The workweek has passed like a stone in the night. Happy reading & writing, everybody.
Category: poetry
Dark liquid, as if derived from near Earth’s core. Bitter, hard-hitting high notes, lingering long after, like an aroma carried by smoke.
Sugar-coated almonds at a wedding. You bury the bride in her white dress. While they are nice to look at, you cannot bite on pearls. For instance, I do not need to see an ivory piano on which Mozart played. Or if the piano were situated in a jewelry box, raised up as if on a dais, the otherwise dreamy notes would sound contorted, as if reflected in a funhouse mirror.
My favorite blue towels hang to dry, and I see they are next to threadbare. Over the rack, they seem to have personality (or at least life.) The upshot is there’s still some drying left in them.
After a shower, I get dressed and go to work. I walk across the long street to my office, tired. Back at home, the towels dangle over the rack.
I had mused earlier that the scattered, solitary threads clung to the fabric like jungle animals avoiding a fatal tumble. The threads reminded me of monkey tails. There was also the more disquieting notion of worms on a membrane.
Black coffee in espresso cup resting on saucer atop secondhand book purchased for 25¢. In bed I continue reading Allen Ginsberg’s Planet News. Morning outside: the sun struggles against the clouds. Reminded of Whitman while reading. Reminded of proclamations, with Ginsberg’s text stretching from end to end on page after page. Reminded of Ferlinghetti, with text drizzling downward in thin stacks.
I love the word “strata.” Powerful considering its compactness and all it implies.
I dislike “tethered” because it is contrived. Who do you know who can say it without reprisal?
An age cutoff should apply for the slang “any-who.” Adults who use it should be embarrassed. It is cute only if you are 9.
Destitute for the brush of Bacon, who will depict you in some shunga scrolls. A statue from the Orient with no mind. Your eye shadow the flush tones of Dali. Wedding cake of a face, you sweeten the leaf of Arches. The bugs are dancing beneath your lamp like at a disco.
Sushi as an aesthetic pleasure. Sushi as status symbol. Sushi as art form.
Bluefin tuna doomed. Salmon spoken for. Mackeral and halibut had it. Sea urchin and sardine goners.
My ink spills like whale blood. Embattled octopus.
I hear a phone that is not answered. I listen for some time. The ringtone trails off and seems to leave an echo in my brain.
Where is the owner of the phone. Is he/she still alive. Has something gone wrong or are they merely indisposed.
This might be an important call…
- it’s your boss
- it’s your angry spouse
- it’s your worried mother
- it’s debt collections
- it’s your broke friend
Who calls rather than texts anyhow.
I linger for some time to see how it plays out. Like looking at an empty, banged-up vehicle. Resting by a lamppost after a crash.
