Panopticon75

Winged, like that solitary bird,

But a dirty bunch, on the wire

Twenty feet high, squawking profane pidgin

And cooing vanities to each other’s insanities,

Dropping uncontrollable obscenities

From the collective’s cloaca to disdain passerby

Umbrellas cloaking pedestrians from the misery

Of the water cycle; and no regard at all

For the carefully parked sedans lined up at the curb,

Washed and spit polished easy targets.

So much depends upon the rain

Someplace where it hasn’t been

Seeds starve in furrowed barren earth.

Here, where land isn’t crushed by asphalt

And parked cars, the ground is saturated with moisture;

A hawk circles for its next meal and casts no shadow,

Its

Reading poetry on this subreddit is a bit like

Visiting a nudist colony:

Sure, the idea of it sounds nice,

All this exhibitionism -- the naked

Doing wobbly cartwheels, their dangly bits

Hanging out in the warm breeze...

Look how delighted they are,

like children, congratulating each-other

For being genuine and emotional,

all dancing in a circle jerking up down.

​

But seeing it up close you notice the shit

Stains, the matted hair, the fat rolls,

And the unwashed scent hits your nostrils (how they flare),

And you think to yourself:

Damn, all this nudity is unattractive,

And you remember the return ticket

In the pocket of your pressed trousers.

​

[1.](

As the title states, I really loved the first three books of the 'Dune' series. I loved the characters, the setting, the Fremen culture. In book four, I find that a lot of the elements that made the preceding novels enjoyable are absent, nay -- perverted. The transformation of narrative resembles Leto's "evolved" form -- it's grotesque. Herbert's tone (through Leto) is pedantic, the philosophizing which made the previous books so interesting to me in this volume just weigh down on the narrative. And the tenuous believability of the far-fetched future just breaks. I am about a quarter through it, I will finish reading it, but likely will not pick up another book in the series. I am wondering

Is it just me against the night

every morning? I light a candle,

light a porchlight, and write,

and pace the kitchen like a worried father.

Tardy again the sun never hurries.

The air sighs like darkness shrugging,

moon drags its shadow

Leaves a chill, behind

and glittering on the leaves

a thousand reflections

at the dew’s point, in each

a glazed wheelbarrow,

a candle alight in the window,

a cherry’s glow,

and the old car in the driveway of

the neighbor’s house,

the red white and blue

jet carrying you away,

Venus rising (or is it falling)

the milky way itself - one side rising, the other falling —

jewels sacrificed to Apollo

the sun god, and the sky is reddening.

Another poem appears on Reddit

rambling like a Cadillac

Draggin' its muffler down an alley --

All noise, no style, like the New Jersey

boardwalk in summer,

like tube-tops and daisy dukes.

"Men are jerks", you whisper,

"Every single one

That I want to fuck is a monster."

​

I hear you, it's not fair to us either.

And so and so,

I don't have to use meter or rhyme

I'll just write the poem like I talk all the time,

I have no artistic inclination.

I'll whip up this amalgamation

of sounds that strike me as poetic.

If you like, read real poetry

you're pathetic. How about I

tell you how I went swimming when I was 9

after winning a horse race, or accidentally spraying mace

in my dad's face, he called me a disgrace. But my mom

said I was a genuis, she call me Ray man

(or was it rain man?) right before she died

I think because I tripped on a cord

that was connected to her life support.

Did I mention my mom died?

She did.

This single drop of dew at the tip of the dark

green blade of a bamboo leaf

reflects the porch light, and

the neighbor’s house, and

the battered car in the driveway, and

the streetlight, and

the red, white and blue twinkling -

a transcontinental jet carrying you to the other coast,

and Venus, rising and falling at once, and

the Milky Way —

the entire universe glitters inside the tiny jewel.

It will be gone by noon.

​

1. a father's daughter
2. [Dear Icarus](https://www.reddit.com/r/OCPoetry/comments/j2cqqr/dear_icarus/g75r07c?utm_sour

With a nod to Jonah Winter

​

Now we’re all “friends,” there is no love but Like,

A semi-demi goddess, something like

A reality-TV star look-alike,

Named Simile or Me Two. So we like

In order to be liked. It isn’t like

There’s Love or Hate now. Even plain “dislike”

​

Is frowned on: there’s no button for it. Like

Is something you can quantify: each “like”

You gather’s almost something money-like,

Token of virtual support. “Please like

This page to stamp out hunger.” And you’d like

To end hunger and climate change alike,

​

But it’s unlikely Like does diddly. Like

Just twiddles its unopposing thumbs-ups, like-

Wise props up scarecrow silences.