Mudcat Poetry Corner

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 05 Sep 05 - 05:20 PM

Prayer for the Hummingbird
 

 
Down on the lake edge, grasses bow to the cold snow-wind,
And bare aspens agree, bending toward hard waters without solace.
The snowdust wavers in the white eye, sending time into whirls and colors
Into oblivion, although
In California we are not supposed to know
What all these chills are for,
Nor meant to face
This hard bright water blind.

Under the carport, hard edges have been placed
-- They snap at every passage as far
As the heart can hear or even know
Under the law of snow wind
Coloring the very mind.
Those who still have far to go
Must think harder, hold the star
Just there, beyond the frost-long face.

This is where blood and fingers go
The private door
Fighting the private race
And no-one will mind
That time, unkind,
And hardened places
Will not reveal the core ?
Where the real heart knows alone,

Knows and know

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Megan L
Date: 04 Sep 05 - 02:32 PM

GROWING

Here I am again
My hopes my dreams are shattered
On my knees again
Won't you help me now.

And then the sun shines
I turn my back
I walk away from you.

Here I am again
My hopes my dreams are shattered
On my knees again
Won't you Please help me now.

Won't I ever learn?
You want me, to grow up
To put away the toys of my life
You want me, to grow up
To come and be your bride

Here I am again
I've fallen, knees all bleeding
I'm holding out again
Please love me now

Won't I ever learn
You want me, to grow up
To know you always love me
You want me, to grow up
To walk forever by your side.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: frogprince
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 07:42 PM

Saturday Night in Everett, Washington

(from a slightly more innocent time, in July 1967,
when they were called go go dancers, and they
wore complete bikinis)

Sharon's shaking that shapely frame again,
Making goosebumps pop up on the skin,
Making male minds meditate on sin,
Quivering, shivering, stretching your mind thin,
To the unintellectual, sensual, sexual din,
Trembling, twitching, twisting you within,
A graceful animal, molded in skin,
Sharon's go - go - go dancing again.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Leadfingers
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 07:26 PM

I think that I will never see a Billboard lovely as a tree
And seldom can I ever Boast that I have the two hundredth Post

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: frogprince
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 01:14 PM

Goody; I was just trying to figure out how to get at this thread to bring it back.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Frankham
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 11:52 AM

Yeah, Sandy Creek. The Old Man! Fine stuff.

Frank

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 31 Mar 05 - 10:09 AM

One Inch Is Life


The wide plastered wall supports one spidered form
A long-legs, venturing out on long-leg business.
He startles the powers of the place, and does not much care.
That is not his concern, but to step ahead boldly.
One inch is life, centered on white yards of cold stone,
And in that irreverent scuttle lies the gypsy secret.

San Diego
March 31, 2005

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 28 Mar 05 - 09:54 AM

Superstition


A well -fed man farts.
A crow leaps from a high tree,
And flies over the neighborhood.
All this must mean something!

A.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: GUEST,blushing catter
Date: 24 Jan 05 - 11:03 AM

Held, safe and warm in your arms
Protected from the world outside
Took a long time for me to trust
But you in your wisedom, were patient
and waited
And together we healed
And together we cried
And together we laughed
And together we loved

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Leadfingers
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 10:59 PM

On BBC Radio 4 - The Shortest poem in The English language ! 'FLEAS'


Adam


Had 'em






Short and sweet like a roasted maggot !!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 23 Jan 05 - 09:33 PM

From 1993, but still untarnished:

The Monster That Cures the World


The monster that cures the world
Has no middle name and does not know
His family tree past Grandmother, nor
Does he care to. He cannot spell
With high certainty and flounders
In voicing his heart grammatically.

Some say he is a traitor to the race
Because he has only his lifetime to spend
And turned away from history to face his dirty fellows
Hearing and replying, hot and rough.
Condemned by poets to repeat his past
He does not mind, for any grade will serve
As long as there are people in it
And an occasional recess.

The world that cured the monster
Taught him that all faces
Stand for hearts, and names
Have something to them beyond the wind
He had thought was breaking on rot
Inside the many hard menhirs of the world —
Useless except for mumblings and
Sexless derivation.

Between them they may discover
The monster's middle name
And the menhir's conscience. Then will
A moonlit dance ensue
WIldly accelerating where the stones
Meet the heart and the heart makes
Love to form. Such a dance will
Trumpet endlessly across the moors and oceans
Of our time.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 16 Jan 05 - 06:32 PM

Queen of Dreams

Queen of Dreams

What forces the blood that forces the bone
That presses hardly on the soft
Queen of dreams oh, widely, sweet?
That opens the river of days in floods of hope,
A million years calling for being in ten million pounding orders
Rolled down finely to the spilling fire of this instant crying,
Boiled in a power of thousands of two,
Screaming together of now.
Why we all despair and throw in, unleashed, is all because
So much irresistible blood is speaking now at once.

San Diego
January, 2005

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 04 Nov 04 - 05:45 PM

Last at Bat

Handful of spit and dirt
Cleats sunk in the crumbling earth
He huffed a frosty breath of October air.
The sinews still rippled in forearms
As they did nineteen years past
Knuckles white on the handle
as the bat swung slowly in anticipation
Uniform stretched tight across a spreading belly,
and black hair frosted with gray
pinch-hitter for a blasted hurler
in the last inning
of the last game of the year.
Crowd applauds
A few, remembering, stand in salute
and the young pitcher wipes an upper lip
wide-eyed shakes off the call
nods to the sinker
kicks and delivers
The ball a specter in the batter's eyes,
he swings and misses fastball
knife in the shoulder muscle
wincing hard as the catcher's mitt pops
Stepping back
Spits in the dust
yanks shirt-front square
He steps into the box again
flexes aching shoulder
as the bat repeats its slow threat
Pitcher's arm drops
the curve hangs
then dodges his bat.
On third base Schneider takes a lead
The pitcher stares him down
and the batter sees
in split second
the knuckleball grip
before the glove conceals it
He waits and it is thrown
center-shot and numbers-high
no spin
the stitching motionless
as it drops like a round stone
in a dark quiet pool
His shoulder screams at the contact
the hickory electric in his hands
which carry the handle through
as the shattered wooden barrel
skips down the third base line
shortstop vaults in vain
as the ball falls behind him
like a dove shot from the sky
He flings away the broken shaft
halfway to first
sees the baseman strain
toward the expected throw
shortstop scrambling
lump of the bag beneath left toe
snap of the baseman's mitt
and the umpire calls safe
As he turns back to first base
he hears the sound of the crowd
and feels the sweat cooling in his collar
he draws deep breath and holds it in
as if the very air were sweet with magic
and he longed to keep it inside him
for ever

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: chris nightbird childs
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 01:24 AM

Welly, well... as long as we're doing this:

No Revolution -

All my loves lost
& gained in the past
couldn't make a bit of difference
With their sayings and saviors,
& etchings on the backs
of a thousand notebooks
Now it's all down to me
Me, me, me, me

No revolution
No evolution
It won't be reinstated
like an American Dream
What that might be to millions
of unsuspecting people
might not
be that to you…

You can have your white-picket fence,
But how you get there
is up to you
& no one else.
Although people are willing
to live through you,
will they be willing
to die for you too?
---------------------------------------

Wistful Time

The Mayfair gathering outside
Blossoming rose rises in the air
Growing out of the cool ground
Of the garden
The cat's squirrel won't be caught today
Too busy chasing its tail
'round the sitting room floor –
I venture out for a quick smoke,
And notice the glow of lights
Witness the question of 'what?'
A sickness? An end?
It's strange how my life's just begun
So young, so old
I hope, I wonder, I wish them well…

I flick the end into the air,
And it rests on the cool ground
It bounces away its last life –
Walking back inside
I whistle away a wistful time
For senior citizens and squirrels

thanks Cats...

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: katlaughing
Date: 29 Oct 04 - 01:19 AM

The recent additions are great! Keep them coming, folks, and thanks for sharing!

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: UncleToad
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 07:39 PM

Three pieces to ponder...

I have long tried to go home
but the doors
are closed
the windows
will not open
but still I keep on hoping
that someday
    someone
will let me in
***************************

I was half way to the moon
and I thought
this is too damned cold
my ship and my bones
are too damned old
I was half way to the sun
and I thought
this is too damned hot
and like it as not
the heat shield won't hold
(goes back to "too damned old")
***********************************

It seems as though
we slipped
along the way
night after night
day after day
we colored within the lines
kept our blinds
half up and
half down
afraid we would drown
if we wandered
to close
to the edge
of the world
such a lonely death
separated
from the rest
of us
we came for you
but you had gone
hope your new home
is what
you want
it to be...

Thankee kindly, UncleToad

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: GUEST,Eddie O'Hara
Date: 28 Oct 04 - 05:19 PM

A poem I wrote for fun!

Stan McCann's Dinner

Stan McCann
A thinking young man
Thought, "Hot sardines are better!"

So, off he ran
And bought a can
Of sardines for his dinner

Stan, heated the can
In a frying pan
Full of water and let it simmer

Then, taking the can
From the frying pan
He opened it up for dinner

On a chair sat Stan
With fork and can
Sprinkling his salt and pepper

But, as he began
To eat from the can
He said, "Cold sardines are better!"

Moral: What may seem best, is not always best, and sometimes it's hard to know what's better.

Eddie O'Hara(c)2004

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: GUEST,H.B. Carlisle
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 09:14 PM

Hey there, you, walkin' all alone,
    It's me talking to ya, me, the stone!
    Why don't you haul off an' give me a boot?
    I've spent 10 years beside this root.
    I come into town on a gravel truck,
    They unloaded me here and here I'm stuck.
    The guy on my right is old Gravel Gus,
    He got stuck in the tread of a Greyhound Bus,
    Spent 15 years out on the road!
    Woulda' been there yet, but the bus got towed,
    An' he flew out and he landed here,
    Now all his travel tales I gotta hear.
    Guy on my left is Old Man Slate,
    Kid skimmed him across the lake,
    He made 15 skips far and wide,
    And fell in the grass on the other side---
    Say, you look sorta drunk the way you walk,
    And you know durn well us stones can't talk!
                                  H.B. Carlisle

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 10:37 AM

Wow!!

Again awed by your words.


A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: UncleToad
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 09:38 AM

Snow Men

I wonder
where they live
these men of darkness
with nothing to give
save a smile
and a wave.
Flying their rags
like ceremonial flags.
Where do they go
when the snows fly thin
rolling and blowing
with the harshness
of the harsh winter wind.
I wonder if they die
and are replaced
by other men
when springtime rushes in...

Or do they simply bend
and fold themselves
into the blackening night
and wait in stoned silence
for the coming of the light...


...please help homeless veterans.

Thanks to all...UncleToad

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Wilfried Schaum
Date: 26 Oct 04 - 09:00 AM

MESSAGE
to Kurt Vonnegut, Jr
Infantryman, Scout, POW in Germany

Listen
So it goes
An on and on
Imagine that!

Peace

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Chris Green
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 12:37 PM

A haiku my father wrote:

Happiness
Is waking up on Monday
To find that it's Saturday.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 12:34 PM

I emailed Miss Buck and suggested she join and post freely.

A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From:
Date: 25 Oct 04 - 09:17 AM

Dear Mudcat I am sure i know you from another program. We are friends did you ever publish your cookbook? I would truly be honored to have some of my poetry viewed on your site. Please notify me via email if that is okay with you Thanks Bonnie Buck

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 01:29 PM

I am sure there is more and better stuff out there, fellow folkies!

I dunno about better but here's one of the more germane to the singers:

Scraps

A song well writ, each tone in place,
An' harmony's approval marked upon
The temple's face. Rancor was gone,
And envy. Desperation too
Had been dispelled by grace,
Found in the heart's deeper numbers right,
Dug out dark ciphered clay, unleashing light,
Replacing what was lost with what was true.
A song well writ, the singer and the sung-to, You.

# # #

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 09:59 PM

There's a different one called "Jack's People" which you may have in mind, Deda. Thanks for the kind words -- people like you keep the spark alive, for better or for worse!!!

Next time you come to town you can meet Nancy.

Love,

Bro

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Deda
Date: 28 Jul 04 - 09:42 PM

Amos, I thought I had posted an answer to this a few days ago, but it didn't arrive. Thanks for your kind words about the forehead poem. I have always loved your poem about Red, which seems quite different here than I remember it -- has it been revised? And I love the very idea of "liquid origami", which evokes the movement of water, like the currents in a river, folding into, over and below one another. "Nancy" is also lovely!

Congrats to Foolestroupe on getting into print! Bravo.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 04 - 12:28 PM

Dances in Silence

(for Nancy)

You are the dance that has no words and rises
In the spring's own flood to the wind and rain
That sweeps the silence into the noise-worn bone
And raises the laughing of hearts again.

Only there do none dance alone.
The hard breath and wild limbs' sway tells
All the story, and the soul's devises
Rising with the time of far and endless bells.


                                                                                    San Diego
                                                                                    February 21, 2003

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Rasener
Date: 25 Jul 04 - 05:21 AM

Got up this morning and decided to put my thoughts into verse about the events related to changing venue at Market Rasen Folk Club. Never done this before so please excuse me if it not very good.

The Market Rasen Folk Club Blues

One day I had a dream
To start a folk club I did beam
I went along to the social club
Who said luvely jubbly, just the job

So we got started back in March
With much hard work and the occasional fart
The singers got quickly to their task
Much more from them I couldn't ask

It became apparent very soon
These artists sang a lovely tune
People came from near and far
As the club pulled in the money over the bar

Everybody seemed very happy
Until this little chappy
Who rose up from the committee
And said hang on here we want a bigger fee

Now the organiser said get stuffed
The committee they were not chuffed
They gave our Les a red card
Which he thought was rather hard

These little scheming money makers
With brains no bigger than a shred of paper
Would not back down on the price
And thought our Les was in a vice

But with sleeves rolled up and a big determination
Our Les set about finding a new location
This proved very difficult and hard to find
It was becoming such a bind

Then all of a sudden when out of the blue
He found a village hall that would do
The people there are very nice
They have a bar with drinks at an affordable price

This place is called Walesby Village Hall
Where a big welcome will be there for all
So come on down you have a choice
To come and sing with good cheer and voice

So here's a warning to all those money makers
Who want to screw the folk club scene shakers
If you can't see the business sense and get smart
Stick your business up your arse

Cheers
Les

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 04 - 01:03 AM

Congratulations, Robin Goodfellow!

Let me add that the PLURAL of do (3rd person) is "do". "Doth" is singular only. I would fix that were I you.

Best regards,

A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 11:17 PM

WhoooHooo! I been Published for the first time!!!!

QUOTE
Hallo Robin,

This is to let you know that your poem "Gather Ye Pigeons While Ye May" has been published on the Albion Magazine Online website in the Diversions section of the Summer 2004 edition.

Many thanks for your contribution; I really appreciate it.

Cheers,

Isabel
UNQUOTE


Robin

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 09:36 PM

Heart's Places

(For Red Warren)


I.

The man said it all well. As young sunlight and old granite, he was there,
Telling stories of the world. You could feel

The worlds unfolding, taste the weather and strain, the laughing, the passions, see the long hard marches in his words.

He would lean to the children's call, and answer their wishes with worlds in the giving.
As the early sun and the ripe granite do, he gave and gave.

Tell me.


II.                           


Great spirits make great faces, colored and living.

They are the far reachers. They make world spaces,

Founded in fires and in clay, sung in high tempests

Where the hot light flashes, iced where the need for ice is,

So great spirits form the world. More than the season's passing

Marks their time. Imagine...



III.


Red drums over long rivers, black drumming cities

White singing praises, red blood on old sabers

Deep hearts full, iced lakes and hot harvesting

The long highways and the gentle furrows made.


Here is the red man's answer, there are hawks calling.

Here is the black man's sigh, there the hard cut of steel.

Here is hot horse muscle and hoofs on the dirt hills,

There the town of the dull, the wicked, the cross
tongued.

The tire's scream, and the deep cave's silent wait, all in one land.



IV.

Dry pages, running tears and deep frozen glens -- these things
Are one in the heart.

Sad dogs and laughing glory, wines and the open seas, one. Worlds in the giving,

Children can hear him answering: wishes answered with color, living men, strong faces, bright laughing reason.

A far reaching hand shows them: the heart is more than its seasons.

Here is a great spirit making great spaces, and there he is still,

Only ask again, and he will start.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 09:28 PM

Liquid Origami

We believe we know, each seeing
Who folded these deep seams and lines
In the very fabric we are.

The rivers of our times flow through
The spaces so folded; minds
And heart's panic scorch the seams

To feel the hands on the axis
Bringing the deep existnece in
To the lines adored and forming

Believing, we know
Where the folds are made.
To become the river-driver

Answers the fury
Of the plain sheet of beginnings.
Riding the river steals your days;

Reading the folding leads
Beyond the eternal belief--so
we know.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 06:39 PM

Great imagery, Joe_F! Reminds me of Kendall singing Dave Mallett's tune on haying, "Make Hay While the Sun Shines".

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 06:17 PM

Beautiful job, Deda!! Wow!! Stunning -- in every sense of the word.

A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Joe_F
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 06:13 PM

Summer

When home the truck comes high with hay,
And divers splash and sunlight dapples,
And loud black clouds relieve the day,
And chickens peck at sour apples,
And fans drown out the drowsy word,
Then nightly sings the mockingbird
In every mode at disk and dawn,
While sweaty Gabriel mows the lawn.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Deda
Date: 24 Jul 04 - 05:28 PM

I was in a car accident on June 13, forced off the road by an SUV that didn't see me, didn't slow down. Here's a poem.

Missing my forehead

Car having struck cement embankment,
Head having struck steering wheel,
Pushing myself back to sitting up:
Rear-view mirror reflects, just above my eyebrows,
A streak of white skull, and bright red borders.

Faces of strangers show ÒOh God! Oh my God!Ó
But they say, ÒHold still. How old are you?
What is your name? This your nurse.Ó
ÒWhat is your name?Ó I ask them all, each face.
Each face too strong, too polite, too willed, too busy
To say, ÒOh my God.Ó

*********************

Now my forehead shows a well-stitched line,
Defined, of a certain shape, unexpected,
Hard to gaze upon Ð Hard to see reflected
In the gazes I see.

I remember my brow as nothing, a blank space. Not now.
I close my eyes to see it. From here it seems
A buzzing, red line of itch and burn.
It is new. It will fade, soften.
It will not vanish.
This is my face now.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 15 Jul 04 - 06:19 PM

I am constantly being surprised at the insights and skills and art that appears on this thread. Many thanks.



A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Macha
Date: 27 May 04 - 05:42 PM

My life is a thin thread
I spin the thread around my fingers
Winding, winding
Snap

- me

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 27 May 04 - 11:11 AM

That is a rich piece, Micca!

A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Micca
Date: 27 May 04 - 10:54 AM

Senses

The senses
feed us
information
ephemeral and brief
enters
for a short time
Then exits
like a thief

a rose with dewdrops
A hovering kestrel
A kitten playing
Your lover asleep
fresh baked bread
Spring flowers
Crushed Basil
A loved body


velvet
Skin
A climbing rope
A cold beer

garlic
Chilled Chablis
sea on the wind
Fresh pesto

cats footsteps
baby sleeping
owl hoot
lovers groan of pleasure

the senses,
like poems
feed us
in bursts
each glimpse
bite or sniff
complete
in itself
but part
of a whole
picture

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: maisienan
Date: 27 May 04 - 08:36 AM

Woodsmoke

I am the earth
He is the sky
Ever distant and aloof
No matter how high my mountain
It will never be part of him
No matter how bright his stars
They will ever look down
Coldly glinting
Too long I longed for his love
No longer

But you
You are the fire and I am the forest
Be careful
For the smell of woodsmoke so enchants me
If I feed you my debris, my deadwood
We may enhance each other
Gypsies dancing in the clearing
But cling to me and you consume me
Possess me and you destroy me
The morning shows blackened stumps
Grey ashes

Somewhere, somewhere
There is a man of water
A lake at the mountain's foot
A river through the forest flowing
A sea around my shore
And when the rain falls
He will surely come

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: maisienan
Date: 27 May 04 - 08:15 AM

Here's one about my tangled love-life - I'm a taurus woman married to an aquarian - never an easy option - and this poem is for a lovely leo guy I met on Mayday

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: s&r
Date: 27 May 04 - 06:17 AM

Some folk would say
I live by rote
Most of my day
a golden nugget
here and there
along the way

Along the way
A stranger's smile
as if to say
A friendly 'Hi'
A little care
can make my day

Can make my day
Become a song
a tune to play
a major seventh
soft and clear
No price to pay

No price to pay
the smile was free
It made my day
it wasn't much
they didn't care
Some folk might say

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: beardedbruce
Date: 26 May 04 - 03:34 PM

refresh

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: GUEST,Old Doc
Date: 25 May 04 - 04:16 AM

I recently heard a very charming song on the radio and can not seem to find out the title or artist. It is done by a male quartet with a female lead with an intrumental break. Some of the lyrics are: "You don't have to play my request, but I hope that you'll do your best. I've been listening to your show on the radio and you seem like a friend to me." Hope someone out there recognises this gem.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Amos
Date: 24 May 04 - 01:39 PM

Aw, sweet fucking Jesus. LEJ, you put us all to shyme!! Effin' byootiful, man.

A

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 24 May 04 - 01:38 PM

The Witness.

How delicately each flake of snow falls,
Silently landing on it's own carpet.
Swelling the ground relentlessly,
With drifts that ever cover walls.
How carefully the man next door treads,
As he de-ices and prepares his car.
He could use his legs to get to work,
It's not far.
Steadily he reverses from his drive,
Out onto the big main road.
On the ice a lorry skids to avoid him,
And spills its load.
The man next door is just oblivious,
To the carnage he's caused today.
He puts his car in forward gear.
And drives away.

Georgiansilver (2002)
Be Blessed.

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 24 May 04 - 01:28 PM

The Banks of the Far Missouri


While you grappled with budgets
balancing numbers, battling bureaucratic banality
Thumbing through ledgers in a stifling room
Did you look out to the river
placid, seemingly endless
But not to you...
You had traced the path of the water
to its rocky root
stood astride and drank of it
Those days of pain, fear, awe, mystery, transcendence
Marked the crest of your life's wave
Boon companions, grace of savage tribes
Rustle of abalone shells, shrill of eagle whistle
Meat roasted like a sacrifice
in the sacred circle
All this lay across the shining mountains and years away
The long path twisted back on itself at last
leaving your body wounded in the dust of Tennessee
freeing your soul at last
to haunt the banks of the far Missouri

Subject: RE: Mudcat Poetry Corner
From: Blackcatter
Date: 24 May 04 - 12:29 PM

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