Oh! My Prophetic Soul! (Siegfried Farnon, All Things Great and Small)

Tomorrow starts the advent of a slew of poetry (I hope!).  It's National Poetry Month and (thanks to Zach Adler http://putyourcollardownelvis.blogspot.com/) I will be participating for the first time by attempting a unique project of his creation. Its task is simple: to write a new piece of work everyday, yet there are some guidelines. I have compiled a list of 30 different topics and borrowed 20 forms from Zach in which to write these pieces. I will not even attempt to explain how I devised a way to randomly pick each topic using a set of green and orange die (located conveniently in my cell phone) but it is random and works! Next time I won't be lazy and like Zach will get a 20 sided die and a deck of cards but for now, enjoy and maybe some gems of ideas/phrases or who knows even a full poem will raise their head amidst the rabble this month!

The Sacrifice of Buttons

The clown who killed a man
Probably didn't even mean to.
He'd just had enough.
It was for the children!= It was supposed to be for the children! =It was all for the children!
Not the 50-ish year old men in expensive suits with draping toupees and sniveling blondes precariously yet oh so carefully attached to their bodies.
The children!
Why else would one don such a nose?
Or drive such an uncomfortable car?
Or wear ill-fitting shoes
and buzzing hands
and baggy clothes
with holes that are never fully patched
for just the/an effect?
Why else would he shoot water into eyes?
And from flowers?? Really.
But they just never understood once they hit a certain age.
"I think that's what did it."
Or so the bearded lady said.
It was that they once saw and then stopped.
No one in the circus knew if it was due to those balancing act teenage years that the cotton candy- cheeked, fireworked- eyed children merely stopped, or what's worse, lost the ability to care.
And some were lucky for a balance beam decade.
The clown knew too many lion taming, trapezing teens.
And no one likes to watch their fans (grow up) go blind.
"Especially not a second-rate clown with a first rate heart" (she looked down saying so).
Well anyway, it wasn't water this time.
Water doesn't make you bleed through a hole in your chest.
And neither would laughing reasoned the clown-
and if laughing is too difficult to fake, no comment would be just as appreciated.
Why take away from the kids with snide remarks and sniggers?
They may be kids but they know when their dads or even just the fellow spectator is disapproving.
That's why he became a clown in the first place!
Because he noticed from a very early age just how disapproving everybody can be.
And so he decided to try to help them smile.

Poems I Like/Love

A Ballad: The Lake of the Dismal Swamp

BY THOMAS MOORE

“They made her a grave, too cold and damp

For a soul so warm and true;

And she’s gone to the Lake of the Dismal Swamp,

Where, all night long, by a fire-fly lamp,

She paddles her white canoe.

“And her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see,

And her paddle I soon shall hear;

Long and loving our life shall be,

And I’ll hide the maid in a cypress tree,

When the footstep of death is near.”

Away to the Dismal Swamp he speeds—

His path was rugged and sore,

Through tangled juniper, beds of reeds,

Through many a fen where the serpent feeds,

And man never trod before.

And when on the earth he sunk to sleep,

If slumber his eyelids knew,

He lay where the deadly vine doth weep

Its venomous tear and nightly steep

The flesh with blistering dew!

And near him the she-wolf stirr’d the brake,

And the copper-snake breath’d in his ear,

Till he starting cried, from his dream awake,

“Oh! when shall I see the dusky Lake,

And the white canoe of my dear?”

He saw the Lake, and a meteor bright

Quick over its surface play’d—

“Welcome,” he said, “my dear one’s light!”

And the dim shore echoed for many a night

The name of the death-cold maid.

Till he hollow’d a boat of the birchen bark,

Which carried him off from shore;

Far, far he follow’d the meteor spark,

The wind was high and the clouds were dark,

And the boat return’d no more.

But oft, from the Indian hunter’s camp,

This lover and maid so true

Are seen at the hour of midnight damp

To cross the Lake by a fire-fly lamp,

And paddle their white canoe!

A Barefoot Boy

BY JAMES WHITCOMB RILEY

A barefoot boy! I mark him at his play—

      For May is here once more, and so is he,—

      His dusty trousers, rolled half to the knee,

And his bare ankles grimy, too, as they:

Cross-hatchings of the nettle, in array

      Of feverish stripes, hint vividly to me

      Of woody pathways winding endlessly

Along the creek, where even yesterday

He plunged his shrinking body—gasped and shook—

      Yet called the water "warm," with never lack

Of joy. And so, half enviously I look

      Upon this graceless barefoot and his track,—

      His toe stubbed—ay, his big toe-nail knocked back

Like unto the clasp of an old pocketbook.

1. 
   

1. “A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett ...”

BY ANONYMOUS

A bridge engineer, Mr. Crumpett,

Built a bridge for the good River Bumpett.

    A mistake in the plan

    Left a gap in the span,

But he said, “Well, they'll just have to jump it.”

A Diamond

BY JACK SPICER

A Translation for Robert Jones

A diamond

Is there

At the heart of the moon or the branches or my nakedness

And there is nothing in the universe like diamond

Nothing in the whole mind.

The poem is a seagull resting on a pier at the end of the ocean.

A dog howls at the moon

A dog howls at the branches

A dog howls at the nakedness

A dog howling with pure mind.

I ask for the poem to be as pure as a seagull’s belly.

The universe falls apart and discloses a diamond

Two words called seagull are peacefully floating out where the

       waves are.

The dog is dead there with the moon, with the branches, with

       my nakedness

And there is nothing in the universe like diamond

Nothing in the whole mind.

A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky

BY LEWIS CARROLL

A BOAT beneath a sunny sky,

Lingering onward dreamily

In an evening of July —

Children three that nestle near,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Pleased a simple tale to hear —

Long has paled that sunny sky:

Echoes fade and memories die:

Autumn frosts have slain July.

Still she haunts me, phantomwise,

Alice moving under skies

Never seen by waking eyes.

Children yet, the tale to hear,

Eager eye and willing ear,

Lovingly shall nestle near.

In a Wonderland they lie,

Dreaming as the days go by,

Dreaming as the summers die:

Ever drifting down the stream —

Lingering in the golden gleam —

Life, what is it but a dream?

Attempts...(Poetry?)

Untitled

Voices rise from limbless water

up to/into my creaking boat

We've come through sifted silver slaughter

and yet we stay afloat.

They tell me that I'm drifting

to where I know not when

And drill me with their laughter

At my slowly sinking den.

"I'll not!" I cry and throw a rope

up at the greasy moon

"I'll rectify my castle's frame

and feed you with a spoon!"

"A spoon!" They scoff and gurgle/chortle more

At my so apparent ruin

I tilt my head and with a roar

"I'll feed you with your/my doom!"

Untitled

Don't ever mess with a mastermind,

for soon in time

you'll probably find that

a heart of grime

or a dandelion

can never ease

or slightly seize

the elusive breeze

of profundity.

Untitled

Muffled beats

make their muffled way

through my muffled room

to my muffled mind.

I think I like,

I think I don't

its tilting tune

or stilting croon?

I'll have to ask

my neighbor's rat

to tell me what he thinks.

Does it make him dream

of holey cheese?

Or dew-dropped leaves

that tempt with drinks?

I hope it does because even muffled beats through muffled walls cannot wake my muffled mind to help me clearly dream.

Don't Wake Up 

She woke up dripping syrup from a dream of waltzing backwards in the grass.

breath touched her hair, sending minnows down her sinews,

schools swim down then climb up her veins,

pulling gently on her organs to make it to her face where they dance in wet white- 

tails flap and scales flash in her aligator eyes.  

She woke up crying seaweed from a dream of a mummy wrapped in a kitchen cabinet.

a muted voice pulled open her ear, poured ice past her brain,

sloshing down her neck, droplets freezing through the espophagus and

cracking at her lungs, the frozen 

splinters spread down her arms into her coiled serpeant fingers. 

She woke up laughing bumblebees from a dream of plum pudding in a treehouse.

fuzz forces through her belly button

and buzz up her toes,

spinning and jumping over her skin, through knees and over hips,

humming to meet at her treefrog tummy. 

She woke up shaking tumbleweeds from a dream of bleeding beach houses.

wind trickles over her arm hairs

seashells creep down her spine

and sponges drink through her nostrils

to meet below her tongue, and press against her teeth

until sand spurts from her mollusk mouth.

the amazing combined feat of an organized set of symbols and the speed of human processing

that you are reading this is profound. 

Untitled Rendezvous

he followed me up to the bar

i gave him a half smile and an incline of my head. 

he came up for "just a minute"

i gave him a couple drinks and a tour of my bed. 

he asked me out to dinner

i gave him a tight dress and riveting conversation.  

he left me while i was sleeping

i gave him eight lines with no culmination.

Untitled

the poets i cannot stand the most

are those who never cease to boast.

they ryhme with words so silly that

you want to cry, "Jehuzaphat!" 

They cover their hair with a black beret, 
yet in a drawer their pen will stay,

They'll drink their coffee and wear their scarves

When they'd really do better to hang at wharves.
  

Chirping birds and budding flowers

make me want to jump from towers.

Pristine lakes and golden green leaves,

should never be read from high roof eaves. 

But the worst poets from all around

are those who try to seem profound

Rather than death, who am i and why?

How about simply making us cry?

Or giggle and squiggle

and cartwheel and riggle,

Or long to make gooseberry pie!

In fact I have decided

and in you I will confide it,

That the truly inspired poet,

simply does not know it.

You Must Be Have Been Born Out of Wedlock 

Sometimes I just want to smash you into crunchy pieces with a sledgehammer.

That's right skull, I mean you.

Oh wait, let me clarify- not sometimes but,

when I'm writing poetry. 

Maybe then the words will fall out,

Maybe then the descriptors describe,

Rhymes really rhyme, lines fall in time?

If it was as easy as crushing you skull,

you'd already look like ... 

But as I frustrate and contemplate this hole of pleasure-filled pain,

I realize that is exactly where the verbs thrive, adjectives survive

and the nouns host parties.

They might fester in expressionless throats

(sorry tongue, you can't push them out)

Or bury/burrow in veins right up to the wrist

(nope fingers, cease your twitching),

yet the emotion dripping bastard of literature and song doesn't want to come out today. 

Or should I say,

anyday.

In fact,

poetry would much rather hermit away

in my blasted brain. 

I Knew a Song of Africa 

She let me wash her hair today.

I gathered the tangled mass,

and laughed Coleridge's words down her back

while moonlit Mozart, Auld Lang Syne and our first safari

dripped out with the knots.

I had given her my pen

that she might trap stories for my returns,

yet she inked even more.

Next to my single, crooked line

she drew, until our parallel converged in the distance

like the train tracks where we exchanged names.

She understood my thunderstorm silence

and I, her proper rebellions,

And like a one-minded stampede

of so many antelopes

We tried to coexist.

For now, her tales were hushed as I scrubbed,

and she listened, with the hippos;

Our only audience as I rinsed away

the singing African afternoon.

A splash at the stubborn wisps,

And a handful of flyaway strands-

Not gentle, that wouldn't suit her,

But firm, and quick, my fingers searched

and separated wild curls.

Her unadorned smiling face looked up,

while I massaged her soapy mane down.

Her silence ruined solitude forever.

Food for Swagger/

I Was Hungry For You 

Today I ate an earthworm.

I picked him up off the wet pavement,

Ripped him into pieces.

I crushed his head,

Stuffed the bits to my mouth.

Mucus, blood and dirt combine,

Slide against my teeth-

Slipping down my throat

Ten more hearts now beat

In the rhythm of my rain.

Ugly Caterpillar 

They almost squashed you the other day. I know, I saw.

Crawling was never easy.

You have to pull yourself together

everytime you move forward.

Squirm to step, slink to slide.

Your long hairs like those on a great aunt's chin

quiver with every tiny mile,

desperately avoiding the beak, the claw, and the shoe.

Creeping kinds never stood much chance.

Green flashes against a dull brown and lusterless black,

red drips past rusty orange splotches,

and when spots and stripes can't make you interesting,

you're lucky if they can disguise.

Well, keep climbing limbs and chomping leaves,

Hold your huge, unrefined eyes to the sky

and find the branch that will bear your weight.

Then, hide yourself in white,

Find yourself in solitude...

And when they realize your brown shines,

black glistens, and that the drips are really delicate droplets of orange,

I'm sure they'll all suddenly adore you

my fuzzy friend,

once your colors fly.

Overflow

Feelings dripped

Into lidless eyes

But I wouldn't have blinked,

I liked the pain

And asked you to stay.

You poured through my sockets,

bathed my two world eaters,

and began to course back to my skull.

I let you river

Through my thirsty brain,

Which filled, and quickly flooded.

I held my breath as your waters rose

Then opened wide and swallowed.

To my surprise, I didn't drown;

I floated.

The Janna Banana Stand 

I see an N sneaking through the marketplace,

peering here, leering there

over bubbling oranges and

stinking, staring fish eyes. 

Unfortunately he is not alone.

His even darker twin ducks behind brocoli mountains

and creeps closer to the banana stand,

craving a toothy chomp of yellow. 

A fresh stalk of tango green soars past

tasseled red, cigar-smoke silver

and jingling purple, pleasantly

knocking the first A in the face. 

The second A of the studious pair

drops the curved yellow she had been weighing

to help her dismayed friend,

while the boiling cool J banana vendor watches with a smirk. 

The Curse 

Pain! 

Ripping through my side,

A clenched fist of burning blades forces through my flesh.

Veins filling, its spidery fingers wrench apart,

opening more my torment. 

A gaping hole remains,

jagged and dripping...

It has left me. 

Searing emptiness fills the pit-

but wait!

Now blood, clots and globs of tissue,

Slippery yet thick. 

An enemy you think perhaps?

Think again-

It's just a friend.

Professor H. 

Mumble, mumble, mumble.

Just blather rolling off his tongue,

Falling dead in the air.

Stagnant.

Noises, gestures, sounds,

oozing from his fingertips.

Up, down-

His jaw is ceaselessly chewing,

Eating vowels,

Or spitting them out? 

Lips together.

Lips separate.

Mustache crinkling,

Eyelids blinking,

Saliva sprinkling. 

What is it?

Oval O's and string bean E's.

It makes sense.

Doesn't it? 

Remaining Changed 

As a tree remebers seasons,

So too will you remember me.

My ice will weigh your boughs,

Just as my wind will wrench your leaves,

But so too will my sun bring your blossoms,

and my rain pool in your roots.

Variation on Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird: 

Chair 

1.  Sitting there

the empty char

offers me a rest. 

2.  Eight shining chairs and

a family full of food 

3.  Tree, your limbs will do quite nicely when sat upon.

Not in the air of course, but when making my kitchen chair. 

4.  How do they eat without you, my plump dining room chair?

It must be someting in all of that rice.

Or maybe it's the fish? 

5.  The creeping thief never imagined that my sparkling emerald

and gold-clasped pearls were safely sewed

within the seat of a faded velvet topped chair.

Giraffe 

I gaze up miles of black spotted yellow.

He drops leaves on my upturned face.

A Lady

Out of cracked kitchen floors,

six dirt crusted siblings and chickenless chicken soup

she rose,

a flash of floating footsteps and a motion

of a tapering, gloved hand. 

Music I Need

Smoking Popes
Sea Wolf- Middle Distance Runner
Dream a Little Dream of Me- Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstromg
And You Will Know Us By The Trail of Dead- To Russia My Homeland
Danna/ Devotchka- Let's Go
Chris Bathgate- Madison House
***Pink Martini- Sympathique
Yael Naim & David Donatien- New Soul
Mirah And Spectratone International-My Prize
Jolie Holland- Old Fashioned Morphine
Andrew Bird- Not a Robot, but a Ghost
Micah P. Hinson-Stand in My Way
Midlake-They Cannot Let it Expand
Tin Hat Trio- The Longest Night
**Two Star Symphony- Junkyard Jig
Elvis Perkins- Without Love
Nick Castro and the Young Elders-Attar
Connie Evingson-Si Tu Savais
Yellow #5- Demon Crossing
Los Gitanas- Graveyard Shuffle
Love Made Me Drunk- Gregory Page -La Vaise de Virginie
Heartbeats- The Knife
The Ecstasy of Dancing Fleas- The Penguin Cafe Orchestra Also- Music for a Found Harmonium (Nap Dynamite)
P:ano- Foot Hills
P:ano Dark Hills
3 Leg Torso- Stolen Tango
Astor in Paris
Just Another Sucker on the Vine- Tom Waits
Theater Fire- Say Yes
Bridge of Theme from Blinking Lights (Live)- The Eels
Jose Gonzalez
Dance Me to the End of Love- Madeleine Peyroux
Grifos Muertos- Jeffrey Luck Lucas
Adam's 3 Step- The Duhks
Tiger Mountain Peasant Song- Fleet Foxes
James Carr- At the Dark End of the Street
Jaibi- Nightmare from Dave Godin's Deep Soul Treasures Vol 4
Takenobu- Shady Grove- Neverland
Donora- I Think I Like You
Calexico
Brendan Sherman- Alone
Olafur Arnolds- 3055
A Hawk and a Hacksaw- The Water Under the Moon
Eric Bachmann-To the Races