greenmountaineer's thread

[Trixareforkids]

http://youtu.be/oI46BSg444Y

Love

 

[legerdemer]

Nice one!!

 

[greenmountaineer]

Logical Fallacies

Can something be nothing?
as in "You're nothing, Man!,
when Len breaks down in Bedford-Sty
late at night on his way to Queens
where he lives alone with Mr. Jim Beam.

It's a good thing he chose not to wear
his Salvatore Ferragamos,
although no one ever sees his feet
under his desk on the 45th floor
in a cubicle far from a window

better than his ex-college friend has,
Brad who has an ex-trophy wife
and two screaming kids on Saturdays
he forgets about Monday through Friday
on a ferry in the Puget Sound

that feels like the River Styx to him
as he's plopped near a grey stone monolith
where Brad descends to a basement desk
on which he doodles pentagram
hexes for his ex and some guy named Bruce.

So there you have it: Len and Brad,
shoes at five hundred, suit's a grand,
solipsistic sons of man,
as close to nothing as two somethings get.

 

[ishtat]

Can something be nothing?
as in "You're nothing, Man!,
when Len breaks down in Bedford-Sty
late at night on his way to Queens
where he lives alone with Mr. Jim Beam.

It's a good thing he chose not to wear
his Salvatore Ferragamos,
although no one ever sees his feet
under his desk on the 45th floor
in a cubicle far from a window

better than his ex-college friend has,
Brad who has an ex-trophy wife
and two screaming kids on Saturdays
he forgets about Monday through Friday
on a ferry in the Puget Sound

that feels like the River Styx to him
as he's plopped near a grey stone monolith
where Brad descends to a basement desk
on which he doodles pentagram
hexes for his ex and some guy named Bruce.

So there you have it: Brad and Len,
shoes at five hundred, suits a grand,
solipsistic sons of man,
as close to nothing as two somethings get.

Thoughtful piece. I cannot see the point of the second verse, and suspect I'm missing something?

Solipsistic suggests awareness of one own mind is the only certainty, but the poem suggests these particular minds have lost even that. Was that deliberate?

I will think on.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Can something be nothing?
as in "You're nothing, Man!,
when Len breaks down in Bedford-Sty
late at night on his way to Queens
where he lives alone with Mr. Jim Beam.

It's a good thing he chose not to wear
his Salvatore Ferragamos,
although no one ever sees his feet
under his desk on the 45th floor
in a cubicle far from a window

better than his ex-college friend has,
Brad who has an ex-trophy wife
and two screaming kids on Saturdays
he forgets about Monday through Friday
on a ferry in the Puget Sound

that feels like the River Styx to him
as he's plopped near a grey stone monolith
where Brad descends to a basement desk
on which he doodles pentagram
hexes for his ex and some guy named Bruce.

So there you have it: Brad and Len,
shoes at five hundred, suits a grand,
solipsistic sons of man,
as close to nothing as two somethings get.

Thoughtful piece. I cannot see the point of the second verse, and suspect I'm missing something?

Solipsistic suggests awareness of one own mind is the only certainty, but the poem suggests these particular minds have lost even that. Was that deliberate?

I will think on.

Thanks, ishtat, for taking the time to comment. You're one of the Lit gurus I spend more than a little while thinking about.

As to S2, I'm alluding to a so-called fashionable, expensive pair of shoes. I'm trying to convey a sense of someone who has an inflated self-image compared to the reality of what he does in corporate America.

And as to your second point about Solipsism, it was deliberate. The Merriam-Webster dictionary states:

": a theory holding that the self can know nothing but its own modifications and that the self is the only existent thing; also : extreme egocentrism."

I'm suggesting the "also" definition in the poem.

Based upon your feedback, I'm wondering if I should flesh that secondary definition out, rather than rely on it.

 

[legerdemer]

Can something be nothing?
as in "You're nothing, Man!,
when Len breaks down in Bedford-Sty
late at night on his way to Queens
where he lives alone with Mr. Jim Beam.

It's a good thing he chose not to wear
his Salvatore Ferragamos,
although no one ever sees his feet
under his desk on the 45th floor
in a cubicle far from a window

better than his ex-college friend has,
Brad who has an ex-trophy wife
and two screaming kids on Saturdays
he forgets about Monday through Friday
on a ferry in the Puget Sound

that feels like the River Styx to him
as he's plopped near a grey stone monolith
where Brad descends to a basement desk
on which he doodles pentagram
hexes for his ex and some guy named Bruce.

So there you have it: Brad and Len,
shoes at five hundred, suits a grand,
solipsistic sons of man,
as close to nothing as two somethings get.

To me, your poem evoked a couple of young Wall Street jocks who don't think much about whose money they're gambling with - it's all a game to them. It's true the Ferragamo reference is somewhat culture specific, but still fairly broad, I would think.

 

[greenmountaineer]

"This writing business you have to accustom yourself to is about failing again and again, and to not let that hold you up because if you keep at it day, after day, after day, after day, eventually you’ll get better.”


Ted Kooser

 

[greenmountaineer]

Hey, Sister B, Can We Bum Us a Butt?

"Not today, Boys, but you'll each get a pack
on visiting day at Sing Sing Prison,"
Sister B said with her one good eye twinkling
after school while we clapped erasers
and washed the blackboard for venial sins.

B liked to call us lost in Flatbush
Lords of the Flies who needed a ruler
rapped on our knuckles each time we'd say
Hi-mə-ˈlā-ən instead of Hi-ˈmäl-yən
Mountains in world geography class.

"Brooklyn ain't Katmandu, Sister B."

She kept her butts in a black satin bag
Rodino said was Victoria's Secret,
but jokes about B had better be white
as a wimple worn by the Virgin Mary
and smell like flour on apron strings.

B was fresh squeeze, the other ones Tang,
and it was B who helped us believe
in spite of the thunder rumbling in
of Susie and Choo-Choo under our skin,
high school could be a little bit of heaven.

 

[greenmountaineer]

WW II Book of the Dead

On a stone cold hilltop November night
in the year of our Lord and Katherine
beneath a natty blue patchwork quilt
Katherine saw the ghost of St. James.

"Eleanor said you were battlefield dead,
but here you are in all your splendor,
tapping your wing-tipped soul, no doubt,
to the sound of my metromoaning breath
pining as you played your billiards in Paris
with its dance hall yes I can can ladies."

Eleanor's entrance cat pauses silence
to empty another dying day
while dear sweet Katherine whispers good-bye
to stroll with James down the Champs Élysées.

For my mother-in-law who passed away a week ago. We had our differences, but she was in her own way part of "the Greatest Generation."

 

[greenmountaineer]

Body and Soul

As if we were fish out of water
swimming upstream to spawn
in rivers where once the current was softer,
we came of age, red in the face,
squirming like tadpoles at Mr. Wright's
Latin in sex education class
before we taught ourselves alone
practicing what coitus meant.

As a young man I pranced like a king
of Israel seducing Bathsheba,
and then I'd release my goats in the desert
until they returned each weekend
in the oily slick of rain on dark streets.

At last with the wisdom of Solomon,
I atone. I renounce my claim
while I draw you near in the marriage bed,
for neither the body nor the soul,
split in two, can live long alone.

 

[legerdemer]

As if we were fish out of water
swimming upstream to spawn
in rivers where once the current was softer,
we came of age, red in the face,
squirming like tadpoles at Mr. Wright's
Latin in sex education class
before we taught ourselves alone
practicing what coitus meant.

As a young man I pranced like a king
of Israel seducing Bathsheba,
and then I'd release my goats in the desert
until they returned each weekend
in the oily slick of rain on dark streets.

At last with the wisdom of Solomon,
I atone. I renounce my claim
while I draw you near in the marriage bed,
for neither the body nor the soul,
split in two, can live long alone.

I am really enjoying the way each stanza takes us through the different stages of attitudes to sex vs. love, with wry playfulness. The gentleness of the last stanza is a terrific, though quiet, ending and crown to the poem. I love the whole, but particularly that last one is so moving.

At first I thought I would make no changes at all. But then... that middle stanza and those goats... perhaps a slight tweak:

...
and then I'd release my goats in the desert
wait(ing) for their return each weekend
in the oily slick of rain on dark streets.

Just a thought.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Qwerty Circus Tales

"That is not what I meant, at all."
Alfred J. Prufrock

With all of my words try as I might
to figure out why the universe spins,
it seems like I type only characters
like ampersands & that thing ~ that curves.

I might as well write of life in my Big Tent.
Oh, look! There's Mrs. Sippy
in the first row where my clown fingers throw
a pail of apostrophes' confetti.

But my digit midgets played a trick,
so poor Mrs. Sippy's totally wet
who scilicet, namely, & to wit,
just gave me the middle finger.

Moving on to ring number 2
my clown fingers type, type, type,
clap, clap, clap for, and pet, pet, pet
the doggerel on my lap-

top when suddenly the flying trapeze
in ring number 3 metamorphoses
into a spinning ferris wheel
that hovers over a merry go round

where some of my midget digits spin,
as the others do on the ferris wheel,
until no longer able to play
I don't know how to say what I mean

to all the Qwerty's speaking in tongues
and the Big Guy who maybe doesn't have one
nor a finger lifted to Adam in Rome
on a ceiling I'm told is one of his homes.

But, hey! The circus is in town
the organ plays in the pipes of our brains

-toot, toot, tootely (// <€£)
(¥\ }{ [ ] ) tootely, toot,

where even the deaf and dumb of us may,
stretching our fingers, sit down to play.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

"That is not what I meant, at all."
Alfred J. Prufrock

With all of my words try as I might
to figure out why the universe spins,
it seems like I type only characters
like ampersands & that thing ~ that curves.

I might as well write of life in my Big Tent.
Oh, look! There's Mrs. Sippy
in the first row where my clown fingers throw
a pail of apostrophes' confetti.

But my digit midgets played a trick,
so poor Mrs. Sippy's totally wet
who scilicet, namely, & to wit,
just gave me the middle finger.

Moving on to ring number 2
my clown fingers type, type, type,
clap, clap, clap for, and pet, pet, pet
the doggerel on my lap-

top when suddenly the flying trapeze
in ring number 3 metamorphoses
into a spinning ferris wheel
that hovers over a merry go round

where some of my midget digits spin,
as the others do on the ferris wheel,
until no longer able to play
I don't know how to say what I mean

to all the Qwerty's speaking in tongues
and the Big Guy who maybe doesn't have one
nor a finger lifted to Adam in Rome
on a ceiling I'm told is one of his homes.

But, hey! The circus is in town
the organ plays in the pipes of our brains

-toot, toot, tootely (// <€£)
(¥\ }{ [ ] ) tootely, toot,

where even the deaf and dumb of us may,
stretching our fingers, sit down to play.

I enjoyed this. I like it when you go experimental.

 

[legerdemer]

"That is not what I meant, at all."
Alfred J. Prufrock

With all of my words try as I might
to figure out why the universe spins,
it seems like I type only characters
like ampersands & that thing ~ that curves.

I might as well write of life in my Big Tent.
Oh, look! There's Mrs. Sippy
in the first row where my clown fingers throw
a pail of apostrophes' confetti.

But my digit midgets played a trick,
so poor Mrs. Sippy's totally wet
who scilicet, namely, & to wit,
just gave me the middle finger.

Moving on to ring number 2
my clown fingers type, type, type,
clap, clap, clap for, and pet, pet, pet
the doggerel on my lap-

top when suddenly the flying trapeze
in ring number 3 metamorphoses
into a spinning ferris wheel
that hovers over a merry go round

where some of my midget digits spin,
as the others do on the ferris wheel,
until no longer able to play
I don't know how to say what I mean

to all the Qwerty's speaking in tongues
and the Big Guy who maybe doesn't have one
nor a finger lifted to Adam in Rome
on a ceiling I'm told is one of his homes.

But, hey! The circus is in town
the organ plays in the pipes of our brains

-toot, toot, tootely (// <€£)
(¥\ }{ [ ] ) tootely, toot,

where even the deaf and dumb of us may,
stretching our fingers, sit down to play.

I also love it - saw it last night and it made me smile ear to ear! It trips off the tongue beautifully and playfully - it definitely deserves a trip to the Humorous Poetry thread as well.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Love Poem

I wrote this love poem in my bed
after Rosalind emptied me

who watched my thighs strangle their lungs
when I sat down in a plastic chair.

Carmela always smiles at me.
Kevin tells guy jokes at midnight.

Sandy of the dawn calls me "Bud,"
and the one whose name I mispronounce

makes love as she puts on her mask and gloves
with a voice and hands as warm as heaven.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Aífe's Resolve

"How now, Aífe?" she muttered to herself,
"to take his note as sweet and thereby shelve
it in thy heart as if a maiden may
or play the wife who waits 'til peace is staid
among all men? Ah, dear girl, thou shalt wait
forever that were true, because the fate
of men means kill each other in the name
of God, more property, or merely fame.

His note I fear was but a facile lie
he'll write another poor wench by and by,
as if a promissory note before
his smudge will seep beneath a napping whore.

'Tis settled then, Aífe. 'Twas but thy shame.
So kick him in the balls that he not game
some other lass the nuns give counsel free.
Christ! Even Friar Ryan prays for thee."

 

[greenmountaineer]

Baseball Sonnet

"Get outta my way, Duke" Furillo said
to his center fielder chasing the ball
that flew between them and rolled to the wall
while Mickey thinking a three bagger sped
where Jackie with Pee Wee as backup stood
ready for cleats when the Rifleman threw
a bullet that every Dodger fan knew
would get there before the Mick ever could.

"That's all very good, Timothy, but were
you to have followed instructions, you would
have mastered iambic pentameter"
said Mrs. Bernstein who misunderstood
poems that come from the roar of the crowd
in the top of the ninth with two men out.

 

[greenmountaineer]

For Mr. Hughes

You painted with words a people
who pawned their keepsakes each Christmas
for marble puries and jumping rope.

Miss Mary
Mack, Mack, Mack,
all dressed in
black, black, black,

tasting mint juleps
on the veranda
with my mammy
black, black, black.

I saw in your colored palette
nicotine stains in between fingers,
strangling a mop in a bucket
in the men's room at a subway stop.

I even saw elegant brownstones
reflected on newly waxed Hudsons
when "the Negro was in vogue"

as well as ham hock and hush puppy stains
on dresses of women in pews
who pray to God for that man of theirs,
singing his leg iron blues.

 

[legerdemer]

You painted with words a people
who pawned their keepsakes each Christmas
for marble puries and jumping rope.

Miss Mary
Mack, Mack, Mack,
all dressed in
black, black, black,

tasting mint juleps
on the veranda
with my mammy
black, black, black.

I saw in your colored palette
nicotine stains in between fingers,
strangling a mop in a bucket
in the men's room at a subway stop.

I even saw elegant brownstones
reflected on newly waxed Hudsons
when "the Negro was in vogue"

as well as ham hock and hush puppy stains
on dresses of women in pews
who pray to God for that man of theirs,
singing his leg iron blues.

gm, I love this one. Are you referring to a specific Mr. Hughes? It reminds me of some paintings I've seen done by an artist (from the 50s? 60s?) whose name I can't recall.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

Possibly Langston Hughes, who painted with words.

 

[legerdemer]

Possibly Langston Hughes, who painted with words.

I thought of Langston Hughes and looked him up, but perhaps gm can enlighten us.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Possibly Langston Hughes, who painted with words.

I thought of Langston Hughes and looked him up, but perhaps gm can enlighten us.

Yes, Langston Hughes. When I'm too full of myself, I like to read his poems. They're reachable and musical.

 

[greenmountaineer]

I am really enjoying the way each stanza takes us through the different stages of attitudes to sex vs. love, with wry playfulness. The gentleness of the last stanza is a terrific, though quiet, ending and crown to the poem. I love the whole, but particularly that last one is so moving.

At first I thought I would make no changes at all. But then... that middle stanza and those goats... perhaps a slight tweak:

...
and then I'd release my goats in the desert
wait(ing) for their return each weekend
in the oily slick of rain on dark streets.

Just a thought.

You're right about this, Mer. It's stronger and suggests repressed desire.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Stripper

Rehearsing the do’s as well as the don’ts,
she thought of mannequins, put on her smile,
and said to Crystal, "This gig sure as hell's
gonna buy food for my Katie. Let's dance!"

"Babs" whirled away the silhouettes, instead
to be an entourage of gentlemen
where each one asks Milady as a friend
to waltz with him along the esplanade.

But silk-like stockings barely tantalize
the Doctor Jekylls turning into Hyde,
reeking of pork and stein, who gird themselves

as they tuck dollar bills near Babs's ass
in a thong while Milady's blue eyes glance
beyond the girders to heaven itself.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Gregorian Chants

were for voices that could not sing
whose monophonic devotees
shrieked that they not suffer the plague
or highwaymen behind oak trees.

"Why sing praise when there is such pain,"
the sin eater swirled in his cup of mead,
"Patron saint bones don't sing for me.
Ay, belching's the only song I'll sing."

Indeed, why sing like a bird in the trees
or bullfrogs croaking in the mud,
but there's the answer, and there's the rub:

sing for life, such as it is,
with love in church, at home in bed,
or fields of muddy green sleeves.