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tom Carter
Social climber
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May 21, 2012 - 12:54pm PT
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Introduction to Poetry
BY BILLY COLLINS
I ask them to take a poem
and hold it up to the light
like a color slide
or press an ear against its hive.
I say drop a mouse into a poem
and watch him probe his way out,
or walk inside the poem’s room
and feel the walls for a light switch.
I want them to waterski
across the surface of a poem
waving at the author’s name on the shore.
But all they want to do
is tie the poem to a chair with rope
and torture a confession out of it.
They begin beating it with a hose
to find out what it really means.
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MikeL
climber
SANTA CLARA, CA
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May 21, 2012 - 01:15pm PT
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To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there's the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.
(Hamlet: 3, 1, I)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 21, 2012 - 01:22pm PT
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The Diners' Club, or
Carter Blanche
Sitting at the laureate's table
sipping his wine.
Bending my ear to his wicked
witchy wit.
Twitchy I sit until
it's my turn to squeak.
The r's roll and the ums hum.
Speaking in tongues with a mouthful,
I said,
Looking him in the eye with a stalk of celery,
"I can't for the life of me figure out what you are saying."
Too much Sauvignon Bland.
Too much Blank verse.
It gives me paws to think I am drunk on wine and what's worse,
Verse.
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tom Carter
Social climber
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May 22, 2012 - 01:09am PT
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Very Nice BB
Here's another -
"Hard Rain,"
by Tony Hoagland
After I heard It's a Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall
played softly by an accordion quartet
through the ceiling speakers at the Springdale Shopping Mall,
I understood there's nothing
we can't pluck the stinger from,
nothing we can't turn into a soft drink flavor or a t-shirt.
Even serenity can become something horrible
if you make a commercial about it
using smiling, white-haired people
quoting Thoreau to sell retirement homes
in the Everglades, where the swamp has been
drained and bulldozed into a nineteen-hole golf course
with electrified alligator barriers.
You can't keep beating yourself up, Billy
I heard the therapist say on television
to the teenage murderer,
About all those people you killed—
You just have to be the best person you can be,
one day at a time—
and everybody in the audience claps and weeps a little,
because the level of deep feeling has been touched,
and they want to believe that
the power of Forgiveness is greater
than the power of Consequence, or History.
Dear Abby:
My father is a businessman who travels.
Each time he returns from one of his trips,
his shoes and trousers
are covered with blood-
but he never forgets to bring me a nice present;
Should I say something?
Signed, America.
I used to think I was not part of this,
that I could mind my own business and get along,
but that was just another song that had been taught to me since birth—
whose words I was humming under my breath,
as I was walking through the Springdale Mall.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 25, 2012 - 08:39pm PT
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A Simple-minded vision of a twisted fire.
Stayin' alive on Turtle Island.
The Ouch-less F*#ks or Deeper than Love.
The Bee vs. the Wasp.
Championismo.
Grasping at Straws.
Elbow of El Cap: Tales of Nerve.
Winding Wind River Stories.
Los An-jealous/Los Angle-ees.
Summer's Midnight Dream of "Avondale" Bard.
All titles of stuff I'd like to compose.
Too lazy.
Also, like Ed Hartouni observed regards Robson,
"I'd have to want to go through that kind of suffering...and even then it's a crap shoot."
I obviously need...Music!
Something to which I could perchance poeticize to.
A nightmare a dream a reality a fake
It's all the same asleep/awake
Rilke Mozart
Rocky Raccoon
All the same
Even though
It's all the same.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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May 27, 2012 - 06:23pm PT
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Mysteries, Yes
Truly, we live with mysteries too marvelous
to be understood.
How grass can be nourishing in the
mouths of the lambs.
How rivers and stones are forever
in allegiance with gravity
while we ourselves dream of rising.
How two hands touch and the bonds
will never be broken.
How people come, from delight or the
scars of damage,
to the comfort of a poem.
Let me keep my distance, always, from those
who think they have the answers.
Let me keep company always with those who say
"Look!" and laugh in astonishment,
and bow their heads.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(Evidence)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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May 28, 2012 - 09:52pm PT
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The Pie Shop, Tahoe. Wedgie, I, 5.3.14159
Mary Oliver got me thinking of peace. Then I thought of the olives in my Mom's tamale pie. This nostalgia led to pies I had eaten before.
It was a transcendent moment. The circle of my thoughts came to nothing. Which is represented by a circle.
With no further circumlocution, remember happiness runs in a circular motion, according to Donovan Leitch, not in a straight line.
If inside a circle line
Hits the center and goes spine to spine
And the length's line is "d,"
The circumference will be
d times 3 point 1 4 1 5 9.
Simple Simon met a pi man
Going to the fair.
Said Simple Simon to the pi man,
"You have unusual ware.
The pies I've seen were round
But, gosh, your pi's are square."
Joni's Pi Conic Song
The Circle Game
Yesterday, a child came out to wander
Caught a dragonfly inside a jar
Fearful when the sky was full of thunder
And tearful at the falling of a star.
Then, the child moved ten times 'round the seasons
Skated over ten clear frozen streams
Words like, "When you're older," must appease him
And promises of someday make his dreams.
Sixteen springs and sixteen summers gone now
Cartwheels turn to car wheels through the town
And they tell him, "Take your time it won't be long now
Til you drag your feet to slow the circles down."
So the years spin by and now the boy is twenty
Though his dreams have lost some grandeur coming true
There'll be new dreams, maybe better dreams and plenty
Before the last revolving year is through.
And the seasons, they go 'round and 'round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return, we can only look behind
From where we came
And go 'round and 'round
In the circle game
And go 'round and 'round in the circle game.
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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May 29, 2012 - 09:55am PT
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more word art than poetry,
i am a mountain.
well-being and prosperity, mountainears.
up me they climb until
they find my highest.
enjoy a brief reprieve, they.
life then unleashes good storms
and my crown of respectability
comes a-avalanching down in the form
of illness and bad habits.
i just stand here, geo-like.
the fleeting life seeds
they come and they go
and i am hardly phased.
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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Like the train of your thought, MfM! Need to get the schedule so I can jump on at the next stop.
Sublime, weeg.
More Mary Oliver:
Can You Imagine?
For example, what the trees do
not only in lightening storms
or the watery dark of a summer's night
or under the white nets of winter
but now, and now, and now - whenever
we're not looking. Surely you can't imagine
they don't dance, from the root up, wishing
to travel a little, not cramped so much as wanting
a better view, or more sun, or just as avidly
more shade - surely you can't imagine they just
stand there loving every
minute of it, the birds or the emptiness, the dark rings
of the years slowly and without a sound
thickening, and nothing different unless the wind,
and then only in its own mood, comes
to visit, surely you can't imagine
patience, and happiness, like that.
~ Mary Oliver ~
(Long Life)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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The tree felled the climber
Inside each tree is a circle
One flat round plane set atop another
An infant, it numbers its chances to survive as good
There are an infinite number of possiblities
It might grow fast or slow
It might grow high or low
It might grow wide or slim
It might grow up to be matchsticks
Take those matchsticks and burn the forest down
The trees will make mock and return
Boulder-makers
Beetle-feeders
Gymnasiums for the quadruped tribe
Home to billions of arthropods
Lonely on Sentinel and Point Lobos
And the flag of the state of my mind
Grow where you are planted
Take nothing for granted
How can a tree be
Smarter than me?
Fletcher, it's not a train of thought so much as a bumper car ride of the imagination, non-scheduled and destined who knows where?
No mileage restrictions, though.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Eye Can't See Underground!
The roots of the tree of which we listen are the froots.
They lie beneath the soil up in the Top Forty.
Bod Dylan's a root. The Roots are his froots.
Jimmy, please don't fall on me. Thank you, Jimmy Fallon, for Thank Yous.
This child is spoiled enough.
! can't say much good about Rod McKuen's pottery, but he seems like he was a nice guy. Just a mediocre poet.
It's why they aren't called the Rods.
But what ! meant to say,
About whom ! meant to speak,
He lies in bed awake,
To think.
Perchance to climb.
To write.
To finish where the Eagles fear to play,
Where soloes are the only way to go,
The froots of his labor devoured
By apes like !.
(thanks for the p.m., Norv. Heart of the World.)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Toast a Reply
There was a time a short time back ago,
When I used to have to repeat myself to myself
To remember there is no I in me.
If that means anything to me
It is meaningless to thee
Unless thou read me again.
These are my thoughts
And now they are yours,
A gift, me to thee.
The article I saw in Dot's Me magazine?
That the last thing I would have thought of.
Period.
Who ate my Post Toasties
And left me none?
Guess I'll have some Texas Flakes and listen to Janis sing.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Just saying,
If a video is posted, let it be a ballad, a poem set to music.
I guess that's a ballad. Here's a good example, even if she was a Texan.
The Rose of Port Arthur.
[Click to View YouTube Video]
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Fletcher
Trad climber
Fumbling towards stone
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Jun 29, 2012 - 10:29am PT
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A Rescue
Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever," in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird--a goldfinch?--
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.
Without much reflection, for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane,
held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely perishing outdoors.
~ John Updike ~
(Americana, 2001)
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Jun 30, 2012 - 06:16pm PT
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"Blue Bowls and Hoses"
Been gone two weeks
But it seems like yesterday
They left me and took my heart away
While my bowl gently leaks.
They'll be back soon
Can't be soon enough for me
Cause I'm just lying here in misery
Just four days left in June
Geraniums, compadres to the roses,
We both love the leaky hoses;
Don't we, polemoniums?
Bring back, bring back,
Oh bring back the family to me.
B.Bermingham
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Jun 30, 2012 - 06:22pm PT
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"The Dog Nanny"
The dame I'm watching is a Shepherd.
She in turn is watching a bug crawl by her nose.
Such a vast difference in size!
As I watch them, I wonder
Who might be watching me?
I can believe in gods, or "a God,"
In beings being greater than I can see
In reality or in my mind's eyes.
I would like to believe in a female Shepherd,
Benevolent, watchful, and unworried
That I might eventually figure out Her game
And thus spoil the surprise.
I lean silently down as she sniffs her new-found pet
And I gently whisper in her big old ear,
"Boo, Dawg!"
She rolls over on her back and wags her tale.
I hope that I am able to do the same
When some mythtical Dame
Leans down and gently whispers my name.
B.Bermingham
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froodish
Social climber
Portland, Oregon
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Jun 30, 2012 - 06:32pm PT
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One Train May Hide Another - Kenneth Koch
In a poem, one line may hide another line,
As at a crossing, one train may hide another train.
That is, if you are waiting to cross
The tracks, wait to do it for one moment at
Least after the first train is gone. And so when you read
Wait until you have read the next line--
Then it is safe to go on reading.
In a family one sister may conceal another,
So, when you are courting, it's best to have them all in view
Otherwise in coming to find one you may love another.
One father or one brother may hide the man,
If you are a woman, whom you have been waiting to love.
So always standing in front of something the other
As words stand in front of objects, feelings, and ideas.
One wish may hide another. And one person's reputation may hide
The reputation of another. One dog may conceal another
On a lawn, so if you escape the first one you're not necessarily safe;
One lilac may hide another and then a lot of lilacs and on the Appia Antica one tomb
May hide a number of other tombs. In love, one reproach may hide another,
One small complaint may hide a great one.
One injustice may hide another--one colonial may hide another,
One blaring red uniform another, and another, a whole column. One bath may hide another bath
As when, after bathing, one walks out into the rain.
One idea may hide another: Life is simple
Hide Life is incredibly complex, as in the prose of Gertrude Stein
One sentence hides another and is another as well. And in the laboratory
One invention may hide another invention,
One evening may hide another, one shadow, a nest of shadows.
One dark red, or one blue, or one purple--this is a painting
By someone after Matisse. One waits at the tracks until they pass,
These hidden doubles or, sometimes, likenesses. One identical twin
May hide the other. And there may be even more in there! The obstetrician
Gazes at the Valley of the Var. We used to live there, my wife and I, but
One life hid another life. And now she is gone and I am here.
A vivacious mother hides a gawky daughter. The daughter hides
Her own vivacious daughter in turn. They are in
A railway station and the daughter is holding a bag
Bigger than her mother's bag and successfully hides it.
In offering to pick up the daughter's bag one finds oneself confronted by the mother's
And has to carry that one, too. So one hitchhiker
May deliberately hide another and one cup of coffee
Another, too, until one is over-excited. One love may hide another love or the same love
As when "I love you" suddenly rings false and one discovers
The better love lingering behind, as when "I'm full of doubts"
Hides "I'm certain about something and it is that"
And one dream may hide another as is well known, always, too. In the Garden of Eden
Adam and Eve may hide the real Adam and Eve.
Jerusalem may hide another Jerusalem.
When you come to something, stop to let it pass
So you can see what else is there. At home, no matter where,
Internal tracks pose dangers, too: one memory
Certainly hides another, that being what memory is all about,
The eternal reverse succession of contemplated entities. Reading A Sentimental Journey look around
When you have finished, for Tristram Shandy, to see
If it is standing there, it should be, stronger
And more profound and theretofore hidden as Santa Maria Maggiore
May be hidden by similar churches inside Rome. One sidewalk
May hide another, as when you're asleep there, and
One song hide another song; a pounding upstairs
Hide the beating of drums. One friend may hide another, you sit at the foot of a tree
With one and when you get up to leave there is another
Whom you'd have preferred to talk to all along. One teacher,
One doctor, one ecstasy, one illness, one woman, one man
May hide another. Pause to let the first one pass.
You think, Now it is safe to cross and you are hit by the next one. It can be important
To have waited at least a moment to see what was already there.
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Jun 30, 2012 - 09:05pm PT
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"It's One Deja Vu After Another"
We have all heard it all before:
Bottom of the ninth, one man on third, two outs.
Yogi is managing, and says, "I'd seen this situation so many times I lost count. I just said tell me what happens this time."
"Rizzuto: "So that makes four times, right?"
"Bartlett's Only MVP"
Shakespeare shaped the language,
Some say he invented it.
Wilde and Shaw spun expressions of unrelenting wit.
Whitman taught the mother tongue
How to sing for us;
Yeats scaled the beauty of her lonely peaks.
Joyce uncovered something new,
And so did Eliot.
But unlike Yogi,
None of them could hit.
from The Yogi Poems, Raphael Badagliacca
"they say Yogi Berra is funny. Well, he has a lovely wife and family, a beautiful home, money in the bank, and he plays golf with millionaires. What's funny about that?"--Casey Stengel
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Norwegian
Trad climber
Placerville, California
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Jun 30, 2012 - 09:15pm PT
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the human brain pulses and
thrashes about it's containment sell,
it has been imprisoned within biological circumstance,
though it is mature beyond it's prescribed purpose
and thus we get something outta life that is beyond common,
though common is the thread pulled behind the needle that sews
the horoin ninandoutta arms,
and we unravel against societal will
and the cops try to corral the wonder,
thru and through the paridigms that strangle
our's understanding shift and slip and leap and
rip wide open the female politician's underwear,
and lobby consumation entrails
new realities borne of wreckless infidelities
now became policy.
"and the rainbow ends
and my sails are fillin'
and the wind is willin'
that im good as gone again."
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mouse from merced
Trad climber
merced, california
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Let Down Thy Hair
Imprisoned bitch,
The fickle muse.
Try to please,
She'll just refuse.
Make a rhyme,
It's just no use.
Face it, man,
The god must choose.
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