Harvest, 1921

 

Have you ever seen a fat man hanging from a tree?

like a pendant suspended

from the throat of a wrinkled old woman?

Have you ever seen a skinny man hauled up

in front of his burning shop?

the plate glass shattered where he used to look out

at the magnolia blossoms in spring?

It gets hot in June in Tulsa. If you leave a skinny man 

strung up a few days, you get a fat man 

hanging like strange fruit in the devil's grove.

______

for Dverse Poetics: Getting hooked on opening lines. 

Music: Nina Simone Strange Fruit

Without Even the Grace to Blush

 

Humble is the sparrow

on the sill at the end of the year.

Sorry is the miller

who has no barley for the beer.

Vain are the dolls

wrapped with a bow on the box.

Red is the rooster

who rides in the jaws of the fox.

Soft is the ivy

where the robin who died lies so still.

Hard is hangman

who works in the dawn's bitter chill.

Sweet are the tulips

elegant in spring, in summer so terse.

So pale your dying love

as a corporal folded in a burse.

_____________

for Word Garden Word List--Sharon Olds.

A corporal is a folded linen cloth upon which the Host and chalice are placed during the celebration of Mass. The corporal is carried in a container called a burse for reasons of reverence. 

Word Garden Word List--Sharon Olds

 

Sharon Olds

Hello everyone and welcome to this week's slightly late in the day Word Garden Word List. Our source this week is "The Dead and the Living" a poetry collection by Sharon Olds. 

I don't know why but I had a devil of a time finding an image of the cover for this book!

I became interested in her work recently when someone told me about her poem "Sex Without Love" which asks how people do it, as I have sometimes asked myself. It's a foreign concept to me. And so I bought this collection. 

Sharon Olds' first collection had the catchy title "Satan Says" and our source book was her second. She won a Pulitzer for her collection "Stag's Leap" in 2013.While finding out a few details about her, I came across this: when she first sent her poetry to a literary magazine, she received this reply: "This is a literary magazine. If you want to write about this sort of subject, may we suggest Ladies' Home Journal. The true subjects of poetry are... male subjects, not your children." I sincerely hope that the magazine in question suffered a steep decline in circulation due to a shortage of stuffy, sexist, blinkered subscribers. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others if able to do so, and then sit back and bask in the glow of a creative task well completed! This prompt remains open through next Saturday.

And now, your List:

ambulance

asleep

black

bricks

cactus

can-opener

dolls

elegant

glittering

gloves

halo

hospital

ivy

peeled

pool

red

salty

sparrows

tulips

whole

Hollyhocks, Sunflowers, Marigolds

 

Hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds

in a field by a white barn waving

where the orange cat searches for the little voles

hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds

just a stone's throw over from the spring foals

and the little stream its low banks laving

hollyhocks, sunflowers, marigolds

in a field by a white barn waving.

______

a triolet for Lillian's image

over at Dverse Open Link. 

 

This Poem

 

This poem squats in a desert place.

This poem perches upon your chamber door;

This poem sings, your face your face your face

This poem is merely this and nothing more.

This poem is a traveler from an antique land.

This poem is what you find in the windmills of your mind.

This poem is the lone and level sand. 

This poem is old anarchy to the horizon line.

This poem sees the best minds of your generation.

This poem says, let us go then, you and I.

This poem is tearful lamentations

This poem has a silent lifting mind.

I sing myself and celebrate myself

and that, dear lady, were no crime;

if life is over there--behind a shelf

there you'll find these poems--in one of mine.

________

A bit of doggerel for What's Going On? "Poetry Is..."

I have referenced:

Stephen Crane "In A Desert Place"

E.A. Poe "The Raven"

Ewan MacColl "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"

Percy Bysshe Shelley "Ozymandias"

Alan and Marilyn Bergman "The Windmills of Your Mind" (English lyrics)

Sylvia Plath "The Colossus"

Allen Ginsberg "Howl" (altered)

t.s. eliot "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Francesco Petrarch "The Triumph of Death"

John Gillespie Magee Jr. "High Flight"

Walt Whitman "Song of Myself"

Andrew Marvell "To His Coy Mistress" (altered)

Emily Dickinson "I Cannot Live With You"

Emmeline in Trefoils

 

birdsfoot trefoils

Emmeline by dawn light

borrows roses from your bed

Emmeline by moonlight

brings back petit fours instead.

Italy had its masters

who loved Emmeline with their oils

touched by God in Trinity

and Emmeline in trefoils.

Emmeline in summer

reads your letters until the fall

then she wades into the water

to the boatmen's barcarolle.

______

for Word Garden Word List--Tenderness. 

I have broken my own rule and only used 2 of the List words (Italy and summer.) I had used several others but they all ended up on the cutting room floor. I decided to keep and post the poem anyway because I think it speaks to the source material(s), which was my aim. 

This is the fourth of my Emmeline poems. The previous three:

Emmeline By Evening (2009)

Emmeline By Wolf-Light (2016)

Emmeline In November (2021)

Word Garden Word List--Tenderness

 Hello my little bookhounds, and welcome to yet another Word Garden Word List poetry prompt! 

In my 20's, a friend told me that she thought my writing resembled that of D.H. Lawrence. It didn't, but her saying that put me on to a writer who became an immediate favorite, and one of his books in particular blew me off my chair and out the window I found it so wise and so amazing. That book was Lady Chatterly's Lover. Not that many books have fundamentally changed how I view life, but this was one that did. One line I especially loved was when Constance tells Mellors that he has the courage of his own tenderness. I never forgot that.

And so that brings us to this week's source, Tenderness  by Alison MacLeod. In it, she tells the story of Lawrence in exile, trying desperately to finish this book in the time he has left. He knows it won't be published, that it is too honest and speaks too clearly of things that were not spoken of in respectable literature of the time. She then tells the story of none other than Jackie Kennedy, and her efforts to see the book--which she greatly admired--escape the censors and be published for everyone to read. 

There is nothing remotely obscene about Lady Chatterly's Lover.  In fact, it may be the most beautiful book I have ever read. And now there is Tenderness.

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others if you are able, and then follow your heart. This prompt remains active through Saturday. 

And now, your List:

affair

art

book

broken

cows

daisies

Italy

lens

madness

memo

orchids

page

spirit

spying

stone

summer

tenderness

umbrellas

vulnerable

worldly

Consultation at the Hospital

 

The doctor said,

"This is what I found

inside her."

An orange

a white horse with one hoof up

Roberta Flack 'First Take' on vinyl

A river, rushing over smooth stones

and a knitting needle

through her heart.

The family sagged to one side a little

like a tent in wind.

The father said,

"You're talking nonsense."

The mother said nothing.

The husband said,

"Are you sure you had the right patient?

   I could sue."

The best friend said,

"Of course you did." 

"Where is the orange?" 

the mother asked.

"I ate the orange."

"There was no horse,"

insisted the father.

"There was a herd."

The best friend smiled 

but was silent.

The husband looked at his watch.

The mother added,

"If there was a knitting needle

through her heart,

she must have put it there herself."

The father waved his hand

and walked away.

The husband said,

"I wonder what all this will cost?."

The best friend asked

if she could see her.

The mother leaned on her husband

and walked away 

carrying her purse

and her bag of knitting.

____________

for Dverse Meeting the Bar. "Magical Realism" 

Music: Roberta Flack No Way To Say Goodbye

A Cautionary Tale For Young Gardeners

 

There was a seed lying on the ground.

She picked it up when nobody was around.

She turned it over, lifted to the light.

It turned her fingers an upsetting sickly white.

"Little seed,

(she said)

Imma plant ya in the yard.

Imma plant ya

(she said)

where the ground is wicked hard."

Next day--

a big, black, dangerous-looking vine.

it say,

"Feed me skittering bugs and water me with wine.

Sleep with me at night

until you start to lose your sight.

Whisper me your mind

until you've gone all white-eyed blind.'

What happened to Dakota?

She went outside without a coat-a.

Found a seed from a devil weed

and down the wicked Styx she float-a. 

______

for What's Going On? -- "seed"

Music: Grace Potter & the Nocturnals White Rabbit

A Sequence of Bells

 

Where is the bell that was ringing?

it is in your throat

waiting for Sunday.

Where is the bell that has not yet rung?

it is in the ring

shrugging and feinting. 

Where is the tongue

with which the bell will speak?

The cat took it

and left it on the porch rail.

What does the ringing bell signify?

That the priest's hand

is strong and able. 

The boxer delivers his sermon.

You speak, and a shiver goes through me.

The cat is a night cat

and goes before me, always.

___________

Talking Monkey

 

I am a talking monkey--

I know this,

wearing the heavy suit of the corporeal. 

Please,

sit on the rocks of the ruin with me.

The stones have a warmth

left by the sun

 like a garland

around a young girl's head. 

Speaking as a glorified simian,

I love the pretty yellow

of the banana,

the seeded red of the strawberry,

and the deep rich purple

 of the plum.

Ill health, blood, bruises--

these bear the hues of these fruits

but theirs is a bitter course.

I am a talking monkey--

talking all the more, and most tediously

now that my tire

 stays still.

I used to swing on it, wildly!

like a chimp in a capsule

NASA's baby

headed for the stars!

Ah well, little pitchers have big ears--

never tell them the rotten truth

 about the circus

or the old hero peddling for the gawking crowd.

_______

for Word Garden Word List--

Music: The Rolling Stones Monkey Man 

Word Garden Word List--There Must Be A Pony!

 

Hello my little Sunday punches. Welcome to this week's Word List poetry prompt! Forgive me if this week's intro is a little shorter than usual--I am a little bit under the weather, but as the brave little sojer that I am, I can't let you not have a List!

Our source this week is a novel that I have recently finished re-reading, entitled There Must Be A Pony!  by James Kirkwood. I have reviewed it HERE. The link will open in a new window. 

"The Life of James Kirkwood" by Sean Egan

James Kirkwood is best known for A Chorus Line  and P.S. Your Cat Is Dead  hence the kitty in the photo above. 

What we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others (or I shall frown upon you with bleak intensity) and then relax and kick back with a James Kirkwood novel! This prompt remains active until next Sunday. 

And now, your List:

bark

books

brainstorm

Cokes

colossal

dusky

ears

foggy

gawking

getaway

hero

monkey

never

pitcher

pony

pushed

rotten

thin

thrills

warmth

A Conversation About a Dog

 "I see that I'm too late," I said

"You don't see a damn thing. Open your eyes," he said. 

There was a train due, or that had already departed, or

that never was, or that was, but had long since gone.

"I think about the dog. A lot. I miss the dog."

"There was no dog," he said, taking a drag.

"Think about it," he added, blowing smoke my way.

There was a dog, but not his dog, or not the dog

he thought I meant, which we never had. 

"There was a dog." I was determined, and a little angry.

He laughed and took off his hat, dangling it from his hand.

"Whatever you say, you fucking crazy bitch."

Trains look small at a distance, deadly from up close.

There is time for one to become the other, either way.

I didn't answer. I wore a veil like a death mask.

I wore a small tam like a zucchetto. Pax vobiscum. 

"Wait here forever if you want, I'm leaving," he said

and stood up, but lingered, finishing his unfiltered.

"You still love me. I know you do," I said softly, viciously.

"You don't know shit. Try opening your mail sometimes."

There are letters that form words, others that stand for things;

letters one saves for years, others forgotten on a hall table.

"I miss that dog. he was a good dog," I said,

but there was no one there, and the station was gone.

__________

belatedly for Dora's Dverse Poetics: Dialogue It In! I will share with OLN. 

Image: Kate Bishop and Lucky the Pizza Dog

Music: Lydia Gray Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word

My review of James Kirkwood's novel "There Must Be A Pony!" 4 of 5 stars.

I found this novel in a used bookstore back when I was in my 20's, many years ago, and I bought it because of the title. I read it and adored it--if there had been Goodreads back then, I would certainly have given it 5 stars. It inspired me to read three others by James Kirkwood--PS Your Cat Is Dead, Good Times/Bad Times, and Some Kind Of Hero. all of which I loved. I also tried Hit Me With A Rainbow but disliked it and dnf-ed it.

This is the story of a rather Holden Caulfield-esque teenage boy whose mother is a slightly past her prime Hollywood actress. The major difference between Holden and the narrator here (Josh) is that Josh is almost relentlessly sunny whereas Holden is disillusioned. In fact, Josh is so agreeable and positive that he didn't quite ring true as a 15-year-old boy to me, and so I only give the book 4 stars upon re-reading it all these years later. There Must Be A Pony! is the story of a young man, his slightly unstable mother, a charming man they both adore, and a crew of side characters. When tragedy strikes and everything seems to go from wonderful to awful all at once, Josh and his mom find themselves in a sea of troubles. The title is taken from a joke about a man with twin sons, one an optimist and the other a pessimist. Their dad gives the pessimist a bunch of games and toys and things but the boy just sits there eyeing it all suspiciously. He gives the optimist a pile of dung, but the boy is thrilled and shovels through it excitedly. When the dad asks him why he is so happy, the son replies that "with all this horse (stuff), I figure there must be a pony!" It's an apt metaphor for what this novel is about.

As a grown adult re-reading the book now, and looking at mid-century mores from the vantage point of the 21st century, the constant--and I do mean constant--consumption of alcohol by everyone in the book except Josh becomes extremely tiresome. Even Josh himself remarks about how the adults around him can't seem to make the slightest move without needing a drink first. Near the end of the book, Josh's mother finds out a friend of hers is pregnant, so what does she do? She proposes a toast. Holy fetal alcohol syndrome, Batman.

Kirkwood can be howlingly funny and there are sections of this book that had me in stitches such as the pet parrot who can only ask "Are you a Communist?" At the same time, the plot of this book is often heart-breaking, so it gets both "funny" and "sad" tags from me. In sum, There Must Be A Pony! didn't mean as much to me in my 60's as it did in my 20's, but I'm glad I re-read it, and do recommend it if you can find it. Kirkwood's books all seem to be out of print now, which is a darn shame.

Conversant Animals In Stovepipe Hats

 In those days,

the skies were closer--

God peered down from nearer by

still tinkering.

Animals had names

and wore stovepipe hats

or tam o' shanters in various shades

and could speak.

Why tell us this

now, when vipers emerge

from every apple, with tongues

hollow and stiff?

I wish to soothe

your two exhausted ears

and place fish there, in the waters

of your mind.

Here is the boat

and the cloaks of soft fabric

to wear on the decks on the sea on the sphere

spinning the tale

of us,

every moment,

even now.

_____

for Word Garden Word List--Immortal Poems

Music: Cream (lyrics by poet Peter Brown)  Deserted Cities of the Heart 

Word Garden Word List--Immortal Poems

 

Hello my little bargain hunters! Our List this week is taken from a rather interesting source--Immortal Poems of the English Language, Oscar Wiliams editor. It's copyright 1952 originally, but my paperback edition is from the 24th printing, in 1970. I chose words from poems by Yeats, Auden, Frost, Eliot, and numerous others.

Even our unhoused friend can afford Immortal Poems.

I bought it at a used book store for 50 cents, an absolute age ago. (It's original brand-new price was a whopping 95 cents!) This set me to thinking. Your average current potboiler will set you back 25 dollars or so, while Immortal Poems of the English Language was got for half a dollar. (Full disclosure: I just checked it on Thriftbooks.com and they want $8.39 for it in "acceptable" condition. Mine is falling apart after decades of constant use but I got my fifty pennies worth!)  This says something about the value placed on poetry in our modern world, as opposed to mere entertainment, I think. I am far too humble and witless to say exactly what, however. I am shy. Demure. I can hear all of you snickering, so straighten up and fly right, you lot!

Anyway, rabble, what we do here is to use at least 3 of the 20 words provided in a new, original poem of our own. Then simply link up, visit others, and then settle down with Immortal Poems and a nice beverage of your choice. Coffee, double cream for me, please. This prompt remains active through Saturday. 

And Now, your List!

animals

craves

deep

dripping

eaten

epitaph

fabric

fish

genuine

guts

heaps

hello

hollow

hour

mirror

names

she-wolf

shrine

skies

sphere

I feel confident that I can predict one of the words that Sherry will use!

Sensei At Sunset

 

And so, once again

I speak to you of the rat--

the bachelor rat--

who visits my garage.

He is a good rat,

even a fine one as rats go.

Never once has he lied to me

or tried to be anything

but what he is.

I feed him each evening

but tried to stop when the weather improved.

He came out and looked at me

as if to ask what had happened

and couldn't we overcome it?

I admire the rat.

He harbors no silent resentments.

He is who he is

all the time

and perhaps that is why he is alone.

I am alone also

and I am who I am, as the rat teaches.

I have a fine dog.

Many birds come to visit

and I feed this rat

rather than trying to kill him.

Goodnight, good sir.

I am grateful for your life

and my own.

___________

for Dverse Meeting the Bar. 

Music: Leon Russell Stranger In A Strange Land