Moon Spoon June

moon spoon june

This intro used to say that I disliked poetry, that I had little tolerance for much past the first line, and that this may have been the result of some sort of a flaw within me. Yeah, it was a flaw, what isn't? And what flaw doesn't blossom into another? Now its not poetry I cannot read, but today's fiction. I pick up book after book and throw it down for the smallest infraction: dumb character name; overly cute or hipster prose; writing about writing or college. Nope, I cannot read fiction of the day. Only a few get through:  Murakami, or the occasional Junot Diaz, J. Lethem. But not much else. Older stuff fares better. Saul Bellow, Fowles (I'm reading "Magus" on my flipping iPhone!), Steinbeck.

I fretted about this. I'm supposed to be a "fiction" writer myself -- though I finally realized I have no desire to make up stories, just to tell them, so I released myself from that particular moniker and felt good.  I thought maybe I'm just a memoirist, but that hurt, cause I don't care much for memoirs either, esp. by people noone's ever heard of. A lose/lose situation! Can't beat that as a writer. Anyway during this time I wasn't reading and felt shitty about it. I missed reading but was stuck.  So I finally turned to poetry to fill the gap in my reading life. 

Its been great, too. I'm teaching myself a bit about it, going through some of the big names, some unknowns, sifting off what I don't like, finding whole new sections of used book shoppes to haunt. Been good so far. Bursts of intense language, puzzling out meaning in just a few lines. What fun. I apologize for shunning you all these years, poetry.

I've temporarily, or maybe permanently changed the skirblog into "Moon Spoon June," the name of a zine I published back in the day. I am using it for an outlet of my own skir-oetry, but can easily put up some of yours if you have it and so desire... send it along, no?  But if you're looking for the original archived skirblog, the one filled with life-changing and stunning revelatory noodlings, it is here:

Original, High Fructose skirblog.

Lee

such are our instruments

 

 

Such Are Our Instruments

 

We form joints and links of connexion

We adapt large apertures to small

We tie our vessels and tubes of glass

And construct the most complex apparatus.

 

Great distinctions often belong

To the errors of the past.

 

Fire was found to be but the visible

Thus is the progress of science.

 

Adapted from “Familiar Letters on Chemistry”
by
Justus Liebig

 

fridge

 

(... homage to Shel Silverstein)

 

Do you have pickles in your fridge?

Do you have pickles in your fridge?

If you have pickles in your fridge

Then you’re a frog who knows how to live.

 

Do you have onions on your breath?

Do you have onions on your breath?

If you have onions on your breath

you better try to give your teeth a bath.

 

Do you have liver in your shoe?

Do you have liver in your shoe?

If you have liver in your shoe

Say “yes! I discovered something new!”

 

Do you have clams on the brain?

Do you have clams on the brain?

If you have clams on the brain

your eyes will shine but your hair will look insane.

 

Cherry Armature

 

Honeycomb blood

lava lamp heart

 

visible ribs

and carapace

vertebrae

and discs

 

Lint trap clogs

Fridge ice falls

mechanically

car idle drones and hums

door slams

sticky papers crinkle

tumblers click

 

Living room

wax light

hockey game curiously quiet

   (but for the puck)

cloth chairs

hot laundry

 

Picnic table

cough drop

crying girl

collar bones

elbow hugs

boy hips and haircuts.

 

her friends pierce her to the pit.

found found

Going through a bunch of files recently I found a raft of "found" poems. Most were made from using only words from newspaper articles, particularly movie listings and crime digests. A lot of them were physically cut out and re-pasted. This one uses only words from a Pittsburgh Post Gazette "News Digest," date unknown:

Buses change routes

To avoid hazardous situations.

Hazardous situations have lead to recent

Accidents.

Officials mailed notices (the children! the rerouting!)

Officials have asked please rectify the condition.

 

Some people are dry

Without water

Tonight

Struggled for hours

To clarify the damage

To turn off the gushing

To strike a tree

Turned onto a route

A Commodore man

And struck a tree

 

About eleven a.m.

A salt truck

Helicopter evacuated hydrant

An asphalt occupied structural development

A hospital admitted revised influence

Water trickled tow truck she admitted

 

Man dies in crash

Man dies after crash

            she was driving

            she lost control

            she struck a tree

the car he was driving

the trailer which was crossing

Under the influence

Buried in asphalt

Owned and occupied

Critical condition

 

Man dies in crash

Man dies after crash

Some people are dry

Discovered were damaged

Buses change routes to avoid hazardous situations.

three-legged cat

(new poem...)

three-legged cat

 

this is where I saw the three-legged cat

her front lawn, weedy sidewalk

weather awkward, humid,

sweat on my forehead flu-like and damp

 

pursued by her,

in no hurry it seemed. Why rush? It only has three legs.

comically angry in her tee-shirt

at this predictable passion play

 

Where are you gonna go, cat?

Who’s gonna want you?

How you gonna eat?

 

But every day the cat has the answer:

run.

 

black iron trestle

Black Iron Trestle

Somebody please stop that sound. The crying
train high across the track
moaning my city rusting black.

People are frozen where they stand
the screech from the wheels has entered them
and left them.

Wheels grind and emit smoke.
Smoke winds its way through my city,
a snake
calmly looking for me.

I hide between buildings
the sound reaches me there.

My city is gray, my city is chill,
freight makes its way cross the horrible trestle,
I lay crouched in an alley

I cover my head, useless.
I fall asleep, caboose.

 

arranged

Arranged

There is a doughnut shop that you know
where the nuts are arranged,
and it is a pleasure to choose one from the rows,
to celebrate order and to disrupt it.
There is Muzak piped into every building
through conduit recently laid.
Pick one! Pick one!
While the high notes bubble through your brain.

for the winter...

Summer (haiku)

 

Visit the farm, kid

tomatoes straight from the vine

Never happens anymore.

beehive

Poem #1:

Beehive

    I get strength from the buzzing

    the lives around me

    candy bees

    in our trash hive.

    Stairs connect us

    and our red carpets

    alarm clocks sound

    ring at the same time.