Category: Tundra

These are the poems inspired by our move to Minnesota – the things that happened during the move, since the move and more importantly, the inspiration and reactions to the move.

Categories
Tundra

a deus ex machina hidden in plain sight

a note/an interruption of thought
placed here in the middle of the book
(shoulda been at the front)

interruptions are merely continuations when you think non-linearly/that's what we'll say/crooked roads end at the same place the straight ones do:

the end.

the placement of titles is problematic [in the original edition]
of this i am aware

it is more difficult to put the name at the top when you don't know where the poem's ending is/whether the road is straight or crooked doesn't really matter

it makes the whole world go topsy turvy for me in
the end.
Categories
Tundra

ode to midwestern food

pierogi. oofta.
wisconsin anything - cheeseladen
heavy. hearty.
kielbasa+fries+bun+kraut+mustard+beef+pizza+hotdog-ketchup+oldstyle.
chicago.
greatest grubbin in america
(in winter)
heavy. hearty.
heavy...

in indiana:
chicken and noodles so thick it sticks together like to-go chinese rice. 
plop,
on top of mashed potatoes.
oofta.

monochromatic carboloading.

in minnesota:
i saw a fried pie
it caught my eye
labeled as it was:
insideout 
biscuits & gravy.

pierogi.
i have become 
monochromatic and carboladen

delicious/greyish/heartburn

heavy...
Categories
Tundra

lemme go

why so somber, tonight? 
why so forlorn?

why the same?
i retort.

why so full of melancholy?
why so glum, chum?

lemme go, ouroboros.
lemme go.
Categories
Tundra

i drove out to st. cloud today

i drove out to st. cloud today
pop. 68,000

i drove out to st. cloud today
headed back down south
i came this way
i drove this long, lonely road

i drove out to st. cloud today
loaded my mouth
saw where the snow was 
saw the snow unsnowed

i drove out to st. cloud today
just for giggles
ate off a tray
just for giggles
they had no kung pao
no giggles, none
Categories
Tundra

another study of melting snow, another metaphor

meditations on pink floyd

(understood in time)

meditations on ecclesiastes

(understoodeath in time)

understood death?
                in time.



what profiteth man?
miss that starting gun
what profiteth man
to win his race 
to win his run?


understand death?
                in time.


all melt like snow
aching to reach the mississippi 
all melt like snow
the darkening (twilife's glow)
aching to reach the mississippi
goeth/goes/go 
the melting snow



twilife's glow:
dimmed/once bright
give meaning to us, mississipi 
grant our brief lives meaning
forget us not

- we melting snow


what profiteth man?


understood
in time



all melt like snow
twilight
twilight
twilife, benight.


[ashes to ashes
dust to dust
water to water]




vanity of vanities
everything, vanity

everything,
           vanity.




melting into the mississippi
we go
Categories
Tundra

ouroboros

ouroboros never could outrun his own 
                                    teeth.
ouroboros never could outrun his own
nor can i
    nor can i
     or can i?

ouroboros never could outrun his own
                                    teeth.
                                          can i?
Categories
Tundra

now what? (iii)

you say: 
you are a nostalgic
a hopeless romantic
full of fascination
with a bygone age.

it is one thing to bang the night away on a typewriter in faux candlelight 

[the sound of exasperation]

it is another to accept the chinese (faux) buffet as the height of exotica 

[the sound of exasperation]

now what?
tone, morbidly curious
Categories
Tundra

gone

my mind a puddle 
melted snow pooled into potholes 
one misstep - i'm gone
Categories
Poetry Tundra

interstate 90 poem

this land
     improbably
     impossibly
     flat
wind swept
     scarred & scoured
this sweet sweet snow
     unspoilt
     unsoured

                    

alone, eighty miles an hour
alone, eighteen wheels & plowers
aghast, a vision:
     (funeral flowers)
alone, sixty miles an hour



this land
this impossibly flat land with:
grey skies
grey horizons
grey & bleak
grey mystique
opaquely, the horizon teases me



the sky is not falling, the grey
reaches out to itself. folding it-
self into itself. forever folding it-
self into itself. forever & ever
                                [amen]

*          *          *

this land
this grey & flat, improbable land

                   




alone, fifty miles an hour
afraid of those eighteen wheelers
afraid of those mighty plowers
afeard them funeral flowers



alone/bleak/hope
                (stirring)
wheels 
                (whirring)
snow
                (blurring)
eyes
                (furring)
[reverse that] snow
                   furring
               eyes
                   blurring
                           blurring
                                   blurred
blur
woo-hoo



a pale sun seals the monochromatic 
envelope that surrounds me. a prodigal
son returns home. will he again go 
aprodigaling? 
tis not a question of if, 
but when

i yearn for the open road
i yearn for the open thing
i yearn for the thing
i yearn for the(e)
i yearn for 
i yearn, egads!

eighteen wheelers runnin' three wide
rubbin's racin' (that's what they say)
a plower, mighty, mighty plower
turned on its side (let's call it a day)



this grey
improbably impossibly improperly
gray
both fade
improbably impossibly & properly
to black.

windswept & scarred
& scoured & still

(unsoured)


alone, thirty miles an hour

alone, twenty miles an hour

alone, twentythrity sloshing
alone, tiresomeless tossing

alone, dreaming of you
(in color)
          (not grey)
                    (not solo)
unalone, with dreams of you
unalone, always with you

*          *          *

awake/alone/aghast/aside 
i-90

madison, wisconsin
sends its greetings
Categories
Poetry Tundra

now what? (iv)

i drove to st cloud today
i found myself at an intersection
i had no hint of metaphor
i asked myself, aloud
(i was sitting at a stoplight)
i asked myself a question:
now what?
i had no answer.