A POTATO FORK POEM
(for Brenda)
.
Fellow forks, beware!
Do stay away from here!
Brenda takes us
then she breaks us.
Oh tremble! Feel fear!
Come only if you dare!
.
Digging rocks and boulders
(Putting bodies in the ground?)
Brenda will abuse you
Aggressively use you
Your handle’s snapping sound
Means you won’t get older.
.
Forks, do NOT come near!
Get the fork out of here!
We know
what’s best
Make the right decisions
Know the right culture
Have the right religion
Use the right words
No one else is as good as we are
It’s all black and white
Except for all that grey,
and all those other
rights.
It is.
It isn’t.
Me.
You.
A circle compounding compromises.
Conviction carries us.
I promise.
I pound.
I promise
I pound.
I paint
conviction
carrying
us.
It is.
It isn’t.
Promising.
(A poem for Dustin & Lyda, Jason & Kirindip. These are characters in the current w.i.p. novel).
I see
how every word crashes into you,
threatens to capsize you,
flaps at your mainsail,
sends your boom flying across a bow,
leaving your cowering on the deck,
begging for the storm to pass.
Aim for port, where words
are bulwarked by the breakwater,
and tides are tempered.
We’ll tie up in safety;
see?
Pick a picture
search the eyes
the dead glass
living eyes
No vacancy
blink
No vacancy
blink
No vacancy
in broken down windows
picked clean
pick up
this dream.
Jingle Pot Road.
You make me want to belly dance
along your length,
as you meander back and forth
across the highway–
a serpentine of signposts–
Shimmy! Jingle! Pop! Road.
.
.
I actually performed this piece, bellydancing to the words, at When Words Collide in Calgary, August 2017. I definitely need to improve my choreography and have the piece properly memorized to do the concept justice, but it does add a fun touch to a poetry presentation! 🙂
Web post about how Jingle Pot Road got its name.
Geese trying a new vocabulary
fly in W formation
I wonder
what will winter wind
waft or wallop webbed wonders
wandering west and south along waterways?
Art is artificial
when our artifacts
leave factual for artless artifice.
Draw artful parts;
articulate the artful into artillery
throbbing through the arteries:
bum, bum, bum.
Be the genuine article,
artisan.
Be
art.
.
.
(Reading John Dewey’s Art as Experience today. My head might explode.)
Shawn L. Bird 