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5200. justears - 4/12/2004 3:18:58 AM
Beneath the snow-glossed volcano,
fuchsia blossoms float
With scarlet sails
On the jade-green lake.
Trout and salmon
cruise the depths.
Morning clouds hang
low
streaking the horizon between water
and peaks.
5201. RickNelson - 4/25/2004 11:48:21 PM justears,
You've reminded me of my Grandfather's bag of pheasant when I was a kid. Southern Minnesota used to be a great place for pheasant hunting. I suppose private farms still have it. I'm not a hunter, but others in my family are.
I wonder how many of us have been to cabins for fishing trips? That was the best kind of life when I was a kid. Still is, though fishing isn't something I've much time for. I've had few free minutes to enjoy poetry also. I'm sorry for that.
I like your short poem for msg 5200. 5202. RickNelson - 4/25/2004 11:55:50 PM Poetry Daily: 2 poems by Nicholas Christopher
This is the one I like. In St.Paul Minnesota there is a Como Lake, that's why I like this one. There's a Como Park and a Como Zoo too. These are 3 great places.
Lake Como
The searchlight of a February moon
at the end of the street
bare trees black railing
an eastern star set like a pearl atop a steeple
that shadows the doorway
where the one-armed card sharp squats
shuffling his deck on a milk crate
waiting for the No.6 bus to discharge
the off-duty cop the seamstress
the drunken mechanic and the clerk on crutches
who pauses before his building to watch
the mechanic lose three dollars at blackjack
and then stiffly ascends the five flights
to his two rooms on a shaftway
hanging his coat on a hook
and sitting down at the table
on which this morning he placed
a soup bowl and spoon
a tin of crackers and the crossword
puzzle he had been laboring over
beneath the gaze of his late wife
her color photograph propped up in a small frame
a young woman in a boxy dress and felt cap
waving shyly by the edge of a lake
where over her shoulder beneath a clear sky
a sailboat rides the wind
passengers on the polished deck
gazing at the glowing mountain peaks
the cypresses lining the shore
and the pink palazzi with ancient gardens
these men and women in white
who seem to live upon the water
gliding among themselves oblivious to strife
and all else that wears a body down
some sipping from crystal goblets
others just drinking in the light
5203. Macnas - 4/26/2004 7:15:25 PM Rick, its good to see you.
We were on the beach over Easter, looking at the kids playing by the waters edge put me in mind of some poems:
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water's roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool's triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind!
5204. Macnas - 4/26/2004 7:21:04 PM And of course, put me in mind of my own youth and mortality:
Only last week, walking the hushed fields
Of our most lovely Meath, now thinned by November,
I came to where the road from Laracor leads
To the Boyne river--that seems more lake than river,
Stretched in uneasy light and stript of reeds.
And walking longside an old weir
Of my people's, where nothing stirs--only the shadowed
Leaden flight of a heron up the lean air--
I went unmanly with grief, knowing how my father,
Happy though captive in years, walked last with me there.
Yes, happy in Meath with me for a day
He walked, taking stock of herds hid in their own breathing;
And naming colts, gusty as wind, once steered by his hand,
Lightnings winked in the eyes that were half shy in greeting
Old friends--the wild blades, when he gallivanted the land.
For that proud, wayward man now my heart breaks--
Breaks for that man whose mind was a secret eyrie,
Whose kind hand was sole signet of his race,
Who curbed me, scorned my green ways, yet increasingly loved me
Till Death drew its grey blind down his face.
And yet I am pleased that even my reckless ways
Are living shades of his rich calms and passions--
Witnesses for him and for those faint namesakes
With whom now he is one, under yew branches,
Yes, one in a graven silence no bird breaks.
5205. RickNelson - 4/27/2004 10:15:41 PM Thanks Macnas, your poems are very good. I'm thinking that second offering will repeatedly be a good read.
From Slate's Poem offering, I found it a good topic.
"#883" by Emily Dickinson
Read by Robert Pinsky
Posted Tuesday, April 27, 2004, at 6:26 AM PT
"Slate has observed Poetry Month for the last three weeks by publishing poems that are not part of the usual repertoire of poetry celebrating poetry. Here is the final (and most celebratory) installment, Emily Dickinson's proposition that the poet is mortal, while the poem is not, if it is vital. She also seems to say that each age widens or disseminates the light of a poem in a different way."
Listen to Robert Pinsky reading Emily Dickinson's #883
#883
The Poets light but Lamps—
Themselves—go out—
The Wicks they stimulate—
If vital Light
Inhere as do the Suns—
Each age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference—
5206. jexster - 5/13/2004 2:48:56 PM From the CD "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld"
Rumsfeld Song
Dial-up
Broadband
The Unknown
As we know,
There are known knowns.
There are things we know we know.
We also know
There are known unknowns.
That is to say
We know there are some things
We do not know.
But there are also unknown unknowns,
The ones we don't know
We don't know.
5207. NuPlanetOne - 5/19/2004 4:52:37 AM
/
OH WOE IS ME
Oh, I get it. There are a million
Zillion cells and enzymes and receptors
And bells and whistles and chimes
And epistles working against my being
Fully aware of my demise, against
Knowing the actual size and breadth
Against seeing, against showing me
The best picture of what my purpose
Really is here. That death is not actually
Anything really, anything clear or fair
Or actual at all, but little functions and
Combining conjunctions to express a lipid
Or mold a molecule. To address a need
To plead or build a shelter, implant a seed
Continue a sequence or argue in a tense
Way why it all matters toward a new
A greater consciousness… How simple is
That? What greater joys or more complex
Toys can you give a fully aware breathing
Teething organism than perpetual awareness
And that is the flaw that I saw that I see
The blinking off of one light but billions
Of lights remain blinking and thinking and
Winking at each other. So the sublime
The great eternal consciousness is now
I am a feeder cell doing my part and not
Really fooled or tricked or hardly picked
Specifically or separate or kicked to a higher
Sphere or transition but merely aware of
My actual condition, my plight, my function
Not to know it. My clock set and scalable
Cont……
5208. NuPlanetOne - 5/19/2004 4:53:04 AM And though it seems I have uncovered the
Meaning about me, or that I am somehow
Greater than it, dreams and schemes and
Diversions replete and aside, before and
More and after and always or collide with
Any of these concepts…accepted, or denied
That in all creation myths and threads of being
What I am continually seeing is the always now
And only what is in it and various other traces
Of how things came to be, on a need to know
Basis with my surroundings yet enveloped
In a membrane of wall to wall molecules, skin
To air, I really shouldn’t care about beginnings
Or endings because in the webs and wendings
Through millions of minds where I begin, began
End, or ended might effect a gradual shift in our
DNA yet where does it say or how is it shown
On the chain in the helix that I existed, persisted
In some drama or wanting or pleasure, resisted
Destructive impulses, saved a life, or started many
Is there any other way to sort this out and as I
Shout at a complacent altar and ramble and gesture
And needlessly pester the gods…I get it
For it is my misfortune…my tragedy…my woe
As if you didn’t know….that.
5209. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:36:21 PM tulip petals fall
red among the bright green
autumn of the spring 5210. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:37:23 PM [strike that]
tulip petals fall
red in the bright green hedgerow
autumn of the spring 5211. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:40:02 PM apple blossom white
profusion - but who can trust
the promise of spring 5212. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:45:49 PM autumn's first hard frost
warm morning rays, ash leaves fall
like champagne bubbles 5213. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:47:39 PM [same tree]
spiky lacy ash
budding fingers reach skywards
asserting the spring 5214. Macnas - 5/19/2004 9:52:31 PM Have you hit a birthday alistair? 5215. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:59:38 PM har.
midlife crisis if you like.
Never tried poetry before. Perhaps the rigours of the haiku form are mere trainer wheels, but I like the constraints for the moment. 5216. Macnas - 5/19/2004 11:19:18 PM I wrote my Missus a clumsy one many years ago,
I know two emeralds
They burn in a sea
of red gold fire 5217. alistairConnor - 5/20/2004 6:28:43 AM I'm starting with the most rigorous form, 5-7-5, must reference a season.
Finding it fun so far. 5218. Macnas - 5/20/2004 7:11:52 PM A car hit my bike
My fucking bike is knackered
Wheels and springs banjaxed 5219. NuPlanetOne - 5/25/2004 8:14:06 AM Some Things I Forgot
There are some things I left behind
Words that still hang in the air like
A help cry unheard and muffled
You know that moment when you
Lose the ability to speak as emotion
Hurts the vocal chords, like that
But what I did say and because I
Didn’t realize you didn’t care just hung
In space after it passed your head
You waited for the part where I couldn’t
Speak the look on my face that assured you
I realized in horror how alone I was
I remember fumbling around for a cigarette
And how loud the sound was after you tossed
A pack toward me and it hit the glass table
A tear splashed next to the cigarettes
As I reached down and the next tear hit the
Back of my hand and I watched it trickle
And you could watch comfortably like seeing
Tragedy on television and feeling safe and secure
Because nothing was happening to you
Then I watched you and I had enough grief
Momentum that you weren’t aware that I was
Looking suddenly at your situation
And going through the motions of my pain
And disbelief I saw what you looked like
And though I was confused I oddly felt relieved
I don’t know exactly when this all came back to me
But now going back to get my things I could feel
It all hanging in the air as if waiting for me
You walked in as I was about to leave and as the door
Opened all the muddle in the room seemed to suck
Out and whoosh down the hallway ahead of me.
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