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5356. RickNelson - 10/27/2004 3:28:01 PM Copyright © 2004 by Irving Feldman.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.
The Brother
This great man, this fine public figure,
is stealing his portion, gobbling it up
—brazenly, in front of everyone's eyes.
And his swagger and blarney and light fingers
and swell-headed pleasure in who he is
have got them all applauding him for that.
And because he gets them to be brazen, too,
they love him for this, calling out to him,
"Fine for you, man. Now let us see you take more!"
But brother (and how his face suffers the face
that likeness nails to it), brother, he gazes
in silence into his empty bowl, and he knows.
''''
W and Jeb
5357. RickNelson - 11/2/2004 5:52:07 PM From Poetry Daily:
This Morning
To see things as they are is hard,
But leaving them alone is harder;
Snow in patches in the yard,
The vacuum in the sky, and in the soul
The movements of temptation and refusal.
I felt a day break. Nothing happened.
The windows gave upon a street
Where cars drove by as usual to the faint,
Unearthly measures of a music
Whose evasions struggled to conceal a
Disappointment all the deeper that the
Hope was for a thing I knew to be unreal.
I can't do it yet. Perhaps no one can do it yet.
The unconstructed gaze is still a fiction
Of the heart, a hope that hides
The boring truth of life within the limits
Of the real, a life whose only heaven
Is the surface of a slowly turning globe.
Yet still I want to think I woke one day to —
To what? The crystal trees, an earthly silence
And the white, unbroken snow of a first morning?
John Koethe
The Kenyon Review
New Series, Volume XXVI Number 4
Fall 2004
5358. RickNelson - 11/2/2004 5:53:50 PM Political poem's? Who knows of any?
Funny ones appreciated, smearing to a minimum please. 5359. RickNelson - 11/2/2004 5:56:06 PM There once was a president named Bush
Who liked to carry a stick
But when he met John Kerry
He threw it down and ran away like a girly man. 5360. RickNelson - 11/2/2004 6:06:00 PM I needed to go out and vote,
so I had to turn off Mote.
There was little Jacob to dress,
and we had a bit of a mess.
The stroller to ready,
diaper bag with food stocked aplenty.
We set off little Jacob and I,
walking toward SLP, High.
We knew it would be fun,
as long as we didn’t run,
and find Bushwhackers instead of some sun.
Then we’d have to hit them with a stick! 5361. ElliottRW - 11/2/2004 7:44:38 PM Political poems?
I don't have one, but I did post some electoral prose over in Election:
13719. ElliottRW - 11/2/2004 3:55:30 AM
Here is my prediction...
The sun will come out tomorrow...bet your bottom dollar. By mid-morning you will find it pasted like a red wafer in the sky. There will be wars and rumors of wars at polling places. And much crying and gnashing of teeth. However, no one will rend their garments.
And the polls will close and the anchors and pundits will explode with projections and analyses and blah blah all night long until your bleary eyes open to the dawn of a new day, a day of either hope or despair in which you will walk half-alive in the rut of your old life as you slowly begin to comprehend your future, the thought of which you had deferred until that moment.
And then you'll put the kids to bed and watch Leno or Dave or Iron Chef or whatever your quasi-porn or porn is and you'll realize that it was all like a dream, fading into the past, and that nothing important has really changed all that much, and that you need to pee.
5362. Ulgine Barrows - 11/5/2004 6:01:30 AM Iron Chef Italian
Is a myth
5363. Ulgine Barrows - 11/12/2004 9:15:57 AM 5353. RickNelson
That was odd about the Pictures of You. I was listening to that intently just before you posted that, circumstance.
I am really liking the Ben Harper song
DIAMONDS ON THE INSIDE
I knew a girl
Her name was truth
She was a horrible liar
She couldn’t spend one day alone
But she couldn’t be satisfied
When you have everything
You have everything to lose
She made herself a bed of nails
And she’s planning on putting it to use
But she had diamonds on the inside
She had diamonds on the inside
She had diamonds on the inside
Diamonds
A candle throws its light into the darkness
In a nasty world, so shines a good deed
Make sure the fortune that you seek
Is the fortune that you need
Tell me why the first to ask
Is the last to give every time
What you say and do not mean
Follows you close behind
She had diamonds on the inside
She had diamonds on the inside
She wore diamonds on the inside
Diamonds
Diamonds
Like the soldier long standing under fire
Any change comes as a relief
Let the giver’s name remain unspoken
She is just a generous thief
She had diamonds on the inside
She had diamonds on the inside
She wore diamonds on the inside
She wore diamonds
Oh - diamonds
She had diamonds
She wore diamonds
Diamonds
my favorite:
She made herself a bed of nails
And she’s planning on putting it to use
5364. Ulgine Barrows - 11/14/2004 8:22:50 AM Leaf by leaf,
and page by page,
throw this book away.
All the sadness,
all the rage,
throw this book away.
Rip out the binding,
and tear the glue.
All of the grief we never even knew,
we had it all along,
now it's
Smoke.
All the things we've written in it,
never really happened.
All the things we've written in it,
never really happened.
All of the people come and gone,
never really lived,
and all the people come have gone,
no one to forgive.
Smoke.
We will not write a new one.
There will not be a new one,
another one, another one.
Here's an evening dark with shame,
throw it on the fire.
Here's the time I took the blame,
throw it on the fire.
Here is the time we didn't speak,
it seemed, for years and years,
and here's the secret no one will ever know.
The reasons for the tears,
they are smoke.
Smoke.
Smoke.
We will not write a new one.
There will not be a new one,
another one, another one.
Another one.
Where do all the secrets live,
they travel in the air.
You can smell them when they burn,
they travel
Those who say the past is not dead,
can stop and smell the smoke.
You keep saying the past is not dead,
stop and smell the smoke.
You keep on saying the past is not even past,
you keep saying,
we are smoke.
Smoke.
-Ben Folds Five 5365. Ulgine Barrows - 11/14/2004 8:39:32 AM Now the words had all been spoken
And somehow the feeling still wasn't right
And still we continued on through the night
Tracing our steps from the beginning
Until they vanished into the air
Trying to understand how our lives had led us there
Looking hard into your eyes
There was nobody I'd ever known
Such an empty surprise to feel so alone
Now for me some words come easy
But I know that they don't mean that much
Compared with the things that are said when lovers touch
You never knew what I loved in you
I don't know what you loved in me
Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be
Awake again
I can't pretend
and I know I'm alone
And close to the end
of the feeling we've known
How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been dreaming I could make it right
If I closed my eyes and tried with all my might
To be the one you need
Awake again
I can't pretend
and I know I'm alone
And close to the end
of the feeling we've known
How long have I been sleeping
How long have I been drifting alone through the night
How long have I been running for that morning flight
Through the whispered promises and the changing light
Of the bed where we both lie
Late for the sky
-Jackson Browne 5366. Ulgine Barrows - 11/14/2004 9:33:34 AM Pissing in a river, watching it rise
Tattoo fingers shy away from me
Voices voices mesmerize
Voices voices beckoning sea
Come come come come back come back
Come back come back come back
Spoke of a wheel, tip of a spoon
Mouth of a cave, I'm a slave I'm free.
When are you coming ? Hope you come soon
Fingers, fingers encircling thee
Come come come come come come
Come come come come come come for me oh
My bowels are empty, excreting your soul
What more can I give you ? Baby I don't know
What more can I give you to make this thing grow?
Don't turn your back now, I'm talking to you
Should I pursue a path so twisted ?
Should I crawl defeated and gifted ?
Should I go the length of a river
[The royal, the throne, the cry me a river]
Everything I've done, I've done for you
Oh I give my life for you.
Every move I made I move to you,
And I came like a magnet for you now.
What about it, you're gonna leave me,
What about it, you don't need me,
What about it, I can't live without you,
What about it, I never doubted you
What about it ? What about it ?
What about it ? What about it ?
Should I pursue a path so twisted ?
Should I crawl defeated and gifted ?
Should I go the length of a river,
[The royal, the throne, the cry me a river]
What about it, what about it, what about it ?
Oh, I'm pissing in a river.
-Patti Smith
5367. Ulgine Barrows - 11/14/2004 11:05:44 AM NuPlanetOne - you've a brave heart. 5368. NuPlanetOne - 11/17/2004 8:14:14 PM
Ulgine,
..hmmm…why is that? I’m pretty sure I’m just an ordinary coward.
5369. NuPlanetOne - 11/17/2004 8:16:49 PM
And Where Are You?
Looking through slats in a window
There is no need to go out there
I know how the sun feels on my back
I know where the paths lead to
I have walked each one and every track
Each footprint, each promise along the way
Every beginning I marched to in hope
That brought me home each day
Looks quietly into the room
Like regrets at dusk with shoulders shrugged
Like babies seldom rocked or held
Left to fend and never hugged, peering
Back at me. All staring back at me
These former attempts, failures
Are these the ghosts I was warned about?
I know how bright it is at noon
I know why I took this or that direction
But I am safe now.
Oh, and that memory, there, now wandering off
Yes, looking back over its shoulder
With a smirk, a scoff, a vengeful wave
Oh, it has grown much older and how I gave
My life to it. And always first to return
First on the porch, first one peeking in
As if that wayward sin could bang on the shutters
But it lunges and threatens, it mutters
I know what it will tell me
And you are hardly ever there, never there
And why is that? Will the pain devour me?
If I search through the slats and find you
Will they all, each one come smashing in
Come crashing in and throw you at my feet!
Will my destruction become complete?
Will it all swarm, will I spiral down the hole?
I know how tranquil it is at the shore
But I will not go out there
Cont….
5370. NuPlanetOne - 11/17/2004 8:17:10 PM And this late in the day when they gather
All these thoughts, these ghouls outside my window
I would rather, sometimes, just let them in
And drink, and bravely take them on
And let them scream and although it can make
Me cower and seem like it will consume me
I would be done with it. Or I will have lost
I know how inspiring the stars are at night
But I dare not unlock that door
So, it is what I have become. A captive
And although I may sneak out in secret
I am invisible and can’t touch a thing
And these thoughts that follow me, that sting
Me sharply should I forget, should I let
Myself feel at ease, how quick they bring
Me home, surround me, and force me in
I once knew how the world once felt
But I can’t go out there.
5371. NuPlanetOne - 11/17/2004 8:21:48 PM
Certainly that is the song of a coward?
5372. Ulgine Barrows - 11/20/2004 8:52:43 AM No, it just sounds jaded and full of regret.
Who of us wouldn't do differently the 2nd time around?
I know where the paths lead to
I have walked each one and every track
That rings untrue. You can't possibly have. Just like Patti Smith can't possibly
Everything I've done, I've done for you
Some of it was for herself.
I like to march along in the hope that everything will stay static, but it never happens.
That last part #5370
And although I may sneak out in secret
I am invisible and can’t touch a thing
Har, reminds me of posting here on the Mote.
I'm invisible but
it doesn't touch
my day-to-day,
you're all a million miles away
5373. Ulgine Barrows - 11/20/2004 11:07:26 AM I am a backseat driver from America
They drive to the left on Falls Road
The man at the wheel's name is Seamus
We pass a child on the corner he knows
And Seamus says, Now, what chance has that kid got?
And I say from the back, I don't know.
He says, There's barbed wire at all of these exits . . .
And there ain't no place in Belfast for that kid to go.
It's a hard life
It's a hard life
It's a very hard life
It's a hard life wherever you go
If we poison our children with hatred
then, the hard life is all that they'll know
And there ain't no place in (Belfast) for
these kids to go
(Chicago)
(This world)
A cafeteria line in Chicago
The fat man in front of me
Is calling black people trash to his children
he's the only trash here I see
And I'm thinking this man wears a white hood
in the night when his children should sleep
But, they slip to their window and they see him
And they think that white hood's all they need
I was a child in the sixties
dreams could be held through TV
With Disney, and Cronkite, and Martin Luther
Oh, I believed, I believed . . I BELIEVED
Now, I am the backseat driver from America
I am not at the wheel of control
I am guilty, I am war, and I am the root of all evil
Lord, and I can't drive on the left side of the road
Nanci Griffith
It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go
5374. NuPlanetOne - 11/23/2004 8:18:11 PM Ulgine
well. I guess that saying I know where all paths lead would be a proclamation of omniscience, no…..it is the paths I have taken to which I claim intimate knowledge of. As I also admit that my only real knowledge is of things behind me, these are my captors. I guess I am saying that I know of the world, and the beauty and hope it once held for me, but my fear of it now…exaggerated by the ghosts of my past…….endear me to self preservation. That, and a broken heart and perhaps even self pity keep the hero in my little saga from choosing new paths or doing more than asking the walls, ‘where are you?’
5375. Ulgine Barrows - 11/26/2004 8:42:28 AM Late for the sky,
go left where you would have gone right,
right where you would have gone left,
and it will be different.
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