Time: Tempo Has Been Beaten Already…(From the archive)

A rash of desert, a wave in a mirage, a slight incessant sound - I might, but don’t think I can remember, what one thing, is already another thing entirely. Is she a dancer somewhere else; a hint of perspiration on someone else’s lips?

Sparkle flash store window late night - shopping for which tap of whose shoe on what pavement - this street or the next – chameleons and geckos indifferent to snake ssss stare into star cold frigid air - my internet head, my eye TV, my ipod ear…straining.

She, he, you, or I – innocent; living out family strategies; hoping that an announcement will slip itself under a door, and tell us where an edge worth jumping over for lives…and make no mistake - a frog, a rabbit and a kid will jump at any chance to be loved.

And the souls - your soul, my soul, all souls burn energy remembering, or are trying to remember a whisper, the one before birth - what was said, by whom. How are you or I, or is any one else supposed to respond…to what we may never have ever even heard?

(This entry was first posted on November 12, 2007)

Vicariously be an angel by leaving well enough alone…

I

Imagine a picture of a man with a boy - the man
has his hand on the boys left shoulder, which
means that the man is standing to the boys
right - because of their resemblance it is likely
they are father and son.

They are in a room of the house where the boy
grew up - there is no background - no color. It
is as equally possible that they are rich as that
they are poor. You could make up a story about
the boy and the man…

Insert some meaning about the mans hand, or
make something up about the weight of it on
the boys shoulder - or that there is significance
to it being on the left and not the right, do not
spare them your speculation.

Fall in love with your story about the man
and the boy, now go ahead and take sides
with one or the other of them - you know
that one of them is right and that the other
is wrong.

It will help the condemnation process if you
are able to make the wrong one your enemy -
for how else will you be able to sew the mask
of his future executioner from the threads of
your imagination.

II

A long time ago a ship left a harbor - at the
dock to see the ship off was a woman waving
a hankie - she was old and she told those who
would listen that she had earned each and
every one of her wrinkles.

She was sending her first son across the water
to a land of stone to send back enough granite
to build for her a mausoleum, and as she turned
to make her way back home she somehow felt
lighter.

III

The captain of this ship was a notorious drunk
who flogged his crew while sipping brandy. He
made so many shipboard waves that one day
his crew threw him overboard and into one of
them, which then carried him away.

And slowly plank by plank and splinter by splinter
the ship fell apart until the sea was filled with
bobbing heads holding onto floating cargo. The
old womans son survived and eventually washed
up on a craggy shore.

IV

He became a stone mason, took a wife and built
a house, sending rocks and the occasional block
back to the old woman who did eventually build
herself a mausoleum. And when she died, she
was positively lighter - a feather buried in stone.

V

Now back to the picture - If you look very closely
in the mans eye you might see the entire above
story or you just might see a picture of a man and a
boy and never wonder about the weight of the mans
hand on the boys left shoulder.

My Latest Trip to L.A.

I

What…and tranced, and all of L.A. at a glance.
A beach in heaven bronzed gloriously with legs
and arms - goddess breast and the biceps of
Adonis.

On a balcony overlooking a marina I smoke and
make plans by dividing one thing into another
from something I subtracted from something
I have done already.

An ancestor laughs, a bell rings, and a myth maker
drives past smiling, talking on the phone about the
someone he chained this morning to a calculator
“until all of my rightful money has been counted.”

II

In L.A. coconuts don’t fall from palms - no one
seems distracted, the city roars with “sighs” - each
emanating from a multi colored mouth within a head
perched on an elongated throat -

From children rolling across lawns - from guys wearing
various hats, ridding in cars yelling above the music
“I just got my skin decorated with a map of a more
manly demeanor.”

Fuck fuck and shit shit, everyone here itches to be
rich, and should this city’s poets ever be paraded to
the courthouse to explain how their poetry has a
place within the din, this city will be doomed to silence.

Taught by turtles to teach Turtles…

I

Cold and not cold nor all the way past…
Like, I remember praying to a maker, my
bedroom in Norwalk…and a plaything moving
under a bed.

Spread across the ceiling playing like a movie,
was a stack of photographs being flipped
through and animating and acting out
something my grandfather had done.

Marvelous crayons drew stick figures on
my walls, and I talked to imaginary people for
the rest of that night, and sadly I can barley
recall what any of them said.

II

There was a trick I used when my father
took a belt and beat me - because there was
no where to hide outside, I learned to hide
inside like a turtle.

I was the turtles turtle, flesh inside shell
barely aware that an angry man was abusing
my body, I went on vacation, and have just
recently returned.

Nothing can bury my spirit. No one is in
charge of my heart. I can not be defeated,
and I no longer wear the shell my father or
his father wore.

III

My arms - my glorious arms and my vigor…
and the grace and dignity of ten thousand
generations (the monkeys and the men,
and my dear mother lit candles,

and held vigils, and vesper sang until the
spider tree withered in flames) And now I
remember that the cover of darkness was
just a blanket I used to keep warm.

I am the seed of old men and women angels,
and all that came before me speaks clearly
through me to my children and says - “We love
you - go now, and teach the other turtles…”

…links and missing links…

Some elastic stretch or a yawn
opening to a vista of awakening -
there were drama dragons eating
yesterdays until the memory of
them disappeared completely…

And the “Boo-Hoo’s” sunned
themselves remembering categories
of stories - times and places, and
the names of meanings they once
gave to belonging.

Ask the thirsty if water has no
taste, and the visually impaired if
mirrors reflect detail or outlines,
and then ask the kinesthetic what
part of life is matter over mind

I’ll Be Back Someday 1964 - Howlin Wolf

OK, it won’t be forever - but as you may have noticed I have not been here - I am kinda of gone, but definitely not out - think of me as over there chasing a rainbow.

The task now is to concentrate very sharply on something I have been trying to accomplish for about 13 years.

I have a business - it’s a way that I try to make dough - I know the rumor, that I am a prince living in a castle in Spain; but that is simply not true, and besides it is an understatement - I am a king looking for the country that will have me…so far…not quite.

So back to the business thingy, I am close to something that’s either very big, or is just the kind of fizzle that not even an idealistic child could appreciate.

I won’t know for awhile…

I blogged faithfully for about 11 months - and did I ever learn a whole lot - about myself, my readers and how to write even better than I thought I was writing before I started writing this blog.

The blog has been a sort of baptism.

The thing is, to do what I have wanted to do, turns out to take a lot of time - and last I checked, there really are only 24 hours in a day.

When I was active as “Poetman” I would wake up at 5:30-6:00am every morning and write and write and write - even a short piece on this blog takes me 4-6 hours to complete and the long pieces might take 10-11 hours - guess how much work I got done (the kind that pays the bills) when I did this? Not much….OH boy…and brother, and now may I add a jeesh…and a friggin frig.

I loved this fucking blog and I bled for it, and for the craft of it…and for you and your comments I yearned - and still do…

So thank you for patiently allowing me to write for you…its been a pleasure…

This thing - lets call it the “BIG ANONYMOUS” is awesome…it has many facets and a hoard of details, did I mention “Details”, that’s strange, I thought I had..

I have kept my real name off this blog, not as an affect - “Poetman” and” 1poet4man” were devices, stand-in’s for my real name - I kept my name private because the people who buy my service might not understand some of the poetry I write, or some of the daily thoughts I use to write - I stayed undercover, so as not to frighten the poetically ignorant.

In my business, in my geographical location, my real name is known - I am a minor somebody - wow, it only took 51 years to become a minor somebody…for me, privacy is a necessity.

So I will give you a morsel, not really a morsel, but a few details from the teeming swarming hoards of details.

I have 1 other blog and 2 other websites - they’re for the business thingy I was writing about just a bit ago. Guess who has to write for them, OK 3 guesses, thats right…ME. I have to write for 3 other sites…and it ain’t poetry I write, although I do bring to the task a bit of flare…if I do say so myself.

What I write has to very meticulous, and it has to be about the business thingy…and I simply can’t write poetry and write about the business I am in at the same time…it takes a different kind of head, engages way different synapses, and it’s fun - I mean I love to write - but it’s too strenuous for me to do both kinds of writing at the same time…

I have an archive of poetry in my file cabinet, maybe another 50 poems to edit and post - I will be back to do this…and I will write more…and post those poems as well, but not now…I can’t…

I wish I could personally thank each of you…for the encouragement you have given me…but I would want to do that perfectly…write a poem for each of you, maybe a song…but I just can’t, I do not have the bandwidth.

You are on my blogroll, and you are at least there, close at hand, so that I may visit you in the near future…when time comes to pass…

Thank You

M.C

AKA Poetman

…cuz I worked so hard…

Thanks everyone for helping me break the 20,000 mark

Innocent…or at least not guilty…

I have been as alone as anyone;
a pearl hidden from other pearls -
shut in the mouth of an oyster at
the bottom of the sea; amongst
the shell bound sleeping.

I was alone like that again in a room
full of people speaking. I don’t think
we knew how to be different, so we
painted lusters and memories onto
each other like skin.

And, our hope was:

One day to band together and form
a strand - idealistically wanting one
day to leave and overcome being
alone or hidden deep in an old woman’s
drawer.

…but for the love of Venus go I…

I

I am hooked on the nipple of creation,
the mound of its sensitivity; its touch of
soothing - the sustenance of shape - the
way I am safe when I am with her and
I am fine.

II

…as a transient I walked and spoke the
mumbo, and hung with crows discussing
what the devil knows, after having been
stabbed by a horn, and dripped milk for
40 exiled years…

III

This poem is about an innocence of desire,
the pang of wanting, and my moan is an
attempt to wake something buried without
forgiveness - even kings are undone by the
madness of their passions.

Nonetheless, a meeting of melds

There was a
spooky telephone voice trailing
and following a night shadow

What I said and said again and
all the words I ever heard, rose
from a cacophony valley of
singing

So I climbed the mountain and
planted a flag and added my
voice to the distant but present
din

I said “Hold me as I have ever
beheld you…”

And the landscape smiled and
the trivial birds chirped and the
ancestors continued dancing in
the valley below

Which contained and composed
her as a beautiful body, ultimately
unconquerable by any such as the
bear coat men

I knew almost all of her was
edible that her other explorers
had been mostly insatiable lust
lance corporals

Which for some crazy inexplicable
reason made her very hungry, in a
silent triumphant sort of way…
d
d
d
d
Image: The Stomach Dance
By Aubrey Beardsley

Poem written for VC who I call Angel…