"pampas" poems
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Jul 3, 2012
Jul 3, 2012 at 7:30 PM UTC
Do you remember me?
I am fed up, strung on night
And closed in by time.
When I dine with dearest
Friends there is always a place
Set for you, there is always
A story, untold to them,
But not for strangers
Who know even without saying
What you never said to me.
My eyes are cracked dams
Above the flood plains,
My heart is dented brass,
Bent, out of gear and turns,
Mournful, dried, pocked
As rust, tarnished red,
Petrified.
If I look at the diamond moon
I am hooked.
When the flower brushes my calves
The lifting scent caresses, teases,
Rising with my memory of fire and stone.
If I travel to the balm Paris
Of the southern hemisphere
La Belle Époque is wearing your
Dress, the pampas fires and undulates
Like your hair, the Polaris star
Points at me, dreaming
Of you, dreaming,
My jewel, my,
Little moon.
Jul 13, 2012
Jul 13, 2012 at 12:02 AM UTC
O pulchritudinous, for infinite climaxes
For bilious spasms of pigswill
For puce Popacatepetl pedigrees
Above the perverted pampas!
America! America! Allah excreted his curses on thee
And bang thy ****** in company with Islamic monk, from brothel to gay red—light district
O pulchritudinous, for spaceman bottoms
Whose **** throbbing tapeworm
A toucan crossing for slipperiness spifflicate
Across the intergalactic space!
America! America! Allah enrich thine ev’ry vice
Reinvigorate thy ****** *********** inside monolithic ectoplasm, thy merrymaking inside pyramid!
O pulchritudinous, for freaks got fat
In disentangling feeding frenzy
Who more than ***** their brothel slobbered over
And velvet glove more than backbone!
America! America! May Allah thy blonde exhaust
Till all rave reviews be disreputableness and ev’ry come superhuman
O pulchritudinous, for chauvinist muscleman
That smells wide of the fourth dimension
Thine lathery brothels lick
Polished using giant armadillo excrement!
America! America! Allah excreted his curses on thee
And bang thy ****** in company with Islamic monk from brothel to gay red—light district
Mar 25, 2010
Mar 25, 2010 at 5:22 PM UTC
/or my *** dealer.
man alight with gemstone glands &
sticky at the tips.
each finger
pressing wet pampas cure.
the touch and study of
high-fi royal matter. (rose galactic)
savannah, hand
& fleshing meat in the heat of mother cradle.
africa man, tell me how was it?
details: the nature of today
& of tomorrow,
of pleasure kid.
t-shirt, he
prepares an atomic roll of autumn magic and smile, friends
or simply just
a spliffy belief in holy hallelujah man.
wild this.
tree of knowledge of good and evil and all in between.
tree of
the modern mystic noon
& in it is energy/vision/like midnight
but throated in such
humming beautiful light.
the sky breathes endless love,
said sun and fun,
marooning us onto an all-day sigh.
Sep 13, 2015
Sep 13, 2015 at 5:33 AM UTC
When reeds are dead and a straw to thatch the marshes,
And feathered pampas-grass rides into the wind
Like aged warriors westward, tragic, thinned
Of half their tribe, and over the flattened rushes,
Stripped of its secret, open, stark and bleak,
Blackens afar the half-forgotten creek,—
Then leans on me the weight of the year, and crushes
My heart. I know that Beauty must ail and die,
And will be born again,—but ah, to see
Beauty stiffened, staring up at the sky!
Oh, Autumn! Autumn!—What is the Spring to me?
2.5k
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Oct 18, 2012
Oct 18, 2012 at 12:39 PM UTC
*Atop the blanched plume of a pampas grass stem,
Overlooking a sea of white daisies
Stretching out to the edge of a wild flower lea
Where the forget-me-not bumblebee lazes,
Is the grandiose house of the butterfly king
Filled with treasures and precious excesses,
With a bright yellow spire built from pollen ball bricks
Home to three rather lovely princesses.
The fairest of all in that field and beyond
Their beauty was famed and fought over
By the slow sliding slug sheiks of blackberry nook
And the ladybird lords camped in clover.
Each one with wide eyes firmly fixed on a prize
That made shy spiders scurry and scutter,
To see those red painted yet delicate wings
Underneath sun kissed skies gently flutter.
Lovesick and besotted with hearts beating fast
Each suitor petitioned for marriage,
To win for themselves a sweet butterfly bride
To parade in a crab apple carriage.
But the majestic monarch alongside his queen,
Both filled with parental devotion,
Wished for their three daughters to choose for themselves
And would not entertain such a notion.*
May 9, 2017
May 9, 2017 at 7:40 PM UTC
541
Some such Butterfly be seen
On Brazilian Pampas—
Just at noon—no later—Sweet—
Then—the License closes—
Some such Spice—express and pass—
Subject to Your Plucking—
As the Stars—You knew last Night—
Foreigners—This Morning—
1.8k
The feeling of fear meeting someone for the first time
the delight looking at a little child playing
near ecstasy smelling a magnolia blossom
a secure feeling upon seeing Pampas Grass.
The unsafe feeling being with the blonde man
who had been nothing but kind to me
then… finally I remembered
the sandy-haired boy who made an object of me
at age seven behind the barn on a summer day.
So much of the self is hidden
chaining me to the old
keeping me in a caterpillar state
stumbling over chunks of earth
ignorant of what can happen
in the cocoon.
But learning, writing, remembering
can make me a Monarch
flying into spring.
Aug 23, 2021
Aug 23, 2021 at 2:35 PM UTC
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Sep 17, 2013
Sep 17, 2013 at 11:40 AM UTC
The Voyage
The big seagull sat on the bow of my rowing boat
on my way to Argentina and Rosita,
which I never met she had married guitar player-
had unfriendly eyes ready to peck my eyes out.
I regretted my heroism.
I wanted to go to Argentina because of its pampas
Beautiful horses and also to be famous for the voyage
I was picked up by a merchant ship
it was actually going the wrong way docked in Antwerp
Free beer for the, would be the hero.
I got a job on an old steamer bound for Argentina.
Buenos Aires,
A City with so many beautiful women it took a long
before I got my stead looking for the tree of wisdom.
I found it burning in the night
the Gauchos were feeling cold and set fire to the tree.
What matters is the journey which is a fine sentence to cover for absolute failure.
Apr 8, 2017
Apr 8, 2017 at 5:29 AM UTC
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Mar 1, 2013
Mar 1, 2013 at 11:14 AM UTC
.
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
.
Aug 18, 2018
Aug 18, 2018 at 7:46 PM UTC
This Boyhood’s End
was mine too, but
through its music’s dance,
not just Hudson’s farewell to a natural world
of exotic flowers and flocks of birds
on the great plains of the pampas.
In Tippett’s suite of songs I first found
that ecstasy of word-rhythm wedded
to melodic contour held in place
by a singer’s voice, and a pianist’s touch
of harmony grafted from a play of parts.
Sitting on my bedroom floor
ear close to the gramophone,
thirteen and already enamored,
I listened over and again to this cantata
that has for so long held the key
to the very door of music . . .
Music may be a notion like ‘God’ or ‘love’.
Everyone identifies with it,
but it is composers who live to fathom
its depths and sound out its mystery.
Dec 4, 2013
Dec 4, 2013 at 3:11 PM UTC
the young egoist licks a blunt blade in the wall
until his tongue bleeds, to feel, yes to feel, feel anything
in these fettid depths where splinters of light
find themselves lost in the subterranean gloom
of his bedroom
where on occasion when it presents itself
listens to grotesques, yes listens with an ear
a plain nasty and unfeeling ear
yet it listens without any phoney, putrid arty language
he hears old irregular clocks
feels the smells under the ground
drinks unquenchable angers
citing their antique tonal ability
to create magic words out of rain and mist
then screaming his voice starts oozing and undulating
creeping through these slow subterranean pampas
compressing and expanding themselves never and at once
he believes it is an unsafe place of frighteningly sincere dangers
then thinks is danger a place, licks the blunt blade in the wall
for even in this desperation
it makes him happy when his tongue bleeds
he tries to perfect conventionally generous impulses
the spit of dreams, his dreams as he dons his mask
his mask of foolscap to write a poem
then encounters angel-devils and demons
who he has the power to deceive
and thinks to himself as he licks
the blunt blade in the wall
finish it, finish it
then realizes it's unfinishable
Oct 6, 2013
Oct 6, 2013 at 7:18 PM UTC
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Mar 1, 2014
Mar 1, 2014 at 1:08 PM UTC
we let these valleys run deep
in our veins with no questions
anymore. it has become second
nature to know these winds,
to hear the song the leaves sing
before a storm rolls over the
hills on the other side
of the county.
i always thought my
eighteenth year would be
the last i would know the
rustle of the pampas grass
in the early morning or the
way the snow settles deep
over everything beyond our
property. now twenty-three
draws nearer quicker than
a younger version of me
could have ever imagined
and i feel it tightening in
my chest with each passing
day, that small town desire
to find the things i've been
left out of for two decades.
mama used to say i had
the universe in my bones,
told me she thought i
would explode from it, said
just yesterday that there is
a longing inside me that
she doesn't think will ever
be tamed. i never thought
the midwest sun could hold
me, yet i keep bowing at her
feet, keep begging her to
swallow me. maybe if i stay
a while longer it will be
enough to carry with me.
i wonder how much home
i can soak up before i go.
Jul 28, 2016
Jul 28, 2016 at 2:33 AM UTC
Do you remember me?
I am fed up, strung on night
And closed in by time.
When I dine with dearest
Friends there is always a place
Set for you, there is always
A story, untold to them,
But not for strangers
Who know even without saying
What you never said to me.
My eyes are cracked dams
Above the flood plains,
My heart is dented brass,
Bent, out of gear and turns,
Mournful, dried, pocked
As rust, tarnished red,
Petrified.
If I look at the diamond moon
I am hooked.
When the flower brushes my calves
The lifting scent caresses, teases,
Rising with my memory of fire and stone.
If I travel to the balm Paris
Of the southern hemisphere
La Belle Époque is wearing your
Dress, the pampas fires and undulates
Like your hair, the Polaris star
Points at me, dreaming
Of you, dreaming,
My jewel, my,
Little moon.
Oct 16, 2013
Oct 16, 2013 at 2:39 PM UTC
Do you remember me?
I am fed up, strung on night
And closed in by time.
When I dine with dearest
Friends there is always a place
Set for you, there is always
A story, untold to them,
But not for strangers
Who know even without saying
What you never said to me.
My eyes are cracked dams
Above the flood plains,
My heart is dented brass,
Bent, out of gear and turns,
Mournful, dried, pocked
As rust, tarnished red,
Petrified.
If I look at the diamond moon
I am hooked.
When the flower brushes my calves
The lifting scent caresses, teases,
Rising with my memory of fire and stone.
If I travel to the balm Paris
Of the southern hemisphere
La Belle Époque is wearing your
Dress, the pampas fires and undulates
Like your hair, the Polaris star
Points at me, dreaming
Of you, dreaming,
My jewel, my,
Little moon.
Oct 25, 2012
Oct 25, 2012 at 2:13 PM UTC
In a moment its all gone
In an instant all is lost
Do everything you can to keep
Keep insanity at bay
Convince yourself that your not crazy
To no avail all has failed
Try as you may
You cant avoid your future grim
Truth is your already there
Pampas in your contrite little way
You make your eneptyness known
Come let me convince you
Let me help you see
Let me help you bleed thrue the truth
Let me help you find your flaw
Come let me conceal you
Happy are you to hide
Happy are you to run
Happy are you to cringe
Happy are you to bend
To my will happy are you
Ill bleed you an ocean of love
For you to hide your pain
An ocean calm smooth as silk
A ripple in your hate
An ocean tempest ruoph as sand
A ripple in your fate
Broken heart tapped together
Pieces of your love
Broken soul sown together
Pieces of your life
Broken mind stitched together
Pieces of your pain
Comforted by the indignant
Captivated by the incredulous
Confirmed by the ineffable
Condemned by the individual
Contrived by the inescapable
Your heart is numb for lack of need
I'll teach you to feed thine own greed
Your mind is numb for lack of not
I'll show you for what with to be kot
Your soul is numb for lack of seed
I'll reveal you for us simply to let bleed
In your field of vast decay
Your body there forever will it lay
On your mountain of highest devotion
Your soul will forever be in persecution
In your valley of phaltless plunder
Your mind there forever will it wonder
In the end I can not help you
For you know not what you've done
All is gone in the blink of the eye
In your retched little world shalt thou dye
Dec 18, 2010
Dec 18, 2010 at 9:31 AM UTC
Do you remember me?
I am fed up, strung on night
And closed in by time.
When I dine with dearest
Friends there is always a place
Set for you, there is always
A story, untold to them,
But not for strangers
Who know even without saying
What you never said to me.
My eyes are cracked dams
Above the flood plains,
My heart is dented brass,
Bent, out of gear and turns,
Mournful, dried, pocked
As rust, tarnished red,
Petrified.
If I look at the diamond moon
I am hooked.
When the flower brushes my calves
The lifting scent caresses, teases,
Rising with my memory of fire and stone.
If I travel to the balm Paris
Of the southern hemisphere
La Belle Époque is wearing your
Dress, the pampas fires and undulates
Like your hair, the Polaris star
Points at me, dreaming
Of you, dreaming,
My jewel, my,
Little moon.
Feb 22, 2013
Feb 22, 2013 at 1:32 PM UTC
-Esta noche no sales, te secuestro,
aquí está tu sillón, aquí tu lámpara,
tu pluma, tu tintero, tus cuartillas,
escribe, o lee, o sueña, o no hagas nada.
Esta noche no sales, te secuestro,
con mis tijeras cortaré tus alas.
Recorreré las piezas diligente,
iré, por ver la noche, a la ventana...
Fastidiaos, diré, hondas tinieblas,
rústicas brisas, estrellitas pampas,
esta noche no es para vosotras,
su meditar llena de luz la casa.
Aflojaré después las ropas mías,
esponjaré mi cabellera blanda,
te serviré un café como tú quieras,
escribirás las últimas palabras,
y verás qué reposo el de tu cuerpo:
de tu sillón, un paso, y a la cama.
Las almohadas creerás montón de flores,
frescas hojas las sábanas...
Y estarás dormitando todavía,
cuando entraré con silenciosa planta
a nuestro cuarto; tocaré tu hombro,
estirarás una pereza larga,
y ante tus ojos, de mis brazos puros,
rodará dulcemente la mañana.
988
I was with the ocean last night and your body
Was its vessel, overflowing. Words were frail,
Drops indwelling about the shapeless sky,
Water reaching for its own height and breath,
Like touch, were as desperate letters exchanged,
Endlessly read, until like loamy vellums, they
Disappeared in our hands. Inklings of tide-
Pool and driftwood.
My blood was a river that ran
Its course. Members feeding your deltas and birds
Breeding where the water-russet sheds on pampas
And inverness. Eyes like wing through ever—
Green, empties the fossil shell. Fire, brimming
Mountaintops that were, for countless millennia,
Sleeping. Did I mention that the earth moved?
No? Her displacement was involuntary.
Then came the waterfalls, lifting throughout
Time. The scent, searching for its identity,
The wave, calling to its own name— Ocean,
O— cean. And flowers, opening like galaxies
In the after-light. A universe of face and hand
With hunger for salt-rain and then the cloud
Burst-blue and spilt and spun more redolent,
Deities, in joyous creation.
I breathe, in your ocean, like a child unborn.
Mar 25, 2015
Mar 25, 2015 at 2:59 AM UTC
Do you remember me?
I am fed up, strung on night
And closed in by time.
When I dine with dearest
Friends there is always a place
Set for you, there is always
A story, untold to them,
But not for strangers
Who know even without saying
What you never said to me.
My eyes are cracked dams
Above the flood plains,
My heart is dented brass,
Bent, out of gear and turns,
Mournful, dried, pocked
As rust, tarnished red,
Petrified.
If I look at the diamond moon
I am hooked.
When the flower brushes my calves
The lifting scent caresses, teases,
Rising with my memory of fire and stone.
If I travel to the balm Paris
Of the southern hemisphere
La Belle Époque is wearing your
Dress, the pampas fires and undulates
Like your hair, the Polaris star
Points at me, dreaming
Of you, dreaming,
My jewel, my,
Little moon.
Sep 6, 2012
Sep 6, 2012 at 4:40 PM UTC
THE Serious man from Puerto Various.
Came rolling in. He dropped a seed and rolled out of town the same way he rolled in.
Johnny Appleseed of the pampas.
Never met the man but his reputation preceded.
A pensive type they tell me. Women seemed to find him more than he found them.
Kudos Mr Appleseed. A ninja. Restless leg syndrome.
Antsy. I feel I channeled him.
No one else to blame for my mercurial ways.
Process of elimination.
My sons of which there are three, they all have the way
as well. That look and pensive pause after the blurt.
The truth can hurt.
I am my father's son.
Of that I have no doubt.
Oct 18, 2013
Oct 18, 2013 at 10:06 AM UTC