Dive Deep,
 Leap Clear

An Online Poetry Selection

by    Mike Zetteler

 
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Z-Blog, Fiction &             
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Two Married Poets

   for the Gibsons

Oh come on now, it's time to stop all
fraud.
It's what -- thirteen years now, and you
still claim
A hurt that's real , in hue-less words
too plain For prose: "It's since
November that he's loved Her."

You, of course, find fault
with artless Life, portray
poor Luna done to death, all at
Her Widow's bidding.

But these themes won't stand
The evidence of petty thrusts, the knives
That scrape the ego-griefs.

Those thirteen years
Must seem a gray and stagnant depth
That calls for any rock that can be
thrown,
Raising surface ripples, call them poems

.

DEW: Distant Early
         Warning

strange, after driving cab
nights, to be up still
in strong daylight today
but it is a warm day for
November

perhaps the last warm day
& a chance to work on my
car

fix the crumpled license
plate. now when did that
happen?
dew on the old chrome is
warmed to the vanishing

the feel of the air like fine
mesh liable to cool
quickly, but pleasant for
the moment.

odd, the way when
you work nights & drink
days people follow
sidewalks past houses,
fully visible, just as though
the Shadow weren't there
blinking
at them in the dazzle.

at 12 noon the sirens
I guess I always
slept through
are tested & they scream
one against the other
in a shrieking contest while
I worry about the holes &
nuts -- are there enough
of each, the law demands
2 firm bolts, etc. --

& lower my can of
handwarmth beer while the
motorcycle cop cruises by.

the sirens seemed hellishly
loud & I wonder what mock
danger they warned of,
& I know I'm supposed to
know.

but the leaves as I rest on
the worn leather blow
through the open window
& settle with a scrape on
the seat like weightless
brown & golden wedges

& finally I go
in the house to sleep,
knowing
it was just for practice
or at most
the warning of a warning

Sex, Why Not ?

consider the drooping buttocks.
one can wedge a quarter in the folds of
the flesh
or turn on the breasts, flicking the
nipples
with the tongue like a finger
on a rubber light-switch

one after the other, and wait for a spark
a flame again, a brighter red
than the dark port wine swishing
in the jug half-empty & warm
was tang for the tasting as her young thighs
splitting to a sliding finger were
wet to her knees
and full of feeling and promise, once