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Cutezeni Dec 2015
My John is one of a kind,
Brave and ferocious,
Kind and merciful;
His arms open the depth of his love oh so bountiful!
I will make him stay,
I will make him see
That I'm not the savage one
He saw me be...
And my heart will find a way,
A way to repay
All his past acts of selfless bravery.
I don't need the other one,
To change me, to see the light
I don't need him to show me how to fight.
And I won't choose him when their ship settles my shore
I know which John I want for sure.
Lucius Furius Aug 2017
Pocahontas, Little Snow-Feather,
what possessed you to marry that pale stranger,
to cross the blue, blue Atlantic,
leaving behind your mother and your father?
How naive you were to think they wouldn't destroy you....

But Pocahontas, Little Snow-Feather,
bones-under-England-soil, it is your spirit--
not that of Cortez or Colonel Forsyth*--
your generosity, your love, which will prevail.
* Little Snow-Feather: "According to the early colonists, Pocahontas, like all other Powhatans, had two names.  

* Pocahontas, the name given to her by her father, was translated by the English to mean 'Bright Stream Between Two Hills' but in the Powhatan tongue perhaps meant 'Little Wanton.'  Her secret name, known only among her own tribesmen, was Matoax, 'Little Snow Feather,' a name conjuring up the image of a slim, amber-skinned girl enveloped from neck to knee in a mantle woven of snow-white feathers plucked from the breast of a wild swan.  Such a mantle, worn by Pocahontas in winter with moccasins and leggings of finely dressed white skins, would have given her people ample reason for calling her Matoax." (From G. S. Woodward's Pocahontas.)

* pale stranger:  I recently found that I didn't know as much about the historical Pocahontas as I thought I did.  I had reckoned the Disney movie (the first one) to be laughably inaccurate in showing Pocahontas staying behind when Captain John Smith returned to England (--everyone knows she married him and went with him, right?....).
    Pocahontas, the 11-year-old daughter of Powhatan, chief of the 8,000-person Powhatan Confederacy, was a great help to the early Jamestown settlers.  She learned their language, got certain of her elders to secretly trade them critically-needed corn and fish, and warned them away from ambushes planned by her father's warriors.  She was especially friendly with John Smith and --by Smith's account-- saved him from death at her father's orders.  (Throwing herself on him to protect him is probably something Smith invented to add drama/romance to his Historie --though we can't know for sure.)  There were certainly no other Englishmen in the vicinity.  Smith was injured (a gunpowder accident) and returned to England --but that was not until 1609 --2 years after the near-execution --by which time Pocahontas and he were no longer in communication.  She found contact with the settlers increasingly dangerous as the war between her people and the English grew fiercer.  In 1613 the English kidnapped her for the odd dual purpose of blackmailing her father and making her into a gentlewoman.  Powhatan decided that she wasn't really suffering and refused to pay the ransom.  A different John --John Rolfe--even more of a gentleman than John Smith-- fell in love with her.  They were married in 1614, had a child, and in 1616 sailed to England for a 9-month visit.  As they were about to embark on their return voyage, Pocahontas got pneumonia (or perhaps tuberculosis) and --after all this, only 21 years old-- died and was buried in St. George's Parish Church, Gravesend, Eng.  She'd had an emotional reunion with John Smith in England.  Years later, he was said to have commented: "Poor little maid.  I sorrowed much for her thus early death, and even now cannot think of it without grief, for I felt toward her as if she were mine own daughter."
[Pocahontas II is far inferior to the original.  It doesn't even begin to have any historical basis.  Pocahontas is jailed in the Tower of London; John Rolfe and John Smith team up to rescue her; they subvert an armada threatening to destroy the Powhatans; Pocahontas chooses John Rolfe, sails back to Virginia with him.  Though Judy Kuhn once again does the Pocahontas singing, the songs she's given are far, far inferior to those in the original.]

Hear Lucius/Jerry read the poem:  humanist-art.org/old-site/audio/SoF_096_pocahontas.MP3 .
ConnectHook Sep 2015
On the box of Midwest Butter,
in the verdant dairy pastures,
sat the smiling Indian maiden,
daughter of her tribe, the maiden.
Holding forth a golden offering;
from the box her yellow treasure
for the yet unbuttered buyer.
Gently her sweet knees protruded
from her humble beaded buckskin,
from her beaded buckskin garment
each supported by a letter;
full twin globes upon an altar.
As mammalians, when they’re nursing
seek the rounded gifts of nature
while their hands, abreast and lifted
grasping, find the source of plenty,
swallow fast that milky manna
swallow down that flowing liquid
with a smile upon their features,
so my soul rejoiced to meet her
in the grasslands of a daydream
in the pastures of my daydream,
holding forth divine recurrence:
gift within a gift forever
churning, and imploding inwards
infinite, receding backwards
into endless Indian maidens
spreading myth upon my table
on my toast upon my table
till her tribe returns in glory…

*(etc, etc...  with apologies to Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
buy some butter - QUICK !

https://connecthook.wordpress.com/2013/08/23/land-o-lakes/

ghostsonpaper Feb 2015
after all her anxious scribbling
while chasing late night demons dreaming
she looks at the sky.
now it's so hard not to cry.
heavily sighing, but why?
is it even worth trying? oh I...
I don't know, I think I'll
save my tears for someone worth my time.
your pretty face isn't one that ever crossed my troubled mind.
when our flaws were all undone
in this battle no one has won.
and the mess we made
lies in scattered pieces on the floor.
you know I've always played it safe
too afraid of all the words I really want to say.
because I know aliens are real
so I'll never wish on shooting stars.
I can fly away in my ufo
while you drive off in your car.
heavily sighing, but why?
is it even worth trying? oh I...
and I don't mind
saying I'm a little cray from time to time.
you aren't the reason for all my sleepless nights.
but when our flaws have come undone
in this mess we have become
our hearts now shattered, lie in pieces on the floor.
oh I, I think I'll
save my tears for someone worth my time.
your pretty face isn't one that ever crossed my troubled mind.
now our flaws are so undone.
oh, what a mess we have become.
has nothing else mattered?
we can't pretend quite like before.
my heart just shattered, is it still beating?
because I swear I'm barely breathing anymore.
"because aliens are real and I only wish upon ufos" -miquela  (the quote and inspiration that started this♡)
Elijah Corbeau May 2014
Today, I have encountered something enchanting
Flowing through the outer forest, alighting
With birds and deer, All flora/fauna delighting
In her presence. I was taken to demanding
From myself a further look, reprimanding
my soul for wanting to see more of this beauty
Who could she be? This brown woman, set to soothing
my sailors heart? With another wayward glance,
She vanished- Leaving behind a memory, a missed chance;
And a man with knees too weak to stand.

— The End —