Poetry Corner

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

CARDIAC (1983)

I want a car that I can ride in
a powerpack cadillac a coked-up cadillac
a rustproof dustproof chrome roof cadillac
whacked out cadillac
smokestack cadillac shockstop cadillac
cadillac cadillac lac lac lactose
pure rose cream and shiny
skin tight cadillac fishtit cadillac
switch hit cadillac
fleshtone cadillac shinbone cadillac
assassinated cadillac (that's the JFK
Dallas version of a cadillac)
a poontang cadillac! El Dorado! Coup de Ville!
Fleetwood Custom brand new whitewalls
a dismantled cadillac a D-cup cadillac
Jayne Mansfield's head
in the back of her big pink cadillac
and the chihuahuas lying dead on the highway
by the roofless cadillac that bloody caddy
o caddy, o daddy
Cos this ain't no Honda no Buick Skylark,
es no Toyota, no Yamahaha
Forget Ford Fairlane and Chevrolaylay
they ain't our speedo oh no no no no
This is America and we drive Cadillacs
cadillacs all kinda cadillacs
Yo, swell fins on this here caddy
Hey flag down that big black caddy
that black black cadillac
and come on over here
and step inside your daddy's cadillac
it's got green leather seats
and folding ashtrays
brand new FM all the options
So we take a drive into the night
and then we park it in the darkness
under a werewolf moon
and come on over here
climb into the back of your daddy's caddy
your slow smile surrounds me
and as you crawl over
that green leather seat
your skirt rides up and I can see
I can see oh say can you see
by the green dashboard light
the sudden flash of shiny thigh
we are coiled like hibernating snakes
in the back of your daddy's caddy
your creamy skin laid on green leather
and isn't that the whitest skin
the whitest skin I've ever seen?
and the radio reminds us
Dont forget the Motor City
oh don't forget the Motor City!
and your left leg is hooked over the front
seat and I've got fluid drive
klik klik your legs are locking
klik klik this caddy's rocking
I can feel the blood beneath
the surface of your seamless skin
I can trace the specific contours
of your skull as surely as
that topographer tracing the contours
of the skin of the planet
and is this not America beneath my hands?
Its mountains and rivers and the missile silos
six miles beneath the cornfields of Kansas?
No, that is not this
this is purely human
stroking you in the back
of your daddy's caddy
stoking you in the back
of your daddy's caddy
Listen to my blood humming
listen to my heart coming
and the tumblers fall into place
and the padlock pops up
you slide wide open
and we're wrapped in
this perfect envelope of flesh
in the back of your daddy's caddy
and your private parts are more perfect
than the grillwork on an El Dorado
O caddy, o daddy!
O sweet god of motor cars
there is no cadillac
Cadillac is just one of the
alltime great American words
and I wish I wish I wish
I wish your daddy was here to see it.

-- Max Blagg

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AItnMmLfsHg

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Poetry Corner

Ode to a Long Hot Summer (6/17/09)

Hot lust in the summertime
Much rapture on the grass
But no matter which season
comes or goes
may you be between the legs
of a fine, young lass.

-- freakyfreaky

This one is even better

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Poetry Corner

Issaquah September (6/20/09)

Indian land
Snoqualmie summer
Hop harvest
Frontier post
Old train town
Immigrant inlet

The engines stopped running
but the ghosts remain
cattlemen, lubmerjacks, coal miners, wildcats
tells stories
of their glory
on the smoke
of wood burned,
saloon stoked,
supper fires

Leaves yield
yellow upon
autumn's approach
the gingko
stills stands
artifact sentinel

wind whistles wildly
through the highland wilderness
rivers roll roaringly
out yonder
whitewater falls
elk grazing gracefully
over cloud shadowed meadows
this Issaquah September

-- freakyfreaky

Nice poem Freaky

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Whether to be a
great cagey perfumed
beast
dying under the
sweet patronage
of Kings
& exist like luxuriant
flowers beneath the
emblems of their
Strange empire
or by mere insouciant
faith
slap them, call their cards
spit on fate & cast hell
to flames in usury

by dying, nobly
we could exist like
innocent trolls
propagate our revels
& give the finger to the
gods in our private
bedrooms

let's rather, maybe,
perhaps,
get f-ucking out in
the open, & by
swelling, jubilantly
Magnificently, end them.

- Morrison, Jim. Wilderness, vol. 1, p. 127

Euripides

When I am President
subways will be quieter. I'll hire the
unemployed to wax the rails, and trains will
sound like ice moving over ice. And
conductors will no longer blare "Watch the
closing doors!", because noone ever watches
the closing doors. There's nothing to see
about closing doors. Instead, conductors
will read from Euripides. If you travel the
whole length of the E train, you'll hear
the whole Medea. Euripides is
the best guide to human life, because
he is sad, yet brave.
The same sad bravery I will bring to
the Presidency -- a stance dormant since Lincoln.
"We are doomed, perhaps," I will announce. "The
sun is breaking through the sky to slay us with
cancer, because we were
foolishly indulgent with whipped cream.
But we must set our course aright."
And all the women in the nation
will weep, and the men will have a tear in their
eye that can't quite descend,
and the people will cry to repentance:
"Repentance! Repentance!"
And I will blind myself with a
canopener and wander the
streets and prophesy
and plant an oak tree, and beneath this tree
a woman will sit 7 years, and then she'll rise and
save us from the sun
and the cancer will leave our faces
and we'll sing a new song
which will resemble the music of Euripides
that has been lost for centuries. And the
conductors will sing
that, as we ride on waxed rails, like
ice over ice.

-- Sparrow. "Euripides", I Always Vote for Sparrow for President (1992).

Fear of a black planet? http://www.imeem.com/wackywavinginfl...ere-president/

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Issaquah September (6/20/09)

Indian land
Snoqualmie summer
Hop harvest
Frontier post
Old train town
Immigrant inlet

The engines stopped running
but the ghosts remain
cattlemen, lubmerjacks, coal miners, wildcats
tells stories
of their glory
on the smoke
of wood burned,
saloon stoked,
supper fires

Leaves yield
yellow upon
autumn's approach
the gingko
stills stands
artifact sentinel

wind whistles wildly
through the highland wilderness
rivers roll roaringly
out yonder
whitewater falls
elk grazing gracefully
over cloud shadowed meadows
this Issaquah September

-- freakyfreaky

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

DELICIOUS words, the life of wanton wit,
That doth inspire our souls with sweet content,
Why hath your father Hermes thought it fit,
Mine eyes should surfeit by my heart's consent ?
Full twenty summers have I fading seen,
And twenty Floras in their golden guise :
Yet never view'd I such a pleasant Greene,
As this whose garnish'd gleads compared, devise.
Of all the flowers a Lilly (1) once I lov'd,
Whose labouring beauty branch'd itself abroad;
But now old age his glory hath remov'd,
And greener objects are mine eyes abroad.
No country to the downs of Arcadie,
Where Aganippe's ever springing wells
Do moist the meads with bubbling melody,
And makes me muse what more in Delos dwells.
There feeds our Menaphon's celestial Muse,
There makes his pipe his pastoral report :
Which strained now a note above his use,
Foretels he'll ne'er come chaunt of Thoae's sport.
Read, all that list, and read till you mislike,
To condemn who can, so Envy be not judge:
No, read who can, swell more higher, lest it shriek;
Robin, thou hast done well, care not who grudge!

-- HENRY UPCHER (2)

1 JOHN LILLY, a popular, but pedantic writer of that day.
2 I believe there are no other relics of this writer known.

-- Greene, Robert. GREENE'S ARCADIA; OR, CAMILLA'S ALARUM TO SLUMBER
EUPHUES IN HIS MELANCHOLY CELL AT SILEXEDRA, A new edition, p. xxiii
(6th Edit. 1814)

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Ode to a Long Hot Summer (6/17/09)

Hot lust in the summertime
Much rapture on the grass
But no matter which season
comes or goes
may you be between the legs
of a fine, young lass.

-- freakyfreaky

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Romance Sonambulo

Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea
and the horse on the mountain.
With the shade around her waist
she dreams on her balcony,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
Green, how I want you green.
Under the gypsy moon,
all things are watching her
and she cannot see them.

Green, how I want you green.
Big hoarfrost stars
come with the fish of shadow
that opens the road of dawn.
The fig tree rubs its wind
with the sandpaper of its branches,
and the forest, cunning cat,
bristles its brittle fibers.
But who will come? And from where?
She is still on her balcony
green flesh, her hair green,
dreaming in the bitter sea.

--My friend, I want to trade
my horse for her house,
my saddle for her mirror,
my knife for her blanket.
My friend, I come bleeding
from the gates of Cabra.
--If it were possible, my boy,
I'd help you fix that trade.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
--My friend, I want to die
decently in my bed.
Of iron, if that's possible,
with blankets of fine chambray.
Don't you see the wound I have
from my chest up to my throat?
--Your white shirt has grown
thirsy dark brown roses.
Your blood oozes and flees a
round the corners of your sash.
But now I am not I,
nor is my house now my house.
--Let me climb up, at least,
up to the high balconies;
Let me climb up! Let me,
up to the green balconies.
Railings of the moon
through which the water rumbles.

Now the two friends climb up,
up to the high balconies.
Leaving a trail of blood.
Leaving a trail of teardrops.
Tin bell vines
were trembling on the roofs.
A thousand crystal tambourines
struck at the dawn light.

Green, how I want you green,
green wind, green branches.
The two friends climbed up.
The stiff wind left
in their mouths, a strange taste
of bile, of mint, and of basil
My friend, where is she--tell me--
where is your bitter girl?
How many times she waited for you!
How many times would she wait for you,
cool face, black hair,
on this green balcony!
Over the mouth of the cistern
the gypsy girl was swinging,
green flesh, her hair green,
with eyes of cold silver.
An icicle of moon
holds her up above the water.
The night became intimate
like a little plaza.
Drunken "Guardias Civiles"
were pounding on the door.
Green, how I want you green.
Green wind. Green branches.
The ship out on the sea.
And the horse on the mountain.


------------


Verde que te quiero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar
y el caballo en la montaña.
Con la sombra en la cintura
ella sueña en su baranda,
verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Bajo la luna gitana,
las cosas la están mirando
y ella no puede mirarlas.
Verde que te quiero verde.
Grandes estrellas de escarcha
vienen con el pez de sombra
que abre el camino del alba.
La higuera frota su viento
con la lija de sus ramas,
y el monte, gato garduño,
eriza sus pitas agrias.
¿Pero quién vendra? ¿Y por dónde...?
Ella sigue en su baranda,
Verde came, pelo verde,
soñando en la mar amarga.
--Compadre, quiero cambiar
mi caballo por su casa,
mi montura por su espejo,
mi cuchillo per su manta.
Compadre, vengo sangrando,
desde los puertos de Cabra.
--Si yo pudiera, mocito,
este trato se cerraba.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
--Compadre, quiero morir
decentemente en mi cama.
De acero, si puede ser,
con las sábanas de holanda.
¿No ves la herida que tengo
desde el pecho a la garganta?
--Trescientas rosas morenas
lleva tu pechera blanca.
Tu sangre rezuma y huele
alrededor de tu faja.
Pero yo ya no soy yo,
ni mi casa es ya mi casa.
--Dejadme subir al menos
hasta las altas barandas;
¡dejadme subir!, dejadme,
hasta las verdes barandas.
Barandales de la luna
por donde retumba el agua.
Ya suben los dos compadres
hacia las altas barandas.
Dejando un rastro de sangre.
Dejando un rastro de lágrimas.
Temblaban en los tejados
farolillos de hojalata.
Mil panderos de cristal
herían la madrugada.
Verde que te quiero verde,
verde viento, verdes ramas.
Los dos compadres subieron.
El largo viento dejaba
en la boca un raro gusto
de hiel, de menta y de albahaca.
¡Compadre! ¿Donde está, díme?
¿Donde está tu niña amarga?
¡Cuántas veces te esperó!
¡Cuántas veces te esperara,
cara fresca, negro pelo,
en esta verde baranda!
Sobre el rostro del aljibe
se mecía la gitana.
Verde carne, pelo verde,
con ojos de fría plata.
Un carámbano de luna
la sostiene sobre el agua.
La noche se puso íntima
como una pequeña plaza.
Guardias civiles borrachos
en la puerta golpeaban.
Verde que te qinero verde.
Verde viento. Verdes ramas.
El barco sobre la mar.
Y el caballo en la montaña.

Translated by William Logan

-- Federico Garcia Lorca

[freakyfreaky]

Re: Poetry Corner

Tower Of Light

O tower of light, sad beauty
that magnified necklaces and statues in the sea,
calcareous eye, insignia of the vast waters, cry
of the mourning petrel, tooth of the sea, wife
of the Oceanian wind, O separate rose
from the long stem of the t-rampled bush
that the depths, converted into archipelago,
O natural star, green diadem,
alone in your lonesome dynasty,
still unattainable, elusive, desolate
like one drop, like one grape, like the sea.

-- Pablo Neruda

Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market

Among the market greens,
a bullet
from the ocean
depths,
a swimming
projectile,
I saw you,
dead.

All around you
were lettuces,
sea foam
of the earth,
carrots,
grapes,
but
of the ocean
truth,
of the unknown,
of the
unfathomable
shadow, the
depths
of the sea,
the abyss,
only you had survived,
a pitch-black, varnished
witness
to deepest night.

Only you, well-aimed
dark bullet
from the abyss,
mangled
at one tip,
but constantly
reborn,
at anchor in the current,
winged fins
windmilling
in the swift
flight
of
the
marine
shadow,
a mourning arrow,
dart of the sea,
olive, oily fish.
I saw you dead,
a deceased king
of my own ocean,
green
assault, silver
submarine fir,
seed
of seaquakes,
now
only dead remains,
yet
in all the market
yours
was the only
purposeful form
amid
the bewildering rout
of nature;
amid the fragile greens
you were
a solitary ship,
armed
among the vegetables
fin and prow black and oiled,
as if you were still
the vessel of the wind,
the one and only
pure
ocean
machine:
unflawed, navigating
the waters of death.

-- Pablo Neruda

Nothing But Death

There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.

And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.

Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.

Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.

I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.

But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.

Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.


Translated by Robert Bly

-- Pablo Neruda

Ode to the Sea

Here surrounding the island,
There's sea.
But what sea?
It's always overflowing.
Says yes,
Then no,
Then no again,
And no,
Says yes
In blue
In sea spray
Raging,
Says no
And no again.
It can't be still.
It stammers
My name is sea.

It slaps the rocks
And when they aren't convinced,
Strokes them
And soaks them
And smothers them with kisses.

With seven green tongues
Of seven green dogs
Or seven green tigers
Or seven green seas,
Beating its chest,
Stammering its name,

Oh Sea,
This is your name.
Oh comrade ocean,
Don't waste time
Or water
Getting so upset
Help us instead.
We are meager fishermen,
Men from the shore
Who are hungry and cold
And you're our foe.
Don't beat so hard,
Don't shout so loud,
Open your green coffers,
Place gifts of silver in our hands.
Give us this day our daily fish.

-- Luis Bacalov & Pablo Neruda

Pablo liked to write in green because he thought it was the color of hope.

[Pedro Xaramillo]

Re: Poetry Corner

I go among your body as among the world,
your belly the sunlit center of the city,
your breasts two churches where are celebrated
the great parallel mysteries of the blood,
the looks of my eyes cover you like ivy,
you are a city by the sea assaulted,
you are a rampart by the light divided
into two halves, distinct, color of peaches,
and you are saltiness, you are rocks and birds
beneath the edict of concentrated noon

and dressed in the coloring of my desires
you go as naked as my thoughts go naked,
I go among your eyes as I swim water,
the tigers come to these eyes to drink their dreams,
the hummingbird is burning among these flames,
I go upon your forehead as on the moon,
like cloud I go among your imagining
journey your belly as I journey your dream,

your loins are harvest, a field of waves and singing,
your loins are crystal and your loins are water,
your lips, your hair, the looks you give me, they
all night shower down like rain, and all day long
you open up my breast with your fingers of water,
you close my eyelids with your mouth of water,
raining upon my bones, and in my breast
the roots of water drive deep a liquid tree,

I travel through your waist as through a river,
I voyage your body as through a grove going,
as by a footpath going up a mountain
and suddenly coming upon a steep ravine
I go the straitened way of your keen thoughts
break through to daylight upon your white forehead
and there my spirit flings itself down, is shattered
now I collect my fragments one by one
and go on, bodiless, searching, in the dark....

you take on the likeness of a tree, a cloud,
you are all birds and now you are a star,
now you resemble the sharp edge of a sword
and now the executioner's bowl of blood,
the encroaching ivy that over grows and then
roots out the soul and divides it from itself,

* Sun Stone (selected fragment)

Octavio Paz, Mexican Poet