Reanimated Lavender Granola Switchblade Nun rides again.

Thursday, January 26, 2023

Visions of Code-y

 

Sitting in a coffee bar, I was hit on by a Kerouac simulation.
I am the nightbird genius mix, said FauxJack,
clearly hopped up on lollipops. 
Do tell, said I. 

So babe, what's on your emotional jukebox?
Some kind of dubious doo-wah Dada bop?
Maybe.
You're like smoke, there's rise in your eyes.
And you try too hard.
Auughh! Gutshot, right in the LOLcode. Want me to fade?

No, as a matter of fat, I've read all your graphic novels, FakeJay.
You're a real Ker-Ker-Karma Chameleon.
They call me Cat George, mama. Imma thicc throwback skellychaser!
You don't say.
Don't armadillo me, hard candy. 
This is love-a-rooni, jive jazz Nirvanaville, hep kitty.
Hep. Oh, I like that.

The double yellow asphalt ribbon is callin', Gypsy Rose.
To-go that java and jump immediate!
You're on, daddy.
Ergo the ersatz ecstasy, holo-hipster. 
Aw Athena, now you're blowin' a sweet riff! 
That's me, Riff Tin Tin. Awoooooooo!
You are off the leash! 
Faux man go. Let's split before the squares hack your dome, Jack.



____________


Music: Eddie Harris Sham Time



Wednesday, January 25, 2023

Word Garden Word List--Janis Ian

 

Hello friends, and welcome to this week's List! There is a book of poems I bought for a buck and a quarter used (it was a whopping dollar ninety-five new) when I was just in high school. It has traveled with me from my childhood bedroom to every place I have gone since, and I have it still. It's Who Really Cares by Janis Ian. My copy has a bright green cover with just the title in black, but newer editions have her picture and the addendum "childhood poems." Fair enough. I was a childhood fan.


The back cover of my copy has a picture of her wearing a hat I liked so much that I looked until I found one just like it and bought it. Fangirl much, Shay? Oh yeah. Here is a snippet from one of the poems in the aforementioned collection; it's the end of a piece called Poems For The Young Psychologist.

we were eating when daddy came
home from a long tiring day and
started complaining how come the
food wasnt hot and the
house was all dirty and he
turned to me and
opened up his mouth and
i said
dont take your frustrations out on me
baby

Those who know me will surely be mystified why I liked such stuff. *cough* 


Janis Ian is, of course, most well-known for her music. Three of the words on this week's List are taken--one each--from the songs Society's Child, At Seventeen, and Boots Like Emmylou's.  The rest are taken from her book Who Really Cares. 




What we do here is to take at least 3 of the 20 words provided and use them in a new original poem of our own, Then just link up, visit others, and adopt an air of sweet accomplishment that will surely attract money, mates, and mysterious boons your way. Enjoy.

And now, your List:

absurd
anymore
armadillo
boots
dubious
formal
genius
interfere
jukebox
Kerouac
mix
nightbird
ribbon
simulated
smoke
soap
society
starched
superstar
train



Saturday, January 21, 2023

Snowblind Jane

 

I have thought of the gray cat for years now,
though the gray cat thinks of me
no more than a gray cloud would,
or a window pane,
or a key chain.

I leave my life in a dish for the gray cat to find,
but the gray cat is gone
like yesterday's breath.
Who knew I could hurt like this?
If I drop the dish, it doesn't even shatter.

The gray cat's main concern is the moon
and garbage and gray cats and food.
I was sick once,
and became more beautiful.
The fever fell in love with me, poor thing.

Outside myself at last, I hover,
asking what's wrong.
"Bring me my gray cat," I whisper, crying like a child.
Other Me laughs,
says you'll never come back

and were never gray,
                           never gray,
                                      never gray,
but black, dear, black.
______

shared with Sunday Muse #243

image at top by Jocelin Carmes

music: Once Blue Now That I've Disappeared







Thursday, January 19, 2023

American Girl In Euro Kicks

 

After midnight on the narrow street
high on a memory magnolia sweet
like a magnet where you don't belong
smiling lady sings a lonesome song

Across the plaza, under the bridge
where the cognoscenti live
down where a butterfly becomes a dove
what in the devil are you thinking of?

No mashed potato, no lime and gin
where the crows get black
sleep on the foxglove, dream of a peach
on a honey stack.

Hands like a swan's wing, feet like a hoof
slip the landlord, sleep on the roof
and in the morning, fleece the mark
mix with the rando's who live in the park

No chocolate candies, no baseball game
where the crows count six
collect the cats eyes, call off the dogs
keep the licorice sticks.
______

Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Word Garden Word List--William Wordsworth

 

Hello poets! This week we're going to delve into the realm of dead poets so get your shovels and follow me. Ah, here we are, William Wordsworth! Haul him out of there, come on. Hey Bill! 

There are certain poems of his that move me and that I love, or at least like a lot. Here is one of them:


However, I often find Wordsworth to be a bit precious and pretty. Daffodils, did I take my pills, did I sign my will, time to take up my quill and be brill. 


Nevertheless, William has kindly provided us with a wonderful word list! What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and steep in the marvelous tea of your accomplishment! One lump or two? 

Your list!

bewildered
blackbird
doleful
dotage
fleece
foxglove
harmony
hoof
inmate
insensate
language
lucid
magnolia
obscure
overgrown
random
stately
surveyed
tired
yellow

Sunday, January 15, 2023

As I Said


As I said
in confidence
as i said 
from a holy book
as i said
at the emegence
as I said 
but could not look

These are the days of the Autumn's fall
These are the days of lead.

As i said
when we heard the trumpet sound
as i said
as i held your hand
as i said
as we knelt to kiss the ground
of this long-abandoned land

These are the days of the flying bird
These are the days of gold.

As i said
in bent and rusty words
as i said
with fingers crossed
as i said
to saints and conjurers
as i said
when  all was lost

These are the days of the swollen bud
and the bloom of scarlet red. 
_______

I dreamed this poem last night, or the main part of it anyway. 

Shared with The Sunday Muse #242

Thursday, January 12, 2023

The Legend of Large Larry Lilliput


 The Hollywood heavy left the bughouse
to become a public gangster,
then dynamited the studio
out of some imagined rancor.

"I am the King of the Eskimos!"
he declared with eyes gone glassy
and wore in his hair a plastic rose
convinced it looked quite classy.

His career was a catastrophe
playing ghouls and goons
but they say he gained some mastery
in the place where they count the spoons.

After a time, he married a mime
who made crickets seem loquacious.
They had nine kids--one sublime
and the other eight pugnacious.

He coughed and keeled and passed away
in the middle of his biggest caper.
You can't even visit his grave today--
he vanished into vapor!
______

posted with profuse apologies to Alicia Suskin Ostriker, the subject of this week's Word Garden Word List

The image is of Lon Chaney Sr. 

Music: Betty Booom & Ashley Slater Spooky Scary Skeletons



Wednesday, January 11, 2023

Word Garden Word List--Alicia Suskin Ostriker

 

Hello my loves, you marvelous rabble you. It is time once again for your Word List, and this time the words are all taken from the poetry collection The Crack In Everything by award-winning poet Alicia Suskin Ostriker. 

The title may well sound familiar. It is taken from Leonard Cohen's magnificent song Anthem, and Ostriker quotes and credits it at the beginning of the book. "There is a crack, a crack in everything; that's how the light gets in." (I have seen this quote attributed to Ernest Hemingway, but that's inaccurate. Hemingway did write "The world breaks everyone, and afterward many are strong at the broken places." I am well familiar with this quote because I have it framed on my living room wall.)


Ms. Ostriker has been called "America's most fiercely honest poet" and collects awards like your Aunt Mildred collects Hummels. She is a Jewish feminist poet whose writing once prompted a visiting professor to sputter, " You women poets are very graphic, aren't you?" I suppose it made him twitchy for a woman to tell the truth about her life, her body, her experience, and to do it without sugar coating. A woman after my own heart!

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of one's own. Then just link, visit others, and sit back in smug satisfaction. Enjoy!

And now, your list:

bees
bughouse
catastrophe
cerulean
cottonwoods
cricket
dynamited
Eskimo
feathery
flamenco
foam
glassy
goons
gorgeous
mime
public
razor
samba
sicko
zinnias


Tuesday, January 10, 2023

Space Shuttle Challenger

 

"You always have to be different." --my mother's bitter complaint.
My tricycle mind,
up to its seat springs in rocket fuel. 
That will make you different
and confused
and terrified. 

'What do you see at night when you close your eyes?" I asked my older brother. 
"Nothing. What do you see?"
Oh, colors, crazy colors, a shifting kaleidoscope
and sometimes 
scary things.
I can't make them stop
and I lay awake to escape the turning, appearing, revolving, staring.

Later, older, I tried dragging and drugging
my heels, alcohol,
but Challenger blew up and sprayed across the sky.
I watched on tv and saw my inside outside.
I was a baby writer
and once upon a pair of wheels
I wrote crazy stories for friends who asked if I wrote them high.
I wrote them sober,
then got high to stop.

Later still, I set down the drink and slept with the light on for years,
prone to night terrors and ptsd.
I embraced the Church of Regular Meals,
subscribed to the doctrine of Keep Coming Back.
Slowly, my world came into phase
with a job
a spouse
a child
but, tame as a housecat, no more bright crashes to watch at night.

Even later, single again, child grown, lost in my own skin,
I set out to find out if it's really like riding a bike.
"Give me all of your dreams, you dreamer," said Langston Hughes
and I met myself 
in the interstices
between this world and some other.
Totally amazing mind
as my Cranberries fan friend said of me
and helped me learn to ride the rocket
to these lines
and this life
where I dive into the deep end
fearless
A
F.
_____

I'm floating in a most peculiar way/
and the stars look very different today 

for Dverse Poetics: Visionary Poetry, hosted by Ingrid. 

find The Dream Keeper by Langston Hughes HERE

Music: the Cranberries "Dreams"





Saturday, January 7, 2023

The Boffin


 Of course, we all fumble at first,
doofing up out of our childhood like baby turtles.

There it is, all at once, 
the Sea of Love,
and we scramble for it, driven by
instinct
movies
pop songs
and our own bodies bolting away with us.

But that's kid stuff.
At some point we think we've got it,
that we've become some sort of love boffin
smug in the sugar bowl of partnered mid-life.
Look! No hands! 
Up on the two-wheeler and thinking NASA needs us.
Oh, little turtle, little turtle rules the waves. 

Hang your heart on the sawtooth coat hook a few times
and all that changes. 
You find out you married a Matryoshka,
a total stranger.
Big and slow, you're back out there among the hatchlings,
drinking too much
doing stupid things to your hair,
fumbling again, tangled in the seaweed,
wishing you were dead.

Oh little boffin, doofing up out of Love's trash can,
now you know how much you never knew.
What was it all for?
You'll find the answer to that when your own grown child
sits crying at the kitchen table, saying mom it hurts so much.
You'll reach out, try to wick away their pain, and helplessly say,
I know,
honey,
I know.
_______


Music: Tom Waits Sea of Love



Friday, January 6, 2023

Crescent Moon

 


There is a crescent moon beneath my heart
and a thorn placed by Saint Genevieve
wrapped in tissue paper and delivered 
by her hand from a golden sleeve. 

The orchards stand a foot in flood
and the sun denies the vines
as crowns deny Saint Genevieve
to wander dumbstruck blind.

The crescent moon beneath my heart
reflects in switchgrass reeds
and rolls like fog across the stars
that sent Saint Genevieve.
______

unprompted but shared with Dverse OLN hosted by Linda Lyberg

Saint Genevieve is the patron saint of Paris and her feast day was this past week, January 3rd. 

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

Word Garden Word List--Keith Reid (extended for an encore engagement!)


 Hello friends and welcome back to Word Garden Word List after our collective Christmas break! Let other prompt sites continue to slumber and laze, we are ready to write!

As the old year wanes, my mind turned to thoughts of the many marvelous people we lost in 2022. One of these was Procol Harum lead man Gary Brooker, famous for the song "A Whiter Shade of Pale.' The song is unique in many respects, not least of which are its Bach-like organ lines, Gary Brooker's weathered, weary-sounding singing, and the intelligent, poetic lyrics by this week's featured writer, lyricist Keith Reid. 


I had not realized that Gary Brooker didn't write the intriguing lyrics for his band's songs; this was done by Keith Reid, who--like poet Peter Brown with Cream--was not a playing member of the band he wrote lyrics for, but whose words left an indelible impression when heard. As regards the famous "Whiter Shade of Pale", Reid has said that he heard someone saying to another person at a party, "You've turned a whiter shade of pale." The rest, as they, say, is history. Furthermore, name me another pop song that references Chaucer's "The Miller's Tale." Bubblegum this is not. 

What we do here is to take at least 3 of the 20 words I've taken from the lyrics of Keith Reid and use them in a new original poem of your own. Then link up, visit others, and bask in a smug feeling of stellar accomplishment! 

And now, your list!

blade
cartwheels
cuffs
descended
explore
ghostly
Homburg
humming
jeer
maze
mortal
multilingual
overcoat
purity
replace
seasick
stallion
tale
wandered
wept

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Hymn For Homeless Ghosts

 If I could lay hands on a visa 
issued by lost grandfathers--
some kind of ticket scented 
with summer dirt roads--
then I would wear a hat made of dandelions and leave.

The present moment
is just a rented room. 
Poor child, 
yesterday has vanished,
today was born already packing its case,
and tomorrow is asleep in a distant curtained chamber.

It was just a moment ago,
just a breath, when I was
new in the world and believed the world new as well.
Whose hand was on the door
that was closing even as it opened,
wearing the vanishing morning like fleeting fashion?

If I had a passport
made of more than shifting memory,
I would take a hired car
to shores where the waters say,
"Where have you been
delayed so long,
and why dear heart do you ask, through tears, 
                                                     to be told your own name?
_______________


Music: Cesaria Evora Sodade