"mississippi" poems
“You just need to know this is the first time I’ve ever done this without looking for an exit row.
And I’m pretty sure my seat can’t float but I’ve already fallen from the sky for you,
Already said no to the parachute,
Already told my mother you curse like a sailor and you love like the war is finally over and you have just come home and you are running down the dock in the harbor and you’re screaming my name.
You’re screaming “honey”
and I’m screaming “don’t trip”
and you’re screaming “honey honey”
and I’m screaming “baby don’t fall down”
I am running for your red lips
I am running for your red heart
With my red heart
Red as a Mississippi sunset
Honey”
Apr 27, 2015
Apr 27, 2015 at 4:24 PM UTC
Yesterday
Was in the ecstasy
Of realizing that
We were
Those two
On earth
Who liked bitter gourd curry
Cooked with coconut milk ….
Remember?
Think it was
In the sixth life.
We were
Two nascent bitter guards
On the pandal
Spread in the northern corner
Of the farmland
Belonging to a grandmother
In a village in Mississippi
Who used to attend to the orchards
Sitting in a wheelchair.
We had
Watched earth
And peeked
At the sky
Hanging from the same stalk
The scar left
From your tight clasp on my thigh
Scared
After spotting a double tailed pest
Is still there.
The pleasure of that pain
Makes me tearful now.
I am like the faces
In the house of deceased
Sobbing
At times
Bursting into tears
The next moment
Holding back
After a while.
Sometimes
I am all the faces
In the house of the dead
Tears have
Nothing to do with them.
Sometimes
The wedding house
Will laugh and laugh
Till its cheeks hurt.
Just like you.
My dear bitter guard,
When will we
Go back to that
Pandal in Mississippi
Where we had pulsated
From a single stalk?
Aren’t we the ones
To offer obsequies
To that grandmother
Who looked after us
With pots
Of wholehearted love?
Translator - Shyma P
Shyma P : Works in Payyanur College, Payyanur. Translator and film critic. Has translated poems and articles in Malayalam Literary Survey, The Oxford India Anthology of Malayalam Dalit Literature, online magazines like Gulmohar, Readleaf Poetry as well as scripts and subtitles for short films.
Dec 15, 2015
Dec 15, 2015 at 8:43 PM UTC
From 3 p.m. Monday to 3 p.m. Tuesday
<h2>Police calls
<h3>LA CROSSE
3:39 p.m., Hit-and-run, 4400 block of Hwy. 16
4:11 p.m., Theft, 3700 block of Hwy. 16
4:41 p.m., Hit-and-run, 1100 block of State St.
5:37 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1000 block of Charles St.
5:42 p.m., Theft, 2100 block of Liberty St.
5:59 p.m., Fight, Fourth and King sts.
8:08 p.m., Theft, 2400 block of Rose St.
8:08 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 400 block of Sixth St.
8:37 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1000 block of Fifth Ave. S.
10:14 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1600 block of Adams St.
11:32 p.m., Domestic disturbance, 1400 block of Avon St.
2:38 a.m., Domestic disturbance, 900 block of 16th St.
8:25 a.m., Theft, 3300 block of Rosehill Place
8:25 a.m., Theft, 1000 block of Ninth St.
8:26 a.m., Theft, 500 block of Main St.
8:26 a.m., Theft, 1400 block of Johnson St.
8:34 a.m., Theft, 400 block of Seventh St.
9:24 a.m., Entry to dwelling, 1600 block of Caledonia St.
9:51 a.m., Theft, 400 block of Liberty St.
11:01 a.m., Fraud, first block of Copeland Ave.
12:16 p.m., Entry to dwelling, 1000 block of State St.
<h3>ONALASKA
6:06 p.m., Animal bite, 2600 block of Midwest Drive
<h3>WEST SALEM
7:40 a.m., Vandalism, 3400 block of Hwy. 16
12:13 p.m., Theft, 900 block of Hwy. 16
<h3>BANGOR
9:24 a.m., Theft, 1800 block of Commercial St.
<h2>Fire Calls
<h3>LA CROSSE
3:01 p.m., Accident with injury, Fourth and Mississippi sts.
4:11 p.m., Accident with injury, 4500 block of Hwy. 33
4:26 p.m., Accident with injury, Hwy. 16 and 157
5:45 p.m., First responders, 700 block of Oakland St.
6:18 p.m., First responders, 1800 block of Pine St.
6:40 p.m., Accident with injury, Main and Fourth sts.
9:27 p.m., Natural gas odor, 700 block of Ninth St. N.
10:16 p.m., First responders, 1600 block of Adams St.
10:20 p.m., First responders, 900 block of Vine St.
1:54 a.m., First responders, 4100 block of Velmar Court
8:34 a.m., First responders, 400 block of Seventh St.
9:01 a.m., First responders, 400 block of Seventh St.
10:41 a.m., Accident with injury, Ninth and Vine sts.
10:45 a.m., Carbon monoxide report, 1500 block of Main St.
10:46 a.m., First responders, 400 block of Gillette St.
11:04 a.m., Accident with injury, 1300 block of Rose St.
11:10 a.m., First responders, 1500 block of Rose St.
11:14 a.m., First responders, Fourth and King sts.
11:31 a.m., Accident with injury, 16th and Main sts.
12:05 p.m., Accident with injury, 200 block of Pearl St.
1:12 p.m., Accident with injury, Hood and Miller sts.
2:26 p.m., Accident with injury, 21st St. and Park Ave.
<h3>ONALASKA
3:30 p.m., First responders, 1000 block of Westview Circle
5:09 p.m., Accident with injury, 1200 block of Hwy PH
8:02 p.m., First responders, 300 block of 12th Ave.
8:43 p.m., First responders, 300 block of 12th Ave.
8:50 p.m., First responders, 200 block of Oak Forest Drive
9:47 p.m., First responders, 200 block of Carol Lane
6:12 a.m., First responders, 1000 block of Frances Court
10:41 a.m., First responders, 7200 Northshore Lane
11:27 a.m., Accident with injury, Grant St. and Hwy. SN
11:35 a.m., Accident with injury, Commerce and Abbey roads
11:53 a.m., Accident with injury, 300 block of 11th Ave.
12:14 p.m., First responders, 5500 block of Commerce Road
1:08 p.m., First responders, 400 block of Kimberly St.
1:42 p.m., Accident with injury, 600 block of Second Ave.
<h3>HOLMEN
9:59 p.m., First responders, 1500 block of Viking Ave.
10:50 a.m., Accident with injury, Sand Lake Road and Laurel Place
1:32 p.m., Accident with injury, 1400 block of Main St.
<h3>WEST SALEM
8:53 a.m., First responders, 500 block of Elm St.
11:09 a.m., First responders, 300 block of Franklin St.
<h3>MELROSE
1:21 p.m., First responders, 9700 block of Hwy. 108
Feb 3, 2016
Feb 3, 2016 at 11:07 PM UTC
Hello Chicago
Flat carpet-town of corn meal
steel spears at the northern junction
of Cahokia and some unknown dream
No lillies grow here sir,
no tulip fields
though there are many Dutch
a little up north
Wisconsin, dontcha' know?
Family blood rains through the Chicago river
named of the blood of a slain tribal wonder
wanders
with the roaming buffalo
I sat at the top of Sears
(Willis)
Tower and peered into the foggy distance
and made out the shores of Michigan
through Indiana
the leftover rains of a continental freeze
churned the earth to butter and carved the arteries
and bowels
of today's earthly body
And when we drove in from O'Hare
in the late hours on incessant stoplight highways
counting down the streets
thinking maybe they'll go all the way to
Mississippi
just a long row of
Concrete
I saw the brick tower
of a decrepit Frito-lay plant
where they cooked their corn and potato
into succulent
can't eat just one
little snacks
for the whole of america
to enjoy in backyard barbecues
and convenience stores
and grocery outlets
All across the planet
Now with the trucks they come and go
up to and whizzing past Chicago
on to greener states with greater relief
with hills and lakes and winding streams
Different sections of the sculpture
Cities eroding into the pleasant coasts
quaking and breaking into tiny stones
a monumental David
cracked in the gallery
bird **** corroding the silicates
unpolished and immortal
words
Chicago!
oh you mighty city you
built from sod and sweat and dew
of new morning
I see your towers
you dreamer, you
But your towers are in Dubai,
and Shanghai
now
The world moved on
and forgot everything about
that magnificent mile
burned to make you earn
new toys and fancy things
from far beyond your winding river streams
But you didn't die
amazing, how much they tried
to rust you out
to bleed you dry
no,
Chicago,
you keep your ***** rivers flowing
all the way to the Mississippi
flanked by modern Roman concrete
all the way to the great green sea
out into the puddle that surronds
the Amerigo
Chicago
don't you give up that river dream
Jun 14, 2018
Jun 14, 2018 at 3:26 PM UTC
THE BABY moon, a canoe, a silver papoose canoe, sails and sails in the Indian west.
A ring of silver foxes, a mist of silver foxes, sit and sit around the Indian moon.
One yellow star for a runner, and rows of blue stars for more runners, keep a line of watchers.
O foxes, baby moon, runners, you are the panel of memory, fire-white writing to-night of the Red Man's dreams.
Who squats, legs crossed and arms folded, matching its look against the moon-face, the star-faces, of the West?
Who are the Mississippi Valley ghosts, of copper foreheads, riding wiry ponies in the night?-no bridles, love-arms on the pony necks, riding in the night a long old trail?
Why do they always come back when the silver foxes sit around the early moon, a silver papoose, in the Indian west?
6.4k
Straight out of prison
Wondering what I've been missing
Right out of the gates I stuck out my thumb
A van load of hippies
All from Mississippi
Stoped and asked, hey dude...what's going on
I'm here for adventure
Well hop in then Mister
Adventure is what we're all about
Now where we're all going
There's no way of knowing
A van of hippies and parolee freshly let out
We ended up in Disney
Me and all of the hippies
Where we had caboodles of fun
We met Mickey and he saw it
When I lifted his wallet
Now we're in the Magic Kingdom all on the run
We split in different directions
To throw off detection
It's A Small World is where I made my mistake
With that song stuck in my head
It's a fate worse than death
Prison now sounds like a wonderful place
We rendezvoused in
The Pirate's Of The Caribbean
Where soon after, in came the law
We all jumped from our boats
Splashing around in the moat
And had ourselves a good old fashioned pirate brawl
We soon made our escape
Out of exit door 88
Finding ourselves in Frontier Land at night
Where in the middle of the street
Were Mickey, Donald, and Goofy
All with guns strapped to their sides
We ran into a shop
And bought guns on the spot
All with Mickey's money...he's a mouse of a man
Mickey squeeks we're going to ruff you up
As Goofy holds up the cuffs
And Donald says something we can't understand
We had a shoot out
With cap guns no doubt
After all Disney runs a safe place
Ran out of caps in our guns
Which stopped our lives on the run
The wrath of Mickey we all now would face
After justice's hammer
I'm now back in the slammer
This time I made my own prison bed
Now I cry every day
What more can I say
With It's A Small World still stuck in my head
Aug 31, 2013
Aug 31, 2013 at 8:02 AM UTC
Slumming.
Slumming around downtown.
Slumming around downtown St. Paul.
A broke high school student.
A broke student with perpetual down time.
A broken down senior student letting go of time.
Slumming.
Slumming down to Raspberry.
Slumming down to Raspberry Island.
Walking across the Mississippi River.
The bridge had been raided.
Marching.
Marching down teal and raspberry stairs.
Icycle nose hairs.
Seeing my breath as my chest shivers.
I found my heart trapped under the solid river.
Teenagers ******** about freshmen that got the bridge raided,
Teenagers ******** about artists they've always hated
and artists ******** about things they've created.
Underagers slowly letting out smoke.
Underagers letting out what keeps their lungs beating.
Underagers slowly letting out steam, cheating.
Me.
letting out smoke that came from the ice.
Smoke of below zero temperature, freezing my insides.
Mindless.
Mindlessly walking.
Mindlessly walking through endless skyways.
Mindless.
Mindlessly talking.
Mindlessly talking about things I don't remember.
Until we've arrived at We-Be-Smokin'.
Huddling.
Huddling in a group.
Admiring the art that claimed the spot before we did.
Scuttling.
Feet scuttling.
Feet scuttling in place to outrun the cold.
Reminiscing of months before when I was sitting alone in Starbucks with my
venti white chocolate mocha listening to crazy George yell at his imaginary
wife. Not being bothered. Not being cold.
Sep 14, 2012
Sep 14, 2012 at 12:06 AM UTC
It's deep night, damp and sticky with the
residue of southern heat which refuses to
totally dissipate this far into the night.
The night is thick with the voices of insects
and sleepers sweating atop their sheets,
committing sins in their vivid imaginings.
Dreaming, I'm standing by the wide river
wishing I could fly with the breeze through
the trees, the soft, warm, cradling breeze
that comes up from the Mississippi River.
It stirs the boughs of cypress and oak trees
and arouses a wind chime's music somewhere
down the dimly-lit street, while scattering
a newspaper like huge leaves; a wind that smells
of magnolia and dogwood blossoms and
river mud. A full moon casts long shadows
which melt into even darker, yet benign
shadows. The night has compiled its secrets,
mysteries, transgressions; surely that is the
charm of night - it frees the mind to settle not
on what seemed important during the day,
but on the longings kept locked away, hidden
from the disclosing light, struggling to break
free and take wing with this night wind.
--
Sep 14, 2011
Sep 14, 2011 at 1:34 PM UTC
Here we go again,
Another yarn to spin,
As you once again
Pretend that it's the end.
And that besides your curls,
Your dimples, and your pearls,
You're not like other girls
And you wish you were my world;
And I wish you were all, my darling,
But I don't get to make the rules.
A man is not a man
Because he has a plan,
And just because he can
Counts ev'ry grain of sand.
For as sure as they are numbered
And that one and one is two,
Twelfth & Vine is on his mind
And Mississippi, too;
But I wish you were all, my darling,
But I can't seem to pick and choose.
Each time you come back down the hall ––
(Each time you earn my trust) ––
You confuse what you're supposed to do
With that which you must,
And by the idols of the mind
Young is wasted on the youth,
So to hell with being honest,
For once I'll tell the truth:
That I wish you were all, my darling,
But I wish they were all mine, too.
Nov 28, 2017
Nov 28, 2017 at 7:46 PM UTC
Rhythm of life
Nails tapping on table tops
Beating of our hearts
spin the world right off its axis.
Momma shot a man in Reno
Just to watch him die.
Atlas shrugged
And we all tripped as we walked
The pace of our mile,
off by 3.6 seconds.
Trust in our stated axioms
Disillusioned Americans in Paris
Judged by the color of our skins
and the shoes on our feet
No one stops to see how blue it is up there today.
Hurrying through the rain
Our cities never sleep.
Going down South
It’s slower down here.
Sunday’s best and
“God Loves You” stickers when you get your oil changed.
Night train whistle blows
Factory steam pipes squeal
Mississippi riverboats tug and chug
Dictionary.com definitions let us down.
Greatest disasters in history
are when thing we take perfectly for granted
stop working.
Mad cow, mad hatter, mad world
Bad boys, bad wine, bad date
Ellipses, dot dot dots, dramatic pause, passing of time passing of time passing of….
……..
………….
…………………….
Time.
Tw—
Twi—
Twitch. (tick tick tick)
I believe in the abnormal
And the impossible
And I refuse to believe that fictional characters aren’t real
Animals completely understand me
When I talk to them.
Baby missiles fire
From all parts of the globe
End of the world party
Let’s go down in glorious drunkenness
As the beating of our hearts
Spins the world right off its axis.
Jun 13, 2012
Jun 13, 2012 at 11:34 AM UTC
Western Sources
Mist, rain and snowmelt gather
And soak the Montana crests.
A trio of rivulets carves the slopes,
Grow to rivers that braid into a single course
And the Missouri is born at Three Forks.
Shoshone and Hidatsu rest from the hunt,
Kneel and cup their hands
To raise life giving liquid to their lips
While horses bow beside them
Bellies filled with the refreshing waters.
The river flows north dividing the tall grasslands,
Plunges over the cataracts at Great Falls,
Churns on the rocks below
And drives inexorably toward the sea.
Mandan and Sioux
Soft flute sounds drift from the Mandan village
Intertwining with the riffling music of the river.
By its banks a coarse French trapper roasts a rabbit
To share with his Shoshone child-bride.
Sacagawea sings softly beside him -
Charboneau's son stirring in her womb.
Sioux warriors on horseback
Stand guard by the shores.
How many travelers have passed?
How many are yet to come?
Beyond the rolling hills
A buffalo stumbles and falls
Pierced by Lakota arrows and spears.
Boats in the Water
At River du Bois where the Missouri
Collides with the Mississippi,
Forty men slip into boats and take to the oars
To interpret Jefferson’s continental dream -
Their keelboat laden with sustenance,
Herbs, weapons and powder.
They carry trinkets to dazzle the natives
And cast bronze medals to give them
Bearing images of their "Father in Washington"
That none had asked to have.
May, 2004
Aug 3, 2013
Aug 3, 2013 at 5:42 AM UTC
KEEP a red heart of memories
Under the great gray rain sheds of the sky,
Under the open sun and the yellow gloaming embers.
Remember all paydays of lilacs and songbirds;
All starlights of cool memories on storm paths.
Out of this prairie rise the faces of dead men.
They speak to me. I can not tell you what they say.
Other faces rise on the prairie.
They are the unborn. The future.
Yesterday and to-morrow cross and mix on the skyline
The two are lost in a purple haze. One forgets. One waits.
In the yellow dust of sunsets, in the meadows of vermilion eight o'clock June nights ... the dead men and the unborn children speak to me ... I can not tell you what they say ... you listen and you know.
I don't care who you are, man:
I know a woman is looking for you
and her soul is a corn-tassel kissing a south-west wind.
(The farm-boy whose face is the color of brick-dust, is calling the cows; he will form the letter X with crossed streams of milk from the teats; he will beat a tattoo on the bottom of a tin pail with X's of milk.)
I don't care who you are, man:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are gray dust working toward star paths
And you see them from a garret window when you laugh
At your luck and murmur, "I don't care."
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know a man is looking for you
And his soul is a south-west wind kissing a corn-tassel.
(The kitchen girl on the farm is throwing oats to the chickens and the buff of their feathers says hello to the sunset's late maroon.)
I don't care who you are, woman:
I know sons and daughters looking for you
And they are next year's wheat or the year after hidden in the dark and loam.
My love is a yellow hammer spinning circles in Ohio, Indiana. My love is a redbird shooting flights in straight lines in Kentucky and Tennessee. My love is an early robin flaming an ember of copper on her shoulders in March and April. My love is a graybird living in the eaves of a Michigan house all winter. Why is my love always a crying thing of wings?
On the Indiana dunes, in the Mississippi marshes, I have asked: Is it only a fishbone on the beach?
Is it only a dog's jaw or a horse's skull whitening in the sun? Is the red heart of man only ashes? Is the flame of it all a white light switched off and the power house wires cut?
Why do the prairie roses answer every summer? Why do the changing repeating rains come back out of the salt sea wind-blown? Why do the stars keep their tracks? Why do the cradles of the sky rock new babies?
4.4k
You, saying love
You, shaman's road
You, a bird
You, a yellow sun
You, Emperor
You, lovely door
You, my Walt Whitman
You, Neal
You, Sal Paradise
You, Pancho Villa
You, La Revolución Mexicana
You, navajo
You, the border
You, the river
You, chicana
You, Mafia
You, redemption
You, poetry
You, Salvador Dalí
You, Picasso
You, stereo
You, love
You, ***
You, youth
You, America
You, América
You, español
You, english
You, country side
You, cat
You, fire
You, books
You, E. E. Cummings
You, Bukowski
You, Octavio Paz
You, Coca-Cola
You, Coke
You, India
You, Mississippi
You, jazz
You, Miles
You, Davis
You, water
You, rain
You, lagoon
You, chest
You, car
You, road
You, reading
You, lines
You, Paris
You, Baudelaire
You, Poe
You, japanese
You, katana
You, Mishima
You, gun
You, rifle
You, cam
You, can
You, can't
You, Durango
You, Arizona
You, desert
You, gonzo
You, mezcal
You, alcohol
You, drive
You, crush
You, alive
You, again
Jun 3, 2013
Jun 3, 2013 at 3:16 PM UTC
∙∙∙◦◦•◎•◦◦∙∙∙
Promenade of Colors
reality ought to fade
watermarks on evening lake
the Lad idling was awake
Torments of Agony
the fear of ambiguity
a broidery of epitaph
toiling the stars up the top
Free of Delusions
impassive feelings strut
to the unknown that fogs
and hems over the mutt
Dashes of Silver
passing vessels of desolate
coxswain sighting out for love
moon bobs from the lake
Willows of Empathy
humming of Mississippi
-a friend that greets
the lake gave its peace
Signs of Eve
the breeze whispered
a wisp of eyes uncluttered
the Lad unshackled
Artistry of Sky
as spirits begins to fly
I was full astound
my purpose, now I found
Aug 20, 2017
Aug 20, 2017 at 11:04 AM UTC
<>
for the early morning teach
<>
she's young, beautiful and thinks her life is cursed,
in the past, subject of some of my poems, her health to nurse,
yet, as is normative, you fall into & out of a well of touch,
until you accidentally once again path cross,
she provides a precision mathematical status update
"i'm fairly certain things are like at least 38% worse."
it is 1:38AM for you,
the not unnoticed ironic minute and hour
when the night ether has prematurely worn off,
rising time close but not nearly close enough,
a dark dose of a sleeping nurse's aide seems inappropriate,
and TV reruns seem like an insult to your brain
instead you turn on some belle string musique,
a Grande Messe des Morts,
a chorus,
singing a high mass for the dead,
while opening all your various email luggage and baggage,
smiling as you read a poetess's message of
laughter behind tears
"i'm fairly certain things are like at least 38% worse."
and Mississippi ******
your uncontrollable mixed drink of her emotional
Grenada grenade cocktail,
flavored with musique, paintings, and words and a nearby beloved's
gentling sleep sounds,
has you writing your own protest poem,
your very own,
oy vey, grande messe,
about lives that were supposed to be
pictures of perfect artistry
and for but a word or two,
instead, a painting of a life that got hung upside down,
and indeed,
leaving a grand mess and no one to help clean up
alternatively weeping, laughing as you are thinking,
smiling recall
Laurel and Hardy's summary definition
of living a life's of ill begotten, misventured adventures:
"Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into !"
but 38% worse?
not an even-steven rounded up 40%,
should I write you only 38% of a poem, teach?
or more accurately, more mathematically,
138% of what was writ before?
and you recall your older, prior words
about the love hate affair between
you poet,
and the beauty of written brevity
(her style)
and you give her this then,
this rambling, scrambled, attention paid notification,
word attentiveness, a summary of your readings
of her cheddar sharp and honey mustard sweet retorts of
pained poetry,
it is insufficiently but perfectly sufficient,
a summarizing phrase that opens
and yet
briefly encapsulates all that
you are feeling for her
"thinking of you"
or the 38% larger version thereof -
***"Well, here's another 38% more
nice poetic mess
you've gotten me into!"***
Jul 20, 2016
Jul 20, 2016 at 5:01 PM UTC
I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
***** turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
3.8k
I am from vivid dreams.
I am from fire
licking and consuming
the darkness.
I am from a wild imagination
and a logical consciousness.
I am from the Mississippi River,
moonlight glinting off my cat's eyes,
and paint on paper.
I am from the shattered shadows
of leaves rustling in the wind
on a brisk, early July morning.
I am from
BOO! and AHH!
in ****** ****** voices,
the way flashlight beams dim
as we use them for Morse Code
throughout the endless summer nights.
I am from jumping
in the dark
off our houseboat
into the void of black
that you would call Lake Powell
companioned only by the Milky Way.
I am from glow sticks
and silence.
I am from cracked rainbows
and shattered windows.
I am from lifeless wishes
and broken promises.
I am from baby turtles
making their way to the sea.
I am from moths
breaking free of the cocoon
that has held them prisoner
for oh so long.
I am from rippling stars ringing outward
on the surface of a crystal puddle
after a tear has fallen,
not from my eyes,
but from my soul,
eternally lost.
I am from outer space,
galaxies beyond imagination
so drown me in a heavy dose of fantasy.
Apr 24, 2013
Apr 24, 2013 at 10:50 PM UTC
There was sunshine coming off of her
Blues and cream dripping from her lips down the crease of her smile
Pooling in the corners of those cheeks
Neon and tangible
The warmth irradiating from the swirls of her fingers
Southern hues
Her intonations dancing between the half moons between her index and middle fingers
Her skin shines
Mississippi mud runs clear over the rivers that dance beneath her collarbone
You can hear it flutter with the clouds
Her heartbeat
It stills the fields she runs through
There was sunshine coming off of her
Whispering strawberry sweetness
Tingeing the souls we carry on our feet.
May 2, 2014
May 2, 2014 at 3:39 AM UTC
MANY ways to spell good night.
Fireworks at a pier on the Fourth of July spell it with red wheels and yellow spokes.
They fizz in the air, touch the water and quit.
Rockets make a trajectory of gold-and-blue and then go out.
Railroad trains at night spell with a smokestack mushrooming a white pillar.
Steamboats turn a curve in the Mississippi crying in a baritone that crosses lowland cottonfields to a razorback hill.
It is easy to spell good night.
Many ways to spell good night.
3.5k
BOX cars run by a mile long.
And I wonder what they say to each other
When they stop a mile long on a sidetrack.
Maybe their chatter goes:
I came from Fargo with a load of wheat up to the danger line.
I came from Omaha with a load of shorthorns and they splintered my boards.
I came from Detroit heavy with a load of flivvers.
I carried apples from the Hood river last year and this year bunches of bananas from Florida; they look for me with watermelons from Mississippi next year.
Hammers and shovels of work gangs sleep in shop corners
when the dark stars come on the sky and the night watchmen walk and look.
Then the hammer heads talk to the handles,
then the scoops of the shovels talk,
how the day's work nicked and trimmed them,
how they swung and lifted all day,
how the hands of the work gangs smelled of hope.
In the night of the dark stars
when the curve of the sky is a work gang handle,
in the night on the mile long sidetracks,
in the night where the hammers and shovels sleep in corners,
the night watchmen stuff their pipes with dreams-
and sometimes they doze and don't care for nothin',
and sometimes they search their heads for meanings, stories, stars.
The stuff of it runs like this:
A long way we come; a long way to go; long rests and long deep sniffs for our lungs on the way.
Sleep is a belonging of all; even if all songs are old songs and the singing heart is snuffed out like a switchman's lantern with the oil gone, even if we forget our names and houses in the finish, the secret of sleep is left us, sleep belongs to all, sleep is the first and last and best of all.
People singing; people with song mouths connecting with song hearts; people who must sing or die; people whose song hearts break if there is no song mouth; these are my people.
3.6k
America, Why I Love Her
Written by John Mitchum
Poet/Actor
You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?
Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?
Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?
Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?
From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.
[topp]
Jul 18, 2016
Jul 18, 2016 at 6:11 AM UTC
Today we all gather to listen to the merits(?) of mining the Iron Range
Not for iron, but for copper and nickel and other precious metals.
Are these metals more precious than clean water?
Are these metals more precious than our pristine wilderness?
Are these metals a legacy of what is to become of our planet Earth?
We have taken the oil and turned it into plastic that cannot be broken down and turned back into nature.
We have burned the coal to perpetuate our desire for more and more comfort via air conditioning and heat.
We have polluted our atmosphere, melted our icebergs and glaciers
Destroyed our coral reefs
And now we want to risk the pure waters of our northern wilderness
Reaching out to Lake Superior, Hudson Bay, the Mighty Mississippi
And our entire planet.
Why not keep a tiny part of our planet clean so that our children can say-
Look, this is what we once had, this was Eden in our parents' time.
Jul 25, 2017
Jul 25, 2017 at 8:53 AM UTC
for Robin
On that frosted January day,
you and I hiked north
along the Mississippi shore
on a trail marked well before us.
Footfall tapestries etched in snow
wove tales of assiduous commerce
of hosts of fur-cloaked cousins:
the playful step-slide gambit of an otter -
rabbit paw tracks by the score.
A bald eagle soared above singing ripples
in quest of a mid-day meal.
The distant staccato cadence
of a pileated woodpecker
echoed off the limestone bluffs
on that January afternoon.
Dusk-light washed the western sky
in pastel gold and crimson hues.
A coal barge heading south
thundered against the floes,
scattering ice across the channel,
then vanished beyond the bend.
And we like bargemen at their tillers,
set our southward course
retracing footprints in the snow -
back to the world of clocks and enterprise.
January, 2011
Nov 13, 2015
Nov 13, 2015 at 6:14 AM UTC