77 Sunset Beach

XI:6 The Big Show

feeds@yuku.com (Osal) — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 09:09:13 GMT

It was white. Mountainous white.
And when it opened its throat to sing
a flush of diamond snow flew
out of a hollow under its frown.
The hermit stirred his cooking fire.

Further down, neck to waist
silver bracelets twirled about it,
glimmering in the pranic air.
When you later took a breath
it was as if you had said to it,
"Move"

for it lifted the hem of its plain robe
...

VIII.7...Snow

feeds@yuku.com (judyswann) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:50:57 GMT

It is a time that says enough, hush
If we're lucky, no car will groan past into the glove of our silence.
Though there are schools and businesses, we will not leave home.
...

VIII.6...Long Week

feeds@yuku.com (judyswann) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 20:45:20 GMT

[doggerel, but I'll still use it to get to 7 tonight]

I like having my checks written, my trash out, enough soap.
And when you see me, I want your mouth to water.
I dance Brazilectro and chant Amituofo.

That's twice my friend Mumspimus spoke
rhyming Walter Pater with "alma mater,"
but my checks are written and I have dish soap.

Obama...

VIII.5...In Earnest

feeds@yuku.com (judyswann) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:37:00 GMT

[I was going to try to write 7 in 1 night, rather than 1 a day for 7 days, but I'm really flagging. I have an hour and a half.]

I have a hunger for the source behind the source
the source...

VIII:4...Blizzard

feeds@yuku.com (judyswann) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:22:32 GMT

the door pushes against the snow, making a long hypoteneuse of the ridge
.......starlight blankets the snowy ground
.......that holds, in its cupped palm, our house
.......and the dimple of the crawl space
.......from whose hibernating womb,...

VIII:3...The Buzz

feeds@yuku.com (judyswann) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:16:54 GMT

The spellers in their hazmat suits
.......and netted beekeeppers' helmets
.......studied their lists.

The Dewey Decimators and the Spellicans,
.......The Lachrymose Wildebeestes,
.......pre-filled...

VIII:2...Positively Stella's

feeds@yuku.com (judyswann) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:03:23 GMT

The twelve pound cat did not mind
.......when Pearl steadied the paper
.......against his shoulder

Susan's friend Brian? He says Meeno.
2005 I came to Houston
from New Orleans from the Philippines.
That was a camp,
refugees! I left my country 1978.

In the library I work for Susan,
I change the headings.
Susan is a model employee.
She comes to work and sits
on the chair, works at the computer.
Books and office supplies
arranged neatly on her desk.
She is a very careful person....

XI:5 Ambelopoulia

feeds@yuku.com (Osal) — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 10:51:08 GMT

*

There ..is
no song
in this. Yet, in sounding out
the word, the delicate skeletal
musculature of the tongue - even not voicing it -
behaves the same. The throat closes. We will leave it outside
with the lime-stick glue, the net stretched wide, a firmament
of golden blue, upon it a white church steeple,...

XI:4 herald

feeds@yuku.com (Osal) — Tue, 22 Dec 2009 16:02:11 GMT

the maple tree

fathoms

from within

a deep green silence

wings

*

emanates

three great gulls

as each

lights

staggering

**behind the bread truck

and you

witness

to time's demise

nothing passes.

not sure why the font is so big and bad. :-)

XI:3 A Boy's Life in Jute

feeds@yuku.com (Osal) — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:04:52 GMT

For D.W.

Shipped out.
A stowaway of eyes. ( The best of us
cast aside.) Small potatoes.

A tall star
below deck. Down among chrysanthemum bows
and flash, the boy you could eat
with a spoon.

Paleochora Papers.
From The Greek came the Olive.
Go terraces of Almond, toiling with bees- Go Home,
Homeward, go Better. Luck....

XI:2 The Long-suffering Sea Turtle Bridges the 'Two Heavens'

feeds@yuku.com (Osal) — Sat, 19 Dec 2009 20:24:56 GMT

The Long-Suffering Sea-Turtle Bridges the Two 'Heavens'

Does it have coral you can eat? the fishes, all feathering, ask.
N-No, says the turtle, who has always carried his house on his own back.
Does it have melons, or silk- for the sky? the spiders, all dithering, ask.
Does it have coral you can eat? The fishes, everly blithering, ask.

Nov. 30 Bastion of rightness and red meat

feeds@yuku.com (Judy ) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 16:33:38 GMT

My father didn't consider it a meal unless there was meat,
preferably something red that required a sharp knife to eat.

For me, the potatoes carried more meaning, a mound of white,
scooped out in the middle for gravy, butter, anything to delight

my senses, slide across my tongue, slither between my teeth.
I preferred swallowing to chewing. I didn't like grease

or anything that bled across the plate. My brother only ate
hamburgers,...

Nov. 29 Retina flashbacks

feeds@yuku.com (Judy ) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 15:33:04 GMT

In all of my photos there are no cities
and I wonder about that, that lack.
For surely I have lived in cities,
in big brutes of cities: Brooklyn,
Boston, Buffalo. Somehow though
I found nothing there to photograph,
no place where I wanted to sink below
the skin, to capture the humming wires,
the molded concrete, the songs of whistling
cabs, torn T-shirts, the levity of the Irish pub,
the dour smell of the el. Even the people
faded,...

Nov 30 Piled High

feeds@yuku.com (SJane30) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 10:56:21 GMT

(I'll be back to comment tomorrow)

Piled High

Unlike a Bogart movie, we'll never have time. Instead sun cinches dust into strands that belt long hallways like threadbare trenchcoats. The rooms...

Congratulations!

feeds@yuku.com (JudeGoodwin) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 09:33:03 GMT

This is your final day - for those of you who completed 30 in 30 - a big round of applause! And to all of you, your poems have been inspirational - I've enjoyed my time among so many creative souls.

It's IBPC time, so please take a moment to go through the poems here and pick one or two of your favourites to nominate for the IBPC.

We'll close nominations Dec 2. Toni and Jude usually make the final decision but we take into account any extra votes that might be...

Nowember30th Asexual Politics Of Meat

feeds@yuku.com (Siva Ramanathan) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 06:28:03 GMT

So Obvious

They show you Trisha
and a soft drink bottle like Trisha
It is all over those magazines
open and spread out and spelt out
even butchers have learnt a thing or two
they dangle the front portion of a chicken
in front of the shops all glossy with the sheen of skin
all this because we have never said no, not even once.

Sivakami

Nov. 28 Prayer on the edge of the morning

feeds@yuku.com (Judy ) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 03:55:22 GMT

For the slow stretch of highway under slight stars

For the son who lies beneath a dripping ceiling
parsing word threads, stitching electronic seams.

For the empty house, the one where the dumpster
holds Aunt Alberta's potholders, doilies, antimacassars,
the frame of lost fathers, forgotten sisters.

For the chives, weeping in the garden,
yellow and wet with the burrowing season.

For the red squirrel who chattered after nuts,
...