Slim’s Other Dream
3 a.m.
Slim returns to his dream
of pipes bursting in the attic
even though he knows
there are no pipes in the attic.
4 a.m.
Slim wakes
to the remains of a poem
crackling on the antic air.
Slim’s Dream
The poet struggles
to achieve opacity
his poems are
clear like perspex
familiar like sin
in his dream
he explains this
to the grey arse
of an elephant.
(tomorrow…..Slim’s Other Dream)
Bi Words
libidinous
labile
bibliophile
Biloxi
bivalent
bifurcate
bilious
bivalve
bloviate.
A flashback to pre-history when I first started drinking in pubs………
It’s closing time, Saturday night, Dublin, the rest of the evening is stirring like a patient emerging from a coma (sorry, T.S) . I’ve had a few pints and got a nice buzz going but now I’m standing in the men’s washroom (toilet, bog, jacks) staring at the white tiled wall trying hard not to make eye contact with the guy beside me whose eyes are drilling into the side of my head. I eventually cave in, turn and look into his bloodshot eyes….”what are you looking at, cunt?” ….he slurs. He’s pissed, langered, hammered, plastered, three sheets to the wind and he’s angry. Why is he angry? Could be he doesn’t like the length of my hair, could be he recognises that I’m a student and considers me a member of the elite whereas he is a member of the noble working class who earn their daily bread with their hands (although, back then, the word “elite” was not typically used to describe educated people with liberal views, it was more likely to be a found on a box of chocolates – Cadbury’s Elite, save the soft centers for your mom) but mostly he’s angry because he’s a miserable cunt and the ten pints he’s consumed over the course of the evening hasn’t made him any less miserable.
So when I hear Samantha Bee call Ivanka Trump a “feckless cunt”, I think of closing time, urinals, drunks and I wonder, how in Trump’s name, did the level of discourse get this low.
Dog in a Tartan Skirt
There’s a dog wearing a tartan skirt
outside the window of Starbuck’s;
a tartan skirt, a belt, and a knitted white sweater.
Its little dog legs are moving frantically
on the wet pavement,
while across the slick road
and the sodden green park
the ocean sits
like a slab of lead
having clearly decided
to take some time off,
no crashing on the shore today.
South of the border
America blunders around
trying to remember
where it parked
that big ass car
that everyone admired
and envied.
The people look to God
but God, once again,
is moving in mysterious ways;
I, for one, wish He would knock it off,
enough already with the mystery
could He not for once in His eternal life,
clarify something?
I mean, for fuck sake,
there’s a dog wearing a tartan skirt
outside the window of Starbuck’s.
Sunrise on Planet Cistern
The weekly photo challenge is closing down for some reason, so the final theme is “all time favourite photos”. I am not a photographer by any means, I just take photos to decorate my poetry blog, but this one amuses me no end. I have sliced and diced it and used in a number of posts.
Now for the first time I will reveal its secret. The windows in our upstairs bathroom face south and in the late evening the sun shines through the side windows and the glass shower doors and creates rainbow patterns on the walls. This particular pattern turned up behind the toilet cistern in the angle between the walls. I zoomed in as close as I could with my iPhone, took the photo then rotated it. The curved surface at the bottom is actually the shadow of the cistern.
Equipment used : iPhone, Kohler 6 litre (per flush) cistern.
Don’t Play in the Traffic
they met on a zebra crossing
it was a pedestrian affair
she had an air of competence
he…just had an air
they went downhill from there
to her house
in the middle of a roundabout
near the station
one morning they looked out
and the cars had changed rotation
the clouds were tinged
with a tawdry shade of orange
the sky was diffident
the sun judgmental
things would not be the same
would not be the same again.
Love at…
they met, she
insulted him,
it was love
at first slight.
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 Poet’s Circle Holds a Haiku Evening
an evening of
syllable counts and cured meats
sheer haikuterie.
(photo taken at Vancouver Folk Festival)
Short Unsolicited Advice on Writing Poetry
write long poems on short days
short poems on long days
you don’t need a drummer
but you do need rhythm
avoid melodrama
your head cannot explode all the time,
there is uncharted territory
between ecstasy and despair
look after your images
they should splash like cold water
on the reader’s face
observe, always observe.
Taking part in Poets United Midweek Motif ~ Writing Poetry
Dog Days
Oscar’s wife, Anka,
declared:
we need to procure
a guard dog
to make our home secure,
a real dog
not some mangy cur
some obscure miniature
some saliva dripping
skinny impostor
looking for a sinecure
a dog that barks
at every knock on the door
and when, Oscar asked,
should this occur?
Yesterday, she said,
or before.
Photo taken at the Takashi Murakami exhibition (The octopus eats its own leg) at the Vancouver Art Gallery.
Elaborate (following the sound)
elaborate
haliborange
aurora borealis
abhor
great expectorations
Little Dorrit
Oliver
more
invigorate
adumbrate
helleborus orientalis
Mary Tyler Moore.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/elaborate/
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.
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.
he felt deleted
like a worn-out expletive
declined, like a noun.
Photos: Waiting for the Drop
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.
Inchoate
inchoate
inculcate
incarcerate
incubate
inundate
indoctrinate
inseminate
incarnate
incinerate
inoculate
inanimate
inhabit.
(Pete, still churning it out with that same energy and anger, talking ’bout his generation)
Photos by Marie Feeney
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)
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)
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.
we can not
decide if
we are blessed
or damaged.
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.
Stopdraggingthepanda 