When i meet someone for the first time,
I can't help but wonder:
In fifty years,
will

five-minute poem

mornings at the field house

honey whaleribs stream overhead,
arching whalebone corset stays
flank the peaks of the cedar ceiling
as i swim the backstroke,
filtering water through my arms,
water through my smile.

you woke up that morning knowing you were right
and went around telling stories you believed to be true
but you didn't take the time to understand what it was that he wanted
where his left foot was
and if you had looked down in time
you would have seen that he was already gone
and all you did
was change his ticket.

tuesday

god damn, these tomatoes are good
every time i bite into one
i want to kiss a smile onto mona lisa's lost lips

after eating one this morning,
the chair fell over.
man, you said it.

on asphalt

entrance to the highway blocked by three quarter ambulances and sheep dogs carrying notes from the pta meeting that can't let go of quiet complaints and skipped the praise ovation. i'd love to join you in the gridlock but i must be at the publishing house by three pm sharp. ill have to give you and your mistress a raincheck. did you hear about the time that the ocean overflowed and the little boys built their castles on stilts to survive the weather? or the time that the dogs and cats ate the flea circus and were told by the masters that the show must go on? just what would you do in their paws? talk to me when your younger.

on baking

today is a very good day for skiing on the slopes of intelligence and waves of self doubt over melancholy time zones and pulsar ice caps. talk to me when you're older, sayonara jones.

p.p.s.
you're only as old as the last person you slept with

on trains

time again runs slowly left right earth on the riverbank sways as i roll past lions wolves brick shellac and schist. run river left right left right i can't help but wonder what time the mailman will come home and if he'll have enough milk for the sauce that won't be too big a problem for my blood type. hocus pocus train engineers ride sideways upside down in subterranean and suburban stations while we try to transfer without paper an without time and without earrings and with gold in our hands and with fifty cent increases and with eyes closed i speak to you that this really is it. won't you dance wont you sing wont you walk into the darkness hand in hand with the gleaming smiling light? it takes one two three tries to get lucky and at the end your left with effort and salt and pyrite ashes and skin ream for four ninety nine and aint it just like the night and ain't it enough and aint it too much and aint it three courses with a dessert tray why wont you pick up your perpetual motion machine at the institute what are you waiting for the time is short and the bills keep coming and you're into the mail and you're into the river and its up to your neck and the the world is on pace and their through the chunnel and your eighteen floors up and smiling and living and lying and eating and coffee and dreams and back to wake and alarm clock never gets set and even your job interview isnt till mid afternoon. sip slowly its hot she warns against the closing of the stock market (up) and the closing of the day (down) too much standing still too much standing up too much sitting straight aint it a shame to live like this. what more can one do but to walk straight and keep clean and hope for the best?

on a sesame bagel

all my pogo stick women want me to open up the velvet ropes to their hops (and hopes) and dreams and snores and cries and i cant open anything because i'm not the bouncer and i'm not even inside. tell me twice what you think of the new album before you hear it and before i make it. installed ideas float through raindrops on a green day (the greenest of the year) and i don't know what time it is and i don't know what year it was and i don't know what month you feel and i don't care what's for dinner as long as there's at least three courses of squab and two of seafood (braised). but please, whatever you do, don't take another phone call while i'm around.

on ritz crackers

why do i always do these before i go to sleep when i'm ready to count sheep and make love to robot women on beds of grass in extraterrestrial terrariums at west forty second street when i could just as easily be watching a movie or taking tylenol till my eyes bleed out and i need a change of linens. loose type on movable sets cast iron memories ancient talking dogs of west africa tell me that tomorrow is a good day (backspace) for wet kisses on ramps to admission gates losing time against elephantitis and ocean currents as a man in a speedboat makes a uturn at the waterfall and just begin to notice that the there are stairs inside that doghouse and underground is where all the action is. but she lies in uncomfortable rectangles convincing us that she's alright (i know she is) and tells us about days past and girls past and time past and we're here in the future waiting for tomorrow like there's no today. (mondays are a bit slow around here). goodbye sweet dreams i'll see you when i wake up and forget you by the time my coffee percolates (who still percolates) how much percolates what time is the movie open and do they have cheap films that aren't from thailand or Indonesia or any other disreputable systems. run run run run run i'm telling you they were happy, just failed happy. next time i'll get the point across- these are supposed to be learning experiences maybe its i that should take the criticisms better instead of turning it all around and i'm sorry that i was wrong about the prix fixe lunches but my dreams can't lie and i do have a new pair of black shoes that would be fine for the occasion. keep walking sideways with your cap on backwards because there's no time to waste in the hustle bustle world of midtown continental and black olives in milky white crustaceans. if i told you that this had gone on long enough already would you call me a murderer and ask for me to be sacked or burlaped or strung down or hung up or ate out by crusty (maggots? walking on will o the wisp floors in falling towers next to bayside breeze machines did you hear they're putting a ski slope in the meadowlands? i have seventeen bridges for sale!) time to clap our hands for the new mayor of downtown life with a stuffed tomato grin and he wears suspenders from five to nine and eats scallops with his left hand while his right hand holds the tax lady and she coos for more chips ahoy in the sun drenched morning. honeydew peanuts on foam waves with spume spume spume eat away at plastic shard dolphins and stuffed animal crackers while the shortest man in the world takes soup with the king of bejing/persia/united states of mexican't eat anymore tonight, thanks. i don't mean to be rude if you call me a doctor one more time i'm going straight back to law school and i'll show you what a raisin or a peppercorn (that's it) is worth. don't walk in my garden without proper footwear, my young hero or i'll turn you into a hoagie faster than you an call a four year old the m word.

on crackers

and two three four time to walk in a line with your head in the air i can't tell you one thing from the other but if you want to dance with me tonight under red skies and blue moons with green cats chiming out tsaichovsky in clark park july 21 i'd happily oblige. until then we'll have to settle for three quarter racked collared greens and corned beef on rye with mustard (deli) on chalkboard answers with phototronic display and neon wallpaper from 1964 and the lady down the street with the beaver skin hat cant answer the door unless you knock three times and do the lindy hop for at least 43 seconds and a half oyster on the half shell is a fine cure for herpes but what if i've only got 15 cents and a broken button? i'll tape your schedule to the refrigerator in the morning with a ham sandwich on wheat but if you want lettuce you'll have to go to the baker before mass. this time i mean it when i tell you that i have no more sauce to put on your ketchup you'll just have to warm up the deep fryer like your brother. you know when i was your age we paid rent 5 times a day and if the landlord didn't like our boutique he'd just take our dog for a walk all over town while we were left to play baseball with the train conductor and a bat with no grip tape. open wounds/dreams/fishtanks spread out over the plains in a spaghetti western that only she can see because its playing 8x10 on her eyelids (thrice daily) and i hear the previews for pirates 14 are spectacular.

why oh why bobby- is this your lot? so many mulatto mouths to feed that you have to wear blue and appear at the garden state expo center signing autographs and fudgecicles for 13 cents an hour? how will you ever get your saxophone duet ready in time for the debutante ball?

view

sure, it always falls
but from here
it also rips sheets
screams around corners
eats paper
heaves plastic
as it tears east
businessmen run for cover
under awning advertising
while the cats + dogs hid long ago
(but they don't have towels and heating lamps!)

Seduction for One

Where to begin – the park? the bar down the road?
The bedroom: For how long, those hands,
all those fingerprints running down my body, my face fixed
in a look of contentment, eyes closing.
Meanwhile, somewhere else, eyes wide – looking up at the trees,
branches sway like dancers’ hands, my waist, my hips
take in their silhouettes… and the foam whiskers my pint
leaves on my lips, to be licked off, slowly, dried
with an index finger… and my stomach, my thighs
under cool sheets, whispering into the moist breath of rain.

A hole where it is heart (should be)

On a visit to Texas a year ago
the cab driver worried for me living on this rock,
as if it might sink under the weight
of toothpick umbrellas and passionfruit,
and I would drown. Or maybe I'll get lucky
and float on a raft of orchids, their pretty mouths
a silent siren chorus. Can you picture my delicate
seaweed lingerie, my endless feast of oysters
to make a coin purse of black pearls?
Certainly the soundtrack will be familiar,
an endless shhhh, a gentle admonishment to wait.
At some point I'll look back -- have to --
and see tentacles of lava rising
to build a new castle for a mermaid to covet.
Then I'll remember I'm not a mermaid
and step into the water.

Bodies, water

A family meeting every moment for the first time.
The stream, cold and anxious in its corridor,
hiccups, smoothes the black sand
into the ocean's open mouth. Stride right in.
Skate over the rocks, the wet-skinned moss,
green that stays under your fingernails
when the current bends your knees.
Eyes on the bleached-bone driftwood
on the green cliff rising.
Feet on the stones, on the stones, on the stones.

proud...

can't taco nachos without a nacho taco.
can't tackle nachos without a nacho tackle.
can't eat burritos without burrito cheetos.
can't be the beatles without 10 nacho tacos.

I love you this much

What would happen if I opened my arms wide as they could go –
Wider – triceps aching chest tight – stretched my fingers
Could I take it all in
Living so long in the rain I get thirsty
Blue sky tastes of dried salt and sand, I don’t understand what the sun is getting at
Could I take it in I don’t want to take it in
I don’t want your space
I want mine, ribbons of water beating down on my shoulders and no one to see it
At night the rain with its own rhythm and the coquis’ two-step song
And my arms' reach no overlap between us
Is this finally another love poem
With every breath yes and no

on pumpernickle

Banana ball handspring over dead weight oceans and cross cut potatoes make out kite fly green grass grows twice without a third thought and I don't know your black and white shorts from the nose on my face.

Lines

this is an experiment using opening lines from some of Shakespeare's sonnets to make a new sonnet... click on each line to read the full text of one of his sonnets.

How heavy do I journey on the way;

How like a winter hath my absence been.

If thou survive my well-contented day,

Like as to make our appetites more keen.

Say that thou didst forsake me for some fault,

Poor soul, the centre of my sinful earth!

Take all my loves, my love, yea, take them all;

Alack, what poverty my Muse brings forth,

If there be nothing new, but that which is

Music to hear, why hear'st thou music sadly?

What potions have I drunk of Siren tears—

When most I wink, then do mine eyes best see:

Lo! in the orient when the gracious light…

O, from what power hast thou this powerful might?

today

i did my very best
not to die
i was wildly successful.
time did not do so well.

I heard this story...

Once upon a time
there was a boy and a girl
who both got what they wanted
and lived happily ever after
(the end)

Leave to Set

To avoid being asked this question –Anne Carson

So many sounds fall out of me
bottlecaps on linoleum
alphabet scatters
Feet silent on the floor, in the pause
Words as curtains over my lovely view
*
Nothing so eloquent as, say, a shy tear
skating down the cheek
Perhaps some stagnant water
in a glass beside the bed
In other words not the lingerie
but its magazine image,
laid neatly beside old underwear
lounging unselfconscious on a bathtub ledge
*
What if on a steep dirt path
interrupted by planks to prevent erosion
I looked at the contrast of green cliffs
and ocean
and thought only of words
What if later I watched dimmed light
strike a wine glass
and still thought of words
*
The image of departure
and its sound, smug couple
crisp line between cover and page

it's better...

it's better to have
a sore throat
than no throat at all

Camera

Imagining Ft. Greene

A room for sitting and tracing the leaves that drop
along the wrought iron gate that leads
to the garden of sand where I found a little Mary
pendant, despite whose presence no tomato
feels at home. The sidewalk past the church
is even and white. The hulks
of summer buses and ice cream trucks
shudder, the sweaty footprints
of boys dart like eels or mirages.
Marveling, I follow you,
capturing the slow alphabet of your walk.

on rye

alligator eyelashes flicker inside of
the 100-watt bulb did you see
the fantastic lightning over the
lake the night that the mermaid
lost her toothbrush and the
ancient mariner found a rhyme
for orange (hint: it rhymes with purple)
'touche' said the seamstress, 'but don't
you think a simple pattern would
be easier on the small children?'

my eyes lit up
when she mentioned coney island.
i save ideas,
but never make reservations
and i was all to happy to
invite greil marcus' awkward trajectory (a necessary evil?)
while she brought a 35mm camera
and soft hair
to an amusement park
with an expiration date

tomato sauce dreams

and butterfly tears couldn't soak the sponge of self hope and cry for the world as it gets caught under a fifty foot wave of indifference. oh, how the children laughed when they saw the spume! (and the cats and dogs had long ago fled for the hills) tonight the music box plays top forty from nineteen fifty seven; ten year old record breakers rounding the corner in wool 3/4 length pants. thanks for the inclement weather, the flowers will be that much more alive. yellow that even a blind man could understand.

Honey

today, rather than one topic or another, i've read the last entry from Hal or H.B. and will see if i can pull a topic from something there.

The words of sweetness for millennia
surround your head, my treasure,
their substance crystallized
among clay jars and amulets,
hawks' heads, dark eyes.
We have been here before, the tombs,
the streets, with bare feet, in linen,
in sandstone, in silk, in marble.

i really thought it would rain today

the greatest exporter of culture itself has none and wouldn't it come as a surprise to those japanese teenagers, ears full of our honey shifted voices clothed in designer denim and oversized cotton-poly blends. they'll never know the mire that we've become, (was it ever any better?) so they worship our satellite transmissions of red carpets and double filet-o-fish and cement handprints while we see them and think about how (fucking) green their synthetic grass is.

right about now
my mind feels like
a somalian child
and i haven't seen sally struthers
in years

leaning back
ready to leave, i feel like
an old baseball mitt;
only not so oily.

when you smile,
and push me into the water
it's like a thousand babies being born
without a single cry

Topic: potatoes

I wrote about peeling them years ago, a day when I needed help.
That day a bird hit the picture window in front of my nose, and
cars stopped on the road and I imagined a reunion.

I never cook potatoes, but I miss the way they feel, pearly
red skins in dusty boxes, slimy when you wash them, so much power,
sprouting eyes without water or light.

in reference to poop

isn't it weird that all we can perceive is change

they sat in a room
in columbia
drinking beaujolais
and recording masterpieces
that served as precursors
to 1/2 awkward car scenes and 4/5 tight jeans
on a sofa and four wheels

Topic: bad art

Hey, folks, H. and H. have been kind enough to allow me to post here, so I will be, from time to time, using one of the topics and trying my hand at some verse. Thanks, guys!

the q.l.

more luck

this morning i (accidentally)
put both my legs
through one leg hole of my underwear.
the polyester stretched until it looked like a skirt.
fortunately, i make a ghastly woman.
good; i wasn't ready for that kind of change.
you weren't ready either.

What if I said

What if I said it probably seemed unremarkable, the waitress doubted we could eat so much which always happens, the guy at the next table made up opinions about paperclips to watch the grins of his family retreat, and after hours of anticipation plus a month or two what are you going to talk about. I don’t even know what we talked about. That I was cold. I had a problem with his eyes at first, it was easier standing as he’s tall but at that table I couldn’t get away from them, not unless I pointed out the paperclip guy had moved on to Foreigner, and I felt the red crawl around my face and I dropped my food a lot. Already you want me to fast-forward, to the stoop and his jacket and the exact speed at which those eyes closed. But that’s hours away, and I won’t let you leave me at that restaurant, my body held very still with his eyes on me, the waitress shook her head over the tempura and when I could bear to move I sipped my sake, and of course we ate while he looked and don’t call it a moment of grace. Don’t make it anything less than what we earned.

On the Occasion of a Dress

long dark velvet dark black
puddle around the feet
secret uniform every woman
is born in, long silent
dark dark dark
not a tunnel, where the words go
and the eyes, where cold fingers & cold feet
into the dark velvet never quite
raise your hand tinged purple
close to black
raise your skirt & show off your scars
then you were almost warm the sting
if it has a temperature the cold is deep,
long, too long, soft fabric
around the feet
as open question as familiar
as in pause as in watch the words fall
soft, black, an evening in the city
as in breath
to swallow every thing never said
a graceful slouch the hot sharp silent
sophisticated smell of soft velvet rot
black sex long putrid evening
naked dress, stinking soft petal,
black pool, mute ugly elegant

at 4:37 in the afternoon
even the fuzz must have something better to do
than drive around screaming
waking up babies

seeing you come down the stairs in your new bathing suit
makes me feel like i'm watching haley's comet
tear apart the night sky for the thirteenth time

on a warm tuesday morning,
eating a can of creamed corn
is like watching a moose dive face first into the dead sea.

She
self-conscious
speaking in full throat
(and she doesn't even own a watch)
walks to the end of the hall
bows
returns unchanged.
If she knew, she'd do it all over again.
If she'd show, he'd find another window to live through.

waking up

waking up without you
would be a lot easier
if i could ever get to sleep

Has anyone noticed

the misspelling in this site's title? wow. i'm leaving it.

Postcard #6

I love the streets of this town

on a sunny weekday at 10 am,

still air and startled expressions

of other people on the street,

all the energy bundled up

indoors in the air conditioning.

Or on a Sunday night, windows

shaded and dozing, rain drops

in for an hour, and the roosters

are in the yard again next morning.

That rusted-out Ford still for sale

around the corner waits

for its cinderblocks patient as

my tabby as I smoke before dinner.

Every day more small dogs

in the street, another person asleep

under the hardware store’s awning.

When it’s quiet every glance

fills a perfect frame, silver

gelatin prints of light flashes

off of rusting roofs, a distant

tree’s silhouette offset by the white

bandage on a dazed woman’s leg.

delete!

Dear three people reading this,

The curious among you, browsing the archives, may notice that my first poem (titled 'Postcard #1') has disappeared. This is because a revised version of it will be published in the journal Gulf Stream sometime in May of this year.

As a consequence of my newfound fame and fortune, I am slacking on the writing of new material. I plan to remedy that today. Hopefully.

Best,

HB

a man
covered in color
counted down
ammolite
gold rabbits
champagne diamonds

a child
gray shadow
said goodbye to
zinc
tin cans
moonshine pyrite

Top(ic)less Wednesday

Could have waited for a day that starts with a 't,' but the only time you can ever do anything is now, so enjoy.

they wear boots there, right?

Dust stirs (maybe?)
in a place I've never known
and right now, never want to know
except for growth
oil
texas medicine
and the precipitation of feelings (that's a one way road?)

(but really) you and i ain't so different.

Tuesday's Topic

Dallas, Texas

Story for the Morning

This is exactly what I say it is. The cerulean

splits the sky this morning like a wise

man’s hands. I don't know what he has in mind.

The door barricaded with a broom and a chair

against the knob but the blue still gets in. Where it hits

the ground a fern begins to grow, first the thin purple

curlicued stem, skeleton of a lawn ornament,

but as I watch it slowly unwinds, rising slow

an arabesque of lace. The fringe brushes my fingers

turns my knuckles raw but I still don’t know what to do.

I raise my hands but the light produces a crushed rope

of lava. My fingernails are a mess. Wind caress

an old man stroking his beard.

unfinished sky

j-

can you recall cerulean days on the farm
before nineteen was too many
where the western wall flapped in the breeze
and the college graduate couldn't get the job done?

do you remember the scream from the barn
and the sharp pupils
as we raced for the pitchfork
only to realize it was all a joke?

or the backyard vomit
and the energy of the billiard table
as we went to work on record covers
and pages of the koran?

what of the overheated affair
that left me hiding behind pillars
on 120th street
a year later?

it's been too long.
but i'm in coit tower now.
come up if you can
spare a minute.

Monday's Topic

Cerulean

It sits

high in airports behind glass as you rush ahead can't miss that 3:45 to atlanta transfer at 6:15 northbound snowy weather ahead slows your pace and you glance left and briefly see one man's work, his everything laying there beside polynesian masks and no admittance signs and 6 million people pass every year and don't blink. but your children pull on the hem of your skirt and want to paw at the colors that are trapped behind the conveyor belt.

meanwhile, he sits in his drafty room working on the next masterpiece which will sit above a gas fireplace somewhere where the houses have no soul and the roads are wide with freshly painted yellow lines that get more attention from speed trap junkies than anything you can see from the line at the pizza stand.

Sunday Special

Bad Art

A day for drought

The day is wet and it will rise

like tropical mold on a loaf of bread.

It is unnecessary and arrogant

and slow. It is damp and deaf

from the rain’s rhythmless drumbeat

on the night’s tin roofs. So I rope

the clouds in like a paniolo

and hoard them in rocky pasture,

silver wire strung as afterthought

around the perimeter,

and watch the ferns curl their fingers inward

finally chastised. As the clouds grow fat

I wring them out into a corner of porous

earth every three days or so. Otherwise

they graze as quietly as stoned sheep.

After several weeks, when the heliconia

has turned to kindling, I belly-flop

in the last of some tidepond’s brackish water

and watch the black crabs dance.

I bury my fingers in the gasping sand.

perhaps it's the

hyperbolic dreams of sun-stained curtains
silver flashes more precious than gold leaf
hold tight your children in jewelery boutiques
too much empathy resulting in periodic shifts from one mass to another that stopped the second hand on Fermi's wristwatch. But even Leonetti couldn't help but laugh when he watched you argue that helium is lighter than fat-free yogurt with raisins and granola.

Friday's Topic

Ag (as in the chemical symbol for Silver)

watching grainy snuff films
a 63 inch plasma high definition screen
the basement of a 6 story walkup
drawing power from 180 foot blades in a california valley
am i so forward?

Suitor Questionnaire

What do you think of my wet hair dripping on the floor while I dance, in my towel, around my bedroom. Answer before my hair dries. Yes the towel is blue. Yes it smells faintly of mold, what do you expect when it rains every day. If we go out for dinner will you order a salad. Good. Unless I order a salad you really should not ever order a salad for dinner. What do you think about mochi. Are you a person who remembers what Saturday is the farmer’s market, the good one, with fresh tamales. Do you work out. Mind if I smoke. Did you ever watch someone start to cry and walk away very fast and cough so you couldn’t hear it. Were you why she was crying. Define investment. Define wind power. Can you build a wall in one conversation lasting ten minutes or less. Will you push me deeper while you stay up top with the water lilies. What’s a good wine for less than ten dollars. Do you remember my first question. Yes I will buy a new towel. Yes I’m hungry.

Thursday's Topic

Wind Power (courtesy of lrapps)

Postcard #5 (belatedly)

Peel apart blades

of grass and blow

a sound a papercut

and all the birds go still.

For a moment silence

the center

of a cloud vapor rushes

towards any slope of land

for a place to fall. Today

the guava tree is just

out of reach.

Well, now that you mention it...
i do recall manila memories of
seats switched,
white windows,
by tennis courts beside modern battlefields (by european standards).
and shy compliments on pre-recorded messages
taken in stride.

Friday's Topic

Manila Folders and Office Voicemail Messages

Postcard #4

Breakfast: marmalade

or the lion’s mane. Swirl

of sun on dawning gray. Delicacy

of scars a spiderweb across thighs.

Open the door don’t open

the door. Don’t pick up the phone.

Clouds spackle horizon. Island

in the middle of the kitchen bread

crumbs jam smear. His head against window

threatens to break. Orange jelly

in mouth’s creases don’t go up the stairs.

Hanger on white tile hanger

on white thigh. Hair knots back

knots sweat soft material. Windchime

drips rain twirls its long legs

around. His body curled into an S.

His voice I don’t see it anymore.

Marmalade or The Lion's Mane

Rocky stashed
while
Bullwinkle cried for better plurality in the genus
and the cold war raged
but i'm not hiding under any desk

Thursday's Topic

MARMALADE
OR
THE LIONS [sic] MANE

Soft Generation

scared of needle pricks
turns on with over the counter amphetamines
shouting italian names and
too many ingredients
on their way to (early) million dollar funerals

[p.s., perhaps]

80 in loans
and 40k per (+benefits)
looks like two years
but
that camry don't come cheap
and your girl asks you to
hold her purse while the bartender
mixes sloe gin for fast women
and you can't get out of your lease on that hi-rise studio
next lifetime don't major in communications

Postcard #3

I’m dreaming warm

Styrofoam and ratty beige

shirt hours days without

speaking without touch

Plumeria pink

and yellow

float

on a bed of gravel

losing fragrance tree’s

gnarled bark leaves

an itch memory

Somewhere my body lies flush

with light some bed

I can only half-remember

some face dimmer

before clear as coffee

deep earthy everyday hot

but cooling

Never know when

fruit is ripe so the papayas

in the yard brown fall

to the ground avocados split

themselves any slight pressure

Bananas sick soft and legs

don’t quake arms reach in my

sleep hit the wall in the morning

bruised knuckles think of me

in bed sheets pulled

to chin body slack

as yesterday’s flowers

Wednesday's Topic

Coffee

Posctard #2

(for M.)

In the mornings walk to work the slouched banyan and the canal I saw a giant carp in there once. More often an orange flash or two it might be goldfish it might be Fanta. Always a few signs on the roads’ shoulders of what’s gone frogs flat and crisping. Several days and their bodies evaporate to shells rattle like bottles. Some days a cat mouth open eyes in focus somewhere behind me. Today a bird’s wing a mynah’s wing spread out showing off its white pause in all that black busy in its perfect indifference. The pause tries to tell me where the rest of the bird has gotten to watching its blood seep invisible into black. Yellow markings under the eyes the reddening beak too cheerful too absent maybe now it is under a coconut imitating moss. The wing doesn’t miss its bird it is a peacock it stretches itself out and is perfect in its arch its tattered meaty edge. And the pause is silent after all.

Envy

You can fly
and I can't.
Aw, shucks.
But I can order delivery.

Tuesday's Topic

Birds

20/20 vision

you see:
yellow bristles
cold water
a sharp knife
which pares you into many
(soon to be) delicious
lengths.

you see:
black pan
old oil
awaiting change

you see:
metal grating
wax paper
inside a white box

you see:
ketchup
so much ketchup
god, do i love ketchup
it's the only reason i'm here to see you.

Monday's Topic

Potatoes

The Rules

The above mentioned (hereforward to be referred to as "Hal" and "Heather") have agreed to engage in a poemal duel beginning Monday, March 5, the year of our lord 2007 (also, the year of the pig). They are to write one (1) poem each, daily, until the conclusion of the contest. A topic will be chosen at the day's onset by one of the above, alternating daily. If someone happens to come upon this site, they are welcome to suggest a topic which will certainly be lauded by Hal and pooh-poohed by Heather. May the best (hu)man win (by whatever nonsense measure you can judge poetry).

-Hal and Heather