Fast Day 212 June 25 2011 {Looking To The Mainland} second draft

Looking To The Mainland

On our island, no one fixes things no more:
Joe Blackbird and his sons used to come
to do some work, but Homeland
Security keeps them out;
they don't come to Sans Souci much now.
The Border Patrol comes now and then
looking for the Chinese they say,
smuggled from Canada.

once a Coast Guard chopper
its searchlight on a hollow, empty
rowboat, Evinrude lashed to the side,
round and round in circles
a thousand guys from China
come ashore a couple miles down
while everybody watched a boat...
going round in vicious circles...

We had a party line;
our ring was two shorts and a long.
nothing works much here anymore...
... like living in Baghdad
Sometimes you talk to a neighbor...
Phone rings now, someone wants your money.
In Grandma's day there was a train
and we would wave to the engineer.

rails are all gone
only thing left is
the road named Short Cut.
Deer herds eat our flowers, and people
have given up planting them.
There are enormous herds of deer
that are taking over after our human history...
praying round and round in circles
the mantra of the empty boat.

--
pix: http://www.jillwagnerart.com/artblog/fishermans-island-view/


notes:


Sans Souci  - a very, very small Michigan town. The name is French and means "without a  care".

Fast Day 211 June 12 2011 {Sweat on Velvet}

 Sweat on Velvet

The shameless excitement of sweaty skin
fracturing fluids upon a velvet couch!
Moaning like the breath that is blown
across a wide-mouthed jug!
Besom of hair wiping
fast as flames lick!

Her hairy vampire lovers like the dark;
I am mid-day sun and dry myself upon
hot backyard clotheslines where I pin
her love's humid mitten!
We show up on Doppler!
like...  it's pouring!


--
for the week June 12 through June 19

fracturing - hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, etc.
--

This Week

I am going to be pre-occupied, so I did the poem quick-like, and will post it early early.

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Fast Day 210 June 11 2011 {Islands in the Sea}

Islands in the Sea

Incubus of night, nightmare worry,
favored by the moon tonight
I stride the deck
far away from home
adrift in uncertainty.

Succubus of day, demon of the noon,
tumble aft! tumble everyone!
mind your helm –
top’s’l halliards let fly!
We drive before the gale!

The treacherous archipelago
once fertile isles, haunted by ghosts
of animals extinct;
asphalt palm trees –
and mad men on the hills!

--
I  could have said "... mad men on the Hill."
--

Welcome Matt

I mean, welcome to "Matt at Shadow of Iris"... that's what I mean.

Since no one comments anymore, I shall do my own comments. I find my most recent effort too contrived. The poet strains at being inventive. But there is a great deal I like, particularly the quatrains titled by the seasons of the year. Perhaps I have found my voice... or a voice, at least.

Comments are appreciated, particularly critical comments. Criticism well intended makes us stronger.

--

Fast Day 209 June 5 2011 {No One Lives Here Anymore}

No One Lives Here Anymore


Autumn
There is probably good walking in the woods;
ground a little frozen now,
and you will not sink away…
we could go there now, if you wish

New Year’s Day is in the autumn months, I think September;
school orchards are applefull of sapling-kids,
sporting uniforms
of bright leaves and mystic stick hair:
trees untouched by axe or ootamuhikun –
or tomahawk; trees unburnt, unscathed:
trees untired of standing, trees not weary
of the diadem of fruit
upon their pollard heads.

Winter
The pigment of snow has white-washed all the land;
make sure the snowshoe
line that goes across the toes
is firmly drawn and taut, if you please.

Ozzie and Harriet kitchen, a dated memory
of cabinets and counter-tops; June Cleaver
in the woodwork and
Ward Cleaver in the telephone:
“Hi, Doc! Can you come over? The boys
got into some trouble: David skinned his
knee, and Ricky got into drugs and died
in an aeroplane meth lab,
and Beaver went to ‘Nam… “

Spring
When the weather warms, my daughter’s often sick
the cold has passed away,
the solstice comes, I suppose…
and great bird cloud-trains fill the air.

I have some stockings and some leggings, and I take them off:
I no longer run in the morning cold;
breeze to my back, my
sweat poured until I turned to face
full western brute blasting wind, and I was
encased in carbonite like Han Solo,
zero to the bones, my crotch frozen
like a marble Gothic architrave
hung over a nave of sleet -
spring-melting into igloo dust.

Summer
There are frogs within the newly dug basements
of houses abuilding…
dusk smell of concrete and pond…
houses never to be sold!

--

“ootamuhikun” = tomahawk (Cree Indian).
“applefull” = as full or crowded as an apple tree in the autumn

“mystic stick” = mistik or mistikoos (Cree Indian): a small stick, referring here to new branches on saplings, and comparing them to a child’s hair.
“cloud-trains” = long lines of birds flying through the clouds. The original meaning of “train” was large linear group of objects.

Poetus Interruptus

I shall probably be late posting this week's poem, although not late getting it together. I am at may parents, helping my father get back on his feet after pneumonia and working to get their summer place ready. Neither place provides any Internet connection. I used a Sprint card before, but recently it tends to get picked up by the Canadian system, and incurs roaming charges, making it expensive.

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