Music and sandpaper

Wandered evening spread out its posts
Into the belly of life's darkness
Where the kangaroo pockets lie
Like some dark hole
Some space you can't escape
And in your wanderings
Space gives flight
To your doughnut holes
And other flying objects
Tuna in reversal
And the tin cheese on top
Filled with ice cream for the lactose intolerant
As the rubber duckies whine
No more gerbils for dinner
Just as the justice rolls
Out the back door into the oven
Quality buys food stamps
Shoves them into the microwave
Out comes a micromit
Kind of like a micromite
Without the bite
And the shadows grow
Over the stuffing out the door
Until your peace ends in a blast
Just before the shovels arrive
And the civility breaks
The ocean floor opens
You awake
You sing the songs your words
But no one hears
It's much better that way
It's what conscience say
But wording off
Try again with capitals
Still no good
No good
And the beasts open the door
You don't let them in
Or do you it doesn't matter
How'd you get so moralistic
It aint no literature
Lit erture
No nurture
Just get out the buns
No dinner tonite
Just the bones
Toss me the bones
It's music with all the sandpaper.

Denis Streeter 10/9/11

Double jointed shadows

Under castles chocolates die
Crabs of fingers start to cry
Laughing loops of silvery blue
Into bats of fu manchu
Fields wandered river cries
Tuning meadows into thighs
Sinking capsules to the moon
Under twenty-one balloons
Laughing seagulls joined the storm
Litter boxes not the norm
Into creeks the shadows crept
Under moss where shackles slept
Large as bottles thick as skulls
Sanding seas to season gulls
Scamper hamper in the wind
Pampered parrot porter pinned
Large enough to seize your why
Under table saws of sky
Wandering where chocolates die
Tunes tommorrow never lie.

Denis Streeter 10/7/11

Incomplete

The highlight of my day
Was one transaction
That disabled four registers
Leaving me, the supervisor, the manager, and tech support
Scrambling for what to do
It turned out
That one receipt added on to her husky card
So she could get her 10% patronage refund
Was added incompletely
It was that incompletion
That shorted out four registers
That stressed countless employees
Held up customers
But soon got fixed
By tech support
In twenty years
Of cashiering
I've never seen
Four registers disabled by one transaction
Now I know
Just a little more
We are all
Incomplete.

Denis Streeter 10/4/11

Poetry last night

I read my piece "Shadow breakers" at poetry last night. It went over really well! Some thought it was really deep and others saw its humorous side. I love it when a piece affects different parts of each personality. It was a really strong night of poetry and music. The muse was definitely there. It was great to make acquaintances with old and new friends. I hope they return. Poetry is a unique expression of all life...what shapes us...through music, dance, work...any expression of ourselves. I felt that all taking shape last night.

Resonance

Today I got enough sleep and my back is much better, though now it's migrated to my right shoulder. Pain is like a human map. It likes to travel. I wonder if it's sucking down a daiquiri now... I'm at the library...photocopying my "Shadow breakers" piece. Think I'll read that at Monday night poetry. I'll let you know how it turns out. Turned in "Donnie Darko". I won't spoil it if you haven't seen it. I remember when I first saw it 23 years ago. It was intriguing to me then, though it didn't make much sense. I wanted to see it again...wondering why it has become a cult hit. I think I kind of understand why. It has a quirky mysterious element where the world is a dark place...and great late 1980's music lends it atmosphere. It also has a social 911 parallel darkness...where a large object hits the house of the protagonist. I like the psychological drama between his family and school friends...how it relates to the small community. I knew the ending, but it still surprised me. It's an uneven movie, but I still recommmend it. In a post 911 world, it resonates today. Time to leave the library. I'll see how "Shadow breakers" works reading aloud tonite.

Shadow breakers

Sunday was a good day of dancing with the Eclectic Cloggers in Issaquah. Fun performance and the comfort of being with good friends. Then I watched "Donnie Darko" and the tv series "Breaking Bad" at 10 PM. Perhaps the totality of this went into...

Shadow breakers

Until the rooms went into hiding
The dragons went out
One by one
Soon as fossil fuel
And the dinosaurs raged
Their reserves dried up
Wandering ghettoes
Full of unharnessed rage
Contradictions
And the people came
Filling their rage
With the rage to come
Full of unfulfillment
Expectations diminished
Contradictions
And the cattle prods stop
Human cattle from excremating
The excrement from their mouth
Full of wonder
How it got this way
And the ghettoes opened
Much the same way
With bee stings and ivy
Hope attached to the osprey
And the wings hovered
Not large enough to fly
And the sea anemones sank
The ocean floor drank
The litter box below
Until there was no more
Until it opened up
The tranquil peace dissolved
The war begun
In the middle of the desert
To present itself
To its oppressor
Just when the snake appeared
In the garden of Eden
Appearing in our lives
The worm holes of regret
The futures we see
But do not understand
Never seeing the whole picture
Just a part of the human experiment
What we call love
What we call hate
And all inbetween
Some balance beam
Some Jimmy Beam
Why whiskey you say
It's hard and it's easy
It knocks you off your shelf
To some unrefined self you think is real
And then you are full
And don't know what to do
But you keep trying don't you
You keep trying because there's nothing left
When you wonder
There is no God
Only drink
And your mind
You can control your mind 80% of the time
But what of that 20% of the time
What will you do with that
What will that do to you
I guess that's what friends and therapy are for
20%
It's just a number
How will you control that
When there is no one around
Not even your God
What will you do
To turn that 20% around
It's just a number
But you made it up
Turned it on
Gave it energy
Let it go
What will you do then
What will you do now
I'm just a prospector
What are you speculating
Your fears
Your powers
Your words
What they lack
How will you hold up
What is there
What is you
I feel your fears
They are baseless
You don't know
They are emotions taking over your rational mind
Fear is an emotion, but
Emotions are not fear
It's not some commutative mathematical equation
Your just becoming
More aware
What will that awareness
Become you

Denis Streeter 10/3/11

Lullaby

Slick as a raft and harder to follow
The hedgehogs kept at bay
Hoping the spiders would sleep them away
But the bobcats kept threatening the raptors
The rafters were sent overboard
Slithering away
Until the driftwood twigged out
What rafters were after
Capturing the twiggy goldmine
Some benevolent Arthur Rackham
Twiggy arms of protection
Pulling them ashore, awaiting their reward
That no one knew
That no one knew
Then oceaned again into the swirling waters
Time and again
Until they knew they knew what they did not know
Rocking away
Caressing arms touching again.

Denis Streeter 9/2/11