Pumpkins, Hornets and Dinosaurs

 

 

 

 

 

 

Our Trance

 

There he was, drunk as Baudelaire

and twice as fishy when

he unbuttoned the pearled rain from

my shoulders. I'd eaten stars

for dinner, so I didn't care

if it was a trance. 

That night

we were happy as pumpkins.

 

 

 

 

 

Archeology In The Dark

After millions of years, archeologists

found the dinosaurs

playing poker and spinning poems

in the tar. "We never knew we were lost,"

said the dinosaurs, "but thanks

anyway."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Funeral At The Old House

The old house was full of hornets that morning.

Hornets cooked the breakfast( ham and eggs

and mealworms.) Hornets washed the dishes

and went out for funeral groceries.

Hornets paid the bills and mailed them

with the correct postage. They mean well

but they sting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Lucky

 

I keep wondering how

I got shut in with Frankenstein

and the old blind man

who ceaselessly 

lights candles while Frankenstein

smokes all his cigars.

Just lucky, I guess.

 

 

February 2022

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

posted for Shay's Word List #12

Richard Brautigan 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bonus: My favorite poem by Brautigan:

 

 

 

 

" Lions are growing like yellow roses on the wind

and we turn gracefully in the medieval garden of their roaring blossoms.

Oh, I want to turn.

Oh, I am turning.

Oh, I have turned.

Thank you."

 

 

~from Rommel Drives Deeper Into Egypt, by Richard Brautigan 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images:Pumpkinhead Self-Portrait, 1972, © Jamie Wyeth  Fair Use

Illustration of dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous.© Jorge Gonzalez Fair Use

Vielles Maisons, 1920 © Helene Guinepied    Fair Use

Still from Bride of Frankenstein, 1935, Universal Pictures  Public Domain

Roses and Beetle, 1890, © Vincent Van Gogh   Public Domain   

Several Pleasures

 

 

 

 

 

 

Several Pleasures

 

 

 

I've never found anything perfect

except a flower once that never died.

It swiveled in the sun's slow swing

slept in snow, woke for the Bride

in spring, plush and wild each year from

drinking sky.

 

I've never had anything last

except that flying summer of love for light

where children briefly burned their hungry fear;

that spark became the wildfire of my life.

Its living fire keeps me whole tonight

protected from the winter-walking years.

I've never had a dime I didn't spend

except the gold we minted for love's pay.

Spendthrifts can lose a fortune in a day,

yet keep it all in a sun-vault of a safe

with two last coins for final fare on eyes

that see their dreams at last without disguise.

 

 

 

 

 December 2021

 

 

 

 

posted for dVerse Poets

Open Link

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Narcissus 'Sir Winston Churchill' © joyannjones 2014

Dancing couple, featured on the cover of Newsweek magazine, Woodstock Festival, Bethel, New York, 1969. © Jim Marshall Photography LLC  Fair Use

 

Way(ra)s Of The Past

 

 

 

Way(ra)s Of The Past

 

 I.

 

There is a road, cold

as stark nightmare's mane, weaving

a winding-sheet memory

choke-tight, wringing the eyes

dry, smearing the heart, called the past.

 

II.

 

There is a tollway

never cheated by moonlight

never unwatched by day. Don't

squander your soul walking

down it; the past collects its debts.

 

 

 

 

 

November 2021

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 posted for dVerse Poets

Poetry Form: The Wayra

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Images: Footsteps, 2016, © Joshua Philip Hart

Photograph of the Author, 1956, photographer unknown,  Public Domain

Half Moon

Half Moon

We each painted half the moon's face--

dark spots, smile, comet trace,

arched an eyebrow's meteoric lace,

ruffled her collar with snow

half-past the wing of a crow:

a clown sky-high, half-seen, half-blind,

cut in two but made to shine

above where we curved and brushed,

undone but artful in the grassy dust
as colors turned to black-white bands.

I was nothing but

the sketch of your hands,

the charcoal lines of that touch

distracted with flowers

that outlines the landscape of lust;

half the clown moon shone for hours,

half set. The firefly's wineglass blinked bright--

half-light, half-dark, half-light--

synced with locusts' paintbrush legs

there where I came to beg

your grace for half a day

and was not turned away.

 ~April 2015

If you'd like to hear the poem read by the author, please click below:

posted for      real toads

Challenge: Going Halfsies

That mistress of  winsome elephants. Karin Gustafson (ManicdDaily) asks us to contemplate the concept of halves, and also of  Mae West, sex and silver linings. There is a little bit of most of that here, in a jack of all trades-master of none sort of way.

Optional Musical Accompaniment

Image: Detail; Clown For the Adventure of the Lacemaker and the Rhinoceros, 1958, Salvador Dali
Fair use via wikiart.org