A Poem Written As A Text

 

My mother is ill.
She hasn't been able to talk right
for 20 hours.
Strained squeaks fill the kitchen
every time she does try.
My thoughts drift too…,
it's not time yet for that…
eventually, though,
all systems wind down
and stop.

Small changes become permanent.
Her mother woke up with a closed throat.
Four days later she passed away.
The dog tap dances across the floor.
He doesn't want to go out.
He can't tell us what he wants.

Last night,
I dreamed of the Emerald City.
I was approaching a steep hill in a car.
I was excited.
I started to drive up the hill
to see what lay on the other side.
It was my last day in the city.
This was my last chance.

Rain fills the sky.
Water seeps up
from the depths of the ground.
The atmosphere
is filled with danger.

 

---William James, 01242012

 
 
 
 
 

A Request for Potted Meat

Let me put my poem in you
Open wide accept its girth
Let its length dazzle you
Squeal in delight upon measuring its depth
Breathe its odor into your fertile nostril

The crier bawls in my head
sobbing tin characters from a printing press
verbing the sins of his father into black yells

Let me put my poems in you
Let me whisper loud words
Let me stroke your feathered quill
Let me caress your smooth papery skin

An anonymous reader submitted these two lines: The crier bawls in my head; Let me put my poem in you. August 28, on my last full day as a Seattle resident was when this poem was composed.

 
 
 
 

Do Words Go Bad by Purple Mark

 

As they were riding through a lengthy puddle

the Olsten twins hit an unseen pothole in the middle

and were thrown into the melting snow and murk,

which goes to show that nothing good can come from

riding an epiplectic bicycle as a quirk.

After returning home drenched and dripping,

a quick bath, the furplay of their cat and the sipping

of their hot chocolates cheered their spirits enough

to pursue a favorite hobby of looking up new words.

They consulted the Thesaurus Rex only to learn it was

considered extinct, ended, terminated, over, gone and Vanished

“What percentage of those old words were rotten?”

to which there was no answer. The wind outside caused

the branches to scrape glass and they were glad to be

in where it was warm and dry.

---Purple Mark 012112

 
 

Prompts Utilized:                                                                         

1. “As they were riding through a lengthy puddle...”Edward Gorey. The Epiplectic Bicycle. (Harcourt Brace, 1969).
2. “Furplay: n. semi-illicit feeling you get when a cat rubs itself against your leg.” Rich Hall. When Snigglets Ruled The Earth. (Collier MacMillan Publishers, 1989). Page 37.
3. “Thesaurus Rex: 1. extinct, adj. ended, terminated, over, gone, vanished 2. obsolete, archaic (see kaput)” Dan Piraro. Bizarro. (Chronicle Books, 1985 & 1986). Page 46.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Time For Another Transformation by Purple Mark

 

“Where are your feet, your shoulders, hands, complexion, Your -

All of you? Why not transform me also?” Tom pleaded

with the other for a like miracle for his aging self.

The other man stood in an outpouring of light transfixed between

the extremes of agony and ecstasy in his transformation: it was

the death of one self and the birth of another.

When it was complete, the new man asked, “You sent it on?”

Tom had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shuttered box

in cramped shed halfway up the tower.

The other was a younger man now, whereas he had been old,

old enough to be mistaken for Tom’s brother though they

looked nothing alike as he was an Indian or had been one.

“Remember when you took that fire ax, jumped up on the B.I.A.

Commissioner’s big, mahogany desk and split it into?”

“How could I forget? You had to rescue me from jail.”

“Ready to roll?” Tom covered in snow halfway through the door

asked the other. “Got the box ready, are you?” The other nodded.

Sometimes these transformations were unstable for awhile.

“We’ll have to find you new clothes. Since you’re not an Indian

now, you can hardly wear those old things.” The old things were

a battered hat that the Hopi favored and a beaded fringed jacket.

Another life beckoned, it was time to leave the remains of this one

and go. Soon, he would be gone from here to travel on the wind

and only the wind would be able to guess his next destination.

---Purple Mark 011412

 
 

Purple Mark's' Prompts:                                                                         

1. “Where are your feet, your shoulders, hands, complexion, your - all of you? Why not transform me also?” P. Ovidius Naso translated by Rolfe Humfries. Perseus In Metamorphosis. (Indiana University Press, 1983).
2. “'You sent it on?' said granddad. Granddad had been hunched in the corner, repairing a shutter box in this cramped shed halfway up the tower." Terry Pratchett. Going Postal. (Harper Collins, 2004).
3. “One old grandfather, a victim of the B.I.A. throughout his life, took a fire ax, jumped up on the B.I.A. Commissioner’s big mahogany desk and split it into!” Leonard Peltier. Prison Writings: My Life Is My Sun Dance. (St. Martin’s/Griffon, 1999).
4. “'Ready to roll?' Tom covered with snow, was halfway in the front door, 'got a box ready.'" Diane Mott Davidson. Tough Cookies. (Bantam Books, 2000).

 
 
 
 
 
 

A Porcelain Tale by Purple Mark

 

The puppet-boy hurried down the staircase of the palace as did Byron and Shelley,
and like them found the secret entrance into Palazzo Scarlotti, in its mirrored halls,
in the tapestried pavilions, he was profoundly alone. There were no others here in
all the palace.

Botwobbles were known to live around porcelain fixtures of certain houses. They
were cheerful, winsome balloonlike animals playful as otters. Their play attracted
the puppet-boy who clicked in to just below the edge of the tub and was drenched
for his curiosity.

The Botwobble eyes shone down like beads. They saw a small boy with a
porcelain head, hands and feet wearing a now wet sky-blue suit beneath them.
“Have you seen anyone or anything like me?”
The Botwobbles gestured with their tiny snouts: up and to the right.

She sat in a curiosity case elegant in burgundy. “My lovely creature, you should
play with more spirit!”Her Maker repositioned her hands and mallets over the
strings of the harpsichord, bent over, kissed her, “Let us begin once more.”
The Puppet wondered at her playing.

At one point she seemed to peer at him during her performance.
Yet her eyes were closed. She was so beautiful, he stood entranced.
He was spotted by the Maker. “You have an admirer, Josephine!”
“Come in, little man. Care to play with us? It can be arranged.”

The puppet-boy nodded his head. His strings had led him here.
He had not wondered how he had become lost, but upon seeing her beautiful
porcelain face done with the finest strokes of the brush,
in his empty head he could not imagine anywhere else as his home.

Papers were signed and the trunk which contained Gainsborough when he was not
being operated brought in. The boy in blue was now in the household of his new
Maker; Giuseppe Fantomas and his Fantastic Phantasmagoric Circus of
Mechanical Arts and Sciences.

All that remained was for Gainsborough to become animated by
wire and gear, not the string which had held him up for so long.
The puppet-boy would miss the freedom of the strings, but while he was within
sight of Josephine, he would be content to play with her.

---Purple Mark 010612

 
 

Prompts:                                                                         

1. "I have walked down the staircase of the palace as did Byron and Shelley, and like them I found the secret entrance into the Palazzo Scarlotti where the nightly debauches are still being carried on by the sons of Fottia, in the mirrored halls, in the tapestried pavilions. All of the city was open to me, and I was profoundly alone.” Samuel R. Delany. Driftglass. (Signet Books, 1971). page 196.
2. "Botwobbles were small, balloonlike animals that surfaced in bathtubs. They were cheerful, winsome creatures, as playful as otters, delighting small children whose parents would never have been able to get their progeny into a tub were it not for the prospect of playing with these good-natured water babies." Zod Wallop. by William Browning Spencer, (Borealis/White Wolf Publishing, 1995). page 122.
3. “'My lovely creature, you should play with more spirit.' He repositioned her hands and mallets over the strings of the harpsichord, bent over, kissed her. 'Let us begin once more.'" Allen Kurzweil. A Case Of Curiosities. (Ballantine Books, 1992). page 109.