"Hole" and "Pinocchio"

"Hole"

There's a hole in my heart,
a you-shaped hole,
bigger than the hole in my old jacket
bigger than the hole in the sole of my shoes
bigger than the hole that was my car's window
bigger than the whole of me.

How is it possible to lose,
more than you've ever had?



"Pinocchio" - a haiku

Poor Pinocchio
cuts his strings and doesn't know
on his own, he'll fall

Untitled - I've had a lazy weekend!

"Untitled"

Seeking just a taste of your honey,
I filled my heart with bees.
They nest in my ventricles,
my blood must flow through honeycombs

Why did I fill my heart with bees?
No explanation remains, only the stinging and buzzing

Seeking to preserve this feeling forever,
I dipped my heart in a vat of brine,
smoked it over hickory
and left it to dry for weeks.

Why did I cure my heart?
It's leather doesn't speak, or feel. It creaks.

Seeking just to stop the burning,
I put my heart on ice.
It'll keep for weeks, but when I take it out
I must use it right away, so it sits

Why did I freeze my heart?
I thought it would save my life.

The Wisdom of the Bones/ The Unknown Tomb of the Poet

"The Wisdom of the Bones"

They found you, Federico,
or so the newsmen say.
And soon your bones will be borrowed back
from their residency in the earth,

Picked over by new vultures
who seek in the scraps of your skeleton
the secret songs of bone.
The years of forgetting are over.

Five others, desconocidos, rest with you.
Who are these dusty ghosts?
Will they speak with rotted tongues?
But it is you they want, Federico.

When the spades strike
like the bullets struck
I hope your bones find voice
sing them what they seek
Forgive them, Federico, and sleep.



(I am, as usual, not certain of the title. Originally, "wisdom of the bones" was in the poem, replacing the "secret songs of bone." I may return to that, because the singing bones idea is brought up again, in the last stanza. "The Years of Forgetting Are Over" is an alternate title, as is "The Secret Songs of Bone.")

Tina, You Have Seven Messages

(In which I attempt the sestina form).

"Tina, You Have Seven Messages"

Tina, I just called to say I love that skirt
and making out in the bathroom stall
and that’s not all, fuck!, I mean
Tina, maybe I love you, I just might
There’s only room in my head for one word: Tina.
You know where I’ll be, when you get this, let’s talk.

Tina, do you have a minute to talk?
It’s me, Jack, I still have your skirt
It was here this morning when you left, Tina.
Oh the sex, Tina! I think I might install
a shrine to Tina in my room, I just might
but this note - call me, I’m not quite sure what you mean

Tina, do you want to see me get mean?
because I’m spitting lead, and it’s not just talk
I’ll come after you with all my might.
How could you do it like that, wearing that skirt,
batting those eyes telling me I’d lost all
your love? You fucking tease. Fuck you, Tina.

Do you remember the good times, Tina?
when we had sex and both knew exactly what it would mean,
when you would lead me to the riverbank, grasses tall,
and blossoms bursting forth from their stalks
and you took off my shirt, and your skirt
and we just lay there together and loved with all our might?

I don’t want to sound like I’m gloating, I know that I might
But I want you to know that I feel sorry for you, Tina
However you try to dance around it, you can’t skirt
the truth, that your new guy was just mean
I mean, he hit you and left you, at least that’s the talk
I guess it’s just your turn, sometimes we all sputter and stall

Tina, I think I’m finally ready to stand tall
and I hope you are too, I hope you might
forgive me, Tina for all my stupid talk
Forgive and forget me, Tina
And I’ll forget you and your skirt

Oh Tina? One last thing: your skirt -
I threw it away, so we won’t have to talk again, I mean,
I might… Nevermind, Tina, goodbye, that’s all

Beggarin' Blues

"Beggaring Blues"


I've got a different song every day of the week

sometimes I’m in your face, sometimes I’m meek

standing at my corner on Bleecker Street

shaking my lonely cup


You don’t have to approve

You don’t have to shine my shoes

You’ve don’t have to sing my blues

but brother, can you spare a dime?


On Monday, I’ve got AIDS

A stack of bills that ain’t been paid

I couldn't tell you the last time I ate

so, brother can you spare a dime?


On Tuesday I was just like you

a wife, a kid, a good job, too

but the layoffs came and now I'm blue,

so brother can you spare a dime?


You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me, but

love the cup, love the cup, love the cup.


On Wednesday I endear,

I tell you what you want to hear

I'm a worthless bum who just wants beer

so brother can you spare a dime?


On Thursday I tell tall tales

my wife is kidnapped and up for sale

and the ransom note says I'm five bucks shy

so brother, can you spare a dime?


You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to love me, but

love the cup, love the cup, love the cup.


On Friday I sing the blues

My worn-out boots become dancing shoes

I'll sing all the Motown hits for you

but, brother can you spare a dime?


On Saturday and Sunday, too

I'll sing a gospel tune for you

If you were Jesus, what would you do?

You'd open up your wallet for me.


You don't have to approve

You don't have to shine my shoes

You don't have to sing my blues

but brother, can you spare a dime?


You ain't got to love me

You ain't got to like me

I don't care if you hate me, just

love the cup, love the cup, love the cup.

A Picnic, At Dinnertime, Your Lower Lip, Wetback

This first post will have four poems, one old and three new, all dealing more or less with relationships and food.

#1
A Picnic

We savor the juicy lunacy of our tuna
sandwiches, sliced neatly down the middle.
Such a thing should not make sense
This is meat, long dead, packed in a can.
This is mayonnaise, greasy, squeezed from plastic
This is delicious, you and I
One half down our gullets, we are incomplete,
our sleepy eyes not yet in sync.
We sink our teeth into our other halves
and are made whole.

* * *

(This is probably the poem that I'm most proud of, out of all I've got. The title is the one thing that I'm not happy with.)

#2
At Dinnertime

Clever cleaver,
how it parts the portions
between us, without ever really trying.
Wise as Solomon, swift as a whisper;
with a sharp wit and its own slight weight
it sings its way through bone.

We do not share this meal;
we conquer it, divide it.
The cleaver brokers the peace,
So we sit, silent, and eat.


#3
Your Lower Lip

There are times when I fasten my teeth around your lower lip and I think to myself,
“Why let go?”

Why not bite down,
chew and swallow,
and keep at least this much of you with me,
forever.

Then you make a noise, and I remember that I kind of like your lips where they are.

* * *
(This one, to me, is kind of on the borderline, in terms of whether or not to include it. If I, by some miracle, write a lot of really good poems, I might leave it out. But we'll see where I stand in a month. If I use it, I'm not sure about the line breaks - the long lines are mean to be read as straightforward statements, while the shorter ones are a little more drawn out.)

#4
Wetback

What is the first thing you remember?
Was it a game of peek-a-boo?
Sneaking looks through a hole in a ratty blanket?
Were you stung by a bee?
Did you cry, and cry, as the little red lump swelled on your skin?
Did you pick up a fallen feather?
Did you stroke it until your mother grabbed your arm and told you
not to touch such dirty things?

My first memory was a family picnic
in a public park, somewhere in Rockland County.
I was four, and we were four,
my parents, my sister, and me.
We met another family, visitors from Spain
and spoke Spanish with each other,
stretched out on the lawn.

I remember four boys on bicycles,
how they circled us like Great Whites,
sniffing for blood.
“Spics,” they spat, and “wetbacks,” too.
“Why don’t you go home,” they said, and pedaled off,
laughing

Now, when the rednecks and townies get me down,
I close my eyes and try to remember what happened
before those boys showed up.
It’s hard to hold on to, but if I can find it,
there’s a moment in my mind,
a darkening window to a purer time
when I didn’t know what it was to be harassed for simply speaking,
for simply being

* * *
(I cut the end of this poem from my initial draft, but I think I could cut it off even earlier. based on a conversation with a Hannaford grocery worker. But with the less rambling version, "rednecks and townies get me down" might seem incongruous. What do you think?)

A Poem a Day Might Win Me a Thousand Bucks

Since I'm in Martos and have a relatively large amount of free time on my hands, I'm trying to be as productive as I can, writing-wise. Work keeps the boredom away. And it might just win me $1,000.

My current goal is to complete a book of poetry, 50 - 100 pages, by year's end for submission to a specific contest. That way, even if I don't win, I've got a bunch of poems written and collected, with some thought given to how they're arranged and fit with each other. I'll have a more-or-less finished product that's all set to be pitched to other publishers.

So I'm going to post a poem a day. Sometimes more, but we'll see how it goes. Then you all, people whose opinions I trust, can leave comments or email me. It'll be easier, I think, then sending out mass e-mails and awaiting responses. Since I'm not really a poet, and am new to writing poetry, I plan on experimenting a lot with different themes and different forms, both traditional (i.e., sestinas, cinquain, etc.) and not (more visual poems that incorporate a bit more graphic design).

I may attempt to publish the poems under a pen name, or change my name to incorporate my mother's name. Knauth, as a last name, seems like an impediment to becoming stupendously famous as a poet (although I guess reality is also an impediment here). I'm also interested in incorporating Spanish into my poetry, either within a single poem, or writing English and Spanish versions of each.

I'll occasionally try out other things on this blog - short stories, mostly, and maybe very short comics or drawings. One project I definitely plan to post here is the story that is the namesake of the blog: The Saddest Viking. I've been kicking ideas around since 2007 and have written a bunch of scenes, but there's no finished story. The plan is to post, weekly, a "chapter", very short, and write a continuation for next time. Eventually I'll stop, and then I can figure out what I've got and how to edit it. It's probably going to be short, so the posts will be short themselves - a serial short story.

Also, read my nonfiction blog, about life in Spain as a teaching assistant in a bilingual school!