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

Dear Reader

 

There you are, dear reader, demanding that I account for both myself and my famous affair with Basil Pennington III, father of the English Haiku-Sonnet. 

Nosy little parker, aren't you? Hmph. My air of mystery is positively in tatters.

You'll have read, I'm sure, my first published volume, Cargo of the Heart (1905), a collection of some two-thousand love poems, all of them concerning my furious devotion to Bazzy (as I called him privately). Tiresomely, most people only know the opening poem, Honeymoon In Hell, which was written shortly after I had sustained a closed head injury. 

My Arrow-collared Adonis stands in fading dusk-light

your chin tipped down, lighter flaring up,

capturing my heart as your pince-nez does your nose

while on Love's nectar'd wine we sup!

Yes, well. My early efforts were heartfelt if a trifle lacking in restraint. But you want to hear about Bazzy (as I called him privately)! You may not know that Basils senior and junior were fierce tyrants, captains of industry, and both afflicted with a ferocious case of skin blemishes in their youth. Imagine their chagrin at the arrival of this perfect, square-jawed, wavy-haired, strapping example of manhood amongst them. Imagine further his utter disinterest in the family undergarment empire. 

Undergarment wizards, bitter devils dancing lugubriously on Profit's stage,

Blind behemoths blundering benightedly

Dismissive of Delight, scornful of sage

poring over ledger books, squalling, squealing and squinting short-sightedly!

I guess I told them ! For months in 1911 we closed ourselves off in a lovely seaside cottage, seeing no one but each other, except for the odd Ouija manifestation or mushroom hallucination, as one will. 

Love! Bliss! Oh Rapture!

the wet raindrop on the stalk

that grows proud and tall!

Of course, my volume of erotic haiku entitled Cherry Blossom Lobotomy was seized by the port authorities in Boston and ultimately banned as both pornographic and jejune. "Everyone's a critic," I lamented to Bazzy (as I called him privately). We were both convinced that Basils senior and junior had had a hand in that nasty bit of business, but we could never prove it, and besides, I was occupied with my hybrid petunias and Bazzy (as I called him privately) was shortly off in France fighting in some silly war. If you like, pick up a copy of my collection of war poetry entitled Ka-Boom! The New York Times reviewer wrote that the collection convinced him that there are worse things than death, but I never understood what he meant. When Bazzy (as I called him privately) was killed, I couldn't imagine anything worse than his having been run over by a Paris taxi while on leave from the Army Bureau of Statistics located behind the lines in wine country. I delve into this terrible period with the epic poem Drunk In Public, which won the Delirium Tremens Award for excellence in incomprehensible gibberish. I've always been very proud of that, though the arcane terminology eludes me somewhat. May I present you with a copy? I can have one of the staff sign it for you if you like. No? Don't be shy, dear--I insist!

Anyway, that's the Reader's Digest condensed version of my sweeping affair with Basil (or "Bazzy" as I called him privately) Pennington III. If you'd like to pry, er, read further, see if you can find a copy of Cornerstone Poems--the "Found" Poems of Constance MacFarquhar-Pennington, A Complete Compendium With Bibliography, Personal Correspondence & Rare Photographs (Crumbley J. Pepperpot and Phyllis Anne Von Vandekamp eds. Redundancy Publishers New York Montreal London Belgrade and Hong Kong 1932.  I saw a copy on the website Remaindered Oblivion not two weeks ago!  Ta now, dear. Hmm. Thank Heaven and Heloise that the little twaddlehead is gone.  For pity sake, I never even actually met Basil Pennington III, or "Bazzy" as I imagined I would have called him privately, had I had the chance. No matter. Time for wine and work! I've got a new book underway and cannot be disturbed. 

________

My rather lengthy poem (?) for Word Garden Word List--Gracefully Insane.

 

Seven Poets

In Hades seven poets

pasting pips on paper crowns

facedown on the sidewalk

holding seven falcons down

woke to find the sugar vein

clogged by golden tusk

and the Genius of the Galaxies

was just shit out of luck.

When seven poets wobble down

the racetrack of the dawn

riding lazy Sensitivity

like bangers of the gong

who spin in gyres like goblins

whose experiments go wrong

when they trade their tongues for bullshit

then say, "Don't you love my song?"

Seven poets claim the globe

of earth and eye and breast

while their dietetic revolution

starves out all the rest

I pray for wolves and pray for beasts

to pry them from their pens

to strip them of their peacock pose

and show them stunted hens.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--Michael McClure.

also shared with The Sunday Muse #252. Image by Ruven Afanador

The Wind

The wind was such
that it lifted my house 
creating a mouth

which spoke.

"See the woman
inside the fledgling

and its mother's beak
preventing its fall?

See how
earth and sky court you
as the sun brings chrysanthemums 

to egret and bamboo shoot?"

The wind was such
that it lifted my house
into fits of Eastern pretension

but soon,

the West wind's anger
was spun by the East
into silks of silence.

(Sum Dum Luk 1684-1729)
_______

poem #4 for my 39 in 39 days. 

M-M-M-M-My Shadormas

zen master
drinks too much coffee
says to class
pardon me
leaves lotus, runs down the hall
but not fast enough
____

zen master
visits his sister
she hands him
new nephew.
our bodies are illusions
but shoulder puke real
_____

zen master
ponders the spring rain
when stupid
car breaks down.
meditation does no good--
fucking thing is shit 
_____

zen master
can control his mind
but sometimes
unlucky
erection comes at wrong time
don't stand up just yet
______

zen master
says souls can migrate
from body
to body.
unsightly skin condition
will end when you do
______

zen master
has the hots for jane
but he must
ignore this.
concentrate on breathing or
think about baseball 
_______

zen master
should avoid dairy
but didn't
and now he
hopes he will not blow sour note
while teaching flute class
______

zen master
left his trash novel
on the stand
by the bed
with just ten pages to go.
"be here now" my ass
_____

zen master
opens his chakras
to clear them
and cleanse them
wishes there was E-Z-Off
or some shit like that
_____

zen master
sleeps on a pallet
on the floor
but dreams of
room with big-ass hotel bed
escort and happy ending
_____

zen master
hates fireblossom lots
and wishes
she would stop
writing stupid shadormas
with him butt of joke
______ 

for: Fussy Little Forms/ Shadorma at Real Toads.
 

 

Alterations In Religious Discipline In The Hour Of The Bomb

zen master sits lotus

for hours; padawan learners

fidget, wish him dead

Gathering nightshade while I may, for the Weekend Challenge at Real Toads

Rain (An American Sentence)

I'd rather freeze my ass off in the fucking rain than read your haiku.

____

For the weekend mini-challenge at Real Toads. An American sentence is 17 syllables in linear order.

Sisyphean Haiku

The last pages of this book are full of sand--
enough to bloody my fingers.
My pockets are filled with sugar I pretend is stars. 
When I touch my fingers to them, they stick to the blood and turn pink
like cherry blossoms in haiku.

I put the tip of my tongue to the sand and stars
to taste earth and heaven together, but it's no good--
grit in my mouth makes me grind my teeth until I spit red.
Having combined dirt and deity, I carry the experience
but produce no pearl. 

_______

I am not sure if this is pastiche, Kerry, but it is my attempt at it.

Koi Pond Haiku

giant fanged goldfish

schools the flailing zen master

knowledge bubbles up

____

The Big Book Of Russian Haiku

The Big Book Of Russian Haiku is missing from its shelf
in the Chrysanthemum Room of the Glorious Proletariats' Library.

Five librarians,
each of them an opium dream of precisely measured sensuality,
and all of them wearing dark-framed eyeglasses and 
spit-shined riding boots,

Persuade me to wait exactly seven minutes while they submit
my request to the appropriate bureaus.
There is a carp pond
and a jar of startlingly blue ink pens.

If they can locate The Big Book Of Russian Haiku for me,
I can hold it like a discus,
and break the jaw of my old professor with it;
he betrayed the revolution
by watching baseball and taking up Buddhism. 

My time in the Chrysanthemum Room is nearly done,
and I can hear ten unstoppable leather boots approaching down the hall.
They tell me the book is gone
lost to the Russian winter,
and besides, what use anyway, to have it?

Then they invite me to share their samovar,
samizdat, 
and sable fur they favor
for reading Pushkin by candlelight with library patrons
taken--one at a time--into their confidence.
________ 

For copyright reasons, I can't include the image that inspired me, but you can view it HERE.

 

Poet In Fuckyou Face

Observe:
the poet in fuckyou face.
haiku
haiku
haiku
haiku
rant
haiku
deletion
haiku
haibun
grocery list
sex story
manifesto
American sentence.

Aughhhh!
pain.
pain.
I guess you know what you may do with your very rude comment,
suggesting that I do not understand the English and how she is spoke.
Observe:
the poet in fuckyou face.
tears.
wailing.
gnashing of teeth.

haiku haiku.

That's better.
You may now kiss the hem of my

haiku

garment.

beret.

oh yeah.
_______

for Real Toads mini-challenge: Ekphrasis. "The Artist In His Studio" is by Rembrandt.

My computer seems to be working for the moment. Hopefully, it won't flake out again right away. We shall see. 

My Haiku

because you all seem to want me to write one. heartless heartless mob.

If a haiku came to me,
the safe lady wearing waves of soft sweaters
and funky book-lady glasses,

I would place it tenderly in traffic
in front of a steamroller.
My hateful heart would expand like an old furnace
and I would say, "Die, you horrid little thing.
Become one with everything, the pavement in particular."

Having murdered the haiku, I would sleep better,
though the cherry blossoms around my bed would turn brown,
then black, with bitterness.
I would dream there in the soot, beneath the stacks my own inferno.
Eat your hearts out, monks.

Here is the woman I secretly burn for, packing her things
chipper as a bluebird,
hugging me one-handed, a book of haiku in the other.
So long, she says, ticket in hand.
Minneapolis might as well be the moon; I hope it snows all summer.

moonlight on water
blackbird on cherry blossoms
soft fruit in stone bowl

If a haiku came to me,
I would tan its little hide, give its dinner to the dog,
and then later, turn the key in the lock to its solitary cell,
bringing the best of all that I have managed to save,
saying I'm sorry, I'm sorry,
I know just how you feel.
_________

  

From the Big Book of War Haiku : the War on Christmas chapter

Divine plan in place
and reward at God's right hand
but first: thorns, tree, dice.

your Santa's too black
mine, too much gay apparel
no free stuff, you bum.

something you don't want
I scored it on Black Friday.
next year re-gift it.

Christmas brag sheet comes
everybody kicking ass.
good for you, assholes.

the milk jug Santa
my ex's crazy friend made
on my door each year

see Uncle Billy
lose the wad again. Really???
must be here somewhere.

I so hate haiku
but love the haiku prompter
though she be evil.

Top photo: Catblossom places herself beneath the Xmas tree as Catgod's gift to humanity!

For Words Count with Mama Zen at Real Toads. She goes out of her way to torment me.

Merry Christmas to all my readers. Just to prove that my view of the holiday is not entirely jaundiced, I leave you with my favorite carol; and yes, I like Celine Dion sometimes. She's a little over the top and sings her heart out. Kind of like the silly chick who runs this blog.