Song of the Chimera

 

The blackbirds are dying and sing their death

from stump and steeple, barrel and rail.

The police are called every time it snows

and they maunder in the fields, dithery and pale.

I have seen the Chimera

and your barn is burning down.

She is lion, goat and snake

and your barn is burning down. 

Morning appears and suffers a scalding dew.

There is a killer hiding where the lilacs grew

beside the porch of the rectory he burns and claims 

the Chimera is you, and you, and you.

I have smelt the Chimera.

Her skin is fragrant with misery and death.

In the ashes, I have smelt the Chimera.

Her skin is fragrant with misery and death.

In the field stands the papier-mache president.

His is the pomp of smoke house and sty.

The postman delivers catastrophes ill-sent

as the blackbirds call, and falter, and die.

There was love, some say

kept in jars on an old woman's counter.

The gloomy blackbirds beg her for rest,

rest in jars, there on her counter.

There is no more clattering, no good book held high.

There are weeds in the window box, crackling dry.

The killer is hiding where the lilacs grew

telling fools their fortunes from a blackbird's eye.

I have seen the Chimera

coming fast through the dawn

with seven devils to drive her

the Chimera drives on.

_______

for Word Garden Word List # 10. 

Word Garden Word List #10 (Wallace Stevens)

 

Hello everyone, it's me with your weekly word list poetry prompt! This time our list is derived from the poems of Wallace Stevens, who has been called "the best and most representative poet of our time." Or the recent past, perhaps.

Stevens has been called difficult, and i found him so until recently, when the light went on for me and i discovered that I love his work now. (The same thing happened to me with Billie Holiday. I never got what the fuss was about; then, listening to her one Sunday night, I got it.)

I would be remiss if I failed to mention that, seeing Ernest Hemingway in the street, Stevens is supposed to have said, "You think you're Ernest Hemingway," and promptly punched Hemingway in the face, breaking his hand in doing so. Afterward, Hemingway helped Stevens to bed to recover. 

What we do here is simple: use at least 3 of the 20 words provided to write a new poem of your own--any length, any style. Then link up, visit others, and enjoy. Prompt remains "live" thru Friday.

blackbird

book

catastrophe

chimera

clattering

dithery

fragrance

gloomy

haunted

lilacs

mask

maundering

papier-mache

police

pomp

postcard

snow

song

suffers

witching

"The Meaning of Life" a poem by Gladys Schlump (CosmicUnicornPoet)

 

O candle of life, smoking grayly,

in life we give light, even if palely

til the snuffer snuffs us and we smoke away daily

then croak and leave our life that was fail-y.

Animated wax that our bodies are

cannot be kept, nor thrown very far

to live in bliss on a faraway star

something something John Agar.

Realms of bliss realms of light

some are born in Cleveland Heights

some are born in Cleveland Heights

some are born to see I'm right.

So, return to Him who barfed us forth

be He Rumpelstiltskin or Nanook of the North

scooped up in the dust pan of life and fate

something something pomegranate. 

_______________

Shared with Sunday Muse #195. Be worthy, rabble.

This beautiful arrangement created by Penelope "Pippie" Zugronski. 

Notes: My entire life has led up to this poem. It is a form called Intestin Bloque, which means Interesting Stanzas. This poem is included in my collection The Very Interesting Poems of Gladys Schlump and also appears in the November 1956 issue of Detached Retina: A Compendium of Torpid, Impenetrable Verse. Finally, this poem won the prestigious Itchy Rash Award for Poetry, given annually by the Debilitating Head Injury Guild of Stockholm, Sweden. Enjoy! (but not TOO much. It's unseemly.)

Actor John Agar with his collection of irrelevant booshwah.

A 7 Line Poem

There was a wall made entirely of glass, and a bird with a tether on its leg. 

There was you, in your olive raincoat, and a sky of grandfathers, complaining.

There were lilacs, dogwood blossoms, a wrought iron screen hung from a fence peg.

It was April in the finest chill of dusk, a Wednesday with an hour's light remaining.

There were angles to the gables, to the downspout, and the feeling beyond naming

That I carried in a Gladstone bag kept hidden with the gewgaws

Preserved and cared for like that bird, to rise toward home when he does.

________

linked to dverse oln.

Palilalia

 "Here I am back home again

I'm here to rest

All they ask is where I've been

knowing I've been west " --Tim Hardin 

One wrong move away from a coffin, I came back

glissading hell-for-breakfast down a ribbon road called Interstice 95.

I am become a Gypsy, I said. 

I am become a radio, broadcasting myself at some higher frequency.

I am a skull singing starlings out into the Void.

This is our tree, stay the fuck off it we say

with our

pugnacious

puny 

little 

beaks.

Sometimes dead is better, someone said. 

All I want is my Hudson Bay blanket.

All I want is a mother, not my  mother, but one like the ones in storybooks,

and not Grimm's.

All I want is some chocolate, and a Secret Garden to sit in.

There should be a glider.

I could cry there and let the salt make me a sailor.

I want to be kissed in a way I have not been kissed in years. 

I want to be anesthetized.

I want to feel good, reconfigured without the anchors and anvils.

I want to ask Jesus some things.

Pah.

I would like to thank the cosmic shillelagh that thumped me here.

I would like to be stitched up and sent home with a note explaining 

me to myself.

None of that is in the works, and a carny appears and loads me into a clock

as if I were boarding the Kingda Ka at Six Flags back in Texas, USA. 

"You little feral Pick-Me Girl," says the carny,

serving up big happy helpings of easy scorn.

"Enjoy the ride!" he says, showing his teeth in a billboard grin.

FWOOMP!

My dog is glad to see me. 

There is lazy winter light in the window

and someone has left a casserole on the doorstep.

I am tempted to call someone but who? God?

She's a right canny doozy,

but my monkey body remembers warm flesh like rolls from the oven

and I don't think I can get up.

My heart is smashed

and the junk drawer offers no Gorilla Glue,

no note that can penetrate when hope goes deaf.

I sit and stutter and start to tell the dog 

all about this strange accident, this whole misadventure escapade

and, as it gets dark,

what I think it means.

__________

for Word Garden Word List #9.

Word Garden Word List #9 (Joan Colby)

 

Hello everyone, it's me with your weekly word list poetry prompt. Today our list is taken from the poems of Joan Colby, and specifically from her collection Joyriding to Nightfall. 

Colby writes about nature, animals, aging, and the angels and devils in everything around us. 

What we do here is simple: use at least 3 of the 20 words on the list in a poem of any length or style. Then link up and visit others. The prompt stays "live" through Friday.

And now, without further booshwah, your list!

anesthetized

breakfast

casseroles

climb

clocks

coffin

deaf

feral

glissade

gypsy

jeans

kissed

radio

ribbon

scorn

skull

shillelagh

starlings

stitched

tempted

If God Had Meant Us To See The Sky, He'd Have Given Us Eyes On Stalks

Imagine my surprise, my perplexity,

groping around the living room while seeing the bedroom before me. 

Wherever I leave my glasses, I see what they see. They have abducted my vision.

Beware, junior. 

I can actually have eyes in the back of my head now.

Never mind the way I blunder into things.

Hello? Hi dear.

Oh, you say i forgot my glasses on your secretary's desk? 

Silly me! 

(That man-stealing harlot.)

Enjoy your meatloaf.

I made it by feel and it may have some unusual ingredients. 

Two forks? Pick one.

I always use the dog's dish as a salad bowl, don't I? 

Well, it makes a nice change anyway.

Ah! Thank you for bringing home my eyeglasses.

Now I can read your report card, junior.

And sign these divorce papers, dear.

Just give the meatloaf to Rover.

_________

for Sunday Muse #194.