Ponytail

Poesy plus Polemics

“Fists, Beards and Ponytails”
Pen and ink drawing by Stephanie Bonham
At stephaniebonham.blogspot.com

button down collars

under three piece suits

and military hair

made deals big and small

all over the world

styled in boardroom attire

till I folded my desk

shredded airline club cards

and retired to sweet air

of flannel shirt country

haven’t been to a barber

since bagging my suits

over mothballs in cedar

despite the bald pate

what fringes my ears

and unshaven nape

now falls like a flag

fully twenty-eight inches

waving its gray

and matching my beard

I blend in just fine

here among unshorn aging

sturdy good mountainfolk

save for amusing

mistaken identity

that sometimes has

taken me for

some grizzly old liberal

lost-in-time hippie

if they only knew

but I just play along

all the better to spy

in the enemy camp

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Adrenaline

Poesy plus Polemics

“Herakles with Lionskin”
Hellenistic Sculpture
Photo at theoi.com

remind me how I tore into two tons of tragedy
when Hercules girded my infirmity in lionskin
and my veins exploded in splatters of laughter
at reclining danced-out shapes
daring to eat grapes in the lavender flames of affluent wreckage
did you know blood and gasoline both smell like urine
was I crazy or drunk
on ominous drips from slow-melting ice sculptures
did I kill you
or save you from saving yourself
when I pulled your fear and mine into broken glass weeds
remind me if you live
I can’t hear my memory’s voice
for the pounding liquid hammers in my vascular head
and the noisy cavitation of my shudders

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F. Scott Fitzgerald

Poesy plus Polemics

F. Scott Fitzgerald 1896-1940
American Novelist
Photo from notable biographies.com

(With the imminent theatrical release of the 5^th movie remake of ‘The Great Gatsby’ I thought I’d pay homage to this youthful writer whose works I admired in my own youth.)

light of the Jazz Age

married to madness

told opulent tragedies

through flaw-footed players

ground between teeth

of failure and feat

gaily tortured, ill-fated

like the man with the

perfect-pitch pen

swimming headlong in booze

filling pauperized pools

of palatial celebrity

both making and breaking

his famous young corpse

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Some People Shouldn’t be Parents

Poesy plus Polemics

Photo from 123rf.com

so tired of wasting affection
nothing I do seems to matter
every sunrise to sunset
rain or shine or black flies
I sit on the grass calling out
give my best pleading howl
I promise them love
never snarl or chew shoes
but no one responds
so what am I doing here
why did they choose me
just days after weaning
they seem nice enough
but a few pats and rubs
after dinner is all
they seem willing to give
with this collar, this bowl and
this damned rattling chain
nothing I do seems to matter
so tired of wasting affection

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Memory Stacks

Poesy plus Polemics

Photo at greenwichlibrary.org

music leaves residues

tinctures of sentiments

sleeving themselves

slipped into jackets of memory

among sights, sounds and smells

marking moments

collected and sorted

emotional niches

forever retrievable

just lay your thumb

against the right heartstring

and strum

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Halfwits

Poesy plus Polemics

Illustration at richardrosenman.com

to see with one eye

to hear with one ear

insults the endowment

of reasoned free will

ignores the philosophers

from Plato to Nozick

injures the birthright

heirloom of Cleisthenes

such half-informed citizens

founder and slump

in the wallowing

squalor of demagogues

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Whispers

Poesy plus Polemics

“Spring Woods”
Painting by Jan Blencowe
At thepoeticlandscape.com

new growth from old roots
the whispered promise of spring
and second chances

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Legerdemain

Poesy plus Polemics

“Legislative Legerdemain”
Illustration at stanford.edu

French-cuffed gestures trickle with sarcasm
from blood red links of sardonyx signets
fluttering fingers speak coherent hypocrisy
collecting catastrophe out of the air
they fold fulgent lightning bolts
flatten fat thunder clouds
crease leaden skies along envelope lines
to pocket and hold
against dangerous days
when falsehood and secrets refuse to stay hidden

then comes time that the brazen
throw open the storms
unleash their disasters
and let facts emerge but only amidst
the dishonesty roiling with clamor and clash
sleight of sardonic hands draws mass misdirection
to mayhem that rips at the senses
lashing the innocent ground of town greens
and those guileless guilty straining to stand
unaware as truth dissipates unto the winds

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High Desert

Poesy plus Polemics

Painting at zazzle.com

rich lavender skies cast botanical hues
beneath knees of mute bluffs
splashed by deep orange sunsets
watered by the Snake run with tears
shed by warrior ghosts
Shoshone and Paiute and Ute
keeping vigil on rituals
practiced for ten thousand years
here in the hauntings

color dances with texture
across ballroom landscapes
where moccasins made gentle injury
where buffalo skins swaddled tentpoles
and spirits spoke portents in pipesmoke
but to see them today takes a shamanic gaze
into killing field shadows and riverbank mists
tracing grounds of a once sacred world
whose future will never match history

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Corbels and Canopies

Poesy plus Polemics

Sydney Opera House
Photo by Roger N. Clark
At clarkvision.com

architectural features
should obey austere laws
that form follows function
that style follows substance
or fall to indictment
as criminal ornament

so said the modernist Bauhaus ideology
bleeding on doctrinal liberal arts
and business school mantras
structure in train to strategy
but I must confess it leaves suffering cold
my personal warmth for aesthetics

keep your unnatural boxes of steel and flat glass
give me organic character
show me corbels and canopies
contours and clefts
that will quicken my courses
like curves of a confident woman

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