I am writing/posting a minimalist-like poem each day until the end of November; & I don’t know exactly why.
Shout out to editor, Mary-Jane Grandenetti, webmaster, Lonnard Dean Watkins, and readers at Muse-Pie Press for their current issue of The Fib Review & for including three of my Fibonacci.
**10.31**
Nowhere Marathon Man
Running
on
empty
on
fumes
nothing
in sight
**11.01**
The Navel
Contemplating
the navel
becomes me
&
you.
**11.02**
Old Apartment November Chill
Sitting inside
a preschool brown blanket
cocoon on the floor
nose to the teaching
black & white Zenith TV
the radiator rattling ends…
a working mother’s key enters
the top lock.
**11.03**
Dia de los Muertos on The Lido Deck
“It’s
true
about
Samoa
sinking in the sea”
she said, playing with the ice cubes
in her third gin & tonic, while I swallowed the worm.
Note: November 1-2, 2021, The Norwegian Bliss is on Route from Los Angeles to Puerto Vallarta and The Carnival Dream from Galveston, Texas to Costa Maya.
**11.04**
American Sentences: Missing a Body & Face
Poetry was arrested in Queens New York for being radical.
Poetry now sits on death row writing lines for Julian Assange.
Notes:
1. It has come to this: There is not one free reading series or free open mic in Queens, and we no longer have a Queens Poet Laureate (state approved or not); fact check this. Free poetry events in public spaces were disappearing before COVID; how are they doing in your neck of the woods?
2. The “American sentence,” 17 syllables in one imagistic vernacular line, was proposed by Allen Ginsberg as an American take on the Japanese haiku.
i
**11.05**
Small Group Interaction & Communication 101
We
stare
at each
other; Prof.
stares even better.
Are we patients in a circle?
When he says, “No one is to leave this room or their seats,”
I look for the closest exit.
When he says, “Don’t hit
anyone,”
I feel
at
home.
**11.06**
Dreams the Frigidaire & Matches Again
Last
night
her voice
took him back
to their burnt down home
to find G.I. Joe frozen with Barbie
on two ice cube trays…
she eating her chocolate ice cream
after having his…
his worst find
a box of matches.
**11.07**
Gratitude Gaia
We do not deserve your orbit: Cosmic slide closer
to the Sun, Mercury could have
a hot new soul mate!
We gnawing
at you…
all
dust.
**11.08**
Missing Sun
Sun down
in the sea,
the life guard’s
sand footprints
fill with water.
**11.09**
On The Corner of Queens Boulevard & Jewel Ave
Prim pretty lady
beneath white saucer hat
wearing
white dress
white gloves
white shoes
glances past traffic
steps off the curb
onto shit
**11.10**
Cute
An
it
t
bit
t
cock
roach
climb
ing
up
a
can
of
RAID!
**11.11**
Buddha Baby
Giving the world’s craggy
edges soft wrinkles
balancing
cliffs with sea shores
harvesting where bones decay
**11.12**
Predator Night Owl
eyes
a little
running meal —
full moon mouse!
**11.13**
American Sentences
Hail! Smell The Great President Don Joe Triden & The Republicrat Party!
Smell! Smell! Carry on as our big corporate political assholes as we swallow your shit!
The U.S. Minimum Wage
Dad, really? Gladiators said, “We who are about to die, salute you” to Cesar?” Not Quite.
Note: Maybe this is a new form: The American Mini-political rant.
**11.14**
Leaving The Hamptons
Salvia Divinorum held me down last night for a tickle & disappeared too soon.
Perhaps, missing Sativa, she flew back on a red-eye to Sierra Mazateca.
If she loves me, she’ll return with Sativa & a case of Mezcal
for a heavenly threesome in a room with a view of the ocean!
Death by vodka in a seedy dark room in Las Vegas has been done.
**11.15**
Wheelchair/Autumn Sun
Lonnie D is back
on the Corner…“I left
my right leg in Iraq.
Fuck it!”… popping crazy
wheelies!
**11.16**
First Contact
Their palm
on my forehead,
mine on their heart,
we recognized
each other.
Cracka: Short Film Short Review
If, on a limited budget, you time transport a swastika tattooed white supremacist war hero, in chains, back to a Southern plantation to slave for black masters, to be raped, battered and fried, only to become more rabidly murderous by the film’s end, instead of being Disney baby-formula redeemed, then, obviously, this film’s director/producer is a divisive race-baiter looking to outrage black people and scare whites—say the critics making sure few people see Cracka. So cancelation and obscurity in order, one should consider this 22 minute film trash and not see it. Amazon appears to have stopped carrying it under pressure; you can sign the petition against it here. Some critics are quick to mention Dale “Rage” Resteghini is known for shooting music videos and is no Quentin Tarantino! Tarantino’s Django Unchained also attempted to get at the U.S. brand of slavery and made 4.25 million at the box office; his characters also broke the movie record for repeating the great North American epithet…need I say it?
You can see Cracka for free on VYRE. I give it a C+ and B+ for risk taking.
If its simple premise, or the like, appears in a nuanced feature film; made with a big Hollywood budget; produced/directed by Spike Lee or Jordan Peele; starring Denzel Washington and Leonardo DiCaprio; to be released in Regal theatres, who knows what grade it would merit.
I keep wondering if we will ever see a nationally released film that authentically depicts U.S. slavery down to the bones? Who would want to see it? Why now?
**11.17**
Our Fathers
My brother disappeared
in his imaginary father’s
found bible, where
he found answers &
forgiveness for anything
he would lay on anyone.
My father disappeared
when I was a newborn &
forgiveness sounds nice.
**11.18**
Not Waving, Not Drowning, On Land Smiling
When the young lady with the very pretty face and equally attractive cleavage
ringing up the shaky old man’s groceries at Anthony’s corner Bodega told him
the way he was looking at her made her uncomfortable, He said, “Please excuse
me; I just remembered the precise moment I became aware of having erections:
it was in Mrs Ferrugio’s fourth grade class, with addition up on the board; and I
find how you do not need a scanner to add up my things wonderfully impressive.”
**11.19**
November 19, 2021
Earth casts its longest shadow for the longest time in near six-hundred years on my moon.
Silly to call moon mine as I just have, perhaps;
yet, I want to call earth mine too,
as well as this land,
standing here
as I
still
do.
**11.20**
“Paˈ lante, Siempre Paˈ lante!”
If you knew the daily walk
from 1421 Longfellow Ave
down Freeman Street
to the Westchester Ave
Bronx River overpass,
then onto Bronx River Ave
up to James Monroe High School 1972-76
then back, knowing
this was the poorest urban district in the country,
you would understand
why “Paˈ lante, Siempre Paˈ lante!”
are words as dear to some Puerto Ricans
as God Bless
America.
Let’s start tracing
your depression and anxiety
**11.21**
He Wins Again! (with Norton, Schadenfreude & Company)
For E
Si,
this
poet
loves to make
big fat pasteles
picante—chock full of fresh cuts
of carne—he lays out, to applause, for publishers.
**11.22**
To Be Continued, Or Not
The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation— Henry Thoreau
Most men live lives wanting adoration.
Most men live lives of incomplete maturation.
Most men live lives of endless masturbation.
Most men live lives of drowning perspiration.
Most men live lives of shallow inspiration.
Most men live lives of bought & sold castration.
Most men live lives of manufactured alienation.
Most men live lives on the front lines of negation.
Most men live lives the tools of heartless nations.
Most men live lives unaware they’re born creation
iteration to iteration to iteration to iteration or not.
**11.23**
Ease in S
Warm bath
tight muscles
letting go
in both thighs
easing
symmetry
**11.24**
Left Open
My antiquarian cracked
leather journal
filled with remarkable
meanderings
except for the missing
love poems.
**11.25**
Oh My!
Season: Autumn
Holiday: Thanksgiving!
On To Do List: Stuff it!
**11.26**
Young Escape
Two bicycles crashed
entangled—They looked
into each other.
**11.27**
Old Escape
His old widow stands
by his fresh interment—alone,
silent, cold, done.
**11.28**
What it Takes on the Run
My backhand passing shot down the line
kissed the baseline corner so sweetly,
falling asleep before midnight
came easy.
Match points
are what dreams are made on.
**11.29**
Exceptional!
So
here
we are—
living in
the same compartment
since Ronald Regan took office
(before computers & cell phones went to bed with us),
far from spectacular bombings of Grenada, Yugoslavia,
Kuwait, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Palestine (safe, no worries!).
Peace,
Andrés