We'll Be Right Back

I've been discussing the humor and/or hipness (and/or lack thereof) of various talk-show hosts, so when Poetic Asides offered the Wednesday prompt "look beneath the surface," this is what emerged.

Late Show

Before the garbage trucks break the dawn,
before the gangbangers’ boldest feints,
I face you. I have gathered for days, and all of it
is headed straight for your straight faces.
Sometimes I fling it and the worst bits
bounce back: the mud from the bootsoles,
the stink of the swollen bags. But I’m here,
I’m decorated, because most of the time
you eat it: jaws flapping, eyes pressed shut
by the muscles that force open your mouth
and throat. Choking with it. If it all goes down,
when I retreat, the captain, behind the blue drape,
will smack my shoulder and bellow proudly,
You killed.

Synesthesia

KHUM, which I listen to at work, is playing a bunch of songs about Van Gogh. Here's a quick little stanza that might go somewhere.

Van Gogh cut off his ear,
not his hand. He didn’t need it to hear
what he heard: the sussuration through
sunflowers, the thud of stale bread
on cracked wood, the faint but very real
whoosh of a spiral of stars.

May? May not.

OK, boy, I've gone way off track here. I've done some scribbles, but getting to this site has proved impossible for days and days.

Yesterday, Robert Lee Brewer's blog posted a prompt: Write a sentence beginning "Don't you...." and use it as the poem title. So I just tapped out this one in, like, seven minutes. Gotta do something.

Don’t You Dream About Me

Don’t you dream about me. You got your papers;
you’ve gone up the coast. There are seven tracts
of land between us, five of which are farms
the government doesn’t know about. There are seven
months of bitterness. Things you think are secret
will be read in the lines between
north- and southbound lanes, classifieds,
curtain calls, eyes. So when you close the covers
over those bony ribs with the tiny star
under your right breast, when you close your eyes,
let your subconscious stray no farther
than those seven farms and months,
some of them guarded by triggers
that could flick in a blink.

Memorial Day

An Early Holiday

The sandwich board of the guy in the middle
of Donnell Drive proclaims:

Prepare
MAY 22
Your God

If I were a betting woman, I’d wager that the date
has been pasted over “To Meet.” Pity;
that’s the important part. I would like
to meet my God, though not on Memorial Day weekend.

The truck driver next to me believes
there’s a gun under the boards.
The woman tailgating me believes
she’ll get fired if she’s later than nine.
The minivan mom in the oncoming lane
doesn’t see the prophet, and won’t
until she’s jumped the median
and moved up his meeting time.

And then no one else will know to prepare
except for Delmonico steaks, graveside flowers,
and that first purchase of oils and lotions
to save our thin skins from the sun.

Running to Stand Still

So far behind....

Today's prompt from my Baggie: "poem inspired by a work of art (ekphrastic)."

I don't have time to write an ekphrastic poem on a Wednesday. Maybe late at night, after choir practice, if I'm somehow inspired by Haydn. And I haven't done the Beatles one yet.

And Robert Lee Brewer's Wednesday prompt is "a poem about spring." Ugh--sounds easy to write badly for that one.

I'm too busy at work right now to make time for this. I will try to get back before midnight.

Ticket to Write

Today's prompt: "poem inspired by a Beatles title."

I really meant to add "...or line" to that prompt, so I'm allowing myself to do so.

Publish or perish or both

Having been advised that having poems up here may constitute "publication," I'm going to start taking them down. I would hate for a little-read post of a first draft of a poem to prevent my publishing a later draft of the same poem in a real publication, but I don't want to take any chances.