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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 25, 2011 - 09:41am PT
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beneath our twisted
Mesquite
parched
and waiting
the lucky old sun
and the monsoon need
to decide
who will own
today
a conversation
heard in the colors
of sunrise.
8.25.11
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 25, 2011 - 09:47am PT
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memories of families forgotten
sorry, oxymoronic. please don't do that to us.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 25, 2011 - 10:03am PT
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Well Tony, I guess that's a start.
Got anything you've written?
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 25, 2011 - 03:43pm PT
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'You want to catch this wolf, the old man said. Maybe you want the skin so you can get some money. Maybe you can buy some boots or something like that. You can do that. But where is the wolf? The wolf is like the copo de nieve.
'Snowflake.
'Snowflake. You catch the snowflake but when you look in your hand you dont have it no more. Maybe you see this dechado. But before you can see it it is gone. If you want to see it you have to see it on its own ground. If you catch it you lose it. And where it goes there is no coming back from. Not even God can bring it back.'
Not my own poetry.
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Aug 25, 2011 - 04:27pm PT
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Tony:
sorry, oxymoronic. please don't do that to us.
I find that apparent contradictions are often the gateway to deeper reflection. They test our perceptions and conceptions. Maybe there is something more for us to understand, maybe not. In any case, our attention is drawn to something we might have passed without contemplation.
From my perspective, Poetry doesn't have rules, in terms of grammar or punctuation or rhyming, etc. I think of this as the main unifying characteristic for this class of writing. We can impose whatever rules or intentions we want to make a subset of poetry, but in general we have a blank slate.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 25, 2011 - 04:31pm PT
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"We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes - something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters' paradise."
Not my own poetry
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 25, 2011 - 04:32pm PT
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"He squatted over the wolf and touched her fur. He touched the cold and perfect teeth. The eye turned to the fire gave back no light and he closed it with his thumb and sat by her and put his hand upon her bloodied forehead and closed his own eyes that he could see her running in the mountains, running in the starlight where the grass was wet and the sun's coming as yet had not undone the rich matrix of creatures passed in the night before her. Deer and hare and dove and groundvole all richly empaneled on the air for her delight, allnations of the possible world ordained by God of which she was one among and not separate from. Where she ran the cries of the coyotes clapped shut as if a door had closed upon them and all was fear and marvel. He took up her stiff head out of the leaves and held it or he reached to hold what cannot be held, what already ran among the mountains at once terrible and of a great beauty, like flowers that feed on flesh. What blood and bone are made of but can themselves not make on any altar nor by any wound of war. What we may well believe has power to cut and shape and hollow out the dark form of the world surely if wind can, if rain can. But which cannot be held never be held and is no flower but is swift and a huntress and the wind itself is in terror of it and the world cannot lose it."
Not my own poetry
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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Aug 25, 2011 - 04:36pm PT
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my blank state
cannot un-blank my slate.
my thoughts are untidy.
my woes are driving.
there is no summary
for this moment.
i'll leave it slightly altered.
slightly alone.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 25, 2011 - 09:17pm PT
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Well said nutjob.
Poetry is.
the crazed man
hissed and
I changed gears
while the freighter
rumbled and called
anvils grew in
the east
dogs ran their length
of chain
Blue Moon
and the Yaqui
can you make me
miss our tree
make me pedal faster?
Home, to the
Presidio.
8.25.11
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nutjob
Gym climber
Berkeley, CA
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Aug 26, 2011 - 07:00pm PT
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IMPRESSIONS OF MY BALCONY AT 3:59PM
Sun on squirrel on redwood burl
seashore rocks on my porch curl
bright and glittery like a pearl
prayer flags flutter and unfurl
wood and metal wind chimes twirl
small pink sandals of my girl
such peace its hard to be a churl
no need to spit or insults hurl
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 26, 2011 - 11:40pm PT
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Well hot damn!
We got a rhymer!!!
I'll have to dig up some of my cowboy poetry.
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J. Werlin
Social climber
Cedaredge, CO
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Aug 27, 2011 - 03:19pm PT
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Drljefe--nice stuff, man!
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 27, 2011 - 04:38pm PT
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Thanks Jwerlin.
Posting all my recent poetry has been a much needed release during some painful, challenging times.
I appreciate the opportunity to just
"Get it out there".
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 29, 2011 - 03:45am PT
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tangled bosque
where is our tree?
thought it distinct
catclaw clinging and
twisted arms
there it is!
I knew it.
8.29.11
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Anastasia
climber
hanging from an ice pick and missing my mama.
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Aug 29, 2011 - 05:02am PT
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twisted thoughts
twisting paths
if I can only untangle mine
that is spun around your finger
from all that is you
somehow depart away
from what is always pointing at a good direction
I'll be a very lonely fool
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 29, 2011 - 10:26am PT
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i've already posted on this thread several times, jefe. i hate to wear out my welcome, and i haven't had any orders for my little book. as i've commented, poets rarely read each other. i can rhyme with the best of them, but i defer to norsky as the real prince here.
and it won't hurt to say "here's to paul"--the best poetry is how you live your life.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 29, 2011 - 10:52am PT
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Sorry, wasn't trying to call you out Tony. I'll go back and look for your posts.
Yes, here's to Paul.
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drljefe
climber
El Presidio San Augustin del Tucson
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:06am PT
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between
Miracle Mile
and the Blue Moon
between the expanse
and comfort of shade
the tracks
and the overpass
the speed bumps
the house that smells
of incense
I can wheelie
the whole puddle!
do Ruben and Jesus know?
the Yaqui or the ice cream man?
when will the tumble weeds
finally tumble or the arroyo
run and when
will I go this way
again
with a new cadence
breathe
that wasn't a head wind
you were just going
so fast.
8.30.11
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Tony Bird
climber
Northridge, CA
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Aug 30, 2011 - 10:52am PT
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yea, jefe, you could be a poet. maybe this will help.
we used to have a dandy little poetry journal in los angeles called poetry l.a. which published for a few years in the late 80s, early 90s, the labor of love of one helen friedland, who gave it up when her husband took ill. you'd find the likes of charles bukowski and kate braverman in there, with works hot off their powerful pens. but here are two of my favorites, which i hereby copy unto thee, i hope protected by "fair use" (who would read them otherwise?).
i'm not sure what you're talking about in your poem, jefe. a nice little trip, but it seems terribly private, as most poetry is these days. it's okay to be private. who knows, you might be great and someday whole armies of scholars will go over your life with a fine-toothed comb and publish theses, dissertations and articles in notes and queries. but probably not.
i love these poems because they are patent. shakespeare is too.
WHY I WANT TO BE THE NEXT POET LAUREATE
by Eliot Fried
I want to fiddle with a pipe and look profound
plucking a mote of dust from my tweed sleeve
as i gaze into space, thinking thoughts so heavy
they sink into the ground. I want to have
a stern dog with pale silky hair that needs tending.
I want a frail consumptive woman, just a bit deranged,
waiting patiently in a dark room as I come home
after a hard day, flinging Guggenheim and Ford Foundation
grants onto the vacuumed shag. I want to write quatrains
for the sensitive. I want the thin crustless sandwiches
served by old ladies on polished silver trays ...
I want the oolong tea. I want to suffer exquisitely
as I write of comely things: a cow upon a puffy hill,
the hazy gauze of sunset, a gull drifting in the misty air.
Most of all, Richard Wilbur, I want you to die
quickly though not necessarily painlessly, impaled, perhaps,
upon a rose bush or clipped by a Mack truck the color
of autumn smoke, or choked by a crustless sandwich. Get the idea?
KOERTGEVILLE
by Ron Koertge
It is a pleasant town on a lake. Mail arrives every day, delivered by postmen and women paid handsomely for their charm and beauty. Even the stamps here are lovely and in the summer high school girls put them on their bodies in lieu of clothes.
There is religion. It consists of a priest--usually a well-adjusted gay man in extraordinary robes--who blesses everything: the statues in the square, boats, meals and snacks, every sneeze and thought.
The only doctor is available twenty-four hours a day but is rarely needed. His prescription is always the same anyway--champagne and longer naps with someone who loves you.
School is fun and though there is no failure, those who feel less successful go immediately to the faculty lounge and are embraced.
There is horse racing every day at twilight. The track announcer is a woman and her sweet calls are so moving everyone weeps openly on his way to the cashier's window. The cheapest horses are cared for by loyal veterinarians and all night a man with a lovely accent walks among them whispering, "There are no animals like you anywhere in God's universe."
There is death. Funerals are held before noon and always in a light rain. Everyone grieves and no child is ever lied to about the gift of oblivion. Then at noon the bars open, flower beds are uncovered, bright birds uncaged. The sun rushes to the mid-point of the sky and it is time for a swim and a tan, a tan with no ultra-violet rays, a tan that makes the skin younger.
Koertgeville is impossible to find and immediately accessible. As its mayor, I welcome you with open arms.
_
that's good poetry. who knows if it's great or not? if i hadn't posted it here, you'd never have read it. it's mustering on shelves somewhere, who knows if it'll ever get off there.
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Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
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Aug 30, 2011 - 12:27pm PT
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"In every Now Being starts
Around every Here the globe of There is rolling
The Middle is everywhere
Bowed is the path of eternity"
Not my own poetry
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