The John Cotter/Shafer Hall Poetry Making Machine

NaPoWriMo 04.23.07

2007-04-23T08:11:00.000-07:00

spring, buds
slurpees

scooters,
vacation, fall

NaPoWriMo 04.22.07

2007-04-23T08:10:00.000-07:00

waking up, not waking
you was a step and

two steps toward the door
were two steps more

NaPoWriMo 04.21.07

2007-04-23T08:09:00.000-07:00

plastic mariachi
felt nativity

Goya's Collectible
Kingdom (inedible)

NaPoWriMo 04.20.07

2007-04-23T08:07:00.000-07:00

we drifted
to sleep

beneath the moon's
dark oceans

NaPoWriMo 04.19.07

2007-04-23T08:05:00.000-07:00

moss dripping
makes rocks

rocks flying
make moons

NaPoWriMo 04.18.07

2007-04-23T08:04:00.000-07:00

A trustworthy way
To take away

These timid nights
Be the wraith's way

NaPoWriMo 04.17.07

2007-04-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

was my first night
with her

an anatomy
template?

NaPoWriMo 04.16.07

2007-04-23T08:02:00.000-07:00

he played it
close to the table

or whatever that was
in the rubble

NaPoWriMo 04.15.07

2007-04-23T08:01:00.000-07:00

one is the writer
only is the worry

twice is the number
twixt is the preposition

NaPoWriMo 04.14.07

2007-04-14T12:46:00.001-07:00

see my engine
is kept dry

don't let 'em
bleed it rusty

NaPoWriMo 04.13.07

2007-04-14T12:46:00.000-07:00

I will be gracious
in defeat if you grant

me the concessions
I need to win.

NoPoWriMo 4.12.07

2007-04-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

The land bridge
on either side of me

will get you across
my Ice Age.

NaPoWriMo 04.11.07

2007-04-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

with tears all over
my goddamn eyes

I grinned
like a newscaster

NaPoWriMo 04.10.07

2007-04-11T09:06:00.002-07:00

you fix my frosty;
I'll fill

where you will with
what you won't

NaPoWriMo 04.09.07

2007-04-11T09:06:00.001-07:00

concrete bunkers
are a dime a dozen

currency reform
did-in doubters

NaPoWriMo 04.08.07

2007-04-08T17:23:00.000-07:00

hydrangeas armored in hot sauce
coax undocumented deer

into the wide saucepan: circle
of American Life

NaPoWriMo 04.07.07

2007-04-08T17:22:00.000-07:00

I'm either crawling around
in your shoe like scorpion

Or lost in the smoke
of your hair like a fingernail.

NaPoWriMo 04.06.07

2007-04-08T17:19:00.000-07:00

The tourists in your old dream
demand new shops, faster cars

but the economics of sleep
doesn't allow for excess.

NaPoWriMo 04.05.07

2007-04-05T09:24:00.000-07:00

In the middle of all this Londonish fog,
let's sit and talk about mystery.

My prison stories have not entertained you.
The cobbles are statuary.

NaPoWriMo 04.04.07

2007-04-04T10:19:00.001-07:00

back off,
reckless night

sit down
sweet morning

NaPoWriMo 04.03.07

2007-04-04T09:30:00.000-07:00

lastly, I'll need
first thing in the morning

those rhinestones to pattern
the cusp of yr hem.

NaPoWriMo 04.02.07

2007-04-01T15:14:00.000-07:00

antique redwoods
taper like grass blades, bend

all over my eyes;
I can't take my eyes off

NaPoWriMo 04.01.07

2007-04-01T15:13:00.000-07:00

Even though it wasn't really there,
everyone saw it coming.

In the fallen roof and fallen road
what wasn't really ushered it.

2007-02-20T23:40:00.000-08:00

All the ice from the sky is a lesson
it's telling you how to be dressin'
unlessin' you're high
you'd better dress fly
in those rubbers that squeek with my blessins'

A Christmas Limerick!

2006-12-25T07:32:00.000-08:00

There's something outside in the yard
The swimming pool water is hard
Everything's white
In the Christmas moonlight
A JOLLY CHRISTMAS INVADER -- EN GARDE!

Rounds

2006-12-20T09:26:00.000-08:00

Downstreet from OM we opened
A bar called AMEN, where the noise
complaints came from above,
where our choir howl swept
up the dust. Ask the Jehovists:
they're slow to trust the dark, corroding
our confidence in warm blankets
and flashlights -- our faith
in the warm beer of blackouts,
and they LIGHT candles to make wishes
and we DARKEN OUR DOORS
with mezuzahs, our floors with mandalas,
but "catch you on the flipside"
never meant anything to me.
Waking from nights out, dawn
long gone seems so religious.
Our pains are answers to our prayers.

2006-12-14T14:39:00.000-08:00

When I gather the gravy together
And wint'ry gray is the weather
We can spoon out our wishes
Along with traditional dishes
Delicious and minus their feathers

2006-12-14T14:38:00.000-08:00

Her teeth this era
Are always wide as meadows
her lashes burning

Yes!

2006-07-31T01:27:00.000-07:00

We're on collaborative hiatus, but check out

www.johncotter.net

& www.shaferhall.blogspot.com

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.30.06

2006-04-30T03:32:00.000-07:00

Parts of the throne in the mirror you're facing;
parts of your face in the mirror on the throne.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.29.06

2006-04-30T03:28:00.000-07:00

The old Egyptians slept so sound --
no seismic twitters belied them.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.27.06

2006-04-30T03:24:00.000-07:00

Holding the fan like you meant to knife him;
holding the knife like it it was a fan.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.26.06

2006-04-30T03:23:00.000-07:00

Faces interchangable
generally indicate the presence of mirrors.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.25.06

2006-04-25T08:44:00.000-07:00

Old fighting colors like orange and brown
fade foregtful as first names in my head.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.24.06

2006-04-25T08:43:00.000-07:00

Damn the party! Don't change
your wide cardigan sweater.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.23.06

2006-04-25T08:42:00.000-07:00

My morning curtains drip
with sticky memories.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.22.06

2006-04-22T07:49:00.000-07:00

I sauntered in with aplomb, tipping
over the last of the last of the honey.

JCSH: NaPoWriMo 04.21.06

2006-04-22T07:47:00.000-07:00

Mind you: mind your minnows, and
mind your nets: let them gently go.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.20.06

2006-04-20T14:53:00.000-07:00

Good watchmen assume day never comes
until it comes: watch them watch it come.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.19.06

2006-04-19T12:32:00.000-07:00

Daughters all covered in Smuckers kiss truckers:
all smothered in goo.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.18.06

2006-04-18T12:34:00.001-07:00

If you want I'll send you violets,
but socks will keep you warm.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.17.06

2006-04-18T12:34:00.000-07:00

Earwigs consistently hellraise
with aggressive clicking in my ears.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.16.06

2006-04-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

It wasn't coincidence your bad angel
returned last to our unit.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.15.06

2006-04-15T10:40:00.000-07:00

If you're looking for sugar maple treats
look no further than New Hampshire.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.14.06

2006-04-15T10:39:00.000-07:00

We odd numbers take no shit from two
or eight or twelve or eighty-true!

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.13.06

2006-04-12T14:19:00.001-07:00

I directed my crew to smash the table,
and I directed the table to smash to the floor.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.12.06

2006-04-12T14:19:00.000-07:00

Your fashion sense doesn't scare me,
even if that is a hornet in your pocket.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.11.06

2006-04-11T08:49:00.000-07:00

My duty-free whisky nearly dry,
I'll face this country's Customs.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.10.06

2006-04-10T09:27:00.000-07:00

If I hadn't've done what I done,
you'd be having to hit me differently.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.09.06

2006-04-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

They discovered the wealthy islands
after I'd had enough already.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.08.06

2006-04-10T09:20:00.000-07:00

He's not so much a chip off the block
as a bitch with a poem in his head.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.07.06

2006-04-07T13:02:00.000-07:00

Was the scarecrow sentient;
was the blood even real?

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.06.06

2006-04-07T05:56:00.000-07:00

Dress, begone, be leaving me to my
flights of bedside fancy.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.05.06

2006-04-07T05:55:00.000-07:00

Five, six, seven, eight
sniff me here, you reprobate!

JSCH NaPoWriMo 04.04.06

2006-04-04T08:29:00.000-07:00

Future archaeologists will wonder at this thing
called MIAMI near the EXPO crater.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.03.06

2006-04-02T08:34:00.000-07:00

When she walks, it's like a samba:
I have never learned to dance.

NaPoWriMo JCSH 04.02.06

2006-04-02T08:30:00.000-07:00

All the zoo can chatter, but never talk out
what I've got for you.

JCSH NaPoWriMo 04.01.06

2006-04-02T08:29:00.000-07:00

Whenever I went to war
I dug a hole and walked around it

IV

2006-03-17T23:23:00.000-08:00

The name of this instrument
is "instrument." It plays
the balance of our play
music at playtime.

The name for my muse, these days
is whatever I call her.

III

2006-02-22T21:55:00.000-08:00

Somewhere on this desk
my Briny Bastards' membership card
convolutes fortunes
found in other cards.

Wherever you are in this house
"you are here."

In my sweaty wallet, along my sad
business cards,
laments time's passing
like a sherpa.

Some bodies aren't found.

II

2006-01-18T10:42:00.000-08:00

Your impropriety lecture
is not washing off me
and the fat that is upon me.

I love obesity
in oysters and snifters
and in the women of humanity.

So draw a little picture
of what you've become:
the drunk in the rectory.

Your next one's with me,
so I'll bid thee be dumb,
as in: don't mention it.

Sestina II

2006-01-08T18:43:00.000-08:00

Hot for your mouth, I'll settle on those honey pills
Chinese people insist cure goddamn cancer
you knock them down, kiss, with your eyes rolled
back so you can see the bottom of your brain
and we trepan ourselves in your sweet solution.
But there ain't any salve exists that will cure

my empty tick. I jog bright days with The Cure's
questions populating my head like pillbugs
zooming blossoms, this sticky sun's solution
clocked spreading around at the speed of cancer
and keeping the blue sky blank as my brain
is, now that the day's started and I am rolling.

The Anxious Vehicle, I huff and roll
over in my sleep. I am dreaming up a cure
for the buzz and bang in my hungry brain
while my last head falls asleep on its pillow
my new one huffs colder air, cancerous
as a grudge or a rumor. My solution

is to abandon all hope of a solution:
when I roll on out of this life, I will roll
out of dug's blues and kit's cancer
instead of crossing my fingers for cures
and rifling through your nightstand for these pills
I will do it the old fashioned way: my brain

policing the red-light shows of my brain
in its weak hemo/H2O solution;
its jots of good song like blue pills
keep me rollin', rollin', rollin', roll
what I know keeps me sane to a cure
for all this brightly-colored cancer.

I'll lay you down for that eager cancer
I am "dying" to share with someone else's brain.
You were never a good care or a cure
or a tidy knot (metaphorically.) A solution
rumbles up to my back and grows tremendous as it rolls
illegally as an alien, illegal as the good pills.

So keep a hot mind aimed at a cancer solution.
Like Cancer, you're rolled in my brain with those pills.
Sometimes The Cure is worse than the cure.

I

2006-01-06T09:01:00.000-08:00

I brought your olives and cheese but forgot your marijuana.
I'm sorry I called the Steely Dan on your turntable "Weird."
I stole your rolled golds and your calvados.
I trundled everything under your stoop for later.

You only told me why you called when I was leaving.
But these Thanksgiving cheese balls won't roll THEMSELVES in nuts!
Plus your "friend," if he started at noon, must be tight as my belt.
I wish he had a belt too; everyone can see his ass.

Waking him up would only sour matters.
But the hours are pattering away quickly now.
I'm the last one here with complete sentences.
I'm the only one left who still talks to his brain.