greenmountaineer's thread

The Flower

Krah smears blood of a rabbit
on claws of the short-faced bear
as Tunka plucks my flower
to burn for Spirit Moon
that, as I last remember Him,
looked like the jawbone of Zar.

I think my flower should wear
wet in the wood cup of Tunka
as it does when Spirit Sun
takes away cold smoke in the sky.

The petals look pretty dying here,
just as our sister Manah was
in the Great Pit wearing the hide
we dyed with plums and purple carrots.

Tonight my flower won't look as nice
when Krah pours blood on the altar stone,
for Tunka will burn it in his cup,
but, Uma, he will never know!

Come to the river and see.
Come with me and see!
wrapped in a tree leaf hidden there:
Uma, I took the seeds!


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Words

He thought about words,
how absent they were when he was born,
which is why the poet said
as close to the Word the soul once was
the child is father to man.

He thought the same about love, still does,
with Gabriella, lover and friend,
on top of their Salvation Army
mattress without any sheets
in a wordless, naked holy land.

Original Version
 
Words

He thought about words,
how absent they were when he was born,
which is why the poet said
as close to the Word the soul once was
the child is father to man.

He thought the same about love, still does,
with Gabriella, lover and friend,
on top of their Salvation Army
mattress without any sheets
in a wordless, naked holy land.

Original Version

Love this, GM.

I'm intrigued by the "the same" reference in S2-- is the absence of scripture paralleled with the absence of love?
 
Love this, GM.

I'm intrigued by the "the same" reference in S2-- is the absence of scripture paralleled with the absence of love?

Sorry for the tardy response, corndog. I was in the the hospital and Literotica was restricted by them.

Hmmn. Your comment gives me pause. However obtuse it may have been, it was an attempt to link the Word of the New Testament which is supposed to be Love unlike the Old Testament "Word" which was IMO patriarchal, authoritative. That it could be construed the way you suggest (and I think you may be right) suggests to me a problem with syntax, so I'm going to play with that so that, if I'm not able to get an image of original intention, the reader won't be tempted to draw a conclusion opposite of what I did, in fact, intend.

Thanks for the thought provoking comment.
 
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A Love Poem

I think I could write a love poem
after nurses remove my fluids
and empty solids from me.

I should first think of Impermanence,
little more than my chin-wagging once
at high brow wine and cheese parties

when I laughed about Botox women,
having said "who ever said
we were going to live forever?"

Compassionate eyes watch my thighs,
that as the biggest muscles, gasp
when they squat up and down

such that I have to ask for help
to plop in the hole of a plastic chair:

another day of Intensive Care.

Cammie always smiles at me,
Kevin tells guy jokes at midnight,
Sandy of the dawn calls me "Bud"

and the doctor whose name I mispronounce
talks to my eyes as he puts on his gloves
with a voice as warm as heaven.
 
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Trying to Say His Breviary

White is white and black is black;
God is good, sex is bad
but for the sacrament of marriage

is what I am supposed to keen
behind my daresay sliding screen
or in my homily.

But, oh my Gosh, Deacon Rocco
is older than an altar boy
who's reached the age of majority.

No, Dear God, I did not want
sorrow stemmed in an embryo,

but I am not, no, I am not
a monk in a desert monastery.

Original version:

Breviarium non Psalterii
 
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Thomas Said

We should think about death
every day, Thomas said,

not as news at eleven
or alone in one’s bed.

We should think about death
as monks do at dawn,

soft melting candle wax during love
on a Saturday night into day.

Diarrhetic old age will have come
as months turn to years

night after night

while once asleep in the crib,
a rose bud blossoms reaching for skin.
 
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Lucy Hominid

There upon the savanna
she had no thought of yesterday
nor would she think of tomorrow
but lays again for Za tonight

while her ebony heavens explode
along with a rocket star in the sky
and a firefly's afterglow

after which she opens her lips
to shine into midnight an ivory
smile as bright as a homo-sapiens
man in the moon she'll never know.

Original Version
 
Lucy Hominid

There upon the savanna
she had no thought of yesterday
nor would she think of tomorrow
but lays again for Za tonight

while her ebony heavens explode
along with a rocket star in the sky
and a firefly's afterglow

after which she opens her lips
to shine into midnight an ivory
smile as bright as a homo-sapiens
man in the moon she'll never know.

Original Version
absolutely beautiful, gm.
 
All You Need Is Love


They moved John's shrine to Central Park
when Ono said she couldn't sleep
for all the faithful noise they made,

the wailing and gnashing of teeth,
and singing to a hollow sky
hallowed be his name.

I scream, you scream,
we all scream for ice cream
in the Walmart checkout lane

until we see this is the body
and this is the blood
from the best of the Paparazzi

for which we pay good money
to hurry home and read
before we sing in the shower

and manage to imagine
all of our adoring fans
in love with their favorite rocker.


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What's Up, Doc?

Fingers in his digital glove,
get ready, get set, fair warning,
he gasped " You got a big one!, Friend!

On a scale how much 1 to ten
at 2:00 o'clock in the morning,
it's raining cats and dogs outside,

and Daffy could just as well glide
as waddle wherever he's going,

does your prostate, Elmer, feel like a bottle
capful of glue no longer flowing?"
 
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oh my - invites empathy, winces, and smiles all at the same time which is something of a neat trick. :rose:
 
Iron Maiden

1958

A little time outside the lung
occasioned some toilette
and cursive thoughts in verse
she scribbled with a withered hand
spun from a sharpened wit.

Once a drunk, Dad confessed
that life began again
selecting right or left
the shoe he'd put the first foot in
instead of stay in bed.

She named her right foot Buddy Holly.
Little Richard was the left
and entered in her diary
that she would dance again

and then put on her father's shoes,
the blue suede ones she thought were cool
he bought each year to celebrate.

Then Mother slid her in.


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Curtal Sonnet on Fire Island

They transubstantiate him more and more.
It wouldn't matter, Lou, if he were Ron
or Jesse, Man, their black and white lies sprayed
with quotes on poster boards. They look to score
more goats to banish from their nation.
Ain't nothing like another new crusade.

Leviticus 18 verse 22
Repent! It is abomination!


Here comes the holier than thou parade.
For Chrissake, Lou. They think this is how you
praise him.

Original Version
 
Curtal Sonnet on Fire Island

They transubstantiate him more and more.
It wouldn't matter, Lou, if he were Ron
or Jesse, Man, their black and white lies sprayed
with quotes on poster boards. They look to score
more goats to banish from their nation.
Ain't nothing like another new crusade.

Leviticus 18 verse 22
Repent! It is abomination!


Here comes the holier than thou parade.
For Chrissake, Lou. They think this is how you
praise him.

Original Version

Very strong.

"Black and white lies" is such a powerful image it probably doesn't need any embellishment.

I'm intrigued by the poem's focus on blasphemy rather than intolerance. A fresh take.
 
Writer's Cramp

We used to edit each other's screenplays
down in the Village beneath satin sheets,
writing sitcoms of slapstick comedies
or soaps that the networks threw in the trash.

But disquietude hatched like a maggot
under the skin and it came to pass
trapped in our tragic comedy masks
we no longer called each other dearest.

I had hoped to fall off my horse like Saul
and see some light that would turn into love
like Arabian Nights in Damascus

But all I could write was this roadhouse poem
in which the last line finally broke
down whose last word was done.

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Carpet Stains

Mary remembers the vacuuming
of heart melted candle wax dinner crumbs
in the bedroom when the kids were asleep.

Susan with kids of her own who sleep
giggled at Mother's white lies
of purple wine drops on the carpet.

She knows much more than Mother knew,
but never would she know
mascara laden tears fell too

that fell again and tasted sour
a week ago when hospice said
it was time for Father Joe.

Today upon her hands and knees
she thinks of love as sometimes thick,
sometimes sticky, mostly white,

as she scrubs what's left of the brown
she knows won't ever really wash out
along with mascara and Merlot

and red from some lipstick stepped upon
when passion used to leap from the bed
on to a colored magic carpet.

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Lady Elevator Operator

Aretha read the Daily News
about the crime and mayhem.
"This is why we need Jesus Christ"
she whispered on her graveyard shift
after puffed rice to earn her keep
while waiting for the theater crowd
coming home, going out.

“Evenin’, Retha. Twenty second,
toilet bowl in two two three.
Hey there, Girl, your Handyman
would like to hear some ‘Stormy Weather'
like the time you used to tease
us bad boys after Sunday School
down at the Abyssinian."

But Retha wasn't ready yet
to have the final say
in a voice, if at the Met,
you could have dropped a pin before
you'd swear Puccini's Mimi sang

or uptown once the Cotton Club
where Retha could have been
Lady sings the blues just like Billie did.

She knows the names of Sammy's girls,
their husbands, and their kids
and has to know how each one is
before she plays his game,

the one that Sammy loves so much
because there was a time
if only in a young man's mind
when Retha was his Lena
pining for her man.

Sammy thought that love was luck
so not to ask Aretha why
she wanted Bo instead of him
who left her for Olivia

but as the rocket groans and moans
like strings and winds are warming up,
first comes whisper, then a hum,
then there comes all heaven's glory
eight by ten that's passing by
and even though ain’t no sun up,
Retha's risin' Lordy, Lordy,
praise You, Jesus, up, up, up in the sky.



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The Irish Wake Table

We covered with a tablecloth
knots that look like liver spots
and lit a tapered candle there

to dine on salmon with claret,
amused that women midnight keened
whose early morning rosary beads

babies rattled giggling pink
when mournful mothers diapered them
in their blackest woolen shawls,

the smell of whom had pleased them more
than all of the Cavendish smoke
from clay pipes pointing towards heaven.



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Kalisha's Mama Once Danced with Blue Devils

but duck was a word she didn't hear
when rat-a-tat drive by bullets rained.
So Grandma Sadie is raising Kalisha
far from beautiful downtown LA
where, Ladies and Gentleman, Exxon Mobil's
Board of Directors proudly presents
Pyotr Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite.

Meanwhile Keontae beatboxes a dumpster
to Come All Ye Faithful as Jayla becomes
a crip walking back alley ballerina
because he's asked her to be his blue diamond.

"Come, Kalisha, it lullaby time,
ain't nothin' but giant rats on TV."


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From the Forest of the Triple Goddess

We wisely did not go into the world
to love too greatly when the Word
became heraldic and pontifical.

We knew there would be cottages burned
not far from the forest in which we hid
where some met secretly with husbands

whose crops yet again went to the manor
for Earl, the Pope, and multiple bishops
who gave men heaven for running down witches.

But in the beginning their Word was Love
when Caesar flouriished his circus with stone.


Original Version
 
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Wrestling with Keats, Thinking of my Daughter

For Elizabeth

I will admit it. I am guilty of
“that egotistical manufacture of
metaphysical importance
on trivial themes."
according to Mr. Keats.

But when I hear my little girl cry
in this neonatal wing
I ask myself why a mother in Minsk
or traffic jam in New York City
would whisper sing a lullaby
to an empty mind wrapped in bunting?


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Chaz Whipple

Newark's Taco Bell kingpin
cursed New Jersey politicians
whose minimum wage laws cost him that Lincoln
as creamy as a swimming pool wife
he dreams of while goading the dog
who's sniffing around the front lawn.

Time to go in to his widescreen TV,
scrape the sole on one his Florsheims,
give the old lady's "Shit-Zoo" a biscuit,
and pour two fingers. Hello, Mr. Beam.

"More than a medieval king once had"
Chaz says to his silk sheets later that night
jumping over his 400th fence
one step ahead of 400 sheep.

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Seeking Alchemy, Finding None

The stone-cold puddles November brings
have turned to ice at Moss Glen Falls,
except for the rising of mist

as if some wizard's vapor trail
might give us back Indian Summer
and lovers' temperatures here.

Your cold cream hand fetches a stone
that isn't sharp enough to hone
a heart where the birch bark has died.

So I palm a palette of mud
about to finger paint our love
but out of one eye watch you rub

smudge from your faded come hither jeans
with grimaces darker than bile.


Original version
 
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