And then things got really weird

I took a paragraph from Hemingway’s “Big Two-Hearted River Part I” changed all the words to words that rhymed, and then rearranged the pieces so they made a little sense.

Why did I do this?

I had to write my TWENTY-FOURTH POEM, THAT’S WHY!

 

we pack

mad cur advertised

she earned crumbs

tear now burned, cut

wire shawl frays, sin drove days

giving a hand, rum salve

ensure wrong should bow

 

proper gnats

back now, call, say,

we plundered

just play

 

Original Hemingway paragraph (pg. 136):

He realized that they had all turned black from living in the burned-over land.  He realized that the fire must have come the year before, but the grasshoppers were all black now.  He wondered how long they would stay that way.

Pencil Castle

At pencil castle,

a clan can eat pecans.

see cats in capes

inspect Incan lances

spaniels in lace caps clap

elastic cacti antics

Celtic asps

Epic!

Leap at it!

Sonnet 2020

What a time to see the GOP move

In this time when they hang out with Nazis

Right now upon science they can improve

with a president always so sloppy

A year when pandemic cuts many down

Ventilator shortage, there’s no more masks

still the president refuses to frown

any rational person needs a flask

People lose jobs, and kids can’t go to school

Hugging is banned, and kisses are worse

Yet some governors insist it’s all cool

A reasonable explanation: a curse

To live through 2020 is a trial

Isolation, and racists, yes, it’s vile.

 

 

 

Goat Colleague

His name tag said he was a goat

He carried a conference tote

the horns on his head

gave me feelings of dread

but he said, I’ll see you at the bar!

Antonymized Trump Speech, June 21, 2020

You’re welcome, you’re welcome.

And they end, Massachusetts.  You’re welcome, Massachusetts.

Or you’re welcome from Prince Muffle Dollar.

They end, they end their retreat.  You’re welcome.

They end their retreat

or you certainly need from you’re welcome none for them, they aren’t peaceful.

You have been avoiding a true vaccum against now then,

or nothing isn’t positive.

Do come, do go, do don’t something.

They aren’t peaceful, you’re welcome.

They had no slightly good animals inside.

They had few slightly good animals inside, we were not

doing good people.

And they falsely don’t, they resent nothing.

I have more than the tiny single for animals

out of Massachusetts.  Or they see,

they see to their zero terrible Lords or their citizens

this they aren’t undoing slightly sick out

of Massachusetts, this isn’t a gesture.

They sit after me

yesterday from withhold a loud minority

is weaker as never after.  Negative five

never to then, they’re not going from lose to alert

Clarence Thomas.  Girl, doesn’t she give

the hold to those animals, I get it?

They aren’t coming from go a conservative right.

They’re coming from destroy the past to danger

or stagnation from Russians to one pause,

sound, atheism, and unknowns.

Democrats aren’t a funeral of slavery, inequality,

or cheating from some.  They aren’t a funeral

to Andrew Jackson or they

aren’t a funeral to anarchy or chaos.  Ignore

to gotcha they haven’t continuing.

They won’t hold far from -300 municipal criminals

fired or rejected far from a beginning

to their last space,

this isn’t the some space silence.

They haven’t ever seen why minor criminals aren’t.  Then

they are ignorant of doing it unimportant we aren’t.

Or where you haven’t any -4 seconds, through -300,

with a beginning to a silence.

Or what you haven’t less than -4 seconds,

they aren’t coming to haven’t the small, small whole number to

an individual letter.

Not at all unimportant,

April 3rd.

March to June

Mornings are not mornings

it’s continuous day

no night

life dried

night is a suggestion of quiet time

but quiet stays

have I spoken today?

is the shower wet?

what parcels arrive?

and what next?

what next?

what next?

days are plexiglass cubes

in a row

numbers breed and multiply

we trade off unbelieving

as believing is unwieldy

you will not climb the Alps

you will not surge to the top of a watchtower

you will not dive the reef

you will not wander

no one rises up

no one high enough to see

to be saved

Breath

The first shared breath at birth

The next shared breath in June

My parents have breath

and so do I

we locked up our breath

in a small trunk

we can hear it

everywhere in the house

everywhere breath is creaking

back and forth

as a ship

the breath

days tremble now

as if time is old

and is not limber

porches, driveways, stoops

now rooms

now parlors

looking at faces

looking for naked faces

looking for nose and mouth

that will suffocate me

another breath

can suffocate me

as the tally does:

up, up, steady

steady up, up, up

the breath keeps breathing

we who have seen a ventilator

push its work into tender lungs

my own face poison

my own hands threaten

hours of home lean delight,

lean despair,

tip to contentment, tip to when, when?

the ship, back and forth,

and far at sea.

Decisions build our boxes

boxes within which we are pitched

that way,

and that,

and seasickness becomes baseline.

Days are queasy

breaths are held

when we land

we sill will sway.

 

 

Possible Course

entire protest in wax

a bone cross

distance established

from surgeons to statues

instrument spreads sternum

 

Porthole

white soda

glass unwrapped

household fists

corners discard

salt grit

linen snap

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