Poetry

[pugetopolis]

Dearest Desdemona—
Anything but "creative writing," girl…
I got so sick of all that Natatorium jazz.
I had to get outta there…
Those falling tiles etc.
Limericks fun tho…

Dearest Donny—
C’mon now lover boy…
You’re the ladies man dontchaknow.
You know what they say:
“Can’t live with them…
Can’t live without them”

[Donotremove]

Okay, Puge.  I am the last person in the world to tout that I know zip about how poetry is contructed.  The last line in the 4th whachamacallit doesn't make sense (to me) . . . "And so I."  Be nice, now.  Tell me what that means.

[pugetopolis]

I Want To Be

I want to be—
like Senator David Vitter…
on that DC Madam’s
sexy hit list.

I want to be—
a madam like Miz Julia…
I abhor injustice
dontchaknow…

I want to be—
like Bob Livingston…
another horny Southern
Congressman like Newt.

I want to be—
for family values,
marriage protection
and abstinence-only…

I want to be—
a nice baby boy…
not like that awful
Hustler man Flint…

I want to be—
back in New Orleans…
when Katrina karma
comes home to roost…

I want to be—
forgiven like Vitter…
please give AP
a call for me, baby…

[pugetopolis]

Son of Blacula (2007)

“The Black Prince of Shadows Stalks the Earth Again!”

“u shouldn’t listen 2 your selfish heart”
—Tupac Shakur, “Why Must U Be Unfaithful,”
Totems to Hip-Hop, ed. Ishmael Reed
 
I have my own list for Son of Blacula:
Lawrence Fishburne as sophisticated
smooth educated Blacula right out of
Matrix; Samuel L. Jackson bustin’
chops out of Shaft or better yet—
saving his soul in Black Snake Moan;
maybe Wesley Snipes Blade killer;
I thought of ex-con, ex-boyfriend
Snoop Dogg as ultimate vampire’s
son like skanky hood star Baby Boy,
Just the right bad attitude, baby;
Busta Rhymes with his big seductive
lips and smile driving me insane;
same with handsome Tyrese Gibson,
but is he 2 Fast 2 Furious for me?
also Cuba Gooding Jr. with that cute
innocent vampire hurt look of his
with his girlfriend in Boyz n the Hood;
Singleton’s commentary in background,
like Murnau in Shadow of the Vampire—
until finally I turn into a vampire too,
getting power, respect & juice, man,
like Tupac Shakur in Vegas Vampires...

[madupont]

Continuing the floating world from #39

http://www.thehaikupoet.com/keiko.htm

[pugetopolis]

Tyrone

tyrone be ghetto—
tyrone be gangsta lit.
tyrone be hip-hop—
tyrone be urban fiction.
tyrone be babymama saga—
tyrone be babydaddy pimp.

tyrone be street lit—
tyrone be iceberg slim.
tyrone be thug auteur—
tyrone be ghetto pulp.
tyrone be ink inc—
tyrone be intelligentsia.

tyrone be project chic—
tyrone be gangsta boyz.
tyrone be super fly man—
tyrone be son of blacula.
tyrone be a million little pieces—
tyrone be on the oprah show. 

[nnyhav]

oughta be a law
that starbucks coffee orders
cannot be haiku

vente triple decaf nofoam lofat caramel capuccino

[pugetopolis]

summer is ending—
a pile of unread books waits
on the roll top desk

[pugetopolis]

Elba haiku

Furphy so frumpy—

Bosox homophobic pig

Same old same old shit.

[madupont]

If one day it happens
you find yourself with someone you love
in a caf '¦ at one end
of the Pont Mirabeau, at the zinc bar
where white wine stands in upward opening glasses,

and if you commit then, as we did, the error
of thinking,
one day all this will only be memory,

learn,
as you stand
at this end of the bridge which arcs,
from love, you think, into enduring love,
learn to reach deeper
into the sorrows
to come ¨C to touch
the almost imaginary bones
under the face, to hear under the laughter
the wind crying across the black stones. Kiss
the mouth
which tells you, here,
here is the world. This mouth. This laughter. These temple bones.

The still undanced cadence of vanishing.


from Body Rags, Galway Kinnell (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967).

[madupont]

http://www.poemhunter.com/galway-kinnell/books/

[madupont]

Daybreak
Galway Kinnell
On the tidal mud, just before sunset,
dozens of starfishes
were creeping. It was
as though the mud were a sky
and enormous, imperfect stars
moved across it as slowly
as the actual stars cross heaven.
All at once they stopped,
and, as if they had simply
increased their receptivity
to gravity, they sank down
into the mud, faded down
into it and lay still, and by the time
pink of sunset broke across them
they were as invisible
as the true stars at daybreak.

[madupont]

Dzima's

Rubaiyat and Rumi
"A public radio program that I always enjoy listening to, Speaking of Faith, did a program on Rumi last month that inspired me to move up a prompt I wanted to use about Rumi .

If you are interested in how mystic and poet Rumi has shaped Muslims around the world and more about the mystical tradition of Sufism, the program is far more than about "religion" and the archive has programs on Einstein, the environment, politics and other issue with the thread of faith running through them. End of endorsement.

On the Poets Online main site, we looked at some Rumi poems that are grouped under the title (given to them by American translator Coleman Barks) of "Spring Giddiness."

I mentioned that I'm no qualified judge of the translation, but I suspect them to be in the spirit (rather than to the word) of the originals. I have heard Coleman Barks read and sing them at several Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festivals, so in some strange way I hear Rumi as having a Tennessee accent.
Some of those model poems are quatrains. In Persian it would be rubaiyat (meaning 'four' or "quatrains" in the Persian language the singular being ruba'i or rubai). In their true form the rhyme scheme would be AABA (lines lines 1, 2 and 4 rhyming) but Barks has not attempted to maintain the rhyme in those translations.

That is a verse form best known (to English speakers) for Edward FitzGerald's translation of the collection of Persian verses known as the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Here's a sample quatrain:


VII
Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
Your Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter--and the Bird is on the Wing.

In longer poems built in that rubaiyat rhyme scheme, sometimes it is extended so that the unrhymed line of a stanza becomes the rhyme for the following stanza. Then we have AABA BBCB CCDC etc. This is called "interlocking rubaiyat". You might even create a full circle by by linking the unrhymed line of the final stanza back to the first stanza.

If this all sounds very foreign to you, look at the interlocking rubaiyat in "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening" by Robert Frost.

Our writing prompt this month starts with the uncommon theme of seasonal change and adds the rubaiyat form. Select any change of season, use the rhyming quatrains of the rubaiyat (any number of quatrains you choose).

It would good if your poem could capture some of the joy that Rumi's poetry sings too.

There are many editions of this best-selling poet available. My suggestion for a starting place is either The Essential Rumi or The Illuminated Rumi both translated by Barks.

If you want to read more of Rumi online, a search will provide many other websites of his poetry - here's one to get started with 4 new translations by Coleman Barks."

This is the on-line editor of Poets On-line and not me, Dzimas; but  thought I would throw this in because Galway Kinnell went to India and Iran(about which he wrote a novel) shortly after getting out of the Navy, following  his getting his degrees and then began a teaching career while continuing his writing. He is now 80, and publishing less often after being Poet Laureate and serving in various other capacities to the poetry community. He is by far the best poet that I know among the living anyway.

[madupont]

The Olive Wood Fire
When Fergus woke crying at night.
I would carry him from his crib
to the rocking chair and sit holding him
before the fire of thousand-year-old olive wood.
Sometimes, for reasons I never knew
and he has forgotten, even after his bottle the big tears
would keep on rolling down his big cheeks
- the left cheek always more brilliant than the right -
and we would sit, some nights for hours, rocking
in the light eking itself out of the ancient wood,
and hold each other against the darkness,
his close behind and far away in the future,
mine I imagined all around.
One such time, fallen half-asleep myself,
I thought I heard a scream
- a flier crying out in horror
as he dropped fire on he didn't know what or whom,
or else a child thus set aflame -
and sat up alert. The olive wood fire
had burned low. In my arms lay Fergus,
fast asleep, left cheek glowing, God.


-- Galway Kinnell
 

[pugetopolis]

Snakeology 101
 
“glenda just didn’t walk.
watching her was to feel
the pleasant roll of a
luxury liner”—ed wood jr.
killer in drag

i knew this straight guy
in college—he was just awful.
he hated queers really bad—and
me especially. he was from
houma—he simply despised homos.
i knew it—everybody else knew
it too. the awful truth was—he be
anaconda. he knew i wanted it—
but he wouldn’t let me have it.
he knew i wanted it bad. he even
had the audacity once—of calling
me “miss snake.” just because i
was always slithering around in
the dorm. he had the sheer nerve—
of calling me a sneaky “snake
woman.” just because i was always
taking a shower— waiting for him.
he had the unmitigated gall—of
calling me a tacky “cobra queen.”
just because i had a forked tongue—
and knew how to use it. he even
called me—a cheap two-bit “maria
montez” whore once. i was shocked—
simply shocked. but i was determined
to get that big snake—after all i was
majoring in snakeology. i wanted his
anaconda bad—and he knew it. i
loved his nice venus-torso—plus his
voluptuous viper bad attitude. i
wanted to milk it—all that precious
poison out of him. all that nasty
virile venom. i needed to choke
his snake to death—i wanted to
slowly murder his piece of meat.
i wanted to fillet and fricassee it—
every uncut slithering inch of it.
then one dark stormy night—i got
my chance. it was saturday night—
he was drunk in his car. he was
in the parking lot—passed out
in the backseat. we both pretend
it never happened—he still hates
my guts. but we both found out
that night—that yes indeed i was
a pretty good snakeology major.
 
Author's Notes:
I even went on to get a Ph.D. in Snakeology
at Harvard; my long-awaited latest book
"Pulp Fiction and Anaconda Love in the Sixties
or Going Down in the Deep South" is getting
rave reviews, my dears.