Saturday, December 31, 2011

Polyphemus

I'm thinking of starting a series of poems based on mythology.  Have already done one on Medusa and John Barth's book Chimera got me thinking about doing some more.

      Polyphemus

1.
Even before my blindness,
my eyesight was not the best.
We one-eyed creatures lack depth
perception and are not known
for our vision’s breadth.

My world was my cave,
my sheep, and my isle, all bound
by the boundless sea. An outcast
of outcasts- my bitter brothers.
shunning me as the bitterest

Since I’d fallen farthest,
from Zeus’s favorite forger
of custom thunderbolts for
all occasions, to the one
he blamed for his own error.

Imprison the armorer
and let the killer go free.
It was He who struck Apollo’s
sons, not my brothers and me,
but what the gods will, will be.

2.
Our visitors are few,
mostly shipwrecked sailors
too scared by our stature
or anything but sobs and screams,
incoherent rapture.

Until one spoke up calmly,
modestly calling himself
No One and offering me
the gift of wine. I promised
to eat him last – as welcome company.
And my reward for sparing
his life? Sharp stick, sharper poke
and the blind rage of betrayal.
No One has done this!” I roared,
stupid straight man to a stupid joke.

Then I almost had the last
laugh, for No One had his blind
spot, too: his pride calling out
his real name- and my father’s curse.
Ill winds blew his boat from bad to worse.

But his trials turned to triumphs,
his trip became The Odyssey;
my brief infamy sparked his eternal fame.
I became the unsightly sideshow freak
who helped No One make his name.











Monday, December 26, 2011

Putting Away the Spoons

This is the last poem I'll be writing to a Monday deadline.  I'll keep posting poems as I write them, though, so keep checking back periodically. (If this is you first time on my blog, check out my earlier poems as well.  There are more than 200 of them.)

  Putting Away the Spoons

When I unload the dishwasher.
I place the spoons in separate stacks:
one for the curved handles,
another for the flat.
A bit of neatness
in this messy life.

But when my wife’s sister
came to live with us –
her blood and brain polluted
by the waste her failing liver
could not purge – my systems
were upset by her addled efforts
to be helpful: bug spray mistaken
for carpet cleaner, the vacuum
constantly clogged with debris
she couldn’t see, and the silverware
a jumbled mess until her final days.

Now, after a few years of order,
our daughter has returned home
with her cats, her lizards, and her tears
mourning her boyfriend’s overdose,
gradually getting her life together.
And when I see the spoons
in disarray again, I know a little
disorder is better than early death.



Monday, December 19, 2011

Deja Vu

I'll be ending the weekly postings on this blog next week. I did daily postings for the first 181 days of this year but find that the well is running dry. Necessity has become the mother of prevention.  I will still post poems when I write them but will be taking a break from writing to a deadline since it no longer seems to be serving its creative purpose.  Here's a poem about that uninspired feeling. (It uses the poet's traditional trick of writing about not being able to write.)

    Déjà Vu

I’ve written this poem before,
starting with desperation
hoping for inspiration
but ending with nothing more.

Monday, December 12, 2011

Insomnia

Not sure this is a poem yet.

      Insomnia

The ceiling fan is a still, dark shadow
above my bed, a crippled black spider
waiting, waiting, waiting to descend.

Monday, December 5, 2011

Curtain Call

Of course, there are tragic pairs as well: Romeo and Juliet, the Macbeths, Othello and Desdemona- but I was thinking of the Hamlets and Lears when I wrote this.

      Curtain Call

After a comedy, the cast comes out
in couples for their final bow: clowns,
servants, lovers – all matched for the moment
to smile and bask in acting’s afterglow.

In most tragedy, only the unimportant
are paired, leaving the hero to arrive
alone, unaccompanied, save for the unseen
corpse we all carry. Howl. Howl. Howl. Howl!