tock

Now servant seconds grow the day
And mongrel time is calendar
As sun and moon unevenly conspire,
Treachery and comfort are wed.
There is a web in the spider
For the fly minded spies.
Dissection dreams prevail.

motor

Coarse magic plays out its songs.
Dead engine in a field screams,
' But I am Ozymandias!'.
Let us sing the song of Sallowmen
Then there will be a silence
And a burial in blue.

dual/duel

Crydeology and orbital love theory
The polarity ritual ,
Notions of repulsion,
Attraction is a suspect
And so, back to back,
posed as duelers,
We begin that circular dance.
Meeting (never met),
Assuming some spherical rendezvous,
Positing the touchless cares,
The desiccation possibility,
As lips and fingers take on a dusty patina
And senses drop away like a funhouse floor.

tour

Contusional blessings of the hand and soul
blue trucking on the veins
below the yeiding porcelain
approaching navel bases
reading nervous endings
on acupunctural roadmaps
the tao of chilling passions
disturbed by china winds
like the rolling glass of lakes
so drive I rain to break it
in so many swollen places
and someday rest I well
shores met by seeking root
to measure space for me
for length
for heightening of dreamsels.

27B

The chaff nature of this day,
a particulate dawn without edges,
The scrape and shuffle of tentative doors
And the split blind curiosity .
All nocturnes fade on the last note
Stretched like a web end
To snap silently on first light .
Thresh holds me,
Granularly, grainy, grounded .

All

Occasional bouts of magic, A screaming skid into some barbed heaven,
Incantation louder than thought
And walking on Teflon soles.
All mountains are higher when you kneel,
All terrors mill your tread,
All joys are promiscuous,
All lovers inexhaustible,
All money too precious to spend,
All definition done.

gambol

I play blind poker across the sheets
with trembling hands dealt,
and a gambler's eye upon you.
Chance would be a fine thing.
Chance would be a fine thing.
One to ten forays to test
how lie these on those
and slide them, curved,
to hide them, curved,
so deep and deftly done.
Soft moans for gaining tosses,
screams for winning,
and whispers for the endgame.

My deal?

light play

A little light in the down drag
but that tipping tophat bird declines
drinking the impossible onstage shadows.
Commentary on the chaos:
"Some of it does."
and some of it creeps the alleys
in search of motion sensing spotlights.

Like rabbits, we watch the lipless kiss
in the excited patience of an empty carpark.

(c) Glenn Sheppard

glimpse

Bumbling and rutting in ritu
with no outlaw blessings
but in the Sanskrit rain
I tumble shedding dark droplets.
In the dharma dryer
hard rolling samsara steam
passes through delusional vents
and mingles on atomic levels
with passing and sentient traffic.

Mayhaps

We die on principle.
OK?
For its sake
you must lie about your dying
and release the press in May.
This is a rule,
to die in May.
Then poisonous flowers may seek
a place behind your heart
and beat back
with scents to mask decay
and sun's warmth
to hurry up the process,
to quicken the soil.

visitation

John the Baptist rolled in screaming,
"Next time I do it in hot wax on Jerry Springer!".
(He had been down on Jarvis Street looking for some head)
We mumbled, through my lips,
about plastique surgery, the benefits of time sharing
and the economics of cursory theft projections.
I told him to
Never take what you make
or lend a borrower bee.
He took my wet/dry shaver and a pound of salt cod.

response

What is the temperature of a blush?
Organ response donations made
In mildly burning seizures.
Skin too quickly proud to crawl
Does gland stands.
Capillary pulse pumps open
And the yawning eyelids cannot see their gaping dance.
It all stokes a facial furnace
And it looks a lot like health.
Ruddy, ruddy, ruddy...

theory

Clinging to the neck of a swan
Missing the unknowable
Watching your still hand move
Riding your veins
Reading transparent correspondence
Flat tajectory in a tornado.

Everything is assigned;
THE THEORY OF UNIVERSAL ASSIGNATION.
More scars and stories,
Less fear.
Desperate entertainment for the mistakenly smug,
The children of the annex.
Their music is deaf but popular.
My ears, popular but deaf.

kings1

It is notching much
when saints decline my invitations
or boughs bend low with salivating monkeys
all apeshit with useful priapisms,
the most primitive of tools,
to speak to me
in their charming novocainal drawl,
of great, abstracted kings
and regally promiscuous gifts.
They had bitten the badly aimed hand
and begun a gesticulation revue
that, to my mind,
beggars the bowl and builds this biography of errors
and these dislocated penchants.
All go to a matchbox perdition,
that zoological playscape
where we place our trifling trust.

l'eau

tearing the fragile meniscus
like a razor to a veil,
the needle drops into the pond
...spinning

dowellian

July and
overflights of suspicious angels
remote viewing
moving nights and ageing rites
minute mysticism
furtive deities hide behind public locker doors
sticks of stainless steel incense
the sudden desire to build a kite
a world involved in the politics and religion of dowels
Dowelism
harsh penile codes regret that they cannot attend
the debutantes ball, and ball and bawl...
John Donne is the bouncer
he cholers Satan at the door
three batters up
and songs fly out of nowhere in life particular
sing froid, fraud, Freud
ambulances meander a slow path left turn
fly fishing for tears in a basin
bad casting
single star
baited and rated
sufficiently sated
map-strewn decrepitudinal lines
trapped freedom wriggles like worm bait
bad teeth in forgiving jaws
death glowers at conception
can it not see our spermicidal love?

November

I silenced the crow by calling him Brother.
I passed through the ribs of a forest.
November clarity
Sounding miles
And I, like a pensioner,
Sit on these benches
Contemplating short lines.

holyday

A monk on the road kneels,
drags beads on the white line.
One by one they speak...
(Mack truck mantras, chrome dog days)
Strange land of hanging words,
sky as exposed and deliberate as green eyes,
ominous splintered clouds
knit by resonance.
Taking down and caressing words,
The Cipheress holds by sighs and sight.
I tempt a question to her.
“Not your place to ask”, she breathes.
The monk gathers up his beads
and is gone.

hungar beach

Skeletal remains;
He likes the view,
Picks his teeth with slim intentions
Then smiles as broadly
As the bones allow.
Unimpressed by solar bleaches
He prefers the grimy, crevasse taints,
The mossy wash that lasts for seeming ever.

otherman

Ashley shagged and talkative;
this one is slimly married
like a skin to a drum,
not a full stop bride to anyone
but breathing all the pirate air
that stole my rock and polished ways.
She is a stiletto thinker on a man’ s part
and I am the garter martyr,
the constant angel of gullibility.
I have been miss-laid in a witch ditch,
habit formed by this and those
and set in mind
and mined this set.
Okay and be careful.........

Listing

Cut out Kinseyan brothel inheritance tax
Query the gamut as you run
Tofu addiction is a sexual pipe
Smoke from an Oriental bowl
Some antiques are phallic
Look through pince-nez with funhouse mirror lens
Mummy-fried chicken
Flash-sucked dinner dates and dancing
Office temptoraries
Mouldy suited office triathaletes
Back dancing to the moaning sunset
Body odour psychology
Pheremone dilatory student loans
Granted
Much aligned machismo metricated
Higher chip count in crushed bags
Testicular propulsion tested
Trial in blue
Judgemental follicles terminating residence
Accusatory mirrors whine their affectations
Queens draw to an inside joke
Saliva
"Who shines their own shoes?", ask the Few
Soldiers raise their hands and drop pretensious badges
......Honour

Seminole Tangent

Oh yessssssssssssssssssssssssss...
I be you be me
and salsify the sundown
(they say the roots are oyster-like)
to affectations of gourmetic grace.
I be weedling at your garden,
unworthy but so willing that it causes pain,
right there where you say you'll sit
and I deserve you because brats
and beggars
make salvationary patterns.
Sauve qui peut, cherie
and when the music plays
I will dance you to the wall
and bash beats into plaster
lovingly and
soooooooooo slowly
that when we root together,
it will hold.


(c) Glenn Sheppard - January 21, 2001

Ode to Despolue

Author Comment
egyptiandoll {Peggy Meeks-King}
(6/14/01 2:02:38 am)
"tell me poets never die"(ode to despolue)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"tell me poets never die"



I read something today
tell me it is not so, that
a poet went home.
I know he is in a better place,
but still to never read the shadows of his face
in a new poem from his hand.
I read his poems when he was here
and today read some more, "lovely work" I say again,
it made me sad to read things he had done
before he went away
but made me happy to know he
had a good life while he was here creating in shades of blue.
I read today he made a visit to a grave yard to
touch the stones of those who had went before
him ,well it touch me so much so deeply.
I stand by my window tonight and look at a white
star and wonder where you are "poet"
just then I must have got my wish
i see you there in the sky this night painting pretty stars
in a poem of light, i know you will be allright,
thank you for the poetry you shared with us while
you were with us as a treasure more sweet then the
red rose
vines that grow near the garden of rhyme,
I will think of you often from time to time,
your words are divine.


good bye til we[all poets] meet again



ode to despolue

Edited by: egyptiandoll at: 6/16/01 12:26:36 pm

Oh Well

Stillborn journals,
ever changing constants,
a shifting in the grout;
stone tiles are piling backwards
and then towards the door.
You are trapped inside
with an airless breeze,
a weak and Siren hum,
so pervasive,
so irritatingly seductive.

A resonating doorbell
..............oh well

Mother

Was I brutal in your womb?
Born but missing,
Immune to heartbeats,
A legitimate bastard,
A short-timer on an icy teat.
I knew the length of your arm
And the slapshock of home correction
From my father' s conjured shadow.
Not mute but mutable,
Misreading your genetic wish-list,
I was bright but noisy,
Hamlet to a living ghost,
Raging on a bungalow roof,
Attempting approval appeasement,
This melancholy prince
Searched heavily for the loose gutter
To fall like beautiful Lucifer.
Can you find your heart?
Turn from that mirror, your hair is fine.
See me fade from your autobiography,
A marionette in mime costume
Sinking in a saline pool.
Mother, cry your caustic tears,
Whisper words of shallow songs
And dance in dreams alone.
I could never love you enough to be stillborn.
Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa.....

Greenstick Break

I am your shivering dog,
your stammering winds
and in the irrational moment
the voluntary music plays itself.

My souls stands as a frame.
Put upon me nails and board
to make of me a shelter
and build a lock on nights.

You brought a sentence with death
to keep us all illiterate,
all shamed by our wants
and needy in our broken ways.

I am one of the mysteriously injured.

the old city

I am from the old city of boroughs,
a native of the convoluted streets,
of the solid plaster and crumbling bricks
& of the solitary, stalking stroll
that acquaints my demons
with my habits,
my occasional reality
& the timely weather in my veins.
Blood is for the cross-braced moon,
aspect & symptom of a wounded sky
imprisoned by high tensions
& the lines of communication.
I have counted and forgotten
the conflicts of the warring stars,
the shivering ghosts leaning on lost shadows
& I have drummed my soles
to their thin, stuttering declarations
becoming the glove and finger
beckoning to tired serpent eyes
to go home
beyond the slip and crack
of dead leaf reason.
I am freaked by clear accountancy
while the market sleeps in pleading truth
behind the opening veil
of cemetery gates.

Rack of Bones

despolue
(1/7/01 8:22:41 am)
Rack of Bones
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hanging on the rack of bones, bent by old, remembered winds, burdening truth and the rusting links of what is called sin; he is strangely walking strange. A life of dancing in the shaky embrace of spectral desire, of knowledge and denial, of tasting and spitting, of taking and purging, of creation and destruction and of touching and losing. Compassion, the only angel, brushes enough colour over him so that he may be seen by willing eyes, by those passing or those who he has passed, by flying vision or groundsight, by sun, moon or false, standing lights, or by unexpected reflection that wonders, by proxy, if a soul resides within that polished man or whether, as we wonder all, if the world and all of its corollaries are becoming at this wakened moment. Then, oh faith, as faith invades and takes it upon itself to ruin construction in a theoretical model twist of easy neural vines that operate by power of the engines of doubt, question and perhaps by error now; so we follow on prophetic paths to hope of revelation craving time, as if it were finite, to lead us away from the temptations that bring us here to look around and shop from new or dusty catalogues of saintly sureties and dogmatic kits and formulae. Then back to he who is blinking now in overwhelmed reaction to the words on the dirty windows that may be something of how he appears, but words that resist finality by their worn aspects or that speak certainty by their seeming recognition. A, B, C and so forth; he disorders them to clarify the rhythm of his speaking pulse; a voice that he hopes is infinite. He has some influence with movement and so he goes a little further with his objective, kinetic guide following the easy walking symbols as they appear, chanting a name in the intervals. This, unchanged since his birth, is the porous rock that soaks up the groundwater of identity. He could have made a nation out of his nomenclature; a tribe out of his label but a dream had arrived and stolen seed that was far too heavy for the wind to bear. Rather than a tattered conception, nothing is conceived by him and so he understands himself to be holy then waits to bring immaculate beings like a god or a magician thinking that, either way, there must be a trick or a secret that he could learn if only he could think along those cross hatched lines that form old lithographic images of bearded alchemists, of sages, of gods and of demons, all who reside in places where he dare not go. The clowns have all shouted for him to follow them, crowded into the tiny car and to take a little trip subterraineously, down you understand, below, for it will be just fine like a winter in Florida, like a sunroom in flames, like a kerosene beach party or a barbecue that loses control, hosted by one who has no control. He strains hard to fold his ears closed but in his wildest imagination he sees himself liquefy, a momentary candle, a true flicker exposed in the totality of complete consumption.
He shivers. His teeth are drummers, his eyes are strobes, his legs are bamboo splitting, his hands ungoverned metronomes, his feet magnets of similar polarity; he waits for disassembly but expects nothing and is rewarded by his expectations as ad nauseum infinitum he finds the counterbalance of the anti-clown, the Kemmet Elly, the reverse polka-dot spiral square, the impossible patterns of plain vision, the gyroscopic, compass bearing genial jinn, the deft horizon and the mason’s squaring level. Nothing but the gravity of gravity and more, he thinks, do there embrace unlike in this man’s barren empire peopled by glossy lipped and papered ladies whose irritation defies prescription.
The next window is broken; scraps impale themselves, like fictional birds upon jagged points and in the dark spaces between the teeth he knows some splinter of personal history was played on the littered stage, unswept, unflourished, unclean but resident in the memory of the players and company; the flotsam lines of an unscripted, improvisational opus Magnus, the ether conversation of uncatchable skip transmissions that do a gypsy journey one step ahead of some natural law.
He is now being drawn up into the hungry sky, the frightening remover of sorrows, one bad scene to another, realities in conflict, an equally matched contest that draws him like pus to a poultice up to a surface of some sort where he recognizes nations, houses from a distance, trees in their faulty seasons, birds in stasis, animals that hunger and the residents before their eyes and motion.
He blinks and blinks and blinks …….corneal implants by insane ophthalmologists, previews of Dali’s death work dream, Salvadorian masks, condors on waiting trapeze, Pennsylvanian iconography, sub-titles from Antediluvian films, torn strops, hesitant lemmings, a stained rose on a Belgian carpet, five wooden beads and a key spinning upright in a floating bowl..
He once knew the lotus but even, and ever, those who trail their roots must change their addresses so that he who has no number is he who acquires the most easily lost paper.

Hues for Despolue

Author Comment
sacrosanct
(6/24/01 9:32:10 pm)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tulips of deepest violet
with crimson comrades cradled

Purple velvet petals parted
swaying stamens
stretch to sunshine
offering pools of ochre pollen

November bulbs
frozen, thawed, now risen
of Despolue's hands
were surely planted

Full crimson cups
now open
receive God's golden
sunshine.

to Glenn from Verushka

Broken Things

I cannot step back through thresholds.
I drag lost lives, lost loves
and forgotten conversation
from this line that is hooked to my heart.
All is chum bait for predacious me
and for those that I have set upon me.

Go sun
and let me spin with a colder star.
Go moon
and let me learn the night by touch.
Glass is more dangerous than fragile
and we, more fragile than dangerous.

Hear how we speak of broken things,
of hearts, of hopes, of promises,
while, in all of these,
we break ourselves.

Habitude

Every proud and unreasoning day,
too aged too climb above
the level of your eyes,
retired as a watchman.
Lead flies on a window,
so visible and awkward,
at the Club of Sanctified Neglect
and the Blind Currency Mint,
both being barred and barring,
deceiving the exclusivity of prisons
or of grand hotels,
sporting, as they must,
potted palms
and dusty strangers
who must not speak.

The back of my hand...

Sir Daisy

And we would polish tombstones
and we would plant the flowers
and cultivate the garden
and I would lay beside you.

And I would drive Sir Daisy
and we would visit forests
and walk from glen to glen.
In sand we'd make inscriptions,
that only we could read them,
and when we'd journeyed homeward,
harmony would be our bed.

And I'd anoint our bed sheets
with rose-water, faith, good stead
and you would bind me to it,
and soon I'd lose my head.

And as the years rhymed with us,
I'd always be beside you,
you'd always know I'd be there,
you'd never fear you'd find me.

And if your eyes should weaken,
then I would read your poems,
and if your spirit falters,
then I would raise it up.

And if your hands should tire,
than I shall raise your cup.
And I would polish tombstones,
and I would plant the flowers,
and cultivate the garden.

Then I will read your poems,
and I will lay beside you.
Then, they'll polish up the tombstones,
and they will plant some daisies
and cultivate the garden.

But they can't read the inscription,
it's only we that know it.
For we have journeyed homeward
and harmony is our bed.

(c)sacrosant

This poem was written February 19, 2001 in devotion to Glenn and posted on Themestream. Glenn liked this poem very much. It was written about a day we visited the village of his ancestors in the country and the graveyard where his grandparents were buried. I did all the driving on our "outings" when we were together, hence the title "Sir Daisy", a little spin on the movie "Driving Miss Daisy".

Born Today or the Morrow - The Worthy (Arahanta Vaggo)

If you were my child born today
or the morrow,
you'd be lovingly swaddled
in the softest of cloth,
stained the colour of saffron.

Moist ruby red lips to Brahma breasts
would be taken

You would never know hunger,
yet be free of attachment.

Your drink would be dhamma,
the ambrosia elixir
of virtue and peace
and of blessed contentment.

You'd know total acceptance
of love and compassion.

Each whimper consoled,
and each day would know comfort.

All pain would dissolve,
you'd be lifted through turmoil.

Each moment you'd follow
bird's path with assurance.

Your doubts would be calmed
and your fears would be silenced.

You'd be braced when you'd stumble,
yet each day you would strengthen.

Born today, or the morrow,
through boundless love and sincerity,
with truth and enlightenment,
follow bird's path
with clarity.

Mastication

There is a mountain in that mole hole.
Shades are window dressing
and the sun, more pallid than its nightly face,
teases us into believing
that taste is on the tongue,
so we all suck thumb to it,
suckthumbtion,
and we shall be in cars serrated,
incarserration,
nipped by slipping jaws of life
like some spider's accidental prey,
a mandibular prosecution or a brittle windfall.
It all depends on POV
like being scared shitless by prospective courage
or losing mirrors as they pass you.
Somewhere is a head-lamp installation,
a rush to sacrilege,
to the ritual scarification of unnecessary landscapes.
We are all kings of our own pouch of grit,
subversive lords of subjective submission.
Anti-lock de-icers
challenge the heat of captivity
& the breaking chill of a whispering libertine.
Diarists will write to you
of empty shells on linoleum
crushed by a vacuum sucking
EN-TITEEEEE
that legend relegates
to a martyrific & hopeful insomnia,
to a badly blued, rising weltsman,
as his being washed,
to laundry is
perhaps a promising desecration

.

Deja Vu

Here , a sensory note plays
something familiar,
a tone
faintly brutal
then silence so profound
that the world shrinks back,
the heart draws up old armour
so chinked and bent
it should not fit.
Resist the memory of spoken words.
They were misheard,
circumlocutions
or unguided endearments
from wishful thoughts.
We are unguarded in our hopes
and lovers stand in stillness
at the edge of sight
in quick and tiny studies
of shadow and light
that obscure themselves in darkness
unsupported by real touch memory
until you have become
the blind spot
nagging occassion to remind
that something is always really there
unacknowledged or feared
it trips back upon itself
like believing in ghosts but
declaring that you don't.

Hightop Hash

Iffy came he clowning down
to recreate on this corner,
to rattle coins in big pockets,
to bear up the beat.

Shuffling Dust was burning
(you know that kick thing he do)
with his reggae-zydeco fusion
and that's gotta make you laugh
around the quantifical back beats.

Me,I just fill the frontmen
doin' hedo, hedo, hedo
like some big pants Cab Calloway
with red hightops
and my sufficient attitude.

Little Red

These are the children
in glass bags,
cracked or shattered
from use,
hard and hollow,
chemically dried.

Merchants,
draped in gold and shadows,
sell death
like tiny souvenirs
of lives too short
to save special trinkets.

Little Red,
sixteen,
unwashed hair
with skin the colour,
the texture,
of old newspapers.
She always wears black
but her mother
will bury her in white lace.

Pallbearers remark
on the coffin's weightlessness,
vultures on the lightness
of their moneyclips
but like fortunate Marleys
more chains will gild
and circle their necks.

Seen Before

Here , a sensory note plays
something familiar,
a tone
faintly brutal
then silence so profound
that the world shrinks back,
the heart draws up old armour
so chinked and bent
it should not fit.
Resist the memory of spoken words.
They were misheard,
circumlocutions
or unguided endearments
from wishful thoughts.
We are unguarded in our hopes
and lovers stand in stillness
at the edge of sight
in quick and tiny studies
of shadow and light
that obscure themselves in darkness
unsupported by real touch memory
until you have become
the blind spot
nagging occasion to remind
that something is always really there
unacknowledged or feared
it trips back upon itself
like believing in ghosts but
declaring that you don't.

Sentry

There are stranger things
than sang-froid ladies with pendulum minds.
Look you now,
with well prepared eyes of night
to see that smitten sentry skulk,
nature revealed by the full and teasing moon.
Fore born by the weight of experience
and the ashen border left on lips.
Bitterness is an old companion
who serves easily recollected meals
and bids you pick your teeth with tiny bones.
He plays the tragedian,
chalk tears roughly drawn and smudged
with meager dew,
the only moisture he can use or imagine.
The lusty sun will have that too
so he sheds nothing that men could say was his.
If doom laid hand on doom
pledging strange protection
then this dry creature would be a sentry still.

For the Daughter of Salome

Soften your eyes as mine soften before you
pillow your head upon my chest as we lay
take comfort in waking dreams that we renew
and carry this promised moment to the day.

I will hold your face to feel a rising smile,
run cupped hands across the arcs of yielding skin,
linger in the smoothest places for awhile
then bend towards you as you gently take me in.

There is so much heat across our meeting breasts,
liquid fires rise in the pool between us now.
Like the phoenix who must always build new nests
we rekindle passions daily , so we vow.

Small victory

My grandfather stole Nazi tobacco
to trade for bits of turning fish.
" He was no thief ", my mother says
and I remember the strength of his grip.

When I go to the Chinese market
and see the heads and fins on ice
or drag deeply on cheap cigarettes;
I smell small victories
and know that once, in Amsterdam,
a family did not eat grass and
that those who said they should
ate cyanide and lead.

Tittilate Me, A Mock Poem

uthor Comment
Melisande Luna
Mean, Evil, Nasty Editor
Posts: 895
(6/13/01 1:04:39 pm)
Reply An Old Poem for Glenn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wrote this poem for Glenn once when I was at AIAP, it was just a joke and Glenn really got a kick out of it, it is a mock poem, the original text by Ophelia28 (Cassia) appears below:

Tittilate Me, A Mock Poem

Titillate me, as I don´t like my hobbies;
make us a sports club, hockey be our day,
finger me all night, play me Dimeola till the strings snap
and finally, happily, all I can say;
Canadianize me, as I just love your bacon -
don´t hesitate babe, I like Rush.

I´ll Californiate you till you can surf too
and utter your Anthem as Nixon would do (O Canada!);
geomorph you till your formations are flawless,
Sierra Nevada, with one "v" (not two) -
Live up to the Bear and Mapleleaf! One should be bilingual,
We be talkin' 'bout love, me and you (dude), eh.

__________________________________
Alliterate Me. A Love Song

Alliterate me, as I don´t like my surname;
make us a culture club, let Art be our day,
fugue me all night -- play me Bach till the "ach"-sound
is finally, happily, all I can say;
Briticize me, as I just love your country -
don´t hesitate babe, I´m not blonde anyway.

I´ll Germanize you ´till you understand Goethe
and utter your Weltschmerz as Werther would do;
apostrophize you ´till your poems are flawless,
beautiful, playful, with one "l" not two --
Live up to the Zeitgeist! One should be bilingual,
let´s speak Eng-ger-ranto love, me (ich) and du.

Cassia to Matt


Melisande Luna
© 2001






Edited by: Melisande Luna at: 6/13/01 1:07:55 pm

Gabriella00
PostPoems Poet
Posts: 125
(6/13/01 11:10:38 pm)
Reply Re: An Old Poem for Glenn
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
:::::claps::::: This is a classic.... Thanks for sharing this with us.

A priceless capsule in time shared with Despolue. That poem is so darn great!!!! I can see why he got a kick out of it

blessings,
Gab

Jesdaydreamz
Registered User
Posts: 3
(6/13/01 11:45:08 pm)
Reply Re: An Old Poem for Glenn
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This kills me Melisande
fun stuff
peace
Jess-

csboro
Senior Admin
Posts: 455
(6/14/01 10:41:16 am)
Reply Re: An Old Poem for Glenn
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Very good M. I enjoyed this as I know despolue would have.

C



Melisande Luna
Mean, Evil, Nasty Editor
Posts: 933
(6/14/01 10:53:25 am)
Reply Re: An Old Poem for Glenn
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Oh he did, it was in staff at AIAP and Matt brought it out into the general forum over there just yesterday. Man, we were ROLLING over this one

Your Perfect Place

Your perfect space
draws me not to disturb
but to allow me with slight movement
to share deep harmony
And where you settle, a temple becomes
and you become a temple
a teacher
a healer
and my notion angelic

I was losing my ability
to but imagine
my perfect space
but through your perfect blue
I understand again


(I AM still alive) by despolue

He has become Tock

Melisande Luna

(6/14/01 7:34:32 am)
Reply He Has Become Tock
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I fell in love with Glenn's work right away when I joined the ezboard community, I first saw his work over at Salty Dreams. I distinctly recall which poem of his I read first, it was Spiders Die. Glenn always seemed to be a little obsessed with the passage of time in his poetry, he used many metaphors and made many allusions, I thought, by reading his work, that he was a little frightened by time. My all time favorite line by Glenn was "we have become tock," which was a frighteningly effective euphemism for death.

His words and influence will always have effected the way this poet looks at things, thank you Glenn for the insight you have shared with us all, you will be sorely missed.

Earthlights

From the cross hatched cage of shadows
laid about by wire and cable
we saunter monthly into the preserve of moon,
pale goddess eye,
competing with the sodium glare
and see, though we deny it,
the aura display wherein we live
and show our secrets helplessly.

We are illuminated by a sceptic's need,
withered by noon on southern sands
or by the incredible, indelible blue of the snow
like a welders sparks that covers the earth.

Urban caverns stand high and distant
with the only rusted gold that could be
painted behind slim protection
and staring down to see us in our rush
to find our own.

Holy tapers gutter in the chapels
and spirits flicker in gutters like heretical candles.
Down on the switching yard
the custom is a swinging, coloured lantern
and the hobo lights of wind guarded zippos
jumping to life.

Skipped

There was this Face
surrendered to my eyes.
How often have I skipped
off from a glance
like a flat, smooth stone
across the still pond?

Mornings Out

A slight nickering shave...
Time was when this quaking kingdom
stood on the edge of a blade
lip licking,
the sight of my blooded pores
an invitation to dance
while prudish sunlight flickers stumbles
in the vacant hall,
a crowded morning crawling
to an irrational tabla beat.
Tiny motors serve motion
& off-white noise,
the sound colouring of newly turned apple meat.
Certificates of normalcy curl corners.
Then,
All the tall boots were fitted
with handy, hungry knives
embracing feted calves.

Bandana Republic

seemingly forbidden hair
forced flat beneath Chinese replicas
of the American Western Dream,
translated into street signals
and flagging specific corner zones.
Hispanic, Hippie, Jamaican, Gay, Redneck
fellowship of this sweaty rag;
the Worker's Workable Dream
and stoop labour's small comfort
becomes so stylish many.

Jurisprudence

Testicular punctuation marks passage
while pheremonal watchmen direct
a course, off course,
of sexualcidal tendencies.
Judgment retires to a leathery den
hung with nymphs and satyrs,
framed, of course, by Jurisprurience.
He of the famous slut-eyed school
thinks fondly of Medici orbs
and all spherical configurations
With Camera-Sutric possibilities.
He sings old patriotic tunes,
" This gland is your gland,
That gland is my gland "
and belongs to the Gland Old Party.

Grounded

It is a circumstantial advance
this silk-screened slide into taxi drugs,
this motion of running liquids
across the window's grain
& the expectation of crouching angels
in the doorways.
Don't mess with your own mind.
It has happened before and again
and before it happens again
you will
lean on lurking visions;
deepeyeance
and the slinky blues will gather
smaller and tighter springs to you
& will the great bits in the well
to rise uncommon easily
in a mechanical dance of steel destruction,
sutured cogs,
and heavily chromed hairpipes
that breathe the exhausted air
and foul any intake to a screwdriven solution.
I have the sulphur in my mouth
for any given or taken
any riven or forsaken song.

You must be THIS tall to get on this ride
and wider than THIS to feel it's hold.
This is gravity's verdict
regardless of your plea or pleasure
and in denial;
we hold ourselves to the ground
which is most pleasantly spinning
by this GMT solution
and the knowledge that such gods
as GPS
really may be steeply purchased.

Trip Down

Heavy, unkind medication
and waking sleeplessness
impale a man on the preying sunrise.

There is some tittering madness,
a surplus of twisted grey yang,
scrambling the balance of the truly cross
as you watch your still hand move,
riding your veins with the confidence
that only you can be maintaining
flat trajectory in a storm.


You wait for transparent correspondence
to arrive from particularly vague lands.
You expect it like a virus;
inevitable and invisibly subtle.

The Invention

All of Volta's snakes alive,
twisting inside their skins
and rising from the barrel.
Don't be afraid.
Lucifer is unemployed
and Edison, the god,
lit the way
to the place of dawn's execution.
Marconi, who feared the snakes,
signed the warrant.
Baird died on TV
before the first commercial.
Here, beneath the plasterer's swirls
I await the striking adders and asps.

See you in the movies.

Visitation

John the Baptist rolled in screaming,
"Next time I do it in hot wax on Jerry Springer!".
(He had been down on Jarvis Street looking for some head)
We mumbled, through my lips, about plastique surgery, the benefits of time sharing and the economics of cursory theft projections. I told him to never take what you make
or lend a borrower bee. He took my wet/dry shaver
and a pound of salt cod.

Matched

Bound by unseen imperfections
the staggering beauty of faults
confesses lasting truths.

My truth,
you are my shelter and my storm
my shrine and only bawdy house,
The intoxicant and the cure,
my madness and my fine sanity.

You and I are crazed but fine china,
chipped cups always chosen,
the torn and comfortable garments
and all things
that fit
beyond our temporal assumptions.

(c) Glenn Sheppard - February 14, 2001

astronomy

Tell me, does gravity lie in those hips?
So much orbiting makes you a star
and that must be
how that happens.

Polonial Ramble

It could be
like pitching pennies at a moving wall
and standing in the ashes.
They tell you that you must be calm
for someday it will rain
but understand this;
you are the only thing left for burning.

The earth is neither chaste nor simple
and its rumours grant all moist indulgence.
Woman is a hard, healing wilderness to man
and Pan's spittle, as he lifts nimble fingers,
crushes the fearlessness of worship;
but it's alright.

Tide yourself over the moon,
a sort of pro bono self-defence
like taffy pulled up a psycho-somatic wire
to the luminescent area of the back room brain.
Still remember, this reflection is not fecund
for seeds apply themselves
to the wheels of the golden chariot only.

We have heard the last note of the ring, wring chant,
purged the dirge,
signed and stamped our paper ceremonies,
acknowledged the hierarchical error,
and confessed on alien knees
beyond the conventions
of emotional disposal methodology.

I have it in my book, writ large,
Some vagary of legislation
that you may not shoot the hare
while in transit on the buses
yet you may dine upon it, moving there,
should you have one readily bagged.

Spiders Die

September wonders how long you'll live
and if this tunnel runs the length of your life.
Old paper, like a wounded bird
lies grounded on the edge of a lawn
waving goodbye with a blank, weak wing.
A spider dies from lack of flies.
Hibernating princes shake in fearful dreaming,
faithful dragons awaken,
disturbed by the ripples on the lake.
Rain washes the hair of the pedestrian race
as they stand against the gray,
searching the pavement for colour
but concrete is like dirty bleach.
Everything becomes the shade that it chooses
and, in this,
we have no choice but hallucination.