a few haiku

A little poetry.

[daveb]

It’s not as hard as you may imagine or have heard. Don’t believe what you’ve read. Have plenty of ice on hand. Take your time. Start on either side. Numb the top as much as possible then push it through, inside to outside. Next, do the same on the lower half when it’s sufficiently numbed. Slowly work your way up and down until you’re at the other end. Remember why this is so necessary. Remember…

[daveb]

Some mornings it takes only halfa word and the rotten dough startsits sticky churn—a squirrel dartsblindly into the street—crows laugh —bubbles that smell like blistered feetpop pop pop. The dough grows untilit overflows and spills its fillfrom patio to doorbell. Beat this image down and let it rest.Don’t blame the tattered recipe,flour, or salt. In an hour I’ll pleafor sweetness like a man…

[daveb]

his arms wide, but his eye catches onthe sun so as limbs enfeather they grow too large and you have a cattle-killing eagle which wasn’t the plan so he shakes away the unwantedform and stretching wide again breathes in the crisp air of the summit so hiswhite arms now vanish in snow he asks who and again answers himself nothen before another attempt peers down at the most recent hunger andthe…

[daveb]

the persistent question of whatto worship as more trees are downedand we turn a corner search for some snack catch a whiff of ourselvesthough the tired stomachs of ourage could not completely digest the story we’d been saving forthe kids when they ask which won’t happenas they were only ever conceived on hotel stationery now lost to a dwindling apartment whereno matter how we tried to…

[daveb]

Spring cleaning

I was looking in my drafts and found all of these fragments, half-haiku, etc. that I don’t know if I’ve published here, simply abandoned, or what. So I decided to just stitch them all together into one long sequence (I don’t know if I can call it a poem) and see what happens. Why not? (Each line is a single recovered, long-forgotten and sometimes lightly edited entry I found among my…

[daveb]

Scraps

phlegmy fogthe day coughs won’t starteasily thin tree mazeshadow calibrates a headachebuffet the breezeafter all muddling throughall elbows and regret why can’t Ishut up about the moon or prophesyover this still bug or forgethow to cook an egg whistle or black hills thedark sky clear the way youcold bright spring

[daveb]

with the storm passed on her side the dog thedrone of the fan and what else may stroll throughthis thickness what can save bruised fruit and/or we should wrap this up before we all giveup again but let me start again itall just went so far no matter how I tried part of me still longed to name a newkind of apple the ragamuffin thesesquipedalian splendor but I can’t go back to that store anymore…

[daveb]

All of the Above

the epic I am planning as I shop for penswith golden accents. Perhaps if not for the dog’sunspeakable licking. But at the endof the day what. I know that look the crab applefelled by lightning. So many dear dead dogs later still in one pieceand place hands empty so if the usual resins from a walkthrough the oldish pines should refuse easyremoval there are two options neither of which but…

[daveb]

the famous detective has askedthat we gather though he claims thereis at present no one to blame in the meantime that cabin inthe charming old forest is backon the market at a discount once we cared so deeply about livingin one of the smoother simulationsbut the mood ambles off and who knows what unwanted updates nextseason will force on us though we are trained in forgetting and so run…

[daveb]

I want to tell it as honestly as I can. They were all masks. The indecipherable cartoons. The levitation. Phrases plucked from a radio in an abandoned car. Trying to appear simple to hide a different simplicity. New Ugaritic hymns on vintage clay. It all fed some demon that fed me unfortunate moods. Quasimodo as Beckett playing Don Quixote with a shard of glass in his or just K. Kat singing to…

[daveb]

the proximate convulsion over and soon such nothing at all

the knot knowing must be a part apart from shifts and stumblings of a shuffling ocean the sometime light from the tip of a pen or the bird song background yet mornings honey blue and pink cotton candy with musings on beloved retail outlets so again we try to caress and nail down some mostly smoke and threadbare wraith and that’s all wet and good but those beloved clammy fevers know just…

[daveb]

loosen those bonds bind yourself better before we start again

but I kept wondering if this little issue is thecute rabbit no that’s not am I focusing on thehorn and not the tons of metal speeding towards is there a way to don’tsay hopeless at least peel and plant some sticker whilewe while our wiles away and wait for a blank face apologizing from a form for the trouble with theabominations and those downwind who of course it has always doted upon and…

[daveb]

how does it slip so far in so few hours

oh was that it is it over already can wego home I lost my special hat somewhere and souveniremotion and just noticed every surface in this room iscovered with a faintly luminousdust we neither know norknow whether we shouldhurry away from or pray to and which me did what to get where we ohit’s no use blaming him of the past who did his pitiable best so fromhere to where and how much what do…

[daveb]

but no matter how small I can’t escape the noise

suffer the usual restless pick up A put down A once B calls out put down B when C and so on until only cracks in mud though at each pause I whittle more of an escape from the wobbly platform if the rabbits will have me but the halting way it unfolds and snarls is a little hat towear while everyone else enjoystheir but one gets tired of the smudges crumpled computersscabs shattered windows…

[daveb]

squeezed betweenthe window screen’s slow blunthatchet working out someliberation a carpenterbee dried

[daveb]

so many times I've said start with candelabra calendula yes

we all long for a juicy full stop but ifyou had one where would it end yes you’ve guessedcorrectly for all I know but your skill tree isnot my skill tree which involves a cumbersome buffet of negotiations regarding dessert so what’sleft of the agenda everyonebeen bled as much as permitted in the next phase we will certainly encounter certain issues we will slowly haveto knead and so on until we…

[daveb]

yet into the clouds again

hoping to believe again inthose pure unbiddens before theinception of assorted retirement schemes but who wants to readthat either and no this levitation is sustained by lightin early spring almost dawnwalks through wildflower waves you can almost believe and justabout forgive your younger so selfish self that denied thosesunrises and why not buildanother boat ask that it be kissed in a…