Terpitude + M-W Poetry Project p1: Metaphor of Anemone / and Failures

Quick Explanation: I've been slacking with my writing recently. Between my job and 'extra curricular' activities, in a dark, dark corner somewhere I find a little solace and sneak away to write sometimes, but it's not enough. So I've designed a quick and simple writing exercise for myself ala college Sophomore-era creative writing classes: Merriam-Webster jets me a 'Word of the Day' email everyday, so I'll take that as an opportunity to provide myself with a promise of, at least, to have a puzzle-work ingredients for a poem everyday. However, if a poem takes more than a day to write I won't expect to abandon it simply because a new word arrives.

Cool, so here is today's coffer:







Merriam-Webster’s



Word of the Day



July 6



turpitude \TER-puh-tood\
noun
Meaning
: inherent baseness : depravity; also : a base act Example Sentence
The judge declared that the murders were the product of a gross moral turpitude.



Did you know?
"Turpitude" came to English from Latin by way of Middle French. The Latin word “turpitudo” comes from “turpis,” which means "vile" or "base." The word is often heard in the phrase "moral turpitude," an expression used in law to designate an act or behavior that gravely violates the sentiment or accepted standard of the community. A criminal offense that involves "moral turpitude" is considered wrong or evil by moral standards, in addition to being the violation of a statute.






Heaped upon muscular hooks mass the messes,


the pile washes with sea water, anemone


slowly creeps into blackness

blue at extremes, crawling further.


Biology's virtue sweeps away their sadness: Filtering the neurotoxin


Note to self: Refine around metaphor of Anemone/Turpitude



AUGUST 1 UPDATE:
Initial experiment was a complete failure. As with moth endeavours, as soon as the thing was begun I psyched myself out of the required work. This is the ultimate problem of my life. I could give it an easy label, "Fear of Success," but that feels... cheap. Easy. I keep finding myself suggesting a deeper investigation. A second look. Like those behind me who can separate fun and work and are constantly looking over my shoulder, complimenting and/or ridiculing. There is no difference. Is this a poem? Maybe, a little. Not really. Sometimes it's fun to just trail off and let the words pave the way. So that's that.

Watching Comedian earlier today led me to thoughts of how Life is just hard work. In the barrel some lives float to the top, others settle toward the bottom in the shift caused by the upward motion of those who succeed. Generally, it seems to me, I do not have the propulsion to succeed but have the desire for something greater. My failures of person constitute that sinking feeling. I'm forced to choose between easy and up.

Easy or Up?

Everyday is a sort of fork where any decision you make can greatly influence the rest of your life. In either way. Anyway.

I'm done beating the horse.

George (Autopilot)

something so lite so overwhelming
the rise
the sad
sand, sinking all
dog barks, a reminder
some live for questions and some
love livid reality, lapping at the marrow.

what a strange eastern european tradition,
lapping at the piddle marrow, when there's so much
meat circling the bone.

if unspoken, tradition
shutter a whispering
need, call it a habit.
and if you turn off a thing
never desired

something so lite
so overwhelming
the rise, the sad sand, the sinking
all dog barks, some live for questions
some love livid reality, lapping at the marrow.

(incomplete first draft)

Delta: Flight 80 (Unfinished: Will be led)

Punctured plane window,
A variant of any death,
The numbers fall away:

Now, in fear, she is equalized
Sound erased ­-- In sloppy strokes,
a child rubs the butt of his hand
Over half-dimmed pencil marks --

Now, placated and abundant:
Reference point a descent;
Reference point distant,
Controlled by a panicked calm

Punctured plane window,
The ice collects in rivulets
Around her eyes,
Nose, mouth and ears:

The child perched upon the branch
Smiles in spite of the bash
Pushed into to her, the love of her father
Don’t sit too close, never under the window,
Don’t offer, don’t give, don’t negotiate, and never winnow.

This time, reflected, never winnows
Blood pools at the puncture’s knees
Calls for immemorial, never screams
Violence and all her ungracious grabbing.

Lovely Rita

It's so easy to miss the off ramp,
drumming up the wheel
and screaming raw your lungs.

Calaca #2

down victor
victor drown
black town
scare kids
creeping around
blackout light
ride it out
drown victor
black town
underwater
underwater
underwater
eyeless vision
no never not not
no not never never
victimless revision
black town
down victor
drown town

Calaca

White Trash

what's the poison
degradation, the failing
of language — more &
sore swallowing feels the same —
the radiating nervousness,
from the bone out, about
to vomit, to convulse,
in the interest of hiding
your fears you hide them
behind cars, under baseball bats,
inside bottles — half drunk —
in the powder sallow in your
cheek.

'Who's hiding?'
'What voices?'

the stone rolls back, an open grave,
no body. you know things:
you can't hide what hasn't died;
you can love anything,
but you can't love an unloving nothing;
that voice breaks agonizing silence,
that smell rend comfort because
both are haunting, both
familiar specters; a trailer is just a house
and accents straddle words. you know
things & won't let go
of the trash
in the middle of the road.

FUTURES

" ... & wind which the eye loves so deeply it
would spill itself out and liquefy
to pay for it ... "

-from Futures by Jorie Graham


I worry that when I'm dead, someone will exhume my ridiculous Black Books (which WILL be buried with my fleshy flesh flesh) and structure some base cowboy religion on my rants and half-empty ravines.

Religion always beetles people into strange little, indefensible rituals.
Here are yours, from the Lazarus Joe, Pontiff Exhumed:

My followers, all good people, harangue each other into big-city solitude: Stuck up beside your candle collection with an old bean can full of Micron 05s, your thoughts would choke you like mine have choked me, but instead of the bright lights going dimmer, they fall, cold, high-speed film: