Tentative Question:
Are we there yet?
Derivatives:
Came we through the bathroom window?
Crossed the bridge, blazed the tree?
With or without Waltzing Matilda?
From the Land of Wink and Nod?
Clarifications:
In the forests of the knight?
In the hands of an angry cod?
At the mercy of thyme?
Before the Fudd?
Preliminaries:
A grain of sand.
Baby's breath.
Last hour struck.
Eighth spectral band.
Hypotheticals:
Finish your supper.
You are what you rede.
Familiarity can breed.
Start anywhere.
Observations:
Attention must be plaid.
Turn the top card over.
Roll 'er in the clover.
Trench to the depth of a grave.
References:
Gumdrops of literature.
Cookie crumb ideotrail.
Drop a name, pick it up.
Seldom trod path.
Refined inquiry:
How did we get here?
Research Project
Before I could fetch the camera from the porch
The noon sun shifted and dissolved it in shadow:
Frond of lady fern like a proffered hand
Reaching over a gneiss cobble, self-silhouetted,
Malachite pendant dangled against a bone white breast,
Perhaps its volume clad with its own dark fillet,
Or its flickering character vignetted on impromptu screen--
The dark tray of the mind's developer unfolding
Sweet consolations for beauties lost.
Variations
Periphery
Lately the margins of the world intrude.
In youth the eye was on the gal, the goal--
Context wasn't everything, it wasn't.
Now it lurks around the frame like Kilroy.
For instance, mid the hammer's swing we catch
The wrens at flutter-fight in forsythia
And, twice glancing in the moment, cuss.
Not to mention gardeners' paranoia--
On our knees and suddenly
Aware that shades of shrub and bough
Stalk with every breeze.
Or lights of passing cars in glasses rims
Then cabinet glass then cheval glass--
Unsettling fireworks-- but welcome now
Before the field is wrung and damped
And stopped when tunnels core the sky.
earlier his son had dismissed the note
tossed aside the absurdity laughed
at that poor church-going bastard
Jack writing him as his wife
still on the kitchen counter
another dead soldier drained
as he'd read that letter to his son
found amid the week's papers
triggering a dread and madness damned
letter writer threatened all that was dear
rifle for the ground hog from the closet
fumbling with the ammo clip
midafternoon she disarmed him
after shopping and led him in
listened to his griefs reallyimagined
played out in the hour she left him alone
the vengeful tendrils in his mind
that led him coughing threats
astride the sliding streets
bathrobed slippered armed
Youth
azaleas were not ablaze
when she woke her husband
where he'd passed out in them
nothing blossomed then except
Some Disney Dream
Now that Mickey's expired
Minnie's on the pyre
And Goofy's non compos
Heckle and Jeckle beside themselves
Dwarves bear the coffin
But wait a little guys!
Put a quarter in and try to claw off
Mickey's four-finger glove
While the plaster fat lady busts
Her garters laughing at you
So use a lobster on that glove instead
Although in tails and ascot
He is not amused. He snaps in Frog
talk as they do in four-star kitchens
but you explain you're Irish
but to no avail; it's the grail,
the bar and grail, he's after
just for the butter sauce
dip him, I dare you, dip him.
A Song for Lorca
A tiny pebble hobbles me
And keeps me lagging after you.
So I must stop and shake it loose--
Ah, please do not make light of me.
I do my best to keep with you,
Though times the stone obsesses me
More than your love possesses me.
I take your hand. you draw me through,
You sweep me up and smile on me.
Still, pace for pace dare I match you?
You'll carry me if I can't hew?
Oh, no, instead, I'll bare-soled be.
More Haiku
(What's Wrong With This Guy....
Short Hitter Or What?)
rotting pallet ribs
leans on elm trunk in wood lot--
felled hunter's stand
these blue pond doodles
on pages of algae pads--
traces of frog thoughts
out of clear blue sky
crows from behind hill brow
scatter puffball deer
Cobbles
wrapt sure
ahmoreforus
loominus
headonism
incan descents
innosense
enter prise
worm would
cop u late
forest tree
Boomer Bust
We were the first of any gen
At boobtubes to be suckled,
At dog and pony shows we cried
At weekly sit coms chuckled.
Westerns, horror flix and such
Would feed imaginations.
We'd play at cops and robbers then
In crazy imitations.
Now kids play war games on the Web,
Their parents watch the telly.
These programs called “reality”--
Enough to turn the belly.
There's swap a wife, the kids, the house,
Survive a desert island,
Or jump for Trump or bob for worms
Or try out for the houseband.
Far fetched are these “realities”--
Suppose we all get real-er
Retirement will come to most,
So let's send out some feelers.
Cut Up contestants get Sunday's paper--
Most coupons clipped: advances.
Flu Shot Face Off plays for keeps--
Who will improve her chances?
Then there's Early Birder's Quest
For biggest take-home portions,
World's Slowest Driver takes home
Prizes and some cautions.
It's time to tailor programming
To those who only sit and wait,
Their own test pattern looms,
Their own remotes are held by Fate.