Poetry

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Comment by Daryl on June 9, 2009 at 9:26pm

“Behold the bush burned with fire
and the bush was not consumed.”
--- Exodus 3:2

Light

I was consumed with fire
for much of my childhood.

When I visited my grandparents
fire played many roles,

whether it was burning off fields
in the damp, early spring,

or burning trash behind the smokehouse
near the rhubarb patch,

or my grandmother walking the gravel road,
like a Vietnamese peasant, in her straw hat,

pumping coal-oil from a stainless steel sprayer,
with a rubber hose and a brass nozzle,

into the weeds that clotted the fence rows,
lighting the kerosene and leading the fire along,

or Granddaddy splitting chunks of coal
in the fireplace, middle of the night,

the low, cold rooms suddenly warm
and awash with orange light,

or the radiating heat of the Warm Morning stove,
yellow fire boiling in its cast iron belly,

or, finally, lightning reducing the little house
to warped roof tin and two chimneys,

which felt like a death in the family,
even though I regret not being a witness

to that old house, pregnant with memories,
sacrificed to the one true God.

Comment by Daryl on May 24, 2009 at 9:56pm

Sorry Asshole

he punched holes in the walls
like a monstrous brat

he broke things
dear to her

he got out of the car
and walked down the road
with her creeping along beside him
begging him to get back in

he referred to her sons
collectively
by their father’s last name

he bloodied her nose and sprained her neck

he cussed her out in front of strangers

he cried and begged for forgiveness
and she bought it every time

Comment by Daryl on April 7, 2009 at 9:40pm

Buffalo Trace

Driving up old highway 68
to Maysville, Kentucky,
the rolling plateau pushes
up against the sky,

like walking a scaffold
high above the floor,
and just beneath the dome
of a great church.

Licking River: crows call
from ridge to ridge,
one Mockingbird in the brush.
No other sounds.

Standing at Blue Licks Spring
eighty feet above the green water
its surface gently warped
like old window glass.

Sycamores and box elders
line the river. Dark cedar,
bare buckeye, walnut
and hickory dot the ridges.

Passing the hospital,
where Mom lives,
Karen asks about her.

I try to answer
but my voice breaks.
She touches me.

I consider stopping
but I’ll be back.
This is about wind

and light and
I’ll be damned
if I stop now.

Comment by Chuck Joy on January 14, 2009 at 8:47pm

Nope.

Comment by Melissa McEwen on January 14, 2009 at 8:26pm

No, Didi, I'm not having any problems with this site slowing my "computer down to sludge."

Comment by Didi on January 14, 2009 at 8:22pm

Daryl says his this site slows his laptop computer down to sludge. Anyone else having problems with sludge?

Comment by Jeff Filipski on January 10, 2009 at 10:17pm

There is no beginning to this dream.
It has always been as it has always been.
A sub-kinetic vignette of sweating images.
Writhing, twitching, and in the darkest street corners of our unlit cones of perception.
Stigmatic without guilt.
I spite the initiation of feeble words
I dread the incessant running flow of normality.
There is a hindrance in my mind.
It comes in the form of an afterlife. Innocence revisited.
I am running out of time.
Running out of money.
Running out of beer.
Everything is running.
We all are. Help me.

Slack jawed, another human remains. It is arbitrary.
We are surrounded by the breathing corpse.
Tin foil skies echo with misunderstanding.
Someone is pissing in my ear.
I hope that it is me. I can handle my own lies.

In twilight things are animated.
There is a buzzing in ones mind.
An insidious nature walks beside me.
It is homely yet to spite this it speaks the truth.
It is mind boggling in its wisdom.
I hope to be insidious someday.
I believe am close to my goal.

Prettyful eyes in solemn shadows
. Indemnity of youth.
Pristine.
Crystalline strobes feed blank fields with cystine images.
A lesson in turgid structure in the form of useless erections.
A profound follower of the fertile laws of Priapism.
A firm belief in the painful irrepressibility of the mourning missile.
A full bladder is an healthy bladder.
An empty bladder is God.

I am an observer of the norm. In adjunct dissent of its principle despite the conservative residue bestowed by my bloodline.
I am Tartar by descent.
I dream of puncture wounds.

Comment by marko x/ mark hartenbach on January 8, 2009 at 6:17pm

yeah jeff. i beome disoriented on the starship quite often.
always great to see yr work.

Comment by Jeff Filipski on January 7, 2009 at 8:59pm

its a motherfucker navigating through all this shit but good to see you all.. the pics i've installed are mostly redundant. but there should be five new ones by weeks end. hopefully for the rest of my life...