POEM OF THE DAY BY IRIS APPELQUIST

it was a normal day 


full of bees we killed an hour saying a lot of nothing trying to say something and the weather was perfect. 
the children were getting hurt it wasn’t too sunny or hot or anything like that and the clover pulled at our bees inside it was painful for a minute saying all that nothing over and through all the something like honey seeping out. sappy children with their contusions and tantrums they brought perfect purple blossoms even with tears and the leaves broken it was such a beautiful day for crying in the park and i can’t lie it seemed like your bees were really fat loud flies and my bees were bees.


-Iris Appelquist

POEM OF THE DAY BY BRANDON WHITEHEAD

FIRE SNAKE

Grampa (or not) Woody, who rode
the old trails from Tahlequah
to the stone bones of the Rocky's,
listened to the storyteller
tell the tale of how Coyote
stole fire from three witches,
three witches with three black
nails that gave the chipmunks
their three black stripes,
and how Coyote finally hid fire
in wood for the people to use.

Woody smiles a crooked brown
smile, just like Coyote.

Later, while tending his rattlesnakes
-snakes that cannot hear their own rattle-
Woody tells me another part
of that tale that few knew
-like the paths he took-

How the running Coyote
came across brother Snake,
who said he could hide the fire
in his den under the earth.

"It's worth a try..." Said Coyote,
but Snake, who in those days
had a magnificent pelt of soft fur,
burned with fire instead,
and became the hairless, hard-scaled one
with the shaking tail,
shaking to escape the fire
to this day.

On the western plains of Kansas
they are using the fire to burn off
last year's crop, Coyote's gift
and Snake's bane, a miles-long
ribbon of fire, curling,
shaking a thousand tails.

Somewhere Snake watches, terrified,
envious of his failed bravery
and his lost innocence, transfixed.

To this day, only witches
and snakes know
the real secret of fire:

We all want to hold it,
but forget we have to burn.


-Brandon Whitehead

POEM OF THE DAY BY BILLY COLLINS

Reading An Anthology Of Chinese Poems
Of The Sung Dynasty, I Pause To Admire
The Length And Clarity Of Their Titles


It seems these poets have nothing
up their ample sleeves
they turn over so many cards so early,
telling us before the first line
whether it is wet or dry,
night or day, the season the man is standing in,
even how much he has had to drink.

Maybe it is autumn and he is looking at a sparrow.
Maybe it is snowing on a town with a beautiful name.

"Viewing Peonies at the Temple of Good Fortune
on a Cloudy Afternoon" is one of Sun Tung Po's.
"Dipping Water from the River and Simmering Tea"
is another one, or just
"On a Boat, Awake at Night."

And Lu Yu takes the simple rice cake with
"In a Boat on a Summer Evening
I Heard the Cry of a Waterbird.
It Was Very Sad and Seemed To Be Saying
My Woman Is Cruel--Moved, I Wrote This Poem."

There is no iron turnstile to push against here
as with headings like "Vortex on a String,"
"The Horn of Neurosis," or whatever.
No confusingly inscribed welcome mat to puzzle over.

Instead, "I Walk Out on a Summer Morning
to the Sound of Birds and a Waterfall"
is a beaded curtain brushing over my shoulders.

And "Ten Days of Spring Rain Have Kept Me Indoors"
is a servant who shows me into the room
where a poet with a thin beard
is sitting on a mat with a jug of wine
whispering something about clouds and cold wind,
about sickness and the loss of friends.

How easy he has made it for me to enter here,
to sit down in a corner,
cross my legs like his, and listen.


-Billy Collins

A SWEET LITTLE HALLOWEEN POEM FROM GEORGE WALLACE.

TRICK OR TREAT AMERICA
OPEN UP YOUR BIG FAT MOUTH
trick or treat america open up your mouth spit it out you are not earth's only miracle you are also a great big fucking pain in the Ass and a launching pad of terrible ambitions unbalanced egg cream the moon and planets make way for you & your super-ego men your beauty castaways your ecstatic frack-happy legal thieves O god you are an awkward nation with your sidewalk soup and your belly side up your fist full mountain dew put up or shut up open me first and your dreams your dreams! Your dreams die here on your blacktop highway on your trail of tears you ripped off the Indians you left em for dead you been and Look what you gave back beercans tossed from the gravy train -- america your football helmets crash pads crop dusters and charlton heston your easy terms and no deposit oh drugstore carnival oh panty raids and unrepentant capitalism when i have said i love you i did not lie i love you open twentyfour hours i love you bald headed as a bassett hound and your pagan love song I love your neighbors yes and your Soupy sales & magic tricks roadrunner ain’t got nothing on you & your apple farms poolhalls and palm trees jazzified in the new Orleans creole night o FUCK it america all your glory’s gone up your nostrils but what the shit, it’s Halloween! my favorite pagan holiday! I forgive y ou I love you I god bless You! Trick or treat Ding Dong Hand over the candy Motherfucker!


-George Wallace

POEM OF THE DAY BY GEORGE WALLACE

WARHOL SOUP 
hey waiter waiter what’s this jellyfish doing in my Warhol soup -- why 
I’ll tell you mister it's doing the watusi it’s doing the backstroke it’s 
doing the merengue & the fly

it’s meditating like a fuck bunny from mars it’s a devil in disguise & it’ll 
screw you up with its silkscreen elvis & its angular ass & tits with its 
wingtips & its long sharp teeth

but waiter waiter what’s this marilyn doing in my Warhol soup -- why 
you don’t know what you’re messing with mister it’s doing the ‘i tease 
you’ it’s doing the ‘turn me on dead man’

it’s doing the i use, you you use me -- the i suck you, i eat you, then i 
spit you out like snake meat on a cold plate

but waiter waiter what’s this mushroom cloud doing in my Warhol soup -- 
why listen up mister it’s doing the edie it’s doing the joe

it’s doing the heroin freak the hedonist rag it’s doing the candy darling 
the nico the ultraviolet & the lou reed too -- & if i told you once i told 
you a thousand times

a spoonful of that long hard darkness will get you all tangled up & 
wishing you could throw that bitches broth away but you can’t


-GEORGE WALLACE

POEM OF THE DAY BY JACKIE TREIBER

"Spa Psychic"

You will have a vision of your true love
in the fumes of toxic nail polish.
A child’s face will manifest
in a post-sauna mirage.
The glyph that eventually leads
you down a light path
will appear in a mud mask spread.
The pains of your future lost limb
will be transmuted in the hot rock
stone massage of now.
You are not your muscles--
but a cloud of impressions:
blue in the shade, violet when you lie
white when you’re being read.
No longer a Hanged Man--
spurred black boots on a wire
but a pre-life soldier
waiting in the hotsprings
of psychic disorder.


-Jackie Treiber

POEM OF THE DAY BY HARLEY ELLIOT

REPORT ON THE FOURTH

Alone in the house on
the fourth of july bang
one hundred and five all around

no shade the orioles bang and
sparrows droop panting in the trees
and the bang and the beer
marches bang bang from the refrigerator

a dripping line of bottles
along the living room floor
bang the policemen doze like sweating birds

one man bang bang one man
is arrested in drunken slow motion
while trying to get a bang

a drink of water from a
filling station air hose
bang on the fourth of july.

-Harley Elliott

POEM OF THE DAY BY JOSH RIZER

Vacupuncture

i wish i could remove things

in answer to this western solution

of adding things on,

this triple quarter pounder big mac of solutions and remedies,

this high fructose, blazing sodium seasoning 

used to spice up spoiled food for thought.

i wish deft and expert hands could move along your body, removing

gaffs, tridents, harpoons, rescue hooks,

all the leisters

that the tiny little people have lashed to you

to bring you down.

the acupuncture didn’t work after all,

not with the tools they used anyway,

the hypodermic needles,

the ballpoint pen tracheotomies,

the intubations,

all of it ghastly and invasive,

all of meant to

vaccinate you from the truth of yourself.

baggage?

you’ve got a luggage rack, pal.

i wish i could take that away instead of inventing more storage.

cross to bear?

buddy, your hauling all of latitude and longitude itself

and i wish i could remove that

instead of strutting it on some sick runway.

it would be great to scrape off the irritations

instead of adding meditations to cope with them.

basically we’re talking about subtracting illness

as opposed to adding medication, 

make sense?

what i’m getting at is that most of us don’t need

needles put in,

we need syringes pulled out,

the needles that crocheted the spaghetti of our brains

into some foreign tapestry.

imagine an expert coming along quietly,

painlessly removing 

the darts, 

the flechettes, 

the arrows,

the pikes,

the spears,

pulling off the bear traps,

slipping the thorns from your paw

and finally, with the help of several orderlies,

removing you from the life you have embedded yourself in

like an alabama tick.

it would be nice to apply that dentist’s vacuum

and withdraw all the slobber

from your cheeks,

the salivation from coveting greener grass.

it would be best if that

suction tube were applied,

withdrawing the thing that came to term in you

that you never came to terms with. 

the thing they shot you full of

when they fucked you.

in fact,
come to think of it,

it would be healthiest if

you just forgot you ever read this.

-Joshua Rizer

POEM OF THE DAY BY IRIS APPELQUIST

THE DOG

the dog was born
with three legs, which is
a lot better than
one of his legs
having been rent
from his body in
an accident or maiming.
there was no visible scar,
no missing patch of fur
to tell others that he
was once whole; once,
but no longer,
much like themselves.
he learned to walk, still…
even run, even hunt. his life
was just as busy as that
of any dog with
four legs.
he once saw a dog
with five legs—a stunted,
lame leg grown out of its
chest and he felt
a feeling that, for dogs,
is as close to pity
as i can describe.
after adolescence, he
could forget that
he was so obviously different
from other dogs, whose
differences would
require some investigation.
he took several mates
and begat many
children, none of whom shared
his defect. he had trouble
with dances and swimming.
he sometimes became irrational for seemingly
no reason.

-Iris Appelquist

POEM OF THE DAY BY ARTHUR SZE

Earthstar
Opening the screen door, you find a fat spider
poised at the threshold. When I swat it,

hundreds of tiny crawling spiders burst out.
What space in the mind bursts into waves

of wriggling light? As we round a bend,
a gibbous moon burnishes lava rocks and waves.

A wild boar steps into the road, and around
another bend, a mongoose darts across our headlights.

As spokes to a hub, the very far converges
to the very near. A row of Siberian irises

buds and blooms in the yard behind our bedroom.
A moth flutters against a screen and sets

off a light. I had no idea carded wool spun
into yarn could be dipped and oxidized into bliss.

Once, hunting for chanterelles in a meadow,
I flushed quail out of the brush. Now

you step on an unexpected earthstar, and it
bursts in a cloud of brown spores into June light.


-Arthur Sze

POEM(S) OF THE DAY BY JASON AMMERMAN

Gallows (long)


Hanging in the breeze
limp clothes on a clothesline
clean hoods over heads
cover their grimaces

Bodies at peace, swaying
Like ripe fruit on
a tree
in the open sun

Their lives poured out in passion
the consequences of actions lost
They followed uncontrolled desire
The prayers of the one day to be condemned are loud, long before the sentence.

Permanent fixation of muscle
The tent given up
hanging

Bloated
The blood starting to dry
The emotion is getting quiet

All the onlookers leave
It is quiet enough for the scared souls to creep out of their bodies

Spirits released the executed step out into the sunshine
Like a man yawning at waking and reluctantly stepping into the full day light.

They hover blinking
Bare skin newly naked

The noble host of the maker awaiting their arrival, shines upon them
The voice is of confidence and simple, noble kindness

"Clean linen for the back of the thief, long gown for the whore, and give the preacher pants."

"They are all welcome. Let us give them a home."



Gallows (Short)


Hanging in the breeze
limp clothes on a clothesline
clean hoods over heads
cover their grimaces
at peace, swaying
in the open sun

Permanent fixation of muscle
the tent given up
hanging

Spirits released
the executed step out
into the sunshine
Bare skin newly naked

The maker shines above them
his voice is of confidence
and simple noble kindness

"Clean linen for the back of the thief, long gown for the whore, and give the preacher pants."

"They are welcome. Make them at home."

 -Jason Ammerman

POEM OF THE DAY BY JACOB JOHANSON

A LUNAR OUTLOOK ON THE NEWS HOUR


every time i try to talk to the moon
about the news of the day
he just rolls his eyes
and reminisces about carson,
waits for me
to start talking about girls
because
having looked through enough windows
is convinced of his ideas
about what's really important anyway,
the moon wants a tuxedo
so he can crash weddings on his off nights
dancing with bridesmaids
and eating cake
the moon
couldn't care less about gun control
or the economy,
leaving those concerns
for the last burlesque dancer at armageddon
who he claims
was the first girl
that ever made him wish for a body
and a solid copy
of the karma sutra
the moon
just wants to have a good time,
maybe play a little poker
at the caesar's hotel in vegas
with baudelaire and dali
because he thinks it would be
one hell of an evening,
ending in the sort of poverty
he could tell his children about
the moon will point out
in utter despondency
the most action he ever gets
is when venus is aligned,
the damn tease,
leaving him with fantasies
of celestial collisions
and never-mind the aftermath,
he says
that sort of thinking
is what you get
from watching too much news,
gaining a taste for apathy
and a shortsighted viewpoint
the moon lays his head
on the the dawn
stretching,
reminds me
he'll be back tomorrow
and he expects
so will the rest of the mess.


-Jacob Johanson

POEM OF THE DAY BY ABIGAIL BEAUDELLE

DINOSAUR FACTORY



The first time
I saw a grain elevator
chipped-tooth white in the sun
outside Kansas City
I was East -
Coast-Ignorant,
the magnitude of a nation's
hunger presenting itself
like a dinosaur factory,
huge and ungainly in the light.

nearly 160 million acres
plowed under in one generation -
the Flint Hills remain
one of the last bastions of the American Prairie,
too much shale, flint
limestone renders it unworkable
we let it be -
give it national preserve status,
call ourselves conservationists.

Beneath the surface
prehistoric sea creatures
bed down in stone
at the center of our nation.

ii.
Topological landmark in a seabed
state -
the grain elevators
straddle the landscape -
pelvic remnants of biblical giants;

displaced small gods
congregate like
caveblind amphibians
in their shadows, they

remember what the land
was
weep silent
for dying bees -
remember
what the land was
weep silent
for lost butterflies

Buffalo specters
drift past Quicktrip parking lots
their glassine torsos
framing sandwich signs
coffee and glazed donut
$1.95 + tax
raise their heads
at the scent of wheat.


-Abigail Beaudelle

POEM OF THE DAY BY GEORGE CARLIN

MODERN MAN


I’m a modern man, a man for the millennium, digital and smoke-free, a diversified multi-cultural post-modern deconstructionist, politcally, anatomically, and ecologically incorrect.

I’ve been uplinked and downloaded, I’ve been inputed and outsourced, I know the upside of downsizing, I know the downside of upgrading. I’m a high-tech lowlife, a state-of-the-art bi-coastal multitasker, and I can give you a gigabyte in a nanosecond.

I’m new wave, but I’m old school, and my inner child is outward bound. I’m a hot-wired, heat-seeking, warm-hearted cool customer, voice-activated and biodegradeble. I interface with my database, and my database is in cyberspace, so I’m interactive, I’m hyperactive, and from time to time, I’m radioactive.

Behind the 8-ball, ahead of the curve, riding the wave, dodging the bullet, pushing the envelope. I’m on point, on task, on message, and off drugs. I got no need for coke and speed. I have no urge to binge and purge. I’m in the moment, on the edge, over the top, but under the radar. A high-concept, low-profile, medium-range ballistics missionary. A street-wise smart bomb, a top-gun bottom-feeder.

I wear power ties, I tell power lies, I take power naps, I run victory laps. I’m a totally ongoing bigfoot slamdunk rainmaker with a proactive outreach. A raging workaholic, a working rageaholic, out of rehab and in denial. I got a personal trainer, a personal shopper, a personal assistant, and a personal agenda. You can’t shut me up, you can’t dumb me down, ’cause I’m tireless, and I’m wireless. I’m an alpha male on beta blockers.

I’m a non-believer and an overachiever, laid back, but fashion forward, up front, down home, low rent, high maintenance; super size, long lasting, high definition, fast acting, oven ready, and built to last. I’m a hands-on, footloose, kneejerk headcase, prematurly post-traumatic, and I have a love child who sends me hate mail.

But I’m feeling, I’m caring, I’m healing, I’m sharing, a supportive, bonding, nurturing, primary caregiver. My output is down, but my income is up. I take a short position on a long bond, and my revenue stream has its own cash flow. I read junk mail, I eat junk food, I buy junk bonds, I watch trash sports. I’m gender specific, capital intensive, user friendly, and lactose intolerant.

I like rough sex, I like tough love, I use the F-word in my e-mails, and the software on my hard drive is hardcore, no soft porn. I bought a microwave at a minimall, I bought a minivan at a megastore, I eat fast food in the slow lane. I’m tollfree, bite size, ready to wear, and I come in all sizes. A fully equipped, factory authorized, hospital tested, clinically proven, scientifically formulated medical miracle.

I’ve been prewashed, precooked, preheated, prescreened, preapproved, postdated, freeze dried, double wrapped, vacuum packed, and I have an unlimited broadband capacity. I’m a rude dude, but I’m the real deal, lean and mean, cocked, locked, and ready to rock; rough, tough, and hard to bluff.

I take it slow, I go with the flow, I ride with the tide, I got glide in my stride. Drivin’ and movin’, sailin’ and spinin’, jivin’ and groovin’, wailin’ and winnin’. I don’t snooze, so I don’t lose. I keep the pedal to the metal and the rubber on the road. I party hardy, and lunch time is crunch time. I’m hangin’ in, there ain’t no doubt, and I’m hangin’ tough, over and out.


-George Carlin

POEM OF THE DAY BY DAVE ETTER

DANCING LIKE MONK

Didn’t like the party
didn’t like the people there
tossed down my whiskey
put on my corduroy coat
passed some tacky tycoons
country club bumpkins
double chins double gins
yanked open the thick front door
lit a fresh Cuban cigar
went down white stone steps
went down crooked walk
went spinning round and round
goodbye to Wall Street weirdos
bigoted Republicans
bad hearts sick with greed
glad to be out of there
turning and whirling
dancing dancing like Monk.


-Dave Etter

POEM OF THE DAY BY LAWRENCE FERLINGHETTI

Two Scavengers In A Truck,
Two Beautiful People In A Mercedes

At the stoplight waiting for the light
    Nine A.M. downtown San Francisco
 a bright garbage truck
  with two garbage men in red plastic blazers
 standing on the back stoop
      one on each side hanging on
    and looking down into 
an elegant open Mercedes
with an elegant couple in it
The man
In a hip three-piece linen suit
With shoulder-length blond hair & sunglasses
The young blond woman so casually coifed
with a short skirt and colored stocking
On his way to his architect's office
And the two scavengers up since Four A.M.
Grungy from their route
On the way home 
The older of the two with grey iron hair
And hunched back
Looking like some
Gargoyle Quasimodo
And the younger of the two
Also with sunglasses and long hair
About the same age as the Mercedes driver
And both scavengers gazing down
As from a great distance
At the cool couple
As if they were watching some odorless TV ad
In which everything is possible

And the very red light for an instant
Holding all four close together
As if anything at all were possible 
Between them
Across that great gulf
In the high seas
Of this democracy

-Lawrence Ferlinghetti

POEM OF THE DAY BY KENNETH PATCHEN

Eve of St. Agony or The Middleclass Was Sitting on Its Fat

Man-dirt and stomachs that the sea unloads; rockets

of quick lice crawling inland, planting their damn flags,   

putting their malethings in any hole that will stand still,

yapping bloody murder while they slice off each other’s heads,   

spewing themselves around, priesting, whoring, lording   

it over little guys, messing their pants, writing gush-notes   

to their grandmas, wanting somebody to do something pronto,   

wanting the good thing right now and the bad stuff for the other boy.

Gullet, praise God for the gut with the patented zipper;   

sing loud for the lads who sell ice boxes on the burning deck.   

Dear reader, gentle reader, dainty little reader, this is

the way we go round the milktrucks and seamusic, Sike’s trap and Meg’s rib,

the wobbly sparrow with two strikes on the bible, behave   

Alfred, your pokus is out; I used to collect old ladies,   

pickling them in brine and painting mustaches on their bellies,   

later I went in for stripteasing before Save Democracy Clubs;   

when the joint was raided we were all caught with our pants down.

But I will say this: I like butter on both sides of my bread   

and my sister can rape a Hun any time she’s a mind to,

or the Yellow Peril for that matter; Hector, your papa’s in the lobby.

The old days were different; the ball scores meant something then,

two pill in the side pocket and two bits says so; he got up slow see,

shook the water out of his hair, wam, tell me that ain’t a sweet left hand;

I told her what to do and we did it, Jesus I said, is your name McCoy?

Maybe it was the beer or because she was only sixteen but I got hoarse

just thinking about her; married a john who travels in cotton underwear.

Now you take today; I don’t want it. Wessex, who was that with I saw you lady?

Tony gave all his dough to the church; Lizzie believed in feeding her own face;

and that’s why you’ll never meet a worm who isn’t an antichrist, my friend,

I mean when you get down to a brass tack you’ll find some sucker sitting on it.

Whereas. Muckle’s whip and Jessie’s rod, boyo, it sure looks black

in the gut of this particular whale. Hilda, is that a .38 in your handbag?

         Ghosts in packs like dogs grinning at ghosts   

         Pocketless thieves in a city that never sleeps

         Chains clank, warders curse, this world is stark mad

Hey! Fatty, don’t look now but that’s a Revolution breathing down your neck.

 -Kenneth Patchen