"catamount" poems
Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies
Were never stained with village smoke:
The fragrant wind, that through them flies,
Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.
Here, with my rifle and my steed,
And her who left the world for me,
I plant me, where the red deer feed
In the green desert--and am free.
For here the fair savannas know
No barriers in the bloomy grass;
Wherever breeze of heaven may blow,
Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.
In pastures, measureless as air,
The bison is my noble game;
The bounding elk, whose antlers tear
The branches, falls before my aim.
Mine are the river-fowl that scream
From the long stripe of waving sedge;
The bear that marks my weapon's gleam,
Hides vainly in the forest's edge;
In vain the she-wolf stands at bay;
The brinded catamount, that lies
High in the boughs to watch his prey,
Even in the act of springing, dies.
With what free growth the elm and plane
Fling their huge arms across my way,
Gray, old, and cumbered with a train
Of vines, as huge, and old, and gray!
Free stray the lucid streams, and find
No taint in these fresh lawns and shades;
Free spring the flowers that scent the wind
Where never scythe has swept the glades.
Alone the Fire, when frost-winds sere
The heavy herbage of the ground,
Gathers his annual harvest here,
With roaring like the battle's sound,
And hurrying flames that sweep the plain,
And smoke-streams gushing up the sky:
I meet the flames with flames again,
And at my door they cower and die.
Here, from dim woods, the aged past
Speaks solemnly; and I behold
The boundless future in the vast
And lonely river, seaward rolled.
Who feeds its founts with rain and dew;
Who moves, I ask, its gliding mass,
And trains the bordering vines, whose blue
Bright clusters tempt me as I pass?
Broad are these streams--my steed obeys,
Plunges, and bears me through the tide.
Wide are these woods--I thread the maze
Of giant stems, nor ask a guide.
I hunt till day's last glimmer dies
O'er woody vale and grassy height;
And kind the voice and glad the eyes
That welcome my return at night.
4.9k
I saw a good friend die
God **** did I cry
His last words still linger in my head
He told his dad to go to bed
Last time he told me this was temporary
I thought he meant his condition
Then I took a better listen
Now I realize he meant life
And that he knew his position
He knew where he was going
Up in heaven with God
And this sent my emotions flowing
Son I have some bad news
Kyle passed this morning
Pause valentine
A hysterical mourning
But I can stop the scorning
He's in a place so much better
Can't even be imagined, never
So I remember
Farmer brown
And the mine not far
The bike scar in the backyard
The fill by the shed
And the metal bunk bed
To keep away from girls who's names start with A
And the move to Vermont, what a dreadful day
The big stupid game
We would always play
But never won
The hotel in Dubai to Newburgh
And Furnishing the pool, what fun
Never again after catamount
And never again the alpine slide
But always that roller coaster ride
With the ugh, ya know!
these memories I will stow
But it's not just a superfluous list of reminisces
They're a depth forming row of instances
Which brought us steps closer to potential distances
But cut short in your teens
And I'm not sure what it means
Or its true prominence nor value
Whatever it is, it's because of you
July 29th
Jan 15, 2013
Jan 15, 2013 at 11:26 PM UTC
in one ohh the flightly finister
interjerk’t offorthwith united
unloosed upon the messes
who rains with string
of erring do
believe the ortho doxie
catamount the femail glory
moistens packet interfury
trump-ettes blow
the suction from their barrel oblesk
look slively tortice hand out for brood
scooch the dead **** down
impesh with dis-ire
marakesh the claim to sane
and leak brainoil smartly
for aft andall
whomake it threw
until deadneck cycoil
tweet totell interlie
the diff is how’d it hung
to a peel at the court
for reci-prostate-parity
Jul 6, 2015
Jul 6, 2015 at 2:05 PM UTC
Come with me. Here’s
the secret trail. At the edge
of the potato field, crouch through
the barbed wire fence. Pass the stone
foundation of an old homestead.
Enter the maple forest, the green oven.
Bake, slowly rise like a gingerbread figure.
Follow, it’s fine (there’s no witch).
Release rivulets of sweat.
This is nothing, the foothill.
Listen: the purr, the burble, the rush,
the small canyon of Catamount
Creek. Remove boots, splash yourself.
Splash me. Cup water in hands
to pour over the face. Let water dribble
inside the shirt, drip to the shorts.
Relish the shock of cold
against hot parts.
Work uphill now, at last
out of the trees into the land of
wild blueberry. Pluck, taste
tiny tight nut-like explosions of blue,
so intense, so different from store-bought.
Gorge, let fingers and tongue
turn garish. Fill pockets.
Climb with me now among rocky
outcrops like stair steps to the Funnel,
a crevice where from below
you push my bottom, then from above
I pull your hand. Emerge to a view
of valley, farmland, wrinkles of mountains
like folds of flesh. How far we’ve come.
This is the false top.
Catch your breath, embrace the vista,
then join me in a scramble up bare granite,
farther than you’d think, no trail marked
on the endless stone but simply
navigate toward the opposite of gravity,
upward, to at last a bald dome
chilled by blasts of breeze.
At the top, sit with me, our backs against
the windbreak of a boulder.
Empty your pockets of blueberries. Nibble,
share — above the rivers,
above the lakes, above the hawks,
among the blue chain of peaks
beyond your outstretched tired feet.
Appreciate your muscles
in exhaustion and exhilaration.
We have made love to this mountain.
Hear a sound like a sigh from waves of
alpine grass in the fading warmth
of a lowering sun. Rest.
After this, the return
is so easy.
Jul 22, 2017
Jul 22, 2017 at 12:19 PM UTC
The catamount,
It does appear,
From our fair commonwealth
Has disappeared,
It's just as gone
As gone can be.
Just as the state
Environment folk,
They'll tell you
It's extinct in our fair land.
As is the Nittany Lion,
From its home
Of Pennsylvania.
They say the only Nittany Lion left
Is frozen in perpetual leap
Outside the Penn State football field.
And as a proof,
Her moaning call
Is heard no more
Throughout the Pennsylvania mounts.
We've slain those big cats
One and all
From the Allegheny
To the Blue Ridge.
So when a giant cat
Stretched herself full out
Before our car
Just to cross the street
At the time of her desire,
Not one moment sooner,
Nor one moment later,
We might have almost hit a ghost
But she didn't stick around
To tell us who she was.
The great cat speaks not,
But goes about her business,
If she's there,
And if she's not,
What the heck was that
That crossed the road?
Mar 2, 2014
Mar 2, 2014 at 8:47 PM UTC
I can't blame the teenage girl for being forward,
then passive aggressive. It shouldn't make one angry;
she has her interests and that which bores her.
Or the adolescent boy for being antsy, a little loopy
and aloof. Under that hat he wants to be good,
is deeply disappointed with the world (and the food).
Robert Francis: the finest poet no one reads.
We care not. Such prisms of philosophy need
no acknowledgment. The catamount is only believed
to be extinct. The wildlife tree, a mere bole,
deep in the forest, far off the road, when it falls
takes many squirrel turbines and spider spans down with it.
Noon, Julian has nothing much to do
and likes it that way. That way nothing much gets done today.
Every man, every tree, lives with disabilities.
Crooked finger, rotten bole, under stars, over soils.
The I in my old poems is no longer me. The one
in this one will be someone else soon.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 10:26 AM UTC