Haiku

White lightning on a
straight path to the heart. Love is
like drinking moonshine.

Desk Set: On the Fourth Day, Todd Anderson Stood Valiently

Protesting when no one else dared
to speak up first, would others have asked
for the poetic justice he called for?

His school desk becomes a soap box,
and he lays out his blanket of truth
for you to curl into.

The last stood first and for that moment,
standing alone, he evolved from an amoeba
into a lion.

All this happened in four words,
Whitman’s line:
“O Captain, my Captain.”

Aerodynamic: On the Third Day Neil Perry Found Serenity

Gliding through a starless sky,
he aims for the glow of Heaven.

Staring into a midnight tunnel,
his closed eyes are a shield against

pain. The night air is warmed by the
release of earthly slings and arrows.

He can no longer feel the rough woven
branches of Puck’s crown of thorns;

a blast of air, heat and suddenly
no aches, no joys, no feelings left.

He seized the day; then snuffed
out his light.

All they found was the stench of gunsmoke
in the air and the shell he once called home.

Swoon: On the Second Day, Knox Overstreet Felt Pride

Alive with the death of his embarrassment,
he smugly settles into the joy brought by her
smile, letting it act like electricity to his spine,
making it stronger and straighter.
The seized day lays down its hands
in a worshipful bow.
Her inconsequential classmates whisper uncaring
critiques of his love poem for her.
He finishes his piece, running before he can get
a response. He fears this feeling will precede his
fall.
As he sneaks out of her school, he steals toast from
the kitchen and offers nothing but a
peacock’s smirk.

Sonorous: One the First Day, Charlie Dalton Created Chaos

Saxophone notes crash
into each other,
words ebb away
and make visible
zigzags
into damp cave air.
Weaving and stumbling, poetry
is forced screaming
into existence,
like a baby
from the impatient mother.
It flaps a butterfly’s wing
and causes a hurricane
in the hearts of those
who hear it.
Poetry into music,
letters and images become chords and notes,
notes and chords.
Sound doesn’t know
which
way
to
turn.

Out of Time

As an American…
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade.
By the time I came of age
Allen Ginsberg, River Phoenix, and Miles Davis
Were already dead.
I couldn’t attend a reading, write a fan letter, or see a live concert.
If I’d been born in the fifties, I could have
Been a hippie
thrown coins at the raiding police at the Stonewall Bar
taken my clothes off in the first performance of “Hair”

As a Briton…
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong decade
I could have had breakfast with Conan Doyle, lunched with Shaw, dined with Wilde.
If I’d been born in the 1880s, I’d have
married young
kept a female lover in the countryside
shocked proper society by becoming an actress
given Dylan Thomas his first pen

As a Non-Christian…
Sometimes I think I was born in the wrong millennia
Temples to the Gods have since fallen or been turned into “culture spots”.
My belief in Zeus, Athena, Eros, and Dionysis
Would not be the quirk of a weird girl who hates monotheism.
If I’d been born before Jesus’ calendar change, I would have
Hidden around the corner to listen to Socrates’ trial
Left my offering for Aphrodite to bring me love
Been executed for masquerading as a boy to act alongside Thespis.

Never Take Notes

Dedicated to Spot and Race

I sit cross-legged on the bed
and stare down at the alabaster
marble of his flesh, tracing
a new constellation onto
his back. His bangs cover
his closed eyes like a
golden gauze curtain.

My notebook lays open, but
blank at my other side, a
third wheel in the affair. I want
to describe him in detail so that
years from now, when gray hair
overthrows brown for superiority
and my memory falls victim to
Time’s ravages, I will find that
currently unborn poem and see this
moment and him as though I were
watching a movie in my mind.

Yet I have forsaken my pen,
letting my fingertips write nonsense
across his shoulder blades.

Waiting-A Velvet Goldmine Poem

Waiting

Arthur’s bent over his
computer keyboard
like the hunchback
of the Herald.
Long fingers waltz across
the minute letters
as his words begin
their evolution into
an article.

Curt dropped into
the office to take
Arthur to dinner, only
to find him grappling
with the fierce monster:
writer’s block.
Arthur’d given him a smile
weak as watered-down
tea and Curt could see
frustration dancing with
defeat in his eyes.

Curt shrugged, promising
to wait for him,
caressed his bangs away
from his eyes and took
a seat on a corner of
his desk. Arthur began
typing, the sound a
monotonous tone of ants
marching down the sidewalk.

By the time Curt started
nodding off to the murmur
of hunger in his stomach,
his lover giggled in coffee-induced
delight as he printed out
his work.
“My muse,” he called him.

My New Philosophy

I build my religion out of musicals,
my Jesus is a drag queen, but he still
comes back at the end of the show,
greeting his followers by the stage door.

Pleasure for measure, Hedonists
like me find our bliss where we can.
We love without needing love,
but we can see it when it’s there.

Six of one, half a dozen of the other;
I have no label of ‘lesbian’
Or ‘straight’, so society cannot
File me away.

I defend the lifestyle I live
through the wind, rain,
and protest signs. Want me
to march in a parade of Pride?

Been there, done that, bought
the over-priced designer t-shirt
and it says, “Love is
Love.”

Eliminate Words

I wrap a red bandana
around my head and grip
my keyboard tightly. I
make my way across the
poem. I don’t want to watch
my phrases dies, ink dribbling
out of their mouths, but I
must, I have my orders.

I stop. Listen. Scrambling
for its life is the phrase,
“the moon wrote sonnets
across their skin”. It sees me
and holds up all nine syllables
as if to say, “What harm could
I really do? I’m only seven
words, who’s even going to
notice if you let me slide by?”

“I would,” I reply, tapping out
a funeral march with the
backspace key.

I see the family. A
stanza of sentences all
huddled around each other,
trying desperately to advance
the poem’s plot, but they fail.
I say a prayer for their souls
and try to ignore the fear in
their eyes as I obliterate them.

A tiny ‘the’ stumbles along,
wondering where the rest
of its sentence went. I want
to let it stay, it’s only a baby
word. But even the babies can
grow up to ruin a whole piece.
I look away.

Delete.