Poetry Slam between Klaus J. Gerken and Maria Jacketti 2014 grammar short breath falling where it may sometimes a verb gets in the way! kjg 936am 29 sep 2014 * Farewell to a Virgin GPA Mr. funny fruit salad salsa chef of the ooh la la, mr. disco darling, drunken and sleeping through college, you quit, I quarked. Zombies later, I wonder what I really learned in college. Maria Jacketti 30 Sep 2014 * poet like any theoretical physicist a poet attends college to tweak the model already formulated poets are born not made you do not write like your teacher you teach your teacher how to write kjg 639am 30 sep 2014 * Tatiana's Ashes We are driving to Ringtown along curlicue and un-ribboning roads : fruit salad foliage, hot leaves, their veins sucked dry of chlorophyll, so I am also brittle and on fire with colors that scream all autumnal and ancient, like the leopard cat we held for fifteen years, her coat glittered with stars, so many windmills on the mountains on the road to Tatiana's magnetic remains, they stir time and the clouds. I am seeing the future. This is not 2014. These are not Quixote's whirligigs. A new world is coming, as from the ashes, Tatiana whispers, "Home. Take me home." Maria Jacketti 30 Sep 2014 * Quixote's Windmill driven by suspension i'll blow your house down madness is the supposition that reality is not a house of cards frozen in deliverance the knight roars and beats his donkey's ass i am the wind i am the wind i will shatter your illusions sometimes power mounts a wooden pedastal with marble way too heavy to sprout wings sometimes we just sit and wait until the termites do their bit kjg 441pm 30 sep 2014 * Song of the 2:00 A.M. Abductor We came from the stars, Most recently the wormhole chateaux Of your moon to Mars, Before that from deeper space To make things right, Erase, erase. We abduct you when you sleep. Until you wake up to us, Afraid bumbler bee, old friend, You are energy, fat, muscle, And bone, our programmed meat. In the this most ancient battle, You are the avatars in monkey cattle. Shaman President, do your job To defeat us with drum and rattle. With drum and rattle. I said: with drum and rattle, Demons retreat. Maria Jacketti 1 Oct 2014 * waking drum and rattle what a squabble tibetan claptrap holy moptop no one sings who does not gargle with the latest ...well i daddle can't find poem play with marbles morning graybeard hovers lazy my i'm crazy news just slays me tittle tattle baby's rattle goo goo ga ga milton taught us such a bad ass if not heaven hell's a haven all need savin' grace a sayin' morning rolls me johnny skelton's getting heavy in my savvy mind can't rally hear me thunder city's under loud repair don't despair flutes and fiddles breakfast vittles praised be sunlight aten rising g'nite g'nite alright alright time's reversed which came first i can't remember plastic oven or the coven vivid dreaming in october welcome demons the perfect have no meaning where the gutter meets the devil the bubble will be level kjg 956am 1 oct 2014 Note: I was reading John Skelton poems all night. That's where the meter and rhyme comes from. * Pineapples, the Hospitality Fruit All around me people are smashing pineapples, the fruit of perpetual welcome, in a world upside down with hate. Consumers, you see, can't go to Hawaii, in fact, they can’t go anywhere now, just a trip to the grocery store sends them into bed with covers over their heads, now contemplating gas that might have filled their getaway cars, And even though they are hungry and fat, they smash pineapples in secret kitchenettes And now in the street., and the juice runs through downtown, drips into the sewers, and fills the abandoned coal mines. Go away! Get out of here! Leave me alone for you have no right to tempt me with the tropics and year round sun. If I try to grow a pineapple in an unclouded window, it will take me years. So, why is this love so cheap? In fact, I have been smashing pineapples, too, when I am too lazy to pare the outside that keeps the sweetness safe. And my hammer also cracks coconuts, and I think that my pineapples and coconuts will eventually marry, if they decide not to stay in their skins and go to war, so I am counting on pineapples, the diplomats to make sure that I become what I eat. MJ 2 Oct 2014 * exodus twisted rivers through the garden sparkle under clear blue skies from what we came this we follow the future does not reason why one sometimes wants for wont of wanting the truth lies somewhere in between the desert where we mark our footsteps and a river so pristine but do we dare to leave the garden do we dare to even try the garden is our safety screen but we are restless in our hunting crossing the periphery we continue with our inquiry kjg 1153pm 3 oct 2014 * On the Hill During the long days of forever, under bread dough clouds, she found an alligator drowsing in an ice cream cone. A bull dog barked, along the way, and she dropped three scoops of the lizard-luscious, complete with sprinkles, oh those sprinkles that sounded like the Mummer's Parade and stained the walk with the blood of carnival. Of course, her father would not buy her another. What were they? The Rockefellers? And besides the ice cream parlor was now on the other side of the hill, and the very already hall way home. From their balcony on the hill, gleamed the constellations of Manhattan, that sounded like a her toy piano, eking out tones of incompetent money, and incontinent hungers. The snow that year, smelled like the honeysuckle talc from Avon that her father used after shaving. It smelled like extravagant summer mocking a season of ancestor harvesting. And when life was most frozen, all of her aunts of the Seybert Street marveled at Marilyn Monroe, that platinum strumpet, nearly forty and still a diamond on fire. She was always summer and ice cream and even the stuff of Presidential erections. But her mother covered her ears, singed by the hot pink-bikini banter, and rolled out thick dough of life, parades of dough as wide as tablecloths. Oh bread of life, covering the bodies of ancestors, it rained acid from the mines, and the girl, wrapped herself in that obscured rainbow, found the mule at the end of it, and road down Eisenhower’s Interstate, to save herself and Gotham. * Menopause Unripe tomatoes sweating in brown paper bags - I am the oven of myself, No more hemorrhaging the wounds of womanhood, No more sex, Just waking up every night soaked in the marathon of a life, Sweat that smells like a locker room of urine, I weep, I laugh, I wet my pants in real time. My husband plays solitaire in the basement. My daughter hurls bloody tomatoes at me. Like Greenland's glaciers, Like cherry chunked ice cream under a sangria sun, This song steams. MJ 4 Oct 2014 * night of steam no use screaming at a wall it won't listen and you will only annoy the neighbours digging foxholes isn't proper either depending on the length of the ladder you might never be able to climb out besides the cat purrs in the corner of the sofa and he silence sings a gentle lullaby on nights like this it is reasonable to assume life goes on forever even after the inevitable be that as it may sleep does not come easy and the well-stocked bar is never empty of hope kjg 1041pm 4 oct 2014 * Prosody then you explain why you put the words in that order then someone states "isn't that clever" and no one remembers the poem kjg 828am 5 oct 2014 * From the Wall Street Journal This Week For the Day of Atonement In the last forty years, stacked like overdue library books, (does anyone read the signs anymore?) half the species on Earth, went lost without an ark, in the room of fresh water, three quarters of a blue apple pie of Gaia’s kindergarten, (I'm sure god has a sheep counter) heads popped out of the crust to speak all forgot their languages (still just one) drowned in their own breath. And only where money meets the word, does the truth eke out and away. Newsprint bleeds in the rain, all glut and evanescence. MJ 5 Oct 2014 * Just Give Me That Old Time Religion "I could not read or write, so one day I saw this sign advertising a religious revival in my village and I attended, and behold the lord cured me and all of a sudden I could read the bible!" Then they show him typing the message on a laptop to proclaim to the world the "good news". They also sell "potent" mustard seeds from the holy land that will cure everything! "Stay tuned and I'll be back with a free gift for a minimal donation..." How convenient! So says Dr. Grimm...(kid you not!) "Our calendar is pathetic because it's not god's calendar. We have god's calendar and you can have it for only..." Tax deductible of course... "And on the 4th day god gave us the light bulb..." yabba dabba doo! She whips out the bible and says, "We're going to make a few corrections: solar eclipses only fall on god's holy days, those that do not are calculated from our calendar, not god's calendar. God only provides us with blood moons... no other eclipses matter because they are not of the holy sacrifice... there have only been 3 blood moon eclipses since creation and the one on april 3rd this year will be the 4th... and wonderful things will happen to those who believe in our ministry." I hope this is a rerun... it's october now. "God said we are using the calendar of Socrates. This is what was given to Moses, it's not in your bible... but it's true." "Socrates is the Devil" (Lucifer...the light), "who keeps us in darkness." "There aren't 12 months in the year but 7 months. 7 days 7 months and 7 years. And we are now in the 7th year." "there will be two solar eclipses when we have a full blood moon...." Hmm...what latitude? And do we have to see it? I mean there's a full moon every day and an eclipse...they see it on the ISS... Oh yes, it has to be seen in Jerusalem... on a certain day that does not appear on your calendar, only on god's...October the 8th is the day... "if you don't see it you will not be saved." Sounds like a travel agency ad. Do they conduct tours? "None of what I am about to tell you is in the bible, but comes straight from god." Apparently god gave us the bible to corroborate what she fantasises: Shakespeare or James Joyce would do just as well... I'm sure Finnegan's Wake would do even better! They do get a little carried away I guess. And in the end: "God said you're either with me or against me. It doesn't matter how good you are. If you're not with me you belong to the devil." So good doesn't matter to god unless you worship him. Hallelujah! Praise the lord. Or whatever travesty he fits into. kjg 1244pm 5 oct 2014 * Indigo, Night Honey Bear Dance Black bear, heaven's bed-spread, Cover me with growl and claw All star-elixired, Night grows colder now, And love, a constellation of another hemisphere Would vex a rose quartz nun Washing her lost unmentionables under A flat pumpkin moon. Once I was a ginger-gold star, unknown to hunger, Now lost in the monkey slaughter, you, too, I bottle the breathe of flowers, a bee In rugged honeysuckle, an ursine quark, Hold out my arms and dance the windmill, Medicine folk fathom Dancing my night bear, bearing it. They dance with me, too. MJ 6 Oct 2014 * Indigo Hotel down o'connor street across from the public library is the indigo hotel advertising "the tao of comfort" for its clientele i have always thought being only 5 blocks away from parliament hill it would make a great setting for a novel of intrigue yet nothing ever happens there or does it it stands unassuming in the centre of the city in what used to be the old YMCA building where in the 60's and 70's drug deals used to be a daily occurrence and the homeless hopeless gathered for a free meal on holidays larry an aid at a local hospital lived there the summer of 1970 we sometime hung out together sharing a bottle of wine by the canal on the National Arts Centre grounds with other "hippies" of the day there was little else to do sometimes share our art and read our poetry or played our songs to a stoned audience it was the ottawa summer of love one day larry told me he also painted and i accompanied him to his room at the ymca to cleck out some of his canvasses nothing much but there was one of a man running away from parliament hill and sticking his head into a garbage can filled with discarded rotting flowers he said he needed money and i bought it for five dollars then he told me he needed a shot and took out a syringe and some white powder asked me if i wanted some and i said no i wasn't into that so left with the painting when i got back to the canal liz thought i was nuts for buying the painting and told me to throw it away but i don't destroy art and took it home to store among other painting i had purchased over the years from local artist even though it wasn't very good i wondered what was behind it a protest a message no one understood a personal hatred for authority it was after all intriguing a few months later at the end of summer larry called saying he had been in florida trying to enlist and go to vietnam and fight the communists he said he was sick of all this "hippie stuff" and when he was refused he came back to ottawa but he said what he really wanted was to have his painting back since he had lost all the other canvasses he had so said sure give back my five and i'll bring it down thinking he was staying at the y again but he wasn't he was in a local mental institution where he was interred since the day after i bought the painting from him after overdosing on heroin i gave the painting back for nothing it was all he had left and no one ever heard of or saw him again i guess the hotel indigo does have a ghostly past fit for a poem or a novel maybe some day someone will write it kjg 1144pm 6 oct 2014 * A Crystal Skull for the Day of the Dead From a Requiem for Tatiana Here it is, the crystal skull that my recently late leopard Found in the closet of ancestors, And hungry for resolution, she exhorts me To noggin it quick: Unzip the quartz and find the gel of all knowing And clarity. Go ahead put it on. I put it on, sweet tea cup leopard, and the Cosmic brain guts pour down on me, Like a diamond tropical nectar; It solidifies and becomes my soul's raincoat. And of course, now I can never take it off, for It is as much crystal as crazy glue Sweet leopard, sudden jaguar, I could not Save you in the flesh, for this planet is not right, And who is to say that it can ever be that again way again? So for eternal Halloween I will be This Mayan space girl, embracing the promise of the stars, And purring om with the cat who took off her earthly pajamas But kept her sparkling spots. Thank you, Tatiana. MJ 7 Oct 2014 * Relativity We are sub-atomic particles self-aware. kjg 355am 8 Oct 2014 * Of Wildlife and 20th Century Commerce (Laurel Mall, Hazleton, Pa. mid 1980s) I held a test tube tiger in the small city mall where I shopped like a forget-me-not for the essential forgotten,: five dollars for five seconds of rough caress; I shared the erupting feline light, our snapshot under the food court lights, more tempest than petting zoo. A wheel of years later, who holds your cinnabar metropoli, your ruby jungles, what fortune do we share?- Come back to me and I will ride you through the oceanic aisles of blue jeans, and all the mounds of Chinese harvest. I will ride you alive or dead - until extinction crumbles, until you hunt and devour so purely my mall of life again. MJ 7 Oct 2014 * cult i spoke the sacred words but held a secret thought i waited for the holy embracing what i aught i freed the dove of peace i bowed where silence ruled then coughed into the echo and thought myself a fool the virgin of the shadow said i was a spy i said i will not follow she said "accept the lie" i asked her for forgiveness she said return the gift with every ounce of feeling i walked away to live kjg 1119am 8 oct 2014 * Heads up there is more to this than meets the thought kjg 1214pm 8 Oct 2014 * Akhenaten's Hymn To The Sun Praise [Akhenaten] who bows to the horizon, his name, like his soul, dwells in the Sun, and is resurrected for eternity, in the living Sun, the triumphant Lord, who is master of everything the Sun embraces, who is master of the firmament, master of the ground, master of the former Sun above Akhetaten; and the Pharaoh of Upper and Lower Kemet, who lives in Ma'at [truth , justice] the master of the royal crown [Akhenaten], the one who lives forever; and the King's preeminent wife, whom he loves, the mistress of Kemet, alive, healthy, and eternally young. Akhenaten proclaims: You rise, omnipotent, above the horizon, the living Sun, who created life. Wherever you rise in the east you flood the lands with your omnipotence. You are revered, and great, and shimmering, over all the lands; your rays unite the lands like everything you have created. Being Re, your influence extends as far as other lands, and you stop them at the behest of your beloved son. Although you are very distant, your rays flood the land; you warm their faces, yet no one observed your departure. When you descend in the west the land turns dark like death. People sleep in their bedrooms with heads hidden under their blankets and one eye cannot see the other. Even if all their possessions under their pillows were stolen, they would never know it [because of the darkness]. Lions leave their lairs and serpents bite, for the darkness is a heavy blanket. Kemet is peaceful now, because the creator who made them is resting on the horizon. And in the morning you rise, shining like the Sun does every day. Translated by kjg 345pm 8 oct 2014 * Two Seasons In autumn abide the tatters of A titanium spring: A rumination of roots, a heart of infinite Evergreen filaments, within the deep Feet of mountains. Private to my hours The emerald deluge unbuttons itself, So swollen it swoops: behold This wig of grass I wear for life. MJ 9 Oct 2014 * no longer human he was told that if he refused treatment and allowed himself to die a natural death he would be a burden to society wasting tax payer's money when he finally ended up in hospital but on the other hand if he decided to live and accept treatment (which would extend at the outset his life by not more than a painful year) the government would pay for everything and he would be deemed a hero for fighting this terrible disease otherwise he's on his own oh and don't come to me for a anything go to a clinic i'll only monitor you every 6 months to see how fast you are dying kjg 641pm 9 oct 2014 * When Jasmine Sings Jasmine is the king of flowers, The tiger of love, And when jasmine sings, Stars appear like salt spilled, The quilt of cobalt night becomes Freckled sunny, making the local Universe, safe and bright. And I say, for all my days of Earth, let there be Jasmine, sweet and eternal, in jungle and hanging garden, On subways, and in houses where monkeys overflow. And , the acrobat of curtains that hold Back a tempest, is Jasmine, Perfuming this persistent body In search of that alchemical light, jasmine in every crayon, In stadium and drawers, where the impish sachets, Play only one note in infinite variation: floral Audacities crushed into woozy pots of gold, The garden of wide intoxicating vapors, of that, in helium gazebo, In my jukebox of tisanes, breath of adoration. MJ 10 Oct 2014 * Spirit I may not have the fancy words of a poet but I have the spirit of a poet and the spirit of a poet is a hell of a lot better than a bunch of fancy words. kjg 1228am 11 oct 2014 * Light for Darker Seasons The trees of October wear Make-up And then rustle away their colors Oh, let me be persistent pine With a teal coat, steadfast only Again to know the colors of the Christmas tree, So artificially sublime, Born of tamed electricity. MJ 10/11/14 * Tao sometimes truth is just around the corner but unfortunately your destination is further down the road kjg 201am 12 oct 2014 * Bank Robbery Sequence Another bank robbery: the pear tree Holds up Her leaves Notes for notes, the hungry bags Fill up, Leaves fall. All just paper. Police arrive late, Squirrels have heisted half The hazelnuts from the wood jewel bushes. I make a deal with the squirrels And they surrender enough for Ice cream. Another bank robbery: I save the Nuts for Thanksgiving. If they would only ask: It might be given. Oct. 12/ 14 10/14 Light for Darker Seasons The trees of October wear Make-up And then rustle away their colors. Soapy clouds bring baths that chase Such extravagance, yet it is the chill That awakens these colors, mimicking naked sunset More than the of dawn. Oh, let me be persistent pine With a teal coat, steadfast only Again MJ 12 Oct 2014 * Willoughby* it sometimes appeals to me that there is a sanity not recognized the sanity of death as far as I know we are the only species on this planet that prepares for a future no longer living in the present has made us insane i do not relish that idea but i live the pain get well soon or you'll be done kjg 814pm 12 oct 2014 *see Last stop at Willoughby the Twilight Zone * To Serve Man - It's a Cookbook! Paint on the Sailing Fog, Takes shape, now a light-infested sky of tiddlywinks, Of platinum snowflakes: They land on the rich rooftops of New York Like Santa Claus, but many-millioned. Paradise Lost, when the aliens Arrive like hot rod gods, like social workers, and declare Utopia, Come to our spas, we will take leaks On your deserts and cure, even the evil Ebola monster, by Godzilla!. The embargoed Acreage set free- the standing Ovations at the U.N. We are tired and want To incarnate the cures overdue the grape soda mountains —the dynasty after-the innocent lure swine enroute to bacon? To Serve Man is not a cookbook, It's War and Peace. MJ 13 Oct 2014 * Trinity the other side of god is woof and then there is meow that trumps them both! kjg 330pm 13 oct 2014 * Intimate to my clock The up-and-coming Sun showers two flashes in the cat's eyes, lightning bolt MJ 14 Oct 2014 * Poet With A Broken WIng i am ashes today no phoenix rising to a cerulean sky i am a poet with a broken wing suffering my sanity on an island without lotus blossoms or promegramades i watch the tide go out and wonder when it will be time to go home kjg 1114am 14 oct 2014 * Cat ears Radar a-flick White thunder MJ 14 Oct 2014 * Physics the farthest spot away from you is the spot you are standing on it is also the nearest if there is a constant in the universe it is this nothing is real in the sense of our reality we are a map to another reality incomprehensible for now a new darker shadow in a brighter light wear sunshades when you emerge from it kjg 1150am 14 oct 2014 * Sancho Shits Off the End of His Donkey But first he rolls down his pants, And then he spreads each cheek of his buttocks As far toward the end of his donkey As life allows him,. And then he lets it go, but getting half on his Donkey, and alerting Quixote's nose This is not a successful shit, Rather it is an imperative one. There is no lily bath in the crystal ball Where I watch this scene a thousand times. Sad world when we have to shit for our Bosses' delight. Today at work, I listened to supervisors Shit off the end of my ear. I beheld them shit into the sun of my Day. I beheld the clouds turning murky, And the rain down diarrhea and then I cracked the globe, and out strode Quixote and Sancho, Who both landed on my lap like freshly groomed kittens, And reminded me that so much shit Grows flowers that rival windmills. You can also behead and crucify Your enemies with windmills, broken apart into Weapons. I am going to shit stars in the woods like An avatar And crack open this world, for my rosebud Honeydew pleasures, Sancho. For my joy of lettuce And skyscrapers of hay. Watch me. Shit. Shit. Shit. MJ 14 Oct 2014 * Christianity in a Nut...shell! I was at the grocery store the other day and overheard two young women ahead of me in line at the check-out counter: Woman to her friend: "I just returned from a trip to Rome and saw the place where Jesus lives!" "How wonderful! Did you get to see him?" "Oh no...he doesn't talk to common people! But I did see the place where he died!" They left giggling as if talking about some rock star they had just encountered. Well she at least got the essence right: Jesus died, was resurrected and lives in he Vatican... somewhat. kjg 12-15 oct 2014 * Growing older The sequoia tosses rings Around my bones MJ 15 Oct 2014 * The sorrow of work Aspirin's path resolute blood to my heart MJ 15 Oct 2014 * Positive dreaming on my sofa Cats wait their turn kjg 1128am 15 oct 2014 * Every day my father's clothes Covered in coal dust - This freezing house MJ 15 Oct 2014 * October, no frost yet: Just a breath away: Step back MJ 15 Oct 2014 * Summer weather August wakes October... kjg 252pm/252am/1009am 15/16 oct 2014 * Blues: no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone got no money got no fame got no fam'ly just the same no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone just throw me in the bottom of a grave i need no priest my hollow soul to save no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone got no money got no fame got no fam'ly just the same no one's gonna miss me when i'm gone kjg 959am 16 oct 2014 * Inside tears The swollen rain Pounds with fists MJ 16 Oct 2014 * rain how i used to love the rain dreaming at my window of paris london and of rome in my younger shadow writing poems to the muse enlightened by the vigour of dreams and things to come what have i done to sever this energy i have grown old i have grown old i never thought these aching bones would stifle my endeavour but so it is and came about my youth a distant longing the rain returns me to that time it saddens to be laughing laughing why i will not bow to a shallow old amusement the past is gone and i am here it's a funny sort of appeasement kjg 1029am 16 oct 2014 * Old junkie poet Lights up With leaves of grass MJ 16 Oct 2014 * Old bard Light up With leaves of grass MJ 16 Oct 2014 (revised) * Art and Death Vladimir Holan wrote "Houses of death Have a bar in the basement" I won't deny the fact Death is either acceptance Or denial There can be no between And if one doesn't Have a basement One has a floor littered With empty bottles Providing inspiration While denying life Art is like a virus That flourishes while Killing its host. kjg 1227am 17 oct 2014 * art the artist longs for peace but never finds it art is not a profession art is a possession kjg 107am 17 oct 2014 * ghost the quiet of the evening is only broken by the gong of heartache kjg 123am 17 oct 2014 * Circumstance Saved the life of my little fruit fly again. This is starting to become routine. Whatcha gonna do when I'm not here? kjg 558pm 17 oct 2014 * Halloween's fresh costume: The 20th century witch Drives a Hoover. MJ 17 Oct 2014 * Hallowe'en Poem which witch is this that witch with a twitch and an itch when the hurly burly's done and macbeth is on the run what fun dive right in we sell a sin to the holy oh what glory peek-a-boo i see you you can't see me behind the tree i'll rightly be sprig of basil what's the hassle it's a tassel thick fog comin' angels strummin' sybils laughing what's the joke or the yoke have a toke which witch with the twitch has an itch ah he's comin' macbeth is comin' get a-stirrin' when the hurly burly's done happy hallowe'en everyone kjg 648pm 17 oct 2014 * post-apocalyptic we will all be one shuffled into hell just as well heaven's only swell for those who subscribe to the latest fad (religion must be mad so man dying for the privilege to live) i guess the promise of a better world makes sense for some for me it really doesn't matter the world's already as corrupt as it can get as an angel you can wax your wings and fall to earth bypassing purgatory salvation only matters when you're too dead to understand the lie he's alive and well in hell kjg 1148pm 17 oct 2014 * impulse buying it makes me angry that i didn't get what i wanted at the store now that i'm home i want it more than ever and what i bought i have no hunger for kjg 1155pm 17 oct 2014 * Raking Leaves Tempest leaves that whirl away from my hungry rake- Last tomatoes, skimping hours, the stray Angel white cat who eludes my traps: I would have her on my lap as we rest Before the fire. There is time. Later today, I will save seeds For another year, there is hope. I find myself already talking to winter, Begging for gentle snow That falls in thimble buckets. No need to storm so much anymore. King sunflower heads that droop - Sunshine ekes away behind these leafy tors, perpetuity In the trees' surrender - from my childhood, they Have stretched ever closer to the stars, Wiser each year, saved from paper. I may never see the greater world, But the universe of this yard, The seasons conjure this harvest The leaves piled high as snow banks, I have made my world And I wonder when it will harvest me. MJ 10/18/14. * Walking With A Cane I used to run to catch the light; Now I limp to catch the pause. kjg 1016am 19 oct 2014 * Sunflower moon, In my arms, tigers In each marigold MJ 19 Oct 2014 * Ubu Bored Silly me I'm a bumbling bee Rolling round On the ground Funny that I'm too fat Give me wings And furry things And off I'll fly To drink some rhy It's awful good Has wormwood But Ubu Roi Played with his toy And soon thereafter To howls of laughter Produced a son With a gun Who always shouted Thy will be done. kjg 18/19 oct 2014 * Bedbugs Crazy lazy bluesy fluesy on the unmade bed Harlot whatnot wife or daughter crying in her head Torn asunder born of thunder love is quite well dead Where there's nothing something falters on the path we thread I don't understand the meaning or what life is for What relation is a station with a vaulted door Hanker after not disaster in the want for more In the alley in the valley digging for the ore Plastic money call me honey just don't mope around What's the matter don't like leather it's all over town Don't you worry it's not curry have another round You don't want to that's impromptu then go 'way and drown The streets are empty rain is heavy what a bloody night Here she's stranded pretty branded pretending she has rights Love might blossom but the chosen never hitch a ride Slowly dawning sex stands yawning where the lonely hide kjg 519pm 19 oct 2014 * Sci Fi Utopia The houses are painted like turnips Or Martian green Everyone has a barcode, And trackers up the nose Our debts have been forgiven, But who will forgive our sins? MJ 10/20/14 * no one sees my tears no one hears my sighs no one endures the silent nights life is a constant struggle you know it won't get better old age is the loss of things that we have gathered kjg 401pm 20 oct 2014 * Weather Report The clouds above us, all plasma before a Nor’easter. Let the silver rain fall. I am the flute of the hurricane, washing, scrubbing, Emptying the burden basket. MJ 21 Oct 1014 * new horizon i saw the new horizon glowing with the sun it gathered an endeavor that cannot be undone we worship what we offer upon the alter stone the sacrifice is truly what brings the baby home there have to be three wise men i know there is a star they didn't come for nothing they didn't come this far do you keep this sailor hanging because he cannot swim or do you give him to the devil because he failed to sin it's all so very simple we codify the fact that sometimes in the offing we cannot really act so pray for me a prayer and cover me in blood the moment of redemption is smitten by the flood the sun is rising higher in the firmament of time i truly am no saviour i lost it in my prime i saw the new horizon i was frightened like a child when the light of darkness wakes you the future can't be mild kjg 309am 22 oct 2014 * lover's epitaph don't you think you are presumptuous digging up my grave what wasn't there before really can't be saved it's a hell of a commitment when the gun provides a clue don't you think you better leave it and forget the life you slew kjg 330am 22 oct 2014 * epigram i was never one to offer something so sincere if the cross we bear's too heavy it's beyond repair don't offer a solution there's no credit there a well struck hammer doesn't just fall anywhere kjg 337am 22 oct 2014 * crime scene it never came to mind that you were so inclined the night rained heavy darts of acid on the carts hauling goods to market somewhere in the darkness a siren spiked the madness the blood was on the carpet there was no escape but treason erasing level reason i just walked away and pondered the night that was so plundered so if i'm asked just to be kind it never came to mind kjg 412am 22 oct 2014 * 22 October 2014, Ottawa, Canada how do you deal with it how do you deal with drawing guard duty at the cenotaph and a deranged killer comes along and murders you how do you deal with it dying not in battle but at home guarding the grave of the unknown soldier how do you deal with it no one can shrug their shoulders anymore saying it's not my concern it's everyone's concern one soldier dying while on duty guarding peace how do you deal with it a vicious slaughter of the innocent some just cannot understand how do you deal with those who would be so insecure that they would have to embrace anger hatred and killing to get themselves a "life" a purpose that is no purpose but destruction of something they cannot handle freedom how do you deal with it kjg 426pm 22 oct 2014 * Space Strawberries My heart secret among the constellations Or between the color bands of the rainbow Where human eyes cannot discern I have picked strawberries for the overlords Who buzz my brain with their tea cup spaceships But I launch beyond them, Into the insolent silence Where all know the truth but don’t speak it. MJ 22 Oct 2014 * Splash inner sanctum full of hokum who's got gumption don't be munchin' on a wafer fear the saviour dunno why i ought to cry no one figured only sniggered there's the laughter there's the lie devil take me gardener's rake me dry leaves falling snow is calling oh what madness try to redress old conclusions restitutions obladioblada what we are is what we are wish upon a morning star mumble abracadabra there you are kjg 23 oct 2014 * Coloring the Indian Chief A Past Life Recall Poem The weather on the porch must have Been like New World corn, sweet and filled with sun. She spilled the crayons across wood painted An amnesiac grey: red for power, blue for armor, Yellow to grow to sunflower heights and opened Her coloring book, with knowing hands. "Who's this?" She asked her mother. "An Indian chief," her mother replied, Her voice all azure and white cotton, with perhaps a touch of oatmeal. Her mother smelled like sugar, warmed on the stove and caramelized. "Color him." Her mother advised. "I will," I will replied, knowing the man with the empty feathers had been her father In a place where they had vanished to hide in turquoise caves. She spilled her hues and colored boldly, outside the lines, Outside three dimensions, in fact. Finally, showing her mother the wind and earth strokes, The streams of water running through the man, and the garnet flames At his core, she proclaimed, "Look at him! Look at me! I remember the way the sun remembers to rise and warm my skin." MJ 23 Oct 2014 * plank in the eye why lie hurts kjg 120am 24 oct 2014 * From the Sky Bible Plank in my third eye, I do a double backflip with a twist Off the galactic balance beam, Landing shy of the abyss, And my crash landing Knocks it loose. Plank in my third eye, Meteorite oasis. Shaken loose, Builds the forests of Laurasia. The plank that impregnated Me better with eons of emerald. Johnny Appleseed didn’t seed this Earth, But he was kin. MJ 24 Oct 2014 * paranoia they're hiding in the alleys they're hiding in the street they're hiding in the open they're hiding in the sheets they're hiding in our flowers they're hiding in our dung they're hiding in a suitcase they're hiding in the sun they're hiding in the river they're hiding in the park they're hiding in the pine cones they're hiding in the dark they're hiding in our closets they're hiding in your hair they're hiding in the basement they're hiding everywhere oh come what have we done to fear the sun and be on the run they're hiding in the kitchens they're hiding in the food they're hiding in the trashbins they're hiding in the loo they're hiding in the answers they're hiding in the quest they're hiding in your pocket they're hiding 'mong your guests they're hiding in the future they're hiding in the past they're hiding where we party they're hiding where we fast they're hiding in the open they're hiding at the fair they're hiding in the oven they're hiding everywhere oh come what have we done to fear the sun and be on the run kjg 326pm 24 oct 2014 * Halloween heaven-scape Flipflops Stomaches Sweet Potato cakes Angels ride my broom MJ 25 Oct 2014 * not all soldiers are heroes about in the morning june 1990 i was walking to work cross the laurier street bridge that spans the rideau canal by the national defence headquarters when i noticed five military officers laughing like hyenas and pointing to something down the street i looked and saw across the street a stoned person tightrope walking on the railing of the bridge swaying back and forth trying to keep his balance i looked at the officers and thought why aren't they doing anything but holding their guts almost rolling on the street with howls of laughter then i put down my briefcase and almost crawled across the street at a distance far behind the person obviously stoned or drunk and not all there when I got to the sidewalk i snuck up to him from behind grabbed his belt and pulled him to the ground he fell on top of me then got up ran to the backpack he had left at the end of the bridge and got out a knife at that point i noticed the military officers had run into headquarters and i thought they would by now have phoned the police but no police came the guy came at me with the knife when i confronted him he backed off i yelled at him to leave the bridge that i was giving him a second chance by not getting him arrested he stopped in his tracks put the knife away and picked up his bags and wandered away i watched him for a bit then crossed the street almost getting hit by a car retrieved my briefcase and went to work where i reported the incident to the colonel i was working for after making some inquiries he said those officers could not be located i said that's ok i did what i had to do and had five witnesses who for the rest of their lives will realize what cowards they are kjg 2 am 26 oct 2014 * Halloween heaven-scape Onyx cat, my velvet companion: This kool-aid rain, don't drink it 10/26/14 * Day of the Dead - Get thee behind me ghosts. Unlock the event horizon. 10/27 * the great attractor nothing reproduces by itself it has to attract other atoms to perform the task so to stop cancer instead of bombing the rogue cells we should put a shield around them so they will not be able to draw the energy to reproduce in other words create an anti-virus that coats the cells with an enzyme that stops their attracting the atoms allowing reproduction kjg 1149am 27 oct 2014 * My milkweed did not bloom too well this summer, and I missed its fresh butterfly presence. So, here is a poem longing for more milkweed and butterflies: Milkweed in monarch marriage: long distance love rubber nectar and wings of titanium paper, so light this traveler, so abundant the wildflower genius: teach me MJ 27 Oct 2014 * Tongue of my sneakers Wags Of the marathons to come Should they sprout wings MJ 28 Oct 2014 * hollowed e'en nothing really happening it's all some sort joke if you propose it's level i'll propose a toast there's rain upon the threshold there's death upon the door don't knock without a purpose that's what fools are for. kjg 559am 29 oct 2014 * skeletons there's a ghost in the attic among the dusty mementoes of times hidden sadly in dark mnemonic shadows what touches are fragments retrieved like a puzzle each fragment a meaning hard to unravel recapturing old failures drives darts into flesh the ghost manifested confronts a redress and dusting does nothing to clean up the mess kjg 1053am 29 oct 2014 * Diaspora for Sitting Duck and Fawn Mobster in our kitchen Slick, shirt of roasted garlic tweed, Nice, expensive. My mother tells him We are moving out of his orbit, Across town Next to the woods, near the bears And an occasional snake, so he can’t rent Our basement For another speakeasy, Call it a kibitzers’ club for twenty bucks More a month, oh what will that buy a Widow an anthracite widow? Pimento loaf. Wonder Bread. Spam. When we all know the world is growing dearer, And dearer, no, the for sale sign is our Coming attraction, and we will move Close to the woods and take our chances With bears, And an occasional snake, for her husband And my father are now really in heaven, which makes It hard to locate since the kingdom heaven is within, But inside what? A fortune cookie? A box of Crackerjack? We are alone, except for our calico Who will die in service soon enough, killing rats. Oh give me back now, all that was stolen. MJ 10.29 * Falling out of bed Thud. kjg 1110am 29 oct 2014 * Touching November Amoeba clouds, turn back your clock for no time's sake, November comes with a cape of mustard sparkles, and no matter, the chills, I wear grandmother's shawl, yarn of the ancestors sparkling still, each stitch a baby crying, a cub, a clan. MJ 10/30 * Portrait of Klaus for Halloween (from Klaus' Facebook Photo) White sun eyes, he glows in the dark, da Vinci beard and mane. Will he warlock-wander this Halloween night, with three Zen-coated cats, under a theater of the moon, greeting the denizens of Parliament Hill, and throwing them enchanted kibble? Or will he lie down to dream with the particolored tigers, in world that loves to see all as either black or white, and then project himself into that very moon, where tonight, the galactic beautiful people gather for their own party, while we ensoul the theater of it all. But surely, Klaus, with his laser eyes, will see behind them, into the central sun, into their flying saucers, into their sky-trains, into the umbilical cord that links every angel and ghoul to the mama multi-verse. It's all chutes and ladders between here and there tonight. Keep, those lasers lit, Klaus. MJ 10/31 * Get real spoiled brats Did you have to go to a garbage dump to get your food today? Did you sleep on a cold dirty rat infested concrete floor last night? Did you walk barefoot in open sewers to get to a private place to shit? Did you have to wash your clothes in a stinking polluted river? Did you work 18 hours in a cardboard factory for pennies to support your family? Were you vilified and spat on just for being different? Were you denied education because you were a woman? Were you threatened with death or if lucky jailed for opposing the government? Were you tortured when arrested? If not then I don't know what you're complaining about. Please shut up. kjg 545am 30 oct 2014 * arma...whatever alas we've come to the first of the month november will be dark and rainy there are mountains that keep the shadows dark in the valley of the ungainly there's a road that leads to a castle where the vampire bats are training the day will come when they cross the sea and claim the world they are gaining it's empty dark and hollow here i hide amongst the very few who know what fear will follow the devil will take his holy leave and the earth will be the crown of god and fall without much sorrow kjg 329am 1 nov 2014 * Bad hot flashes last night, and I was strippin'! Strip tedium Underwear oasis, But not Victoria's Secret, just Hot flashes, This Cast-iron stove and I have too much in common MJ 2 Nov 2014 * epitaph god met my liver and thought it might make a good snack if he leaves anything for the devil it will be my luck! kjg 815pm 2 nov 2014 * who do you bow to? the dawn comes early the dawn comes quick the nights are shorter but the fog is thick there's a silver lining but i don't know why if the soul awakens it's a damn good lie the cupboard's empty and your pockets torn there's no shelter from a man made storm we bow to buddha we bow to god we bow to anything we bow a lot the devil take me i don't care when he's got the silver i've got the pen it's all so simple what did i miss only the master betrays the kiss the poison's working there ain't no cure gotta laugh at something that's for sure we bow to buddha we bow to god we bow to anything we bow a lot kjg 238am 3 nov 2014 * ***** Published by Ygdrasil Press Copyright (c) Klaus J. Gerken and Maria Jacketti 2014