Mudcat Poetry Corner

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Joe_F
Date: 30 Jan 09 - 08:33 PM

Pretty is thy thatch, pretty thy fur,
Pretty thy golden ears wherein my tongue
Shall fuck, whereon my lips shall nibble, where
My murmur to embrace shall lovelike reach,
And we shall lie like mortars, each in each,
In wavy luxuries of flesh and hair,
Grasping with teeth at last joy's bottom rung,
Until we clasp as wet as once we were
In the first camp of praise.
                              Some oil drips,
Some burns, and finally the engine bursts.
Suffer our thousandths to be like our firsts,
And we will be content with ears and lips,
With tongues and teeth and fingers; but above
Hover these fears of boredom: thoughts of love. (ca. 1968)

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 11:39 AM

Today's Sheldon reflects on aspiring to poetry.


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:12 PM

In 2004 I had this published in an Anthology of Erotic Verse.
I called it:-
The Noises You Make.

As I gently caress your delicate breasts,
Sof noises emanate from your ears and nose.
I slide my hand from your breast and let it,
Glide slowly towards your abdomen.

I reach the soft mound of pleasure and,
Caress the hair which hides your maidenhood.
All the time kissing, licking and chewing your lips,
My tongue probing the depths of your mouth.

My fingers find your clitoris and so,
Begin to gently massage that little pleasure dome.
The sounds coming from you get louder,
As I lift myself gently on to you.

The noises you make are reaching a crescendo,
As I slide in and out once more.....
I can't help but think to myself,
I wish you wouldn't snore!!!!!


Sorry but all my poetry has a twist at the end.
Best wishes, Mike.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: frogprince
Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:51 PM

Georgiansilver, that is so wrong

          ...and so hilarious.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: romany man
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 04:02 PM

My mate John Barden has put the words from marks in the grass to music, it can be found on you tube, just typr marks in the grass and you know the rest, many many thanks to john for his work on the poem, now it has a voice, again thanks john

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 04:38 PM

Like you, I am just visiting here
From stars or from songs;
I refuse the cold origins of stone and dust
Because there is no truth in them.
You can say such conclusions are mad,
Yet they bring new spaces, laughter, difference.
If your sober analysis is sane,
Why does it lead to solids, entropy,
The inheritance of spite in the wind?

If I say "Let it be mad,
And let us make the most of it."
The world slipping toward occlusion shrugs,
Falling down in the wind,
It can only strive
In the making of nothing.
And though there is no ether by hard measurement,
Something still carries light from the stars,
And something sings from the heart.

AHJ
3-27-2009
San Diego, California

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: katlaughing
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 06:41 PM

romany man, thanks for telling us about John Barden singing your song. It is really beautiful and he's got a wonderful voice.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Joe_F
Date: 27 Mar 09 - 08:09 PM

Epithalamium

A plainclothes imp saw the first second of
a shameless Boston summer love.
Satan blushed and vainly mobilized:
Hell's frontier was compromised.
Up in the universe, everything became
slightly more physical. The same
stuff went on, transfigured by defiance,
just within the laws of science.
Masses of granite kissed each other's faults,
two-stepping quarks took up the waltz,
in a tree's lee, sucking summer heat,
whirlwinds coupled in the street,
crook'd molecules forswore the pentagon,
Don Júan put a condom on,
an ag'd curmudgeon lost himself in lewd
ecstasies of gratitude,
nature turned out a zero-defect freak,
trout held their breath in Boulder Creek,
far from a blazing, basking barley field
the sun exploded and was healed,
shrimp wagged their tails and stirred up the abyss,
English bent itself toward this,
all in a second. There've been eighty million
since: heaven could use a billion.

(1983)

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 01:07 PM

I love that, Joe!!


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 29 Mar 09 - 01:14 PM

The Jester, when he wakes
Finds he has a head full of maps
And no-where to go.
He rolls out to shave, looking for
A madcap renewal service and
Cursing the stubborness of nouns.

"Damn the nouns, nouns, nouns , nouns!"
"Damn the nouns, nouns, nouns! The nouns
Are all against me!", he yells into the mirror behind the sink.
The fog of new water hides the smirk
Of his reflection, and then the wink.
The reason nouns are up in arms is a rumor they have heard,
That he had muttered it in his fitful sleep: "God is a Verb."

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 10:18 AM

#

What is National Poetry Month? National Poetry Month is a month-long, national celebration of poetry established by the Academy of American Poets. The concept is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide aesthetic range and concern. We hope to increase the visibility and availability of poetry in popular culture while acknowledging and celebrating poetry's ability to sustain itself in the many places where it is practiced and appreciated.
#

Who started it? The Academy of American Poets has led this initiative from its inception in 1996 and along the way has enlisted a variety of government agencies and officials, educational leaders, publishers, sponsors, poets, and arts organizations to help.
#

When is National Poetry Month? April. Every year since 1996.
#

Why was April chosen for National Poetry Month? In coordination with poets, booksellers, librarians, and teachers, the Academy chose a month when poetry could be celebrated with the highest level of participation. Inspired by the successful celebrations of Black History Month (February) and Women's History Month (March), and on the advice of teachers and librarians, April seemed the best time within the year to turn attention toward the art of poetry—in an ultimate effort to encourage poetry readership year-round.

T. S. Eliot wrote, "April is the cruelest month." It is our hope that National Poetry Month lessens that effect.

On a lighter note, Chaucer wrote:

    Whan that April with his showres soote
    The droughte of March hath perced to the roote,
    And bathed every veine in swich licour,
    Of which vertu engendred is the flowr

Finally, Edna St. Vincent Millay asked, "To what purpose, April, do you return again?" For National Poetry Month, of course!--->

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 02:53 PM

Sundown Meadow

No man built this church
These dark groves of old aspen
keep their secrets in shaded depths
The slanted sun showers the ridge with golden light
aspen leaves quake green and silver in the soundless breeze
A field in yellow flower
each stem illuminated in the setting sun
Myriad of tiny insects drift between the blooms

Elk emerge like brown spirit shapes
from the distant treeline
Above, snow-topped peaks subdued to silhouettes
as the sun's last brilliance is given to the meadow
Your hair, lips, breasts the color of the sun
and the sun's heat within you

Here the Piper might be heard behind the silence
summoning the stars
to emerge from groves of night
and hold court with the quarter moon
Here the evening is bourne gently
on long shadows

Two wheels brought the two of us here
up a twisted path
to speak of building a home in the meadow
only to know we shall never dwell within this
but that instead this hour
shall dwell within us

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 03:46 PM

LEJ:

Wow. Beautiful. Makes me jealous!!!


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: frogprince
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 06:37 PM

I'll second that, E.J.; beautiful thruout, and the "punchline" is sublime.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Joe_F
Date: 06 Apr 09 - 09:06 PM

When April pours the colors of a shell
Upon the hills, when every little creek
Is shot with silver from the Chesapeake
In shoals new-minted by the ocean swell,
When strawberries go begging, and the sleek
Blue plums lie open to the blackbird's beak,
We shall live well -- we shall live very well. -- Elinor Wylie

*

BITS

There once were ones, now dead as Napier's bones,
Who, once they'd reached the right-foot little toe,
Had barely got the sheep down past the teens,
But you can toggle off a million beans,
Add five percent, and still be home for tea.
A *software artist*! That's a thing to be
(Trade-jargon with lascivious overtones)!
Another (string, hell!) fiddle for your bow!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: GUEST,William Everett (was Zeke)
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 01:59 PM

If I were a proton in a microwave oven
(which is an electron accelerator),,
I might see history, as it has seen me:
starting to know me with Neil's Bohr,
...the Moses of the nucleus....
I am atomic number, and my nemesis neutrons have me in my cocoon,,,
someday, in new age, I will escape in a proton beam..
I have a love/hate relationship with atom smashers,
and the nuclear forces
that have bound me,
only able to feel my lady electrons,
not able to consummate them,,,
and the microwave oven fights me as I try to pull them ever
closer,, It is an electron accelerator, and I cannot beat that,
only someday hope to join it, and butterfly away
....! But, all we have now is patters of waves,
orbits, I feel your spin,,
lovely electron lady but you move so fast that I cannot pull you in,
as if the earth was to be swallowed by the sun...!
Why how my urge could be so destructive of your flight...!!
!!!!!!!!,electron shells is sometimes a lonely word,
only used in high school chemistry ,
and then you forget how much more I am than a puny proton,
or lowest of all the lousy leptons....!!.
. I am so much larger than there subatomic particles,
quarks are jokes that I tell my friends...
And when ionized..oh what a lonely atom it is!!!.
Unless we have gained an electron,,,!!
Even then often I have to share with protons in other nuclei,,,
and you do not know the pains I have felt, when bonds are broken,,,
I only can survive it by becoming a teacher....!!!....
Heisenberg saw that he could not see me, and know where I am at the same time....
Someday I will chase those photons in a beam,
Screaming to know what is on the other side of the nearest black hole,,,,
I will travel thru and you will call me quasar worm hole,
brightest, and longest of all lights, little bang until you get close,,
believe me it is BIG, big bang when you get close,,
Quasar is God's light.....and the end of black night...
A new dream,,endless stream....have faith

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Joe_F
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 08:40 PM

From a letter to a friend, in response to a poem of his, 1981:

...whose shitkickers still stick in T.O. clay,
I greet you gratefully from far away.

Mine crackle broken glass: Greetings from Boston,
where people are abstractions on concrete --
plenty to look at, very few to meet.
It's true there's Culture, but that mostly lost on
The likes of me, who value most the chance
I've had to get _away_ from Entertainment.
Being an urbanite has in the main meant
not this or that expensive song & dance,
just easy simple ways (at least so far)
to mind my business & not own a car.

You like me "more than most", it says here. Well!
more than you like most? more than most like me?
Bless English for the ambiguity.
In either _case_, it's good I got the hell
away from there, so we could talk at last.
You've noticed how unlikely conversation
is in our bourgeois corner of the nation.
Pisses me off. Jacques Barzun thinks it has t-
o do with feeling only feelings matter --
and fights start if you dig beneath the chatter.

Well, no-one's more afraid of that than I --
but now I must be careful what I say
or damn sure I'll drive even you away:
Right-minded people always wince & sigh
when someone "runs coself down", but the trouble
is that your comfort-worshiping taboo
gives me no better things to say or do --
it just makes half the world unmentionable.
The reigning bitch permits no comment on her:
once it was Sex, then Death, and now Dishonor.

Besides, you likewise must have had enough
of Brechtian Byronics by this time.
(But Koestler hints Brecht really took the rhyme
scheme -- and a poem -- from Villon, whose stuff
I've never read. I think I'll check him out,
now that I've breached the Widener's straitened gate.
He'll have been bucks for someone to translate
in this new age of raunch, I have no doubt.)
So, trusting you'll come back, I'll let you go
and grant you peace.
                      Love,
                      F
                      a/k/a Joe

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Nehi
Date: 12 Apr 09 - 10:55 PM

Paying my dues.
Copyright 2006 – Tennessee Jim

I'm standin' on the corner with my guitar in my hand
Yeah, I'm standin' on the corner, with my guitar in my hand
Playin' for tips from anybody I can.

Keep wonderin' if I'll make it out of this town
Wonderin' if…I'll make it out of this town.
Before whiskey or the Devil puts me down in the ground.

Chorus:
Just playing the blues
And payin' my dues.
Livin' a hard life
but one that I choose.

Rode an eighteen wheeler up from New Orleans
Old eighteen wheeler, up from New Orleans
Running from a woman, and some bad cocaine.

She started talking marriage and settlin' down
Talking 'bout marriage…and settlin' down.
Had to take my guitar, get the hell out of town.

Chorus:
Now I'm playin' the blues
and payin' my dues.
Waiting on the the good Lord
To give me good news.

The wind's pickin' up, I feel a chill in my bones
North wind's blowing, I feel a chill in my bones.
Winter's coming on and I gotta go home.

I hear the whistle blowin', on the evenin' train
Hear that whistle blowin', on the evenin' train.
Take me back to Mississippi or New Orleans.

Chorus:
I'll keep on playin' the blues
and payin' my dues
I'm gonna go back home
Where there's nothin to lose.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Nehi
Date: 13 Apr 09 - 03:41 PM

Lethe—

The phone sat at his side for two days.
Stagnant air, sweaty, opaque enclosed the house-
Uterine walls suffocating the adult fetus within-
A birth long overdue—silence screamed at him.

Measured portion of bran and fruit—no coffee—some juice
instead.

another procession of measured meals and self-injected insulin.
. . . Running out of places where the skin's not pricked.

Kyrie Eleison.

He roamed through deserted room after deserted room
with whispers haunting where his mother was-
the funeral dirge, the cousin twice removed,
the chicken soup and ham and cheese,
the lapel rent, the priest paid.
He fluffed the pillows—straightened the shade.

Measured portion of fruit—green salad, no salt . . .
another in procession of measured meals and sel-injected insulin.
Running out of places where the skin's not pricked.

Kyrie Eleison.

He turned on the iron. Filled the water just so.
Readied the starch, removed the plastic and tags and pressed.
He had an important date and must get dressed.
Every wrinkle gone. Handkerchief and undershirt clean.
But there seemed no end to the wrinkles and
he scorched the shirt—but on the tucked-in part.
It wouldn't show.
Measured portion of fish and greens—bottled water. . .
Another in procession of measured meals and self-injected
insulin,
Running out of places where the skin's not pricked.

Kyrie Eleison.

He took the polished key. Unlocked the drawer.
Sifted through neatly stacked statements.
Wrote the checks. Stamped them paid.
Two months ahead. Should be enough.
Returned the key. Thoughts of all he
owned.
Empty, hollow thoughts.
then turned instead and read from "Prufrock" and The Confessions,
donning mendicant robes.
Insensed air around the pallid priest, "pater noster, qui est in calis."
A blessed Saint Anthony. A cup of tea. A peach.
Running out of places where the skin's not pricked.

Kyrie Eleison.

"Keep things private. All's in order," he wrote.

Dressed in pressed clothes--(Dawn comes soon after the moon falls)—
"Mustn't be late. 440 to 65 North. Off at Shelby. 17 blocks down.
10 minutes, no traffic."

He had practiced Saturday and every night since then.

He parked at the lake. The rains had not come as promised to cool the
stagnant air. So
he plodded through the Stygian nights 17 blocks
watching the city expand large before him. Diminishing him.
A gunshot rang to is left. A domestic dispute that did not involve him.
He wished it did.

He ascended the crest of the tumid river. Torpid,
he studied the sluggish slough of despond below. A pilgrim himself.
A propitiation. And
he though of measured meals and self-injected insulin.

He'd run out of places where the skin's not pricked.

The General Jackson found him tangled under a riverfront dock.
"No tourist saw, thank God. Might blemish the city. You can't shield
everybody from everything."

As they pulled the body from beneath the dock, they noted,
"he had his shoes and his socks on and his shirt tucked in."

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 13 Apr 09 - 03:48 PM

Vivid stuff indeed, Nehi. Thanks.


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 01:39 PM

Middling

No ruts, no wheels, no wagonloads;
Cleaving to the dry middle hump of the road,
Safe in the center of neglect.
A quiet middle, free of intersection
For meetings are always done at the edges.
Minds that live here fear the ditch and hedge
And define their paths by staying away
From all directions. Heaven
is not desired, and the dull middle voice
Goes to eleven.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 18 Apr 09 - 03:16 PM

Very well done, A.

Nehi, that gave me a chill. very strong stuff.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Nehi
Date: 20 Apr 09 - 05:52 PM

Thanks, that's my daughter's work.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amergin
Date: 18 Jun 09 - 01:28 PM

The Midnight Snack

I reach inside my close cropped hair
and graze my fingernails along my scalp
summarily probing for the banquet
I unearth it, as it twists aroung, dark and fair,
newly emerged from the nits sown
upon the ruddy stalks of fur
it's miniature legs squirming alongside
my avaricious thumb and forefinger
as I heave it into my mouth
with ravenous bravado
savouring the quiet crunch within

nt

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: frogprince
Date: 18 Jun 09 - 03:23 PM

LMAO Amerigin; was that based on a recent personal experience? : ).

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Joe_F
Date: 18 Jun 09 - 05:54 PM

An extra stanza, written ca. 1980:

Saw a crawdad big as a whale:
Jesus bugs fucking -- I was on their scale,
Sugar babe.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 09 - 03:32 PM

Then came a software engineer, a man
Of registers and bytes, of
Nors and Ifs,
And calls to subroutines. He said, "I know
in life's raw fire a thing may be so
And be at once not so, and both be true.
But this truth I cannot allow,
It will not make a tool somehow
Or move an algorithm to resolve
The data it is given. Truth
Is not the use to which I strive,
Or how we, in my trade,
Are paid, how we survive."

A lawyer friend, sharing the patio, replied,
"I understand. The truth that may abide
Is vastly overrated in the normal flow
Of our affairs. I too cannot allow
The glittering lure of truth to force itself
Into cases, or their place in law. You and I
Are brothers in pursuit of some other good,
Knowing the data has no use than
That to which it can be put."

Just then, a summer rain began,
And both the lawyer and the engineer,
Laughing, took their wine
And retreated to the family room.
A large screen brightened up the space,
Offering basketball of great importance to them both.
ANd so they settled on their path
For the next few hours, watching the brilliant
pixels change, and change and change,
And thirsting for the game, between the ads,
Neither thinking the other one was mad.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: greensue
Date: 15 Jul 09 - 06:42 PM

Just a Drop

Drip, drip, drip.
The sound of life
In the cool of the morning.
From tree to bush,
Blade of grass
To Scorched earth.
Drip, drip, drip.
Drink green sprouting shoot,
Drink the blood of the land.
One drip, would clean a child's eyes!
One drip, moisten cracked lips.
One drip, moisture for the swolen tongue.
For me, it runs throughmy fingers
Like the gold of a jeweler.
For you, it's maybe soon.
Maybe, matbe.
How could I get to be so old
Without realising how wealthy I am?
Drip, drip, drip.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 17 Jul 09 - 06:10 PM

From Deda:

Reading a Poem

I commit to read a poem.
I stop everything else. I sit down. I read.
I taste each word in each line.
I take in, know the feelings.
I come to the end. I consider the whole.
I study the poet's name, the blurb.
(He died young. He grew up in Brooklyn.)
Finally I declare that I am done. I will not read the next one.
Otherwise
I would sit there with the pages forever,
Turning, reading, rereading, tasting, drinking.
But no. I stand, set down the pages, and walk, purposefully.
I look, act in command. But my head is blowing up.
I have opened up a box, and things are flying out.
Words fly around my head like Harpies.
They scream and swoop and laugh and cry.
Sometimes they fly together into phrases, lines.
"Pine!" yells one. "Spruce!" yells the next,
and they cackle and swirl in circles,
like swallows in traffic, daring cars to hit them.
"Trees?" I ask, "or verbs?" "YES!" they shriek.
"And STREET names! PLACES!
Names of SHOPS! AROMAS! TEXTURES! COLORS!"
They taunt me. They are Harpies, Furies
Who want me to turn them into Kind Ones,
Into Eumenides. I don't know how.
I would have to write, and write, and write,
Take their dictation, until they drop to sleep.
And then they might be altered.
For some little while, perhaps.
They will pursue me, in any case.
If I read for ten minutes, they will chase me for hours.
I have to buy a mop and a pan, I have to clean the kitchen.
I have to look for work.
This is why I don't read poems
As often as I might.

July 14, 2009

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: katlaughing
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 11:17 AM

More reasons to Keep Writing Them!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amergin
Date: 20 Jul 09 - 02:44 PM

Memorial Day

Memorial Day. The sun is punching through
the threadbare residue of the cumulous clouds,
a hazy veil of indigo sky heralding the ordained
invasion of summer. The battalions of young
libidinous girls march in formation as they cruise
the unkempt thoroughfares of downtown Portland,
their uniforms of skintight shorts, and miniskirts,
unmask newly shaved legs scintillating with the
lubricating dew of perspiration. Their breasts, scantily
obscured by bikini tops and low cut blouses, jangle
with the penetrating goose steps of their high
heeled sandals. The volunteers of this estrogen
brigade are flourishing fuchsias aspiring to be
harvested from the yielding topsoil of their
birth, a desperation engendered from the
eroticism of the antiquated spring.

nt

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amergin
Date: 22 Jul 09 - 03:01 AM

A Late Night Walk

An hour and a half passed midnight,
To the west is the taunting tail of the false sunrise
Birthed by the counterfeit luminosity of the metropolis
Just beyond this swathe of animated timber, protruding
Through the rippling channel of the Columbia
A crane traipses down the unyielding planks of the marina
In a twitching prance reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs
Beak protracted before him, pitching from stem to stern
Along his S sculptured throat, with each dodgy step,
To the incessant screeching of the steel gangway
Chafing against the dock, with the minute swells
Manufactured by the rapacious currents
I recline on the serrated surface of a picnic table
The iron bolts swiftly refrigerating the sweltering moisture
Saturating the obsidian cotton of my t-shirt
Arms elevated to shroud the streetlights
Endeavouring to suppress the celestial painting from my vision
The galaxy, the universe, cavort their pirouetting jig above me
An intricate spider web of vibrating stars
Each a solitary flame, a candle floating in a window
Compelling, navigating their sailors home

nt

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: greensue
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 05:08 PM

Come on you brilliant lot, more required please.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 06:11 PM

Jane's Eyes

Jane's eyes can not detect the way
and so she was guided slowly to the table
"Ah the Sun!" she said
We sat on the bright terrace
heat rising from the painted deck
a breeze rustled the table cloth
Jane sat silently as a buzz of conversation
rose in the warm air
she wove her fingers together
then, said "what is out there?"
the buzz ceased, "rocks and trees" said Vic
-a fact no one could dispute-
but Jane's fingers worked again, her head more inclined
I said "we are perched on the rim
of a great valley. I see shadowed ridge lines
5 and 10 miles away, partly obscured
by great pines that stand before us
below, perhaps 200 feet, there is a small meadow
where deer would graze, and a trail to follow
ending in a defile where a creek
might roll in rain"
A toast was raised by someone, I raised my glass
and gazed upon the hundred purples of the distant ridges
and I drank of it long and deep
despairing of words

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jul 09 - 06:45 PM

As brilliant as they come.


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:23 PM

Dreaming As a Blue Whale

And then I dreamt I'd lost my ship at sea
And swept up in the storm, was slammed among the broken spars,
Hit on the head, and taken down by salt waters at last.

Finding this broken skull and drowned flesh beneath
My standards, I left it, and drifted
The length and depth of the Pacific, trying to understand.

I found at last a settling place, descending
Into the form of a blue whale calf, new-borning
And felt it was something I could be. So I kept it.

Imagine the learning! How deep is down, how often up,
Blowing with precision, spy-hopping, how to fight
For love and sing to the clan at depth. Not an easy course.

Especially the singing--in my dream I kept remembering the Shirelles,
And wanted to sing Doo Wop to the blues around me, oooo-wah.
But the elders butted me and the rest ignored my trying Blue Moon.

My mother loved me, though, and knowing that was enough.
I practiced using my voice, alone on the 100 fathom line,
And sang remembered pops in whale tones. I got good, too!

I even mastered the Shhh in Sh-Boom, a foreign sound. And
When the time came I had to be my own whale,
I could do a dozen numbers from the Fifties. So

I cruised the oceans looking for a research team with
Microphones in the water and when I found them,
Of course I sang Dream and Santa Catalina, in dark whale tones.

It freaked them out, of course, and then they lured me to some bay
And I would breach and bellow The Book of Love or Donna
Octaves below "C", splashing down and rising again for the chorus.

Crowds in small boats and large bobbed out to hear it! It was a wonder!
How could a whale learn such old tunes? I was a smash, a blue baritone hit.
But after a while people began to say it wasn't that good.

They were annoyed because I wouldn't pronounce
The words as well as the originals they loved,
And became disenchanted with me. Attendance fell. So I left,

Went back to the deeps, started my own family
In bottomless waters where I sing
To the calves as they grow, about the Book of Love.

The dream ended well, even better than the original, I think.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 02:51 PM

A whale of a tale!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 29 Jul 09 - 04:13 PM

YEah, but it makes me wonder what the hell I've been smoking....




A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: GUEST,Neil D
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 10:42 AM

Many ages gone and I hold him near
Centuries silenced this sweet voice I hear
Faded by time's mists to my eyes so clear
Who asked where are the snows of yesteryear

As bold as cold brass, so wracked by sick fear
Loving God, robbing churches, crime his career
Despicable man whom we hold so dear
Who asked where are the snows of yesteryear

Luxurious days, the life so auster
Cynical soul whose heart was sincere
As common as sod no other his peer
Who asked where are the snows of yesteryear

Passed from here for half a millenium
Still atop poetic continuum

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 11:18 AM

Proposing

I will not say my heart is thundering,
My mind isn't glazed with awe, or sauteed with pity;
But I think of you often, and have been wondering
If you might see the possibility. This is what I saw.

I will be the measurer, and the counter of dimension.
I will do your taxes. If you could just make sure
I have something to eat, not junk, but not raw
And you can be in charge, too, of feng shui, colors and time.

I will count up your RAM, your voltages, your ROI,
You my carbos and my waist, and tell me when
To get a haircut. So we could live,
A good arrangement, one that good save
Nine per cent of our combined incomes before taxes.

You do the food, I'll do the numbers.
What more could we need? Come on,
And say, "Yes". It's sensible!
It could be fun!
Now where are you going?

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:29 PM

The Carnival King

From Snow and Ice He arose
Decked in finest Motley
and wearing the Fool's Crown
We proclaim Him King!
His throne is gold
studded with gems
yet it is deal withal
covered with paint and paste

And He has reigned a Fortnight
We have hallowed Him with strong drink
and Wantonness
with song and dancing
until we are spent
This morning ends His reign at last
We drape Him in ivy
His throne decorated in sheaths of corn
Drowsy from His revels He takes little notice
as young girls pull Him on a wagon
through the village street

At the river he is cast down
ripped with scythes and pelted with stones
and given His true name
For He is Death
and He must Die
to bring Life to us all

To the birds upon the leaves
To the roots that twist in soil
And so we have torn Him
taunted and beaten Him
and cast His bones into the furrows

The Carnival King is Dead!
and we shall live another year
For He is Death
and He has Died
to bring Life to us all

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:56 PM

Ferociously good, Ernie!! Whew!


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: katlaughing
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:58 PM

Time goes and steals our lives
Leaving us shaking our heads in the dust
Left behind in its wake of childhood,
School-yards, partners, lovers, children, loss and love.

Left to introspection sidetracked for years
The dust settles, sight is clear, if chosen,
Paths cross or separate or veer off to the unexpected
We say, "Well, I never!" Or, "Wouldn't've believed it!"

And there we go...filling up or in time,
Making our own dust devils, feeling alive again
Dancing, crying, building up, pulling down
Opening up, closing up, and moseying along.

(So rusty! Just a few fragments. I'll have to get up to speed. You fellahs are doing so great!)

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 05:17 PM

I like it, Kat. God knows I have some dust I'm dealing with.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 05:20 PM

Oh Poet

To possess that anima mundi
To wield that red branch

If I a rat-rhymer could be

To curse and to rail and make strong men quail
To succor the frail and balance on my tail

Like a kangaroo

Another rat, whose poetry
a physical loquacity,
spreads and commands many

Whose rhetoric of power and grace
Controls the pack and the place

To thump about with huge wordy feet
Kick box my meaning at obscurity's face

Not merely anonymous commentary, from me
But hard earth shattering truths

Well aimed and landed hits

Oh a poet to be.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 05:34 PM

"To thump about with huge wordy feet
Kick box my meaning at obscurity's face"

Great lines, VT. Remind me of the lines

"a poem should be palpable and mute
as a globed fruit"

Words you can hold in your hand. Or in your case, even sprain a finger.;>)

Neil, I am motivated to know more about Francois Villon
now.

"Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?"....Catch 22, Joseph Heller

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: VirginiaTam
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 06:04 PM

Cereal Killer or Serial Liquor (I haven't figured out which yet)

Take 'em all
Seinfeld and his lucky charms
Friends, Ellen - I am not Mad About You
"Silly rabbit sitcoms are the skids"
and all the rest of the prime time
got to syndicated hell
Flakes
put them in a bowl and just add
a Dairy Coucil public servant
annoucing
"I won't always look like this cause I'm drinking"
HEAVILY
and when they are soggy the Madison Ave hypies won't bite anymore
even K-E- double L- O- double good won't eat them
And neither will Mikey cause he hates everything.

I do everything my Rice Krispies tell me to do.
Diggum

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 30 Jul 09 - 07:11 PM

I do everything my Rice Krispies tell me to do.

That is a GREAT line, BTW!! LOL!


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Jeri
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 05:27 PM

Those without the oak door thundered
Yet it was I who spoke 'four hundred'
I wondered, but I should be fine
The last one was three ninety nine
Oh be you counters of the hundreds wary--
You think you're safe, and then comes Jeri

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: frogprince
Date: 31 Jul 09 - 06:05 PM

I( can't read that now without picturing, and "hearing", Jeri singing it; cute, but not as impressive as two weeks ago this evening. :-)   Dean