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THE LITTLE BOOK OF POEMS

ABOUT



POETRY AND POETS







Pandora Blue


© 2005 Dormouse Press

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TORA TORA TORA  (HAIKU)


Beware of short poems.

They can sneak up on you and

bite you in the ass.

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VERBOTEN  (HAIKU)


Roses are red and

violets are blue shouldn't be

said in a haiku.

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DOES SIZE MATTER?  (HAIKU)


When it comes to a

line of poetry, more than

a mouthful's a waste.

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DEFINITIONS AND ILLUSTRATIONS



Haiku are cornball

platitudes about nature,

mercifully short.




A tanka is a

haiku that didn't make the

cut, taking thirty

one syllables to say what

could be said in seventeen.

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IS THAT ALL THERE IS?  (TANKA)



Those who say there's no

mystery in simple poems

don't understand that

unvarnished, unadorned truth

is the greatest mystery.

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HIKE-U* (HAIKU)



I can sum up the

Dodge Poetry Festival

in one word: WORDSTOCK.








*Thousands of poetry groupies slogging across acres of sodden, rutted, hay-strewn fields, trying to find tents and Porta-Johns - and at the end of the day, their cars.

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THE CELEBRITY POET AT THE PODIUM *



Just because

you can’t see

the emperor’s clothes

don’t assume

he’s naked.  

He's probably

wearing

an invisible suit

of armor.

That would explain

his easy

arrogance.





*Dodge Poetry Festival 2004

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DIFFERENT STROKES



I could climb a peak

in faraway Sri Lanka.

But since I’m a geek

I’ll climb in bed, tweak my head

and write a rhyming tanka.


or….


You can scale a peak

in faraway Sri Lanka.

When it’s thrills I seek,

I prefer to tweak some lines

and write a rhyming tanka.



F.Y.I


I’m not from Japan.

I’m no geisha with a fan.

I’m just a poet

with a short attention span

rhyming tanka ‘cause I can.

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HAIKUNOMICS  (HAIKU)



Trying to say as

much as you can in as few

words as possible.





FIVE SEVEN FIVE   (HAIKU)



Haiku are easy.

Just follow the damn rules and

make every word count.





CHANNEL SURFING



I don’t try to write haiku.

Why would I want to write it?

It comes to me incessantly.

Unwelcome – uninvited.

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HARA-KIRI (HAIKU)




The plural form of

tanka is tanka - no “s”.

The same for haiku.



I've disgraced myself!

The only way to save face

is hara-kiri.



Disembowelment?

That's old school, Mama-san - just

drop pant and spread cheek.

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FAMOUS LOVE POEMS (rewritten in haiku* form for seniors)



Shall I compare thee
to a .... to a ... Damn! It's on
the tip of my tongue.....

(William Shakespeare)



The best is over.
Grow old along with me, the
worst is yet to be.

(Robert Browning)



The way to love any
thing is to realize
that you might be lost.

(G. K. Chesterton)



How do I love thee?
You crazy old coot, how does
anyone love you?


(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)




*One of them is not a five-seven-five haiku. If you’re a senior and you already know that, you’re in great shape! The rest of you can go back and find it.

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Poetry Updated




In the room the women come and go
Talking of Oprah and J-Lo.


(T.S. Eliot)




The chatroom’s a fine and private place
But none I think do there embrace.



(Andrew Marvell)




O pussyllanimous Heart, be comforted ……………What if the broad be bitter ……………



(Elizabeth Barrett Browning)




It is difficult
to get the news from pussy
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there.




(William Carlos Williams)

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CROUCHING TANKA,  HIDDEN HAIKU



IT’S ALL RIGHT WITH ME  (TANKA)



…………… drew him down to me

so he could feel my breasts all

perfume yes and his

heart was going like mad and

yes I said yes I will Yes.*




*James Joyce




A LOVER’S QUESTION  (HAIKU)



Is that a gun in

your pocket or are you just

happy to see me?*




*Mae West

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HAIKU …… OR HAIK-EWW?  



A breath of

fresh air  

or a

room-clearing

fart?

What do I care,

as long as

it’s art.

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ONE MAN’S METER IS ANOTHER MAN’S POISON    (HAIKU)



When politicians

talk gibberish we mock them

unmercifully.


When poets serve up

word salad we award them

a Pulitzer prize.



POLITICALLY INCORRECT



So sue me

or shoot me

or throw me in jail.

My favorite

poets are

dead, white and male.

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WORKING WITHOUT A NET



The

problem with free

verse is

dammit I

don’t

know where to

enjamb

it.






ODE TO LONGEVITY   (HAIKU)



Once they are famous,

poets can get away with

almost anything.

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THE FUNGUS AMONG US



At a poetry reading
I recently heard
twice in one night
the same obscure word.

A day or two later
(to my dismay)
I heard it again.
It won't go away!

This time - the title!
That’s even worse!
It’s bad enough
when it lurks in the verse.

A shy little word
that lives in the shade,
it shrivels when
too much attention is paid.

Because Billy Collins
decided to use it
doesn’t give poets
the right to abuse it.

I hope no one talks about
lichen tonight…. but
if you like lichen - please -
say the word right.



When you’re out hikin’
you often see lichen.
It grows on the side
of a rock or a tree.
If you’re open mikin’
and lookin’ for lickin’
or liechen
or litchen
the bedroom
or kitchen

is where you should be.

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CICADA



Why the cicada?
Why not the flea?

Think of how many more
poems there could be!

Why not the cricket?
Why not the gnat?

Those you can rhyme at the
drop of a hat.

Termites and locusts
don’t stand a chance.

Neither do weevils,
grubs, ticks or ants.

Give the cicada
a well deserved rest.

Write summer poems
about some other pest.

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KEEP IT SIMPLE, STUPID



To use a rhyming dictionary

I would never deign.

Of words like chary I am wary.

I’ll just trust my brain.

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DON’T BE A DING DONG




Not one teeny tiny bit

of onomatopoeia!


No click clacks.

from the railroad tracks.


No rabbits

hippity hopping.


No horses

clippity clopping.


No tick tocks

from Grandfather clocks


and from fishes,

no flip flopping.


And no splish splashing, oeitha!

NO ONOMATOPOIEA!

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THE TERCET: THE EMPEROR’S THREE-PIECE SUIT?



Writing prose in

lines of three

doesn’t make it poetry.









COMPOUND FRACTURE



A line

break

does not a

poem

make.

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SOUL SISTAH



other folks
be fawnin'
I be
in the corner
yawnin'
wrap a doo-rag
‘round
my head
paint me
black,  I’d knock
'em dead

talkin' ‘bout
soul
and queens
and kings
talkin’ ‘bout why
the caged bird sings,
drums and
Afrocentric things
rappin’ ‘bout
roots and
the motherland
ain’t no
whites gonna
understand

cause it’s a black thang

like jazz    and chit’lin’s     and
Muhammad Ali

I know I ain’t
no Langston Hughes
but damn, I’m black
I paid my dues
I gotta right
to sing the blues
and if my shit ain’t
poetry
it don’t make no
nevermind
me and Maya
royalty
you can kiss
my black behind

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LOVE POEM     (experimental ….. ouch!)



There is witch hazel in
the bag that is not a douche.
Talk to me, I am
swimming out of your medicine.

I will lie with you and stitch you.
Measure the wandered floor, the
mended door. I know nothing.
I have a harelip I will show you.

Let us go into the garden.  
and smear it all yellow.
I have a william coming loose
I am saving for your apology.

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GUILTY  PLEASURES      (Shakespearean Sonnet)    



Haiku are fun to write because they’re short.
I tend to write them when I’m short on time.
And tanka, I am happy to report,
Are also short – and easier to rhyme.
I don’t know a pantoum from a pontoon.
And emulating Petrarch hurts my brain.
I’ll stick with Hallmark; moon and June and spoon
And pen a more conventional refrain.
It could be that I’m lacking in resolve.
Or maybe erudition’s what I lack.
A ghazal* is a puzzle I can’t solve.
It makes my train of thought go off the track.
And I would rather die and go to hell
Than ever try to write a villanelle.




* rhymes with puzzle

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DILETTAUNT



Poetry isn’t
dentistry.
You don’t need
an advanced
degree.
In basketball,
they can’t teach
height.
Everyone can’t learn
to write.
Master classes
and week-end
retreats
won’t produce
a Shelley or Keats.
Why not do it
the old-fashioned way?
Ignore what the
critics  have to say.
Remember that Rome
wasn’t built in a day,
and neither was
Edna St. Vincent Millay.
You write bad verse?
Well --- that’s ok.
You might write worse
with an M.F.A..
If you lack
the right credentials,
better stick
to the essentials.
Keep it short, but
not too sweet.
Don’t use rhymes and
don’t count feet!
Skew the syntax.
Switch the tense.
Try to keep
the language dense.
It helps if the title
makes no sense.
Never write
a line that could
easily be understood.
Critics all
will wax ecstatic
If your poems are
enigmatic.
Always
strive to be abstruse;
lest you’ll sound like
Mother Goose –
or even worse
like Dr. Seuss.
Don’t be “humdrum”.
Don’t be “trite”.
Think conundrum
when you write.
Pull enough wool
over their eyes,
and you could win
a Pull it, sir Prize.

xxxxxxx

BIO:


Pandora Blue is a young lesbian radical feminist transgendered revolutionary poet and performance artist who was born without arms to a Haitian mother and a Swedish father. Winner of a Pushcart and nominated three times for a Dumptruck Prize, Mr./Ms. Blue is the recipient of many prestigious grants and awards.  She co-edits the Ectopic Review and is published by Entropy House. The fact that her name is an anagram of Pablo Neruda  - and adorable pun -  is purely coincidental. 

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UNREQWERTY’D LOVE



the story of belle and play









Connie Bryson



© 2005 Dormouse Press

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PROLOGUE, THANKS (TO KEN) AND PITCH TO PUBLISHERS


When I write lyrics, I strive to say as much as I can in as few words as  possible.  I write poetry the same way - and I write for the reader, not just for “myself”. These poems are personal but also universal. My writing can be funny, angry, sly, ironic, erotic, poignant, silly, sometimes simultaneously,  but it’s not elitist or esoteric. It’s accessible, but it’s not greeting card verse and it won’t give you diabetes. Even when it rhymes. Maybe there is a market for this kind of short, wry, pithy poetry.

I’ve thought long and hard about how these poems could be presented. So far, I’ve come up with a few ideas, two themes in particular, which could be combined: 1) What I call  (forgive the pun) “unre-qwerty-ed love”, i.e. writing incessantly and desperately to a man who professes love but rejects flesh and blood relationships, refuses to meet face to face and eventually stops corresponding and 2) “The Great American Songbook”, which is chock full of sunny, platitudinous references to eternal love and happy endings. I’m writing to a prize-winning and once celebrated poet/playwright who worked at the Copa, knew Sinatra and Dean Martin, wrote screenplays in Hollywood and tended bar at a fabled jazz club in Greenwich Village. He now lives in Brooklyn and delivers pizzas. These old standards are the soundtrack of his life. He listens to and talks about these wonderful tunes constantly. The wistful nostalgia for a bygone era that pop music instantly creates is in sharp contrast to my laconic, Zen-like “in the moment” personal observations, so for anyone familiar with the old standards, there is an added element of irony. But the poems must stand on their own.  I’m hoping they are interesting and readable without the backstory, but the cybersaga of bellecurve and playwrightnovelist is itself worthy of a novel or a screenplay, both of which are beyond me. Ironically, “Play” is the one who should be telling the story. Maybe someday he will. His version would be mostly fiction, but it would be a great read.  The man’s a hell of a writer.

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BELLE AND PLAY




Cast of Characters:


Bellecurve (belle) …………… Connie Bryson

Playwrightnovelist (play) ……. Ken Brown

Lorna ………………………….The love of Ken’s life. His long departed, married-to-a-billionaire ex-girlfriend. They had a passionate affair until her husband found out. He bought an island off the coast of Washington State and whisked her away.


Places:


Lento’s ……………………..... One of Brooklyn’s oldest and finest pizza restaurants.


PrimeSingles.net …………………........... ......Dating website for people over forty.
Connie’s handle was “bellecurve”; Ken’s was “playwrightnovelist”. Their nicknames were “belle” and “play”.

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BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?




I dedicate this book

to Kenneth H. Brown.

He started at the top

and worked his way down.


He wrote a play

that should have won

a Pulitzer Prize.


Then tended bar

and ended up

delivering pies.

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I COULD WRITE A BOOK  (TANKA)



Not about the way

you talk and whisper and look.

Just the way you talk.

And the things you typed to me.

And the love I had for you.

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IMAGINATION



A celibate woman

and an

impotent man

can love

one another

like

no one else can.

xxxxxxx

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT




He's online again

talking to me

typing

with two fingers

the old man's hands

teasing

my nipples

erect

kneading my belly

finding doors

and picking the locks

telling me

we can never meet

typing late at night

from a third floor

apartment

somewhere near

the Verrazano Bridge

in Brooklyn

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MÉNAGE À TROIS



He crawls into bed

with Misery and

Self-Pity but

even twins don’t

get the old man off

anymore.

He dreams

of the lady who

left him

while the lady who

loves him

sleeps alone.

xxxxxxx

OPEN WIDE



I am a cherry

in your mouth

but your tongue does not

taste my sweetness.


It probes for

the broken tooth -

for the old pain it misses.

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BOULEVARD OF BROKEN DREAMS  (TANKA)



Laura is not the

face in the misty light and

neither is Lorna.

Forget footsteps down the hall.

Nobody's out there.

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LOOK FOR THE SILVER LINING



Inside every

miserable

old man

is an unhappy old man

trying

to get out.

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A HOUSE IS NOT A HOME



Once there was

a loveless man

who lived inside

a garbage can.


He'd kick and flail

and curse and shout

and cry, Go 'way!

Don't help me out!


For if you do,

I know that then

you're gonna

put me back again!

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I HAD THE CRAZIEST DREAM  



I awoke today

so relieved to discover

your arms your hands

your lips your teeth and

your

tongue

were all in Brooklyn.  

Thank God.  

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HEAD COUNT (TANKA)



Didn’t someone say

there’s a bit of the poet

in everybody?

Not me. I check constantly.

If he were down there I’d know.

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FOR EVERY MAN THERE’S A WOMAN  (HAIKU)



For every man there’s

a woman and for every

fish a bicycle.

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DANCING IN THE DARK  (HAIKU)



Dancing in the dark

wouldn’t be the first thing I’d

want to do with you.

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DARN THAT DREAM  (HAIKU)



Tossed and turned* all night

and woke with the tangy taste

of you on my tongue.








*Don’t ask me to explain what’s being “tossed” and what’s being “turned”. The real message is concealed inside the cliché. Some people won’t get it, and it’s probably just as well. If they do get it - and are offended - I’ll turn the other cheek.

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THE BOY NEXT DOOR  (HAIKU)




It’s a little known

fact that heaven and hell are

thirty miles apart.

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THE FACE I LOVE



Don’t put me on

a pedestal.

I’d be lonely there.



I want to be

accessible.

Buy a queening chair.

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AS TIME GOES BY* (HAIKU)



Love, not time, heals all

wounds. Time heals nothing. It just

makes the bad things worse.








*TEMPUS FUCKIT

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LOVE FOR SALE   (HAIKU)



So you’re planning to

visit a prostitute to

“relieve the pressure”?


Don’t be surprised, play,

if it ends not with a bang

but a whimper. Good!

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BY MYSELF/THE OLD MASTER PAINTER  (TANKA)



What’ll I do when

you are far away? Same damn

thing I do when you’re

right around the corner, Ken.

Must I spell it out for you?

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SOON  (HAIKU)



Forget moon, spoon and

June. The only word I like

better than soon is now.

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ALL OF YOU*   (HAIKU)




In the dream I take

you into my mouth at last

and you taste so good.









*ODE TO A VEINY, SCARRED THING

Owner’s description (unverified)

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ALONE TOGETHER  (HAIKU)



We could talk about

Cervantes, or you could get

into my panties.