Fast Day 282 October 27 2012 {Gardens and Deer}

Gardens and Deer

Exile songs of Deer in Babylon,
it is so sad;
they come around and eat the flowers that we
try to grow;
those they ignore are cut
by mowing madness soon…
The deer eat the hosta down to the stem,
leaving a nest of wispy pre-raphaelite quills
like precocious
and flippant rosetti…
like Ophelia pennants – thin
and hazarding the wind.

So I waited up for them one night,
gun in hand,
to stop their eating of the flowers that we
try to grow;
and I shall cut them down
by rifle and the moon…
beyond midnight they came, all three of them,
we unflinching stood staring each other... they spoke:
mystery gard’ner!
bone-cave keeper!
bounteous god, let us see
your garden immortality!

--
needless to say, I let them eat the rest of the gardens.

Fast Day 12 August 25, 2007 {Going Extinct}

It's a hard rain and a bloody heck lot of poems gonna fall!



One thing about fasting, it makes one grouchy. With me, nobody catches on to the difference.





Going Extinct

It means not having to get up in the morning and go to work;
you may wear a sweat suit all day
(and not even sweat)
and people treat you a lot nicer than
they ever did when you were quick
and in their face
and competing for limited resources

People offer you a seat on the subway or on the bus.
Everyone says “Yes, sir.” and “No, thank you, Ma’am.”
and “Fine day, sir.”
and they don’t give you dirty looks when
you mistakenly think them manure
or even worse
a carnivore’s meal, yum!

People sit around in bars and say what a great guy you were.
while you willow-whisp like Patrick Swayze,
looking for your Whoopi
and she not there…
and you go and cry in yer beer
so amber colored
and see your phone number in the john later!

Nobody returns your phone calls anymore. No one cares.
Ever the passenger pigeons of your desire
go unanswered.
The Yangtze dolphin and the Dodo sit and drool
ignored in the corridor all day
and you gaze forever
at Hasim’s Curry Palace across Lawrence Street.