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 |   Poetry in April -- in celebration |
 This is my Second Book of poems. I may not have eaten the plums from the icebox, but I am guilty of writing poetry without thinking too much, without laboring over words and lines. This Is Just to Say I have eaten the plums that were in the icebox and which you were probably saving for breakfast Forgive me they were delicious so sweet and so cold by William Carlos Williams You, too, forgive me for I only love the writing process; the result is secondary...And please never mind that I am also aping William Carlos Williams's false apology.    From where does the title Beetlebung and Kettlehorn come from? The name Beetlebung and Kettlehorn has to do with ancient whaling practices and Martha’s Vineyard and Cape Cod. During the nineteenth century, because of its dense white wood, the tupelo tree was used in whale oil casks made of copper. Beetle was the mallet made from the Tupelo tree and bung was the stopper in the cask hole. In Martha’s vineyard, the Tupelo tree is still known as the Beetlebung tree, and at Chilmark there, is a Beetlebung Corner, with shops at Chilmark Center, from where roads lead to other interesting points. Kettlehorn, as well as being an ancient surname, refers to a piece of equipment resembling to but much bigger than a shoe-horn, used to stir the hot blubber and separate the fine oil from the denser particles. Whale oil was a popular commodity and, as a fuel, was used for lighting the dark, burning to provide heat and as an aid in cooking. After the whale was hunted, men in a boat cut strips of blubber from the whale's back, tied them together and rowed ashore. There the fat was cut into smaller pieces to be boiled into oil in large copper kettles. In addition there exists kettle corn in Cape Cod which are corn chips fried in kettles and sometimes mistakenly called kettlehorns. For some reason, way back when, the words Beetlebung and Kettlehorn were used together and, at one time or another, were given to shops and other things that go together as titles. I adopted the name for my on-the-spot poetry in reference to the idea of blubber. "Poetry the shortest distance between two humans" Lawrence Ferlinghetti |
| You went with your eyes open I closed them with my tears when breath left you I held my breath, too. And now, I am a hollowed stump stuck inside this shell of a house where I miss my words and all words miss me. |
| I cup my hands to catch a few drops of water from the tap or the rain just to hear the sound. Bubbles rise, and I let go enjoying the whoosh of leave-taking of the liquid and yours each release a kind of distortion. ============= April 30--release |
| Done with waiting, I take the next lane still the rush-hour lunges and my annoyance goes from driving to finishing things, a need to close distances bumper to bumper one spiral to another. I’m done with life being done to me ------ Prompt: April 29--traffic |
Do I know where I am as dimensions eclipse quicker and quicker and I can’t hold on? I think a centrifugal force must have pulled me through a flattened grid into this slivered life to rush like Alice without a thought, to fall down the hole after a madcap rabbit and splay onto this world. Now, from within a garbled voice asks, “Just why are you here?” -------------------- April 28-- difficulty |
| when the wind and branches entwine as lovers and birds’ nests can hold on no more, maple leaves turn red in a fit of fury, fearing the many ways of falling ----- Prompt: April 27—tree |
that filmy blue in your eyes and gentle ripple of your smile re-tuning me after fervent disputes and all the wrongs of this world -- Prompt: April 26—blue |
| you admire my purple flowers their finely powdered seeds pirouetting over lenient leaves then, my non-sequitor sneeze are you still green with envy? ------- April 25—green |
| now that everything has become the past, no chisel will work on the solidified longing as it lies heavy on your heart ------ April 24—rock |
| itchy dry eyes, and ophthalmologist’s drops leak the irritation away still, I don’t like weeping for any reason at all, since nothing’s permanent to pity including me, and because as an investor, I hold my tears in trust. ------ Prompt: April 23--weeping |
| her contours vanish now well, almost, in her loose-fitting gown and frail body for she sleeps constantly after her vacation in the Caribbean where she felt like a whale it is as if a piranha struck then, without her noticing yet no fish is to blame for the shame of a liquid diet so I bake bread to take to her, thinking maybe it will help, maybe she won’t stop breathing == April 22--bread |
| (true story) years have passed since our leave-taking from the old property but here I am still grieving over the garden I planted bearing bravely the thorns of fifty-five rose bushes as if they were a poem each talking the language of love such risky business on my heart, the work of a masochist, since a year after our move, I recoiled in horror when I heard from an old neighbor about the new backyard pool where the rose garden stood --- Prompt: April 21—flower |
Some days I feel like an actor who stumbled into the wrong stage-play for there's nothing soft or picturesque here but in distant view, ascending from dark mountains with gunmetal-gray smoke a mythical thing murky red-hoofed, forked-tongued out to make our towns and nations bleed ---- Prompt: April 19—dark |
| what was it that you did in your life’s cubicle for the company or your prospects counting sand grains in an hourglass, propping up ladders to climb, wasting tons of paper thoughts, wishes, deeds nobody will remember just to find out in retrospect nothing lasts ------- April 17--work |
The heat in starched tropics accomplishes it when the sun scorches the body without speaking straight to the heart strolling on the parched lawn I am missing every incisive icicle and the ancient whiteness of snow --------- April 16--weather |
| Have you noticed I season my morning coffee with cinnamon, milk, and mild complaints about the weather, cold winters, hot summers solstices, too many supermoons bestiality of politics and being placed on this third planet? Silly me! After oodles of seasons, just when I have become myself, I’m looking for a bright sun, wishing to begin again. --------- Prompt: April 15--season |
| drops slap windowpanes like grief, in spurts gray clouds devour the sky such bad temper! and this restless wind playing tricks on my mind while limbs break off trees I’m splashing in mud puddles muttering mock curses at stand-offish purple iris and seeing cruelty in tulips for daring to stay alive -------- April 14--rain |
| wings strumming flickers of light you, the roly-poly vegan littering the night prospecting love greedy for its gifts but in a scheme of hours, a spider’s web will be your undoing since you’ve stood out enough! ---- Prompt: April 13--insect |
| at the campsite where shadows wrestled with trees so old and obese with bark he made my heart jump claws and fangs withdrawn a predator’s instinct revoked he lowered his head to grin in greeting with sorrowless eyes, keen as gold a sun god ‘s* coloring and his stare, my kryptonite, filling my core I slipped into his old-world charm yet playful moments were over and this tryst without culmination for he turned his back to walk away into the woods fearless and proud, as if dressed in Armani -- * Ancient Greeks associated wolves with the sun god Apollo. ========= Prompt: April 12--land animal |
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