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Poems of Love
Poems For Life
Poems to Inspire
Poems of Passion
Poems of Beauty
Poems to Ponder
CRACK COCAINE
Poetry by Dina
Poetry by Dina 2
Samuel A Southworth
Dave Barsby
Dave Barsby 2
Mike Billington
Sonja Blundell
Sonja Blundell at 14
Anna Danilewicz
John Force
Patricia Fowler
Sharon Frost
Sharon Frost 2
Patricia V Hollander
Mary M Henderson
George W Knox
Patricia A Lackey
Duane Locke
LordThatsMeToday
Sylvia Lukeman
Benjamin A McDade
James
Christian by James
James on Family
Mike Diaz
Poetry by Deborah
Donald Ryburn
James Spencer
Nicole
Jessica
Rick
Links Now
Test Page
Apollo
New 2
New 3
New 4
New 5
New 6
New 7
New 8
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| Poetry! Yes! Now! |
| Duane Locke |
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  THE DEAD LOVER  The sea's salt lips Touched her skin between Two thin, black shoulder straps. Her freckles blinked their eyes. Her fingers scraped the tablecloth. Tiny folds in the once smooth, Well-groomed cloth stood up. Her ring finger had a new ring, A band of white salt. The fingers that fidgeted Were on her hands, But her hands were distant, Far away from her present life. Her hands had become the flesh On the finger bones Of her dead lover dissolved into salt water. Copyright © Duane Locke, 2000 duanelocke@netzero.net FOR AN IRISH REDHEAD In cedars Are centaurs Who cannot Be seen. Centaurs Are hidden In cedar leaves Transversed By chickadees Echoes of what The wine has spoke Bounced off our lips, This conversation of touch Caused the sad centaur To become joyous. Copyright © Duane Locke, 2000 duanelocke@netzero.net THE COLLECTOR He collected bells. He would take the bells to his workshop, Pull out their tongues. He would then shake the bells, Revel in the silence. One day, he looked at the tongues on his work table; Tongues twisted together like bodies in a concentration camp ditch. The sad, forlorn look of the tongues made him sad.. He started kissing each tongue. He kissed until he became exhausted, Fell on the floor, looked up, and cursed the sky Because he was born deaf. Copyright © Duane Locke, 2000 duanelocke@netzero.net A DARK HAIRED WOMAN She had cut down the trees inside her, Even had the stumps removed. She built inside her a white picket fence, The stockade type with sharp points. The sawdust from the picket fence, She kept inside a fish tank. She would spit on her fingers, stick in tank. The sawdust would stick to her fingers. She would kiss and lick her fingers, When her tongue stroked the sawdust Her lips would glow as if an electric light Were under the skin. Copyright © Duane Locke, 2000 duanelocke@netzero.net 5, GOLDEN BERRIES The waves on this pre-storm day have their white crests Spotted with golden berries broken from underwater seaweed. Waves throw the golden berries on the flesh-colored shore, Berries look like beads worn by obedient housewives and courtesans. But these beads are warm, not cold like the beads Worn by obedient housewives and courtesans. Copyright © Duane Locke, 2000 duanelocke@netzero.net A GREEN PEAR The green pear is the dark blue linen tablecloth. Also is Excalibur. Also, a nuthatch. The green pear is a guide, a gardener, a gargoyle, A generalissimo held hostage by a housewife. I dedicate my fingers to caressing the pear's skin, Listening to the words spoken by the rubbed skin. The pear is an anachronism, sings Sings sixteenth love complaints, But also an anarchist in the ancient regime. The pear is the entire world turned green, The world with a stem. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net A ROMAN LETTER: CALVISIUS TO CINARA This morning I arose feeling elegiac. Sipping my morning wine, I began a dirge That lamented the death of a precious thing, Your blonde beauty. Today, you are forty-one. In my poems, I praised your youthful beauty, But now my poems are no longer read and are forgotten. But twenty-four years ago, my poems were a fashion. My poems made you the most famous beauty in Rome. Everyone wanted to go to bed with you, And it seems everyone did. My destiny was to make you desirable Through my exquisite and measured style. I loved you, Cinara, wanted only you. It was Almost intolerable sharing you with your husband, But fate ordained such a situation, But fate did not ordain all those other lovers. I sneaked around, hid behind pillars, watched you Become a fool, for you thought your other bedfellows Loved you as much as I did. But no one In all Rome can love you as deeply as I do. Often, I wished I had not written those early poems. Your rich husbands' henchmen chased me out of Rome, The henchmen did not chase out all your other lovers, Or else Rome would have been depopulated Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net DARK OAK LEAVES The rock that cannot be explained sits in the same place, Not far from the barbed fence and sings like a meadowlark. This day the wind is harsh and the grass bends, No yellow feathers spot the field's bare spaces. Years ago I stood in song and looked towards trees, Moved from branch to branch with the flying squirrels. Even now, at my feet, the pale purple clustered flowers, Whose name I never knew, are bright as if I were young. My years have been spent as if time were money and had No meaning in itself. The purchases did not end loneliness, Or accumulate souvenirs. Now the path back to the house Is gone, and the narrow space between spiderwebs Has been opened to empty space where one can walk Without having their shoulders caressed by leaves, Or their shoes caked with dark, wet oak leaves. The clearing is like the life I lived as a petty Socrates. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net NIGHT This night is a girl with a moon for hair. Tips of white gold hair dangle on my fingertips, Go inside my body to illuminate An egret fluffing white feathers, A white fish flying through a coral reef, A white owl flying between snow-covered pines, In the morning the girl will change, A beeper will grip her waist, Her body will become a dead city. She will carry briefcases crowded with the trivial, And her mind will be occupied with the useless worshipped by everyone. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net NEW NEIGHBORHOOD The rain washes the spit Out of the sidewalk's eyes, Removes the names chalked on the sidewalk's lips. The rain with its white needles Will stitch together the rips in the sidewalk's clothes. The sidewalk, cleaned and repaired, Will take off its hard clothes And be soft, uncovered sand. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net RED SAND On a day when the rains Would not fall on the land, But stayed with their own kind Over the Gulf waters, I, lonely, watched In my dry yard, A torn red word On the label of a tossed away can. A part of the wind Separated from the other winds Came close to me. The had of this odd wind Pulled me into a dark thicket Where dark birds Had scratched a bed among the leaves. The hand of the wind Felt like her hand, The hand with freckled skin, The hand that turned Fences into splinters, Chains into antennas, Jails into open fields of wild poppies. I thought, as I gazed At a red fragment of a word Of when we were together Where sand was stone and red. I remember how we squeezed together Through the red hills, narrow cracks. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net CHINESE POETS Chinese poets seem always to be in Bamboo exile, Always walking through the mists of marshes, Always passing An old fisherman with an empty net Vague against a yellow sky, Always thinking about the shadows Of a pear tree across The painted fingernails of a young girl, Always Hearing unseen birds Deep in thick reeds, The voices Reminding of squeaky Hinges On the gates Of their wrecked homes. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net T'ANG DYNASTY Since Chinese poets have long white beards, Chinese poets boast they are qualified To describe in couplets the counter-clockwise Curls of young girl's coiffures, although These young girls shadowed by willows, Dream of residences in French chateaux, do not Give any heed to their native white bearded Poets, but concentrate on Chateaubraind's Pale children among French birds In French Forests. But Chinese poets keep writing in Jet black ink on scrolls of white parchment. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net THE TOMB I'm tired of living in this tomb. The frescoes on the wall are boring, Only still lives. I have only silk worms for companions. One tell she wants to leave, Become a kimono. She would be light green With gold bamboo bordering the hem. Another says she wants to leave also, Go out west, jump in and out of a lasso. No worm wants to stay with me, even for a night. I look above the coffin, See my name misspelled on the tombstone. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net OSCAR KOKOSCHKA TO HIS DOLL (It is said Oscar Kokoschka made a doll, carried the doll to the opera.) My girl, tonight you have blonde hair Pasted on your hard plastic skull; Last nigh in bed your head was bare. Yesterday, it was red and curled. While we attend the opera, you Will have large eyes painted with a light blue. Your waved hair will wiggle as do In my paintings, houses, Christ, gnus. Your every gesture, every grin, If you applaud, or if you nod, On my decision will depend. I will control our dialogue. After the chase of Apollo, Daphne turns into a tree, We depart from the opera. You will fulfill my decrees. When in our small, canopied bed, With its silver orangutans With eyes of ebony and red On each Corinthian column, If you fail me again and do Not create a tempest in my Blood, when we nakedly woo, Replenish me with ecstasy, I'll grab you canvas shoulder blades, Pull, stretch into wings, nonpareil, Decorate with peacock brocades, Worship you as an angel. Copyright © Duane Locke, 1999 duanelocke@netzero.net Duane Locke, Ph. D. in Renaissance literature, has had over 2,000 poems in over 500 print magazines: APR, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Poet Lore, Black Moon, Bitter Oleander. 14 books of poems, the latest WATCHING WISTERIA.( to order see www.vidapublishing.com or call 1-800-869-7553. Duane Locke C/o Lind Call Literary Agency 2716 Jefferson Street Tampa, Florida 33602-1620 E mail: duanelocke@netzero.net Copyrighted poetry may not be copied, reproduced or used in any way without the express written permission of the author. Thank you for visiting my website. Please visit often since new poetry such as those above, written by talented authors, is being always being added. I bribe the authors. LOL Please vote for my pages by clicking on the little tab on the upper left hand side of any page of my site. I'd appreciate it if you'd sign my Guest Book so that I'll know you've been here. If you prefer, you may send me Email at KisSoSoft@aol.com with your comments, praise, suggestions or even constructive criticism. You may also write directly to any of the authors for whom an Email address has been provided. If you'd like to write to an author for whom there is no Email address provided, please send it to me at KisSoSoft@aol.com, and I will forward your mail directly to him or her. Thank you. If you write poetry, have a friend who does or if you know a child who writes (I have a no rejection policy for children's poetry) please send it to me by Email and if I like it, I'll publish it on these pages. No attached files please. It would be helpful if you'd include PYN in the Subject Line of your Email. Thank you. Please visit my other poetry website, Lovin' Angel Creations at http://maxpages.com/lovinangel Thank you. |
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