A former place this, a patch where roots rattle,
where stubble has a ferrous frizzle.
A long-truncated railroad stop
humming still with a faded reality.
As dry voices on the wind, they return
- the homesteaders and journeymen,
the harnessed horses.
Pants' cuffs carry kernels
long planted elsewhere.
Caps, coats, and carts
Sweat, rustle and creak,
an invisible locomotion of leaving and arrival.
employed upon an iron labor.
The tall dry weeds are talkative.
Brown boots seem to shuffle
as they wait here or idle.
A hollow clock clacks,
its innards now
are a nest for ticking birds.
Dandelions anticipate twirling flight
under a corn fed sun.
A mid-day heat thrums fragmented rails.
The station seems almost ready
to receive
as if its bygone world
had not forever disembarked.
Normal people come in packs of six
Some are born in cardboard boxes
In suburbs, in summer, in campers
In the middle of the middle night
In middle class somewhere on a train
Between clicks and clacks on railroad tracks
Rich people shower frequently in power
In God we trust the upper crust to play
Normal people want mobility Up
To supper in good company
To be pretty as a picture on the beach
To frolic in the waves of milk and honey
With apologies to Jesus people sing
Sometimes flat or in harmony
Sometimes in black and white
In dance, in fire, using gravity
Normal people come in from the cold
Candy sweet and happy to be seen
Some come from baby factories
From across the street in greeting seasons
Middle class people love the poor
They love themselves much more
That is why babies are born
Subways are for pedestrians
With no class and in transition
Travelling from left to right
In nature train people are always in motion
Moving on is always right
The mundane remain the same
With Happy Hour and a six pack waiting
Somewhere down the line the land cracks open
It is another earthquake opened with a smile
What is that central pole
does it hold up a voice like a brazen spine?
And the many rooms
all of them built to be seen
with no modesty nor privacy.
Rooms where the talking clacks
never pausing, never harkening.
There are mouths
in the air free-floating.
This artless architecture, does it say itself
as a poem does?
Or does it clatter and broadcast its presence
turning, revolving as a display will.
There are holes in this unstructured edifice,
holes where mice
go to eat their own bones.
Look! It is a brain, it is calcified
a rabid ego haunts it.
Can it be covered up, subdued, made to speak
only when spoken to?
Or is it a robotic manikin that will drive your being
while you sleepwalk
through its hollow domain?
Dancing with the angels
Whirling around in space
Taking so much comfort from
Each serene unfeatured face,
Spinning like a Dervish,
Grasping the chance
To evolve and develop this
Ever more complex dance.
Higher and higher
Floating away from it all
Until the tether tightens
And I begin to fall,
Leaving behind the heavens,
Falling back instead
Into the sterile environment
Of my equipment festooned bed.
The machine clacks and ticks
Supporting what used to be me:
Please please turn it off
Please just set me free.
The angels are still waiting
And I know now in advance
The awaiting joys and delights
Of the angels when they dance
Normal people come in packs of six
Some are born in cardboard boxes
In suburbs, in summer, in campers
In the middle of the middle class
In clicks and clacks on railroad tracks
Rich people shower frequently in power
In God we trust the upper crust to laugh
Normal people want mobility Up
To supper in good company
To be pretty as a picture on the beach
To frolic in the waves of milk and honey
With apologies to Jesus people sing
Some dance in fire merrily
Normal people come in from the cold
Candy sweet and happy to be seen
Some come from baby factories
From across the street in greeting seasons
Middle class people love the poor
They love themselves much more
That is why babies are born
Subways are for the pedestrian class
Travelling from left to right transformative
In nature train people are always in motion
Moving on is always right
The mundane remain the same
With Happy Hour and a six pack waiting
Somewhere down the line the land cracks open
It is another earthquake opened with a smile
I am rooting for Snidely Whiplash
Tie up sweet Nell and give her a gnash.
Silly Dudley Do-Right
Simply isn’t that bright.
Snidely, turn him into cornmeal mash.
Good villain, it is your turn to win.
Wipe off Dudley Do-Right’s ridiculous grin.
Leave her on the tracks
With their clickety clacks
Follow me, Whiplash. Do I hear an Amen?
Dust wraps him from his head to toe;
What more? - He's to bite the bullet,
For he's been busted by his foe;
Dust wraps him from his head to toe
And rusts his heart. Is that his flaw?
He clacks like a little pullet.
Dust wraps him from his head to toe;
What more? - He's to bite the bullet.
Chosen title: Bite the bullet
Nov. 1, 2020
Pick-A-Title, Vol 24 - Triolet - Poetry Contest
Contest Sponsor: Edward Ebeh
This eulogy is glued-together CliffsNotes.
Summing up his eighty-two years.
Only the happy tones are used.
Nothing about the blackout drinking rampages.
The black and blue spouse and children.
That affair with the babysitter.
The push down the pregnant stairs.
The many sudden clacks and clangs
Those strange pangs in the darkness.
On this day, it's only the happy stuff being spewed.
The big pink clumps of cotton candy and clown flowers
The wonderful puffs of funeral parlor smoke.
The fabric of a superhero unveiled.
Many of us sitting here know the truth.
He was no superhero; he was a super monster-
A complete waste of cells and formaldehyde.
We wait patiently for this verbal charade to burn itself out.
A former place this, a patch where roots rattle,
where stubble has a ferrous frizzle.
A long truncated railroad stop
humming still within a surrogate reality.
As dry voices on the wind, they return
- the homesteaders and journeymen,
the harnessed horses.
Pants' cuffs carry kernels
long planted elsewhere.
Caps, coats, and carts
employed again by the magnetic
echos of an iron labor.
The brown weeds are talkative.
Brown boots seem to shuffle.
A hollow clock clacks,
its guts a nest for ticking birds.
Dandelions anticipate
a faraway flight,
A mid-day heat
thrums fragmented rails.
The station seems almost ready
to receive
as if its world
had not disembarked forever.
I may not see the Wind,
But I know it's there.
I see it in a shaking leaf
The moving clouds
The empty soda can as it
Clackety clacks down the street.
I feel the Wind as a Summer's breeze
I see it's force in a hurricane and tornado.
Without the Wind,
my sails would be lifeless,
My mill wouldn't turn,
My kite wouldn't fly.
Wind....just because I don't see you,
does not mean you don't exist....
The Manzanita clacks in
gelid breezes
like the clap of clacking bones.
Reddish painted branches
reach their grey, bent shadows
on stone from
hulking, brewing
drifting welkins.
Peeling, crackled, weathered
bark
grasp, grind and intertwine
gnarled fingers as they rasp and clonk.
Silhouetted by the yawning flame
dipping low,
dances the macabre branches,
on a stage glacial white with
winter snow.
Toy trains rolling ‘round the tracks
With its funny clicks and clacks
Gifts with paper ripped apart
Chosen with love from the heart
Golden turkey nice and hot
Eggnog, some with, some with not
Pies and puddings stomach bound
Children gathered all around
Don’t forget the doggy treats
Ensuring everyone eats
Christmas with laughter and cheer
Only comes but once a year
the chimney stacks
of the old power station
claws at the belly of the clouds
and with its sulfurous billowing
it bellows its stench
tinting the clouds, yellowing nicotine stains
as its cadaverous fingers clench
and releases, as it pleases
the painted nails
sport red flashing lights
as the bellowing smoke
for airspace fights
the dawn is cracked open
under the grey steam-pot lid
like a rotten egg
and the horizon is broken
into blocks
between the pedestal legs
of the spindly chimney stacks
progress clangs and clacks
on blood-rusted
unused train-tracks
the scars of progress on an old landscape
- weals healed over in ageless veldts
whilst weeds pimple between the stays
a last gasp of green displays
the gangrene death
of nature
oozing from the suture
as we break the past
to build the future
Woman! darkly gleam is your work I esteem…love it!
From mountainous mountain top to valley‘s belly
I hear you pluck…on eagle‘s wings…onward pluck
How nice, your device visits and forces in their smelly
Glamorous cells, a glad evening‘s grief to run amok.
Then ever, of flowing emotions savour. Oh their deeds befit!
Skip a stride, hop a stride, and gleefully grin upon
Their seeds too – in their please full bliss and homely homes.
But a seed… …he who wears my face and is adorn
With a talking tongue like that of his majesty Jerome‘s;
When you, him happen upon, spare an empty glance. Clickaty-clacks too,
Mine ears must hear not near. And my nose, free must it be of your flu!
On scribbled accounts, oh read, ever shall you in your shrine;
And content shall I be having inked my fourteenth line.
The tall girl with skinned knees hair of straw
Shirley ‘the hag’
Her voice cracks when she talks
Skinny torn knees knock when she walks
She will flavor all Shirleys to come
Her face above left or right of any Shirley
When the hag skips rope
She clacks like a bag of bones
Dirty hair flops
Singing a school room tune
“The frog he would a wooing go’
It fits…….ho ho
Just wait for the rope to tangle
Frog voice break
The descent like a tinkertoy tower
Knees all mangled
Feel sorry then
When tears streak her bony face
Shirley ‘the hag’
Poor skinny baby
To the office run with broken stilts
Stumble again
Ripped to the bone maybe
..................................................................................................
For Robert Dufresne, my humor-loving friend
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