Number 50

Pshyeah, adoring readers! 50th post! Yippee! I'm excited. Just for the one (1) person who voted on my poll, I'm putting up a poem now.

April Beach Evening

We came back ruddy and red

Windburned and suntired

And laughing

To a house

That already smelled like a summer house

Like day-old coffee and laundry, and suitcases

Quiet resentment like a lingering stale perfume

Memories of what it had been

And the betrayal

Of windows left open overnight

And the big bowl of water left out for the cat.

Wrote that one a couple of weekends ago and translated from Norwegian just now. Some of my poems are in Norwegian, you know. It's a rather poetic language if you know how to manipulate it. I'm feeling rather good about this. I'll put up another one. A rather sardonic sonnet.

Estuary Dreams

The netherworld around the reeds and rush

The air that bursts and bubbles from the mud

The night gives rise to dusky breeze that hushes

Sea, and sky, and field, and creek, and wood

The geese and mallards settle on the shore

Dreams estuary dreams of foe, or flight

The very things their fathers dreamt before.

It burns about the edges of their sight

They quench the flames beneath the brackish lake

Imagine they can see, and take to air

But now, too late, discover their mistake

That fire singed their feathered bodies bare.

And cold and blackened tumble from the sky

And find that all they'd dreamed of was a lie.

I'm writing such depressing poems right now! Ack! Oh well. It's part of the process of developing one's own style, I suppose. Here's one more. I wrote it after helping a kid with their jet-powered balloon project along with Bonaparte. I, being a singer, was the only one with lungs strong enough to inflate the balloon. However, it was a cold day and after a few trials the balloon popped. Of course, my breath had condensed on the inside of the balloon, so it was wet. Bonaparte kept saying it was spit, which I didn't really mind except that everyone believed his word over mine. And it was my "spit!" I should know! But whatevs. At any rate, it was a nice seed for a poem. In a lot of ways, Bonaparte reminds me of the guy who gave me the poem years ago that I should have stayed with but didn't. Of course, we're just friends - really, more like collaborators. But still, little things he does make me sad sometimes. So enough about that - here's the poem.

It's Not Spit

The buzzing cogs of the world

Like clockwork

Are wrenching us apart

We're winding it up

And the cannon is loaded

To shatter the distance

With wracking sobs

And the shrapnel of our lives

And innocent idealism

Will wither and die

For our breath that condensed in the cool morning

Is scorched by the bare heat of the desert unknown

And so there is nothing 

But the blackened flag of the mother country

Sullied and torn, discovering her death throes

Upon the ground.

So depressing. But still, it's very clearly my own work. So I suppose I should be proud of it. I hope that has satisfied you for now, because I think that tomorrow I am going to have the flu. I can feel it coming on. I look like a wreck and I've been told my Norski accent is thicker than usual, which only happens after I drink a glass of wine or when I'm getting sick. Ugh. I feel pretty good now, actually. Although I'm really tired. Maybe I'll take a nap.

I hope you have something more interesting to do. Go do it. And vote on yonder poll. Thank you.