Joint Memories
I have this vague memory
of the last time we were stoned
how we all stood around laughing
at a joke that no one told.
Joint Memories
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If a Relationship is a Bus
if a relationship is a bus
why then sometimes
does the bus leave the paved road,
the beaten track,
the path most trodden,
and bump off across
a corrugated desert
complete with tumble weeds
and plural cacti
(the wind is howling
at least, it sounds like the wind)
and that bus keeps bumping along
until it runs out of gas,
coughs, sputters to a stop,
then the occupants step out
onto the desert floor
which is really an ancient ocean bed
strewn with the fossils
of forgotten fish
like the backlot
of some prehistoric sushi bar
they step out
breathe the bone dry air
and ask themselves how,
how the hell
did we end up
in this fucking bus metaphor?
Trigonometry (edit)
Trigonometry
I had a dream last night
about trigonometry
sines, cosines, angles
my mind going off
at a tangent
maybe it was that email
out of the blue
from Leo Mangan,
an old school friend,
made me think of blackboards
chalk dust
Isosceles triangles.
Hard Times Haiku (some knowledge of grammar required)
Hard Times
he felt deleted
like a worn-out expletive
declined, like a noun.
Photos: Waiting for the Drop
Listening to Carlos Santana in Kitsilano Gym
Listening to Carlos Santana in Kitsilano Gym.
listening to Carlos Santana
on Spotify in Kitsilano Gym
following the emotional logic
of his guitar solos,
leading always
to that existential wail
on the top fret
above the cutaway.
yes, he knows all the chords
but he just wants
to make it cry and sing.
I Often ask Myself the Question ( James Comey and other imponderables)
1
I often ask myself the question:
Is James Comey a bit of a wanker
a self-aggrandizing prima donna
who only looks honourable
when compared to Donald Trump?
I often ask myself that question.
2
I often ask myself the question:
can a man
mansplain to a man
or can a man
only mansplain
to a woman, and if so
if one explains something
in a condescending manner
to a member
of one’s own gender
is one, in effect,
cisplaining?
I often ask myself that question.
All Bubbles Burst ( 4 haiku)
All Bubbles Burst
1
white Lexus on lease
new suit, shoes, two day stubble
bubble? what bubble?
2
cherry blossoms bloom
well-dressed ladies from Beijing
pose with hand on hip.
3
cherry blossoms bloom
the air is sticky with greed
houses, for sale, sold.
4
cherry blossoms bloom
the wrecking ball’s lazy swing
petals, debris, spring.
Three of these haiku appeared in previous posts at the height of the recent real estate boom in Vancouver; a boom that was driven by speculation, primarily by foreign buyers. Real estate became a commodity. Houses that had been around since the 1920’s were demolished and replaced by larger houses, some with an architectural style that had no context in the Pacific North West (white tiled French Colonial). Around where I live there was constant disruption: dump trucks, concrete trucks, agents knocking on my door, white Lexus’ (Lexi ?) driving up and down in front of the house every weekend, neighbours cashing in and leaving. Then like all bubbles, it burst or to be more exact, floated off to Toronto.
Luminescence (counter-intelligence)
Luminescence
The stars are out
luminescence rises
from the surface of the pond
I think of Tommy
Tommy Tumescent and the Hard-ons
yes you could say
they were big in the fifties
yes you could say
they rose to stardom in the fifties
all pompadour and pointy toe
and to counter this puerile nonsense
I also think of iridescence
finesse
obsolescence.
Game Day
Game Day
the soccer dads
bark and pace
like chain-linked hounds
like dogs locked
in parked cars
on a sunny day,
while in the bushes,
Thwarted Ambition
waits to join them
on the long journey
home.
Inchoate (following the sound)
Inchoate
inchoate
inculcate
incarcerate
incubate
inundate
indoctrinate
inseminate
incarnate
incinerate
inoculate
inanimate
inhabit.
Pete Townsend at Desert Trip 2016
we came
to praise geezers
not to bury them.
(Pete, still churning it out with that same energy and anger, talking ’bout his generation)
Photos by Marie Feeney
Why did Yeats need Nine Bean Rows? (update with photos)
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee
Why did Yeats need Nine Bean Rows? (a slimverse)
he could have
had five to
rhyme with hive
contrived? Wha?
What brought this on?
A friend of mine told me recently that he had no recollection of studying Yeats at school. When he said this, the above lines from The Lake Isle of Inisfree, sprang in to my head along with “clay and wattles made” and “bee-loud glade” and of course the opening line “I will arise and go now, and go to Inisfree” which I have heard so often that it has now taken on an orotund, stage Irish plumminess.
Our English teacher, Mr Courtney, loved that “bee-loud glade”.
(of course, nine, bean, honey is more musical)
Slim invents a Word / A simple desultory haiku
I’m sitting in front of a pitcher of Blue Buck Ale in The Post Coital Beetle when Slim bursts through the door wearing a lime green cycling jacket, black spandex pants and a maroon cycling helmet balanced on the balding boulder that is his head. Little red and green lights wink on and off on his helmet and shoes; strips of high vis luminous tape decorate his spandex legs.
“Slim”, I say, “you look like a fucking Christmas tree.”
“Safety is job one.”
“All the world needs is another slogan”
Slim ignores this and announces that he has invented a new word.
“I know”, I say, “tumultaneous.”
“No”, he says, “a new one – chillacrity.”
Slim takes off his jacket; he’s wearing a tangerine fleece unzipped at the neck to reveal a tuft of ginger hair. His gut is putting a strain on the fabric; he looks like a soccer player who has stuffed a ball up his shirt in celebration of a goal and a pregnancy. I get a whiff of rising damp and realize that Slim is not wearing a tee-shirt – fleece on bare sweaty skin, a warm pub, this does not augur well. He is as close to animated as Slim gets.
“So, here it is, say you’re walking down a suburban street and you hear the frantic screams of a young girl. You look around, the screams appear to be coming from a house across the road. The door is open. What to do you do? Sprint across the road and into the house? No,…… you look right and left and slowly cross the road taking out your cell phone at the same time and phoning 911. You give the operator the address and note the snow shovel on the porch of the house. The screaming continues, you step over some broken glass, grab the snow shovel and slowly enter the house shovel first….you’re moving with chillacrity”.
The evening has just started and already I’m wondering if it will ever end.
Haiku written sitting in a pub in Toronto killing time
fish tacos, pale ale
menu says pico gallo
what the fuck is that?
Drive / The One and Only Quartet
Drive
On a strange day
in a life that’s becoming stranger
Myron is driving north of Kona
on a road bisecting the black lava landscape
when Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds
comes on the radio,
and in no time at all
he’s picturing himself
on a boat on a river
and marveling for the first time
at that rhyme between
marmalade skies and kaleidoscope eyes
not the skies and eyes
but the lade and leid
and just when his head
is filling with technicolor
the black cloud that’s sitting
on the mountains to the right
moves across the sun
that’s shining
on the blue ocean to the left,
and the black asphalt road
and the jumbled chunks
of frozen black lava
that cover the landscape
suck the remaining light
from the air
leaving everywhere
a dull monochrome.
This poem was published in The Galway Review some time back and also previously published here.
Daily Prompt : Quartet
It’s a Small World / Louis CK
Micro
phone
scope
meter
soft
manage
be
the prefix
that belittles
everyone
and everything
but can’t hold
a candle to
nano, pico, femto.
Louis CK
What the FK?
I can’t see
a way BK
from where
you are now.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/micro/
The Toddler King Part (2)
The Toddler King Part (2)
5 a.m. in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
in the empty parking lot
of a big box store
a plastic bag pirouettes
on the halitotic breeze
national monuments
fear for their lives
the adjectives – good, bad, great-
drop in value again
the toddler king
picks a fight with himself.
The Toddler King Part (1)
The Toddler King Part (1)
5 am in America
the toddler king
checks his Twitter feed
a five hundred pound ball
of carbohydrate and grease
rolls across the parking lot
of a big box store,
no one notices
assault rifles take stock
the second amendment
thinks about making amends
the founding fathers
find themselves wanting.
Talisman (following the sound)
talisman
miasma
chalice
charisman
polisman
phallus.
Identical (In Praise of Extended Benefits)
In Praise of Extended Benefits
born identical twins,
they became indentured servants
to Lord Denton,
a wealthy landowner
who believed passionately
in the benefits
of dental care,
consequently
the identical twins
lived a long
indentured life
and never endured
the indignity of dentures.
Rust/ The Irish Dilemma (St.Patrick’s Day Edition)
Rust
The Irish Dilemma (a slimverse)
we can not
decide if
we are blessed
or damaged.
Provoke (Haiku for Donald/ Trumputin)
These poems were originally written as an attempt to provoke. That didn’t happen, and nothing changed as a result of writing them but at least I had some fun doing it. The second poem appeared in the magazine Anti_Heroin Chic
Haiku for Donald
petulant pillock
postcranial curmudgeon
bombastic buffoon.
Trumputin (a romance)
Don loves Vlad
Vlad loves Don
Love as big as
A nuclear bomb.
Front door, back door,
Kremlin, tower
Nuclear love
Nuclear power.
ee cummings – everyone has a gateway poet (waiting for the 99)
(waiting for the 99)
ee
cummings
cummings
ee
typeset tyrant
champion
of the
lower case
thank you
for showing
me
that
poetry
could
be
about more
than
dead heroes
fairies
and bogs.
Heavy Metal Heaven
Heavy Metal Heaven
Slim plugs in his guitar
sets the dial on his amp
to “heavy metal”
hits an E minor seven
walks out of the room
takes a leak
makes a cup of coffee
drinks a cup of coffee
checks the football results
texts his brother in England:
what the fuck’s up, mate
his brother doesn’t answer
he starts writing a novel:
Like every Saturday that Summer
they are lying behind a log on the beach
at English Bay, up to no good. The sun –
a red ball of anger on the horizon –
shouts through the brown chemical haze:
“that’s it, I’m getting the fuck outta here”.
Then, and only then, they hear a baby cry.
That’s all he’s got
Slim returns to the room
that E minor seven
is still going
but faint now
like a rustle of paper
like the distant chatter
of dead drummers
in heavy metal heaven
he picks up his guitar
hits an A minor seven
walks out of the room
starts his taxes……
Fact (a slimverse)
Tree (woman with stroller)- 2
Nature Poem (a slim verse)
you call your
self a tree
my bank has
more branches.
plus a bonus poem in which Slim escapes the 3 syllable shackles of slimverse and displays an uncharacteristic lightness of being.
The Low November Sun
The low November sun
hits the silver birches
and the cherry tree
sending the bush tits
and the black-capped
chickadees
into a flitting frenzy
Who pulled the alarm?
Which one is my nest?
Where did I leave that worm?
Both poems have appeared in other posts, this combination was prompted by the Daily Prompt – ‘branch’.
