’s a sign out on the highway
Jesus is Lord over us all
there’s an abandoned factory
there’s a vulture on the outfall
Jesus is Lord over us all
in this pissant little town
like that vulture on the outfall
we’re still hanging around
in this pissant little town
there’s a double-wide on the hill
I’m going there tomorrow
to get that prescription filled
Oxycontin, Oxycontin
hillbilly heroin
the time to start quitting
is right before you begin.
The challenge over at dVerse is to write a poem in a verse form that uses rhyme and repetition, the pantoum is one of the forms referenced. The last verse departs from the form.
Free Associating in New Orleans
The waitress in the restaurant on Frenchmen Street
tells us that the rack of lamb changed her life;
that the flank steak with an ocean sauce of baby shrimps and clams
is to die for.
Surf and turf; America continues its love affair with protein.
The first cab driver is from Saudi
his mother is from Pakistan
he tells us that Pakistan
is a better place to party.
No surprises there.
The second cab driver is Egyptian.
We talk a little about Trump’s America
but mostly we talk about Mohammed Salah,
the Egyptian Messi
Egypt’s pride and joy,
who apparently is also a good person
gives back to his community
has sponsored seven weddings
in the village he comes from.
Now all of Egypt supports
Liverpool Football Club.
The third cab driver is Jordanian
The fourth cab driver is Algerian,
we commiserate, our national teams
did not qualify for the World Cup;
we talk about lack of money
pampered players, poor coaching.
Immigrants in cars talking soccer
We couldn’t be happier.
Later, in the early hours
waiting for my hangover
to make its way across town
to my hotel room
with its suitcase of regrets
I wonder what my taxi driver friends
think of it all…..
Mardi Gras
Fat Tuesday
Show me your tits
Christian rituals.
The challenge over at dVerse is to write a poem about Mardi Gras, or similar festivities and to perhaps use juxtaposition to present a contrasting view point or mood.
This is a poem from last year, which I re-worked after thinking about the challenge.
Sgt. Pepper Mashup
Made passively tolerant by LSD, he was happy to sit back
endlessly recombining like some insoluble chemical compound
all he really wanted was the cyclic cloud drift of his verse.
The song never relinquishes this staccato dominant
played by Harrison on his Stratocaster with treble-heavy settings
making the most of McCartney’s rich ninth’s and elevenths –
a brilliantly whimsical expression of period burlesque.
It is impossible to conduct a revolution without picking a side
like a comic brass fob watch suspended from a floral waistcoat
objectivity is illusory and all creativity inescapably self –referential.
The track is whipped to a climax by a coruscating pseudo-Indian guitar solo.
Lennon grinned sardonically, as he walked past Aspinall,
requesting from Martin a sound like the end of the world.
I have always felt that found poetry is a form of theft. Yet, here I am with my first found poem. It all started with listening to the remastered copy of Sgt.Pepper, (issued last year, and a vast improvement on the snap, crackle and pop of my old vinyl version) and in particular, the guitar solo in “Fixing a Hole”. Paul McCartney played lead guitar on a number of tracks on the album, but the style of playing on the solo sounded more like George Harrison. So, I consulted the bible – “Revolution in the Head”, by Ian MacDonald, a track by track analysis of 241 Beatle tracks and essential to any Beatles nerd. The solo was Harrison’s.
I read a couple of other track analyses and found myself enjoying MacDonald’s writing style, a number of phrases jumped out from the page and the idea of a found poem formed. The result is the above poem. It has, believe it or not, a structure: each line is a direct quote from an analysis of an individual Sgt. Pepper track, and the lines are sequenced in the same order as the tracks appear on the album.
Buy Ian MacDonald’s book, you won’t be disappointed and I will feel better about stealing his stuff.
This a post from February last year, I thought it would be worth another read. Ever since the UK slipped on that Brexit banana skin, it has been suspended in mid air bracing for a collision with the ground. It won’t be long now.
Brexit at Tiffany’s
I ask Slim for his response to a recent report that Nigel Farage thinks it would be a good idea to re-do the Brexit referendum. We arrange to meet for a few pints in ‘The Post-Coital Beetle” to discuss his response and catch up. Slim is late, so I get a booth, and order a pitcher of Blue Buck. On the television screen suspended from the ceiling, two ex-soccer players – Matt Holland and Phil Neville – are discussing possession stats for the English premier league; apparently, the team that keeps possession of the ball usually wins. Not rocket science, but then Matt and Phil are not rocket scientists. They both look trim and fit in their English sportscaster casual wear. Phil is wearing a beige V-necked sweater, a white button down shirt, tight black pants and fashion sneakers. Matt is wearing a black crew neck, tight black pants and, yes, fashion sneakers. They look like their mothers dressed them.
I have never met Slim’s mother, but I doubt if she would have dressed him in the outfit he is wearing as he bursts through the pub door like an overweight, balding Kramer – faded baggy jeans, a MEC Gore-Tex anorak whose wicking days are long over and a white T shirt, one size too small, with the message “Fragile” on the front. He slaps a sheet of white paper on the table and says:
“Here you go!”
On the paper lies the following poem:
Disparaging Nigel
Nigel Farage
will be remembered forever
as the man who made
the word, ‘wanker’,
seem inadequate.
Very good, I say, “disparage”, “Farage”. What do you want to call the post?
‘Brexit at Tiffany’s’.
Ha! Or how about : ‘Guess who’s coming to Brexit’!
Slim looks like he has just swallowed a cup of Drano.
I think you’re missing the fucking point. It has to be a movie or book with ‘Breakfast’ in the title, like, say, ‘Brexit of Champions’ or ‘The Brexit Club’.
Well, anyway…… so it’s not a homonym, it’s not a synonym, it’s not really a pun, what is it?
It’s a malapropism.
Who took Sidney Poitier to dinner?
Katherine Houghton
How did you know, no one ever gets that right.
I know because every time you have a few drinks, you ask the same fucking question.
Poutine?
Why not? Life’s short.
It’ll be even fucking shorter if we keep eating Poutine.
We both lean back and laugh. On the screen above our heads, Manchester United score a goal and the colour commentator says:
“See, what just happened is that United have put the ball in the net and it’s been proven time and time again that if you want to score goals you have to put the ball in the net”
**********
A Brexit poem from Slim’s locker:
Come what? May?
Hard Breggsit?
Soft Breggsit?
Breggsit over easy?
Not on the menu.
Aesop gets the call
Aesop!
Get your ass over here!
We need a fable
ASAP!
Photo: Approaching Planet Cistern (2)
Pantoum of the Opera
This is a Pantoum about opera
I have to admit it’s not my cup of tea
the braying sound of a male tenor
the smell of moth balls in the cheap seats
I have to admit it’s not my cup of tea
the diva’s ululating grief
the smell of moth balls in the cheap seats
if only it was brief, if only it was brief
the diva’s ululating grief
the uncontrollable urge to sleep
if only it was brief, if only it was brief
there would be some relief
the uncontrollable urge to sleep
the smell of moth balls in the cheap seats
the desire to escape
from the belly of the beast.
The challenge over at dVerse is to write a pantoum. Click here to learn all about the form. I have stuck to the form for the first 3 stanza’s, I have improvised in the 4th, which I think is within the rules!
photo: Approaching Planet Cistern
Trickle Down Economics
notice how
it’s always a trickle
not a raging torrent
or a river in spate
not even a freshet,
a rivulet
a babbling brook
a creek
just a trickle, a leak
from the anus of wealth.
The Evangelista
my local Starbucks
has an evangelista
she quotes the bible
while serving cappuccino
the old testament, mostly.
The man who communicated with paintings
He liked to shout at Picasso
commiserate with Van Gogh
ruminate with Monet
joke with Michelangelo.
The Last Ruba’i
this is it, finally, the last ruba’i
it’s time to call it a day, say goodbye
but there is still time for another rhyme
yes, that’s right, you have guessed it, it’s ‘Dubai’.
The ruba’i challenge over at dVerse ends at the end of the month……two more before the end! It’s a verse form, I think, that is perhaps best suited to light verse!
Living on Tanka Time
up on Dunbar Street
the barber shops are empty
a guy smokes a joint
and laughs hysterically
at the blank screen of his phone.
The Scale of Things
Is it possible to have a metric
a way to rate privilege
one that does not reference
gender, economic status, race?
Can the moral high ground be assigned?
Is a child loved by a parent
not more privileged
than one that is not?
This is in response to Anmol’s challenge over at dVerse which begins with the quote :
To be white, or straight, or male, or middle class is to be simultaneously ubiquitious and invisible. You’re everywhere you look, you’re the standard against which everyone else is measured….Michael S. Kimmel
It’s open link night over at dverse and I thought I would link to this post. It’s not a poem but it involves poetry and contains poems!
Having a Pint with Adele (and the meaning of post modern)
It is late afternoon in The Post Coital Beetle and Slim and I are starting into our first pitcher of Blue Buck Ale, nachos have been ordered. On the television screen on the wall in front of us, a baseball player is attacking a dugout water cooler with his bat. The television is on mute. Adele emotes in the background.
It’s been a while since Slim and I have got together and although nothing has been said, I sense that he has a beef of some kind. Not that this is unusual, having a beef is Slim’s default mode, but at the moment he seems relaxed. He has just finished a three hour practice with his band “Bad Complexion”. Slim plays bass and does background vocals. The armpits of his faded Clash T shirt are wet with sweat and the T shirt has been washed so many times that it no longer fits, leaving a gap of bristly pink flesh above the belt of his jeans. The image of a pig’s cheek pops into my head.
He’s smiling.
“She’s really just an old-fashioned British pop singer, isn’t she?” He says.
“Who?”
“Adele, you know…somewhere between Lulu and Shirley Bassey.”
“I guess…she also has that girl next door thing”
“Exactly,” Slim says, “like Cilla Black.”
“That name brings to mind a small black and white television set”
“You could have a pint with Adele,” Slim says, wistfully, and we both fall silent thinking about sharing a pint with Adele.
The pub door opens and closes. Cold blast of January air. Skunky whiff of over-hopped ale. Or is that Slim’s armpit? The silence lingers a little too long.
“I’ve taken up cooking, I’ve become a devotee of Wolfgang Puck.”
Slim does an owl blink, I can almost hear his brain working.
“Who the fuck
is Wolfgang
Puck? And why
should I care?”
He intones smugly.
“You’re doing that 12 syllable slimverse thing again, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he says, “and that reminds me, I have a bone to pick with you.”
Ahh, not a beef but a bone.
“Shoot”
“This lame-ass blog of yours, I thought it was supposed to be devoted to my poems, but lately it’s all your stuff and you’ve taken stories I’ve told you and used them for your poems and created this character called Slim”
“I’m being post-modern”
“What the fuck does that mean?”
“You know, there are many ways of knowing and many truths to a fact.
“Crystal clear then, how can anything be post-modern? ‘Modern’ means ‘of the present’ – ‘now’, the only possible way a work could be post-modern would be if it was written in the future, for that we will have to wait for the invention of time travel.”
He folds his arms, discussion over.
“You have a point. Anyway, you haven’t been giving me much to publish lately.”
“Ok, how about this one, it’s called ‘Rasta’:
It’s a fact
all Rastas
are born out
of dreadlock.”
“Amusing, but a bit thin, we need flesh on the bones, Slim, flesh on the bones. Besides, I’m not so sure about this slim verse thing.”
Slim drains his half full pint glass and refills it.
“Go on.” He says.
“Well, you know, the haiku has got a headlock on internet poetry and it has seventeen syllables to work with, that’s five more than a slimverse. Now I hear that someone in the north of England has come up with a new form – the ‘anchored terset’ which is essentially a three word/four line poem, the fourth line being a punctuation mark, for example:
Sky
Field
Cow
.
It’s a race towards nothingness.”
Slim drains his pint glass and leans forward, his finger poking in my direction.
“Here’s an anchored terset for you….
You
Fuck
Off
!”
He tries to storm out but because we are in a booth he has to slide along the bench seat, his stomach rubbing against the table’s edge. His T shirt rides up. At the same time the waitress arrives with a plate of nachos shaped like a volcano, a volcano spewing molten cheese lava. The waitress stares in horror at the sinkhole that is Slim’s navel. Slim shouts at the waitress:
“I thought I said ‘hold the jalapenos’!
We watch him leave, on his back Paul Simonon slams his Fender Precision Bass into the stage at The Palladium in New York city.
“He seems upset”, the waitress says, and I’m thinking:
I can’t see
the pulled pork,
she forgot
the pulled pork.
After all
that bother
she forgot
the pulled pork.
Reference:
http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2016/feb/04/a-brief-guide-anchored-terset-poetry
Talking Senses (a Rubaiyat)
Wet whiff of sour milk
the rustle of silk
the kerang of a guitar
– the Who, or their ilk
the whirl of a dervish
the bloat of a blow-fish
the wince of a lemon
that chocolate fetish
I doubt my ability
to convey tactility
but, hey, here’s an eggshell
go on, feel the fragility.
Jilly’s challenge over at dVerse is to write a rubaiyat, using imagery that evokes all 6 senses – 1.) Visual, 2.) Tactile/Touch, 3.) Olfactory/Smell, 4.) Taste, 5.) Auditory, and 6.) Kinesthetic.
I gave it a go….I didn’t pay too much attention to syllables per line, I just went with what sounded right, but I did stick to the rhyme scheme!
Indignatron B (as seen on TV)
Are you feeling indignant?
Do you feel the urge to rant?
Are you sick of the city, the government
sycophants, dilettantes, the cant;
are you bitter about the glitterati
the literati, the witeratti, the getfiteratti
that tosser on your street
with the Maserati or is it a Bugatti
always wittering on about his colonoscopy
his digestive tract?
Relax, help is on the way,
take one Indignatron B tablet daily
and you won’t give a shit about all that.
Warning:
Some users of Indignatron B have become so unbearably pleasant, that their friends can’t stand them anymore.
Do not mix Indignatron B with alcohol, some users, who have, experienced such a feeling of intense happiness that all they could think about was doing it again.
I thought I would give this one another outing at Open Link night over at dVerse.
Why I have difficulty writing haiku
problem with haiku
definite article is
first casualty
next casualty
indefinite article
makes me sound little
like Japanese guard
in prison camp in movie
world war two movie
who for some reason
is speaking English (how? why?)
with staccato voice
or perhaps I am
po-faced guru on mountain
dispensing bromides:
crow flies at midnight
in front of luminous moon
affair ends badly
all because I am
in service to, at mercy
of, syllable count.
Despite what he says
not everybody knows,
not everybody knows
like Leonard knows.
Not everybody knows
that the best songs
are about loss,
endings,
so long,
ways to say goodbye,
closing time,
and that age
can be laughed about
but not at,
if I had a hat
I would raise it to Mr.Cohen
perched up there alone
in his tower of song.
I have posted this a few times before, but since this week is turning into music week at stopdraggingthepanda, I thought I would give it another outing
A note on the genius of Leonard Cohen:
Below is the first verse of “Suzanne”. Notice how he doesn’t hit a conventional rhyme until the chorus where he rhymes ‘blind’ and ‘mind’ and creates a tension and release which runs through the whole song (he repeats that pattern in the next 2 verses).
“Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river
You can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night forever
And you know that she’s half-crazy but that’s why you want to be there
And she feeds you tea and oranges that come all the way from China
And just when you mean to tell her that you have no love to give her
Then she gets you on her wavelength
And she lets the river answer that you’ve always been her lover
And you want to travel with her, and you want to travel blind
And you know that she will trust you
For you’ve touched her perfect body with your mind”
Participating in OpenLink Night over at dVerse.
Free Jazz 2
The saxophonist taps his foot
the trumpet player palms his mute
they sound like elephants mating
when they play free, when they play loose.
The drummer puts on his jazz face
eyes closed in ecstasy, lips pursed,
they dance on the edge of chaos
when they blow free, when they play loose.
So this another entry in response to the dVerse challenge to write a ruba’i or rubaiyat. For a description of the form , check out Frank Hubeny’s post here.
The two quatrains (which makes it a rubaiyat) have an AABA CCDC rhyming scheme, although I have avoided straight rhymes and relied on some sonic connection between the end words.
After a month of sonnets and now this, I’m getting a bit rhymed out. I’ve also been working on shoehorning another song lyric into sonnet form on the basis that sonnet means “little song”. It’s not working. I think it’s time to return to the relative chaos of free verse.
The Edge
the Edge is a painter
he’s all about the brush strokes
a splash of metal here
a splash of funk there
an acoustic wash
a chopped abstract rhythm
on top of bass and drums
yes he can make it
cry or sing
but that’s not his thing
that’s not his thing
and if a one note solo is enough
a one note solo is enough.
Free Jazz
in the park off Railspur Alley
lion house hogo, dogs and trees
like a drunk around a lamp post
the bass player leans.
This is my first attempt at a ruba’i (dVerse prompt). I have used, as per the form structure, a AABA rhyme scheme, I have used half rhymes because they fit! The first three lines are iambic tetrameter, the last line is shorter because it sounded good to my ear that way.
If you want to learn all about the ruba’i and the rubaiyat Check out Frank Hubeny’s excellent post at dVerse.
This is a rewrite of a poem that was published in ” The Basil O’Flaherty” online magazine.
The Reverend George Weeble
The Reverend George Weeble
liked to spend his holidays
visiting churches in foreign lands,
his parishioners called him:
the steeplechaser.
When I’m old and feeble,
George Weeble said,
when I retire,
I want to be
where the spires conspire
to show me the way.
Mish’s challenge over at dVerse is to write a quadrille (44 word poem) incorporating the word “steep”.
Savannah
Rotund tourists wander the street below
drinking lukewarm beer out of plastic cups
and watching the Savannah river flow,
and Chuck’s in a corner playing guitar
for the plaid shorts and polo shirts, standing
in all their pastel glory at the bar.
Karla is on her fourth mojito, and
trying hard to catch his eye, as he segues
from Kentucky Woman to Fire and Rain;
joining the chorus , she stands on her chair
chugs back the remains of her mojito
and drunkenly punches the empty air.
Time, time is a disappearing muse
in time, in time, you feel every wound.
I’m participating in the month long sonnet challenge over at dVerse. This is my second attempt, the first can be found here. This one has an ABACDCEFEGG rhyming scheme. I wrote it after reading Jilly’s excellent dVerse post on enjambment.
The poem revisits content from two poems that were published in Cyphers magazine and a song lyric I wrote. The song lyric had a different rhyme scheme, shorter lines, a chorus, and of course more room to play (there’s always room for an extra verse).
Not sure how well this works, but it was fun trying.
It’s Open Link night over at dVerse, so I thought I would link this post from a few days ago, mainly because the subject matter of the poem – sport and the level of discourse associated with it – is somewhat neglected in the world of poetry. When you read the poem you may conclude that that is actually a good thing.
The Beautiful Game
Me and the lads are warming up
for our Sunday morning kickabout,
the weather’s not so good:
a black cloud loiters over head
spitting occasionally;
there’s a chill in the air.
Not that we care.
We are here for that moment of magic:
those three short passes
that raise life above the ordinary.
It’s all going well.
We’re stretching, squatting
sprinting, jogging, popping
Esther and Abi*
when up steps Paul
all sanctimonious-like
and starts to rattle on
about how this is a family park
and we should watch our language
and surely we can play a game of football
without accusing each other of onanism.
The lads are confused, gobsmacked even.
My face adopts an expression
which would later be described as quizzical
Onanism, I inquire,
what on earth is that wanker talking about?
*Esther and Abi (Ofarim): rhyming slang for ibuprofen, a popular anti-inflammatory. Esther and Abi Ofarim, an Israeli singing duo, had a hit with “Cinderella Rockefella” in 1968.
