Zumwalt Poems Online

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The Sassoon Collection: vi. The imperfect cook

The Sassoon Collection

vi. The imperfect cook

I never ordered something to be perfect,
Though often I’ve asked for fiery spicy or without sugar as a small invasion
Of mastering cooking.

I never asked that your dishes
Might stand, unburnt, moist and savory
Pointing the way toward gastronomical peaks like a sign-post.

Oh yes, I know the way to the heart is easy.
We found the little menu of our passion
That all can share who walk the road of gourmands.
In wild and succulent feasting we stumbled;
And sweet, sour, bitter, salty and spicy senses.

But I’ve grown sated now. And you have lost
Your early-morning freshness of surprise
At creating new dishes.  You’ve learned to fear
The gloomy, stricken places in my stomach
And the occasional indigestion that haunts me later.

You made me fat; and I can still return
for seconds, the haven of my lonely pride:
But I am sworn to partake of variety
the blossom from invention and disparate exploration
And there shall be no follow-up in a failure;
Since, if we ate like beasts, the plates are clean
And I’ll not redirect portions of portions to pets under the table.

You dream endless assemblies of culinary masterpieces
Yet, in my heart, I dread average results
But, should you grow to hate my critiques, I would ask
No mercy from your feelings. I’d have you turn from the stove
And look me in the eyes, and laugh, and suggest take-out.

Then I should know, at least, that taste prevailed
Though flavor had died of wounds. And you could leave me
unfamished in an atmosphere of ongoing appetite.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Copyright © 2011

Category:

2011, I, T

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The relay

The relay

I know I must, but how, I ask;
I must understand that of which to ponder.

                  Action waits for thought,
                  and thought seems far away;
                  action is distrusting.

Is it this or that;
how does this impact that,
how does that get impacted?

         Action’s fate depends on thought;
         if thought runs too far or not enough,
         action is disqualified.

-zumwalt apr ’98

Category:

1998, R, T, Zumwalt

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Wednesday Poetry Challenge #6

Wednesday Poetry Challenge #6

This and the previous challenge are previews to a pair of challenges that will be posted around early to mid December.  If these first two challenges invoke only limited interest, than that is a good reason for me to re-think the more extensive challenges I have prepared for December.

For this challenge,  please provide a link to a page or post that references a poem on someone’s blog with commentary of your own — whether a note about how you discovered the poem, why you like the poem — or even a full analysis.

Please do not post their text — respect their ownership — just provide a link to their poem on your post or page that responds to this challenge.  (Don’t put a link to their poem on Mr. Linky — put a link to your page or posts that had your comments on the poem plus has a link to the poem discussed.

To explore various poetry blogs start at WordPress/Tag/Poetry and WordPress/Tag/Free-Verse or explore responses to challenges at dVerse.  (For example, links of poets at this week’s Poet’s Pub.)

For challenge introduction and previous challenges please see Wednesday Poetry Challenge Introduction, Challenge #1, Challenge #2 , Challenge #3 , Challenge #4 and Challenge #5. There is no time limit here, these challenges are open until site is forcibly closed down.

To link to you post

CLICK ON green Mr. Linky IMAGE BELOW:

If you wish, you can copy the above link and paste at the bottom (or top) of the post or page that contains your response to this challenge.  That gets even more people involved! Just simply copy (as in copy and paste) the Mister Link box above and paste on your post or page.  It’s that easy.  (Thanks to willowdot21 for the idea!)

SUMMARY:

1.  Click on green “Mister Linky” link above.

2. Enter the URL (address of your response to challenge not of your website’s home page) of your post or page that has your response to this challenge.

3. For this challenge, locate a poem on anyone’s blog, read carefully and provide a link to your page or post that references that poem (a link) and has your comments on that poem. You can read hundreds of poems before choosing!

4. Anyone that wishes to see responses can click on the Mister Linky link above to view links.

Category:

Wednesday Poetry Challenge

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Better Than

Better than

The land and water is haunted with beasts.
Some are carnivorous;
Some are microscopic;
None are smart like us
or entitled to dine at a good restaurant.

They think, we think, but differently.
None speak Mandarin or Cape York Pidgin English.
They have offspring and some care for their young,
Some eat their young,
But not a one makes contributions to a college fund.

I can wear them as hats, or mount them on my wall
But I can’t suffer this idea that they deserve representation in Congress.
I can grill them on coals, or tie them to my sled
But I won’t consider giving them my email address.

Evolution is a dusty and poorly mapped path
Nonetheless, it does not cross upon itself
And head back many miles
So that one easily confuses the end with its beginning.

It doesn’t jump from amoebas to mudfish and then back down to insects
then jump up to chimpanzees, over to worms and across to chihuahuas.

It progresses steadily, more or less,
from moss to shrimp to clown fish
to red-legged frog to crocodile
and then on to penguin or duck,
next visiting the platypus,
on to rabbits and rats
and terriers and tigers,
or lemurs and monkeys
and gibbons, gorillas,
bonobos, and our friends next door,
the Millers.

At the top are we,
and granted certain privilege and priority.
We can extend our parking lots
and re-engineer the best sun-bathing spots.

At the peak are we
with our rhubarb pie and peach-ginger iced tea.
We have power of attorney to set fires to ancient trees
and reclaim land from the South China Sea.

The air and ocean is haunted with creatures.
Some are carnivorous;
Some are microscopic;
None should have free trespass without our permission.

We should put up security gates
And start up detailed dossiers.
Every genus should have a dedicated database;
Every species captured in a redundant set of disk arrays.

They may think that we think they are not much different than we
But none speak Mandarin, Hindi, Hungarian or Burmese.
They have offspring so that their lineage continues on
But that’s up to us and little to do with them.

We may not hang on.
We are a destructive bunch
With a vicious knock-out punch.

We may not survive the dawn,
but if we do manage to last
and hold on as the entitled upper class
they need to take note
most carefully
that we not only own all we buy, lease or see
but in the end,
we can certainly ensure
that none of them,
aggressively,
or at their leisure,
pass us
on any given branch
of the post-Darwinian,
well-groomed,
often pruned,
evolutionary
tree.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Copyright © 2011

(Reposted by request of Monica)

Category:

2011, B, Zumwalt

Tagged with:

Imperfect information

Imperfect information

You 
    and I 
          face off
with 
    battleships 
          on 
                   secret 
                   squares
                   sequentially 
taking 
    pot 
    shots 
         wherever we 
                             choose.

A 
    thin board    
                   separates 
our 
       lines    

of                 sight
A 
   thick
   carpet, 
   underneath.

This 
   is 
      a sequential game
even 
when 
I 
attack  
                out 
                of 
                turn
each 
   and 
      every move
is 
   built 
      on the
      one before.

Round 
after 
round
we proudly announce
a 
  target 
                square.

Sometimes 
  we 
                hit
Sometimes 
  we 
          m  
           i
            s 
             s
But 
     never 
fail to 
                attack.

Salvo, 
       my friend
When 
       you are most 
                relaxed
and think 
       all is 
                calm waters.

As 
long as 
there 
                are ships 
       afloat
There 
will be 
                missiles 
       launched
across 
these 
       now choppy seas.

Salvo, 
       my friend
All 
       shots at once
against 
       our better 
                judgment.

As 
long as 
there 
                are missiles 
       to launch
There 
will be 
                ships 
       targeted
aggravating 
these 
       now choppy seas.

But 
once it is 
clear

there 
is some 
       chance at 
       sinking 
       even 
       one 
       ship
               We 
       pull 
back,
bend 
               the 
               rules,
               re-
               arrange 
               our 
               positions,
       midway,

put    some 
              ships
in reserve,
deny 
       any 
              cease fire
and 
              secretly 
              fill out 
our 
battle reports.

-zumwalt (2011)

Category:

2011, I, Reader's Choice, Zumwalt

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In contest with a hippopotamus

In contest with a hippopotamus

me and the hippo
race
to lose weight
at such a frantic yet erratic pace

me and the fruit fly vie
to try to not age
to postpone the next stage
to delay each and every turn of every single page

Hey babe! What? I’m staying away from the eggs.
And the butter.
So don’t stay away from me.

Hey boy! Look — I am not old.
I expect to send tingles down your spine,
not receive a courteous nod like you’d give to your great-grandmother
several years after she’s been buried.

Gee.

This dog I have smells.
No bath rids the odor.
No change of diet freshens the breath.
The only remaining option is to the change the dog
for I am getting tired of changing the carpet.

me and the sunset
will meet again
at some appointed time
until then I compete against the shadow it causes the body to cast
seeking any remaining light while vanishing in the darkness

— Zumwalt (May 1991)

Reposted for dVerse challenge: http://dversepoets.com/2011/11/19/poetics-changes/

Category:

1991, I, Zumwalt

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The Sassoon Collection: iv. Butter and Eggs

The Sassoon Collection

iv. Butter and eggs

Robust diners, deftly forking in the fat.
O no longer living triglycerides against the heedless tongue
Of buffet and banquet days, what sends them gliding through
This set of dancing teeth?

Theirs are the hungry cadences between
The enraptured chewing of hefty humans that make
Heaven in the booth while second helpings simmer;
And theirs the faintest whispers that hush the desire.

And they are as a released soul that wings its way
Out of the starlit dimness above the moon
And they are the largest beings — born
To know but this, the phantom glare of fullness.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Copyright © 2011

Category:

2011, B, Reader's Choice, S, T

Tagged with:

Stop the chop, chop, chop.

We
see
a tree!  A tree!
Since it’s the last one living free
We will grab it quickly for our family.
A Tree!!!

Crop the lower middle to the
Top off!
Chop!!! Chop!!!
Don’t yet Stop!
Hear the Plop!
Chop! Chop!! Chop!!! Chop!!! Chop! Chop! Chop!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

— Zumwalt (2011)

(see related poem https://zumpoems.com/2011/07/10/theyve-stripped-the-forest-for-babble/)

Zumwalt’s response to http://dversepoets.com/2011/11/17/form-for-all-beth-winter-hosts-staccato-form/#comment-5757  This is, in Zumwalt’s words, “a crime against this staccato form that pales in comparison to crimes against nature.”)

Category:

2011, S, Zumwalt

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The ball is in our courts

The ball is in our courts

The shirts press the skins
looking for the turnover.

The skins set screens to break the press
and force overtime.

The two teams play
without arena staff,
relying on unknown referees,
the crowd locked out of the building.

It is a territorial sport
that knows no season
and cares little about the ticking of the clock.

It is a rich person’s sport
like shooting barasingha
or showering with Krug champagne.

Would my boss keep me from working
if I refuse a multi-million dollar contract
and fifty-fifty revenue sharing?

Would I be laughed at
if I asked for vacation from May
through September
with October for retraining?

It’s not so much that I worry
about the players or the owners
it’s more about the lost life-risking excavating opportunities
for the mal-nourished children of Sierra Leone and Angola
as demand for diamonds by the NBA elite precipitously declines.

It’s not so much that I worry
about lost revenue for TNT and ESPN —
it’s whether this ultimately means
that Superbowl pregame coverage starts around St. Patrick’s Day.

Nonetheless, I am patient:
I can do without annoying puppet commercials
and twenty-seven-attempts slam dunk contests,

but I have one question
is it much of a game
when it’s not the players,
not the owners
that lose their shirts
but only the arena employees and nearby small business blue-collar workers?

— Zumwalt 2011

Category:

2011, B, T, Zumwalt

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The Handcuff King

The Handcuff King

Escape pays for now:
suspend me upside down;
lock glass and steel;
fill fully;
water flowing over.

But if my escapes entertains,
understand that it is my existence.
I can handle building-size milk cans, Chinese water torture cells,
underwater crates and being buried alive.

Faced with flight or forced-fight,
the choice is easy
but understand I must force fight to flee:
no escape is without struggle.

But without escape or the opportunity of one,
I must hang on
and for how long?

Until I burst?

Or until I meet the next world:
the destiny of all that depart?

Explain to me the retreat available:
the extrication that sidesteps;
the evasion that slips the lock,
that springs a liberation.

No,  you know no more than I about withdrawal.
You just know more about staying the course
and that won’t help much
when I need to leave, not the visage of death,
but death itself
and its closely shrouded, tightly bound design.

— Zumwalt (2011)

Category:

2011, H, T, Zumwalt

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