n Earnest's evocative Emporium
there's odds ends a whatnot or two
or they can do a brickbat
novelty knick-knack bugaboo
all nice and bright as a button
altho' they're twice as kitsch
odd oddments and sodments
curious curios contained in a niche
as well as folderol and bric-a-brac
brought from across the border
but the house specialty is really
antiques made to order
there are fragments lingering
of my past
bits and dregs
the wreckage
the remains of what was once
the ruins
junk
debris
rubbish
of a life lived . . .
all the shattered pieces
the scars
the ashes
the pain
the tears
the grief
and scraps of happiness
hard to grasp and hold
the path has been uphill, and curved
but the past is the past
and today, is today
Deep blood red orange cloud’s,
ethereal dream float,
satin wind carrier of luscious mint,
green hymnody’s deft transport,
Spring hues random loitering,
between gray peeled branches,
chirpy echo squeak,
from red-wing blackbird,
a fragile wafer tin threshold,
golden stream gurgle,
under marsh reeds,
evanescent saline grain haze,
azure ocean tide aroused,
from still wave slumber,
clamshell pearl strewn oyster,
oddments interspersed,
on pockmark sandstone beach,
iridescent canopy of nature trail,
awaits the first blush pilgrim,
who revels in luscious glimpses,
and sumptuous earworm madrigal,
a tantalizing world so close,
glad tiding raptures,
from the camper awakened,
coffee caper bean whiff aromatic,
quencher of dust road harsh throat,
splatter free rapeseed oil,
daub on an iron pan,
wild howl from prehistoric wolf,
so quaint in its primal sweep,
hair-raising backdrop to stir fry meal,
tinplate dollop sated hunger
Pens, and pen knives,
minor gadgets and gizmos,
chopsticks
old zippo lighters,
motheaten books
that crumble an old-fashioned wisdom
into the mush of a quaint twaddle,
words to muddle over
on a day locked into a raincloud.
He collected all sorts -
mostly useless things,
mostly the unimportant, the worthless,
gathering together
all the small curiosities of the bygone,
things often broken and long discarded.
His poetry is a collection also,
a jumble of oddments and offbeat widgets,
stuff he finds hazily dreaming
beside unpaved roads.
High alpine meadows are dusted with wildflowers,
And the faraway horizon is outlined with craggy mountain peaks,
Half-asleep lights blink through the sun-painted mist,
The sunrays dip at varying angles and intensities,
creating mixed moods and mysteries ~
It feels good to be up at dawn.
Deep blood red orange clouds ethereal dream float,
Satin wind carrier of luscious mint green hymnody’s deft transport,
Spring hues loiter in between gray peeled branches,
Chirpy echo squeak from red-wing blackbird a fragile threshold,
Golden stream gurgle under marsh reeds ~
Evanescent saline grain haze
Azure ocean tide aroused from still wave slumber,
Clamshell pearl strewn oyster oddments interspersed on pockmark sandstone beach,
Iridescent canopy of nature trail,
Awaits the first blush pilgrim who revels in lavish glimpses,
And sumptuous earworm madrigal ~
A tantalizing world so close
He records the works of his life, the ephemera
he once scrawled onto the tissue thin,
thinking them indelible blueprints.
Most were fables told to a dying legend,
Pastimes, that were chariot wheels
for his little red wagon.
He is an inventor of sorts, an engineer
of impossibilities.
He accumulates metallurgical oddments
for mechanical artifacts
that have no purpose or point;
contrivances with strange gears.
attachments that bolt on to
only missing parts.
They are pieces of an assemblage
made to represent an unknowable idea.
He structures these devises
on the leeched rims of endless visions.
His minds darkened workshops
flicker with the light of kerosene lamps.
He needs shadows and the gleam of
yet undreamed dreams,
he needs gaslight eyes
while shaping the formless.
Nuts, bolts, levers, and steam driven
small brass sprockets
for the calibration of improbable elements
are his articles of faith.
A life he once constructed
falls apart little by little.
He now searches for stronger,
less breakable mechanisms
to put together, no matter that they
serve no purpose, other than
to girder and frame
featherweight straws in the wind.
Poem
is a patchwork quilt
tacked up with emotions
with words, oddments sublimely
selected...
I find that if I cut a lens-size whole
in a cardboard box then place that box
over my head the stars
arrange themselves
into, not the named constellations,
but ordinary oddments once lost then found
and eventually junked.
I find that if I see a dead raccoon
on the road I will automatically
recite the El Maleh Rachamim,
(the Jewish prayer for the dead),
maybe it’s the pajamas they wear,
they only wear half-pajamas, but then
I am only half-Jewish.
I find that most concentration camps
are left open, and you never know
which abandoned factory once was one.
Finding stuff keeps my mind from wandering
just long enough to find a hole in the sky
where lost things have fallen through.
Her mind accumulates oddments and curios,
contrivances with strange linkages,
attachments that bolt unlikely parts together;
the mechanics of metaphysics.
Pieces of something she is sculpting or
assembling, or just waiting for,
a glimpse of a word-picture
too intricate to be entirely recalled
as a whole canvas.
She discovers these odd figments
on the leeched rim of vision,
where shapes are nameless.
Part of her mind
burns with the light of a kerosene lamp,
the other blazes too brightly.
Slowly she feels the inconceivable
creep upon her, imagines discovering
the last transcendental piece
of a scattered poem, the keystone.
Senses reach for a nexus
there are endless connections,
too many to grasp.
She realizes that her whole life
she has been building images
that can only be seen once,
once before their time, after that
they are just
writing.
He accumulates oddments and curios,
contrivances with strange gears,
attachments that bolt unlikely parts together.
Pieces of something he is structuring or
assembling, a mechanism
too intricate to be entirely recalled.
He discovers these devises
on the leeched rim of vision.
Part of his mind
burns with the light of a kerosene lamp.
He does not want to waste much light
on impossible projects,
yet slowly he feels the inconceivable
taking shape.
He imagines stumbling across
the last piece of a construct.
Fingers search for connections.
He realizes that his whole life
has been spent building something
once seen.
Haberdasher’s Thoughts
The haberdasher has
that season of the year
he rids his racks, his bins
of oddments.
I have no season of the year
like that.
Today, or any day, a derby,
spats or chrome-tipped cane
can shuffle out from stock.
I have no choice.
I have to offer counter space.
Donal Mahoney
O, look how I shake the clouds
Not to dust the oddments of
Dreams, but to wish them back, sweet
As your prurient lips!
It begins in innocence,
The world greets,
Wraps its arms tight,
Welcomes!
Honey sticky sweet childhood drips, lick.
Dreams bloom, flourish,
Wild hope rampant, vision sharp.
Freed from responsibilities, restraints,
Naivety a luxury.
Pampered, sheltered, fleeting moments.
Time robber, party make friends,
Educate, work, experimentation, discovering ourselves,
Form philosophies,beliefs,
Endless days lie before.
We gorge, obese from the banquet,
Our minds have no concept of life's fragility.
Thief time claws strike,
Invisible non intrusive.
Courting, fighting, loving,breeding,
Marriage, divorcing, relationships, oddments, all sorts.
Climb ladder to success,
Traveling,dying, this is called life,
I will pass from it,
Will anyone notice I've gone?
Does it matter?
My memory will it live on?
Or like a daisy fresh born on the lawn,
Be here then gone.
Futility! Is there a Master plan?
Play a tune do a dance,
Quick glance take a chance,
In a wink its past it doesn't last.
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