"erie" poems
If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my ***** Iran
I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap, scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in the jungle,
I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,
Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos,
Flush that sparkly Cesium out of Love Canal
Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain Sludge out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again,
Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little Clouds so snow return white as snow,
Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie
Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood & Agent Orange,
Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state,
& put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an Aeon
till it came out clean.
Allen Ginsberg
Boulder, 26 April, 1980
.
Apr 6, 2014
Apr 6, 2014 at 5:51 AM UTC
the earth is curved - sure y’all knew that.
but to get to the Northwest,
Interstate 84
ain’t le route plus directe
nope curve north to Ontario,
wave to Bex as I cross over
London and Toronto, also can’t recall
which poet from Rochester hails,
or did they shuffle off to Buffalo?
Crossing Erie, Huron, and Michigan Great Lakes all,
brings to mind
my mother’s birthplace,
Last of the Mohicans,
and the three years I did in the Cleveland Penitentiary,
where sun was illegal and baseball was a pretend play
of cowboys and Indians
but by god, it made me
the penitent fella I am today
Look skyward to Montreal,
yes, there he is, the Leo Priest,
the baffled king,
blessing this poetic meet ‘n greet trip
with a smiling unsurprising
hallelujah
Apparently some US citizens still can traverse O Canada,
even if one forgot their passports,
and are not PNG’s (Persons Not so GREAT)
over Minneapolis shed a tear for Diane,
a poet- gone-missing, and wonder if you reader come from
St. Cloud, Fargo or Duluth, Bismarck or Aberdeen,
surely they still speak poetic English there
in a twangy metering methodology - well, message me asap
wow there really is a Saskatoon!
the pilot asks us to lean left in our seats
to help turn the plane
so we go to Portland and not to Vancouver...
me thinks he might be a touch Rockie Mountain High,
considering we are at 30 thousand something Imperial,
as he walks the main cabin with an oxygen mask and a
huuuuuge grin
see the distant Cascades
through a crack in the shuttered windows,
must be close to “the coast”
(as if, harrumph, there were but one)
ah, words in the clouds, ripe for the plucking
must be getting close to Oregon,
where poets grow on trees, woody words like ****
and log-float poems down the Columbia to the sea
gonna drink me some poets
under the table cause this
trip I ain’t no driving and I am already
“flying” ‘n scribing and arriving
on a high tide and a good wind
Jun 7, 2018
Jun 7, 2018 at 5:47 AM UTC
*he is screaming but no one can hear him
she is singing but no one listens
he is lost but no one is looking for him
she is searching and finds that she is alone*
words go unanswered
no matter what is said
they fall upon deaf ears
and reverberate into deep unknown places
an orchestra in the ocean
performed in a foreign frequency
a song lost in translation
heard by many
but meaningful to none
*he is asking but no one answers
she is begging but no one gives
he is following but no one leads
she is leading but no one will follow*
uniqueness is your downfall
strength lies in being the same
in possessing
the inherited dialect of survival
that cannot be achieved
it is a birth right
as natural as your name
but instead
of deserved solace
you received the gift
of 52 hertz of loneliness
*he is calling but receives no answers
she is crying but finds no comfort
he is sinking but no one knows
she is dying and no one cares*
doomed to drift
through bottomless, indigo twilight
being carried on the waves
of your own erie lament
the sound of your sadness
is the cause of your isolation
your desperate song
remains your only hope
and it will never cease
someone, someday
will hear you
and answer
your heart wrenching pleas
someone, someday
singing love songs in the deep
Jan 25, 2012
Jan 25, 2012 at 4:36 PM UTC
It was not, by any means, a loss of faith;
Indeed, her devotion was a boundless, unfettered thing
Beyond proscription, beyond rote chant and catechism,
And what she found as a novitiate
Were shuttered gates and gossipy confessionals,
Standoffish priests, pig-eyed and pinch-lipped
Sisters who thought life’s commerce
No more than mechanical prayer and spotless linens,
The whole enterprise
Smacking of the exclusion of Heaven’s bounty.
So she demurred when the time came to take her orders,
And she returned to the world of pavements and lesser pieties,
Free to seek God on park swings and barstools,
In pleasures of the pastoral and the profane,
Though her faith is no Dionysian walkabout,
As she is passionate to the cusp of maniacal
When it comes to the Book of James’ admonition upon works;
She is often found among the sisters she once tiptoed alongside
At food pantries and clothing drives
(She is scrupulous about ministering to only secular needs,
As the Bishop is not happily disposed towards those
Who choose not to take the veil,
And the specter of excommunication is a prospect
Too awful to contemplate)
Afterwards clambering onto some vaguely roadworthy MTA bus
Back to her studio apartment in Green Island,
Where she often walks down to the Erie Canal lock nearby,
Praying for those who have travelled near and upon the water,
Convenience store clerks and ragged Irishmen fleeing famine,
Feral kittens and insufficiently mourned mules.
Nov 16, 2017
Nov 16, 2017 at 10:39 AM UTC
Homage Kenneth Koch
If I were doing my Laundry I'd wash my ***** Iran
I'd throw in my United States, and pour on the Ivory Soap,
scrub up Africa, put all the birds and elephants back in
the jungle,
I'd wash the Amazon river and clean the oily Carib & Gulf of Mexico,
Rub that smog off the North Pole, wipe up all the pipelines in Alaska,
Rub a dub dub for Rocky Flats and Los Alamos, Flush that sparkly
Cesium out of Love Canal
Rinse down the Acid Rain over the Parthenon & Sphinx, Drain the Sludge
out of the Mediterranean basin & make it azure again,
Put some blueing back into the sky over the Rhine, bleach the little
Clouds so snow return white as snow,
Cleanse the Hudson Thames & Neckar, Drain the Suds out of Lake Erie
Then I'd throw big Asia in one giant Load & wash out the blood &
Agent Orange,
Dump the whole mess of Russia and China in the wringer, squeeze out
the tattletail Gray of U.S. Central American police state,
& put the planet in the drier & let it sit 20 minutes or an
Aeon till it came out clean
4.7k
The smell of a newborn baby after a bath, all sprinkled with powder.
I don't think that smell will ever change.
A smell I will always remember...
My grandma Bertha would always smell like lavender.
I use to buy lavender soap, and hand cream because it made
me think of her.
A smell I will always remember...
My great uncle would make taffy, and one time I helped stretch it.
A smell I will always remember...
My mom would take me to dance class, and the building smelled
like Carmel. Much later in life, I entered a building that had the same smell, and it brought back those old days.
A smell I will always remember...
When a storm was brewing in Lake Erie there was a smell of raging waters. A north eastern was coming - I could smell it.
A smell I will always remember...
The soothing sound of the motor boat passing by leaving the smell
of gasoline - why did that comfort me?
A smell I will always remember...
Walking down the beach, bear foot in the sand, and running across
a dried up dead fish.
A smell I will always remember...
My husband would always use Comet with bleach to clean out the
sink, tub and he would sprinkle it add a bit of water making it a
paste, and let it set for an hour.
A smell I will always remember...
Smell can bring back a memory, at least for me...some good, some bad, but these are a few of my favorite memories of smell...and when I smell them now, it sparks my memory.
by ~ judy
Apr 14, 2014
Apr 14, 2014 at 10:37 AM UTC
I'm One Off 7 Billion Crying,
I'm One Off 7 Billion Slowly Dying,
Half The World Trying,
The Other Half Lying,
Starvation And Disease,
Criminals And Thieves,
An Empire Grows,
Then One Is Diseased,
The World Is Cruel To Say The Least,
A Look At The Past,
Brings A Good Laugh,
But In The End,
Two Wrists Are Slashed,
Erie Flashbacks Crowd Millions Of Minds,
Snipers, Terriorists, And Grenade Mines,
Litter The Worlds Beautiful Face,
All This Human Violence Is Such A Disgrace,
Diwali Everyday In Cities Around The World,
But Not The Festival Of Light,
Just The Light Pollution Smuthering The Stars,
I'm One Of 7 Billion Being Lied To,
One Of 7 Billion Inclined To,
Believe In Humanity,
To Believe There Is No Insanity,
I'm One Of Just 7 Billion Wandering This Lonely,
Yet Crowded World
Nov 14, 2012
Nov 14, 2012 at 8:39 AM UTC
I am the Lorax, who once spoke for the trees
In the hope of bringing progress to its knees
But now I have grown somewhat older and tired,
My outlook and thought process being rewired
(Sometimes to see forest, you must clear the trees.)
Examine the case of the Brown Bar-ba-loots
Whose interests for so long I worked in cahoots.
Could such timid beasts truly thrive in the wild
So innocent, trusting, submissive, and mild?
(My former assertions I strongly refute.)
Why, see how they frolic and scamper in zoos;
How can one watch them and steadfastly refuse
To see how much better their lot is today
As joy for our children as opposed to prey
(A happy condition where no one can lose.)
Ah, scoff the nihilists, *but Truffula Trees,
Those havens for birds and those homes for the bees.
Why, what do you say now that they are all gone,
Removed to make way for some suburban lawn?*
(These angry young men—O Lord, take them all please!)
I gently remind them it’s just nature’s way,
That some species go while other ones stay,
The carrier pigeon’s no longer alive
Yet somehow we manage to live—indeed, thrive!
(In the face of brute logic, they’ve little to say.)
So don’t be dismayed or frightened or leery
Of doomsday projections outlined by theory
Suggesting that our time on this earth may be done;
Consider the caged Bar-ba-loot having fun
(And we hear fish do quite well in Lake Erie.)
Jan 3, 2017
Jan 3, 2017 at 2:33 PM UTC
Figures Dance Across My Memory,
In An Erie Ballroom,
Lit Only By The Light Of Vanilla Scented Candles,
The Light Of The Moon And Stars,
Glaring Through Transparent Windows,
Congregate In Creamy Daffodil Colored Flames,
Every Women I've Cried Over,
In Extravagant Ball Gowns,
Stitched With The Misery They Brought Upon Me,
With Them,
Every Man Which I Have Bawled Over,
Wears A Tuxedo,
With A Withered Rose In Their Pocket,
To Symbolize My Pain,
And A Tie Laced With My Own Tears,
The Ballroom Of Horror Caters,
The Party On The Top Floor Too,
Everyone Who Has Made Me Smile,
Dances Erratically,
Singing Along And Laughing,
Though The Demons Beneath Their Feet Houses,
Barbaric--Criminals--Found Guilty Of Heartbreak,
And As They Slow Dance To Rhythmic Beating,
Of A Broken Heart--That May Never Mend,
Something That Rips The Gauze Wrap,
From My Wounds,
They Smile,
As They Masquerade In My Ballroom Of Horror
Nov 21, 2012
Nov 21, 2012 at 10:59 AM UTC
Sometimes we need something besides Covid19 and Protest's. So today sending you a thought...Can you remember special smells?
A MEMORY OF SMELLS, ARE THEY STILL THE SAME?
The smell of a newborn baby after a bath, all sprinkled with powder.
I don't think that smell will ever change.
A smell I will always remember...
My grandma Bertha would always smell like lavender.
I use to buy lavender soap, and hand cream because it made
me think of her.
A smell I will always remember...
My great uncle would make taffy, and one time I helped stretch it.
A smell I will always remember...
My mom would take me to dance class, and the building smelled
like Carmel. Much later in life, I entered a building that had the same smell, and it brought back those old days.
A smell I will always remember...
When a storm was brewing in Lake Erie there was a smell of raging waters. A north eastern was coming - I could smell it.
A smell I will always remember...
The soothing sound of the motor boat passing by leaving the smell
of gasoline - why did that comfort me?
A smell I will always remember...
Walking down the beach, bear foot in the sand, and running across
a dried up dead fish.
A smell I will always remember...
My husband would always use Comet with bleach to clean out the
sink, tub and he would sprinkle it add a bit of water making it a
paste, and let it set for an hour.
A smell I will always remember...
Smell can bring back a memory, at least for me...some good, some bad, but these are a few of my favorite memories of smell...and when I smell them now, it sparks my memory, again...
by ~ judy
Jun 8, 2020
Jun 8, 2020 at 7:23 PM UTC
a polar vortex
swirls eastward
on Siberian Tiger paws
bounding over
Appalachian Highlands
gobbling geography
gelling Great Lakes
spawning Erie blizzards
sculpting Wabash ice floes
clogging commerce all
along the Ohio River Valley
this voracious
juggernaut’s wide maw
bears icicle teeth
laughing as it swallows
Pittsburgh, Little Philly,
and a Big Apple, before
gorging itself on
generous portions
ladled into
simmering crocks
of steaming
Boston Baked Beans
growling
blue arctic
air blasts roar
bursts pipes
savages the heat
of blasting furnaces,
bubbling boilers, hot
belly stoves frantically
drinking oil, flaming gas
burning wood and
burping soot
the blistering
jet stream claws
screech a slashing
stratospheric hum
as Frigidaire blasts
swallows breath
brittles limbs
chafes cheeks
gnaws earlobes
crystallizes tears
nibbles nostrils
cubes snot
numbs toes
bites digits
diving sub zero
gradient subdues
batteries to
deaden states
delays buses
derails trains
cuts power
constricts veins
preys on
vagabonds
and animals
get the homeless
off the street!
bring the animals in
check on your
elderly neighbors
don’t get caught outside
and shut the **** door!
do you own stock
in the Public Service?
beware the polar vortex
and next months heating bill
Sonny Boy Williamson
& Otis Spann
Nine Below Zero
Oakland
1/6/14
jbm
Jan 6, 2014
Jan 6, 2014 at 2:43 PM UTC
Bonfires ragging
Cigars blazing
Beers Cracking
Lake Erie Fishing
Country Music
Blaring
May 5, 2012
May 5, 2012 at 8:02 AM UTC
SOMEBODY'S little girl-how easy to make a sob story over who she was once and who she is now.
Somebody's little girl-she played once under a crab-apple tree in June and the blossoms fell on the dark hair.
It was somewhere on the Erie line and the town was Salamanca or Painted Post or Horse's Head.
And out of her hair she shook the blossoms and went into the house and her mother washed her face and her mother had an ache in her heart at a rebel voice, "I don't want to."
Somebody's little girl-forty little girls of somebodies splashed in red tights forming horseshoes, arches, pyramids-forty little show girls, ponies, squabs.
How easy a sob story over who she once was and who she is now-and how the crabapple blossoms fell on her dark hair in June.
Let the lights of Broadway spangle and splatter-and the taxis hustle the crowds away when the show is over and the street goes dark.
Let the girls wash off the paint and go for their midnight sandwiches-let 'em dream in the morning sun, late in the morning, long after the morning papers and the milk wagons-
Let 'em dream long as they want to ... of June somewhere on the Erie line ... and crabapple blossoms.
2.2k
A FOREFINGER of stone, dreamed by a sculptor, points to the sky.
It says: This way! this way!
Four lions snore in stone at the corner of the shaft.
They too are the dream of a sculptor.
They too say: This way! this way!
The street cars swing at a curve.
The middle-class passengers witness low life.
The car windows frame low life all day in pictures.
Two Italian cellar delicatessens
sell red and green peppers.
The Florida bananas furnish a burst of yellow.
The lettuce and the cabbage give a green.
Boys play marbles in the cinders.
The boys' hands need washing.
The boys are glad; they fight among each other.
A plank bridge leaps the Lehigh Valley railroad.
Then acres of steel rails, freight cars, smoke,
And then ... the blue lake shore
...Erie with Norse blue eyes ... and the white sun.
1.9k
ON Forty First Street
near Eighth Avenue
a frame house wobbles.
If houses went on crutches
this house would be
one of the cripples.
A sign on the house:
Church of the Living God
And Rescue Home for Orphan Children.
From a Greek coffee house
Across the street
A cabalistic jargon
Jabbers back.
And men at tables
Spill Peloponnesian syllables
And speak of shovels for street work.
And the new embankments of the Erie Railroad
At Painted Post, Horse's Head, Salamanca.
1.9k
alarm clock set for early morning
wails and peels without fair warning
rub my eyes in an effort to see
surprised to wake up in the state of VT
what is this, where did it go
whats a po’ boy doing far from buff’lo
where be the park, the lake and da’ strip
where are the people with the stiff upper lip
why leave the breeze, the squalls, the kimmelweck
the taverns where gran’pa drank anisette
that sycamore growin’ on Franklin street
the angst that consumed a community beat
the grimy grey skies to summers impossibly
what happened to lead me to the state of VT?
{not right to accuse others of conceit
why play handball with self deceit?
far better to accept the things that be
and apply my emotions, stoically}
for one place is much like the other
careers are for greenbacks, that’s why the bother
of numbers and lawyers, of panels of priests
up north, out west, down south and back east
I am dissolved in a prelude that leads to eternity
with so many points available, might as well be VT
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 10:02 AM UTC
Its something about that
crack
of the morning
solitude
Becoming one alongside the
energy
conveyed upon every full, comforting gust of
wind
with every frigid grain of sand
collected
in the burrows between your
toes
How the proverbial crash and sizzle out of an alkaline
wave
can intimately caress ones depth of
recollection
so swift and flirtatious,
passionate.
Reflecting the honest
actuality
Honorable substandard grotesque
indifferent
Reminding us that we can
procure
tranquility within
pandemonium
perfection in chaos and
inadequacy
an erie absence of inorganic
resonance
in an alone, but not lonely repose,
comfort
pending that
crack
of the morning
solitude.
Feb 13, 2013
Feb 13, 2013 at 12:46 PM UTC
A young boy, 7, and his sister, 10
Drowned today...so sad
At a time when young folks memories
should be the best they ever had
On a sunny summers day
Swimming out to far from shore
They are the newest of the lost
So far this summer, there's been 4
The lake is known as Erie
Known for not giving up it's dead
It's a small lake but decieving
It's a lake that sailors dread
An older sister was their lifeline
No lifeguards on this beach
One was dead while in the water
The other, almost out of reach
No graduation for these children
Weddings none, and children too
In Erie's depths their lifeforce lingers
The lake don't care a lick for you
the sand bar goes out quite a distance
Dropping off, it's cold and dark
The current there will **** you under
Like a shark attack without a mark
The next day the beach is open
Still no lifegurard on the shore
What will it take to have them down there
You have to ask, how many more?
Two souls were lost in Erie
A young boy 7, his sister , 10
A family torn asunder
This must not happen, not again
Jul 15, 2012
Jul 15, 2012 at 5:29 PM UTC
Demons Lurk In The Crevasses,
In This Temple,
My Body,
I Lay In My Bed,
Wondering,
Am I Ready To Get Up And Start A New Day?
The Red Mechanical Orbs Of Satin,
Flicker In The Thick Erie Mist,
"Leave Me Be," I Scream Into The Fog, "Go Away!",
A Small Chuckle,
Loud As Thunder,
Seeps Into My Ears,
That Empty Feeling Just Below My Sternum,
Is Becoming Even More Vacant,
Leave Me Be Demons,
I Can Feel Your Cold Fingers Groping My Skin,
I Feel Your Stoney Eyes Burrowing Into My Soul,
Leave Me Be Demons,
I Know Why You Are Here And I Don't Like It,
I Know You Are Here,
Because This Is The Feeling Of A Broken Heart...
Nov 11, 2012
Nov 11, 2012 at 12:38 PM UTC
God fire
Melting
Gleam pink milky pall
Across the lake.
Cool hot arc
Sink anchor for my eyes;
Some otherwhere around the globe
Burn blinding bright
And further on
Or back
Orange ember rising
Gild morning star-filled sky.
Source and center –
Orbit of our baking sphere
Gravity suspended spin
Night round
Touch every edge of Earth.
July 21, 2011
Sep 24, 2011
Sep 24, 2011 at 9:33 PM UTC
Short nights.
We toured the sands of lake Erie.
Wet feet,
The flashlight beam breaking on rocks and waves and empty beer cans.
You laughed at me and we talked about finding a bear or
Maybe, in a few years, living together.
There was heat.
I was swinging and the trees were touching my feet,
Bending boughs before us and the cops came
So we piled in your car and you
Were called to “drive faster.”
Speeding up to catch the sharp exhale I
Let spread across your neck,
Trickling slowly off your collarbone.
We brought a camera.
And, negatives spoke volumes when we reviewed our faces;
You were looking at your feet and my
Eyes were on your lips.
Sep 10, 2012
Sep 10, 2012 at 2:32 AM UTC
I wrote this five times over because it wouldn't come out quite right. Because I’m tired, and there’s nothing I can hear but the silent chatter of my mind on repeat, screaming at me to be better than I am (better than I can be).
In January, we slept in the same bed and I dreamed of kissing you, of taking your hand in mine and pulling you close and never letting go. I followed you around like a lost puppy as you talked about nothing but home.
In February, I was told to wait and left to wonder and doubt and dream. My thoughts swirled until I convinced myself that there was nothing between us but my arms reaching out for you as you turned away (not out of spite, but because you didn’t know).
Felicity, you call me Serenity but I am by far the best at convincing myself that I am unloved, and by far the worst at thinking that I’m worth loving. Felicity, you have been extraordinary from the day I met you, a cacophony of color and beauty that shocked me and entranced me. You are all that I want curled around me at night; you are beautiful and wonderful and mine.
Felicity, most times I am not quite there. I am in the past or the future or the could-have-beens. I am not always whole. I am not whole. It’s hard, for me, to give the entirety of myself when I have trouble finding it, when it’s rotten and breaking and lonely and hiding.
I’m afraid of the dark and blue cheese. I don’t like hypocrites or the way I act when I feel like I can’t breathe. My mouth is bitter from too much coffee, my mind is buzzing from too much worry, my hands are empty because I can hold nothing without it slipping away from me in the end (it was never there in the first place). But you- you are a certainty, and I don’t know if I want to cry but I do know that I want to hold you forever and kiss you a hundred times until you know that you’re worth more than should be possible.
In January, the ball dropped over Erie Bay and I looked past the stumbling drunkards to see you, cheeks pink with cold, and wondered what it would be like to be brave. Now it’s November, and I backspace the ending words to each goodnight text and think about the very same thing. There's sugar in the edges of your fabric, darling, chalk dust kicked up along the road, and I am better when you smile; I am home.
Nov 8, 2015
Nov 8, 2015 at 12:40 AM UTC
A year later
The smell of black coffee
Will still remind me
Of a sad morning
Spent at Lake Erie
Hiding silent
Beneath blankets and books
And sitting across from a girl
I never quite
Got done loving
Embracing for the first time
Our ultimate future
And disdaining for the first time
Our previously unshakable present
We sipped idly at our coffee
And dared not look up
From the pages of the fictional
Forever
That we had created-
Trying unsuccessfully
To worm that ephemeral truth
Out of our minds
Jul 24, 2013
Jul 24, 2013 at 5:53 PM UTC
Miss erie she ******* loves me
I hear her calls, her face is all I see
Miss erie she ******* loves me
She's my wonderwall when happiness betrays me
miss erie she ******* loves me
my colorful heaven in hell for eternity
miss erie she ******* loves me
In her arms I call home my sanctuary
Like a butterfly she came to take my soul, like a candle beneath my thread waiting for my fall,
Her smile's like a cancer devouring my all,yet she is the only one around when ever I make the call
Nov 6, 2014
Nov 6, 2014 at 7:45 AM UTC
Memories Perfectly Printed In The Pages,
Of A Locked--Leather Backed Book,
I've Repayed My Erie Wages,
And Yet My Pride Is Took,
Misery Formed In Many Different Stages,
Mirrors Reflect A Conversation Piece--The Hook,
Feared Creatures Locked In Steel Cages,
Sadly They Thought I Was A Crook,
Help Written In The Margins--Doleful--Enraged,
Bitter Words Spat In My Face--Look,
Actions And Emotions Staged,
A Mind Mastering Melancholy And Is Shook,
Names And Places Engraved,
The Platter Of Humane Treatment--Perfectly Cooked,
At The Last Paragraph In This Phasing,
Locked Book,
The Words To Be Continued,
Reflect In The Green Eyes,
Of A Caged Being
Nov 26, 2012
Nov 26, 2012 at 8:44 AM UTC