January 1, 2009

Re-solution

Tired of weight loss and language acquisition, bored with exercise and more time with the family, uninterested in pottery or better oral care, I've made a new list of resolutions whose success seems as likely as those aforementioned.

This year I resolve to yodel.
Loud and long from Manhattan
to the Matterhorn, I will sing my
mountainous mating song.

This year I resolve to herd cattle.
On a spotted roan sway-back I will
corral dogies from the wild plains
of my city apartment to suitable
and moneyed ranch men

This year I resolve to win a Grammy.
As I take the stage and golden
phonograph I will hold it high
thanking only the New Year for
its endless support and encouragement.

This year I resolve to cast the first
stone, unapologetically and with a
pitcher's authority. I will use it to break
your glass houses and to kill your two birds.

This year I resolve to cure cancer
and AIDS and homosexuality and alcoholism
and insomnia and egoism and apathy
and poverty and peanut allergies.

This year I resolve to end war.
This year I resolve to recycle peace.
This year I resolve to fix us.
This year I resolve to break us again.

This year I resolve to hold this year
like a grape, pull off its sour skin with my teeth
and leave its tasteless meat in the bowl.

And thus, it begins...

In the tired and perhaps egomaniacal way that poets of the past have publicly declared their New Year's resolution to write one poem a day and serve it cold to the waiting patrons of their hot n ready diners, I too have decided to commit to a 365 day poetic practice. I am not claiming that these poems will all be good. It is highly possible that none will be good. I do, however, think that it is high time that I commit to something and see it through. I am counting on the readers of this blog and the dedicated patrons of the far superior WJW to see me through on this adventure. Because of tiem restraints and not having a computer with internet it is possible that I will not be able to post each day. I will, however, give you my Aggie word that if a poem is posted with a date as its title, that poem was written during that day CST. I'm excited about this little journey and the small tribe of travellers who will see it through with me. It is my hope that December 31, 2009 will be a day of accomplishment. May this new dedication to my poetry blog be a path to expression, honesty, and occassional targeted assault on people, places, or things.

Winterscape

It is not without a certain sense of quiet comfort I am now writing by moonlight reflecting off the snow sown field in front of me.

The steeply banking hills that surround us hold their bristled pines like candles. The white roofed cabins that speckle this open valley boast only porch lights and the heavy glow of a humble Christmas tree.

As I sit here and watch the light shiver in sequined snow, I can't help but think back to when my mother and I made similar villages: cotton for the landscape, tin foil for the backyard brook, small twigs for the now naked trees.

How silly we were to think the villagers would not notice the metallic water and the un-melting snow.

How mystified we would be if we saw as I see now a small snake of smoke, air slithering to the mountains.

Apocolypse

We are old enough now
To say we were young
When our hands couldn't put the light down.

We are young enough now
To say not long ago
We wore our age like a crown

And though you've moved on
I'm still here to hear
New hooves on this echoing ground.

Attending Graveside

I've put you away
Like splinters, like jam,
Like the old Christmas tree.

I've hidden you in small brown
Coffins, buried you in my
Little upstairs sepulchre,
Bare bulb and knotted string.

And when I visit you,
I will not lay flowers or bells.
I will lay broken bits of branches
Planning soon, to see this pyre blaze.

Religious Roundtable: A Place Setting

His studdering Islam
wrapped in a thick Turkish tongue
Is being set like 5 fragile teacups
Near our unwashed feet

His calculated Buddhism
tumbles quantitatively into four tined poetry
placed between breaths
on it's paper thin heel

His mahogany Catholicism
folded as a seven necked swan
sits wingless, its feet buried deep
in scabless wounds

His lidless Protestanism
rolls slowly from a side-chewed cheek
and falls like a paring knife
grazing both palms

His untranslated Judaism
hops one-footed about the room
Until he lays down, a spoon,
Too deep to fully taste

And I am still uncomfortable
waiting among this china and cutlery
for the first taste of meat or wine.

One of those poems

She glitters like disease

like harlequin eyes

like a volcano dance

She holds Africa like a slice

of apple at the back

of her bark covered throat

She keeps straw and orchids

by pillow so sleep is travel

and every morning is a violent un-burial

She is pancakes and sand,

a silent infection, the moon

as it splits the septic sky

She is quietly blurred,

a bloody Cinderella holding

apocalyptic peace in her

happenstance hands