Larry Lies

[larryrap]

cookala, it's hard to believe how many years have slipped by. I'm glad of our shared time.

Thank you Catherine, much appreciated.

[larryrap]

26th


Works and Days

The holiday is over. Winter's comeback has crumbled;
a brash young replacement is whistling up the sky.
Storefronts have been scrubbed of foam graffiti,
the sidewalks rinsed of celebration grime.
Multitudes march to rediscover work, relieved
of the oppressive weight of freedom. Stacks of magazine gods
have been replenished: the wounded and the dead share a rack
with a nymph who sells the amnesty of desire.
Beside a municipal van, a pair of men upon a ladder
are removing lamppost flags. The bracket, robbed of use,
cries from its socket, "How can I last another year?"


Marrow

I've cut back
I've cut back too far
I see the winces
the turning heads
I beg for a mirror
I scream to hide the mirror
In the mind's mirror
a skeleton is dragging a train of flesh
Oh mother
I've returned for your love

[Steven]

'Works and Days' is flawless for me. That phrase, 'the amnesty of desire' is just brilliant. You get this sense of the people helplessly following the same drives, the masses, as it were, and their entrapment.

[larryrap]

Thank you Steven for such kind words.

[larryrap]

27th


Trigger Warning

I no longer dare to look inwards
at my Saharas of evasion
and Himalayan faults.
These things will crush you
when magnified a million times.
But what destroys me is the beauty
that emerges from cells and spreads upwards
until the sky, unable to bear it
begs me to stop.
Thus the heavy glasses. The paltry lights.
This trigger warning hung on everything.
I've been sensitized.



Sue

My friend Sue has it in for the Freemasons, who keep us all in slavery
through mind control. She says
it's all vibrations anyway,
and a higher dimension is due to arrive.

With her undyed hair she seems more ethereal than ever,
But what do I know? Born in former times
when vibrations were not much in evidence,
yet everything seemed to be humming a common song.

At the next table a woman taps her phone
as her baby cries. Soon a melody bubbles from her hand.
She hands the device to the baby, who wraps tiny fingers around it,
fixes its gaze through the tears and smiles.

[romac1]

Hi Larry, good to see you are still writing away, often several poems a day in April! I loved these lines:

Born in former times, when vibrations were not much in evidence,
yet everything seemed to be humming a common song.

Fabulous. And I really like The Noise, although I think it feels to me like a section of a poem that could be extended to explore more of the issues at stake. But a very good section.

[larryrap]

Hi Rob, thank you for returning and for sound suggestions.

[larryrap]

28th – Start Over

Too long have I served on the counsel of the sane.
I'm moving to the edge of the city,
where outer walls are missing
and tables are cleared every morning of beetles and sand.

Who knew, when I signed to this project
that it ended in a book-darkened office,
the phone ringing
with no one on the other side?

Poets, are you still around
with your imaginary wands that do nothing?
The image line has been sold to the loudest bidder.
Look away now, as an old man tries to dance.

[GreaterMandalaofUselessness]

Love this last one Larry, one of my favourites of your thread. Really strong opening and closing lines, and what's in between is pretty fine too, especially the poets' "imaginary wands that do nothing"

-Matt

[larryrap]

Thanks Matt, I appreciate your returning again, it's been very nice have to have your support.

[larryrap]

29th – High Hopes

My handlers are unhappy.
Resources have been squandered.
Huge shiploads of hours remain unaccounted for.
And all those women trained to summersault and spark.

Careers are being measured, orders relayed.
Effective immediately:
reduced graphics, cuts in cast,
stock locations, fewer lines.

High hopes were attached to my beginning
when nurses came running from two stories below
on that radiant morning in 1959,
Pittsburgh lost under a billion mirrors of snow.

[MEHope]

Larry, this is evocative and lovely:

...the old among us wonder
if they will be back or like the bees
we have outlived them, outgrown our need
to suffer the music, the music and the honey.

[BrianIsSmilingAtYou]

You have a very fine thread this year, Larry.

Your tone is strong throughout and your subjects are chosen well.

"Works and Days" is pitch-perfect.

"Marrow" has a tone of terror and melancholy.

"Trigger Warning" - great stuff "Saharas of evasion" and "Himalayan faults" are two of the best turns of phrase I've seen in quite a while.

"Sue" does a great job of juxtaposing irrational fears, seeing and fearing things that are not really there (like Freemason bogeymen), with rational fears in things we do not see as fearful (like dependence and addiction to technology).

"Start Over" is a competently written piece with strong imagery and a compelling theme. And the opening line alone is fantastic.

"High Hopes" has a wistful feeling. I am at a loss, however, to say what it is about. I googled Pittsburgh 1959 snow nurses high hopes, etc. to see if there was something being referenced here that I just did not get, but found nothing definitive.

This is one of a number of threads where I am jealous of the work being done.

BrianIs AtYou

[larryrap]

Mary , Brian, I prize your company and couldn't wish for better.

[larryrap]

30th – Larry Lies

Here lies Larry.
He waved the word truth in our faces
but sold us tin wrappers
filled with sand.

He'd talk on and on
about silence
and turned the dead into dummies
with his arm up their ass.

Fishetarian with leather shoes,
halfway by default,
privately pounding on jigsaw puzzles
to force the pieces in.

Too lazy to die for a living,
resistant to membership cards,
but twice discovered weeping
with a bible in his hand.

He was a great one for contrary questions
but the talking stick is ours.
Even his most gullible fans
don't believe he intends to stay lost.