Larry vs. Larry

[prokopton]

I am picturing Art Carney and the cast of Coccoon, out in New Mexico
chasing some drug smugglers as bounty hunters, coping with bad hips,
pacemakers, occasional memory lapses while keeping their handguns
loaded and in good repair. The comedy goes on and on.
Thanks for that.
SF story is pregnant with possibility - love the Zombie potential. I will write it if you don't.
Last Hotel is poignant.

Keep the faith. You're just warming up!

ffGoe

[Steven]

Brilliant work in 'Science Fiction Story'. It reminded me of a story I was reading recently about the millions of Facebook profiles owned by people who have passed away. An example of the 'un-extinction' in the poem.

Great comparison of shopping malls to Eden as well, and a tantalizing last line.

[larryrap]

Emilio, Vicky, Tony, Geoff, Steven,
I'm in your debt. Time has been short this week, and I intend to get my ass over to your places very soon.

[larryrap]

They sit here every afternoon
out of jobs and poorly dressed.

Everywhere, great slabs of fate
have begun to topple.

A newcomer will sometimes stand up.
“Oh, pipe down,” they say.

Out back, over trash and weeds,
poppies burn

with no thought of the future
or the noisy heckles of the dead.

[larryrap]

What did we talk about
when history lurched and tilted down?
Divorce, vegetarian cousins, our low opinion of the weather,
repairmen, exercise, cats –
like a marvelous aircrash
where a silent pact has been made
to pretend nothing has happened
while the plane continues its peaceful descent,
and the stewardess sits down beside you,
removing her cap and smiling
and a sense of lightness fills you like sleep
and you lean back slowly becoming transparent,
entranced by the pitch of the wind pushing back
against the wings’ immobile advance.

[larryrap]

When I’m like this, sick and full of foreboding,
it’s best to fold my arms
and allow the membrane growing over me
to seal.

Disowned, left for dead
under six feet of rubble
something glows. Don’t laugh:
my theme was love.

Remember the man
who used to tap from the basement?
Even when he gave up
he never gave up.

[Janet]

So much to like. Enjoyed your fresh images and ideas. Plan B is especially nice. Has the sense of self-awareness in hind-sight. I like that.

"mountains smear the lake red" is lovely and I loved "rubbed ear/silence/The genie has deserted the lamp."

[5th column]

Hi Larry, I sometimes imagine reading a poem in a journal to see how close to the finished article it is. The Retired Prophet Club feels as though it's half or a third way toward that end with a strong beginning and When I'm Like This is even closer, requiring (for me), only a physical reference point to ground it.

Great thread yet again

5th

[larryrap]

Thanks Janet and Neil, it's good to be read and appreciated by you.

[larryrap]

Thick with dreams, her arm, her lips, her thigh.
We need to talk before rain blurs the morning,
lightning flares in a dusky sky. Only the cruel
can be merciful, water after a drought,
a wasting disease, brown drops thick with sky.
We need to talk before daylight strikes,
before I wake forever, before sleep ends desire.

[M]

Either I'm here for a reason, or I'm not. Great line. I'm definitely here for a reason. Loved your Science Fiction Story. Poets writing with shotguns and dead roaming the malls while the governments swell to huge empires of erasure...so much food for thought. When we forget our history, we are doomed to repeat it. Looking forward to more!

[Donner]

Hi, Larry,

Do they celebrate April Fool's Day in Israel? Or have an equivalent? Hopefully your April 1 poem isn't playing a joke on N.

Lots of imagination going on this month. (Another reason my husband could use to tell me not to go to the mall...the mall....) What I'm finding is that I want to see more from each day's work, Plan B, especially. There's lots more Plan B's that could fit. (Maybe that's because, for the first NaPo ever, I'm writing longer poems myself than I'm used to. Or maybe it's because you're posting from your phone.)

I'm partial to "When I'm Like This" because N, for all of his foreboding and loss of love, recognizes he can't let go of hope and doesn't want anyone else to, either. Faith, hope and love.

Donner

[larryrap]

Thank you M,
and thank you Donner. NaPo pushes me to cut a lot of poems ruthlessly when I feel I'm out of time.

[larryrap]

I’ve been given a space here below,
in a narrow and low-hidden closet
beneath the best-seller display
with a slit for refreshment and air.

Just how this arrangement befell me
could well be a story worth telling
except that I haven’t a notion.
It happened. Let’s leave it at that.

I peer through a peephole and follow
the customers’ leisurely ramble
past cookbooks and three-in-one bargains.
Nobody chooses my book.

Not a single one buys my fine story
and I’d willingly join their rejection
except that I bought sixty-three
plus the thirty I already had.

This poem is addressed to the seven
who somehow escaped my strict vigil
and slipped unobserved past the counter,
infecting the world with my yawn.

And should they by happenstance read this,
they’re welcome to visit my haven
and pass me their book through the peephole
to add a few lines in my hand.

I’ll add this event to my story
in my tiny but legible cursive
on a page I left blank for this purpose
in lieu of a page before last.

[Speug]

‘1 April 2016’, ‘Plan B’ and ‘Now Call the Chief’ (especially that last couplet) have been my favourites so far. From this last, “infecting the world with my yawn” is an excellent line. And hey (thinking like a poetry publisher), seven sales isn’t bad!