for the foxes

Don't feel sorry for me.I am a competent,

satisfied human being.

be sorry for the others
who
fidget
complain

who
constantly
rearrange their
lives
like
furniture.

juggling mates
and
attitudes

their
confusion is
constant

and it will
touch
whoever they
deal with.

beware of them:
one of their
key words is
'love.'

and beware those who
only take
instructions from their
God

for they have
failed completely to live their own
lives.

don't feel sorry for me
because I am alone

for even
at the most terrible
moments
humor
is my
companion.

I am a dog walking
backwards

I am a broken
banjo

I am a telephone wire
strung up in
Toledo, Ohio

I am a man
eating a meal
this night
in the month of
September.

put your sympathy
aside.
they say
water held up
Christ:
to come
through
you better be
nearly as
lucky.

(by charles bukowski)

The Hag by Robert Herrick (1648)

The Hag is astride,
    This night for to ride;
The Devill and shee together:
    Through thick, and through thin,
    Now out, and then in,
Though ne’r so foule be the weather.

    A Thorn or a Burr
    She takes for a Spurre:
With a lash of a Bramble she rides now,
    Through Brakes and through Bryars,
    O’re Ditches, and Mires,
She followes the Spirit that guides now.

    No Beast, for his food,
    Dares now range the wood;
But husht in his laire he lies lurking:
    While mischiefs, by these,
    On Land and on Seas,
At noone of Night are working,

    The storme will arise,
    And trouble the skies;
This night, and more for the wonder,
    The ghost from the Tomb
    Affrighted shall come,
Cal’d out by the clap of the Thunder.


Anybody else ready for Halloween? I know we sure are...

...happy happy happy...

How Can It Be I am No Longer I by Lucie Brock-Broido (1997)

Winter was the ravaging in the scarified Ghost garden, a freak of letters crossing down a rare Path bleak with poplars. Only the yew were a crewel Of kith at the fieldstone wall, annulled As a dulcimer cinched in a green velvet sack. To be damaged is to endanger—taut as the stark Throats of castrati in their choir, lymphless & fawning & pale. The miraculous conjoining Where the beamless air harms our self & lung, Our three-chambered heart & sternum, Where two made a monstrous Braid of other, ravishing. To damage is an animal hunch & urge, thou fallen—the marvelous much Is the piece of Pleiades the underworld calls The nightsky from their mud & rime. Perennials Ghost the ground & underground the coffled Veins, an aneurism of the ice & spectacle. I would not speak again. How flinching The world will seem—in the lynch Of light as I sail home in a winter steeled For the deaths of the few loved left living I will Always love. I was a flint To bliss & barbarous, a bristling Of tracks like a starfish carved on his inner arm, A tindering of tissue, a reliquary, twinned. A singe of salt-hay shrouds the orchard-skin, That I would be—lukewarm, mammalian, even then, In winter when moss sheathes every thing alive & everything not or once alive. That I would be—dryadic, gothic, fanatic against The vanishing; I will not speak to you again.

"Warning" by Jenny Joseph

I could read this poem every day and lots of days go by that I do. It's fun. It's encouraging. It makes me want to buy fussy hats that do nothing for me but make me stand out like a crazy person in a crowd.

Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandals, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple. 

Jenny Joseph

(the poem, read by the amazing Helena Bonham Carter.)

...have a great weekend...

If-ing by Langston Hughes

If-ing

If I had some small change

I’d buy me a mule,

Get on that mule and 

Ride like a fool.

If I had some greenbacks

I’d buy me a Packard,

Fill it up with gas and

Drive that baby backward.

If I had a million

I’d get me a plane

And everybody in America’d

Think I was insane.

But I ain’t got a million,

Fact is, ain’t got a dime —

So just by if-ing

I have a good time!

Langston Hughes

...dirty little feet...

...dirty little feet...

run through this cluttered little apartment

and grubby little hands

leave behind smudged spoons and chipped glasses

until there is nothing left to drink from but cloudy measuring cups.

loud little voices

holler and fuss and fight and shriek

and leave toys and socks and crayons 

littered about ...

my living room an overgrown battlefield

after they're long asleep.

dirty little feet

slide around in a slick little tub--

washing away the tears and the sighs and the battles

that i won and that i didn't win

today.

m.e.a.

10.10.12

Apartment Haikus, Volume I

Upstairs
Troupe of tap dancers?
Elephant herd stomping ants?
I hope your pipes burst.

Lawn Mowing Peeping Tom
Outside my window
You cut grass on Friday, but
There's no lawn in here.

Front Row Parking Wars
I see you, lurking...
Waiting for me to drive off.
Well played, spot vulture.

Weird Pool Family
Stop stealing our toys.
It's a big pool, play somewhere else.
Did you just pick your nose?