Bibliographical Octet in 25 Parts

Bibliographical Octet Parts I-VIII

A series of Challenge poems.  There were twenty-five book titles in all to choose from, so I made a point to write about all of them in one sitting.

I Dream Science

Charlie lay on the floor.

Sparks of sodium chloride flew above his head,

dyed purple, the beaker bubbled dreams.

A psychology major out of his depth

played with the chemistry of mind.

II Missing Pieces

He awoke from his sidewalk stop,

the booze worn off and morning light

streaming into a fogged compartment.

He scruffed back his disheveled hair,

placed the key in the ignition. Power!

Nowhere too soon, left nor right,

no straight ahead on the gears.

Accelerating forward and backward, nothing.

Out of the car onto thin ice, slipping,

and there, the missing pieces; no wheels.

It was a good night, a worse day.

III Watch Time Fly

His legs were fast, damned quick,

flying like a suited business man

to a very late appointment. Sadly,

he lost control and tumbled, wrist watch

catapulting into somersaults,

dying in a crescendo of Timex parts.

IV A Stone Gone Mad

When I first saw this title, I thought,

“Stoner gone mad” and thought, yeah, true!

But, no, 'twas a granite or igneous particle,

off on a rant or a crazed flight into infamy.

Someone’s window. smashed beyond belief.

Yeah, could have been a stoner going mad.

V Life Support

Delilah breathed heavily, the breath of a saviour,

clutched Samson to her expansive bosom.

He stirred some,

and she clutched tighter, the scissors near his heart.

He groaned, not sure why he was where he was,

and felt her heartbeat through his ear,

the sharp metal close to his chest, felt his hair

and gaped anew. How could she? Do I live or die?

VI Life Estates

“And I leave all my estate to William and Shane,

my two homosexual partners. They served me well.

To my sons and daughters I leave my life;

breathe me, feel my cold, dead skin,

and cry, for you have pained me when all I sought

was joy and hope. But you fought over me,

and you fight forever, with yourselves,

not my lovers. They have always loved me. Life!”

VII A Cry in the Night

“Your turn, darling,” she whispered to me,

the same me tired from a 12-hour shift,

the same me that loves her dearly when

she stays home all day and sleeps, when baby sleeps.

But I love her, and move to the room next door,

the crying in the night, urgent, nappy change,

and I smell the detritus of infant expulsion, reach

for the new disposable, change Lucifer, clean

and put back to bed, contented and happy.

I sleep, and then he calls again, food this time.

“Your turn, darling,” I whisper as I drift off to sleep.

VIII Fine

Thirty-five dollars for jaywalking.

A sunny day, no clouds.

I am all right, just dandy.

The cord was sinewy, very sinewy.

Yes, everything is fine.

Bibliographical Octet Parts IX - XVI

IX The Pull of the Moon

Saurus and Junipon, stars of night’s heaven,

pull together apart, a love dance

of epic proportions across the scene,

and lovers dance too, on Earth, and know

the moment when their love consumes.

Look up to the dark night sky and see

the shuddering as each pulls on the Moon.

X Trial by Water

Your Honour, I beg of you,

hark the words of my daughter.

Stake my heart to your desk,

I expect a Trial By Water.

I will be vindicated by the wet,

and the evidence we shall give,

like fish in water swimming,

we shall walk free and heartily live.

XI Flashback

Fuck, dude. Bad buzz, man. Alliteration.

Sucked seventy saucy savannas succulently,

and dreamed of being somewhere else. Punctuation.

Had a thought: “Fuck man! What happened?” Inspiration.

I walked my memory back in rerun, saw the beginning,

raged at what was to come.

Dark patches as smoke roiled,

and then the flashback ended as I toked another joint.

XII The Sibling

Sisyphus, great poet, hark thine words of joy.

Thy daughter’s repose, garnered for all to peruse,

doth thou maketh past the watchdog at yon gate,

sail youthfully upon sword of indifference, his son,

and sibling rivalry doth endeth in demise of one

or other. Harketh now, sibling, live.

XIII The Third Twin

Three mountains stand,

triangular in disposition,

one next to the other

next to the other,

and only ever two visible

from any viewpoint, twins.

Three twins, Herecule, Junas,

Serecles, only three,

yet any two together

is a twin without the other.

What of the Third Twin?

Made invisible by tricks of light

and made visible by tricks of motion,

but always when visible

another is not, the Third Twin,

its destiny to be alone, unseen.

XIV Arc Light

Two diodes, standing in a lab,

one transmitting, one receiving.

Between, a fluorescent blue flash,

an arc of light pure, energy raw,

manufactured, yet real and solid,

reaching from one point to t’other.

“See it? Now, there, pretty, eh?”

XV From Potter’s Field

Bruiser walks the furrowed lane,

furrowed from weeks of rain

and wagon wheels, and the clay

droppings from the potter’s field.

His daily grind, hail, rain, snow,

to walk that lane, dig that field,

carry that clay back to yon pottery,

and to mould it into a figure or two.

From the field is born art,

and the ability to create life,

make things people see and touch

and want to take home with them,

all for money, and love, t’is said.

Left unread, the How To book

for the potter’s wheel is oft

discarded into the potter’s field.

Left untouched. True art is born.

XVI Leaving Pico

Here I was, seven days there and now leaving Pico.

Little dirt town in the middle of the back of beyond,

no dirty town water, clean folk, crime a measure of no policemen.

I had left my mark, spent many dollars in the saloon,

yet all too soon, I was busted for a drifter, and now,

I was leaving Pico for sure, for reasons beyond my control.

Pico!

Two-bit town, twenty buildings, mostly houses, one store,

a saloon with barber shop attached. Oh, and the ladies’ hairdressers

attached to the store. Each place in a place and a purpose for each.

Pico’s doctor’s surgery closed past ten years, too small for one,

and the sheriff, well, he went when the state budget forgot,

forgot that Pico existed still. Yet it does. I have been there.

And now I am leaving it, leaving that place of no identity.

Yet I feel at home there, my identity fits the bill, the reason Pico

and the likes of me exist, because we just do, and bugger the world.

Now you see me turning, facing my destiny, my life.

My anonymity takes its place with the lack of identity.

I mingle, lost in the crowded saloon, amongst the voices familiar.

I can leave Pico, but you can’t take the Pico out of me!

Bibliographical Nonet Parts XVII - XXV

XVII Blood and Gold

Morbidica, the larycose mortician and druid,

parted the flaps and inserted fluid

like an ancient priest practicing arts of old,

and removed the blood, inserted the gold.

A rich vein of conceit you have never seen,

as a shining finger washed through a remaining spleen.

The time had come for the service now,

time to transplant, human offal for cow.

The service would be as they always had,

dogs barking, cats meowing, witches so glad.

XVIII Bad Memory

Sweat pours off my aching brow and I wonder,

why this damned nightmare day after day?

Headaches from the incessant pounding of its rhythm,

and I etch out the times it leaves me breathless,

minus my true direction. The dream sits as a

bad memory that wants to erode my very being,

and I cringe,

shock back into myself,

try hard to be free,

to kick the damn thing away,

yet it clings to me every night and mocks my existence.

XIX Icebound

Climatis Aurora, high in the sky,

cutting the blue, as ice cuts my life.

Stuck in a floe, arctic-bound, stalled,

and all aboard freezing as fuel runs low.

Steel hull crumpling under icebound fury.

Will I survive this torment?

Northern Star points my way north,

yet my motion does not mirror the ocean.

I am frozen solid in a liquid prison.

Prismatic light refracts and sends off a sight

to behold, light pictures dance in the cold.

Make way, rescue ensues, cutting through, icebound.

XX Cards of Grief

He may as well have held a pack of guns in his hand,

each one turned, shooting a pain into my gambling heart,

each turn of the deck stretching the rope round my neck,

each flick of his wrist a shot in the dark and a hit.

He may as well hold my fate in his hands - he did!

I walked from the gambling hall, alive,

wondered at that final hand,

how my cards turned green and gold,

and his turned with grief.

I had everything on it, and won,

took his money, car, wife. And, though brief,

I read his cards of grief.

XXI Blood Music

Mozart wrote an unknown suite,

a tribute to the butchers of the streets of Venice,

and it was lost to time. A menace in its simplicity,

true duplicity saw its demise, yet surprise,

it lives. Blood Music, for the pageantry of the dervish,

and devilish peons of the city squares

dancing to light-footed mood and full-bodied groove,

and the music spills on the floor and follows the trails

of red gore as they pass into history again.

XXII A Darker Place

I’ve been there before, the black hole,

a place to hide from the light, the fear,

a place to dwell in my own miserable hell,

a darker place no one can share, nowhere.

A place to be when I feel the mood to hide,

and I do, all the time, hide from me, my life,

but for all the darkness it offers I can’t get away

from the bright light that is my wife. She always finds me.

XXIII Ancient of Days

Days of Sumerians, and Mesopotamia,

days of Sanskrit beginnings and the Indus,

the moments when Ottoman and Turk hated,

Alexander the Great spread Greek culture,

like a vulture of passion, looking to be Dionysus,

and the Romans crucified men only. Women - who knows?

Bodecia swung an axe, very bad BO she had,

and some Arabs wrote down what someone had to say,

in the Ancients’ days.

The archaeologists dig with trowels and tools,

and read the signs that tell us of those times.

Tell us that Tutankhamen was a boy prince, godlike,

let us know that the Israelites travelled as the book says,

confirm the word of mouth of the Persians

and Indians who could have told you all this,

and history holds sway,

from ancient days.

XXIV By the Light of the Moon

I sang a song for a second, remembered its name,

realised that this poem and it were not the same,

that wasn’t meant to rhyme.

I really don’t have any more time.

By the Light of the Silvery Moon

sounds better than this poem’s tune,

and the cat ran away with the spoon,

By the light of the moon.

XXV Fear Nothing

Stand proud, puff out your chest, and always

do your best to survive. Fear nothing at all,

face the music, face reality, and fly,

fly in the face of fear, and you will get there.

Believe in yourself and others’ abilities,

things you all have to face, that which you fear,

and it becomes clear what to do. Fight

for what you feel is right, fear naught.

Take a deep breath and puff, huff and puff

your chest out, be rough, and kind. Just be

the best you can, run with the wind, faster

than the chasing dogs barking at your heels, no fear.

No fear, no worries, no need to say sorry

to everyone that you step on. Upon the night

you know it is all right to hold no fear, and hold it

dear and near your heart, and fear won’t get a start.