Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
What’s More . . . who was the woman who, 13.787 ± 0.020 billion years ago, birthed the universe from a bang? what an extravagant nativity, what an immense and unruly child came forth, unfurling, emerging in the space it made how could she have imagined how singular and varied her child would become, how…
Monday Poem
The Hunter I hike up the hill at a clip to keep this heart alive Orion’s over my left shoulder with arms raised always in his almost-never-ending black place in sky immersed in blazing stars in utter space Skirting single Cheryl’s I wonder again what it is she does in summer her shingled house is…
Monday Poem
Graduations I have before me a list of extensions without names. But it seems not to go on forever, because of horizon which, with the slickness of a blade, a knife of limitation, slashes time in two I’ve ticked-off the list through many graduations, sometimes with honors, sometimes smeared against a wall of dreams since…
Monday Poem
Trying to make Sense of Red —A Tennessee Cleanup Its janitors are sweeping up its sins— senators are on the floor with whisks and fine-toothed combs. They crawl and sift, scooping, collecting photographs of those they’ve lynched they cram them into rubbish bins —before their kids get wind they ban their two-faced history, they ban …
Monday Poem
Chuang Tzu’s Butterfly “Once upon a time, I, Zhuangzi (Chuang Tzu), dreamt I was a butterfly, fluttering hither and thither, to all intents and purposes a butterfly. I was conscious only of my happiness as a butterfly, unaware that I was Zhuangzi. Soon I awakened, and there I was, veritably myself again. Now I do…
Monday Poem
Betta Than Meta Here’s an idea: in FB scroll down at say a post a second —keep on keeping on (maybe Meta’s your thing) find your groove, lose yourself in avatars and memes, get a timely sense of your milieu, what you’re enmeshed in now, good or ill, a scroll of streaming truth, or not, soundless, unless you hum a…
Monday Poem
“But in 2500 B.C. Harappa, who cast in bronze a servant girl? No one keeps records of soldiers and slaves.” … —from At the Museum, by Agha Shahid Ali In Jerusalem I’ve learned a new word: asafoetida, or asafetida, which is a gum ground from Near Eastern plants of the genus Ferula which smells fetid …. and was used once…
Monday Poem
Especially Where You’re Concerned —on a thought of Maurice Sendak I’ll sob my way to the grave as the world disappears one friend at a time, but especially where you’re concerned, the old man said. So, there is a bit of joy in the thought of leaving first since I won’t have to sob until…
Monday Poem
….—on a cartoon by Harry Bliss ..Yes, But . . . … It’s … a mixed bag ….a contentious thought ….a hard truth ….a contradiction of emotions ….a matter of time ….a bittersweet line ….a fickle notion ….a double standard ….a salve ….a remedial lotion ….a half-truth ….a deep and restless ocean Jim Culleny, 2/25/23…
Monday Poem
Fugitive big brown bison walks the white line of a two-lane, black eyes scanning for a sign, regarding asphalt he wonders what happened to the grass how did this black ribbon come to bisect my meadow between talus and hundred-foot pines and where are the columbine? he asks no one in particular because not even the alpha male…
Monday Poem
Now Only Knocks Now Add 30 seconds to anytime, what’s that interval? Hell, double it what’s that? Have you ever had a day that lasts three or one that goes so fast it’s past instantly? Are those durations short or long, if hours mean anything? Subtract five hours from anytime do we really think we’ve…
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
Monday Poem
The Hindu image of Anantashayana portrays the god Vishnu reclining upon a coiled snake upon a raft floating in a sea of milk dreaming up the universe Until the Sacred Cows Come Home Vishnu reclines and sleeps dreaming up the world ………………………….. He lounges upon a coiled snake in the image of ananta shayana floating on…
Monday Poem
‘Scuze Me for Being Cynical Media (movies, news, tv), does not mediate, and often obfuscates, it dilates, though some do legitimately investigate, producing news upon which we are left to ruminate, and so, the public often oscillates and vacillates —but sly and foxy news, well, just prevaricates, creates fantasies that stuff its banks, which some…
Monday Poem—Happy New Year . . .
Poets Talk Time poets talk time to get a handle on it, to hack a place to hold it to turn it, to fold it to climb it and mount it to ride it, to flip it to hide it, to turn it to toy with and tip it to wrench it, to rip it apart…
Monday Poem
I learn to reap without violence listen without taking; I yield —Lauren Turner, Poet Learning How to Write a Poem A time ago I thought, and something said, Get out of the way, Jim you’re occluding the sun you make a mess of things with your insistence how do you expect a poem to come? how…