THE USELESS TELEPHONE
The girl, with gold twists for hair,
Said she would call, invite me over
As soon as she settled down
In her new green house by the river.
She has been settled down for months.
There are her flower pots and her BMW
Parked neatly and orderly on the front lawn,
But I never received a phone call.
The most calls I receive are from Verizon,
Wanting to sell something telephonic.
There are a few more, newspapers
That I never read, wanting subscriptions.
I, a skeptic, in the tradition of Gorgias,
Pyrrho, Carneades, Sextus Empiricus, and Derrida,
Know that there is one thing certain in this world;
This certainty is that the girl, gold twists, will not call.
The last time we were together, I said to her,
“I love you,” and I meant it, if a skeptic
Can mean anything. She grabbed me,
Said, “I love you, too. I love you.”
Being a semiotician, I knew her words were
A semiotic reality, and not an actuality.
As she repeated between kisses, “I love you,”
I sensed she was really saying, “goodbye.”
So now that I’m certain she’ll never call,
I never answer the telephone.
What is the use of answering the phone,
It will only be another call from Verizon.
WALKING ALONE DOWN A WINTER BEACH
ON A MISTY SUNDAY MORNING
Garrulity from mists
Where the garrulous
Are concealed.
Mists so thick
That even the bonfire
In the center of the loquacious circle
Is seen only as a small red smear.
The pop of a champagne cork is heard,
The garrulity increases in volume.
A man wearing red swimming trunks
Come out of the mist
To be close as he walks by.
He never turns his head
To look up or sideways,
But stares down at
The circle made by the martini glass.
Out of the whiteness
Comes a wheelchair.
The wheelchair moves
Someone blanketed up
To the brim of his baseball cap.
The wheelchair moves
As if it were not being pushed.
A glimpse of a man
With one arm
Who runs ten miles a day
And hates alcohol
Running by.
Yesterday, he carried a petition
To have alcohol
Banned from the beach.
He did not get one signer.
A solitary, sad man on pine needles
Under a pine.
He had put a pear,
A blue bowl
On a wrinkled yellow tablecloth,
On the ground
And was doing
A trompe l’oil
TIDES
There is something about tides that consoles;
Tides are so irregular,
Do not obey man-made or cosmic laws.
It is only an illusion that tides obey the moon.
Tides would never be Platonists,
Or Christians, Taoists, or Zen Buddhists.
Tides would never have conversations
About a Being above beings, no action, or satori.
If tides talked and could write books,
Tides would talk like Gorgias
And write a book entitled “Non Being.”
Tides are not as foolish a man
Who speaks a language of lies.
Tides laugh at the charts of astrologists,
Near read a horoscope.
Tides laugh again when they see Tarot
Cards spread out on dark tablecloth
And being interpreted by someone
With wrinkled hands and a ring with large diamond.
Tides laugh at the foolishness of mankind,
And thus tides laugh so much
Tides are the happiest things on our earth.
THE SACRED
Connoisseurs of the fragile
Meet in forest to find feathers.
Often the feathers of the snowy egret
Can be found detached on black mud.
Such a discovery is equivalent to seeing
A painting by a Japanese genius of the exquisite.
When the feather is spread out on the black mud,
The white, delicate, curving lines become an epiphany.
We now spend our spare time
In Cypress swamps searching for the sacred.
GRASS AND FREAK SHOWS
The stirring of the grass
Is caused by the meeting of two frogs
Because grass is in between their meeting.
I suppose it is the same in the frog world
As it is in ours, something always interferes with a liaison.
But at least, the frogs were retarded in their intimacies
By something natural, grass,
Not like us, the human race, by virgin’s and libertine’s words,
Or by hymns or rock songs.
I know how much people are attracted to freak shows,
The DNA or some social structure
Determines and enforces this predilection.
We have all the evidence we need
When we see the queues at carnivals.
But girl, girl with gold twists for hair,
If something must interfere with our love,
Let it be the grass as with the frogs,
Not the freak show of words people speak.
Alley Photo's
click for larger view
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 Duane Locke
2716 Jefferson Street
Tampa, FL 33602-16200
| Announcing: THREE NEW BOOKS OF POEMS By Duane Locke
[Duane Locke has renounced print publication to publish electronically. Duane Locke has over 4,000 poems published, over 2,000 in print publications, American Poetry Review, etc. and since September 1999, over 2,000 in e zines.]
1. Published in February, 2OO2, E book:
THE SQUID'S BLACK INK,
Published by Ze books (the publisher of poetry
For only 69 cents per book)
Contact: http.//www.blquanbeck.com.zebooks. Inquire:
NOVLNymph@aol.com or Ward708@aol.com
2. Published in February, 2002, E Book:
FROM A TINY ROOM,
Published in Spain by OTO' S E-BOOKS, http.//atotos.gksdesign.com/ebooks/locke or http://atotos.gksdesign.com/ebooks/buy1.htm or
http://www.atotos-ebooks.com
Inquire: guiam@wols.es.
Price: 5.60 Euros.
3, Forthcoming in April, 2002, E book:
THE DEATH OF DAPHNE,
Contains 50 poems never published before. To be published by 4*9*1, URL: 491.20m.com. Inquire: Stompdcr@aol.com Price $5.
Order the above through the internet.
[Duane Locke's 14th print book is still in print, WATCHING WISTERIA. Order from Vida Publishing via iod@ironoverload.org. Or order from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and many others. Paperback, $9.95; Hardcover, $19.95]
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[BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE: Duane Locke, Doctor of Philosophy in English Renaissance literature, Professor Emeritus of the Humanities, was Poet in Residence at the University of Tampa for over 20 years. Has had over 2,000 of his own poems published in over 500 print magazines such as American Poetry Review, Nation, Literary Quarterly, Black Moon, and Bitter Oleander. Is author of 14 print books of poems, the latest is WATCHING WISTERIA ( to order write Vida Publishing, P.O. Box 12665, Lake, Park, FL. 33405-0665, or Amazon or Barnes and Noble). Since September 1999, he became a cyber poet and started submitting on-line, and since September 1999 he has added to his over 2,000 print acceptances with 1,195 acceptances by e zines.
He is also a painter. Now has exhibitions at Thomas Center Galleries (Gainesville, FL) and Tyson Trading Company (Micanopy, FL) Recently a one-man show at Pyramid Galleries (Tampa, FL)
Also, a photographer, has had 116 of his photos selected for appearance on e zines. He photographs trash in alleys. Moves in close to find beauty in what people have thrown away.
He now lives alone in a two-story decaying house in the sunny Tampa slums. He lives isolated and estranged as an alien, not understanding the customs, the costumes, the language (some form of postmodern English) of his neighbors. The egregious ugliness of his neighborhood has recently been mitigated by the esthetic efforts of the police force who put bright orange and yellow posters on the posts to advertise the location is a shopping mall for drugs. His alley is the dumping ground for stolen cars. One advantage
Of living in this neighborhood, if your car is stolen, you can step out in the back and pick it up. Also, the burglars are afraid to come in on account of the muggers.
His recreational activities are drinking wine, listening to old operas, and reading postmodern philosophy.
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