Category: poems

today was a beautiful amazing.
what can I do but live like this?
to pamper self and friends;
live extended and tiptoed.
taste is the most subtle sense.

are we awake in a sea of sleepers,
or am I an ignorant dreamer?
is my lucidity the dream?

today was a beautiful amazing.
we’re smack dab
in the middle of happiness.

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The recent adbusters has one of my favorite Mary Oliver poems in it. “Tell me, what is it you plan to do / with your one wild and precious life?” (The Summer Day). I love Mary Oliver. When I first wanted to be a poet, I thought every poet was like her, seeing the beauty in things. In her case, ordinary things, natural things, but I felt that other poets just saw different beauties in different things, and that was what being a poet was about. Seeing the beauty. Writing the beauty.

I had an amazing day today. One of those days that just keeps on with the good things. A near perfect day. There is much to be said for spending $20 on desserts at a good bakery when just enough time has passed to have digested good sushi from dinner. But the company of friends turned that nicety into joy. I feel priveleged in many ways right now… I could go on, but I think I need to end the day… and close my eyes.

I was a bit disappointed that there were only 15 or so people at the Lali Puna concert, when I showed up 45 min after doors opened. But by the time they got on stage 2 & 1/2 hours later, the place had filled out some… Still not one of the fuller shows I’ve been to at the 7th street entry, but they managed to kick some major ass anyway.

I don’t know why my reviews generally end up comparing one artist to another, but for some reason one of the only illuminating thoughts I had during their set was that they’re like an electronic jam band. I couldn’t help but think they had a lot in common with Five Style or Critters Buggin’, both of whom I love.

All three acts for the evening were on the Morr Music record label. The first two were just guys with laptops and various analog knobs. (Opiate, and Styrofoam) All three of the acts relied on Apple laptops, btw, which I found quite illuminating. I was only a wee bit discouraged to catch a glimpse of one and find it was still running OS 9.x.

I picked up 4 CDs at the concert, and so far, I haven’t been disappointed in the least. The CD of 5 bomb the bass remixes has been particularly exceptional.

I wrote this stream of conscious poem while watching Opiate, the first (and I felt better) of the opening acts:

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Standing in cigarette smoke,
smelling the beats,
nodding to video feed.
Thought of starting a band,
tasted obnoxious talking fans.
All the while, my feet
were swallowing my heart.

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I really did fantasize about starting a band.. I need to start doing music on my laptop first, but then I could advertise in coffee shops and stuff. I’d want to be able to perform live, but keep a very electronic sound… I also brainstormed some band names. Supernut or perhaps Supernaught was my favorite.

I get indignant when I can’t do 60
right away on the freeway–
like it’s my inalienable right
to do five above the limit.

The sky here in late fall, says Laura
“is like it is in Kansas all winter.”
It’s grey, featureless.

My friend I haven’t seen in a year at least,
at a party: “I’m writing for a living now,
about the environment.
How about you?”

“That’s great.” I reply.

I get indignant when I’m going too fast
life like a giant ball of rock
hurling toward the castle wall.

This is not where I wanted to drive this morning,
through the grey of a Kansas winter,
doing 50 on the freeway.

trip to Seattle
traveling fish in a barrel
mountain submarine
purple smoke
giant world intestine trees
passing bicicycle spokes

By sleeping with it under my pillow
I can absorb my life through osmosis.

Words are but frail shadows
cast on a blank-parchment imagination–
stones cast down from dragon’s heights,
talons fiercely tearing at this flesh.

I want to observe without interaction
and interact without being observed.

This poem is bubbling, boiling,
cooking in a pot at the back of your brain–
heavy, with nothing to feed the hawk’s-eye
but a subtle glance into unknown corridors.

ugh, today and yesterday have been extremely frustrating for me. I have a project due on wed that I have not been able to move on. I don’t know why. It’s not even a dificult project. I just don’t want to do it for some reason. I find myself procrastinating on all kinds of fronts (reinstalling office for OSX, for instance, or reading FAR too long transcripts of conversations with the IRS on this site). Even worse, I’m suppose to have some poems printed up tonight for our chapbook meeting, and that’s all I really want to do… work on poetry.

Here’s one I found in my laptop last night:

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untitled — 4.8.2

In a world full of Big Macs, and Big Macs with cheese,
I sometimes feel like a lowly cheeseburger,
shoved ungratefully into a happymeal.

And eventfully, the afternoon graduates into night,
throwing its hat into the air; and it plummets
over the edge of the earth.

sylables as actions
words asphyxiate on paragraphs
pharagraphs smother in novels
seeing the vowel-forest for the trees

syntax is reflex
semantics, the poetry-killer
drown linguistically, drown

I can’t believe I didn’t post a single poem in august. Here’s one to commiserate:

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i AM yelling.

you can’t see me
flailing emotive words
floundering in political spittle
perturbed by right-wing flies on MY wall

because I’m pretending Twain was right
I’ll appear less ignorant in silence

you know I avoid confrontation?
I’m an independent-opinion-armada,
rusting in a placid bay of political-agoraphobia.

but i AM yelling
a megaphone in a soundproof balloon
and some-particularly-frustrating-day…
pop!

still no sense in rolling
but I’m collecting grass
and as hard as I am, I like to keep it smooth
bald is blue, you know,

there’s a carnival inside my cranium
last night’s dream
shadows on eyelids
closed to me, close to me

ode to an after dinner mint
eaten at breakfast
an entire day’s pendulum of happiness
closed, close… to me

I can make myself float
by staring into light bulbs,
so they use fluorescents.

When I breathe the open air
I too am open, and my mind
floats into cloud-scapes–
so they don’t use windows you can open,
and the air is forced to us,
cold, through pipes and vents.

But secretly I drink a glass of water
and even though it could taste better,
it is cool and wet in my throat
and I am on an ocean
floating on my back in a wooden raft.

I can smell the seagulls who land at my feet
and my hair is floating in a pool around me.
The boat lurches softly as the keel
scrapes onto a sandy beach.