Poets’ Roundtable
Welcome
MarLou will not be here, but she sent a poem:
Waves Lapping
Body buried
in wet sand near
waves lapping
Hop to water’s edge
Feel cool sand on feet
Trace patterns with toes
Back to sand hole
Brain dripping serotonin
I think she's beginning to get it.
Dru Martin also sent a poem:
i will arise and go now
no need to try and stop it
i have slid down mountains
staggered through deserts
scythed a path through this madness
and am no better off
for each step takes me
further away
i will take nothing as i go
for its as perfect as it can be
and there is no lack of light
that has shone upon me
there are scant few moments
as ready as this
eventhough there are
things to miss
i will arise and go now
and leave a fading shadow
that falls upon the slow burning
pyre of tomorrow
for this door is outside of time
where we all return to dust
i will arise and go now
miss me if you must
News and Jabber
Poet Timothy Murphy died this past week. Largely unknown to us in the East, this native o Minnesota, was a pretty good poet featuring local themes. Here is an example:
Eighty-eight at Midnight
A black calf bleats
at shrivelled teats.
Incessant heat
withers the wheat
and wilts the silking corn.
Too few, too late
the spotty showers
mock my stunted flowers.
Too late I shrink from debt.
Like a spitted calf I turn
over a bed of coals
while the pastures burn.
Timothy Murphy
From The Deed of Gift, Story Line
Press, © 1998. Reprinted by
permission of the author and
Story Line Press, Ashland,
Oregon.
In the last meeting I pointed out that there are lots of good poets and that maybe the audience isn't there. This time I'll point you to an article from The Pacific Standard that notes that, according to a major survey, more people are reading poetry now than just six years ago, putting the number at 28 million. Go to this link to find what the story has to offer: https://psmag.com/education/why-are-more-americans-reading-poetry-right-now.
I was reading Emily Dickinson earlier this week and came across, for the first time #861:
By Emily Dickinson
Split the Lark—and you’ll find the Music—
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled—
Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.
Bulb after Bulb, in Silver rolled—
Scantily dealt to the Summer Morning
Saved for your Ear when Lutes be old.
Loose the Flood—you shall find it patent—
Gush after Gush, reserved for you—
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
Gush after Gush, reserved for you—
Scarlet Experiment! Sceptic Thomas!
Now, do you doubt that your Bird was true?
Here is a link to a very good analysis of the poem: https://splitthelark.wordpress.com. I want to point out that this spinster really had the capacity for language and expression we often think not associated with our stereotype of the reclusive woman. The poem is laden with violence, injury, rot (sceptic/septic). Read the article.
The Current Assignment
The Next Assignment
Write a list poem. Here is a link to an article about list poems:
Here is one by Shel Silverstein:
Sick
“I cannot go to school today,”
Said little Peggy Ann McKay.
I have the measles and the mumps,
A gash, a rash and purple bumps.
My mouth is wet, my throat is dry,
I’m going blind in my right eye.
My tonsils are as big as rocks,
I’ve counted sixteen chicken pox.
And there’s one more—that’s seventeen,
And don’t you think my face looks green?
My leg is cut, my eyes are blue—
It might be instamatic flue.
I cough and sneeze and gasp and choke,
I’m sure that my left leg is broken—
My hips hurt when I move my chin,
My belly button’s caving in,
My back is wrenched, my ankle’s sprained,
My ‘pendix pains each time it rains.
My nose is cold, my toes are numb,
I have a silver in my thumb.
My neck is stiff, my voice is weak,
I hardly whisper when I speak.
My tongue is filling up my mouth,
I think my hair is falling out.
My elbow’s bent, my spine ain’t straight,
My temperature is one-o-eight.
My brain is shrunk, I cannot hear,
There is a hole inside my ear.
I have a hangnail, and my hart is—what?
What’s that? What’s that you say?
You say today is… Saturday?
G’bye, I’m going out to play!”
The Next Meeting
The next meeting will be on Thursday, July 19, 2018
A capacity for language? yes! A weird, imaginative sense? yes! While one might play with a live captured bird, maybe keep the bird in a cage, observe it, if intent upon the study of nature, one might, even, slice it open. I watched my uncle butcher the chickens we picked out for dinner whenever he asked if we would like to, but we mostly demurred. Once, one of us did, and my uncle swept the bird off the pen's floor, grabbed it by the neck with his right hand, and gathered its legs in the other, stretched his hands out and twisted the head held in his right hand to break its neck, and then, he swung the carcass now in his left hand and slammed it's neck like a stick of wood onto the chopping block just as he swung the hand-held ax downward, and in one quick blow, severed the head, he hung the carcass up high to let the blood drain out, and then he removed the bird after it finished bleeding out, slid a noose from a ball of hanging twine around its legs, after having held down the bird in a five gallon can of boiling water for a while, pulled it out, and hung it up for the hot water to drip off and for all of us to work on plucking the bird so that his wife, our aunt could finish gutting it, and cleaning it up, before stuffing it with a mixture of chopped onions, celery, salt and pepper, and bread crumb before shoving the bird into the broiler pan , adding fluid to suit, and sticking it into the firewood burning stove’s black oven. Maybe there were two birds in the oven. I'm sure that. At least two birds were needed to feed family and children- adults and youngsters, as this was during the War and boys were shipping to the front in Europe for D-Day.
ReplyDeleteMaking a List, Making it Quick, {For Catholic Confession}
ReplyDeleteAs the red lamp was lit over the confessional
I virtually hemmed and hawed for a while
And slowly approached the left side of the box,
Pushed aside the red velour curtain, entered,
Intentionally intent, on the verge of scarred,
But prompted by the intention to confess,
I waited on father’s head, in profile to appear
beyond the slider door, his pointed hands
Held high, almost to his nose, as he looked
At the crucifix, a miracle of the Crucified Jesus.
Father did not pounce upon me, as I opened
With the ceremonial words of my confession.
“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” paused
To wonder some more about the order of my sins.
I decide to go with the venial before confessing’
The deadly sins, the commandments that cause
Even the justified to squirm like worms in a can.
But, at a young age, some things are very lovely
While some others are perversely ugly, so ugly.
To a kid, the short of confession is to be very safe
The way to go is to confess everything one dares--
Make it short & sweet to confess: Disobedience?
Sure thing! All the “don’ts” added to the long list
Of my venial sins. Add to the list the act of “lying”
For the sake of covering up some small mischief.
The number mattered only to father. Interrupted
By a question; say, if I were asked for a short list,
I’d be prompt to pause, reflect, on a round number.
Anything related to sex mattered most, particularly,
When accidental or willing experimentation meant
A very close examination of conscience to come up
With the act, a number for times, & more specificity.
Self-duplicitousness was a conjugation of factors
More or less intended to either mischaracterize
An occasion of sin or to conveniently camouflage
Whatever. As a kid, I actually intended, venially,
Never mortally. The big stuff came later and was
No less easy to sincerely quantify, clarify, or exactify.
The essential matter of confession was to present
One’s self, ritually make a declaration of one's sins,
Hope the priest would attach a penance in exchange
For a heartfelt and hopeful absolution, with a promise
to sin no more, to be free of guilt as if one would never sin,
Until the next time, that is, when “Sister Blanche “marched
our class from school to church for us to go to confession,
Starting with an examination of conscience, an old thing.+
+ First, List the small sins; second, always end with big ones.
G. Coulombe © 07-07-2018