|
5591. Macnas - 2/1/2006 10:47:30 AM The Cabinet Table -- Paul Durcan
Alice Gunn is a cleaner woman
Down at Government Buildings,
And after seven o'clock Mass last night
(Isn't it a treat to be able to go to Sunday Mass
On a Saturday! To sit down to Saturday Night TV
Knowing you've fulfilled your Sunday obligations!)
She came back over to The Flats for a cup of tea
(I offered her sherry but she declined--
Oh I never touch sherry on a Saturday night--
Whatever she meant by that, I don't know).
She had us all in stitches, telling us
How one afternoon after a Cabinet Meeting
(One of those afternoons when it gets dark so early
That the streetlamps are all lit up by 3.30 pm)
She got one of the Security Men
To lie down on the Cabinet Table,
And what she didn't do to him--
And what she did do to him--
She didn't half tell us;
But she told us enough to be going on with.
Do you know what it is?--she says to me:
No--says I--what is it?
It's Mahogany--she says--Pure Mahogany.
5592. wonkers2 - 2/1/2006 4:26:09 PM Cap'n Dirty sez, "Ha! and she wasn't referrin' to the table I persume!" 5593. Macnas - 2/1/2006 6:51:33 PM Either way, I think she's talking about wood... 5594. NuPlanetOne - 2/16/2006 2:15:46 PM Much More
That willow was like a drape over existence
In the spring, its leaves were like fresh fingers
Pale yellow and vibrant creating a cavern
Of cool and isolation. The other kids didn't
See it that way. It was fun to climb up into
Its mystical interior. But they couldn't see out
Or shout to their friends through the bends
And hanging wall of branches blocking the world
So I built my treehouse in there. Only my sister
Knew my obsession and the time I spent there alone
Was my secret thinking time. Because I did have
An imaginary world with me. And I loved it was
Called The Weeping Willow. And to see it from
Across the park standing out like a wandered in
Thing, that just happened by, to see it there
Made one pause and not because it was unusual,
But because it was alone. As if it were thrown
In with strangers amidst maples and oaks
Set slightly apart, obviously planted intentionally
By the creek. And I knew it by heart. How to climb up
Or down or across the big limb where a hole
In the drapery allowed me to see who came
And went by the most traveled path from the park
I perched like a lark living with the leaves and the
Filtered yellow light in my weeping kingdom
And why weeping or sad? As if it had earned
Such a distinction. I know now that its history
And origin is peculiar, but I knew then or felt
That its planter only saw the joy and shelter and
Isolation it offered and was not merely a shade tree
No, that was the ruse because old man Pappy said
As a boy there was a woman that would climb up in there
And sit for hours. He said she wept and kept her sadness
Confined in there and always returned smiling
Me too! Oh, not my tears or misery, but childhood fears
And confusion and the illusion that once I entered
I passed a curtain that opened into another dimension
Where, as a boy, I believed that stuff had souls
And when old Pappy said the willow had reached
Its roots far across the park and strangled
Some water pipes to drink and said with a wink
The tree is smart, I knew in my heart
It was much more than that.
5595. NuPlanetOne - 2/20/2006 10:50:33 PM saving for hell to pay
my future is safe
i won't be global warmed
i won't be suicide bombed
i will avoid the pandemics
i will nod and agree
that the near future will be
hell on earth
but not here
hells are happening
everywhere as always
but i have food
and care aplenty
my child is twenty
like I never will he die
by war or pestilence
he too will survive
comfortably
sunday papers
blogs and anchors
show us the awful truth
truly brilliant depictions
illustrate ominus predictions
affect my investments
ruin my dinner
precipitate divestments
i really was a sinner
after i got saved
my future is the next moment
all tied up in the same moment
i am alive
how original is that
it was the first deep thought
but a sensible observation
if i go on vacation
my choices get limmited
but steer around evil doers
with fewer choices
and it's all still voices
on the news
how original is any of this
i am safe on the backs
of victims and if it lacks
a wonderful and great insight
if it all just cracks
and really goes to hell
if it does come to pass
i am safe at least today
because my future future
is simply built that way
5596. Ulgine Barrows - 2/22/2006 4:37:52 AM 5590. Macnas
Being sung
Being sang
Your beauty
of grammar
is undone
The Byrds - What's Happening
I don't know who you think you are
I don't know what you're doing here
I don't know what's going on here
I don't know how it's supposed to be
I, I don't have the vaguest notion
Whose it is or what it's all for
I don't know, I'm not cryin'
Laughin' mostly as you can see
So, how was I suopposed to conjugate that verb? 5597. Ulgine Barrows - 2/22/2006 5:41:25 AM NuPlanetOne
I know you only write these words to suit yourself.
I can see many of your pieces set to music, get an agent!
The most difficult part will to be get a band that flows with your words, a lead singer who can interpret them with voice, but my bizess, if you can make that happen... it will be great to listen to! 5598. Macnas - 2/22/2006 10:41:50 AM
Since the majority of me
Rejects the majority of you,
Debating ends forwith, and we
Divide. And sure of what to do
We disinfect new blocks of days
For our majorities to rent
With unshared friends and unwalked ways,
But silence too is eloquent:
A silence of minorities
That, unopposed at last, return
Each night with cancelled promises
They want renewed. They never learn.
Philip Larkin
5599. alistairconnor - 2/22/2006 12:21:54 PM "Saving for hell to pay"
I spent the weekend discussing this theme with friends...
How dare we have children? How to prepare them for the future?
Teach them how to grow potatoes, and chop wood. Yoga and judo.
I am less optimistic than you Nu
5600. Macnas - 2/22/2006 1:16:12 PM Disconnect, Part 2.
Family ticket to Dublin please
the bottle blonde girl behind the glass
is pushing buttons and typing.
I daydream for half a second
to when printed cardboard was all the rage
and an ink stamp sealed the deal.
"Do I have to go?"
some words half-formed catch in my throat,
looking at you looking at me in that way you have,
Not if you wouldn't like to I suppose.
"I'll stay with granny so".
And on the way up
and on the way down
I look at where you might have sat
and think of things to say to you
when you ask about the day.
But you don't. 5601. NuPlanetOne - 2/25/2006 5:23:27 AM //
I fear you find song in most things Ulgine. Truth be told, so do I. Song is poetry, poetry is song. I have always wanted to write songs, perhaps I will one day. As for writing to suit myself, it’s true as well, sometimes I’m like Emily D. I jot small and assorted things down and stuff’em somewhere. I’ll never get around to them. Idiosyncratic and asymptomatic, that will be my next song. Got music?
5602. NuPlanetOne - 2/25/2006 5:24:26 AM //
Yes Alistair, I am oddly optimistic for my times. Even if I do think there is big shit coming. Is it our turn? Then I think it can still go right by me. And land over there. I just wish it all wasn’t grounded in the same ancient standoff. Better that it were a new Khan with a separate agenda riding over the horizon. Same God, three peoples. I’m so over that!
5603. Ulgine Barrows - 3/3/2006 11:52:47 AM oh my god, I totally get that Phillip Larkin, and I know I'm not supposed to
winky
good one!
5601. NuPlanetOne
"fear you find song... I have always wanted to write songs"
Yeah, right. Amyhoo, I like your stuff! 5604. Macnas - 3/3/2006 12:34:03 PM But Ulgine, I posted Larkin especially for you. 5605. Ulgine Barrows - 3/3/2006 12:59:37 PM I won't forget to put roses on your grave. 5606. Ulgine Barrows - 3/3/2006 1:03:44 PM er, Rolling Stones, circa 70s ^^^^ 5607. Ulgine Barrows - 3/3/2006 1:40:47 PM I was touched, and I might cry 5608. Ulgine Barrows - 3/3/2006 1:41:27 PM ah what the hell....
I already did 5609. NuPlanetOne - 3/4/2006 9:47:36 PM
Lost
I really have been lost, you know
Once in the woods on LSD
Because the trees turned evil
And didn’t know me anymore
So I sat.
Once downtown between scrapers
I turned down an alley
I came out in a new place
But I kept walking
And it was too late
It wasn’t my city
And it was big
I called for help.
Once, driving to a reunion
I missed a turn on the highway
Next exit 67 miles
The panic at night
I didn’t have the number
And got off and back on
Then couldn’t find the house
I stayed in a motel
Alone.
Then there was the moment
I realized I was lost
Not in a place
Or looking for one
But me
I lost myself
I sat alone calling for help
And nobody came.
And I’m looking hard.
5610. NuPlanetOne - 3/7/2006 10:04:48 PM
OK. I have finished a poem. I know, I have posted over a hundred here over the years. Yet hitherto, I have never really, officially nor seriously, edited or pained over the final shape each one should take. JamesWright tried many times to get me, as well as others, to realize that our various first drafts were just the beginning of the task. If you could liken a keen sense for poetic structure and content to that of the fine palate in an oenologist, then its likeness is our Mr. Wright.
Of course, Maria G did insist on serious revision and changes when we collaborated briefly back in the day, but I just acquiesced mainly because I was infatuated with her brilliance and feminine allure, rather than any serious attempt to better my poetry. She castigated me on this very point and might have even been flattered, but her explanation of my dilettantish attitude toward writing had more to do with my non-committal nature in general, dooming me to obscurity, (She said that!), unless I took the pain to understand the work involved in really good poetry. Like I wasn’t even more smitten! Ha! Have I mentioned that I miss her?
Anyway, the following is a before and after of a piece I put here before. I liked it then, but it was really, quite flawed. I still am not sure I made my point except to stress the main idea is a notion, not serious science, but an observation run amok in the afterthought of passing by the scene. So, if you are bored, and at your leisure, comment. Is at least the new style more effective? I felt that at least it had a style, as a lot of mine are run ons with lazy line breaks, just a block of marble holding promise sustained by conceit.
|
