5 poems from Levi Wagenmaker

Levi Wagenmaker (1944 - ) is a retired journalist, living in the Netherlands for most of the year, and in France for some of it (in spring and autumn), with three bitches, two of whom are dogs.

'scented candles'

lighting a fat squat candle
set in an ornamental lantern
made to look like pewter
making an open and shut case
for a glass the size of a large beaker
but open at both ends
to allow access to oxygen-rich air
and let wax and wick rest
on a metal base
(made to look like pewter)
(like the rest of the metal
embracing the glass
meant to shield flame from draught)

lighting such a candle
as recidivism tends to entail
slanting a burning match
down into the glass
and scorching the threadbare fur
growing from fingers' hand-bound digits
not all that much hair
but giving off the unmistakable stench
of singed skin
familiar in spite of burning at the stake's
having become unfashionable

furry attributes decorating items
of clothing
are with real or feigned conviction
declared to be synthetic realism
by optimistic retailers
optimising profits by going for
temptingly cheap imports from China

it can be very tempting
to light a match and test the fur's
convincing realism

supposedly a trained nose
should be capable of distinguishing
between the scent of burnt to ashes fur
from suspected
rabbits
cats
or dogs

the incentive to test
smelling a rat

'Eve = First'

touch when we touch
a double entente
per se
you feel me touching you
I feel myself touching you
your touching me with what and where also
registers with both of us
possibly synchronously
but as part of processes separated
in space if not
subjectively perceived
as separate in time
yet
given that received wisdom holds
space-time to be a continuum
our synchronicity of perception
(if taken at its word)
should have us coinciding in place
(space)
just as well

but since the situation belies
that very romantic concept
our being apart together
must be based on our being separated
in time as well
(however fractionally)

I should have kept my thoughts to myself
of course
the bickering has started
as to who felt who and what and where
first

'nanoing'

the nanopoem characteristically
has a length of less
than a single word
a poem completely lost for words
might seem to the ideal form
for nanopoems
but poets' fixation
with getting published
would keep any nanopoems
from getting written at all
(although book dummies could hold
any number of wordless poems and
they would make easy reading even
for illiterate min or maj orities)

(a population limited to one individual
would count as a nanomajority and
a population of none as a nanominority
and in time the former would merge or shift
into the latter ority - the way of all orities)

nanopoems of less than one word
would ideally consist of half of one
of more than three letters since
half of at least one two-letter word
might constitute a personal pronoun

HI

so four-letter words as long as
they cannot be separated into
two sequences of letters constituting
words in their own right

MaMa PaPa

sh
makes a perfectly consistent nanopoem
and so does
ck

'simulacra'

considerable time and effort went into
developing a biomechanical simulator
to learn how elderly persons come
to fall and break bones or otherwise
injure themselves at considerable cost
to healthcare budgets in case of
required hospitalisation not of course
to teach the elderly on how better to fall
but on how to advise them on how to walk
run skip rope bunjee jump without injuries
if they won't just sit tight until they die
(perhaps another simulator is indicated)

'whangdoodle'

G-string theory is also and otherwise
known as jockstrap theory or
thong theory which as a term suggests
the theoretical taste events at the tip
of the tongue of an inquisitive linguist
researching related aspects of etymology
following thong from where it springs
to where it leads an in-depth investigation
bringing up thwang the archaic word believed
to be the source for thong as well as wang
the latter slang and at an earlier stage
rather longer as whangdoodle and denoting
something for which the correct name isn't known
wang names what is known but not mentioned
by name or not correctly other than in a medical context
song lyrics partially remembered mention band members
ready to play 'that wang-dang-doodle' for the duration
of the night a kind of R&B monoculture one must
suppose or a bunch of offbeat etymologists possibly
to hold true G-string or jockstrap or thong theory
must be falsifiable according to a scientific paradigm
wholly unrelated to beaches or wrestling or sandals
or any other whangdoodle of whatever nature