Poet's Corner

[midcan5]

A beautiful piece of work MC...

I agree and someone I was not familiar with till now. We are approaching an Anthology in this thread. A lighter piece.

'Wedding Dress'

"That Halloween I wore your wedding dress,
our children spooked & wouldn’t speak for days.
I’d razored taut calves smooth, teased each blown tress,
then—lipsticked, mascaraed, & self-amazed—
shimmied like a starlet on the dance floor.
I’d never felt so sensual before—
Catholic schoolgirl & neighborhood whore.
In bed, dolled up, undone, we fantasized:
we clutched & fused, torn twins who’d been denied.
You were my shy groom. Love, I was your bride."

Michael Waters

 

[American Horse]

EVOLUTION

When you were a tadpole and I was a fish
In the Paleozoic time,
And side by side on the ebbing tide
We sprawled through the ooze and slime,
Or skittered with many a caudal flip
Through the depths of the Cambrian fen,
My heart was rife with the joy of life,
For I loved you even then.

Mindless we lived and mindless we loved
And mindless at last we died;
And deep in the rift of the Caradoc drift
We slumbered side by side.
The world turned on in the lathe of time,
The hot lands heaved amain,
Till we caught our breath from the womb of death
And crept into light again.

We were amphibians, scaled and tailed,
And drab as a dead man's hand;
We coiled at ease 'neath the dripping trees
Or trailed through the mud and sand.
Croaking and blind, with our three-clawed feet,
Writing a language dumb,
With never a spark in the empty dark
To hint at a life to come.

Yet happy we lived and happy we loved,
And happy we died once more;
Our forms were rolled in the clinging mold
Of a Neocomian shore.
The eons came and the eons fled
And the sleep that wrapped us fast
Was riven away in a newer day
And the night of death was past.

Then light and swift through the jungle trees
We swung in our airy flights,
Or breathed in the balms of the fronded palms
In the hush of the moonless nights;
And, oh! what beautiful years were there
When our hearts clung each to each;
When life was filled and our senses thrilled
In the first faint dawn of speech.

Thus life by life and love by love
We passed through the cycles strange,
And breath by breath and death by death
We followed the chain of change.
Till there came a time in the law of life
When over the nursing side
The shadows broke and the soul awoke
In a strange, dim dream of God.

I was thewed like an Auroch bull
And tusked like the great cave bear;
And you, my sweet, from head to feet
Were gowned in your glorious hair.
Deep in the gloom of a fireless cave,
When the night fell o'er the plain
And the moon hung red o'er the river bed
We mumbled the bones of the slain.

I flaked a flint to a cutting edge
And shaped it with brutish craft;
I broke a shank from the woodland lank
And fitted it, head and haft;
Then I hid me close to the reedy tarn
Where the mammoth came to drink;
Through the brawn and bone I drove the stone
And slew him upon the brink.

Loud I howled through the moonlit wastes,
Loud answered our kith and kin;
From west to east to the crimson feast
The clan came tramping in.
O'er joint and gristle and padded bone
We fought and clawed and tore,
And cheek by jowl with many a growl
We talked the marvel o'er.

I carved the fight on a reindeer bone
With rude and hairy hand;
I pictured his fall on the cavern wall
That men might understand.
For we lived by blood and the right of might
Ere human laws were drawn,
And the age of sin did not begin
Till our brutal tush were gone.

And that was a million years ago
In a time that no man knows;
Yet here tonight in the mellow light
We sit at Delmonico's.
Your eyes are deep as the Devon springs,
Your hair is dark as jet,
Your years are few, your life is new,
Your soul untried, and yet —

Our trail is on the Kimmeridge clay
And the scarp of the Purbeck flags;
We have left our bones in the Bagshot stones
And deep in the Coralline crags;
Our love is old, our lives are old,
And death shall come amain;
Should it come today, what man may say
We shall not live again?

God wrought our souls from the Tremadoc beds
And furnished them wings to fly;
He sowed our spawn in the world's dim dawn,
And I know that it shall not die,
Though cities have sprung above the graves
Where the crook-bone men make war
And the oxwain creaks o'er the buried caves
Where the mummied mammoths are.

Then as we linger at luncheon here
O'er many a dainty dish,
Let us drink anew to the time when you
Were a tadpole and I was a fish.

— Langdon Smith

 

[midcan5]

'Day Job and Night Job'

"After my night job, I sat in class
and ate, every thirteen minutes,
an orange peanut—butter cracker.
Bright grease adorned my notes.

At noon I rushed to my day job
and pushed a broom enough
to keep the boss calm if not happy.
In a hiding place, walled off

by bolts of calico and serge,
I read my masters and copied
Donne, Marlowe, Dickinson, and Frost,
scrawling the words I envied,

so my hand could move as theirs had moved
and learn outside of logic
how the masters wrote. But why? Words
would never heal the sick,

feed the hungry, clothe the naked,
blah, blah, blah.
Why couldn't I be practical,
Dad asked, and study law—

or take a single business class?
I stewed on what and why
till driving into work one day,
a burger on my thigh

and a sweating Coke between my knees,
I yelled, "Because I want to!"—
pained—thrilled!—as I looked down
from somewhere in the blue

and saw beneath my chastened gaze
another slack romantic
chasing his heart like an unleashed dog
chasing a pickup truck.

And then I spilled my Coke. In sugar
I sat and fought a smirk.
I could see my new life clear before me.
lt looked the same. Like work."

Andrew Hudgins

 

[Metternich]

Voter, voter you'll be thinking
What a fine land this will be
When the taxes have been lowered
Taxes less for you and me

 

[American Horse]

'Rough ore, thrown into the melting-pot of
Robert Burns' genius, comes out as purest gold.'

My Love Is Like A Red Red Rose

O my love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June:
O my love is like a melodie,
That's sweetly played in tune
As fair art thou, my bonnie lass,
So deep in love am I
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry.

Till all the seas gang dry, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry
And I will love thee still, my dear,
Till all the seas gang dry.

'Til all the seas gang dry my, my dear
And the rocks melt wi' the sun
And I will love thee still, my dear
While the sands o' life shall run
But fare thee weel, my only love
Oh, fare thee weel a while
And I will come again, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile

Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile
And I will come again, my love
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile.

Robert Burns

 

[midcan5]

'A Blessing'

"Just off the highway to Rochester, Minnesota,
Twilight bounds softly forth on the grass.
And the eyes of those two Indian ponies
Darken with kindness.
They have come gladly out of the willows
To welcome my friend and me.
We step over the barbed wire into the pasture
Where they have been grazing all day, alone.
They ripple tensely, they can hardly contain their happiness
That we have come.
They bow shyly as wet swans. They love each other.
There is no loneliness like theirs.
At home once more,
They begin munching the young tufts of spring in the darkness.
I would like to hold the slenderer one in my arms,
For she has walked over to me
And nuzzled my left hand.
She is black and white,
Her mane falls wild on her forehead,
And the light breeze moves me to caress her long ear
That is delicate as the skin over a girl's wrist.
Suddenly I realize
That if I stepped out of my body I would break
Into blossom."

James Wright

 

[American Horse]

The below is just one of many other verses of cowboy “poetry” turned to song, and there were innumerable verses like this one which were quietly sung by the cowboy as he slowly rode around the herd all night long to keep it calmed. From dusk to dawn there were two cowboys circling in opposite directions, meeting twice in their circuit around the herd; the singing human voice having a soothing affect on the herd, keeping it from stampeding.

One herd might contain three thousand head of long-horn cattle, a breed highly prone to panic and then to dangerous stampede with the herd being driven as far as fifteen hundred miles across terrain filled with dangers.

By tradition at the beginning of the drive each cowboy in turn would pick his choice from the remuda, then a second, then a third, until every rider had a string of 11 horses for the long trail ride to come. The drive's own remuda would be driven along separately and trailing the herd by a ‘remuda boss’ who managed their care along the way.

AH


A Cowboy's Song/I Ride and Old Paint

I ride an old paint, I lead an old dan.
I’m off to Montanny to throw the hoolihan...

We feed ‘m in the coulies and water in the draw.
Their tails are all matted, their backs are all raw...

Ride around, little doggies, ride around ‘em all slow…
They’re fiery and snuffy and a-rarin’ to go.

Old Bill Jones had a daughter and a son
One went to college, the other went wrong

His wife, she got killed in a poolroom fight
But still he's a-singin' from mornin' till night

When I die, take my saddle from the wall
Place it on my old pony, lead him out of his stall

Tie my bones to my saddle and turn our faces to the West
And we'll ride the prairie we love the best

I ride an old paint, I lead an old dan
I'm goin' to Montana to throw the hoolihan

They feed in the coulees, they water in the draw
Their tails are all matted, and their backs are all raw…..


James Michener, in his novel Centennial dates this to about 1868
The PBS History of the West site places the song in the 1868-1874 period, but without documentation.
Cowboy Poetry at the BAR-D Ranch

 

[midcan5]

'Be Drunk'

"You have to be always drunk. That's all there is to it—it's the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.

But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.

And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: "It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.""

Charles Baudelaire Translated by Louis Simpson

 

[midcan5]

"All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players:
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slipper'd pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank; and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything."

William Shakespeare - from 'As You Like It'

 

[American Horse]

Rubaiyat LIII & XXIII

With Earth's first Clay They did the Last Man knead,
And then of the Last Harvest sow'd the Seed:
Yea, the first Morning of Creation wrote
What the Last Dawn of Reckoning shall read.

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and--sans End!

Edward Fitzgerald's Interpretation/translation

 

[midcan5]

Another friend died last week, wife of an old friend from childhood. Too many women have cancer today, men die of heart and stress, but cancer invades the better half. All you women get checked frequently too often it is too late. I am not sure of the death image in this poem, but I like the blue jacket.


'How It Is'

"Shall I say how it is in your clothes?
A month after your death I wear your blue jacket.
The dog at the center of my life recognizes
you’ve come to visit, he’s ecstatic.
In the left pocket, a hole.
In the right, a parking ticket
delivered up last August on Bay State Road.
In my heart, a scatter like milkweed,
a flinging from the pods of the soul.
My skin presses your old outline.
It is hot and dry inside.

I think of the last day of your life,
old friend, how I would unwind it, paste
it together in a different collage,
back from the death car idling in the garage,
back up the stairs, your praying hands unlaced,
reassembling the bits of bread and tuna fish
into a ceremony of sandwich,
running the home movie backward to a space
we could be easy in, a kitchen place
with vodka and ice, our words like living meat.

Dear friend, you have excited crowds
with your example. They swell
like wine bags, straining at your seams.
I will be years gathering up our words,
fishing out letters, snapshots, stains,
leaning my ribs against this durable cloth
to put on the dumb blue blazer of your death."

Maxine W. Kumin

 

[JW Frogen]

Consider this skull

Yorick I believe his name is

We will all know him well.

He warns against your entire life being about a buck

a fuck

or a monster truck.

 

[speedy35]

I never saw a purple cow
I never hope to see one
But this I do know anyhow
I'd rather see than be one.

Ogden Nash

 

[midcan5]

'Meaning'

"When I die, I will see the lining of the world.
The other side, beyond bird, mountain, sunset.
The true meaning, ready to be decoded.
What never added up will add Up,
What was incomprehensible will be comprehended.
- And if there is no lining to the world?
If a thrush on a branch is not a sign,
But just a thrush on the branch? If night and day
Make no sense following each other?
And on this earth there is nothing except this earth?
- Even if that is so, there will remain
A word wakened by lips that perish,
A tireless messenger who runs and runs
Through interstellar fields, through the revolving galaxies,
And calls out, protests, screams."

Czeslaw Milosz

 

[speedy35]

THE OLD YELLOW HOUSE ON THE HILL

My old house upon the hill
I know it's still standing there still
Now it's covered with white siding
THe old yellow paint nicely hiding

Out back is the gigantic spruce tree
For its lofty heights forever I could see
Eight pear trees we also had
I loved to climb them when I was a lad

A goldfish pond from an old sink was made
Around its edge I often played
A long sloping yard at the house's side
Made a nice place on a sled to slide

Plenty of gras we had to mow
With the old push mower, it went kind of slow
WOrking in our garden of vegtables and flowers
Often filled my summer hours

A fireplace and a flag pole stand
Made from rock and cement by my mother's hand
A second-hand bike is what I rode
And a flexible flyer after it snowed

These are the things I recall with ease
These are the pleasant memories
BUt all was not rosy on Montague St.
Life was not all happy and sweet

The house was at least one hundred years old
The second one in the area I was told
In the unfinished cellar one could see frayed wire
I was ever afraid we would catch on fire.

To imply all was great was not my intent
Home was where many lonely hours were spent
Sedom did my friends play with me there
We AlWAYS seemed to go elsewhere

Missing was a devoted Dad
That I saw all my friends had
I suppose to others I seemed happy outside
But in my soul I'd already died

I guess if I have to tell the truth
FOr the most part I had a happy youth
And it still give me a little thrill
To remember the old yellow house on the hill
3-2-1997

 

[midcan5]

'Thursday Afternoon: Life Is Sweet'

"I know what's happening, see what's coming, and try like mad to fight it. Tapioca simmers in the dented pot. The Joy of Cooking says to use a bain-marie but I say, bain-marie, my ass. That Rombauer woman never shopped at Goodwill a day in her life. (He'll be home in three hours.) I stir constantly, watch carefully because that's what the damned book says to do but any fool knows that the stuff is done when the spoon starts to drag.

Tapioca has many lives, grows a new skin each time a scoop's dug out. Those beady little eyes--even though the cookbook insists on calling them pearls--bounce from the box all dry and nervous and then the hot milk leaches the starch out and makes a gluey mess. The book says, Never boil the pudding, but screw that: I love those thick, beige swells exploding like volcanoes, the sound as the surface breaks, the smell of burnt sugar at the bottom of the pot.

They tell you, Spoon the pudding into individual cups, but I put the whole mess in a plastic bowl and watch it quiver as it slides into the icebox. The kids like to press little dimples into it, then lick their fingers clean behind the icebox door so I won't know who did it. Me, I push clear through to the bottom of the bowl and my finger comes out so coated that it fills my mouth.

I leave the pot on the counter, won't wash it for hours. (Slob, he'll say, but I'm learning to ignore him.) The residue dries into a sheet as sheer as dragonfly wings and the kids will peel it off, laughing and drooling as it melts in their mouths. I can hear them yell now as they race up the driveway, pitch their bikes against the gate. The screen door slams and in rushes the smell of them: sweat, cotton, soap, candy.

Holly Iglesias

 

[midcan5]

Consciousness

I have been trying to understand consciousness,
thought, how it takes in ideas,
what happens then that changes
the same view into another view,
is some pattern of neurons connected
to an answer some analogy
that places the idea in this box
where it make sense to the listener,
the hearer only hears what
thoughts have paths and where no paths exist
the thought
is it discarded
lost.

 

[midcan5]

'Working Late'

"A light is on in my father's study.
"Still up?" he says, and we are silent,
looking at the harbor lights,
listening to the surf
and the creak of coconut boughs.

He is working late on cases.
No impassioned speech! He argues from evidence,
actually pacing out and measuring,
while the fans revolving on the ceiling
winnow the true from the false.

Once he passed a brass curtain rod
through a head made out of plaster
and showed the jury the angle of fire--
where the murderer must have stood.
For years, all through my childhood,
if I opened a closet . . . bang!
There would be the dead man's head
with a black hole in the forehead.

All the arguing in the world
will not stay the moon.
She has come all the way from Russia
to gaze for a while in a mango tree
and light the wall of a veranda,
before resuming her interrupted journey
beyond the harbor and the lighthouse
at Port Royal, turning away
from land to the open sea.

Yet, nothing in nature changes, from that day to this,
she is still the mother of us all.
I can see the drifting offshore lights,
black posts where the pelicans brood.

And the light that used to shine
at night in my father's study
now shines as late in mine."

Louis Simpson

 

[midcan5]

'Parents'

"What it must be like to be an angel
or a squirrel, we can imagine sooner.

The last time we go to bed good,
they are there, lying about darkness.

They dandle us once too often,
these friends who become our enemies.

Suddenly one day, their juniors
are as old as we yearn to be.

They get wrinkles where it is better
smooth, odd coughs, and smells.

It is grotesque how they go on
loving us, we go on loving them

The effrontery, barely imaginable,
of having caused us. And of how.

Their lives: surely
we can do better than that.

This goes on for a long time. Everything
they do is wrong, and the worst thing,

they all do it, is to die,
taking with them the last explanation,

how we came out of the wet sea
or wherever they got us from,

taking the last link
of that chain with them.

Father, mother, we cry, wrinkling,
to our uncomprehending children and grandchildren."

William Meredith

 

[midcan5]

'Those Winter Sundays'

"Sundays too my father got up early
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.

I'd wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he'd call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,

Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love's austere and lonely offices?"

Robert Hayden