Ouvoir de Litterature Potentielle (OULIPO)

Snowball

I am bad news while humans intrude
I do the rude blues snooze. arising

I go for love alone heaven singing
a he-man life, horse ridden battles

I to her shed tears, unused passion
a so-hot girl seers lonely fashion

I, in old rags prowl alley's backway
I am one, lost among living garbage

I at the gate, enter joyful nirvana
I as old soul, smile astride sunrays

The Comic

The  Comic

A casual nihilist
Hateful, glittering, mocking,
Cold, and in the end clueless.
Kid in the upstairs window
Waiting gleefully to pounce
On the misfortune of mishap
Life’s pratfalls validate him.
Waits for a hammer’s whack
Crushed thumbs; old ladies
Slipping on ice. Twins conjoined
At the hip, stuttering John’s
Staccato in the speech class.
A predator, imitating
Other’s pain with hops, hoots, howls.
His comedy a lynch mob
A late night television
Joker who makes old ladies
Dying in nursing homes pray
For darkness to descend, thank-
ful when last rites arrive with
Songs and prayers to attain
A glimmer of clarity
As the fading light recedes.

Creekside Trail

Creekside Trail

I do not feel outside
as I travel further and further
inside. Fly rod in hand, I feel
the rivers and the mountains
Are myself turned inside out.
An eerie solitude.
Heaven's kingdom is within
so say the prophets.
Serenity of the inner streams
flows freely and follows the
filtered beds of my thoughts
through permeable membranes
with Brownian motion.
The creekside trail curls back
through the fir, ends at a deep
swirling pool. my friendly fly
casts itself in silent shade .
I cast away my worldly cares.

Wild Turkey

Wild Turkey

I gaped, it gaped back
Surprised by the suddenness
I froze, it froze, two statues
Apprising what to do next
Among the green foliage
In the solitary forest.
We bared our teeth, showing
Faux ferocity (at least mine)
And backed slowly away,
Me to my truck, him to the depths
Of the black woods, fur flying.
The missus said as I approached,
“You’re white as a ghost, Fish not
Biting today"? I didn’t answer.
How does one explain that booze
And a hairy Big Foot don’t mix?

Autumn Circus

Autumn Circus

We shall reap whatever we have sown
When shaggy oaks shed leafy crowns
Nature dons her bridal gown
Autumn leaves turn brown
People smile and frown
As the circus
Blares fat clowns
Hoedown
Sounds

Sweet Hips

Sweet Hips

Machines
Body-by-Jake
stair-steppers, treadmills, bikes
feed the rows of flea market stalls
awaiting ballooned bargain hunters
harboring hallucinations
of bikini beachwear
hugging sweet hips
sculpted slim by
machines

The Old Men on the Bank (Reading)

Smoke

smokestacks
belching gases
of pungent yellow smoke
like chinese opium addicts
who puff poppies through bell-shaped bongs
mask the sun's healthy radiance
and block the panorama
of weeping eyes
squinting.

The Old Men on the Bank

The Old Men on the Bank

The quest is not in the catch.
They come to stand among trees
like firs in the old forest
footed by soft pine needles.
They come to hear the river
croon at the bright cresting moon.
They come to cast corkies; small
colored floats with barbed hooks
that imitate red salmon roe.
They come to fill the empty
spaces for dead fishing friends
feel the analgesic river
like morphine flowing through  veins.
Mostly they come because of
habit. A habit triggered
by the Springer’s spring cycle.

Before first light, pickup trucks
towing drift boats invade the
Rogue Elk Cafe, as fishers
refuel their coffee mugs’ and
grizzled veterans reunite.
Bankers, as they are branded
exchange their gifts of tall tales,
share prize fish-smoking recipes
renew the ritual of spring.
Some boast of former catches,
others silent, content to glimpse
at slivers of the dawn’s rays
and ponder the missing, like
fingers tracing names in the
morning’s obituary column.
The Springer season begins.

The bankers stake out prime spots
Along the river’s edges
Like gold miners hoarding veins,
protecting precious ore.
New faces fill the empty
spaces of the missing men.
Soon “fish on!” reverberates
from excited voices whose
taut lines tug at tired arms
As large fish shake, flip, and flop-
An old dance, deeply ingrained
Ancestral remnants; leftovers,
Orts of evolution that urge
return again and again
to the holy water where
the fish we seek come to die
like the old men on the bank.

Lips

Lips

Lush lips
white marshmallows
accent beautiful legs
like gentle swollen weeping clouds
rolling slowly across the sky’s blue tongue-
a young squaw's ecstatic rain dance
fans lusty fervor’s flame
puckers and pouts
lush lips

Easter 2006

Easter 2006

Today
the sun rises
like a golden bauble
over the Joshua's prickly arms
casting an eerie cruciform shadow
on awakening desert life
resurrecting memory
from the abyss
of hell.

Baghdad Morass

Baghdad Morass

Quaint words roll from trembling lips
Undertones murmur in darkness
Animal sounds penetrate the air
Growing suspicion gnaws the bone
Marrow like a ravaged canine
Instincts sniff the fouled water
Reeking with deceitful lies
Each day we sink further into the bog.

Combat Medic

Combat Medic

The field hospital, at the foot of the mosque
Where the wind howls, and the faithful chant noon
prayers, a comatose soldier is revived.

A pause, the heart ceases beating
Then starts, stops, starts again; awkward silent gaps
Wavering between life and death


Cool as he seems, the weight
Of his task a great burden, most of it vital:
My prayers envelop him.

But now it is he who pauses
As if the beating heart his own, his hands
Divine instruments of life-giving.

At night, hooded prisoners arrive and
Are processed; the wounded patched, bandaged,
Chained for interrogation.

The morning light, like an ambulance
Lights flashing and sirens blaring, brings new carnage.
A gasping soldier with a chest wound

On death’s doorstep, struggles to survive
My son plunges a tube through the thoracic wall,
Inflates the collapsing lung.

I think of the young boy terrified
At the sight of his own blood dripping from small cuts
When he fell off the teeter-totter

I remember the queasiness, the pale face
As he watched in horror as I extracted a treble hook
from his brother’s bloody cheek

I reflect on a boy who always disappeared
While I gutted and cleaned the day’s catch of salmon
Only to re-appear when the task was done.

These echoes, small wind chimes tinkling
In a gentle breeze, coalesce with boy and man.
A father must accept change.

For now it’s a matter of life or death,
Their fate in his hands, his fate in God’s hands.
Our boys and girls, the weariness of war forever changes.

Sheepshooter

Sheepshooter

He earned his sheepshooter’s badge
In the marines when he plinked
A farmer’s stray sheep lolling across
The target range at Camp Pendleton.

He never lived it down, and became
A Sheepherder on a ranch in Wyoming,
A sort of penance to assuage the guilt
And placate the souls of dead sheep.

On cold winter nights, he sits in his
Sheep shack, warming his hands over
The old pot belly stove, and sings
“We are poor little lambs who have

Lost our way, baa, baa, baa”, to the
Beetles tune “Yesterday”. Never wed,
He guards his flock with a 30/30
And lovingly eyes his favorite ewe!

The Fray

We Two

And in the stream, beneath the wild waterfall
Shoeless, she wades in icy current’s flow
And sways to music of the Mayfly’s ball
And the fish that dance with the cawing crow.
She forgets the tears, the struggle, the wound.
Down stream, he casts the line’s feathered fly
In concentric circles, swirls round and round
And only rising fish and the osprey’s cry
Relieve the sorrow of the morning’s fray,
A battlefield littered with broken dreams.
The water’s edge, a healing place to pray.
A respite from ripping apart the seams
Of love’s fabric. A chance to merge again,
Two hearts, two minds, two souls, two lives, amen.

Faux Contrition

Faux Contrition

Here I am another try at writing
Epistles of love; letters of chance, some notes
To spark a heavy heart, to cease cruel fighting
The lover’s load, tightening of the throats
Some coaxing, just some small words, pillow talk
Penned with thought, a valentine missive
A candied-breeze, flowing sweetly, a walk
Down Eros smooth path where divisive
Demons dare not tread and kill the dream
I’m trying to say I’m sorry, but I sound
Contrived, a phony with an ulterior scheme
I truly didn’t mean to cheat and fool around
With that no good girl whose lovely chest,
Comforts the head at rest, on her soft breast

Old Maytag Washing Machine

Old Maytag Washing Machine

Some sixty years ago beside the Maytag
Roller- washing machine, I watched my
Mother screaming and sobbing at the news
That Laura, a distant aunt had died.

I knew something grave had happened and
Mother’s carrying on scared me speechless
Even though no one in the family had
Seen nor heard from Laura in forty years

This first taste of death at the age of five
Shook me like trembling glass rattling in
A cyclone. A mother’s influence lasts for
A very long time. In my case, six decades

Have passed and I still ponder her reaction.
Since then many have come and gone-
Grandparents, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins.
With each passing, I still see that ancient
Maytag’s rollers spin to my mother’s cries.

My Confession

My Confession

I
Confess
My
Verses
Do not oft
Reveal
Deep
Private
Suffering
Or broken heart,
Twisted life,
Fetish
Or
Dark deed.
They simply
Express
Love;
Words un-
Said.

Wives Alone

Wives Alone

War
Wives sit
Waiting with
Worried faces
For warrior husbands
To return from battle-
Fields, to resume once again
The spouse’s space, the parent’s face
The friend, the lover, the confidant,
The lawn mower, the barbeque cooker.

Wild Things

Wild things

When
soft waves
curl
in sync
the music
riles
wild
angels
on Harleys
riding along
the seahore
hunting
girls
gone wild
bikini
clad things
babes
seeking
sex

Autumn Circus

Autumn Circus

Sounds
Of clowns
Upside down
Throughout the town
Make us smile and frown
As autumn leaves turn brown
Nature dons her bridal gown
While sagging oaks shed leafy crowns
Soon we shall reap whatever we have sown

Marathoner

Marathoner

The folks celebrate his homecoming from
The brutal war with a parade
And speeches in his honor
A silent, sad soldier
The Hometown hero
A Football star
Without legs.
Shoulders
Sag

Tears
Trickle
Lips quiver
Memory fragments
Chunks of a childhood
And sweet river summers
Filled with youthful desire.
Seasoned warrior at twenty-one
His Boston Marathon days are done.

Items Found In the Salvation Army Thrift Shop

Items Found In the Salvation Army Thrift Shop

Perusing musty isles in the thrift shop
Fragments of strange histories appear
Unwanted items, each with a tale,
A message wrapped in time

Silicon breast implants, a coffin, a stuffed
Eagle, a jar of bull sperm, a fishing boat
An urn full of ashes; all price-tagged
Wait on shelves for treasure hunters

The most bizarre find, a life detector
For coffins carries a sign “For persons
Under doubt of being in a trance”. It
Looks like a giant ear trumpet.

Strewn artifacts, like dead souls hint
At eclectic proclivities long abandoned.
Vultures pick over the discarded carrion,
Left for dead along life’s roadside.
Smugly smiling, I load the back of the
Station wagon with my new didgeridoo
And stuffed porcupine.

Scandals

Scandals

A scandal makes a good story
As when the minister runs off
With the Sunday school teacher,
Or the homeland security official
Is entrapped in a chat room stirring
Little girl’s libidos with sex talk.

A scandal, like a horrific car wreck
Breathes a sigh of relief from those
Uninvolved bystanders, thankful that
The spotlight shines elsewhere, and
For now at least they are safe from
The scrutinous eye in the sky.

A good scandal cleanses and heals,
Adds color to otherwise drab lives.
Turns ordinary eggs into Faberge
Masterpieces. We revel when the
Sleezy are captured, the wealthy
Have tumbled, and the mighty have
Fallen. Like peacocks we strut and
Tell our children how good we are,
How bad they are. Scandals make
Good stories.

Dreams

Dreams

He dreams to wake, and knows his dreams are real
He senses truth in what he cannot face
He survives by knowing what he has to feel

We learn by sensing. Are lion’s hearts made of steel?
He feels the heart pounding from place to place
He dreams to wake and knows his dreams are real

At night ancestral voices call from mists surreal.
Wake up, Wake up! His pulse begins to race
He lives by knowing what he has to feel

Afraid to face what morning light must reveal
A dark secret that illumines his disgrace
He dreams to wake, and knows his dreams are real

Exposed, a guilty conscience cannot conceal
Furtive sins, like smoke without a trace
One lives by knowing what one has to feel

This dreaming keeps us safe, a mind’s seal.
What hides away is near. A covert embrace
We dream to wake, and know our dreams are real
We survive by knowing what we have to feel

Sometimes

Sometimes

Sometimes we win the lottery.
Sometimes the girl or man of our dreams
Walks through the door, kisses us
On the lips, turns fantasies to realities.
Sometimes our foolish ventures work out
And don’t float up like shit in
A percolation pond to stink up our lives.
Sometimes, just sometimes, life is good. No
Headaches, no nosy neighbors or howling dogs
Or broken windshields or bill collectors or
Visiting relatives from hell. Sometimes
Things make sense, and we have it all
Figured out and revel in the clarity
Of the light that shines through our being.
Sometimes it’s good to be alive.
Today is such a day.

Keith's Weird 5-liners

Messing around with a five-line form today, here's what they look like:

Girl
Naked and lovely
Shifting restlessly
Like a sand pebble
If only your beach was empty

Child
Gaunt and hungry
Sobbing tearfully
Like raining bombs
If only his mother had lived

Dreams
Warm and moist
Soothing gently
Like a mother’s love
If only they were wombs

Boot Hill
Silent and ghostly
Breathing eerily
As on a respirator
If only dead cowboys could talk

Old People
Sad and lonely
Hobbling painfully
Like crippled horses
If they only had more time

Lost Brother

Lost Brother

You never get enough, always half full
Or is it half empty, your insatiable thirst
Your dissatisfaction, a dog gnawing a
Meatless bone, sucking the last ort of
Marrow as if life itself was at stake.

Shunned by friends and family, who eons
Ago gave you up for Lent, you seek to renew
Your lust with strangers of like ilk. You can
Always find your reflection in the faces walking
Down the street. Faces with your discontent,

Your emptiness, seeking to fill a void. The scowls,
The hungry stares, the head swiveling from side
Side like a leery cat seeking its next meal.
Mannerisms that shout warnings to the wary.
Symptomatic, your infidelities, your lies reveal
The depth of your needs.

For years you’ve shunned rituals of other’s
Passages; birthdays, graduations, weddings, funerals
And you’ve followed your own selfish path.
You return old and alone, and tell me how
Sad you are. No one seems to have time for you.
Brother, you will never get enough.