Whirlin the box

Teetered boatwise lie of long
Sly as caterpillar cry
Filled with doubt and promise
Resting compunction in river ryes
Twice as rhyme and short as wyse
Lyme rose earth light
Taffish rabbit sun pie
Hiding the aftermath rhyme
Soon as stealing time
Bleeding noses to fool
Blond lit blind
Drifting with the tripwires
Tired in the wintry sun
Gone by noon
Rafting by drafters
gnarling neurons
And the tired primes
True as the catfish wobble
Hounding hugs of wine
Justin the color of blind
Tween the tweed
Foodle the prime
Sugaring otherwise
Wasps drain flies sticking to moonlight
That forward backward cling
Sheet shouldered in
Shades lesson stars
Follow door sky
Whirlin the box
Justin the blind

Denis Streeter  12/27/14

it's what's become of the sandwich

it's not the people
what's become of her
back to my favorite bar
wondering who's governing her brain
no that's all I want to eat
she was delicious tired
just one or two scoops
all the dressing
dandelions with the neighbor's dog
and the weed breaks
all the way down to the cushions
and the hours say why
when the stories dry
mud bound
of giraffe sticks
into comfort zones
rewording the words
I took on the cushions
but then it got easier
disaster looms in the credit card debt
easter spreads its bunny wings
loose on the cousins of tomorrow
and the bombs break
taking down ships to Titanic humility
oceans shiver greed
shovels beneath the sandbox below

denis streeter

dust in the shadows

before the moors were bleeding
the flies were changing their toes
open wounds for the seeding
and the canoes bled dry under their noses
all the seedling gathered up dust
wandering the wind flown ghetto
ushering oceans to their knees
full of rabid exposure
brilliant under the two toned sun
mirrored as sun beams
dead on the floor
and the wise ones shimmered
removing toes from their shadows
thumbs from their outlet
not to be outdone
shores into shackles
short as the ocean wide
judging the Saharan shadows
ripe as the juice below
counter-balanced
coward tied to bless the unknown
factored into the muddle fixation
sure as dynamite in the sand
and twice as cautious
wandering ghettoes naked twice
once with leaves once with shadows
one thumb tied beneath the other
black as the north is south
and not ashamed as shy
and the grace as grass as sea
waterlogged under the sponge
twice as shy as cautious
naming the unnamed under fire
post as past
rapid as wine
the sine removal continuance
shoring shadows of unknown tone
sharp as the needles on back
tiring to remain but pining to go
wringing in wrap before the dust fall down
all done up in the shadows of before
when the ripe were ready and wrong undone
dust in the crimes brought in waves
all that remains in the crimes in the shadows
and the portents left behind.

denis streeter   10/12/14

Ghost served

October can be a fun and scary month.
Just the time for having a meal of ghost.
This excerpt is from the preface of William Mayne's 1971 anthology of ghost stories.

Different people like their ghost served different ways, roast ghost,
you might say, or ghost on toast, or a slice of cold ghost.  I think
I like ghost to be freshly caught and cooked for the shortest possible
length of time, so that it still has a bit of wriggle in it when I get to it.
Ghost really needs no extra flavoring--its own juice should be enough.
And there's always the problem of first catching the ghost: most of
them are rather historical by the time they come to the reader's eye.
However, the best of them keep very well, and only need a little
trimming and rearranging on the plate.

 From Ghosts, William Mayne, 1971, preface vii

Normal gesture

All the light in the world contained
One dot and one line
Neither of them mixed with each other
Just ran side by side
Opening ocean two shades at a time
Carrying bellows to the moon just as shafters arrived
Raising rafters black as midnight
Twice as grasshopper
Wrong as comforting silence
Rapt for revival, affairs of the heart fluster
Undercover in the corner
Petty coasters to the right, teacups to the left
Coffee dribbles down the side
Oranges perfunctory enough to ask why
Sequestered baby rafters
Twice as long with the petticoats and casters
Toadstools arriving baffled
Winging on fire while dicing the rafters
Into cubes of coasters as burglars will tell
But not too much
As a toucan can smell apples from poodles
Exchanging molesters for molecules
Short shafted as wires might cry
Knowing how snow feels
Rafters nod and talk of diamonds
Covered with oars to blight
Resisting each snore each sneeze
Each heart beat on wire
All rise as pickle in plum
Safe as nets and twice as blind
Blooms of lions eat with the eaches
Down by the roadside, washing the pariahs
Cumbered in waste as made no sense
But garbage for more
Table talks and linen wipes
And alleys for walks
Onions potato in soup of wine
Washing wipes for welcome arrivals
Wringing the downs
For the pleasure of all
Soup for kitchen
Proof of kissin'
But not enough for one
Too much

Denis Streeter     9/14/14

Bleaker

Written after reading Kevin Brooks' bleak but brilliant 2014 Carnegie Winner "The Bunker  Diary".  For those wondering after reading this piece, I'm doing fine on my meds.


More than my mirror
My bunker my life
My steel wall
Everything bolted down
Tables, beds, toilets
Everything the same
My subvergence
I wander my streets
Merging for me
Who I am
Poet breathes a large net
Dancer a different
Viewing my world
Complex
Real
More than I know more than I do
I am me and subject to change or
Stay the same
I am my own contradiction

The streets look back and nod
Until their no makes me dizzy
The streets say that's not enough
You're evading the question
Who
Are
You???
I am my fear
The unexplored skin peeled back
To my beating heart
I am molested
And I molest myself
The unexplained that half truth
Where emotion lies
I work to breathe but
Have no physical ailment
I am empathy and anger
That taut emotional string
I was well taut
Until I learned to cry
The cry of the untaut
Unwinding dad's DNA
That molestivous feel
Weaving rewoven
Becoming my own
Reach in pull out my heart
Fight the lie that it's not really there
Whining and twining
Who I am
More than my thought empathy connection
Depth flow undercurrent real
Drowning fear my bunker
Journal endless hopeless
Exploring bleak depth
Flat ugly fucked

The streets look back and nod where they lie
Nod
Lie
Disappear
Unweaving
Leaving...


Me



Denis Streeter   9/9/14

Gloam answer

It was a time before peaches
When honey ran wild
Fruit bats in wing shadows
Performing acrobatic nines and fives
Languid fields yawned and groaned
Giving scores of one point o
Like some short stream, mud puddle, and pond
Bats turn to swallow for eaves
Evening amber gold honey
Chasing moonlight in firefly shadows
Groaning for hot zones unknown
Shores shoveled shells to sand
Marking way for washing ships and drying towels
Gifts made wise in old age
But not more attractive when wandering blind
Where typhoons startled and foamed

It was a time before peaches
When honey ran wild
Typhoons tickled tempests
Washing clean in soda springs
Doors dressing house sweeping floors
Sleeping ceilings cough and shake
Dreams splinter rafters some watery wake
Lips move to fake grace
Blind as oceans deep in sand
Shells open understand then shell beneath
Those coloring dreams some dark rainbow
Shells sand their birth
Faster than magnetic north breathes
To find direction

It was a time before peaches
When honey ran wild
Sky skin and sand
Sin some alternate conclusion
Solar take fire
Startling end to alpha omega
Man some sticky conclusion
False between the legs when honey ran wild
Sand into birth, join into pain
Laughing those tears to cough and shake
Wandering this and that direction
Wondering which is true north
Following that compass

It was a time before peaches


Denis Streeter 8/8/14