Bundled Up, Volume 3:
Quintains, Pentastichs, Tankas
Cinquains, Quintets, Quintillas
Gogyohkas, Limericks, Wakas
Five Line Poems and Onions

Go Straight on Quintain Lane

By Mike Garofalo

500  Quintains, Tankas,
        Pentastichs and Onions

                       5 Line Poems
                       Quintains Research

1500.

"Joy! Joy! Joy!
The hills are glad,
The valleys re-echo with merriment,
In my heart is the sound of laughter,
and my feet dance to the time of it..."

- Adelaide Crapsey, 1898,
Excerpts from The Mother Exultant

1501.

1503.

Opened the Door of his mind
Mostly a hoarder's rooms inside.
Filled with magazines of stale memories.
Packed with boxes of unpleasant dreams.
Piled with the dirty dishes of despair.

1505.

If
dogs were cats
they'd take more naps
and run far less
and make less mess

1506.

Wanting to be important
          can lead to a growing portent
     of unbalanced grim self-importance
          causing troubles for folks unimportant
if you rise by bad deportment.

1507.

     Objectives Daily:
Write 5 Quintain Poems.
Improve the Quality of my poems.
     Read and research quintain poetry.
Select my Bundled Up 222.

     November 1, 2024 —

1508.

     Persimmons sweet.
     Onions savory.
Quintains served.
Readers savored them.
     — The taste? —

Quintains and Onions

Pentastichs and Onions

1509.

10/24/2025 Friday 4:54 pm
vanilla malt from
Dairy Queen (DQ);
     she got a sundae
     chocolate covered

1510.

water boiling
metal tea pot
          turn it off
     steep tea
wait and smell

1511.

Virginia Valdez
Age 13
Died in 1957—
     shrieks of sorrow
     at her funeral

1512.

     Raining hard all day,
wind gusts up to 35 mph,
King Tides, 50°F, November:
          yurt shaking...
long night at Beverly Beach.

Beverly Beach State Park OR

1513.

Gushen Grove Sonnets

1514.

     Bodhi Tree Bookstore
on Melrose in 1976...
          incense burning
New Age and Neo Pagan kitsch
Tarot books and Tarot cards

Bodhi Tree Bookstore, West Hollywood

1515.

          He Opened
     the Jury Notice
Calling him to Serve—
memories of Norwalk Court
sitting for days in the Jurors' Room

1516.

Football Games
     Saturday — College
     Sunday — Pros
Monday and Thursday Also—
Sports Addiction Bromance.

1517.

raking rust colored leaves
from under a sweet gum tree
               tossed by a November breeze
                    scattered randomly—
my head drips sweat free

1518.

     clear blue skies today
     warmer Sunday morn
after November's reign of rain—
     my son's 45 Birthday party
released many good memories

1519.

As a child I dug up a sand crab
     at Huntington Beach
     corner of Highway 39
     and Highway 101 PCH;
watched the little wiggling crab,
then placed it back in the wet sand.

Lots of little pleopod legs
     brown shell
sensing skin
     two eyes—
Emerita analoga

1520.

 trimming my beard
            shaving my face
my bald head—
needs little attention
but for some cream

1521.

dimming cloak
of dull black
dark oncoming—
          he worried about
     driving at night

1522.

Gold leaves fill the gutter
Water puddles around the grate—
          Rain Runs
               Down, down, down ...
Gravity rules every town.

Pulling Onions

1523.

"We think that Paradise and Calvary,
Christ's cross and Adam's tree, stood in one place ;
Look, Lord, and find both Adams met in me ;
As the first Adam's sweat surrounds my face,
May the last Adam's blood my soul embrace."

- John Donne

1524.

slippery wet grass
on a long slope
dripping slowly
in the sunshine—
     his anxiety faded

1525.

"Our philosophies must
     be rewritten
to remove them from the domain
of words and "ideas," and
     to plant
their roots firmly in the earth."

- William Vogt

1526.

Absolutes squirm
beneath realities.
Most Laws of Gardening
     are merely
     local ordinances.

1527.

Two Rules
For Success in Exercising:
     Do It Today!
     And, Do it Again
     Tomorrow!

1528.

A little of this
and a little of that,
and with a few
     Exceptions—
these are the Facts.

Pulling Onions

1529.

Our ideas appear
and disappear
     like comets
     like clouds
in the empty sky.

1530.

Way-aye, the sun is rising.
Way-aye, the tide is incoming.
Way-aye, the fish are biting.
     Early in the morning.
     Early in the evening.

1531.

The dangers of
dwindling, less, little,
          limited, lost,
     all spiraling
towards nothing.

1532.

"There was an Old Man in a boat,
Who said, 'I'm afloat, I'm afloat!'
When they said, 'No! you ain't!'
He was ready to faint,
That unhappy Old Man in a boat."

- Edward Lear

1533.

My life experiences
and my
amazement/wonder/infatuation
with the the myriad
     World of Somethings

1534.

Some former
widespread "truths"
are now abandoned, discarded,
          or irrelevant,
     just historical oddities.

1535.

My bones have some stardust,
     my brain some
reptilian vestiges,
     and my soul
some of the Earth.

Pulling Onions

1536.

Some ideas
are impalpable,
     tasteless, foul,
          stinking, garbage,
          Rotten.

1537.

     The Boundless is
like wind
over the Ocean;
          the boundary
like a knife.

1538.

     The Rule is:
there are probably exceptions to the rule,
there are borderline cases
where the use of the rule is debated,
and the rule better work most of the time.

"Mas o menos" is often quite sufficient.

American Pragmatism

1539.

Time creeps,
walks, runs
and flies—
     It is all about
     Moving Things.

Pulling Onions

1540.

        the poet
played with sounds—
a perfect pitch of ideas
melodic intimacies
rhythm of rhyming phrases

Quintain Poetry Research

Quintain Poetry Rhyme Schemes

Poetry Research

1541.

"In castle ruins
the tapping of a hand-drum
so clearly echo,
that in Komachi's dancing
even the moon seemed to smile."

- Hiroko Seiki

1542.

Mother Nature
     is always pregnant.
     The Uhr Spell is
"Abundant Fertility."
Complexity is closer to the Truth.

1543.

the stunning intensity
overwhelms me
          stops me—
metaphors of Endlessness
carried by the sea

1544.

Japanese maple tree
swaying branches.
          Orange-gold-red
     November leaves
shaking in the breeze

1545.

Like most
I was a horny lad
Hungry for Love—
          Expanding Lust
          Leafing Trees

1546.

Lunch with Linda,
apples and cheese.
Parked in the shade,
we kissed tenderly.
     Romance at 17.

1547.

          beach blanket
     dry hot sand
warm July wind—
my Japanese girlfriend
listened to the Dodgers again

1548.

     Slowly rocking
in her chair.
     Comforting lair;
warm and cozy—
          back and forth...

1549.

colors captured
     in JPG's
multi-pixel marvels—
     enlightened viewers
of digital photography

1550.

slight headache
     numb lips
          some retching
               no sleep—
hallucinogenic bumpy trip

1551.

1552.

Tacoma Harbor
          lights on all night
     shimmering
colored arrows of light
          skim the sea

1553.

[1111]
{2222}
(3333)
<4444>
#5555#

1554.

          pretty lady
     lovely baby
          proud dad
friends glad
     pleased granddad

1555.

Under a Skyview Storm

Skyview high school
Girls Varsity
soccer games—
     old memories
     are reborn

Watching the end—
game over
we loose
heads down
tears

Last game
season over
end of Club/HS team—
memories of
Nemesis Storm 2025

the seniors cried
saying goodbye—
soccer team
of 2025!
End of the line!

we fans
felt defeat
remained polite
walked to our cars
one November night

so sad
soccer season ends
seniors leaving
fans crying
State Championship Games

said her thanks
saluted her teachers and coaches
thanked her parents
thanked her teammates---
"#17 Out!"

Skyview High School
Vancouver, Washington
Girls Varsity Soccer Team
4A State Championship of 2025
Fourth Place
15 Wins, 4 Losses, 4 Ties
11/22/2025

Grandma Karen, Makenna Flinn #17, Grandpa Mike
Washington State 4A Girls Soccer Championship,
Puyallup, 11/21-22/2025
Karen and I attended 18 Skyview High School
Girls Varsity Soccer Games in 2025.
Makenna Flinn was a First Team
All League Center Defender for two years.

1556.

silver clouds
crawl up the cliffs
intertwined in trees—
Ranier looms
over Puyallup

Puyallup, Washington

1557.

The Chelais River
ends in Aberdeen—
a million birds
fly by in Spring...
wildlife refugees.

Chelais River, Washington

1558.

in the beginning
is the end
in mind...
opening
seeds of change

1559.

mild headache
awake
predawn day—
perking coffee
boiling eggs

1560.

manic mindset
motion multiplied
marvelous majesty
magical mastery—
then he breaks

1561.

"The boat tilts on your image on the waves
between a fire of foam and the flower of
moon waves, these the flags of your dream
ing lips. I'm watching Venus on the ogred
sky and a continent in coiled cocoons. So!"

- Philip Lamantia, The Romantic Movement

1562.

Fresh Oysters
from Brady's Oyster Shack
at the Westport Twin Harbor's Bridge—
Grays Harbor
gives and gives and gives.

Grays Harbor, WA

1563.

more or less
creative
pretense
created
text mess

1564.

seated on a hardback chair!
               my body
     rocking      back and      forth...

an hour passes!
day-dream-time ends!

1565.

Loaded trains rumbled by
every hour by the
Silver Cloud Hotel on a pier
      in the West Tacoma Harbor
          north of Downtown Tacoma—
three seals      were fishing at dawn.

Tacoma Harbor, WA

1566.

—sitting at work
clothed and covered
—comfortable
               50°F
—indoors

1567.

yes!
not often profound.
     but, trying! my best!
           to be Relevant—
               somehow.

1568.

Fate:Unpredictability

Mr. Kevin Mathiesen:
4th grade teacher, father, kind,
coach, athlete, decent man, leader...
Cancer took his life, suddenly,
at the young age of 45.

! I'm alive at 65 ! ????? Why????

Maywood Middle School, Corning, CA

1569.

a fine cool mist of fog
coils round my wool beanie
          drapes over my wool coat
          drips down my waterproof
                    pants and boots---
wet      leaves on the ground

1570.

The darkness lingers
          long      into the morning
     this-Thanksgiving Day—
her kitchen was warm,
fresh bread was buttered.

Neo-Pagan Holidays

1571.

     The coffee
     in my cup
       was      Cold!
               A compass
                    for Entropy.

1572.

3:41 am...
everyone asleep
               except me—
          writing
poetry

1573.

     Turned on
my Dell Inspiron desktop computer...
     traveled into the World Wide Web
on the Google Magic Carpet Ride
     into the Future.

1574.

     a bundle of string
lumped on the work bench...
     a crumpled cotton cloth
in a corner of the floor...

a long list of today's chores

1575.

"A flickering flame, on the wall
The sound of a, coyotes call
The desert winds, singing at night
Sandstorms dancing, in the moonlight
Embracing lovers, to befall"

- Pat Bibbs

1576.

Sevengill sharks
search Willapa Bay
for succulent seals—
     Shoalwater shallows.
          March madness!

1577.

hormigas en sus pantalones
don't be a wiggle worm bum
     sit still and shut up
bell rung, class begun—
attentive stillness criterion

1578.

dampness
      dark ground
          drenched dirt
leaves down—
     November gone

1579.

Needing Five
positive experiences
     to balance and reconcile
one negative experience.
          Avoid mistakes!

1580.

          A pound of beans
     A ham hock lean
A pot boiling...

Salted. Stirred. Steaming.
A recipe from New Orleans.

1581.

The fingers at the edge of my mind
Pointing to feelings unrefined
Clustered in hands aligned.

Holding them near and dear.
     Crossing my fingers to be sure.

Cantos of the Hands

1582.

The Shore of the Sea;
     A Therapy. Surely. Rapidly.
Can induce soft calming
Euphoric moods. But only!
          Transitionally, temporarily.

1583.

     Sphenopalatine
     ganglioneuralgia
AKA "brain freeze"—
          a frozen slurpie sip
burned my forehead quick.

1584.

Sunday night
December sights
                     Winter      Gloom
Christmas soon
Year End Looms

1585.

leaky dick
wet pants a lot
          piss spots
stinky crotch...
     an old man's lot

1586.

Suddenly, the wind did rise
Blowing higher King Tides.

     Spraying high on cliff sides,
     Sucking sand side to side—

We stepped back. Mesmerized!

King Tides in Oregon

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1587.

          sunlight burst through
flimsy white clouds
blue skies all around—
          a Pause
in December rain showers

December Poetry

1588.

"Anyway the time has come to explain
     the Golden Eternity
and how the iridescent paraphernalia of radiating candles
     ceases when mentaion ceases
because I know what it's like to die..."

- Jack Kerouac, Poem

1589.

Leg It!
     Move!
           Walk!
               Work!
Carry on...

1590.

Thirty minutes left
          before Three Mile Island
          Exploded...
Anxiety at the edge of Dread,
Technicians on the razor's edge.

Three Mile Island Accident 1979

1591.

"what's mine is mine
what's yours is mine"
the Nazi's said—
     We fought them hard
     till millions were dead.

1592.

Christmas wreath
on the church door
          wilting slowly—
dry December day
west wind plays

1593.

          The Seas
     a seeming Eternity
surrounding me—
generations worshiped
     the Neptune King

King Neptune Mythology

Highway 101 Docu-Poem

1594.

twists and turns
          ups and downs
     ins and outs—
two humming birds
          playing about

Trilobite Fossilized Creatures

1605.

parking lot
August hot—
teenagers tense
suspicious sides
temporary truce

1608.

ten to seven
day's end...
      gentle breeze
          made me
snooze again

1609.

     stoned on sativa
slipping memories
shifting ADHD
     fiddling activities
stoned on sativa

1610.

KDP
Kindle Direct Publishing
Amazon.com
     Indie-Publishier
     Texts-Press, WA

Kindle Direct Publishing

Texts-Press, WA

1611.

"The years have worn my body down;
and soon, I'll breathe my final breath.
Life has left me tired and rundown;
but I am not afraid of Death;
though I'll meet His gaze with a frown."

- Emile Pinet

1612.

rain drops
     shimmer
     delicately
on leafless
     dogwood trees

1613.

Samurai sword
     cut off her head.
Nanking atrocities;
     piles of the dead.
Rising Sun of Blood.

Nanking Massacre, China 1938

1614.

Winter Rain Returns 2025

The Atmospheric River
from across the Pacific;
     El Nino Rainstorms
from the Southwest—

Flash floods, flooded rivers, landslides...

     Highway 1 CLOSED
     for many months
from huge landslides
or collapsed bridges
on the Road perched in the sky.

          Flooding on 101
     near Tillamook—
another local bridge out
     five rivers flow
     into Tillamook Bay.

Mudslides in Malibu,
muck in fireburnt Pacific Palisades.

Flooding of 101 near Potlach
at the Skokomich River Crossing,
under unrelenting rain.

Crowds gather
at Depot Bay
          along 101 shops
     to watch
          the King Tides Spray.

Relaxed and reading,
in my van with the rain
rattling on my roof—
     I dried off
          after my walk.

We stopped on 101
          near Kalaloch;
rainstorm slashing down,
visibility poor, road slick ...
—we sat in my van for hours.

Raining hard all day,
wind gusts up to 35 mph,
King Tides, 50°F, November:
          yurt shaking...
long night at Beverly Beach.

     clear blue skies today
warmer Sunday morn
after November's reign of rain—
     my son's 45 Birthday party
released many good memories

Gold leaves fill the gutter
Water puddles around the grate—
          Rain Runs
          Down, down, down ...
Gravity rules every town.

At the Edges of the West
Highway 101 and 1: Docu-Poems

1615.

The Stations of the Cross rituals
at St. Alphonsus Catholic school.
     Reminding us of Jesus who chose
to be tortured and crucified...
     a masochist's hidden sacrifice?

[He could have easily escaped.]

1616.

     All's fair in war, not love.
     Reject the gun, love the dove.
Plant a garden, stay at home.
Write a protest letter, read a tome.
Sing a song. Take a walk. Resume!

1617.

     Tumbling river stones
In the raging river borne,
Polished smooth for decades past,
     Till all the edges are cut and worn,
Then the colored pebbles sink home.

1618.

Among the rolling Willapa Hills
     harvesting trees is the norm,
     except in routine winter storms.
A little village like Cathlamet
along the mighty Columbia River was born.

Cathlamet, Washington

1619.

               old man
          weathered hands
     arthritic fingers
dirty nails—
     a silver wedding ring

1620.

A child in the doctor's waiting room:
     hyperactive, jumping around, stemming,
flopping on the floor, crawling on chairs,
did not talk, autistic, did not respond.
And, sadly, his mother was deaf.

Autistic Behavior

1621.

Pomona, Goddess of the Groves:
Blessing almond and olive rows,
Watering deep the walnut trees,
Picking peaches in Oroville fields,
Stomping grapes in Greek hills.

Pomona

Oroville, California

1622.

Called my brothers
in January;
          stayed in touch
once a year.
     We live far apart!

1623.

Siskiyou Pass
     In between
Mt. Shasta and Mt. Jefferson;
leading north to Medford Valley
     and Oregon's hills of trees.

Siskiyou Summit Pass

Medford, Oregon

Mt. Shasta, California

Mt. Jefferson, Oregon

1624.

Dermatologist examined me
from my bald head to below my knees
using his magnifying glass carefully—
inspecting my old version of skin,
and then prescribing chemotherapy cream.

1625.

A Tai Chi teacher
     training me
very meticulous, demanding;
but his superiority complex
      rubbed raw on me.

1626.

A hundred year old woman's
     sister was slaughtered
     during the Holocaust—
the bare bones of ugly memories
of dead bodies in the muddy ditch.

The Holocaust Horrors

1627.

     It's not nice
to insult your customers
     with disrespectful words—
Yes, the great Boycott of US goods
caused by the Terrible Bankrupter Trump!

Boycott of 2025

1628.

I once, just once only,
     voted Republican
     for Richard Nixon
to end the Vietnam War—
I was fooled; Yes, but no more.

Operation Rolling Thunder

1629.

Buddhist Monks walk
from Texas to the Congress' walls.
          Millions cheered their
     Walk for Peace—
For Mindfulness, Compassion, Dignity.

[walking with Aloka the Dog]

Walk for Peace 2026

1630.

Dawn in the desert
Birds sing to the sun
Wordless hymns for Helios—
Silent snakes stunned cold,
Rabbits hide in their holes.

Helios

Columbia Plateau Desert

1631.

"As long as autumn lasts,
     I shall not have hands,
     canvas and colors,
Enough to paint
All the Beautiful Tings I see."

- Vincent Van Gogh

1632.

sounds of airplanes
          flying by roar
of propeller blades
          slicing the air
                    up there

1633.

Blinking Christmas lights
Turned off early tonight
Locked up the entire house
Turned on the lamp by me
Opened a book of poetry

closed road
deep snow
     we know
can't go, so
we stay at home

1634.

"Yes, there are two paths
you can go by...
but in the long run
There;s still time to change
The road your on."

- Led Zeppelin, Stairway to Heaven

1635.

"A flickering flame, on the wall
The sound of a, coyotes call
The desert winds, singing at night
Sandstorms dancing, in the moonlight
Embracing lovers, to befall"

- Pat Bibbs

1643.

much too soon, I
entered the room, I
sat and stared, I
waited awhile, I
closed my eyes

1644.

A glimpse of a peacock's feather
made Darwin twitch. Why?
The intricacies of biology,
     beauty beyond belief,
tempted him with Creator Myths.

Charles Darwin

1645.

deep down
in beings
breathing...
Life
in and out

1646.

sweeping the leaves
off the porch--
          removing
     messages
from my email box

1647.

     stopped in Fortuna
     for food and sleep----
damp day
     moss draped on trees
the faint smell of the sea

Fortuna, California

1648.

Christmas lights
     red-green bright
     blue-violet sparkling
     flashing colors in the night—
electric holiday gleaming

1649.

Finite Sanitariums

Ascending orders
of Infinity
one larger than another...
Cantor mathematized truth,
and depression destroyed his mind.

Georg Cantor

1650.

The tug of the tides
and sounds of the surf
kept me awake that night—
     my 79th birthday
     alone at the Cape

Cape Disappointment, WA

1651.

Every Proposition
is time-place stamped
          for Context.
The date and place
help explicate.

Pragmatism

Logical Positivism

1652.

A giant among inchlings. Yes!
The atoms in a molecule never rest.

The forest kept the sunlight low.
Trees talked in the earth below.

Open the book on the desk. Yes!

1653.

The blunt solitude of sadness
Wearies my under active mind
Stymies my limited initiative
Thwarts my scheduled plans...
Imprisoned by Pointlessness!

1654.

wind whooshing
          twisting shrubbery
amidst the blustering—
     I hum
     flowing melodies

1655.

     Podiatrist
     carving my callouses
chats with me
about lively parties
on New Year's Eve.

1656.

the taste of the tangerine
sweet, crisp, stimulating
tantalized my tongue...
     Cutting up curved peels
     for the compost pile

1657.

Ocean streams never sleep.
Flying electrons never stop.

Trees scatter seeds endlessly.
The human genome is complexity.

——Moments of time forever lost.

1658.

"We think too much and feel to little
     More than machinery
     we need humanity.
          More than cleverness
we need kindness and gentleness.

- Charlie Chaplin

1659.

     a pile of impressions
     a lump of thoughts
     a clump of feelings
a lifetime of experiences—
          Plenty to gather!

1660.

fallen maple leaves
     rain soaked
on muddy ground—
          today, just now,
no birds around

1661.

"It was only
the thin thread of a cloud,
almost transparent,
leading me along the way
like an ancient sacred song."

- Yosano Akiko (1878-1942)

1662.

Wandering in the woods
on back roads around Pepperwood
picking up inchling cones
of immense Redwood trees--
little beginnings of Big Things.

Pepperwood, CA

1663.

nothing makes sense
it does, doesn't it?
but NO
something must make sense
despite what we don't know

1664.

Twin Harbors State Park
CLOSED!
We walked in the woods
foraging for mushrooms
—finding few.

Twin Harbors State Park, Washington

1665.

UTube Video on Planting a Bare Root Tree

How about a
perspicuous representation
(übersichtlichen Darstellung)
as an adequate
substitute for an explanation?

Reading Wittgenstein 1975

1666.

"O now the drenched land wakes;
Birds from their sleep call
Fitfully, and are still.
Clouds like milky wounds
     Float across the moon.'

- Kenneth Patchen

1667.

     I opened
my old pocket knife,
blade straight and tight,
reliable, sturdy, just right—
     sliced apples tonight.

1668.

My heavy wool coat
     damp from drizzle
     buffeted by brisk breezes
     spotted with mud—
crumbled cookies in my pocket.

1669.

          Antietam cornfields
     stained blood red
     covered by the dead
     blown apart by lead—
even Grant cried in his bed.

Antietam Battle 1862

1670.

"It had, for me,
Something
of the effect that arises
from the turning over
Fresh soil."

- Henry Hazlitt

1671.

     "All calculations set to one side;
The inevitable Descent from Heaven,
A visitation of memories and a séance of rhythms
     Invades the hours, my head,
And the world of the mind."

- Arthur Rimbaud

1672.

Trickle Down Economics helps the rich get richer.
The folks at the bottom end of the funnel-filter get
Less or Nothing. Folks in the middle ping-pong from
Plenty to Poverty based on what Fickle Fate decrees.
This means nothing to a poor Third World Economy.

1673.

Just an earthquake away
from sudden death today.
     I've lived 80 years atop the
San Andreas and Cascadia Faults
of the Pacific Ring of Fire Death Zone.

- MPG, Lucky Me

Pacific Volcanic Ring of Fire

1674.

     swirling smoke
          white lacy streams—
cigarette smoldering
     ashtray filling
     a mess to clean

1675.

My hickory cane hangs
from a peg on the wall
          near my back door;
     beckoning me
to walk even more.

1676.

     walked slowly
stepped carefully
navigated gingerly
climbed steadily—
      cane in my hand

Canes

1677.

between me, mine, and I
somewhere inside me
     bubbling Up
emerging Identities—
          Freeing Me

1678.

the storm
blew branchlets
and Big Branches
all askew and around
battering plants on the ground

1679.

I blinked, teary-eyed.
Campfire smoke
     in my eyes.
     Up my nose—
wet wood in a pile

Fireplaces and Campfires

The Fireplace Records Koan Collection

1680.

He a long-haired dandy
free living, wild, randy;
his signature, a green carnation,
his plays a London sensation—
Oscar Wilde... long before Stonewall.

Oscar Wilde

1681.

my wallet was empty
no change in my pocket
no gas in my tank
     ten miles from home
      walking in the night alone

1682.

1683.

mysterious lights
above the railroad tracks—
ghostly lantern
swinging back and forth
for a century

Maco Light

1684.

"The sun hardly touches me
Sometimes I see it in early spring, rising very far away.
The leaves grow over it, completely hiding it. I feel it
glinting through the leaves, erratic,
like someone hitting the side of a glass witha metal spoon."

- Louise Gluck, Lamium

1685.

Atomic time clock
powered by caesium
iced down near Absolute Zero—
counting off, tick by tock,
Scientific Seconds: tickticktickticktick.....

Atomic Time Clock

Absolute Zero

1686.

               wrinkled face
          bags under eyes
     flabby neck
bruised skin—
     old age begins

1687.

Coughing up yellow sputum
Blowing snotty sinus gush
Sleeping more, seeking rest
Taking medicine to regain my best
Patiently recovering, aching less

1688.

Between the Twin Towers
a tightrope tight
     a daredevil acrobat
     crosses side to side—
New Yorker's cheer the sight.

Phillipe Petit, 1974

1689.

The train of ideas crashed off the language track.
The egg was not all it was cracked up to be.
Expected sweet, tasted sour.
Minutes seemed like hours.

1690.

The Happiest Place of Earth:
     not at Disneyland
     not on a Caribbean Cruise
     not in a Las Vegas Casino—
Sitting in the shade in a local park!

1691.

     Christians tell me
     we all are sinners
corrupt to the core; but
if you accept Jesus the Saviour
all you sins are forgiven!

how convenient
free pass
always forgiven
scott free.
     Evil rejoices.

1692.

a stillness
     a hardness
          a bleakness
               a shiver
a reminder of winter

1693.

I dreamed of running
I knew not why
I was not being chased
I was not afraid—
I had jogged earlier in the day.

1694.

A truck blew by
on Grayland Beach
blaring a hard rock jam—
seagulls scattered
into the absence of silence

Grayland Beach

1695.

     Risky games
injuries incurred
          foolish thrills
          stupid acts...
Grow up! Give it up!

Doggerel Verses

1696.

          waves of light
red-yellow-blue-white
maximum speed of light
defining our limits of sight—
     still spooky in the night.

1697.

"Fireweed now—
Burnt mountain day
Sunny crackle silence bracken
Huckleberry silver logs bears
Bees and people busy.

Rainy mountain years
Trees again—
Green gloom fern here
Moss duff sorrel—
Deer sleep."

- Philip Whalen

1698.

I've never met a ghost
     or errant UFO
     or an angel or a troll
     or Big Foot in the woods I know—
I saw sea lions on the sandy shore.

1699.

I sipped
     apricot brandy
          till my smiling face
               was soft and very numb—
day dreaming dumb.

1700.

In This
the Best
of All Possible Worlds;
          the year
ended with a failure.

1701.

breadcrumbs
scattered on my sweater
over my chest—
     buttered sourdough toast
     with avocado ... the Best.

1702.

"The non-action of the wise man is not inaction.
It is not studied. It is not shaken by anything.
The sage is quiet because he is not moved.
Not because he wills to be quiet.
     Still water is like glass."

- Thomas Merton
From the Commonplace Book of Pentastichs

1703.

               Early Sunday
          raining hard
     roads empty
very dark—
I pull off at a I5 Rest Stop.

Poems 1,500 - 1,600
Poems 1,600 - 1,700
Poems 1,700 - 1,800
Poems 1,800 - 1,900
Poems 1,900 - 2,000

Bundled Up:

Quintains, Tankas, Pentastichs, and Onions

Quintain Poetry By Mike Garofalo

Bundled Up, Volume 1
Quintain Poems 1 - 1,00

Bundled Up, Volume 2
Quintain Poems 1,000 - 1,500

Bundled Up, Volume 3
Quintain Poems 1,500 - 2,000

Bundled Up, Volume 4
Quintain Poems 2,000 - 2,500

1704.

"The September flocks from crying
gathering southward
even small birds knowing
     for the first time
how to fly all the way as one."

- W. S. Merwin

1705.

huddled in my VW bug
     rain poured down
wind blasted for hours—
     flipped on a flashlight
          to read Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens

1706.

     corn chips
     cheese and salsa
     cold beer and lemons
     delicious beef enchiladas—
Big sombreros on the walls

1707.

     Cut up
     a Bartlett Pear;
juice on the cutting board
juice on my tongue.
Subtle flavor, smooth, clean.

1708.

The Tehama Family Fitness Center
was bright and busy
in Red Bluff tonight—
     I taught a yoga class
and maybe stretched some minds.

Tehama Family Fitness Center, Red Bluff, CA
I taught 3 yoga classes a week for 18 years.

1709.

"When you awake, say to yourself— Today
I shall encounter meddling, ingratitude,
violence, cunning, jealousy, self-seeking,
all of them the results of men not
knowing what is good and what's evil."

- Marcus Aurelius
From The Commonplace Book of Pentastichs

1712.

     For me
a crow is black.

For other Animal Eyes
a crow is Rainbow Colored
Brilliant and Bright.

1713.

Putin attacks Ukraine
     to steal their oil.
Trump attacks Venezuela
     to steal their oil.
Shame on America!

U.S. Attacks Venezuela 2026

1714.

"Suppose I wanted to replace
al the words of my language
at once by other ones..."

He could speak, read, and write in
both German and English.

- Wittgenstein, Zettel # 10

1715.

     "I just bet you would, you'd
take one look and run away
     I bet you would, even if you had the chance
you'd be afraid
you wouldn't take it even then."

- Philip Whalen

1722.

frost on roof tiles
ice on trash can tops
chimney's smoking
children stand at bus stops—
     morning in Puyallup.

Puyallup, WA

1723.

"The presence of real objects
is a nightmare for me.
I have always overturned objects.
A chair or table turned upside down
gives me peace and satisfaction."

1724.

—spinning tops
—flying yo-yos
          tossed balls
—bustling bicycles
—playing cards

1725.
whispering winds
bare branches
surging streams
     raging rivers—
     ruined road

1726.

'Naked and Afraid" TV.
          Survival test?
     Not really!
A phone call away from
     a rescue team.

1727.

     Fishbone
on my pink tongue
flipped and felt gently in my mouth
removed with my index and thumb
     Undone

1728.

sunshine on the cemetery
     tombstones all aglow
fading flowers in vases
     green grasses flow—
but, just two names known

1729.

light bulb LED's
shining brighter
brilliant scene—
     billions of electrons
     help us see

1730.

The Polar Bear swimmers
     3,000+ strong
cheering, screaming, laughing,
     charge into the Sea—
New Year's Day, Birch Bay.

2026 Polar Bear Swim Record

Birch Bay, Washington

1731.

Matrix of Sex by Mike Garofalo

1732.

          the wide
     concrete bridge
          strong and long—
Portland skyscrapers ahead
Willamette River below

Portland, Oregon

Willamette River

1733.

sunny hot day
     sheep panting
     in the shade—
somewhere in Ireland
—shearer's come today

1734.

     casket open
reminding me
the Eternity of Mortality—
     fortunately,
the dead cannot agree

1735.

We walked with the wind
zig-zagging up the hill
muddy trail to the end—
          at the Top— a Rock—
—the Thumb of Poseidon.

- Poseidon's Thumb, Lincoln City, Oregon

Poseidon

1736.

tied to a tree
in the snow
a dead dog—
     Cruelty
never grows old

1737.

Does God exist?
     The old woman
     asked Jesus;
who paused, then said,
"? Cuál dios ?"

1738.

     jiveassmuthafuca
     spewingtruthlessshit
     fuckinguppeople'sminds—
coming from every class and race
a burden all the time

1739.

Never Odd or Even.
Drab as a fool, aloof as a Bard.
          Do geese see God?
Rats live on no evil Star.
No melon, no Lemon.

- Palindrome Hustle

1740.

emotional edge
     raw red
burning mad
     hot head—
ending sad

1741.

"Still
round the corner
there may wait
a new road
or a secret gate."

- J.R.R. Tolkien

1742.

shake shake shake
shake Maria shake
shake Marco shake—
     dancers take the stage
          others clear the way

1743.

the trivial tasks
ho-hum scenes
     ordinary things
familiar beings...
     boring masks

1744.

In Memoriam
Mourners stand
Heads in hands—
     Eulogy read
     Praising the dead.

1745.

          Fireworks blasting
New Year's Eve
     hour after hour—
shaking dogs hiding
clearly in fear

1746.

On the flip side
of King Tides
are vast low tides—
     rocky shorelines
     exposed wide

Low Tides

1747.

     Naming the unnameable.
Explaining the unexplainable.
     Wallace Stevens tried
but became unnatural, clever,
unbelievable, unraveled.

Supreme Fictions!

1748.

Heard "ho who ho who"
      slice between the trees
      cutting the silence clean—
hooty hooty Owl
cannot even be seen.

1749.

     Mythical time
unfolds in present time
unravels in literal minds—
real, imagined, fictionalized,
     Always in Now-Time.

1750.

I laughed and cried
     side by side,
sweat rolled into my eyes—
     inhaled the truth
          saw into the lie.

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1751.

"Streaks of green and yellow iridescence
Silver shiftings
Rings veering out of rings
Grey-green opaqueness sliding down,
With sharp white bubbles

Shooting and dancing,
Flinging quickly outward.
Nosing the bubbles,
swallowing them,
Fish."

- Amy Lowell, An Aquarium

1752.

FLOATing on Blue CLOUDs
      effortless as SPace
turning TORNados away—
     —What? BAD News,
Hurricane on the way.

1753.

They clapped in time
sang the chorus fine
stayed well in tune
their dynamics grooved—
the old drummer smiled.

1754.

     Can't read or write
     Latin, Greek, French,
     or German or Chinese—
can't translate a poem for friends;
but can tend a big garden with ease.

1755.

          The desolate desert
     dry as a skull
Stripped of skin—
     shining white bones
          under the sagebrush sun.

1756.

Expediency governs Forms
          formed to express
     that direct experience
directing my thoughts—
prose or poetry or silence.

1757.

he walks alone
he carries a fossil bone
he cries about his wife who died
he whispers prayers into the fog
he slaps his cane against stone wall

1758.

The Point Reyes poems
     by Robert Bly:
waves of thoughts in prose style,
fishing for ideas in the tides,
     digging in the sands of time.

1759.

          Northern lights
     in the Pullman night
          an unusual sight—
students gather for the colored show
standing on muddied snow.

Pullman, Washington

Washington State University WSU

1760.

tired
worked hard
     job done—
resting now
     sipping rum

1761.

"Art is exact perception
If the outcome is deception
Then I think the fault must lie
Partly with the critic's eye.
And no man who's done his part
Need apologize for art."

- Marianne Moore
Qui S'Excuse, S'Accuse

1762.

A boy was drowning
in the the Merced River
and was saved by a alert man.
     Sucking water, Sinking down...
     the dying boy was me.

Merced River, Yosemite, 1954

1763.

     My van rolled past
     tiny Coquille City at noon;
the old brick downtown was mostly vacant,
hard-working loggers were looking for work,
     the valley was flooded and fogged.

Coquille, Oregon

1764.

     I worry...
not seen a caterpillar in years
not seen a bee in days
not heard ducks quack in months
not seen willows weep in weeks.

1765.

1771.

"The dull round towers encroaching on the field,
The tents tight drawn, horses at tether
Farther and out of reach, the purple night,
The crackling of small fires, the bannerets,
The lazy leopards on the largest banner."

- Ezra Pound

1772.

Bright sunshine brings alive
birds, blossoms, and bugs;
     even shadows crawl around
     playing pee-a-boo with the sun;
green ceramic pots glow.

1773.

1774.

Drove from Cape Lookout
into downtown Tillamook;
     101 quite busy always,
     stopped for Chevron gas,
then, lunch at Tora Sushi Cafe.

Tillamook, Oregon

1775.

Nine Sisters
     Volcanic Peaks
Surround Morro Bay...
     Plugged Dacite Necks
Stretch into wide azure skies.

Nine Sisters Peaks, California

1776.

Black Hill, Islay Hill, Morro Rock,
     Cerro Cabrillo, Hollister Peak,
     Cerro Romauldo, Bishop Peak,
     Cerro San Lucas, Chumash Peak.
Chumash trails up to the Hilltops.

Montaña de Oro State Park

1777.

          tiny junco
     almost invisible
quick as a wink
     gone in a blink
          black headed twink

1778.

The Nazi SS gunman
shot a thousand children
in the back of their heads—
     then he ate bloody sausage
     and calmly went to bed.

Babyn Yar Massacre, 1941

1779.

Your biggest enemy
     Depends on You!
Your thoughts, your opinions,
     your money, your anger,
your misuse of correct views.

How to Live a Good Life

1780.

spinning ceiling fan blades
          flicker the light;
a merry-go-round of cluttered beams,
     flashing mixed intensities,
moving round the ceiling mysteriously

1781.

"Academic—
The stethoscope tells what everyone fears:
You're likely to go on living for years,
With a nurse-maid waddle and a shop-girl simper,
And the the style of your prose growing limper and limper."

- Theodore Roethke

1782.

Nothing to say
Little to do
Sit up straight!

Undo inner chatter—
          Enter the Way.

1783.

"What do love and hate matter
     when I am here alone,
listening to the sound
     of the rain
late this autumn evening."

- Zen Master Dogen

Meditation

1784.

Silence is the Mistress of Sound.
Calmness is a Guide on the Way.
Intelligence is the Ruler of Forms.
Wisdom is the Good Life on Display.
Philosophy can be your friend today.

An Old Philosopher's Notebooks

1785.

I have not stood
above my mother's
or father's graves
     for twenty years...
I just stand on memories.

1786.

Basalt monoliths:
     Haystack Rock      [235 feet]!
     Morro Rock           [576 feet]!
Peregrine falcons home;
A Protected wildlife zone.

Morro Rock, California

1787.

Shells of speech
call from the shore
          speaking in tongues
as words from the wise
     echo in my ears more.

1788.

That damn old white
          Gordian Knot
Mighty tight
Unraveled cords
     Resists not swords

1789.

          Of what she was
     and what she is
coming into being;
she must become—
Undone!

1790.

     A butterfly in Bulgaria
flaps it's decorated wings
and starts a revolution
of weather in rain soaked
          Aberdeen

Aberdeen, Washington

Lorenz Butterfly Effect

1791.

"He was found by the Bureau of Statistics to be . . .

And all the reports on his conduct agree . . .

Except for the War till the day he retired
He worked in a factory and never got fired.
But satisfied his employers, Fudge Motors, Inc."

- W. H. Auden

1792.

A bed of string beans
          vines intertwined
seedpods hanging in the sun
     are green Green green as
Kentucky Wonder pole beans Are.

1793.

— What?
No Remission of Sins
Without
The Spilling of Blood!
— Why so?

Blood Offerings

1794.

     It can be said
          that poetry is:
a form of punctuation,
a creative intoxication,
glib words on a white page.

1795.

"Bronze by gold heard
The hoofirons, steelyringing,
Impertinent thn      thn thn thn"
said James Joyce.
The Sirens were his voice.

- James Joyce

1796.

Still the need
     to Howl about
unjust foul ways
of the everyday whims of the world.
Allen Ginsberg seldom lied.

- Allen Ginsgerg, Howl

1797.

Bangles, beads, and baubles,
     the keenest of the kitsch;
Novelty stores in Newport
Stocked for summer's pitch.
     Salt-water taffy in a pinch.

Newport, Oregon

1798.

Quatrains are like Legos,
     four-square and expandable.
ample for building blocks
     of interlocking islands
of meanings that I mean.

1799.

January nights
iced to the bone;
          fingers stiff,
     moving slow—
feeling so old and cold.

1801.

Lies of Disappointment

He looked into her eyes
and told her some lies.
     She knew the truth,
     knew he had lied—
their brief romance died.

1802.

Neighborhood Noon

     Carpenter's hammering
          Trucker's trucking
Cook's cooking
     Babies crying
Cats sleeping—Daytime Deeds!

1803.

Ruffians in Blue Ties

     We were not Cool.
We wore a tie to school.
We were straight dudes.
We could be mean or rude.
—Under Catholic School Rule!

1804.

Pick It Up

A bar of soap
on the shower floor
by the glass door;
slippery and slick,
     I grabbed it quick.

1805.

ho-hum poems on rye bread

unsophisticated poetry
clear banalities
ho-hum metaphors
lacking subtlety—
     sand in the wind

1806.

Monuments to Rich Kings

Stone blocks rise.
Pyramids stand.
     Pointed to the sky.
Surrounded by sand.
A Pharaoh's final prize.

Quintain Poetry Sections on this Webpage
Bundled Up, Volume 3

1807.

beautiful little things

Grandeur is Power
hiding in moon flowers
soaked in Spring showers;
     the beautiful little things bring
     our pleased hearts to sing.

1808.

"Meter is prospective;
Rhyme is retrospective.
Meter is narrow
Rhythm is broad."
Both married in good poetry.

- Brad Leithauser, Rhymes Rooms

1809.

Pushing the Buttons

No more elevator operators
     elevators digitalized;
push a button for a ride,
smile at folks inside,
doors slide to the side.

1810.

Dead Ideas in a Hearse

no message in this verse
moving slowly like a hearse
dead ideas in a purse
just faint hints of melodies
sung by Furies to men at sea.

Erinyes Furies
Anger, Jealousy, Avenger

1811.

"Pouring itself on fulfillment the eagle's passion
Left life behind and flew at the sun its father.
The great unreal talons took peace for prey
Exultantly, their death beyond death; stopped upward,
and struck
Peace like a white fawn in a dell of fire."

- Robinson Jeffers
           Big Sur, CA

1812.

To Summarize:

Sharp eyes criticize.
Keen ears hear the call.
The taste of wisdom is often not sweet.
Holding hands defies defeat.
—To Summarize: Be wise.

How to Think

1813.

A Danger to the Bathroom

repeating, repeating ...
turning to the toilet seat
pulled my pants down right
peed accidentally on the seat
wiped up what I could see

1814.

something said about my dog

Many themes of poetry
concern mundane trivialities...
like love, family, gods, birds and bees;
dogs, gardens, sex, loss, mulberry trees;
but, how they say it - that's the squeeze.

1815.

An Inch Short of Success

what he intended to say
     what he intended to mean
     what he wanted to convey---
unraveled rather intentionally
because of what he chose to say.

1816.

Special Eyes

Telling the original
     from a clever forgery
was the Treasury's agent's
     forensic eyes—
counter-fitters were compromised.

1817.

Failures Can...

Failures can encourage.
Failures can lead to myths.
     Failures can lead to rigidity.
Failures can lead to success.
Failures! Are they little or big?

1818.

Everthing is Time Stamped

          Truth is temporal.
Fluctuates between the centuries
through passing fads and fancies;
with changing science and technology,
new discoveries, new truths, new things.

1819.

Before You Argue

"The bee does not waste
its energy trying to convince
     a fly
that honey is better than shit."
Some minds are not meant to be changed.

"Their eating their cats,
Their eating their dogs."
Dedicated Trump True Believers are flies.

Shit Happens

1820.

Myths Not To Live By

     I made up myself,
     I'm a self-made man... {Nonsense!}
American narcissist's
crave admiration, lack empathy,
reek of lies, steal from our land.

How to Live a Good Life

1821.

"Death has his tooth in the lot,
Avernus lusts for the lot of them,
Beauty is not eternal, no man has perennial fortune,
Slow foot, or swift foot,
death delays but for a season."

- Ezra Pound

1822.

Seaside Sidewalks in Snow

               snowing at
          Seaside
blue blinking lights
               somber night—
slippery sidewalks crackle

Seaside, Oregon

1823.

Crossing the Strait of Juan Del Fuca

Ferry rocking:
huge waves
high winds
seawater crashing in—
now safely in Port Angeles.

Washington State Ferries

Port Townsend, Washington

1824.

A Saunter Along the Shoreline

Dawn at Devil's Lake,
red cedars dripping,
kinnikinnick shines,
firs frame the twisting shore—
fishermen coming to cast their lines.

Devil's Lake, Oregon

1825.

Repeat Performances

Sculptures cold, stiff, refined.
Paintings framed, fixed, confined.
Music must be recreated, imitated, replayed
Time after time;
Dancers and actors recreate for our minds.

1826.

Who's That Knocking on the Door?

The Subjects?
                     dying or death
no poet can ignore, for
              everyone must face
the Reaper's knock on their door.

The Grim Reaper Lore

1827.

Undesirable Visitations

Opened
       the book of nightmares
to the chapter on Night Demons;
haunting the speech of my sleep,
screaming threats quite obscene.

1828.

Swords in a Pot

dirty brown ceramic pot
       holds a clump
of Mother-In-Law Tongues,
       willy-nilly sticking out
pokey knife leaves of white-green.

1829.

My Macho-Jeans Don't Fit Anymore

balancing on priorities,
falling off useless schemes,
slipping off selfishness—
       Opening up to tenderness;
       Abandoning my old Macho-Jeans.

1830.

Counting the Hours

Beings last
for a short time—
       as mosquitoes or elephant,
       as tortoise or hare.
Keep your limited time in mind.

1831.

"To a chirr of gongs
And a chitter of cries
And the heavy thrum
Of the endless thread
That they tread;

To a jangle of doom
And a jumble of words
Of the intense poem
Of the strictest prose
Of Rosenbloom."

- Wallace Stevens

1832.

Unconscious Hints       

I was a man
              for the longest time
and my little poems
reflected my macho mind.
       Beware of my unconsciousness.

1833.

Where is that freaking ...

Nothing in that drawer.
Nothing in this drawer.
       It's not on that shelf.
       It's not on this shelf.
Here It Is!

1834.

Shedding Off My Snake-Skin Selves

Shifting the feet of my positions,
       fiddling with my objectivity,
reveling in my subjectivity,
       changing my snake-skin Selves,
leaving traces on the trail.

1835.

Comic Book Animal Heroes

              We like to personify:
we prefer talking dragons or
frogs telling tales or
porpoises mumbling messages or
Donald Duck talking in comic books.

1836.

Fainting in Illwaco

Came out of my trance
       looked at my hands
              rubbed my dry eyes
       turned on a light;
Wondered why I'm alive.

1837.

Mysterious Three

       Three sides
My inside and our outside,
       flesh and experience,
       my Outside in my Body.
The Third, Consciousness. Mysterious.

1838.

The Dig Site is Moving

Deep Images
              uncovered
       from the archeology of his mind
archetypes of crucial Personalities
he had years ago left behind.

1839.

Some Library Work Closeup Duties

I locked up the new
Compton Library,
said goodnight to everyone,
closed the underground parking lot---
motorcycled home in the dark.

Compton Library, 1976

1840.

Standing on the Jetty

Huddled inside the
Westport docks so softly still;
protected from the violence
of the deep Grey sea, by
miles of rock jetties.

Westport, Washington

1841.

"Between walls
the back wings
of the

hospital where
nothing

will grow lie
cinders

in which shine
the broken

pieces of a green
bottle."

- William Carlos Williams

1842.

Wide Canyon Enthrallments

       My hand over my eyes
Softens the bright sky
       Stops the sharp glare
Off the brown-red sandstone of
The Cottonwood Canyon Cliffs

Cottonwood Canyon, Oregon

1843.

How Do They Feel? I Never Pray.

People bow their heads
when they pray.
       Is it because of
       Humility,
              or are they Ashamed?

1844.

Otherworldly Sullivan

long sharp icicles
hand frozen daggers
sprouting from the eaves,
                     January in Sullivan,
       snow on everything.

Sullivan, Indiana, 1971

1845.

Lost and Never Found

The Lost Generation
was found yesterday noon,
       decades too late;
strayed off the Bourgeois Interstate
              got lost, a fictional fate.

1846.

Words Don't Matter?

Hell Yes!
Words Matter!
Try: insults, lies, criticism.
Try: praise, encouragement, support.
Results? Words Matter!

1847.

Leafing the Catalog Till the Pages Fell Out

Sear's Christmas catalog
       pages well turned
       over and over again—
microscope and science kits, and
       training in consumerism.

Sears Catalog, 1957

1848.

Do I Know What the Words Mean?

Unsolid breeze, sunlight, dreams,
              riprap of nothings.
Invisible seams between
       Ideas and insights cobbled keen
but unsubstantial they seem.

1849.

Another Ghost Hunter's Episode

Contrary to what
seems to be obvious
and scientifically proved—
flat-earthers talk in circles,
ghost hunters make TV films.

1850.

harsh words

caustic insinuations
slicing rebukes
meddlesome innuendos
fake news—
Abused!

1851.

"I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it
and vowed

always to be open to it
that all of it
might flow through and then heard
"ring of bone" where
ring is what a bell does."

- Lew Welch

1852.

Didactic Barking

Bark
hard, flaky, long
pruning shrubs at noon
the skin of trees
Wood

Bark
loud, crisp, sound
fearful animals shout
sounds of concern
Dog

1853.

Surely Thriving

Ah, to dwell in transcendence
       beyond the crisis of the first kiss
       inside of momentary bliss;
our Love was slow to thrive
yet surpassed our ordinary lives.

1854.

A Fleck of Dasein

       My occasion of Dasein
              1946-2026, being-times.
A steady flame and pace,
slogging in a fleck of space,
still opening some fascinating Gates.

- Dasein

1855.

The Poet of Spaghetti

Garofalo's make superior spaghetti
of durum wheat semolina
bronze-drawn texture tough—
Still no noted poets
from the Garofalo family line.

1856.

What do those loosers not know?

Kiddie Rocks and Teppy Nugents shot
a Sasquatch in the back.
Interviewed a Zombie in a NRA Dead Zoo.
Killed a Rhino just for gun-fun.
Invaded Chile for mines of lithium.

1857.

Cat's Out of the Bag

I milked the moments
of all my under-cover poetry,
appearing quite naturally
       upsurging innocently,
despite the frown of my uncertainty.

1858.

strip off meaning, wear fetishes

nonsense inflames jumbled rhymes
cold flames sear softening dimes
       confusions twisted muddled soup
drawing non-messages from stripped-naked signs
seldom making sense—for me a grind!

1859.

Él hablaba un idioma que no entendía.

"What is the Word of God?"
The scholar asked Jesus,
       who thought for a second
       and said,
"Él hablaba un idioma que no entendía."

1860.

Slipping Into Muddledum

              What he remembered did not happen.
       How she did it, she could not recall.
Why they did it, few know why.
Not understanding, I don't know why.
Dementia erases memory's eyes.

1861.

"never never adumbrate never fever scumbling punchable larynx snot
god sported inside mountain yawn swerve gliding dust to dust hard
shadow phase hammy maverick mut there scratching crev ice hording
hot snow ocean bosses sucds scribble which ways blacking
chancy chaos goughe loony brighter that time."

- Carla Harryman, Orgasms

1862.

Lunch in Laguna

       ling cod
hot oil
lemon drips
fried crisp—
       we applaud

1863.

Expectations for the Graduate

For my Cantwell High School graduation
My supportive parents gave me
       A shiny new Seiko wrist watch, and
       A portable Olympic manual typewriter—
Their high expectations pressured me.

- Cantwell Catholic High School,
       Montebello, California 1963

1864.

Verbosity: A Poet's Stumbling Block

       He used 25 quatrains
       to not tell a tale;
garbled up goose eggs of gritty
non-sequiturs, vers libre unhinged,
a grin, a spin, merry-go-round of sins.

book              read              shelf
pole               fish               line
ball               soccer           team
yard               plant            seeds
trail               hike              knees

1873.

"Direct Object transitive verb imperative mood and second person singular
personal pronoun implied Ordinal Roman Numeral period conditional
conjunction definite article Noun present tense singular appositional intransitive verb and past participle used as past of a passive form verbal compound preposition indefinite article singular Noun used as an object."

- Craig Dworkin, Noun Cardinal Arabic Numerical Period

1874.

"Cable car rides over swan flecked ponds
Red lacquer chests in our slate blue house
Chrysanthemums trailing bloom after bloom
Ivory, russet, pale yellow petals crushed
Between fingers, that green smell, if jade would smell

So-Sah's thatched roofs shading miso hung to dry—
Sweet potatoes grow on the rock choked side of the mountain
The other, the pine wet green side of the mountain
Hides a lush clearing where we picnic and sing:
                  Sung-Bul-sah, geep eun bahm ae

- Mug Mi Kim, Into Such Assembly

1875.

TV Documentaries by the Dozen

Canals connect
continents to continents
deep, cleaner, wider—
       cargo ships grow larger
       the Suez Canal grows.

Suez Canal Expansion Project, 2015

1876.

       "... and what are poets for
              in our destitute times?"
was asked by critics and poets and philosophers
time after time after time—
Sincere artful words can spur change.

"To be a poet in a destitute time means:
to attend, singing, to the trace of the
fugitive gods."
- Martin Heidegger

1877.

"Light changes the sentence. A subject persists in memory sounding. Walks
along the edge of the continent. Tea leaves piled like seaweed in a cup in a
mind pink of the inside and like the sea dark. Cut orchids and peonies as
writing or going out. Green of stems. Green of the sea. A long drive.
A longer walk. Movement is aloud."

- Laura Moriarty, Spectrum's Rhetoric

1878.

Indoctrinating the Kiddies

The belief in gods goes on and on.

Some god may have deserted, is dying, or is dead;
but no matter, unimportant, irrelevant;

Because children can be duped and trained,
so the belief in gods will go on and on.

1879.

How Abgrund!

The ground was pulled
from right under his feet
                     so he fell in to the abyss,
of abject, absent, absolute nothingness.
Abgrund, no ground, groundlessness.

1880.

Ideas About the Holy

Traces of the holy
guides the dedicated trackers
              of the truly Holy—
set apart, sacred, surprising,
profound, dramatic, panoramic.

- Rudolf Otto, Idea of the Holy

1881.

"Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood
Of conscious evil runs a lost mankind,
Dreading to find its Father lest it find
The Goodness it has dreaded is not good:
Alone, alone, about a dreadful wood."

- W. H. Auden

1882.

Reconsiderations

The 'really real' haunts us.
       Ghosts cry for reconsideration.
              Is our life like a dream?
Is everything an illusion?
Is Plato the wise sage to read?

1883.

We Agreed on What to Do

Most of our beliefs
about onions, pencils, frogs, and retreats,
about books, trees, tortillas, and blue . . .
have to be true,
so we can agree on what to do.

1884.

"at sunrise
a bird sings outside
the hospital—
I look beneath the sheet
to where my leg used to be."

- Lynn D. Bueling

1885.

"One thing stands firm: whether it be near noon
Or close to midnight, a measure ever endures,
Common to all; yet to each his own is allotted, too,
Each of us goes toward
and reaches the place that he can."

- Friedrich Holderlin

1886.

Ideas I Don't Support

Of course M'erican MAGA people hate philosophy.
The prefer Christian Dogma 2025 straight,
and stale capitalist euphemisms,
and white people's superiority;
so they ain't Woke, they sleep late.

1887.

"My father screamed whenever the phone rang.
My aunt often screamed when she opened the dooor.
Our neighbor's daughter had a scream more melodious than my own.
At first, Col. Parker had to pay girls to get them to scream for Elivs.
Out back, the willows caterwauled."
- Elaine Egui, A Quiet Poem

1888.

The End Goal is Unclear

       Hopeless to hope
for non-linguistic access to the real,
via visions, epiphanies, revelations,
silence, gongs, zazen, sunshine . . .
yet, as to what is real, many disagree.

                     [The real versus the Real]

1889.

Random Quintains Complaining

Dirty Quintains Yell!
Grease on the floor.
Buggers on his nose.
Shit in her pants.
Stains on his good clothes.

1890.

Staring Through the Green

By mid-morning the sun
illuminated the laurel leaves
bright brilliant vibrant growing Green.
       The intensity of the living leaves
       spoke clearly of Here and Being.

1891.

"By swoops of bird, by leaps of fish I live.
My shadow steadies in a shifting stream;
I live in air; the long light is my home;
I dare caress the stones, the field my friend;
A light wind rises: I become the wind."

- Theodore Roethke

1892.

Headed Out on the Road

I packed up my Ford Escape SUV,
a four-cylinder four-wheeler for adventuring
to coastal towns nearby me;
like Nehalem Bay or Lincoln City,
or at the Cape Lookout cliffs by the sea.

Cape Lookout, Oregon

Nehalem Bay, Oregon

1893.

Excitement Non-Stop

       Up contiuously all night
       to moring's sights
just reading and writing
good light---
mind like arrow in flight

Quintain Sonnets, Volume 5, Bundled Up

1894.

My Dasien

I got 'thrown' into
our world of 1946!
                     East Los Angeles space
                     Bandini Barrio home
       and my mother's kiss.

1895.

The Buck Stops Here

The dealer wants his money now.
No cash, no goodies, you know the Rule.
       I give him cash,
               he gives me goodies.
We don't need No showdown.

The Big Bucks Dealer Man
wants no stolen second-hand stuff,
wants no woman's wet mouth.
        The Man wants all CASH hard down!
Or, your headed for a bad showdown.

Doggerel Verses

1896.

"I'm on a train, watching landscape streaming by, thinking
of the single equation that lets time turn physical
equivocal, almost equable on a train

where a window is speed, vertile, vertige. It will be

on of those beautiful equations, almost visible, almost green."

- Cole Swensen, Five Landscapes

1897.

contingencies of uncommon words

     Philosophy, like poetry,
an interesting kind of writing,
fuddy-duddyism fluff at times,
or sincerely reaching for the Sublime;
relying on contingencies of uncommon words.

1898.

Hidden Requests

"Please take me to church."
              Really means
"I want you to go to church with me."
Unfortunately, for them, their loss,
I never go to church.

{Saves time for Taiji and Poetry}

1899.

"It never aims to create an illusion of reality. Instead
the warped lens allows for a new set of relationships behind
swirling facts. The wall confronts
a flotsam of vortical energy
and tree limbs transparentize in the blast.

Enmeshed in a field of concentric force,
the spectator is drawn toward
a wormhole of brightness, not depth but
another dimension entire.
A light which is life source."

- Forrest Gander, Ivy Brick Wall

“Some go local
Some go express
Some can’t wait
To answer
Yes!”
- Muriel Rukeyser

1903.

"loneliness
isn't as bad
as having to face
fearful eyes staring back
at me in the mirror."

- Kala Ramesh

1904.

Mirrors Upon Mirrors of Light

The lighthouse lamp
still shined for miles
from Yaquina Head---
       tourists escaped their trials
       teenagers hardly smiled

Yaquina Head, Oregon

Quintain Poetry Sections on this Webpage
Bundled Up, Volume 3

1905.

"The lake, every point on whose shore
Remains out of sight of some other point
Is draw from the kokotai,
A character drawn from the heart.
In it is a flaw called the Pure Land."

- Gallway Kinnell, Kyoto Prints

1906.

Overheard at the Riddler's Convention 2017

A dandelion never roars.
A needle has one eye, but cannot see.
A deck of cards has 12 hearts, but no other organs.
An experience is what people call their mistakes.
A cold you can catch, but cannot throw.

Riddles and Onions

1907.

Generation Four: Great Grandpa Pacos Out the Door

       At Age 80
Generation One: Parents, Grandparents, Family, All Ages
Generation Two: Siblings, Friends, Parents, Family, Spouse, Children
Generation Three: Children, Grandchildren, Spouse, All Ages
20 Years Per Generations. Co-Horts of Sorts.

1908.

Hip-Cool-Rage-Collaging ... Too Much For Me

The post-modern poetry
I read in Paul Hoover's
1994 Norton Anthology
fascinated me ...
the complexity, free verses, uniqueness, and creativity.

Unfortunately,
the abstractness, varied wild typography,
odd symbology, jumbled imagery, rambling, ranting,
soci0-political-personal currencies,
incomprehensibility, self-centeredness, flippancy, etc.;
left this reader ill at ease.

1909.

Identity Protection Alternative

She kicked him out
from their lives---
moved to where she won't tell,
strictly transformed her identity,
used all of her time carefully.

1910.

The Big Picture Inside

The living spirit in my frame
By my hands and voice proclaimed
Is Energy-Chi from rice and beans.

Billions of brain cells always Moving
That creates THIS consciousness Groveing.

1911.

"Seeking
Perfect Total Enlightenment
is looking for a flashlight
when all you need the flashlight for
is to find your flashlight."

- Lew Welch

1912.

From the Alphabet Concrete Formalism Series

1913.

Harmonica in My Pocket

Recently, always playing Diatonic harmonicas
in the Key of C Major or Low C Major.
Hohner, C. A. Seydel, Suzuki,
Lee Oscar, EastTop, $20.00 to $160.
Pleasures upon pleasures! Suck and Blow!

Harmonica Studies

1914.

He Put On the Poem's Clothes

Appearance and/or Reality . . .
tumbled in the dryer of my mind,
readied for the clothes of talk
to cover my daily grind.
It appears that sober secular reality is mine.

1915.

essentials on the road trip

a camp
out of the wind
a shelter from the rain
food-water-tarp-fire-flashlight-essentials,
warm dry clothes and luck.

1916.

"I like the feeling of incompleteness.

the icy unresolved
(some would say lack of closure)
in your poems

A good stubborn modernist
refusal to cohere"

- Elaine Eui, The Collected

1917.

busy realities dancing

I don't have any direct
access to Reality
{ with a Capital R }.
But, I do like to deal
with petty realities unsnarled.

1918.

winter camp fire at sunset

campfire cracking
surf roars
shore pines whisper
sparks pop and fly---
smoke braids trees and stars

1919.

"no one can tell me
at what moment it began
this sad story . . .
the endless winter
of my motherland."

- Mariko Kitakubo

1920.

Tempted to Stop

Driving in the extreme foggy haze
Oncoming car beams became a daze
Familiar streets shifted in a maze.
So we carefully traveled very slow
Cautious, uneasy, going home.

1921.

"Gentle Goddess,
Who never asks for anything at all,
and gives is everything we have,
thank you for this sweet water,
and your fragrance."

- Lew Welch, Prayer to a Mountain Stream

1922.

Footsteps in the Slush

black rubber
city boots
shuffle on
slush covered streets---
winds of Minneapolis

Minneapolis, Minnesota

1923.

Halfway Between the Equator and the North Pole

I live on the
45th Parallel North along with:
Lincoln City, Salem, North Powder, Salmon, Eagle Butte,
Chippewa Falls, Minneapolis, Quebec, Stewardstown, Ocean...

Grenoble, Turin, Bordeau, Belgrade, Bucharest, Volgograd,
Jilin-Heilongjiang, Hokkaido-Sapporo, Ocean...

45th Parallel North

1924.

She Kept It Simple

She was fond
Of one single stanza
Of one tiny poem
Of one glimpse
Of a time

1925.

1926.

"I was talking about
reading, reading, rewriting
what is seen. Put the book down and look into the day.
I want an art that can say how I am feeling
If I am feeling blue sky

unrolling in a coronation rug
unto the bare toe of a peasant girl
with vague memories
of Jeanne d'Arc,
or that transformation of Cinderella."

- Geter Gizzi, Revival

1927.

"But at my back
I always hear
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity."

- Andrew Marvel

1928.

Rewriting Rituals

I bless myself
with the Sign of the Air.
"In the names of
the Mothers and Fathers
and all of Mankind's Heirs."

1929.

Tombstone for Tossed Trophies

We played on an adult co-ed
Slow-pitch softball
County Library team.
Fun times, exercise, games,
talking, camaraderie, few injuries.

A Los Angeles County Employees
Friendly Inter-Departmental
Co-Ed 1988 Baseball League.
Playing on beautiful baseball fields
in the Whittier Narrows ravines.

I still feel the crack of the bat,
the flying ball, catch, a hard throw
to my first-base catcher's mit. A Catch. Out!
Relax? No. Who? Where? Why? How many outs?
Look around. Watch for coaches signals. Attention!

I still feel the crack of the bat
in my shoulders and swiveled back;
my biceps and foot power to the Max!
Running fast! Safe! A Single hit.
Batted .440 for two seasons.

1930.

Calligraphy on Paper

Snapshot!
35mm film costs.
digital camera costs.
cellphone camera costs.
Emily Dickinson's drawing on used envelopes.

1931.

"Coming nearer and nearer the resonating chamber
the poem begins to throw itself around,
fiercely,
silent stretches of snow,
grass waving for hundred of miles.

Intent pierces into hard wood, which grows dense
from inside, something mad penetrates
the wood,
something alive, something
human, like a violin that reverberates with thought.

The fierce intent that nature does not know of
drives inside the poem,
changes it,
thickens it with sober weight;
it is something dense, a human madness."

- Robert Bly, The Poem

1932.

Opportunities Depend on You

in every moment
today is created anew—
          pristine possibilities
     changing opportunities
          depending on you

1933.

Echo's Bones

"asylum under my tread all this day
their muffled revels as the flesh falls
breaking without fea or favor wind
the gantelope of sense and nonsense run
taken by the maggost for what they are"

- Samuel Beckett

1934.

"Perhaps you consider yourself an oracle,
Mouthpiece of the dead, or of some god or other,
Thirty years now I have labored
To dredge the silt from your throat.
I am none the wiser."

- Sylvia Plath

1935.

"I live in an orchard. Confetti of bruised petals.
Scents cascate over the gold furred bees,
over hummingbirds whose throats break light,
whose silver matings flint among the twigs.
Sun drips through those nets to puddle in the grass.

If I eat from the wrong tree (whose sign I cannot
guess from bark cuneiform) my plumpness will wither,
the orchard crab and rot, the leaves blow
like cicada wings on dry winds, and dunes bury
the grey upclawing talons of choked trees.

My father was a harrier. My mother a thronbush.
My first seven years I crawled on the underside
of leaves offering at the world with soft tentative horns."

- Marge Piercy, Postcard from the Garden

1936.

"Occasion for hatred
For the men
At the Pistol Range
For the flags smothering their trucks . . .
Occasion for dreaming

Of gathering the flags
and sewing them
Each to each into a shroud
For a country going down,
In the aftermath of its occasion."

- Claudia Keelan, Sun Going Down, 2004

1937.

Twisted truths

If
women were men
they'd work far less
and stand to piss
and often miss.

1938.

Emptiness Inside

1939.

The Spirit of Gardening

The Spirit of Gardening

1940.

Symbols & Signs Designed

1941.

"Hands, do what you are bid:
Bring the balloon of the mind
That bellies and drags
in the wind,
Into its narrow shed."

- W. B. Yeats

1942.

Text PreSS

1943.

Unapproachable Unthings

Fire apple
Ruby snake
     Bloody jackal
Steel lace
Mercury laced cake

1944.

Something Escaped Me

1945.

Alternative Treadmills of Destiny

Most poets write,
at some time,
about stuff that worries them,
really really worries them, in fact,
worries them to the point of madness...

Obsessed about/with/over/stuck on ideas.
Compulsive about ideas.
Worried about ideas. Repeating! Recycling!

Step off the treadmill of this mental illness---
and onto the broken treadmill of shitty reality!

1946.

"Poetry is not
the thing said
but
a way of
saying it."

- A. E. Housman

1947.

somewhere walls are shaking again

dead bodies
     rotting
in the rubble—
earthquake sirens
     silent

1948.

"The wound cannot close; language is a formal exit
is what exists from the wound it documents.
The would is deaf to what it makes; it deaf
to exist and to all, and that is its durable self,
to be a mayhem that torments a city."

- Mark McMorris, Letters to Michael

1949.

Counting Poetry

Da-dum, Da-dum, Da-dum, Da-Dum, Da-Dum!
     So the Iambic Pentameter Runs,
marching to the ancient drummer's drum,
     a poet's verses timed by a clock's time:
Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock, Tick-tock Walk.

1950.

1951.

"Death throws a shadow on us, as if it were a tree
It is a swinging lamp, swaying from the motion of the planet.
It rushed up through tunnels where only chill air rushes.
The mammoths felt the wind in their hollow legs.
The leaves above us rustle."

- Robert Bly, Some Images for Death

1952.

Two Straight

1953.

"You are the hero.
Of your own story.
     The Priviledge
of a lifetime
Is being who you are."

- Joseph Campbell

1954.

"Black water. White waves. Furrows snowcapped.
A magpie flew from the basilica
and staggered in the granite airy space
I was staring into, on my knees
at the hard mouth of St. Brigid's Bed.

I came to and there at the bed's stone hub
was my archaeologist, very like himself,
with his scribe's face smiling it straight-lipped smile,
staring at the sight of me with the same old
pretence of amazement."

- Seamus Heaney, From Station Island

1955.

Going Straight Sometimes Matters

If cars were trains
     they'd carry more freight
     the'd sometimes be late
and could not deviate
but would always go straight.

1956.

"I wanna ooze yer toothsome goth sex forever
'Cause my onscreen oral scene with Zora just went nowhere.
And human sex trafficking just takes the piss out of daywear.
And a haute-crunchy supermarket chain will just keep identifyin'
with the professor."

- Sharon Mesmer,
I Don't Wanna Lose Yer Wholesome Love Fest Forever

1957.

Counting Sheep in New Zealand

awakened at 2 am
          wide-awake
     clear mind
silent home
     free time

1958.

What the Heck is a Sense Datum

I turned in my essay
on epistemological psychology
[a Rortyesque critique of Moore's 'sense datum']
     written quite hastily—
     my professor said "trivial". Got a C-. .... He was right

California State University at Los Angeles, 1976
Master's Degree program in Philosophy
Dr. Glathe, Dr. Benson, Dr. Burrill,
Dr. Howey ... all gone.

1959.

Didactic Faucets Leaking

Faucet
Water, turn, tap, hose, hot, cold, plumbing.
          She turned off the faucet.
A plumbing fixture in kitchens and elsewhere
used to control the flow of fresh water.
Water

1960.

Snoring in San Simeon Park

Not sleeping tonight, but that is alright;
Calm, focused, bright, wanting to write.

Morning comes, sun runs to the deep sea,
No cobwebs hanging near my bumblebees.

An afternoon nap, dreaming about a trapeze.

San Simeon State Park, California

1961.

"The sea boils in over underwater rocks
then swiftly pulls back,
among currents with different thoughts,
everything sweeping and howling ...
Now the sea is suddenly motionless,
making the holes on the rock floor clear."

- Robert Bly, A Rock Islet on the Pacific
          The Point Reyes Poems

At the Edges of the West: Highway 101 and 1

1962.

Trilogy of Threes

1963.

Nice Joint to Be Into

Lemon Amnesia
mellow sativa
     Flower Power—
From the Soil Farm:
Ganja for Pot Heads.

1964.

So What If

If oilve oil was water
our salads would totter,
ham cuts would not get hotter,
my pasta would badly falter—
God forbid! A disaster!

If oil (thus gasoline) was water
all Economies would falter,
plenty to drink but nothing to eat;
a few guarded veggies from your back yard
lights out: Death!

Probablly some Pigmies from the Ituri Forest,
or fishermen from some forlorn Fjord,
or homesteaders in remote Madras Oregon,
or First Nations settlements in remote coves...
a rare few will survive when oil-gas dies.

1965.

"Though swiftly
the world converts,
like cloud-shapes' upheaval,
everything perfectly reversts
to the primeval."

- Ranier Marie Rilke

1966.

Need the Shore for Evermore

If
     land was sea
we could not be
living anymore
          without any gentle shores.

1967.

Buzzing Alternative Universes

If
     birds were bees
they would sting
buzz not sing
stay near to the ground (Not High in the Sky)

1968.

Packed Into Anxiety

Caught the noon military flight
from LAX to Dallas,
packed plane in      1969,
packed Drafted men inside—
     we were anxious about Vietnam.

Caught the night flight
from Baltimore to LAX,
packed plane in      1993.
Rough, bouncy, scary ride—
     I was paralyzed.

Caught the morning flight
from Santa Fe to Sacramento,
packed plane in      2019.
Smooth easy ride—
     I never flew again.

1969.

Memories Are Not Made of This

Memorial Day
end of May—
    remembering
dead soldiers who
    lost all their days.

1970.

Quintain Scholars Laugh

A single quintain stanza
may be a poem, a complete poem,
when closer to Perfect,
that elusive Game we stalk,
and farther from the pimples of the ho-hum.

1971.

"The jet bores like a silverfish through volumes of cloud—
clouds that will keep no record of where we have passed,
not the sea's mirror, nor the coral busy with its own
culture; they aren't doors of dissolving stone,
but pages in a damp culture that come apart."

- Derek Walcott, Midsummer

1972.

The Tourists Had Better Come Back

     American will never be
          'Merica again.
We need new directions,
with more subtle circumspection
about global economics and us.

1973.

"The grand power of poetry
is its interpretative power...
the power of
so dealing with things
as to awaken us

in a wonderfully Full,
New,
and intimate sense of Them,
and our relations
with Them."

- Matthew Arnold

1974.

front to back, back to front

If
day was night
night becomes day
     a palidrone way
          reversals adrift.

1975.

A book has words, but never speaks.
An echo can't talk, but can reply.
A shadow is on the ground, but never gets dirty.
A feather is easy to lift, but hard to throw.
A road goes through a city, but never moves.

Riddles and Onions

1976.

The Poem as Actor

A poem performs itself,
acts out a bit part,
reenacts some experience,
raises words to high art,
scatters breadcrumbs of messages.

1977.

"Heidegger construed
objects and assertions about objects
as surely to be used as
     "ready-to-hand" and
          "present-at-hand: tools."

- Michael Bérubé, Philosophy as Poetry

Martin Heidegger

1978.

Shadows on the Cafe Door

     Facing the sun
shadows fall behind.
     With my back to the sun
shadows flow forward.
Walk on! Forget about shadows.

1979.

Tools for Word Traders

Move from the specific to the general,
Or from the general to the specific.

One is understanding, the other defining.
One summarizes, the other analyzes.

We need two-part tools like pliers and scizzors.

1980.

From 10 to 5

Mathematicians favor base-ten rules
poet's like iambic pentameter jewels
measuring stuff-things in sets of ten---
yet, for some strange reasons why
     I like poems in      little sets of five.

1981.

"The body is like a November birch facing the full moon
And reaching into the cold heavens.
In these trees there is no ambition,
no sodden body, no leaves,
Nothing by bare trunks climbing like cold fire."

- Robert Bly, Solitude Late at Night in the Woods

1982.

Hear It Once Again

     "heard it all before"
she said confidently
so assured of her knowledge
of the subject she knew---
          Beware of overconfident views

1983.

1984.

A Jogger's High

running up hills
in the warm Spring sun
     panting profusely
run for      fun,      run and      run
---till my legs are burning some

1985.

What Grandma Said

Some skinny Cro-Magnon woman
ate roasted duck and
     grunted a gutteral sound something like 'DucKuk';
others agreed, imitated, chewed, thanked grandma,
and said something for years, that sounded like 'DucKuk' too.

Cro-Magnon People

1986.

Without Words, He Thought

He could not tell me
about his extra-linguistic thoughts
     that somehow proceeded
          what he said
     he thought.

1987.

Bridges of Oregon Seaside Counties

The beautiful golden flowing arches
Of a Conde McCullough Bridge
          Stand Strong
Over the locked down Newport Harbor during
     the Fierce winter winds.

Conde Balcon McCullough Bridges, Oregon, 1920's-

1988.

fucking captain's order

no rhyme or reason
for the marching orders;
so we walked for days
to the next battleground      to die
          from machine gun rounds

1989.

Family Gathering

     Sukiyaki dinner
cooked on the table
for laughing guests sipping Sapporo beer
     on 2023 New Year's Eve---
recipe from a book from 1963.

1990.

Oh Shit! Don't want to stew over this!

               Windbag Donnie T---
hates windmills
insults women
wobbles and wanders
whips us with misery.

1991.

"In the mute roar of autumn, in the shrill
treble of the aspens, the basso of the holm-oaks,
in the silvery wandering aria of the Schuylkill,
the poplars choiring with a quillon strokes,
fine love for what is not your land."

- Derek Walcott, Pastoral

1992.

Too Much on Their Plates

          He made 100 footnotes to his footnotes.
     He found 6 pliers in his 2 toolboxes.
She found 5 bags of rice on her shelf.
     She made 18 copies of the recipe.
They repeated the same old stories in church.

1993.

"A girl lies with me
on the grass of the levee. Two
birds whirr overhead. We lie close, surprised
to have waked a bit early
in bodies of glory.

In it skin of light, the river
bends into view, rising
between the levees, flooding for the sky,
a hundred feet down pressing its long weight
silently into the world."

- Galway Kinnell, The Last River

Quintain Sonnets, Volume 5, Bundled Up

1994.

Ain't Gonna Study War No More

I heard that MAGA lackeys
were offered money to walk from
Oklahoma to Chicago;
proudly in a MAGA Walk for War
in support of bombing, ICE, bankruptcies, and pedophilia.

A few boneheads showed up and walked a mile,
in the MAGA Walk for War;
the lackey walkers were never paid by Trump bosses.
The few who walked were spit upon,
women threw snowballs on their maga shoes.

Women's Lives Matter.
White Lives Matter.
Black and Brown Lives Matter.

Jonathan Ross, the ICE murderer, hot head, unqualified, jittery,
his last words to the innocent woman he
shot three times in the head:     "fucking bitch!"

American Women Need to Woke!

Renee Good murdered in Minnesota by
an incompetent, woman hating, and evil ICE thug.
January 7, 2026

The Real Walk for Peace is On in 2026.

1995.

Worried About Change

The lady in church
asked Jesus,
"Does God change?"
     Jesus answered,
"Sí, Él cambio su nombre muchas veces."

[ Yaweh, Jehovah, Zeus, Deus,
Shiva, Ra, Jesus, Lord, God, Allah...]

{Mas tarde crió a un Hijo, y adoptó un Espiritu Santo sin sexo.}

Please excuse my Spanish misspellings.
Dreamweaver software is clumsly at times for me.

1996.

"I am putting makeup on an empty space
all patinas convening on empty space
rouge blushing on empty space
I am putting makeup on empty space
pasting eyelashes on empty space

painting the eyebrows of empty space
piling creams on empty space
painting the phenomenal world
I am hanging ornaments on empty space
gold clips, lacquer combs, plastic hairpins on empty space.

- Anne Waldman, Makeup on Empty Space

1997.

Nursing Home Favorite

A sick old carpenter
          pounds on his bed table
     asks often for his level
cleans his nails---
tries to build a new dementia

1998.

Lollygager Not At Work

called in sick
did not work
     sat at home
          read some poems
sipped ginger ale

1999.

Escape to Cape Lookout

I packed my Ford Escape SUV
a four-cylinder for adventuring
to coastal towns nearby me,
          like Nehalem Bay or Lincoln City
     or the Cape Lookout cliffs by the sea.

Cape Lookout, Oregon

2000.

Magazines of Stale Memories

Opened the Door of his Mind:
Mostly a hoarder's rooms inside.
Filled with magazines of stale memories.
Packed with boxes of unpleasant dreams.
Piled with the dirty dishes of despair.

Quintains Research

Cuttings: Haiku, Senryu, Brief Poems