Poems & poem-like things – Page 1132

May 10, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Teacher, Teacher

Didactic by day, the ovenbird sings
another, more evocative melody just before dawn.

It sings about leaves that kept opening in the darkness
& the horizon drawing tight around the cabin.

The schoolmarm had been dreaming of other people’s children,
& woke with a head full of mucous & a pounding headache.

Her brother had taken the team to the back field,
left the sow to turn the garden with its snout.

She grabbed the ax and went to win back the sky:
girdling trees, he’d smirked, is no work for a man.

The rain came. A thrush started singing
from a branch that had yet to get the news of its death.

She circled a basswood,
fitting it with a bright new corset.

__________

It probably helps to know that “Teacher, teacher” is the usual onomatopoeic rendering of the ovenbird’s daytime call.

May 8, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Otherwise

Prompted by the image I’m using as a header for my online book, Spoil.

Up to my ears
in accidents &
old weather,
the no-news
that rarely manages
to be good,
I begin to feel
a little like one
of those tablets
from Moses’
first trip into
the clouds —
fragmented,
impossible —

while overhead,
the pink Sinai
of a crabapple tree
abuzz with every
kind of hornet,
bee, & model-
thin ichneumon
plays host
to a scat-
singing catbird
who pauses just
long enough
to snatch another
stingered morsel
out of the air.

May 3, 2007June 3, 2015 by Dave Bonta

Inheritance

last dream before waking

My grandfather never died;
he simply lost all animation.
We carry him from house to car
to house, & his pale thin figure
is able to hold any pose indefinitely.

He doesn’t eat, so he never goes
to the bathroom — a relief for everyone.
Some of us do put words in his mouth:
I know what Pop-pop would say, we say,
& maybe we do, but his expression never changes.

He’s sitting right there when
the four siblings meet
to divide the estate. He was always good
at not hearing things, though,
& this morning is no exception.
The room turns to coal around him.
We are shining our headlamps
at the shale ceiling & its yellow
shapes of ferns. We are listening for canaries.

After a lifetime in the oil industry,
it must seem strange to return
to the hard coal country of his childhood,
but at least Pop-pop doesn’t need a light.
This is an outcome he’d recognize —
one he set aside after his famous talk with God.
I hear his nose drip behind me
like the stalactite it was always trying to become.
Someone says, Black as the ace of spades!
with a nervous laugh,
& it sounds just like him.
__________

[Poetry Thursday – dead link]

I also recorded an audio version of my poem “Into the Garden” from the other day, and posted it along with the text here.

Find links to other people’s Poetry Thursday posts here.

April 29, 2007September 23, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Into the Garden: Liviu Librescu

In memory of the Holocaust survivor who saved a classroom

I grew up wary of doors:
open, they could give you away;
closed, they could stop your heart
with a knock at midnight.
Humans were herded into pens like animals.
Let us go once more into the garden, my friends.

As an adult under Ceausescu
I learned to fear the walls & the furniture,
anywhere an electronic ear could be hidden.
Only outside could we speak
about our dreams.
Let us go once more into the garden.

When I told them I wanted to emigrate to Israel,
all of Romania became my jail.
Fired from my job, I still left the house
every day with my briefcase
so the children wouldn’t suspect anything,
so they could grow up without fear.
I mailed a manuscript out of the country
disguised as a series of letters.
Let us go, my friends, let us go.

Fears should be faced in the open.
Too long indoors, & the mind
grows walls of its own.
Even here in Blacksburg, one day
a tree fell on my house–
anything can happen.
Let us go once more
into the garden.

UPDATE: You can listen to the poem here.

April 26, 2007September 23, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Villanellified

From village idiot as from villanelle
one learns the power of a repeated phrase.
Everything I need to know I learned in hell.

Weapons of mass destruction: an easy sell.
We’re trained to like whatever the radio plays,
be it the Village People or a villanelle.

I learned to just do it before I learned to spell;
asking why was only a passing phase.
Everything I need to know I learned in hell.

The pretty faces on the news can’t tell
spin from drip dry, fog from haze,
the village idiot’s raving from a villanelle.

We must support our troops. Ring that bell!
Pavlov’s elephants salivate. The donkey brays.
Everything I need to know I learned in hell.

The gnostic gospel of the cancer cell
preaches a god of growth. Replication pays.
Ask the village idiot with his villanelle:
everything I need to know I learned in hell.

[Poetry Thursday – dead link]

The assignment this week was — you guessed it — a villanelle. My feelings about the form are probably evident from the poem (I use the term loosely). Most of us are not Dylan Thomas.

Links to other Poetry Thursday posts are here. I’ve already found a couple villanelles that defied my expectations by not sucking. And of course many people did the sensible thing and chose not to follow the optional assignment.

April 19, 2007May 30, 2016 by Dave Bonta

Matsuo Basho: a new hearing

frog
detail from “Frog and Mouse” by Getsuju, ca. 1800, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The temple bell stops—
but the sound keeps coming
out of the flowers.

The contrail dissipates—
but the sound keeps coming
out of the sky.

Such stillness—
The cries of the cicadas
Sink into the rocks.

Such stillness—
the hum of the air conditioner
drowns out the traffic.

The old pond.
A frog jumps in.
The sound of water.

The mitigated wetland.
A frog hops toward it.
The sound of tires.

Translations by Robert Bly (1); Donald Keene (2); damn near everyone (3)

[Poetry Thursday – dead link]

This week’s prompt — project, really — was guerrilla poetry, and while I wasn’t able put the suggestion into effect (yet), I guess bowlderizing some of the greatest works of a justly beloved poet is sort of guerrilla-esque. Links to other Poetry Thursday posts can be found here.

April 12, 2007September 23, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Confounded

poem ending with a line from another poet

I do not want the skies to open

again & the Writ to sift down

like dust from a mill. It settles

nothing, as I said to our neighbor

the infidel before firing

into the air. We were getting married,

our daughter to his son, & showing

our teeth. My house is your house-

hold now, he said, & I almost wept

with rage. Let us pray together,

I should’ve offered, give thanks

for nothing, for prayers

ignored & virtues

made compulsory, & therefore

meaningless. There is no God

but God, & I’m still His faithful

cur, charged with the hard work

of making people happy.

__________

[Poetry Thursday – dead link]

Thanks, January!

To read other responses to this week’s challenge, go here.

April 10, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Trick

There was no ethnic or demographic pattern to distinguish the people who stayed to watch [Joshua] Bell, or the ones who gave money, from that vast majority who hurried on past, unheeding. Whites, blacks and Asians, young and old, men and women, were represented in all three groups. But the behavior of one demographic remained absolutely consistent. Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away.
–Gene Weingarten, “Pearls Before Breakfast”

look mama
a man with a stick making a song
on a funny-looking box
stuck to his chin

come along honey we’ll be late

look how he stands & rocks mama
like a tree in the wind
& the box as shiny as fresh-shined shoes
where his voice should be

hush it’s only a street musician
don’t let him catch you looking

but mama
look how the song goes all around
from the same back & forth
isn’t that the most magic trick
you ever heard

it’s only a violin honey
hurry up we’ll be late

April 8, 2007 by Dave Bonta

Tanka

The way the very elderly
cling to any handhold
in a world gone strange,
this snow
on the daffodils.

April 5, 2007February 18, 2013 by Dave Bonta

Testament: last lines

for all those I have plundered (nothing I have is mine to give away)

I can’t decipher my stale devotion
it’s made up entirely of curse words
no condoms for the heart
will save you daily from three dozen blessings
pale orange branches, pale blue sky
there are always more
the mother’s slim hands vanishing into blurred velvet
her compound bird-span wings disguised as eyes
in twilight, curves as hard as nutshells
and beyond, the bright flying splinters of the stars
they shower onto the earth
to house its want
elusive green whorl
and I hid it like a mutant twin
unraveling the dark seam of winter
notch between hills
I am as empty as the mourning dove calling today –
whoo-ah-ooo-ooo-ah
__________

In response to the Poetry Thursday challenge, “Write a poem to, for, or about a poet.” If you’re reading this on-site (as opposed to the RSS or email version) the poem may appear all or mostly blue on first reading, reflecting my mood early this morning before I started putting it together. But unrhymable orange is its proper color, I think. Therefore each reader must complete this on his/her own by clicking on all the lines, in any order.

You can find links to the other April 5th PT poems here.