Harvest, 1921

 

Have you ever seen a fat man hanging from a tree?

like a pendant suspended

from the throat of a wrinkled old woman?

Have you ever seen a skinny man hauled up

in front of his burning shop?

the plate glass shattered where he used to look out

at the magnolia blossoms in spring?

It gets hot in June in Tulsa. If you leave a skinny man 

strung up a few days, you get a fat man 

hanging like strange fruit in the devil's grove.

______

for Dverse Poetics: Getting hooked on opening lines. 

Music: Nina Simone Strange Fruit

Terms of Service

 

When devils visit my area, they stay in motels.

They are vile deposits of hideous evil, but this does not mean

that they cannot be frugal. 

Sure, they steal the little soaps or use them 

to deface the insides of the windows, but

this is mere mischief--

Their real purpose lies beyond Ramada's flimsy walls.

Perhaps you've written a masterpiece

through diligence and elbow grease.

Beware the visitor wearing the disguise

of a maid or desk clerk--be on guard and be wise

To such limited shenanigans. Devils want one thing--

to clop across the starfields of your creation

in their dung-filthy cleated boots using

every method at their disposal to bring ruination

To the written child of your soul.

Hold up your little cross, they will snap it.

Confront them with crystals, they will pop them like mints.

Appeal to their better nature, those tiny flakes amid the panic,

tilt at their empire with toothpicks and see where it gets 

You. Listen to me, little scribbler, I have the way!

Read them home-made haiku by the worst hack that you can find.

You'll see how devils decompensate, fauxku like weevils in their brain!

They'll beg, seize, do St. Vitus' Dance, go goofy, helpless, blind!

De nada, mi amiga. $$$ by Venmo will be fine. 

___________

for Word Garden Word List--Mark Strand.

Music: Jimmy Jones Handy Man

Kitty (a pantoum)

 

Your cat has killed my singing bird

she sunk her teeth into its throat

and now, its every song deferred

it wears a reddened funeral coat.

She sunk her teeth into its throat

and left its body on the mat

an ornament for Charon's boat

does kitty give a damn for that?

She left its body on the mat

and licks her paws without a care

does kitty give a damn for that

or anybody anywhere?

She licks her paws without a care

her tail she'll switch in plain disdain

for anybody anywhere

she casually causes pain.

Her tail she'll switch in plain disdain

for having killed my singing bird

or casually causing pain

by any bloody song deferred.

____________

The Word Garden Word List is very much active and can be found HERE. 

Black Velvet Rose

When I was a child

I made a catalog of sounds.

My fingernail across upholstery,

birds calling to each other in the yard.

The world spun

in oval vespers

from day to night

as wind spoke to trees in whispers.

Why was my voice someone else

when hearing it on a recording?

Why did I wake up so often

to echoing music in the morning?

Now, when I am very tired,

I hear the dead speak again.

A siren goes past in the street outside.

"I love that sound," says the ghost in my mind.

Rain and rivers help me sleep

with a black velvet rose in my dream

and the kind-voiced sweetheart I've invented there

says that dawn, or the devil, may care.

________

for What's Going On? --"Sounds."

Music: J.D.Souther Black Roses, White Rhythm & Blues