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5614. jexster - 3/17/2006 8:48:14 AM

Zapped Flashbacks...Mid Life Crisis

    Mid Life Crisis



    She had that
    Camarillo brillo
    Flamin’ out along her head,
    I mean her mendocino bean-o
    By where some bugs had made it red

    She ruled the toads
    Of the short forest
    And every newt in idaho
    And every cricket who had chorused
    By the bush in buffalo

    She said she was
    A magic mama
    And she could throw a mean tarot
    And carried on without a comma
    That she was someone I should know

    She had a snake for a pet
    And an amulet
    And she was breeding a dwarf
    But she wasn’t done yet
    She had gray-green skin
    A doll with a pin
    I told her she was awright
    But I couldn’t come in
    (I couldn’t come in right then...)

    And so she wandered
    Trough the door-way
    Just like a shadow from the tomb
    She said her stereo was four-way
    An’ I’d just love it in her room

    Well, I was born
    To have adventure
    So I just followed up the steps
    Right past her fuming incense stencher
    To where she hung her castanets

    She stripped away
    Her ranchid poncho
    An’ laid out naked by the door
    We did it till we were un-concho
    An’ it was useless any more

    She had a snake for a pet
    And an amulet
    And she was breeding a dwarf
    But she wasn’t done yet
    She had gray-green skin
    A doll with a pin
    I told her she was awright
    But I couldn’t come in
    (actually, I was very busy then)

    And so she wandered
    Trough the door-way
    Just like a shadow from the tomb
    She said her stereo was four-way
    An’ I’d just love it in her room

    Well, I was born
    To have adventure
    So I just followed up the steps
    Right past her fuming incense stencher
    To where she hung her castanets

    She said she was
    A magic mama
    And she could throw a mean tarot
    And carried on without a comma
    That she was someone I should know

    (is that a real poncho...i mean
    Is that a mexican poncho
    Or is that a sears poncho?
    Hmmm...no foolin’ ...)



Frank Zappa, 1970

5615. NuPlanetOne - 3/18/2006 3:30:23 PM

jex. Zap was the man.


...ain't no way to delay
that trouble comin' every day
...and if a millon more agree
there ain't no great society

...what's the ugliest part
of your body?
...some say your nose
...some say your toes
but i think it's your mind
...your mind...your mind
ooo...ooo...ooo

...it don't mean shit to a tree.


Zappa. Freak Out. (69?)

He was like a Confucius.

5616. NuPlanetOne - 3/18/2006 3:31:28 PM

...I love this girl

Amanda Leigh Lichtenstein

Picture This

Coins and shoelaces
Car keys and clouds

Picture the day
You returned home

Father's dark toenail
Fell off, finally --

Placed on the mantel
Microscope close

Old men shed layers
Of skin and then

Picture the day
Your father dies

And you do not fly
Home – not yet.

A perilous sort of paralyzed
Two eyes, quizzical

A sorrow mirror:
Ghosts sleep in the shower.

First you turn off the lights.
Then you remember your toes.

Tickets arranged, click-click.
Airports full of asthma.

Your father is dead,
All his music stacked

High in sex-closets
Stuffed with feathers.

You box-drag endless
To the curb – and he

Coughs from the porch
Clapping his hands, windless.

*************


Leaving

Adios to the louses who invented longing

Sayonara to the silent narrator in our lives

Livid is the girl who thought she knew the language

Anguished over the age and freshness of the day

A to Z an alphabet of dusk and haze to grope

The interloping hexagon of faith

Goodbye to the good eye and the good lie

Arrivederci to the cherry tree and her fruits

Kwa heri to the hurry lurking in our toes

Languid is the girl who thought she knew to swirl

See ya soon you sea of sighs

Keep in touch, you caped and weary cantor

I'll cry for you Argentina, Eva Peron!

I'll sketch your likeness in white

Totezines you xenophobes who played your oboes

Farewell airy wellspring of fever

Talk to you later all you skating stalkers

Write me while camel riding at sunrise

Call me and cull me a future we'll cheer
So long my letter to forever

**********************

Another Time


Back snapped like time capsule

Bursting with dust from the good old days



Bracketed and packaged in saran wrap,

Parceled and stamped fresh to study



The hair and skin, who needed it? I emptied

The belly of wanting and insisted on despair



I steered the horse into water to see it swim,

Pressed play on its whinny and wondered



Paused its disastrous attempts, the bending

Of knees and eyes wide in horror – oh, dark



Cloud where are you to complete the mood?

I wouldn't look at what was sad, not then.



The hands fold into a second glance, fists

Like knots of crystal waving in the dark



I need to accept boats as decent modes

Of transport and forget the gallant horse.



Accept maps as representations

And not itself any sort of real plan.


I know the difference when I try to call home:

The numbers disappear inside my mouth.















5617. phillipdavid - 3/18/2006 4:14:17 PM

NuPlanetOne,
Re 5611
" Is at least the new style more effective? I felt that at least it had a style..."

No.

Your original style is (and always has been!) incredibly effective.

Your original has movement...the first half of the poem is written in such a way to accentuate words at the end of lines; then in the middle words toward the begining of lines are accentuated, then at the end the acentuated words mingle, and this creates a wonderful circular confluence. Form helps function.

For example: stop, them, from, him,

and then: humans, perhaps, one flesh, writing, become

and then: head, knows, dead,

and then: beware the crow

Your style has always worked for me. I just read one of your poems (A New Head) to a class of 6th graders to show them how the rhyme and rhythm and accent can be created in the middle of lines and doesn't have to follow more traditional forms (I introduced them to poetry using Emily Dickenson and Robert Frost), and sometimes this works to great effect because it stirs your mind to contemplate ideas suggested in the middle.

I hope that made sense to you.
Your poems have always made sense to me!

5618. arkymalarky - 3/18/2006 4:51:31 PM

Hey PD!

Good to see you're still at it.

5619. NuPlanetOne - 3/20/2006 7:51:33 PM



Well thank you Mr. David. And it’s real cool to hear that my humble scribblings can be used in any way to further the enjoyment of the two authors you mentioned. And you are right, I have decided. One of my favorite styles is mid rhyme and alliterating and end rhyme followed by front rhyme followed by blank verse..ect. And as always, ‘punch line poetry’ if I may coin a name for my favorite working premise and structure, that is, portray the essence of the thought and ride it down the page to, usually, an abrupt closure. The attempt in the crow poem to traditionalize the stanzas was just aping structure. I have abandoned that precept. Others here have mastered it, as it fits their true style. Seamus, for example. His most recent offerings and reworks if you read back in here show incredible progress. Very polished, but more important, very effective and compelling poetry.

And yes, it makes perfect sense to me. My deviation in form and structure does not hinder you from ‘getting it.’ I probably still need a new head though. (^_^)

5620. RickNelson - 3/21/2006 6:32:03 AM

Nu, I concur with your regard for Maria and JW. Truly missed.

Regarding your poem. I rather like the first writing, yet can follow both.

I've just plopped some words down, and haven't considered much mending them yet. As usual, I rarely do.



Hopes and aspirations, without contingent controversy.
The whiles of a clear mind. Set into pattern,
complimentary attitudes; whilst delaying dissatisfactions.
There is vast expanse there, tillable, rich soil.
Sagacity plays distant tunes, and distracts,
a form of sheer raiment billows, unsettles the mind,
There is compelling gesture and articulation,
loosed to trundle, having a close and detectable scent.
Some guise to lay companion and guest at ease.
Where this confounded conundrum of cacophonous comparison, creates confusion?

5621. wonkers2 - 3/31/2006 4:35:27 PM

Jack's House by Hart Seely

These are the men
That fleeced the tribes
That paid the money
That made the bribes
That purchased the Congress that
Jack Built.

This is the Duke
That sailed the yacht
That raised the eyebrows
And got him caught,
Who helped Mitch Wade,
Who bought Duke's land
And kicked in 700 grand;
Which raised Duke's taxes,
And gave Duke pain;
So Wade paid the tab
On Duke's capital gain.
Bigger than Abscam:
Randy "Duke" Cunningham!
Top gun in the Congress that
Jack built.

This is Bob Ney,
Who knew the fine print
That could pass a casino
And rev up its mint,
Who spawned the email
Where Jack foretold:
"Just met with Ney.
"We're fucking gold!"
And Ney in 2000,
A moment quite checkered
Ripped magnate Gus Boulis
In the Congress'nal Record.
His tirade was meant
To frighten the fellow,
Who cops say was shot
By Big Tony Moscatiello,
Who got a small fortune
From Jack's pal in D.C.,
A guy Ney said was known
For his "honesty."
Their pal was indicted
And then copped a plea
Guilty of fraud
And conspiracy.
For creating the vibes
That condoned the bribes
That corrupted the Congress that
Jack built.

This is DeLay,
Who built the machine
That redrew the distreicts
And raised the green,
That decided the races
That claimed the new seats,
That made the new friends
That owned luxury suites,
That held big galas
That brought the donations
That helped him to greet
The great Coushatta Nation!
with 800 members
And fund-stream support
From the famous Coushatta Casion
Resort!
Which paid several million
For Jack to abort
A rival tribe's parlor
In nearby Shreveport,
Which prompted the letter
That outlined their claims
That went to Gale Norton,
Co-signed by these names:
Tom DeLay, Eric Cantor,
Royo Blunt, the chief whip,
Speaker Dennis Hastert.
That's the House leadership!
They played the game
And wears the shame
That hangs over the Congress that
Jack built.

This is the Jack,
Jack Abramoff,
Who bought the souls,
Then sold them off,
Who shook the hands
And financed the houses
And feted the staffs
And hired the spouses,]
And fleeced the tribes
And spread the bribes
That ransomed the Congress that
Jack built.

5622. Ulgine Barrows - 4/1/2006 9:38:02 AM

NuPlanetOne, given that I hate squirrels about as much as rats, I liked the first version best.
The whole premise of your work, crows outlasting squirrels.....I dunno.
I guess I'll go have to watch some more. Last I looked, the squirrels were winning.
The crows are bombing because the squirrels are attacking the crow's nests, but what the hell do I know.

5623. Ulgine Barrows - 4/1/2006 9:52:26 AM

Maybe it's a cyclic, neigborhood phenomenon.

5624. Jenerator - 4/4/2006 9:20:13 PM

NuPlanetOne, memories of Maria and a Phillip David sighting.

That's poetry.

5625. Ulgine Barrows - 4/6/2006 5:27:27 AM

And that's politics, mentioning Maria and Phillip David yet nothing of the content, isn't it?

Glad to see ya in the poetry thread after all these years, Jenerator.

5626. Ulgine Barrows - 4/6/2006 5:46:52 AM

bow down before the one you serve.
you're going to get what you deserve.
bow down before the one you serve.
you're going to get what you deserve


God money's not looking for the cure.
God money's not concerned about the sick amongst the pure.
God money let's go dancing on the backs of the bruised.
God money's not one to choose

~Nine Inch Nails

5627. NuPlanetOne - 4/9/2006 3:26:16 AM



…yes, Ulgine. It is nice to see Jenerator hereabouts. Back in the day I could count on some nice words from her and some mutual flirtations. Course, then she up and married and procreated and flew off across the pond. And I thought I had a shot at her! Oh well.

..Hi Jen. Yes, PD did stop by with input on my style crisis, (I value his take as he has followed my progress from the get go, as have you), and I can’t help but reminisce on Maria as she had faithfully served as my muse, in a sense, in this virtual anonymity in which we exist here. I just never expected anyone could die here. Damn reality! You are still married? (Smiling wryly)

5628. arkymalarky - 4/9/2006 5:10:33 AM

I will always associate the Poetry thread with memories of Maria, Cigarlaw and Verdeazul.

5629. alistairConnor - 4/9/2006 9:35:45 PM

Verdeazul! A truly twisted spirit, and I mean that in the best way. Awe-inspiring wit and visionary metaphorist. What became of him?

5630. arkymalarky - 4/9/2006 11:36:42 PM

I don't even know where I got the impression that he was chronically ill, but I know he was in the Mote when we first started here. When he disappeared I assumed the worst, but I'd love to find out I'm wrong.

5631. Seamus - 4/10/2006 10:21:54 PM

As if viewing and describing a gem from different angles...

Nu says: 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.

arky says: I will always associate the Poetry thread with memories of Maria, Cigarlaw and Verdeazul.

and aC says: Verdeazul! A truly twisted spirit, and I mean that in the best way. Awe-inspiring wit and visionary metaphorist.

and I feel a sharp stab of realisation of something I've tried not to know, as if I've turned around in a familiar room where the light is bright and the breezes strong to catch sight in the mirror of a tired old man who refuses to look me in the eyes.

5632. arkymalarky - 4/10/2006 10:48:55 PM

Oh Seamus, it's wonderful to read your expressions of that reality we all share that poets can help the rest of us perceive, if not understand.

The recent posts put me in mind of the Sioux Ghost Dance that scared the white American settlers nearby but was a very sad and unthreatening wish that anyone who appreciates the past and the people who have passed with it has felt--a wish that it could be as it was, if only to reexperience the people and their insights that we can't reach any more--whether they're gone from the world or just from us. It's what many people seem to find most appealing about the idea of heaven.

5633. Jenerator - 4/10/2006 11:32:42 PM

Nu,

You are my warm, soft blanket.

I have enjoyed your beautiful poetry over the years. I wish I had your talent.

P.s. I like your wry smiles.

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