greenmountaineer's thread

[greenmountaineer]

...........

 

[AMoveableBeast]

...........

I'm not sure why this was edited.

I was going to say that I walked into the first poem fairly ignorant of the history of it, and that may have lessened my understanding and fondness for it.

I'm never sure how I feel about such things. I try to examine it in my own writing and poetry. How much should be expected of a reader? And how much should a poem or piece of literature be required to work independently of outside information?

Just how high, or low, does that bar get to be?

I always hope that my writing is like some Flemish pieta, with symbols and hidden bits laying around that can be found and examined by those sufficiently educated, but that it still looks beautiful and powerful to someone who is approaching it on a surface level.

More often than not, I get stuck in the middle, and it comes out still born, as lifeless as the subject of those great works.

 

[greenmountaineer]

...........

I'm not sure why this was edited.

I was going to say that I walked into the first poem fairly ignorant of the history of it, and that may have lessened my understanding and fondness for it.

I'm never sure how I feel about such things. I try to examine it in my own writing and poetry. How much should be expected of a reader? And how much should a poem or piece of literature be required to work independently of outside information?

Just how high, or low, does that bar get to be?

I always hope that my writing is like some Flemish pieta, with symbols and hidden bits laying around that can be found and examined by those sufficiently educated, but that it still looks beautiful and powerful to someone who is approaching it on a surface level.

More often than not, I get stuck in the middle, and it comes out still born, as lifeless as the subject of those great works.

I deleted the post because somehow the emoji got in there, I couldn't delete it, and it was in no way indicative of my reply about "Frank's Curtal Sonnet." Go figure.

What I wrote and deleted was that the last line, "Praise him," was taken from Gerard Manley Hopkin's curtal sonnet "Pied Beauty." Hopkins was a Jesuit priest and many critics believe a homosexual at a time in England when it was considered a crime. Added to that, "Frank" was an allusion to Frank O'Hara, an openly gay man in NYC at a time when most were still "in closet." I've always had trouble with the cliché "Hate the sin. Love the sinner." That said, my reach may have exceeded my grasp here. Nonetheless, the biographical allusions appeal to me, so it will remain in my vault of private favorites.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Terms of Endearment

"Dead Ass" comes to mind
as in the case of Little Joe, Pillsy,
and Pinhead, you heard me, Pinhead,
because his crown is smaller than
his jowls that suck on a cigarette
down at Freeman Street Park,

your best pal when you want a butt
as in "Hey, Dead Ass, get off your butt
and gimme one of your Camels"
even when there's only four left

after a game of b-ball,
two on two, point a basket,
under a dead ass summer love sun
when August makes your high tops stink
almost as much as the locker room
at Harry S. Truman Junior High.

Thank God Witkowski ain't here.
Dead ass just stands there, six foot five,
so easy to dribble around.

Dumb ass is also acceptable,
as in if he's outta butts,
but it doesn't mean I luv ya, Man,
as much as dead ass does.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Fire in Eyes

Some say my end will be a gun;
some say with a knife.
When last I heard "Cy's found us, Hon!,"
it was a blade took my life.

Yes, it's true I perished once,
but then a nurse who had a rack
of basketballs, the way they bounced,
Hallelujah! brought me back

despite the blood that I had splat,
and though it seems like arrogance,
I swear, I swear, it is a fact
she smiled when she unzipped my pants.

So if I had to perish twice
I wouldn't want the big guy sliced.
Trigger-happy angry Cy's
not so great
but would suffice.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Some say my end will be a gun;
some say with a knife.
When last I heard "Cy's found us, Hon!,"
it was a blade took my life.

Yes, it's true I perished once,
but then a nurse who had a rack
of basketballs, the way they bounced,
Hallelujah! brought me back

despite the blood that I had splat,
and though it seems like arrogance,
I swear, I swear, it is a fact
she smiled when she unzipped my pants.

So if I had to perish twice
I wouldn't want the big guy sliced.
Trigger-happy angry Cy's
not so great
but would suffice.

It seemed familiar -- is it based on a poem by Frost? May we know which one?

You come perilously close to a formal rhymed and metered poem here. It wouldn't take much to get you over the top -- you need an unstressed syllable at the beginning of line 2 ("and" would do it), one at line 4 ("Indeed" in place of "Yes"?), one at line 8, and one at 15. Or you could lengthen those lines in other ways; over yonder at the "What is a sonnet?" thread, we've been discussing the use of trochee substitutions by licensed, reputable sonneteers.

Also, I'm not entirely comfortable with "splat" as the past participle of a verb (split?) -- what does it mean? I know, this is me being OCD.

 

[greenmountaineer]

It seemed familiar -- is it based on a poem by Frost? May we know which one?

You come perilously close to a formal rhymed and metered poem here. It wouldn't take much to get you over the top -- you need an unstressed syllable at the beginning of line 2 ("and" would do it), one at line 4 ("Indeed" in place of "Yes"?), one at line 8, and one at 15. Or you could lengthen those lines in other ways; over yonder at the "What is a sonnet?" thread, we've been discussing the use of trochee substitutions by licensed, reputable sonneteers.

Also, I'm not entirely comfortable with "splat" as the past participle of a verb (split?) -- what does it mean? I know, this is me being OCD.

As light verse, I'm quite comfortable, AH, with the word play of "splat" as a verb with "splat," which is an acceptable noun derivation of "splattering". As to the Frost poem, it's Fire and Ice.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Facebook Update

During Suzy's sophomore year
she spoke Italian, studied in Rome
and soon after marriage learned how to grow
a daughter, a son, and marigolds.

Jane loves puppies the nursing home
neighbor's Labrador had last year
and loves Suzy's house in Short Hills
who wishes Jane birthday cheer

on Facebook every December
eighteenth with Christmas tree shots
of Katie and Scot who will friend her
with iPhones for Christmas this year.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Mad Men

We live on rectangular streets
in rectangular houses
with rectangular color TV's
we watch in our bedrooms underneath
seven by seven twin size sheets
with three more feet of space in between
to get a fitful night's sleep
before we take the six fifteen.

We're into the office by eight.
We're into our bosses knee deep
until our second chance six fifteen
that takes us back to New Rochelle
to hug both the kids and Mr. Jim Beam
two fingers deep before we add ice
and dine by eight on reheated meat
with four more fingers to help us sleep.

 

[Trixareforkids]

Whiffle Ball with Harvey Lauber

This is a wonderful story poem. I loved it without knowing it was true and a eulogy, knowing just makes it more so. And why shouldn't it be sentimental that's all we really have of the people we love, here or gone, that expansion of our hearts and minds where they've curled up inside us and made us bigger than we were before we knew them.

 

[greenmountaineer]

This is a wonderful story poem. I loved it without knowing it was true and a eulogy, knowing just makes it more so. And why shouldn't it be sentimental that's all we really have of the people we love, here or gone, that expansion of our hearts and minds where they've curled up inside us and made us bigger than we were before we knew them.

Thank you, Trix. Harvey was very special to me. While the long-time regulars have read it before, others may not have, so I'll reproduce it without any ego attached as to whether or not it's good writing, because more importantly it was a heartfelt eulogy.

http://forum.literotica.com/showpost.php?p=52634262&postcount=9

 

[greenmountaineer]

Skin

It's the largest organ in the body.
It's the itch you can't reach that also stings
sweetly with back slapping laughter
or soothes like baby fat pink asleep.

It's skins against shirts in the gym
who delight in the sweat of a jump shot
going in before a shower and Sue's
seamed nylon legs in Biology class,

and it loves the touching of her or him,
perfumed or with a dash of cologne
or even alone when that someone you want
gets under it on red satin sheets.

It's also the washing of feet on it,
baptism poured on original sin,
and the wrinkling of old age or disease
in a fetal position,

a time to reap and a time to sow,
a season to turn, turn bedsores up
when a hard wired brain prays that there's more
than the skin that's left on the bone.

 

[greenmountaineer]

April Fool

The seed was bad, ergo the blossom
I knew how to say in Lungworm or Latin
as if to the manner born.

A pound is a pound, Bloke, the rent was due
I paid with a love song, absent love,
and they named me a gastromancer,

but how I wish my stomach had purred,
and fur balls had twisted my tongue
insofar frogs now live in my throat.

So bless me, Father, before I croak.
Bleistein never had slime in his eye.
I don't really know beginning from end.
Something is cruel, but April is kind.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Still Life

The farmer was not well groomed.
His beard, however, was the color
of morning sunlight sifting through it.

Coffee steam rose up Arabica
as he sidled past the manure
to lean on a crusted stanchion

with nothing better to do
than stare at the spider mites swarming
his King James Version Bible bound

in leather splayed to Genesis
praise for his heifer calving,
but the beast was there alone.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Bad Habit

Anno Domini 1960

"Louise, go get a Kleenex for your head,"
Sister Mary John of the Cross said,
who otherwise gave to seventh grade girls
two bobby pins each for their chapel veils.

"So maybe next time you'll remember yours.
Another example, listen up girls,
of sloth which is what forgetfulness is,
and don't forget to button up your blouse."

The tissue felt like a hair shirt to Lou
inside the booth with a bobby pin loose
who rubbed herself for a second or two
to think of something to say about sin.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Her Letter

I was Miller, you Anaïs
when you weren't serving mocha lattés
in a bistro on a gentrified street,
smiling at trust fund babies you whored
for tips I joked as we smoked our weed
in rooms for rent by the week.

But you no longer read at night in bed
the next great Tropic of Cancer
when I come home at 2:00 am
after putting heads on one hundred beers
for tips plus seven bucks an hour.

Dad had a heart attack. You have to hitch.
I read in your letter half past dead.
The dude, he thinks he's Kerouac
and would I have your boss Raúl
mail your latest paycheck to:

P.O. Box 1716
Akron, Ohio the letter repeats
the same address on the envelop
that has no name for a street.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Seder

You shall tell your child a fleeing slave does not have time for bread to rise.

 

[todski28]

It's the largest organ in the body.
It's the itch you can't reach that also stings
sweetly with back slapping laughter
or soothes like baby fat pink asleep.

It's skins against shirts in the gym
who delight in the sweat of a jump shot
going in before a shower and Sue's
seamed nylon legs in Biology class,

and it loves the touching of her or him,
perfumed or with a dash of cologne
or even alone when that someone you want
gets under it on red satin sheets.

It's also the washing of feet on it,
baptism poured on original sin,
and the wrinkling of old age or disease
in a fetal position,

a time to reap and a time to sow,
a season to turn, turn bedsores up
when a hard wired brain prays that there's more
than the skin that's left on the bone.

Life in all its messy glory.

 

[legerdemer]

I was Miller, you Anaïs
when you weren't serving mocha lattés
in a bistro on a gentrified street,
smiling at trust fund babies you whored
for tips I joked as we smoked our weed
in rooms for rent by the week.

But you no longer read at night in bed
the next great Tropic of Cancer
when I come home at 2:00 am
after putting heads on one hundred beers
for tips plus seven bucks an hour.

Dad had a heart attack. You have to hitch.
I read in your letter half past dead.
The dude, he thinks he's Kerouac
and would I have your boss Raúl
mail your latest paycheck to:

P.O. Box 1716
Akron, Ohio the letter repeats
the same address on the envelop
that has no name for a street.

I love this one - the regrets sing out to me.

Q: Is the typo in the second to last line purposeful?

 

[greenmountaineer]

I was Miller, you Anaïs
when you weren't serving mocha lattés
in a bistro on a gentrified street,
smiling at trust fund babies you whored
for tips I joked as we smoked our weed
in rooms for rent by the week.

But you no longer read at night in bed
the next great Tropic of Cancer
when I come home at 2:00 am
after putting heads on one hundred beers
for tips plus seven bucks an hour.

Dad had a heart attack. You have to hitch.
I read in your letter half past dead.
The dude, he thinks he's Kerouac
and would I have your boss Raúl
mail your latest paycheck to:

P.O. Box 1716
Akron, Ohio the letter repeats
the same address on the envelop
that has no name for a street.

I love this one - the regrets sing out to me.

Q: Is the typo in the second to last line purposeful?

Oops! Envelop is a verb, envelope a noun.

Good catch. Thanks.

 

[ishtat]

Q: Is the typo in the second to last line purposeful?

Did you mean, on purpose or deliberate; or is purposeful one of those crafty words which has a slightly different meaning in American as opposed to British English?

 

[legerdemer]

Did you mean, on purpose or deliberate; or is purposeful one of those crafty words which has a slightly different meaning in American as opposed to British English?

I did mean the bolded text. Weird-sounding?

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Accident

Not superstitious I

why then oh why oh why

did I keep staring at

my Jag's odometer at

55554

until 55554 begat

55555?

 

[greenmountaineer]

7-11

Lupe sweeps the white donut crumbs
near the slapdash coffee machine
every Monday morning through Friday

and unbeknownst to her manager
Lupe sneezes near random patrons
stopping to fill their coffee cups up.

No one knows that Lupe's a green card
member of Mensa working her way
nights at CalTech Pasadena

who tallies whenever customers say:

(a) God Bless You

(b) Salud

(c) neither (a) nor (b)

(d) that bitch on caller ID,

(e) it's my boss, that s.o.b., or

(f) fucking (d) and (e) above.

 

[greenmountaineer]

http://youtu.be/oI46BSg444Y