Setaside2's Poetry... if you like
DopeBeastie
Posts: 2,513
(and since I locked the original, I think i'll attempt to rebuild it... at least the works... i hope the thread stays archived long enough for me to finish... my apologies, love.)
08/30/03
ISLE/future holdings
The rain has stopped and the lightning has chased it's tail for the last time. No thunder to rattle the screens, threatening to be let in. The wind no longer shakes the trees, trembling in humility and bowing in unison to the invisible majesty that is any given storm... even nature must worship it seems. The clouds have slowed their screaming to a low moan and the sidewalks are reasserting their dull, grey, cracked exteriors as if to prove that nothing could faze them, nothing excites them, life is all so boring. The birds settle in, resigned to the chores of tomorrow. The worms resign themselves to almost certain doom come early morn and the babes sigh quietly having been shushed of their rumbling fears, the gods at play, their fates held by their own eyes still searching for something to actually see. Windchimes play their songless tune, the wind needing refinement and education for such a moody instrument so difficult to master in retrospect. Trophies no longer matter. The house is down. The dreams alight and settle on phone wires looking for a home. Water courses down a parking lot vein refreshing hidden cracks we'll never know until next season's dandelion rears its yellow mane and dons its powdered coat. Though the ribbons flutter, the angel never can tell where nor when the motion begins. Confused by the noise that surrounds he trudges homeward, the mud only slowing slightly to allow passage. Molasses is swamplike, he reminds himself. It is dark like chocolate, but it is a falsehood. A syrupy muck that makes way as if it were a moving tide in slow motion. Devious even. Sly. What was it they all got into? The door ajar, the porch light blown, the dog asleep under the rocker. Newspapers scratch the breeze, grabbing for purchase, seeking flight. The print holds down, holds back, never gives of itself, never fades. The stories hidden in between like secrets to be told in a second grade ear. The storm's passage only serves to ruffle and upset their timidity. They share their tragedy in silence, knowing that the rains can only wash away so much and that the city slumbering silent below the eastern horizon will have much to answer for. Transparent is the love, a wisp of steam, a tendril of fog... never touching for long, the fingers grasping yet weak. It basks in the accomplishments of summer and the burnt asphalt that is man's answer to the trailbreak. Sacrifice has never come so easy. There are only so many words to read in the aftermath of a storm, the books yet to be comfortable holding so many lives in the one binding philosophy of reach and affect and dreamreachhurtlovedestroy... what affectations must be reached to catch the rain? What emotive? This page turner is far beyond the skill of even the best of us to dissuade from its purpose- time has more enemies than any other- though it carries forward in gentle manner. It no longer treads with strength upon the graves of others, instead weaving its way amongst the headstones with bated breath as if superstition had finally bitten deep enough to withdraw. The grass bends only somewhat under the force of running footsteps and raising up afterward as if to witness the fleeting figure in the mist and darkness of the early hours. The docks beckon. The water calls. The gulls cry and circle their morning ritual, a life begun anew. The water has cleansed enough and their song has changed from the melancholy of well traveled and overflighted birds, to the joy shared by a chick in its first day of winged bliss. Once the sun rises reminiscence itself is but a memory, superstition a faded myth. No markings left of the barking lightning and love is once again allowed corporeal form, to whisper and wind and grace and to eyelash... the town shutters spring open as it gathers its first breath of the morning air, the dawn an oxygenated treat. And as the first of the townspeople, those who understand the day and its callings, make their way onto the cobblestone streets, a glint in the distant suggests that eternity has just winked at its own private jest; one in which, all in all, life and death are much the same. The blooming petal, the falling autumn, the daily balance... time is nothing but the measurement of what we remember. The ocean understands such laughter, the pelicans cry as fast is broken, and the new day has arrived.
08/30/03
ISLE/future holdings
The rain has stopped and the lightning has chased it's tail for the last time. No thunder to rattle the screens, threatening to be let in. The wind no longer shakes the trees, trembling in humility and bowing in unison to the invisible majesty that is any given storm... even nature must worship it seems. The clouds have slowed their screaming to a low moan and the sidewalks are reasserting their dull, grey, cracked exteriors as if to prove that nothing could faze them, nothing excites them, life is all so boring. The birds settle in, resigned to the chores of tomorrow. The worms resign themselves to almost certain doom come early morn and the babes sigh quietly having been shushed of their rumbling fears, the gods at play, their fates held by their own eyes still searching for something to actually see. Windchimes play their songless tune, the wind needing refinement and education for such a moody instrument so difficult to master in retrospect. Trophies no longer matter. The house is down. The dreams alight and settle on phone wires looking for a home. Water courses down a parking lot vein refreshing hidden cracks we'll never know until next season's dandelion rears its yellow mane and dons its powdered coat. Though the ribbons flutter, the angel never can tell where nor when the motion begins. Confused by the noise that surrounds he trudges homeward, the mud only slowing slightly to allow passage. Molasses is swamplike, he reminds himself. It is dark like chocolate, but it is a falsehood. A syrupy muck that makes way as if it were a moving tide in slow motion. Devious even. Sly. What was it they all got into? The door ajar, the porch light blown, the dog asleep under the rocker. Newspapers scratch the breeze, grabbing for purchase, seeking flight. The print holds down, holds back, never gives of itself, never fades. The stories hidden in between like secrets to be told in a second grade ear. The storm's passage only serves to ruffle and upset their timidity. They share their tragedy in silence, knowing that the rains can only wash away so much and that the city slumbering silent below the eastern horizon will have much to answer for. Transparent is the love, a wisp of steam, a tendril of fog... never touching for long, the fingers grasping yet weak. It basks in the accomplishments of summer and the burnt asphalt that is man's answer to the trailbreak. Sacrifice has never come so easy. There are only so many words to read in the aftermath of a storm, the books yet to be comfortable holding so many lives in the one binding philosophy of reach and affect and dreamreachhurtlovedestroy... what affectations must be reached to catch the rain? What emotive? This page turner is far beyond the skill of even the best of us to dissuade from its purpose- time has more enemies than any other- though it carries forward in gentle manner. It no longer treads with strength upon the graves of others, instead weaving its way amongst the headstones with bated breath as if superstition had finally bitten deep enough to withdraw. The grass bends only somewhat under the force of running footsteps and raising up afterward as if to witness the fleeting figure in the mist and darkness of the early hours. The docks beckon. The water calls. The gulls cry and circle their morning ritual, a life begun anew. The water has cleansed enough and their song has changed from the melancholy of well traveled and overflighted birds, to the joy shared by a chick in its first day of winged bliss. Once the sun rises reminiscence itself is but a memory, superstition a faded myth. No markings left of the barking lightning and love is once again allowed corporeal form, to whisper and wind and grace and to eyelash... the town shutters spring open as it gathers its first breath of the morning air, the dawn an oxygenated treat. And as the first of the townspeople, those who understand the day and its callings, make their way onto the cobblestone streets, a glint in the distant suggests that eternity has just winked at its own private jest; one in which, all in all, life and death are much the same. The blooming petal, the falling autumn, the daily balance... time is nothing but the measurement of what we remember. The ocean understands such laughter, the pelicans cry as fast is broken, and the new day has arrived.
Post edited by Unknown User on
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Comments
I'll give proper crits where I see good work, and this is very good work that could be publishable with the minimum of streamlining.
colo(U)r. (Hee! Hee! I remember him bugging me aboot
REDSAND/marmalade
The sun burned orange marmalade in my hair
She sat astride
A stride
A ride
She sat away on a park bench
Contemplating white caps that weren’t to be
Or used to be
On a grassy and somewhat speckled knoll
I remembered this
Or did once
Twice
A fore or a score
Before my hair was clouded grey
And misty
By the stormy seas of memory
She sang a song to me back
When my head was filled with
Moths and butterflies
When restrictions went unlimited
Limits had no restrictions
And the world was somewhat newer
She was the happy princess
A statuette crying a jewel
For the little brown bird and I
And now my eyes
They shine silverintriplicate in
The pale and frosty stare that only
A winter bay window can provide
Double pained glass and I
Watch my eyes watching I
Tragedy:
For all those years on a park bench,
“The Uncaring,”
And we became acquainted in a book;
When my head was still moths and butterflies
And grassy knolls rolled like sinking ships off in the
coastal bay
I had understood the meaning of the word
Avoidance
What could I say
What can I say
Sometimes the pale green carpet of this world
Plush as it may seem
Still burns as redsand underfeet
Perhaps only because I prefer remaining shoeless in the sun
While in the midday elsewhere
There lies a park bench
Setting astride
Riding a ride going nowhere
For it is moored in concrete
God rest its weathered metal soul
God heal your orange marmalade heart
And help me change my eyes from the silverintriplicate
Of my reflection
Or of my reflection upon you
They used to be gold.
ps. And, seta, I think it all started from back in the day when I playfully accused you of *ahem* poking me in the back from afar!
we're only re-posting his poems/stories etc...or are conversations included?
i would like to put some of those in, yeah?
and a lot of people tagged wonderful things...
like Savannah, sheeshe, what a writer!
so yeah... I know you followed Seta's thread as closely as I ever did... Just feel your way through putting it back together. And thank you, so much...
wow
Say So...
While you were out
While
While you were out
Hey man, while you were out she called and lightning struck your tree outside the second floor window.
Hey. While you were out, man:
The big dipper is only half full but at least it’s full of something unlike some people I know:
While you were out…
The doorbell kept ringing and the answering machine kept erupting with messages for “Jill” and she hasn’t slept here for weeks…
While you were out…
Some guy who said he knew you in high school stopped by with an empty gas tank and crashed on the lawn and the world had the audacity to keep in its current pace of rotation even though you were gone…
While you were out…
The house said goodnight and its windows shut concealing any who may have passed and all who have just passed through like so many ghostly café patrons…
While you were out…
My crayons melted and all can read of the once proud Crayola is the O-L-A like some sort of Spanish hello and now I can’t draw…
the card table folded and put itself away if not only to protect me from memories of you, then only to protect my good hand
While you were out…
The champagne was gold, the water was silver, the earth a
greenish-blue. Maybe my crayons didn’t melt after all…
While you were out…
I left this message on the heritage dining table and explained a few things that made me cry to which the fish in the aquarium responded empathetically swimming around…
I packed up my crayons
While you were out…
The driveway tossed and turned under my troubled feet, the mailbox saluting with involuntary flag down…
While you were out…
My shadow faded down the sidewalk in the glitter glare of the streetlight…
This paper held my hand and…
While you were out…
This pen did me a favor by spilling its guts…
While you were out…
This pen did me a favor once again:
And told you goodbye
I do not know what has come over you all in reposting this, but, while I am conflicted in my feelings for the board (truly, specific people and abstract emotives in general), I cannot thank you enough for rescuing it from the bowels of the poetry forum.
There is love here, yes? I am setting astride my own ride, it seems, when it comes to this place.
I think it comes down to the fact that I am at the point with my writing where I feel it should be able to stand on its own. It's not that I am abandoning these pieces, I cannot, they are my children... and they are myself. They are my personal holy trinity. Whereas I have (and will continue upon occasion to) abandoned myself many times in the past years (let alone in the last months) no parent can consider abandoning their offspring.
And, let's be honest now, there is a level of masochism that goes into poetry. There is a commitment involved with stabbing oneself over and over until the words can only come from the wound opened, the doorway provided to the interior of a human soul. The light that shines from the windows opened are in all levels of the spectrum, from the ultra-violet, to the infra-red, to the x-ray and finally to those pulses of light so extraordinary they can be picked up as radio signals, music from the great beyond. It is of varying projection types, and you will see me talk of pulse code modulation, which is a manner in which sound is recorded, and you will see various references to halogen, quartz, tungsten, otherwise... L.E.D's are not mentioned as of yet but sooner or later they will be, I'm sure, and neon has been known to be stellar, stars and gas in my world.
All I had ever asked was that people respect that I use different knives with which to bleed myself and I use different hands with which to cast my runestones and knucklebones. The tales told, the hearts broken, the people loved and lost, the waves breaking... they are all told from different mouths, seen from different eyes and heard, preliminarily, through different ears. My antennae should only wish to feel so vibrant. However, there isn't a question as they come from the same heart.
Some of you have heard my arguments on structure and wont. I won't go there again unless provoked, and I don't ever expect, on the other hand, someone to blow smoke my way just to keep out of controversy. Just remember, if you decide to impact, that all impact craters leave external tracings, not just the center bomb-site. I will pick up your tracings and examine them and decide if your level of radium and mercuric oxide is appropriate. If it is not, I will gather up your pieces, helium axe them back into one, and catapult you back into space.
In other words, I will be honest and exceedingly blunt right back.
I don't expect any of you to have read all of this. This is really my way of justifying coming back to a place I felt betrayed me, and more specifically and deeply, betrayed my work which is one of the few things in this life I love more than life itself. I don't want anyone to think that I believe that I am touting privilege in coming back and I certainly don't expect anyone to necessarily care... I'm just a moody poet who's in the mood to rant.
The three ladies who have posted on here so far... well... they have all had my love for some time now, and one in particular has had my heart as well. I, on the other hand, in this interesting triage of humanity, am the lucky one because, after all this crap and all my crap and all the poisonour furrows plowed here, somehow they still love me back.
The wonder and humanity of it all. I don't deserve one iota of it, and that's the truth of it. I'm a slackass punk poet who doesn't know better when to quit or when to keep his mouth shut. I could have a gun to my head and I would be killed because I would find the situation so unutterably funny, I'd have to laugh my ass off while they pulled the trigger. I'm doing so now.
And I would be lying if I said I didn't somehow miss this place because I do. And I have missed a lot of people here, most of which are gone or have been banned or have been run off or have left because, well, it just wasn't the place it was when they started, but there are still a few of you here. Some of you quietly lurking in the corners not speaking anything. You, of course, know who you are.
So I'll post. Read if you like, quote if you like, ignore if you like, hate if you like. It's all you. That's freedom. I am not here to tell you what to think or what to feel, I am only hoping that you decide to think and to feel. That's also freedom.
I will state one thing for mister fins, in response to his post about Isle pt1 up there. I specifically wrote that piece to be a barrage, a shrapnel grenade of images, coursing down a long hall of a single camera arc. It is, therefore, of its own paragraph because each image arrives exactly as the other leaves. There are no transitions because there is only a single angle of view and it's tilt and lilt of light to dark to light again is as purposeful in design as it is in directing the reader inexorably to the end, where all stories go. It is a simulacrum of a dream state, of an omnipresent being's understanding of life on a small island and the undercurrents that run in the word Impression.
No editor in his or her right mind has ever asked a poet to edit for content. What a crock. Those that have have LOST their poet's contract. Read Plath and note that her edits are hers and hers alone, if she ever did. Kerouac, shit, man, I know what you think of the beat poets, and too bad but none of them ever edited at the discretion of their editor. Neither did shakespeare or wordsworth or longfellow or thoreau or eliot or milne or payne or garcia lorca, and neither did mister jeremy walter. Not one of them was willing to compromise their artistic vision just because an editor said they needed a paragraphical inclusion. And neither will I. Compromise on that level is inexcusable. A vision stays a vision. Shoot, Jeremy has pomes that are one line per page. Editing for content indeed.
damn. would you look at that. it must have been sometime since I've been here because I'm alread at the long post post. Those of you who know me will walk away shaking your head. I pity those who follow me through these thought processes, I'm essentially talking out loud.
Ah well.
Thank you colleen and pasta and B.E. you know I love you three. I'll say it again, I don't deserve what your doing, but I'm not going to stop you. Pasta and I have constant discussions on my feelings about this board but regardless of those, I don't want you to think I am ungrateful. I am undyingly grateful. Thank you for reading and thank you for taking care of them.
And Pasta. While I was excruciatingly saddened by the locking of this thread, I always understood that what you did was out of love and not out of spite. I love you. I know we have our differences here but that won't change the underlying fact of that former sentence.
thanks to all who have read. if you continue to read, I will continue to write. if you don't continue to read, well, I'll still continue to write. Someday perhaps you'll meet a piece of mine that works for you and only for you. I hope that someday is soon. Meanwhile, let's dream together, everynight, like we all have from the moment we arrived on the planet.
Time to sleep.
With love,
setaside2
worth
suicidal clause
self contained questioning a life in pause
there is a mind lost and sentimental gain
a chest torn open,
a heart torn asunder, mended, rained upon and reddened as oxygen stuns the open maimed
breathing life straight to the lung
a merry and controversial ride from both ends of the tongue
there is blood patterned and a cross worn
these feathers and bones, their precognitive stories gone silent,
drowned by this freak storm piloting wave upon wave toward eroding shores
who is this freak within me
who has these chains beneath me
where is the worth bequeathed me
by generations commenced before me
why have tears that balk
why have a voice when one cannot talk
where is the value in a blind's eye description
and when should one taste the salt of a deaf man's spittle
as he shouts to be heard
yes, I AM twisted
molded in your hands
cut by mine
these are my blades, my steel, my grenades, my dime
tear me to pieces, see if I care
Self, fuck you, dry up, stare.
Your eyes will water, at least you've finally cried,
When your sockets fill with rain
Your mouth open wide
Venus will drown you
Aphrodite will save
Someone will own you and love you at the end of the day
And you'll be left remembering the day you prayed.
Don't have a title so, we'll call this one, It's Probably My Last Post!
Fingers pushing
Smokey tendrils
Spinning & swirling
Before my very eyes
If these arms were only longer...
If these hands were only larger...
I could part the clouds in the sky
And really see the shine of the sun
Much love, seta! You were missed and well, I guess I'll still have to miss you 'cause I'm done here. "The Man" is moving me outta one cube and putting me into one with much higher walls, of seemingly impermeable steel-like construction, methinks. :(
Bye-byes to you and to all my pallis! I miss you already!
for you I shall break my cardinal rule, and only once, but it is for you. And I'm going to do it right.
SPANK
SPANK
SPANK
SPANK
SPANK
SPANK
SPANK
SPANK
and only for you.
please be well in your new journeys. Love follows you out. I promise.
love,
seta
which is wierd, considering i'm reading... whassat? deja grok? deja read???
I don't know...
But I will miss seeing your ever-sweet light around... you know... for like a week.... till you get your new email addy
Peace to you, hon
Do take care
And Seta! New powderblues to you, Sir. I like "worth"... sometimes the value in a blind's eye description isn't so apparent to the deaf man shouting (or to the dead man walking, as the case may or may not be) BUT... in most lives, quiet is restored and the universe stands upright again.
And, I don't know what prompted the side-project, either, but... I've read these pieces several times each and well... well... I hope I do some justice.
I love you.
~me
“Ballerina,”
screamed the speaker
The sound molding its words
As glazed clay in the air
Lift your legs higher woman
You’ve nowhere left to run
Surrounded by the radio glare
Glanced off a windshield
And set aside to be packed away
With yesterday’s holiday
She
As they call her, thumbs pointed
Indiscreetly
Indiscriminately
In her general direction
Screams in silence
In midlife orchestral shutdown
The seed to
The beginnings of
Her own fallen grace
A misplaced step
A misdirection
An aerial misinterpretation and
She collapses in a heap
A multicolored
Multi-patterned pile of leaves
That is the woman of autumn
Sad and decaying
A butterfly losing its wings
In the acid rain
Such is the city life
For the natural one
Beauty
Grace
And a losing place
Lost in the gunshot
The sixhundredfeetpersecond
Of a misfire
Temporal perhaps
Hers was too hot
She was too high
And no one was willing enough
To crane their necks
To read the billboard
Upon which she slept
Pride is a crime
Shared and sinned by us all
And she was not the first
To die for our sins
The smell of sulphur
Swirling in the aftermath
Of some bastardized civilization
With no understanding of what lies
Between its gripping fingers
Entangled in her
Whirling hair
Splayed windblown across the sky
Are the lives and lines of millions
Butterflies without wings
Moths in the moonlight of the
Passing windshields
That wink nightly
Slyly
Like the secret that everybody knows
Why state the obvious
When all it does is undermine
What may already be undone
Like the broken shoelace
The frozen smile
The scream of a bullet
The melodic raucous encore
The soul of the dance
The ballet
“Ballerina,”
I screamed as
I heard the squall
Smelled the burning rubber
The melting asphalt
That acrid tar
The last thing I saw as
I fluttered my dusty wings
Enough to settle and dry
-the music hurts at times you know-
Was the fading red glare of the parking lights
Rounding the curve about a block away
Poor girl.
An OIL SPILL!?
winded, you wound me... yeesh.
here's ONE more...
RETALIATION/
broken aviation
She sat in her corner
Folding industriously,
Of course,
A piece of college ruled.
Just finished dusting
And rusted in mind
She let the plane
Wing it’s way through the
Worldly currents provided by
The stainless steel of a heat vent.
It hovered silent,
Slipping upward to
Graze the ceiling with a rush
Of movement
And a wisp of air.
Nose dive,
Graceful still,
It sticks in the carpet tip first.
The fragile cockpit command center
Would have been a wreck
Yet
Paper survives and so
No actual death
She sighed as she reached over
To pick it up
And watched sadly as her father
Entered the room crushing it
Poor thing
With his right heel
“How many times..?”
He asked
“HOW many TIMES?”
He seethed
“HOW MANY TIMES?!”
He flurried
Emphasizing every syllable
Her heart was crushed
With his right heel
She cried for the loss
He grew angrier
So misunderstood it seems
The both of them
He exploded
She flinched
He shouted
She screamed
And they ate dinner
Parenthood it seems
Is a compound word
Meaning hypocrisy
Teenage it seems
Is merely a two syllable word
She discontinued the situation
In the interest of dinner
One argues with no stomach
When running on one that is empty
A Roman thought
For an American girl
She was special
And yet in the end
She wasn’t anything new
Her tragedy…
She was an American legacy
Fancied herself a cinematic event
Even a star shining dimly
Somewhere in the overview of
The estimated timed arrivals
Her tragedy…
As any other star
Who died in a violent plane crash
Who died in the throes
A part of our woes
Those who died in the arms of the country
That reared
Rejected
Realized and
Revered them
In time she may have been as such
Was such
So we may suppose
As she trusted her fancies
More pink and real
More sunset and starlight
More scented and full
Than anything he bedroom window
Could have provided her
Than anything her shades
Could have protected her from
Her nickname: bent reality
Depression her bitter arrow
The paper airplane her downward fall
Surround her
Around her
Underground her
Love spoke spatters
Poetry with edges roughly hewn
Untaught and dissolute
Deluded
Diluted
Drowned in misconception
Folded by shaking hands
Into yet another paper airplane
Shy and slight
Made in the image of its creator
It flew as predicted.
*************************
Thank you very much for reading, lifeisworth.... I am glad that you did.
I have never tripped while reading the dictionary but now that you mention it, if I am ever to trip, that will be one of the things I will most certainly do. It sounds as though I could learn alot.
Another for you all...
“Ballerina,”
screamed the speaker
The sound molding its words
As glazed clay in the air
Lift your legs higher woman
You’ve nowhere left to run
Surrounded by the radio glare
Glanced off a windshield
And set aside to be packed away
With yesterday’s holiday
She
As they call her, thumbs pointed
Indiscreetly
Indiscriminately
In her general direction
Screams in silence
In midlife orchestral shutdown
The seed to
The beginnings of
Her own fallen grace
A misplaced step
A misdirection
An aerial misinterpretation and
She collapses in a heap
A multicolored
Multi-patterned pile of leaves
That is the woman of autumn
Sad and decaying
A butterfly losing its wings
In the acid rain
Such is the city life
For the natural one
Beauty
Grace
And a losing place
Lost in the gunshot
The sixhundredfeetpersecond
Of a misfire
Temporal perhaps
Hers was too hot
She was too high
And no one was willing enough
To crane their necks
To read the billboard
Upon which she slept
Pride is a crime
Shared and sinned by us all
And she was not the first
To die for our sins
The smell of sulphur
Swirling in the aftermath
Of some bastardized civilization
With no understanding of what lies
Between its gripping fingers
Entangled in her
Whirling hair
Splayed windblown across the sky
Are the lives and lines of millions
Butterflies without wings
Moths in the moonlight of the
Passing windshields
That wink nightly
Slyly
Like the secret that everybody knows
Why state the obvious
When all it does is undermine
What may already be undone
Like the broken shoelace
The frozen smile
The scream of a bullet
The melodic raucous encore
The soul of the dance
The ballet
“Ballerina,”
I screamed as
I heard the squall
Smelled the burning rubber
The melting asphalt
That acrid tar
The last thing I saw as
I fluttered my dusty wings
Enough to settle and dry
-the music hurts at times you know-
Was the fading red glare of the parking lights
Rounding the curve about a block away
Poor girl.
*********************************
lifeisworth had a question and I am going to post the answer here.. hopefully with a blessing?
"that last one in your thread
about the woman in autumn...
about a bill board, no?
very interesting..."
I really envisioned a woman, a ballerina, left to die on the balcony of a billboard the image above her is her face or her work or her life... in her particular case it does not matter as life imitates art ironic. But yes, the billboard is most certainly there.
Her dress is tattered and she has lost her shoes. The last dance was perhaps a week ago last monday... she appears like a roof ravaged in a storm, pieces sailing off in the tempest; whether of her or of her raimant it makes no nevermind as regardless, she will be naked to the world. And she will die as she was brought in. She is human. She is humane. She is humanity. The metal grate grasps at her hair as she falls to the pavement below...
I don't know why, but I always loved that woman. She has this ethereal elusivity (if that isn't a word I believe we can christen it now). It is a calling.
__________________
************************
winded, you are correct.
The entire story of future holdings is filled with doubt. I believe that the storm gives the opportunity for second chance, though i scarcely believe the town has the ability to pull itself from past habits and dark doings. However the cleansing is where it ends because it is the single most fleeting part of the entire charade. No storm cleanses completely, and purity can never be gotten by so violent an act. I don't care WHAT the Bible says.
and as for the usage of ellipses... well... LOL
I can only say that YES I love them and that I also thought their usage in this piece was totally appropriate. The ellipses is all about uncertainty, the imagination wondering "what's next?" or "what's meant by that?." But then, occasionally, very occasionally, the ellipses indicates that which is extravagantly obvious to everyone and fills the need (or lack of need) to finish a sentence.
meanwhile, I only count the use of the ellipses THRICE.
And with the human race, both exist equally, side by side. LOL and there is NOTHING truly certain about the obvious.
However, for some reason, while the story certainly has a dark undercurrent, hoeweverso it be... it leaves me with a sense of contentment. I have no idea why. And as for each sentence beginning a new poem or a new story, well, that's just the way I talk. LOL. I guess that's the only semi decent excuse I have for that one.
Thanks, guys, for reading all this stuff.
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quote:
lifeisworth wrote on 09-01-2003 01:09 PM:
why is she dying?
Why does anything innocent die? The reasons are as varied as the quantity of poppy seeds on any given muffin. I never gave it much thought because it was so Natural, really. She was dying, that was that. It was tragic and beautiful, like any other metamorphosis. But along the way I fell in love with her and realized that, regardless how natural, how run of the mill, how course-of-events all this was, that she maintained that "special-ty" that was oh so infinitely human.
It was her time, if you can dig that. Her last petal had fallen. How cliche. How true.
a new one in the next bit....
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This one was written back in April and was the first to finally be squeezed from the muse after about 2 years of writer's block.
RETURN/of the left hand
I’m totally hated, and my Sumerian face is bruised.
She hit me as hard as she could,
The floodwaters rushing the gates,
And in supplication
I bowed out to the better movement.
With trepidation my tiptoed serenity is compromised;
The trembling of the earth the foreboding of yet another sunset unnamed.
The infallibility of the future and the waves of the new tide…
I have watched the moonrise
In awe,
The youngest of children revisited (and never fully understood).
The wonder and fear of it all
Bleached and smattered,
Dried like conch shells on a shelf,
Remnants of what was an evolution left upon the ears of the blind,
The last description a raspy voice lost the in the tempest finally arrived
And a postscript left alone.
__________________
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Lifeisworth... I didn't mean to break a trust with you, I swear it. Your questions gave me a forum (no pun intended) to discuss my reasons for things.... i took advantage of that and I am sorry if I offended and I prostrate myself in front of you for forgiveness.
No fear of commitment. No ego trip. and certainly no power trip... if anything the poem is fraught with powerlessness both of the dancer AND of the watcher.
I don't see it as a masculine thing. I see it as a spirit reaching out, hesitantly and then realizing that it has NO idea what to do or how to do it or what's expected of it. I strongly resist the idea of machismo, especially where my poetry is concerned. The thought of some jock mantra entering my words causes me no end of pain.
Have you ever witnessed a dying butterfly, trembling on the stem or on the petals of a flower or on the leaf? It is a signal beauty and one that is laden with a pragmatic beauty so potent that if you let it, it will hurt you. Your chest tightens as you look upon one of the wonders in this world so mundane (death, it happens everyday, to everyone) that no one notices it until it swallows them whole. Only then do they choose to question. and again, it hurts. You don't know why.
As for the age median, I always thought that the ballerina was ageless... on the stage, in real life... she is a symbol of have and have not, love and loss. Clothed nakedness, the one state none of us can deal with: utter vulnerability.
IF she is a feminist, then she would be considered a failed feminist. Her albatross was that she loved too much in a world where that is a crime. She was human. That was also her crime. She was judged and found wanting.
And there will never ever be a vibrator reference in my poetry. LOL. Damn you!
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My dear twink... thanks for reading it, I am glad it moved you at least a little to the left.
And the name setaside came from a long and useless story that has nothing to do with my poetry. LOL however it has a lot to do with my sarcasm.
Here's one last one for a bit for you all...
KLEENEX & BUCKSHOT/midnight oil
New York City was,
Shall we say,
Stellar
That night.
Frozen
But stellar.
And I,
With my glittering gun,
Home at last...
They’ll never miss
The things they didn’t appreciate anyway.
The gift is non-refundable.
The life is non-returnable,
But by God
It can be taken away.
There are many,
Many,
Types of love affairs.
Some are casual,
Some twenty-four hours,
Some at a glance.
Perhaps a girl with similar eyes
Similar smile…
Charm
Is a deadly gift.
I consider it a disease really.
Charm is for luck:
You hang it on a necklace,
Give it your younger sister and tell her,
“Here. It’ll keep them away.”
Charm is a tool,
Passionate,
And it is used with a sculptor’s grace and
Accuracy
To construct an outward appearance
All too appealing.
And she was surreal
This divinely new figurine...
The clarity of déjà vu is unmistakable.
The reaction sadly unavoidable,
And it hurt to see her bleed;
But my silver partner and I
Had already noticed the full moon.
The werewolves on the prowl,
I the hunter once trapped:
Memories do not die as fast as the triggerhappy.
After all,
Though silver was once liquefied to cure
The common cold,
The acid in my veins runs deeper
And with more resolve.
How ironic that we have constructed
The
Urban
Lifestyle
The garden is the target,
The flowers wilted,
The natural colors faded and bleached...
The heat of the fresh asphalt burnt out
In the cold of concrete
And the city at night...
One doesn’t look for the moon.
Your stars are made of neon glass.
Fluorescent lights point north.
To be homeward bound
Costs $2.50 a mile,
And to fall in love can cost you
Fifty
Dollars
An hour.
For most people it’s a fair deal.
But an affair
Is an affair,
And perhaps I take it personally.
I say, “Have a nice day”
I mean it
By God.
Obsessively I mean it.
I play a role dammit.
I refuse to give up my station,
My pillar,
My sleeping hollow,
To some bitch in a Lexus,
To some guy in a trenchcoat
Opened,
Naked...
Why must I repeat the material?
Love is subjective.
It waxes.
It wanes.
It pulls the tide.
An entity, sister to desire,
With a life and death
Either by Kleenex or buckshot.
In love the pen and the sword
Are equals.
And that kills me.
And for that she dies.
For the fact that I still bleed
She dies.
Tragic, sick and serial
True,
But I sort it out on this plane
Perhaps a cup of coffee in the next.
It could’ve been someone else,
A story I’ll never know...
For love,
Or for whatever ideals of such
I possess,
You can die believing or
Kill getting it across;
I am not the only
Nor the last,
A sensual sight surround
That neither hides nor displays
True motive,
Charm,
A thought that still captivates me,
Still the prey.
I love them all but it seems to no avail.
If this game of interstellar cat and mouse
Continues
I may be forced to admit
That my chrome plated friend here
Has become my best friend and my savior.
Perhaps he shall retire
And in his death he shall save me
From mine own…
The blood is at my feet.
The neon flickers a dull red...
And apology is the only weapon with which
I can aim.
Back me up if I end up firing blanks.
__________________
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quote:
Originally posted by savannah66
"And apology is the only weapon with which
I can aim."
I LOVE that.
I am enjoying your 'voice'.
thank you. That line is in my head an awful lot when something happens that I have no control over.
as for mi voz, milady, come closer and I shalt sing to thee softly a new song...
there once was a lad from birmingham
sat on the grass cross legged
bit the wheat straw in the sun so fine
played his guitar as it got late
oh the evening poured in to the sound
the whipporwill voicing his stress
the moon observed as the feet hit the ground
our bird taking flight under duress
round and round the chase went on
through thorns and misty thrush
the thistles did grasp and cut
the face on the lam, full flush
for flight is not of fancy
and the fervency not contrived
But the boy had better grow wings
If his hope is to remain alive
oh the moon sets slowly
and the stars doth turn
as he hides out in the night
as the pursuit persuaded thunders by
he hides silently in fright
for to be a free man is tragic
and to be caged is called humane
if the stars fallen are magic
Then the sun risen is mundane
Thank god for the washing rain
Thank cloud for the washing rain
His footprints now hidden he rides
Atop the winded train
A trail of clothing the only remind
Of the path whence he came
Oh Today's gone cotton
And tomorrow's gone steel
The future the prize to steal
And it appears that to be forgotten
Is merely a blind turn of the wheel
Yes a fortunate turn of the wheel.
Savannah66 inspired... spontaneous poetry. I thank you madam. I haven't done one on the spot like that in a long time.
__________________
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Since high school I have struggled to learn how to play guitar... and I'm still not very good at it at all. This piece started as a song written after my girlfriend of over a year and I broke up. Those things are never pretty... But one day I'll remember how I wrote the song and I'll sing it again.
LOL and it's a short one for all of you tired of mucking your way through my marshes.
EARTH’S SHADOW/debate
Your voice could shatter glass
You’d rage about the room
You’d say
“I’m tired of this black eye
I’m tired of all the shame,”
You’d say:
That you might bend the rules
You might tie the noose
But it would be love.
If it’s clean
If it’s dirty
It’s me
With all this black and white around
The logic and restraint
Fade away…
Your voice could shatter glass
The eclipse fell from the night
You’d say:
“This collar’s a little loose
Too much freedom hurts,”
You’d say
That I can’t let you go
You had dreamed I’d stay
And it would be love.
If it’s clean
If it’s dirty
It’s me
With all this black and white around
The scissors have gone dull
The rope begins to fray…
Your screams they shattered glass
My heart fell to the floor
You said:
“that eclipse last night was mine
I stole it from the sun,”
You said
That the light had made you blind
The fire burned you up
And it had been love.
With all this black and white around
My logic and restraint
Fade away…
My voice:
It shattered glass.
__________________
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Alright, I'm going to post one last one and let this thread follow it's course, until the muse takes me again... Watch it drop now....
This poem was written, as a great many poems are, for a girl. Now, I realize that the inspiration is nothing short of yawn inducing but let it suffice to say that she was a remarkable woman who deserved what little ragged prose I was able to squeeze out of my bleeding Bic Rollerball. She deserved far more, of course, but my writing can only hope to reach certain ethereal heights, and while such hope takes it far.... it still appears to be more than a little acrophobic. Like most love poems it is raw and emotive but a tad juvenile as love occasionally makes us feel less than adult, to say the least; Kids in the rain who know for a FACT that if they jump in the puddles they'll get dirty, nasty, wet... but the SPLASH, oh my, the JOY...
I used to go downtown with Kate every night, to our favorite cafe... I'd read her my poetry, she'd make me laugh, we'd teach everyone there how to create wonderful Italian sodas from the oddist flavoring concoctions.. We had the occasion to meet Poe, among other folk who frequented this place, and never had a loss for conversation. I was madly in love with her, and she with me, though we never had the guts to put it out into the air... instead it was hints, ennui, insinuation thrown about like glow-in-the-dark paint only to be revealed in the afterglow at the end of the day. We never even kissed.
Still one of the single most effectual and luminescent human beings I have yet to come in contact with, I miss her to this day.
So if you ever meet a young and effervescent Jazz singer named Kate Shoup... the woman with the voice of silk and hair that does as it pleases... let her know that "that one guy" still thinks of her often... and that i still cannot live without her, though now it is her memory that haunts and comforts me.
This was for her. Kathryn Shoup.
love, seta.
DOWNTOWN/a soliloquy
I
A visionary’s soliloquy
He thought
As they gestured smoothly down the sidewalk
Towards the dancers
Miracles in small doses
Like the music they carry in their minds
They discussed their wishes to be so
Capable
While each secretly observed just how capable
The other truly was
A dancer
She lived a sunshine existence
Painted as a smiling face
In bright pastel
As her reflection glanced in all directions
Betraying the shade that even she sits in
We all relax in
In time
He was a threaded song who made his way
In no particular fashion
With his walk-a-mile-or-so-with-me attitude
A thread at times discordant
With the song of self-deprecation
A song catching
Contagious and atonal
Together their shoes molded to the pavement
In discussion lies discovery
She lightly touched the ground
Taking small flight in every zephyred flurry
Of leaves across an intersection
He walked with purpose unidentified
Hair in his eyes
He played for her
Sang as only his fingers would let him
She danced above the balcony
A melody of metamorphosis
Arms over her head
Body a wave of motion
Eyes of platinum joy
Higher
He played on
Creating the stage
Upon which their lives stood
Their transient audience passing by
Ignorant
To what was being displayed
No longer trained in the eye of beauty
They travel directed and unhappy
Knowing somewhere inside
That it really isn’t their fault
The music heard raining from above
Though self-absorbed
Was meant to affect
She swayed in the breeze
An aspen leaf in the fall
A rising star in spring
He bled music
Committed to this suicidal beauty
He bled rivers
And everywhere there were people
Who looked upwards
Reflective
Questioning
Tasted something sweet
And saw the twinkle of her final twirl
As she became the stars that were her inspiration
The city swayed in the darkness
The wind singing secrets as it caressed its way
Through the skyscrapers
She saw all this and smiled
The boy and his guitar
Jumped from the 37th balcony
Flooding the oncoming street
With a flash of light
As he sank through the air
A Dying Saint
She sang with angelic vibrato
A star born
A star reborn
In the end the gods painted her green
And dressed her in fire
As his last note faded
Into the oncoming fog
He dissipated like cigarette smoke
Blown across the park lake
Leaving behind
The puddle that reflected her ascension
The city fell
Silently
Once again a visionary’s soliloquy
A song and dance
The evanescence of painted footsteps
Evaporating this dawn
As she echoes away into the sunshine
A spherical spiritual space
She resides on a sidewalk of light
And sings her prayer of union
II
It’s 5:00 on a Sunday morning downtown
The city’s windows
An overwhelming blue in reflection
Of growing dawn
Sprinklers
The mischief makers
Misty haze
In the city center
Agriculturalizing our fair
And industrialized giant
Still sleeping
Even God rested on Sundays
Lights flicker
Overhead
Or glance off random chrome
It’s the taxicab empire
And they’ll take you anywhere
Everywhere
At the right price
The sprinklers now dance
And surround me
As the cycle has changed
The wind blows through and I’m refreshed
I don’t care if it rains for eternity
Even God rested on Sundays.
__________________
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a new one here... needed to keep stuff fresh, am I right? Can't let this stagnate....
This one's called THAT's Human. It's all about the tragic futility of character living.
The here and now that is the past… the entry, rebellion and the beginnings of self-awareness… the first crush, the first death of a loved one or a hero (or a god)… henceforth a new search for self that comprises 40% of a lifespan… the realization of ALONE and togetherness as separate entities (though twins they be)… rage at the unfairness of everything, EVERYTHING, around them… a quick distraction by yet another attempt at love however destined to fail, and yet another whiplash glance at the past now misted and glazed with nostalgia; they are, after all this time, able to put it all behind them and reflect without being wistful – remember without regret, and an understanding of HOPE is reached though little time has prevailed and as they are finally ready to face the future, the last thing they hear is a poet’s lament echoing in the silence that is heaven.
THAT’s human….
seta
UPBRINGING/
dinnertime springtime
Anger.
It’s a bittersweet sickness
And it tastes like liquefied Milky Way bar
Rain fell like godspit on her parade
And she smiled
Shining persecution and love
The comparable pair
At nearly everyone who would accept
Her aluminum foil glance
Shattering light like a disco ball
She held my hand
And led me along
Gripping me
In her steady stare
And unsteady grip
She loved
She loved me
She said so
And I sang my song of belief
To all those that would strain to hear
At night she would tell me tales
Of long after I was born
Offended and insulted
That I didn’t recall the future
At least off hand
And during the day
She was non-existent
A ghost in her own present
Yet ever present in mine
Sometimes I embitter myself
With myself
Even others
With myself
And I paint my own picture of cynicism
In which I justify the poisons I drink
And in this knowledge…
I should say I take pride in this knowledge
Knowing the fine line that can kill or corrupt
Help and heal
I’m sure that at this point in time
If I were to choose a direction to go
I would spin in one place
Just to get a good look at the position in which
I am stuck
So as I prepared to leave
The dining table
Placing the food of existence off to the side
And decided to go for a walk
At least for a while
I drank my champagne with tolerance
And pushed the chair back on two legs
Relaxing a bit
I stood up
Taking slight notice to the way
Eyes shifted towards me in mid-converstion
The way words hung in
Mid air
The way my stride echoed across the hall
And the way whispers followed me like prayers
Wisps of fog I could only describe further as
Playing through my fingertips
And when I finally held the brass
Cool brass
Doorknob
Between my thumb and forefinger
I smiled
In my reflection
I smiled at my reflection
And accepted my choice
Dressed inappropriately
For it was windy that day
I opened the door
And as I stepped out into the green-grey haze
Of the afternoon thunderstorm
I hit the street like a crumpled candy wrapper
And blew away.
__________________
maybe it was just a hand
or a secret or a mission or a kiss in an envelope…
a poison inkwell, a letter, a missive, the story of a life unborn or unshared or unknown, it makes no difference...
the direction of the next spring thaw, the flow of a leaf from branch to mud...
spring to fall..
the path love may take as it barrels through the halls of time uncontrollable and dangerous
a handshake, a breath, the last word of the last fairy godmother on the last planet earth
the feather plucked from an angel's wing
the mission of god
the lyrics to the song of youth
the answer to immortality
The last petal to fall from the wilted lily
The tip of an unused crayon
Was it the whisper of a ancient friend lost in time, ages past, lives ago
The secret feeling a children’s novel gives
The satisfaction of a sleeping feline
Curdled cream
The milk gone sour
Pages turning on the hour
A clock to measure the beats of the heart
A device to trap the better mouse
Or the hot air in any given water balloon…
The key, steam, the hot mineral spring
A ribbon on air, the footprint left bare, snow
Falling in cotton silence stuffy and simple
Arrowheads, sandstone, hieroglyphs, dreams long dead
The pavement expands in the sun, cracking to reveal the hidden homes that we have built upon and up and on in order to prove our superiority
The mud: it dries in the sun, the evaporation a last rebellion the wind carries away
The clock ticks its memento, the only thing it remembers, the previous second wiped by the next
A tread, the step, the fall
Ah damn the ignorant thread so graceless and passion free
Even with wings unfurled the angel smokes a Kamel
Wherein lies the loss? The thought? The cab fare home?
The hole in the pocket is only somewhat to blame as the sprinklers fade the brick wall
The fence cracked and burned, the sitters all fled,
On roam, the bats cry sonar in search of sustenance
Who shall teach to read the echo? When will friction kill the snowman?
Perhaps it WAS just the hand, nails sharp and intimate
Maybe it was the nighttime sigh, a dream left hanging from a lampshade
The sheets crumpled to the floor, the trial at an end, the curtains in the breeze
Was it together then? Or was the hand held previously owned?
I’ve left my breath at the last stop, torn loose at the one before
The ticket is unclear and the directions only indicate the color of the car in which I am to sleep.
God help the conductor.
I hear the busboy has a gun.
TRENDY
I have the R-control in the palm of my hand,
The power of the world at a push of a button,
And they say I had forgotten the old war.
I’m a caffeine junky,
Shaking and red-lined…
I hate talk shows and
“Reality” programming
(it’s an oxymoron).
In the early hours of the evening
Commercials seem nothing
But leftovers;
Soundbites of ignorable
Deplorable
Hyper-exotic induced paraphernalia.
Propaganda they call it, at teatime.
Well isn’t everything.
Love my country…
I was BORN a fruit roll-up
Weren’t you?
Take care of your own dreams.
The new cold war is coming.
__________________
If you folks are ever in the Chicago area, look into the theatre listings. If you see a play by Sarah McGuire... Go see it. I guarantee it'll be worth your while.
This one is strangely named.. I've never come up with a better one...
TEXTURED SANITY/fault
Someone put this glitter
In the paint in my ceiling
Little tiny multi-colored
Drops of light
Suspended by an unknown
Chemical compound
Slaves to destiny
They wink in and out
With the power of a light switch
The picture of interstellar fate
“The stars are all burnt out, mommy”
Because of an alternating current
Provided by “Public Service”
I lie here soaked with envy
Too hot to hold
Too distant to grasp
I would turn to conventional imitation
But
I don’t smoke
My flashlight’s dead
And the matches I buy
Don’t have the will to burn bright enough
Though with a breath
The flame there is gone
With the stars in the ceiling
The smiling eyes overhead
There are days and nights
When I feel that I’ve been out and
Away for too long
Overexposed
I miss my roof-beam quarks
Flickering there like firelight
In the fading glare of the television
And a madness seems to seep in
I cover myself
With paint
Glitter
And fake the naked in my eye
I encircle the artistry of downtown
Until arrested
Happy and breathless
Leaving my sideshow in the gutters
With the oilslicked rainwash
To reflect the nature of dawn that day
The tears in my eyes get swept away
By machinery and construction
Lost in the dust and confusion of progress
And I wander my way
Elsewhere
Home perhaps
The lost clown
Mad in the head and out of touch
To the point of distraction
As if perhaps I wasn’t
As if perhaps I could prove otherwise
And I have to face down my fears
The glitter in the ceiling
And I blame it on the hundred or so faces
That stare back at me
And look remarkably like someone I once knew
I flicker like firelight
In the fading residue of the television
And it’s not my fault.
__________________
Don't you all think that smacks of arrogance? I don't mean it that way.
As it is, here is another. Written this summer, though I do not remember the reason why... although i do believe it was written during a chat session with a friend of mine from the synergy board who goes by the name Pennyroyaltea...
NEW PRAYER/for the honor of pennyroyal tea
bring it down.. the house surround...
angels wings the flight around
acoustic tile the heart so loud
the love the push the cry the crowd
debris, the slats of a fence, life rushes by
the arms of greatness the cry of the babe
the king’s plush carpet begins to fade
a dream
make the ethereal way, make your ethereal way
the song is your term
spring explodes and autumn slides by
winter undermines, its own melting tide
the love the push the cry the crowd
the hands, the ground,
dirt the scent the rose the sound
what the sensual takes the tactile will give
the sigh itself will find a way to live
again
the cry the love the push of the crowd
why, the guilty are bled and intensely bound
the rose in bloom
now
the sigh in the ear
the circle has come
and the life is found.
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