Fine Poem

Type that (Fine Poem) into Google and what do you get, eh?

hln

More Cicadas

cicada
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if i were 13 or 17
underground years
but not so buried
deep waiting for my dog-day
not-quite wing song sung
by chance another plague

would you call me a locust?
wrongly feed me inedibles
and shut your screened-in porch?

i rub my stomach
in the thicket and
would curse but

we women make no sound.

hli
5/28/98

familyplanning

I caught up with an old friend on Monday - gave me a call out of the blue. Made me think about this, which I wrote for him about 8 years ago. Time flies.

familyplanning

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they've sunk you in that dunk tank
of religion again, hoping hoping it's
just a so-called phase, that you'll
soon hop that woman-chasin' train
to wedville and pop out some blue-
eyed intelligentsia. and your brother
aims and whoosh, you're down again.

they want Sears portraits for mantel
jewelry. they want copies and copies
of their gene pool, the comeuppance of
middle american success. they'll sink you like
a witch though. and if you'll capitulate
they'll relent and find you ms. perfectblonde
with a degree in doting. yes dear no
dear sure dear. sex? dinner? this
dress? i'll fetch that's SO cute.

they want you to "keep your options
open." perhaps inhibit yourself
to one night a week -- it's GAY DAY at
Wrigley field, and if you're good
you can keep the mementos tucked
in that locked familiar closet.

come on son. take it. it's that
good ole boy drug. not too much now
or you'll kill yourself. we'll
help you become...and you'll like it.
step on up.

with those tincan hands they cut you
so deep. and when you bled
it was all simple, more than pure --
a bump on old mama fascist pride --
a comma to remember who you are
when the water's shrunk and their
trump's worn thin.

hli
(1/31/96)

Relationships -- Patchwork

I'm preparing my entry here for this week's upcoming Kissing Booth.

I used to know a thing or two about the messes and pain in relationships. This poem is about opposites and the usual lack of understanding between the pair that may lead to a lot of miscomprehension and injured feelings. And then it fades, the relationship - neither party wanting to hurt the other, both knowing it can't last, still making gentle concessions until the final common thread snaps.

patchwork
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he's probably going to walk the dog
today. gonna gather selfhood in the woods.
i think the rain reddens his face
and hair. i'm sewing a quilt out of
pieced what and evers -- rusted change
i've stolen from his pockets. i put
lace on the edges and call him mine.

we talk occasionally maybe. leaves
turn and i'm left bare. please --
will he brush my hair after the rain
and call it his? give me the dog and
his leash. i step over dead trees.
once i liked the woods.

once he liked my hair. i washed his
until he smelled like me. he ran with
dogs -- with face to the rain. i held
too much trust in needles and thread --
slowly gave him back his change in pieces.
sticks. remnant stumps and floating logs.
i am brushfires seething red. i'd
burn somewhere besides my heart -- but
he'd rather trample on bedraggled. he's
part cold part wet and out of change.

today the dog ran home to me. stick
bedecked with tattered lace. we
played fetch and remembered rust.

hli
(10/06/94)

hln

Sonnet 2

A strange thing has occurred within Google; for some reason it has ranked a sonnet I wrote for Brian as it's #1 hit for Sonnet 2

I slapped the 2 on it when I posted it on the old site because it, well, it had no title. Now it has many, many viewers, which I guess isn't a bad thing.

It's ranked above Shakespeare's, which is third. Some other sonnet (or so it SAYS it's a sonnet. I can't find the meter) is below mine.

Very strange.

hln

Poetry

Poetry

I put up links to some of my poetry there in the left-hand corner. I used to write pretty often, but Sisyphus that I put last week was the first in five years. Prior to that was cicada.

Most of these have been published some place or another - I have a few in two different volumes of In Our Own Words, collections of poetry that vary from really, really, really bad to quite good. I hope I'm in a positive end of the spectrum.

I have been featured in two online publications, Zero City, run previously by Michael McNeilley, who is, sadly, no longer of this world, and Agnieszka's Dowry, which appears to not be running full steam these days. My poems are here.

Other than that, mostly print. A publication no longer in practice named Block's Poetry Collection liked me - published me a few times. Columbia College's Baobab picked up some of my 2nd tier poems, etc.

If you're a poetry person, you might like some. Depends on your style, really. I have two sonnets, but they're not completely strict. One, restive, is a big, long, run-on sentence. The other, Sonnet 2 has a funny wild degrees of separation story attached to it that perhaps I'll post at some point when it's not about bedtime. The rest are free verse.

I even had a guy review me once. Trouble is, he wanted to post the review on alt.lesbian.feminist.poetry. And, well, I'm neither a lesbian or feminist so my reviewer, um, changed the gender of address in some of my poems. Here it is, though - I enjoyed the review. And the response I sent to him was most entertaining.

hln

Sisyphus

Sisyphus
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On barren crest
a craggy crooked overhang
stands smashed against a hill.
Each morn it bleeds against the sun,
juts an angry ledge that leads beyond the view.

Closer now, a man defines
his task, the sound immense in motion.
Rolling.

Briefly it sits against a nook. Silence.
Cunning once, he is broken, fixed,
briefly stooped, torpid against his fare.
Sinews in his arms collapse as
blisters dance, stretching for relief
against the sweat-washed strain.

There is no rest, really. Illusion, a blink.
The climb commences, into the
shiny blood afar we stand,
passersby who watch the
scene bemused.

A thousand years, though, this
persists in cycle. The stride, angled still -
the sullen cries. The mountain path
forgives its friend.

Who never thought to throw
the boulder down, transcend, and
behold a man born within a man.

Instead, he arches into the scripted path
whispering pleas too soft and weak
to pull the power down
and empty his hand.

hln
9/7/03

Wrath of the Dog Napkin

And so Big Arm Woman, whom I've been reading since I discovered blogs, posts this witty little thing about fake poetry, essentially. And I think to myself, reading her poem (which I'll post in its entirety here...)

Misery Mine

The day is done,
And no one knows
Just why the dog
Ate my mother's toes.

We sit at night,
encased in woes,
My mom thinks life
totally blows.

She cannot run,
her walking slows,
stupid dog.
Missing toes.

-Freemont E Hall

What a riot! Read her whole post. But read the rest o' mine first.

About eight years ago, I was submitting a lot of poetry here and there. There was this literary magazine (this may be a stretch) called Evil Dog. My friend Jason Reasoner was visiting, and we decided (under influence of only silliness) to pander to the publication in hopes of having something ludicrously silly published.

Alas, we never heard from Evil Dog. But I have this lovely piece of obnoxious poetry to show for the effort. I'll share. Eight years later, I still crack up.

apocrophant
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the anytime everybody is always
an odd being. but i feel like
tomorrow today, outside
of now. into this frayed
stale silence (which doesn't
make blended friends; it keeps
them in cupboards) to fetch
poor bones for an evildog napkin
this night. smooch. it ain't
gonna rain no more.

sidereal scorpions (in waiting)
wait for my fingered dog barks
before it bites and steal my
cereal alibi in a six year
old clown suit selling sex
to my earlobes' shampooed
carpet. heidi, do you see
the tornado without my tomato
slaves? the vacuum calls,
anon. suckled nectar from
the cupboard womb named.

in the hourglass the tides mash lentils --
friends of little faith. damned by cub
board handles -- wrath of the dog napkin;

remember waco and repent.

jr/hli - October, 1995.

hln

Robert Clinton Cope III, July

Robert Clinton Cope III, July 10, 1972 - July 24, 1994

recipe