All This Is That

Thursday, March 24, 2016

Poem: Hold Together

By Jack Brummet

It is one ocean with many names
And into the ocean, sooner or later, flows

Every river, spring, raindrop, creek, and swamp,
Every lake, lagoon, aquifer, mudpuddle, and pond,
Every snowflake, icicle, glacier, flood, bay, and teardrop.

---o0o---

Wednesday, March 23, 2016

Found poem created in The Poetry Generator [We confound fluorescent witches]

By Jack Brummet

We confound fluorescent witches near the virgin
The fun has died
Dark and glowing beyond the sea
You pull lustful devils below

And grind blue demons against the sky
Awaken, awaken! The evil was good:
Unsure, silent on the edge of the world
Down streets where guests
Look for landmarks while the snow falls
---o0o---

Tuesday, March 22, 2016

Poem: The Islands from eight miles high

By Jack Brummet

Beneath a chiseled frieze of cerulean blue
Islands recede into the water
To settle on the sea floor

Like an archipelago of Atlantises.
Islands come and go,
Bobbing up and bobbing down

Like lost corks
Drifting the seven seas,
Treading continents,

And the islands and straits.
They crest the waves
Beneath gathering clouds

As flocks of birds
Circumnavigate the globe,
Shuttling from landfall to landfall.
---o0o---

Friday, March 18, 2016

A Columbia County (Pa.) District Judge—Craig Long—recently posted a sign outside the courtroom informing visitors that they should not wear pajamas to court.

Judge Long admitted this was not enforceable. . .he was merely trying to encourage minimal standards.

---o0o---

Thursday, March 17, 2016

28 Short Poems

By Jack Brummet

Stealth

You think one thing,

Say another,

And do a third.
_____________________

The host and tenant lock

In benign equilibrium.

_____________________

Each valley followed by a slope.
Every going followed by a return.

_____________________

There is no relief without an ache,
And no virus without a host.

_____________________

Bricks tumble into the moat.
The king's body hangs naked from the flagpole.

_____________________

For a fleeting moment

The condition for change exists.

_____________________

A roiling thunderstorm clears the air
Like Wyatt Earp's peacekeeper

_____________________

A bad beginning can be overcome
But a good end lasts forever

_____________________

When you strip away the stage flats, makeup, and costumes,

It’s all one story starring our private heroes and dreams.

_____________________

Resurrection

He was ready to live again
Even if living just meant running
To keep ahead of the ghosts.

_____________________

It’s so still and calm
In the mosque,
You could hear a fly expire.

_____________________

The Marriage

Two tattered mannequins
Prop each other up
In the Salvation Army Store window

_____________________

Gone Fishing

As the forests swamps and bones turn slowly to coal
The last pterodactyl
Soars overhead, calling for a friend.

_____________________

It's so quiet you hear
dust motes six feet up
bump in shafts of sunlight.

_____________________

Take the worst that could happen
And add two zeros.

_____________________

High fidelity clouds gather over
The tattered stage flats of a world on fire.

_____________________

It's Getting Crowded

We cover the earth with Venn Diagrams

As our steps bisect old steps.
_____________________

The glass is not half-full

I saw our dreams disappear
Like a white pony
Over a low grassy hill.
_____________________

The Golden Rule

Listen to the songbirds trill
But keep an eye
On the buzzard section.

_____________________

An orchard of salt pillars
Circles Gomorrah's ashes:
Lot's Wife had no name.

_____________________

If I don’t write it down
The words race away
Like a hit and run driver

_____________________

Your Wooden Leg

Run if you still can.
Drag that wooden leg behind you,

But keep up, jogging after your pipe-dream.

_____________________

Weather Report

Life is a raindrop
Sizzling as it skitters
Across the universal griddle.

_____________________

"And after all, what is a lie? ’Tis but the truth in masquerade"

The truth exists; the lie must be created.

_____________________

Waiting

There is no tomorrow

until we get through

the day after yesterday

_____________________

Possibilities

In your chest beats the heart of a Good Samaritan
Who never quite got off the starting blocks

_____________________

Torches & Pitchforks

The whole
Is far less than the sum
Of its parts
_____________________

Mission Statement

The Army has two duties—

To break things, and kill people;

Everything else is just fluff and overhead.
_____________________

Dodgeball

We weave around and through

Unseen hazards and shoals,

Always feeling less safe

Than we actually are.

_____________________

The Odds

Simple probability and statistics
Tell us ineluctably that the more times
You stick your head In the lion's mouth,
The more likely it is that one day he will close it.

_____________________

The Man In The Mirror

There's a civil war in his head:
Lobe against lobe.

---o0o---