Podo Poems

Terrorist Baby

Not the kind used with a bomb

but the one that explodes in a whisper

delta girl what do you know of whiskers?

You shaved a clam, perhaps some legs and an armpit or 2,

but what do you know of beards and moustache and whiskers?

I admit I don't know much mascara or eyeshadow or lipstick, I don't get cramps monthly

so how can I KNOW?

You would expect me to be you, to know what you want me to do, to be, to pretend.

I haven't a clue about you, and after so long one would expect at least a list of what she is.

But my terrorist baby, driving away in her carbomb, leaves me empty, not shattered.

She turns me to words that live in your eyes. But do either of us have a clue, really?

So I say to you, not negotiating here just saying

you should know better, I should know better and we don't.





The Mornings

The sky lightens, no birdsong accompaniment

but darkened forms against the somber grey

move gently in the breeze.

My love sleeps, while my dog barks

and the screen in front of my eyes burns cold.

I get up from my chair, open the door and urge a silence on the dogs.

The amber lamp on the roads edge burns orange against a violet sky,

the first songs are heard.

Mornings have I known, so cold and unfriendly dawn

but not these days.

So much is this ode, so little in the day

so little is the day, so little that it needs be followed with eternity

and a hundred years of mornings, silvery and fresh as dew

and a hundred years of mornings to be spent with friends like you.

"Smoke gets in my lungs"

It would be so rude,

Yes, it would be a disgrace

If I pissed in your beer

Or, dared to shit on your plate

But you think it’s just fine

Yes, you think it’s just great

To smoke any-where

To smoke every-place

Don’t blow your smoke in my air,

Don’t blow your smoke in my face

But you don’t care, no

But you don’t care

So should I slap your face?

Should I make a huge scene?

Should I show you my hate?

Should I make that mistake?

Please, don’t take us there

Please be a bit fair

Don’t blow your smoke in my face

Don’t blow your smoke in my face

The Problems of Epistemology

Epistemology, since 1800, has been based largely on a dualistic stratagem I will define as "inspired by hermeneutics and grounded in empiricism".  (A carcass on the beach)

The awe that can accompany living, also acts as the inspiration that fuels a search for explanations. (swarmed by flies)

Faith seems to be grounded in awe, as surely as it is grounded in not knowing. It lacks explanation, if by explanation we seek reasoned meaning. (hide baking in the sun)

Despite Wordsworth's warning us against the “hope of reasoning [one] into approbation”, a belief in belief is not a basis for approbation either. (rancid, putrid, it fills the air)

The hermeneutic play that postulates and pretends that faith is an answer, is negated by the necessity of providing such. (perfume of death, work of decay)

Empiricism, despite its grounding in scientific method and skepticism, fails to titillate. (insulting my nostrils and sinus)

It lacks poetics, those "flights of fancy" that are the province of hermeneutics. (as certain of itself as death can be)

Our age struggles with the problem on a global scale. (and as the waves reach higher)

The major religions declare the importance of faith for humanity, though they would sacrifice science to prove their claim. (they float the mass, rotting)

Empiricism has helped "kill God" by revealing that beyond the sky, there is no heaven. (each crest an exaltation, each trough a depression)

Yet we struggle. (driving the flies)
There remains in humans the need to believe. (as one dark cloud)
On this issue, only the most avowed atheists offer sobriety . (and bearing the body, as lictors)

However, sobriety is not desired. (out past the breakers)
Rather, the believer wishes for ecstasy, for the revelatory delirium and certainty, that ignorant salvation. (returning the dead thing to the sea.)