Note from the Amanuensis

I am sorry; posting has been light this past week or so because I, the secretarial end of the team, have been busy blogging the First Annual Bloggers' Bioblitz.

Laurie is hard at work, as usual. Regular, one-a-day posting should resume around the middle of the week.

Meanwhile, check out the Bioblitz!

Alley Loo Yeah Chorus, Part IX

Idolatry-wise
    your true-blue believers
        resent nice exception
    prove lookalikes
        most hate least distortion
    funfair mirrors    fake capital horror

        caught redhanded
        pushing consorted angels off pinhead
    snakeeyes shakes in belly-laughter

take yr tatter f fact tramp gadfly
    yr commoner phenomenon
        waistcoat f stale fish n chip wrappers
            recyclin otiose newspaper
                promises n misgivins
    sleeps raggedy-ann under bridge
    builds cardboard palaces
        against witless hardihood
    walks á propos cloud f otherz apprehensions
    falls short
        has shortest fall
    heroes most dare
        invite most tumbledown
    unalike yr jack n jill
        booby hale fellow who cant hold water
    or yr double fiddle di dee scaredy crows
    or yr cracked egghead     aitch dee
        served up
            scrambled on toast
                for royal breakfast

alleyby sez
    who'z     squeaky clean
        no hazard dares
        shushes discomfort
        brooks no mean
    no wonder Christopher Robin
        without evil intent
        caught in middle
        dittoes his prayers

godz lucky chillun got eyes in head
    godz plucky chillun bite tongue
    some digs orizons fer breakfast
    some ill-defined get swung
    some fly bold
    some sail high
    some z lack o'pinioned
    some hide in closet from wind

tadz alleybylaw sez:
    'll gurgeon m'seln on fish    man
        like yer whale r salmon    m'lady
    coddle m'seln till'm full    ma'am
    do no harm to any but'n m' prey    sir
    ancient under oversee ritual bellyflung
        slaughter n prayer    m'dear
    tastes sweet to some
        to some dour
    albeit to lookers-on
    ain we bullygods b' rights    humble gentle person!

You can't recognize me

You can't recognize me from a dead man
you'd not reckon me unsane
why'd accountability rob me of my knobliness
    oh holy place i belong while others taunt
        and i fall gaunt of age
    my lips won't name the robbers

crows skriek    eagles dip beak in gore
you can't recognize me from a dead man
you'd not reckon me unsane
    my lips won't name the robbers

crows skriek    eagles dip beak in gore
why not following of fellows
why'd accountability rob me of my knobliness
    oh holy place i belong while others taunt
        and i fall gaunt and i dare

1987, rev. mm

Tell me nothing

Tell me nothing    open rider
let owls blink
while people think
between the twilight and the evening
comes the nightfall
tell me nothing    open rider

except this    since you are going
cats can stare
and babes aware
come between the knowing and the known
are we all
come to nothing    open rider?

Alley Loo Yeah Chorus, Part VIII

fishful gulls
    n deliberate bees
serial kicks by foetuses
    n bolivar-revolutionary waves
fistful 'f teat babies
    n ingratiatin disease
sorrowful
    we walk in carrion
alleylewdyeahway born
    toeholding on wastage
tuppenny blood n thunder degradations
    bred of these splendours

take carnal oath
    lend ears curses
    fist nose bloody
    bullybruise eyes black

sully me none with shibboleth
    yr teasy-pleasy hairshirts
    yr pins n needles
        'f hot-to-trot confessions
    yr journal distempered chatter
        roundelay 'f likeably bad news

disregard contretemps
    we z miscreants
    whilst heaven calls roll up yonder
        snakeeyes rubs bones to stop run
    pray motherhood may belly-up to womb
        lest foetus wants out before travail

    yr wholesale disaster
    yr lethal puckerlips kiss by judas
    yr cracks in kingdome come
        are yr worldz phantom contractions
        n gestation period
    princely vulcanic joke

j'ova: in search of a four-letter word

god was
and is
was god once man?
quiz: who? me or you?

as thought grew    he grew too
smaller on earth    mind flew to extremes
means became ends    god wills    bends occasions
so he knew
and i saw with my inward eye my god high
-er than the sky blue dazzling light empire of might
-y universality

but god is
dead
whither fled?    to earth    trees    stones    hung flung in orbit
dreams of birth    trailing cloud patterns of white marestails

tales return us to our senses    fruits of experiences
like pagan gods inhabiting the groves
four-footed loves    cloven-hoofed and tails
traveller's stories to frighten us upstairs

now we laugh    you me    knowing better
still    god walks on all fours    or in trees    or closer to bosom nature
hearing my footsteps    each superficial sigh    inconsequential groan
i own:    sown    homegrown    reap     crop    failure or profit    my lot!
but god is not any what we can think of
scratching heads to look interstitially
we search behaviour for our saviour    therapy-wise
psychoanalyze    experimentalize    research
as if doomed and left in the lurch
and the word    four-letter lurks
j'ova (in quotes) unsaid
at the point where reasoning has fled

back to earth:    me laughing    you loving    seldom proving
lark floating above the mean air
meaning clear    eye ear tongue touch feeling
present to senses    to be aware

it it him her or anonymity?
j'ova (in quotes) unsaid
hi!    high-up or low-down    near or far
beyond query and hypothesis
seems:    as close as just beyond reach
ah! to vanish in a frown

196_ rev. mmvii

How did profiteering

How did profiteering
    ever become virtuous
christians took no interest
    in interest
and proximity of saving grace to thrift
    leans on accounts before accounting
graduated from indulgences to double-entry
    idleness stops the mills of industry from grinding
down poor into slaves of time-clock
    or so the righteous husbandman
proud of his hard labour
    lends credit to
certain of his ship coming in
    one day soon -
er - probably later than the pallbearers
    attending his funeral
where poverty discovers utopian ending
    relief from necessity's cycle

mmvii

On the back of an envelope or bus

On the back of an envelope or bus
    people like us    like me
reach out more neighbourly
in trust    not love    a labour at ease
with itself    and elsewise no fuss
nothing special or extraordinary

people like us like me    just like that
    worthy of a trip to any place
on top of the world    nothing spectacular
where day-to-day transactions
are mulled and nailed
in the midst of chaotic remonstrance
more or less orderly out of this that is and this that is not
hit the mark    plain remarkable
day upon day hidden or bidden in the sun's aye
clouds shrugging off the rain

my oh my how spot on    obvious isn't it
    even absurdly reasonable    scribbled like this
on the back of an envelope or bus


written on the back of an envelope for transit buspass application.

mmvi