jjcsm
Young poet, looking for work, just like every other recent college grad! / / Poetry is the journal of the sea animal living on land, wanting to fly in the air. Poetry is a search for syllables to shoot at the barriers of the unknown and the unknowable. Poetry is a phantom script telling how rainbows are made and why they go away. ~Carl Sandburg, Poetry Considered
The cat, black as midnight, perfect in from and feature, lay before an open hearth,
as though resting, in death, trussed, like a roe deer carried home from the hunt, legs lace.
Cat lay, having ceased her struggles, staring at the fire, as though contemplating her
eight lives, stoic, perhaps merely exhausted, resigned, retaining dignity in the certain death's face.
The Queen found this way to amuse herself, withe the men away playing at wars,
a charm for invisibility, she, too empty to take any great art seriously, even the Black grace.
Queen Morgause knew that magic ran in her blood, as a member of the Old Race.
Into the cauldron of boiling water, at the hearth, the Queen flung cat, then stood watch,
the horrible convulsions and a single dreadful cry as cat quickly passed into death, on the boil.
Queen Morgause of Lothian and Orkney sat before her cauldron and waited,
occasionally she stirred to poke the cat with her wooden spoon as the stench did uncoil.
A watcher in the night would have seen, in the flattering reddish glow of the peat fire,
what an exquisite creature she was tonight, with her deep, big eyes, glistening hair, quite royal.
She practiced her magic, before the iron cauldron, with the candle and a sheet of polished brass,
not so much as for a need of invisibility, more an excuse for standing long before her mirror loyal,
Queen Morgause knew that was the undisputed beauty of her era Medieval.
The cat had come to pieces, leaving only a deep **** of hair and grease and gobbets, the white bones
eddied in the broth, heavier ones lying still, the others lifting gracefully, like leaves in an autumn blown.
The Queen, wrinkling her nose to the stench, strained the liquid into a second *** leaving
on the flannel strainer, a sodden mass of matted hair and meat shreds and delicate white bone.
She blew on the sediment and began turning it over with her wooden spoon, prodding them
to let heat out, soon she was able to pick out the delicate bones and place them in a neat pile grown.
The Queen knew that every pure black cat had a certain bone, which, when held in the mouth after
boiling the live cat, endowed invisibility, but nobody knew which bone, hence the need of the mirror shone,
The Queen sought not indivisibility, truly, as she felt herself to be far too beautiful to disappear.
The Queen scraped the remains of her cat into two heaps, one of bone and one of steaming meat
daintily she took one bone between her teeth, stood before her brass, looking at herself in sleepy pleasure.
She threw the bone into the fire and fetched another, standing, turning, and reaching,
placing the bone in her mouth and looking to see if she had vanished, a look in one long measure.
She moved so gracefully, as if a dancer, pacing out her patterned steps, most beauteously,
she moved as if someone was there to watch her, or, rather, as if it were her reflection she did treasure.
Queen Morgause lost interest, before testing all the bones, and stretched herself, as a cat, before the fire at leisure.
Apr 19, 2012
Apr 19, 2012 at 10:41 AM UTC
Will you build me up
and put me back together
or will you fill me up
just to drain me altogether
There is no sound coming
from the radio tonight
with nothing left to say
and a little more to lose
Did you find your way
and lay it on the line
work it all out
without saying anything
Not expecting any answers
while questioning everything
too much information
but never let inside
Did you notice how
you walk too far behind me
when trouble comes around
will you still be there beside me
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 8:40 AM UTC
Sometimes
It hurts so much
to just give it away
I know that sometimes
that's just the way, but
it hurts almost every day
I know, I know, about
every day, but I hurt
and when I hurt
I say why,
why does it have
to be this way
I thought that this
time you had come
to stay
And that's why it hurts today
So now, I just
have to say,
won't you please
please just stay
away!
Mar 9, 2012
Mar 9, 2012 at 8:18 AM UTC
My girlfriend called up
as she ran off to work,
"Look on the counter by the
coffee-maker before you go."
A Bismark had been torn
in half, well, not quite half,
the red gel filling
squeezed onto the wax paper
wrapper, with
a little thumb print,
just visible in the
white frosting on
the top
is half a Bismark a sign of
love
or is the red smear, bleeding
from the Bismark's heart
the sign
or, is it just a leftover Bismark
it was delicious, but not filling.
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 2:43 PM UTC
I HAVE been reading the poems of
Marie Howe, "What the Living Do"
A woman, oldest of many children
Abused by her father
And abandoned by the death of a beloved brother
Her poetry is mostly beautiful, melancholy thought
on these topics
And yet, she manages to bring spirit, love, and
hope where I would only look for despair
In the margins of her poem "Prayer" someone
has written in pencil:
1. I want to write about god and suffering and
how the trees endure/what we/don't want--
the long dead months before the apple blossoms
2. I've been thinking about how the Sorrow of men
is different from the sorrow of women,
tonight i don't know how
3. I have been thinking that maybe I will release
myself from all this pain, before i read to the end
4. And it went on like that through the night we made
up until we could pretend it was morning
Feb 29, 2012
Feb 29, 2012 at 6:44 AM UTC
the wind takes
the leaves
now curled
dried and brown
on the oak
sapling
the leaves shake
loose
their mantra
calling
Oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ
to bless this wood
with their
compassion
Feb 21, 2012
Feb 21, 2012 at 10:40 AM UTC
IT seemed as though
the sun had come out to
play, just for a minute
or two, to catch a breath
and maybe give mom
a little bit of a break
but the clouds moved
in, again, the sun ran home
and I buttoned my coat
against the cold winds
Feb 18, 2012
Feb 18, 2012 at 5:46 PM UTC
I have learned, now,
the best way to find
is without seeking, as,
most often,
I have merely
laid to hand, in some place
I was sure I would remember.
the watch, I found in a coat pocket
the bill, tucked into the book I
had been reading
lately, I half expect to discover
you, doing the laundry
or in the furnace room,
waiting,
next to the tool bench
Feb 16, 2012
Feb 16, 2012 at 3:03 PM UTC
ONLY love is new
the need to overcome
time becomes such
a powerful force
an attraction elemental
like gravity, entropy
or magnetic
We may never become more than this.
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 12:02 PM UTC
OUT here where
the stars like to shine
I will hear your tale
if you will listen to mine
How a love that we followed
on it's wayward course
just never suspected
could outlive its source
How quickly we discover
ourselves tumbling down
awake to the slights and
the cuts we have found
Which work better than any
fraction of particular kindness
we too soon found ourselves
suffering from night blindness
Wandering under these stars
that we had hoped might lead
in our search for a new land
where young lovers concede
We surrender to the inexorable defeat
of passion for that kindness so sweet
Feb 13, 2012
Feb 13, 2012 at 11:45 AM UTC