Eletelephony redux

Once there was an elephant
Who tried to use the telephant

No matter where he tried to call
The NSA would hear it all.

Wattle I do?

Quand'ry for a soul that's brittle:
Here before me stands a bottle
Tempting me more than a little.
Ease my aches a tasty jottle,
But will I stop at one mere tittle
When I'd fain go where every sottle?

Mnemonic

For you to go, have one "O".
"To", in use as a preposition, has only one "o".
Double, you add "W". Two.
"Two" is a very specific number.
Still more to come?  One more wheel, too.
"Too" means "also" or  "extra". 

How can I have a bee in my bonnet?

How can I have a bee in my bonnet
When I have no bonnet to wear?
The top of my head has no hat or bow on it
But only a great knot of hair.

My sweet Cousin Sue sports a silken puggree,

Aunt Bess has a tile most sublime

Yet I have no mill'ner to make me less ugly --
The judges of style call it crime.





My sisters, all three, top their coifs with panache

But I let no elegance show
I'm lacking sombrero for want of spare cash
And that's why I'm feeling so low.

Dusk

The sun sinks away and the earth
Becomes secret:
Baying hounds, barking dogs, echo each
One another.
The laughter of two lovers
The breath of a stranger where it
Does not belong.
Spanish moss a veil the
Bride moon
Hides behind,
She casts a bashful reflection upon
Silent waters
And whispers,
Dreams, dreams, dreams.

Electoral College

I make my puny voice heard
I said
I vote!
Swing that curtain around behind me:
I’m somebody -
One of zillions forgotten until today
Yes!
I said
I am!
Pull those tiny switches
Slap the lever
Down, down, down
Choosing the one to speak for me
I’m protecting my tiny
Piece of pie
This box my room
My bed
My body
My name
My memory
Mine, all mine.

The sun will never set on me
Now I am immortal
Because I elected this man
I VOTE
We call for
A recount.

THE EDDY

It was nothing special
Just a spiral near the shore –
A place the lake forgot to water
Then the currents carried to it a
Fragment – flotsam –
From a weeping willow tree
Still green, recalling clearly
What it was to be with others
Alive in a family of tree.
Now independent,
The branch flirts
Spinning slowly
Leaves dipping and teasing
At the eddy's edge
Never allowing full embrace:
That would mean
Being devoured.
The eddy does not draw in
Its newfound companion
On pain of
Being choked, strangled,
Stifled into nothingness.

And so they spin
Together apart
Locked forever
In loving combat.

BIRTHDAYS

God has a mule
He calls Time
Time plods
On and on
Without stopping
Without thinking
Without seeing
Treading
Sure-footed
The treacherous path of
Infinity.
Shackled,
Tied to Time's tail,
I follow.

Seeds

Tree&Moon007
Originally uploaded by the NOB.

We lived in a city with many more just like us.
We were all very close to each other.
Then things began to change,
We knew we could no longer live in our homes.
Some rode off on great beasts.
Move on, move on, they called.
Rebuild, rebuild.
Some were carried off lightly on the winds.
Away, away, they whispered.
Rebuild, rebuild.
The rest of us were gathered into shelters where
We waited for a very long time.
When the waiting was over, we were taken from our shelter.
Where our city once had been, there was only cool, turned earth.
We looked at each other as we tumbled to the ground.
We smiled as we felt the moist dirt reach around us.
We stretched and danced beneath the warming sun.
Here, we sang.
Rebuild.

No rest

Late hour, light's out
Even God's asleep
Bone is sword and muscle stone
As day takes its toll.
Flames flicker on ceiling above
They are my eyes and they will not close
As angels and demons clash within.
I beg myself sleep, rest
Try to stop thinking about work
About sleep
About anything
About everything.

A match is lit and
Dropped into a beehive.

Infinity

Just beyond those cold stones
Where you can catch a glimpse
If you work hard to see it
Is the place where earth and sea and sky
Become one
And that One
Is the laughter and the waves of grace
At the end of the world.

Pen & Ink Pompeii
Originally uploaded by the NOB.

Bus Riders

Chatter and laughter from each cluster
But the singles come
Not alone:
They sing and nod,
Bounce back and forth in their seats
Mumble to
Argue with
Others less visible even
Than they.

He
In his lucid moments
Sings a little
And mostly listens in awe when
The chattering stops.

She
Touches the ground less and less
Arguing with Angels
And stands and stomps away when
He sits near her.

He
Hears them talk again inside his head
About things unreal
And wonders if she’s one of them
Or one of THEM.

The lesson

In each painting is a poem
In each poem is a painting
So the Chinese teach.
Where speak cummings, Frost, and Donne
But in Mondrian, Curry, Rembrandt?
O'Keeffe sings Dickinson once again
As if those attic dreams were never hidden.
Turn pages in the gallery
I lift my brush to paper
Heart beating India ink
Spilling onto the page.
Begin, it says:
Haiku
Couplet, Sonnet
Ode to Epic
Then the mind's shears trim the edges
Pare away the lies:
Epic, Ode, Couplet
Haiku, Word.
Sigh.

Corrections

I drove past a wall of stone and barbed wire marked by a sign
Which proclaimed CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION in bold white letters
Over a sky-blue field.
I wondered aloud why the sign said CORRECTIONAL INSTITUTION
When they meant PRISON?
They are not free, I said, inside those walls –
No promises are made to these men that they will survive
No guarantees can be made that society will accept them back
Or that they will be complete and intact in the end
No pun intended.
The crimes for which they are interned
Are the stripes on their sleeves, the medals on their chests
Their battle zone will leave youth twisted, wisdom destroyed
Beatified broken.

I shuddered.

PRISON, I said, pressing hard against the gas.

At the next city I stopped.
I checked into a motel, my wares in hand.
I stepped into my room, with its dead-bolt locks
With its shatter-proof windows
With its bed bolted to the wall
With the remote control chained to the bedpost
Like Gideon's Samson.

Turning on the Evening News to learn of the world outside,
I stood CORRECTED.

Squall Lines

Who brought that hurricane into my home?
It rumpled the rugs and my curtains are gone
It knocked over chairs and it dirtied my plates
Emptied my cupboards and broke all the gates.
Kitty just hid in the wall with the mice
For her warm cozy bed got filled with crushed ice.
My pup comes home later, in a week, if he dares
For now, though, he's safer asleep with the bears.
The violets in the garden have all turned fully white
And thistles hide their prickles, in whopping great fright.
Who let that hurricane into my home?
The pudgy round face makes it look like a gnome
Its shrieks can pierce armor from ten miles away –
Oh, it's just my nephew coming over to play.
Come, have a cookie, some candy, my sweet...
We still have your grandma and grandpa to meet.

HOW THE TRACKS REALLY GOT THERE

Right next to the patch of ferns
They had put in a fresh new sidewalk.
A fiddlehead was pressed by summer wind
Into the soft cement
And I saw suddenly a dinosaur
With more tail visible than is decent
Bending over to put his trowel away
behind him T. Rex and Apatosaur
Pitter-pat across and
Turn to sign their names
Tee-hee he didn't see us
Bobby '88 Tsquared hot4U.

What’s the Commotion?

When you have a notion, you note.
When you take motion, you move.
When you apply lotion...do you lote?
And is using a potion to pote or pove?

How can I prove without a protion?
What can I glove when I've no glotion?
I dock in a cove without a cotion...
Hiding away from the storm-tossed otion.