1.

weep
when serpent senses
secret

2.

spectres of slaves
listen to waves

gaze

3.

wing
to wing

sky

silt

ash

air
annihilated

birds
make movement

weep

4

shame
of shadows

still

terrified

5

lay waste

lay
In waste

under depth's
depth

6

remember

passages

corridors

arcades

end
or ending

time

7

so
many skins

stained
skins

worship

wind

flood fields
time

bell haunts
horses grey
horses gallop

hideous harmies
tuned to damnation

time
memorial

destitute shadow

start
to speak
in silence

what
passes for silence

beginning in silence

8

grieving gift

stigmata

silence
vanished

beg
beasts

turbulence of torrents
damnation

not
so dark

moons émanation sings

terrifyingly
of twigs

9

sleep
walk into seas

never
come
back

10

suicide
succinct

syringe
superstructure

for act
in foretold

tragedy

tie wings together
beloved

11

whisper
witness

tears
black

skin
burnt

surrender

wings
to wind

12

water's
dread

dooms

night
falls

& leaves

13

water
rushing

from ghost's mouth

cursed
heirs

14

stay
still

bamboo
breaks

pit
opens

spears
sharpen

15

rains falling
on mourners
bodies

turn

howl

curse

16

sea
becoming

seas

bone
becomes

oil

body
being
becomes
bank

17

heritage
hell

sing
that

to skulls
on poles

let them
speak

lips
flags

18

sing
song of this

debacle

dead perform
perfectly

just beyond

your bent

backs

bent
bridge

to another

circle

19

veins
burn

breathe all
memory's

remains

sea
sound In skull

resonate

remember débâcle

tone
tumult

sea from sea
tremble

tremble
remembering tides

endless death

you shall sing
with choir
of corpses

20

cry
for moon

shriek savagely
for sun

suicide
succinct
scorpion sings

stinging
way to consciousness

consciousness
constructed from clay

table
you imagined
already
at seven
in short
pant

vomited
into bag
of sandwiches
& kitchener bun

vomiting endlessly
all fluid
in little body

remebering this
exactly

standing on chair

pissing
pants

premonition
an alchemy
absorbed in arteries

you open

you open

Painting: Jules Bastien-Lepage, Diogène (1877),

horse battalions
howl

sleep
pities
sleep

continuity
collapses

sea to sea

bitter
blood

beg
before urn
brother

bite
into
bone

cherish
carnage

after all
we were
impregnated
in abattoir

torso

taut

but being
stretched
by strings

held
between
horse's teeth

obsessed
with oracles

breathe
blood

viper
enters
vertebrae

belief
sea

empty
bowels
in barrow
when wise

this

that
apparitions
avert
gaze

go
to gate

leave

KEEPING BUSY
July 4, 2017

Mimi liked the Phillies. She would sit in her chair in the living room and listen to every game on her small transistor radio. But her hands were never idle. As she listened, her hands were ever busy, crochet and needlepoint always making something. Most of her creations ended up as gifts for some occasion or another, otherwise we would have run out of room for them all.


This was a busy household. Roland once lamented in a letter that between Alan’s motorcycle, Bill and Sarah’s models and other projects, he had been run out of his own basement. He clamped a board to a windowsill in the living room and used it as a workbench for his own creations.

This is how families amused themselves 100 years ago, or at least it is what my family did.

When ownership passed to my father, he still stayed busy in the basement and that is where I learned to use and love tools. Growing up, we were always building something; tree forts, go-carts and other products of our imaginations.

There was another remnant of the past that I was occasionally subjected to. The Jingle Club. It was devised as a way to keep the kids home and off the street and guests were always welcome. At one time, around my grandfather’s youth, the club met weekly. A word would be distributed for the next meeting and all invited would write a poem using that word. Some were submitted using pseudonyms and those present would try to guess the author.

As that generation grew up, the club disappeared but was revived for a time by my grandfather and again during my youth although meetings were much less frequent. I quite honestly, hated it. The attendees were mostly older than me and far more literate. With age, I have become a pretty good story teller but never mastered poetry beyond the occasional Haiku.

Here is a sample from 1975, a meeting I did not attend as I was preoccupied with other endeavors of youth.

Preferences
Jeanne K. Hunn
Written for the “Jingle Club”, June 22, 1975

There was a river rat who loved water, wind and sailing
One day his boat upset and swamped but the salt continued bailing
He drifted seaward on the tide, his efforts faint and failing
When a stinkpot entered on the scene and viewed the frantic bailing

The nasty, nasty motorboat spewed gas, smoke and confusion
But offered the sailor a length of line, damaging his delusion.
That yachtsmen are a different breed not worthy of one’s friendship
The stinkpotter gave a helping hand, so draw your own conclusion

We’re not so different after all, but in our choice of locomotion
The sailor enjoys a silent ride, one filled with deep emotion
While the yachtsman travels speedily, soaking up the scene
The sailor glides by quietly in a state of bliss serene

To each his own now I say
Merit hath these two
Why not call a truce today
And let us ride with you.

pulse

remembering

vocabulary

break

down

bird’s

wing

way you have

with beasts

& martyrs

we are slaves

to movement

watch

rapace glide

gaze

with eyes

closed

first

to last

out

in field

in forest

desecrated 

water

pass 

through

haunted 

hieroglyphs

hewn by horse

in horse’s

hours

forgive flight

what

of wing

need nectar

now

all 

on knees

remember

exact details

place 

purpose

ancestral 

self stained

be 

my twin

weep

longitudes 

& latitudes

fall

go on

ring bells

for birds

keep

on going

ceremony

of remembering

arteries

still

torrential

watch water

spill

sleep forever

in forest

with fallen

from depths

you cannot see

sea remembering

whoever we were

we are

créatures

so cruel

leave us

alone

open carcass

some day

or other

night

night

knows 

night