Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.
Showing posts with label shark in the koi pond. Show all posts
Showing posts with label shark in the koi pond. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 26, 2025

Lady Poet

 

Who changed you, water lily, who betrayed
and left your leaves to sway half-drownëd here?
Your moon-dazed face is pale, night-sick, afraid.
Water lily so wounded, so austere.

You of many stems but a single face--
no voice at all except poems water-writ.
Who muddied the stars of your secret place,
and forced such a sorrowful alphabet?
________

A rispetto poem for What's Going On?--"The Dark

Music: the late Marianne Faithful Sad Lisa



Wednesday, February 28, 2024

Shark Adventure

 

Some sharks move to suburbia.

They are mutant land sharks, able to breath and speak in their
strange, halting pidgin. 

Their spawn, er, kids sign up for Little League
and eat burgers at picnic tables after the games--
A lot of burgers.
Okay all the burgers.

At little Maria's birthday party, there is a pinata. 
One of the shark kids bursts up from the lawn,
opens its gaping maw,
and consumes it whole, along with much of a maple tree. 
Version 1) Maria runs inside, crying.
Version 2) Maria starts writing "Mrs, Maria Shark" over and over
in her school notebook.

Some customs elude the sharks.
Someone brings over a bundt cake as a welcome gesture.
Mrs. Shark tries for an air kiss on the cheek but sends the woman to the hospital. 
It is awkward for everyone and permanent for the neighbor.

The sharks notice that PTA mothers' and golfing dads' smiles
have turned to scowls. 
Country Club sponsorships dry up. 
The sharks make a holiday visit to the community pool and everyone runs away screaming. 

The sharks start wearing disguises in the grocery store and at the bank.
"I am a harmless minnow," says one shark
from a few rows of dagger-like teeth.
During a visit to a local gallery, all the sharks wear berets
and funny eyeglass masks.
No one is fooled.

Realizing that things have gone too far for remedy,
the sharks shrug, as sharks will, 
and solve everything by eating the school principal, 
the HOA president, and the local chief of police, 
all in a single afternoon.

They pack up all their stuff and return to the sea
where people are not so judgy and unforgiving.
They playfully sink a fishing boat and eat all the occupants, fish, tackle, and the mast. 
They are home. Their stomachs are full. All is well.
Brody and Hooper may kiss their fantastic finned butts.
________

for Word Garden Word List--Shakespeare Bats Cleanup 

Music: Baby Shark (You're welcome!)




Saturday, April 25, 2020

Why I Stopped Reading Robert Frost

As I reach the bottom
of the bag
of some shit I used to like,
I realize
I'm bored,
and don't want it anymore.

It's like
when I was mad for what's-her-name
or
mad to be what's-her-name
and the tide 
was mad to go
first to
then fro.
What a waste of time.

So here
are my
seventy-five million poems
that lifted,
shifted,
expressed the flesh around these bones.
But today
I may
get up and walk right through the wall
and the me I leave behind
is just a stupid staring doll.

At the bottom
of this bag
is some shit I used to like.
Can you dig
can you see
the fish there riding on its bike?
in a lather
in a circle
with miles to go before it sleeps?
_________

for Sunday Muse # 105.

art by Samy Charnine.



Monday, September 4, 2017

All Afternoon

All afternoon in my flower garden--
wolves, imps, children, heavy equipment.
I wore gloves.
I had a trowel and a shotgun. 
A bushel basket.
Tarot cards.

All afternoon, clouds traversed the sky,
reminding me of childhood days in Singapore.
Here are things which can change in an instant:
weather,
a steady heart beat,
the four walls around you.

All afternoon I'd had the urge
to shove my gloved hand down the throat of the earth
to draw out the devil's vocabulary.
Don't be stupid--
you know, the one that badgers speak,
the one that drowns anyone listening--
Drip.
Drip.
Damn.

All afternoon I slaved like a grave digger,
my straw hat gone, 
incubi dancing on the handle of my shovel.
I got a letter from the city, saying
cease and desist.
I got a letter from the Diocese,
saying I'd been excommunicated, along with the postman.
I got a letter from you
and it didn't say a god damned thing.

All afternoon I wondered why I opened it,
why I ever cared,
and whether I could use my 'do rag to flag the bombers
and sic them on your stupid paper house
with you in it.
I would like to stand on the rubble afterward, a martinet with round spectacles,
a cup of tea, 
and not a crumb of love left, 
but oh, one hell of a sense of righteous fury.
_______