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

POEM OF THE DAY BY ZBIGNIEW HERBERT

I Would Like to Describe
I would like to describe the simplest emotion joy or sadness but not as others do reaching for shafts of rain or sun I would like to describe a light which is being born in me but I know it does not resemble any star for it is not so bright not so pure and is uncertain I would like to describe courage without dragging behind me a dusty lion and also anxiety without shaking a glass full of water to put it another way I would give all metaphors in return for one word drawn out of my breast like a rib for one word contained within the boundaries of my skin but apparently this is not possible and just to say - I love I run around like mad picking up handfuls of birds and my tenderness which after all is not made of water asks the water for a face and anger different from fire borrows from it a loquacious tongue so is blurred so is blurred in me what white-haired gentlemen separated once and for all and said this is the subject and this is the object we fall asleep with one hand under our head and with the other in a mound of planets our feet abandon us and taste the earth with their tiny roots which next morning we tear out painfully -Zbigniew Herbert

POEM OF THE DAY BY TONY HOAGLAND

Reading Moby-Dick at 30,000 Feet
At this height, Kansas is just a concept, a checkerboard design of wheat and corn no larger than the foldout section of my neighbor's travel magazine. At this stage of the journey I would estimate the distance between myself and my own feelings is roughly the same as the mileage from Seattle to New York, so I can lean back into the upholstered interval between Muzak and lunch, a little bored, a little old and strange. I remember, as a dreamy backyard kind of kid, tilting up my head to watch those planes engrave the sky in lines so steady and so straight they implied the enormous concentration of good men, but now my eyes flicker from the in-flight movie to the stewardess's pantyline, then back into my book, where men throw harpoons at something much bigger and probably better than themselves, wanting to kill it, wanting to see great clouds of blood erupt to prove that they exist. Imagine being born and growing up, rushing through the world for sixty years at unimaginable speeds. Imagine a century like a room so large, a corridor so long you could travel for a lifetime and never find the door, until you had forgotten that such a thing as doors exist. Better to be on board the Pequod, with a mad one-legged captain living for revenge. Better to feel the salt wind spitting in your face, to hold your sharpened weapon high, to see the glisten of the beast beneath the waves. What a relief it would be to hear someone in the crew cry out like a gull, Oh Captain, Captain! Where are we going now?      -Tony Hoagland