Poetry....Your favorites, and your own.

Black darkness, burning bright
milking my cow, I lie depressed
in a horrible squalor.
Damn the electric fence! Take rockford!
Milking my cow, black milk of satan.
Satanic cruelty.

Gruber is my new favorite artiste.

John Peale Bishop, "A Recollection"

Famously she descended, her red hair
Unbound and bronzed by sea-reflections, caught
Crinkled with sea-pearls. The fine slender taut
Knees that let down her feet upon the air,

Young breasts, slim flanks and golden quarries were
Odder than when the young distraught
Unknown Venetian, painting her portrait, thought
He'd not imagined what he painted there.

And I too commenced with that golden cloud:
Lipped her delicious hands and had my ease
Faring fantastically, perversely proud.

All loveliness demands our courtesies.
Since she was dead I praised her as I could
Silently, among the Barberini bees.

there once was a man fom Nantucket
whose nob was so long he could suck it
he said with a grin
wiping spunk from his chin
if my ear was a cunt I would fuck it

That is beautiful prose.

Is anyone familiar with the Bishop piece I posted? I fell in love with it when I figured it out.

My personal favourite:


Lines Inscribed Upon a Cup
Formed from a Skull
by
Lord Byron
Newstead Abbey, 1808

Start not --- nor deem my spirit fled;

In me behold the only skull,

From which, unlike a living head,

Whatever flows is never dull.


I lived, I loved, I quaff'd, like thee:

I died: let earth my bones resign;

Fill up --- thou canst not injure me;

The worm hath fouler lips than thine.


Better to hold the sparkling grape,

Than nurse the earth-worm's slimy brood;

And circle in the goblet's shape

The drink of gods, than reptile's food.


Where once my wit, perchance, hath shone,

In aid of others' let me shine;

And when, alas ! our brains are gone,

What nobler substitute than wine ?


Quaff while thou canst: another race,

When thou and thine, like me, are sped,

May rescue thee from earth's embrace,

And rhyme and revel with the dead.


Why not ? Since through life's little day

Our heads such sad effects produce;

Redeem'd from worms and wasting clay,

This chance is theirs, to be of use.

Wonderful!

Down on the road
Of each little street and the smell of the corn like dew in the night
Nutritious and it was delicious
The little two-by-four post office and wrote my aunt a penny postcard
He only stole cars for joy rides
Eagerly down the winter streets
Race
Of the corn like dew in the night
After my wife and I split up
Dean ate supper at my house

26
Attack brown cups doing extra flurries
Gorge hell in judge's kangaroo lair
Mother needs options putting QUARASHI
Reeks silently together under what
Xylophone yes Zeke.

262
Jokes granting low demeanor mooch
Quad piss kills open Nigeria fools
Cacophonous intercollegiate humping
Rationalizing telephones so water ever
Zeal attributes velvet XANDER yahoo
Underground bees

Innocence of a Little Brother

Waking up in the morning,
Not concerned with what time it is,
Running throughout the house,
Waiting until Big Brother wakes up.

Once he rises,
There must be questions asked,
Which are thought up on a whim,
To ask experience or Big Brother.

Experience of a Big Brother

Trying to get rest,
Not being able to succeed at that,
Being asked questions that are so simple,
Yet so complicated.

Trying to shield the young,
Because the world is so harsh,
Besides, more things are important,
Than spending time with one’s Little Brother.

Umm...here are some haikus I wrote about 8 years ago:

monster truck rally
mud splatters on clear windshield
beer man come here please

hooker on corner
beckoning young men to her
hey there big boy zip

Andy Griffith show
Don Knotts is hilarous
love that Barney Fife

Those two that I put up are mine.

John Ashbery, "Some Trees"

These are amazing: each
Joining a neighbor, as though speech
Were a still performance.
Arranging by chance

To meet as far this morning
From the world as agreeing
With it, you and I
Are suddenly what the trees try

To tell us we are:
That their merely being there
Means something; that soon
We may touch, love, explain.

And glad not to have invented
Some comeliness, we are surrounded:
A silence already filled with noises,
A canvas on which emerges

A chorus of smiles, a winter morning.
Placed in a puzzling light, and moving,
Our days put on such reticence
These accents seem their own defense.

That's what poets do best; shed tears in a pit of self-absorbtion, filling this hole of isolation with the waters of pity. Then, the poet may reflect on the eternal sadness of his character, and like Narcisissus, lose himself in perpetual self absorbtion.

Now THAT was poetry.

Prease to exprain.

I promise I will add some of my own as soon as I can find the stupid book. It's buried somewhere out in the garage in a box.

Nice work, one and all.

I don't want to totally give it away, it's much cooler if you figure it out for yourself, but consider this:

Bishop is a modernist. His piece is a commentary on the traditional sonnet. He is challenging the way we read poetry.

Is it just the, uh, profanity-laced hidden message, or is the poem describing something other than what it appears to be describing?

It's a commentary on the sonnet, and similar uncreative poetry. He's basically saying, "I intened to write one thing, and in the process just bullshitted a sonnet that could stand alongside yours. Try harder, people."

I love it. Shocking stuff when you're reading it and thinking, "Why the hell is this modernist?" Then you realize...

Huh. That just seems kind of childish to me, although I may be misinterpreting it. If he's knocking specific poets, fine, but if he's suggesting that all of the poetry he's (badly) aping is as meaningless and vapid as his version is, that's pretty ig'nant.

It makes me think of some pre-teen goth girl putting up her poetry online and not wanting to learn the history or rules of the art form because she's "already a real poet."

Still, it's hard to condemn a poem with cussing in it.

Sorry, I should be more specific: he's reacting to the poets who saw modernism, rejected it as a farce, and went back to old ways, like the sonnet.

He knows the history, but he's basically condemning people to scared/lazy to push forward.

Ah, OK. Danke. Saucy approves of this Bishop feller.

Confidence

Why am I afraid?
I look down at this page
My heart beats faster.
I imagine someone will read this
They'll probably think it is stupid.
So I stop writing.

Here are some of my poems:

POEM
I hate poetry, it's so restricted
the endless rhymes afflict it
Stricken with sameness, absent of spices
same old literary devices
No one ever writes a poem
from neither heart nor soul
the base for every poem
is something someone stole
Rhyme, alliteration and breakage of rules
Poets are crazy, messed up fools
Every poem ever written, every single line
is an unoriginal copy,
except, of course, for mine.

DRIVING
You sat there, we rode
My hand in yours
or on your knee
affection
Because I loved you
You don't sit there now
I drive
My hands on the wheel
or on my knee
distraction
Because i loved you
Others sit there, we ride
Our hands to ourselves
No knees involved
Devastation
Because I still love you.

LULLABY
A melody I heard
In a dream
I woke and knew the tune
I played it for her
She wept
And fell in love.

RUSH
raise my arms
Voices go up
Strike the Chord
Bodies move
To my music

PRAISE
God of Grace, God of sound
Melodies in sky and rhythms in ground
The beat of our hearts where you are found
To the music of creation, our Lord you are crowned.

I hope somebody likes these. I have many more if you do.

I really like this one. Close to home.

Flyers, good taste in poets.

Anyway, some of my own (honest opinions requested), maybe more to come later:

Hope

They came away
with nothing…

I too have seen
the greatest minds of
my generation,
Their brains atrophied,
flung against walls,
walls I raged against
until my hands were
pulpy, gnarled, useless…

Help came and we sat
on rooftops at sunrise;
a scene out of some bad dime
novel that housewives keep hidden
under shadows and sheets.
My bleeding fists quivered
when I looked out on a world
of rejection…

Sun ignited across shingles
and I found solitude up so high,
surrounded by friends;
even if they were on paper…

The cliché new day arrived
and like those before me,
I came away with nothing.

In That Room, In That Bed

(this poem is not my favorite, but was written a few years ago as, strangely enough, a reaction to the Bishop piece and another poet whose name alludes me at the moment)

Next to me,
Her molten hair drips down,
Caressing the pillow and flowing outward,
Forming a pool of Crimson on the tangled blankets.
I lay back,
As she dreams with an innocent smile oblivious
To my contemplation on the twilight’s events.
The sweet smells of sweat and sleep
Fill this place with an aroma like
Sharp-spiced melodies.
Through the window,
Frozen sunbeams penetrate our Spring,
Illuminating us both and stretching to
Touch her flawless snowy skin.
I listen to her glowing night breath
While I wonder if Isis herself
Might compare to her external perfection.
I hate her.

Struck at 4
(reaction to Robert Creeley’s “Myself”)

Think to myself
Armstrong said wrong--
world, now, feels
pressed by

importance. Reaction
changed, mists otherwise
lucid memory of
beaches and

callous smooth against
sand. These, days
meld, questions
of hope, of happy

arrive staring at
a ceiling. Poets,
like the clock,
tell nothing.

The dead
must find words.

2 AM Critic

“When did fortune cookies
stop telling
fortunes and start giving advice?”
you ask as I pull a
crisp twenty out of my wallet.
The satisfied reflection
wrapping your face and the fluff in tone
is a cue that you still feel clever,
even at this hour.
I lay the money on the table
and attempt
a bemused smirk,
while I think to myself that
telling a Fortune and giving Advice
are much the same thing.
The only difference
Is efficiency.

The King loves his Queen

I'll rip you apart like a soft rock. You'll need a dozen buckets propped up on the sharp horizon to catch yourself in. We'll listen to Abba as we drive to the sea. You'll listen to the high notes while I'll sing along to the bass.
I'll see a hole through your bookcase turn green and drip. I'll kill Americans with my bible missiles of blue paper. You'll grant me a last wish on the banks of the Humber. You'll walk towards the trees and scare away the crows.
Today we took time to stare at the rips in your cardigan. You'll bleed like that forever and never have to listen to the rain. I'll buy you a house where the cuckoos kill.
I'll kill Germans with my boot oil and my stomach noises.

Just lately the ships have sunk into blackness and begun to glow in the mute depths. Just lately we have smelled the glue that keeps the doors wide open. Can we visit so many museums...can we hear the jelly household wandering.
I'll give you a pair of shoes to fit your stumps. The shortest season is our world.
I'll kill the English without wonder. I'll kill them in the ballroom with my forehead noises.

Flood us with pill popping days out to the sea where the carnival rusts over and snaps.
We'll take to the air when they see us there, in our overcoats and our hats.
I'm the liar and you are the comfy chairs. Watch us on TV as we carry out our tasks.
You'll bake a dirty photograph and send it, send it to someone else.
I'll climb the dusty tower block for a meal or two.
<img src="http://dannyswainn.tripod.com//sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderpictures/ra.gif" alt="" />

Utter shit. For your consumption.

<a href="http://www.sas.upenn.edu/~johnpc/" target="_blank">www.sas.upenn.edu/~johnpc/</a>

Oh, and don't call me a shill. I'm just too lazy to copy and paste from one site to another.

A Game of Hearts

A poker table,
A barroom night club,
Etched in shades of grey and brown
Fine newspaper shadows
Lie printed on concrete blocks
Sponges masquerading as brain cells

Five chairs sit
Laughter, curses through the smoky haze
Even though no one smokees
Light dust tinged with stale beer's smell
Even though nobody drinks.

The game is Hearts, and
Stephen deals the cards.

Plastic kings twirling like saucers
Hurled by a rough hand whose
Square fingers danced
Upon keys and candlelit pencils, whose
Hard grip stirred
Castle rocks and dreamcatchers, whose
Maine palm carried mice
Down prison miles and
Up dark towers, whose
Rough fingers toss
The last card.

With the dealing done, and
The youngest first,
Neil plays his cards.

Blue shadows spill over
Darkening clubs and diamonds, as
British tips, stained with
Printers ink and dark mud
Found in London's below, while
A highway's smell clings to boots,
Odin's talisman hanging.

The suit is clubs, and
Play moves to Harlan

"Tick tock," says the watchman
As cranky fingers look at soldiers,
Onyx eyes staring,
Driving in spikes,
That thick red moment found
In galaxies and Bradbury-tinged
Hometown fantasies.

Harlan leaves two spades, and
James must follow

Heart's hitmen look back at
Spectacled spheres with a
Reckless versmilitude found
In cold six thousand
L.A. streets, and Vegas clubs,
Flying cards scrawling
An American tabloid of
Black dalhias and Brown requiems

Stephen moves to play, and
A knock from the door.

I enter.

My trembling notes flash yellow,
A nervous pencil asking
Slipper's feet smash, tripping,
Blue lines and dandelion rectangles
Floating through a lightbulb clone
I reach for my notes, but
They are reading them

Eight ellipsied criticize pages until satisfaction,
Thin smiles creeping, considering
The stories and themes printed there.
I shake my own ellipsies, anticpiating
A well-earned rejection.

Stephen puts down my pages, and
Turns to me.

"Have a seat," they say.

Holy shit! Chainsaw, I love your stuff. I saved the first two and will use them for inspiration when I stuck on my writing. I'm no poetry expert but you should write a book.

Ok, I'm taking another turn.
These are all by me.

(Written at the very bottom of a page)
SHORT POEM

Not so much space here
And so a challenge to place here
A brief bit of thought on
on some subject of substance
though I think I am caught
in my own wisdom chase
as it seems I have used all my limited space.
_____________
CLASSROOM

I go to class to write poetry, to listen to music silently, to think and pray while someone else is talking.

I go to class to think about leaving class, to travel to Siddhartha's river, not Duncan's, to embrace my love, a kiss, during an important lecture.

I go to class to be alone among the students, each living and dying, dying to live, but so scared and unprepared for real life, the world outside the classroom. Inside the classroom, the world.

I go to class to choke on spoon-fed knowledge, the silver 747 soaring at sonic speeds down my throat down my throat, in one ear and out the other, completely passing my mind, only left with the heartburn of bland information served over-seasoned so that it will go down on the notepaper more easily.

I go to class to dream about sleeping, to watch a professor with a degree and a paycheck flounder as helplessly as any of us, rippling the glassy cosmic surface, gasping for true oxygen, the clean air that cleans the blood which gives life to the brain which convinces the heart to pay attention in the classroom, because here, there is something to learn.

_____________
ENGLISH 370

Teacher says not to write, "Just listen to me!"
So I write
Just to spite
Because I hate this rape of artists and their artistry.

_____________
I DID IT

Today, I put aside pride and told my past
To stay
Right where it left me, right where I moved on.

-------

Ok, I guess that's too many. Most of you only do one at a time.

Recovered

Our brothers,
our fathers,
our futures all lost.

Yet we had no war.

The waves beat against
the stony shores anyway,
and here we sit on the docks
waiting for a return.

We wish for definition
in the sanitized world that our
predecessors had manufactured for us:
but still we looked out to the sea
hoping that it would be different.

Storms came and passed;
the tide curled around our feet,
lapping hungrily
at the warmth of our skin
and then moved on.

And we could not move on.

Why must it take guns
and blood
and fathers
to save the world?
To be remembered
must we sacrifice ourselves to?

Ourselves are all that we have left.

The shore is in sight always.
To walk away
is the hardest thing we must do,
to be out where so many
have not returned.

No matter what happens,
we must go there.
Things will be taken away
people will be taken away
even dreams will be taken away.

But not this.

Do I speak for us all? No.
But do I see them on the shores,
thinking as I do? Yes.

We see each other.
*****************************
Law

“Defying Gravity is easy,” I say
as we float around the café.
“It’s your mind’s projection.”
Your piercing gray eyes,
skeptical as ever,
peer up from Grey’s.
A sip of coffee.
A deep breath.
A gesture at the pages before you.
“You can’t defy Nature”
is the measured reply
that sends me crashing down
Thud!

****************************
Lines

The soothing sound-orgy slapped
Into the air like flashing neon
On a purple night backdrop
And bounced around the shrouded club.

He listened with detached admiration
As a deep thought density
Seemed to swirl on his face.

She reserved herself
To inhale the brassy,
Smoky atmosphere
That glimmered in the surrounding darkness.

Good band, she thought
When the set throbbed into
A twirling resonance
That liquefied on contact.
…nice to dance to…

All at once,
He flowed forward as if liquid metal:
“My life is a bubble,
flitting through the air,
flirting around mortals and gravity
with no apparent path or purpose
until it shatters.”
With a smooth transition,
He seeped back into his own thoughts.

She painted him a mask
With a grin and a thought-provoked look;
All the better to harbor her own notions:
Fucking poets.
************************************
The Gasoline Dream

As I rode
An azure whale
Through foaming sand
And evergreen sky,
I came to earth’s end.
Puzzled by nothingness
I asked
“God? God?”
A joking reply of
“Where? Where?”
Seemed implied
By it’s absence.

Suddenly
Alone in Wasteland
Where parched flowers
Echo to my
Subconscious,
Truth beckoned.
Fires burn rainbows,
Coarse angels crumple
Across the landscape
And I am naked,
Left with only
Ashes and atheism.
***************************
The End

5 Long Island ice teas.
3 Red Stripes.
Infinite shots.

I
Celebrated freedom
Soaked my hands with tears
Vented lovefearhate out a truck’s window
Made the day’s meals a puddle.

I peed in front of an ATM
and waved for the camera.
I made a friend leave me on my lawn
so I could sleep.
It was 5.

In the door at 7,
up at 9
work

sick,
Arrive at 10
Sink down a chair
Munch Pepto tablets all day.
Too sick to think of
stars
night
her

******************************
Road to Atlanta

Night still faded purple,
we stopped.
They won’t sell beer on
Sundays-- what kind of
prehistoric law is that?
Bribery works better
than pleading,
ten bucks for a clerk
is doing the world a favor.
We told the driver
we stole it.
He sped off into the
miles ahead and
as the tang of burned
tires mixed with laughter,
we all knew that
22 doesn’t last
much longer.