With apologies to Emily and the DOJ
Release the files but just in part —
Deception’s Pathway lies
Too raw for Headline’s hungry Spark
The whole would scandalize
As Cards dealt from some hidden Deck
With watching eyes confined
The Truth must flame out gradually
To hide the Guilt entwined —
–zumwalt (2025)
carried away
i now cannot say that this
is not what i cannot say
i keep quiet
carefully
counting out
the contrast
of continuous quietness.
— Zumwalt (06/1991)
Why can it not last?
You’re like a rhyming haiku:
Too much, much too fast.
— Zumwalt (2011)
EDITORS NOTE: This particular short poem, received from Zumwalt last night via email, seems to have meaning at multiple levels, as one would expect. This quasi-haiku could be about one’s lifespan, the duration of a relationship, possibly the duration of a passionate encounter, or very possibly, due to Zumwalt’s interest in physics, about the relatively short life of a super-massive star, the brief duration of artificial atomic elements (like ununoctium which has a half life of less than a thousandth of a second) or the very brief duration of a subatomic particle (the Xi-sub-b referred to in “science delivers” lasts less than a billionth of a second.)
All that said, it seems the poem has some literal meaning, also. Zumwalt subscribed to an automated feed from a haiku blog. Soon Zumwalt was receiving one low quality haiku after another, each apparently written rather hastily. The final straw, it seems, was when Zumwalt received a rhyming haiku. This poem, along with Zumwalt “un-subscribing” to the automated haiku feed, was the result.
What am I but a commercial painter
making the same strokes over and over on black velvet nap
always charging the same prices
always settling for less
I know you, too,
paint the same pictures over and over
that’s how I can sell you mine.
— Zumwalt (1991)
nominal thought
Without forms, phones and Facebook,
there’s not much need to have a name when you’re dead.
— Zumwalt (2011)
idioverse
jack be nimble
jack be quick
but man, the fates cry like babies in soiled diapers, don’t try to be
jack —
it might stick.
-zumwalt (1990)
I want her to throw away the anchor.
She wants me to go overboard with it.
-zumwalt (1991)
the analysis of falling
when going down it pays to plan ahead
and calculate the moment of impact if there is going to be one at all.
It is not so good to remember how it started
or to speculate on how to stop.
the best thing to do is enjoy it.
and if you can’t enjoy it, make notes.
-zumwalt (1991)
i look at a note I jotted down
a thought
a revelation
an expression of truth
I trace my fingers over the loops and bends
I cannot remember what I wrote
and I cannot read my writing
-zumwwalt (1991)
zumpoems 