The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Month: October 2015

  • Poem for Ones Who Know One When They See One

    What W. H. Auden said
    “In Memory of W. B. Yeats,”
    not modified in the “guts”
    or on the blog:
    “For poetry makes nothing happen: it survives”
    so there it is,
    no one need worry.

    “Encore! Encore! More! More!”
    OK, ok, settle down;
    this is no time for pathos, but,
    “Wild nights – Wild Nights!”
    Emily Dickinson reasoned,
    racked with want on the windy,
    open sea of her dainty,

    daunting room of gloom,
    and who knew better even
    than the audible Auden
    how poetry makes nothing
    happen, again and again,
    like seizures,
    and so I give you this, this wildcalm night:

    Poem for Ones
    Who Know One
    When
    They See One:

    Poem for Ones

  • New Cat, Mew Cat

    New CatHave you seen the new cat?
    How could I miss?

    Big cat.
    And fast.

    The new cat changes a lot.
    Big house, zero lot.

    So comes here.
    Our lives will never be the same.

    They never were the same.
    What were we doing?

    Waiting.
    Waiting for what?

    It’s what we do.
    How does the new cat change that?

    The new cat does not appear to wait.
    What are we doing if not waiting?

    Wait not, want not.
    Want not, think not.

    Think not, wake not.
    Wake not, watch not.

    Watch not, pine not.
    Pine not, itch not.

    Itch not, cat not.
    Cat not, can’t not.

    I am a cat.
    That I know.

    The new cat changes
    not that cat.

    New Cat Happy Cat

  • Privacy Poem

    Where do we get this notion
    of privacy?
    Is privacy a value,
    or is privacy a virtue?

    If privacy is a value,
    it’s simply a worth
    we want, and what we want
    is not always what is good
    for us:
    we want alcohol,
    tobacco, and firearms;
    fast cars with sound
    so loud we need
    earplugs;
    instant accesses
    to tête-à-tête boxes
    where we spy
    on our bosses.

    But is privacy a virtue,
    like love, patience, for
    giveness,
    joy of living, or courage
    to befriend?

    Abuse of surveillance
    does not make a virtue
    of privacy,
    just as, as Ivan Illich
    explained,
    protection
    is not the same as
    safety.

    But getting back
    to privacy:
    we want to be seen
    and heard at the party
    but not in the morning
    when the porcelain white
    face throws up
    its image in the little pond.

    The poet wants to be read:
    “Read me! Read me!”
    But the words seem so
    private,
    no way to enter
    the text.
    “I’m in here!”
    the poet exclaims,
    as if from the depths
    of some Xanadu privy,
    and when we hear
    the roller of big cigars,
    his call a private scream
    behind a rude screen,
    we know the poem
    is finished
    and about
    to go
    public.

    In public the words squirm
    for privacy, wriggling
    across the page
    heading
    for a clear margin.

    IMG_20151023_131339

  • Little Lady Bug

  • Cold Reading

    “Yr lines, sunny boy,
    bingy, not calm,
    head busy jabots,”

    read Madame Fraus,
    by the tide that rips
    rocks thru yr palms.

    “Saline swim,
    bit sweet lit life,
    palms stage aligned,

    neck aflame, hair
    shorn horizon
    frizzled smile.

    Silverfish whitecaps
    aquiline wings smack
    & bay across draft brow.

    Paddle out, palms
    cupped, plod, slog,
    moil, & no sloom.”

    No sleep, steep crag
    to pine green palms,
    in line for clay water.

    Around another point,
    the persuasive ocean
    spreads open palms.

    “I’ll see you next week,”
    Madame Fraus said.
    “Leave the door open.”

    Cold Reading

  • Teeda, Sped, Flotsam, and Twist

    Mr. Teeda with tart taste
    hairy-scarfy lips late but at last
    arises to seize downtown bus amid
    yawns and snort, sneeze and nicks
    himself hie shavely in tortello
    braggadocio hurry-scurry.
    “Out-a-my-way, out-a-my-way,”
    Teeda cocoons the mod you
    low     muddle of his noggin.

    Meantime, Mr. Sped, cold splash
    asleep in red tide road dust,
    implacable rouge shore,
    weird civic bird waggles past,
    rubber fins folding dreamily,
    tail swerving to and fro, football
    public service posters advertising
    Hollywood endings posted to fuzzy
    windows frozen shut with rust.

    Salt shakers fill the upright oak seats,
    and time passes so terribly slowly,
    magazines, cigarettes, styrofoam cups
    of coffee and newspapers near boiling point,
    Mr. Sped grows wonky waiting,
    hoity-toity, charged with C of C,
    expectant umbrellas aloft as Line 15
    stretches in cap and scarf
    amid coughs, and heaves, and spews.

    “All one needs is the fare,” Mr. Flotsam claims.
    “The rest depends on the robes
    and suits of one’s
    sword swallowed piers.”
    “Brobdingnagian egos these
    competitive solicitor types,” Mr. Twist explains.
    “Half a man most of them, don’t feel
    whole without an opponent in their ring
    to tort down their ecomanic day,” Teeda says.

    The firm still self-identifies
    with vocational pigeonholes,
    so when the toilet stops up,
    they call in a travel agent.
    In the boardroom, near the whiteboard,
    Teeda polishes his burgundy wingtips
    with the hands-off electronic
    machine, rubs cream in his hair,
    hears the snake’s whir.