“It’s Oveeerrr”

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April 30th - Tombstones

Seven of Hearts - Tombstones

Cut flowers decay
In light autumn rain. After:
Moss thrives on cold stones!

April 29th - Easter Eggs

Nine of Hearts - Easter Eggs

Spring Festival

My nostrils flare with the memory of smells

White vinegar, aluminum, sulfurous eggs

The friction from muslin cloth still felt by

Fingertips stained blue and green and red

Small heart beating fast as I think of

All the early-morning sweets and all

Potential hiding places - unfathomable!

April 28th - Pack Animals

Seven of Spades - Pack Animals

Abundance

The animal coughs and sputters

Struggling under weight of overflowing

Saddlebags, under your abundance

Your mule, mad-eyed and wheezing

Edges closer to the precipice while

You gaze at your treasures

Oh, the weight of your saddlebags!

April 27th - Subway Riders

Eight of Clubs - Subway Riders

R Train, Downtown 

We sway in unison

Looking at ads for mattress

Ads for dating apps

Whatever is outside

Scuffed Plexiglas windows

Anything but

The strange small woman

Shouting about Jesus

April 26th - The Sandwich Question

Six of Spades - The Sandwich Question

Is A Hamburger a Sandwich?

How can you define anything?

What is Truth or

What is between us?

When you can’t even

Define a sandwich 

April 25th - Statue at Lee Circle

Six of Hearts - Statue at Lee Circle

Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, Maybe

Drunk on the new

Drunk off a fifth of whisky

I sang in the streets 

Convinced I had found my twin

Convinced I was in love

With the smell of magnolia

With the near-morning dew

I galloped the streets smiling

Like some conquering northern general

Riding by the sad bronze face of

Robert E. Lee - a statue 

Staring into the past forever while

I sang in the sunrise streets

Of a new New Orleans

April 24th - Bodhisattvas

Queen of Clubs - Bodhisattvas

Bodhisattva at 3am

Welcome overstayed 

Jawing and wild-eyed 

You credit compassion

You have for all beings

The spontaneous

Glory of compassion!

Have you awoken?

Or are you just

Hanging around?

April 23rd - The Myth of Sisyphus

Two of Hearts - The Myth of Sisyphus 

Impotence

It was the clock on her bedside table

That you focused on after

You both agreed it was not 

A big deal and she tried to fall

Asleep and you just stared at a clock

Doing what it is designed to do

A clock with a second hand that never

Stops moving designed so the tip

Looks like Sisyphus pushing 

A boulder around and around

And you watched that 

Boulder turn until the sun’s

Presence proved to you 

You were not dreaming

April 22nd - The Myth of Entitlement Reform

Two of Spades - The Myth of Entitlement Reform

Entitlements

“The number-one way to be thrifty

Is to privatize benefits swiftly”

This is easy to say

When Americans pay

For you to retire at fifty

April 21st - Abandoned Names

Eight of Spades - Abandoned Names

A sudden flood of panic

A stabbing sadness

Not felt for decades

Since before you were grown

You feel little again when

Your younger brother tells you to no

Longer use his childhood nickname

April 20th - The Pythagorean Theorem

Three of Diamonds - The Pythagorean Theorem


Points II

The shortest distance between two points
Was clear from the start but still
We couldn't help but check our math
We couldn't let ourselves believe
A simple equation

April 19th - “The Divorce Capital of the World”

Queen of Spades - “The Divorce Capital of the World”

“The Divorce Capital of the World”

My grandmother lived outside Reno

For forty nights in 1963

In a place named “Washoe”

As far as you could get from Brooklyn

With women who spent full days crying

And those who laughed and couldn’t stop

Women from Biloxi and South Bend and

Other places she had never been to

Or ever thought to go

On some ranch 2000 miles from home

I struggle to imagine what she did

Or what she thought of other than her boys

As once again she stepped into the night

To light another cigarette

To cut the foreign desert air

And look up at the moon

That great waning gibbous

Which shined down on the Truckee River

Which made it almost look like gold 

-->

April 18th - Mondo Kim's

Four of Spades - Mondo Kim's

Faces of Death

You could buy drugs there then

But you never thought to ask the men

Who checked your bags whose mouths

And yellow eyes never stopped moving

Sober you could lose yourself for hours

Frantic click-clack searching till

Your fingertips were black until you

Found an album that you weren’t afraid

To show your friend for her approval

Something that could soon become

Your favorite thing you’ve ever heard

And upstairs where you’d only go alone

To look but never buy the films made mainly

For their scenes of sliced-off fingers or popped eyeballs

Eye-popping bodies sweating and heaving

Cat-eyed Jezebels who’d stare at you from

Boxes you’d pick up and then pick up again

Pre-owned VHS tapes which forewarned that

You would see a person die – and sure

None of what you watched was real but still

It made the blood inside you pulse so fast

It made you close your eyes

April 17th - Artifice

Five of Diamonds - Artifice

Social

In the blue light

We continue to be

Empty as anyone

Can be empty

Voids cannot be filled

With artifice, illusions

April 16th - The Fall of Your Scene

Ten of Spades - The Fall of Your Scene

There once was a bar named “Poor Frank’s”
Where everyone flirted and drank
But exorbitant rent
Turned to patrons’ lament
As its structure now houses a bank

April 15th - Spirit Guides

Four of Clubs - Spirit Guides

Psychopomps

Under isolated streetlights

I forget if I am dreaming

My spirit disjoint from my body

Diffusing in the tactile summer air 

Which resonates

With hidden insect voices

The kind that sound

As if the world is clicking into place

April 14th - Small Victories

Ace of Clubs - Small Victories


Small Victories IV

Cold feet
Touch colder floor
After you swore
You could not do it
Not today

April 13th - Bedford–Stuyvesant

Seven of Clubs - Bedford–Stuyvesant

Miss Wilma

She shuffles in old slippers

She pauses by the door

Barely enough room in her hallway 

Filled with sealed packages

Everybody’s packages

Gathered like found treasures

Held for now to keep them safe

April 12th - Never-Kings

King of Spades - Never-Kings

Le Grand Dauphin at Château de Versailles

Never once did he say

In all those endless years of

Hiding cards in parlor games

Cupping pairs of bare breasts

Drinking till he could not stand

Not once did he say

When he relived himself

On the palace walls

“I will never be king”

April 11th - Zach Adler, 2005

King of Hearts - Zach Adler, 2005

Photo Credit Unknown

What is the half-life of a moment

When only an image can be

The thing preserved?

At was point does

A photograph become just

A photograph?

I have this record but -

How long will I remember

That I was mugging for laugh

What was out of frame

Or who I kissed

That night I was drinking 

Whisky ice and water?

April 10th - New Year’s Regrets

Nine of Spades - New Year’s Regrets

New Year’s Regrets

Kisses of course

Not ones given

Or taken but

Kisses imagined

And never born

Otherwise?

None!

April 9th - The Fall of the Monarchy

Ten of Hearts - The Fall of the Monarchy

How These Things Often End

They make their beds

They loose their heads

April 8th - New Mothers

Queen of Hearts - New Mothers

The New

We can only watch

The universe expand

And contract as you push

Against the ever-folding darkness

The edge of all things known

The abyssal terror of non-being

You push against and then

In rapturous joy illuminate

What once was void is

Suddenly now filled with light

You are space explorers!

We are but satellites

April 7th - The Greater Good

Ace of Diamonds - The Greater Good

Special Interests

When you kiss me do it

With the passion of a union 

Leader rallying their workers

To reject the status quo 

But when you leave me treat me

Like you are a politician

Cripple me then promise me

It’s for the greater good

April 6th - Heartland

Four of Hearts - Heartland

Made Your Bed In A Small Town

They got Mellencamp on the jukebox again

I wanna get up and change it

Cause I’ve seen it all in a small town

I can’t breathe in this small town

Gonna die in a small town

Land-locked and unknown

April 5th - The Tripartite Soul

Three of Spades - The Tripartite Soul

The City Burns

My soul is a city

Like the one described to Adeimantus

Dominion of Philosopher-Kings 

Who in their providence inspire

Baser subjects to protect the overseers

Or to lay foundation stones

Of temperance and regret

But, oh, when you stand close to me

Lovers of sights and sounds awake!

Armed men break rank

Break open doors locked from inside

Ecstatic, turn their blades upon those kings

Meanwhile on fertile fields below

The working class revolts

April 4th - The Fall of Communism

Ten of Clubs - The Fall of Communism 

The Fall of Communism

Just before your sophomore year you spent

Nearly ninety dollars on Che Guevara T-shirts 

All in complementing earthy tones 

That armed you with a different daily 

Defiance to any teacher or other minor 

Autocrat who would dare disparagement

Who you would swiftly crush with

Your watertight - almost - treatise

On the the evils of capitalism

But no such challenge ever came

Your understanding parents though

Would sometimes ask politely that you

Turn down Evil Empire

But then -

What other outlet was presented for

Overwhelming geysers of compassion

Which first spouted on the day you noticed

Some disheveled woman on the sidewalk

Washing her body in stagnant water

Vocalizing scrambled thoughts trying to

Cool her chapped and leather shoulders

From the summer heat you couldn’t wait to come?

You were suddenly uncomfortable and frightened

Unworthy of the shoes you got for Christmas 

And even though you crossed the street

You told yourself, you knew deep down

There must be something better than - 

A better way than this

April 3rd - Clam Jerky

Six of Clubs - Clam Jerky

The Streets Count Down on Second Avenue

How distasteful these things

Would be out of context –

New York City stenches:

Subway heat and Subway sandwiches

The unwanted taxicab radio:

A series of “Doo-doo-doos”

Play tinny and weak, the refrain

Of “Semi-Charmed Life”

But with my head out the window

This rare resonant day I feel

Fifteen again – it’s April 1999

And my electric mouth is full

Of discontinued tastes, faint

Remembrances of inconsequential things

Nearly forgotten bodega treats:

Strange Japanese Chewing Gum, Clam Jerky

April 2nd - Angel Numbers

Three of Hearts - Angel Numbers

(Sequel to 4/27/2011)

The Scott Kazmir Trade, Revisited 

It wasn’t so bad after all 

Announces the remaining brother

Standing almost, swaying, spilling

On adjacent empty stool

Really wasn’t all that bad

He rubs his flaking naked scalp

Tips phantom cap lost long ago

Really not so bad if only

A crumpled paper damaged voice

That always sounds as if he’s yelling, but

If you just look

The inattentive barman never looks at him

If you only look

The well-heeled stiff-lipped patrons never look at him

Just look at his Angel numbers

There are only strangers now

April 1st - Helium

Ace of Hearts - Helium

-

Inert, Inflammable

Yet somehow I began

To float

On my first inhale

After my first

Glimpse of a Face

A sudden inward breath of air, and then

Shuddering intoxicating lightness

Heart and lungs

Electric - excited toes

And feet and body

Lifted from the earth

Imbued with something delicate

And new, a new

Weightlessness

I became

Fanatical believing

I could almost touch

The night-black of your firmament

Your incandescent Face of stars

Decades pass - I float here still

Desperate fingers stretching into darkness

Desperate toes ever-reaching for the earth below

National Poetry Month 2019

Dear Readers,

Welcome (back)!

For the tenth year running - to celebrate the arbitrary designation of "National Poetry Month" - I will be writing and posting a poem here every day for the next thirty days.

Shout out, as always, to the prolific Jon Berger who helped inspire this project.


The rules:

- I have compiled a list of 54 prompts, each assigned to a different playing card


- Every day I will draw a card to select a prompt


- Based on that prompt I will write a poem that contains 280 or less characters


- By the end of the day I post it here


The complete list is below:

2	c	Sandy Hook Truthers
2	d	Two and a Half Men
2	h	The Myth of Sisyphus
2	s	The Myth of Entitlement Reform
3	c	Three Buck Chuck
3	d	The Pythagorean Theorem
3	h	The Angel Number
3	s	The Tripartite Soul
4	c	Spirit Guides
4	d	Spirit Fingers
4	h	Heartland
4	s	Mondo Kim’s Video and Music
5	c	Dying Breeds
5	d	Artifice
5	h	Harmonicas
5	s	Tofu Cream Cheese
6	c	Clam Jerky
6	d	TV Repairmen
6	h	Statue at Lee Circle
6	s	The Sandwich Question
7	c	Bedford-Stuyvesant
7	d	Friends With Benefits
7	h	Tombstones
7	s	Pack Animals
8	c	Subway Riders
8	d	Taxi Drivers
8	h	Water Wings (TM)
8	s	Abandoned Names
9	c	Christmas Ornaments
9	d	Hanukkah Gelt
9	h	Easter Eggs
9	s	New Years Regrets
10	c	The Fall of Communism
10	d	The Fall of Capitalism
10	h	The Fall of the Monarchy
10	s	The Fall of Your Scene
J	c	Bodhisattvas
J	d	Sudden Death
J	h	Dylan Going Electric
J	s	Two-Spirits
Q	c	Sworn Virgins
Q	d	Cam Girls
Q	h	New Mothers
Q	s	“The Divorce Capital of the World”
K	c	Burger King (Revisited)
K	d	Thin Elvis
K	h	Zach Adler, 2005
K	s	Never-Kings
A	c	Small Victories
A	d	The Greater Good
A	h	Helium
A	s	Impermanence
Green Joker		The Analog World
Black Joker		The Digital Word

Thanks to all of you friends and bots who have read over the last decade.

Poem #290 will be posted here sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, enjoy the remaining hours of National Hexagonal Awareness Month(?)

- Z