greenmountaineer's thread

[greenmountaineer]

On the Origin of Language

Upon his cantilevered stone
he watched the morning fog
and heard a threat he knew as Roar!
and saw a Caw! fly by
before he turned to her and saw
smoke drifting from their fire
up to a sky when he looks there
he sees the Agh! that squints his eyes

but sets each night each time his tongue
repeats her name. He calls her Ummm,
the way she moans when they make love,
and when she cries his name, it's Ah!,
the sound he makes before he comes
to stare at stars that twinkle Oh!

 

[JanneE]

Zis po-tree. It spics to me. To get DP'd by ze "Cat in the Hat", no?

 

[Trixareforkids]

GM, On the Origins of Lauguage, I read it right after you posted it and have come back twice more to re-read it and comment but it's got me quite speechless. It tickles my senses is the most intelligible thing I can think to say.

 

[butters]

GM, On the Origins of Lauguage, I read it right after you posted it and have come back twice more to re-read it and comment but it's got me quite speechless. It tickles my senses is the most intelligible thing I can think to say.

i remember this from before, trix - it supercedes language in the best of ways

 

[legerdemer]

On the Origin of Language left me speechless.

 

[Piscator]

Upon his cantilevered stone
he watched the morning fog
and heard a threat he knew as Roar!
and saw a Caw! fly by
before he turned to her and saw
smoke drifting from their fire
up to a sky when he looks there
he sees the Agh! that squints his eyes

but sets each night each time his tongue
repeats her name. He calls her Ummm,
the way she moans when they make love,
and when she cries his name, it's Ah!,
the sound he makes before he comes
to stare at stars that twinkle Oh!

Perhaps I should change my mantra from Aheem to UmmmAh - sounds like it'd be more fun.

 

[greenmountaineer]

GM, On the Origins of Lauguage, I read it right after you posted it and have come back twice more to re-read it and comment but it's got me quite speechless. It tickles my senses is the most intelligible thing I can think to say.

i remember this from before, trix - it supercedes language in the best of ways

Thanks for the comments, Trix and butters; and others taking the time to read it.

I use this thread to post edited originals as well as occasionally an original poem.

"On the Origin of Language" is one of my favorites, although there were a few flies in the original ointment.

I enjoy revision more than inspiration to be honest. Because I know you as well as others on PF&D enjoy the art of writing, you might be interested in the following brief article with excerpts from Donald Hall, one of my favorite poets:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/01/25/donald-hall-advice-on-writing/

 

[legerdemer]

Thanks for the comments, Trix and butters; and others taking the time to read it.

I use this thread to post edited originals as well as occasionally an original poem.

"On the Origin of Language" is one of my favorites, although there were a few flies in the original ointment.

I enjoy revision more than inspiration to be honest. Because I know you as well as others on PF&D enjoy the art of writing, you might be interested in the following brief article with excerpts from Donald Hall, one of my favorite poets:

https://www.brainpickings.org/2016/01/25/donald-hall-advice-on-writing/

Thanks for the link. There are beautiful gems there. I also enjoyed the excerpts from Grace Paley, a writer I highly admire.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Before Canute Went Down to the Sea

Oh how the millstream in Bosham has swollen.
Note the spot, skald, by the ink in your pen
where my beloved daughter has fallen.

Write me a Caedmon's hymn for a solemn
runestone the masons will carve for me then.
Oh how the millstream in Bosham has swollen.

April floods render wheat fields their golden
tassels come August as hers might have been,
except the Almighty Hand came calling.

Ne'er again will I voyage to Wolin
where my jarl Thorkell, who fears not a man,
trains my Jomsvikings to beach in a column.

Summon my coterie where the tide rolls in
to see that the sea won't heed my command,
nor will the butterflies, having just stolen

my little butterfly fresh from molting
who flew to heaven to play in a fen.
Oh how the millstream in Bosham has swollen
where my beloved daughter has fallen.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Coffee Clatch in Heaven

........

 

[greenmountaineer]

Here's to You, Mr. Robinson

So what to do but to relish sweet lips,
having called in I'm-sick-I'm-sorry
from the Holiday Inn in Plastic City
where pseudo Suzie, tomorrow she's Jane,
knows how to moan so pretty
before the freeway, two bottles of wine,
one for the Mrs. I take mine
for the lingering smell of Ben.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Intersection

I.

"Well, Georgie Snyder still ain’t dead,”
midnight to eight mission man said.
"Sure as hell thought you were
or took a Greyhound bus because
haven't seen you looking for cans
in the park down by the Battery."

Jail was a bad boy that didn't like won't
whose cock fight left a ghastly sight.

“Nine days dry," mission man said
as Georgie cried all bruised on the stoop,
closest thing to a home he had,
so they had to take him in.

II.

Maybe that's it after all:
not Monday morning muffins
on the Staten Island ferry,
rather you were a good camper
on a weekend in the Poconos,

dousing the fire before you left
and putting the trash in some plastic
bag like the one the bum was dragging
who stopped to ask you for a dollar
at daybreak in Manhattan

that looked like a middle finger
on a cold hand in a pocket,
clutching the change from Starbucks,
not knowing your lights were soon to go off
on the way to your office sockets.

 

[JanneE]

That's beautiful

 

[greenmountaineer]

That's beautiful

Thank you, Jan.

 

[JanneE]

or after a day of spelunking

Jesus fucking Christ

 

[greenmountaineer]

Chaz Whipple

Chaz Whipple, Newark's Taco Bell king,
cursed New Jersey politicians
whose minimum wage laws cost him that Lincoln
as creamy as the swimming pool wife
with her Perrier and a straw next door
he dreams of while goading the dog.

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

"More than a medieval king would have"
he says to his red satin sheets,
half asleep at 2:15
jumping over his 200th fence,
one step ahead of 200 sheep.

 

[JanneE]

You're probably not interested, but I also do this thing where I dress up as the characters from Star Trek and jerk off with Klingon poetry on Skype. Like I print it out and then use the paper. I teleported so hard the last time.

 

[JanneE]

Note to self: you know zero gang signs and Adidas pants aren't as cool as you thought. Don't trip.

 

[JanneE]

It's pronounced "Sain' An-tony"

 

[greenmountaineer]

Iron Maiden

1958

With little time outside the lung
her mother called "toilette,"
Josie scribbled thoughts in verse
with her withered hand
that spoke of her love for Mom.

She no less loved her Dad,
who once a drunk, confessed to her
that life began again for him,
selecting right, or was it left?
the shoe he put his first foot in
instead of staying in bed.

She named the right one Buddy Holly.
Little Richard was the left,
and then she entered in her diary
she would boogie woogie again

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

Mother slid her in.

 

[JanneE]

Good morning!

The phone lines are down, it's quiet outside
The fire is dying, you can tell by the glow
Sheets of ice creak and echo like gunshots
Everyone's here but there's no one you know

 

[greenmountaineer]

A Primer on Dung Beetles

Those known as rollers
roll dung into balls,
either for food or prelude to
a night of pleasure
in the brooding chamber.

Others, the tunnelers, bury it;
a third, the dwellers,
neither roll nor burrow
but simply live in it
until it is gone.

Usually, the male rolls the ball.
The female follows behind
until a soft spot is found
where they go underground to mate
and leave it for the larvae,

and when they come out of the ground,
they look up to the Milky Way
stars they use to navigate
as if someday they hope to fly
like fish once leaped from the sea.

 

[JanneE]

Stay out of the road

Dripping, wet, and drowning. Fast
Nothing left. But time
your speech. places traces on her lips
Because it wasn't mine

 

[JanneE]

Decaf

Shut the fuck up!

 

[JanneE]

If only for a day

*smiling* I was out in the country one day after they were done harvesting corn and saw a county road sign lying on the ground. I thought "how strange, a farmer must have backed over it with his tractor". I was surprised there was no official way to contact the city and request a repair! I look around and find there is only a "Citizen's Access" panel on some outside website to report property issues to.

Thinking "what the hell", I logged it and went on. 2 or 3 days later, I'm out in the same spot and parked on the edge of the road is an old blue pickup with an even older white-haired man standing up on a ladder riveting the sign into place. I stop across the cornfield from him. It's probably 50 degrees and windy; he looks rather unpleasantly preoccupied with his task. I take out my iPhone (he knows I'm there) and start writing an email (literally to him). He finishes and drives off watching me laugh at my phone. We are waving, of course, as he passes me.

I think that run was a little over 10 miles. In the middle of the week? What are the chances of that? At that exact place and time, days apart. Wow. Really amazing that I made some old man my bitch like that; I'm sure they thought the world could only use one more Gen Xer watching them beg for death.

https://seeclickfix.com/issues/1959076-road-sign-down