30 Poems in 30 Minutes

It's Rob's fault.


30 Poems in 30 Minutes

1.
I caught that cat looking
at me with eyes like an unshoveled driveway.
Goodbye Sly.

2.
Tetrahedron. I fondle its lanes and corners,
rough corduroy angles and sharp
pockets. I calculate: not beyond my sphere, it won't.

3.
What waits for me there, in trees and in the brook?
I run, but not to run. I run to rake in what makes its bed.

4.
From eighteen green fields comes my wager:
twelve or six husks for the family?

5.
Harry, you're a nonsensical construction.
You know that, right. I am talking about
what made you think of the fish, Harry.
It is not seemly to linger at the spout.

6.
By gum and gummy, I sense the shimmy
in the jellied car. It can't take the brake,
so I apply pressure elsewhere, at my heel.

7.
Yes, yes, and yes, are the answers.
I try to stay positive and respond with
inaccuracies. You, sir, question with a text
known to you. I am this close to peeking
in the back.

8.
Tonight, it rains. I know the feeling of heat when it rains.
Going to waste, all that radiation.

9.
Hello morning crew! Yes, I want to rock all morning
with you. I will do that. I will be the tenth caller at...

10.
Along the row, I notch the wood with makeshift
knife-edge marks, not quite notches.
Nothing prepares me for the loom.

11.
Ostinato. Twelve tones for some pleasure other than listening.
Were I to order the sounds this way, and take attendance,
all would pass.

12.
Beaning cool, the boy hums his song
of being frightened. Strikes two and three.
He can sing now.

13.
Just allow a breath,
a huff for the king.
At coronation,
it's regal to do so.

14.
Blame game with matches. Have you flicked one?
Is it lit, smoking in a fanned octagon in the dirt?
Good. Your fault.

15.
Asking for a retreat is not winning the war, son.
Make it your honor to face that which will take you
over and back, to victory and the loss column.

16.
Mean timing in the water: clocks blub
and click their stasis. Finished.

17.
Up the snoot, harpy. Take that with a grain
based alcopop. After twelve, bets are off.

18.
Work at finding a finger length of reach.
Then, flick that bluebook over and write the back.

19.
Belittled, I crawl back to my door. My mom
is shopping. I've seen my dad cook. There is
no one to talk to.

20.
Horses don't pull the car, son. Do you see any horses?
It's just what they call an engine's power.
Well, they have to call it something.
They used to ride on donkeys, too.

21.
Whip palms on Sunday. It's not done,
but my friends would laugh if I didn't try.

22.
Where exactly did he go, though?
Up, up there, to heaven. Weren't you listening?
So, he got a ride? From God?
Cool.

23.
Going to teach, I don't have any memory.
It is gone, like my old poems. Gone,
and sitting there in the dusty yellow notebook.

24.
Vile and pernicious, I've been reading Zappa
and about Zappa, and ze continuity.
I can't make it through this paragraph, though,
on Adorno.

25.
Look there's a helluva good unicorn next door.
Let's throw rings on it, three chances for a dollar.

26.
Vodka has deserted me. 100 proof desertion.
The blue bottle aches to sneer. I got this chip,
and I am not giving in to liqueur, either.

27.
Run paint, the captain says, run, run.
You used me like a heart. I still smoke,
so that your attention will waver.

28.
Petty. Pretty, too, but small-time
change-a-dollar antes ain't my style.
You can hold that hold 'em, too.
Ponies, no, not me.

29.
I gotta go now. That last oolong
has waited till now. Intestinal requirement
ahoy.

30.
Black like demons, I applaud you.
It takes so little to grin at a cat.