not sure how many words

[AlwaysHungry]

1965

Whenever I hear a symphony,
it's always with Florence and Mary
in the background,
doing those lovely little hip rolls
and moving their arms as if
gathering some of that stardust
streaming off of Miss Ross—
brightly lit incandescent gases
mixed with large chunks of ice
and not a few rocks—as she circles
through our television universe,
always, always facing the Sun.


.

Nice to meet a fellow Motown aficionado.

 

[Angeline]

1965

Whenever I hear a symphony, [...]

.

Forget all those Bobbies. I need true soul,
not red roses, blue ladies, never-knew soul.

I need a groove, a stone cold symphony
to stop in the name of love for you, soul.

Love is like a burning in my heart now
we're apart (take some Tums to renew) soul.

I wore a pink poor-boy sweater, a green
miniskirt, white boots when I danced to soul.

Mustang Sally drove straight to the midnight
hour, listened to Otis imbue soul.

Got on the good foot, I feel good, funky
fresh feet and hips a blur. Now dance: ooh soul.

 

[Tzara]

Cold Sweat

I wore a pink poor-boy sweater, a green
miniskirt, white boots. . .

There she was, with Ralph,
dancing a little Swim, a little Pony,
while I clung to the wall
as if on life support, entranced
by her sweet, coltish knees
and that stretch of forbidden thigh
I so wanted to—what? Kiss, climb,
embrace? Perhaps I was just left
dizzied by how she had mastered
that Go-Go boot prance
she’d learned from watching
Hullabaloo. But when the DJ spun
James Brown and the Famous Flames,
I finally got myself to ask her
out on the floor and I tried
in my spastic, white boy way
his shiver step slide while
all I, God, wanted to do was
ask her if she wanted to, and
I wasn’t even sure what I meant
by that other than to say I really
wanted to satisfy her pulse,
as JB said, whatever the fuck
he might have meant by that.

 

[Tzara]

Attraction is always
a problem, the way we
grasp at each other
even while we simply
want to be alone.
We long to be Saran Wrap,
to cling to each other even
when we know it's better
to stand alone, the way
a tree moves in gusts
to ease wind shear--
how it's better to lose
a limb now and then
than fracture one's spine.
Yet we can't quite get it,
which is why, perhaps,
we spend so much time
reaching for each other's
hands as if they were
the grip that somehow
would hold us up, out
of the water, out
of the slog of the marsh,
and keep us from drowning.

 

[Angeline]

Mountains are not mountains. Mountains are mountains.
________________________________________Zen Koan


I.
The trouble with koans
is the attendant wisdom
that puts you exactly
where you've always been:
sitting with your navel,
the moment and the same
old post-nasal drip.

II.
Desire inevitably
leads to suffering
but to be human
is to want. I've gone
from crayons to Beatles
albums to men. Startling
purples and serene blues,
harmonies like angels speak,
the heartbeat in rhythm,
the electric ache in all
the joinings and I'm still
me. I'm still me
after the fact.

III.
So what if a mountain
is just more uncertainty--
daunting, vincible, concurrent.
The hazy mountain I see
from my kitchen window
sustains me from coffee
to moonlight. My heart
is as open as it can be.

 

[Piscator]

Each Morning

each morning, I sit quietly
mentally repeating a sound
learned long ago
sometimes it stays with me
most of the day

 

[legerdemer]

Mountains are not mountains. Mountains are mountains.
________________________________________Zen Koan


I.
The trouble with koans
is the attendant wisdom
that puts you exactly
where you've always been:
sitting with your navel,
the moment and the same
old post-nasal drip.

II.
Desire inevitably
leads to suffering
but to be human
is to want. I've gone
from crayons to Beatles
albums to men. Startling
purples and serene blues,
harmonies like angels speak,
the heartbeat in rhythm,
the electric ache in all
the joinings and I'm still
me. I'm still me
after the fact.

III.
So what if a mountain
is just more uncertainty--
daunting, vincible, concurrent.
The hazy mountain I see
from my kitchen window
sustains me from coffee
to moonlight. My heart
is as open as it can be.

I love these.

 

[Angeline]

I love these.

Thank you, Mer.

The writing here has been pretty inspiring to me of late. Tzara's last poem here got me thinking about how desire always leads to suffering and then I remembered that koan, which I love. It's a Schrodinger's Cat kind of koan--but then I suppose most of them are.

 

[RosyStrife]

Mountains are not mountains. Mountains are mountains.
________________________________________Zen Koan


I.
The trouble with koans
is the attendant wisdom
that puts you exactly
where you've always been:
sitting with your navel,
the moment and the same
old post-nasal drip.

II.
Desire inevitably
leads to suffering
but to be human
is to want. I've gone
from crayons to Beatles
albums to men. Startling
purples and serene blues,
harmonies like angels speak,
the heartbeat in rhythm,
the electric ache in all
the joinings and I'm still
me. I'm still me
after the fact.

III.
So what if a mountain
is just more uncertainty--
daunting, vincible, concurrent.
The hazy mountain I see
from my kitchen window
sustains me from coffee
to moonlight. My heart
is as open as it can be.

Superb! III. made me think of what Pirsig said: "The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

 

[Angeline]

Superb! III. made me think of what Pirsig said: "The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there."

Thanks Rosy and good to see you here posting on the forum!

 

[Angeline]

Kansas City Interlude

Late late night my baby come
scratching at the window, calling
to wake me up as there is trouble

at the Four Dukes. It's cutting
gone out of hand--too many men
tired and drunk and acting

like fools showing they shivs.
My baby is a big brute, handsome.
You don't want to see him pout,

but he loves me something
awful and don't let no other
man get close. He made it

through that Willis-Young
band, with Willis always tripping
on those men and carrying

a damn metronome till his own
son left for New York then got beat
in the white man's war and he ain't

never been the same: he plays
like angels sing in his ear and drinks
like the devil lifts his elbow,

but when we arrive at the Dukes
they is just throwing words ugly
till I set down and roll my blues

off the keys, low-down and tender
so the fellow from St. Joe looks at me
with far away eyes and puts down

his ax as Lester picks his up
to blow the last of the night
one more lullaby in a minor key.

 

[lorencino]

Mountains are not mountains. Mountains are mountains.
________________________________________Zen Koan


I.
The trouble with koans
is the attendant wisdom
that puts you exactly
where you've always been:
sitting with your navel,
the moment and the same
old post-nasal drip.

II.
Desire inevitably
leads to suffering
but to be human
is to want. I've gone
from crayons to Beatles
albums to men. Startling
purples and serene blues,
harmonies like angels speak,
the heartbeat in rhythm,
the electric ache in all
the joinings and I'm still
me. I'm still me
after the fact.

III.
So what if a mountain
is just more uncertainty--
daunting, vincible, concurrent.
The hazy mountain I see
from my kitchen window
sustains me from coffee
to moonlight. My heart
is as open as it can be.

I am moved by the ease with which you capture the lot of being human in an uncertain universe, accepting what is in spite of our propensity for desiring.

 

[Angeline]

I am moved by the ease with which you capture the lot of being human in an uncertain universe, accepting what is in spite of our propensity for desiring.

Thank you my friend and it's good to see you here again.

The poem is better at accepting what is than I am lol. Some days I am definitely more in the Zen zone than others! Some days I am really not so accepting!

 

[Piscator]

Blue Dentist

Sometimes he has to give himself a hit of nitrous
oxide when the most exciting thing in his
day is when a second set of incisors
appear behind the first set of
incisors but then he can
only refer the parents
to the orthodontist
who he makes the
really big money,
although the
referral fee
is nice.

Still he can’t help wondering if
implants would have helped
Chet Baker’s embouchure.

 

[champagne1982]

Known Unto God

And me, I know you
like the sister who watched
you take the welcoming
punch in the shoulder
from that handsome boy
you stood in the recruiting
line up behind and eagerly
pushed forward on a farm
boy's Grand Tour to storied
places you yearned to see.

I know you, like the girl
blowing kisses and chasing
the parade to the pier
to catch you up and tuck
her 'kerchief against
your neck while you smiled
and bravely hoped that today
the propoganda was true
and you'd be home in six months
having won glorious Freedom.

Known unto God and me.

I know you like the mother
who watched your toddling
steps across the dooryard
while it rained and you slipped,
falling into the mud, struggling
to stand on your own, never
imagining how you floundered
in the water at the bottom
of the shell hole, bleeding
and unable to stand
on your own, I know you.

Like the soldier boy, who
never knew the heat of sex,
the joy of owning an acre
to build a home wrapped
in a picket fence. You
fervently wished to believe
that fighting for your King
meant fighting for Truth,
Liberty and Justice
and that you would die
a hero's noble death

A Soldier of the Great War
Known Unto God.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

Known Unto God

And me, I know you
like the sister who watched
you take the welcoming
punch in the shoulder
from that handsome boy
you stood in the recruiting
line up behind and eagerly
pushed forward on a farm
boy's Grand Tour to storied
places you yearned to see.

I know you, like the girl
blowing kisses and chasing
the parade to the pier
to catch you up and tuck
her 'kerchief against
your neck while you smiled
and bravely hoped that today
the propoganda was true
and you'd be home in six months
having won glorious Freedom.

Known unto God and me.

I know you like the mother
who watched your toddling
steps across the dooryard
while it rained and you slipped,
falling into the mud, struggling
to stand on your own, never
imagining how you floundered
in the water at the bottom
of the shell hole, bleeding
and unable to stand
on your own, I know you.

Like the soldier boy, who
never knew the heat of sex,
the joy of owning an acre
to build a home wrapped
in a picket fence. You
fervently wished to believe
that fighting for your King
meant fighting for Truth,
Liberty and Justice
and that you would die
a hero's noble death

A Soldier of the Great War
Known Unto God.

Carrie, this is profoundly moving. Thank you very much for sharing it here.

 

[todski28]

it's writing like this champ that reaches past the mundane and touches on something larger and more poignant that makes me want to throw away my keyboard..... I won't because I enjoy writing but yeah this is something more than words on a page. thankyou

 

[Tzara]

Examination

He measured my forearms, my thighs
And asked me to walk on my heels.
He took pictures and then
He asked for my consent
They be used to train doctors. Disease!

 

[Angeline]

Albatross

I should consider myself lucky
it's not sarcoma is what they said,

but I only felt high
and in pain, with tubes sucking
at me like I'm 31 flavors
or an arrivée to the 31st circle
of Hell. Sometimes it was funny
like when they asked am I
a Swedish Negro.

Really?

I couldn't stop laughing,
but it didn't feel lucky
until now in retrospect,
framed in tubing
and an oxygen tank.

 

[RubiDia]

Do As I Say

I missed your recital
We can't find the peers that hit the wrong nerve
but we'll ask you to wait

Your state of affairs is a state of decay
that even the dead aren't ashamed to relate

An angel asleep
A sound in your ears
and a crack in your plate

If a statue attracts you
and the thoughts in your head
are a literate means to escape

Think of all the lost tears that you spelled
your own name with and take your heart out on a date

 

[Angeline]

Glossolalia

In the tongues of poetry
you can lay me down on the glowing
moon, which is soft as feathers
and less real than clouds. It doesn't

matter what words say. They fall
like sparkles flowing in the blue gleam
until there is nothing to understand

but the synchronicity
of this empty magical place
where joining and ravening
only on intention makes sense

and thus we are borne

beyond mouth and limb
holding tight in the space
between us, hanging on
the heart of truths we whisper
to the knowing night.

 

[Piscator]

everyone haikus
some is even poetry
but not in this case

 

[AlwaysHungry]

everyone haikus
some is even poetry
but not in this case

 

[Angeline]

everyone haikus
some is even poetry
but not in this case

I don't care to 'ku,
all those leaping frogs, nature
demanding a voice.

 

[Remec]

I don't care to 'ku,
all those leaping frogs, nature
demanding a voice.

Thoughts on Famous Haiku

When I think about it, I have never known frogs to make such large splashes.