Retailing Produce to the Retired

September ends. Soft-stone
fruits collapse in their crates, dress
themselves in mold, leak
until nothing's left but fiber. Their skins
blotch, dull, and harden into convex creases.
They will not gain sugar after harvest.

Twenty feet beyond the bananas,
she stands, bent over
the double-deck Hydro-Kool produce case
shaking her head. I come to help her.

She points, first at my green magic
markered signs, then at the fruit beneath.
"These are nectarines, and those are plums."

"No. I'm sorry, but those are plums and these are nectarines."

She puffs apart her lips, shaking dry
memory at me like missionary Gospel.
I try to help her. It's late in the season,
so the nectarines really are small, while the Santa Rosa
plums reflect the size and color of their home state.
She will have none of it, though, walks away absorbed
into a hard convex crease.
She will not gain sugar after harvest.

By Desire Mesmerized

ever early rising, this force it gleams
coerces, cuddles, invests in the dreams
calling, using
decoys of merriment
it drives the belief its all heavensent
drives them from the pulpit straight to the store
to embrace His products, sealed with a kiss
sweetened, lured into the arms of this
animated bastard, this cartoon whore.
children in jammies half-naked for Him
squat and they squeal
they worship His sight
pervert, parasite, no conscience at night
severs the slumber of this childhood king
who chokes their young minds and strokes with a whim
mislead passion on Saturday morning.

By Desire Ostracized

rancor breezes violate, churn and gust
grow icy, freezes blood on daggers thrust
into the little segments of my spine
my wings paralyze for want of divine
all love in my embrace soon turn to dust
cast down from the summit I serpentine
on my belly, eating dust by design
He has multiplied the fish and the crust
not for me, sanctimoniously just
rather, adultery on my flesh dine
licentiously squeeze your body to mine
sweet admirations whisper, quench me dear
with lies compounding lies, do what you must
say that you want me, and my horns appear.

By Desire Reprised

these lovers cast ashore to ruin and wrack
a promising convergence gone off track
push wide the distance, growing obsolete
their most hopeful hopes: unkind, bittersweet
until patience comes up—all yards aback
the winds of self-seeking seek a backseat
to rekindle true flame from latent heat
looses the memories each must unpack
burns unearned nostalgia—white and black
helps the other appease their incomplete
takes no pride in this acrobatic feat
of having kept no record of the wrongs
trusts it knows the virtues to be brought back:
love never fails, preserves that which belongs

(The rhyming structure of my By Desire sonnets I've based
upon the Algebraic Postulates of Equality:
Reflexive Property of Equality: a = a
Symmetric Property of Equality: if a = b, then b = a
Transitive Property of Equality: if a = b and b = c, then a = c
Thus: AABBABBAABBCAC, with each a ten-syllable line.

I find working within such constraints fun and challenging.
I further charged myself this time by using as many words as I
could from another person's work.

Feels good to be trying to write again.)

and I thank Tuna for leaving the word "convergence" in my head.
That fit in just where I needed it.

Take that, Rod McKuen!

It will probably sadden Jimbo that I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

It was one of Whistler's.

hahahaha

Happy is the World
that contains Jimbo.

Not that I'm heading to New York anytime too soon, maybe not ever again in
my lifetime, but, if I do, if I do not meet up with Jimbo somewhere for a movie
or a dinner, well...

...New York WILL BURN!!!!!!!!

Dinner, a movie, and maybe some CD shopping.

Them Beach boys is OK.

I thought this thread was about Jones Beach poetry!

Sorry. No.

By Desire Signified

hoping our paths were synonyms, we blurred
kissed, learned well each others' meanings, and stirred
inside of me something better, and showed
who I am: your choice, your lover betrothed
anxious to meet your audience—and heard
desiring to be placed, to be sowed
from your senses, intepreted and flowed
smart, funny, pretty enough, and preferred
crafted by you, to be your thoughts chauffeured

caught feeling ugly, my vanity owed
worried how I was written, would decode:
unfulfilled poetry held in escrow
longing to be found, in notes, undeterred,
I, looking up to you… more than you know

I like both of these very much - my own personal preference is for poetry that uses tight structure and seeming constraint and yet manages to say things just so. I'm not keen on free verse or the indulgences of modern poetic forms. To my mind it's the difference between a painting by Michaelangelo and the thrown paint of a chimpanzee onto canvas. These do feel a little bit like an intellectual exercise in places, and I'm not sure about some of the imagery - 'paths' as 'synonyms', for example - but the technical skill is excellent, and some of the lines very effective.

Thanks, Evans.
They are written to work out emotions and to work them out, as you say, using very tight constraints.
Apart from the forced syllable count and rhyming pattern, I also have to use specific words that another
person (generally the subject of the poem) has used or written.

I'm pleased that they come out as well as they do—that anyone other than myself can get something
out of them when I'm done. For this last one, I was talking to an old girlfriend and mentioned that "I love
words." To which she said, "Words love you." So I tried to write that last night while kind of/sort of
watching the Twins baseball game. She also had to be the embodiment of the words.

Paths as synonyms was a stretch: much of writing poems like this is in choosing the best word that
fits and has the same meaning, and she and I would often deliberately take paths on campus, hoping
that these paths would be the same or close enough so that we could be together. The sonnet turns
at the end to be more descriptive of how she felt when we met again in person recently after nearly
20 years.

Yeah I got what you were after, just quibble with the fact that 'synonym' doesn't mean what you are trying to get it to mean there. But as I said I do like the poems a lot. By the way, usually I am a pretty harsh critic and don't go anywhere near he writing thread because I don't want to hurt any feelings, so there's that.

If you like poetry of this sort - where the technical skill is impeccable and yet seems effortless - try W. H. Auden (you probably have) or Philip Larkin (you probably have not. He's a little morose but sometimes sublimely beautiful, as in Whitsun Weddings or An Arundel Tomb)

I had somehow overlooked the first poem. That is terrific. I love:

She puffs apart her lips, shaking dry
memory at me like missionary Gospel.

It's an elusive image but I love it.

I read a little of Philip Larkin's early work in college, but didn't much like it. Another
person I know told me that I should try his later work after he was influenced more
by Thomas Hardy. Someday, I guess.

I really don't read anybody else's work as a rule. I did like reading the works of
other students, though, and trying my best to give and receive feedback. So, I'm
well prepared to listen to harsh criticism. I never like hearing, of course—when I
hear it—but, after a second or two, I generally realize that they are right on the mark.
I'm still too close to having written paths as synonyms, though, to be objective. I'll
have to look at this again much later. I may be able to fix it so it says what I want
that we were two different people, with different goals, and methods, but hoping that
it was just two different names for wanting the same thing. Well see where I go
with that. Thanks for pointing it out. I do appreciate it.

I'm happy to be writing again. It's been at least six years since I have done it, and
more like twenty years since I was doing it regularly.

Latest first draft:
===============================
By Desire Re-Baptized

chemical ponderings, this thought campaign
without direction works my sleeping brain
digesting the methodical buffet
scrutinized, analyzed, throughout the day
now unyoked from my linear constrain
scrupled cognition drifting, falls astray
muscle motion stops, bursting spindles play
then give way, decay, as delta waves reign
deep sleep envelopes me in thoughts arcane
eyes dancing rapid, cockeyed cabaret
thinking in spirals, radiates, sashays
undresses for ritualistic washing
deluges, loses, all self-determined bane
which my sleeping brain would have me squashing