Woody   Poems  

22s
Ergo wherever I go: HP Nazis
19m
You've got to be ******* me? This is now "Under Review".
2h
Ergo the thumb

I truly believe that Eliot
is working on his Ph.D
in Psychology, and we at HP
many fine poets and good peeps
along with a handful of miscreants
(Probably Trumpian Nazis if you ask me)
are simply a part of a hypothesis he
(That being Eliot, the aspiring Psychologist)
is testing to see how good and bad humans
interact in societal mediums (so sad)
though seems such an obvious outcome
does he (Eliot, I mean) really need
that silly down-turned ******* thumb
to become a man of lettered degree?
Seriously, seems kind of dumb, me thinks.


*This was in the notes:

Please, you fine scholars sitting on his dissertation committee, just give him his letters, or not, and tell him to move on with the silly thumb thingy. It's become such a bore, like those attention ****** who like to employee it.
Grow a sense of humor and get rid of the freakin' down-thumb, HP Police.
Woody
Written by
Woody  In the dark woods.
            
18        Jean Fisher and r

r Mission accomplished for now. Go ahead and put both of us in the woodshed.

r interesting how quickly you made those -7 to - 9 hearts disappear on Smell of lonesome.

r  While you’re at it, HP POLICE, take a look at all of the negative thumbs on my poem The smell of lonesome. When are you going to do something about this kind of harassment? It’s not me I give a **** about. Other poets can’t even comment without getting thumbed-down. That creates censorship out of fear of even commenting on someoneelse’s poem. Do something about that and I’ll take your “under review” ******* serious.

0


1m
r

r  You go, Woody. Time for HP Nazis to pay attention to the harassment and those doing the harassing rather than censorship of poets pointing out the flaw in the **** thumbs-down *******.

0


11m

You broke me you took me to the woodshed and you killed me your words shot me right in the heart  point blank range no remorse so cold oh baby why I loved you I adored you I'd give you the world but I guess that wasn't enough for you because you left me

You broke me you took me to the woodshed and you killed. Me your words shot me point blank range no remorse so cold what did I do to deserve this the only crime I committed was loving you too much you and yet I still love you even though you

You broke me you took me to the woodshed and you killed your words shot me point blank range no remorse and yet I loved you so much there's nothing I wouldn't do for you if you needed a shoulder to cry on I was there my love had no limits but I guess that wasn't enough for you because you

You broke me you took me to the woodshed and killed me your words shot me point blank range no remorse so cold oh baby why I love you I adored you I'd give you the world but I guess that wasn't enough because you left ......

I'm snoozing my best in the morning
Along about sun up,
When I hear someone a-callin'
Wake up, it's time to get up,
I lay there stretching and yawning
So nice to stay in bed,
I see the Sun is shining
Over the back woodshed,
Crawling from under the covers
Cheeks so nice and cool,
When the Sun gets over the chickenhouse
It's time to go to school,
Then sometimes
After I am up out of bed,
The moon comes over
The same woodshed,
If I'm still
And quiet as a mouse,
I'm asleep before it reaches
The old tinhouse.

August 2, 1963

he* brought me out to the
                                     woodshed

gently opens the back door
but it slams behind us, pneumatic
cylinder busted so it catches my heels
and i slide off the last step
into the gravel and his steel-toes--

he silently brushes through the
prairie drop seed and mexican
feathergrass, nothing but an oil
stained back lumbering amidst the switch
eventide shivelight striking through
the creases in his ears

full of his old tools, horses,
hidden shelves--
and i've gone cold since
we left the house, a
**** frost set out
on my limbs 'cause
i know i done wrong
all the blessed evidence
up and down and that's
before he starts to turn--

ungive.

ungive.

Luna Tickle eats only pickles and ***** up all the brine
When her brother tells their mother she begins to whine:
“Yes I did it! And left no tidbit
Is that such a crime? My brother smells and raises hell
And leaves the loo full of slime.”

Now their mother dear began to fear her children were obstructions
Never listening, since their christening, and wished for their abduction
So she planned a slaughter and called her daughter
Outside to the woodshed, then chopped her neck in two
She put Luna’s head in her brother’s bed and said,
“Now, they’ll be no more Boo-Hoos”

Now you know of Luna and her tragic ending
But there’s more to this rhyme that’s pending
For the Tickle name is quite insane
And was never worth defending
But that’s just what her brother did
When Mrs. Tickle met Judge Knuckle
And almost flipped her lid
Screaming:
“I never liked that kid from the day she began to suckle!
Why she couldn’t be more like me, or her lovely sister Tess”
Twas all Mrs. Tickle could confess that day to Judge and jury
Until brother **** chimed-in and confessed his sin
And did so in such a fury, it was heard throughout and within
The entire state of Missouri:

“I am Richard Tickle and do confess I am not fickle
In fact I am quite pugnacious
If you do not see the circumstances like me
I’ll be forced to be disputatious”

Interjects Judge Knuckle:
“Boy, I’ll have you buckled this instance to electric chair
If you’re not scared I’ll be splitting hairs
In a place where the sun does not shine
So if you care, you’d best beware
Or your Gherkin will be in a brine”

Now Tess screamed out and her mother did shout
In perfect unison:
“**** is my love and none the likes of any other hooligan”

At this there was a scuffle
Each dame was muffed and ruffled
They could not contain
All their angst and their pain
And it led to the ugliest tussle
For each thought ****
Was devoted to she
And apparently, this could not be
As we know of the trouble with Luna
So the jury was not out
Or even in doubt
Of these sinister makings and troubles

It was the sickest of affairs
Mass-producing glaring stares
From everyone within the court
Missouri Gazette’s headlines that day
Told of how they did slay
And burn the Tickle chalet
Leaving it in incestuous rubble
The lesson today to this horrific ballet
Is don’t live your life in a bubble

It is morningtime in the hour that the day’s light shows its hem in the East. It is that time when dream and memory are replaced by invention and desire. Desire to invent, to feel the words form on the page: messages from the heart, an imagined landscape, a different time freshly peopled.
 
The mind’s eye, as though a flying sprite, enters the privacy of home, alights on a child’s pillow, marvels at the untroubled face, the easy limbs still resting in half-sleep before rising. In an adjoining room his parents, aware of night’s echo, stretch and touch, delighting in the comfort of those known places where love and desire visit, made precious through stroke and caress. Her dear head fast into the pillow, his right arm resting lightly across her body, his left folded into her back. He inhales her as though a most delicate incense slowly burning on the mantle shelf, on the altar of this gathered home; beside his glasses, her simple jewellery, the once jasmined vase, cards ascribed with the love of friends and family, endearments, a child’s gay picture, a photograph of a cottage in silhouette against sea and distant mountains, and five stones from different shores, each a talisman, a gateway to a memoried story.
 
Still this still time, this fragile cushioning of quiet before the necessity of movement, the need of thought to plan the must of the day, the have to in this hour or that, the when and then, the care to this and there. Another day beckons in a sharp noise from the street, a car starts, a door slams, away in the vallied distance the hoot of a train.
 
It is warm for a late December day, but against the possibility of damp and cold he takes the necessary gloves and scarf, though wears a lighter coat. He will walk purposefully, though unbreakfasted, through the grey streets, past houses where the lit opaque windows of bathrooms shine, onto the heath land and then into the woods of oak and birch and alder. The trees therein are pilloried hands stretching their gaunt fingers to the whitening sky, still in the still air, almost silent but for the change of the air’s resonance, that particular quality in a wooded space where sounds’ reflections have a confused trajectory: a bird rising at your footfall, its wingbeats echoing a cascade of almost touched finger strokes on a wooden drum.
 
Here in this dank wood the mind is restless; it moves ungraciously between what the senses tell of the now and the interventions of imagination and memory. Her fatigue at the dinner table, the dull green of unberried holly, the description of a woodshed its contents delightfully named, and that short paragraph about the similarity between books and trees (he makes a mental note to learn this: to keep this warm thought close in times of stress). This is why we read he thinks: to gather to ourselves a temporary safety, the consolation of another’s voice, an antidote to loneliness. She is waking he thinks. He can ‘see’ inwardly her movement as she shakes off sleep, raises her eyebrows before opening her eyes, sitting on the bed now (eyes still closed), she stretches her right hand for the juice he brought silently to her bedside, that little action of love borne up two flights of stairs, every footfall carefully tiptoed, to place very slowly, silently next the clock, her bedtime book, a pile of his letters, a scribbled address on a notebook’s torn out page. She will never be so tenderly beautiful as in that moment he so rarely sees but knows and thus imagines. This image reverberates over his moving body and he stops to calm himself, to enjoy for a few seconds this almost-presence of her in an imagined touch of skin to skin, his fingers stroking her naked back as she gathers herself to move.

There was something wrong with the sky today
in the melancholy cold September sun.
Frost sculpted clouds hung in the empty blue,
bereft, uncelebrated

The swallows are gone.
No more exalting
in our wet summer
unfettered by earthbound grumbles:
now they scythe the skies
to Africa
leaving us completely behind.

A white-spattered woodshed -
over-bold insects -
and perhaps
the promise of return.

I did it momma, I stole the candy bar
from your bedstead, so let my brothers and sisters go,
yes, I am the youngest, and I give myself up
don't whup them no more
I eat it and proof, is in the pudding
for I found out it was ex-lax,
so whip me all you want.

Things I Can Say About MFA Writing Programs Now That I No Longer Teach in One


"You’re going to need to spend a lot of time alone." - James Yamasaki


I recently left a teaching position in a master of fine arts creative-writing program. I had a handful of students whose work changed my life. The vast majority of my students were hardworking, thoughtful people devoted to improving their craft despite having nothing interesting to express and no interesting way to express it. My hope for them was that they would become better readers. And then there were students whose work was so awful that it literally put me to sleep. Here are some things I learned from these experiences.

Writers are born with talent.

Either you have a propensity for creative expression or you don't. Some people have more talent than others. That's not to say that someone with minimal talent can't work her *** off and maximize it and write something great, or that a writer born with great talent can't squander it. It's simply that writers are not all born equal. The MFA student who is the Real Deal is exceedingly rare, and nothing excites a faculty adviser more than discovering one. I can count my Real Deal students on one hand, with fingers to spare.

If you didn't decide to take writing seriously by the time you were a teenager, you're probably not going to make it.

There are notable exceptions to this rule, Haruki Murakami being one. But for most people, deciding to begin pursuing creative writing in one's 30s or 40s is probably too late. Being a writer means developing a lifelong intimacy with language. You have to be crazy about books as a kid to establish the neural architecture required to write one.

If you complain about not having time to write, please do us both a favor and drop out.

I went to a low-residency MFA program and, years later, taught at a low-residency MFA program. "Low-residency" basically means I met with my students two weeks out of the year and spent the rest of the semester critiquing their work by mail. My experience tells me this: Students who ask a lot of questions about time management, blow deadlines, and whine about how complicated their lives are should just give up and do something else. Their complaints are an insult to the writers who managed to produce great work under far more difficult conditions than the 21st-century MFA student. On a related note: Students who ask if they're "real writers," simply by asking that question, prove that they are not.

If you aren't a serious reader, don't expect anyone to read what you write.

Without exception, my best students were the ones who read the hardest books I could assign and asked for more. One student, having finished his assigned books early, asked me to assign him three big novels for the period between semesters. Infinite Jest, 2666, and Gravity's Rainbow, I told him, almost as a joke. He read all three and submitted an extra-credit essay, too. That guy was the Real Deal.

Conversely, I've had students ask if I could assign shorter books, or—without a trace of embarrassment—say they weren't into "the classics" as if "the classics" was some single, aesthetically consistent genre. Students who claimed to enjoy "all sorts" of books were invariably the ones with the most limited taste. One student, upon reading The Great Gatsby (for the first time! Yes, a graduate student!), told me she preferred to read books "that don't make me work so hard to understand the words." I almost quit my job on the spot.

No one cares about your problems if you're a ****** writer.

I worked with a number of students writing memoirs. One of my Real Deal students wrote a memoir that actually made me cry. He was a rare exception. For the most part, MFA students who choose to write memoirs are narcissists using the genre as therapy. They want someone to feel sorry for them, and they believe that the supposed candor of their reflective essay excuses its technical faults. Just because you were abused as a child does not make your inability to stick with the same verb tense for more than two sentences any more bearable. In fact, having to slog through 500 pages of your error-riddled student memoir makes me wish you had suffered more.

You don't need my help to get published.

When I was working on my MFA between 1997 and 1999, I understood that if I wanted any of the work I was doing to ever be published, I'd better listen to my faculty advisers. MFA programs of that era were useful from a professional development standpoint—I still think about a lecture the poet Jason Shinder gave at Bennington College that was full of tremendously helpful career advice I use to this day. But in today's Kindle/e-book/self-publishing environment, with New York publishing sliding into cultural irrelevance, I find questions about working with agents and editors increasingly old-fashioned. Anyone who claims to have useful information about the publishing industry is lying to you, because nobody knows what the hell is happening. My advice is for writers to reject the old models and take over the production of their own and each other's work as much as possible.

It's not important that people think you're smart.

After eight years of teaching at the graduate level, I grew increasingly intolerant of writing designed to make the writer look smart, clever, or edgy. I know this work when I see it; I've written a fair amount of it myself. But writing that's motivated by the desire to give the reader a pleasurable experience really is best. I told a few students over the years that their only job was to keep me entertained, and the ones who got it started to enjoy themselves, and the work got better. Those who didn't get it were stuck on the notion that their writing was a tool designed to procure my validation. The funny thing is, if you can put your ego on the back burner and focus on giving someone a wonderful reading experience, that's the cleverest writing.

It's important to woodshed.

Occasionally my students asked me about how I got published after I got my MFA, and the answer usually disappointed them. After I received my degree in 1999, I spent seven years writing work that no one has ever read—two novels and a book's worth of stories totaling about 1,500 final draft pages. These unread pages are my most important work because they're where I applied what I'd learned from my workshops and the books I read, one sentence at a time. Those seven years spent in obscurity, with no attempt to share my work with anyone, were my training, and they are what allowed me to eventually write books that got published.

We've been trained to turn to our phones to inform our followers of our somewhat witty observations. I think the instant validation of our apps is an enemy to producing the kind of writing that takes years to complete. That's why I advise anyone serious about writing books to spend at least a few years keeping it secret. If you're able to continue writing while embracing the assumption that no one will ever read your work, it will reward you in ways you never imagined. recommended

Ryan Boudinot is executive director of Seattle City of Literature.

To tell the story of the nice-guy
is to tell a tale of unlost innocence.  

There is no complexity that circumstance can’t remedy.  There is no effort
to niceness; only a ****** world that blossoms
on genetically mutated ideology, growing larger than generations past.

Tomorrow, in Houston,

a butcher will wake up to slaughter a cow he may have named.  

There will no be no tears when he grills steak for the wife he wooed
and the children he prescribed himself.  

Three daughters,
from fifteen to twenty-two.  

Tiramisu for dessert.  

Ten guns in the cabinet beneath the stairs
and innocence buried behind the woodshed.

Pretend now, that you are forgiven.  

Mistakes fade like snow angels, regrets
float like chemtrails.

You love you as much as the world always did.  

You have not seen friends struck down by powders or lunacy,
you have only lived in the glow of their light.  Hearts remain full.  

The word swagger hasn’t been hijacked by hip hop
and bluejeans still mask imperfections.  Sunsets are memorable,

and so are first dates and last kisses.  

Sun won't blister fragile shoulders.  

Fields blossom just in time to suit your irregular taste buds,
satisfying sweet corn cravings on Christmas.

Forget your father’s words
or a stranger's hand.  

Forget improbability, impossibility,
impotence, importance,
impatience
and improper goodbyes.  

Forget the tears cried alone
into ***** filled sheets at midnight.  

Forget the effect but remember the cause,
camouflaged like a landmine of good ideas.  

Forget the fights and slow-turn walk-aways
that turned words flaccid.  

Forget friends ******* ex-girl friends
and amphetamines crashing into hallucinations.  

Nice-guys vanish like good ideas,
lost in the shuffle,
looking for pen and paper,

just like house cats die
on the forth of July,

and all that’s left are ashes
on a mantel
alongside fraudulent grins.

She came to the farm a shy stray,
hid in the woodshed for days.
Food and water we left for her
kept her alive. In time though
very nervous, little by little
keeping some distance, upon
the porch she climbed.

After a month she ascended
a chair next to mine, where
in the spring sunshine we two
set side by side. Not touching
or speaking just biding our time.

One day she reached out a paw
placing it on my knee, politely
asking permission to step onto
my lap.  Her fear overridden
by the need for companionship.

She prefers to remain mostly
outside, but everyday she comes
to my door and with outreached
front paws she frantically scratches
up and down on the glass begging
to come inside.
I feed her then feeling safe she sleeps
awhile on the back of the couch,
eventually seeking gentle
permission to sit upon my lap,
on a soft blanket kept just for her.

She purrs with contentment while,
taking cat naps now and then, as I
stroke and caress her head and chin,
occasionally opening her sparkling grey
eyes to study my face, as if to be reassured
it's me touching her and that I'm still there.

In her eyes if that is not devoted love  
and gratitude I see looking back at me,
I don't know what else it could possibly be.

My granny was only twelve years old
When she got her first tattoo
She was kind of a rebellious child
Back in nineteen twenty-two

She hid that thing for a little while
'Til her daddy finally got wise
He took that girl to the woodshed
With ****** in both of his eyes

He asked that girl, "What did you do,
Don't you know that's gotta be a sin?"
"Now look what you've done to your body,
Has your mama seen your skin?"

Now my granny was a stubborn child
She didn't listen to a word he said
She didn't hide the one she had
But she got three more instead

Now as my granny got older, so did her skin
And her ink was droopy and sad
You'd think that woman would feel remorse
But I think she was almost glad

Now the art sunk down to her elbows
As it wobbled to and fro
The butterfly tats would take to flight
Everywhere Granny would go

Now another tat was a bloodshot eye
But now it was always winking
On the other arm was a battleship
But of course that thing was sinking

Well that's the story of my granny's art
She lived to be a hundred and two
The day she died it said "Rest in peace"
Not the gravestone, her last tattoo

Some days we'd lay about the milled plank deck
eyes to the sky
shoulders pinned
deliberating
on the hickory trees
and pillow clouds
and heavenly contrails

the warm caress  
of a mid-summer wind
whispering through the hayfields
coondog at our side
sandhill crane still
feet in the shallows
of the Haldimand pond

a soft trickle coming
from the Pickerel stream
creaks from the woodshed whistle
as the Massey Ferguson
putters her way
up the county line

catharsis in place
(in this ethereal space)
just a garden variety day
...with fire ants
and fowler toads
and golden honey bees

A bird flew in through my closet
I had to let it go
out the window, it flew into the morning

Buzzing chatter sin and spirits
madly the dance carries on
inane questions with one word answers
reporting the days trivialities
carrying the glass
the deluge of phenomenon strikes at the quick
a deepening glacier through the amber halls
Independent motives form a scarlet solstice
The corner punch
a late coming truth
wrapped around a fly town mule to be found after the chips were down
and the explosives tucked onto a full chest
ticking away the blood buzz
Deceipt is easily repeated
Betrayal is a child's game of hide and seek
take the vows to the woodshed
smoke out the liar and the instigators
tell the mayor and the pauper that the world is burning
and to strangle honesty in a warm blanket, twisting the service
manipulating truth to serve ***** ends
Oh Mystic Mama of children unborn and never met

Chitter Chatter Chitter Chatter Chitter Chatter
platinum blonde birdies
chickies, full breasted youth fresh out of the nest
peep peep peep
sonic cataclysm reigning groove puckered lips and loose necks floating on a string in the whistling gale
My cornered ambition surveying doorways to fate, kind and cursed
the runestone heart scrying destiny
torchlight in a catacomb
smokefunk in a polar vortex
Lions patiently gaze savannas, so shall I, wait for the moments prompting,
a glance, a smile, the eyes are portals to new beginnings
will ours meet in time-space, energetic bridges spanning fate
feeling the flowing force flowering
a daisy, a rose
the scent of burning sage sealed into my clothing, my musk
open your palm now
kyanite slips from mine
polluted temples housing pure souls
speak of fires and nooks and warm bellies full of honey liquor stretched across a bear skin rug, naked,
run your fingers through my thick pelt of curly fur
let me taste your cold smokey lips
take a drag of you
inhaling embers that burn my throat with your incendiary nature

The grey lady of the mirror invites the forgotten man to the palace of pain,
entering into a crystal ballroom dancing blindly into past circumstance marauding as purpose and plan, dusty photographs and scratched records

Lean against the wooden ledge and dream of what could be
crusted sea salt collecting on unspoken thoughts
Nauseous vectors pulling weight against the grainy side
a sigh, a bored youth hidden deep inside
Come children, sway to the intoxicated beat
the pied piper of jazz rolls our frolicking feet steeped in cement
rebellious laughter pours out of aged caskets
barrels of wine flow forth into puddles on the street reflecting the twisted value of the vine, constant motion pretending to be holy endeavors of self conscious people flailing for purpose

Vast desert, without voice
only eyes, silent eyes
hands reporting, sketching symbols
code for a future age
Names and labels filling conceptual minds
Bass groove melting into permeable streams of fluid conversation,
as the wood beams stare silently above reflecting the glow of a mid-winter lantern on a snowy street
nimbly, we punctuate and nod in this, our confused jungle of intention
suddenly, the face of God appears at a crowded bar with jazz and a morraca's hiss
Wild sweet Annie goes down easy with the Corner Punch lost in Lucey's Summer
taking a last ride to Courtland alone along the Mazerac mile riding that same Fly Town Mule on Sunday
Visions of Columbia and Ohio Gold send Blood Buzzing into my dome
With every Call the desire rises for the forsaken, like a memory wrapped in past life
With every stranger passing through the entry way, my hunger for the liar grows, thirsting water from the dead

The old man is made of the hearts of dead spiders from the woodshed
I am my father’s matador
A small spark against a great fire
Showed me you can build a house from broken glass
Better swallow ashes to stay warm
Spiders crawl up my arms and throat
From the firewood in my hands
We rub mud on our faces to see each other better
I write FATHER on his forehead with my finger
He writes SUNRISE between my eyes
I cling to memories from beneath my fingernails
Like closet frozen marionettes
Gun shots crawl out of his jaws at night
And grow like fruit at the end of his fingers
I pick them and leave them on the breakfast table
He keeps fish hooks between my toes so
He can pull me up by the line
But I’m still watching the sunrise from his shoulders
I know he’s made of rain
When he pours me a bath from his bones
A child might play in.

He cast's a long shadow
in the cool morning sun
striding with purpose
the job must be done

Out by the woodshed
quietly does he
make his presence known
by whistling softly

For many years now
he loved what he seen
the good and the bad
and all in between

Over the years
the joy's drained away
making this job seem
harder each day

***** long hours
spent oh silently
crouched in the shadow
of the old growth  trees

Waiting for a sign
surely there will be
another visitation
patience is the key

He prepares himself
so stolidly does he
for the visitors
he must receive

Scare them away
any way that he can
keep the homes safe
from raiders of the land

Invaders without conscience
intent on the feed
no malice intended
but will not concede

The problem arose
because of what we
thought was a kind thing
was not to be

Disrupting the law
that nature provides
giving courage to those
by feeding their kind

Soon there becomes
no other way
to deal with the problem
the beast must be slain

So wearily the man
slowly does raise
rifle to shoulder
then he does pray

Pray that his aim's true
quick it will be
no pain for the critter
whatever it may be

Woe be to him
now he sit's silently
crying so softly
alone in the trees

I’m just sitting here in the dark, waiting for this life of mine to start.
Wondering before I leave this world, will I leave a mark?
Or is it true, and I’ve been doomed, from the start.
But I’m getting so tired of being so alone,
Take this burden off my back and leave it on the road
Got to leave this place before it swallows me whole
Find a little fresh air that really suites my soul
And I’m headin out  on the road,
finding that fresh air, that suites my soul
And I’m headed out on the road, were it leads I don’t know
Now I got some good friends, and there going to go with me
Like good old Jack Kerouac and Neal Cassidy
We headed out west till we found the sea.
Hoping on this journey we find the meaning of the word free
Cause we’re breaking those bonds of that mental slavery
That were given cause we live in this society
And we are all looking for a little something to believe
But my position on that decision is completely up to me
And we headed out on the road,
finding that fresh air, that suites our soul
And we headed out on the road, were it leads I don’t want to know
Now driving across the land, and sleeping in a van
Sweating in the dessert air, getting that beach sand our hair
Sleeping on misty mountain tops, getting woke up by the cops
Just going what we can, trying to find out how to be a man
Playing music in the street, for a little change and something to eat
Spending all you time and all your cash for a little bit of fun
and a whole lot of gas
When you heading out on the road,
finding that fresh air that suites your soul
And you head out, out on the road,
were it leads you ain’t ever going to know
And you head out, out on the road,
You find that fresh air and it suites your soul
And you head out, out on the road; you find it leads you home
(Zeus's Woodshed)

Are you still beating your babies?
Are you still punching your kid?
Are you still calling it discipline;
Not the worst thing you ever did?
Is it always a case of deserving
The punishment you mete out?
Where you teach them what is what;
Call them disgusting names and shout?

Break out the heavy leather belt
Go cut me a big switch
You kids are ******* me off
You’re giving me a big itch.
Bend yourself over here
Don’t run and make me catch you.
Remember this is all your fault.
You’re making me do this to you.

When you get in the mood to punish
Do dress in a special costume?
Does it have to take place in a woodshed
Or in some special kind of room?
Do you double up your fist and hit
Or do you have special equipment?
Does the physical treatment you hand out
Contribute to your fulfillment?

Break out the heavy leather belt
Go cut me a big switch
You kids are ******* me off
You’re giving me a big itch.
Bend yourself over here
Don't run and make me catch you.
Remember this is all your fault.
You’re making me do this to you.

In a world of deserving irony
You’d have to wear a disguise
So neighbors would know about you
And authorities could be made wise.
Then someone could call in specialists
To give some of what you give
And teach you eye-for-an-eye truth
About the way you live.

Break out the heavy leather belt
Go cut me a big switch
You kids are ******* me off
You’re giving me a big itch.
Bend yourself over here
Don't run and make me catch you.
Remember this is all your fault.
You’re making me do this to you.

wild dogs inebriated to the last breath
mutual respect john and i share
he was busy speaking to himself
a beautiful woodshed recluse

i'm on one
as assured as the fermented fruit
off the branches of our tree

salt dogs can't help themselves
hauling back brine
like a tidal flow drafting draught protein skimmer
ridding waste from the ocean

the detritus has been enough
tastes good to humanoid bivalves
sessile staring out from
terra nothing
magnetic limestone scrape

A princess eats not the crust of bread,
Rarely ever makes her bed,
Knows not the meaning of "old woodshed",
And there lies the problem

she told me so many lies &
they were all so
beautiful like she was.
she told me
she didn't mind meeting behind the
woodshed in the hours before the sunrise &
after dusk, she didn't mind
passing her guy without a word for the day.
she told me so many beautiful lies &
i told them back with a kiss.

brown skin, cat eyes like those models &
she said she loved me, loved me true
through the window the door
leaves blew on the wind &
sticks rattled hollow against the wall of our shed &
we
forgot
in the moment of things.

miss those days, before pickets &
red-faced neighbors
before

well, you should have seen the headlines &
cat eyes are gone.

NaPoWriMo 2016 - Day 21 - Poem from a minor character in a fairy tale.

Oh Grandma

Well m'dears,
I never fancied a care home, or
meals on wheels.
With a shrivelled up lump
Of God's knows what.
Delivered twice a day.

But I'm blessed.
With family who
look after me,
in their own way.
My daughter sends her girl
every couple of day with a basket full of "goodies".

I don't know who is more feckless mind.
Her mother who dresses her up
in a stupid red cape.
Or the child who can't follow
simple instructions.
Go straight to grandma's cottage.
Do not talk to strangers.

Anyhoo, I lay there,
my stomach thinking
my throats been cut.
When I here a knock at the door.
I remind the idiot child
the door is on the latch.
My hips too dodgy to be getting up and down.
This suspect looking character
saunters in.
All big eyes, big ears, big teeth
Now I'm old, but no fool
I says "you're a..."

Before I've got a word out.
That great slathering beast
Gobbles me up.
Not so much a by your leave
No one respects their elders these days.

To add insult to injury.
He starts cavorting about
In MY nightie.
Now, I'm not one to judge
What a slathering beast does
Behind closed doors is his own affair.
But it was my best flannelette
He ripped the buttons right off, the brute.

Half an hour later my granddaughter,
Little miss take your own sweet time comes along.
Now I've mentioned she's not
the sharpest ax in the woodshed.

Well she gives Mr Wolf, my cake, my wine.
Then, after his washed that down, THEN, she gets an inkling something MIGHT be amiss.
I can hear all this from the cavernous belly of the wolf.

Oh grandma what BIG eyes, ears, teeth, you know the story.
Is she blind?
His a 6ft humanoid wolf.
In drag.
I'm 4ft nothing.
I've bounced that girl since she was a babe in arms.
Ok, perhaps once or twice I MAY have dropped her on her head.
But to not recognise her own grandmother.

Well long story short
There is a scuffle
A local arborist is passing.
Sweeps in saves the day.
Gives old wolfy a taste of cold steel.
Felling him from crown to toe.
I flop out like a wriggling infant.

I've come to see it,
as a rebirth.
A second chance of life if you will.
I'm carpe dieming and seizing what fishes I can catch.
I've sold the cottage, me and Sven the wandering arborist are shacking up together.
People say it's shocking
That he's only after me for my money.
But it beats feckless family or sheltered accommodation
Plus I've got a nice fur stole
Much more fetching than a Red Riding Hood.

It was a day of brilliant sunshine,
one that rarely lasts;
And with a sky of deepest blue,
a wonderment was cast.

Just beside the woodshed,
a garden glowed of Spring;
An awesome sight of color,
urging the birds to sing.

Open air and fields of gold,
that graced our tiny town;
Daisies, lilies, and tulips reigned,
as queens of great renown.

Our eyes would delight in early light,
of sheer delicacy and sustenance;
Fanciful thoughts swirled in our heads,
of pixie dust and angels' dance.

And in a childlike vision formed,
a bright clearing upon the land;
Of cherished moments still calling us,
like the sea always meets the sand.

John Brown, you scare me!
You look like a man possessed by a demon.
You look like a man who could **** his son.
You look like a man who believes in a principle,
John Brown.

He drew blood, your son did.
You took him to the woodshed and whipped him;
but then you had him whip you, harder and harder....
now what kind o' crazy-assed thing is that to be doin',
John Brown?

You were a farmer, tanner, wool-trader,
land-dealer, surveyor, shepherd.
Failed at them all, went bankrupt.
But loved your family, held it together,
John Brown.

You lived with black people at North Elba,
seated free black men in your pew at church....
They expelled you, didn't they
--those white hypocrites--,
John Brown?

Your sons murdered pro-slavery men in Kansas,
loud-mouthed, innocent men,
dragged them from their beds, in the name of God,
chopped off their arms, sliced their throats....
You were there,
John Brown.

Somehow you knew
--what were the odds that 200,000 men would die?--,
somehow you knew the earth would be drenched in blood,
somehow you knew rivers would run red with blood....
How did you know? How did you know,
John Brown?

The food rots when it is already in my belly
baby mush, cinders from its graceless fire trail –
I dig my tonsils with ******* but
you will not return to our winter, the exterior.

So, hearts slip backward: a new abode
these intestinal earthquakes applauded in Hell
have stolen fruit I certainly could have froze.

In the woodshed, I discover a scalpel
and attempt to dislodge you from my hipbone
but now my stomach’s been kissed by Satan
I am birthing premature infants from a wound.

Another hour I shall give a funeral
for the apple core, swallow each seed so you
will grow once again safe and sound in my belly.

She sits or naps there almost every day.
She has other choices she could make.
Ten acres to roam,
Under the cover of large spreading trees.
Maybe the woodshed,
Or the old house near by,
Empty now and full of nice.
The Barn, filled with solitary places
in which to slumber or hide.
The Garages, an open boat, trucks,
several beds there for her use.
But she picks the convertible
roof on my diminutive Red Car,
Like the Little Girl in the "Three
Bears Story", it would seem that,
that canvas roof is, "Just Right".

Or could it be that my sweet
little cat Charlotte, loves that roof
because it's mine?

unable to shake this slight pain in my head
it has become as consistent as the rising and falling tide
looking at crystals and tea leaves unread
seeking a new place of perception in which to reside
doing my best to avoid getting caught up in dread
feeling myself peeling apart like toilet paper, multi-plied
attempting to maintain what’s left of my street cred
eyes puffy from crying after my mother went and died
seeing dignity flee leaving me not even a shred
no one notices how hard I have tried
never once being the man who turned tail and fled
thinking back to the moment when so softly she sighed
my crassness overflowing cracking jokes about the ******
seeing the anger flash across eyes fit to be tied
grasping for something to prevent a trip to the woodshed
a long piece of kindling, seasoned Maple, and wide
giving me something to think about before bed –

Apple orchards run through mellow forests
Yellow nightingales chirp new tunes
Leaves glisten warmly in the silence
Sweet unending rivers solemnly reflect the light of the moon

But at the heart of this alluring forest
An abandoned woodshed stands frayed
Uninhabited, still, lifeless
Lost and broken amidst countless days

Yet every now and then
The creaking of a door can be heard
The sound of a lost traveller looking for sanctuary
Deaf to the calls of the absurd

Wandering inside the once forgotten cage
Slowly warming its fading hearth
Painting the abandoned woodshed with unfamiliar colors
Piecing all its prickly pieces in the dark

Giving light to the once unsightly place
Footsteps now beginning to make their way
Towards the heart of the forest
Where nothing will ever be the same

You grabbed me by the hair and led me out behind the woodshed. In the morning, you took in my purple eye, my lacerated arms, and my winced movement, and asked what had happened to me.

Your storm rolled in last night and caught me in its vortex. In the morning, you took in the downed tree limbs, the upturned picnic table, and the broken glass, and started playing in the standing water.

Your shadow threw a party last night and kept me up until 2 am. In the morning, you took in my slow walk to the shower, my two aspirins, and my dry toast, and asked if I wanted to go for a run.

No, I don’t want to put on my Nikes right now, no, I don’t want to splash in the puddles with you, and yes, I do know what happened to me.

I like the woodshed,
a smell of wet putty
and dead paint,
but
they wheel me out
occasionally
for a function
and it blows the cobwebs off me
although I no longer care.

Once I was the cream of the crop
and now,
just yesterdays fare.

It seems the seams have come away,
afraid now that I'm frayed,
the dog end of material upon
which the footlights strayed.

just like Bentham at UCL
on show I go again
and
although not in a cabinet
it feels to me the same.

I remember
something sometimes
and
then the clock chimes to remind me
there's not much point in doing so
and
back on show I go
life goes on.

LORD said, These have no master:
let them return every man to his house in peace.

From <https://biblehub.com/kjvs/1_kings/22.htm>

There came a time,
when none found peace,
on any channel there is war, and old tropes
from when aldous
huxley was running suggestions past ivy lee and freud's
nephew, new-thinking, yes, resonant, isn't it
eddy bernays, yes, the sizzle sell. And,
get to the yeses, all the promises
are yeses

lovely, lovely, lovely,
how easily we seem to live on TV, if it gets too gritty,
-oh fool me, once, hahaha
it has, it has gotten too, many grinding high friction,
on backsides warmed with old time religion,
-woodshed discussions were never discussed
nor was curiosity praised,
for asking if the grown ups knew what Miss Kitty's
girls did, down at the Long Branch, in Dodge City,
when it was wet,
and streets were muddy,
and had wooden side walks…. on the radio
Gunsmoke
Spurs into the saloon,
why sure, some fool's would.
But once.
You know, wanting to make the sound
of Marshall Dillon, coming through

old cobwebbed swing doors, as accurate as any
on black & white TV, the sound
of his spurs
on the boards,
made my grandma laugh.

We came exploring under the oath
of eternal hostility

and if need be, opposing force, prepositioned
in every way, upto 150,

and upto as well, if upto is not a valid preposition,
it is a position, I can conserve.
I take it all the time,
breathing upto and no more, no matter,
I can't explode, inhalation ceases
and I can't explode in rage,
by ceasing to exhale or ****.
-so
As to the power of oath it is seeming universal,
in the era of 5G unlimited plans, and shared
subscriptions,
publishers clearing house, trained sales force,
the biggest ever, at its height,
I was in that class, bright futures,
1962 Eighth graders in rural America sold more
magazine subscriptions than you may imagine,
as preparation for a future,
when sales is the only gig in town, and
nobody
is making any thing worth the pitch to patch the leaks,
it’s the same old story,
slowing down, settling for less, and saying that's enough,

but fully expecting too much on the backswing,
as we follow through, the amatuer guile, eh, act innocent

be one of miss kitty's girls, like on tv, but at Disneyland,
did they play the role, or
never know the whole, link to now from when,

the west was wild, big white men with guns,
came to tame it,
open many long branches… before Prohibition

Fifty more years, every body forget but AI, remembers,
Black Elk danced.

Backtalk to my professorial betters, ah
behave myself,
don't act like
ol' Johnny Apache, mockin' Annie Oakley wannabe
in Purple Santa Fe fringed leather jacket,
accented by rare Wuhan Pangolin
boots, belt, and saddle bag purse,
and a Caspel Twid straw hat, like Cher wore in People.

heh, hey Annie,
getcher gun, shoot me, I ain't good, I ain't dead,
or some such he said,
and he passed me his jug of Mogen David,
I took a pull,
just as no ****, a sheriffs deputy who had not
been shot, when he shoulda been,
in that Jamaica guy's song,
- Johnny's brother Jonah,  joined us in jail
- he was pretty bad shape, that night
- pukin' blood, and retchin'
the deputy at night was also oughta be dead, kinda man,
Johnny let me know later, that night in jail in 1970,
Cottonwood Arizona, I know,
I have told this story, too many times to make sense,

I also know Fred Douglas wrote his whole story
and published it, five times, as it rolled out….
over the years…
-thing reconnect, you gotta know the knots

so if I have the time and inclination,
and I happen to find a common sense, a mean measure,
- so much and no more,
- full of all thought about that and I agree

where all the rain that ever fell on me, at that time
once fell on someone you love, too, at the same time,
same rain,
some time, one time, I thought of that and thought of you,
because you read this line. And you thought so, too,
you said to yourself, life makes no sense,

if you feel you need to row your boat, or tote your weight,
this is an hour at the end of a happy life,

where cares were cast to mull over, wondering,
how did we get from then to now,
without being
normalized?