Phrase coming to me in a dream

I come from THE EGG

to which / I have never been

FANCY WORDS

I know of fancy words

I do not use them in my poems, though

Poem written early in the morning

Our dreams are poorly furnished--a concrete floor at best

They are our own, we might be more opulent, at no extra expense!

Even in our deepest imagination, though, what we desire is ugly and brutal

The Fourth Wall

What if there really were a fourth wall in the theater?  So the audience just sees the outside wall of a house, and the actors were inside acting out the play. That would be more interesting than breaking through an imaginary "fourth wall."

IT

 I used the think the awe of simply being alive and aware of being alive was it.

(The reason for having poetry at all.)

Then I thought it was imaginative freedom:

The ability to strip away arbitrary labels and classifications

to see other possibilities in reality itself.

Now, I think this clarity of vision is it 

as the result of this freedom to imagine.

You might have a different idea of what it is.

Maybe the mystery of the push and pull of time.

Maybe for you there is no it at all!

The worst thing, though, would be for you to accept some definition of mine.

Then you will have missed the whole point of the exercise.

Variations on a Theme By Wallace Stevens

Oh thin men of Haddam
Why do you imagine golden birds?

I.

Oh thin men of Haddam,
How did you lose all that weight?

II.

Oh thin men of Haddam,
Involuntary symbols
Of austerity and inanition,
Let nobody condescend to you!
Who better to dream at night
Of the "silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun"?


III.

Oh thin men of Haddam,
Do you remember Pontiacs and park benches?
Do your sons and daughters have rock bands
In your garages?
Has the opioid epidemic reached your town?

Serial Poem

I.

1. Rye.

2. Wheat.

3. Oats.

II.

Rice Crispies. Cheerios. Cream of Wheat. Oatmeal.

Shredded Wheat. Postum. Barley Flakes. Chex.


III.

Granola.

Bathos

My favorite trope is bathos

Instead of ending the poem resonantly, with a satisfying conclusion

Or epiphany

The poet pulls the rug out from under you

With an idea that's low, ridiculous, worthy of scorn

In my poems the bathos ends the poem before it's supposed to

As if in a fit of impatience

As though something more significant were waiting for me

Outside of the four walls of the poem

Really, though, I like living in here much better

I should stay put and make the poem last as long as possible

Tongues

I stuck my tongue in a woman's mouth

Surprisingly, she stuck hers in mine



We lived like that for several years

I learned how a woman tastes chocolate and salt

She tasted of whisky

And the mouths of other women



Neither of us could tell the truth

With a tongue that was not our own



Now we have our tongues back

They stay put

Age

Age is wasted on the agèd.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Drink is wasted on the drunk.
Nah.  Not really.

Waste is wasted on waste.
May be.

[The singers continue to improvise on this theme]. 

Pronunciation Lesson

Root, rut, rout, and route are four separate words:


Root, pronounced root, or in some dialects root, with the vowel of hoof,

the part of a plant taking a firm grip in the dirt

or metaphorically, a cause or origin.


Rut, pronounced like so, a groove carved in the mud by wheels,

then hardened by the sun,

or the breeding season of certain animals,

or the cretinous routine of a slave to habit.


Route, pronounced root or rout--never with sound of roof--

not the physical road itself, with its ruts,

but the schematic plan of a journey.


Rout, finally, echoing the second way of saying route,

a decisive victory in game or battle,

or sometimes a search for something hidden

along the route, among ruts and roots.