Songs of the long green shadows

The subterranean barks bent the moonshine in two
Just to find the subtracter got cold feet
And addition had the moon splayed
Spanning the Pacific
Two nights over the Amorites and Hittites
Spelling the roosters to rafters
Among the spillgrass roots and their onionskin bottoms
Long morose to moonrope molecules
Splitting sunlit moonshine
Spilling while the dogfish explained marshmallows
And trilobites left without explanation
The dogfish roared in the catfish wake
Exploring corridors for cogfish wine
And the whimsy bent shadow shrank ghettoes
Leading to train drivin snores
In the bottom of night
As stars began to stitch
Songs of long green shadows
And togs began to spin
Clogging doors of moonshores
Sinking sand sifting songs
Trilobites left no explanation
Just out the door ingrained
Sifting songs of the long green shadows
The rest of us left behind.

Denis Streeter 7/5/14

Down by the watering hole

Back in the land where the tadpoles lie flat
I threw off my shoe when I shouldered my back
My back threw my shoes and then wandered away
My laces flew off to turn back at the quay
Got tangled in zippers and hopped up on wine
The laces strung out and reverted to pine
Turned into a raft as they watered the Styx
And pining the currents in splintered toothpicks
They toothpicked together in a tiny raft
A deer mouse a monkey though that may seem daft
When dashed through the rapids picked up by a deer
You may think I'm lying not being sincere
The deer and the monkey had a tug of war
Devouring toothpicks to settle the score
And spat up the toothpicks they monkeyed away
And watered the story to this very day.

Denis Streeter 6/28/14

Starkling

Darkling rise the sun
Inkling rise the moon
Sunset stars
Dark blue skies the night
Water apron cries
Shadows sharken
Fireflies the deep
Lights bright out.

Denis Streeter 6/27/14

Plot six nine five

club sticks of pride
memory homicide
drifting candlesticks
brisk as steeples chase
homeward candles night
shaking sticks as cried
alder benign
bumbling means of crime
fired as two chipped bowls
littered as five fox
dressings tempered piers
feckled each plea
washing each crime
overflow rich
casket each walk
as candles blow
twice herding pride
sent sampling darkness
darning each light
stitching each stich
blinding each blind
mooning each light
inch by colored inch
wide as each line
blind as each fly
washing each breakfast crime
starching each way
bright as quay wrath
nearing each stitch
gone as gone
caught as catch
wandering breeze
each catcher rise
size becoming
six eight center
breeze throw
trees slide
jungle free
seismic wake
before each after
six each nine
no time
add a terse
tenser fine
no cribbage stop
hide crabwise
all on board
side sword
homicide cried
plot six nine five
colored and died.

Denis Streeter 6/18/14

Slant-Tilt, Rhyme Haiku

No explanation on this one. Just more than one meaning.

Chevro Chevrolet
Haiku Honda Pi-ro-let
Chevro Honda lent.

Denis Streeter 5/2/14

Magic games

the toys that led the sidewalks walking
were separating circles from squares
the squares played hopscotch and
the rubber ball led the way

it was odd the way
the sidewalks unearthed the earth
like square footprints walking
it was thirteen o'clock no one noticed
except a few and they weren't telling

the toys that led the sidewalks walking
gathered in some nameless park
that knew no religion or language
just the games of sidewalk earth
that thirteen o'clock played

the children gathered skipping in their sleep
the air breathed its silent whisper
children pavement into air
breathless mice aware
they were not telling

the toys that led the sidewalks walking
felt the time hit two
one or sixty they knew what to do
toys to squares and circles magic merry round
back to perfect puzzle piecing place

the rubber ball bounced silently in place
tracing children mice back into space
the magic wavering when split in two
the timing knew exactly what to do.

Denis Streeter 4/16/14

Signpost starlings

The title is a way of including two William Mayne quotes. William Mayne has written nearly 100 children's books since 1953.

John and Alice were looking at a
signpost where two roads joined
each other. Alice was looking at
it more than John was. She was
looking at it all over, but he was
reading it.
"It's like a pencil with wings,"
said Alice. "What did it write on
itself?
"It wrote some words I don't
know," said John...Signpost have
names of places on them."

The Water Boatman, William Mayne, 1964, pages 5-7 (illustration shows pencil like signpost)

Another William Mayne quote:

There was a noise like a wheel spinning on a dry axle. It
came down the chimney after the kettle had been lifted
off the fire. Mother wondered if it was the boiler behind
the red coal about to burst, but Daddy, who was out in
the yard mixing cement, said it was a gathering of
starlings on the roof looking for lodging.

First page of The Changeling by William Mayne, 1961

William Mayne tilts your thinking of the ordinary.