greenmountaineer's thread

greenmountaineer said:

Zygote

A zygote is a diploid cell
made from male and female gametes,

namely, an ovum haploid,
the other haploid a sperm,

a preimplantation conceptus
as it's known to those in obstetrics,

attached to the uterine wall
for neuro-, myo-, and organo-

genesis to become an embryo
when indifferent gonads form

testicles or ovaries
after which more features are born,

for example, Mullerian female ducts
or so-called Wolfian, if a male,

invisible to the naked eye
until something rather miraculous

turns a young man into a father
and another young woman

into a blessed mother.
Oh, Joy! Joy! Joy to the world!

Click to expand...

I'm impressed at how successfully you extracted the poetry from the rather dry litany of biological facts, gm. But then, poetry is great at pointing out the beauty of the most mundane, routine events. Really well done!

Thanks, Mer. Although listed as a Christmas poem alluding to the birth of the Christ child, Zygote's inspiration was the birth of my son almost 43 years ago. I had such joy then and still have today at seeing what a wonderful person he's become.

Maybe that's where believers and non-believers can find common ground this Christmas season: not in dogma, but the hope (and in my case the belief) that by our children's presence the world is a better place.

greenmountaineer said:

Thanks, Mer. Although listed as a Christmas poem alluding to the birth of the Christ child, Zygote's inspiration was the birth of my son almost 43 years ago. I had such joy then and still have today at seeing what a wonderful person he's become.

Maybe that's where believers and non-believers can find common ground this Christmas season: not in dogma, but the hope (and in my case the belief) that by our children's presence the world is a better place.

Click to expand...

Amen to that!

Zippo

Bogie lit his Gauloises with one,
telling Sam to play it again.
Fred Astaire lit his at the Ritz,
John Wayne did on his battleship,
and Father Burns, his candlesticks lit,
flipped his for one before going in
to church on Ash Wednesday when Lent begins

each year to honor the suffering of Christ
when faithful parental ashen faces
eat one full meal at dinnertime,
thereafter lighting their Lucky Strikes
to smoke half a pack half the night
before breakfast toast with margarine.

It had a certain flair to it,
a little fire in a little box
and gasoline drenching a little wick,
the nickname his father gave to him.

"Look Jane, look!," said Little Wick,
"Father's blowing little white rings
that look like angel halos. See?”

Gauloises

legerdemer said:

Gauloises

Click to expand...

Edit done. Merci.

Good Times at Shoeshine Charley's

The sheriff came; she had to leave
gingham curtains and the green
watered lawns when love was lost.

Lily learned from Mama once
how to sew in curtain hems
rancid shrimp Gabe would smell
home from work a day from then

and wonder where the odor was
she said to all the boilermaker
boys in downtown Galveston
at Shoeshine Charley's Bar & Grill.

Now tucked in her tousled sheets
and steamy rental, no A/C,
her cuckoo clock chirps two a.m.
time to get some beauty sleep....

Mona Lisa, Mona Lisa,
lady with the mystic smile;
KUHF on your dial
DJ with the sexy voice

sings along with Nat King Cole
while Lilly who was boiler made
by a midnight shoeshine boy
walks in her sleep; it's three a.m.

On the john she's still asleep
and dreams she lives in Italy
that looks a lot like Galveston
where Lily, drowning in the Gulf,

or maybe Adriatic Sea,
is thrown a life buoy from a truck
and as she grabs ahold of it,
it turns into a toilet seat
that's always fucking up.

Four Quartets from Prison

Violin I

He no longer orders Singapore Slings
to suck on the maraschino cherry
as when he used to scan alluring
derivative futures like the funnies
Nick used to laugh at each time he crowed
he made so much fucking money.

After three hours of diarrhea
he'd wipe his ass with The Wall Street Journal
or pages ripped from the Good Book
the chaplain forgot to give to him
during prints, a full body search,
and his first big house shit and a shower.

Now in the dark on his upper bunk
Nick hears his cellmate, Rhode Island Red,
sing about whores, asses, and pussies
and wishes he had that bible again
because Nick, once a cock-a-doodle-Dude,
is a hen that's perched on a metal bed.

Violin II

"Hey Boy," Big Mama used to seethe,
clenching her teeth because she hated
any name starting with Genesis,

making him cook meth in her kitchen
all those years until Surprise!
they're both in State of Missouri prisons.

Now in the Chillicothe Women's
morgue she's waiting for Aryan heaven
because she had given seventy reasons

times seven to devil dust women
whose Who's your Daddy? will visit her sins
on the son in Bonne Terre Prison

where a right hand has HATE carved on its fingers
and LOVE, what's left of it, calls the name
of his father who's fishing in his brain

as a light bulb turns on to start his day
with a breakfast tray of shit on a shingle,
pushed through a slot by Handyman Spade

he otherwise would give a rat's ass to
why, when he's asked, his time bomb mind
ticks it's Ben. Goddammit! It's Ben!

Viola

In the beginning was the word
from your former reach around girl
that sound-bite slapped your mascaraed wife

before the day they shut away
your televangelic voice
when white haired ladies stayed up late

for phone sex through your toll free call
who hear while on hold The Ark Park's hours
that on a Sunday opens late.

Your breakfast is served at oh-five-thirty.
Your job in the laundry awaits.
Tonight you'll read your bible til nine

more or less when the guard shouts "Lights Out"
after which your cellmate Jake
jerks off in the toilet while you bookmark

the Gospel according to John,
routines that help the both of you sleep
here in your Slough of Despond.


Cello

Chloe once had pearly white teeth,
but Chloe's mouth was dirtied by Daddy's
nicotine breathing at midnight,
smelling worse than his second shift armpits
and stink from the beer he hid in his pockets
when Mona was out pumping gas.

Chloe learned soon how to survive,
the way she'd stare at the looks in men's eyes,
those with a skin ring of white on a finger
or the asshole who thought he was tougher,
left with a pipe wrench hole in his head
when he didn't like the taste of enough.

"But Mona, Honey, don't you still love me?"
won't supply Daddy beer until payday
is the nightmare Chloe frequently dreams
where love is a cellmate whose name is Shawna
who takes off her bathrobe to dry the night sweats
and swaddle a child whose name is Chloe
for the next ten to twenty, more or less.

Two Quaking Shakers

I like women too much, Ebenezer,
but don't you go think I don't believe
Mother Ann Lee's departure presages
The Second Appearing as feminine.
She was, after all, the Holy Spirit
Incarnate, was she not?

Still, Miss Pettibone's a fine piece of work,
who knows how to shake by the way,
when we dance "Come Life, Come Shaker Life,"
though don't you go tell her brother,
glaring as he does at Thaddeus's
cockeyed glances when she moves.

It's bad enough only six of us men
remain and we quibble about the farm
while Sisters Hortense and Emily,
what the world people call menopausal,
remind us every morning
that the livestock need more hay
if they are to see us through winter.

Alas!, last night as the harvest moon rose
through the crescent hole of the privy,
I lost my way to sin, Ebenezer,
with spiders, crickets, and splinters therein,
and a corseted Sarah Pettibone.

May Holy Mother Wisdom forgive me.

Tequila Sunrise

She dreamt that one day she would find
some macho lips she'd love to kiss
and sleep with after love was kind.

María's metamorphosis
was turtle dove that spread its wings
to bedbug bloodshot eyes

that spot remaining nightstand rings
from empty bottle motel lies,
a cockroach running from the bed,

and drops of blood on sheets that dried
a darker red than neon signs
that bleed cheap rooms by day or night.

Learning to Roll Your R's

In English, say "pot of tea"
which sounds very much like "para tí"
which in Spanish means "for you"
and say it fast at least four times

potofteapotofteapotofteapotoftea.

But then again, what the f
is doing there is dragging your r's.
So drop the f and say it again

potateapotateapotateapotatea

which looks a lot like potatoes.

And after you say "mi Amor"
to Jane Postanek at McDonald's
you met in sophomore Spanish class,
it better be more than fries on your tray
if you hope she'll roll her arse,

but that's another story.

Eager, But Anxious, We Laughed at Such Folly.

The abbot thought it a sickness:

"Parents must warn their children about it
and readily arrange betrothals for them
before they gain enough years
to do something witless," he said.

"God's love is sufficient" he said,
and pray each day to St. Mærwynn's
finger bone in the reliquary,

and need I remind you, Silas as big as he is,
will forge like his father and most likely hunt,
and what wife wouldn't want meat on her table
from dead horses or from the forest?"

"But love will laugh at such folly," we said,
"as it hides in the star struck eyes of maidens
or in the loins of no longer boys,

for who can predict the morrow,
or the cost of it be sorrow,
and as to hearts, wounded by Cupid,
made as they are, we welcome the scars,"

eager, but anxious we said.

Caledonia

Caledonia, Marcellus!
It rains here all the time,
and I swear by Luppiter Victor!

they fled and left one of their tarts,
and gustily I laughed, she feigning death,
warm as she was, after I disrobed her body.

Of course, they know we do not kill women
unless provisions are meager,
(praise Diana for game, Neptune the codfish,)

and therefore I sweetly asked her
her name in the few words I know of their tongue,
but that cunnus stabbed me instead.

Ptolemy who mapped the Hebrides
says there are tribes further north.
Pray by the balls of Bacchus, Marcellus,

the high priest finds in the sheep's entrails
the blue-faced have no more bastions
and all the women are frail.

Dear Brad

As I sit here writing this poem
in the shotgun seat of your Camaro
neon signs across the street
bleed Rooms to Rent by Day or Week
to barely lay down for an hour.

I hear your digital clock crow twice
and watch you having steamy food
by the window in a greasy spoon
where you will order the usual,
an omelette with plenty of onions,

to hide the odor of perfume
when tonight I will no longer play
I'm in a deep sleep, you worked late
where once I was very truly yours

Janey who now prefers Jane.

Stain

In the black and blue darkness of midnight,
she never prays but says to herself
she'd like to have a tongue-glove compartment
with cyanide where her wisdom tooth was,

except for all of the paper mâché
thingamabobs on her dresser
next to the first bottle she warmed
at midnight before a lullaby

instead of the scuff of a leather heel
when the bedroom door slammed Shut
Up! like a jackhammer up her ass
for the grease stain left on his pants.

Madeline thought she had seen it all,
until just then there by the door
raggedy stood her doll-face Annie,
staring at a man in the moon
with a kitchen knife in her hand.

good comment

Iron Lung Love Song

1959

The little time he sat her up
occasioned some toilette
and cursive thoughts in verse
she wrote down with a sharpened wit.

Recovered drunk, her dad confessed
that life resumed for him
the day he chose which shoes to wear
instead of laying there in bed.

She penned the right one Optimist,
the other Will Have Been,
the blue suede shoes he bought for her,
for in a week another year

he will have been without the gin
who kissed her cheek and slid her in.


Note: As a babyboomer child in the 50's, I very much remember "iron lungs," and every child heard "no swimming before the 4th of July," which may have had nothing to do with contracting polio, but was part the common "wisdom."


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_lung#/media/File:Iron_lung_CDC.jpg

Oh, Citizen, Give That Toga Away!

Why bother to save for a rainy day?
The gods have given us goats to make cheese.
Oh, Citizen, give that toga away!

But we hoard our coins like the family's slave
to buy a future of freedom and ease.
The flowers still bloom on a rainy day.

Blow bubbles in the baths today.
Though bubbles will burst, there won't be debris.
Oh, Citizen, give that toga away!

Go play with the children. Be led astray!
The present moment is free if you please.
Rain kisses the cheek on a rainy day.

You say you'll have more denarii, pray
why ride in a chariot with two seats?
Oh, Citizen, give that toga away,

for love is true and forever's today.
Entrails of the sheep give no guarantees.
Why bother to save for a rainy day?
Oh, Citizen, give that toga away!

Reading the Decree Nisi

I see the ghost of Nonno Frankie
reflected in my Waterford
pouring wine for his Sophie

to sip at sunset on their settee
after which Frankie always said
how lovely Nonna Sophia was.

I, the party of the second part,
reading the Decree Nisi,
note the party of the first part is

granted the Lexus Sedan,
and the party of the second part
in consideration thereof

shall have the Prius hatchback
and stereo spinning in my head
that scratches like a worn out diamond

ring stuck in a turnstile of
what's left of strings that tug at the heart
from an unfinished Pachelbel's Canon.

T. S. Eliot Was a Watchman

At the Faber building during the Blitz
on the roof what was he watching?
perhaps a celestial poem in the making

in the universe of his mind
for those in their sudden concrete tombs
or a child somehow left behind?

Did he think of the war to end all wars
when he heard the airplane engines drone
as prelude to hell exploding the night?

We see what we want to see.
Even in the London debris,
he thought about God in the Sistine Chapel.

Did he think that Michelangelo showed
us God reaching out to Adam more
than Adam reaching up to Him?

Notice the air between their two fingers,
so close that God's about to greet Man
with light that once blinded Saul in Damascus

or was it angel of darkness excitement
when children laugh and clap their hands
at the Boom! Boom! fireworks in the sky?

Why, yes, children laugh, but they also cry
he thought and then with a burst of speed
he ran to get the child in the street.

Sisyphus Inside his Rock

Patient: It hurts every time I do that.
Doctor: Don't do that.

Its tectonIc doorplates scrape open
at 7:59 in the morning
with your doppelgänger inside
you pushed up his skyscraper hill

after you rolled him out of bed
when a sleepless clock screamed 5:00 am!
to deposit him in a railroad car
that takes him to the 45th floor

where he's a paperweight on his chair
from which he will roll down again
to catch the 6:15 pm
rock rolling out of Penn Central,

arriving by 7 at New Rochelle,
until 5 o'clock in the morning
when you will roll him out of bed
to deposit him in a railroad car

that takes him to the 45th floor
only to roll down again
to catch the 6:15 pm
rock rolling out of Penn Central.

The Primordial Language of Women

Their language is different
when women talk
with other women
before the fire
while their men a mountain
and full moon away
hunt game to survive.

Sad hurting faces turn
so others don't see eyelids well up
for fear of the wild boar,
except when tears
stream rivulets of joy;
hands may gesture
and bellies swell laughter.

The reasons?
a husband who's still her lover,
her son she nuzzles who suckles,
looking up at her elder daughter,
and her eyes other women see glisten
reflected in flames
that seem to say, "See!
They are mine!"

as she tosses scraps
from the waxing moon's hunt
to the evening's dark shadows
beyond glow's perimeter
that paw the ground softly,
come wagging tails,
and lay belly up.

greenmountaineer said:

The Primordial Language of Women

Their language is different
when women talk
with other women
before the fire
while their men a mountain
and full moon away
hunt game to survive.

Sad hurting faces turn
so others don't see eyelids well up
for fear of the wild boar,
except when tears
stream rivulets of joy;
hands may gesture
and bellies swell laughter.

The reasons?
a husband who's still her lover,
her son she nuzzles who suckles,
looking up at her elder daughter,
and her eyes other women see glisten
reflected in flames
that seem to say, "See!
They are mine!"

as she tosses scraps
from the waxing moon's hunt
to the evening's dark shadows
beyond glow's perimeter
that paw the ground softly,
come wagging tails,
and lay belly up.

Click to expand...

I really like the basic idea of this one but possibly a little light pruning might help here and there. Most of all consider perhaps substituting the word 'talk' in the second line with something else. The poem is substantially about non-verbal, perhaps emotional communication, 'talk 'restricts it to verbal which is maybe detracting from the whole piece?

One or two other tiddly issues but not important.