Spontaneous Poems

Repentance

I'm going now, going for good
You can call me, but I've lost my
peripheral vision and I have no desire for
the magical conversion to a pillar of salt.
I'm going now, for good this time
running like hell is at my feet
like the city is on fire, like God has frowned.
I'm rejecting your indecent proposal
severing our soul ties, removing the scarlet letter
You can call me, but the number has changed
You are my vomit, and I will not return
to relive the taste of you.
I brush, I gargle, I scrub. This is surgery.
I am undergoing a lobotomy.
I am running scared.



(cool, I never manage to create a title spontaneously)

Frosty morning
All is ice
Cracking branches
Dead mice
Hobbling across the frozen mud
Writing truth
In barbed wire blood

#92

La Morte Della Festa

A wind howls in with the dawn
Ripping branches from hissing trees
Thumping roofs with snapped debris
And littering the lawn

Holiday house lights flapping, flapping
Newspapers blown along with the blast
Plastic garbage cans barrelling past
Leaving a wake of wrapping

I had a friend, his name was Andy
With his guitar he was quite handy
We only need three chords he'd say
And we could sit and sing all day.

So that is what we'd do back then
He'd play guitar, my talented friend
We'd sing Howling Wolf and Stevie Ray
Til the sun would rise and bring the new day.

And though the new day's sky was pink,
we'd sing the blues until we'd sink
Spillin' our guts as if we had a clue,
Thinkin' we knew what was true for true.

And then we'd laugh at our badass selves
And spin the vinyl from off the shelves
We'd let the men sing, the ones who really knew-
"You gotta learn to suffer, if you wanna sing the blues."

Endy,

Really good couple of lines, those.

#93

It's the last Wednesday of the year
and I remark upon it because it comes
in the middle of the last week of the year
and it's the last time I will look at the work done
and the work to do and say to myself,
It's hump day, thump day, bumpity-bump day.
I can make it; I'm already half through
It's the last Wednesday of the year.
Next week is the first week of a new year
And everything will be different.
I'm counting on it.

I's the office gal, who sits round da corner
from da office boy. We does our work and fixes
us english to fit the bill. To make the bill.
And when i goes to lunch, i pretends not
to notice they calls me by the other gals name.
They say we all looks alike, and we say they
all acts alike. But we's in Texas, so it ain't no thang.



(i wont bother with the spellcheck )

#94

The Pomegranate Tree

Once, in California, as I was trespassing
Through acres of sun-dried grasses
And groves of Spanish oak
I ventured down a steep embankment
Near a rocky dried creek bed
And came upon a pomegranate tree

I sought some shade beneath the limbs
And a taste of the wild, red fruit
I found a dry-as-dust encampment
An ancient coffee pot, rusted through
A tin fork, handmade, a piece of leather shoe
And a long, brown bone

I drew my finger down its pitted surface
Wondering how it came to be there
Beneath a tree not native to that clime
I imagined long ago, a poignant scenario
A hobo carried a pomegranate in his bundle
He fell asleep forever at the river's edge

"It is the bone of a cow," my brother avowed
And of course, it might be true
But I wondered then, and wonder still -
Which came first, the bone
or the pomegranate tree?

Pointless

Leaderless, a flock of sheep,
Will all wander aimlessly,
With no purpose, none will weep,
Nor formulte thoughts sanely.

Yes, I feel as if I'm talking
In a language no one speaks,
My consciousness is walking,
'Round in circles; nothing seeks.

Carlotta-

I really liked #94. I have to read it a few more times to glean all you dish out. It's funny you wrote about pomegranates. In an earlier post, I meant to use the word pomegranate, and accidently used persimmon. Funny. Guess I'm getting old, or maybe it was late:)

thank you, Cola

I did wonder if I was making my point too obscure.
I had a pomegranate tree in my front yard as a child.
It is really a very difficult fruit to eat , but we thought it a treat.

here's an early wish for a Happy New Year to you.

carlotta

#94 is lovely Carlotta, not too obscure. I've had a pomegranate on an occasion or two; they are difficult to eat.
And a Happy New Year to you

#95

My brother
Has gray in his beard and in his ponytail
He has the same friends he had in high school
Sometimes he works, when his back's not bad
He lives with me

My brother
Has an enviable music collection -The Grateful Dead,
Richard Thompson, Bob Dylan and so much more
He has three guitars, but he doesn't have a dresser
He doesn't have a car

My brother
Has a beer belly and fights a nicotine addiction
He reads everything and leaves books in the bathroom
He only cooks spaghetti and Ramen soup
Dogs and children love him.

carlotta,

I liked #95. It paints a vivid portrait.

Then, after all of the description, the last line addressed the question that was forming in my mind, ie:

'What do I make of this person?' How do I feel about him?

He seems interesting, charming ...troubled? self-absorbed?

It made me think about the ambivalence we often feel towards those we love...

Coincidentally, just before reading your poem, I had sent an annoyed email to a sister - someone who is kind, caring, generous, always late, chaotic, and chronically in financial hot water.

I love her but sometimes she drives me crazy.

I know I loved you a minute ago, but now I hate you

It's not mindless revulsion,
I know exactly what I'm doing,
It's not misled convulsion,
Though not long has this hate been outward spewing.

I don't just hate who you were,
I hate what you've become just as much,
I don't want you to alter,
Just want to escape the painful love in your touch.

jjorge-

This poem (#95) represents a certain frustration I have with a person I love, and as you say, it's a common situation.

I rather have him just as he is than not have him at all. What gets me the most, I fear, is his complacency about living such a dependent life!

Thank you for the kind and interesting critique of my poem.

Happy New Year.

carlotta

#96

The Late, Unlamented, Year
8:49 AM

As I sit here within smelling distance of the Pacific Ocean
It dawns on me that the new year has started already elsewhere in the world
In Sydney, Tokyo and Kuala Lumpur the little rockets have come and gone
While I sit here waiting to shake the dust from my dancing shoes

I anticipate, I wait for this arbitrary gate to open and free me from an old, dead year
A year of procrastination, drudgery, duty and dreams; a year of standing still
And I hear the music playing, I hear the sirens calling, I feel the fever growing
The carnival is waiting just over the hill; thank you God for another year

.

Hogmanay



a year

is ending

a world

totters,

staggers,

on its back
so many wrongs

-jjorge

Jjorge and all
Happy New Year.

#97

The Color Game

The west wind blew
A bit of sky blue
Had the blues today
Blew my mind away

I read in the news
The red carpet is loose
Redd up I say
For a red letter day

Green envy was seen
On the bowling green
I'll bet a green back dollar
All your greens are collard