Day 5: It Follows

When the music swelled out of his cheap laptop speakers,

He felt the expected tug of memory of spy movies about

The KGB and Mi6, of an age where political ambiguity

Ran free

While he counted himself a bit of a connoisseur of music--

He was almost a music major in college, after all--

He still could not break the habit of only thinking of music

In terms of mood and evocation, of emotion emoting and

Feeling

He really should be thinking about music, reasoning with

It, exploring the complexity of patterns, the mathematical

Interactions--the calculus of chords--the trigonometry of 

Tonal shape

Yet all he could think of was a spy, leaning against a building

Snow ticking across his face while he waited for night to 

Fall

Day 4: Beer

Keats wrote about wine and bubbles "winking at the rim"
Screw that, I'm going to write about beer.  Beer. That's right
Beer.

No "beakers of the warm south" of the "blushful Hippocrene"
Just light pale yellow piss water 3.2 beer that is mocked for
Its aluminum-canned goodness, and jeered at as pedestrian for
Simpletons

No, no, I shall sing of shit beer--loudly and drink three more
Without even winking at the rim, sharp silver cutting my lip
I might even believe I hear a nightingale after six, and I'm sure
That I know the answers to everything and that I am the best
Poet

And it is all the same, because like Keats, I'll be drunk then
And no matter how much you fancy up being drunk with
References to Bacchus and his pards or viewless wings of
Poetry cluster'd around by Fays like some fucking bad
Victorian tableaux, you are still drunk, and it is called "passing
out"

I'll fade then into the tender arms of day drunk solemnity
On my puke green polyester couch, embalmed in darkness
Because I have closed the goddamned curtains to keep out
The daylight.  Yeah, Keats, guzzle down that wine, but
You better drink a shit-ton of water before you hit the sack
Otherwise you are in a world of hurt when you ask if you wake
Or sleep

Day 3: Cabin Experience

1.
For a split second when you were checking in,
You thought you had fooled the machine and
It was going to let you upgrade to first class
But no, when you clicked seat 1A the screen
Darkened, and a red frame box popped up over
The map of first class seats, so spacious in their
Layout

"This cabin experience is not available to you"
For a moment you are sad that it didn't even
Say "sorry," but then were happy that it didn't
Mock your bank balance, or note how sore
Your knees would be by the end of the flight
"This cabin experience is not available to you"
You click the box closed, and go back to
Economy

2.
The person in front of you is the kind of person
Who makes the most of their lot in life and
Leans back into you.  You are not the kind of
Person that makes the most of your lot in
Life, but you struggle to not push that little
Silver disk which is currently gouging your
Thigh

But hey, you have a window seat, at least there
Is that, and you can watch the country roll away
Under you, nothing but fifty thousand feet of
Emptiness between you and the yellow tan hardness
Green circle upon circles sprinklered across the
World

The farmers must be wizards to pull green from
Such ochre madness. You imagine them standing
Before their blood drenched altar, offering the
Fatted calf to Baal that he might send the rains
Lord of Rain and Dew, hear our prayer!  Hear, O
Hear!

"Excuse me," the kind old lady crammed in next
To you says touching your arm.  "Excuse me," and
You expect her to add "young man," but she doesn't
"Excuse me, would you mind closing your blind?
I can't see my screen." And you are the kind of person
Who doesn't make a fuss, who respects his elders
That are probably just five years older than you
And you close your blind, closing out the Lord of
Rain and Dew.

Day 2: Last Frost

"Remember that one year you planted out
Too soon? Those tomatoes you spent three months
Coddling just curled up black against the black
Earth

You should really know better than trying
That again mister, such a shame to waste
Springtime hope like that if you know what I
Mean

You don't?  Well don't go planting your toma-
Toes when it is just April. You never know
When we'll get snow around here. Frost hits us
Hard"

The neighbor leans on his shovel harder
Emphasizing words with his hand cupped on
The handle top. You hate him since he is
Right

And planting out now will lead to certain
Doom, but, there is always a chance that wave
Of warm hope on the Pacific will not
Fail

And you will be two weeks ahead of this
Shovel-leaning buffoon who scoffs at your
Temerity to push the bounds of last
Frost


"Write a poem about failure, or about a time you failed."

Day 1: Cotyledon

You furrow soil
With your hands
Building shallow
Mounds to dent in
The seeds

When the earth warms

They loosen and split

Swallowing the rain

Quietly in the loamy

Darkness

Even the hardest shell

Will crack under the 

Embryonic pressue

Pushing to breach the 

Surface

There is love inside

Waiting in the dark

Until it is just warm

Until it is just moist

Enough

The seedling explodes

Dividing the good 

Earth, reaching upward

Outward, onward 

To light

Seed leaves, at first

Tender, but then 

Hardened like 

Butterfly wings

Splay out

They are the seed

Itself, transformed

Made manifest and

Green against the dark

Rich soil

Cotyledon, ancients

Might have called them

Cup-shaped hollow

Cupped, anything hollow

Filled up

"Write a love poem about a seemingly ordinary or mundane task.

Tiny Little Ads

I: The pitchman

The valley pitchman

From his tiny, one bedroom

Apartment

This is one of the most incredible things

That I have ever seen

It can make you a fortune

The secret, the secret no more than four

Or five days

Finding tiny, classified, little ads

Out of my one bedroom apartment

In four or five little 

Days

For the last five years

I've been talking about this

For the last five years

Doing exactly what I've been

Talking about

For the last five or 

Four years

Talking

Out of my tiny, one bedroom

Apartment

(About this)

Did you ever think you'd be depositing

Did you ever think if four or five tiny 

Little years

If you get started buying and selling

You might not want to do anything

Else

My very own 1-900 line

You can be set up with your very own

1-900 line

Your very own

My very own

Tiny little very own ninehundred very tiny little own

My

They even take the calls for you

While you are sleeping you can even be

Making money

(While your are sleeping)

The most exciting thing you have ever done

I told all kinds of people and all lot them don't believe me

I

II: Slitting your own throat

no one knows what went through the mind 

of the valley pitchman when he sliced his

own throat

locked in a jail cell, after countable charges

were leveled against him. there were no 

supermodels there to comfort him.  no family

no one, tiny, little, person to stop his hand

A razor blade is simple

III: these days

A few people remember him

Mostly they mock him

Mostly they watch video of comics

Sending him up

And they vaguely remember 

What they were mourning 

Early in a cold, empty morning

Thirty years ago when the 

Pitchman was there profering

Hope

But there are a few who believe in 

Tiny little ads

That can bring salvation from a tiny 

One bedroom 

Apartment

venici ta

I move the keyboard close
Satyricon plays near
They are at sea
They lift the whale
And so do I
Triremes against a blue
Ageaen sea
Spell check against a
Victory

Yeah
That's it.