poemling five

We persist through time, 

But just a little while.

We take up just 

A little bit of space.

We last about

Thirty-Seven

Thousand days.

Or less.

Then poof! 

No more!

Behold,

Our troubles 

Are no more.

poemling four

Darkness, ours, is not our own

Nor are the hours of the day.

The eye and mind give no respite

To ills throughout this Worldly World.

And all the teeth are meekly gnashed,

And all the mundane tortures spread around.

The day endured in ordinary ways,

Ignoring everyone with all our might.

A world on fire, full of upright chimps,

So vain to think that they can truly think.

Featherless bipeds sulking in their cars,

Imagine future days that cannot be.

poemling three

When you became Elizabeth,
And walked along the borders of the world,
We all would genuflect and bow
And say a prayer as you passed by.

And all your tragic triumphs we would
Whisper tales around our nightly fires.
You alone, Eliza, fought the giants,
You broke the backs of tyrants,
Clawed the Cyclops eye,
Drowned the hateful witches
In the sea.

The grimness of your everlasting violence.
Your everlasting violence.

When you returned we had no way to thank you. You towered high above us, so high your stately visage was obscured by winter clouds. And we could only love you from a distance, and you could only see us for from above.

poemling two

How good it is to have a bed,

To have a pillow for my head,

A roof above, a floor below,

To have to a job where I can go.

poemling one

i see a thousand spaceships crawl across the evening sky
but none of them are interested and they keep passing by

i see a million zombies with their smartphones lumber by
but none of them are interested and they keep passing by

Let’s trouble gods and / Keep them in their places

Let’s trouble gods and
Keep them in their places—
Let’s ask them for
Uncomplicated things—

Let’s bother them with prayers
Unnecessary—
Let’s all distract them
With our tiny needs—

There are so many of them
In the heavens—
And twice as many
Dwell beneath our feet—

They sit there in the everlasting
Boredom—
They suffer in the everlasting
Heat —

I pity them in their
Eternal Sunshine—
I weep for them in their
Eternal Flame—

Let’s ask them for
An awkward-worded favor—
Let’s genuflect and kneel
and bow our heads—

For they ignore us
While we go on living—
And punish us as soon as
We are dead— 

the portfolio of time

"...peering with steady blue eyes into the portfolio of time."

Henry Miller Tropic of Cancer

Tropic of Cancer -- Henry Miller quote

 "Lawyer, priest, doctor, politician, newspaperman—these are the quacks who have their fingers on the pulse of the world. A constant atmosphere of calamity. It's marvelous. It's as if the barometer never changed, as if the flag were always at half-mast. One can see now how the idea of heaven takes hold of men's consciousness, how it gains ground even when all the props have been knocked from under it. There must be another world beside this swamp in which everything is dumped pell-mell. It's hard to imagine what it can be like, this heaven that men dream about. A frog's heaven, no doubt. Miasma, scum, pond lilies, stagnant water. Sit on a lily pad unmolested and croak all day. Something like that, I can imagine." 

Tropic of Cancer — Henry Miller

Some Emily Dickinson on Black Friday.

 They say it's called "Black Friday" because it's the time when retailers finally go "in the black" and turn a profit. 

But it can also be, under the right circumstances, even blacker, and darker. Suppose it is overcast, and you have nothing to do on Black Friday. You're not at work, and although you imagine you can fill a spare day with productive or entertaining activity, you mostly sit around in your pajamas, unwashed, looking at the Internet. 

It isn't so much depressing, but melancholy. But can we make Black Friday even blacker? We can! How? Bring forth 

Emily Dickinson! (1830-1886)

Emily Dickinson was a shut-in who didn't give a rip about punctuation, titles, or anything else. Her poetry came from the Blackest of Fridays, an infinity-long afternoon of gloomy brooding unmatched in literature. Dickinson stared into the void and brought back reports such as this:

A Death blow is a Life blow to Some

Who, till they died, did not alive become;

Who, had they lived, had died but when

They died, Vitality begun.

Sip some chamomile tea and dwell on that for a minute. 

Oh, is it still just around two in the afternoon and this day is dragging on forever? 

I’m nobody! Who are you?

Are you nobody too?

Then there’s a pair of us! – don’t tell!

They’d banish us, you know!

How dreary to be somebody!

How public, like a frog

To tell your name the livelong day

To an admiring Bog!

Hm... still just a bleary overcast afternoon. Here's one more to make this Friday the Blackest Friday ever!

To help our bleaker parts

Salubrious hours are given,

Which if they do not fit for earth

Drill silently for heaven. 

"Salubrious!" What does that even mean? (it means "healthy")

And I give you this:

Did Emily Dickinson 

Smoke the Weed?

Did Emily Dickinson 

Do the Deed?

Did Emily Dickinson 

Travel Far

To spaced-out dimensions 

Beyond the Stars?

Did Emily Dickinson 

Trans-mutate?

Did Emily Dickinson 

Levitate?

Was Emily Dickinson a super-dimensional alien from a realm beyond our comprehension? We shall never know. But Google her image on the Inter-webs and decide for yourself. 

two midnight trifles harvested from dreams.

i.

A titan of such savage grace,
That all who see him genuflect in awe
Or stand aloof,
It matters none to him.
For such is his security
That opinions pass unnoticed,
Like shadows scattered
In the wind.

ii.

Long the sweet sweet
Slumber of the night.
Low murmurs crowd
The echoed canyons
Of the mind.
Crisp sheets and
Darkness sanctify
Death's twin . . .
And morning,
Tardy with indifference,
Charms the starry welkin
With a sigh.

Read more poetry

Emily Dickinson or GTFO.

Haiku 171101

The panicked
Old woman
Sees a message
On her screen

#67 HALF ASLEEP NONSENSE JOTTED DOWN

If I can find
Five things
That have never been—
I'll see them, then I'll know.

The customary
Things
That never were.

Down to the left
And down two rows
Is the place where the thing
With two noses goes.

#66 SUGAR HIGH ON HALLOWEEN CANDY!!!

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#61 THE TWISTED TREE

If there's no "us and them"
Then all that's left is one big "we."
And this of course means that
We're "we" in everyone we see.

We're black and white and thin and fat
And freaked-out xenophobes.
We're grandmas with arthritis
We have hoops in our earlobes.

We're crotchety vets from foreign wars
We're kids of meager means.
We're jerks with lanyard keycards,
We're flamboyant painted queens.

We go to church and carry guns
And pray to God above.
We get tattoos and drink
And want equality in love.

We worship Allah, God, or trees
Or aliens in volcanoes.
We worship nothing, drive big cars,
And pick the avocados.

If there's no "us and them"
Then all that's left is one big "we."
And we are all the leaves on
On an enormous family tree.

If you believe in "us and them,"
And need to make a fuss,
Then we'll all be here waiting
Till you realize it's just us.

We're shrill acerbic soccer moms
In tragic yoga pants.
We're homeless bearded mystics
On the sidewalk mumbling rants.

We're all the people in the cars
That ruin your commute.
We're crazy people on the news
That cause you to press "mute."

We're gay and straight and in between
We're from another state.
We're from another country,
And we think our country's great.

We're seven billion people
We're all scrambling for food,
We're all a little frazzled and
And we're often very rude.

We're all in this together,
And we'll sometimes disagree,
But we are one big family
On one twisted family tree.

#58 ODE TO NYQUIL

Sweet nectar of the Lotus Flower
Purveyor of uneven dreams
Ferryman to Lovecraftian ScreamScapes
Sweet vapory drops of Mind-Twisting visions

Dropper of Heavy-Lidded slumbers

So careful do I approach
The doors of your subterranean grumbles
The mangled half-understood phrases
Overheard in uneasy dreams.

Oh Bringer of Deathlike Lethe—
The blue-tinged landscapes of
Unspeakable Horror and Impossible Dares
Beyond Euclidian Space and Linear Time

Strike down these cloggy bellows—
Sick with the weakness
Of traitorous health

Lower me slowly
To your undersea realm—
Where illogical thoughts skip
Wildly through unfamiliar
Copper-Sunlit towns

{Groggy jaunts to the
Midnight toilet
Bleary-eyed and eager to return
To Blissful Vapor-Sleep}

Oh NyQuil!
Key to the
Forbidden Unholy Bacchanal!
Of haunted Seventies Discos
And Parallel movie sets!
Conversations with the Dead
Skydiving with Manatees and
Oscar Wilde

Having a sandwich
With Sally Struthers
In World War One trenches
Half-caught visions in
Unnamed haunted regions.

Soothed,
Murmur-rocked smoothed
In a cool roof—lumbering
Feather-drift easy—like decent
Into dewy fluid sway,
Wavy vapor shady
With a gradual casual stir
To the demur.
Apostle castle
Namaste taste vanilla flavor
Navel gaze raze to the vapor haze.
Groovy chode toad
In a mellow abode.

Oh Nyquil! Thou has shown me
The Face of God

My balloon-like limbs
Sway in your reedy-whispered
Willow Gardens—

To traverse desert landscapes
Under star-strewn nights
Warm vaporous sleep to ancient cities
To find the texts
Of dark philosophies

Oh NyQuil! This mild sickness
Is my excuse—to travel with you
To alternate realities—
You are the doorway—the key.

Odd voices give ill advice
And shadowy figures move
At impossible angles.
Judgmental angels give sidelong glances
As they drink coffee.

I would awake from this,
But I have yet to fall asleep—
And then it will begin.
And in that dream, I'll dream.

In that dream, I'll find pen and paper
And write again this very page
And drop the notebook there
And fall asleep again, within a dream.

#56 WEIGH THE TOWN IN COFFEE GROUNDS

Weigh the amount
Of the town in
Terms of the sound
Of thousands of pounds
Of coffee grounds.

In the soul of souls
In the mind there rolls
The thoughts beyond us,
Pound for pound.

A heavyweight thought
Un-thought by the minds
Of the blind, un-sublime
Ordinary kind.

You know, the folks
With the loose-cut thoughts
Like stupid jokes
With half-baked plots.

With reason seasoned
With unsound found
Around some sound of
Things dug from underground.

The un-weighed town
Full of drunken clowns
Who bring us down
With their braying sound.

Of half-assed, jackass
Tactless, thoughtless
Un-thought thoughts
Spoken always everywhere.

Gossip, rude conjectured
Generalizing, hell-bound
Heartless sermonizing
Needlessly demonizing.

Smaller now: the One-Time
Once Before—thought
Dreamy sequenced
Sleep-noised evening peace-ness.

The last great thinker
Thought this out
Without a doubt but
Didn't bother to write it down.

And now our methods
Are unsound and no one
Is around to point
The wayless way to
Lead us to another day.

Around the Doorway Door
We go but never through
Until we do
We wander babbling jingles
Between our sips of booze.

A dollar caught
With a spiteful thought
We ought not to be taught
By Sir Speaksalot.

Peal! Peal towering clock
To rock our aging thoughts
With things better left alone
And soon forgot!

Weigh the amount
Of the town in
Terms of the sound
Of thousands of pounds
Of coffee grounds.

#55 THE ARMADA OF DEADLY DELIGHTS

The Armada of Deadly Delights
Plows through a brackish sea.
On the lead ship stands a figure,
Alone on deck in the breeze.

Below there's a dusky bordello,
With delights for both ladies and gents.
There's booze and dancing and food galore
From the seven continents.

One hundred luxury barges,
All follow a course for the edge.
But the music's all right and everyone's tight
The champagne is chilled in the fridge.

The Armada is hell bent for leather,
The engines are full speed ahead.
They're sailing off to the edge of the world
All the captains are already dead.

The revelers can't stop the party,
Though they think something might be wrong.
But they drink some more and try to ignore
While they dance to a popular song.

And the men below keep on shoveling coal,
And the engineers bite their nails.
The ships plow on; there will be no dawn
For the ships without any sails.

The edge of the world's getting closer.
The waterfall to the abyss:
And the passengers drink, so they won't stop to think
That maybe something's amiss.

Alone on the deck in the moonlight,
The Grim Reaper is nursing a beer.
If he looks to the West where the angle is best,
He can tell that the end is near.

My site: danmanning.com

#54 HAIR KINDA LIKE FARRAH FAWCETT

There's a sound beyond
The Doorway Door.
Let's open it
A little more.

What do you think
We'll find out there?
A monster combing
Its auburn hair?

Admiring its snout
And adorable pout
In a mirror, while drinking
A pint of stout?

Or a garden
Blooming under the sun,
With Sprites and Goblins
Having fun?

Or the infinite
Void of outer space?
With moons and stars
All over the place?

We cannot guess.
We'll have to go
Through the Doorway Door
And then we'll know.

The monster admires
Its eyes and roars
At the mirror it bought
At the Dollar Store.

The Goblins are drinking
And arguing sports,
Solo cups, barbecue,
Bermuda shorts.

A spaceship is docking
With Space-Station Nine
Delivering grain
And a shipment of wine.

The space-station caption
Is thinking of home—
Doesn't trust his wife.
She's back there alone.

The Sprites left the party
And went to a bar
(The Goblins were boring)
They went in the car

Belonging to Carol
(She works in HR)
Carol's been sober
For over a year.

Carol the Sprite:
Her husband's away
At the Space Port
She's lonely and tempted to stray

But enough about Carol!
I'm sure she'll be fine
If she sleeps with Diane,
She'll have a good time.

Anyway, none of that
Stuff's going on
The Doorway Door's
An enigma Beyond—

The Space Port Captain
Is under great stress
He's taking it out on his staff
It's a mess!

But this is mundane!
This is a bore!
You'd think we'd do better
In the Doorway Door!

The Sprites get a table
And order their drinks.
Diane looks at Carol,
And what do you think?

This poem isn't going
To be about that!
It should be profound,
More thoughtful and apt!

"I've prescribed you these pills,"
Said the Doc to the Captian
"For mild depression,
Don't worry—"

No poem! No!
This has gone all wrong!
And now you've managed
To go too long.

"Hey what about me?"
Monster wants to know.
"You forgot about me
Twelve stanzas ago."

"You look very nice,"
The poem responds.
"You're hair looks kinda like
Farrah Fawcett."

The monster grins,
Oh what a fright! And it asks:
"Did those two women
Hook up that night?"

"I really don't know!"
Exclaims the poem.
It's time to depart
The Doorway Door.

Oh now I get it!
We got the wrong door.
We were in the
Bore-way Door.

#41 WHILE THAT BRAIN

While that brain
Is reading these words,
Everything else will
Begin to blur

The time of day,
Wrong or okay,
Whether to go
Or sit and stay.

Problems with work,
Or dealing with jerks,
From that it's distracted
While this poem's enacted.

The words are winding
Through that brain
In the wrinkled parts
They will remain

This poem is there now,
It won't go.
There's more there now
Than a second ago

Couldn't that brain
Be doing more
Than reading words
From the Doorway Door?

No, it couldn't.
This is what
The brain decided
To scan and store.

The world beneath
That brain still spins,
And maybe that brain
Will read this again.

Or maybe not!
This poem forgot,
That brain will
Think about cats a lot

Or chicken-fried-steak,
Or the planet Mars,
Or the private lives
Of movie stars

Right and wrong,
Or a catchy song,
Hello brain!
Keep reading along.

Or stop! It turned
Or clicked away,
How will it read
What I have to say?

Now I'm alone.
An unread poem
My reader is gone.
This has gone all wrong.

But wait a second,
It must be there.
What else could read these words?
Thin air?

Oh there you are!
The brain has returned.
I'm glad you're still reading.
So what have we learned?

One brain exists.
This much we know.
And a pair of eyes—
Can you read this slow?

And now. I've slowed.
The reader. Down.
This punctuation.
Starts, to; clown,

Around with the speed
In which you read.
They dictate the speed
With which you proceed.

Thank you for stopping
By today.
I hope that brain
Will come again.

I hope these words
Meet or exceed
Your expectations
Satisfactorily.

The Doorway Door
Is beginning to close
Come back again.
(I'll write you some more.)