POEMDITTIES

"I close my eyes and touch the stars!"

Inaugural (#1)

“The Future is Watching”, a placard said.

(Someone’s hope for time travel.)

But the future is infinite, isn’t it?

Our children are watching us, aren’t they?

And just like those monkeys typing out Hamlet,

we know they’ll come back to visit us.

Any day now.

Inaugural (#2)

“The Future is Watching”, a placard said.

Visions of time travel dance in her head.

Our future is infinite. Isn’t that true?

Our time is forever! The sky is blue!
We're like monkeys typing out

Shakespeare’s play--

and our children will be by now,

any day....

bond fires

flames lick shadows,

becoming fireflies

in the dark.

volcanoes

eruptions form

along your skin

their telltale signs

of might-have-been.

Toxic Bodies

You’re annoying while you’re here,

but I will so miss you when you’re gone.

Ain’t that always the way it goes?

The Others

I love you, but

others

I fear.

I love you, but

others

might sneer.

I love you, but

others

will cheer.

I love you, but

the others,

dear.

blues moody

blues moody,

a smooth thing;

a piano

crooning

in her hands—

soothing,

like doves

diving,

driving 
all the wiles

away.
meanwhile, 
love scales

its sweetest melody.

Intention

What we seem

may be extreme.

What we mean

may come between

what we’ve been

and what we dream.

We're like hands

dipped in a stream.

Hot Town

Bones bleaching in the sun:

They’re a hopeful sign

in light and time.

And sands blowing

or snow,

fresh tides or giant-leaved trees

covering everything,

erasing everything,

changing it all so completely.

Would that time was so helpful--

to save us, as it were,

from night-time grid of our lives,
from the dark, neon hot
and the eternal hum of electricity.

Reboot

First, to shallow caves

in cool shadow.

Then later,

to pan-sized pools

of rain water

cut into stone.
Then, until
from the hot forests,

we may come again.

in times of blood

without wisdom 
of the body,

without habits of blood—

we are as seeds

scattered by the wind,

too early or too late

for greening.

Another Kiss

Before you slip into unconsciousness

I’d like to have another kiss

Another flashing chance at bliss—

Another kiss, another kiss.

—“The Crystal Ship”—Jim Morrison/The Doors

Soon our baby’s belly quakes like jelly.

All royal and swelly, all kiss and telly.

Wet razzberies trace such a smiling face.

But will this first place now by time erase?

Will once courtly-kissed hands along white strands

now favour dark bands to rule Celtic lands.

And rule Asian moils and red Roman soils—

where peeps ancient royals amid their stone coils?

“Bow before Us!” (That’s so kissed-ring unctuous!)

Priest kisses save us!? And not the Jesus?

Royal fingers kissed clean—a moneyed, old scene.

(Such kisses still screen who is and is seen.)

The kiss of begats or Pharaoh’s black cat?

Salt-pillar ersatz or home-porn’s cocked hat?

That cheeky French kiss is the one I miss!

No salty amiss—at Christmas it's bliss!

The kiss that’s a feat? Or one that’s a treat?

The one says, “I cheat.” The other is sweet.

There’s one for show and one for a fellow.

One just bellows. Another is mellow.

“Now, Sweety-Pie, I will tell you no lie,

There's just one more sigh before we will die:

No baker’s dozen. No kissin’-cousin;

no wankers' coven or kin-love lovin’.”

But the kiss of warm rain and wind’s high plain.

The kiss of love’s flame. The kiss of each name.

The kiss of colours. The kiss of mothers.

The kiss of fathers. The kiss of others.

.....

At last, “gurgle-gurgle.” (Life’s last hurdle.)

Release the girdle! A shell-less turtle.
.....

One kiss more of thine? Ahead is so fine!

One kiss at a time? It’s a loving sign….

today

today—was a good day,

a day to remember,

a day no different

from one in November.

 

"Jon! Start the car. Now! They've seen us! Jon!"

These are definitely oldies, except for the poem, “today”. I definitely had to unbury a few corpses to get at this batch, and I spent some time raking around the bones to see what might be worthwhile to bring into the light of day. Most are short, and I’ll call them ditties (others might use a less charitable name.) If they are of no use to you, then bogart them as sustainably as you can. Remember the environment! It remembers you.

"Change? Whoa, there!"

The INAUGURAL poems were written shortly after Barack Obama became president of the United States. In January 2009, I watched the ceremony on TV with a sense of hope that many people felt around the world. In the crowd gathered that day on the Washington Mall to hear his first address to the nation was a woman who held up a small sign that said, “The Future is Watching.” It was, indeed, a hopeful moment, and one that looked forward to a future that might well be different from the one we'd come to expect. 

Smart Drones c. 2025: "Hey! Check out the biological. Ha!"

I did two versions—and for some reason both endings were problematic, in that they asked—what would the Obama legacy be? Would his presidency offer real change, a chance at a new future, where our children would look back upon these years as a time when the world, inspired by this enlightened American politician, changed for the better? A world....[Choked laughter. Tearful guffaws. Ed.]

….Or not. “Hope”, of course, turned to “Nope”, and we discovered we were all dopes. Business as usual went its merry way, and the Nobel Peace Prize winner's drones flew across the world.
Our children, if they look back upon us at all, will have no desire to come for a visit. Ever. (Even if they did have a time machine.)

Some other poems are about relationships, what happens when bodies combine (or collide). Some poems try to be moments in time. Some work (or not.) I don’t know how well I captured any of those moments, but they  just roll around in my brain pan, and from time to time they jostle their way into my frontal lobes. I put them down on paper and force myself to let others see them. Maybe some will start to jostle around for you?

"I love you." "Wha?!"

HOT TOWN, REBOOT and IN TIMES OF BLOOD are kind of related, and come with more bleak environments, much like the one that is outside my window right now where I live. It’s November, and the last of “Indian Summer” is passing.

ANOTHER KISS is a very awkward poem, the rhyme scheme is beyond silly, but I wanted a poem about kissing stacked-in with other poems about personal struggles and the  more bleak assessments. Kisses, depicted in various contexts and time frames, I thought, “Heck, why not?!” I suggest reading it very slowly. Pucker up. That might help.
I know that these days, kissing is often weaponized into the most unpleasant tools of human intercourse. And, indeed, kisses can disguise a multitude of sins. This is true. But sometimes a kiss can simply be a kiss. And when that happens, baby—it’s bliss!

The ditty, TODAY, was written for tomorrow, November 11, 2019, Remembrance Day. 

Cheers, Jake.

And for some reason Shelley's famous poem “Ozymandias” comes to mind. He sure could write 'em!:

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
'My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

                               —Percy Bysshe Shelley - 1792-1822

So Close!