"steinbeck" poems
I see Steinbeck through a new light.
I am a pearl.
But not just any pearl,
I am The Pearl.
The Pearl that changes lives
And changes hearts.
I am Steinbeck’s pearl.
Waiting.
Waiting.
Until some is just lucky enough to find me
Hidden in my shell.
And that person was you.
I didn’t look like much,
But you knew better.
You chose me anyway.
And you were in awe of what you found beneath the surface.
And you were instantly rich.
You knew you were blessed to have found me.
But you knew you had some new troubles too.
You knew that men knew of the treasure you held.
You knew that they would try to take that from you.
You knew you could stop them.
But not for long.
When trouble came and you took me and fled.
But I was not safe.
Nothing was safe.
Because you would not let me go,
Trouble took the one thing you cared about more.
And because it was too much
To look me in the eye.
Because everything had started when you found me.
You let me go too.
You threw me back where you found me.
Apr 17, 2014
Apr 17, 2014 at 8:45 PM UTC
Of Mice and Men along within
Grapes of Wrath Steinbeck be ******
Lenny's rabbits...
What The Bleep Do We Know many runs never end
Of Lenny Bruce a scatological truth
Shock-jocks take clothes off
For censors ships to ignore the shore
Sycamore trees set Lenny Kravitz musical muse at ease
Now whom is the grounded man that lives loves laughs
As if a sailor on a sea of fate with flag at half staff
Know way one passion sit back relax
Seize the big-fish as they attack
Love love love knows know lack
Like Lenny Supak
Sep 2, 2013
Sep 2, 2013 at 12:24 AM UTC
following on with my current obsession with my tomato growing experiment, ive decided to look at books, and films, and any other related tomato themes, as follows:
The Tomatoes Of Wrath-Steinbeck
A Midsummer Night's Tomato-Shakespeare
Tomato And Juliet-Ditto
Frankentomato-Shelley
Alice in Tomatoland-Carrol
Night Of The Living Tomato-zombie horror!
E.T.- Extra Tomato!
Tomatoes And Prejudice-Austen
I Heard It On The Tomato Vine-Marvin Gaye
You're So Vine- Carly Simon
Summertime (and the living is tomato)-Ella Fitzgerald
LGBT-LGB+Tomato
BY Jemia de Tomatoville 😏🍅🍅🍅🦋💕🙄
any other suggested ideas welcome, as i may bring out a book on the subject (but thankfully, probably won't!) and will, or not, call it Tomato Wrong!
Aug 4, 2020
Aug 4, 2020 at 7:38 AM UTC
Hemingway said,
There is quite the difference
between kissing goodbye
and kissing goodnight.
I wanted a
"See you later",
but instead got the
"Goodbye".
Steinbeck stated that
Nothing good gets away,
If it's right, it happens.
If that's the case
how did we always end up feeling so
wrong?
Salinger suggested
that after falling in love
you never know
where the hell you are.
This, I can say is true.
Where the hell are we?
Dickens declared that
The truest wisdom
comes from a loving heart.
Yet a heart in love
can sometimes turn out to be
the least wise.
My friend, I think I'll just stick with
Orson Welles' theory:
"We're born alone, we live alone, we die alone."
Anything else is simply illusion.
Dec 22, 2014
Dec 22, 2014 at 1:08 AM UTC
Our planets spin in revolutions only
science can explain;
like how meteorologists are magicians
when it comes to describing the rain,
or the way conductors know at which
platform, and at what time, your train will arrive,
or how doctors can look you up and down
and pin point, with accuracy, where you’re in pain,
like a miller creating silk wholemeal flour
from coarse capsules of beige and brown grain,
or like experienced pilots landing again
in LAX after 7 hours in the same seat in the same plane,
or how writers can sit down at keys
and make them dance into Steinbeck, Hemingway or the holy Mark Twain.
Last night you escaped early because the girl
you wanted to leave with left moments
before you did; and now you’ll be back
in bed checking if your horoscopes match
and if your love compatibility is worthy of a
‘I’m in love’ badge.
Feb 27, 2013
Feb 27, 2013 at 12:14 PM UTC
There are railroad tracks
That run through my town
And at night when I finally receive
The silence I wished for during the day
I can hear the faint whistle
And hum against my bedroom windows
I hear the whistle now.
All my life I have heard the trains
And I find beauty in the fact that even when I'm not listening, they are there
The trains carrying coal, chemicals, lumber, and the better parts of my childhood
As a child I loved the idea of the caboose
Allowing any stretch of rail
Any length of land
To be your home
Your bed
And it was probably through this my wanderer spirit grew.
All my life these trains meant something
Escape
But not without possibility of return
I romanticized the long web of rails connecting all the land and Souls in the American night
I have always loved such pieces of antiquity
So in the latter years of my childhood in high school it's no suprise the love I had for Steinbeck, Sandburg, and Woody Guthrie
I would lament to friends that the trains became too fast to hop, but I never tried
I always sat back and watched
Or listened on quiet nights
Now my childhood has passed
I am nearly 20 but wrapped in my head is the idea that the young boy who had train posters and pictures covering his walls was nothing but a stranger or a character in just another awful coming of age rerun
But deep down that child turned to Ginsberg who wrote of boxcars boxcars boxcars
And Kerouac who followed the long stretches of road to the western edge of America
And it was through Kerouac I found
Thomas Wolfe
I feel I have Thomas Wolfe in my bones
Thomas Wolfe who left home rejoicing train rides to the North
Then realized he couldn't go home again
Thomas Wolfe who never wrote a bad train scene
Not all of Wolfe is in me
Not the 1900s Southern prejudice
Or the raving accusing of friends of great treasons, only to have to apologize the morning after
But I can feel his need
To write all I can
To never take away
To add add
To never reduce because who tells Van Gogh "yes yer paintings alright but I need you to reduce the amount of stars by 30 and I expect it on my desk Monday"
I won't take anything away from myself
Only add
So at nights
When I hear the train whistle
And soft rattling on my window
Thomas Wolfe is with me
And he loves the sound too
Feb 1, 2016
Feb 1, 2016 at 11:13 PM UTC
*Below the emerald mountaintops,
Guardians of the ocean breeze,
One finds a valley of fair crops,
Delicate soil, & buzzing bees.
Convivial whips of sunlight
Stroke lavish groves of hardy trees.
On every branch, hidden from sight,
Fruit slumber underneath the leaves.
It is no wonder that Steinbeck
Cherished his California roots;
The land of viridescent trek,
Unyielding sunshine, & fresh fruits.
Here placid air unbinds the chains
Which hinder a poetic mind.
Away from life’s rigorous strains,
Deep thoughts are vividly defined.
In the midst of the Salinas Valley,
Ideas amass wings with which to soar...*
Aug 12, 2016
Aug 12, 2016 at 10:27 AM UTC
i. you will miss him in drizzles and monsoons, in swells and tsunamis. you will listen to his favorite song for hours; it will hit you every unexpected moment. it will hurt, stab, ache, and you will suppress constant screams with strained lips.
ii. you will collect everything he gave to you and wonder if it is dimensionally real. you will sleep in his shirts, retaste saltwater kisses, and reread conversations as if there's something you missed the previous thirty times. absence does not make the heart grow fonder; it rips it apart and you cannot stitch the ragged halves with no thread.
iii. you will feel his touch presently in everything you do. it will be soft and cruelly comforting. it will constantly and inescapably linger. it will haunt you in early rainy mornings and dark lonely evenings.
iv. you will read endless musings on love and philosophy. you will entirely understand foucault's prison. you will live in steinbeck's tide pools and stars, and relate to simon bolivar trapped in his labyrinth. you will wonder why everything is like this, ugly and broken (and also if you are becoming delusional).
v. you will drink tea that scalds your tongue and stand outside on freezing nights, numb and overfeeling at the same time. you will ask the silent moon a thousand questions. you will see him and blink, head swimming, heart pounding in surges. the stars will wink and the wind will mock you.
vi. you will have blissful afternoons you forget and sorrowful nights you remember. it will still consume you in bouts, devour you in spells. nighttime will become both your enemy and remedy: it will wickedly remind you, yet help you heal.
vii. you will try and fail to make sense of him (and the universe in general). you will grapple with reality and yourself. perhaps you will never know why he stopped loving you: you will keep wondering how some things can just be left broken.
iix. slowly, slowly, you will sprout on your own; you will be tender and nearly whole. most importantly, you will realize his love brought you an entirely different kind of happiness.
ix. you will stop worrying and trying to piece together an empty puzzle. even the deepest scars find their way of fading. your mom was right: stop picking at the scab and your wound will heal.
x. you will learn to love yourself in ways he never could have loved you.
Mar 6, 2016
Mar 6, 2016 at 2:35 AM UTC
The writers
The writers
Hold aloft their lighters
And worship styles of Kafka, Robbins, Steinbeck, and of Stoppard,
With syrup and with sawdust – a spicing so improper,
They burn the midnight oil as they’re pulling their all-nighters
Running hard on empty as they find their inner fighters
The writers, the writers, the writers
Jun 14, 2016
Jun 14, 2016 at 4:56 PM UTC
Benedict went out
with Steinbeck’s wife
and Steinbeck (no not
that Steinbeck, some
other, less know, not
a writer, but a driver)
didn’t know, or if he
did he didn’t show as
if he did. The small hotel
with the hot water tap
running cold, the cold
running hot, the gas
fire blazing like some
dragon in a Disney
cartoon. Steinbeck’s
wife lay on the bed,
her arms outstretched,
her small ***** like
abandoned babes.
Aren’t you coming in
bed? She asked. Sure
I am, Benedict said, just
washing my hands,
about to brush my teeth.
The mirror in the narrow
bathroom was steamed
up, except where his hand
had made a clearing.
He stared at his face,
showed his teeth. Job
done. He spat out wasted
paste. Come on in Honey,
she said, as he climbed into
bed **** naked, his pecker
flopping like a dead goose’s
neck. She killed the lights.
The room flashed on and off
with neon lights from across
the way. Her features shone
up and then went out like
some ancient ghost. She
handled his pecker, her grip
about the base. He put his
hands on her **** felt flesh,
moved fingers crablike to
where the buttocks met,
the thin crack. She quickly
manhandled the pecker
into life, stiffened its resolve,
moved into place. That’s nice,
she said, placing fingers on
his back, moving him down.
Benedict seeing her features
flash up and out, thought of
Steinbeck driving his truck,
while he the apprentice was
having his wife, getting the ****
Jan 6, 2013
Jan 6, 2013 at 3:44 PM UTC
Disgrace
About face
Try it all again.
Steinbeck really
Killed it when he
Wrote ‘Of Mice and Men.’
George protected Lenny when
He shot him in the head. Lenny
Tended to the rabbits; In the end
They all were dead. Did you read it,
Back in high school, when you were
The baseball star? Was your girlfriend
Still a ****** when she left the backseat
Of your car? Did you divorce before you
Married? Did the rabbit really die? Did your
Girlfriend raise the baby, listen to the baby cry?
Will you ever say “I’m sorry?” Will you cry when
She is gone? Or will you write a story ‘bout your life,
Called, “Hobo Carry On.”
Phil Lindsey 6/4/15
Jun 5, 2015
Jun 5, 2015 at 12:53 AM UTC
so i took liberty's with my lockpick and freud's diary
and went in search of the reasons for dry thunder
and for pictures of the rain locked away in some peoples eyes
some hearts are waterlogged silent forests
grey clinging to the wet pine needles
some are deserts of the twilight
like dust gathering at the least disturbed path
their hearts are heavy with dry weight
i found her in the cold light of candles
mapping the unknown with her thin hand
her perfections chiseled softly into all of my senses
like a michelangelo paint by number sweet summer dream
her immediate and urgent presence on the night air
makes me breath in deep and feel to the bottom of my feet
that she is tenderness personified
she is light perfected
she is fresh off the pages of some steinbeck novella
she just has a grace that gives
she is in love with its concept and rumor
with lockpick in hand and the image of
old man freud smoking something funny in his pipe
traveled through this place with an eye to the depths
a girl out there provides a sultry version of hopes in a song
from within her place of televisions flickers
as i sit by the window shade as it stirs to life
approaching rain
the lockpick also comes to life
as the complexity's of a strangers smile
fluctuate in the eye
a grain of sand lodged in the crawlspaces of the mind
grinding in the gears of thought
the song drifts to an end
with her smile
May 17, 2014
May 17, 2014 at 11:28 AM UTC
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Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 6:24 PM UTC
Power of a Picture
Little girl from a place far away in the world do you know that you are a part of forever you stare so intently does it mean you are one who sees beyond the common bonds of your home. The field is small the house barely marks the world you hold a emblem of wood covered with art from your culture it is in the form of a cross is this meant as a grave marker to one that you have lost. Or is it the touch stone you use to contact the Great Spirit that lives in the mountains and valleys. They speak of such places on the earth where the raw power exerts such force as you open yourself mystery and reality come into focus its only a deep valley a barren land a high mountain but in these climes as in no other the vestiges of the long forgotten seep into the curious mind fertile pollination lightly brushes inquisitive petals from this small impetus ever wider do the rings expand from just the single tossing of a small stone.
The wise know a road that seems to wound aimlessly through the heather across the moors its reach spans the globe it is home in the Gobie as well as the great cultured cities that as diamonds shine with brightest thoughts words to ignite the mind of the seekers. To all who make a purposeful sojourn from humble villages to the ends of the earth? The mind has no equal problems its meat with digestion then the course altered it is fixed it answers only those who believe there is rich and soulful meaning to the world no matter how cold and brutal the abrasive veneer may appear can this life be less than the total of the wonders to be found in every vale and sun drenched corner that has had the greatest evidence of the divine because there is found the foot prints of man. Whether Redeemed or not together the world and man are intertwined by glorious holy design.
What a great world you are part of we would be incomplete without you, a small unknown stream somewhere will join the great Euphrates or the unending Amazon or the sweet tender flow of the Brazos but all are an integral part of a larger whole dust was thought to be nothing then the dust bowl happened Steinbeck immortalized this tragic upheaval in the Grapes Of Wrath. So thanks little one you speak a lot with your eyes of innocence.
Jan 7, 2012
Jan 7, 2012 at 1:47 PM UTC
“Maybe everybody in the whole **** world is .”
― John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men
Jan 9, 2016
Jan 9, 2016 at 6:26 PM UTC
Train, train, bus is late.
Boiled and delicate in sun,
someone sings. I wait.
Beside greenhouses,
a gold field twinkles, endless.
I think of Steinbeck.
Crowding, reaching out,
nettles have claws here, and eyes.
Is my mind slipping?
I cry, all messy,
happy tears. His words show me
I am not useless.
Jul 22, 2013
Jul 22, 2013 at 6:59 AM UTC
Surprisingly enough,
this little vile of some
horrible stuff
called "Pink-Pink"
is actually rather
musky.
And to think,
after three months
and then two more,
I would get six checks.
Micky Mantle captivated
the nation,
and Lars Montannaro
is captivating
this town.
All the while
Michael Moore is killing God
and God is killing us.
One must ask oneself,
did God create me,
or did I create God?
Is God within me,
or am I God myself?
Throughout John Carpenter's life
many questions plagued him,
most remained unanswered,
few allowed him to live
and one killed him.
He lies dying,
gasping for air,
with nothing but
Steinbeck and brandy
to bid him farewell.
On a bed without sheets,
in a motel without a kitchen,
in a town without a theater,
in a state without a king,
in a land without hope,
God lays dying.
With nothing but the prayers of
Mary Stein to bid him goodnight,
he prays himself.
Every man is a believer in the foxhole,
just as he is a saint.
Praying and praying,
the fire rallies
around a man,
his emancipated guts
lay spewing blood in the dirt.
Without a clear objective man is nothing.
Nothing is everything,
and everything is unexplainable
just as nothing can be explained.
The Dark sings a song it believes to be beautiful,
and the Light finds it discouraging to it's attempts
of what it believes to be beautiful.
So the Light chases away the Dark
and the Wanderers wonder where it went.
Wandering this world,
they try
and try
and try
to find it.
They are looking in the wrong world.
The man with a gun
runs to the store and back
and back
and back again.
The willows whisper a tune for their god
that the oaks find blasphemous.
The oaks chant louder and louder
so as to please their god.
Life goes on
and life goes on
and life goes on
and then it doesn't.
Then suddenly it begins
in a thousand more forms
and in a thousand more lungs
it breathes.
Life will continue to exalt God
and God will continue allowing life to breathe.
For as long as there is air,
breathes shall be taken.
Sep 26, 2013
Sep 26, 2013 at 12:33 AM UTC
The free exploring
mind of the individual
human is the most
valuable thing in
the world.
~~ John Steinbeck ~~
Nov 13, 2014
Nov 13, 2014 at 1:22 PM UTC
All those books they made us read,
The smelly yellow-pagers
That weighed as heavy as the guilt
We felt as "zombie teenagers";
Do we remember anything?
The names of the main characters,
Or maybe, who died in the end--
Or the ones who were in pictures?
It wasn't that we hated books--
We didn't understand them;
Before the teacher's spiritless voice
Made us slowly condemn them.
"Memorize the vocab words,
And don't forget the spelling!"
Was that the point of literature?
But definitions aren't compelling.
So all those hours in English Lit,
The days spent reading Steinbeck,
Were soured by the grouchy face
Always looming over my desk.
I always wished someone would say,
"This isn't boring, here's why:"
But I was told to shut up and read
When sometimes I wanted to cry:
"I hate this story! Nobody's happy!
And everyone's messed up!
It doesn't make sense to force it on us
When we're already stressed out."
But we had to read it, because they had to read it
When they were young in school.
This book had an impact in history:
So now, reading it is a rule.
So if it's a must, that's fine, then.
But...why don't we make it fun?
Or talk about the psychology
And learn something when we're done?
A book can't be everyone's favorite.
We're all different people inside.
But please try to make us all interested
With wisdom only you can provide.
Mar 29, 2018
Mar 29, 2018 at 11:41 AM UTC
Once there was an end of the war in sight,
they built their John Steinbeck ship,
hoisted the Ayn Rand flag
and sailed to the promised land.
Upon the dulcet shore, there she was,
their old enemy, cinnamon arms wide open in welcome.
Blood and spit foaming at the corners of her mouth,
she said,
kindness isn't a two-way street.
Dec 13, 2016
Dec 13, 2016 at 12:44 PM UTC
Steinbeck’s restless ghost whispers to me
as I tiptoe along a stone seawall.
He steers me away from the bay
back to the old sandstone churches
built by native hands,
back to music festivals and artisan fairs
full of mild, white cheeses
and would-be novelists arguing
about Henry Miller’s tropics.
But I’ve grown tired of his whispering
and no longer wish to dream of these things.
I would rather descend into a watery haven.
I will wave goodbye to John
and I will run down sandy paths
that lead to the sea.
I wade into the depths and sink
into a canyon where kelp shivers
in underwater breezes,
and the only stars I see will be
suction-cupped to the rocks below.
Jan 5, 2021
Jan 5, 2021 at 9:02 PM UTC
"Hope is a thing with feathers"
They read, confused.
The only feathers in life were
On TV or locked away in a zoo.
They read the poetry of Whitman
The dictates of Emerson
Of Ginsburg, Steinbeck, Salinger
Nothing made sense
When you spend your life being prodded
From concrete box to concrete box
Stuffed, squashed and barely managing to survive,
Imagination is rare
It's hard to picture feathers,
Red hunting caps, blooming lilacs,
Open roads
Between ***** pavements
Glittering broken bottles, and leftover plastic
Beauty became an expensive concept,
Best left for academics
Jul 1, 2014
Jul 1, 2014 at 10:50 PM UTC
Fanfares at the funfair for the children we took there and candy floss crème for the time in-between the dodgems and ducks.
Steinbeck played halfback on the quarterdeck of a cruiser,
not an enviable position, but they enhanced his pay and with two rations of *** every day he didn't really care.
Time jumps about when you're about to get down to the real business of living
I'm about to do that but I can't find the time.
Wild in our childhood we are savaged by our adulthood
what chance to have peace?
there is none.
It's a fashion to be
or it could be it was
I get lost in minutiae
and tend to shy away,
but only
because the side track is
my best side and my best side
is the side track
I'm on.
and anyone can learn how to drive.
Dec 3, 2016
Dec 3, 2016 at 11:50 AM UTC
I strolled out on the lawn and looked at the view
didn't I see Fleming, Steinbeck and Miller too
illustrious company in the fading light
and further, J. P. Donleavy was out of sight
They were commercial, deep, with ****** soliliquy
and down below, J.P. described a strange anomaly
let's write together, fight together like a ghost
when it's done, I'll tell you what I like most
I like Pirsig, Phaedrus with a bit of Zen thrown in
although have to be fresh without being maudlin
now sadness, pathos is a whole new ball game
every time that we write, it was never the same
Sadness for me was alone and different for you
we all agreed to differ as the sky turned indigo blue
Apr 25, 2016
Apr 25, 2016 at 2:02 PM UTC