Poetry Is Like...

Anyone want to match the poet with the statement of poetics?

POETRY IS...

"...a partially descended testicle, embarassment, anticipation and life, all in one crouched form."

"...a big scratchy silver table and then and then jeni read and there was pizza and then JD said stuff and I got to stay up late and when I got in bed I tied the red balloon to the bed post."

"...that deja vu where I'm holding a pen but it's really a wishbone, and all I have to do is decide which verse of the world to write down, which stanza of the mind to salvage."

"...clouds of locusts licking the wind until it turns blue, the sand frozen in sea mist."

"...Lydia at four, when all things are not only possible but probable - and prime numbers have nothing and everything to do...with everything else - when stars are henry in eyes of hazel and words and phrases of cheekbones and grins and chuckles."

"...being dropped onto a charred prairie looking for love like hunger, like water, like a camel whose hump has hollowed out, and then poetry is the mirage of coming home."

Fields Marked By An Asterisk Are Required

An absolution of indifference, perched top-heavy
atop the sunken confines of a styrofoam cup.

Speak or not, breathe or not, parry the words
on the page with keen discernment, or not.

*What do you use to carry the anvil of
choice, and its furthering implications?

The flimsy whim fabric of choosing, woven.
The wind that moves breathlessly

through fall fields full of dusk and miracle
light. Sawdust leaves that collapse, cranky,

red-faced, nap blanket, dreaming in prose.

freewrite

the wind does not need the grass to answer

any more than it needs me
to love the accidental sound
it makes by passing an open window
or its amphibian skirmish across the mouth
of a hollow glass jar

it does not need me balancing
its dry winter beheading of trees
with its lesser signs, the second sources:
little creature bones scattered among the bayonette
still so elegant
and then while I sleep
wind disappears
abeyance so complete
I beg it back
even its vapid form better
than nothing

-Barbara S.

Garvin Mesa

The wind does not require the grass
to answer, but the question is always there
and gone, then back again, persistent,
ruffling blades like hair with an open palm,
posing queries of the daybreak
while the skylark tries to echo him,
asking us awake into the morning.

In the darkness of dawn in the valley
the coal train sings and everyone
listens and responds in kind:
the cicadas lost in tall forests of grass,
thrumming like starting motos;
the cows lowing in nearby fields
wet with cool dew; the odd rooster
at his post, shrill steward of the sun—
every throat as open as an unanswered
question, every sound as full
of asking as the wind.

Emily's Love

The wind does not require the grass,
He has loftier goals,
destinations unknown,
an ocean of air confronts
always itself, wrapped
around the world
with no expiration date
sipping up moisture along the way,
waters fields and junkyards, clouds
perception then suddenly clears
to reveal itself behind the mirror
where mountains accumulate,
stars gain energy and the life
of creation is still as the wind
never is, even on still sunlit afternoons
when birdsong stops, butterflies
close their wings, the gray stripped cat
stares uncomprehending
a mote without motion, silence rules
and this chapter’s done.
The gentlest breeze turns the page,
the grass moves, though She does not
require the wind.

some of us

MEANWHILE THE MONKEYS

Meanwhile the monkeys

Dropping

into our garden

like commandoes

Threaten

us

with memories of the time

we showed

up without pants

They pound

on the tabletops

until

banana cream pie is produced

Monkey see Mountain Dew

Screeches worse

than Niebelungen

Toaster, cat, bowls

and bottles

in a frozen

arc

of juggled

They come right at us,

teeth bared

like dobermans

Monkey say we people around

Laughing

at my minivan

Amazed by my bad

gas mileage

and this need

to carry around

more than one

good ant-collecting stick

They will

not even look

at the collection of clever bumper stickers

JD Frey -- August 12, 2008