Reads Poems

Epigrams

The Outer Borough Colonel, Old Bone Spur

Having ordered a parade of his own,
Trump is transformed
from Putin’s Puppet,
to Kim’s Clone.

Now, we wonder …

Will he request bids
for a new pyramid,
or coldly evict, then
re-brand, Grant’s Tomb?

h.a.m.

poetic therapy

decouple yourself
from the sun

snip the golden lasso
of your imagination

from the cloth wristwatch
of your expectation

Dave Read

The mind’s eyeball

To declaim the universal is tantamount to proclaiming the individual. Unless my logic is faulty, we’re now better able to understand the poor state of poetry in the dis-United States. Being poet first, logician second, the following epigram is two years older than the logical proposition in the preceding sentence!

Turned inward like a bad toenail is the mind’s eyeball,
an unblinking cyclops ready to light me up –
like a bored cop at the intersection of reflect and write.

p.s. I was chatting with the a couple local cops while taking the long view of mourners arriving at Donald Hall’s funeral. When a car sped past, by way of an order to a subordinate, one cop said to the other “light ’em up!”

Awaiting the funeral of Donald Hall
Awaiting the funeral of Donald Hall

p.p.s. This appears as “v.homeric” in Fakir’s Dozen Ways of Looking at Stuff.

Cape Cod Camp Haiku

With a cool exhale
that rustles trees
it sets behind, Sun

Draws campfire sparks
homeward, toward
the rising Sun.

– Dave Read
campfire sparks; dave read photo

Not to the Sea

Not to the sea, these lemmings –

these native citizens,
now consumers,
amble proudly over the edge
of their demography, eager

to fulfill the marketer’s dream.

– Dave Read

In the Matter of Form

The function of form in a poem
is to devise a scheme so that
you can conceal

the clue to your notion of hiding
an antonym to the rhyme
you mean to reveal.

– Dave Read

Deal?

Unasked-for, children receive life
from parents who expect the

favor to be returned, unasked-for,
when they grow lonely, at the end.

Dave Read