DUP Poem of the Month - July 2017

  
Indian summer first beheld your red-gold crown
'n tiny fists that grasped too soon
the lay of broken lands
you had no desire to rule
or choice but to traverse
In spite of your directional disfunctionality
you navigated the wastelands
came out the other side
unscathed to the naked eye
 
Falling all over yourself to fit in
you kept your head down
nose in books
ducked the troubles
that plagued kith and kin
found yourself  
lost
in your own
 
Wintered a while
in discontent
seething but settling
for second string
in a discordant
rock opera
waiting  
to become the fat lady
to sing
 
Finally
a new tune
springs
from this little chickadee  
I took all that you had
all that you knew  
and hoped
and dreamed
and sat down to write
words poured out
with the music
from your heart
to foster
this new growth
new life
that's climbing the trellis
you built for me

I am not okay...
I’ve survived
In a desert of poverty
All this time
Blistering from your burnt-out insults:
My body your proverbial dartboard.  
My body…
You went straight into the musky crevasses,
Carved and chopped your way back out.  
Your contempt sealed my fate
Impregnated the sky
Rains of doubt for every new guy.
I’m not whole.  
The trauma of  
Grapefruit.
What you told me to
Insert
What you told me
I deserved.  

Only now it's dark  
Can the moon shine  
Only when the moon  
Shines can I see the dark  
 
As they sleep  
I wake  
 
Early light on stream billows in air ripples  
Over the nettles  
Wake the sleeping muntjac skips skyward  
And disappears  
And cows and bees muzz and crow cuckle  
 
My nose so rich with waking grasses lilacs
Whites drying their broomheads  
Their blooms rubbing their eyes  
And the finches chat morning dreams  
Of driving cars and building roads  
 
And golden Ra becomes a silver disc  
 
And I just a man and you just a sun  
And the mozzies in between  
Born again each moment  
As the sport birds fly low on the game fields  
Through your painted sky  
 
And we hail the sun  
All hail the sun  
Hallelujah

 
wha'happen'd to them little
r a d i o s        & turnin'tables
that
in
formed      my b'b'b'b'budding
          "alternative"   conc'i'ousness
   'round '65,'66,'67',68,'69, '70, et'al...
for which
m'daddy roundly cursed & condemned me, wailing,railing
& threatening
my silly'soul to death     for    my inadvertant     c'c'c'communism.......

what a time it was !    o'glory!  leaving home amid
            threats'o violence
                       & po'Mama's
                                t e a r s

so, 39yrs later, I sat wit Pop whilst he be dyin for near-a-year
....& everything be'come
           irrelevantly
                       A-okay, (or "like" suchathing)


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Poem: You are sex;
Quail in Rose Petal sauce         
           
You are the opinion of sex during sex  
and discovered me in adolescence  
   
Some remain silent  
about what they've learned  
For others, like me  
notebooks became condoms  
   
It was a requirement  
until I made the mistake of  
believing I was a guard myself  
in no need of protection  
   
I was working undercover  
for God after all  
   
Poem: you are no pin cushion  
   
You are the prick of light  
that helps shadows  
redress, decently  
   
You were discovered open  
naked, but he will only report  
what is inevitable;  
   
the carcass of a peach  
he entered again and again  
with words to recreate  
memory  
   
Poem: You are Future  
   
I am neanderthal  
earthed, sealed, sinking  
deeper underneath wet black stones  
of my own meaning  
   
I will remain a contamination  
oil spill, dark with wonderful worms  
   
But You will continue  
down your leafy lettuce past  
surroundings softening the blow  
   
Watch whales beach themselves  
on the continental shelf  
from a panoramic view  
   
Notice the steep fall  
to mere interjection            
.          
In death, as in writing  
you find yourself in different  
states of acceptance  
   
The acknowledgement  
no one ever sees the gold  
wing-tipped bird flash  
across your dark night of soul  
   
Poem: You'll build  
   
a basement full of artifacts  
and maybe an anthropologist's lab  
where what remains  
is never equivalent  
to what will be discovered  
   
between someone else's  
latex notebook            
             
~