"tate" poems
This is the easy time, there is nothing doing.
I have whirled the midwife's extractor,
I have my honey,
Six jars of it,
Six cat's eyes in the wine cellar,
Wintering in a dark without window
At the heart of the house
Next to the last tenant's rancid jam
and the bottles of empty glitters ----
Sir So-and-so's gin.
This is the room I have never been in
This is the room I could never breathe in.
The black bunched in there like a bat,
No light
But the torch and its faint
Chinese yellow on appalling objects ----
Black asininity. Decay.
Possession.
It is they who own me.
Neither cruel nor indifferent,
Only ignorant.
This is the time of hanging on for the bees--the bees
So slow I hardly know them,
Filing like soldiers
To the syrup tin
To make up for the honey I've taken.
Tate and Lyle keeps them going,
The refined snow.
It is Tate and Lyle they live on, instead of flowers.
They take it. The cold sets in.
Now they ball in a mass,
Black
Mind against all that white.
The smile of the snow is white.
It spreads itself out, a mile-long body of Meissen,
Into which, on warm days,
They can only carry their dead.
The bees are all women,
Maids and the long royal lady.
They have got rid of the men,
The blunt, clumsy stumblers, the boors.
Winter is for women ----
The woman, still at her knitting,
At the cradle of Spanis walnut,
Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.
Will the hive survive, will the gladiolas
Succeed in banking their fires
To enter another year?
What will they taste of, the Christmas roses?
The bees are flying. They taste the spring.
40.8k
With the start of the first inning
as the wind whistled through the tree's
Our short stop had his shoulder broke
and the fates blew in on the breeze
This team was a thorn in the side
of the Harding Presidents Club
It was on this night my son Tate
was scheduled to play as a sub
The kid pitching for North Union
hurled a cooking heater down field
You could hear that freight train coming
as it's hide was 'bout to be peeled
Their coach then rallied his talent
pressing their shoulders to the wheel
like natives dancing 'round a fire
driving devils who'd struck a deal
A death defying mid-air, catch
the bounding, ball tossed on the run
The Devil was in town this night
riding in on the setting sun
They dove and slid then nearly flew
as if the angels rode their backs
While running bases half possessed
plowing the field with cleated tracks
No one remembered the last time
that our team had beaten this bunch
That night they took the field in style
serving them all up for their lunch
,
The dice kept coming up seven
and oh prophetically so
When the sun had finally set
the score was seven to zero
Come ye father's follow your child
through the tough times every one
For the oft chance will someday come
when they will have finally won
Tate
© 2012 Tate Morgan
Written
April 12, 2014
Americans love the underdogs.
original
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1342622/
Original video poem of the same
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1354978/
Jun 28, 2014
Jun 28, 2014 at 11:36 AM UTC
A special gift lies on the wind
for each man who dares the blunder
Then rolls the dice to pay the price
to both touch and feel this wonder
As then one finds the reason why
that has thus far been so hidden
Endless the loads that walk life’s roads
with the fear that was unbidden
Therein lies the conundrum
which we know our hearts to command
Now it will be for us to see
how well the ship of life be manned
Our lives have no greater calling
then to comfort a poor child’s tears
Truth shows clearer through the mirror
for he who shares these hopes and fears
But oh the sounds of fatherhood
how narre they touch to the heart
Laughter and tears pour from the years
for each of us who play his part
Tate
Jun 14, 2014
Jun 14, 2014 at 11:21 AM UTC
A special gift lies on the wind
for each man who dares the blunder
Then rolls the dice to pay the price
to both touch and feel this wonder
As then one finds the reason why
that has thus far been so hidden
Endless the loads that walk life’s roads
with the fear that was unbidden
Therein lies the conundrum
which we know our hearts to command
Now it will be for us to see
how well the ship of life be manned
Our lives have no greater calling
then to comfort a poor child’s tears
Truth shows clearer through the mirror
for he who shares these hopes and fears
But oh the sounds of fatherhood
how narre they touch to the heart
Laughter and tears pour from the years
for each of us who play his part
Tate
Original version with music
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/664153/
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 11:03 PM UTC
A rich man's son inherits want
with no desire to work hands bare
Gives the job to another man
to look out from his easy chair
A poor man's son inherits grace
born of toil and sweat of his brow
He adjudged of hard earned merit
pushes on what body will allow
The rich man's son inherits greed
with what malice it may entail
Thinking others beneath his station
for lack of character he does ail
The poor man's son inherits kindness
which with all others level stands
Then asks the outcast bless his door
to share the fruit of his two hands
Heir to what is the rich man's son
tender flesh that fears the cold
To the poor never gives his time
nor dare he wear a garment old
Inheriting, it seems to me
what no good man would wish to be
Heir to what is the poor man's son
strong muscles and pounding heart
Chipped of a marble character
beloved by all he touched in part
Inheriting, it seems to me
what all good men would wish to be
Tate
This is one of three poems I have converted to a new all video format well worth the look at what I feel is the future of our art.
Original all video version
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1355765/
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 12:24 AM UTC
A love like tate and violet
Tragic but beautiful
Ever untouchable but non lasting
I once thought I wanted a love like this
But I want a love that's ever lasting
Tragedy is beautiful
But I would rather die
in the arms of someone faithful
So why have a love like tate and violet
When you too can create a beautiful love
Full of tragedy but that's ever lasting
Sep 14, 2015
Sep 14, 2015 at 8:51 AM UTC
There was an old man, I once knew
Peaches was the name he used
He was the drunk, set on our trunk
his body old and abused
Sharing his beer with an old horse
who caroused in the end stall
Each day by three, they'd walk by me
and stumble but never fall
His liver was a lace doily
alcohol pickled him thin
He'd been turned down, all over town
no one ever took him in
He drank his beer with ole Nellie
she could tip a bottle too
Swig and sway, like Don Quixote
as they staggered, swirling, brew
We were headed for the races
this blustery afternoon
Each planned the trip, we had to ship
I knew we'd be leaving soon
From where we trained at the fairground
we carted them to the track
Where all would race, and take what place
each earned in front or in back
Peaches rode in back of the truck
so he could drink the whole way
My uncle said, he'd soon be dead
drinking had seen his decay
We sat apart from others there
he and I were best of pals
He'd tell me tales, of life’s travails
while I ogled all the gals
That day he shared a sordid tale
of pain he caused his own son
He had shouldered blame, bore the shame
for this thing that he had done
Back when he was just a young man
a pillar of support
He took his boy, his life’s great joy
to play their favorite sport
They went to a picnic that day
he had drank one too many
On the way, to watch his son play
of fears he hadn't any
His boy was riding in the back
not thinking they skipped the seat belt
He'd rolled his car, the door ajar
surprise was all he had felt
His boy was tossed out in a field
sweet clover of timothy
The child's light hair, seen lying there
remembered so vividly
"I was a Veterinarian"
said Peaches to my surprise
"I went insane, called out in vain
but God never heard my cries"
"So now I ride where I belong
In back of my self-made bar
Hoping he, will come to take me
by tossing me from the car"
Just then a tear fell from his cheek
the pain enveloped me too
Here cried a man, much deeper than
any of us ever knew
Tate
May 29, 2014
May 29, 2014 at 2:12 PM UTC
i was walking around
in the Tate
on the Thames Embankment
London that day
it was hot hot hot
the heat haze
shimmered
above the river
like the sweat
that rose off my back
i saw you
all mixed up
with Picasso's
misplaced eyes
in Malaga blue
long necks,
curved limbs askew
morning balconies
the sculpture of a goat
made of a basket
***** ram
with a bicycle seat
we weren't allowed to ride
i kept thinking
of painted naked flesh
Velasquez, Degas, Matisse
and flying to Malaga,
Barcelona, Granada,
Paris, Venice, New York
all the cities we could **** in
over and over and over
if we ran off
together right then
any cheap hotel room
with a bed
and a shower
would do
we could give up
on looking at art
completely
screaming
meaningless
poems
words
endless
passionate
words
consumed
by life
Jun 6, 2014
Jun 6, 2014 at 9:31 AM UTC
In a hollow off the main road
sits a village that time forgot
Where things flow, a little slow
and peace of mind need not be bought
The main street beckons all to see
how life ebbed and flowed in the past
Where smiles abound, the happy sound
of a life not metered nor fast
There you'll find the town Silversmith
making jewelry in a forge
The coffeehouse, echos of Strauss
a trodden path out to the gorge
It is home to the Glen Helen
part of a thousand acre woods
Steering the helm, coin of the realm
are the fruits of the craftsman's goods
There by the Antioch College
we spent a good deal of our youth
Climbing the trees, skinning our knees
among beauty we knew as truth
You might just see children playing
Hide and Seek throughout the street
Where "all yee all yee in come free"
sings of a melody so sweet
So should you find that your bones ache
from the pains of life you endure
Take a stroll, over the knoll
to the little town with the cure
Tate
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 3:17 PM UTC
I don’t suppose
you remember
that day one December
when I scored a hat-trick
in the mouthwash-smeared hall
and thought I was Messi
for a couple of seconds
or when we went to the Tate
in about year eight
for a rare school-trip
with a gang of teachers
and we gawped at the art
like the cat next door
stalking a bird
or when my Dad said
that my uncle had expired
and I was on stage one night
with Joe’s coat of many colours
and wet veins on my face
for some reason
I didn’t get
Feb 3, 2014
Feb 3, 2014 at 4:41 PM UTC
{After James Tate's 'Consolations After an Affair'"}
My piano breathes with each of its keys:
it aspires to inspire change
in someone's watering mind.
I have paintings that I did not paint
that do more observing than the scientist.
They know nothing of evolution and it's hypothesis.
For them to see and feel
is all they need to express.
I've discovered that I don't need
to prove myself for my own approval.
A jellyfish escapes and dances behind me
as swift as the flame of a fire.
Now I can taste the truth,
a place filled with disgust and desire.
Feb 1, 2010
Feb 1, 2010 at 8:30 PM UTC
We mixed colors from childhood
with gentle tones that came with time
gave birth to a generation
that became the pride of our prime
Those were days of joys un-ending
you think we won't see anymore
'Cause where we find ourselves these days
we have never been to before
Each place in life brings adventure
meant to try us all of our days
To test resolve and resilience
that we apply to each new phase
We will always have a purpose
as now I am called Papa Tate
To tell you the truth I love it
being a grandfather is great
Tate
Jul 8, 2015
Jul 8, 2015 at 3:01 PM UTC
The West End wanders in my recollection
like a quiet madman. All the times we were
reminded of the War, pointed out the bullet-riddled
walls of the Old Tate, the Arch, guided through the
rooms where Churchill walked. All that aside,
we looked to keep homesickness in its box with strong
black beer or red, by wandering Regent's Park strewn with
fallen gold, or the Garden's rioting roar of flowers, apples, oranges, potatoes and
all of it turning to the ceaseless industry of men and women.
Mystery was the grey-haired Underground men, grey clothes
stuffed with crumpled paper. Once, I stumbled on a scrap
of unreclaimed, timeless London: shattered glass and rubble
carpeting the dull ceramic tile. Ghosts and dusk entered
where ceiling once had been, the silence of a grainy,
blackandwhite Blitz echoing.
Aug 25, 2012
Aug 25, 2012 at 5:00 PM UTC
True success known by oh so few
who have held its taste so dear
Becoming one's most loving friend
as well as the thing they most fear
Is success so overwhelming
or reflection's failure you dread
Have a mind to be tested here
before on your fears you are fed
It's not he thinking better not
who will be served life’s greatest dish
Only a man who risks his pride
can dream of dining on his wish
Whichever man you choose to be
in this lifetime as in the next
Will lay foundation for the others
who study you and feel perplexed
The man who sees his limits dashed
rendered from toil of sweat and tears
Is he who has lived more in life
than most will know in all their years
Tate
Original with music and pictures
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/499184/
Jun 1, 2014
Jun 1, 2014 at 9:08 AM UTC
Say baby, can I be your slave?
I've got to admit girl, your the **** girl
And I am digging you like a grave
Now do they call you daughter to the Spinning Pulsar
Or maybe Queen of 10,000 Moons, Sister to the distant yet
Rising star
Is your name Yemaya? Oh hell nah, it's got to be Oshun
Ooh is that a smile me put on your face child?
Wide as a field of jasmine and clover
Talk that talk honey, walk that walk money
High on legs that'll spite Jehovah
**** who am I
It's not important
But they call me brother to the night
And right now I am the blues in your left thigh
Trying to become the funk in your right
Who am I? 'll be whoever you say
But right now I'm the sight ***** hunter
Blindly pursuing you as my prey
And I just want to give you injections of
Sublime erections and get you to dance to my rhythm
Make you dream archtypes
Of black angels in flight
Upon wings of distorted, contorted metaphoric ****
Come on slim, **** your man, I ain't worried about him
It's you who I want to step to my scene
Cause rather than deal with the fallacy
Of this dry *** reality
I'd rather dance and romance your sweet *** in a wet dream
Who am I, well they all call me
Brother to the night and right now I am
The blues in your left thigh, trying to be the funk in your right
Is that alright?
by: Larenz Tate
Aug 16, 2015
Aug 16, 2015 at 11:30 PM UTC
I need a woman
A lover, a teammate
A play-maker, a star,
Better than Notre Dame’s “Golden Tate”
I promise to take you just the way you are
Just promise me you’ll help me with what’s on my plate
Dont need no one night stand, or a fling
I need someone who will assist in lifting me up
While helping me to spread my wings
Someone who my heart you will corrupt
Someone who deep down will make my heart sing
In return I’ll give you a love that is true
From the depths of my heart that much I can promise you.
I swer that my love will always be right on par
Till death do us part, I’ll never be that far
As age gets the best of us, our wrinkles be our fate
I promise you not another woman I will even think to date
For in my heart you will always remain
My one and only, my life will sustain
I know your out there somewhere
Not having you is something my heart can not bare
I know your thinking the same thing too
So hurry up! I can’t wait to start loving you.
Dec 7, 2010
Dec 7, 2010 at 9:10 AM UTC
These scars I wear each tell a tale
of moments I'll never forget
When loves spark, had once left it's mark
and the fates had called in their debt
Where I fell upon a bottle
cut my arm and nearly bled out
I hit my head, thought I was dead
learned something of what life's about
My legs torn by years of abuse
racing horses like all my kin
I'd go down hard, leaving them scarred
the limestone would tear off your skin
But these were offerings of note
in a life spent chasing ideals
Testing extremes, of my own dreams
run down more than once by the wheels
Son you can't live your life afraid
of each danger that comes your way
So play the odds, tempt the **** gods
rise up and face each new born day
When you are but old and feeble
with your grandchild upon your knee
Tell your stories, of life's glories
show him the scars so he can see
A life spent cowering from pain
will leave you so aching inside
The gift you'd miss, from life's sweet kiss
knowing you never even tried
Tate
© 2012 Tate Morgan
Written
October 25, 2012
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 1:55 AM UTC
Beside patches of green grass meadow
golden wheat fields wave in the breeze
Beckoning out to all my fellows
come walk through me with ease
Upon just such a lazy day
I once casually sauntered by
Hearing the call of nature's beauty
thought that God had spoke just to I
With the sound of a lonesome whistle
down the river the steamers rolled
To this the backdrop behind the field
the childhood longing is all told
Across the field dressed all in blue
a boy and his team worked the ground
I stood to watch an hour or so
not moving or making a sound
A smile as wide as the river
shown across the boys bright face
Perhaps this was the very first time
he had taken his father's place
In him I could see a purpose
a reward for his tiny soul
I could tell by the way he worked
nothing would lure him of his goal
Long it is since I felt like that
as a boy just going on ten
Doing twice what was asked of me
to be noticed by him again
Passing for gold in a boy's heart
are all the looks his father pays
collecting what he can in life
to spend long into older days
In him I saw both rhyme and reason
as we all live and pass away
A boy working so hard to grow up
while we men all wish we could play
Tate
The original of this poem I think is much better as I love the music
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/444697/
Jun 13, 2014
Jun 13, 2014 at 8:24 PM UTC
We flew endlessly, miles above the surface, engines humming.
I looked down through a hole in the clouds; saw emerald fields
and a dirt road seldom traversed. I found myself wondering if
someone looking up could see that hole I was looking through.
our eyes would meet in a nod of existential brotherhood, and
we would become eternally bonded as fellow humans.
I doubted it, though, for a slate of gray clouds loomed above yet.
Mother Nature saw it right to hide us in her own natural camouflage.
So we hung in limbo, between the layers of fog, neither here nor there.
I hate to fly, and my mind wandered to the worst-case scenario;
we'd fall down through the hole to smash upon the crops in a fiery heap.
Probably catastrophic engine failure. Or perhaps swatted out of mid-air
by a petulant giant swinging a smoked turkey leg. You know,
like the one's you can find at the county fair. I gripped my wife's hand,
noticing how painfully sweaty mine was, wishing to be anywhere else.
But, in spite of a few bumps and the useless rise in my blood pressure,
the plane narrowly escaped catastrophic engine failure in that brief
moment. I became excited for our impending arrival in Nassau.
The shining sun, blended drinks, fish fries; still assuming we got there
in one piece. Drum beats from the Junkanoo tattooed through
my fingers quietly on the armrest. We would dance deep into night,
then retire to the beach to laugh at old stories with new friends.
I'm sure if we were spotted from down below by all
the hard working humans, our freedom would be envied,
possibly even hated. I became a young Marine Corporal once again,
standing guard on a frozen winter's night to protect the secrets
of that quiet hole in the clouds, my fellow passengers,
and even the mean old giant with turkey grease glistening on his lips.
It was my somber duty.
Apr 8, 2013
Apr 8, 2013 at 12:01 PM UTC
up theer atop
Pendlebury hill
Lowry still,
matchstick thin
a flat cap
cheeky grin,
he paints the rain
grainy,
although
not always on a Sunday.
I Watch him by the mill race,
a mill shed face
that catches old like new
for me,
L.S Lowry
ought to be
hanging in the Tate,
oh wait,
he is.
Jul 25, 2016
Jul 25, 2016 at 3:11 AM UTC
His play he would be forsaking
facing the darkness we all fear
Soul aching tiny heart breaking
oh how he wished that I were near
The matriarch of his small clan
was ill and finally dying
It was his plan to act the man
while inside his heart was crying
I had finished my latest book
which I dedicated to Drake
The Ties That Bind weren’t so kind
as I heard his little heart break
I sent him the book to peruse
in the hopes that it would cheer him
To ease the blues and heal his bruise
though the diagnosis was grim
He took her my book with the note
opened it to the beginning
Where he read the quote, I had wrote
his face all aglow and grinning
In the end what could any say
to this child who loves his small clan
Love whispered stay, don't run away
to this boy forced to be a man
Tate
Original poem and music
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/701419/
May 31, 2014
May 31, 2014 at 10:41 PM UTC
It seems we never get enough
attention from all our friends
We seek to play, everyday
in the vain hope it never ends
As writers we are a vain bunch
never satisfied with ourselves
Making wonders, of life’s blunders
that will then sit upon our shelves
From each of the great poets here
we search for that kindly spirit
Seeking such proof, tempered by truth
In hopes we can stand to hear it
We all seek the purpose of life
through our friends we each spread our wings
With each letter, we get better
from that comes the joy writing brings
Friends will die and leave us alone
with those things of life we can’t see
Though I know well, he’s not in hell
I think I’ll let the mystery be
Tate
May 23, 2014
May 23, 2014 at 1:36 AM UTC
I was born of the ceaseless plains
with the endless sky above
It was there I learned to wander
it was there I learned to love
Despite where life had taken me
from green, grass to black, sea foam
I’d cried to each wind filled valley
"will I ever find a home"
Days of life would pass into years
distant plains rang out a plea
Over the rivers and valleys
where my home had drank of me
The Midwest had been calling me
as it echoed out in song
"I am the land of your fathers
and here is where you belong"
Tate
The original with pictures and music
http://www.writerscafe.org/writing/aristate/1383965/
Jul 14, 2014
Jul 14, 2014 at 4:25 PM UTC