Poetry 365: Instant

blue morning demands
a spoonful of nickels
and a sock full of wedding bands

Poetry 365: Straight

The king has carried
all the invitations.
The jack brings the water
down the mountain in handfuls.
The queen moves slowly,
like meditation.
The ace is born on a Thursday,
in a barn by the sweet potatoes.
The ten march into Soweto,
defiant, moving like cats.

Poetry 365: Last Known Position

Six ships, sailing to Seattle
carrying forty thousand tons
of Christmas globes and silver tinsel
never arrive.

Poetry 365: Tight

When we climb the stairs
to the sixty first floor,
we will walk to the windows,
where the wire is stretched
across Broadway. And we will walk.

Poetry 365: Roll Call at the Black Tiger Kung Fu Academy

Thunderous Cudgel Wing Fook Lim
Heavy Iron Monkey Hai Nam
Praying Mantis Dave
Tiger Claw Sheldon Johnson
Knife Hands Shining Mountain Kevin
Moonlight Sharpening Sword Ward
Tattoo Mike

Poetry 365: Northbound

Fenton rides the #1 bus,
up Mass Ave, across the river
and up to Central Square.
There is just enough time,
to do all the across clues
in the crossword in ball pen.
Eight letters for a brutish love.

Poetry 365: Chatter

When all the shouts stop
and their hearts will finally
come back to rest,
will all the shrills
and daggers they used for words
seem less sharp than when in motion?

Poetry Progress Report

Let's stop and look at what I've been writing, shall we? I've been churning it out on a regular basis. Too many poems about cars, I think. I guess an hour each way to work will do that to you. It's like when I was in college, I once wrote 11 poems in a semester and 9 of them were about walking around at night. I wonder how many poems about trains I wrote when I used to ride the Green Line to the office.

Also, too many haikus. It's too easy to fall back on that when I'm in a rush.

I am making a pledge to not write any poems about cars, or any haikus for the next 30 poems. A tough challenge, but I think it'll make me really stretch more. I'll start... tomorrow. Seriously.

It's easy to set a negative goal, so to make things more interesting, I'll set some positive goals too: more characters, more dialogue, more rhyme and more robots in disguise. Well, maybe not the robot part.

Poetry 365: Shifting Upwards

The room where you were born
is lit by a single candle
that was found out in the flood,
a bit of dirt thrown
into the antiseptic world.
The water is rising,
filling the emergency ward.

Poetry 365: Paco The Wedding Horse

They lease him out once a week,
on Saturday afternoons, when grooms
must ride in on a white steed,
through the Sheraton parking lots
and into a ballroom with an ugly carpet
that made the bride weep.

Poetry 365: Lost City

El Dorado waits undiscovered,
burned to the ground and everything
died in the flames, or drown
in the attempt to save it.
The one who will find the doomed city
will be the one who has the patience
to listen in the darkness
for the ghosts of the raccoons.

Poetry 365: Volvo

The radio station fades.
Stevie Wonder's Superstition
breaks up into nothing
and then becomes a talk show
begging for callers
to yell about religion.
I flick on the highbeams,
lighting up the green sign
that tells me that I am now
entering the town Sebastian:
home of 5481 friendly people
and 5 ole grouches. Honestly,
that's what it says.
Change the station again,
maybe we'll find an old Dylan tune,
where he is channeling a prophet
of the Old Testament, of damnation
of power, of howling winds
and if we're lucky, forgiveness.

Poetry 365: Beckon

The abstinence patrols speak
through bullhorns to the janitors
going back to Alabama for Christmas week.
Elevation sickness strikes the marmoset
gang smoking in the corner,
climbing up the mossy stone parapet.

One last swing before we drive back home.

Poetry 365: Falling Down In Public

The lights float above 14th Street
buzzing very quietly.
This is the first time
I can hear this over the taxis,
over the people on cell phones
talking to someone over on 9th Street.

Poetry 365: Transit Time

The leaves are nothing but veins now,
scant evidence of a summer
spent tracing the lines between the stars.

Poetry 365: Untitled

Some nights, I get the sense
that there are tunnels
under the basement,
and in those tunnels,
people are meeting,
whispering about plans
that only the earth can know.
Are they lovers?
Conspirators? Ghosts?
The words are never clear,
it's just a feeling I have
some nights.

Poetry 365: Somewhere in Maine

The fields yield a strange crop:
gray boulders left by long forgotten
ice floes. Huge rocks and green grass.

Poetry 365: Guard Rail

When the car finally comes to a stop,
I am facing the wrong way
and somehow able to walk away,
looking back at a million tiny mirrors.