An Ode to College and Ossington

holy moly

moses

went outside anditwas

spring

now guess whos

a poet

exclamation

the park was muddy

and the sun

was clouded over

soonasisteppedout

coffee was

and myhoody

underdressing at its finest

but guess whos

a poet

exclamation

im the laureate of

a dump

what a dump

but its dumpystreet

and im its

ex

cla

poet

mation

Another and Another

Another day, another thing to write.

The Earth is not yet stuffed to its ears

in papers of good writing.

Let's keep at it until

We've patched up the holes in the o-zone

And stalled our global warming

by means of literary snobbery.

The Wild Quietist in his Den

Not meaning to be pushy but

Our movement calls out jerks:

All those who praise the outdoors

All those who finger loose change

All those who love their country;

We would send them off immediately

In a large boat, to an island

Full of snakes and inedible fruits

And poisonous fish, and lice, and ship rats

If we could.

Our movement likes to heap on the metaphors,

For punishment, loves to lay thick with

The exaggerations, the analogies, the terrors,

And to pick fights to see who'll push back.

Our movement is a quietist movement,

We do not disturb the grass or the streams,

Our movement sacrifices to the sun,

We kill innumerable beings with the Buddha nature

Daily, nighthtly, weekly, a slaughterfest!

Cowards have no word for our movement;

Brave men are too arrogant to be ruthless.

The Partridge and the Pear

The Poem of the Partridge and the Pear

There are two words which shall go unmentioned

One is a species of fruit, and the other is some kind of bird.

We may talk about anything else, we may talk about boots

We may talk about glasses, bats, Sctochmen, and carbohydrates.

From a Reading that Never Was

Four poems I was to read at a reading that was unfortunately cancelled. No sense in wasting verse, so, to the blog with it!

Thieves of Boredom

Thieves of Boredom! No, Not the Neighbourhood Roughs,

Not a Preferential Teenager, Plastered,

Aren't On the Run From The Cops...

Thieves of Boredom! Those, Friends,

Dire, French, Tasty, Pricking, Not Yet Overdone!

Thieves of What? Thieves of Recipes,

Thieves of Receipts, Contents, and Orderlies.

Spare A Moment! for them

Miserable! In Straights! Unfamiliar with SCIENCE!

Illiterate in Kennings Modern, Kennings of This Day and Age!

Spare a Moment for Them! Poor Thieves! Poor Scoundrels!

Is Boredom a Lost Art? The Free Press Asks! Ponto, Fetch the Paper Here!

Let Us Demand! Say the Art School Dropouts...

Are They Meek! Are They Sorry! Are They To Be forgiven!

~~~~~~~~~This Reader Thinks Not:

"To Whom It May concern,

This Very Morning, my Boredom was filched

plucked, capered off with, in a word, STOLEN.

Off the Kitchen Counter,

Out the Window

Down the Alley,

Into the Sweet Crisp Mother-EXPLETIVE air!

Just like THAT. How do you like it!

What am I supposed to do NOW?"

A Puppet's Plaint

a puppet play muggy to recall

(as with all good muggings of sensation)

but it started on a closed, sheltered vista

where a tree (handsome enough) lectured on pine needles

no good with masks

but the story was simple

woman desires to deadly serious effect

and some Nine Hells become casually manifest

in her face and her local dance

(dance a loose term for this ritualized jogging)

blues musicians (it had to be them)

whistled us off, meanwhile

into the roofbeams, sanded for depth.

The Ancient Loose Style

Centuries ago, this play was written

Called "out with the old..."

I am unsure who wrote it

But a monumental family

Must be responsible.

(The ancient loose style, they say

Was more irregular in China

Whereas the modern way

S'got rules. Or better,

The rules don't write themselves.)

Decades ago, a poet decided

"I'm done with this bunk."

It is said he was derided

By the folk, for his motto:

"Out with the old; and in the with the old."

Walt Whitman in Egypt

Walt Whitman in Egypt! This is the worst spin-off ever.

Chants Democratic in the land of High Priests,

Polytheism, Cat Lovers, Fool, Arab Cinema, Om Kalthoum and unmentioned,

The dynasties of asiatic autocracy?

How did I end up here? Did I follow Tin Tin?

Why do they chant my name? Who still bothers

Advice from an American spirit, a Democratic spirit?

Do they want to hear it? Whether they want to or not

I suppose I have to sing it. But it's been a while...Let the rough get used to Facebook and Twitter...

Ok here goes, in 140 character bursts! The spirit of a civil war, healthy,

Signs of life growing in an eternal desert...I, Walt Whitman, of Cairo the son,

With millions who shout, it's been done, but never here,

I too am ridden down by camels and horses,

That's a new one. I don't want to miss your Pyramids, your Sphinx, Suez,

But they're closed until you break with antiquity!

So shatter a few museum pieces, American archaeologists might get upset

But they don't realize, as I do, that democracy shatters, has its terrible twos, that they themselves loved to break things once...

And when, in generations, they see this shattered Dynastic sculpture

They will herald it as a revolutionary masterpiece.

You Arabs, servants to your one guide, and his prophet, and him only,

Weird as it may seem to us both, I, an American, am with you when you snap off the tether.

On the Crab

crab you're a new one

never been considered before

but it's neat how you toss your shell

i take it rebirth is pleasant

so you've been written about

on

so you've been painted

out of joint with other animals of your age

in conformity with the ways of outdoors

worth considering you

worth eating, the trouble

crab you're ever a new one a new one.

How to Start a Year

undisturbed

the canary

(by Beethoven)

on his perch.