aga-rose

 

 

 

I hate the playing of ukulele's.

Usually it's accompanied with a smiling face,

as common as air. And at this late date

I need to explore all the things the soul

has to offer. All the hates, all the

unpleasant memories before one

gets too old to fully believe

it happened. When I was young

I kissed a girl so deeply I swear

my social security number was medicine.

Where the dash after the first three numbers

would mean a Chinese feng-shui where each

and every geomantic practice would

be configured to harmonize with

the spiritual forces.

 

Which, as it turned out, was a lie. The only

spirit that inhabits this body are the precepts of

doom. And that dash was a secret euphemism that

meant life would be separated between

both semisolid treachery and this human

need to be important. There's no therapy for that.

 

The pennyrose I planted in the farthest aft,

has grown so out of control but the smell

is nice and how beautiful they are. One has

to take up poetry in the same way one takes up

gardening; you don't buy seeds as a beginning.

Instead you think about the dirt, the walking,

the peeing on it. Those buried underneath it.

The God that bets on it. The cruel way it can

dry out.

The rain that bothers it away.

Reviews

[Corset]

lol, Now Dana, certainly the likes of someone such as yourself is not surplussed by a little bit of bothersome rain. The peeing on it, LOl...well there's the problem right there! I have a Shar-pei and when she was a baby we lived in Texas and she would pee in the very same place every time, soon what yellowed grass that grew there disappeared and a dry round circle of dirt formed. She was very attached to that circle, so when we moved here she was clueless about where to get relief. We'd walk for what seemed like hours! You should never pee on your flowers hon. :) Brilliant as always, loved the line about kissing your girl and the feng shui harmonization of spiritual forces. That was just beyond the call of duty of a soulless sweetie.

[Lydia Shutter]

A bit stream of consciousness, but I loved riding your train of thought. I don't think I will ever look at the dashes in my SS# quite the same way again. "The rain that bothers it away" a brilliant line! I liked the comparison of planting a garden to writing poetry....in many ways it's true. Dana, your poem is unique and I enjoyed it. Lydi**

[K. Louis]

yeah,
there's no therapy for that. Love the concluding stanza. -K.