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Wednesday, May 25, 2011

RHETORICAL QUESTION










And so I ask myself
why THESE people
knowing it's a rhetorical question
there never being enough time
to subject the whims and wiles
of fate to psychoanalysis

Yet even the most callous
among us surveying this devastation
would surely give pause to reflect

Why THESE people?

These humble people
these salt of the earth people
raising families
making ends meet
one way or t'other
filling the churches to capacity
on Sunday mornings

And every year
it's the same deadly fury
touching down from the sky
like the fingers of God
so beautiful in its own horrific way

And yet
survivors
not cursing the dawn
just feeling thankful
to be alive
their faith undiminished
unshaken
in the terrible awe-filled light
of morning

Yes they could leave
but their roots grow deep
in the earth and the soil
the seeds of their destiny
sown at an early age

Not like me
the kid who grew up among them
who heard the siren songs calling
on distant radio stations
deep into the night
the kid who was always going to leave
who nonetheless
never forgot
where he came from

So maybe you can understand
when I bow my head
and ask why THESE people?

These stoic people
these turn the other cheek people
these do with me what you will O' Lord people

Already contemplating the rebuilding work ahead

Just another of life's puzzles
I guess
the jigsaw pieces scattered
like the haphazard wreckage of their lives


Tuesday, May 24, 2011

ANOTHER DAY


Ambrosius Bosschaert
"Bouquet of Flowers on a Ledge"
courtesy: lacma.org




June 5, 2011








Delia awakes in a dream
in which a flower vase
teetering on a lofty ledge
uses every ounce of free will
to either cling to what is known
or take the plunge--
the roses in the vase more alive
than the people below who shuffle along
in a dream
of a dream
of life

In the street
a naked sumo wrestler
drives by in a tiny golf cart
and pinches the bottoms
of unsuspecting shoppers--
too smug to acknowledgethat they have felt something--
while two midgets
unbeknownst to each other
walk on stilts concealed beneath their clothes
blending in with the crowd

When the midgets meet
each smirks into the face of the other
automatically assuming the other
to be someone with nothing to hide

While high upon the ledge
the wind
like the voice of God
whispers to the flowers in the vase
that teeters on the brink

From nearby windows the random sounds
of conversation are heard:

End of the world ain't no excuse not
to take out the garbage, ya lazy bum...

And then:

Did you see that woman Arnold slept with?
Any port in a storm, I guess..

And then:

I'll show you the end of YOUR world--
see my fist?

And then:

Yeah, but that was only after Maria said
GIT OFFA ME, YOU BIG TUB O' GOO!

And then:

All these years we worshiped Lance
and now it comes out he's just another cheater...

And then:

Did you see Britney's butt on TV?
damn thing is HUGE!

And then:

Ah STILL don't believe that's the real birth certificate...

And then
having heard enough
the vase that teeters on the edge
relinquishes its lofty perch
to descend into a world where people
walk along in a dream
of a dream
of life...
about to experience a momentary awakening







Friday, May 20, 2011

THIEF OF MOMENTS








June 7, 2011







Beware the Thief Of Moments
for although I am near you
in a casual way
you will not suspect
that I have come to rob you
of your secrets
just to hold a piece of your essence
next to my heart

Shagging what you toss to the wind
as you stroll through the park with your lover
the random bits of conversation
you feed each other
like morsels from a picnic lunch
become my sustenance
tormented by this inexplicable need
I must devour your words
so that I may live

Did you ever hear about
the ice cream wars in Montana?

The guys who ride around in trucks
peddling frozen delights
while the music blares from their speakers
the competition is so fierce
they try to horn in on each other's territory
sometimes one chases the other down the street
trying to shoot his tires out
while the children watch
and the music plays merrily on

I lifted that from a couple guys
at the gas pumps
they were filling their tanks
and unwittingly
filling mine as well

A young blonde
no more than seventeen
beautiful
with that girl-next-door look
sitting with her friends at the mall
I walk by and hear her say
I know it was a hazing
but bamboo shoots up my bum?

That was a tiny lunch
but strangely satisfying

In a department store
a woman clings to her shopping cart
for support
something is wrong with her foot
I can't walk on it honey
she says to her husband
I can't walk on it

There is a silence

Then STAND on it
comes his icy reply

This leaves a bitter taste in my mouth
but it is sustenance just the same

I am the Thief Of Moments
and I must devour your words
so that I may live

A moment
once shared
becomes a conspiracy
the accomplices like revolutionaries
plotting in the torch light
of underground chambers

I am the spy in your midst

You will never know of my betrayal
until it appears in a poem somewhere

A moment is such a long time
when it lives forever

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

POETS UNITED !

HEY KIDS !
There is an interview with me over at the Poets United site!

If you've ever wanted to learn about what makes Timoteo tick, click on the link and check it out.

Many thanks to Sherry Blue Sky for her amazing work on this!

Friday, May 13, 2011

SENRYU STEW # 4



















actress photographed

without makeup--

right cross to the jaw



miniskirts so short

these days--

midgets get their kicks



watchin' those old movies

drinkin' some beers...

Can Film Festival


Sunday, May 8, 2011

MOST MEN IN AMERICA























Outside my window
the raven calls
to follow him again
as in that kingdom far away
in a time when hoods
of muslin saved our sight
from the the diamond in his eye
that blazed like a thousand suns

And wasn't it you
who told me that love
is like a banana
you've got to peel
away the facade

And wasn't it you I saw
seething inside your skin
at the Metropolitan Opera
grunting like a pig
when the fat lady sang
hooting from the balcony
like a Portuguese pimp
a break with tradition to be sure
running amuck till they pinned you down
inside the ladies room
tempest in a pisspot

And isn't that
Miz Chauncey Lee Lamour
sitting right over there
sucking on her
mint julep
trading tales
of the good ol' days
when men were men
and women were horses
and GIDDYUP OL' PAINT
was the prelude to a kiss
her entourage
of the rouged and the wrinkled
hanging on her every word
well aware that
most men in America
in this year of the locust
in this decade of the plague
would rather be sniffing
through the long abandoned
ruins of an old haunt
than to give up the ghost
to your baby-faced whore

And now my old friend the raven
has moved to Baltimore
where he works as a squeegie man
on certain odd numbered holidays
and plays the guitar
with Eric Clapton
and sometimes Charlie Byrd
while all the sweet young things chant
GO CAT GO!
GO CAT GO!

But well you know
that the whole world's a stage
that you're going through
just to get to someplace else
and though they stomp and shout
for another encore
quoth the raven: AINT NO MORE !

It was a lively time
says Miz Chauncey Lee Lamour
well aware that most men in America
take their pants off one leg at a time
all grist for a story of some kind
and you know dahling
you really should write it








Wednesday, May 4, 2011

LAZY AFTERNOON


The century plants in the yard look like they're dead. They've surprised me before, though, kicking back to life after a couple of good rains. This whole desert city is going to look pretty dead before long too, as we hunker down into air conditioned isolation for the long summer siege. (We spend too much of our lives encased in concrete, and it makes us hard.)

The breeze is blowing in through the window, billowing the curtain into a kind of open parachute. The wind chimes ring off a couple of notes and fall silent again. It's a lazy afternoon.

It's nice to sit here and not think about things like Afghanistan, or the fist-pumping crowd outside the gates of the White House, celebrating someone's brutal death. I don't care which side you're on, repeating the bloody cycle of an-eye-for-an-eye down through the ages doesn't appear to be a strategy that is going to win your enemies over to your side--take the Israelis and the Palestinians for an ongoing example.

I've often wondered what if would be like to NEVER read the newspaper or hear the radio and TV news. You know, life goes on--the day to day part of it that we see first hand--pretty much the same as always. We talk to our friends, wash the car, sit on the toilet (or sit on our friends and talk to the toilet). The rest of it is just mind games. The news is designed to provide us with a daily dose of anxiety--a modern day Scheherazade that keeps us on the edges of our seats, waiting for the next episode.

Now there's this 2012 thing--what delightful suspense! December 21st, 2012 is the date the Mayan calendar apparently predicts that the world will go POOF. Many will hold their breath at the stroke of midnight--just like we did with Y2K. Some will undoubtedly sell all their possessions (what will they need the money for?) and head for the mountain tops, awaiting the rapture. The day will go by, just like every other day, and those folks will head back down--red faced--with just bare floors to sleep on. Meanwhile, those "primitive" tribes in New Guinea ain't gonna miss a beat, cuz they're oblivious to it all anyway.

So by now you may be wondering what's the point of these ramblings--where's he taking me and am I going to like it? Well, what's the real point to life? Where's it taking us and are we gonna like it?

We want desperately to like it--those of us who've decided to "keep the faith" and hang in there for the duration of this go-round. We give it the benefit of the doubt--maybe more than it deserves--because we're caught up in it. Fascinated. Spellbound. Addicted. We want to stay for the play. The journey out--into manifestation--and the journey back to Source. So we keep coming back. I think our spirits know that it's not all going to be a bed of roses when we sign on, before the amnesia sets in, (and in that sense we may all be astonishingly brave) but it's those selected moments of what Maslow called peak experience, I think, that give us the notion that it all might be worth it.

And maybe that's the best we can expect. Isolated moments of frisson when we feel like we could grab Arnold Schwarzenegger by his fat neck and swing him around like he's Mister Rogers; moments when we've got a room at the top of the world and we ain't comin' down; moments that by all rights should last forever--though we know they won't.

But they last just long enough to keep us coming back.

And maybe even moments like this will do. Moments when the wind is just husky enough to tickle the chimes...and I ain't too concerned about nuthin'.



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