Shanty

 

I had a planet,

just a little one

but still.

it had activities--

recreational

illicit

volcanic.

from a promontory above one of its seas,

I pondered what to do with a drunken sailor

early in the morning.

I had to rent out my little planet

due to the commute.

Years passed. 

When I returned and saw

what the renters had done,

I brought the flood in my righteous anger.

Things are better now,

lo these many months gone by.

I have a koi pond with native goldfish.

I sleep in until lazy o'clock

or until the stars wheel above my gingerbread cottage.

The sailor got sober, survived the flood,

and sings, "Weigh-hay and up she rises" 

when I stir

both my happy ass,

and the coffee he has kindly fixed

the way he knows I like it.

I have a planet,

just a little one

but still.

________

for What's Going On? -- "In Uncertain Times"

Music: Johathan Edwards "Shanty"

Sylvia

 

The doorbell rang.

My pet rooster

George Washington Crower 

objected loudly.

Who's that knocking at my door

who's that knocking at my door

who's that knocking at my door

cried the ...  well, me at any rate. 

There, standing on tippy toes

trying to get a grip 

to climb in through the transom

was some dude.

I said hey there aardvark face,

monkey fingers 

jumpin' Jack trash Houdini,

what gives?

He say, I am here on behalf

of the half serious jolly jokers club

and we are having 

a half off sale. 

With that he tore off one shoe,

a trouser leg,

and one sleeve,

then bowed to the ring camera.

Straightening, he recited,

Who is Sylivia, what is she

that all our swains commend her?

I said that's cute, she is me, and all your swains can't mend her.

I am an antique,

an ancient wreck

a Hesperus on the rocks of bad poetry

but he climbed through the milk chute

quite dashing in his half-suit.

and won my favor with his drollery. 

______

for Word Garden Word List--Enter the Aardvark.

Music: Lazy Larry Barnacle Bill the Sailor

Back-Up Bliss (Blues Lyric)

 

You know I love you baby

you know I crave your kiss

you know I love you baby

you know I crave your kiss

so don't act all broken-hearted

when I say that you're my back-up bliss

Slip out the back door baby

when you hear the front door key

slip on out the back door baby

when you hear the front door key

now don't get sad

dontcha get all mad

cos back-up bliss is what you are to me

Come and rock me baby

smooth and sweet as summer wine

come on and rock me baby

as smooth and sweet as summer wine

main squeeze ain't got nothin'

that could make me give up this

time with you, my cool and crazy back-up bliss

__________

Process notes! I was blasting Robin Trower's Rock Me Baby while putting away groceries. Now there is a coffee creamer I just have to have, called Natural Bliss brown sugar oat creamer. The store doesn't always have it, and it lasts for months if it isn't opened, so when I get about half done with my current jug, I buy a back-up before I get too low because running out just isn't happening, not at my house! So, I was putting away groceries and grabbed the new Natural Bliss and said, "Oh yes, my back-up Bliss!" That's when the light bulb came on over my head. Sounds like a blues rock song! And voila! Here it is, with tongue firmly in cheek!

Music: Robin Trower Rock Me Baby

Jenny Mechanical

 

Jenny Mechanical is too mecha for the main house

but too human for the tool shed.

She can turn stripped screws, whip up a perfect grilled cheese,

provide power during an outage and mow and mulch while she's at it.

She also dreams of a recharging kiss and poems appear at her fingertips.

Jenny had a little lamb whose fleece was made of synthetic polymer

and everywhere that Jenny went, the lamb was sure to follow.

See Jenny Mechanical, stopped in the middle of the front yard,

telling her lamb to look at the new leaves with its LED eyes.

She has always been a perfectly average 5 foot 3, can open any jar, pick any lock,

but she is crying into its faux wool because of something beyond utility.

She is needed but not loved, maintained but casually disposable,

and the poems at her fingertips have diverged from factory settings,

glowing pink

then rose

then lavender

then blue

then indigo

like space that has no atmosphere yet sustains those billion burning stars.

_________

for Sunday Muse #213. 

Two Poems/ Two Forms

"Getaway"

Stop the crying jag

pack a Gladstone bag

book a lunar junket now.

Stay on the sun side

Moon Rabbit runs by

late for a date anyhow.

Rent you a moon car

with hot tub and bar

green cheese and crackers for free.

Dub yourself Moon Maid

retro your moon grade

stay on indefinitely.

-------

this is a form called an alouette.

for Sunday Muse #169.

________________________

and...

"Recipe For Satori En Flambe"

In the desert, find a mirage that suits,

that lives, that fruits despite the gritty eye,

the thing that dries and rides inside your boots,

the thing that shoots itself but does not die.

This is the thing you'll need the most,

a far outpost of the soul.

There is no whole thing here, just shards

and acrid tars to smoke.

This is not as bad as it scans,

not some madman's practical joke;

a softly spoken barcarolle,

a gondolier mid-stroke.

In the desert, find a skull that sings,

an awful thing sick with the wound you need.

Take it up, feed it well until it brings

(from horrors) wings of glass, and salt, and seed.

In a rib bowl, mix these with buried roots

and tongues of mutes in ash rain from a sky

too close and bright, the silver-sharp of flutes

some god imputes with holy song and sigh.

________

this is a LaJemme poem.

You can see where the connection failed. When I came back the type changed. 

A Tale of Ravening Beasts

She wandered into the forest.

Summer rolled lazily into leaf-blown fall.

In winter, her hair turned white, as camouflage from ravening beasts. 

She crawled into a cave

and lay down with a ravening beast.

Spring arrived.

"Well now," spoke the ravening beast, and she didn't care for his speculative demeanor. 

She returned home.

"Well now," said her mother, her brothers, her cousins,

who fell upon her as ravening beasts

disguised as petticoats.

"Now she's an albino."

The year turned.

The girl swam to an uninhabited island

and set up a badminton net as metaphor.

There, she began writing her book of poems,

entitled "Ravening Beasts."

Her hair fell out and she wove a boat from the strands.

"Hey cue ball," came the welcome in the seaside town.

"Hey head case."

Her great spiked crimson heart rolled inside her ribs,

and she breathed fire.

"Crazy fucking bitch," they said,

but no longer to her face.

She was wings and tail and ten feet tall,

a ravening beast come among them.

-----------

for Sunday Muse.

Dogma Doppelganger Double Mocha Shake

You don't have to stay here.

Split, via

the inspiration in your mind

or the needle in your arm.

Pack your bags,

pack it in,

pack a punch,

be out to lunch,

but this--

this life

this body

this beehive of the mind

can be hoisted on the lift of the universal bump shop.

You don't have to

stay here

do this

answer the bell

stay in or out of Hell

read this poem

live this life

stay large or small

or anything at all.

Dig it.

_____

For The Sunday Muse #49.

 

Orphan Bus In The Underworld

When the Orphan bus in the Underworld stopped
for Unhappy Meals,
the orphans removed the driver's brain and fucked with it.
Out, then, from the dark,
back into mayhem and political doubletalk,
the Occupied Zone their parents died for.

Power comes to the innocent. The Virgin sees to this. 

First, a fish tank for the Premier,
gills and a ceremonial sash trailing in the algae.
Then, a pencil in the eye for every perved-out fat man,
and their scion sons putrefying inside local dance clubs. 

From a book bag--the Sun!
Roiling, blazing, launching sunspot flares!
Snowman parents, gooshy as Christmas;
running in Church allowed.
____________

106 Words for Angie at Toads. Is 106 more than 100? The Orphans say no. 

It's "Orpheus IN the Underworld", not "AND the Underworld." No wonder the stupid boat sank.