Duane Locke
3 poems
**
Email to Damniso Lopez
(The journal)
The Journal I keep in longhand I call
The Journal of the Plague Tear, Defoe
Influence. Sometimes my entries are
Metrical. People have converted
Quotidian life into a plague, their beliefs,
Their values. My journal is a series
Of exercises in exorcisms. I am
Trying to become the sounds
Of a kettledrum, or Kentucky bluegrass.
Some of my entries are mystical
With nick-hacks and nick-names.
I write to circulate pieces of eight,
Kyrie eleisons, Krafft-Ebings.
Much is achieved by having an archive
Of words: the marginalia
Of a marriage de inconvenience
Is remembered as a soliloquy
Of Mark Antony. Silver sandal
Straps crossing pale green
Painted toenails when written
Down is reseen as a postage stamp
From the Federated Malay states.
**
Email to Damniso Lopez
(Golgotha)
She came from the Golgotha golf links,
Was a reader of Maxim Gorki. She
Resembled the song, Jingle Bells.
Her hair was in the Halfway House style,
A Hagiology and a Habeas Corpus.
She displayed her collection of whelk shells.
I knew there was standing room only, but
Starvation was the state's evidence,
The station wagon with the statuette.
The cracked plate glass with the playground.
Her pulchritude was plenipotentiary.
So now I have no evidence.
**
Email to Damniso Lopez
(Smaller)
When I was smaller, I had
Larger visions: The czarina
Was from Czechoslovakia,
She painted while prone
On a raw-blond-wood scaffold
The Sistine Chapel in the manner
Of the Fontainebleu school--
Dainty, but democratic, cupids,
Long, ankle-length gold twisted hair,
Whirled around a work bench
As the cupids talked about
Workmen's compensation insurance.
It is easy to hypnotize yourself
With words and transfigure
The whole world into something
That reverses Gresham's law,
Becomes gum trees on the Gulf stream.
**
return to sawbuck 1.8
**
Duane Locke lives in rural Lakeland, Florida & has had (as of May 07) 5,877 poems published in print and ezines & 17 print and e-books published. For more information, interviews, awards, etc. click on Google -- he has quasi half-million entries.
**
Email to Damniso Lopez
(The journal)
The Journal I keep in longhand I call
The Journal of the Plague Tear, Defoe
Influence. Sometimes my entries are
Metrical. People have converted
Quotidian life into a plague, their beliefs,
Their values. My journal is a series
Of exercises in exorcisms. I am
Trying to become the sounds
Of a kettledrum, or Kentucky bluegrass.
Some of my entries are mystical
With nick-hacks and nick-names.
I write to circulate pieces of eight,
Kyrie eleisons, Krafft-Ebings.
Much is achieved by having an archive
Of words: the marginalia
Of a marriage de inconvenience
Is remembered as a soliloquy
Of Mark Antony. Silver sandal
Straps crossing pale green
Painted toenails when written
Down is reseen as a postage stamp
From the Federated Malay states.
**
Email to Damniso Lopez
(Golgotha)
She came from the Golgotha golf links,
Was a reader of Maxim Gorki. She
Resembled the song, Jingle Bells.
Her hair was in the Halfway House style,
A Hagiology and a Habeas Corpus.
She displayed her collection of whelk shells.
I knew there was standing room only, but
Starvation was the state's evidence,
The station wagon with the statuette.
The cracked plate glass with the playground.
Her pulchritude was plenipotentiary.
So now I have no evidence.
**
Email to Damniso Lopez
(Smaller)
When I was smaller, I had
Larger visions: The czarina
Was from Czechoslovakia,
She painted while prone
On a raw-blond-wood scaffold
The Sistine Chapel in the manner
Of the Fontainebleu school--
Dainty, but democratic, cupids,
Long, ankle-length gold twisted hair,
Whirled around a work bench
As the cupids talked about
Workmen's compensation insurance.
It is easy to hypnotize yourself
With words and transfigure
The whole world into something
That reverses Gresham's law,
Becomes gum trees on the Gulf stream.
**
return to sawbuck 1.8
**
Duane Locke lives in rural Lakeland, Florida & has had (as of May 07) 5,877 poems published in print and ezines & 17 print and e-books published. For more information, interviews, awards, etc. click on Google -- he has quasi half-million entries.
