The Blue Girl

My uncle Walter still cannot believe he’s dead.
In those times he requires companionship, sitting
by the tilted world comprised of a pastiche, of lives.

The prairie near Winnipeg, howling hollows of
Buffalo; open coal pits above which my father abides
among train carriages at the ready: preparing

to watch the small television propped in the sky
canvas, against the backdrop of a playground,
laundry hung like kites across the horizon stop sign.

A little bit of home goes a long way in this hell,
or purgatory you must alter to the habitable says
the beautiful blue girl: her body abandoning
the battleground, the
absent atmosphere for which oxygen is a bribe.

©Dean Baker

from forthcoming Phantoms Of The Northern Forests

my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

IF YOU CAN, IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED

NEW BOOKS COMING SOON

SHADOW BOXING THE INFINITE

THE NEW POETRY HOTEL

STEEL BUTTERFLIES

and

PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN FORESTS

The Path Rises Up To Meet Us

for C.L.B.

Long ago you spoke of how we walked
along this road, somewhere in the country
talking of books, huddled in quiet surroundings
without any need for eyes on depth, nor
any deed misplaced: no errors stayed if they
even took place where we tread a measured pace

Listening I thought, always listening to the sky
for instance talking above us without intrusion
we carried it on our backs until it could not
be told where the presence arose: we
sheltered in the spaces between words, memory
made from the path unfolding from our steps

I like to think in that dimension we still move
there; shorn of memory, and absent bitterness,
the ache of circumstances flea-biting at our necks,
not ghost-like those of whom I spoke, but these
times conquered: altered by an alchemy we cannot
pretend to understand but rise to meet again

©Dean Baker

my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

IF YOU CAN, IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED

NEW BOOKS COMING SOON

SHADOW BOXING THE INFINITE

THE NEW POETRY HOTEL

STEEL BUTTERFLIES

and

PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN FORESTS

I’m Your Poet

I had no investment in failure

Even now as I am surrounded
drowned out
eclipsed by lesser minds of the
compromised
those contrived by contumacious
diplomacy

whose only requirement is for
their names to be added
to the roles of individuals
called as typical of the times

the committee
of the designated in this century
admired and feted
for what they supposedly suggest

I did not cave in
under the subtle torment of fresh
anonymity

or the fact that I’d be rescued
if only I could be blessed
by those who confess to nothing

absent ideas
somehow satisfied to betray
everything they do not represent

©Dean Baker

my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

IF YOU CAN, IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED

NEW BOOKS COMING SOON

SHADOW BOXING THE INFINITE

THE NEW POETRY HOTEL

STEEL BUTTERFLIES

and

PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN FORESTS

My Heart A Fist

All around was destruction and futility,
my heart become a stone centering this, now
target of opportunity knowing I must
escape the closed fist clenched against
what had already crept in unannounced

except by sleeplessness amid alien shifts
of those who would not welcome anything
but all must prove obedient and adrift
while a longing for what had been pleasant,
uncomplicated and feeling missed

remained signals of the slow collapse of all
absences compressed into the mist, the
invisibility, a loss too pronounced
to be defined by sentiment capturing it
into anything else but representatives

of the good and true and beautiful
not masquerading as anything but themselves
free above the landscapes looked upon,
subject not to the evil minions of trivialities
raised up and worshipped senselessly

in an obsession with decay and cowardice
captives of all that’s ancient and untrue, yet
aware that flight is song and life not death-in-waiting
nor the traditional suicide of massed conformity
of minds closed and refusing the abyss

©Dean Baker

from a forthcoming book, Phantoms Of The Northern Forests

my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

IF YOU CAN, IT WOULD BE APPRECIATED

NEW BOOKS COMING SOON

SHADOW BOXING THE INFINITE

THE NEW POETRY HOTEL

STEEL BUTTERFLIES

and

PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN FORESTS

Age of Extinction

Herded, micromanaged
housing units become small,
cities of the rich
cement playgrounds for crooks
politicians
after all, 10 million
lemmings can’t be wrong, nor
their detractors
this potato famine backwards
this collectivization
the new Gulag of extinction
hive and ant farm

first, they taught us how not
to think, thus not feel
except for the usual directives
we had sinned we aren’t corporate
no propaganda
unless they own it swarming
forward, forward
landscape and sentiment shifts
the cage, boss, the cage
the new Society Humaine
the needle is slim and invisible
does not exist officially

we do have the rage against
the slings and arrows
accepted attitudes of violent sheep
huddled beneath
this manufactured age
gnawing cheese, stealing advantages
not resembling a leash
yes, we are their experiment
soon to be better as usually
gone too soon before being
exchanged
for a tomorrow never to arrive

©Dean Baker

my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

NEW BOOKS COMING SOON

SHADOW BOXING THE INFINITE

THE NEW POETRY HOTEL

STEEL BUTTERFLIES

and

PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN FORESTS

https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

Be Yourself

Be yourself they say, and every asshole
celebrates their swiss-cheese personalities
of family dysfunction, bullying
sociopathic disease and invert tendencies.

Those involved in ersatz philosophy
and the imitations of thought jump for joy
but not far enough at the simplicity
granted to save them from further savagery.

Be of good cheer each hopes to hear
while desiring to punch the listening ear,
the open mouth chewing cud noisily,
the lack of manners and sick breeding.

Love me for who I am each proclaims,
I have your back the better to slip
the knife between ribs, with Novocain since
this will hurt me more than you I say gloriously.

The dead in the audience have not heard,
yet applaud entertainment removing
them from the arms of reality
where they cannot breathe and worship murder

oh so religiously.

NEW BOOKS COMING SOON

SHADOW BOXING THE INFINITE

THE NEW POETRY HOTEL

STEEL BUTTERFLIES

and

PHANTOMS OF THE NORTHERN FORESTS

https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

In The Garden

Your scent on me lingers,
so sweetly I imagine,
it’s changing my fingerprints,
transforming my identity

Leaving me with another aura,
than the one I had
when we first met, and
confessed to making love

Until there’s no resemblance
to the man I was –
the person I now am,
the one who wishes, again

To enter you, and drink
from this fountain of youth,
while you taste
of the hidden knowledge

forbidden fruit, paradisiacal bliss

my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

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my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

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my books on Amazon https://www.amazon.com/Dean-J.-Baker/e/B00IC6PGQM/

“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

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“An inspired set of poems. Dean gets to the essence of a subject.”

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