Thursday, May 1, 2014

Poem! Olyver Currant: June at Burlesque Press

The next installment of our speaker's journey is full of memories and rain and is yours for the reading at Burlesque Press:

The rains come now, every day, at four.
They tell me that you will be flying in soon,
for a wedding which we were to attend
together, stealing kisses inbetween
vows spoken and lost in the humid air
on empty ears. I will not be there, heat
and your presence are just too much for me
at the end of June, water threatening
with clockwork accuracy, clouds swooning
and black in the too blue sky, and hanging
thunderheads high, glinting golden shadows,
foreshadowing the lightning that will come.

read the rest here!

Wednesday, April 30, 2014

April is a Silly Month: A Twitter of Poems from #NPM14

I figured this year I should try my hand at daily writing on Twitter. Here are the results (with titles and edits and a few bonus poems):

April 1: National Poetry Month

April is a foolish month:
bleeding poetry for thirty days,
pretending calendars matter;
hoping to scatter verses
in masses to the masses.

April 2: A Pilgrim's Love Song

Mere doubt cows you
Fouled in fair skin
As if sin could rend
Or wend you away
From love. Still I pray this
Palmer's kiss is clear: stay.

April 3: 140 Characters of Fame

Were I famous
like @JamesFrancoTV,
I'd pen my poems
and folks'd read me.
But unknown
no one cares
so I write for free
and hope for shares.

April 4: Held in the Hue

I see
Through leaves
Traced lines
In vines
Of veins,
Green skeins
That shift
To lift
The light;
A rite
Not quite
Sacred
But led

By love.

April 5: A Generic and Substandard American Haiku Which Doesn't Really Have Anything To Do With the Japanese Tradition and Is Probably an Insult To It, If Not To All Of Poetry, But That's Okay Because I Know You've Felt This Way

8:30 A.M.
Saturday slumber ruined:
Hedge-trimming neighbors

April 6: Reality Tells a Vision

Desperate
Disparate
Housewives
Write lies
To husbands
Whose bends
Turn youth
From truth
To bills
And pills.
American't
Drama can.

April 7: Pertentatus Gratia Pertentati

There's no contention
In contention
When it's everyone's
Intention.
At some point
Defying convention
Becomes convention.

April 8: Ars Poetica

This ragged hangnail
fails here; the pencil
still rubs where words fall;
call the rollers: roll
stolen lines to steel
feelings into file.

April 9: Cynical and Calculated

(Poetry is important)-ra+e=
(Poetry is impotent)
ANS-im=
(Poetry is potent)
ANS/poet=
(try sin)
ANS+(line break)=
Try,
sin.

April 10 (somehow this one didn't make it over here): "On My Arrest" by Don Draper as Written by Gwendolyn Brooks

The fuzz
they was
the cause
of pause
my flaw
my buzz
and these
car keys.

April 11: Preparation

Spy specks
Flick flecks
Lift lint
Stare spent
Face face
Grieve grace
Dodge death
Breathe breath
Pick page
Seize stage

April 12: A Fascinating Exercise

My desk a mess,
I confess my best
Investments miss
What this insists:
Dark cysts of sense
Intense words pinch.
I inch my pen
Again to sing.

April 13: Kintsugi

When the form firms
to formality

When the dream dims
to reality

When the song sinks
to banality

Break it
but repair it

beautifully

April 14: Waiting For the Storm

breezes bat
wide window
screens sift silt
rich rivers
clouds carry
I spy sky's
meek meaning
know nothing
still searching

April 15: April, Still Cruel

Taxing to
keep climbing
Parnassus
as if class
were what you
wished for when
closed eyes kissed.

April 15 BONUS: It's Always Raining Here

Rain
Drain
Pain
Again
Pin
Skin
Down
Crown
Sound
Round
Hand
Banned
Man
Plan
Reign
Pain
Rain
Again

April 16: A Poem for Ashol-Pan

In Mongolia
a girl loves her eagle.
I wish my poems
had wings and claws
so you would love them.

April 17: Supplies

Playing with paperclips
like I was ten again:
friendless in an office,
bending something,
anything to my will.

April 18: Spring Lightning

Wet parking lot
Get barking hot
Let larking not
Jet harking got
Bet farking zot
Het jarking tot
Hzzzzkzzzgzzt

April 19: Broken Shells

Holidays
Are hard:
The shard
Of family,
The haze
Of pretended
Love
Is never
Enough.

April 20: The Good News

This is
Easter:
I still
miss her.

April 21: I Didn't Need Mick Jagger and Keith Richards to Tell Me This.

I saw him today
at the resurrection
my salvation
in his hands
I hoped we would make
a connection
but I couldn't
even stand.

April 22: Like Old Love

Swished memories
of your mouth
and our youth
will always tease
me when I look
at your Facebook.

April 22 BONUS but not really a poem: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Poet

Poet
Poeterritory
Poeterrorist
Poeternal
Poetemporary
Poeterrrific
Poeterrible
Poetruth
Poetale
Poetimid
Poetemerarious
Poetenacious
Poetry

April 23: Given Half

 I wish that
You had long
Hair so when
I touched it
No one else
Would notice.

April 24: To the Celebrity Whose Book Sells Out

Film Flam
Poet-
Aster
Hipster
Huckster
Twitter
Twit. Your
Selfies
Show how
Shallow
We are.

April 24 BONUS: Moby Dick

Whales are awesome
Life is confusing
Catching whales is hard work
My boss is a jerk.

April 24 BONUS II: ELECTRIC BOOGALOO: Is Poetry an Art or an Attitude?

I'm scared for
Poetry 
becoming
nothing more
than pobiz:
an in-joke
everyone 
laughs at but 
not with.

April 25: The Poet Dreams of You

Tea-colored thoughts
spin arabesques
about my desk
and what I ought
to do is not
what they suggest.

April 26: Stop Expecting Poems to Replace Experience, #NPM14 (for Anthony Robinson)

At the sea
I see waves
Like something,
Something else,
And birds too.

April 27: Missing the Hallmark

Fresh flowers I found
alive in the ground
then killed them for you
and dumped them into
your favorite vase
to brighten your face.

April 28: I'm Reduced From Life to Verse

How long was I hungry
before I knew love?
I'm still starving
but smiling
here with
you.

April 29: Because Philosophers and Neuroscientists Agree We Only Understand Things Metaphorically

I'm bound
to write
around
the truth.

April 30: Always Be Writing

There is no time
to create. Kill
the calendars
and plow their bones
into poems.
Verse's season
is always now.

#NPM14: Poem! Final Day: Always Be Writing.

Always Be Writing

There is no time
to create. Kill
the calendars
and plow their bones
into poems.
Verse's season
is always now.

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

#NPM14: Day 29 Poem!

Because Philosophers and Neuroscientists Agree We Only Understand Things Metaphorically

I'm bound
to write
around
the truth.

Monday, April 28, 2014

#NPM14: Day 28: Poem! I'm Reduced from Life to Verse

I'm Reduced From Life to Verse

How long was I hungry
before I knew love?
I'm still starving
but smiling
here with
you.

#NPM14: Day 27 (make-up) a Poem about Flowers

Fresh flowers I found
alive in the ground
then killed them for you
and dumped them into
your favorite vase
to brighten your face.

#NPM14

#NPM14 Day 26: Poem! Stop Expecting Poems to Replace Experience, #NPM14

Stop Expecting Poems to Replace Experience, #NPM14

At the sea
I see waves
Like something,
Something else,
And birds too.