A Pocketful of Poesy was and is again a Poem-a-Day(-on-Average) Blog! For 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, and now for 2017 and going forward, you may expect to see 365 poems every year, 366 for leap years.

but aren't they all random?

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Tuesday, July 13, 2010

clunk

my heart
just "clunked"
that feeling,
like death
for a split
-second
left
without blood
moving through
and the heart
itself
pressed
fell forward
and hit
the back of the sternum

for the space

of a beat

with no beat in it

I like a flock of birds.

I
like a flock of birds.
A flock of birds in flight
has one mind. The configuration
of individual birds acting
in concert forms
a
collective
intelligence.

The pulsing and surging
of feathered forms,
contracting
expanding
and changing direction
- they think as one,
they fly
- as one,
the constant spaces
between them
acting

as firing neurons, the birds
on perimeter form up a skin
feeding sensory input back in
toward the center
where it is then
processed, decisions are made
on flight speed
and
direction

This has been proved
a number of times,
to my complete satisfaction,
while gazing out the passenger window
at passing,
pitching,
surging,
pulsing,
convulsing flocks of birds.

what part of me wants

part of me wants
to just throw myself on
you and lavish and ravish
you savagely, love

and part of me wants
to say hey, why not linger
in languor as if we had
all of forever

and part of me does
because part of me has you
in ways that can't ever
fade out
or away

but part of me wants

what part of me wants
what part of me wants
every possible way

part of me wants
what you've seen all this time
has been right on my mind
so entirely right

and part of me wants
to cradle your heart
like china, so fragile
glazed red over white

I've held you so gentle
you've held me so tight
and all of me wants
to take pains
and great care

but part of me wants

what part of me wants
what part of me wants
so much it's not fair

you've taken so much
but I'd gladly give more
yes all of me wants
to give you my all

but part of me wants

what part of me wants
what part of me wants
it's partly your call

and you've given so much
it's more than I've earned
but all of you wants
to come out and say

that part of you wants

what part of me wants
and part of you wants,
way more than once

yes part of you wants
what part of me wants
let part of you once
have all of your way

Monday, July 12, 2010

no fool for love

there's all these things
you do for me
that no one does
that no one does
no one would do
for me what you
make seem routine
a matter of
just what love does
just what love is
though no one else
would call it that -
so far beyond,
you've gone for me
tell me just what
you're playing at?

you can't fool me
no one but you would do all this
and call it love
you can't fool me
there's something else that's underneath
your pure above
you're pure above
but no fool, I - I'll pick and pry
and force bad out
from what's behind

no fool am I
no fool for love
I have no doubt

I'll pick and pry and force bad out
from what's beneath,
from what's behind

no fool am I
I wish I was

a fool for love's the smartest kind

all of the above

The skies and clouds and waves and rocks and fires
show to her
the truth that underlies all art,
that causes hearts to stir
she sees the interlacing
of the lines that weave the world
then spin into the firmament
like spiderwebs unfurled
and trailing stars like drops of dew,
they drift and intersect
and patterns form, a shining web
she sees we all connect
though we may doubt the universe
though we may doubt ourselves
the world was made to live in us
the universe, as well
and we contain the universe
it fits inside us - neat
in each of us, infinities
without us: incomplete
while some drift through the world at will
some sit and contemplate
the skies and clouds and waves and rocks and fires
show the way
though some send deepest taproots down
and some kick dust and roam
the skies and clouds and waves and rocks and fires
call us home.

Friday, July 09, 2010

I don't think you and I

I don't think you and I
have anything to worry about.
Considering we'll never see
each other again. Still, what
could we have? To worry about,
I mean. Maybe one more thing,
maybe one more thing, maybe
one more thing

Thursday, July 08, 2010

the last thing

Here's the last thing
that went through me:
it wasn't a thought

It had no time for that,
curling over the horizon
with a smoke trail left behind.

A white-hot angry light:
the last shard of sharp rock
left of what was a shooting star

it could have even been the one we'd
wished upon

aw baby we were just
such a one-in-billions stroke of luck!

when you think about it that way,
if I had time to think, I couldn't have
even called it unfair.

you could see this thing move,
if it wasn't headed straight for you
- to me, it looked like hovering

To those below, it was a scream
a streak, a bolt

the only question left was:
will it burn up?
or strike?

or explode

it just might

just a tiny shard of rock
can be death, from that height

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Wednesday Morning: Fever

she's like a living piece of disco, and
her outfit is a floor show, and
her motion is a choreo-
that -graphs straight off the chart
that's even when she's standing still
or barely swaying to the thump-tssh,
thump-tssh, yes there's bass-drum
-hi-hat, playing in her heart

she reaches up - to pull a file,
her body line: a lightning bolt
from straight left leg to grounded toe
diagonal to finger point
- you feel a jolt,
just witnessing
she does the hustle round her desk
and moves aside - electric slide!
to let you pass by,
rhythmless

Saturday, July 03, 2010

"GO AMERICA GO"

We woke up from being born,
and this land of ours
was ours already. We live
in the dream of those who woke
and walked and dreamed before us.

In the pioneer bones of bold
westward-looking women and men,
in the deep thrum of hearts made restless
by too-much book larnin'
and knife-fork etiquette,

in a surge of foaming waves
of humanity rolling across and over
field, dell, prairie, plain and mountain
to pour down the furthermost slopes and break
finally upon the implacable Pacific -
our imaginations are bounded
by the breadths and reaches
of their hearts and minds.

We live our lives
uplifted by their hands. We have
a share in what has been built here.
Our share is what we pass on:
what we preserve, together
with what we ourselves can add.

a poem for the poets

encourage yourself, don't
let other people be the
only ones you give that
power to. Your words -
either mean something
or they don't, right?
They're yours. No one
can take away your voice
if you don't give it
voice. If you don't give
it words. If you don't
give it to the world. But
if you do, then they can
take it away

with them. wherever they
go. Poets have a place
that nobody else really
can occupy, because that place
is just crawling with other poets.

Force your way in. Your words
are your V.I.P. clearance, your
password, your stinkeen badge, your name
is on the list. Welcome, poet

Do not be a poet
who doesn't even know it.

Poetry has wings, and scales
and puppy dog's tails and veils
between it and its own meaning, but you
can clip, tip, wag and pierce them all
as needed. What do you say, poet?

Where do you fit, within the world?
Don't tell us. Don't tell the world, tell
yourself! The word doesn't care
what you tell it - not
if you can't tell yourself
how the shoe really fits. So walk
a mile in it, and bring band aids.
Sit by the road a bit, take off
shoe, sock, and put
a band-aid or two where it
does the most good - to cover where it chafes.
Suit your foot back up and walk on. No blisters!

Or,

are you the poet of blisters? Maybe you
need to keep walking, then.

Poets should have sex with each other.
Poets should make love with other poets, so
that when the words intertwine and get all
tangled as they do, and each poet goes off gasping after,
writing them down, gasping after a separate and unique
truth,
as if an experience can be un-shared, as if a fact
can be made after-the-fact. Let us let not sweat it.
It's ok to try: let us let
artifice
take its own course
until the course takes over, until nature
takes its own nature and us in hand
and we will each lift a voice - the other's
in song, but not song, but song, until hoarse
and then we will smile, and know what the words don't
mean.

Poets should have sex with each other. And if
the secret message slips in ("psst!
I am half, are you half too?"), to touch off
the result, the cooker, the exponential popcorn of cells,
the consequent head, toes, feet, inches and lbs., and the
god-damn-this-bullshit-is-excruciating, BREATHE! DRUGS!, - of a new
bursting forth into this world, of:

an impartial witness.

Who will be asked: "You. You come from nowhere, you
came from us. You have no axe to grind, please - tell
us:

is mommy's or DADDY'S poetry

the best?

selfcontractor

I made myself a ton
of bricks, and then
I came down on my life

with every single one
of them. the dent it made
was nothing slight

which packed the ground
foundation-firm. I mixed
the mortar thick and gray

and set the bricks in order
one by one, and row by row
each day

so row by row the building
grew, and brick by brick,
solidified

until my bricks were all used up
the mortar was all laid, and dried
in one imposing edifice. But still
it seemed not strong enough

And so I got some straw,
and sticks, I have
run out

of sterner stuff

"Oh, Beautiful."

All purple lands
and waving hands
and stands of grain,
and majesty,
the people smile
like in truck ads,
all homespun warmth
and honesty, hard work
to do - to make
it all seem true
and good, and justified
while each to each
a knowing wink
betrays the LIE!
LIE! LIE! LIE! LIE!

Ha! I'm just kidding.
This poem is sort of
making fun of the sort of
dork losers who would
write a poem like that
for real.

Not me!

No seriously, though. There
are poets like that. People
who use poetry that way.
They'll write these poems

grousing about really
obvious shortcomings of
life, the world. They
want to be all, "well,
my poem says something
important, that people don't
want to deal with!" but

it's really more stuff that
they can't deal with. I mean,
things such as a particularly
slow child has no problem
grasping and dealing with.

But these poets, man, they
(some of them) want to act
like they're pulling back
some big veil, to point out
that a lot of the time,
some things suck.

Well thank God we've got
you, Shakespeare! What
a bunch of losers.

Anyway.

God bless the living
hell out of us all!

Enjoy a hot dog!

Friday, July 02, 2010

cruel salesmanship

Dude, man
your poetry sucks!
My poetry's way better than yours
it kicks ass. Your
poetry on the other hand:
like a handle
where the blade fell out
of what used to be a knife. Mine -
just look at that sturdy
full-tang construction! And sharp?
cut a copper penny
and then slice a heart, like a ripe tomato
look, the skin's
not even torn! Just an even line,
not even visible, as you
hold the two halves
together