greenmountaineer's thread

[greenmountaineer]

Hominid

There upon the savanna
she had no thought of yesterday
nor would she think tomorrow
but lays again with Za tonight
while her ebony heavens explode
shooting stars in the sky

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

 

[greenmountaineer]

My Daughter

Elizabeth elides from her crib
into her mother’s arms
and z begins as a feeding

while Margaretann stifles
all of the zzzzzzz’s
a mother misses at 2:00 am.

“b” is mollified by “eth”
and I’m reminded “verdad” means truth
in Spanish, but they say it with a lisp

because it sounds more beautiful,
“verdath,” our truth put back in the crib,
our beautiful Elizabeth.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Josie’s a December Bride, Daddy

she whispered as the band began,
and she danced her first dance with Mickey
while a spotlight fell on an empty seat
at The Spuyten Duyvil Ballroom East.

Later at midnight after the bliss
Micky says, "glad we got hitched
up in the Bronx instead of Queens.
Tomorrow it's Vegas, Baby,"

while Josie sails off in figure skates
with Winken, Blinken, and Nod
to an inlet by the Spuyten Duyvil

where a ‘59 Chevy illuminates
Daddy lacing his hockey skates
to dance with his sugar plum fairy.

 

[greenmountaineer]

All Hallow’s Eve

The fire spat thrice when he awoke
in a fog bottom night, the kind when folk
love to tell tales on All Hallows Eve,

but summer nights with her still seared
and burned in him as she appeared.

“Be dream or ghost, debauchery
is in my deep green eyes,” said she,
"Besides, Dear Heart, I need a good foin"

who lipped his lobe and whispered thus
riding atop John Donovan:

"I beg you find His mercy in life
as foreknown, some friends, and a wife
for comfort and love. No, no, Dear Heart.

You must hear my rhyme. You must hear my rhyme."

And the fog escaped John Donovan's mind.

 

[AlwaysHungry]

The problem with "All Hallow's Eve" is that I can't read "fog bottom" without the unpleasant association with the US Department of State.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The problem with "All Hallow's Eve" is that I can't read "fog bottom" without the unpleasant association with the US Department of State.

That didn’t even occur to me, AH. I would point out, however, you’re referring to Foggy Bottom. I’d also like to think that the antiquated “thrice” and “All Hallows Eve” in the stanza have a “pre-State Dept.” tone.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Breakfast in Jimmy's Café

Mommy who scotch-taped two Rice Krispies
on her nose to look like warts,
asks Peg, the waitress at Jimmy's Café,
to bring a pot of witch's tea
and a cup of cocoa for Princess Kate
who hardly can wait for Halloween,
dressed in her happily ever after
costume that comes with a magic wand
she waves over her cereal bowl
to make it snap, crackle, and pop.

 

[greenmountaineer]

A Mountain Lake

Do I come attracted or by chance
to this mountain lake which hasn’t paths
nearby to find it?

Toward the lake white birches bend
as would the dowsing stick find water,
but surely it is the wind,

and the mist, which rests upon the lake
is but a question of science,
although it is restful.

Fathoming the placid depth of the lake,
knowing it flows to rivulets
and there to seas and oceans,

the mind asserts it as paradox,
but something else, call it attraction,
whisper “design” and echoes a reason.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Going Home to my Dog

Don't ask your friend in a restaurant
peeling the label from his beer
how a loving God allows
such pain in the world and his book

when happiness of nations appears
in Pidgin English and says to you
"such nice day" returning to
the wisdom of washing dishes,

working the soap into a lather
with steaming water from the faucet
when nothing else would ever matter
to Huilang scraping the silverware.

The fly that bothered me flies away.
It's time to go home to my cockapoo
who jumps on my lap when I say "Up"
after we've gone to her happy place.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Carrion

Shows on the tele come and go
at the Great War Old Soldiers’ Home
as fast as my nap comes at three
when I dream I'm cleaning the teeth
and the mud-stained knees of Simone
in a trench not far from the Marne
after Private Wilkinson’s blown
to No Man’s Land and Kingdom Come.

"Type a letter to his Mum, Son.
Usual things, God save the King.
Carrion.”

 

[greenmountaineer]

Femme Fatale

So now it’s come to this:
some oxymoronic oxygen tube
leaves a desert mouth, Darling,
on the sharpest tongue in Hollywood.

“Scorsese said it’s in the eyes,”
you say to yourself inside your mind
because your vocal chords have failed

just as it's time to rehearse
the final scene, your denouement,
so the show must go on in pantomime

whereby your left jaded eye for an eye
flutters “Darling, I’m sorry,”
seeing as if for the very first time
the right baby blue of the little girl inside.

 

[greenmountaineer]

TGIF Triolet

Around downtown thank God it’s Friday.
Ties and heels will soon be gone
from CEO to his girl Friday
around downtown. Thank God it’s Friday,
though in the streets the sky grows cloudy.
Dot that i; your t’s been crossed; have some fun
around downtown. Thank God it’s Friday.
It’s Happy Hour. It’s 3:01.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Doorman

Whom am I kidding?
I smelled of neither dirt nor plastic.
Mine was a faint smell really.

One had to be conscious I was there
by some other means
like opening doors for everyone.

I ushered all the ladies through,
saw the gentle sway of hips,
smelled cosmetic color of skin,

and often wondered what might have been
and what my mustn’t touch fingertips missed.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Ode to Chloë and Big Mama T

Chloë learned soon how to survive
after her mama up and left
and her daddy’s breath stank in her bedroom
when he got home from his factory.

She knew the look in men's eyes,
many whose ring finger blemished white
or the one who thought he was tougher,
dead with a table lamp hole in his head.

"But Chloë, Honey, know that I love you”
says Big Mama T when Chloë won’t cry
but needs Mama’s sleeve should there be tears

in their dollhouse of shackled bunk beds
where Chloë will grow up in 8 to 12 years
as a Raggedy Ann Mama sings to sleep.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Winter's Fast Approaching, My Dear

Why, it seems like yesterday at Colgate
we ate Cortland apples on the green
while two mutts frolicked, one in heat,
and you laughed in your Calvin Klein jeans.

Soon there came baccalaureate masses,
sharkskin suits, silk ties, silk purses,
the sheen and currency of our ambition.
They matter very little now, my Dear.

You look so fine in your dungarees,
as you scissor in the flower garden
to bring the last of the marigolds in
whose fragrance will fill November nights.

Come. The quilt's as light as a feather
on your nakedness to have and to hold
as long as there's heat, whatever the weather,
while the pale sun sets and the nights grow cold.

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Tony Award

Not far from Broadway's theatre crowd
Willy walks with hands in torn pockets
on his way to his favorite alley
to feed on a customer's disappointment.

Tony sets a table for Willy
when his patrons leave for Les Mis
everyone will rave about
after the play with flutes of champagne

their host will replace since Aubrey said
even Cosette would have found the bubbles
trop plaine.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Falderal

I am the Christmas tree
ornament hidden where angel hair
of spun glass and polyester
is all that you can see,
not even the faintest shine,

falderal, some might say, if
there is anything there at all,
but push the branches away,
and you may find a hand painted globe
within which some might say is
a soul.

 

[greenmountaineer]

Lest we forget

Childermas

The schoolyard playground looks like a frozen
cenotaph that once was a forest green
sandbox Little Girl wiggled her toes in.

Vestibule photos put on the notion
we all lived in a yellow submarine.
The schoolyard playground looks like it's frozen.

I said last May, "She's poetry in motion.
Come Fourth of July, she'll likely be seen
skirting the ocean dipping her toes in."

Little Girl loved the boardwalk commotion.
I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,
sand, and the waves Daddy's feet get lost in.

The priest says to pray that all souls repose in...
Christ! Not the one with the magazine!
My nightmares still bleed calamine lotion.

"The Christmas toys were already chosen!"
I screamed in my mind to the killing machine.
The schoolyard playground looks like a frozen
sandbox Little Girl once wiggled her toes in.


Reposted
In Memoriam
Sandy Hook
December 14, 2012

 

[greenmountaineer]

The Great Depression

When a dime felt like a lifetime,
you got to fly on the ferris wheel
to feel as if you could reach the stars,
a nickel for ten ups and downs
on a Sunday in Coney Island,
and the change meant a candied apple
before fried mackerel for supper
after you picked all the worms
from Mother's cabbage in her garden.

All the green in the vacant lot came
from droppings left in the barn
the city wants through eminent domain,
seen from the bedroom window
you shared with your brother Mike
who says he wants to go to college
because Father Murphy said he writes
a lot like William Butler Yeats.

And you, go ahead and say it, thought "butler?"
while up on the flat top roof
the streets smelled like fathers
whose take home was barely enough
for mackerel after mass on Sunday
where pennies for heaven went in a basket
that someday there’d be a chicken
in every pot like they promised
when they promised the Promised Land.

 

[greenmountaineer]

War Games

Son, my grandfather's father
one Sunday in Manassas
thought that war was a picnic basket
packed with cider, bread, and sausage
until he heard the rebel yell
like a banshee's wail in rifle fog
and ran for the train to Baltimore
to bury his box of toy tin soldiers,

later dug up by spit polished boys
who left on the mud to make them G.I.
Joes in Bobby Stillman’s minnow pail
while your Uncle Harry whittled branches
to make them into fishing poles,

but we wanted hand to hand combat
with eels we grabbed by the tail
to split them open and spill their seed
on a rock we christened “The Obelisk”
and then we bivouacked and ate our fill
of wormless apples and ginger snaps
our mothers packed in our book bag sacks
before we took another hill.

 

[HarryHill]

War Games

Son, my grandfather's father
one Sunday in Manassas
thought that war was a picnic basket
packed with cider, bread, and sausage
until he heard the rebel yell
like a banshee's wail in rifle fog
and ran for the train to Baltimore
to bury his box of toy tin soldiers,

later dug up by spit polished boys
who left on the mud to make them G.I.
Joes in Bobby Stillman’s minnow pail
while your Uncle Harry whittled branches
to make them into fishing poles,

but we wanted hand to hand combat
with eels we grabbed by the tail
to split them open and spill their seed
on a rock we christened “The Obelisk”
and then we bivouacked and ate our fill
of wormless apples and ginger snaps
our mothers packed in our book bag sacks
before we took another hill.

....
Mmmm!

 

[greenmountaineer]

Another Year

My Dear, what shall we do tonight
in our Social Security home,
now that Christmas has flown
like snowflakes across the mountains
back to cities of campuses
and traffic jams to offices?

Shall I feed you dark chocolate, Lady Godiva,
or passion fruit for desire?
Shall I pour the last of Stag's Leap Merlot
as fading embers try to keep the fire
aglow?

 

[greenmountaineer]

Voices

Torquato Tasso was schizophrenic,
athough they would have thought
he was possessed by Satan,

except for his having penned
La Gerusalemme Liberata
that made love to papal ears,

and in spite of Torquato's suspicions,
he was to be crowned king of poets
by his holiness Clement VIII,

but he died on the Appian Way
hearing voices from Eritrea
and the wing flaps of the Holy Ghost,

and who can say, even today
how deep the abyss is,
and what resides therein?

 

[greenmountaineer]

New Year’s Resolutions

Cosmetallic in leotards,
“the look at me” look like leopards
snaring spongy handlebars
with polished painted pointed claws
at who's the fairest mirrored wall.

Abdominate those muscles, men!
moistly in your Spandex,
or flex your lats and pecs instead
shirtless, for who can tell with skin?
Your workout may work out for you,
Lord Gym.

 

[greenmountaineer]

What Breasts Are For

Had Yahweh lived within her heart,
or even Zeus with all his schemes,
she may have asked Herodias
why not merely banish him
and therefore could she have instead
some ornament or polished beads?

Or had she known the value of
the goatherd life in Palestine,
she may have dreamt of nights to come,
her skin as warm as Lebanon,
and husband's hands and kisses where
a suckled child would rest upon.

Before the looking glass she stares
to feign a smile on parted lips,
yet not to be too coy with grins
since breasts were much the better for,
when deed was done, more amethyst
than a platter dripping blood.