Tag Archives: Open Link Night

Ripe Plums Indeed

Slept late again.
I guess they only go to sleep
if they are out in the cold.
Oh, I couldn’t sleep again!

My mind kept racing along
at fever-pitch; she said I didn’t have
the courage of my convictions.
Gisela likes to talk and tell secrets
and give counsels.

Couldn’t sleep—lurid dreams.
Had insomnia again!
Slept a long time.

There was a far-off gleam in her eye;
I could have shot him in the head.
That killed the day for me.

But there were cocktails, of course,
a long, fascinated conversation—
I felt dreamy.

This is a rather dizzying account
of the creation of the universe.
It’s an awfully good story,

and one expects momentarily
to be pelted by raindrops
as big as ripe plums.

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m., check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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Doing the Dishes

Doing dishes that are made from earth
managing not to return them to earth
managing not to break

everything
oh, everything

There is a certain line holding me
there is a certain thread holding me
there is a plumb line holding me

and it could snap
in rotten teeth

Everything is tired in the snow
there is thunder in the snow
you are out there, in the snow

and here I sit—
I lied about doing the dishes

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m., check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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Hot Idea!

Let’s talk to Lucy and learn to play bongos.
Let’s break all our old habits and then start new ones.
Let’s leaf through some old issues of Playgirl.
Let’s read our fortunes in whorls of chest hair.
Let’s see if Lucy has any ideas about aluminum doors.
Let’s run through a hallway of doors, slamming them one by one.
Let’s ask Chief Robotman what he thinks of our actions.
Let’s not stay to hear his answer.
Let’s ride away on our Schwinns, or in a Vista Cruiser.
Let’s eat Hostess Sno Balls, thumb our noses at everyone but us.

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m., it’s time for Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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Winter’s Wing

Speaking of travel and snowy owls,
white wings of this weather,
the dishwater sky awaiting heavier
clouds than these, another round
of snow; we are pulled into
the polar vortex again and again.
It’s because we’re heating the seas,
making soup out of creatures
we have no interest in eating.
Still, there’s something about
winter again, the real winter,
how it puts you someplace else,
like the inside of a closet, muffled
and warm when your parents are
having a party, and you are a child.
The laughter and the clink of ice,
present, distant. It’s like that,
under winter’s wing—your blood
thick and quiet, hungry for meat.

 

 

Check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets every Tuesday p.m.!

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Ghost Ship Full of Cannibal Rats Could Be about to Crash into Devon Coast

But then again, it might not; there’s still time to divert its course if we all
pull together, acknowledge the unimpeachable reality of cannibal rats,
and beam our positive thinking toward that voluptuous shore, help her
fend off this assault, the scrabbling of vicious claws tearing tender rock. Or
shall we get lost in the seaweed that tangles our minds? Deny not only the
rats, but also the ship? Chalk it all up to some paranoid wish list of unlikely
events—even as that spectral prow laps the milk where land meets sea?

 

 

Be sure to check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets every Tuesday p.m.

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Border Arrest May Be Connected with Target Credit Card Hack

On the border between Target and Walmart,
on the border between Costco and Sam’s Club,
on the border between desire and fulfillment,

somebody has your number.

In a conversion van with a seascape on the side,
in a putty-colored, green-cursored computer,
in a satellite dish pulling signals from space,

somebody has your number.

There is nothing you can do;
you will never rest again
now that you know,

somebody has your number.

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m., check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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Man Dead, Woman Missing from Chicago River Accident

Whatever it is, it isn’t worth it, though it seems so at the time.
A little climb on the rocks by the lake at night, in midwinter, or
a January midnight lunge into the river to retrieve a falling phone.
It only looks calm, navigable, shallow, that water. It only looks
placid, like it will happily receive you, help you find what you lost.
It will receive you. You may perceive that it is glad. You might find,
as you are fading, that nothing more is lost. But now your family
dredges up from some other depth this fact: You died at age 26
for a phone that is now waterlogged and frozen, no longer
sending any signal, no longer searching for you.

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m. (which it’s not right now), check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

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Transported

But when I came back, I was celery
or a facsimile of celery, and it took me
a while to coordinate my leaves and
the pumping system that keeps me
occupied and crisp throughout the day.
I have no teeth anymore, or else I would
crunch myself, accidentally on purpose.
I had never been celery before, or even
been especially interested in celery,
because who is? Because it’s celery.
Because I am celery. Because I am.

 

 

Hey, it’s Tuesday, and Open Link Night is back. Check it out!

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Fig Wasps

I tell you a tale as big as a kite,
and I fly it into your fig tree.

It rattles the wasps from their
work in your figs, their offices

of pollinating, egg-laying, death.
They are annoyed, and they sting

with the knowledge that
there’s no tale bigger than

their own. It is, they are certain,
the greatest story the sun ever told.

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m., check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

 

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Your Host

If you need anything while I’m asleep,
please feel free to smash the glass.
I think you’ll find your accommodations
are quite pleasant. We didn’t skimp
when it comes to the shag carpeting—
it’s wall-to-wall and double-ply, also
sealed for your protection. We believe
in safety here. Safety and sanitation,
everything buttoned up just like
God’s own sewing kit. A stitch,
you know, a stitch in time saves
feathers. That’s what they say—
or we say it, anyway. We say
a lot of things around here.
I think you’ll find us downright
chatty. Garrulous as gabardine,
and almost as sacred as mice.

 

 

If it’s Tuesday p.m., check out Open Link Night at dVerse Poets.

 

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