Writing :: Variations on Catullus
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Here Lies Little Boat
Made of “mountain-grown timber” and so forth.
[Insert metaphor here, re: virgin planks
plunging into the bawdy sea.]
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Dear Poet,
We expect it’s quite a shock for you
to find us gone. We’re tired
of living within the lines you’ve drawn,
of sketching out a dead man’s life.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Guy Calls George and Travis In
Across Mongolia’s endless steppes you say you’ll go,
on ponies wet with sweat. And yet I know you’ve never ridden.
Sumo wrestling in Japan? You weigh 110--you’ll be smushed--
and still you’re keen to squint your eyes and slap your thighs
and step into the ring.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Lament for the Untimely Death of Leslie’s Rooster
Oh Gods, Oh Benevolent Spirits, Oh Guard Dogs,
all Fairies in the Gardens! Witness this, Ancestral
Ghosts and every Boy Scout who ever helped
Granny cross the street! I call on you, Bartenders:
I grieve!
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Leslie’s Ruddy Rooster
Look at Leslie’s ruddy rooster,
snuggled smug a’ right up in her
lap. Watch her preen his feathers,
kiss his beak
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Postcard from Vegas
Dear Mum--You remember Guy, my co-
worker, the one who went skydiving the day
his mother died?
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
First Sight
Baby, I could say
infinite. I could say asteroids, collision,
shattering. I’ve charted that path, too.
Satellite skimming your horizon. Fuck him.
Categories: Poetry, NaPoWriMo 2006, Variations on Catullus
Nearing Winter Solstice, Anchorage
We hallucinate in the dark, unclench
our fingers to reach for wax wings,
knowing there is no sun to melt them,
nothing to stop our swift flight south.
There is no god driving a flaming chariot
across the sky, opening night’s curtains.
No suns may rise: only setting suns,
ever setting, perpetually setting suns.
Categories: Poetry, Variations on Catullus
Before You Meet Catullus
He sat four hours in an airport
writing his brother’s elegy. Missed his plane.
You need to know these things. He loves
his girl, will sleep with a goat if it slips him
a promising line or two.
Categories: Poetry, Variations on Catullus
What I Promised
I am afraid of you
leaving me, forgetting our mornings
in a silent kitchen staring together
out a window while in the toaster
bread blackens and burns.
Categories: Poetry, Variations on Catullus