Sunday, August 30, 2009

5 poems by Levi Wagenmaker

1.

'the redneck bird'


the redneck bird as it flies
utters one and the same
not in any way melodious cry
only when it lands on a roof
is it (ominously) silent
it stealthily bears portents to those
in or in the vicinity of the house
covered by such a roof

a redneck bird seen sitting on a roof
in the early morning
(or sitting unseen on a roof well before noon)
means that should a virgin reside
under that same roof
she cannot but soon lose
her virginity

in the absence of a virgin
a man present under that roof
will lose all the hair growing on his private parts
(or should they be bald his private parts themselves)
(or should he already have lost those somehow all his money)
(or should he be poor his fingers toes ears and nose)

redneck birds are very superstitious
and invariably believe it to bring bad luck
if one fails to land on a roof in the early morning
(or at least well before noon)

redneck hens are the only birds known
to lay clutches of eggs
(up to twelve dozen of them)
(but never on roofs)
so that it is not to be wondered at
that even fairly juvenile virgins
are rarely found under any roof
and if at all

homeless


2.

'cycle of rain'


rain and a bicycle
falling and I riding it
wearing dark-blue cotton
trousers seat of the pants
a moist patch from the saddle
sucking clouds while waiting outside
with nothing better (or else) to do

where thighs fill fabric
parallel to sky and earth only
halfway through the piston-stroke
movement of pedalling
diaphanous raindrops darken
dark-blue to almost black
where they strike in random patterns
striving for saturation

the affinity of wet cotton for skin
(or of skin for natural fibres
taking on water)
is much in evidence
in little enough time

riding a bicycle through the rain
slowly
(scientists have found)
should leave the cyclist and the bike
less drenched
than getting up speed
but
distance added to the relative equations
soon enough evens out
the difference given steady rainfall

especially when it rains
the kind of bicycles designed to enable
the cyclist to ride belly-up
is supposed to provide a more laid back impression
(the way dead fish do
too)


3.

so Poe

an all night bar
next to me she
sat she said you
are so lovely
she tried to kiss me full
on the mouth but missed
and got back onto
her cloud of Patchouli
she was twice my age (or more)
as well as twice my weight (or more)
I was embarrassed more than amused
now
remembering I find myself
more amused than embarrassed
time is in full swing
the water under the bridge
has almost run dry
since the days that I could fail
to be kissed full on the mouth
by a woman twice my age

bring on the raven


4.

'90% perspiration'
(for Belle)


a website featuring photos
of persons requesting to be rated
hot or not
should feature hot young women
in sufficient numbers
to fill a medium-sized private swimming-pool
with their sweat
especially on a sultry day like this
with all the hot young women wearing
winter clothes and no deodorant
of the 'dry' variety
to hamper productivity

they would be only too happy to remove
their clothes and there would be no lack
of volunteers to wring them out
and others to empty the buckets
in which the copious sweat would have been
collected into the pool's open maw

and only then would I
make my entrance
(to loud cheers of long live the scientist)
(wearing tight-fitting red swimming-trunks)
and patently patiently
would I wait for the basin to be filled

once filled to capacity
I would gently and fluently
immerse myself and turn my red-trunked body
over on its back
and if as I would expect
I would float in that pool of hot young women's sweat
cheers would become deafening
no doubt

the small effort of writing these lines
on this sultry stuffy day
under a darkening sky soon to be fiercely lit up
by flashes of lightning
adding their touches to the music of my day-dream
brought sweat to my skin

I wish it were yours


5.

'trivial pursuit'


it happens
that a snatch of trivial text
embedded in a tune to match
referred to rather grandly as
song-lyrics
will trot in circles round and round
brain-circuitry
banalities spun out too long
for anything remembered willy-nilly
with overly obvious rhyme
for its reason

it happened this morning
in spite of
or
because of
the grey noise of a low-noise
vacuum-cleaner

but the annoyance bit the dust
when the suck-all contraption's
suction tube
(not the part of it made up
of flexible plastic hose
but metal barrel bare of muzzle)
clanged against a cast iron
central heating radiator on a wall
in what could only be
a randomly generated rhythm
but by chance suggesting
a much-loved Portuguese fado

sweeping under the carpet
Connie Francis
to make way for
Dulce Pontes

sorry Connie fans
it can't very well be said
that preferences are

nothing personal



Levi Wagenmaker
(1944 - ) is a retired journalist, living in the Netherlands
for most of the year, and in France for some of it, with three bitches, two
of whom are dogs. Enamoured life-long of language (and languages), for
reasons immaterial to the act he writes poetry in English only, even if he
could most likely manage it in a few other tongues. His poems have been
published on line more than in print, and Google will tell the curious what,
where, and when.

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