Latitdes

Perhaps you were the landmark
North south west east
I didn't know
My barometric pressure was down
My internal weather
My lost compass
Searching the known
I didn't know
Some hour
I needed to know
Stored away
Next time
And the many sorries
Memory lapses
Will you
Seventy times seven
No
Your human watch
Drifting time
The coming chances
Trusting latitudes
Seen not ignored
Explored

Denis Streeter 3/30/11

Unless

Poetry is supposed to do something
At least have some line the reader can follow
At least be relatable
So the average person will say
"Oh...okay I get that"
If you write in riddles or obscurity
Maybe a few literary critics will get it
But who cares about them
I want everyone to understand my work
The problem is I'm not willing to let that happen
Who is going to understand a phrase like
"The toothpaste the tonsils pulled out"
It makes no sense and wastes your time
And if your poetry is filled with phrases like that
It will leave people scratching their heads
Some may even laugh uncomfortably
Like someone told them this was funny
What if poetry just was
What if poetry flowed out
Just because
My poetry flows out
Just because
It's not for you
It's for me
Unless...
You feel some flicker of recognition...

Denis Streeter 3/28/11

Time metronome

Perhaps you knew from the sign
What kind it was
What kind of leverage it had
When it pieced me together.
Perhaps you knew when it cried
I was fine
You knew better.
Saturday the time
A calm front
Eyes burning into head
What does that mean
Eyes burning into head
It means...
Whatever keeps you up at night
A Saturday less sleep
Set metronome to three
Hours sleep
Perhaps you knew
When I cried
Tick tock
Time pendulum
Switches back and forth
Is it alarming
Only morning knows
And there was afternoon
And there was evening
Noon.

Denis Streeter 3/26/11

More or less

Texting the nickels
Till they slid down stream
Oceaning some floor
Till the ceiling opened
And the deserts released their cavernous echoes
Just before the cellars replied
Open ended, denouement free
Just as I expected
No solution
More questions
Slid down stream
Washing mud from my boots
Oddly cleaning
More questions
More clarity
More or less
I'll try a text
Could you nickel me in

Denis Streeter 3/25/11

Clear sight

Waking and sleeping
Into this present world
Sorting and slinking
Away sometimes thinking
Some highway of thought
Startled into drifting
You entered my thoughts
Wanting examples
I could not come up with
Would not come up with
Wander down the spring
Watering what I do not know
But I really do
Just hoping my lie will surface
Float free become my truth
Detachment recognition
No moat no beam
Clear sight
What you mean
What you mean

Denis Streeter 3/19/11

No question marks

Okay...this is an odd one...
It starts as a rhyme...then turns into a dialogue...

Over by the shingle box
Where the crab grass grows
Lies two little mingles
And a pair of toes.
Now what are mingles, you say.
I don't know.
And what of the toes.
I don't knows.
Then why waste my time.
Because it shows.
Feeling snarky aren't you.
Well...okay...the answer to the question is no question marks.
Besides I wanted to rhyme grows and toes.
Why did you want to do that.
I don't know.
Probably the same reason why there are no question marks.
If you end with a question mark, the assumption is an answer.
I don't want to provide you with an answer.
Only the mystery.
Why don't you want to provide us with an answer.
Why do you want mysteries to go unsolved.
I didn't say I want mysteries to go unsolved.
No, but you did say only the mystery...
Well...okay...you got me mister semantics head.
Perhaps that's not quite what I meant.
Some mysteries I want solved...
You know...
Like where are my car keys.
Where is my pack.
Where is my wallet.
I hope I didn't leave them on top of my car again and drive off.
Okay...those mysteries I want solved.
But mysteries like who am I becoming.
Who will I connect with.
Those are mysteries I can live into.
What about the mystery of no question marks.
Oh...just leave it alone.
What did I say. Did I say something sensitive.
No. I'm just feeling a bit rebellious...
And I don't want to end with a question mark.

Beard underbelly

Well...yesterday I couldn't take the porcupine quills under my chin any longer...so I shaved them off...the chin underbelly. It is much happier now. It no longer dreams of lazy aging porcupines looking up at my chin...and in a fit of boredom shooting my neck full of quills...before getting run over by a Mack truck. Hey...it's my dream! For over four weeks my neck was aquivered. Perhaps someone who is more photo savvy than myself can post a picture of what I look like now. But I suppose it would have been good to have the bald picture and then the beard picture. It feels much more comfortable and I'll keep the beard thing going for at least another week...then do some trimming...don't know what yet. But for now...my neck thanks me...yet I feel more vulnerable to vampire attack...but...well...I guess if they were really hungry they wouldn't let something like a neck hair get in the way.

Distress signals

Shots came night walking
Setting their distress signals
Wandering streets for sound
Of eggs and washers ringing
Soundings off
Heard unknown
Two drifters with top hats and red scarves
Drinking by the totem pole counting the notches
Drifting the side street for eggs and washers
Picking up their beer and coke
Drinking at the lithia fountain
Swilling and snorting and thinking rhino
Buffalloed their toes, tripping again
Flat again two drifters flat again, float
Counting notches to totem their heads
Shots came night walking
Slipping alleys through causeways
When no one was looking
Drinking at the lithia fountain
They disappeared into a breath of relief
Morning broke relief, but held its breath
Scampering into sounds of the living
That wayward morning cry of day
Opening drifts through the unknown
When no one was looking.

Denis Streeter 3/8/11

Bald to beard: Four weeks later

Four weeks ago it started....I thought it was Super Bald Sunday, not Super Bowl Sunday. You can understand my confusion. A couple people thought it looked a bit like a Sean Connery beard. I don't know...perhaps a bit. Could never pull off his charm or accent...though some just find him irritating. I still find my beard irritating....those miniature porcupine quills I still feel under my neck...will probably be the first to go. I think I'll keep it at least a week longer. My best friend who started me on this new adventure still hasn't seen my beard...probably won't believe I grew it out until he sees it. So I will have to say to him "Blessed are those who believe, yet do not see." Then he will say, "You're not Jesus! Why you always make me out to be the bad guy?" And I will say, "Well...I'm not Jesus." But how do I feel? How has it changed me? Well...I feel a bit snarkier...more prone to say what I feel...a bit more freed up...less uptight. But I also feel a bit less me perhaps...the beard looks a bit more unkempt...making me a bit afraid of what I look like...and oddly hoping people will still like me. I know...sounds kind of stupid...but there it is...a bit of vanity. Still a lot of people seem to like the beard. Many people still don't quite recognize me. I'll keep it a bit longer. Still an interesting experiment.

Elsie Piddock

My current favorite childrens character of all time is Elsie Piddock. I just finished reading Elsie Piddock Skips In Her Sleep (1937) by Eleanor Farjeon. This fairy tale is totally charming, poetic, and pure magic to read aloud! Elsie Piddock learns to skip at age three, and is such a natural, she attracts the attention of the fairies and their Skipping-Master named Andy-Spandy. From him she learns

The High Skip,
The Sly Skip,
The Skip like a Feather,
The Long Skip,
The Strong Skip,
And the Skip All Together!
The Slow Skip,
The Toe Skip
The Skip Double-Double,
The Fast Skip,
The Last Skip,
And the Skip Against Trouble! (page 7...though unpaged)

Every single skip fits into this intricately plotted charming story.
Beautifully written for all ages, the tale comes from Eleanor Farjeon's story collection Martin Pippin in the Daisy Fields (1937). If you've never read any Eleanor Farjeon, you must read her story collection The Little Bookroom. Her writing is pure poetic magic!

thin ice

tight is the moment when the rivers run cold
drifting passed the meadows of cheese and cream
when the frosting sits still and the drifters drink wine
sopping the moon with the onion rings left behind
no one was watching, nobody cared
just the eagle with one wing missing
and the caribou left behind
under the circuit board where the drift bits blow
there is no reason no, but a reason why
but then there was no one
but the circus rats in the snow
gone gone gone
into the pudding
where the onion rings pop
there was no forgiving
just the look in the face that said everything
and nothing...
pulling up the heels, turning away
until there was no chance
but the ghenkoes on her jacket
and in the passing as
the heels went up
gaggling their gathering
as the fool gathers his pudding
one minute pudding the feeder
leaving it empty
while the rally went on
dust in
glory out
time happens
even for the young
there is no immortality
except for what you pass on to others
bring your bandaids
never know who will be hurt
or blest.

denis streeter 3/3/11

How to spell love

Traffic works in outside my mind
Warping to places I do not know
Time the outside ingredient
To recipes I can not spell
I hoard them in my pocket
Work them to decipher
Whatever moons and stars may be in them
And in the confusion that lasts
Just a short while
I put that in my pocket too
Pray over my discontinuity
That I might take my own advice
When darkness comes not hide in the shadows
That other may see me to pull me out
That I might let them
And the compassion I have for others
I should have for myself
Listen for the murmur
Sounds too New Age
What comes to pull you out of the darkness
You don't always have to understand
Or its origin in you
That time will come
Let go of your control
So what's known can grow more
Release and breath
Sounds too New Age
Pulling back pulling back
Into myself
Pulling me out
Pulling you out
There is no why.

Denis Streeter 3/2/11