November said Nada
November 2019- Starting off here with a good friend and guest contributor featuring recently published work by Poet extraordinaire Bernard Block. Recent additions follow in suit below.
Fable of the Mermaid and the Starbuckers
A satiric riff on Pablo Neruda’s poem, “Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks”
All these Starbuckers were there inside
When she entered, nude.
She came from the East River,
She lost her way. Eyes came from faraway.
Wended her way between hookers and bucks.
No one noticed. Who was she?
Glided into Starbucks.
Did they see?
Gray faces, gray tables
White spaces, gray fables
Smell of coffee, smell of money
Ringtone tinkled Lovely Rita
Someone seeking Goddess Sita?
Fingers tapped Blueberry
Brains blogged Strawberry
Twitter blogged I-phone
Tarragonswiss gelatocone
Pointy heads cyberspace
MySpace YourSpace
Beyond time and face
Eyes glazed laptop
Educated—Stop and Shop
Eyes—Wi-fied
Viral infection since July
Did they see?
No one asked
Who was she?
She did not know tears
She did not weep
She did not know dreams
She dared not sleep
She tried, tried to imagine
A pirouette
Did she forget
Did she forget
She did not know words
She did not speak
Eyes were birds
White and meek
Arms were topaz
Lips—coral light
Eyes were birds
Stripped in flight
Silence twined her glistening flesh
Blindness blanked her golden breast
Glided by
Who was she
No one noticed
Did they see
Suddenly, she left by that door.
She entered the river, gleaming
A white stone in the rain
Only hearing her refrain
Without a backward glance
She drew a breath
Swam toward never
Swam toward death
— Published in Thrive Global August 19, 2018
*
All Souls Day
*
November shrugged at the time the masks slipped
Stripped away in the face of high wind warnings as if in this season begged advisements cautions
Still mild that morning fooling few to believe
That this day would pass swaddled in gray soft gauze
While the light diffused diminishing increments
Was that encroaching mist unraveling like a ball of yarn
To cascade down a slope of cotton
Falling needle pinpoints liquefied
There was this puncturing of scattered shallow puddles
Reverberating in sound wave concrete circles
Auditory auditions sharpening a deaf set of eyes
In these stains of ink
Lurk faceless memories I think
Past Persona gone non-grata
November shrugged at the time the masks slipped away
To reveal the naked face of high wind awnings
As if this season begged advisement cautions
Stripped away now in alibis and warnings
-Got Abstract ? 2014
*
Bright
Yellow weeping Willow
hangs her head
caught in the corner of my eye
waving goodbye
Long finger limps
strum the empty heaving air
moving in the tentacle string wind.
Cascading color
tangled water crest fallen
as stray estranged leaves
scurry across black gold
While the adjacent playground
is deserted of children
today
A lone fire hydrant
squats silently chipped red
not playing
not playing
at all
today.
VQ Collected circa 2012
*
Are We really his Reality TV ?
When the vox populi
turns a moron into a sandwich and asks what would you like on this ?
Hero President or Nero
having at this instrument that was more that he had
bitten off-
and had to chew – always some mouthful to swallow
and sleep between the sheets of a well when you make your bed…….
ci incontreremo quando i sogni si scontrano
as Rome burned
Uncollected VQ 11/10/16
