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RA Mar 2014
We're building a dam to hold everything in
acting like beavers, like talking's a sin
trying to hold back the pain and the strife
the catch? We have never seen beavers in life.
February 27, 2014
11:31 PM
Mike Hauser Oct 2013
As I rounded the hill
Face to face with the still
That I'd only heard rumors spoke of

With no one around
I sat myself down
And proceeded to sample the stuff

As sweet as honeydew melon
Got my feet to a geling
Made me feel like I did in my youth

Sat with a dumb gaze for a while
Then got the biggest of smiles
When it came to me what I should do

So I went with my plan
And opened a stand
Right there on the mountain side

When word in the forest got out
I never had any doubt
That all of the critters would be stoping by

You should have seen them all  guzzle
As the squirrels ordered doubles
Then proceeded to tell wild nutty lies

It was quite the fiasco
When they brought out the cowboy hats and  lasso's
As the party went well into the night

They paid in nuts and berries
Which was fine by me
With them I made different flavors of shine

In flavors I made 32
So I wouldn't get sued
By Baskin-Robbins who has 31 at this time

From all the flavors I made
Boysenberry was the fav
The raccoons made up a dance called the boysenberry crawl

Which was a big hit
At the discotheque
The beavers built in the early fall

We made a deal
I would sell them my swill
For a little piece of the pie

We were all getting rich
I have to admit
It's quite the relationship, the beavers and I

Of course the beavers got greedy
You know how beavers are needy
Couldn't leave well enough alone

Figured they had the right
Who's going to pay for these lights
That make this the best disco in town

They started charging a cover
Which didn't go over
As well as they would have liked

Plus they doubled the price of the *****
Which left little food
On the woodland creatures tables at night

Things went from bad to worse
When they started to curse
Me, "The Man" for the troubles they had

I barely made it out alive
By the skin of my hide
When I packed and hit the road mighty fast

Things had been going so well
Before it all went to hell
And me and my still were forced to leave

Now still to this day
You know why I always say
That famous line, passed down in time
"Leave it to Beav"
Don't ask...
little billy ****** he got bored one day
decided he would take a trip a weekend breakaway
he headed for the beach for some sand and sun
just to have a change and have lots of fun

he packed up his tent for his weekend home
then along the beach the ****** took a roam
****** saw a dolphin swimming in the sea
****** swam to join him for some company

they began to play together in the sea
both were very happy and so full of glee
dolphin had a ball and tossed with his nose
and the ****** caught it in between his toes

they were having fun as they played away
happy and content passing on the day
when the sun went down  dolphin swam away
he waved goodbye to ****** and swam across the bay

****** he was happy and his heart content
then he fell fast asleep in his little tent.
little bobby ****** he got bored one day

decided on a trip somewhere far away

he would visit canada where other beavers stay

he would have some friends and bobby he could play.



he boarded on a plane and flew across the sea

to a place in canada where beavers there would be

he got a guide to show him where the beavers stay

then he could have some fun on his holiday.



there were lots of beavers swimming all around

bobby he joined in with new friends he had found

his boredom it had gone. now so far away

now he had some company. who just loved to play.



he was very happy as happy as can be

in this far off land far across the sea

when his trip was over back to his home once more

he headed home for england to his homeland shore
spaghetti Apr 2016
I know a guy,
he is a friend.
Whom the cops often have to,
apprehend.
He used to do
some crazy ****.
But now he doesn't do most of it.
I know you are thinking,
who is this man.
He is a friend who drives a van.
Although not to pick up kids with treats,
he uses his ride to satisfy his needs.
Which includes dolphin collecting,
live or dead,
he's always selecting.
Vaping real hard
every single day,
is how he spends,
his hard worked pay.
His job is selling,
illegal pelts
of rare albino beavers.
He sets up traps
and waits in the bushes
with an over sized cleaver.
Stalking and waiting for the perfect catch,
he watches the ****** closely.
And right as it comes into reach,
he slits the baby's throat boldly. (baby ****** not a real baby.)
My friend makes his way to the flee market,
where he sells the pelts.
He greets his customers happily,
as the beavers hang from his belt.
Blood on his hands and pride in his eyes,
he knows he's got a great prize.
The money rolls in,
and he know it is true,
that night he will party
until his lungs are blue,
(due to the fat rips he'll be vaping)
On the weekends when he's not working,
he hops into his van,
and drives to the border,
to make sure no illegals are lurking.
Loving his country with deep passion,
my friend protects us,
with the guns he has stashed in. (his van.)
After his duty is fulfilled,
he spends the rest of his time,
all alone,
drinking gallons
of acetone.
Then in the big city
he streaks for hours,
with bags of broken glass,
that he likes to devour.
I totally agree,
my friend is insane,
and on his family,
his acts cause great pain.
Although,
he treats his slaves
with a lot of respect,
and he gives porridge to the
needy and other rejects.
He's better than me,
because I like to suffocate,
small injured birds.
And barge into restaurants,
to steal cheese curds.
But my friend is the best,
friend he can be,
as I described in this poem,
that you can see.
Unless you are blind or stupid,
or don't have anyone to read you this,
just know that my friend,
has your children in his shed,
and they'll sadly be missed.
Mateuš Conrad Feb 2017
for any of my work to have any meaning, i can only suggested browsing Empedocles (of Acragas), in saying that, i suggest the name, primarily it's a form of philosophy, written in poetic form... in that it exhausts the need for poetic technique: i.e., there's more to see, than actually hear.

- just like i don't understand people who fake doing the maestro whenever they listen to classical music, in the same vein: your greengroccer... your plumber... your electricians.... god forbid you t.v. guy....  don't translate that oddity in, modern music and imitating drummers... i get air guitar, i get air maestro... no one really bother the drumming brigade, when i listen to classical music, i am looking for a maestro, when i listen to contemporary music i, want a drummer, bad; ****! St. Thomas' gospel is becoming real... like i really, really, need a *** change.... never mind the 50cl of whiskey waiting for me, or sasha foxxx's eyes... the job? hammer in a thousand nails... industrialise ***, what do you get? a **** economy... why would god enter the equation if all the problems are theological self-made-heresy? it's not even that *** sells, and god gives gives rise to stampedes... what with the Koran and oil, are we counting to state the same arithmetic... i mean: the industrialisation of ***... nothing that hurts, nothing but a quip... that sorta of definition belongs in China or India with a billion participants... what we have is a case of mouthing off the competitors, when you're actually chihuahua in the Sahara of expectation.... i'm as mad as the numbers say i am... personal stories are non-essential.... i included mine for added effect... or a presumtpion that i might: acknowledged as having said anything in total....counter to english existentialism, so wholly preoccpupied with zoos and biology as the only scientific resource... i can't agree to it making sense, in the standard item-basis-list of following-up an argument... that dire, fake or indeed couch-sloth desert-prune is only half of *σ
... i mean there's a tendency of a natural disparity, to ensure a dialectical health of any if all argument... σ = per se... it's because there no single, identifiable argument, the one current is a vogue argument, in the realm of zeitgeist parameters... it's not the only one... the world will move on... it's only that at the zenith of civilisation, we are only bound to industrialise ***, and art is, as according to W. Benjamin, in a state of: ditto, in the age of machanical, reproduction... easier said than... and so done... i feel the anaesthetic needle doing the suggested thing, of numbing me... it's not when art is given onto this Moloch-like altar... it's when *** is industrially-scaled to require cinema... and the quickie-dip of dimension having repertoire in threes... i have no care to ensure there's a narrative and a frenzy... i just care to say: there's a narrative, and a frenzy.... that one has no insurance, and that the other has all the resources that would otherwise invole a familial life... which now, evidently, is prone to same-*** affiliations than compliment-*** affiliations... meaning less art from the **** realm, and more art from the hetero or h-quasi realm (origin ****)... you need to talk about the cushions, if you're going to sleep in the bed, ****'s sake! -

to really live by the "rules" of existentialism,
to live an existential doctrine,
is to really: live an uneventful life,
or should i say: rather ordinary?
  well... i wouldn't go as far as saying it
might be boring, just... un-spectacular.

and all it takes it five beers and, oh, about
6 miles of wet wintry cement,
   and o.t.t.'s album blumenkraft,
with the crescendo song: billy the kid strikes back...

walk 6 or 7 miles in winter
and you come back into a warm abode
and you have skeleton hands...
numb from the cold...
but in england winter is different
than on the continent...
a wet winter (which is very english)
is worse than a dry winter (which is
continental)...
  as honesty goes... -18C in a dry winter
is probably not as bad as -1C in a wet
winter...
    so there's me, completely
****-faced watching the t.v. series
this is us, and one of the characters is
a black kid that gets adopted by
a white family when
    one of the triplets of the white family
dies in child-birth,
and he finds his biological father...
and also a mid-life crisis:
white folks told me to excell,
so he does,
   black daddy was a poet and played
the piano...
and he experiences a mild
schizophrenia... see, it's not a scary word,
i mean: without the extreme symptoms...
   a split-mind...
thankfully i cushioned mine on bilingualism...
and i have been ever since: bilingual -
nothing to be proud of,
   after all: there's the genius polymath...
but it's not about that: it's about winter...
winters in england are so different to
winters on the continent...
the grey skies? oh, that's here all year...
    talk about being a weather man
in Saudi Arabia, most of them moved to England:
where the action is...
          
but really, i can't imagine why existentialism
as a movement, culminated in the zenith
it achieved (precursor movement?
phenomenology)
        oh yah yah: were nieche, very Kensington,
very, Chiswick...

but to really appreciate an existentialist
dogma, a truly uneventful life...
   and given that existentialism in the French
vein akin to Kant but not so much Heidegger
lends itself to the cartesian maxim...
well... that's because it kinda has to,
but not really...

  Kant took out i think and merely focused on that,
his biography goes along the lines of:
a ritual walker, stayed in one place,
    a rook of the clock, i couldn't exactly call him
a pawn... nonetheless...
             a very uneventful life...
why? thought.
    
    what's the most interesting thing i've done today?
i thought, or, i had a thought (a / the article scissors
cutting off the -ism)...
and that's about it...
    had a thought...
                   i hit the gong that thus translates into
the post ergo / therefore of i am,
   and then i realised: i wasn't motivated enough
by my thought: to do much!
              
historically speaking, my writing can only be placed
into a dynamic of being called post-existentialism,
it's not boasting, it's just a plain fact,
   like Monday will be St. Valentine's day, 2017...
and some men collect stamps,
   and some men like fishing,
    and some men have the habit of writing about
things that are, a bit like Avogardo's constant,
meaning they'd love to speak about these things
over, and over again, and never get bored of them,
or for that matter: start families.

strange how it works, have it all...
       or have none of it, to later only have that one
vector that's opposite of mortal, ******...
        or have both, in a way,
and be later traced to some Shakespearean controversy
about a mistaken identity...
well... there's that too.

that must be it, existentialism, and the most,
ordinary life...
         pause for what, akin to something else i wrote
about beginning the thought catching
up to the walk a few days earlier which began
with z and i and diacritical marks,
how northern slavs wouldn't necessarily disrespect
the already present diacritical mark
on the ι (iota), i.e. regarding acute z (ź),
and how if z & i appear together, i.e.
    z and immediately after it, i... you don't bother
writing an acute version of z,
   as a southern slav (balkan) might,
with his caron (ž)...

or a bit like stating the old chestnut of universals
vs. particulars...
   well... they can say what they like about
the cheapness of writing in this medium
but there is nothing so gut-wrenching as a deleted
passage, that will never return...
    immediate heartache... there on the screen,
the computer decides to "have a mind of its own"
moment by either your carelessness
          or the computer's defects and: ****!
gone, a shift+ and suddenly... writing while not
looking at the keyboard, as you do... ****!
gone... gone baby... gone...
    and if that's not analogy of: a lesson
in placing your hands correctly onto the computer
does me: you're looking at the keyboard
and not at the screen...

  how about writing with my eyes closed?
  haven't seen anyone attempt that...

here goes:

    and with that i give you hades...

not bad, i should try it more often... it's not believable
because it's actually correct and has no mistakes....
*******.

alternative? and with that i give you sheol...
   still the same... double *******.

((   ((
    
and that's all it takes... the part where you let go,
because you have to:
  the regret can be there, but soon has to
be overruled...
   it mattered at the zenith of logic,
it was really there, for such a brief moment,
i could call it a study in how you can ****
a very lucid moment, and then have to "resort",
but, rather: merely accepting it as having no place
in the overall composition...
    so to the windowsill, finishing off
blackbeard (whiskey and coca cola and
a cigarette)... changing the aura from
o.t.t.'s album taken home from the "marathon"
(yes, the prime existential tool is the transcendence
of synonyms, encouraging misnomers
or: how to not build dams, or become custard
beavers, looking for words...
    the river, every time, always looking at a river...
the sea and the people and time...
   rivers occupy an infinite concept of space
and the change within such a Thermopylae,
as it might give you indigestion,
or the highest serving rank of memory...
the sea and the people don't scare me,
and it's hardly a thing of admiration...
its just a sight of pulverisation, a headache...
the river, the solitude, and the fact that local
newspapers have adverts of only lonely women...
sure, read a national newspaper and there
are women seeking men, women seeking women,
men seeking women, men seeking men...
but look at a local, a local newspaper: only women
advertising themselves for candles and firecrackers...
it seams men were always programmed (a priori)
        into the gravitas of solitude...
what i really meant to say: existentialistic writings
can appear foreboding with the ditto...
with the perception that there's this ulterior,
dark-seeded motive...
      i just thought about bypassing the thesaurus,
like some writers do,
    you can spot it when they do,
a word they looked up from their labour
of lumberjacking the keyboard
sticks out like a modern statue, or a broken finger,
a word: right off the pages of a thesaurus...
   i just mean that there's nothing sinister enclosed in
the said "brackets"...  there's nothing additional about it,
but as narratives go... you sometimes want to bypass
Sherlock Holmes and write a synonym-antonym,
you want to bypass the thesaurus, content with your
own vocab riches, but too "lazy" / engrossed in
what's actually coming...
say, that interlude, a cigarette, finishing off the whiskey,
with the glass freezing and having a layer of ice
around it... and: why i'll never be part of the nirvana's
or the doors' cult...
     pearl jam's indifference, from their second album.

so it's sometimes thereuputic letting go,
  after all, no one built a house on the summit of Everest,
if i wrote something of such clarifying quality,
and lost it... i can only apply an imagery of having seen it,
the best i can suggest that i wrote something
akin to 1 + 1 = 2, and then accidently deleted it...
and that's the sad part,
universals as vowels, particulars like consonants,
    even numbers akin to 2 and odd numbers akin to 1
(divided into decimals, or the wormhole of 0.123456 etc.) -
it was a beautiful sight, and then, again: ****!
gone... like a magician doing a trick
   and then... the sadness of having lost the technique
to recreate it...
well, the best i can do to recreate it is based
on a short argument...
   if universals and particulars (relying on the fact
that both have a plural form,
  i.e. so not 1 in 1, but the many of 1,
   and akin to: the 1 in many, and the many in many,
and the 1 in 1 / focus, something identifiable) -
or loosely universals like vowels, and particulars like consonants,
but given the two experience diacritical distinction /
additions... i could best remember what i wrote
as: 1 e.g. particular, if divided: fractions, and after
fractions: decimals...
                2 e.g. universal, if divided: whole numbers,
and after whole numbers fractions, and later decimals...
   so on and so forth with 3 (particular), 4 (universal),
     5 (p.), 6 (u.)...
                 a bit like having your own telescope
and microscope, just looking at what we make silence
of, our two ways of encoding what could have,
or should have been said, that was nonetheless said,
transcending our contemporaries as, what can only
be described as... an echo, lost in the caves of aeons...

this promenade begun with something to z & i...
or z, i, ι, ź and ž (what a nice pentagram,
i was watching the six nation's match
between wales and england,
and lo! behold... a goat at the fore!
  mind you, i took a cigarette break when they scored
their two tries).
Cardiff? yeah, been there once...
         Poland v Wales qualifying match,
donning a polish football shirt, got approached
by two young welsh girls saying: your team is ****...
started giving it the local... how fast they ran away...
and they say we laugh more than we cry,
   and i could be the one to snigger a sly laugh at
that memory, but cinema memory says to me:
time to usher in the reverse-psychology,
calling white black, and laughter crying...
        or as i like to call it, the paradox marriage
that has, literally not tentacle hold on the world,
   the bilingual marriage,
             lodged deep inside my head,
most recognisable by my theory study of diacritical
marks, or actually having noticed them,
and having no real, authentic accent to remind me
that i belong in either geography...
         whether from beginning, or toward an end...
some call it acting, some call it faking,
  i call it: just what i was given, or, more precisely:
what i earned... and that was to no good use...
        unless... this is the best expression of what the foundations
look like.

what was i thinking of? ah!

   it just involved the σ                       ς roundabout...
the aesthetic variation for one,
but on another investigation, well, sigma, total, sum,
and how be obey it like a golden ratio or pi,
   it's just auto-suggestive of how we are never truly
synchronised in our arguments...
   but, "paradoxically", or should i say: by a miracle,
make up the greatest potent to have an argument...
  we can never truly really synchronises ourselves
to fill the boots of expressing an utopian dream,
otherwise we wouldn't dream... period...
  so bye bye Freud and that method of escapism...
     we already ensured that, if they be our creation,
the gods are already at war with the Titans...
      i'll actually acknowledge that in an age of
pop philosophy in that Greece was, a place of allowing
a fertility of thought and later popularising it
(we don't live in times where there's a fertility consecrated
on the altar of thought, or what philosophy is, thinking per se /
for itself... innovators! scientists! up-starts!
or as some might say, the other pronoun battle,
the one without genitals involved,
as could only be sooner said:
  per se, or per per...
                       in in...
nothing sexualised... it's only that there's a limit in pronouns,
per se / in itself must come across the muddle
regarding the moment when people lose their
identity and begin their life with: ? thought
rather than i think,
       i can't place it anywhere else than inside my head,
better there than in the genitals,
   or wasn't Jesus circumcised and the zeitgeist
of St. Thomas' gospel and the transgender movment?
    the church is old, and counter-authoritarian,
it's just a tired institution, so it has no actual authenticity
over the current changes in society,
    might as well call onto Islam to move the chess pieces...
or that's what i'm currently seeing...
   i was just thinking about a logical limit in language,
e.g. timbaland's song the way i are...
   there really is a logical limit on how far you can
suddenly just forget grammar...
            so why begin with per se?
                 at best described as a cogitans (
it was warm
for a winters eve
unusually warm
but damp very damp
birthing a persistent
midnight mist that
crawled over everything

avenging
halogen angels
flitted down from
streetlight perches
skidding through
bare limb bars
of broken trees
roped in by sagging
telephone wires

skulking
seraphs
joined
ebullient
neon auroras
laughingly
brake dancing,
jittering away on the
pock marked rims
of hip hop streets

the fine drizzle
descending from the
black urban heavens
splayed holy water
over the bodies
of anything
that moved; and
layered mounds
of transparent beads
on all inert things
chiding those yolked
to weighty burdens
to seek relief of
a much needed
breaking point

our
slouching city
mired in a cycle
of a prolonged
historical rut
beavers away
to lift the lid
on tomorrows
tipping point
in a desperate
labor to stop
tripping over
itself...

a dinged up
Sentra’s
flashing spinners
twisted round
our dark corner
nearly clipping
our troop

inside the
yakking low-riders
scuttled along,
their hidden ***** eyes
cruising the stoops
and cyclone alleys
scoping opportunities
for the next
jolly hustle
to feed
a growing
angry fix

tonight
Mother Nature was
running a *****
to the wall third shift,
manufacturing a
stationary low
of gagging precip
churning volumes
of Vulcan smoke
conjuring
convective spirits
from all the
dim places

emanations lit
the balmy January air
rising from
stubborn gray patches
of despoiled snow
and rancid ponds
organic gutter water
composting
in distilled pools
awaiting leakage
through flotsam
clogged sewage grids

Paterson’s
litter police
could close the
city’s budget deficit
if all infractions
were properly cited
and paid in this
neighborhood

this queer elixir of
rising vapors from
evaporating snow
escaping the cracks
lining the bowels of
mordant streets
joining descending
screens of billowing mists
blurs boundaries of light,
diffusing temporal time

people and things
lose precise definition
reducing sentient beings
to moving silhouettes of gray
photographic negatives
framed in dribbling palettes
of pastel hues

our
5th Ward mission
planted in the
hub of a neighborhood
still holding on...

Old WASP’s
of St. Paul’s
long ago
winged away
from this
princely
Episcopate
principality

the abandoned
conical nest, its
chambers filled with
the mud of 50 dead rectors
precariously clings
to its shivering
boulevard corner

its endowment depleted
its earthly treasure rusting
grandiose Tiffany windows
remain the last legacy of an
opulent faith now
shamefully rattling away
in moth eaten frames

once icons of
adulatory reverence
the final sparkling asset
of a distressed religion
begs to be monetized
by flummoxed vestrymen
yearning to extend
a stewardship
over a dissipating
ESL flock

distress in the hood
parades down Broadway
in all directions

a few blocks east
a shuttered
Barnert Hospital
transfigured into an
urban enterprise zone
for health-care privateers
working overtime to
extract federal
corporate welfare
rent subsidies
dutifully fulfilling
fine print obligations of
Obamacare legislation

Old Mayor Barnert’s
namesake synagogue
once hard by
City Hall
is long gone
its absent footprint
now centered by
a thriving
White Castle

near Broadway’s end
on the outskirts
of Eastside Park
Art Deco Emanuel Temple
the last anchor
for the city’s Judaism
lies vacant
awaiting a renewed
purpose

fraught with irony
a thriving Islamic Center
stands juxtaposed
across the street
from the old
Hebrew Temple

we wonder what
will emerge
from the
hallowed chrysalis
of decommissioned
Emanuel?

rumors of a
Great Falls Art Center
trickle like a leaking faucet
failure to secure a mortgage
in the post credit
bubble pop economy
dams the possibly
of a new centers
coming to fruition

will
the city’s
changing
demography of
reverent Muslim’s
genuflecting
across the street
take time away
from prayer to
patronize a venue
offering decadent
bourgeois jazz and
risqué reviews
of retro Borscht Belt
vaudeville?

when Constantinople
became Istanbul they
converted the Christian
churches into mosques

when the Inquisitioners
drove the Moors from
Granada they converted
the Grand Mosque to
the Cathedral of the
Incarnation

what incarnations
will this city’s
twilight bring?

As Byzantine
begets
Constantinople
begets
Istanbul
the links
in the Silk Road
spanned west
to the new world
of mechanized looms
powered by
Great Falls
raceway water
and a distribution
and procurement
chain anchored
by the Morris Canal

Capitalist
modernity
begets
our Silk City
it also bespeaks
its demise

in the courtyard
of St. Paul’s
a muffled chorus
trawls the thick air

a posse of pimps
done wrangling
their stables
of $5 ******
sing reveries to
the evening haul

midnight lullabies
of corner crooners
lift a Capella hosannas
from the dark armpit
of an alley behind
the Autozone

“i said
you say
what can make
me feel this way
my girl”

juiced pimps
cashin in
livin large on
a skanks
50 cent haul

the trade in flesh
of distressed
human capital
remains a
growth industry

Music Selection:  
Temptations, My Girl

jbm
3/1/13
Oakland
Part 1 of extended poem Silk City PIT.  PIT is an acronym for Point In Time.  PIT is an annual census American cities conduct to count the homeless population.  Paterson NJ is nick named The Silk City.
little bille ****** he just long to be

a captain of a ship sailing on the sea

he gathered up some wood and built himself a boat

then into the water and set himself afloat.



he headed out to sea adventure bound was he

the captain of his boat liked he longed to be

suddenly a dolphin jumped in to the air

****** he was startled gave him quite scare.



dolphin said hello sorry for the scare

didnt mean to frighten you didnt see you there

can i be your friend said dolphin and come along with you

of they went together in the sea of blue.



after quite some the weather made a change

started getting rough acting very strange

then the winds were howling waves were very high

it began to thunder with lightening in the sky.



then a great big wave over turned the boat

****** he was trapped and couldnt get afloat

dont worry said the dolphin just hang on to me

hang on to my tale and i will set you free.



dolphin pulled and pulled and freed his little friend

****** thought his journey was about to end

then the storm subsided it was calm once more

they pulled the little boat safely to the shore.



they rebuilt the boat and set sail once more

now the boat could sail again like it did before

now they both were happy and safely back a sea

friends for evermore both of them would be.
wichitarick Sep 2018
RIVERS MAKES ME QUIVER

Youthful mind left wandering just feeling the wetness from yards into the curbs

Ripples running curbside over toes, forming those first streams for a meandering mind

Clouds collecting power,mists collecting,forming Drop by drop rains flowing into their reserves  

High mountain lakes reflecting their passion, partitioned by beavers to make their own pond

  Broken into brooks flowing faster downward into streams,cool and clear their taste like sweet liqueurs

Beauty not confined to a torrent but gifted with greenery and wildlife ,flowers that make the forests more confident

Trickles forming into cascades downward making outpourings & overflows waterfalls forced through the fissures

Gravity needs spaces we watch as it heightens then widens,making it's way through the continent quickly becoming most prominent

Admire her beauty but reap her rewards,wet bounty to feed the fields, food for fishes ,generations receive her treasures

Canoeists,kayakers or legendary steamboat captains are fond of their flowing, boys wondering where she will go ,knowing our tears of joy will flow to the sea should be our greatest compliment. R.C.
Nice memories from time spent on or in some favorite rivers,but also how great a part they play in our lives and the geography . Thanks for reading ,your thoughts are helpful. Rick
Two good friends had Hiawatha,
Singled out from all the others,
Bound to him in closest union,
And to whom he gave the right hand
Of his heart, in joy and sorrow;
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.

Straight between them ran the pathway,
Never grew the grass upon it;
Singing birds, that utter falsehoods,
Story-tellers, mischief-makers,
Found no eager ear to listen,
Could not breed ill-will between them,
For they kept each other’s counsel,
Spake with naked hearts together,
Pondering much and much contriving
How the tribes of men might prosper.

Most beloved by Hiawatha
Was the gentle Chibiabos,
He the best of all musicians,
He the sweetest of all singers.
Beautiful and childlike was he,
Brave as man is, soft as woman,
Pliant as a wand of willow,
Stately as a deer with antlers.

When he sang, the village listened;
All the warriors gathered round him,
All the women came to hear him;
Now he stirred their souls to passion,
Now he melted them to pity.

From the hollow reeds he fashioned
Flutes so musical and mellow,
That the brook, the Sebowisha,
Ceased to murmur in the woodland,
That the wood-birds ceased from singing,
And the squirrel, Adjidaumo,
Ceased his chatter in the oak-tree,
And the rabbit, the Wabasso,
Sat upright to look and listen,

Yes, the brook, the Sebowisha,
Pausing, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach my waves to flow in music,
Softly as your words in singing!”

Yes, the bluebird, the Owaissa,
Envious, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach me tones as wild and wayward,
Teach me songs as full of frenzy!”

Yes, the robin, the Opechee,
Joyous, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach me tones as sweet and tender,
Teach me songs as full of gladness!”
And the whippoorwill, Wawonaissa,
Sobbing, said, “O Chibiabos,
Teach me tones as melancholy,
Teach me songs as full of sadness!”

All the many sounds of nature
Borrowed sweetness from his singing;
All the hearts of men were softened
By the pathos of his music;
For he sang of peace and freedom,
Sang of beauty, love, and longing;
Sang of death, and life undying
In the Islands of the Blessed,
In the kingdom of Ponemah,
In the land of the Hereafter.

Very dear to Hiawatha
Was the gentle Chibiabos,
He the best of all musicians,
He the sweetest of all singers;
For his gentleness he loved him,
And the magic of his singing.

Dear, too, unto Hiawatha
Was the very strong man, Kwasind,
He the strongest of all mortals,
He the mightiest among many;
For his very strength he loved him,
For his strength allied to goodness.

Idle in his youth was Kwasind,
Very listless, dull, and dreamy,
Never played with other children,
Never fished and never hunted,
Not like other children was he;
But they saw that much he fasted,
Much his Manito entreated,
Much besought his Guardian Spirit.

“Lazy Kwasind!” said his mother,
“In my work you never help me!
In the Summer you are roaming
Idly in the fields and forests;
In the Winter you are cowering
O’er the firebrands in the wigwam!
In the coldest days of Winter
I must break the ice for fishing;
With my nets you never help me!
At the door my nets are hanging,
Dripping, freezing with the water;
Go and wring them, Yenadizze!
Go and dry them in the sunshine!”

Slowly, from the ashes, Kwasind
Rose, but made no angry answer;
From the lodge went forth in silence,
Took the nets, that hung together,
Dripping, freezing at the doorway,
Like a wisp of straw he wrung them,
Like a wisp of straw he broke them,
Could not wring them without breaking,
Such the strength was in his fingers.

“Lazy Kwasind!” said his father,
“In the hunt you never help me;
Every bow you touch is broken,
Snapped asunder every arrow;
Yet come with me to the forest,
You shall bring the hunting homeward.”

Down a narrow pass they wandered,
Where a brooklet led them onward,
Where the trail of deer and bison
Marked the soft mud on the margin,
Till they found all further passage
Shut against them, barred securely
By the trunks of trees uprooted,
Lying lengthwise, lying crosswise,
And forbidding further passage.

“We must go back,” said the old man,
“O’er these logs we cannot clamber;
Not a woodchuck could get through them,
Not a squirrel clamber o’er them!”
And straightway his pipe he lighted,
And sat down to smoke and ponder.
But before his pipe was finished,
Lo! the path was cleared before him;
All the trunks had Kwasind lifted,
To the right hand, to the left hand,
Shot the pine-trees swift as arrows,
Hurled the cedars light as lances.

“Lazy Kwasind!” said the young men,
As they sported in the meadow:
“Why stand idly looking at us,
Leaning on the rock behind you?
Come and wrestle with the others,
Let us pitch the quoit together!”

Lazy Kwasind made no answer,
To their challenge made no answer,
Only rose, and, slowly turning,
Seized the huge rock in his fingers,
Tore it from its deep foundation,
Poised it in the air a moment,
Pitched it sheer into the river,
Sheer into the swift Pauwating,
Where it still is seen in Summer.

Once as down that foaming river,
Down the rapids of Pauwating,
Kwasind sailed with his companions,
In the stream he saw a ******,
Saw Ahmeek, the King of Beavers,
Struggling with the rushing currents,
Rising, sinking in the water.

Without speaking, without pausing,
Kwasind leaped into the river,
Plunged beneath the bubbling surface,
Through the whirlpools chased the ******,
Followed him among the islands,
Stayed so long beneath the water,
That his terrified companions
Cried, “Alas! good-bye to Kwasind!
We shall never more see Kwasind!”
But he reappeared triumphant,
And upon his shining shoulders
Brought the ******, dead and dripping,
Brought the King of all the Beavers.

And these two, as I have told you,
Were the friends of Hiawatha,
Chibiabos, the musician,
And the very strong man, Kwasind.
Long they lived in peace together,
Spake with naked hearts together,
Pondering much and much contriving
How the tribes of men might prosper.
Dedication

Inscribed to a dear Child:
in memory of golden summer hours
and whispers of a summer sea.

Girt with a boyish garb for boyish task,
   Eager she wields her *****; yet loves as well
Rest on a friendly knee, intent to ask
   The tale he loves to tell.

Rude spirits of the seething outer strife,
   Unmeet to read her pure and simple spright,
Deem, if you list, such hours a waste of life,
   Empty of all delight!

Chat on, sweet Maid, and rescue from annoy
   Hearts that by wiser talk are unbeguiled.
Ah, happy he who owns that tenderest joy,
   The heart-love of a child!

Away, fond thoughts, and vex my soul no more!
   Work claims my wakeful nights, my busy days--
Albeit bright memories of that sunlit shore
   Yet haunt my dreaming gaze!

PREFACE

If--and the thing is wildly possible--the charge of writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I feel convinced, on the line (in p.18)

"Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes."

In view of this painful possibility, I will not (as I might) appeal indignantly to my other writings as a proof that I am incapable of such a deed: I will not (as I might) point to the strong moral purpose of this poem itself, to the arithmetical principles so cautiously inculcated in it, or to its noble teachings in Natural History--I will take the more prosaic course of simply explaining how it happened.

The Bellman, who was almost morbidly sensitive about appearances, used to have the bowsprit unshipped once or twice a week to be revarnished, and it more than once happened, when the time came for replacing it, that no one on board could remember which end of the ship it belonged to. They knew it was not of the slightest use to appeal to the Bellman about it--he would only refer to his Naval Code, and read out in pathetic tones Admiralty Instructions which none of them had ever been able to understand--so it generally ended in its being fastened on, anyhow, across the rudder. The helmsman* used to stand by with tears in his eyes; he knew it was all wrong, but alas! Rule 42 of the Code, "No one shall speak to the Man at the Helm," had been completed by the Bellman himself with the words "and the Man at the Helm shall speak to no one." So remon{-} strance was impossible, and no steering could be done till the next varnishing day. During these bewildering intervals the ship usually sailed backwards.

As this poem is to some extent connected with the lay of the Jabberwock, let me take this opportunity of answering a question that has often been asked me, how to pronounce "slithy toves." The "i" in "slithy" is long, as in "writhe"; and "toves" is pronounced so as to rhyme with "groves." Again, the first "o" in "borogoves" is pronounced like the "o" in "borrow." I have heard people try to give it the sound of the"o" in "worry." Such is Human Perversity. This also seems a fitting occasion to notice the other hard works in that poem. Humpty-Dumpty's theory, of two meanings packed into one word like a port{-} manteau, seems to me the right explanation for all.

For instance, take the two words "fuming" and "furious." Make up your mind that you will say both words, but leave it unsettled which you will say first. Now open your mouth and speak. If your thoughts incline ever so little towards "fuming," you will say "fuming-furious;" if they turn, by even a hair's breadth, towards "furious," you will say "furious-fuming;" but if you have that rarest of gifts, a perfectly balanced mind, you will say "frumious."

Supposing that, when Pistol uttered the well-known
words--

     "Under which king, Bezonian? Speak or die!"

Justice Shallow had felt certain that it was either William or Richard, but had not been able to settle which, so that he could not possibly say either name before the other, can it be doubted that, rather than die, he would have gasped out "Rilchiam!"

CONTENTS

Fit the First. The Landing
Fit the Second. The Bellman's Speech
Fit the Third. The Baker's Tale
Fit the Fourth. The Hunting
Fit the Fifth. The ******'s Lesson
Fit the Sixth. The Barrister's Dream
Fit the Seventh. The Banker's Fate
Fit the Eighth. The Vanishing

Fit the First.

THE LANDING

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
    As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
    By a finger entwined in his hair.

"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
    That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
    What I tell you three times is true."

  The crew was complete: it included a Boots--
  A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
  And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
  Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
  Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a ******, that paced on the deck,
  Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck,
  Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
  He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
  And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
  With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
  They were all left behind on the beach.

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
  He had seven coats on when he came,
With three pair of boots--but the worst of it was,
  He had wholly forgotten his name.

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,
  Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
  But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
  He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends,"
  And his enemies "Toasted-cheese."

"His form in ungainly--his intellect small--"
  (So the Bellman would often remark)
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
  Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."

He would joke with hy{ae}nas, returning their stare
  With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
  "Just to keep up its spirits," he said.

He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--
  And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--
He could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,
  No materials were to be had.

The last of the crew needs especial remark,
  Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea--but, that one being "Snark,"
  The good Bellman engaged him at once.

He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
  When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only **** Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
  And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
  There was only one ****** on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
  Whose death would be deeply deplored.

The ******, who happened to hear the remark,
  Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
  Could atone for that dismal surprise!

It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
  Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
  With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult art,
  Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
  Undertaking another as well.

The ******'s best course was, no doubt, to procure
  A second-hand dagger-proof coat--
So the Baker advised it-- and next, to insure
  Its life in some Office of note:

This the Banker suggested, and offered for hire
  (On moderate terms), or for sale,
Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire,
  And one Against Damage From Hail.

Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,
  Whenever the Butcher was by,
The ****** kept looking the opposite way,
  And appeared unaccountably shy.

II.--THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.

Fit the Second.

THE BELLMAN'S SPEECH.

The Bellman himself they all praised to the skies--
  Such a carriage, such ease and such grace!
Such solemnity, too! One could see he was wise,
  The moment one looked in his face!

He had bought a large map representing the sea,
  Without the least vestige of land:
And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be
  A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,
  Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"
So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply
   "They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!
  But we've got our brave Captain to thank
(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best--
  A perfect and absolute blank!"

This was charming, no doubt; but they shortly found out
  That the Captain they trusted so well
Had only one notion for crossing the ocean,
  And that was to tingle his bell.

He was thoughtful and grave--but the orders he gave
  Were enough to bewilder a crew.
When he cried "Steer to starboard, but keep her head larboard!"
  What on earth was the helmsman to do?

Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rudder sometimes:
  A thing, as the Bellman remarked,
That frequently happens in tropical climes,
  When a vessel is, so to speak, "snarked."

But the principal failing occurred in the sailing,
   And the Bellman, perplexed and distressed,
Said he had hoped, at least, when the wind blew due East,
  That the ship would not travel due West!

But the danger was past--they had landed at last,
  With their boxes, portmanteaus, and bags:
Yet at first sight the crew were not pleased with the view,
  Which consisted to chasms and crags.

The Bellman perceived that their spirits were low,
  And repeated in musical tone
Some jokes he had kept for a season of woe--
  But the crew would do nothing but groan.

He served out some grog with a liberal hand,
  And bade them sit down on the beach:
And they could not but own that their Captain looked grand,
  As he stood and delivered his speech.

"Friends, Romans, and countrymen, lend me your ears!"
  (They were all of them fond of quotations:
So they drank to his health, and they gave him three cheers,
  While he served out additional rations).

"We have sailed many months, we have sailed many weeks,
   (Four weeks to the month you may mark),
But never as yet ('tis your Captain who speaks)
  Have we caught the least glimpse of a Snark!

"We have sailed many weeks, we have sailed many days,
  (Seven days to the week I allow),
But a Snark, on the which we might lovingly gaze,
  We have never beheld till now!

"Come, listen, my men, while I tell you again
  The five unmistakable marks
By which you may know, wheresoever you go,
  The warranted genuine Snarks.

"Let us take them in order. The first is the taste,
  Which is meagre and hollow, but crisp:
Like a coat that is rather too tight in the waist,
  With a flavour of Will-o-the-wisp.

"Its habit of getting up late you'll agree
  That it carries too far, when I say
That it frequently breakfasts at five-o'clock tea,
  And dines on the following day.

"The third is its slowness in taking a jest.
  Should you happen to venture on one,
It will sigh like a thing that is deeply distressed:
  And it always looks grave at a pun.

"The fourth is its fondness for bathing-machines,
  Which is constantly carries about,
And believes that they add to the beauty of scenes--
  A sentiment open to doubt.

"The fifth is ambition. It next will be right
  To describe each particular batch:
Distinguishing those that have feathers, and bite,
  From those that have whiskers, and scratch.

"For, although common Snarks do no manner of harm,
  Yet, I feel it my duty to say,
Some are Boojums--" The Bellman broke off in alarm,
  For the Baker had fainted away.

FIT III.--THE BAKER'S TALE.

Fit the Third.

THE BAKER'S TALE.

They roused him with muffins--they roused him with ice--
  They roused him with mustard and cress--
They roused him with jam and judicious advice--
  They set him conundrums to guess.

When at length he sat up and was able to speak,
  His sad story he offered to tell;
And the Bellman cried "Silence! Not even a shriek!"
  And excitedly tingled his bell.

There was silence supreme! Not a shriek, not a scream,
  Scarcely even a howl or a groan,
As the man they called "**!" told his story of woe
  In an antediluvian tone.

"My father and mother were honest, though poor--"
  "Skip all that!" cried the Bellman in haste.
"If it once becomes dark, there's no chance of a Snark--
  We have hardly a minute to waste!"

"I skip forty years," said the Baker, in tears,
  "And proceed without further remark
To the day when you took me aboard of your ship
  To help you in hunting the Snark.

"A dear uncle of mine (after whom I was named)
  Remarked, when I bade him farewell--"
"Oh, skip your dear uncle!" the Bellman exclaimed,
  As he angrily tingled his bell.

"He remarked to me then," said that mildest of men,
  " 'If your Snark be a Snark, that is right:
Fetch it home by all means--you may serve it with greens,
  And it's handy for striking a light.

" 'You may seek it with thimbles--and seek it with care;
  You may hunt it with forks and hope;
You may threaten its life with a railway-share;
  You may charm it with smiles and soap--' "

("That's exactly the method," the Bellman bold
  In a hasty parenthesis cried,
"That's exactly the way I have always been told
  That the capture of Snarks should be tried!")

" 'But oh, beamish nephew, beware of the day,
  If your Snark be a Boojum! For then
You will softly and suddenly vanish away,
  And never be met with again!'

"It is this, it is this that oppresses my soul,
  When I think of my uncle's last words:
And my heart is like nothing so much as a bowl
  Brimming over with quivering curds!

"It is this, it is this--" "We have had that before!"
  The Bellman indignantly said.
And the Baker replied "Let me say it once more.
  It is this, it is this that I dread!

"I engage with the Snark--every night after dark--
  In a dreamy delirious fight:
I serve it with greens in those shadowy scenes,
  And I use it for striking a light:

"But if ever I meet with a Boojum, that day,
  In a moment (of this I am sure),
I shall softly and suddenly vanish away--
  And the notion I cannot endure!"

FIT IV.--THE HUNTING.

Fit the fourth.

THE HUNTING.

The Bellman looked uffish, and wrinkled his brow.
  "If only you'd spoken before!
It's excessively awkward to mention it now,
  With the Snark, so to speak, at the door!

"We should all of us grieve, as you well may believe,
  If you never were met with again--
But surely, my man, when the voyage began,
  You might have suggested it then?

"It's excessively awkward to mention it now--
  As I think I've already remarked."
And the man they called "Hi!" replied, with a sigh,
  "I informed you the day we embar
Harly Coward Oct 2014
"Do you know who the prime minister of Canada is?"

"Hmmm isn't it Tim Horton?"

Sweating, shivering, and shoveling snow,
Looking up with relief as the flakes begin to slow.

Starting our mornings with pancakes drizzled in gooey sweet syrup
And greasy, cheesy, poutine being our last meal we eat up.

We hike up a green lush mountain just to see the view
And shoot down the slopes of silvery snow and feel as if we flew.

The rascally beavers are our vandals, the loons are our song,
The cougars reminding us that we are strong.

We are Canadian, eh?
But would we really want it any other way?
Samantha Miller Jan 2015
Beavers trolley snow for built dams.
Cleverness in their small minds,
Everyone has a place in the workshop,
Where wood is transferred as paper binds.

Keep on ice fishing
Until the sunsets winter red
And turns to twilight blue.
Snowmen sled nocturnal nights instead.

Owls give a hoot for the racket
Outside a gleam to keep on building,
Keep on building snowmen until frost covers wool jackets...
Keep on building snowmen until you know the beavers finished the dams...
Vince Paige Oct 2010
Rhymes sweetly, but can me a
***** my finger won't I still bleed.
Times toughen, and kick me in my
As trees grow, life will reseed.

Walks manly, and scratches my
Ball's in your court, bounce my way.
Talks fanning flames, I don't give a
Dam for beavers, I shall not stray.

Words come faster, so call me a
******* looking for his father
Figure me out in your secret mind
****, get out, look for another.
omegadrax 2010.
Micheal Wolf Feb 2013
Why the sudden alarm I ask?
Because you've eaten a horses ***
For years we've eaten all kinds of meat
Mixed with things you find in paint
A list of E numbers a sentence long
Who knew if they where doing wrong
Colouring from crushed beetles shells
Or other insects as well
Artificial raspberry sounds yum yum
Yeah it's made from beavers ***!
So here's a tip to help you shop
Look under the bar code at numbers lots
This may stop you getting cross
If it starts with 5 sling it out !
Its Asian chicken bleached and vile
From roadside **** or any source
boiled in salt of course
So we now protest at a bit of horse
Years to late we've eaten worse.
On holiday you eat bulls *****
Your hotdogs could be his other smalls!
Sweetbreads eyeballs hooves the lot
So diced, reclaimed or added in
You've no idea what's gone in
Mad cow mad horse or confused pig
I wonder if I've eaten each
The veggie options just as bad
With GM foods Monsanto's bag
MSG enhancers to to stop the food from tasting goo
So wine or beer for me tonight
As foods now a depressing sight

Bacon butty anyone?
Mateuš Conrad Jul 2016
that you may read poetry without a tongue, with a plight
of sore eyes, of eager eyes, only eyes,
and shelter yourself from the rain
with a hand agreeing to greet it falling extended:
plucking mushrooms as you
might be reasonable meeting it with
umbrellas - but umbrellas
far beyond the flowery gutter of scent
and decaying ambition where the frugal
fungal arise like lechery of goblin ****
celebrated - some might add
a dice throw of Macadamia nuts -
eyed i too you the death-stinker;
this is the English revision of Zulu -
primitive tongue extended into abstract,
by those speaking English as foreign,
my English is an English reversed on
the colonialists - its a robbing tongue when
effectively used, with this in mind
i'm starting to think the Irish are bigger *****
than the Welsh even with the middle exported
as V into France and the longbow-men -
remember the antonym of German compounding
is the hyphen in English - optic talk -
failed rubrics of arithmetic for one,
failed rubrics of spelling the other -
i wish you knew English as well as you once
you knew Swahili - i actually wish you knew
Swahili ably talking to you grandparents...
i'm not your grandfather, even though
i wish he wishes he was -
you became gluttonous in tongue as they in body,
fat overdose from mono-linguistic apartheid -
you let them undermine the bilingualism
inherent in you... the Prussians
and the Russian and the Austrians never stole our
tongue... of course we devolved it borrowing
too many words, but loan nouns are never able to evolve
into slang, into urban talk that deconstructs nations,
where once was France now there's only Paris,
the same with England and London;
that you may read poetry without a tongue,
and make tongue read unto mind a Braille -
goosebump fidgety prickle - sour palette without
saying Thai in York - for the eyes to see the deformity
at hand, for the tongue to turn silent for one evening
alone, Venetian snares of the omni- eyed fake
entrusted with Cerberus' oath (only howl a wake
when your master Hades passes into the Styx for
voice of democratically reprimanding judgement over all
souls to arise from droplet into their own content
river form); for i too would have taken to resurrecting
the tongue, but the tongue was forgotten for a purpose
of agility in sports and un-thought poetics of excessive
rhyme, hardly the jazz, hardly the blues,
and hardly poetry - jazz i agree beyond measure a mint
cloud among the down-pouring heavy-clad-grey-clouds
of Mozart - i admit the blues the invigoration -
but rap? rap i just don't get.
me and this homeless man just laughed it off:
and i'm a Brazilian (blue tracksuit bottoms,
yellow t-shirt, green hoodie) - Eminem nemo Emo?
get the beach bleach out... we're going to stain those
starfish as coordinates' worth of horoscope... twirling
twirling twirling... cartwheels a'hoo a'hoo a'hoo ha hey.
i mean, sorry, i don't get the "hood" -
i don't get post-grunge either... i think i'm getting old -
and it's true what they say... the only black friend
was a drug dealer - wanted me to teach his daughter
to play the guitar... i said i listened to Bob Marley's sons
and he said i listened to culture -
racial stereotypes can be fun, i guess, if you're honest
about them... keen on the Illuminati,
so i said: anything better than Kubrick's eyes wide shut ******?
n'ah? hell, if it can't beat that, what's the interesting part?
or as i itemise the rewards the Koran states...
those 72 virgins... is that a metaphor for gym membership?
if you're a lazy drunk like me... the last thing
you want is 72 eager beavers.
We had a family meeting
And decided that our tree
Would no longer be a fake one
It would be as real, as real could be

I said that it's no problem
In fact I think it's fine
I truly miss the Christmas scent
Of wet and musty pine

I reminded them that last year
A new, lit up tree we'd bought
They passed off my weak arguement
With barely time or thought

So, with three weeks until Christmas
The search would now begin
For a tree, just full of needles
Not too bushy or too thin

I started with the want ads
Saw the lots with trees for sale
But, most were all on order
I begged, to no avail

My wife said, let's go cut one
In a woodlot, cut one down
I said we're in the heart of a big city
We have to go two hours out of town

I told them, I'm not going
Then my daughter, shed one tear
I don't know how she does it
But, she's got me wrapped....I fear

So we loaded up the family
Drove until we found the place
With so many others out there
There was no parking space

We parked out on the roadway
Half a mile from the gate
When we go there to start cutting
We were told....two hour wait

We'd brought an axe and hand saw
For when we found our perfect tree
Then, we were told...no...only chainsaws
Did I have one...nope...not me

I had to take a short refresher
On how to use their little saw
And of course, this being Christmas
It cost me fifty more

Finally, we started out
There were trees, of every kind
then the fellow said, that this years
Were in the back....way down the line

He said that this year, beavers
Had flooded out the lower plains
And the trees down here were stunted
And would have to start out once again

The ones that we could cut down
Were back a mile up the hill
I wasn't sure then if it was him
Or my family I should ****

I protested, but my daughter
You know. with the one tear leaking eye
Looked at me and smiled
And I said, that I would try

We hiked up to the woodlot,
There were trees of pine and fir
And a spotty faced young helper
Who asked "What kind do you want, sir?"

Long needled, or a short one
Douglas fir, or knotty pine
The choice, well it was endless
And the choice, well ...it was mine

The next thing that he asked me
How big should the tree be?
I looked a little flustered
And then he said to me

Once you cut it down ...you own it
Measure it, and cut it down
Make sure you get the right one
It's a long way back to town

My wife said, 8 or 9 feet
The kids, no help at all
They were both playing on their cellphones
And making plans for later at the mall

We chose to get a pine one
Eight feet high and just as wide
I didn't know exactly
How I'd get it home and back inside

Two minutes, and I'd cut it
We had a tree, and just my luck
They'd started out without me
I had to drag it to the truck

The boy said, they'd wrap and measure
Down front where I came in
I looked down down at my killing
Not too fat, and not too thin

Two hours later I arrived
All wet and soaked and peeved
But deep down, I'd made them happy
And this made me relieved

Once he wrapped it tightly
I was shocked at the tree's price
He said, two hundred forty
In fact he said it twice

30 bucks a foot for pine
That would be dead in two weeks
I was so mad when I paid him
That I could barely speak

I walked back to the truck alone
I left the family with the tree
I thought two times of driving off
Ok...in truth....It was three

They tied it down upon the roof
Said the rope, was free this year
I almost blew my top right then
I saw my daughter....and her tear

We drove it home in silence
Stopped once on the way
I had to spend twenty more dollars
For a tree stand, at the Bay

I dragged it in the living room
Cut it open, let it spread
It, didn't really fluff out much
I think our tree was dead

It took almost an hour
It lay there, dropping needles on the floor
I thought , yep, this is Christmas
Who could ask for any more?

The kids were gone already
When I put it in the stand
I had wired it, into the wall
This was not the way I planned

A simple family Christmas
With a tree is a pain
I've got a fake one in a box
I'll not do this again

There's bare spots at the bottom
It's unbalanced near the top
There's sap all through the hallway
I've got more, just tell me stop

The tree is now all covered
With decorations and with lights
I water it twice daily
So, it doesn't burn up in the night

Next Christmas when they tell me
We want another tree
I'll tell them, go ahead and get one
But, do it with out me!!!!
Ben Jones Nov 2013
Outside an average sort of house
Upon a quiet street
There stood a man of honest heart
All grim and weather beat
His face awash with bafflement
A letter in his mits  
With Lots of Love from God himself
And golden twirly bits

He'd read it over breakfast
Then read it on the loo
Considered re-addressing it
For number forty two
Within the silver envelope
In angel script, embossed
Were plans to build a massive boat
Materials and cost

It seemed, he'd have to build  it
As the letter looked legit
So off he sped, to B&Q;
To show the holy writ
The manager was confident
The price was mighty bold
Delivery on Saturday
For every item sold

So late, on Friday evening
He popped out for a walk
Upon his road, he drew a boat
In vivid yellow chalk
When morning dawned, a knocking
And some paperwork to mark
For a thousand tonnes of timber
For construction of an ark

He set out with his hammer
And he smote the nail and tack
By afternoon, the road was blocked
With traffic tailing back
A keel was just discernible
Beginning to take form
By evening, the media
Was whipping up a storm

Up marched a bold reporter
From the Three Times Weekly Herald
He said "So you'd be Noah then?"
"Not me" said he "I'm Gerald"
"I got this 'Oly telegram
And God has chosen me
I fill a boat with wildlife
And sail the salty sea"

By night he was a laughing stock
On YouTube and the news
But a sturdy man, was Gerald
And most vehement in his views
When asked to show the letter
He graciously refused
"Just have a little faith" he said
"We'll soon see who's amused"

The church were being skeptical
And held the press at bay
The Council sent him letters
At a rate of four a day
The hull was soon completed
And he laboured on inside
Constructing some amenities
To house them on the tide

A swimming pool for waterfowl
A wall of rodent wheels
With bowls for every kind of fish
And a big one for the seals
A filing box for butterflies
To stow them all away
A pigeon hole for pigeons
For the bees , a large bouquet

A puzzle for the monkeys
A wardrobe for the moths
A lion for the antelope
A jacuzzi for the sloths
A fully fitted nursery
For when the ewes had lambed
The wasps would have a picnic
And the beavers could be dammed

Through night and day he toiled
He relieved himself in shifts
In time, he built a sauna
And a pair of turbolifts
The council grew impatient
And the neighbours were in fits
They begged him to remove his boat
Entire or in bits

Then promptly, after dinner
As he sat upon the deck
There called a suited doctor  
With a badge around his neck
There followed many questions
With a host of funny looks
While outside went from 'fine and warm'
To 'just the thing for ducks'

That night, began the deluge
So Gerald found his crew
He robbed each local pet shop
And attacked the nearest zoo
Collected every animal
And fastened them in tight
The waters coursed along his street
As dawn replaced the night

'Twas then a thought occurred to him
A kind of mental swerve  
His road was more a crescent
So his ark was on a curve
But just then the currents took him
He sailed off along the bend
For six weeks, going round and round
To land at home, The End

**
Mateuš Conrad Nov 2016
if god is dead,
then poetry is nought: but suicide.

could it be the evermore question, a year from now
the same autumn will rinse the lands of once budding colour,
and stretch, as the eye can see, the witry skeletons,
where once the birds nested their young in bulbs of harvested
twigs  bundled up? for what if the wintry tree, if not
the last remnants of the airs of spring,
a lizardly womb of flight...
   so the paupers of Rome argue
about the benefits of monogamy,
as they might about monotheism...
and they say monogamy is not "natural",
but what is? why take the burden of
a widower swan, why extract monogamy from
swans and later find the harem of monkeys?
and then simply say: it be unnatural... why?
we were never gracious enough to mirror
swans, hence the brothers Grimm and the
ugly duckling mistook...
        oh wagers of the translated Graeae
of Scotland, where it Hamlet on the couch,
or where it Macbeth?
what matters is how populist media makes
a franchise of a form of athletics that cannot bed
a guised look of despondency -
      puritan saxon conference on sexuality
that gone beyond the ******* use:
***** therefore thinking,
            flaccid therefore not thinking...
you can utilise language to a point where mathematical
certainty is given, as is the missing blemish of
woad... no wonder the Saxon maidens
    retain their virginity at home,
but treat themselves for a nibble of the Magdalene
on the isle of Malaga... puritanism disintegrates
2 weeks in...
                   and still they bemoan,
if they have been growing more and more depressed
since the second world war...
                why allow them to create this viral infection
that's like a virus ingested by unsuspecting
       victims... are they not the ones
prescribing premature depression since they
heaved no foetus in their womb?
          and having done so, are clear of the command:
remove that alien **** from me!
   aren't they?
       if god is dead... all those who write poetry
have committed suicide...
           i once made a lament statement:
given that god is dead, then so is poetry,
i don't which is more lamentable...
but i'm sure to spot a few more eager-beavers of
kneeling and prayer than i'm to see poets...
and can i return to the heights having sunk so low?
      evidently i didn't sulk on my way down,
could poetry ever be tamed with no populist
acrimony? no *auld lang syne
?
      i doubt it...              i very much doubt
a care for anything else sing-along astute than that,
for all i can compete with, is, some sort
of individual... a shadowy statuette...
         it's what's called the reverse of having a heart
for the cardiologist, a brain for the neurosurgeon,
a pathology for the psychiatrists,
  an ambition for the philosopher (mistook them
as humanists you have, for those that are simply
relegated from the realms of language by linguists) -
  for the oncologist that's hardly an ontologist....
swans epitome monogamy with the widower...
apes are Islam with the harem...
          and they say gods do not exist...
but if one sees no god, how is one to replica
a god's existence, if man borrows from the purest
sense of plagiarism that hides no legal documents
enforcing a slack on plagiarism, namely that of anima /
animal? man cannot grasp a concept of god
by sacrificing himself on the altar of imitable animal...
swans have their monogamy... man too presumptuous
also chose swans as the guiding beacon...
softened core, a mongrel of mammal and lizard
that the birds became... furry but borne from
a cracking of the eggshell... man too presumptuous...
he looked elsewhere to no visionary guide since
Narcissus: for mythology is the guiding hand of
new poetry, should god be indeed dead, and poetry
akin to that statement be merely suicide...
then at least mythology is equivalent of history
for poetry... at least there is a logic involved..
   for assuredly should god be dead,
and chlorophyll as pointless as the logic of bio:
be that of life outside one's own graphic or within
one's graphic... should life be nothing more
than the tactless usurping of history that is merely
a blank hole between the omni toward a speciem,
then why have we bothered recording history?
of all scientific theories, of all that rampantly
degrade all human dignity, why create a despotism
within science, that constantly repeats itself
to be overvalued, for reasons that suggests:
en masse applicability due to its pictorial invigoration
for a cruising simplicity? i gather this be a reason
for the emergence of technophobes, or men equipped
to war armed with nothing but sticks!
it's one thing to popularise an idea, later morphed
into a theory, then morphed into an ideology
(an idea that recurs persistently and has no
theoretical basis to not succumb to its theoretical
premise of becoming dodo - the theory of evolution
doesn't take into context the notion that it too can
become extinct... surpassed by something more
invigorating)... later morphed into a shiva
construct that destroys itself...
          we've seen 20th century's pinnacle of this
idea... we've seen eugenics emerge from a pristine
monkish background that said: how best
to economise the case of: the accurate *****-count...
is Darwinism the zenith of invigorating man?
              i find it's too arrogant to even imagine
a square tilting into a rhombus...
       suggesting a rectangle...
       but the days of roaming the Savannah are long gone
and past us... the dependency on oil and gas
and central heating has created a prison-like Akeley...
from what we've inherited, toward what we can
expect, or with suspicion: demand.
            and to think having begun erasing history,
and to think, having erased history of what's noteworthy,
we turned the slapped cheek into a cubist abstraction:
it seems pointless naming pubs after Charlemagne
(shar-le-maine) let alone singing about them...
let's all celebrate running ****-naked on a Kenyan
plateau... and rather than dealing with the past
on a poetic scale... rather: on a literalist scaling of things...
it's almost like biblical literalism kinetics....
     in either case: everyday poetry dies...
or as the case is minded to refresh the argument:
    with the death of god, poetry committed suicide...
i don't know which is the more tragic evidence
of what language has become...
                     this doesn't even invoke an analysis
of the marketplace use of language that politics is...
god forbid it should ever come to that...
  aren't we supposed to feel something otherworldly
at some point in our lives?
                     it's not that i can't rationalise my existence
into this world alone... and feel all the contentment
i need by mere concern for thought trickling into my
being within it...
            it's just that i can't rationalise my existence within
this world alone, based upon a hierarchical
          symptom... much akin to Guy "Lucifer" Fawkes
tried to state by blowing the houses of parliament...
which doesn't suggest a need for a celestial conjuring
of dictator... man has already encouraged that
with English 24/7 c.c.t.v.,
                                                   and as might be suggested...
the point you reach when catching yourself trying
to persuade or enforce a point...
         that lacks all emotive sensitivity hoping for
a romantic excavation invoking the zeitgeist of the times...
neo-romantics are on the rise...
                            we do live in a time of neo-romanticism,
as a few might have suggested: globalisation's
and the audaciousness of militant Islam's offspring:
lying dormant, like a speech by Pope Urban II:
     it just lay there, under a fog of submerged Calvinism
and secular sensibility... waiting patiently
        till the nibbling stopped and it had a chance
to counter... it truly was a case of Damocles' seconds...
tick-tock, tick-tock... and thus the guillotine dropped;
you could feel the carcass stench in the air
         or what cultural-marxisim would make of
an economy that attacked its own economic model...
  it would be deemed dead economically,
but culturally? resurgent...
         you could sniff it out in the air, that rotting
carcass menu: providing a wake of vultures,
                                  or a comedy house of hyenas.
Perig3e Jan 2012
The hidden is more than the seen
The seen is more than the observed
The observed is more than the understood
Is it not for poetry to truss 'n bridge
The wattle until better beavers
Make a channeled floody duddy of it?
Seán Mac Falls Jan 2015
Waters waltz land dancing,
Dragon flies flutter a buzz,
Cat-o'-nines torching tales,
Where beavers are logging
Time with fresh water fish
Who breach as they mouth,
Fly catching in a casted sea,
Mossy and bogged with peat,
And the colours, mottled, fey,
Brindled, brim, know they say,
There are lessons, hear stillness,
Punctuations in the spry singings
Of the never tardy larks, windrous
Riddles ripe rushing through reeds.
Jackie Mead Jan 2018
The Frog and The Bee and the Mouse with the House lived together in peace and harmony on the River Louse.

One day the Mouse with the house did declare it was time that he moved out of there.

The Frog and The Bee did not agree and set about convincing the Mouse with the House that he needed to stay on the River Louse.

They sent out invitations to all around to attend tea at half past three.

The tea party was in honour of the Mouse with the house to be held on the banks of the River Louse and hosted by his dear friends The Frog and The Bee.

One by one each creature replied and the guest list rose quickly to Twenty Five.

The Frog and The Bee decided the tea would be civil indeed and The Frog made some scones and The Bee made some honey.

At half past one The Frog and The Bee set up some tables to lay out the tea.

At half past two the tables were laid with the scones from The Frog and The honey The Bee had made.

The scene did look grand, pots of tea and saucers of milk all laid on a tablecloth made of silk.

At half past three the guests started to arrive.
The first of the guests to arrive were The Elf with one ear and The Fly with one eye. The Mouse was delighted to see his friends, the ones who helped get Horse around the river bend.

Next came the Horse and his Master of course to thank the Mouse with the House on the River Louse for his friendship and help on the day that the Horse could not get around the river bend and the Mouse with the House, The Elf with one ear, The Fly with one eye, The Frog and The Bee all pulled together and worked merrily to assist the Horse round the river course.

One by one others did attend, there was a duck who lost his cluck but the Mouse with the House helped him every day until he could at last say "cluck cluck"

Next came a ****** who had forgotten how to weave but the Mouse with the House lay out the sticks until the Beavers memory began to tick and the ****** remembered how to weave.

Then came a beautiful Butterfly with bright red wings.  She told the Frog and The Bee that one day the Mouse had found her crying and sighing her wings had faded and she did not look grand a thing of beauty.  The Mouse ran back to his House and in his shed found a can that had Paint in Red on the side.  He took a brush and painted her wings and now the Butterfly all shiny and bright flapped her wings with all her might.

Last but not least the Mayor arrived with his glorious wife by his side.

Mayor and Mayoress Swan did agree that the Mouse with the House should not leave his friends of  The River Louse and they would indeed miss him dearly if he relocated his house.

The Mouse smiled embarrassingly and said "I am sorry he did declare, there's been a mix up, when I said" I must get out of there" it was only to the shops I intended to go but The Frog and The Bee moved too fast or I moved to slow"

The Frog and The Bee and all the guests were all delighted with the news and brought in some music supplied by "Five in a Pen" which of course were all mother Hens and they danced all night until the Moon went in and the Sun came out.

Then the Frog and The Bee said to their friend the Mouse "let's do this again next year, and Mouse can bake cake for the tea, our friends can attend and we'll dance all night to Five in a Pen and we'll eat scones and honey and cake too and we'll do this in honour of all our friends and those who live and work on the River bend"

THE END
I wrote this at 2am this morning when I couldn't sleep.
If you've read my other poems The Mouse with a House on the River Louise and The Frog and The Bee, these characters will be familiar to you and the poem will make sense.
I hope you enjoy.
Brandon Feb 2012
Underneath the starry sky of a forest clearing
I try to sleep by shutting my eyes tightly
But in the deep dark my heart beats
With terrified thoughts of

Snarling grizzlies

Gnawing beavers

Enraged deer

Buzzing insects





My restless night
Can’t end soon enough
there was a little ****** he just love to build
building up his dams he was really thrilled
collecting lots of logs so he could build his dome
filled with lots of tunnels this was the beavers home
gnawing down the trees with his teeth so strong
building up his dam very wide and long.

he would build all day till building was complete
then collect some food things he liked to eat
when his day was done he would rest and then
have a little sleep then back to work again.
Mateuš Conrad Aug 2016
ejecting Jews from Europe never felt so sad...
long ago the Mozart was inspired,
then in the latter part of the 20th
century when Jews established themselves
in North America we felt that there
was no religious minority in Europe to
inspire us... we sorta forgot it was
worthwhile... even with Hasidism missing
we couldn't capture a Sufi movement,
we're talking Muslims who liked to drink
from Persia... i suggest the desert environment
as a way to avoid alcohol necessarily...
up north we drink to keep warm...
obviously the fundamentalists don't understand,
oh sure, sell me the polygamy of cultures
and later call my people vermin...
i'll be signing up from the word go!,
no ******... i'll resolve to antagonise your little
idea of media friendly democracy like
i always wanted to do it as:
i'll write about ******, but thanks to you
i'll write about ****** with realism,
i don't keep him a sacred evil we need to censor,
he's not a ******* Unicorn after all...
but by censoring discussion about him
i'm starting to think you're the SS men that
made the grade for Auschwitz by gorging out
the eyes of cats after the cats were petted for 2 months...
he's not a unicorn, not some mythological creature...
he was real, and he made things into autobahns...
criticising my reference to him is like
defending him...
Eva Bruan was a part of the Jewry, her genetic
geography tells us so...
ever watch the scientific program saying so?
how can i be part British part Vermin?
i don't understand...
but once the Jews left Europe and the Muslims kept
coming people went nuts...
i see no cultural output worth minding giving this
exchange... at least the Jews weren't eager
beavers to convert people...
at least with the Jews in Europe we had cultural
expansion... let the whiteys do the ugly work
on the American continent, worshipping a
god crucified rather than seated on a throne
will help...
                   ****** isn't a ******* unicorn!
Julian Tuvim from Łódź rhymed him under:
but still a human being...
he was gassed in the trenches and so he later
gassed others... he's the epitome of karma...
no, i don't own a Mein Kampf... sorry...
ask the Croat Nazis if they own a copy
when they joined the Serbs when cleaning
Sarajevo and Kosovo...
as in my reading of Philip K. **** and that
psychotic book entitled: Valis....
just before i was supposed to be confirmed
by a Bishop of Brentwood, but wasn't,
i started sniffing the school library,
read Stendhal before i was 18...
then the Gnostic library...
the Nag Hammadi library sorta undid the work
behind criticising Christianity,
i really have no need to talk about it...
but from the introduction...
VALIS, acronym of Vast Active Living Intelligence
System, from an American film;
a perturbation in the reality field in which
a spontaneous self-monitoring negentropic vortex
is formed, tending progressively to subsume
and incorporate its environment into arrangements
of information. characterised by quasi-consciousness,
purpose, intelligence, growth and an armillary coherence.
  - great soviet dictionary, 6th edition, 1992;
       western society's twin? the DSM-V or the DSM-IV...
   western society isn't saintly, deal with it.
already concerns about inventing words
to create custard...
    - armillary, etymologically Latin meaning bracelets
  - the word negentropic doesn't even exist...
              i'm suggesting: negativity concerning the tropics...
              but the word as such, doesn't exist...
it could very well be: negating the tropical allure...
i don't know, it's Soviet... i'm just thinking
about the next whiskey, and how spiders outlived
Buddha's concept of meditation, or how spiders
inspired people to take up meditative yoga...
i can watch a spider practice enlightening meditative
yoga counter gravity on the web... and sorta
sniff-up a laugh...
but i'll admit... American Head Charge did
a Jimi Hendrix to Patti Smith's rock 'n' roll ******
as Hendrix did to Dylan's all along the watchtower;
so yeah, ejecting the Jews from Europe,
sympathising with Palestinians,
we're having fashion week discussions about
cloth and skin... Vogue says... we make these girls
anorexic so they can model and we can save up
on the raw materials, that's why we starve them...
imagine having to tailor for a size 18...
it's cheaper to feed them champagne caviar and lettuce
and a few m & ms...
no, i see not inspiration being born in Europe,
actually, having located the Jews in America
we're only going to get crap...
cheap humour, charcoal chewing gum cheesy-smiles,
as Joseph Roth mentioned... the doppelgangers...
yeah, Joseph, not Philip Roth, Joseph Roth...
shame the Jews moved from Europe...
they're in America churning out **** comedy,
a sort of humour that's slapstick attempting
witty-satire... i.e. Mel Brooks meets Ricky Gervais...
it's like you're about to be slapped, and instead
of laughing with the person who slapped you
you headbutt K.O. them; i guess that's funny.
Katie Elzinga Nov 2015
I remember the day I called a depression hotline while I cried inside my closet. I did not fit completely,but I felt hidden away from the rest of the world. I just needed a wall to protect me. I could barely speak because the tears just fled out more. I had built a dam around my mind and didn’t release certain thoughts. I bottled it all up but the beavers got tired of swimming in ***** water, so day by day they chipped away the wood until everything was collapsing and I came crumbling down with the water. Now I spend my days trying to rebuild it and block the rush of the stream - fighting back the tears, thoughts, and any negativity that wants to escape. I let it all bite at me - but not consume me. It’s funny because it made me realize that monsters do live in closets, but I live in my own.
This needs lots of work but I wrote it last year and I like the ending.
Your love is
White cotton

White
Pages
&
Ethno
Paganini

****** ink
Delayed

Day after Night
Night after Might

Notes Scribble
Notes Scrabble
Endlessly

As my heart
yearns for you

As
Automaton
Of Adriatic Zephyrs
Blow my dreams

Toward
Destined direction

Future Journeys
Rock boats

Bouncing
Soles
Are
All
Souls
Aboard
The Canues
The Cocoons
Of your sweetest heart

And you know what !?!
You proud male~sweetest man !

I would say to you :

Oh ~baby !
Let's mount that train !

Let us Play Again !

Along the strange cocoa Coasts . . .
You can catch me there ~
Dreaming of your
Dreamy
Affection
_ _ _ _

Nature
Beautifies Everything !

Your
Life is packed

With pickels
&
Charming
Postcards

Glued on your
Baggage Honey Bears
&
Beavers
And Native Horses
Are not Badgers
&
Empty beaches
Are not what they seem !

She said
Darling !

You said
She said !

Love us !

And she
Is
Sheer
Eloquent
Beauty

A
Ga~seele

And You ~
Handsome Mind

Al-Ghazālī
At Might

Sombre butterfly
In this Night
~~~
Imagined by
Impeccable Space
Poetic beauty
~~~
there was a little ****** he just love to build
building up his dams he was really thrilled
collecting lots of logs so he could build his dome
filled with lots of tunnels this was the beavers home
gnawing down the trees would his teeth so strong
building up his dam very wide and long
he would build all day till building was complete
then collect some food things he liked to eat
when his day was done he would rest and then
have a little sleep then back to work again
The Landing

"Just the place for a Snark!" the Bellman cried,
As he landed his crew with care;
Supporting each man on the top of the tide
By a finger entwined in his hair.
"Just the place for a Snark! I have said it twice:
That alone should encourage the crew.
Just the place for a Snark! I have said it thrice:
What I tell you three times is true."

The crew was complete: it included a Boots--
A maker of Bonnets and Hoods--
A Barrister, brought to arrange their disputes--
And a Broker, to value their goods.

A Billiard-marker, whose skill was immense,
Might perhaps have won more than his share--
But a Banker, engaged at enormous expense,
Had the whole of their cash in his care.

There was also a ******, that paced on the deck,
Or would sit making lace in the bow:
And had often (the Bellman said) saved them from wreck
Though none of the sailors knew how.

There was one who was famed for the number of things
He forgot when he entered the ship:
His umbrella, his watch, all his jewels and rings,
And the clothes he had bought for the trip.

He had forty-two boxes, all carefully packed,
With his name painted clearly on each:
But, since he omitted to mention the fact,
They were all left behind on the beach.

The loss of his clothes hardly mattered, because
He had seven coats on when he came,
With three pair of boots--but the worst of is was,
He had wholly forgotten his name.

He would answer to "Hi!" or to any loud cry,
Such as "Fry me!" or "Fritter my wig!"
To "What-you-may-call-um!" or "What-was-his-name!"
But especially "Thing-um-a-jig!"

While, for those who preferred a more forcible word,
He had different names from these:
His intimate friends called him "Candle-ends",
And his enemies "Toasted-cheese"

"His form is ungainly--his intellect small--"
(So the Bellman would often remark)--
"But his courage is perfect! And that, after all,
Is the thing that one needs with a Snark."

He would joke with hyaenas, returning their stare
With an impudent wag of the head:
And he once went a walk, paw-in-paw, with a bear,
"Just to keep up its spirits," he said.

He came as a Baker: but owned, when too late--
And it drove the poor Bellman half-mad--
He could only bake Bridecake--for which, I may state,
No materials were to be had.

The last of the crew needs especial remark,
Though he looked an incredible dunce:
He had just one idea--but, that one being "Snark",
The good Bellman engaged him at once.

He came as a Butcher: but gravely declared,
When the ship had been sailing a week,
He could only **** Beavers. The Bellman looked scared,
And was almost too frightened to speak:

But at length he explained, in a tremulous tone,
There was only one ****** on board;
And that was a tame one he had of his own,
Whose death would be deeply deplored.

The ******, who happened to hear the remark,
Protested, with tears in its eyes,
That not even the rapture of hunting the Snark
Could atone for that dismal surprise!

It strongly advised that the Butcher should be
Conveyed in a separate ship:
But the Bellman declared that would never agree
With the plans he had made for the trip:

Navigation was always a difficult art,
Though with only one ship and one bell:
And he feared he must really decline, for his part,
Undertaking another as well.

The ******'s best course was, no doubt, to procure
A second-hand dagger-proof coat--
So the baker advised it--and next, to insure
Its life in some Office of note:

This the Baker suggested, and offered for hire
(On moderate terms), or for sale,
Two excellent Policies, one Against Fire
And one Against Damage From Hail.

Yet still, ever after that sorrowful day,
Whenever the Butcher was by,
The ****** kept looking the opposite way,
And appeared unaccountably shy.
there was a little ****** he just love to build
building up his dams he was really thrilled
collecting lots of logs so he could build his dome
filled with lots of tunnels this was the beavers home.

gnawing down the trees with his teeth so strong
building up his dam very wide and long
he would build all day till building was complete
then collect some food things he liked to eat;

when his day was done he would rest and then
have a little sleep then back to work again.

— The End —