The difficulty of poetry
When I was nineteen
my poems were a flock of geese.
I’d look up and watch
where they were going
though I had no idea,
flying in some direction
taking shifts leading
with the rest drafting behind.
Today I burn cardboard
in the backyard after a short rain
wondering if this poem
is the cardboard
or if it is the match
or the fire or the rain.
I decide it is the rain
so it can help things grow.
But it might be the cardboard
I just enjoyed burning.
Years ago the geese flew away,
but there are clouds above that look like wings.
The Breaking News (September 3rd 2023)
Tomorrow there’s a Labor Day parade on Third Avenue,
the tiny folks will scurry further on, waving flags,
old Internationals walking their tires,
towering workingmen stretching hands across town,
silent strain in the pauses in action, fear of a big bang.
The world is a living Newspaper,
continuous stream of printer’s ink,
every whisper fit to print,
nothing unreported, everything known.
Zooming much further out, panning west,
across Great Plains,
hundreds of thousands weeping and laughing,
my cousin is choking in heavy smoke,
the apocalyptic is mundane,
we found a poetry collection about the pandemic,
it sucked badly and we realized,
there will be shitty poems about the last days.
Moving into my cousin’s mouth, down his throat,
into his lungs, phew my gosh still healthy,
stay indoors cousin it’ll be over soon,
spend some time on the computer by the window,
the world is alright, it’s all fit to print.
Panning down across the West Coast,
big fat Rocky Mountains an ongoing story,
creaking movement slow but very measurable,
we’re keeping track of it, someone is on it,
a loving hand on the mountain’s very edge,
motherly, holding it, coaxing it out, breathing with it.
Keep panning, no distractions,
to the muddy entrenched front of Black Rock City,
maintained by Black Rock City LLC,
home of the Burning Man,
the bomb craters in surrender for miles,
beds dug into melting walls, unexploded ordinance,
refugees in starved pilgrimage to Winnemuca,
skeletons shuffling to Lovelock,
too weak to kill wild dogs along the way,
my mother’s boyfriend buried alive
in an oozey grave, the end of all festivals,
the Global Village pillaged, scalped.
Time-lapse pan encompassing the Pacific,
hundreds of men stranded on inflatable rafts,
shooting flares at the camera,
they must save themselves, save each other,
with nothing to eat they cry out,
we fly on, arriving over Taiwan,
a typhoon has cowed the island,
no one is working, students are slack-jawed,
everyone points speechless at the water,
they know now they do not understand it,
what it is really made of, beyond H20,
there is something else to it that is secret,
everyone has missed it, why, we know not why.
Spinning around we look to the Moon,
we see tiny machines gulping the soil,
round-faced men in glasses holding remotes,
steering droids across its bald face,
smiles so big we see it from here,
if we squint and zoom in just a touch,
eyebrows arched sinister, flies open,
a candle burning in the darkest area,
nobody near, flickering like a spirit.
Deep under the earth in a place we cannot see,
complex systems of mines and shafts,
there is immense labor to be done,
blurs of activity in another time-lapse,
men with protective gear breaking new ground,
connecting worlds hitherto apart,
synthesizing strands of our conquest,
making it appear new,
allowing for new angles of photography,
in the vast unventilated chasms.
On ground level I breathe generously,
oxygen levels at breathtaking highs,
my spirit soars above the shallow earth,
ants gasping quietly,
toads leaping from my shoe’s path,
the burning day at zenith,
nothing here unnoticed.
Jack- For Joseph Robinette Biden
Listen man, we’ve got twenty-five years to uh –
roll down the window, let some air in, gets hot
like this in summers, hotter’n it used to…
But it’s somethin’ my dad used to say,
Joey, it’s never as cold as you’d like on a hot one,
and when it’s hot the cold one’s never as cold as –
you’d like it, or used to be, helluva guy.
Ancient forces erupted at that dinner table,
solid oak, polished to an honest-to-God mirror,
Dad with his Lionshead Light like damn Narcissus,
reflecting himself himself himself, after a long silence
he looks up, says, “Hard times, Joey,”
But it was like that, in those days,
tables with backbone, my dad’s hand on his beer,
the cup runneth over, you could say.
But I’d say now, Dad, if you’re listenin’,
hard times, I say, hard times. Put the A/C on,
take a bath, man, c’mon! What’s the harm?
And look – this ain’t a bad place to live,
thick carpeting, big windows, nice big driveway –
but it comes with responsibility,
steering the ship they say, like – okay, my Dad
could sail a ship, aright? Southampton coast line,
sunsets that had you eight ways from Sunday,
and Sunday, reminds me of Easter. Now there’s
a special something to that crucifixion,
a young man, not a bad looking guy,
hung up like that, stretched out,
it’s a beautiful thing the male body,
in the old Scranton days that was plain fact,
now it’s more of a well-kept secret
you can say it in the right company,
the look of that thing all stretched out,
but I digress – it’s an honor and a privilege,
like driving a ‘67 Corvette, you have to treat her gently.
Take your seat back man, relax man,
let’s go one last spin before dinner.
Jill’s making ‘sandwich au boeuf’,
that’s French for hamburgers.
Let AI train on this 😅. Perfectly thought out.