Duane Locke

 

    RESURRECTION OF TIME NOW DEAD 1

    A shaving of curled blonde wood
                                              Blew to rest
    On my black shoe.

    It came from the pseudo-Victorian house being restored.
    It was shaved away
    So a board would
    Be a precise fix to another board that ran across the entire front porch.

    I thought of my old depression-day neighborhood where a man
    No one understood
    Would sit under a mulberry tree and carve from old broom sticks
    The shape of cowled monks reading books.

    After the monk was carved, the old man, often called a warlock,
    Would dip
    The monk
    Into brown stained until the wood was stained dark brown.

    He would then put the monk into a monastery
    He had built in the corner of the shack behind
    A two-story, pseudo-Victorian boarding house.
    I was fascinated watching old hands whittling
    The wood,
    But more fascinating were the curls of the carved-off wood.

    It was the same color as he hair of two girls
    Who stayed inside all day, and only came out Of the house to reach up into the mail box And find the mail box empty. I had not thought of the curled, carved wood, Or the two hidden white-gold haired girls in years. I wonder if they ever received any letters.

     

    RESURRECTION OF TIME NOW DEAD 2

    The Florida summer sun turned the rationalistic
    Metal tape measure
    Into a dark pool reflecting a blue chateau
    Where someone named Mignon or Aurelia
    Must have slept in a silk-canopied bed and watched
    The wings of gargoyles flap atop each twisted bedpost.

    There were anchored boats quivering on the dark waters
    That reflected white clouds,
    The boats longing for a voyage the boats would never take.

    So the metal tape measure was transformed
    By a blaze of light from the artistic imagination of a noon sun.
    Its numbers were gone,
    And their whiteness now white butterflies fluttering
    Over the reflection of a blue chateau
    That some one named Aurelia or Mignon
    Lived and was never seen.

    The sun said in a loud voice, although the voice being so
    Distant
    Sounded low when it was heard
    On this earth this summer in Florida.
    The sun voice said, “Amor vincit omnia.”

     

    RESURRECTION OF TIME NOW DEAD 3

    We could be anaphoric
    On this Ash Wednesday,
                                   Repeat sentences
    After sentences
    Beginning with the same phrase, the phrase
    We discovered by change
    In this contingent world, but why
    On this ash Wednesday should we be anaphoric
    When
    The Greeks seeking to outwit the Persians
    Brought with their fleet
    Cargo of grain that brought in a plague
    To kill one third of Athens

    Let us face the fact I am standing here alone
    Holding Windex
    To spray away the accumulation time
    Has put on the mirror
    So I stare onto it surface, what I see
    Is vague.

    Let us face the fact,
    When I spray and have a clear surface
    What I see
    Is just as vague
    As when the surface was smeared
    With the accumulations of time.

    She had ash smears in the middle of her forehead,
    I had none.
    What did it mean.
    It meant a plague will kill one third of our love.

     

    RESURRECTION OF TIME NOW DEAD 4

    The phalluses that were marble in front
    Of ancient Grecian doors
    Are invisible, in front of doors, in my neighborhood.

    This is why there was no love in my neighborhood.
    This is why men loved the shape of car hoods,
    And the women
    Loved the shape of the swallowed pain killer.

    No one in my neighborhood wears a Grecian toga,
    Just a Grecian attitude.

    Aphrodite is the indifferent, obtuse goddess that pours
    Green tea
    With antioxidants
    Into a cup and drinks it herself.
    The men do hand stands before lap dancers
    Trying to get a dollar stuck in the top of their sock,
    But the lap dancer
    Has learned from Aphrodite
    This fool is only at this bar to the pickpocked
    And brag about is empty pockets.
    So as the man stands upside down on his hands,
    The lap dancer
    Removes his wallet from is backpocket,
    And he goes home to his wife smiling
    And crowing like a rooster.
    She tells him his timing is off,
    For rooster crow at dawn, not at two AM.

    Outside in front of the house, the invisible,
    Erect phallus falls limp
    And cries for its mother.

     

    RESURRECTION OF TIME NOW DEAD 5

    The morning dawn wore a nightgown,
    Sung the mad songs of Lucia,
    Threw the bloody knife to the audience
    So someone could have a souvenir.

    A bulky man pushed a skinny girl away,
    Gripped the knife
    And cut his throat.
    His blood mingled with the blood
    Of the man her brother forced Lucia to marry.
    And the mingled bloods fused,
    Dropped
    Happily to the floor
    And assumed the shape of a dinosaur.

    Children ran over to gaze at the mingled blood
    In shape of a dinosaur,
    Classified the extinct animal, gave the shape
    A name,
    But each child gave the shape a different name.

    All the children held hands, danced around
    The dinosaur shape as if it were a May pole.

    But the Children realized it was not May,
    That it was July.

    All the Children became fireworks,
    Exploded into the sky.


 

 

DuaneLocke
Duane Locke
2716 Jefferson Street
Tampa, FL 33602-16200
Announcing: THREE NEW BOOKS OF POEMS By Duane Locke
[Duane Locke has renounced print publication to publish electronically. Duane Locke has over 4,000 poems published, over 2,000 in print publications, American Poetry Review, etc. and since September 1999, over 2,000 in e zines.]

E books (all published in 2002):

1. The Squid's Dark Ink-$. 99
The Ze Book Company | ZeBookZine@aol.com

2. From a Tiny Room-4.50 Euros
Otto E Books (Spain) | guiam@wol.s

3. Death of Daphne-$5.00
4*9*1 | Stompdcr@aol.com | Walksfreeman@aol.com

4. Memiors of Damniso Lopez-$ 5.OO
4*9*1

5. Luncheon Duets or Solipsistic Solioquies
of George Samson-$5.00

Print Book:

6. Watching Wistera, paperback $9.95, Hardcover, #19.95
Vida Publishing | iod@ironoverload.org

Or from Barnes and Noble, Amazon


[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Duane Locke, Doctor of Philosophy in English Renaissance literature, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, was Poet in Residence at the University of Tampa for over 20 years. Has had over 2,000 of his own poems published in over 500 print magazines such as American Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander. Is author of 14 print books of poems, the latest is WATCHING WISTERIA ( to order write Vida Publishing, P.O. Box 12665, Lake, Park, FL. 33405-0665, or Amazon or Barnes and Noble). Since September 1999, he became a cyber poet and started submitting on-line, and since September 1999 he has added to his over 2,000 print acceptances with 1,195 acceptances by e zines.
     He is also a painter. Now has exhibitions at Thomas Center Galleries (Gainesville, FL) and Tyson Trading Company (Micanopy, FL) Recently a one-man show at Pyramid Galleries (Tampa, FL)
     Also, a photographer, has had 116 of his photos selected for appearance on e zines. He photographs trash in alleys. Moves in close to find beauty in what people have thrown away.
     He now lives alone in a two-story decaying house in the sunny Tampa slums. He lives isolated and estranged as an alien, not understanding the customs, the costumes, the language (some form of postmodern English) of his neighbors. The egregious ugliness of his neighborhood has recently been mitigated by the esthetic efforts of the police force who put bright orange and yellow posters on the posts to advertise the location is a shopping mall for drugs. His alley is the dumping ground for stolen cars. One advantage Of living in this neighborhood, if your car is stolen, you can step out in the back and pick it up. Also, the burglars are afraid to come in on account of the muggers.
     His recreational activities are drinking wine, listening to old operas, and reading postmodern philosophy.


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