Poem-a-palooza
Collected Poems
Twenty poems in celebration of one year since my first post on substack. These aren’t my exactly my best, but what’s festivity without making a few questionable decisions?
Restraint
I pressure the feather mild,
And short the ink mid flow;
If I let myself run wild,
I’m afraid of where I’d go.When old man time, Bangs on his chime, And calls in all the rhymes, You’ll come to find, You’re feeling fine, Until you’re left with orange.
Socks
I’ve lost so many socks,
It’s getting out of hand,
The dryer eats all my socks.
The dryer eats all my hands,
It’s getting out of socks,
I’ve lost so many hands.AI Art
When the machine becomes the painter,
It’s the creation defining creator.
The scrying glass informs our past,
And whispers what shall come to pass.
Surely the circuit boards can’t lie,
By putting apples in our pi.
See, the trouble with a palantir
Is that you never quite know who’s here.
You’d never know what lurks the web,
Till Cerberus must need be fed.Scroll
A shivering pup out in the cold,
Recipe for oven-roasted beets,
Unfettered rage at coffee roasts,
Blinding scalps of makeup queens,
Some politics of prideful fools.
Your fingers blurring; your mind unspools.Qu’est-ce que c’est?
I dreamt a vision somewhere between wake and sleep,
Out from darkness a man approached,
Old and deep and murmuring,
Croaking an unknown tongue,
Not Latin, nor any Romance,
But low turning, as like a stream pours out the earth,
Like rotary of ancient millstones,
Like Sisyphus part-way.
Sudden, a phone rings near,
I answer, having not touched it,
A woman’s voice, early in her blossoming:
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est?”
“Qu’est-ce que c’est…”The glow worm of the night, creeping, Patient, waiting, sliding slowly, Is now here at our saddest hours, Low, the worm is moving steady, Its light begins to show.
Birthing Hard
Birthing hard, the hour has come,
Yet even an eye out looks.
Swinging high an empty hangman,
Gruesome hoard this hunter hides.
Bloody birdie, on the fox she gnaws,
Splitting crack to who and who.
The pine cone slave, the hog he hooks,
Witches hob, newted echoes croak,
Alpine knots retch herbal humors,
Belching cavern of sulfur.
Yelp and hush. God!
It comes. The Grind
I’m slamming my head against the wall,
My brains are coming out,
At some point, it’s best I stop,
But not while there’s still doubt.Down Through the Woods
A peaceful morn, in gusting breeze I sit,
The vapors blowing from the watered oaks,
Lingering around to chasten and coax,
They lead me in between the trunks that split,
And much deeper I’m drawn, squeezing to fit,
Brushed by the branches reaching out to poke;
It’s dark beneath the trees, just barely lit,
In blackness, the forest noose begins to choke.
Ancient elders of dirt arise their graves,
Circled séance and conjure commence,
Sunken earth takes me, I enter the caves,
The Pit sloughs us down to the chthonic den:
Voyage descending the nether realms,
Beasts, whores, hags and madness at the helm.Behind the Flame
Her emerald fire blazes blist'ring hot,
An untamèd panther within her breast
Hunts.
But that rapacious girl cleverly hides
A tender spot of flesh desiring
Love.Touch
I mourn. In lust and rage,
Like seething sage,
Teething upon my flesh,
No rest,
Scrying on the crystal mirror,
Reflected eyes of fear,
Too clear,
Blinded by sighs,
To now despise,
Each figure lovely, now forlorn,
I scorn.Hunger of the Eye Is Feed of the Flesh
In deepest haze of evening dusk,
The winds and rain are thrown and thrust,
Earth! It trembles as though it must
Bow and break to the wear and rust.
All the things and the favored things,
The ones that breathe, the ones who sing,
The ones for whom the bell will ring,
Will pass away into the night.
Darkness beckons its quiet call,
Shadows it all from all to all,
Pages will wilt and rip away,
And mouth has nothing more to say.
The bleeding recedes out of sight,
Because carnal hearts fear the light,
Their crooked veins may lose the fight,
Lonesome dark might soothe our lustful blight.Once More?
Your love is like a flower petal
Blowing in the wind,
Flying this way and that,
Dancing through the air,
Laughing in little lilts,
With fleeting hops and sudden dips,
Like a nervous, tittering kiss.
I never catch you, nor quite know
Which way you twist upon the wind,
One moment here, next moment gone,
And sometimes never seen again;
Perhaps I’m glad to have seen you, this once.Fryer! Fryer! burning bright, Ate a burger in the night, Onion rings and side of fries, I told them make it super-size. -Vanilliam Shake
Cursory Rhyme
You won’t evade my fleering eye,
I’ll see you, see you, see you,
Until you die.
Looky, looky,
A peeping tom,
He’s got a knife,
He’s got a bomb.
Don’t let go,
You’ll drop the globe,
Make it rumble, make it roll.
Sit right down and watch the show,
It’s a giant with six toes,
You’ve got five, he’s got mo’,
He’s about to cut you low,
Little lad have you hope?
“Yes sir, yes sir, three bags full.”
“One is the Master,
One is the Dame,
One is the Boy
Who hasn’t got a name.”
“I’ve got a horn
About to blow,
You’ll try your sword,
But you’re too slow.”
“Merrily merrily,
I’ll enter the breach,
Turns out you bleed,
And you’re in my reach.”Sooey, Sooey, Hong Kong Phooey, Francis Fukuyama, Baba Booey, Baba Booey.
Baudrillard Baudrillard, What would you do for a Klondike Bar? Baudrillard Baudrillard, Send the System my regards.
July the Fourth
I seek the master,
I find him crushing
A case of Bud.
Thus quoth the master:
“There are two spectacles
Of July the Fourth.
“The first of these
Is the bombast of fireworks,
Which thrusts the eye of the mind
Up towards the sight of blazing hosts.
“The second of these
Is the woman who wears daisy dukes,
Who should not,
Which plunges the eye of the mind
Toward the regret of sight.
“Along with this,
The synthesis of Hot Dog
and Inebriation
Will bring enlightenment.”
Upon his final word,
Master cracks another can.
He has transcended
And speaks no more.West Haiku
Haiku speak little
Not great for Western men
Who say much, talk long
Vanilliam Shake would be an amazing pseudonym. Love that one.