Jimmy Dutton

Poetry

Planting seeds. New poems most days.

Table of Contents

  1. The Cats Meow
  2. In Darkness
  3. Kids These Days
  4. Truth Is
  5. Naive or Sincere?
  6. Exchange

Poems

The Cats Meow

Rouse me from restless slumber
These semi-permanent fixtures
Fixated on midnight toe spasms
    And finger twitches
Pouncing,
Practice to catch the
    Mouse
    Bunny
    Bird
Greeting them through
Impenetrable glass.

Whispers from beyond
The sealed threshold
From semi-permanent fixtures
Semi-transparent like ghosts
    Or glass
    Or water
    All liquid in various states of flow
Now flowing freely and running
    Dry.

These responsibilities reminding me
Impermanence is a kind of permanence
Like a depression
    In a pillow or carpet —
Another flowing liquid, memory,
Reminding me to fill their cup
Lest they go thirsty, and

Rouse me from restless slumber.

In Darkness

In dark room I write
Fountain nib scratching white space black
Between blue lines

A rules follower, I ride
Placid currents, like surfing on the surface
Of a swimming pool, solo

What will you tell them about me
    Many years from now
    When I have seen them go out sailing
        From stranger shores
        On stronger seas
        With stringers strung and swaying
            And hungry for fresh fish
    While I have stayed stationery
    And solo?

Writing in a dark room,
Time ticking. Song ends.
Nothing new to say.

You say nothing new because nothing new exists
In darkness.

Kids These Days

The amusement never ceases
'Round they spin
    The carousel a kaleidoscope
    Of crying, squealing, screaming, laughing
    A blur, a mirage
    Stopping only to recharge
Eat, nap, repeat

Greet the world through a backlit portal
Blue light, blue dog
Glued eyes
Too surprised those blue eyes are blue, I
Remember Blue's Clues
    And Scooby Doos

It happened to me too, that
Algorithm arresting attention from
Kids these days

Truth Is

What do I know about Truth?
I believe it is simple
It represents the experiences we share
Like the sweetness of a watermelon
Snipped from the vine
Sliced into cubes or wedges or half-moons
    That fit perfect in our grasping hands
    So we can run and eat
    Wearing the rind like a toothy grin

Or it is the communal fear and thrill of firsts

Like driving
Gripping the steering wheel, the
Humming engine vibrates through our fingertips, and
Releasing the brake pedal
After selecting a gear
Sends vibrations to the wheels,
Which turn in proportion
To the pressure
Imposed
Upon the accelerator

Thing is
I do not believe Truth is simple

Truth is simple

Truth is simply these feelings we all carry
But our feelings
Inform our Truths

Truth is
There is no Universal Truth

Truth is a spectrum of colors
Viewed under different light
Electric or gas

Naive or Sincere?

Commitment like a condition
Quick
Consume the Kool-Aid
Kill (yourself) or be killed (by us)
Conditional Community
Countless collaborators collide
In calamitous cacophony

One man is no savior
No village survives the poisoned well

What is true

Is that is true
Is what

You see?

We are all of us entangled like two quarks
Or two quacks

What quacks, a duck
What ducks, a man
What mans, what men, what me

Commit
Quick

Exchange

Morning blue gray
Weeping
Untreated wooden slat fence
Swells, bows, cracks, splinters

Property ends, property begins
Fence remains, fence rests, fence retires

Door opens, door closes
Woman emerges, dog emerges
Dog wanders.

Snapshots
Dog one frame, then panel
Like video buffering

Door opens, door closes
Woman retreats, dog retreats

Clucking
Morning song, mourning song?
New life or food, the egg?
Splashing, squelching
Flooded mud impacted, compacted
Footprint fans, footprints ferns fossilized

Weeping subsides
Morning bright blue, bright yellow, bright green

Crickets clicking, chickens chattering
Retreat inside, exchange heat for home
And home for life