Discover more from gate(less)

gate(less) is a practice, a log, an indulgence, spellwork, meditation, and an invitation to explore and experience the ecstatic adventure of every day. Join us to explore strange new worlds right outside your gate/door

65 line poem, Fa

4/11/2022 Ranting is good

Con/Jur/d

Apr 11, 2022

Another poet commenting on yesterday’s poem— 65 lines! — I didn’t mean to take it as a challenge — The poet on the concrete spoke hundreds of lines — since her children in the cinderblocks across the way needed to hear her voice when we were too near

Some things, lately
Con/Jur/d, 4/11/2022

I’ve had some things
happen lately, a little
like last time, necessarily
different, there doesn’t

seem to be direct causes
this time
unless, you count living
longer than expected

Although the attributes
are similar enough
to be worthy of notes
What do I always say?

The inspirations
name was Dave
and he was older 
than us, with a bigger

belly -- Now we know 
how it feels, how would
we rate the experience?
Like, drunk, asleep during

a movie, midriff exposed
our juniors the next day 
making fun, equalizing
we lost our glamor

Despite the consequences
we did something honest
like, Dave who came back
to finish his Ph.D., fresh

out of the asylum, although
if I remember correctly 
he called it the Looney Bin
or Madhouse, with investing

his time in Gravity’s Rainbow,
he may have said, The Zone?
Taking a break he visited
his anthro-sis, and her gig

teaching in Chicago
One day, alone
in her apartment
he finds a bag of letters

the kind of alphabet, if
there had been a party
would spell out, “HAPPY
BIRTHDAY BRO”

or “CONGRATULATIONS
ON FINISHING YOUR 
PYNCHON THESIS,” which
never happened, so I could

meet him at an Everparty
with his shirt riding  high
over his belly, sweating
beer, he told me in too loud 

confidence, “I started
pulling those letters randomly
creating HUN & VUCUB
and made up a story

about divine twins their
Hansel and Gretel adventures
and how they built Chicago,
and  my sister came home

she came home and said
she came home and said to me
“Where did you learn about
the divine twins? 

I started, I started
laughing, I COULDN’T STOP”
He seemed embarrassed
moving deeper in without

apology, pulling drunk 
bodies, and cacophonic
dancers over himself
until anonymous beneath

a human blanket
I got the message
I received the signal
afterward, I would say

“Note it and move on
don’t get stuck in
a single-story, try to
make room for more”

**How beautiful are last year’s fish scales on a bright Spring morning**

Much Love,

Con/Jur/d, 4/11/2022