Long Waterproof Poems

Written in summer of 1976.


I used to eat my lunch with groups
of businessmen from Campbell Soups.

We drank a drink at lunch each day
Of Coca-Cola mixed with hay

And talked of pending corporate plans
And willow-haired orangutans.

I spent...

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My given name is Hortense, and I am an English Professor,
I love my job and my life, and to do my best I endeavor.

I am popular with my students, as I also am with friends;
And...

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LOST IN BRITAIN

Poling, Patching, Nether Wallop, 
Matching Tye and Droop

Plumpton, Lickfold, Puddletown, 
Westward Ho! and Throop.

Hole of Horcum, New Invention,
Boghead, Frome, Cat's Ash

North Piddle, Staines and Pen*stone,
Wash Dyke, East Breast and Flash.

Six Mile Bottom, Mudford...

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Dopey painful I/me had a sudden desire to write!
By Stanley Russell Harris 
The new mad Author
& A Poetry Soup honourably mentioned poet

11-2-17 04.22 hours morphine (M)
04.25 hours on Sunday morning and I’m awake.  
I’m...

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We saved up all our money and finally said, “I do”, looking forward to our marital bliss and honeymoon in Hawaii. I wondered what it would be like to walk hand and hand along the...

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There was a lady in her late thirties

She loved juicy gossip and kitty parties

Kids were two, an older boy and a younger girl

Naughty devils but the lady’s whole world

The lady was always in makeup from...

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After my boat capsized
out in the ocean,
had a lucky rubber raft,
which I stayed afloat on,
where it seemed like days,
I was lost at sea,
with nothing but the vast sky,
and the endless waves and sea,
had my emergency...

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Do not mistake me for a Bear.
       True, I look like one, but my features 
             Resemble...

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We have done this many times
But it is never the same
Each time I lose a bigger piece of myself
And it hurts more
Don't think I haven't thought of stepping away from this
Just to save us from...

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Descending into a mega-mall, the fluorescence blemishes my skin.
There is a twinge in my temples as I approach the makeup counter,
meeting eyes with a woman whose shoes pierce my gait 
and whose artificially white teeth...

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Here lies my notepad, covered in scrawl, my pencil rolls on to the table
I watch as it rolls and suspect it may fall, but it stops at the edge, balanced and stable
The cloth it is...

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As from his Book of Rules He read,
“Tsk-tsk tsk-tsk, St. Peter said.

So PICKED up I my bags and left
For that damnéd lower cleft.

I stomped away then turned and paused.
How much fuss had my fib caused?

A...

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Worse Than Christine

I am a glutton for punishment, as you shall soon see,
I had an Austin Healey Sprite, or more rightly, it had Me!

Had I looked up the name in Webster’s, I would have known,...

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When my heart could no longer illuminate,
I gazed towards horizons shrouded in blurry blackness,
revealing the agony of my sorrows to the moon.

Wondering if it would gift me a beloved
that reflects within my heart like an...

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Tornado drills, like a fire drill
people practicing what to do in certain emergencies
The weather man predicts this
the newscrew the first response
to lead as many people possible to safety
a selfless act leaving you a hero to...

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I. e., this unfortunate
     mere erred reflection,
     aye re: zine
     (pronounced Syne),
     cuz you Matthew Scott Harris
act like an...

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All that is not me has me down
I am beaten by all that should keep me
My nose in crackling wrinkle
Like dead toothpaste tube
I can’t see my knees
Eyes are deep in the sockets 
The twist of...

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Just as eating too much cake 
will give you a bellyache,
genuine con is always real fake

An artful eye can chiseler tell
if Mona Lisa’s smile ain’t original
Forged truth ring alarm bells,
imitation lip-sync is the trip signal

Ducky...

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The day I saw you, I was made to understand that I am naive,
My long gown with a hair tie that looks like that of Magdalena I was wearing was said to be archaic,
Come out...

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I visited mum today 
as I do almost every day

She greeted me with open arms

And then says

‘I didn’t think you’d come ...
I thought you had fallen out with me’

Yet  
Yesterday everything was fine
and it...

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Fort Clatsop is up and true,
50 feet square, with a smokehouse, pallisades, barracks and two gateways
furnished from the aromatic and reliable wood of the great Fir trees,
we keep busy by scraping elk hides for clothes,...

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Extra weight no longer a problem for shallow water, 
We bulked up for the next leg of our journey, 
Water containers, even some canned goods
An acceptable luxury in our seventeen foot canoe, 
A canvas topping...

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So I’m building a spaceship, 
But where should I start?
When the spaceship I’m building 
Is made out of art

Books for the seats
And paintings for the walls
Cause this type of spaceship 
Goes nowhere at all

I do...

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Tracking time has changed throughout the years
Improving how hours, minutes, seconds appear 
Sundials, hourglasses, pendulums and more
Wall, wrist, mantle, waterproof - clocks galore

There is a certain beauty to time hanging from a chain
A charm of...

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I am the invisible man that shuffles these desolate streets, people passing by or through me as if I'm a ghost.
My appearance must scare them, my street attire practicality not Halloween, it's never always been...

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