Harbinger Harbor

 

Squeaky critters squirting along the knoll.

The recurring squirrels of course;

but chipmunks, voles and field mice too.

Those silent squeakers please as well--

snowdrops, crocuses, daffodils—

nodding still-lifes who also get the nod.

A dog’s woof, cats cutting bluebirds’ throats.

The wet laughter of other men’s daughters.

Sparkles necklacing the monkey-faced lake.

The ridiculous surge of glee that not 

even a billion bell-jars can muffle.

 

The air is abuzz with reasons

to wallow in it, innit?

Anyone in front of a computer screen

right now, indoors or outdoors,

is dead inside and outside.

This is at least what the birds are singing.

Like a candid lover the sun sees

our vulnerabilities and seizes our flaws

Just in time to improve them by disproving them.

Due to its chrome hue, the grackle

is literally packing heat.

Whereas the cops, thugs and zealots

are merely carrying redundant weapons.

Geese race across the lake

thrilled to be small and at large

while my 400 plus Facebook friends

(myself included: yes, I friended myself)

evaporate and emasculate in demonic synch

with everything they fear. 

“But Fear is trust without parameters

gone awry” conjectures the philosopher

of the urinal; but what he does not know

for certain could fill the Mosquioto Goddess’ Syringe.

This kind of intensity is no longer sustainable,

nor was it ever, but what the serial rapists

and corporate pornographers know

that the rest of mankind is just 

commencing to suss out

is that Mercy wings Both Ways

and that sticks and stones

make love better than we do 

and that the azure malaise above you

is not technically a sky….

and that names will always hurt you.

​

 

I’m a Big Girl Now

 

Trees sparkle and rattle and turn colors

that seem brave but are probably wimpy.

My wedding ring gleams of loyalty and betrayal

and the astonishingly seamless synthesis thereof.

The sky’s agog with gauze and azure and this

is considered both ordinary and breathtaking.

I killed a man in the Alps when I was nine:

tripped him off a precipice for kicks.

To negotiate this senseless negation,

I simply shut my eyes and mouth

and contemplate the above.

​

 

We’re All Plugged in to The Ultimate Unplugging

 

From Barbie to Bambi to Rambo to Maybe

you and I: to each its own zombie seclusion,

zeroing in on the color zero, growing number

as we lose common ground.

There is, however, something to be said

instead of mechanically tweeted;

even the birds, beauty’s  dead-bolts,

can see this.

 

Meantime, the ridiculed calendar reads,

like a dullard at the podium, what remains

of the days of the week: Monday is duct-taped

and thumb-screwed straight out of the gate;

Tuesday is a wheezing obesity;

Wednesday is kidney failure in the park;

Thursday is diversify your polio day;

Friday is interrogation at the burn-ward;

Saturday is an even sadder day

than the one you  have been

commissioned to forget;

Sunday is a suicide picnic

for toddlers in fatigues.

Monday renews its demise,

buckling in clinical despair.

 

The mood is deep and random.

Sailboats suckle panic in the bay.

Cowards float by unannounced.

At the posh gym, senility double-dribbles

into a Best Grandparent Ever teacup.

The monk in the pagoda

brokers karma in a pinch

while the slick lawyer

self-immolates in a hole.

​

Girls stay prettier than imaginable.

Boys simmer into emasculated solace.

The last hitchhiker on the planet

disappears into the top of a tank,

thanking God for God knows what.

 
 

Creative Whining Workshop

 

Oh man, my expectations have been totally shattered.

I came here to accomplish certain stuff and none of that stuff

has happened. I can’t even believe how lame everyone

and everything is. Ow, my ass makes my face look too weird

and my face is always stealing the spotlight from my ass. Gee,

the weather’s so aggressive: it won’t acclimate to my

anticipations.

It keeps doing stuff that isn’t comfortable. Even my pen feels pointless;

the ink is so chaotic and makes me feel lonely. When can I take a pee-break?

I really have to go ASAPee. Ha ha I’m so funny but nobody appreciates it.

Everyone is so occupied with their own narratives, I feel so isolated.

Dammit life is a jerk! It keeps squeezing and squeezing my feelings

and won’t even take the time to apologize. When I get home I’m so

Gonna ignore everyone until they figure out why I’m so upset.

My Frust-ratio is like ten to one right now: I’m just not into this,

no I am not.

​

Snow Mantra

​

The wry effort of a winter morning

to communicate a purposeful calm to its shivering victims,produces the snowman:

white baron of numbed glee.

Among its inestimable functions,

the snowman is a metaphor

for the poet’s relation to poetry:

a swollen blank eyeballing schoolgirls

and churning muffled decibels

which are marketed as the noise of poise.

Good that their only following

are the ones they follow; and this too

is natural as neglect and response.

Dialing their hang-ups is how they connect

and for this they are to be

forgiven if not forgotten.