Soon, Again

grooveamatic · March 2005

Nixon's Mother wrote:

Ah, why not? Heh, yes, compliment. Them's some good words you have.

then thank you very much.

pearlmutt · March 2005

flawless plans!

Someone should be publishing these poems, but then I guess we wouldn't be getting them here for free --

great! thanks for such a wonderful set of images -- made my brain happy, and my mouth smile (brain candy is what I would call it!!)

If I can point out something, I would like to. Once I was criticized for using too many "and's" and the criticism was warranted in the context of the poem I was writing. Here you've used many, but I think it's perfect in this context -- it's the way people talk when they are excited about their plans -- what a nice future your speaker must have!

grooveamatic · March 2005

pearlmutt wrote:

flawless plans!

Someone should be publishing these poems, but then I guess we wouldn't be getting them here for free --

great! thanks for such a wonderful set of images -- made my brain happy, and my mouth smile (brain candy is what I would call it!!)

If I can point out something, I would like to. Once I was criticized for using too many "and's" and the criticism was warranted in the context of the poem I was writing. Here you've used many, but I think it's perfect in this context -- it's the way people talk when they are excited about their plans -- what a nice future your speaker must have!

Thanks so much once again Pearlmutt! You are truly going to inflate my ego!

The many 'and's were certainly on purpose--like you said, I thought it denoted the excitement and the "in-the-moment" rushed nature of what the speaker is talking about. I wrote that poem in about ten minutes. I thought that in order to nail the rushed and excited feeling, I needed to rush the poem. Of course, I've gone back and changed a few things, but the tone remains.

Glad you liked it!

grooveamatic · April 2005

All I need to do
To be filled
(overfilled, really; brimming)
With poetic vigor
Is to picture the lower half
Of your body
In black pinstriped pants
Parading around the living room
As though carried
(held up, levitated)
By wispful spirits,
Happy thick ghosts
Folding pinstriped flesh perfectly
Around the room.

That is all I need,

And then more images follow:
The ceremonial lighting of torches,
Bats underlit circling a street light,
A woman's lazy breasts
Swinging in an African hut
Swatting flies like a cow's tail,
The exploding of devices.

grooveamatic · April 2005

When I was a younger man and foolhardy
I would pick sometimes old cigarette butts
Out of public ashtrays and smoke the crumpled tobacco,
Inhaling the stale breath of strangers and lipstick
Because I was out of money or time
Or too boozed-up to notice or care.
They had been like any other cigarette
Except forgotten, valueless.

I don't do that anymore.
I now have just enough money and scruples
To seperate what is trash from what has merit,
Or what is mine from what is noone's.
And on days when the sun is out
And folks are walking, pushing kids in strollers,
I'll walk the streets grinning, smoking one cigarette
With an extra one behind my ear, in case a stranger needs one.

Felicity · April 2005

i really like and appreciate the vulnerability.

you are one of the nicest people.

grooveamatic · April 2005

The visit
Went I guess well
Although her eyes drooped
Thewholetime
And she was gaunt
As a bough with no leaves;
She asked for nothing
(which I promptly gave)
But took perhaps my time
(which is not I believe oh-so-precious)
And I spoke to her rapidly
Of dwindling things
(like the future and cigarettes)
As though she were a silently seated wall;
I took no great pleasure
In the solitary nature of the conversation,
But rather than reminisce
I'd rather ramble:
Rather than hear her voice
(which is also gaunt,
and full of more past
than a school yearbook)
I'd rather hear mine
(which at times is full of more bullshit
than a pile of bullshit)
Animatedly droning on
About quirky vanity lisense plates
And bizarre ways to set up a chess board;

I have no more love for your body,
Dear,
And I never quite cared for your mind;
I told you once that I thought I could force love,
But nobody can. Noone ever has.

And she sits inert listening to me
(those sunken eyes black hungry pearls)
But I keep talking
Talking
And always will
(whenever she wants, whenever she calls)
Because she was always there for me
Naked and splayed
(whenever I wanted, whenever I called)

justam · April 2005

I like the way you wrote this.
And I feel sorry for inert the dark eyed woman.

grooveamatic · April 2005

justam wrote:

I like the way you wrote this.
And I feel sorry for inert the dark eyed woman.

thanks so much!

and yes, she is to be felt sorry for...she is miserable and I am not blameless in that...but I do what I can to make up for it. ah, regret!

grooveamatic · April 2005

The Last Poem

If I wanted to say something new
(that's never been said before)
About the drudgery of aging
And passing time
Years building up upon you
Like solid walls of heaviest stone
I'd train to be a painter or dramatist;
Poems are so small next to decades.

If I wanted to complain about sagging bellies,
Calloused feet, the ache here and the pain there
(that never hurt before)
The hair falling out,
The dark mysterious shroud enveloping us
The moment pubics sprout,
I think I'd become a sculptor or dancer;
Words are so woefully weightless.

If I were inclined to break new ground
(that's never been broke before)
About the wrinkled dying masses,
Their hearts beating to nowhere
With souls sweeter than molasses
And graves shallower than wells,
I'd go to school for business or law;
All language ever did was reflect oblivion.

This should be the last poem I'll ever write
(of course it won't be, of course it couldn't be)
But from now on I'll only write about flowers,
Moonbeams landing on still ponds,
Fish that leap and miss the net,
Lovers sweating on a candlelit balcony,
Cold clothes left by the fire.
I'll stop writing about things that baffle me.

ISN · April 2005

I should like your poems
I could like your poems
I would read them if I had time
I have time and I don't read them
do I find them too putrid
do I find them too mannered....
I do find them interesting
and I would read them if I could
and really, I should....
and I will
if I can.....
I might
if I may
I shall
if I do....

grooveamatic · April 2005

a rather interesting little poem there, ISN...I'm not quite sure how to take it....but, I suppose it means you've been reading my stuff, so I suppose thanks!

ISN · April 2005

mostly, I like your poems.....but seeing as I'm honest, I have to express my reservations......but I can't reply to each poem.....as you're so prolific....but on the whole, I really think you're brilliant....:)

grooveamatic · May 2005

I only see him for a short moment
Ambling along the sidewalk by my car
Maybe fourteen, maybe nineteen, who knows,
Backwards fitted cap obviously new,
A Hook-Ups board tucked deep into sweaty
Armpit hell. The slick wooden board quivers
Under the gyrations of the boys’ fat.
Suddenly I’m scared he’ll actually
Try to hop on it right in front of me
So I can helplessly watch it shatter,
But he just glances sidelong at the car
As I pass, and heaves massive oxygen
Into still-young lungs. Somewhere, in some past,
Reside dreams of photos in magazines,
Shoe deals, and medals bestowed on half-pipes;
Long afternoons at the park grinding curbs.
Now he’ll have to settle in like the crowd
For long car rides, Atkins-diet saneness,
And, briefly, just once, slow dancing in rain.

grooveamatic · May 2005

Don’t think you can fool us
We are not as self-important
As you’d like to think
With our televisions and cemeteries
And flowerbeds
Rushing rivers we dam
And move around like serpents’ playthings
And you with your, well,
Cemeteries and flowerbeds
But more too
Divorces and wars
We know what those are
We are afraid of them but face them
What choice have we?
We are not long days not one of us
This fact eludes no one
Not the three year old
Not the ninety year old
I suspect even kittens know it
And inside our sandwiched moments
There are many beginnings too
The birth and the paycheck
Throwing rice at the couple
And where do you come from
With your Christmas and train rides
To reinforce life’s most endearing dread?
From dreams, carnivals.

grooveamatic · May 2005

ISN wrote:

mostly, I like your poems.....but seeing as I'm honest, I have to express my reservations......but I can't reply to each poem.....as you're so prolific....but on the whole, I really think you're brilliant....:)

I have to thank you for your honesty, ISN....I was away on a business trip for a week and so couldn't reply right away....while I do enjoy constant praise, it is a good reality check for someone to say "It's not all great"....that being said, the use of the word 'putrid' really floored me (I'm the sensitive writer-type, you know).....mannered, I can understand, but putrid? I suppose I can find it within me to continue....

Thanks again for the honest appraisal.

grooveamatic · May 2005

I am writing wildly
Poems about total nonsense
(who fucked who
and the meaning of life)
With unabashed glory;
I am scribing vividly
Accounts of lives in shambles
(people who dance on tables
for money,
men with nothing to worship,
women who--while showering will--
slice their wrists with
disposable
razors in nonlethal ways
for the attention of nobody whatsoever,
groups of folks with so little to do
they fire rifles at the moon)
With undiminished enthusiasm.
I am charging forward
With images and words
Nonsense
About life on fire,
On metal striking bone
Pushing for someone (or something)
To take note of it all
(the children riding clouds in umbrellas,
the chimneys falling down brick by brick)
Because sooner or later
It will all catch fire
(in fact, things catch fire all the time)

grooveamatic · May 2005

And let there be no doubt
That I am a happy man,
Free to roam the sidewalks of this town
At any hour I want
Pausing to glance in the darkened showroom windows
At the walk-in humidors and elgant truffles
Of the specialty shops
That close at nine;
And let there be no doubt
That I am a happy man,
Lazily pacing the floor of my apartment
At noon in my sweatpants
Farting and eating Pop-Tarts;
And let there be no doubt
That I am a happy man,
Reading a book in the park
With my Starbucks coffee and a fresh pack of smokes
Listening to the kids play tag
The sun brighter than a thousand smiles;
And let there be no doubt
That I am a happy man,
Watching seagulls take off and land
Take off and land
In the parking lot
In the lock of mid-December,
Grinning at secret improbabilities.
I am a happy man,
It's true,
And on dark winter nights
(when it gets dark so early
and cold so fast)
I just close my eyes
And imaigine I'm strumming a guitar
Gently strumming an old old tune
On my blue guitar
As the fire cracks and pops an accompaniment
And Dodger, the faithfull Dachsund,
Nuzzles my feet as if he were slippers.
Oh! To be alone and happy,
It is not so hard!

grooveamatic · May 2005

It is on sunny days
I can best picture her
(walking nearly running)
Mouthing crazy sentences
And imploring me not to
Speak to her father
Or anybody for that matter
And not to ever forget her
Or the time she almost fell
In front of a subway train
Or the time her two-hundred-dollar hat
Blew off the upstairs balcony
Or the time we sat all day on the cabin porch
Counting flies and then stars
Or the time we changed a tire together
On that dirt road in Maryland
But of course I am forgetting it all
As I usually forget everything
Except perhaps that way she smiled,
Her pencil-thin lips turning up
Like the sterns of sturdy boats.

pearlmutt · May 2005

"As the fire cracks and pops an accompaniment"

this has absolutely nothing to do with how good your poem is.

Just a funny little coincidence, this happened today:
we have been studying onomatopoeia and I made a worksheet that stated, "the fire cracked and pooped."

Oh, my goodness! Did the kids make me laugh in the hall at my own mistake? You bet.

Your poem is great!

Soon, Again

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