Saturday Poem

From Poets.org today:

The Dead
by Mina Loy

We have flowed out of ourselves   
Beginning on the outside   
That shrivable skin   
Where you leave off   

Of infinite elastic   
Walking the ceiling   
Our eyelashes polish stars   

Curled close in the youngest corpuscle   
Of a descendant   
We spit up our passions in our grand-dams   

Fixing the extension of your reactions   
Our shadow lengthens   
In your fear   

You are so old   
Born in our immortality   
Stuck fast as Life   
In one impalpable   
Omniprevalent Dimension   

We are turned inside out   
Your cities lie digesting in our stomachs   
Street lights footle in our ocular darkness   

Having swallowed your irate hungers   
Satisfied before bread-breaking   
To your dissolution   
We splinter into Wholes   
Stirring the remorses of your tomorrow   
Among the refuse of your unborn centuries   
In our busy ashbins   
Stink the melodies   
Of your   
So easily reducible   
Adolescences   

Our tissue is of that which escapes you   
Birth-Breaths and orgasms   
The shattering tremor of the static   
The far-shore of an instant   
The unsurpassable openness of the circle   
Legerdemain of God   

Only in the segregated angles of Lunatic Asylums   
Do those who have strained to exceeding themselves   
Break on our edgeless contours   

The mouthed echoes of what   
has exuded to our companionship   
Is horrible to the ear   
Of the half that is left inside them.

Tuesday Evening Poem

(I've Got A Brand New) Track Suit
by John Cooper Clarke

Two-tone stretch nylon yellow stripes on navy blue
I got a brand new track suit
I got the old one too
I got the old one too

I got a new track suit
I wear it every day
Keeps me cool and casual
I wore it yesterday

I got a new track suit
I wear it everywhere
Track me down to the training ground
Maybe I'll be there
Maybe I'll be there

Wearing my brand new track suit
Medicine ball to boot
Knee pads, an airline bag
And the overall smell of Brut
The overall smell of Brut

Expert eyes have scrutinized
And scientists agree
One track suit would suffice
But you're better off with three
You're better off with three

Two-tone stretch nylon yellow stripes on navy blue
I got a new track suit
I got the old one-two
I got the old one-two

John Cooper Clarke - Beasley Street

Good heavens.  DD and I were just talking about Klaus Nomi, which got me thinking about a) Urgh! A Music War, and b) John Cooper Clarke. Slam poet/punk rocker.  What a riot!

Monday Poem

From Poets.org:


Spell for Encanto Creek
by Mark Jarman

Tall blades of tufted grasses, keep on flowing.
Towhees like good ideas, keep on flowing.   

Pooled water, black in shadow, green in sunshine,   
With wild olives bending down to drink,

Those figures coming daily to the bridge
To look at their two shadows on your surface,

Keep them returning, keep them coming back.

My Apple Tree

is the point of entry, rendezvous spot for bear, deer, and countless birds.

Today it was a doe, and our cat Minnie stood guard on the front porch, puffed up to scare the deer away.  Or at least keep it at bay.

 

Poetry Daily's Featured Poet: Kelli Russell Agodon

Poetry Daily's Featured Poet: Kelli Russell Agodon

And here is a poem from Kelli's book, Letters from the Emily Dickinson Room, entitled:

If I Ever Mistake You For a Poem~

When Emily Dickinson has a party. . .

My friend and wonderful poet, Kelli Russell Agodon, just had her book, Letters From the Emily Dickinson Room, published by White Pine Press.  It just came out, and is a very beautiful production.

To celebration this occasion, Kelli threw a party, inviting us to come as our own interpretation of Emily, which was great in itself.  Spending the week wondering how I would pull this off. . . I had no idea!

On the day of the party, I was quite busy.  My daughter was here from college for the weekend, and I had booked a haircut appt. for her in Seattle at Vain.  And while that was happening, my son and his friend were at the Seattle Center for Brick Con - the Lego convention.  Having time on our hands before the hair appt., DD and I browsed the Doc Martin store, to get my first (finally, after all these years) pair of Docs.  And, I was able to get a spur-of-the-moment haircut at Vain, as well.  Bash was my hair stylist, and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.  Just our conversation about his travels was treat enough.

So, now armed with new hair and new boots, I knew what *my* Emily was all about.

The party was wonderful.  After a tasty dinner buffet, we were all given images of Emily to cut out and decorate to our liking, and here are some of our ways of saying "Emily."

Thank you, Kelli, for a wonderful evening.  And, check out her book, too!

Tuesday Poem

From Poets.org:

After Apple-Picking
by Robert Frost
My long two-pointed ladder's sticking through a tree Toward heaven still, And there's a barrel that I didn't fill Beside it, and there may be two or three Apples I didn't pick upon some bough. But I am done with apple-picking now. Essence of winter sleep is on the night, The scent of apples: I am drowsing off. I cannot rub the strangeness from my sight I got from looking through a pane of glass I skimmed this morning from the drinking trough And held against the world of hoary grass. It melted, and I let it fall and break. But I was well Upon my way to sleep before it fell, And I could tell What form my dreaming was about to take. Magnified apples appear and disappear, Stem end and blossom end, And every fleck of russet showing clear. My instep arch not only keeps the ache, It keeps the pressure of a ladder-round. I feel the ladder sway as the boughs bend. And I keep hearing from the cellar bin The rumbling sound Of load on load of apples coming in. For I have had too much Of apple-picking: I am overtired Of the great harvest I myself desired. There were ten thousand thousand fruit to touch, Cherish in hand, lift down, and not let fall. For all That struck the earth, No matter if not bruised or spiked with stubble, Went surely to the cider-apple heap As of no worth. One can see what will trouble This sleep of mine, whatever sleep it is. Were he not gone, The woodchuck could say whether it's like his Long sleep, as I describe its coming on, Or just some human sleep.