Precipitating Events: Monkeyshine

Single monks dwell alone, due to pride
but true monkeys go seeking their bride;
and a monkess (no nun)
loves some rain with her fun
on the street’s sunny simian side.

Cohabiting the sky

suspended droplets and sunlight

cloud vapor silvered with solar illumination:

A MONKEY’S WEDDING !

We shrieked it and jumped around

along that shifting frontier

between childhood and joy

between sunshine and falling raindrops

MONKEYS !

We knew they were entering into conjugal bonds;

nuptial specifics were irrelevant

the celebration was probably far away

in Borneo or Congo or Amazonia . . . or behind the sky

but it was monkeys getting married

only there and then:

along that impermanent line

where the rain didn’t know the sun was out

and the sun did not know it was raining

that fine line: monkeyshine

shout it out (when you were 8)

negative ions in the air

distant yells of children

hopeful smell of peaceful summer neighborhoods

THE MONKEY’S WEDDING

 

PROMPT #10

write a poem that starts from a regional phrase,
particularly one to describe a weather phenomenon.

 

 

 

 

Beautiful Black Poetry Live

Define Black Light:

Turn on the Black Right

to disperse the White Left

as they turn on their own

(that not-too-bright left)

until, bereft of light

they are left without fight,

lost in their own night.

Intensify that white rift

to give the right lift.

Unite the Light Right

with the Dark Right

to make the light bright;

or we all will be left

out in a dark night.

It’s OK

to be RIGHT.

 

Jap Po-Biz: Listless


Japonaiserie appeals to the Western dilettante mind

  • Kabuki monstrosities of cute

White snivel, and children who sniffle as they walk.
The containers used for oil. Little sparrows

  • shopping-malls of Shinto reactors

  • tsunamis of Hello-Kitty schoolgirl porn

Pretty, white chicks who are still not fully fledged
and look as if their clothes are too short for them

  • tiny plates of aesthetically-arranged trivialities

  • meaningless Engrish phrases on T-Shirts

Last year’s paper fan. A night with a clear moon
One needs a particularly beautiful fan for some special occasion

  • in herd-like apathy, they download Anime Girlfriend App

  • the robotic allure of the Orient defined

To wash one’s hair, make one’s toilet, and put on scented robes
An earthen cup. A new metal bowl. A rush mat

  • cramped restaurant/bars with detailed replicas of food

PROMPT #9 : engage in another kind of cross-cultural exercise, inspired by the work of a Japanese writer who lived more than 1000 years ago. She wrote a journal that came to be known as The Pillow Book. In it she recorded daily observations, court gossip, poems, aphorisms, and musings […]
write your own Sei Shonagon-style list of “things.”

Lyric Destinies

 

 

Condemned with all who scrawl their thoughts online

Obsessing over words, revising verse,

This love of poetasting is a curse . . .

(no, wait—I think I need to tweak that line).

Composing, thus, my useless universe,

Convinced that golden musings are divine,

I polish leaden verse to make it shine

So proving that bad poetry grows worse.

My muse may well disown me for my crimes,

Fly off and leave me searching for some word,

Abandon me to unpoetic times;

And yet my lyric soul is undeterred.

My own best lines may or may not show it;

Still, I’ll bear that shameful name of Poet.