Wikileaks and Poetry

[Mole]

Found in a waste paper basket as we were -

Wandering Around

In from the airport, heading back into the sprawl,
I'm scrunched down in the leatherette
backseat of my ex-wife's new Accord,
my head filled with soft cheese.

I'm ready for a pillow,
still testing the sadness, like a new word I haven't
learned to use, or a pair of shoes not broken in,
unyielding as the notion that we are raw,
passing facts, pummeled by air,
shivering back on earth as we do
in thin, summer clothes.

I don't want to be the man blowing the leaves
as the dry heat heaves into October.
I don't want to be head of the family,
to squint at numbers intractable
on stock reports or read silvery tables
of fine print buried in the business pages.

I don't want to plan for death like a person
remembering the future. I don't want to lie in bed
three brittle hours each day, fretting about
a bologna sandwich, and worrying
if I can get a banana before dinner.

I don't want endless finales on the telephone,
to bequeath a legacy so charily concocted
it can't be decoded, except by those
licensed to piece together pages misfiled
in the blue cabinet of the wind.

After landing, I waited a half hour for my baggage.
The carousel going 'round seemed interminable
but in retrospect was momentary, brief as a splash of water.
I waited with my briefcase slung over my shoulder,
holding in its padded recesses all my memory.

How long ago was it I learned to drive the '55 Fiat,
orange carpet tiles on the ceiling to absorb the shaking?
Or hitched a camper to the back of the Galaxy,
caught in a thunderstorm, brilliant,
in the folds of the Boston Mountains?

Who knew that life would stretch a lifetime?
Or what my franchise would be
after I rolled the canoe in the White River, clawing
the rocky bottom, my father yelling,
"Put your head up," as the sky lurched at my panic?

Or on the all-night drive across the Mojave,
who woke me up to see the dipper
slide over the flayed outskirts of San Bernardino?
I don't want to be the man who pulls over
to drink tea from a thermos, checking the map
for the precise exit. I don't want to forget things
I imagined happened before I'd seen
a freeway or uttered a complex sentence.

I don't want to be like the man
who scorned the first person, who made me
me. Who shaved off my facial fuzz
with my mother's Norelco. Afterward
he'd sit at his desk with a snifter of brandy,
one ear plugged into Haydn or Mozart
playing through a transistor radio,
and grade papers.

He hit me once because I had called him Hitler.
He used to send me away to practice
the piano. Once he rifled through my drawers
finding Gauloises and Salems. How my room must
have stank, but that's not what bothered him.
It was that he couldn't perfect my imperfections.

I don't want to be the man who converts
to buying gemstones. Who enjoys
numbers for their rational biographies.
My head is swimming. I see we're getting close
to home, where a light mist curls beneath the sodium-
vapor lamps. I know I'll need help
to get the bags out of the trunk.

In almost sixty years on the planet,
I've never been without him. I need to take
my vitamins, to start a low-fat diet.
I need to walk more, wander around the neighborhood.
According to him few of our men have strong hearts.

- Alan Soldofsky.

 

[Mole]

If you like, "Wandering Around", you might like to see and hear the poet, Alan Soldofsky, by clicking on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vu6dQO_5HWw

 

[Mole]

Filtched last night and today -

Without Compare

These leavened bees,

this world
hung in concert between, from stem
to hive, each hum touched

with sibling sadness,

tethered
to a diminishing life, bid

to and from.

Worn, the shantung
of them: breathless forms
shuttling through sunlight,

glistening
between bud and home.

How loyally they hold their
vigil, speechless as heirs

pacing a marbled hall,
weighing the falling

pulse of the monarch.

- Paula Bohince.

 

[Mole]

If you like the poem,"Without Compare", you might like to see the poet, Paula Bohince, by clicking on - http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/paula-bohince

 

[Mole]

Found in the library -

Irrational Fear

walking
along
the
lower
level
of the
Smith
College
library
where
retired
card
catalogs
stand
ready
to serve
in case of
emergency
(possibly)
or
to be
recycled
as
fixtures
for
Beaders'
Paradise
(probably)
I
keep
my
distance
lest
Verm-Verr slide out and trip me
or
Bruss-Buber whack me in the jaw.

- Floyd Cheung.

 

[Mole]

If you liked the poem, "Irrational Fear", or even if you didn't, you can see the poet, Floyd Cheung, by clicking on - http://www.smith.edu/english/faculty_cheung.php

 

[Mole]

From prison, we have -

Recent Findings
After the cells of Louise Bourgeois

I

Studies show the difference between legs and arms is in what tends to come after them: hands or feet. As the difference between teaching in a prison and the Ivy League is a question of attendance and if you can tell the weather from the wall.


II

This tiny spiral staircase in the corner appears to be moving. Some experts say it is not. They say getting a degree in prison is like this.


III

It's not uncommon, doctors concur, that gnawing on a stone while speaking of clauses to a mother and daughter incarcerated in the same prison may lead to the gnawing of that stone to stone.


IV

Recent polls note a breakdown in language when people say incarceration over generations, a hesitation and.


V

Too many enclosures make people cold, new data shows, and when it's cold it's going to be cold. As for the spider, she's feeling for an open seam between the walls.

- Idra Novey.

 

[Mole]

If you liked the poem, "Recent Findings", you may like to see and hear the poet, Indra Novey, by clicking on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzlueYw6ffs

 

[Mole]

Sent by Segue -

Cradle-Song

When I signed for her ashes

I received her, as once
she received me
into her lyric hold
and let me ride anchor there,
smaller than the letter alif.

They gave her into my hands,
seven pounds, two ounces,
as once they had given
me into her hands.

I set her on the hearth shrine,
as she set me once a place at her table,
among her other needy charities.

After nine months I scattered her
back to that cold, delphine Atlantic of hers,
to tidal squalls that rip
and sigh their salt across the rocks,

as once she let me fall

unready
onto this world's
gasping, shouting, love-stained shore.

- Patrick Donnelly.

 

[Mole]

If you liked the poem, "Cradle Song", you might like to see and hear the poet, Patrick Donnelly, by clicking on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRPzmzkURSw

 

[Mole]

Intercepted last night -

Tweets

Spring

Everything's fledging
Woodpeckers, robins ... the lot
Empty nests everywhere

Summer

Dozens of sea gulls
Out of the blue, as it were
And as quickly gone

Deep blue birdshit stains
On the lips of front porch stairs
Wild berries are ripe

Midsummer heart pang
Both mother and mentor gone
Wind birds turn southward

Fall

Nonchalant ravens
Stroll in autumn leaf litter
Full moon past, no frost

Rustle on the verge
Not a squirrel. Not a deer.
Coyote lopes by

White gull glissando
& minor cormorant notes
Wild keyboard

Double crested cormorant
Riding the outgoing tide
Fall's liveried footman

Turkey vulture floats above
The littered highway
Waste management

Tufted titmouse springs the trap
Meant for red squirrel
Furious little bird

Thrush's watery burble
Swept dry by oak leaf rattle
Winter on my mind

Crows punctuating
Bronzing, yellowing forest
Look at this! See this!

Winter

Hundreds of rock doves
Huddled on turnpike wire
Red-tailed hawk stymied

Last night's palimpsest
Moon sponged by shadow and cloud
Gradually erased

Goldfish suspended
As slow in winter water
As chickadees are quick in air

A trio of hawks
Rough-legged, harrier, red-tailed
Bent on one purpose

It's a kittiwake
Not any number of gulls
It's a kittiwake!

Elegant pintail
Upended, elegant still
With purposeful intent

Small horned grebes passing
Oblivious to surf's roil
Serene old couple

- Marie Harris.

 

[Mole]

If you like the poem, "Tweets", you may see and hear the poet, Marie Harris, by clicking on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSbohCEpIfk

 

[Mole]

Invigilated last night and unveiled today -

On Fixing Things

I tap-smashed—by mistake?—
our bedroom window, and rational-
ized it as a large weep-

hole that winter, for a while, at least,
until the mist from the ends of
the earth gathered there, and till

glass icicles slivered into our toes
and fingers too many times
to ignore any longer—

Do we get the new pane cut
to be slightly larger or smaller,
how to remove the old sharp shards

with their dangerous forget-
fulnesses, and how will we fit
in the glaze and points? This is the kind

of thing your dad knew without thinking,
but he's dead now and can't tell us a thing.
Even worse, it's Sunday, the one day

we have to rest as well as work, so . . .
Time to wrestle with the new glass
at long last, and I wake up early,

start to shave: with a swift, near-
knowing stroke, his old razor deftly
measures a long crisp cut across my neck.

What will stop me now from bleeding
clear, sharp air? How can an inch
of trauma measure eternity, ever?

Who was this saint of glass?

- Don Share.

 

[Mole]

If you liked the poem, "On Fixing Things", you might like to get to know the poet, Don Share, by clicking on - http://wewhoareabouttodie.com/2010/10/22/getting-to-know-don-share/

 

[Mole]

Sent and received -

[ 14 ]

black keys from trees white keys locked
on black shoulders locked together above
skeleton ribs keys to 45 keyboards from one
tusk the word ivory rang through the air
one tusk + one slave to carry it bought
together if slave survived the long march
sold for spice or sugar plantations if not
replaced by other slaves five Africans died
for each tusk 2 million for 400,000 American
pianos including the one my grandmother
played not to mention grieving villages
burned women children left to die the dead
elephants whose tusks went to Connecticut
where they were cut bleached and polished
while my grandmother played in Illinois
my mother played and I— there were many old
pianos and slaves were used till the 20th century:
an African slave could have carried a tusk
that was cut into white keys I played, starting
with middle C and going up and down

- Martha Collins.

 

[Mole]

Even if you didn't like the poem, [14], you can see the poet, Martha Collins, by clicking on - http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/273

 

[Mole]

From the wild -

Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan
Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation

Angels don't come to the reservation.
Bats, maybe, or owls, boxy mottled things.
Coyotes, too. They all mean the same thing—
death. And death
eats angels, I guess, because I haven't seen an angel
fly through this valley ever.
Gabriel? Never heard of him. Know a guy named Gabe though—
he came through here one powwow and stayed, typical
Indian. Sure he had wings,
jailbird that he was. He flies around in stolen cars. Wherever he stops,
kids grow like gourds from women's bellies.
Like I said, no Indian I've ever heard of has ever been or seen an angel.
Maybe in a Christmas pageant or something—
Nazarene church holds one every December,
organized by Pastor John's wife. It's no wonder
Pastor John's son is the angel—everyone knows angels are white.
Quit bothering with angels, I say. They're no good for Indians.
Remember what happened last time
some white god came floating across the ocean?
Truth is, there may be angels, but if there are angels
up there, living on clouds or sitting on thrones across the sea wearing
velvet robes and golden rings, drinking whiskey from silver cups,
we're better off if they stay rich and fat and ugly and
'xactly where they are—in their own distant heavens.
You better hope you never see angels on the rez. If you do, they'll be
marching you off to
Zion or Oklahoma, or some other hell they've mapped out for us.

- Natalie Diaz.

 

[Mole]

If you are not frightened by the poem or the title, "Abecedarian Requiring Further Examination of Anglikan Seraphym Subjugation of a Wild Indian Rezervation", you might like to meet the poet, Natalie Diaz, by clicking on - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRSCib-yAb4

 

[Mole]

Discovering -

The Damnation of New Jersey

Uncle Frank despised it, couldn't understand
why some of our family lived there, though
to me my Jersey cousins George and Sybil
were exciting, mysterious and gay.
Frank hated Jersey drivers and ridiculed
their towns: Nutley, Ho-Ho-Kus,
Peapack, Bivalve and Hackensack and,
had he lived, would have targeted
the endless McMansion miles,
the all-we-know-of-hell strip malls.
Ah, Mahwah, Cheesequake, Piscataway
Secaucus, Tuckahoe and Succasunna!

He told me that where the Giants
now play football, giant pipes
disgorged raw sewerage, and that
the local farmers planted their tomatoes
in the ooze. But he did admit
those were the best tomatoes he ever ate.

What can I tell you?
Frank was a plain man, a truckdriver,
who loved me and was always kind.
He never read poetry—surely not Yeats—
and would have been surprised to hear
that love will pitch its tent
in the very place of excrement.

- Ed Ochester.

 

[Mole]

Sent in by anonymous -

Shirt

The last day of 2008 I woke
wearing the same blue shirt I wore
driving down through the pines
to hear Carlos Santana,
the hills a pale brown near Vallejo
where Bill Graham's helicopter crashed
in the power lines over the marshland.

The shirt hung on a shovel near Big Sur
smelling of almonds and sulfur
where I sat one morning reading Chuang Tzu
trying to understand about the Tao.
I wore it to feed Amy's chickens
and wrapped its loose arms
around my wife, who was smoking
outside by the mailbox, having swallowed
a fragment of glass in her coffee
the Advice Nurse said was most likely harmless,
trusting the colon's pulses to pass it
moment by moment.

We drove back north through Golden Gate Park
where an alligator once escaped
into the pond just off Lincoln Drive
and where Michael Bloomfield OD'd in his car
near the hall of flowers
and the Grateful Dead played for free.

We'd like to see them come back again,
the way Mickey Rourke showed up
at the Academy Awards interview
for his role as a broken-down wrestler
walking the two roads of grief and hilarity,
the cat's eye ring on his finger,
his silver tooth, his rat-goatee
and wraparound shades,
weeping into his water glass
mourning his dead Chihuahua:
I swear I'd give him the shirt off my back.

- Joseph Millar.