The nice people over at The Galway Review have published two of my poems: Naming Things and Having a Coffee and Reading Tom Wolfe on Chomsky in Harper’s.
Check them out here.
Cats I Have Known
there’s the cat with nine tails
there’s the cat with nine lives
there’s the cat that got my tongue
there’s the cat that is out of the bag
there’s the cat that curiosity killed
Percy was our first
a long-haired white
a tour bus for fleas
he led a long and lazy life
those fleas didn’t get around much.
Next came Sweeney
who left us too early
killed by a car
in the back lane.
Then Sasha the hunter
who brought us daily gifts
of dead birds and mice
and fought an ongoing battle
for ownership of the back yard
with two blue jays.
Sasha, too, fell foul of a car
in the back lane,
I heard about it
while checking into a Holiday Inn
somewhere in Alabama,
the peroxide permed ladies
at the front desk
passed me a note
which simply said:
“Sasha is dead”.
“Sasha is a cat”, I explained,
seeing the look of concern
on their powdered faces,
this did nothing to alleviate the gloom
I couldn’t get my room keys fast enough.
That was enough catastrophe for us,
Sasha’s ashes now rest in an urn
nestled in the bowl of the cherry tree
in the back yard
where she is visited frequently
by her former prey.
Photo : graffiti in Getsemani, Colombia
Taking part in Anmols’ prompt “all things feline” Over at dverse
No anagrams have been harmed in the making of this poem
when Loren
enrolled in Lawrence
she got a Rolex
a Rolodex
and a Grecian urn
from her uncle Lorne
a longshoreman
who lived by the shore.
Haiku overheard at the Day Care Centre
Brett is sensitive
about his silhouette don’t
look at him sideways.
Toad at the Gates of Doom
Outside the Gates of Hades
sits a cross-eyed toad
beside a burnt-out serpent
a broker and a phone
Outside the Gates of Heaven
sits an angel in disguise
beside an incontinent bishop
with ecstasy in his eyes
and the sign on the gate says:
Closed for Renovation
no judgement today
if you’re looking for accommodation
clear off, go away.
God is on vacation
taking a well-earned break
there’s only so much suffering
one true God can take
So, get your ass back down there
be good to everyone
drink lots of water
and try to get along.
(This poem came about because, for a brief period, I was listening to prog metal. Brief because, like all things prog, the talent rarely matches the ambition, the concepts. Pink Floyd were a progressive band but they were successful because they could write songs and had one of the best lyricists in rock, the concepts were secondary. Prog metal players, from what I can tell , are accomplished musicians – the guitarists can play at incredible speeds and the drummers sound like they are descended from the octopus but the lyrics are banal at best and the melodies vestigial. The album titles, though, are always interesting and that’s where this poem started – I was playing around with making up titles for prog metal concept albums…the poem evolved from there.)
Taking part in Open Link Night over at dVerse.
A version of this poem appeared with 4 other poems, a little while back in the online magazine Anti-Heroin Chic
The subject over at dverse today is “Smoke and Mirrors”, so I thought I would give the poem another outing.
Drain The Swamp Rag
(Walk that back
walk that back
I know I said it
but I walked that back.)
Attack dog surrogates
inveterate invertebrates
re-stock the swamp
with old white males.
Post logic, post truth,
snake oil and kool-aid
re-stock the swamp
with old white males.
Mike Pence, John Bolton
Rudy Giuliani
re-stock the swamp
with old white males
Inveterate surrogates
attack dog invertebrates
re-mail the stock
to the old white swamp
re-stock the swamp
with old white males.
The Tide
tide way out, sand packed,
the kids, impressionist smears
at the water’s edge.
The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 5
Last mango in Paris
last tangerine in Tangier
last farrago in Flanders
the last, the final frontier.
Last rutabaga in Tobago
last almond in Algiers
last marionette in Mar-a-Lago
the last, the final frontier.
Lines randomly composed while listening to a band from the Maritimes in the Dubh Linn Gate Pub, Whistler, British Columbia
Oh. the herring were running wild and fast
as we sailed out from St. John
and the cod were plump as Mary’s arse
on a Sunday morning after early mass
with sausages on the griddle, rashers in the pan
with a whack fol de diddle dairy oh
with a whack fol de diddle dan.
(my first and, hopefully, my last attempt at a seafaring song…a note to my readers:
please drink responsibly or you will end up writing rubbish like the above…)
Garbage Day (haiku)
mayhem in the lane
all the bins have flipped their lids
Jack has left the box.
The Unbearable Lightness of Verse 4
he was a crashing bore
who lived by the shore
some days,
the tide stayed out
to avoid him.
Oh say, can you see?
Oh say, can you see
that beacon of hope
guttering
in the magaleptic breeze
Oh say, can you see
the white horse
has lost its rider.
Oh say, can you see
by the dawn’s early light
how God’s face changes
with the angle we choose.
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.
I’ve posted this one twice before, but I kind of like it. Participating in Open Link Night at dverse.
Deep Fried Road Kill (a dizain)
Audrey, the lank-haired waitress, scans the bar,
sees Charlie nursing his long empty glass
“Hey you”, she yells, “get your ass outta here”
“Just my ass?” Charlie asks, to loud applause ;
deep fried road kill, okra, potato mash
warm under a heat lamp, he’s feeling ill;
he nods at his miner friends- Pit Fall Phil,
Old Arsenic, Rock Face, Busted Lung Lou –
in the holy glow of the pool table
they’ve still got that subterranean hue.
Yes, just when you thought it was safe to open your WordPress Reader…..the sequel to High Plains Sushi!
The form used is a dizain, 10 lines , 10 syllables per line, rhyme scheme..ababbccdcd…For a more detailed discussion of the form, see Frank Hubeny’s excellent post over at dVerse.
In this issue:
Our film critic reviews the latest summer blockbuster, “Planet of the Buffoons” , starring Boris (Bozo Bear) Johnson and Donald (Agent Orange) Trump and featuring Vladimir Putin as The Wily Sidekick.
In our Business Section:
The value of intelligence, logic and compassion continues to drop on the HTSE ( Human Traits Stock Exchange), while greed and self- interest continue their meteoric rise. Regular readers of this magazine will be happy to hear that vapidity continues to be a solid earner and an essential component of any balanced portfolio.
Speaking of the Environment:
We examine a theory popular among members of the Republican Party, and anyone connected to the oil industry, that when the polar ice caps melt, polar bears will be able to survive on an almost infinite supply of the polar berries that will thrive on the newly exposed land. This new diet will actually be healthier than their previous protein based diet.
*******
Vapid Magazine – where shallow runs deep.
Oil Tanker Tanka
you know what they say
fossil fuels for fossil fools,
that’s why we’re out here
cruising the Strait of Hormuz
with our hydrocarbon load.
(Wait, what’s that helicopter doing?)
High Plains Sushi
this bar is insured by Smith and Wesson
according to the sign upon the wall
Charlie studies his empty beer glass and
time, his old enemy, slows to a crawl,
there’s a Tuesday night two for one special
out at Wanda’s Ranch, but that’s not what he
needs, or wants – he craves that high plains sushi,
tuna, wasabi, sake in a cup
he sits five thousand feet above the sea
and he just can’t….he just can’t get enough.
This poem was culled from another song lyric/ poem, the original can be found here.
The form used is a dizain, 10 lines , 10 syllables per line, rhyme scheme..ababbccdcd…and I don’t mind saying…I think I strained something trying to conform to it.
For a more detailed discussion of the form, see Rosemary Nissen-Wade’s excellent post over at dVerse.
If Robert Mueller Wrote a Tanka
Why the long face, Bob?
always that same damn question
since I was a boy,
and always the same answer:
it is long because it’s long.
Couldn’t resist reposting that one. Okay, just one more……
Mr’s Mueller’s Haiku
You’re disappointed
you don’t know disappointment
you don’t know damp squibs
Photo: English Bay, Vancouver, A-MAZE-ING LAUGHTER, by Yue Minjun.
There’s Nothing Like Being
There’s nothing like being
in a crowded bar
in a foreign city
on a Friday evening
just after five
and you don’t know anyone
but it doesn’t matter
and you can’t speak the language
but it doesn’t matter
it’s enough to be there
to breathe in the relief
to share the belief
that Monday morning
is a life time away.
The prompt over at dVerse is to write a poem about movement, where am I going, where have I been.
The challenge from Sarah over at dVerse is to write a piece of prosery, of flash fiction (limit 144 words) incorporating the phrase “I dreamt I was the moon” from a poem by Alice Oswald.
So here goes:
Speaking as the Moon
I dreamt I was the moon, a cheddar searchlight in the sky waiting for the arrival of man with his small steps and giant leaps, his garbage can machines, his religion, his culture, his competing ideologies, his self-aggrandizements, his bragging rights, his racism, his greed, his pomposity, his self-importance, his astronauts named “Buzz”. I tell you, colonization never works out for the colonized. Speaking as the moon, I have no desire to be turned into a destination for space tourists or a land fill or, more accurately, a moon fill, then to be compensated, to be re-moonerated (a bit of lunar humour) some hundred years later by some conscience-stricken liberal prime minister of Canada. They say that nature abhors a vacuum, well, speaking as the moon, I can handle a vacuum quite nicely, it’s vacuity, I abhor.
The other day, I was looking back on the number of Donald Trump related posts on this blog and a pattern emerged. In 2015, there were 3 posts; in 2016, 10 posts; in 2017, 23 posts; in 2018, 19 posts; in 2019, 2 posts so far.
That’s when I thought of T.S. Eliot:
“And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned wriggling on a wall”
It seems, looking at the above stats, that in my mind, at least, Donald has been formulated and there is little more to be said creatively, even the outrage has become stale. He has the approval of over 40% of American voters and maybe now that is the subject, the man himself has been defined and will not change.
These are the Trump posts I had most fun writing , they rely a bit more (I think) on language rather than straight polemic. They are arranged somewhat in chronological sequence
“Agent Orange has a dark Moment” was published in Rat’s Ass Review” ,and “Donald Trump – On Reflection” was published in “Oddball Magazine“. “Trumputin” was published in Anti-Heroin Chic .
it
does
not
augur
well.
Donald’s Early Days
A farrago of fiascos,
banishments and bans;
weekends at Mar-a-Lago
the world in his hands.
Agent Orange has a Dark Moment
Do you know who I miss? Jeb Bush. I miss Jeb Bush. He was my first. When I hit him with that low energy jibe and he fell apart and all the Bush family could not put Humpty together again, I knew I was on to something. Then Little Marco and Lyin’ Ted, I miss them too. But most of all, I miss Hillary, Crooked Hillary. Man, she was tough, had me on the ropes. It took Comey and Vlad, that pointy headed villain, to get me back on my feet. I was nearly out for the count, which might not have been a bad thing. Who needs this shit! I should give Vlad a call, I’m a bit worried -there’s no such thing as a free hack.
Reince Priebus – what kind of fucking name is that? It sounds like bad news from the doctor. “I’m sorry, Donald, you have a Reince Priebus on your rectum and it doesn’t look good”. Ha, I just made myself laugh. And Bannon, I’ve seen sofas on the side of the road in better shape than that rumpled fucker. Spice Box? Hardest job in the world – explaining the unexplainable. That Melissa Mc.Carthy just slays me. How come all the cool people are on the other side? Who have I got? Ryan and Pence? Bland and Blander? Where did Pence come from anyway with his brush cut and his antediluvian politics? The best surgeons in the world couldn’t remove the poker from that guy’s ass. Antediluvian, you didn’t expect that did you?
Talking of cool, I should give Barack a call, ask him down to Florida for a game of golf; check his birth certificate again (Joking! How I miss those days). Man, I hate this fucking White House furniture, is it Friday yet?
Haiku for Donald
petulant pillock
postcranial curmudgeon
bombastic buffoon.
On Reflection…. Donald Trump
America has given birth
to a giant orange child
a zaftig infant Gulliver
striding the ravaged earth
of his own imagination
trampling whole villages
swallowing villagers whole.
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.
The Toddler King (excerpt)
5 am. 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.
Anderson Cooper’s Hair
There’s something comforting
about Anderson Cooper’s hair
its quietude
its insouciance
its unabashed whiteness
no Paul Manafort chocolate brown
no Clooney dusting of grey
no Pavarotti boot polish black
just plain white
lightly cropped
a hint of a comb over, maybe
but that’s ok
and it does not move
Hurricane Barry
a Midwest tornado
vile invective
a blast of foul air
from the president’s mouth
nothing moves Anderson Cooper’s hair;
to misquote Paul McCartney
and triple down on a preposition
in this ever changing world
in which we live in,
there’s something
comforting about that.
Blood orange
smoke-filtered
a Beijing
Mumbai sun.
The Water Taxi Arrives (Caye Caulker Chronicles Take 2)
like Sherpas in search of an expedition
the backpackers tumble onto the dock
clutching Lonely Planet guidebooks
it’s nowhere near as lonely here
as their guidebooks promise
but it is part of the planet
they got that right
it is part of the planet.
(in the café below
Bob Marley is still jammin’
the locals talk of paradise lost
of Eve and apples bitten.)
This is a rewrite of a previous post.
