Lesley Jenike's Blog, page 16

#8 A Blue Bird of Paradise Hangs By Her Feet and Spreads...

#8

A Blue Bird of Paradise Hangs By Her Feet and Spreads Her Plumage

Carnation of a bird, paradoxical

and not unlike the bifurcated

nature of my own pull, that is: half

girl, half something closer to blue

sliding off a playground swing into that patch

of mulch or dirt where feet go. I hang

with friends mostly in bars or cars now

and under neon's paradise blue

long for the row of rubber seats hung

on chains soldered to their metal pole,

how I let my hair dip low...

I lied. Finished during office hours. #7 A Young Spider'...

I lied. Finished during office hours.
#7

A Young Spider's Silk Parachute Carries it Long Distances

In ecstatic clothing the neighborhood

dresses each morning: hollyhock and fir,

canapé of fog with sour sun

growing less by afternoon. Now spider

goes flying, thread so thin the smallest touch

and the tulip poplar strips down to wood.

This is a spider's world where stars are hung,

are the silk-rapt bodies of flies. They invite

and they threaten: "Who so pulleth out this

Ok. I'm onto something good right now so I'm going to wai...

Ok. I'm onto something good right now so I'm going to wait till tomorrow to post it. These days I tend to take more time on a single poem, especially if it tells me it wants to be longer (unlike the old days when I was impatient and loud and obnoxious and drank too much and wrote whole poems in a single day...).
Yesterday I was fortunate enough to hear Diane Gilliam Fisher read from her book Kettle Bottom , an uncanny coincidence because we were talking, and still are talking, about the...

#6A Hummingbird Becomes a Tarantula's Victim Perfecte...

#6

A Hummingbird Becomes a Tarantula's Victim

Perfected, not by any summation

of thought, but by the individual,

each bird in its way refines. I keep

at my desk and little fenced yard whole

aviaries of these. But I love each best

apart and lonely, each a hummingbird

that in a flock, en masse, would bury

the aster, succumb the dogwood, round out

the delightfully pointed evening's

adversarial moon, its crescent legs,

hirsute body. Only a single bird

knows the...

#5 (Just a few lines today...) The Aggressive South Amer...

#5 (Just a few lines today...)

The Aggressive South American Horned Frog Fearlessly Attacks Animals Many Times Its Size

Just as the sun continually sends light signals

through a milk carton without success, the frog

attempts to warp, would if it could undress,

peel its own skin in one strand till what's left is

humanity's skin, soft as a kiss. The fairytale says

it might be a prince and here our commonalities end,

with a nod of course to our need to rule, but bigger

and...

I like THIS poem very much. I particularly like the subje...

I like THIS poem very much. I particularly like the subject matter. And I like the style too.

Hi All. I'm putting up #3 and #4 because we're headed out...

Hi All. I'm putting up #3 and #4 because we're headed out of town for Easter. To explain myself (not that it matters), I'm trying to write my own version of the nature/animal poem and I'm using Charley Harper for his titles and his wonderful weirdness. (Thanks, Charley!) And thanks everybody for writing such fantastic stuff and for doing this thing too.

#3

A Portuguese Man-of-War Captures a Snapper with its Stinging Tentacles. At the Same Time A Hawksbill Turtle Eats the Portuguese Man-of-War, ...

#2 (title after a Charley Harper drawing.) Male Prairie ...

#2 (title after a Charley Harper drawing.)

Male Prairie Chicken Displays, Booms and Scraps to Impress a Female Who, Apparently Disinterested, is Catching a Butterfly

Collapsible yes and life seems to beg—

one pigeon-toed foot in front of the other—

for a prairie's gold impermanence which

like any landscape does as it wishes

that is: dress in flowers' long, crinkled skirts,

let the rain mow down the too much to bear,

pollen-laden wicked and flickering air

our chicken burns through...

(As you all know, NaPoWriMo poems are baby poems so neces...

(As you all know, NaPoWriMo poems are baby poems so necessarily stink and cry a lot. You've been warned.)

#1

Commandant of slipknot halter, a barn cat's

noncommittal purr, the retired runner

stamps in his stall, dips muzzle to water.

Just green, just starting, March begs reversal,

a juiced up motor starting. For him, no

Derby, no slammed open gate, no money.

And the roses! They scorch their petals in

till no later weight will—not the arms

of an exercise rider nor the slap

of...

Yes. I will be trying to write a poem every day of this m...

Yes. I will be trying to write a poem every day of this month. Of course, some days I'l be in transit, sick, annoyed, locked in the bathroom, etc., but for the most part, you'll find a poem here, briefly, every day. I'll post it then take it down pretty quickly, so check back later. I've got to teach Edward Albee now.