Quasibio & Pseudobio ______________ Thomas home mask Sonic effortless Jefferson Tijuana juice banana Taxation Jackson Time yearless northeasterly Yesternoon jewelry July Kentucky ring finger Knottish Erring Key Ye ringers of dead notes Did Jump ship Rue the Jangling Etiquette Jutting from Rose suits our purview Toys ejected rote hotly whorled and wrinkles vying curved I was born in Charlottesville Madison Heights Greensboro San Francisco Roanoke All of the above I live in The Hoh Rainforest The Pando Aspen Grove The Mojave Desert The Colorado River Basin All of the above Azure pure manure Zygote zephyr ziplocked Xeric ricochet Existential pencil cholla Feral railroad toadstool pigeon Fig levee Expropriated Priapus Elsewhere heretical Shrewwd worldplay We are level on the leg We are appropriate Dr Dust Verily unto the dew Unto anew Knew it tall Pewter few Popping view undue Upper screw Yew askew Yews askew Yew into in two It is a crew Yew renew Through and threw Flew the coop Jewels in lieu Moo moot mew Hew and skew Ewe emu amused Ewe no mown moans Yule and kew Ululations Onto Onto Onto Let it loose Like I was saying Only in a poem Open the clock For no other reason And will be saying Again as soon As I finish with this I will be fishing By the grain Of a spoon In open knoll Season With a poem For a clock Oh O Xanadu winding Down To the man from Prufrock Xanadu winding down to Xanadu Defeated by the Quell of Queen Jane Winding roadside sidewinder What time was it Eat eternal Eatery Role praying Yucca Dawn Utility build Yucca in infinity Up lollipop Iip lollipop Pita bull dog sandwich In the sand wars Humus too new Knew too much Nylon hymnal Lilliputian Illiberal lollipop Lumberjackal Ulterior missive Lost in the interior Humus too soon Lullaby out Yearlong By the book Juxtaposed Yearning in four eggs Yuletide knuckle knuckleodeon A loop inside the pool I told them not to fold Their golden mold The milk-check The weathering cheese Quivering Countless Non-disclosures Ejected thermally jaded A blue herring mirage in the mirror Kentucky is neither Yew nor lollipop Rue the opening clockwise Two unto the other Tip of the tongue and groove Two much of piano Tuesday Pita on the riot Yew the jimmied pew Elsinore younger than France Keep up the stiff upper lip work The work poems leap Or else a few portable Tooth slippage Cue the blue vents to pirate ______________ Oxbow Colorado River February 2023Can't Step in the Same Stream Twice (another kind of bio note)
poemanates ______________ 1. Daring detours Dripping dovetailed Dust mops Rectangular Glandular The skylark Numerical sundial The proverbial Hilt Jolt Yam jam I stilt bolt damp Unbuilt Soup Pop puppies Oval Opal Offal Oh ohm om The papers Homeward The workplace Home town Your jacket Your jaywalking Home teeming Doorway Out the window effortful Aquarius lungfish Quilting saltines acquired squirrels Attired in taste tests Stilted milk unbuilt Milk milk on stilts Don't forget to Milk your quilt Question society wander aloud Debone the wind Edit your heart Enough is never enough fastener food drifting forfends Early in the evening Every finger reads its riot Verb until you dry rot Every worm is an adverb Read him the dry rot act Hijinx javelinear Verbatimid Bat, an average bat Harpoon avalanche Hierlooming But What about The poetry? Until until & unless Hi Hi Jester pox? socks forfend 2. Daring doubletakes Deeds divided Doorways & Forfendable dumps Confabulate Fabrications Gated communists Read fortifications Grated cheese nerves He is not yellow Quietly blue Who conflated Edifications Yellowing adverbs A window on the worm Wary us Waving Eavesdropping Earsplitting Soulsalts Salted settling Splitting sorted Sulking Asking adventurous Aimlessly amortized Authoring Ambient lightning Aslant truthiness Autumnal & lumpy Syllables Syllabus Soapsuds Sunday school Slant step Soup spoon Spindrift Sandstorm Xtra Xtra Creed all about it Code of Sigils Codex camera Xenophobic oligarchy Xanthippe vs. analytic patriarchy Xanthus, also the yellow horse Daring darkle Deviled egg drop soap Forfend fender blunder Fizzling blender Greed all about it Hotel of Signals Birdhouse of the gods Bathtub of the birds Notes & Surfaces 3. Nearly dueling doubletakes Narrowly nearly Nimble northwestern Nut art Juniperil Junkettle Jumpersona Kleenex Laminated Lumpy Proletariat Pipsqueak Puppier & Puppiest Hovering snacks Custom forwarding Cloud cover Caring cerulean Cirrus coeval Cumbersome & Cunning Daring Deviled eggs may or may not care Distance Forfends Dogfood house Forever Furry friends faring well Faring felt Garbled gables Gestural gelid Given iced waterfalls Grommet gravity Grueling gravy Fit unfolding Further 4. Container ship chip Seal sea stacks Freeway way back Backlog logjam I think I'll sit Down on this bank Of Southern California Sand and Watch the Aquasemic river flow Reality is a river Reality is a road Reality is a metaphor Every error has its ear We are standing on the starlight We are wandering the windrow We are stammering in our hats Like a yellow canoe On a desert lake Given the toadstool camphor bear And the gaslight windowsill hat And the baked canoe Baking on a desert lake We are aeolian We are a cairn We are two ducks diving To the bottom just to Drink our way back up Reality is supply chain Just in time time Clock counterclockwise 5. Aquasemic Sasquatch Aeolian Sequential Aint no sentence Simplexity Amoeba Solstice Autumnal Succubus Amoebasemic Aestheticalibrated air Anaphora audibleeding As between So beside Syllables singing Soft letters Reality is already A poem Forfend unto Gelid horses Yams unless Houses until Useless writing Undresses Itself Inside Inevitable Opal and Oval offal _______________ Senator Wash Reservoir Colorado River California February 2023
Poems Are Water ______________ gas as ash bash bush rush rust bust best rest test vest vast last cast cost host most lost list mist mast mash cash rash dash ash as gas apple please barrel relic cutter terse dotted edits error orts furry rye gaggle glee hammer merge Skin ominous balloon Fervor escape Surfictional climate Estimated enigmas Embellished Prismatic toe tusks Askew alfalfa albatross Gustatory belt sandwich Systematic solipsism Lawn gnostic foetus Rentier Fractal remuneration Facticity Leg drummer Tooth serum Egg drama silicone Humpbacked iguana Orange lawn humming I prefer knotty worm fur dust Enigmatism effoetl effortly Belt Cat at cat bat bait cat flat Cartwheels Goose duck goose coot duck Hat duck goose poem hat Hat taste form goose goose Utter hat goose lunch lurch It is 12:04 in the morning In Arizona but I am Across the River In California This could not have been Written anywhere else I am writing in the Twenty First Century Only time now once Return On Investmentation Popularity contestreamers Pitchforks are forever Ok on Om Mummified ohms Mortified onions We are Present in Their Future Mirrorcosm Long fungus seance Musical sea Of tranquility Nor roaring Non fracas slants Nonsensical seams Nanoseconds enough Empathy dog quirk quorum We roam the shirk rug path Empathy path quirk rug Empty pith quitting snug Empty bath biting bugs Energy swath cook hug Eater employs empty eggs East of everywhere else We cook the biting path We eat the crooked pith We canon mop cloak Arribada wriggling A succinct Distend A poem is designed to be read slowly, and more than once. sign and resign sign and signature sign and design inner nerve jarring ringers knotty tyro lesson sonic message ageless narrative hive narrowly rowdy ossa salve parrot rotting quitting tingles Fresco flung Glimpsed seedlings Aspersed documents Auscultation Smoke Tree Forty four acres Far up in the southern hills East of West Memphis Easier done than said Emptier gleeful Realism will tell You a story Remember the alarm mop Remember To brushfire Your teeth Emblematic platitudes We are not a narrative Remember To remember That realism Is a dogma Narrative platitudes Hire our teeth For timber kaleidoscopic provocations zodiac provocations xeriscaped provocations yearly provocations washable provocations allegorical provocations binary provocations cautionary provocations duple provocations durable provocations effective provocations fallible provocations volatile provocations ulterior provocations useful provocations gullible provocations gesturing provocations habitual provocations jestering provocations kudzu provocations laminated provocations rectilinear provocations simplified provocations totipotent provocations mutagenic provocations noctilucent provocations octagonal provocations portable provocations quarterly provocations They say He lost his fastball I say His 2-seamer? His 4-seamer? His cutter? His split-finger? What about his curveball His knuckleball His slider his sinker His change-up? He can still paint the Corners with a spitter In the high 80s Emulsion wastrel Wending wrinkles Woke stretched Wunderkind Embattled Echoes who lens lens Walking stick Wetter legumes Whistle stoppages We aside from we Did do dot data did Rat retch rite rot rut Rad red rid rod rude Further on Town dyed rode My jagged Company shoes The tired true tubers tied Crust carbon dioxide box Hatch batch monoxide Bony cartwheels rust Implemented oxide Oxygenated crimp Parching pumpjack Mixed intersects Modes marching I-Ching My national Emergency cleanup Money is a death wish Mossy hallway dirt Letters recombinant Memoranda Non-disclosure antipoetics No mint fob stickers wind Metric tons of tongues I rain pass rolling hat chips I'm water lens chocolate battery Mashed potato toe mush O bashing shadow detached Subjective setting Settling sun hopscotch Logic polysemous Playhouse Desert Varnish Coordinator Class We were having A heart-to-heart Self I said There is salt In the ocean But possessive Pronouns have no Reliable function My self Nodded at me From our Mirror We have An understanding Good for us Good for the cosmos Bloodpoems Navigate Chariots ample valves Home team away Tripwire innate octagonal plasma To putrid islet Unleashed holographic Representations of Realities Everywhere else We wear it slant Who dwelled Wherein inhabited Quadrangular assemblies We cheat mice Clear Rice Twice Toucan ointment uncanny I can anoint I can canary Porridge porous ridge ridge Proposed condiment ensemble Patching chin chin patting chin In the middle of the Road and Things Mesquite & cottonwood Dog control masculine accent Leasing leap sing Sea lingering Seeps Leaking deep beeps Less quite dog Measly sea Mozarabic mussels Not a helicopter No more helix anymore Hug the tiny Highway Tightly I ate a banana While you were Sleeping Formica Silica Aloft dazzled A distinct suspend Asbestos We desk green summit Essential sailing nails We sense the salt Mail lingering tales What about false Equivalency in bad Faith you do it too What about changing The subject that's Not even a poem Nice weather do You like blueberries We are not even poems Red desert pavement Is mostly black There goes one now Hummingbirds Unparalleled Utah is a day away Go find one for yourself Bread and mosses Many things Got one of these For nothing Disseminated Frequencies And longevity Waggle calligraphy Rigorous repetitions Dysraphism, raphesemics I was driving my riding Lawnmower down the Information Highway When the winds of Changes shift By now we are all fa miliar with defamili arization / as artifice / Nor disjunction as a Strategy / Ostrich Nanny / The poems of Frank O'Hara Are infested with Freedom . O'Hara infected Ted Berrigan. Outriding the Intermountain Back Roads, we don't belong To any tradition. In Medias Res Medias Is a good name for A moving company. Particle board. Plumb Bob. Such fine American feet. We Are proud of them. oil boil toil toll roll rill dill dell bell belt melt felt fell well will mill milk mild wild wilt tilt jilt jolt bolt bold old oil Omen Foments Harmony is oceanic Momentary From George Oppen The volume of the moment And from Alice Notley Moment containing omen Now and every now we know The volume of the omen The waterwolf werespiders Eating through my daydreams Sleeping bag cool coot Riverpoems drift cool Tree coot coot drift Wing coot coot coot Scooting like a dream Clock like a dreamclock Every day dawning A little later than itself of course the former Sovi Et Un Ion is a one-man axle Of Ev il A fiery wheel Of murderous Oligarchic Capitalism. Do you ever feel One step ahead Of yourself? Like Greta Thunberg Or Wayne Shorter? Rascal caliber Bursa calx to scale Name five cities In Ukraine Cheating Ok But no Chatbots Randomly railroad bear Ballast roadkill anthropocene How, exactly, are Sanctions something Other than the war Crime of collective Punishment? Calisthenics in beryl Cows handsome In their butter rubble blemish sudden dendrites toccata tablet umpteen greening vacuum umlaut witticism cosm exits exist yammering hammers jazz Urgencies Thundering Rainbow Ditch Eh pollen Passional Percolates Hammer emergency Agency / Mind is Consciousness is A causal agent Easterly windings Urgent egg hunt Orpiment & Oxbow Raspberries rascal rupture Elemental self-furbished Blueberries Nice weather Moreover We are blueberries Move on Kinetic politics Life is mostly weather Oil slicks & salt licks I could have been A poem ______________ Lower Colorado River Basin California & Arizona February & March 2023
10 Hicucu ______________ toe foot fing er toe foot finger toe toe error ginger boot toe wing foot foot germ err or roe moot doe fur goop root door foe berm hoe fir ear mood loop route barn deer floor hot mode for fire soup roust float forks burn plot mire deep lode soap rooster burn sleeps bloated pilot code mirror soup leaping coast al codex minor seep ing sounding index lost index mir ror creeping silent ghosts ______________ On the banks Of the Colorado River near the Cibola Wildlife Refuge Arizona February 2023
I was thinking, am thinking, will be thinking, a while back, now and soon, about the title for a book of my poems, perhaps the last book of my poems that I will see published. One never knows about these things. At 67, I am relatively young for an old poet, significantly younger, for example, than two of my primary publishers, poets John M. Bennett and Mark Young. No one should be surprised if both John and Mark are around longer than I am, but again, one never knows about such matters.
In any case, there's less time now than there has ever been. If there's anything I want to do, I had better be working on it now.
In the past four decades, John has published well over a thousand pages of my work, some of it in his periodical, Lost And Found Times, and a lot of it in book form from Luna Bisonte Prods. I lost count long ago of how many pages of my work Mark has published at Otoliths. He published one small poetry book of mine a couple of years ago, and he has published many hundreds of pages of poems, visual poems and assorted prose pieces in Otoliths, his quarterly magazine. He may have published over a thousand pages as well.
A couple of months ago, I was in California, on the central coast, gazing out over the ocean towards Australia and Japan. I remembered an evening from a long time ago, also in California, in a little club called The Inn of the Beginning, when the woman I was with turned around to face me, and said "no public displays of affection." A lot has changed since then, pretty much everything that makes any difference, but for some reason I have always remembered that one small, seemingly insignificant moment.
Maybe I have remembered that small exchange because I think public displays of affection are actually quite important. Bear in mind that there are many kinds of affection, and many ways of displaying affection publicly.
Public Displays of Affection are controversial to some extent almost everywhere, based, to cite a few examples, on age groups, sexual orientation, and religious affiliation. For some groups, public displays of affection are forbidden, and in some locations they are illegal.
In these times it feels like an ethical and a political issue. Advocating in favor of public displays of affection should be counted as a stand taken on the right side of history.
I decided to use Public Displays of Affection as the title for my book. I could make a case for never using a different title.
I am an American poet, active in the last quarter of the 20th century and (so far) in the first quarter of the 21st. With Sue, my wife of 36 years, I am living and traveling in a van, mostly in the western states.
Jim Leftwich
—— written during Pride Month, 2023, in Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and Nevada
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