reason for this

daftness barms 
no alarm
of foolishness
a catapult away
drinking wine
a sashay
a trope
wanders sly
inbred with paint
on the horizon
felt a splash
deter a whale
out to sea
in a sieve
leaking a mountain
of grease
gas lit on empty
as you might expect
busy
in that ordinary way
business supplies
weighty
foster in rank
removing itching
from semaphores
dangerous banks
deck and ocean
not all bad
it's a place
where happiness
subsides
dungeons
are fakes
roadmaps
draw doors
let them in
rats on skewers
blistered things
grab my
petit fours
ounce our roundings
blank our ships
more to that
wide enough to go
traffic flow
gets in the way
guidance 
sets you free
i don't know
i'm still here
drinking in me
sophomoric
teaching
turning gravestones
into flies
not sad so
busy overnight
chasing them out
set bed aflame 
or not
wandered toes
fasten doors wide
toothpaste in
flour awry
and it goes
on
knows
on
until
it stops

denis streeter   7/11/21

flight

breath
breathed into silence
a broken wing stripped clean
hollow bone
egg glue creation
an instrument
flewn of ancient 
flute through
true to its
its what
its form
laughing 
bone draws sky
music from hollow
shift ears eyes heart
mind an empty shell waiting to be filled
searching wisdom 
bone waits becoming 
depth fills tiny holes
an ocean gladness
fills mind
flewn ears eyes heart soul
senses one
capture them
bone holes music
you can fly
you can sing
you can know

denis streeter   6/15/21

Inspired by David Almond's book Bone Music

poetry in motion

a kind of learning

i don't know what it is

a kind of transforming

i don't know what it is

leads me to strange places

rooms i wander

circular directions

take me home

to where i am more myself

whatever that is

ever since i was a little boy, i always wanted to be

a philosopher

theologian

thinker not betrayer

no judas in me

i've lived a life not knowing who i am

a teacher of sorts, in the pure sense

i learn from them, they learn from me

just not an automaton 

i want to speak my mind and not muffle it

there's the rub

does it make you employable?

know your strengths

know others

then you can know yourself

but does that ever happen?

this introversion not good for me

i must dance

i hear music that moves my soul

and in the dance i forget myself

there is nothing but perfect motion

bluegrass

deeper livelier than anything i know

poetry in motion

and with that poetry comes wit

is it?

or song

singing connectedness to each situation

through my bones

that feels eternal

universal

completely myself

denis streeter   6/8/21

A kind of respect

 

Worms may be savvy 

Their burrowing ways

Moles for reflection

Turning upward

Is it religion

Is that the right thing to say

Heaven opens

Is that a sunrise

Interpretation

Seems like such a flat word

Intellectuals use to put you down

But not under

Worms search metaphors

Find them flavorless

We are not worms

They reside in us

Take samples of us

Destroy us 

In our eden

Is worm the snake

Choose your context

Bury or cremation

For mother i chose cremation

Twice

One for her body

The other for burning pictures of her dead body

Sis took the pictures

A sort of proof of her death

Burning pictures a kind of respectful ceremony

Backyard by the old garage

A letting go

Although

She dreams inside my head

Denis Streeter.   5/25/21

not haiku

under sunshine corridors

bees are singing

doors  are clinging

set them aside

jazz plays on

jangled rhythm

settles into groove

disappears

sharp notes listen

minor keys

cleft it out

wander gardens

sneeze

disappear

nothing but vapor

hinted tracks

heckled hens

pay the piper

a logjam or two

disappears

under sunshine corridors

bees are singing

cleft it out

a salvo or two

keeps it interesting

not exceptional

not haiku

denis streeter    5/27/21

where i'm going

in the afterlife

a shade slow

beams forward

testing for angles

sharp edges

filing rasps 

drink tea in bed

cushion testing

matter-o-fact

warming cooling

dusting for bees

rabbits for collars

wrench forward
in the afterlife

dogs wait

cats wander

a wrench of time

wrinkles yawns passes

where pools go

other side

dreaming 

other things

indistinct

a comfortable way of dying
in the afterlife

waves  branches and snores

walks away

a wrench 

a water vein

happy

smiling

denis streeter    5/21/21

Another Mayneism

 

One of my favorite children's writers.

Been collecting his books for years.

He saw the horizon waiting to be set on paper and be seen forever, and went down again for paper and paint box, into the empty camp [school boys from the city camping in the country], where the wind moved tent- flaps and the smoke, one speaking like a thought in the night, and the other silent like the moment before sleep.  Michael knew about both, because thoughts sometimes shouted at him when he was alone, and the sound of Northumberland Road would go away just before sleep came, though if he noticed they were gone he woke again.  The camp was as lonely as a skeleton in a desert.

William Mayne, Summer Visitors, Oxford University Press, 1961, page 182