Saturday, January 26, 2019

Demi Sleep Cinema (poetry)





 





 
Demi Sleep Cinema
 
 
 
 
blood spurt supernova
men cut themselves with crab claws
iron age cosmos
 
eastern slope of the ice shelf goes south
the swells export one to ice land
the universe forgot it was there
no one is forcing you to listen to it
ancient air bubbles escape
along the borders of the brain
sounds from the next room the others
radio reaches the end of the classical repertoire
the four dimensions
vivaldi's green velvet lp jacket
long player of the wind in an aeloean house
the maze of hallways
stairway to a cul-de-sac
skylight shingled-over 
pot-bellied stove a vast passage
microcosm of the embers
shudder to think of crossing
snow pastures toward winter
after the stormfront left ice
doppleganger world remains
trees stand here for hundreds of years
one knows what to expect
wheeling skies full of bugs
or perfect clouds of plenty
glaciers left boulders just so
scoured the resurgent earth
the three layers within
an invisible carapace
protects our planet
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Edgar Poe stood at the foot of my cradle
looked for him later in Providence
among the spectral old houses
Young and given to folly
I fell in love with melancholy
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Three mere sleeping bags
cold sidewalk near full shelter
nowhere else to go
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Looking above for
super bloody werewolf moon
a face full of rain
 
 
 
 
 
Civil defense burst
into a hayden concerto
with flash flood warning
 
 
 
 
 
 
the rain storm pauses
6 am train traffic blares
earthquake shakes my bed
 
 


 
 
 
 piscine blimp trolls
bay side mount tamalapais
in limitless sky
 
 




 
 
Dream of a jet liner
flying too low over Berkeley
out of my gray window of morning
watch it follow the horizon ominously
crashes far off screen
somewhere south smoke ensues
rising from the crash site
can't get window open to look
grotesque black clouds form
entities overhead
 
Someone in my room
in the aftermath
a young man I tell him
to get out
he leaves then I find
his keys and phone device
he's in the hallway
leaving another apartment
and I give it to him
cute young man but
he didn't knock
 
Later a young couple and
a sad street kid are there
I tell the urchin to go
when he argues over
no cigarette-smoking
The couple remain silently
watching the disaster clouds
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Fretwork
(Notes in English
after Arthur Rimbaud)
 
Not as frisky, not so frivolous
still a frisson to fritter hours
 a bench beneath fritillary flowers
to frolic like frogspawn in a frock coat
Yet fretful of friendly society
the friction the frightful frippery
A Freudian friar on Fridays
fried to a fricassee
by the frills and the frizz
of fringe benefits
A frisbee in the fronds
o my friend
there are no friends
 
 
 
 
 
 
Land of the Cave Bear
 
The fort made of rafts sleeps four
impregnable but for the concealed
entrance to a cave underground
Ten men came into remote wilderness
By five river rafts that fitted together
to form a cube with no door
 
Bad spirits here say the natives
Said to be a lost land of cave bears
Lynx grow to enormous size
Snowshoe paws the size of pillows
Formidable wolverines hold their ground
The Arctic wolf betrayed by scat
 
The fort has slits plugged
with removable slabs of glass
to let in light keep out cold
to permit guns extended
The rafts made of timber
soaked in pitch not subject to flame
under extreme conditions only
by then an empty fort
 
Rumble of hibernating bears
reverberates in the network of caves
 cold subterranean lungs
barely perceptible almost beyond hearing
beyond the light of the torch
 
After building the fort six men
left on foot to rotate back in a year
Four stay for the somber duration
and mine a McGuffin they leave with
when the relief arrives
Yet the men had been tracked back
by evil men working for the rapacious rich
Those that survive a horrendous animal attack
find the fort and lay in watch
can't figure the wood smoke chimney
what it means how they may come and go
the other exit in an rock outcrop unknown
 
 
Decide it's the mine entrance they seek
Their attack is repelled after
death and a fatal wounding soon to die
 
The fort over the earth portal
where the four men sleep
under sweeping torqueing northern lights
 
A night when a 15 foot bear
prowls the roof
sniffing the smoke
 
 
 





Tall ship made of ice
not as first imagined
as a ship encased in ice
but carved of ice
seen translucent in the slow sunlight
elephantine sculpture

Mountain made into a bust
of a leader barely remembered
the tall ship made of ice
narrows down to the water line
then gradually blossoms out
into a vast undersea iceberg

How was it fashioned?
for what possible use or purpose
the ice berg ship proceeds
silently through glacial canyons
a luxury cruise of the damned
no good can come of filthy wealth

An orchestra on deck under borealis
perfervid dancers
fall into the sea heedlessly
off of a retracting esplanade
each couple in turn
interior of shooting gallery

black and white Hollywood back lot








what are my dreams?
my dreams are unseen
the virtual situation is this
echoes in tiled rooms
bells from the steeples below







 
 
 January 2019
 
 



 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Saturday, January 5, 2019

Escape Attempts (poetry)















Escape Attempts
 
 
When it is discovered
that I had a crystal skull
there will be parades
some burros with accordions
boll weevils may undermine
my canonization
questioning
my pre-lapsarian atavism
the webbed practice
poetry that can swim
an effort to get past
the past
 
Ultramarine Mary
Our Lady of the Seas
Seen against
the vanta black night
The thrilling colors
of darkness
 
 
 
 
the night flow
is tremendous
unavoidable with days so brief
inevitably I'm swept out on it
to oppose the system of the stars is futility
storm door banging in the wind
unoccupied houses with the TV on
showing footage of the winds on fritzy screens
children in R.E.M. state vibrate imperceptibly
distant highway not far enough away
silence approached by snow
hibernation in glacial caves
the cave bear eats you to stay warm
store fuel for long months in the void
barefoot in the chilly green grass I see a trail
bird populations empty my behind into the sky
a scrim of clouds outlined in winter sunlight
an ovation of estuarial trees
 
the one I searched for isn't here any longer
so one searches for the one that's left
one continuous field of the mind's movement
with conflicting and confluent patterns
the opened envelope exists
in a universe of love and darkness
epistle from the limitless
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
fake white Xmas tree
looks out of the police station
as lonely as me
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
New Year's Day
 
I've had enough of this day
for a lifetime
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
So-called evangelicals
weaponize so-called
Christianity
 
 
 
 
 
Mew and mewl are synonyms
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Notes in English
(after Arthur Rimbaud in U.K.)
 
Wiretap
 
Wish fulfillment
The winsome wino wore winkle-pickers
and a winning wing collar was wired
for the witching hour wisecrack
a wise guy with wind and wit
wistful well-wishers await his wink
his wisdom a wisp of his wiring
wing-mirror washed with weeping
a wiseacre fakir a witch-doctor
his wintry winnowing wingspan
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Christmas Observed Today
 
Crab Cove to the Point
 
Gone are the avian multitudes
of November
Coots an new green earth
a prehistoric way of walking
Santa hat with fishing pole
Middle-eastern lady with
german shepherd boyfriend
her thin scarf woven prismatic
a fiber optic veil
Walking woman in her holiday
best destroyed jeans
Airliner overhead despite
government shut down
How do you tell his dog people
that this is a bird sanctuary
a lone gull passes by
handrails into high tide
 Dense gulls cluster over
 remote reed oasis
quietude of the opposite shore
until the next vast flight
 
 
three Chinese walk in a row
with identical dogs at intervals
look like edible Chihuahuas
but may not be
California Xmas kids climb
on the rocky shore
Asian lady in inevitable elf hat
Diving birds fish in three
pop back up in placid water
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Solstice-
January 2019