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Mudcat Poetry Corner
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: frogprince Date: 31 Jul 09 - 06:08 PM I(can't (figure out where that (parenthsis came from either... |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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!) |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 30 Jul 09 - 04:56 PM Ferociously good, Ernie!! Whew! A |
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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 |
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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? |
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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 |
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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 |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Lonesome EJ Date: 29 Jul 09 - 02:51 PM A whale of a tale! |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 29 Jul 09 - 12:23 PM 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. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 28 Jul 09 - 06:45 PM As brilliant as they come. A |
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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 |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: greensue Date: 28 Jul 09 - 05:08 PM Come on you brilliant lot, more required please. |
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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 |
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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 |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: katlaughing Date: 20 Jul 09 - 11:17 AM More reasons to Keep Writing Them! |
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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 |
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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. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: frogprince Date: 18 Jun 09 - 03:23 PM LMAO Amerigin; was that based on a recent personal experience? : ). |
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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 |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Nehi Date: 20 Apr 09 - 05:52 PM Thanks, that's my daughter's work. |
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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. |
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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. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 13 Apr 09 - 03:48 PM Vivid stuff indeed, Nehi. Thanks. A |
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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." |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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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! |
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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. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 06 Apr 09 - 03:46 PM LEJ: Wow. Beautiful. Makes me jealous!!! A |
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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 |
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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!---> |
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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." |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 29 Mar 09 - 01:07 PM I love that, Joe!! A |
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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) |
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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. |
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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 |
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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 |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: frogprince Date: 31 Jan 09 - 12:51 PM Georgiansilver, that is so wrong ...and so hilarious. |
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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. |
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Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner From: Amos Date: 31 Jan 09 - 11:39 AM Today's Sheldon reflects on aspiring to poetry. A |
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