"phoebe" poems
“If you could be anywhere in the world
At this exact moment,
Where would you choose to be?”
I choose the easternmost point
Of Acadia Maine at sunrise.
Cold, salty ocean spray in my face,
Warm thermos of cocoa in my hands
And the promise of a new day
Being made right before my very eyes.
What could be more reassuring?
What could be more solidifying?
To know that no matter
What happened in the days or weeks
Or months or years or decades
Before,
Today, right now, at this exact moment,
It is all behind you,
It is all in your past.
And that sunrise you’re watching
Over cresting crashing white topped waves
In the cool breeze of morning
With the scent of dirt and earth and trees
Carried on the wind that also brings
The call of the morning dove and thrush
And Phoebe-bird,
Is the promise you’ve been waiting for.
The promise that you’re gonna be okay
Because today, today is a new day.
May 22, 2014
May 22, 2014 at 11:18 PM UTC
Smelly cat, Smelly cat
What are they feeding you?
Smelly cat, Smelly cat
It's not your fault...
-Phoebe (Friends)
Dec 16, 2014
Dec 16, 2014 at 9:48 PM UTC
Dust-covered two-lane highways
Catch the footfalls of my meanderings.
Meadowlarks and Phoebe-birds
Sing backup to my tuneless whistles.
Clouds illuminated by God-rays
Paint the sky above my head
And the Man in the Moon
Smiles as I bed neath a willow for the night.
I am a wanderer, a vagabond, a ***
The iron wrought train tracks
I secretly ride pass through the fields,
The forests, the mountains and valleys,
The cities and suburbs, the small towns too,
Home to so many who choose there to dwell.
But my home is the open countryside,
The fields of wildflowers and bushes,
The occasional oak or poplar for shelter,
With a stone for my pillow
Anywhere I wish to rest.
I am a wanderer, a vagabond, a ***
I am the outsider.
Jul 4, 2014
Jul 4, 2014 at 1:42 PM UTC
Telling the story of passion, death, and virtue.
Tracking deception with freedom's lies.
The Traveler passed through that timeless veil
between here and there,
the spaces
between the fantastic delusional minds.
That a hunter has when tracking
down an accomplished plan.
Caught in a Blue Galactic Storm.
The Unicorn said.
*"Mind your own business the rest of us don't give a ****
Yet just as the wheels of the stars keep on turning--
on the heels of a planet surfing the Universes tides.
There will always be cycles-
and sometimes it happens
that they collide-such is the power of the Muse.
My story is one of tragedy and despair,
with malice and Discord, Regret and Guilty Shame.
Swallowed by the darkness empty and Dead.
Yet out of nothing sprang Life--
fear to Hope Hate to Love, Recklessness to Responsibility,
now I'm changing the tide.
With arrows sharp words that fill the Night sky.
Once again finding the Magic in these threads-weaving a world I've known and dread. Always mocked by the Queen of Hearts, hunting, desiring;
"Metamorphosis"
But Truth and Memory found the way.
A ghost shell that’s crossed the Styx of the Grave,
The Muse inside no longer be spelled drifting now to unsure shores,
Just as Dante mapped out Hell, so will I my tale:
Psyche (Human Soul) captive
to the Ice of Pluto-shed no tears.
This prison made flesh by mortal
woe-lost, forgotten,
But Morpheus came to me then.
"You still have your Dreams."
Then the madness came looming.
The facts blurred and suddenly Phoebe appeared:
with a playful far off expression.
"Oh Persephone, mourn the falling leaves, for it is the last of them you will see.”
Oct 29, 2012
Oct 29, 2012 at 2:23 PM UTC
1009
I was a Phoebe—nothing more—
A Phoebe—nothing less—
The little note that others dropt
I fitted into place—
I dwelt too low that any seek—
Too shy, that any blame—
A Phoebe makes a little print
Upon the Floors of Fame—
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In praise of Eliza, Queen of the Shepherds
See where she sits upon the grassie greene,
(O seemely sight!)
Yclad in Scarlot, like a mayden Queene,
And ermines white:
Upon her head a Cremosin coronet
With Damaske roses and Daffadillies set:
Bay leaves betweene,
And primroses greene,
Embellish the sweete Violet.
Tell me, have ye seene her angelick face
Like Phoebe fayre?
Her heavenly haveour, her princely grace,
Can you well compare?
The Redde rose medled with the White yfere,
In either cheeke depeincten lively chere:
Her modest eye,
Her Majestie,
Where have you seene the like but there?
I see Calliope speede her to the place,
Where my Goddesse shines;
And after her the other Muses trace
With their Violines.
Bene they not Bay braunches which they do beare,
All for Elisa in her hand to weare?
So sweetely they play,
And sing all the way,
That it a heaven is to heare.
Lo, how finely the Graces can it foote
To the Instrument:
They dauncen deffly, and singen soote,
In their meriment.
Wants not a fourth Grace to make the daunce even?
Let that rowme to my Lady be yeven.
She shal be a Grace,
To fyll the fourth place,
And reigne with the rest in heaven.
Bring hether the Pincke and purple Cullambine,
With Gelliflowres;
Bring Coronations, and Sops-in-wine
Worne of Paramoures:
Strowe me the ground with Daffadowndillies,
And Cowslips, and Kingcups, and lovèd Lillies:
The pretie Pawnce,
And the Chevisaunce,
Shall match with the fayre flowre Delice.
Now ryse up, Elisa, deckèd as thou art
In royall aray;
And now ye daintie Damsells may depart
Eche one her way.
I feare I have troubled your troupes to longe:
Let dame Elisa thanke you for her song:
And if you come hether
When Damsines I gether,
I will part them all you among.
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She let the tape go—
on record
one evening for an ordinary hour
Five years later, we play it back
for laughs after dinner—then as now
“Remember how the stove door screeched
at the house on Olive Street?”
And our voices!
Phoeb’s, lighter–tired
wrapping the nine’s tables in elastic yawns
like flash cards in a rubber band
“Phoeb, your pitch changed so—
while I turned...”
to run water in the tub
lamenting the **** of Two
in frenetic escape of hands
Unruly!
Running rebel taunts in Time’s strict face
who would not dare disturb her dawns
only mine—
Roused by the first round of another day’s
ring of twelve
digits that insist
like uniform with apron waiting
on ironing board that’s never folded
Now the **** of Two cries out
Exultant!
of success in *****
Then, Oratorio for Soap!
The splashy version
with endless bubblings of “Rocky Baby!”
and obbligato of “Where’s Shampoo?”
in jubilant glissadal plunge
an octave through vocal whoops!
…I had not thought
she hardly talked
but sang and squealed or whined in tunes
Her voice lay open to her soul
a roost of piercing humming birds
small of words
but filled with sweet and want
incessant wings and things to say....
How could we have forgotten?
“Are these your boots?
Your clothes laid out?”
From sound and talk, we still can hear
frost phantoms
in winter window rattles—then as now
And Phoebe remarks how one voice
didn’t change though—
“Still talking to herself”
We laugh
and let the tape go....
Feb 4, 2017
Feb 4, 2017 at 12:31 AM UTC
An immigrant from County Clare
brought to this harsher clime-
Phoebe Prince, an Irish lass,
a gentle heart and mind.
First used, and then discarded
by one boy, then another.-
Object of the mean girl’s scorn
the consummate "outsider"
On her last day alive
They hounded her from school.
The girl they called the “Irish ****
disgraced and played the fool.
Her sister, Lauren, found her body
hanging lifeless in the hall.
Befriended by nobody
Phoebe chose to end it all
And on the day they held her wake
Those monsters held their dance
A debutante cotillion
for a troop of soulless tramps.
She’s buried here in County Clare
because the Ocean's waves
protect her from the harpies
who drove her to her grave
Jan 14, 2012
Jan 14, 2012 at 10:56 PM UTC
phoebe will remain my hostage until
four barrel's hipster overlords hear my plea
we're all made of sparkledust and turkish delight
and if you hate drinking sonoma butter and
having money, my doctor Archmage Overlord
said the the "happy drink" element you seek is
less like strong coffee and more like the invasion
of normandy with turkey slaughter in the background
kfc's new turkey flavored chicken tried looking
for drugs in the neighborhood but
timothy leary, his suave excellency, sheik knight of nee
abstained from the devil's coffee with headaches and brain fog
anyway, that's why i attacked the
complimentary peanuts and russian balloon juice
FURIOUS POSTSCRIPT
"no one can understand the truth until
he drinks of the feline's frothy goodness"
Nov 21, 2014
Nov 21, 2014 at 1:39 PM UTC
Snow plows beeping
Reverse whine and scrape
Swirling blizzard of waking—Strange
in this place where
boredom banks both snow and cold
Are my eyes running?
After all
there's a stiff wind, and it’s 18 below....
Pictures and phone calls make up my family
Stray cats eat suet I leave for the birds
who make names for themselves in sunlit bushes
Love these more than...
my hearse of a job
where that ice cream vat—slipped
smashed
my sodden dish-doin’
fingers against sink
Pain mounts its insurrection!
Ambushed!
from every direction
Fainting in steam
Squeezing my eyes
till the blood shuts my brain-failing
Down my wrist
all over
the front of this rubber apron....
Someone hates me somewhere
Someone found me more tenacious
than a road-kill skunk!
I eat I drink I work I sleep
between these vicious icicles
-18F = -28 C
Feb 10, 2017
Feb 10, 2017 at 3:55 PM UTC
Mneme begin. Inspire, ye sacred nine,
Your vent’rous Afric in her great design.
Mneme, immortal pow’r, I trace thy spring:
Assist my strains, while I thy glories sing:
The acts of long departed years, by thee
Recover’d, in due order rang’d we see:
Thy pow’r the long-forgotten calls from night,
That sweetly plays before the fancy’s sight.
Mneme in our nocturnal visions pours
The ample treasure of her secret stores;
Swift from above the wings her silent flight
Through Phoebe’s realms, fair regent of the night;
And, in her pomp of images display’d,
To the high-raptur’d poet gives her aid,
Through the unbounded regions of the mind,
Diffusing light celestial and refin’d.
The heav’nly phantom paints the actions done
By ev’ry tribe beneath the rolling sun.
Mneme, enthron’d within the human breast,
Has vice condemn’d, and ev’ry virtue blest.
How sweet the sound when we her plaudit hear?
Sweeter than music to the ravish’d ear,
Sweeter than Maro’s entertaining strains
Resounding through the groves, and hills, and plains.
But how is Mneme dreaded by the race,
Who scorn her warnings and despise her grace?
By her unveil’d each horrid crime appears,
Her awful hand a cup of wormwood bears.
Days, years mispent, O what a hell of woe!
Hers the worst tortures that our souls can know.
Now eighteen years their destin’d course have run,
In fast succession round the central sun.
How did the follies of that period pass
Unnotic’d, but behold them writ in brass!
In Recollection see them fresh return,
And sure ’tis mine to be asham’d, and mourn.
O Virtue, smiling in immortal green,
Do thou exert thy pow’r, and change the scene;
Be thine employ to guide my future days,
And mine to pay the tribute of my praise.
Of Recollection such the pow’r enthron’d
In ev’ry breast, and thus her pow’r is own’d.
The wretch, who dar’d the vengeance of the skies,
At last awakes in horror and surprise,
By her alarm’d, he sees impending fate,
He howls in anguish, and repents too late.
But O! what peace, what joys are hers t’ impart
To ev’ry holy, ev’ry upright heart!
Thrice blest the man, who, in her sacred shrine,
Feels himself shelter’d from the wrath divine!
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the drama in a ****** of crows
the clueless jive of the chickadee
the serious expression of the phoebe
hide and seek flickers
overly dramatic plovers
sleek kestrels, scanning the meadow
gulls always headed somewhere
the mystery of owls
robins, Art Carney-like
nuthatches that waddle through the air
an advertisement of goldfinches
vile, surly winged jays
waxwings, safe within their clique
ospreys, fat on minnows
snapshot herons always posing
patient vultures, ever on call
the perfect beasts to rule this world
they reveal personalities
to this lifetime observer
Feb 24, 2013
Feb 24, 2013 at 10:07 AM UTC
There's some pain in this. There's some growing up and moving on.
There's letting life go. There's endless cyclical comparison, I want to be like you, I don't want to be like you.
Here at the edge of the future there's fear so thick you can touch it.
There's a life borrowed. A bed borrowed. Friends. A bathroom, a towel, toothpaste.
There's a river and a racecourse and rowers and jealousy biting at the bone. Luck in sprinkles and saturation.
There's meeting the boyfriend, the housemates, the puzzle pieces of the past and the potential.
Somewhere there's regret. Of not being good enough, smart enough, rich enough, pretty enough, skinny enough.
There's some missing home and some glad to get away.
A deep breath and a scuba dive into a life that was only an expanse of water in the distance.
There's some letting me in, some sharing of stories, some secrets kept.
There's recollection, backward pedaling, basking in past experience in the invisible, unbearable weight of the years that brought us here.
Names remembered. Nights we'd rather forget. There's a newness brewing, promises of something else beyond this, just around the weeks that hold us back.
This year, plus this year plus these hours equals a key, opening doors, company cars and apartments.
There's a sinking. Right back to sixteen, to sleepovers and sleeplessness.
Look at us. We've wound our way here. There's pride. We made it from there to here, from somewhere to somewhere else.
Jun 6, 2021
Jun 6, 2021 at 12:48 PM UTC
A mighty river sings her song
Fast flowing waters swell her form
Her mesmerizing sound envelopes the night
As trees upon her banks,
Dressed in full regalia,
Dance in the pale moonlight...awaiting
The Dawn of a New Day
Eastern Phoebe, first to awaken heralds the new day
Her short bursts stir those in the forest
Robin commences his morning song
Resonating melodic perfection
Peeking above the horizon, the Sun
Orange hue bathing Mother Earth
Warms Terra Firma
Her coat of green
Covered in morning dew
Glistens beneath the radiant Sun
Mother Bear makes her way along the river's bank
Carefully teaching her cubs their daily lessons
She is key to their survival
She is their world
Monarchs and Swallowtails, warmed by the sun
Flutter by, tasting the sweet floral nectar
Brown eyed Daisies...await
The flight of the bumble bee
Hummingbirds dart and dance from flower to flower
Delicately tasting the sweet nectar
As they so precisely hover
The morning breeze stirs the trees awake
The sound...tranquil as crashing waves upon the shore
Muffle the stealthy steps of Lobo
And lift Eagle to wondrous heights
As a baby fawn lies motionless, scentless, while mother doe stands watch
Welcome 2 the Dawn...of a New Day...
...of a New Hope
(c) 2013 Shawn White Eagle
Jul 4, 2013
Jul 4, 2013 at 9:26 PM UTC
So you're in your early twenties.
Two decades and some change down.
Life isn't going as you expected.
You don't live in a studio apartment above the skyline in Manhattan
and your Friends names aren't Ross, Phoebe or Joey.
You blame the economy for your lack of currency and inability to move.
You remain comfortable, because that is what feels okay.
Now, let's stop making excuses.
Realize that your in your early twenties:
It's the perfect supersonic boom of an age.
You are young enough where you still have your morals from adolescence
and have yet to be tainted or jaded by the real world.
Don't worry so much about what your diploma says.
Use what you already know: your ethics, ideology, art form of life
to create something useful within this world.
Be you, not because Drake says you only live once, but because it is common sense.
Don't sit around and wait, hope or pray for something to happen.
It is finally your time to make it happen.
Go out and fail.
For failure is the first step to success,
because you're one step ahead of everyone else
by trying, by risking, by attempting to go out of the comfort box.
So on this very day:
Let's make it happen today.
God, Buddha, Yahweh, Your Krypton Alien Dance or
Whatever You May Believe In--Bless bros & broettes.
Peace.
Jul 29, 2013
Jul 29, 2013 at 5:27 PM UTC
"Please give a warm round of applause to Miss Phoebe!"
And the crowd drowns the host as they
put their hands to work and legs propel them upward,
all resulting in an overwhelming standing ovation.
May 14, 2014
May 14, 2014 at 2:15 PM UTC
SOMEBODY loses whenever somebody wins.
This was known to the Chaldeans long ago.
And more: somebody wins whenever somebody loses.
This too was in the savvy of the Chaldeans.
They take it heaven's hereafter is an eternity of crap games where they try their wrists years and years and no police come with a wagon; the game goes on forever.
The spots on the dice are the music signs of the songs of heaven here.
God is Luck: Luck is God: we are all bones the High Thrower rolled: some are two spots, some double sixes.
The myths are Phoebe, Little Joe, Big ****
Hope runs high with a: Huh, seven-huh, come seven
This too was in the savvy of the Chaldeans.
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The squeak of rubber soles on the tiled red and black floor. The tripping over ourselves. The track. And you Regina. Making our heads spin slowly. Or Broadway at midnight, Pandora. Dancing, ignoring Mateo next door. After all he is louder than us. Maybe. The July, August, then September sun fading slowly. The gentle kisses of rain on our cheeks and lips. The wet hair, flinging back and forth. Ikea. Rocks. Sexist boys. Thunder. Hipsters. Hips. Chests. Smiles. Laughter. Singing. Dancing. Wet. Perfect. Stage. Dark. These make up our times together. The train. This houses some of them. Ice, cold and hot, slipping over our skin. Water makes us up. We make up our minds. Emails. By the time summer comes, we shall be gone. Taking our chemistry and voices away. Apart we are nothing. Together we are a chorus. Songs. They make up most of what we are. Emotions. They are us.
May 23, 2013
May 23, 2013 at 4:11 PM UTC
My head doesn't fit my shoulders today
feels like it belongs to someone else
someone who's asleep.. or dead
because this one is full of cotton wool and candy floss
and doesn't work properly
maybe it's the brain inside
there must be lots of room in there
because it's all over the place
thoughts here, thinking there,
mind wandering every ****** where
i can't grasp a single thought and see what it is
not one of them will stay still long enough
for me to hold it to the light and say
"ah yes... i should be doing " **** i forget
everything just slips through the cracks and nothing holds fast
i've lost brain cells somewhere i'm sure of it ..
you know.. the ones that make the brain work properly
probably in my bed
or has slipped down behind the nightstand
all i can think of is how much i can't think straight
i know i am always a little bit 'Phoebe'
always a little quirky.. odd maybe
i can't help that
and i don't always think in a straight line anyway
but i need my own head today
i have a very busy day ahead .. i think
probably..
but my head is full of cotton wool and candy floss
and my mind..
it's just not there.
Jun 2, 2016
Jun 2, 2016 at 3:52 AM UTC
Today left me with questions
Some pretty confusing questions
I thought a lot today
Tried to answer a lot today
I woke up today
In a good feeling way
I was early
Earlier than my parents
Which doesn't happen often
I felt good today
I laughed today
A lot
With the people I don't normally talk to
I worked today
Hard
And well
And I kept trying
I played today
Outside
In the park
With my friends
With
Kenny
Langston
Nelson
Emma
Phoebe
And I thanked them
Just now
For being such awesome people
And such great friends
I laughed today
With everyone
At everyone
I cursed today
More than usual
It felt good
And it was unexpected
I rocked today
And I'm guessing that'll happen again tomorrow
And the next day
And I talked today
And read today
I felt today.
Jun 11, 2013
Jun 11, 2013 at 5:35 PM UTC
Aristotle at my fingertips,
not locked in soliloquies I may perform,
but heard from an Oxford don I have
in my pocket,
as I lean into each lesson and trudge
up and down my morning
constitutional,
where the firebreak meets
chaparral alive with cottontail
this morning, when I almost said, "it's too hot."
C'mon, walk a mile with me… like
on the road to Emmaus, but Christ, no;
this character,
a soldier in me, about to salt out, bids me,
walk a mile, "not two, one
does the trick."
The thought comes
as a dare from the Ralston Purina guy,
and I stepped onto my trail.
I dare think Aristotle's thoughts after Plato's,
thinking
I could have known this when I was younger,
but not to this degree,
if I had not dropped out, and never knew,
by rote,
to pass a test, that
"All men by nature desire to know."
This is
Curiosity, right? I suspect it is a gift.
The joy we find in sensation, proof
offered the gainsayer,
I say again, that which is good for nothing
never
never
naturally exists, so
what tool forms an eye to notice that…
see, through the window
of my poetic-pathetic e-thoughtic soul
a feathery
family of phoebe birds, flits by,
if that is the proper name
{Tufted-Titmouse, my AI replies},
tails reflecting a smokey blue hue,
they swoop and flutter past;
I see
in a non-imaged flashpast pattern
from a time in the summer of 1969…
Disneyfied trails
from Cinderella's dressing room
scene, not seen, but reminded of seeing,
the pattern, in this phantomind dance,
being witnessed now, as
this old soldier once saw it
performed by bluer birds than these…
Time skipper
shifts to another bubble intersecting mine
and
I hear a worried neighbor fret about the fire.
I almost say,
"One of the benefits of being
backedup to the cloud,
nothing to lose."
But I remember, she collects purses and shoes.
Sep 7, 2020
Sep 7, 2020 at 12:16 PM UTC
1690
The ones that disappeared are back
The Phoebe and the Crow
Precisely as in March is heard
The curtness of the Jay—
Be this an Autumn or a Spring
My wisdom loses way
One side of me the nuts are ripe
The other side is May.
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*Ross wept when Marcel went away
and hoped, in the midst of those tears
that their souls will, again, one day
intertwine and dance and play.
Aria stepped in the darkness
with her only company – grave fear.
Dominant is the dread and terror and distress
until Spence held her hands and said, “I’m here.”
Marcel found his way
back to Ross, nonetheless
and Aria’s fears went away
as she walked hand in hand with Spence.
As I roam around this Central Perk
“It’s not your fault,” said Phoebe Buffay.
As I remain to prowl and loiter and lurk
I forgot that I’m a cat, smelly and stray.*
I meow as I hear this song subsist
To Regina Phalange, I owe all these
She may be unaware she’d done these things
Just know I’m forever grateful you exist.
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 1:32 AM UTC
You wrinkle your nose, No
I laughed. ‘Why?’
‘It’s silly.’
‘Sillier than driving
In the middle of the night
To my house and
Pulling me away
To eat pizza and
Drink milkshakes and
Write poetry in our arms
And sing and scream
And driving into a
Miraculously open
Carnival?’
You rolled your eyes
‘I’d rather do a Holden Caulfield on you,’
Would that mean that
To you
I’m just...Phoebe?
I shot you a sceptical look
And told you that
One ride at a carousel
Won’t taint your
Masculinity.
I sure as hell hoped
That I convinced you because
I don’t want you to be Holden
If I’m just Phoebe,
I’d rather be Jane Gallagher even
If there wasn’t a scene in the book
Written for us.
I know that if I could be Jane,
We could write
Our own **** story
And our story would
Be better.
So please, please, please
Say yes
To going to the carrousel
With me
And we could start writing
Our story as Jane
And Holden.
Dec 3, 2013
Dec 3, 2013 at 9:53 AM UTC