Poems

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John A Arkansawyer
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Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

I just ran into this one today via an old buddy (the one who wrote the song "B.O.C. Tattoo"--let me play it for you the next time we meet!):

This Is the Time of Grasshoppers and All That I See Is Dying
By Adrian C. Louis
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

This one is something an old friend wrote that I'd never read till just today:

For a Glass of Red Wine
by Al Maginnes
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Flea
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Re: Poems

Post by Flea »

Image
Now it's dark.

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

This one came to my attention courtesy of my friend Al. It's really something:

Little Sister
by Thomas Reiter


My first duty was to gather up
amputated limbs in the kitchen. I was fourteen.
I trembled, clutching them to my breast.
What is this place? Who have I become?
Last fall our wheelbarrow held potatoes.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

A friend who is a big DBT fan (and who has a great story about them I probably should let him instead of me tell) showed me this one:

What Are They Doing In The Next Room?
Bruce Smith


Are they unmaking everything?
Are they tuning the world sitar?
Are they taking an ice pick to being?
Are they enduring freedom in Kandahar?

Sounds, at this distance, like field hollers,
sounds like they’ll be needing CPR.
Sounds like the old complaint of love and dollars.
Sounds like when Coltrane met Ravi Shankar...


Like everything I post here, it keeps on going and really wants to be clicked on.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

This is Just to Say That I’m Tired of Sharing an Apartment With William Carlos Williams.

Laura Jayne Martin wrote:Will, you are a dick. You’re goddamn right I was saving those plums for breakfast.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Slipkid42
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Re: Poems

Post by Slipkid42 »

Here's one.

Gnarly Snafu

Clusterfuck is a funny word
it describes situations that are beyond normal repair
some clusterfucks are even beyond repair
and no amount of retribution or compromise will fix them
for whatever reason, instead of getting better, things only get worse
problems that at one time could’ve been resolved amicably
fester and grow into insurmountable obstacles
solutions that once had a chance of bearing fruit
later seem like the foolhardy pipedreams
of misguided optimists
who couldn’t face facts

One such clusterfuck is my gnarly snafu
on the surface it would seem simple enough to fix
after all, it only involves a few hearts and souls
but these hearts and souls apparently have minds of their own
different agendas, different needs, different loves, different dreams
world peace and a balanced budget seem more within reach
than these few souls loving each other again
encountering alien life forms seems more likely
than these 3 hearts that once were one
getting in the same room
and hashing things out

Reconciliation has proven elusive
all this time has only complicated matters
maybe too much time and too many subplots
to ever really untangle this gnarly snafu
especially since not everyone even feels it is necessary
true love is fickle and often goes unrequited
unrequited love is noble, but sad
being sad is something you get used to
craving the love of my own flesh and blood
is a feeling that won’t go away
till they put dirt on my box

But, since my love is strong enough
whether it is reciprocated or not
no obstacle shall be too insurmountable
a thousand clusterfucks will not kill my tiny light
false hope is better than no hope and trying is better than dying
with all of my love still unrequited
and me believing it was for lack of effort
closure doesn’t always mean reconciliation
this may come to an unhappy ending
but even that would be better
than no ending at all

Bryans Road, Maryland
4/20/12
A thousand clusterfucks will not kill my tiny light

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

Image
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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cortez the killer
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Re: Poems

Post by cortez the killer »

I got a peg leg at the end of my stump-a
Shake your rump-a
You are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
- DPM

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

cortez the killer wrote:
I got a peg leg at the end of my stump-a
Shake your rump-a
I don't get it. What does this have to do with heroin?
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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cortez the killer
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Re: Poems

Post by cortez the killer »

Silly rabbit. It's obviously about the rock.
You are entitled to your opinion, but you are not entitled to your own facts.
- DPM

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

It's a prose poem or a very short story:

Eulogy
Doug Anderson wrote:When I was nineteen and the drummer in the show band that backed you, you took me to your bed. I had been speechless in your presence: your honey whiskey voice, your marriages to famous band leaders. Your body's reputation preceded you -- and because of the times, it superseded your formidable talent...
Read the whole thing.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

StormandStatic
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Re: Poems

Post by StormandStatic »

He's not as beloved by the current vanguard, but Robert Frost has so many hidden gems.

The one that comes to mind most often:

"V. Pertinax"

Let chaos storm!
Let cloud shapes swarm!
I wait for form.

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

StormandStatic wrote:He's not as beloved by the current vanguard
Many of whom are welcome to kiss my ass, along with the ones who don't like James Dickey's poetry.
StormandStatic wrote:but Robert Frost has so many hidden gems.

The one that comes to mind most often:
Here's mine:
U.S. 1946 Kings X

Having invented a new Holocaust,
And been the first with it to win a war,
How they make haste to cry with fingers crossed,
King’s X–no fairs to use it anymore!
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

StormandStatic
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Re: Poems

Post by StormandStatic »

He strikes me as analogous to Norman Rockwell: someone who is so widely consumed and on such a surface level that we've forgotten his work has deeper meaning. Both strike as very (darkly) ironic artists.

Another great, more beloved:

Seamus Heaney
St. Kevin and the Blackbird


And since the whole thing’s imagined anyhow,
Imagine being Kevin. Which is he?
Self-forgetful or in agony all the time

From the neck on out down through his hurting forearms?
Are his fingers sleeping? Does he still feel his knees?
Or has the shut-eyed blank of underearth

Crept up through him? Is there distance in his head?
Alone and mirrored clear in love’s deep river,
‘To labour and not to seek reward,’ he prays,

A prayer his body makes entirely
For he has forgotten self, forgotten bird
And on the riverbank forgotten the river’s name.

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

StormandStatic wrote:He strikes me as analogous to Norman Rockwell: someone who is so widely consumed and on such a surface level that we've forgotten his work has deeper meaning. Both strike as very (darkly) ironic artists.
That's interesting. I'm fond of Rockwell, too. I don't see so much irony in him, but there is most certainly more depth than most folks notice.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

This one is a long-time favorite that really hits my mood today:

Degrees of Gray in Philipsburg
BY RICHARD HUGO

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out...
Not terribly long and just beautiful.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

No one has ever spoken my mind better than Edna St. Vincent Millay:

Dirge Without Music

I am not resigned to the shutting away of loving hearts in the hard ground.
So it is, and so it will be, for so it has been, time out of mind:
Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely. Crowned
With lilies and with laurel they go; but I am not resigned.

Lovers and thinkers, into the earth with you.
Be one with the dull, the indiscriminate dust.
A fragment of what you felt, of what you knew,
A formula, a phrase remains,—but the best is lost.

The answers quick and keen, the honest look, the laughter, the love,—
They are gone. They are gone to feed the roses. Elegant and curled
Is the blossom. Fragrant is the blossom. I know. But I do not approve.
More precious was the light in your eyes than all the roses in the world.

Down, down, down into the darkness of the grave
Gently they go, the beautiful, the tender, the kind;
Quietly they go, the intelligent, the witty, the brave.
I know. But I do not approve. And I am not resigned.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

StormandStatic
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Re: Poems

Post by StormandStatic »

Been digging into Mary Oliver lately.

Here's Ghosts:
6

Have you noticed? how the rain

falls soft as the fall

of moccasins. Have you noticed?

how the immense circles still,

stubbornly, after a hundred years,

mark the grass where the rich droppings

from the roaring bulls

fell to the earth as the herd stood

day after day, moon after moon

in their tribal circle, outwaiting

the packs of yellow-eyed wolves that are also

have you noticed? gone now.

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

The Unveiling
Edward Hirsch

Instead of a pebble to mark our grief
or a coin to ease his passage
you placed a speaker
at the top of his head
...

Go on, click the link. It's short and you'll like it.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

Today's Academy of American Poets Poem-A-Day. Here it is read aloud.

"Will You?"
by Carrie Fountain

When, at the end, the children wanted
to add glitter to their valentines, I said no.

I said nope, no, no glitter, and then,
when they started to fuss, I found myself

saying something my brother’s football coach
used to bark from the sidelines when one

of his players showed signs of being
human: oh come on now, suck it up.

That’s what I said to my children.
Suck what up? my daughter asked,

and, because she is so young, I told her
I didn’t know and never mind, and she took

that for an answer. My children are so young
when I turn off the radio as the news turns

to counting the dead or naming the act,
they aren’t even suspicious. My children

are so young they cannot imagine a world
like the one they live in. Their God is still

a real God, a whole God, a God made wholly
of actions. And I think they think I work

for that God. And I know they will someday soon
see everything and they will know about

everything and they will no longer take
never mind for an answer. The valentines

would’ve been better with glitter, and my son
hurt himself on an envelope, and then, much

later, when we were eating dinner, my daughter
realized she’d forgotten one of the three

Henrys in her class. How can there be three Henrys
in one class?
I said, and she said, Because there are.

And so, before bed we took everything out
again—paper and pens and stamps and scissors—

and she sat at the table with her freshly washed hair
parted smartly down the middle and wrote

WILL YOU BE MINE, HENRY T.? and she did it
so carefully, I could hardly stand to watch.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

John A Arkansawyer
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Re: Poems

Post by John A Arkansawyer »

I started this a few minutes ago. It's not bad:

THE SYNOPTIC BUMP IN “WARRIOR”, BY GORDON R. DICKSON

That guy sounds like some cheap gangster
Faking up the public anger
Necessary when a coward
Has a killing to move forward
But can’t find the guts within him
In cold blood to kill his victim
So his fear of looking foolish
After threats both wild and stupid
Give the shove he needs to do what
Worse men do more easily.
...........................................So there’s that
For consolation, once destruction
Runs its course: It could have been worse.
The sooner we put those assholes in the grave&piss on the dirt above it, the better off we'll be

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Flea
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Re: Poems

Post by Flea »

Look at your body -
A painted puppet, a poor toy
Of jointed parts ready to collapse,
A diseased and suffering thing
With a head full of false imaginings.

The Dhammapada
Now it's dark.

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