I think it'll reflect a time period in your life..when you were going through some heavy emotional things...but like when you fall down..emotions leave scars.So..you'll always remember it.
A whisper and a thrill
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
But not be it.
just learn and grow from it.
Thats what I try to do.
exactly...that's why I keep some of the old poems around, to remind me and keep the past fresh in my mind and heart...so I can endeavor to not repeat it.
some of my poems I am so fond of--like children of friends--that I've got to bring them around more than once. it's like they are their own creatures, and they deserve some time in the sunlight.
some of my poems I am so fond of--like children of friends--that I've got to bring them around more than once. it's like they are their own creatures, and they deserve some time in the sunlight.
My ghost,
Which will haunt this world
After I am dead,
Is within me now,
Angling for position,
Scaling down my bones
To make room for itself.
It is shearing
The corners
And edges
Of my body
In preparation
For it’s leaving.
My elbows, oh so minutely,
Have grown more pointed:
Sharpened tips
Like the bottoms
Of fence-posts
About to be earthed.
Fingers-barely bones to begin with-
Winnowed down
In the middle
Of each knuckle,
Leaving twentyeight
Quarter-inch hourglasses
Pointing at the ground
When I walk.
The kneecaps,
Brittle saucers,
Appear to have been shaved
Sarcastically around their rims,
Losing centimeters, millimeters
Of circumference,
Floating above stalks
Of tibias.
This ghost of mine
Is cutting away swaths of calcium,
Ballooning the skin
And meat
Of my husk,
Excising inner mass
For it’s bloating spirit self.
The ghost’s deepest desire is,
I fear,
To fashion my bones
Into blades,
Slicing through my outer layer
So it may flee my flesh
To dwell among the living
While I yet live,
My ghost
Moving through the material plane
Honking car horns,
Shopping for apples,
Attending church
And maybe even
Silently cradling an infant,
While I curl up alone,
Bleeding to blackness.
You poor little girl,
unafraid of being paupered
strumming guitars on the street
for money and dignity
shambling along in secondhand sweats
bemoaning your feet,
your aching back,
the choices you failed to make,
unafraid of the stacking regret
that comes of unhinged promiscuity.
You poor young thing,
I can't imagine spending another night with you,
another inert evening at tepid coffee shops
reinventing the wheel
the caffeine buzz morphing to fever trembles
overnicotened, overtalked, overawake.
Oh! I can't imagine another night like that,
another night of overthinking
and underdoing.
I want to find you so interesting;
I want to get you pregnant
and watch a future unfold
unlike any you ever dreamed;
I want to make fancy twinkling music
play inside your head.
Alas, there is nothing so hellbent
as a woman determined to destroy something beautiful,
as if born from a womb of tears,
shedding monthly blood as a repentance
to an unremitting god
who she won't try to understand.
You do me no disservice,
you poor little thing,
no matter what you believe.
I am routinely shocked by the fact
That I am not always finding dead bodies everywhere
(dead human bodies)
Because I know for a fact
(from reading the paper)
That lots of people are constantly dying
(it is a flow that cannot be squelched, it seems)
And--sense would tell me--they've got to be dying somewhere.
Every time I walk onto an elevator
(which is not that often)
I expect a crumpled, warmish body to be tucked
Into the corner--
This has never happened
(to me, anyway).
Walking through the parking lot at the Megastore
Never have I seen a body
Crouched over a bleating steering wheel
Or sprawled feet from the car,
Keys in hand.
In the park on sunny lovely days
Strolling along, I have never found
On a wooden bench the corpse of a lovely old
Man or woman whose time it simply
Happened to be,
Who had just lived too long
Or smoked too much
Or eaten lots of fried foods
Or been to too many wars
Or been brutally divorced
Or had untreated syphillis
Or just plain died there on a bench,
I've never come across it.
I ask my friends,
"Where are all these people dying?
We should be knee-deep in the dead,
Bodies all underfoot and rotting."
They never know what to say.
And I lay awake nights
Picturing movie theaters full
Of the freshly-stricken dead,
Smiling, laughing,
Waiting to be found.
I love the whole poem. I love your understanding of the complexity of buying American for the average American -- it's great!
Last year I really started making an effort not to buy things made out of the country -- it ain't easy! And if you don't have a computer so that you can order online, good luck.
"but the poem once reflected me...so in a way, it always will. no?"
Yes!
I could talk about your poetry for days:
"I am routinely shocked by the fact
That I am not always finding dead bodies everywhere
(dead human bodies)
Because I know for a fact
(from reading the paper)
That lots of people are constantly dying
(it is a flow that cannot be squelched, it seems)
And--sense would tell me--they've got to be dying somewhere.
Every time I walk onto an elevator
(which is not that often)
I expect a crumpled, warmish body to be tucked
Into the corner--
This has never happened
(to me, anyway).
Walking through the parking lot at the Megastore
Never have I seen a body"
This makes me think of one evening at dinner. I was sitting there with a friend -- the news was on. They were discussing the beheading of three people in Iraq, two were British. I said, "Two were Brits, do you call a British person a Brit?"
Then I wanted to throw up -- someone's death becoming polite dinner conversation, as easy to say as "Do you call a British person a Brit?" This crazy war, our crazy de-sensitivity!
You're no schlub, you're an artist! And your poetry is great. They have more than good chocolate in Pennsylvania -- they've got Groove's brain!
Anyone could have done it;
He did it right in broad daylight.
The mother a bit flighty, perhaps,
Easily distracted too,
With her child in the park.
The masked man just up and
Stole the child, right from in front
Of her.
What a bold crime!
The ingenuity and the gusto,
The surety it would require!
Oh, but for the days
I was younger
When I stole children,
But never quite so boldly.
It was innocent then,
And the penalties enormous.
this poem is about me,say, five years ago, give or take. It was written as a form of gratitude for my life today, and the distance I have come from that person I used to be.
I just don't want anyone worrying about me.
Here it is:
Proud Gallows
The sun peeks from under it's blanket
Igniting this vast zoo,
I exisitng selfaware nonsober at dawn's child
On this chair reading
My own microscopic importance
Taking form, igniting it's pilot light,
Gyrating it's cogworks;
I bob and heave
A massive machine
Squinting with automatic lenses
Remaining on this plane strictly for monetary purposes.
This body, whose light does refract,
This hydraulic fleshcar, this stymied conflagration,
Mortality does reek from this proud gallows.
This umbilical envy does sway, drunk
And awaits the sullied lecture,
The final dollar grossed;
I will weep abruptly to my fellow mechanisms
Sporting my electrical hands, cupped,
Filled to the brim with my own warm blood
Sliding slickly through the hinges of my knuckles
This blood
Does blot the carpet, this couch, this universe
Which shuns me,
Does blot my fanbelts and timers,
My sparkplugs, my whirlygigs,
My hands a crimson sieve.
I've posted this one before, but I made a few small changes and am now quite happier with it:
Here Are My Plans
Here are my plans:
First I’ve got to call people up
And find out who’ll be where
And who’ll be where when
And find out if they know who’ll be who when
Once I’ve figured that all out
The thing to do
Is load up the car
With food and music and gorgeous things
Fill it up with gas
Fill it up with two tanks of gas!
Check the air level in the tires
Check the oil
The coolant
Smell it, does it smell good inside?
And off I go!
Drive here, drive there, drive all over,
Find who is who when they are there,
Pick ‘em up and keep haulin’
Go neat places and take backpacks
And eat lunch on bridges
Always on bridges
Go to furniture stores and lay on couches
Jump off sofas!
Buzz by beaches, oh baby,
Buzz by beaches and sniff the salt
Sift the sand
Empty our pockets and hand everything to the person to our left
And back in the car baby
Late night driving on turnpikes come up with nicknames
Crazy nicknames for each other
Sugardaddy Longlegs or Celery Kool-Aid
Count the bears alongside the road
And park in towns and hitchhike to cemeteries
Dance around headstones like crazy Popsicles
And pretend we are dead
Laying vertical staring at signs and meeting God
Kissing the damned and braying like donkeys,
And spin baby spin till you’re dizzy
And back in the car baby
And maybe fill it up with gas twice again
Let’s go to monuments and parks
And praise the builders and shakers
The stone links of history and manners
Never stopping to wonder where they went
Where they got to
Never worrying about the rain
Lets get wet we were born that way
Let’s return to the womb but this time it’s a car
It’s a car we have piled into and gassed up
And it’s plummeting through the countryside
The townside the monuments the acres of alfalfa
We’ll drive briefly on the lawns
The lawns of stationary folks
And laugh like it was crazy baby like it was crazy
Make rest stops and tape money to stray dogs
Tape money anywhere
To stop signs and open windows
On apple pies and shoes in the locker room at the public pool
Let’s tape money to things baby!
People will find it and be confused and lovely
And assured that the world is as unpredictable as they have always suspected
And maybe they’ll start taping money to things
And wouldn’t that be lovely?
And then back in the car guys
We’ve got states to shoo away
And horizons to spraypaint,
We’ll paint beautiful graffiti on turtles
People say not to but let’s do it
Only old and lecherous turtles
Only the worst turtles, man,
We’ll walk all the trails and passages
The one’s people write about
Sleep under growing stars
Twirling nightscapes
And name galaxies, make things up baby
We’ll make things up guys
And never stop never stop making things up
And then back to the car
Always back to the car
Fill it up with gas again
Buy a CB radio and talk to the air
Make the most beautiful promises to the air
And take it with us
Into the most treacherous cities
The concrete damsels and evening fools
We’ll take the air with us in the car baby!
Nothing’s too dangerous on this trip,
We’ll wander down the alleys skipping like children
Singing gently to the world oh yeah
Kneel before the manholes and sewer grates
Like they were portals to another world
A world of upside-down mirroring us
Following us like a hand two-inches above a clear puddle
And let’s make sure we’ve got crayons with us
And let’s make sure we’re never hungry
And let’s make sure there’s plenty of water
And we’ll do jumping jacks in thunderstorms baby
We’ll buy pumpkins and put them in trees
Way up in trees just to do it
And walk through glades not in single file
Who would do that anyway
And back in the car guys
Fill ‘er up again thrice
I want to see swampland
And I want to see famous birthplaces, like Maine,
And I want to see factories where things real things useful things get made
Things I use man I want to see where they get made
I want to find streetlamps shaped like exclamation points
And I want to see prisons
Where bad people and unfortunate people and some good people live
Let’s tape money to the prisons too while we are there
And let’s shake the hands of strangers
Ugly strangers
And call little boys sir
And call little girls ma’am
I want to see huge balls of twine
And I want to see the world’s largest scale model of the world
Let’s buy underwear at yard sales and stop being scared of stupid little things like that
As a matter of fact let’s go to the first yard sale we see,
Earnestly and silently survey the whole thing and declare without humor,
“We’ll take it,”
And buy all of someone else’s old,
And put it all in the car man put it all in the car
Lives can fit in cars
They can fit in urns and coffee-shops
And we’ll keep moving
I want to see state capitols man
I want to throw a baseball across a state line baby
Let’s go to an Indian Reservation
And ask Indians if they still make sweet promises to the air
And then reach down into our backpacks and give them something
Something nice or not whatever we have
A peeled onion or bug spray or money we found taped to something baby!
And then we’ve got to keep motoring, fill that tank up for a dozen, guys,
We’ve got miles to go before we sleep
We still have to draw eternal pictures in the dirt with backscratchers
And try our hand at re-enactments
And rolling down hills in huge tires and stop being scared of stupid little things like that
And driving the car through narrow swaths in corn fields
And always keep moving, keep moving,
Keep moving, keep moving,
Keep moving forward, baby!
Someone should be publishing these poems, but then I guess we wouldn't be getting them here for free --
great! thanks for such a wonderful set of images -- made my brain happy, and my mouth smile (brain candy is what I would call it!!)
If I can point out something, I would like to. Once I was criticized for using too many "and's" and the criticism was warranted in the context of the poem I was writing. Here you've used many, but I think it's perfect in this context -- it's the way people talk when they are excited about their plans -- what a nice future your speaker must have!
Someone should be publishing these poems, but then I guess we wouldn't be getting them here for free --
great! thanks for such a wonderful set of images -- made my brain happy, and my mouth smile (brain candy is what I would call it!!)
If I can point out something, I would like to. Once I was criticized for using too many "and's" and the criticism was warranted in the context of the poem I was writing. Here you've used many, but I think it's perfect in this context -- it's the way people talk when they are excited about their plans -- what a nice future your speaker must have!
Thanks so much once again Pearlmutt! You are truly going to inflate my ego!
The many 'and's were certainly on purpose--like you said, I thought it denoted the excitement and the "in-the-moment" rushed nature of what the speaker is talking about. I wrote that poem in about ten minutes. I thought that in order to nail the rushed and excited feeling, I needed to rush the poem. Of course, I've gone back and changed a few things, but the tone remains.
All I need to do
To be filled
(overfilled, really; brimming)
With poetic vigor
Is to picture the lower half
Of your body
In black pinstriped pants
Parading around the living room
As though carried
(held up, levitated)
By wispful spirits,
Happy thick ghosts
Folding pinstriped flesh perfectly
Around the room.
That is all I need,
And then more images follow:
The ceremonial lighting of torches,
Bats underlit circling a street light,
A woman's lazy breasts
Swinging in an African hut
Swatting flies like a cow's tail,
The exploding of devices.
When I was a younger man and foolhardy
I would pick sometimes old cigarette butts
Out of public ashtrays and smoke the crumpled tobacco,
Inhaling the stale breath of strangers and lipstick
Because I was out of money or time
Or too boozed-up to notice or care.
They had been like any other cigarette
Except forgotten, valueless.
I don't do that anymore.
I now have just enough money and scruples
To seperate what is trash from what has merit,
Or what is mine from what is noone's.
And on days when the sun is out
And folks are walking, pushing kids in strollers,
I'll walk the streets grinning, smoking one cigarette
With an extra one behind my ear, in case a stranger needs one.
The visit
Went I guess well
Although her eyes drooped
Thewholetime
And she was gaunt
As a bough with no leaves;
She asked for nothing
(which I promptly gave)
But took perhaps my time
(which is not I believe oh-so-precious)
And I spoke to her rapidly
Of dwindling things
(like the future and cigarettes)
As though she were a silently seated wall;
I took no great pleasure
In the solitary nature of the conversation,
But rather than reminisce
I'd rather ramble:
Rather than hear her voice
(which is also gaunt,
and full of more past
than a school yearbook)
I'd rather hear mine
(which at times is full of more bullshit
than a pile of bullshit)
Animatedly droning on
About quirky vanity lisense plates
And bizarre ways to set up a chess board;
I have no more love for your body,
Dear,
And I never quite cared for your mind;
I told you once that I thought I could force love,
But nobody can. Noone ever has.
And she sits inert listening to me
(those sunken eyes black hungry pearls)
But I keep talking
Talking
And always will
(whenever she wants, whenever she calls)
Because she was always there for me
Naked and splayed
(whenever I wanted, whenever I called)
If I wanted to say something new
(that's never been said before)
About the drudgery of aging
And passing time
Years building up upon you
Like solid walls of heaviest stone
I'd train to be a painter or dramatist;
Poems are so small next to decades.
If I wanted to complain about sagging bellies,
Calloused feet, the ache here and the pain there
(that never hurt before)
The hair falling out,
The dark mysterious shroud enveloping us
The moment pubics sprout,
I think I'd become a sculptor or dancer;
Words are so woefully weightless.
If I were inclined to break new ground
(that's never been broke before)
About the wrinkled dying masses,
Their hearts beating to nowhere
With souls sweeter than molasses
And graves shallower than wells,
I'd go to school for business or law;
All language ever did was reflect oblivion.
This should be the last poem I'll ever write
(of course it won't be, of course it couldn't be)
But from now on I'll only write about flowers,
Moonbeams landing on still ponds,
Fish that leap and miss the net,
Lovers sweating on a candlelit balcony,
Cold clothes left by the fire.
I'll stop writing about things that baffle me.
Comments
sadness reflected by Leak from my eyes?
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
indeed, sadness.
this poem is an older one...I am not sad like that now. but the poem once reflected me...so in a way, it always will. no?
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
just learn and grow from it.
Thats what I try to do.
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
exactly...that's why I keep some of the old poems around, to remind me and keep the past fresh in my mind and heart...so I can endeavor to not repeat it.
unless its part of a series.
A whisper and a chill
adv2005
"Why do I bother?"
The 11th Commandment.
"Whatever"
PETITION TO STOP THE BAN OF SMOKING IN BARS IN THE UNITED STATES....Anyone?
that should say "like children OR friends"
Which will haunt this world
After I am dead,
Is within me now,
Angling for position,
Scaling down my bones
To make room for itself.
It is shearing
The corners
And edges
Of my body
In preparation
For it’s leaving.
My elbows, oh so minutely,
Have grown more pointed:
Sharpened tips
Like the bottoms
Of fence-posts
About to be earthed.
Fingers-barely bones to begin with-
Winnowed down
In the middle
Of each knuckle,
Leaving twentyeight
Quarter-inch hourglasses
Pointing at the ground
When I walk.
The kneecaps,
Brittle saucers,
Appear to have been shaved
Sarcastically around their rims,
Losing centimeters, millimeters
Of circumference,
Floating above stalks
Of tibias.
This ghost of mine
Is cutting away swaths of calcium,
Ballooning the skin
And meat
Of my husk,
Excising inner mass
For it’s bloating spirit self.
The ghost’s deepest desire is,
I fear,
To fashion my bones
Into blades,
Slicing through my outer layer
So it may flee my flesh
To dwell among the living
While I yet live,
My ghost
Moving through the material plane
Honking car horns,
Shopping for apples,
Attending church
And maybe even
Silently cradling an infant,
While I curl up alone,
Bleeding to blackness.
unafraid of being paupered
strumming guitars on the street
for money and dignity
shambling along in secondhand sweats
bemoaning your feet,
your aching back,
the choices you failed to make,
unafraid of the stacking regret
that comes of unhinged promiscuity.
You poor young thing,
I can't imagine spending another night with you,
another inert evening at tepid coffee shops
reinventing the wheel
the caffeine buzz morphing to fever trembles
overnicotened, overtalked, overawake.
Oh! I can't imagine another night like that,
another night of overthinking
and underdoing.
I want to find you so interesting;
I want to get you pregnant
and watch a future unfold
unlike any you ever dreamed;
I want to make fancy twinkling music
play inside your head.
Alas, there is nothing so hellbent
as a woman determined to destroy something beautiful,
as if born from a womb of tears,
shedding monthly blood as a repentance
to an unremitting god
who she won't try to understand.
You do me no disservice,
you poor little thing,
no matter what you believe.
That I am not always finding dead bodies everywhere
(dead human bodies)
Because I know for a fact
(from reading the paper)
That lots of people are constantly dying
(it is a flow that cannot be squelched, it seems)
And--sense would tell me--they've got to be dying somewhere.
Every time I walk onto an elevator
(which is not that often)
I expect a crumpled, warmish body to be tucked
Into the corner--
This has never happened
(to me, anyway).
Walking through the parking lot at the Megastore
Never have I seen a body
Crouched over a bleating steering wheel
Or sprawled feet from the car,
Keys in hand.
In the park on sunny lovely days
Strolling along, I have never found
On a wooden bench the corpse of a lovely old
Man or woman whose time it simply
Happened to be,
Who had just lived too long
Or smoked too much
Or eaten lots of fried foods
Or been to too many wars
Or been brutally divorced
Or had untreated syphillis
Or just plain died there on a bench,
I've never come across it.
I ask my friends,
"Where are all these people dying?
We should be knee-deep in the dead,
Bodies all underfoot and rotting."
They never know what to say.
And I lay awake nights
Picturing movie theaters full
Of the freshly-stricken dead,
Smiling, laughing,
Waiting to be found.
I love the whole poem. I love your understanding of the complexity of buying American for the average American -- it's great!
Last year I really started making an effort not to buy things made out of the country -- it ain't easy! And if you don't have a computer so that you can order online, good luck.
I appreciate the poem so much!!
Yes!
I could talk about your poetry for days:
"I am routinely shocked by the fact
That I am not always finding dead bodies everywhere
(dead human bodies)
Because I know for a fact
(from reading the paper)
That lots of people are constantly dying
(it is a flow that cannot be squelched, it seems)
And--sense would tell me--they've got to be dying somewhere.
Every time I walk onto an elevator
(which is not that often)
I expect a crumpled, warmish body to be tucked
Into the corner--
This has never happened
(to me, anyway).
Walking through the parking lot at the Megastore
Never have I seen a body"
This makes me think of one evening at dinner. I was sitting there with a friend -- the news was on. They were discussing the beheading of three people in Iraq, two were British. I said, "Two were Brits, do you call a British person a Brit?"
Then I wanted to throw up -- someone's death becoming polite dinner conversation, as easy to say as "Do you call a British person a Brit?" This crazy war, our crazy de-sensitivity!
You're no schlub, you're an artist! And your poetry is great. They have more than good chocolate in Pennsylvania -- they've got Groove's brain!
He did it right in broad daylight.
The mother a bit flighty, perhaps,
Easily distracted too,
With her child in the park.
The masked man just up and
Stole the child, right from in front
Of her.
What a bold crime!
The ingenuity and the gusto,
The surety it would require!
Oh, but for the days
I was younger
When I stole children,
But never quite so boldly.
It was innocent then,
And the penalties enormous.
I just don't want anyone worrying about me.
Here it is:
The sun peeks from under it's blanket
Igniting this vast zoo,
I exisitng selfaware nonsober at dawn's child
On this chair reading
Gyrating it's cogworks;
I bob and heave
Squinting with automatic lenses
This body, whose light does refract,
This hydraulic fleshcar, this stymied conflagration,
Mortality does reek from this proud gallows.
This umbilical envy does sway, drunk
The final dollar grossed;
Sporting my electrical hands, cupped,
Sliding slickly through the hinges of my knuckles
Does blot the carpet, this couch, this universe
Which shuns me,
My sparkplugs, my whirlygigs,
My hands a crimson sieve.
Here are my plans:
First I’ve got to call people up
And find out who’ll be where
And who’ll be where when
And find out if they know who’ll be who when
Once I’ve figured that all out
The thing to do
Is load up the car
With food and music and gorgeous things
Fill it up with gas
Fill it up with two tanks of gas!
Check the air level in the tires
Check the oil
The coolant
Smell it, does it smell good inside?
And off I go!
Drive here, drive there, drive all over,
Find who is who when they are there,
Pick ‘em up and keep haulin’
Go neat places and take backpacks
And eat lunch on bridges
Always on bridges
Go to furniture stores and lay on couches
Jump off sofas!
Buzz by beaches, oh baby,
Buzz by beaches and sniff the salt
Sift the sand
Empty our pockets and hand everything to the person to our left
And back in the car baby
Late night driving on turnpikes come up with nicknames
Crazy nicknames for each other
Sugardaddy Longlegs or Celery Kool-Aid
Count the bears alongside the road
And park in towns and hitchhike to cemeteries
Dance around headstones like crazy Popsicles
And pretend we are dead
Laying vertical staring at signs and meeting God
Kissing the damned and braying like donkeys,
And spin baby spin till you’re dizzy
And back in the car baby
And maybe fill it up with gas twice again
Let’s go to monuments and parks
And praise the builders and shakers
The stone links of history and manners
Never stopping to wonder where they went
Where they got to
Never worrying about the rain
Lets get wet we were born that way
Let’s return to the womb but this time it’s a car
It’s a car we have piled into and gassed up
And it’s plummeting through the countryside
The townside the monuments the acres of alfalfa
We’ll drive briefly on the lawns
The lawns of stationary folks
And laugh like it was crazy baby like it was crazy
Make rest stops and tape money to stray dogs
Tape money anywhere
To stop signs and open windows
On apple pies and shoes in the locker room at the public pool
Let’s tape money to things baby!
People will find it and be confused and lovely
And assured that the world is as unpredictable as they have always suspected
And maybe they’ll start taping money to things
And wouldn’t that be lovely?
And then back in the car guys
We’ve got states to shoo away
And horizons to spraypaint,
We’ll paint beautiful graffiti on turtles
People say not to but let’s do it
Only old and lecherous turtles
Only the worst turtles, man,
We’ll walk all the trails and passages
The one’s people write about
Sleep under growing stars
Twirling nightscapes
And name galaxies, make things up baby
We’ll make things up guys
And never stop never stop making things up
And then back to the car
Always back to the car
Fill it up with gas again
Buy a CB radio and talk to the air
Make the most beautiful promises to the air
And take it with us
Into the most treacherous cities
The concrete damsels and evening fools
We’ll take the air with us in the car baby!
Nothing’s too dangerous on this trip,
We’ll wander down the alleys skipping like children
Singing gently to the world oh yeah
Kneel before the manholes and sewer grates
Like they were portals to another world
A world of upside-down mirroring us
Following us like a hand two-inches above a clear puddle
And let’s make sure we’ve got crayons with us
And let’s make sure we’re never hungry
And let’s make sure there’s plenty of water
And we’ll do jumping jacks in thunderstorms baby
We’ll buy pumpkins and put them in trees
Way up in trees just to do it
And walk through glades not in single file
Who would do that anyway
And back in the car guys
Fill ‘er up again thrice
I want to see swampland
And I want to see famous birthplaces, like Maine,
And I want to see factories where things real things useful things get made
Things I use man I want to see where they get made
I want to find streetlamps shaped like exclamation points
And I want to see prisons
Where bad people and unfortunate people and some good people live
Let’s tape money to the prisons too while we are there
And let’s shake the hands of strangers
Ugly strangers
And call little boys sir
And call little girls ma’am
I want to see huge balls of twine
And I want to see the world’s largest scale model of the world
Let’s buy underwear at yard sales and stop being scared of stupid little things like that
As a matter of fact let’s go to the first yard sale we see,
Earnestly and silently survey the whole thing and declare without humor,
“We’ll take it,”
And buy all of someone else’s old,
And put it all in the car man put it all in the car
Lives can fit in cars
They can fit in urns and coffee-shops
And we’ll keep moving
I want to see state capitols man
I want to throw a baseball across a state line baby
Let’s go to an Indian Reservation
And ask Indians if they still make sweet promises to the air
And then reach down into our backpacks and give them something
Something nice or not whatever we have
A peeled onion or bug spray or money we found taped to something baby!
And then we’ve got to keep motoring, fill that tank up for a dozen, guys,
We’ve got miles to go before we sleep
We still have to draw eternal pictures in the dirt with backscratchers
And try our hand at re-enactments
And rolling down hills in huge tires and stop being scared of stupid little things like that
And driving the car through narrow swaths in corn fields
And always keep moving, keep moving,
Keep moving, keep moving,
Keep moving forward, baby!
Dude, like... woah!
hmmm...shall I take that as a compliment?
then thank you very much.
Someone should be publishing these poems, but then I guess we wouldn't be getting them here for free --
great! thanks for such a wonderful set of images -- made my brain happy, and my mouth smile (brain candy is what I would call it!!)
If I can point out something, I would like to. Once I was criticized for using too many "and's" and the criticism was warranted in the context of the poem I was writing. Here you've used many, but I think it's perfect in this context -- it's the way people talk when they are excited about their plans -- what a nice future your speaker must have!
Thanks so much once again Pearlmutt! You are truly going to inflate my ego!
The many 'and's were certainly on purpose--like you said, I thought it denoted the excitement and the "in-the-moment" rushed nature of what the speaker is talking about. I wrote that poem in about ten minutes. I thought that in order to nail the rushed and excited feeling, I needed to rush the poem. Of course, I've gone back and changed a few things, but the tone remains.
Glad you liked it!
To be filled
(overfilled, really; brimming)
With poetic vigor
Is to picture the lower half
Of your body
In black pinstriped pants
Parading around the living room
As though carried
(held up, levitated)
By wispful spirits,
Happy thick ghosts
Folding pinstriped flesh perfectly
Around the room.
That is all I need,
And then more images follow:
The ceremonial lighting of torches,
Bats underlit circling a street light,
A woman's lazy breasts
Swinging in an African hut
Swatting flies like a cow's tail,
The exploding of devices.
I would pick sometimes old cigarette butts
Out of public ashtrays and smoke the crumpled tobacco,
Inhaling the stale breath of strangers and lipstick
Because I was out of money or time
Or too boozed-up to notice or care.
They had been like any other cigarette
Except forgotten, valueless.
I don't do that anymore.
I now have just enough money and scruples
To seperate what is trash from what has merit,
Or what is mine from what is noone's.
And on days when the sun is out
And folks are walking, pushing kids in strollers,
I'll walk the streets grinning, smoking one cigarette
With an extra one behind my ear, in case a stranger needs one.
you are one of the nicest people.
Went I guess well
Although her eyes drooped
Thewholetime
And she was gaunt
As a bough with no leaves;
She asked for nothing
(which I promptly gave)
But took perhaps my time
(which is not I believe oh-so-precious)
And I spoke to her rapidly
Of dwindling things
(like the future and cigarettes)
As though she were a silently seated wall;
I took no great pleasure
In the solitary nature of the conversation,
But rather than reminisce
I'd rather ramble:
Rather than hear her voice
(which is also gaunt,
and full of more past
than a school yearbook)
I'd rather hear mine
(which at times is full of more bullshit
than a pile of bullshit)
Animatedly droning on
About quirky vanity lisense plates
And bizarre ways to set up a chess board;
I have no more love for your body,
Dear,
And I never quite cared for your mind;
I told you once that I thought I could force love,
But nobody can. Noone ever has.
And she sits inert listening to me
(those sunken eyes black hungry pearls)
But I keep talking
Talking
And always will
(whenever she wants, whenever she calls)
Because she was always there for me
Naked and splayed
(whenever I wanted, whenever I called)
And I feel sorry for inert the dark eyed woman.
thanks so much!
and yes, she is to be felt sorry for...she is miserable and I am not blameless in that...but I do what I can to make up for it. ah, regret!
If I wanted to say something new
(that's never been said before)
About the drudgery of aging
And passing time
Years building up upon you
Like solid walls of heaviest stone
I'd train to be a painter or dramatist;
Poems are so small next to decades.
If I wanted to complain about sagging bellies,
Calloused feet, the ache here and the pain there
(that never hurt before)
The hair falling out,
The dark mysterious shroud enveloping us
The moment pubics sprout,
I think I'd become a sculptor or dancer;
Words are so woefully weightless.
If I were inclined to break new ground
(that's never been broke before)
About the wrinkled dying masses,
Their hearts beating to nowhere
With souls sweeter than molasses
And graves shallower than wells,
I'd go to school for business or law;
All language ever did was reflect oblivion.
This should be the last poem I'll ever write
(of course it won't be, of course it couldn't be)
But from now on I'll only write about flowers,
Moonbeams landing on still ponds,
Fish that leap and miss the net,
Lovers sweating on a candlelit balcony,
Cold clothes left by the fire.
I'll stop writing about things that baffle me.