These poems were created using the writing toy Icon Poet, which accounts for the "half-random" of the title. Writing with Icon Poet, one supplies structure by clicking on a grid of word categories. Click on a category, and the actual word that appears in the text window is chosen by randomness. It can be replaced by re-clicking the same category, or accepted by moving on to a new category. Word by unlikely word, a poem takes shape.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Cornered like a bread thief
in an oven deep and warm
you're milking every minute
exhibiting your form
glamorous and streetwise
sincerely rich and thin
naturally your leisure
reaches past the skin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Giant snails
grow giant tails
and glide ahead of
giant trails...
of slime.
You cling to rhyme
on account of the time
you traveled the trail
of a giant snail.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jauntily we cruise the zoo
giving donkey rides to who?
or should I say we cruise and zoom,
giving donkey rides to whom?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On their holiday in the Bahamas,
the women who run with the llamas
left bystanders staring
by frequently wearing
substantially lurid pajamas.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Upstairs at the Crow and Larch
colorful and grand with starch,
hunters throw their glory feast
having caught the rampant beast
which these many years eluded
those whose hot pursuit denuded
countryside for miles around
now they'll eat him by the pound.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It's another scary circus, here in Vladivostok town
where the bottles chase the drinking men all up the hall and down
where the doctors calmly watch the room with dollars in their eyes
and Naomi's saucy beauty hides her ragged, ready lies.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
EASTER
To the Easter Rabbit, it's a serious game
deciding which patches of foliage warrant
his challenging eggs, none painted the same
he's hiding delights for the oncoming torrent
of small keen-eyed girls and springy-shoed boys
they're chasing from cupboard to garden to field
filling their baskets and dropping their poise
in the search for the spots where the eggs are revealed.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Break the test tubes, sell the maps
drop your feelings in the hubcaps
Life is sour and flaws extreme
now that Ivy's met her dream
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Have a gimmicky consciousness, key to the guys
that challenge your laughter, admire your disguise,
and offer you frequent and regular testing
to bring out your instincts toward homing and nesting.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That distant oblivious lady
in her youth was decidedly shady
with instincts most treacherous
from liaisons most lecherous
she would send every conquest to Haiti.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Decline and fall like Western Civ
believe in things and money
or chuck the terms by which you live
and dig the changes, honey.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A serious dancer called Leon
was a jumper through bubbles of neon
with a jug on each finger
he was a dead ringer
for someone we'd scatter debris on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jug of water, big and blue
patched with skin and crazy glue.
How it broke, I have no clue
unless some lively kangaroo
drove up in a Subaru
and didn't watch the way he threw
his map of Greater Baraboo -
I just imagine how it flew
and busted that poor jug in two.
That's what I think, how 'bout you?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Early in the concert, dragging through the hall
Buster and Naomi come defending one and all
from images of generations roughened by excess
Who wrote these songs of decadence, and under what duress?