The Coming of the Toads

A Notebook – Since 2007

Category: Poetry

  • Ires & Ears & Reader Satisfaction Survey

    Instructions: Read each row left to right, then, in each empty cell in the first column, insert a word that irks you. In the corresponding empty cell in the far right column, insert your irky word’s opposite. If you can’t think of a word that irks you, insert a word that feels good to your ears. (Note: You may also read the words by column, top to bottom, or bottom to top – individual reader experience may vary.)

    play ear piquancy
    ear wig able
    ear ate oblige
    ear riff hive
    ear rev rant
    iron browse nose
    ear irk sum
    ir clothed ears
    ear iris bow
    ear nose spell
    ire oh you
    rear reverse ably
    wear plus tear
    spread sheet foot on
    oval ire head
    for get it
    come out side

     

    Reader Satisfaction Survey

    In the cell to the right of the comment, indicate your level of satisfaction with The Coming of the Toads blog, using a 1 for “highly likely,” 2 for “depends,” 3 for “no opinion,” 4 for “not likely,” and 5 for “no way.” If the question suggests an “agree” or “disagree” answer, use 1 for “totally agree,” 2 for “agree somewhat,” 3 for “sometimes,” 4 for “I meditate often,” and 5 for “totally disagree.”

    1

    2

    3

    4

    5
    I’ll probably stop reading your blog soon:
    I’d rather listen to the radio or watch TV:
    I prefer posts that are not poetry:
    I want to see more pictures:
    You should sponsor some giveaways:
    Have you thought of knitting for a hobby?
    I liked the recent bicycle post:
    I’m not sure what you mean by a post?:
    I’m currently reading “War and Peace”:
    I’m thinking of subscribing to a magazine:
    I’m thinking of buying a new car:
    I have enough clothes to suit my needs:
    I can never get a plumber when I need one:
    I got here by mistake:
    I was referred here by my plumber:
    My socio-economic demographic sucks:

    Thank you for visiting The Coming of the Toads and for participating in the survey.

    A few gratuitous pics for this post, because some readers have come to expect pics with words, and, believe it or not, appreciate a good selfie when they see one:

    Photo for cover draft
    Foggy Day

     

  • Vowel Motion & Consonant Commotion

    Vowel Motion

    accelerate encyclopedia inch along
    oval verbs Uranus Your > yr
    wave  ~ func
    funa  [this space left blank] fank
    fenk fink Fonk
    funk  [purposelessly] California
    Faulkner Mississippi Oak Grove
    Umbrella  #dearjohn Adieu Aeiou – Ah, You!

    Consonant Commotion

    Click and clack bicycle rack tongue and tooth
    cat myrrh-th parts, spokes and wheels
    synth Dry gin groove
    Sly tryst Hymnal perpendicular hill
    WHY THIS?

    ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

    		 AND NOT WHAT?
     nothing Peaceful city  nothing goin’ on
    Slow whisper shy summer down by the wyrm bay
    consonants moving by & by

     

  • Variation of Psalm 100

    Build joy full fool noise
    sweet glands sing
    gladness come singing Blake’s blacksmith
    not we our own selfies we are people grazing
    Go through open doors with thanksgiving
    and into each home in song with guitars
    tambourines and harmonicas clapping hands
    ringing hullabaloo thanks to all Celebrate
    descry each blessing for this
    good mercy ever
    lasting and this truth endures
    to all to all to all

     

  • On the Back Nine

    Nothing, no good hits on this
    irrelevant and irreverent
    nevertheless glorious morn.

    Ritual brings them here,
    always the same four,
    carrying clubs and beer,

    spreading foul shots
    and fresh cheer
    over the warm green.

    Far into the back nine
    a fox crosses
    their fairway in a jig.

    A twisted old man in an oilskin
    coat chases after the fox,
    waves, and disappears.

  • Coconut Oil – A Novel Book Launch

    Salty and Penina, the war torn, young couple from “Penina’s Letters,” return to Refugio in “Coconut Oil,” a sequel.

    They come home to Refugio (the fictional beach town located north of El Porto and south of Grand on Santa Monica Bay) in an attempt to retire a bit early. So forty or so years have passed since the close of “Penina’s Letters.”

    Salty is again our first person narrator. But “Coconut Oil” continues an experimental narrative form, and Sal hands the mic off to several other characters as we are brought up to date on Refugio.

    The themes of “Coconut Oil” include aging, housing and homelessness, gentrification, and how we occupy ourselves over time. The form is experimental in a way a common reader might enjoy.

    The paperback version of “Coconut Oil” is available now, and the electronic version should be up next week.

    The back cover photo for “Coconut Oil” was taken from the northbound Coast Starlight train as it passed by the point at Refugio Beach, California, a campground about 26 miles north of Santa Barbara. The photo was taken sometime in the late 70’s.

    Refugio from Coast Starlight
    Refugio from Coast Starlight Special

     

  • Lady Gaga Sitting Cross-legged on Her Gomden

    Dancers with Band The Touch Yous 2Largess the monstress Lady Gaga sunscalds her saga
    Lady who? Lady Gaga, aka radio caca
    from Saginaw hitchhiked qua-qua
    down to Lollapalooza maga
    a funny thing happening on the way to pay paga
    and on her gomden she sings her hagiography

    Her saintly lady hagiography
    with still a lot more to saga
    heorte abut America her maga and her paga
    and how baba gets her yagas out no caca
    on her gomden a tabloid tatoo-bio gone maga
    Lady Gaga’s letters to a lil monster qua-qua

    Poker faced on her gomden qua-qua
    the androginous Germanotta hag
    monster tattooed maga
    eats her own saga
    to satisfy our taste for caca
    Lady Gaga please phone yr paga

    Speechless she calls her paga
    the sharp-toothed Gaga in her qua-qua
    on the road in her caca
    wrapped in a graphic rhapsody
    from ragas to riches sagacity
    of rarely heard magnitude

    The herd of monsters their magnitude
    staggers the Grand Duchess of Paganini
    oh, the fame, the fama, the bottle rocket saga
    the dressing up of the pointed qua-quas
    the beatific dress covers the hag’s gomden
    stained and glossed in caca

    Eyeless in Caca did Lady Gaga
    usurp the sagitta of Madonna-non-maga
    her songs to mill on a stone-grind
    her etymologically reclined paga
    singing la-qua-qua, la-qua-qua-qua-la
    sacrosanct slanginess saga

    Cacophonically paganan
    maga dances the qua-qua
    and the gnome sings under the saga

  • Heart’s Apron Sestina

    Heart's ApronOozing down the sinuous sleeve the heart’s blood
    tempts the jackdaws to table to dine
    each bird a caddy for another’s purse
    whose ears exceed hearing and have eyes to eat
    who renounce not their heart’s guards
    but pronounce things with ease and clarity

    if left to their own corrections
    sop with erasure the heart’s brood
    I ago did watch one eye that pursed guard
    too hungry to alone dine
    for the ears on the word’s feast
    a three egg amulet protects the purse

    but there’s nothing in the purse
    the notion needs correction
    so we can sit down empty and eat
    something other than this soul’s doubloon
    good grief alone better to dine
    than suffer the guarded guards gardening

    the ones who taught the heart’s guards
    deluge ago to spend with lavish the purse
    so that today’s diners
    might eat correctly
    in a sacrifice bloodless
    at an ordinary eatery

    so with consciences clean let’s eat
    bring us the menus guards
    and napkins for these touchy emotions
    unbuckle the rope that holds the purse
    let it all hang out but with good manners
    for our purposeful dinner

    ago then we did dine
    on hearts on sleeves we did eat
    though correctly
    under the apron of the guards
    who held our purses
    and allowed aloud no drooling

    but this rectitudinal dining in and out
    fills with bile and drool of toasts and teas
    drop your guard forget the purse let’s flee

  • Waltzing with a Loon to the Tune of a Whippoorwill

    Moondance 1Henry’s loon waltzed into the room laughing
    laughing laughing at the phony moon
    rising over the pond-like screen
    laughing at Henry, at me, and at you too
    who scorned the whippoorwilled
    who loon-waltzed our way across the fall season

    who tweeted twitted twisted and tallyhoed on
    but what stilled the waters the antithesis of laughter
    came the calm call of the whippoorwill
    calling up to the ballooning moon
    to Henry, Huck, Hank, and all of us who
    waltzing across a lightbox screen

    click click click the path of the reen
    and fail to see the turn of the season
    while flashes YouTube and you too
    laughing laughing laughing
    at the simple simple single moon
    who waltzes with the whippoorwill

    to the epizeuxises of the whippoorwill
    the yoke on me preening for the screening
    in a full no half no quarter no moon
    in the turning turning turning of the seasons
    as the lone loon laughs
    at Henry, Huck, Hank, me, and you too

    yes at you too you too you too
    whistles the only whippoorwill
    as the moon falls fades the laugh
    and across the pond fills the screen
    white going going gone the season
    of the wry loon waltzing with the moon

    with the dry improbably wry moon
    then on the far shore you too
    out of rhyme out of sync out of season
    running running running for the whippoorwill
    and across the pond comes a single scream
    that echoes epizootically laughing

    out of season the waltzing singing loon
    laughing woo hoo! woo hoo! woo hoo!
    the poor loon waltz in a pale fall screen

  • Sestina’s Angel

    Sestina falls prey to the sound silence of the Angel
    sitting in her lap playing with a ball of wireless
    a wireless webbed feline bureaucracy
    where pleas receive no reply
    and the sole sound is a silent catty wind
    and long days pass with nothing said of the terrible

    Rilke ranted something about beauty being terrible
    while in Sestina’s lap sat the lapping catting Angel
    who cannot hear in the stringless whine
    no place for the bird to come to rest on any wire
    wireless carriages of desire race to a place where all replies
    are lost in the terrible beauty of the host’s hidden bureaucracy

    At Sestina’s night bureau sits a bird clicking crazily
    a loon poet on the bum singing terribly
    rolling out with rigor a robust reply
    to the Angel
    who threatens to wire
    up the wireless wind

    To tone down this tuneless wordwind
    while sleeps the will-less bureaucracy
    wireless
    and terrible
    but for now the Angel
    sends no reply

    Any ranting request certainly receives no reply
    as Rilke races the ramparts terribly winded
    and shaking her head the windless wireless Angel
    disappears into the flow chart of blissful bureaucracy
    to that place so terrible
    wireworms crawl the tripwires of the hardwired

    Waving to the boldest bidder of weird wire
    waiting for the beauty of the instantaneous reply
    that memo from the waiting Angel so terrible
    dark wings unfold and the winds unwind
    the galaxies of celestial bureaucracy
    bang and bend in time to the tune of the supreme Angel

    The terrible embrace of the wireless
    Angel orders no reply
    For wellness dwindles so deep in such a bureaucracy

     

    See more Sestinas.

  • Sestina’s Radio

    My left speaker falsifies me,
    crackles, hisses, clichéd toad.
    I turn my right speaker to you.
    Surf wax fills the air,
    wave tubes squeezed tight.
    An unreal bird sings,

    pierces my ear with a ring,
    and to my radio welds me,
    night’s station holding tight,
    while in the surf singing toads
    fill the ringing air
    with songs of greyouts.

    I try to explain these sounds to you:
    above my left ear a toad sings,
    caught in my curly bird hair,
    a secret word brings to me,
    from KJOB, sings this DJ Toad:
    “Silence is noise for you tonight.”

    My ears grow frightened,
    and I look for sounds to you,
    the coming of the toads,
    the interventions of Sestina’s sting,
    for alone she sings to me.
    My ear receives whispers of air,

    a clogged blogging air,
    seashelled, wax watertight.
    The toads begin to mew
    in the alleys of my ears joyously,
    a clear and concise ring,
    the singing of the toads,

    about nothing much to do.
    No sound fills the air.
    Nothing outside this radio sings,
    its channel fixed tight
    to sing only to you,
    asymmetrically.

    Only in my left ear sings this toad,
    for me a secret aria,
    while fades like light your voice.

    See more Sestinas.

  • Peccadilloes; or, The School of No Sestina

    Peccadilloes; or, The School of No Sestina

    In the School of No, every word
    sounds a peccadillo,
    every class closes a cage,
    every cage captures a rule,
    every rule regards no
    with gusto.

    No bites yes with gusto
    behind a fence of words.
    No, no, no
    peccadilloes;
    that’s the rule
    in the land of cages.

    Explained John Cage,
    what cage you’re in, escape with gusto.
    Well, that was anyway John Cage’s rule.
    Silence was for the rule his word,
    though he broke records of silence with every chance peccadillo
    he got in the School of No.

    No No knows
    a Yes one day came selling out of a cage
    peccadilloes,
    from a food cart stuffed with gusto,
    apples falling and rotting for a code was worded:
    no Nos can know – the candy apple red rule –

    a committee of Nos ruled.
    So life is slow in the School of No,
    for a world wrapped in rules needs no words,
    and all the world’s a cage
    where the only gusto
    blows in from the occasional peccadillo

    by some picaroon poet acting alone,
    against tide and rule,
    all hopped up on some street grade gusto,
    but soon runs into a posse of nos,
    and is put back in the cage
    without a word.

    So with a bit of tempered gusto we suggest this peccadillo:
    every word should break a rule
    to escape a School of No cage.