The Collected Milton Tramblebury Poems
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"In the Kitchen I sing the Fascist Magnet"
Straight legs, teetering in horse chess moves squarely stamping my kitchen tiles
now, bishop moves, no socks.
now, horse moves again.
Where are these knights for their knight moves eh?
Ah, I see, quintain got’m: bopped’m back on the uptake.
Now, this knightless horsey commands its horseuver, expertly bent L
I copy.
now, bishop moves,
foot-flesh slides like code.
Oh how the rind sputters
These bishops, they see the world through slanty helmet slits
Straight they move to their view.
Now, sala-meandering moves, dry squishes
square, square, square, square…
or, diamonds?
Pawns, they view squares advancing, diamonds capturing.
[] and <> both.
Done for now, looking up from the tiles, a refrigerator magnet reads:
Count your age by friends not years
Count your life by smiles not tears
my look sphincts, and just I’m not feeling it.
maybe, if I sing the magnet...
4 3 2 1 4 5 6
“COUNT / YOUR AGE / BY / FRIENDS / NOT / YEARS / / / /
4 3 2 1 4 5 4
COUNT / YOUR LIFE / BY / SMILES / NOT / TEARS / / / /"
Nope, still not feeling it.
I mean, whose ideal age matches their ideal number of friends?
Fourth grade Facebookers?
And yeah: I'll count my life by smiles aaaand tears, both
slants aaand straights,
squares aaand diamonds
you , you: cheap, log cabin gift shop, dry fascist, one-way,,, clicker-sticker
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"The Lake (Pelican Prancer)"
Belly-fat-losing mamas bicycle kicking the pavilion air
a small sneezy dog follows along
three legs walking, the other tic-toc'n
must be missing a joint, or maybe a bone, fused.
The Pelican Prancer, her ponytail waves to no one in particular
she smiles back when you smile
Lap the angel
Where this guy, painting Bandshells and boats
throws his canvas in the water
and Jackson Pollocks the Joggers's Path
he's had enough!
He didn’t see the Pelican Prancer
Nor the old man jogging in a ragged old white dress shirt
And oh man I wish I was Tink,
With telephone wires I'd fly
and thread together all the dinky dinky yachts by their flagless poles
and tie them up on yonder downtown
I'd set them on fire for a fiesta
I'd steam the lake away, thread the lifeguard posts from shore to shore
Beach to beach and play the strings with dulcimer hammers
and i'd smile over at the pelican prancer
and I'd smile at the old man
Snorting like a bull, truckin’ along, sweating through his [dress] shirt pockets
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"Good Hygene"
Eyebrows brush my teeth
an old sailor, I squint
sticking out my jaw
brushing, a windshield wiper cadence:
ee-er-ee-er-ee-er-ee
back & forth & back
Toenails comb my hair
calcified curly claws claw curls
and my leg clips out like a Ken doll’s can
I scratch my back with it
Oh yeah…
Underarms wash, um, under arms wash…
mmmy underarms
!!!
each one, in turn, cups the cake of soap to wash the other
The soap scum on the tile watches, astounded
It looks as though I’m hugging myself when I wash this way
pit to pit, arms wag and flap like an elderly condor, suffering from a seizure, right before he loses his grip on the branch, the branch clinging to the cliff
It looks as though I love myself very much
which I do
oop! floop goes the soap, striking the plastic plate of the shower stall like a drum, reverberating across the basement floor and against the concrete walls and glass block windows
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"Sonnet #6"
Why should I keep from thirsting at the gleams,
When darkness can be lit by daylight days?
How can I love what most consider dreams,
As all I've had to judge: a single gaze?
This temperament may cause me to annoy,
Pay little heed, I note not what I say;
Excuse a one who manufactures joy,
As rooster can when he espies the day.
Not half find new love that of which I speak,
And fewer still can hold it ever long;
So must I learn to stay the mountain's peak?:
I will remember dusk before the dawn.
Love love yet do not love the love you mark,
Until you've seen them daylight after dark.
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"Black Stone Mirror Heart"
(via Rumi)
if you feel your heart
turning dark as iron
take a rag and polish it up just like a mirror
a black stone mirror heart
so that you can see
what you want to see
and i have never seen the places to which i've been
where i will wait for you (and you and you) always
I will meet you there
if you feel your mind begging time from angel
steal a plane and gut it for parts
then tape the motor to your brain
an airplane motor mind
so that you can fly
where you wanna fly
and i have never flown to the places which i've know
where i will wait for you (and you and you) always
I will meet you there
if you feel your soul take control then lose it
send it spinning on a spinning-top
then dip it in chocolate
a spinning-top chocolate soul
so that you can feel
what you wanna feel
and i have never felt the ground on which i've knelt
where i will wait for you (and you and you) always
I will meet you there
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"the army of peace"
we speak in riddles, in painted tooth
they say "artists use lies to tell the truth"
but we don't, we just use'm: proof that we're still out chopping ice
and sometimes: karma, and sometimes: grace
but it’s always there in the look on your face
when someone first tells you there’s a human race,
and while you're in it y'better play nice!
so dont become the one that everyone meets
the man with a list of truths he repeats
worst of all these things is the fact that he eats where he shits
and tell me how to keep this one from going to hell? well,
it aint too hard just put your ear to a shell
snap like a star, and think like a cell - before it splits
'saw a beggarman and said "man let me teach you to fish."
'beggar said "ah baby that sounds delish
but i can't afford a pole and i dont own a dish
on which to eat a fish even if you could teach me."
there was a man who went looking for the love of a teacher
when he found'er he tried but he just couldn't reach her
in despair he went looking for the jam of a preacher whom he'd long admired
so he put his name and address on the mailing list
boarded noah's ark and sailed out through the mist
thought he saw moses looking pretty pissed, but really he was just pretty tired
he said “moses won't ya tell me whose religion is right?”
is it the muslims or the christians or the isrealites?
moses said “the chosen people is the gays and the dykes!”
the man said "really?"
moses rolled an eye and said, "no, stop asking stupid questions."
he said, "you're spendin all your money on the temples you lost
calculating the price, but not the cost
let me tell you whatever kinda rock is underneath that mosque
you can't take it with you when you die!"
still they sayingtheygotwhatyouneed to know about it at ten (10:00)
they scare you half to death a'talking "us and them"
drag you all the way to Jerusalem, and the rapture
they give you a gun and a net and a buzz
y'ask'n'm why? And they say, "just because"
then you forget who you are and what it was, you were supposed to capture
then ya meet a turtle on the street who says that God doesn't care
whether your head is covered or whether it's bare
it’s why you choose to wear what you wear, that really matters
and won't ya hold that thought and don't think too fast
don’t finish your drink, you got to make it last
and before you're done you'd better melt that glass, before it shatters
Now after all you say you wanna join the army of peace?
then give your loving every day out to the living deceased
yes, if you ever want your soul to be released: you better train for it
you better train your mind to balance on the edge of a knife
you better learn to love myth, you better learn t'love life
but you'd better couple that with a nasty cancer-licking and rife disdain for it
disdain for it
disdain for it
disdain for it
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"Whip,whip,whip,whip,whip"
A glowing dime-shape slowly strobes, projecting on the corner of a shelf,
A shelf stocked with algae-green bottles
Why does the light strobe?
Where…
Whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip
oh, I see.
my eyes catch a fan blade for a time-slice
my neck lends a tick,
But I lose it in a blink
Whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip
the center: this is safer, but drifting, drifting
Ow! My focus—it’s caught,
Like a preplaced action figure hero it glides off the blade and is thrown to the wall
Like a nowhere-town neglected playground’s metal merry-go-round
It lands on sand
The sand next to the spinner's path, a path tread down to chromed dirt
Still, tough tufts of grass grow in clumps despite spinner shoe scuffs, next to my landed focus.
whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip
AHA! I squint a firm grip on the edge of a blade,
My lazy tornado spine in concert with the motion
Success!!
whipwhipwhipwhupwhup-whup-whup-weeeYEEOWW!
Not again! Ow! My sight-sockets are dried soup scrapings,
*Poof*
Away, any patient perceptions
Sayonara,
my nose and canine teeth shutter; they drawstring my eyelids.
Mmm,
I remove my glasses,
My palms, with a smear, push in the irk…
Fascinating:
Halogen-white staples, floating in this pre-peek-a-boo dark
They relax into orange, then red staple-shapes,
Next they fix firm, like a cloud what’s been frozen with hairspray…
Floats… slow darts,
…Okay, a peak.
Whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip
Strobey-spot has drifted from the shelf, a little to the up’n left
I scratch my temple
You trade a pillow, as I check the windowway…
Whip,whip,whip,whip, whup, whup, whup, whup,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip,whip
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"dang old light (and water)"
dang old light
it’s so… unoriginal
uninspired
shining every single dang place
shining every dang color so that there’s no color
sloppy
careless
It gets everywhere
might as well be fifty astronaut toddlers in the mist of zero-gravity-potty-training…
Hmm, water too for that matter, but at least water has a little discretion,
a little flair and finesse…
See: I'd like my beams of light snaking this way and that!
illuminating strange spaghetti segments of air in whatever darkness
like-like-like-like: whoa, whoa, whoa:
what if this…
The light rays coming through private eye office shades twisted themselves about in knots
Whether the case is taken or not, doesn’t matter
It depends on the dame
What she has to say and how she says it, through the light tangles.
See: I’d like my waters unbound by lapping ‘ups-or-nots’.
Its surface’s flatitude—unmasked by a suicide moon tsunami,
Water-skyscrapers jutting up across Lake Harriet
the parting of the red sea?:
What a bore,
compared to the art of nature's new found physic’s fizz-eek!
Now, orbs of water hover around these globbing Michelangeloscapes
they courteously catch wayward fish who’ve swum into the air accidentally,
they didn’t get the memo
they do loony-toon double-takes
they hold signs that say "yikes", blinking twice before they fall
leaving a tiny puff of smoke, or mist perhaps
Some of the meandering orbs break their falls
Some don’t.
These unfortunate fish, few, flop at the bottom of the lakebed,
and wait for a water-scraper to slide back over them like a god’s own pencil’s eraser
A kayaker looks down on one as if it was at the bottom of a dry well built of water stones.
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"When blanket fricted my hair"
I used to have a blanket
and in frozen dark of night
it’d thunderstorm and sparkle
when turned around me tight
Tented inside I'd squirm and flail
and wonder at the sparks
I'd listen to the crackle-pops
to crispy rice remarks
I'd never been to science class
and learned of static charge
I didn’t know of tiny atoms
only things more large
I'd no idea how hair could stick
without the slightest feeling
And b'loons that held no helium
could stick up on the ceiling
Twere just some wondrous d-lights
when dryness charged the air
These thousand fizzing me-lights
When blanket fricted my hair
These days I still have blankets
And one humidifier
I turn it off from now and again
new sparkles to acquire…
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"xmas day, revisited"
hopped in my canon, just to go for a ride
pointed it up to heaven, but i couldn't get there
no matter how many times i tried
right around try 23 i thought how much easier it'd be
if I had some kind of Deity helping me out
so i went down to church, to get god in my corner
at first i thought everybody'd be sitting in pews
but everyone was up in the air flying
weaving in and out of each other with their eyes closed
it was death defying
on the outside everone was looking pretty good
but on the inside i could tell everyone was just trying to remember how to weep
but no one could squeeze a drop
everyone was there running away from Xmas day
taking off west away from the dawn
and it was snowing in heaven
while down here everyone’s just trying to keep warm
Seen you riding around in your bible-car babe
Oh, the ways that you steer it
Got to be careful driving around in that bible-car a’yours
somebody might actually hear it
sounds like: "BRRRaRWWW-love yer enemy" and "FRRROOM-turn your cheek"
and: "NNRRRaWW-stop dropping bombs on people for Pete's sake!"
some of these people'll teach you about loving
some teach you about hate
but whatever you're gonna learn in your life,
don't confuse God with Fate
what’s mean by that is—don't confuse the cards you're dealt with the apples that you ate!
it ain't about the apples anymore babe
don't let'm scare you.
they're just a'running away from Xmas day
taking off west away from the dawn
and it’s snowing in heaven
and down here everybody's just trying to keep warm
I look at this country, and it moves me to tears
too many kids in the hallways, having to live beyond their years
seems like we teach'm to be afraid of the reasons for war
but we don't teach'm to be afraid of war itself!
and that’s dangerous .
still, i pray for the soldiers who fight, cause they're the ones that die
but you know, i pray for the terrorists too,
well at least i try
and i pray for all the people in the world still stuck on the justice of an eye for an eye,
a tooth for a tooth,
a soul for a soul.
everyone's a’running away from Xmas day
taking off west away from the dawn
and it’s snowing in heaven
and down here everybody's just trying to keep warm
a dog'll bark at you, it’s in its nature, and a kitten purrs
i haven't lost my faith, not yet, ‘just ain't subscribing to yers,
every fish has different scales, every bird different wings,
every mammal’s got different furs
can’t y’see that it's beautiful, can't you see that it's right?
still sometimes I think it might be easier
if everyone’s God had the same name
there'd be a little less fighting and a'killing, with less people to blame
but isn’t that what we were supposed to have figured out anyway after Jesus came?
i try to remember these things
except when i'm a'running away from Xmas day
takin off west away from the dawn
it’s still snowing in heaven
and down here I'm just trying to keep warm
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