Wheel of Fate

Wheel of Fate

 

Black always

suffices, even

on alpine floppy

hats in old

Gwangju.  Complicated math

is required: figures

beyond earth

stroll, hypocrites preach

to children but they

know: strayed already

avoided early parenthood

by pure luck or smarts.

Some big mouth

goes down: broke domestic rules

so cunnilingus,

which was all

he had left, has been

taken away.  The death

of intimacy

proves Karmic

payment is never really

complete, as

“it’s over” rings in

ears, eyes tear, son laughs,

Not knowing

why a grown man would ever

be so full

of emotions.  Ten

years down, where is up?

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Global Can of Whoop-Ass Open for Business

          

 

Global Can of Whoop-Ass Open for Business

Rebels yell to topple greed, are met with chopper bullets.
U.S. backs whoever will succumb to our whims and needs.
Begging babies balance the gated communities, but when
the war machines arrive and you are on your knees, remember
heaven’s not so bad, better than hell on earth. What makes
me sick is how the rich enslave, engulf, enrage, and how
the protest only changes the uniforms of the palace brigade.
So gather Quakers, Buddhists, environmentally concerned, and
keep your village quiet or it to will be among the burned.
If you’re lucky and your jobs affords a safe neighborhood,
your children might find learning fun, and play in rapt awe
of the creek or woods. But most scrape basketball knees
on concrete, stay home electronically, watch this or that
cop show on CBS, as if that’s what police do. It’s not. S.A.T.
scores flounder in the nine-hundred range, community college
recruiters land another private , or criminal willing to “play
cop” so as not to get caught. Upward money flow decimates
once-proud middle class so more become desperate, shoot school
children, parents, rival drug dealers, and the N.R.A. begs blacks
to join so they can shoot at their own government’s police.

 

 

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LK

LK

Chicago art star,
Savannah M.F.
A., he blew into Gwangju
the same time
I did. We waddled

through culture shock but
remained this six years
because we
saw how well this place
works for its own people, while

constricting many
individual
freedoms on the surface, while
tolerant
of any affair,

political or
personal, as long as its
kept secret.
This mirrors our
beloved U.S. exactly.

So when he
couldn’t find a Korean
lady friend
he ventured to Thai
mountains and may yet

marry an
Asian, because, like some do,
he got tired
of thinking about
Western man’s bullshit.

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MM

MM

Only one friend saw me run
off then waited to buy Dad’s
H and O set, you
knew I would be back for Mom’s
meal. Only one made sure I

walked off the
altar, part of the number
two wedding in Rochester
history,
alone, but still a

member, one knee bent among
Oak Hill’s finest, singing to
the new bride: “you lost
that loving feeling: without
knowing the words, waiting to

clip the tail
off some pompous hired
gun, but no…your eighth ace, at
the Monroe
Invitational,

Tad was there,
and you came seeking growth stocks
to a land
where big swallows small
before growth happens,

said either
one was worth ten times the fee
as manure
course got in the way
of conversation.

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First Alleyways

First Alleyways

Cente, the
breast-only
feeder, changes their
priorities. Worn
out parents still make the scene

but Danny’s trick knee
makes him the caregiver and
it’s changed his
personality
from wild to

subdued. He
smiles, always
has, and Jessica
talks, bartenders draw
Seoul’s Jirisan beer as cold

winter rebounds, blue
wind chills five layer attempt
to stay warm.
I blew hard at a
street Christian:

Jehovah’s
evangelist. Misplaced, but
a release
from a life in which
the glow of a young

child has been
replaced by domestic war.
Envy creeps,
desire to rewind
ten years hits again.

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Nikolay and Marina (Bulgarika 4)

Nikolay and Marina

(Bulgarika 4)

 

Here in their

new house, the one with

old fruit trees, rabbits,

grape vines and

an apartment for

his parents, a dog,

a cat, two

studios and wood,

beautiful

antiques from Holland, the whole

artist group

invades for “Kvas,” the

Russian bread juice they

line up for

in Moscow.  This one

is a touch sweeter

so Hyuntay

and Kwang Suk drink it.

Cheese soufflé

wine, Bulgarian pizza,

fresh fruit and

crepes round out the authentic

local lunch,

as cameras flash,

Marina laughs, and

proudly shows

us Darina, seventeen,

a model,

bodacious, and just

as pretty as Mom.

7 August 2012

Varna, Bulgaria

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Bulgarika 3

                       

Bulgarika 3

 

Unser sycamores,

strange double-trunked trees

that drop cream white bugs:

the comedy

continues, and jealousy

is replaced

by multi-cultural jokes.

Our Adam Sandler,

Nikolay Rouusev

makes one about his own art

place, Russia, while the

true Russians hunker

in stripes, a table

for four.  When

Nikolay goes into his

giggle, this

boyish cuteness presents a

free man, himself, an

appendage while still

allowed freedom by the strong

Marina,

who, when she laughs appears to

have clown roots:

the frightening kind,

the ones who can so

a lot of

damage if angered because

they have been

through much, suffered for

their art, protective.

5 August 2012

Varna, Bulgaria

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Bulgarika 5

Bulgarika 5

 

 

Mini disco

at eight pm means

dancing in the sand

after the

son goes down in dry

Varna.  Hot

But, with cool overtaking,

Gymnastics ensues

On the beach stage.  Are

Nikolay and Marina

still in the

woods painting?  Are all

four Russians in the

same room? As

three Ivanas dance

and twenty

others hit the beach stage from

Saint Petersburg, are

they amateur or

professional?  Each morning

they stretch to

the commands of the three coaches

who themselves

have more than one set

of priorities.

Then sun sets,

tide rises, a six-year-old

builds with sand

as sisters frolic

a weary lady waits.

8 August 2012

Beach

St. St. Constantine and Helena

Varna, Bulgaria

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Bulgarika 2

              

Bulgarika 2

 

A map of Varna

gets passed around so

one can find a shop

to improve

computer performance in

one way or

another.  Marina hates

the sun, she being

so pale, and now thin.

She’s an animal, or so

her Skype announces,

but more in the mode

of painting than in

a social

setting.  When cultures meet it

inspires new

work, new perspectives, new friends,

new techniques, and for

the brave and sneaky,

new love, new philosophy.

Internal

values, being important,

get put back

as we reach out to

each other around

beer talks

long enough to attack the

canvasses

some new way, with oiled

egos, Slavic style.

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Bulgarika Symposium

Bulgarika Symposium

 

We sit inside, out

of the sun, telling

tall tales, short tales, and

fairy tales,

the inescapable psyche

of the group

as found in folklore, culture

and problem of how

individuals

fit in to these strange boxes.

Pakistan enters

as does the question:

“How well do you speak

Korean?”

I know none or little, so

this question

continues to haunt every

corner of the globe.

Some are hard find

like Camilla, Luiza,

and those who

insist on painting.  I wait

for liquid

acrylic paint but

have had some fun with

sand and oil

for textured beachside backgrounds

between sweet photos

of passing

bikini bottoms.

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Zen Dye, Sendai, Send Die

 

 

Zen Dye, Sendai, Send Die

 

 

Throat swells, gums bleed, lymphs bulge on and off in this

post-nuclear tsunami Asian spring with its radio-rain and

sadness because years of stress already determined most people’s

cause of death, but now it’s a relative surety that cancer rates

will fly five years hence.  Sixteen students sweat a mid-term,

young enough to never have imagined life-shortening storm,

still sure the orgasmic joy of youth will last forever, or at least

looking forward to blissful mating, large alcohol, unflinching

prosperity and a good job awaiting stellar grade point average

in a system where a B+ is a slap in the face.  Stress exudes

and clogs up the aisles with a goo so sticky it’s hard to collect

the exams.  So Bright smiles, scores well, heads to a mid-term

a scant 10-minutes removed but ever so cheerful, even if she

is truly so embarrassed about leaving her pencil case behind.

Living proof that life goes merrily along amid the worst type

of disasters: corporate (Tepco shouldn’t have allowed tons

of radioactivity to spread into the Pacific), financial (banks

got trillions, sold homes at 70% off, foreclosed 9000 per day,

then asked for more bailouts), governmental (fascism at every

turn), environmental (look at it all, and still we drive our cars).

 

 

 

19 April 2011

 

 

 

Copyright, Doug Stuber, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given, and with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Poetry Anthology Call For Submissions, tight deadline

Please send 5 poems or less via email to dougstuber@gmail.com

We will consider translations, previously published work, with proper and full acknowledgments.

If accepted 5 books is your pay.

Heron Clan I sold 1000 copies, #2 sold 700 so far.

You the poets will be selling these books at your readings.

The cover price is usually four times the cost.  Hence, you

will have a chance to order more AFTER the original batch you

give away or  sell online.  There will be an online ordering site,

keep 10 or so on  hand for future readings

Again first five are on me,and there is no need

to order more.

JANUARY 30 DEADLINE, nearly tomorrow.

The Heron Clan is now made up of Ed Lyons Richard Smyth and Doug Stuber.

Once you’ve been accepted into two anthologies you’re an automatic lifetime

member that allows you to haggle with us about what to put into the upcoming

anthologies.  (or not, your participation level is completely up to you).

Be appraised,number one came out in 1999,and number two was in 2006.

However,now that I am back in the USA, and with an ever-growing clan,

One per year remains a distinct target.

We run 132 pages, maybe more, and poets get from one to 10 poems published.

(But I am only sending in 5? you might ask) and that’s because some of these poets

have been waiting 7 years for the book to come out,and I can’t really cut what they already

earned.  So this public offering is limiting the top number of poems that get in to 5.

Hurry.

Doug

Live Strong

Live Strong

Peripheral sunrise elongates table shadows, initiates morning calm

five days before the trip.   This mixed-race neighborhood

finds curious children stepping toward friendship while parents

remain closed in busy lives with no time for old friends no less

a new batch.  Small dose of warm leads to ping pong, kickball

and lacrosse.  Fifteen Korean kids experience the U.S., try new

sports, speak English to strangers, love nightly contests, yet

bored by Disneyworld.  Orange rays turn yellow, cause

dew-sparkle as a clank of dishwashing jolts early work-day

to life.  This heart, shredded, strewn like superfluous jet fuel,

scatters onto February snow so remote no living thing can

detect the agony caused by having to choose between family

and friends or prime faculty position in a culture that routinely

rejects emotional outsiders and is built on hundreds of rules

that strictly judge behavior in order to instill “maturity” at the

price of spontaneity .  No natural omens, like a darting cardinal

that prefigures any sound move have appeared.  Aspirations change,

fulfillment occurs when newfound silence replaces blabbermouth

stupidity and yard play warms frozen tears as well as crowd cheers

ever did in the days before finding redemption in family and work.

 

Copyright, Doug Stuber, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given, and with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

New Occupation, 2011

Malali Joya, Afghan Parliamentarian

Continually speaks the truth to Karzai and others

Still alive!

New Occupation, 2011

The disenfranchised
finally
take to the streets; without jobs
… they try to
formulate systems

inclusive
of everyone’s needs
by consensus: a
direct democracy for
small town change.

Local gains will be
miniscule,
national non-existent.
Fascists don’t
give up, they just die.

Corporate
mouthpieces seek
leaders to blame, a
list of demands, ribbonned box
to veto.

Two of the
twenty-twelve candidates will
address these
issues, three percent
will vote for them. Though

protests are
on behalf of the ninety
nine percent,
ninety six remain
unable to change.

Copyright, Doug Stuber, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given, and with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.

Final Exam, Chonnam National University, Level Six, Spring 2011

 

Final Exam, Chonnam National University, Level Six, Spring 2011

 

Eleven cell phones, two buzzing, lined up, waiting for this
last class, last final, last chance to completely silence
one rogue professor, out of his league, out of water, out
of here thanks to the concerted effort of three spies, one
instructor and one massive tumor growing two meters
away. He loves them for different reasons, but this is not
the opportunity he once envisioned: he’s been unable to play
ball, unwilling to give up more than he already has, unable
to squelch his own personality enough to fit in. Wouldn’t
it be nice to know how much fun the wood-strip sprayers
had when they applied the six layers of texture to the five
by two foot concrete blocks that make up this first-term
building? And wouldn’t it be a grand time for Mother if
she could see him dressed up to lecture, only to find out
the class had mutinied, he was unable to get them to speak?
She’d be proud of the way he just stood in silence, aware
of the irony: their silence trumped his verbosity. Some skipped
half their classes, others, like deer in an arctic winter, blasted
by sixteen weeks of Halogen headlights, brave enough to
stand tall. But he is not so brave, just an abused, isolated pawn.

 

 

Copyright, Doug Stuber, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given, and with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.