"heifer" poems
Brass plays a sad tune
Over the motors of the pontoon.
I was lost; now I'm found
Rescued from
The dog pound
Mama! Mama! Go get a doctor!
Send forty days of rain
And a kettle of copper.
Ride that train! Hurry uptown!
That ol' blue norther's pourin'
At the dog pound
Well, it's hard to be humble
In this land by the sea
But it's so easy here to stumble,
Ain't it hard livin' free?
Hear that train? How sweet the sound...
That Burlington's a-blowin'
At the dog pound
Rally! Rally! Creepin' up the alley!
Rope that heifer! No slack on the dally!
Make her now become a cow
And milk the puppies
At the dog pound
And with the storm well on its way,
Back and forth the breakers sway;
Fools rush in, makin' their rounds,
But the muzzle has 'em puzzled
At the dog pound
Aug 31, 2017
Aug 31, 2017 at 10:48 PM UTC
तत् त्वम् असि
*for sitar, mridangam, vina, musical spoons,
washboard, Jew’s harp and banjo*
(*the names Swami and Guru-ji can be replaced by
any other mystic names the reader wishes to substitute*)
Swami and Guru-ji went to the river
to wash their souls in the ***** water
filled brass pots while they were at it, singing:
“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji flexed contortions
twisted minds and limbs in knots
sold each other secret mantras
to erase akashic records when the body rots
Swami and Guru-ji taught disciples
how to fast and hum and chant;
bound their ***** with priestly garments, saying
“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji swallowed prana
purged their guts, then farted light
launched their chakras into oneness
in the ida and pingala of their third-eye sight
Swami and Guru-ji built a temple
around a monstrous calf of gold
bowed before the six-armed idols chanting
“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji studied parchments
by the dim light of a feeble ray
railed and wailed at the sinful heathen
in the filthy Kali-yuga of the dying day
Swami and Guru-ji made ablutions
offered incense and holy foods
ate their share and smoked the profit, humming
“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami’s blissed devotions
entwined their members with the temple belles;
stuck their yonis up their lingams
in the twenty-seventh circle of the seven hells.
Swami and Guru-ji offered puja
wrote it all off as a karmic debt –
forced a shudra to bear the burden, screaming
“These are Gods –
worship them, worship them,
these are Gods –
won’t you worship them please”
Guru and Swami-ji meditated:
pure omniscience in eternal now –
drank fresh ***** from a heifer’s bladder
for they knew that it was soma from a holy cow.
Swami and the Guru merged with Brahman –
then went home to the wife and kids.
Told the servants to polish statues, saying
“These are Gods – worship them, worship them,
these are Gods – won’t you worship them please”
THE MORAL:
(slower solemn rhythm, no banjo or Jew’s harp)
Aaron’s calf is ground to powder,
cast upon the Ganges’ tide.
Every tribe shall taste its poison.
“This is God –worship Him, worship Him –
this is God – let us worship Him now…”
Sep 11, 2015
Sep 11, 2015 at 8:33 AM UTC
Who put that crease in your soul,
Davies, ready this fine morning
For the staid chapel, where the Book's frown
Sobers the sunlight? Who taught you to pray
And scheme at once, your eyes turning
Skyward, while your swift mind weighs
Your heifer's chances in the next town's
Fair on Thursday? Are your heart's coals
Kindled for God, or is the burning
Of your lean cheeks because you sit
Too near that girl's smouldering gaze?
Tell me, Davies, for the faint breeze
From heaven freshens and I roll in it,
Who taught you your deft poise?
3.3k
Thou still unravish'd bride of quietness,
Thou foster-child of silence and slow time,
Sylvan historian, who canst thus express
A flowery tale more sweetly than our rhyme:
What leaf-fring'd legend haunts about thy shape
Of deities or mortals, or of both,
In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?
What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?
What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?
What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy?
Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard
Are sweeter; therefore, ye soft pipes, play on;
Not to the sensual ear, but, more endear'd,
Pipe to the spirit ditties of no tone:
Fair youth, beneath the trees, thou canst not leave
Thy song, nor ever can those trees be bare;
Bold Lover, never, never canst thou kiss,
Though winning near the goal yet, do not grieve;
She cannot fade, though thou hast not thy bliss,
For ever wilt thou love, and she be fair!
Ah, happy, happy boughs! that cannot shed
Your leaves, nor ever bid the Spring adieu;
And, happy melodist, unwearied,
For ever piping songs for ever new;
More happy love! more happy, happy love!
For ever warm and still to be enjoy'd,
For ever panting, and for ever young;
All breathing human passion far above,
That leaves a heart high-sorrowful and cloy'd,
A burning forehead, and a parching tongue.
Who are these coming to the sacrifice?
To what green altar, O mysterious priest,
Lead'st thou that heifer lowing at the skies,
And all her silken flanks with garlands drest?
What little town by river or sea shore,
Or mountain-built with peaceful citadel,
Is emptied of this folk, this pious morn?
And, little town, thy streets for evermore
Will silent be; and not a soul to tell
Why thou art desolate, can e'er return.
O Attic shape! Fair attitude! with brede
Of marble men and maidens overwrought,
With forest branches and the trodden ****
Thou, silent form, dost tease us out of thought
As doth eternity: Cold Pastoral!
When old age shall this generation waste,
Thou shalt remain, in midst of other woe
Than ours, a friend to man, to whom thou say'st,
"Beauty is truth, truth beauty,--that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."
3k
Numerous number systems beyond the real:
complex numbers, octonions, omnions which can eat whole black
holes.
It's axiomatic that your personal history, preferences, how you feel
account for nothing at all.
$30 buys a flock of chickens for a needy family (International Rescue
Committee)
$29 gets a girl a school uniform (CARE), for $300 you can stock a fish
pond (Heifer International)
$69 can start a female entrepreneur in the sewing business (Mercy
Corps)
$5 will buy a bed net that protects a family from mosquitoes (Against
Malaria)
20th century experiments demonstrated that electrical charge is
quantized; that is, it comes in
multiples of individual small units called the elementary charge, e,
approximately equal to 1.602
x 10-19 coulombs (except for particles called quarks which have
charges that are multiples of
1/3e).
Why has the experimentalism of the avant-garde, which has failed in
the novel, succeeded in
poetry? Because poetry is always experimental; while the novel, on
the contrary, by its nature,
cannot be . . . which is to say that experimentalism is synonymous
with poetry, and that applied
to the novel, it leads simply to the substitution of the novel with
poetry. --Alberto Moravia
Man made the town, Fibonacci inflated zero to be the wheel
around which the universe turns and language is the soul
walking and talking quietly or going angrily to war.
"Counting is in its very essence magical, if any human practice is at all.
For numbers are things no one has ever seen or heard or touched."
As are words.
Joan Didion thought the scariest stanza in all of poetry
begins Row, row, row your boat gently
down the stream. The elements, the material penumbra,
irresolvable for the mortal, readily dissolve in words and numbers.
Aug 11, 2015
Aug 11, 2015 at 4:08 PM UTC
*baby in the crib, turns closed eyes into dream-light
young boy at the window, eyes on the calf
woman with the cow, flies milling around the eyes*
1.
every morning, with a penchant for rising before his hour
he stands, sees the calf at the wooden-fence
watches with the fawn-coloured beauty of sea-shell heartbeat..
the rising-eye
while his sister, nearly a young-woman, washes dishes with eyeballs
out the tiny-window
heifer passes by and he looks straight into eyes – gentle eyes –
soothes calamity
2.
in the cold morning on the farmstead, the baby curls in its warm-folds
she chases off the flies from the horns
and cleans gummed-openings
yet deity’s crown falls from splendour this day
as moments devoured by need eventually bear witness
to warm dripping in the sand
the bowl is filled
(high-scale horror)
and the boy has seen it, too
he holds his arms round him to stop the wholesale-shaking.. bites down hard
as his face contorts baleful.. in impotent-anger
his silence bought decades ago.. in another life
no price on his shock
and the bird on the branch flies off.. glint-eyes on another branch
it’s that time once again: she takes the old-cow to town
they await her before nightfall
she never does return
3.
I’m begging you
leave it be, this is how it is
go pick up the baby, please
(the baby won’t stop crying)
*your fences, I’ll rip up your fences with your very own whip
while them wolves howl on and on
I got oppressive-time to suffer your unmatched-law in the crush-of-daylight
now, kindly.. get outta my face!*
S T – 22 Jan 2014
Jan 22, 2014
Jan 22, 2014 at 9:51 AM UTC
Little thinks, in the field, yon red-cloaked clown,
Of thee, from the hill-top looking down;
And the heifer, that lows in the upland farm,
Far-heard, lows not thine ear to charm;
The sexton tolling the bell at noon,
Dreams not that great Napoleon
Stops his horse, and lists with delight,
Whilst his files sweep round yon Alpine height;
Nor knowest thou what argument
Thy life to thy neighbor's creed has lent:
All are needed by each one,
Nothing is fair or good alone.
I thought the sparrow's note from heaven,
Singing at dawn on the alder bough;
I brought him home in his nest at even;—
He sings the song, but it pleases not now;
For I did not bring home the river and sky;
He sang to my ear; they sang to my eye.
The delicate shells lay on the shore;
The bubbles of the latest wave
Fresh pearls to their enamel gave;
And the bellowing of the savage sea
Greeted their safe escape to me;
I wiped away the weeds and foam,
And fetched my sea-born treasures home;
But the poor, unsightly, noisome things
Had left their beauty on the shore
With the sun, and the sand, and the wild uproar.
The lover watched his graceful maid
As 'mid the ****** train she strayed,
Nor knew her beauty's best attire
Was woven still by the snow-white quire;
At last she came to his hermitage,
Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage,—
The gay enchantment was undone,
A gentle wife, but fairy none.
Then I said, "I covet Truth;
Beauty is unripe childhood's cheat,—
I leave it behind with the games of youth."
As I spoke, beneath my feet
The ground-pine curled its pretty wreath,
Running over the club-moss burrs;
I inhaled the violet's breath;
Around me stood the oaks and firs;
Pine cones and acorns lay on the ground;
Above me soared the eternal sky,
Full of light and deity;
Again I saw, again I heard,
The rolling river, the morning bird;—
Beauty through my senses stole,
I yielded myself to the perfect whole.
2.2k
Barry’s dead.
I saw you dying weeks ago;
An oyster shell turned empty can,
Scrumpled up and finished
By the past’s magnet attraction
In your shakey hands.
It’s just a habit now and you can hardly kick yourself.
Buckets of Grolsch:
My swash-buckling hero
Turned slosh-slurping zero once again
And shiny surfaces
Never suited you.
Scrub away at that black demon matter
With the sole white spirit
Your genius affords. A shattered socialist
Posy primrose ******
That’s the story of your life –
All
most
man.
Now beneath the cowslips
And the heifer’s hooves,
Your saintly-thorny words without a roof:
But who will speak for you?
And trawl the depths
As you once did in youth?
Prizing open oysters…
I hope that where you are
Your silence brings relief.
I hope that where you are
You smell the borage breeze.
I hope that where you are
There’s ox-cheek for tea
And your carbonated past
Is carbonating in mute peace.
Tonight the argent stars
Are dulled in disbelief
Tonight the slate that you’ve carved
Is the hardest you will teach.
Tonight the tumblestones
Are falling down in grief:
For Barry’s gone to rediscover Pearl
And the beauty of her peace.
Feb 22, 2011
Feb 22, 2011 at 4:40 AM UTC
Extending my sleeves past my frozen fingers,
it is -3 and handles of anything
get extremely bitter this time of year.
I fork in splinters of silage
#235 pokes her head out through the feeder.
I have plans for you Missy Moo —
well: our progeny.
Provided you’re in calf;
provided you stay in calf;
provided you calf down successfully;
provided it lives long enough to be killed.
If not, I’ll probably sell you
and buy an in-calf heifer instead.
No pressure.
Dec 22, 2010
Dec 22, 2010 at 9:44 AM UTC
all winter housed in the yard. Fed
the freshest silage, the cleanest water.
All the nuts they could eat.
But they’d hang their heads by the gate,
longed for earth between their hooves.
Hard to run giddy on concrete
between confining walls.
Eventually beaten with hurlies
and a black pipe
onto the back of a truck.
5 heifer hang from hooks.
Aug 30, 2010
Aug 30, 2010 at 2:14 PM UTC
A bit of another story
for someday when we can
make the time,
to think how old river tales are,
those ones when a river is bent,
to the will of empires, using tiny
autonomic nanobots, scene human scale.
Here your mind crossed mine in all probability
exactly once, just
right, it all was just fine, grinding
to a halt,
frictional tension, old blisters recollected
as reminders, what the science misthought right,
and sold mysteriously, for the promise to pay
all the taxes you manage to squeeze,
from the cash cows digital representation,
brass bull, where once stood a golden calf,
in the blood of a red heifer and a white buffalo.
Mar 24, 2023
Mar 24, 2023 at 12:16 AM UTC
In a past life… I’m sure of it… I was exceedingly
Grandiose…
And as grand as myself… each entrance-
Pausing in doorways
To give each and every head the privilege
To turn and peruse the
Magnificence that was me…
And with each exit
Shatter champagne glass… and
Slowly… hip swayingly….
Drag full length mink along the floor….
But not this time around… No…
This phenomenal, prosaic, and unpretentious time around
If I drag full length mink…
Some heifer would accidentally… or purposely
Be guaranteed to step on it.. making me hafta
Step to her…
(get off’a mah coat!)
And no good can ever come
From two grown women…
Rolling in gutter gum
And miscellaneous sidewalk debris
‘til the cops show… and I catch a case…
With footprints on my coat…
gum in my hair… and
My spirit of woe…
Cuz it wasn’t s’posed to go
Down like that… not the way I saw my
Grand Exit at all…
So…
I’ve concluded … evidently… by the way it seems like i should roll…
Not this time around… but in a past life…
Surely… I was exceedingly
Grandiose
May 29, 2013
May 29, 2013 at 2:30 PM UTC
Athens, February the seventh of two thousand thirteen
A long day is perishing, its dawn was short, its rain perpetual and its air heavy,
And I think it is a shame that you are not here with me, now that I look my watch and its 6 o’clock in the afternoon.
I have the stark feeling that Athens was much,, much more yellow with you here,
now that in my magic eyes are candles, and in my head bells, and that I listen the tachycardic throb of this keyboard,
being punched with rugged fingers for almost 3 pages, now that I see the clock and its 7 already,
I pop my knuckles just to harvest some cassavas for you, and briefly, I found myself judicious.
Because, today as always, and also as ever, I think it is a shame that you are not here with me…
My left foot aches like hell and I think about which running shoes I will buy, then I cherish the time we bought your brown running shoes and then, wonder the ones I just picked will like you, because
Maybe, in that near and also far day of fall, I will be using them, when I met you again.
Maybe then I will watch into my cellphone and, being 8 p.m. already, you will say “Hello, my love” while walking toward me … and I will say “Hello, my heifer”… And we will stand right there, both of us… me, stained with the green sea color of your glaucomic eyes, and you, with the blue stain of my banished loneliness.
May 25, 2013
May 25, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
well
look over yonder
there's
miss daisy
wearing that same old
red and white
polka dot dress
looking like
them
big Jersey cows
oh yeah
that
big old heifer
stronger than a blue ox
well
i
saw her
wrestle 6oo lb alligator
and
knock out
a full-grown bull
oh hi... miss daisy
well
i
saw her scratching
her big old behind
on an old piece of tree stump
while
strolling up
the
old dirt road
go to
the
big church house
for
choir practice
with
church lady
sister Maxine Gwendolyn Brooks
anyway
miss daisy
knows
deep down
in
her
heart of hearts
that
she
going straight to heaven
like seven eleven
when
she says
i
am
goin' up yonder
and
up over
them hills
Sep 24, 2018
Sep 24, 2018 at 12:54 PM UTC
places where I worship
from the dark green church of my fascination with heavy frogs comes the **** body of a boy wearing the head of a heifer. his legs are not entirely under as of yet but he is let stumble. from the same dark an excessively wormed fishhook flies on a line and knocks the boy’s ******* behind like a bell. I scratch my fake arm from shoulder to elbow and believe the sound is not coming from the hook scraping back into the dark. even in dream I hallelujah lip synch.
places where I am discontent
in an abandoned dog’s house, I am, shoeless, with a slipper, in my mouth, a spotlight, caresses, dry grass, my mind, I mistake my mind, for the brain, cinerea, for cinema, my thoughts are meat, are herded, whipped at by a whipping tool, I fear nothing more than I fear, my ***** what it thinks of me, or that it thought, me, first, and lastly
beneath that whip, at the end of which, some interrogator’s, bulb.
Jun 7, 2013
Jun 7, 2013 at 1:51 PM UTC
When light was treading the horizons of darkness
When leaves were rustling in zephyr
When butterflies were fluttering across the wilderness
When foamy flakes were shimmering like eyes of a heifer
I saw her; a noble matron
Enjoying the alluring aroma of rose
Her eyes were glistening like a naked natron
Sitting like my mother; in a statuesque pose
She gently drew me closer
And served my past as ambrosia
And told me to drink the elixir of present for future
Then like my mother, she gave me a bunch of gloriosa
As she started climbing the stairs to Shangri-La
My dream ended as I tossed and turned under the sheet of chinchilla.
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 2:28 AM UTC
Again, hello my smooth tender Suffolk maid,
What do you have there in your woven basket?
Would you like to listen to a dainty rhyme I made?
If with a lovin' pinch of salt I ask it?
I know you know, of course you know,
That I would walk with you where ever,
Plough through wind and rain even deep slushy snow,
My heart with warmth gives in any quite such weather.
To hold your gaze with sweet subtle words,
For you to answer with your so kind voice,
To walk your figure passed heifer own'd herds,
Talking together brings into being sunbeam rejoice.
To grasp your arm mild, to clench your hips tight,
Begging gentle kiss of mine to dazzle your cheeks rosy glow,
Never could scholars ink descript such a devout sight,
As to my song express'd could never, your beauty, show.
Dec 30, 2012
Dec 30, 2012 at 1:05 PM UTC
Here's a would you rather
straight from the slaughter house.
Would you rather be hung
from a rope,
and have your throat slit,
or would you rather
have a drill pierce your skull?
We are human, not heifer,
but the fact still remains
would you rather a quick death,
or be left to suffer?
Personally I would choose hung.
I really wouldn't mind
being hung.
Sep 1, 2015
Sep 1, 2015 at 11:53 PM UTC
If the first few lines were really true
you wouldn't have posted the rest.
Misery loves company.
Why?
Jul 10, 2012
Jul 10, 2012 at 4:33 PM UTC
Bo Goodin Reddy was a friend o' mine
Gargled in the morning with turpentine !
Ate catfish and drank moonshine ,
Worked like a mule on the old rail line !
Bo yanked a heifer 'outta Whitewash Creek ,
He could whup a black bear with a hickory switch !
Played five card stud till the cows came home ,
Shot a pine cone off a tree at a hundred yards Man could grab a rattler before the snake could blink ,
Bo was more man than a man could think !
Sep 26, 2015
Sep 26, 2015 at 4:41 PM UTC
"One day, you'll grow up
And you'll make a lot of friends
Or maybe you won't
Maybe you'll just have a few tight buddies
But if anyone tries to change you
you don't need them
You're amazing the way you are"
I told her
She looked up at me
With large, doeful eyes
Nuzzled me and mooed as if to say
"I'm not sure what you just said
But I think I understood it"
As I rubbed her head and ears
At least I can give life advice to a Jersey heifer
Before my program ends and I go back home
Jul 17, 2017
Jul 17, 2017 at 11:51 PM UTC
All that was lost opens opprtun
All that was lost opens opportunities for us to find ourselves; if at least for the first time ever
All that has been destroyed begs us to question why we came here
The grotesque nature we have allowed ourselves to fall in creates an endless state of amnesia so we forget about the time when we were once divine
The more we throw stones at each other the farther we are from marble halls
The more our women give into envy and jealousy, the more they are hindered to be the treasures of gold, diamonds and pearls - exuding ethereal beauty
The more we focus on material significance, the more our souls are left begging
The more we make rash decisions with an open mind, the more we are forced to live with those consequences
The choices you are making, the choices you have made, can you live with them for ten years to come or the rest of your life?
How rich are you to afford such a hefty debt?
But this is the rhyme, the rhythm that the kingdoms have sent
down to the material world...
A hefty heifer hole and a pole for prowl; oh goal
But what about our own goals
Are we cyborgs or are we souls?
Are we going to let the insecurities of one or a few compromise our own happiness?
Why are we so uneasy, we know only attacking the centredness of another
We are enemies of peace because we are not friends of love and yet we are quick to demand mercy
Such irresponsibility!
Not taking account for the things we've done
We are afraid of mirrors because we cannot face the demons we've gowned ourselves to inhabit
And yet we can proudly call ourselves princes and princesses
Or Kings and Queens
Leaders and representatives of State
But our objectives are the complete opposite
Our deeds are the complete opposite
Our thoughts and emotions tell a complete dark story
But if you can confess to yourself the things you've done wrong then you can confide them in another
If you can confess the things you aspire to be then you are ready to break out of your shell
Once again a pure chance for us to find ourselves; if at least for the first time ever
All that has been destroyed begs us to question why we came here
The grotesque nature we have allowed ourselves to fall in creates an endless state of amnesia so we forget about the time when we were once divine
The more we throw stones at each other the farther we are from marble halls
The more our women give into envy and jealousy the more they are hindered to be the treasures of gold, diamonds and pearls - exuding ethereal beauty
The more we focus on material significance, the more our souls are left begging
The more we make rash decisions with an ooen mind, the more we are forced to live with those consequences
The choices you are making, the choices you have made, can you live with them for ten years to come or the rest of your life?
How rich are you to afford such a hefty debt
But this is the rhyme, the rhythm that the kingdoms have sent
down to the material world...
A hefty heifer hole and a pole for prowl; oh goal
But what about our own goals
Are we cyborgs or are we souls?
Are we going to let the insecurities of or a few compromise our own happiness?
Why are we so uneasy, we know only attacking the centredness of another
We are enemies of peace beacuse we are not friends of love and yet we are wuick to run after mercy
Such irresponsibility
Not taking account of the things we've done
We are afraid of mirrors because we cannot face the demons we've gowned ourselves to inhabit
And yet we can proudly call ourselves princes and princesses
Or Kings and Queens
Leaders and representatives of state
But our objectives are the complete opposite
Our deeds are the complete opposite
Our thoughts and emotions tell a complete dark story
But if you can confess to yourself the things you've done wrong then you can confide them in another
If you can confess the things you aspire to be then you are ready to break out of your shell
Once again a pure soul.
Aug 12, 2017
Aug 12, 2017 at 7:14 AM UTC