Prometheus, Franz Kafka
January 22, 2010 – 9:11 pm | No Comment

There are four legends concerning Prometheus.
According to the first, he was clamped to a rock in the Caucasus for betraying the secrets of the gods to men, and the gods sent eagles to feed on his liver, which was permanently renewed.
According to the second, Prometheus, goaded by the pain of the tearing beaks, pressed himself [...]

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Parables, Prose & poems, joesmith, poetry »

Waukesha Tattoo
March 8, 2010 – 2:26 pm | No Comment

I

Here in the town of the common and the good,
only the flashes reach us. There’s no thunder
rumble, no sound to savor, no low music
to score the out-of-favor soul. No, first
it’s the din, carried air away east, then rain
broken in waves on main street curbs
where urges are nearly two blocks long.

Homines urbis mundi,
park in the lines diagonally.
Turn right or left one-way
at the pagoda that would be green.

At the Pix they’ re playing last year’s winner
of something like a fig leaf, somewhere in France.
A yo-yo in the hand of the boy on the bike
who ups and downs for most the day, metal playing
in his head and a knack, at ten, for squaring
every stimulus. Not much to do for the dudes
at Dave’s Music. They swap names of shared lays,
grow their hair pretty long and each one knows
where the other one lives.

Before the show, tattoos for all.
The low whir of the master
inking permanence to your arm.
We need this town
like you need that tattoo,
a black widow you designed yourself
for Bill the Renaissance Needle to etch.
An artist, says the ‘Nam vet
with the vulture on his knee.

II

A caudal of the flocked
hum hymnals to the wind,
grace notes for toothless grinding,
communal gurgles for the state.
We barter our hearts like borrowed garments
and run to each other as slow-mo lovers
in a misfed reshoot of a colorized film.

The town’s name came from their language,
not the painted faces, not the pox, nor
the slaughter, never the whooping fans of earth.

We must please the unseen
keepers of grids that plot
our soddled odds and finagled
every street. We watch parabolas
fall up across the sky, a tired arc
as rising star, as arbitrary schism
between ground and zero aim.
We’re gods, goddammit, less
their distant entertainments.

- joesmith

.

Copyright, joesmith. Please.

Leap
February 16, 2010 – 7:30 am | No Comment

“It was intelligence and nothing else that had to be opposed.” – Søren Kierkegarrd
The wind is against me
on my pedaled way to work.
A bus almost clips me
cutting in to its shelter at the curb.
A Benz would prefer to run the light
and me over to waiting one second more.
The finger inside shows off its white
length [...]

Sonnet
January 28, 2010 – 9:13 am | No Comment

Alert as the light that changes color
with the weather atop the building
some mistake as electric, we’re mingling
our blood and juices without the dolor
that ought accompany a great big age
of disease. We are lovely here and welcome
the change we bring to each brown room.
In the phone booth, we tear our pages
from the musclebound book, feeding each
to [...]

Snippet
January 22, 2010 – 6:33 am | No Comment

Unreal, maybe.
But every city
implies its opposite
and there are no yeomen here
in frontier blue overalls
raising corn
or the dead.

Off to Work
January 20, 2010 – 8:57 am | No Comment

You can take our humor. But you can never take… our BILE!!!!!
And thus, we charge into the work day. Painted kill face. Screaming.

Health
January 19, 2010 – 1:34 pm | No Comment

He wasn’t wealthy, but he was rich in dietary fiber.

Effort
January 19, 2010 – 9:04 am | No Comment

When surrounding conditions cease to surprise, you’ve gotta make your own. Try not to be bitter from the effort.

By means. And, end.
January 17, 2010 – 8:57 am | No Comment

By means. And, end.

A trial. Kafkan by nature.
January 17, 2010 – 8:57 am | No Comment

A trial. Kafkan by nature.

Words excite. Communication t…
January 17, 2010 – 8:56 am | No Comment

Words excite.
Communication tires.

En retard
January 17, 2010 – 8:38 am | No Comment

It’s always later than your last act.
Later.