Poetry Circus: Hail-storm 2005

Clouds swirled, danced
against red rocks
building into
a storm, set sail below.

I was out of breath
keeping pace with a lone doe
she would not stop.
I panted? Clouds swept

the sweat off my brow,
dripped into eddies,
sweat, dripped,
into eddies.

I laid down eyeing white
smelling the damp fetid air -
fluvial currants threatened
Boulder city below.

Clouds gained power
power gathered
into a Pow-Wow
Boulder Threatened
    echoing tom-tom strikes,

wind swirled force-
fully ready to punish sins unrepentant
tom-tom
beating into my Odyssey.

Poetry Museum: Frank O'Hara

In Remembrance to a Poem by Frank O' Hara

A Day in the Life

It is 11:10 in Lakeland, a Tuesday,
two days after the World Series,
it is 2012 and I brush my teeth pearl white,
because I will get off the cozy couch in my abode
at 1:15 and then go straight to Publix,
and I don't know who will buy my chicken.

I walk up the freezing, tree lined, dead end street
and open the mailbox with my small golden key
a stack of unwanted bills and political ads
greet my blue oil pocked hands.

                                        I go on to my deli
and Miss. Calmwater (first name Bernice I once heard)
doesn't even tell me to cut the salami thinner.
And I ponder O'Keefe as I exhibit the slice,
or did I re-imagine film-scenes  from the Artist,
that dog stole the show, and made me smile; or
was I thinking about which friends I would call,
the images were practically lulling me to sleep,
with salami on my slicer.

And then I am asked to help Ms. Cherry
I tread on to the kitchen cautiously
but my feet slip Chaplinesque from the grease
spilled onto the floor.  I wake up from my dream
and stab the dead chickens.

And I am sweating a lot, because it is time to go
homeward bound, and so much to clean;
while Patsy Kline sings the lines to Crazy
written by Willie Nelson.
                                  I push my broom faster.  
 
Influenced by the Format of The Day Lady Died by Frank O'Connor.

Notes on the Poem:
What I like about O'Hara's writing is the  narrative is told in his Poem. He writes in the present tense during the whole poem, which gives us a feeling of walking with the author.   I had trouble with the line, becuase I will get off the 4 : 19 in Easthampton  The reason for the trouble was Lakeland has no complicated bus line,  so I had to think of what he was saying and how I could relate it to my locale.   You gain greater insight into a poem by attempting to relate the intent to your own condition.


  

Men Naked in the Woods:

Here lies A little explanation of Men Naked in the Woods.  Robert Bly, the poet and activist, inspired me to dig deep into what it means to be a man in the twenty-first century.    Men have become weak due to lack of mature role models in our society.   We are in an age where the man have become "half adults."  A society created by "half-adults" is problematic because it "lacks leadership, daring initiative, creativity, and deep care about others."*   I am not a professional psychologist.  All I can offer is my personal experience with growing up.   I hope to utilize myths as well as the bible to dig deeper and grow more into my adult role.   

Last Tuesday, on Facebook,  I responded to Proverbs 21:5:

The plans of the diligent lead surely to abundance,
but everyone who is hasty comes only to poverty.

Here is the entry I hit my head with the door of the chill blaster at work. The reason was I was trying to go too fast. There is a difference between haste and timely executed. Haste often leads to unwanted results like a concussion or a band aid on the head. Diligence is due and of a proper time, not a time where you are so pumped up you cause mistakes. 

Haiku between Mom and Son

Bok Tower:  Lake Whales-Central Florida 

White Tale Picture Makers 

Perfect day for a road trip too, 

lonely swamp land

cedars,

sky blue.

White tale doe flickers 

across highway twenty four 

our brakes hit hard

______________________________________________________________________________________

I first wrote this to my mom in our Poetry Correspondence.  Find a partner to share your muse and writing with, it may be a wife, mom, or best friend, but find someone who will kindle, amusing your creative spark.  Enjoy the journey Gregory D. Rothbard 

Poetry Old Addresses Forgiven

I write 

1893 miles from-

the start of the connect 

the dot puzzle,
(Start) Lakeland Florida
to Atlanta Georgia,
to Chattanooga Tennessee
to St. Louis, Missouri,
to Lawrence, Kansas,
to Denver, Colorado,
up to my home Longmont.
(End)  
29.5 hours trapped
behind the steering
wheel, and day dreaming
like a little train headed
across I-70 and down I-75.

I think I see a picture 

emerge, one that looks 

like a rabbit 

with an enormous 

carrot. Did you 

think I would 

be crass?

Or sick?

Use teenage boy humor 

to amuse his friends? 

Did you perhaps, 

want me to disturb

you?
Well too bad, so sad 

for the route
is long
and
fat.

Harvest Reviewed: Brideshead Revisited

Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This book is a beauty to me... so I will write a poem to its impression:

Et en Arcadia Ego

Brideshead Revisited is like
quickened clouds on a stormy day!

The day before was so like Arcadia
Before the fall!

The war's shadow
 comes and goes and comes again.
And other places so cruel and cold,
Taking your heart,
Bitter like horseradish next to filet mignon and crab.


And the veil is riped.
The great big square
In the country,
Is your original home.

Where is Sebastian?
College friends lost in the vortex of time.
Young and bright.

Almost nobody comes to visit anymore.
Or even tries to write...
to loved ones lost long ago.


Cold and cruel,
It looks like
You should return-but then
Time pasts through your
fingers-
(and twenty years has passed)
your painted murals have begun to fade,
leaving only scattered paint,
and a scent of decay.

View all my reviews

Crops: Squid Dreams

Fish: flayed, slimy, salty, wet, caught.

Baby Squids.

Squish. 

Squish.

Walking on baby Octopus.

Eight arms spread out.

Squish.

Squish.

We Pass Octopus Garden.

Baby Squids.

Feet Fail.

Falling.

Picture is a W.P.A.  Mural taken from Life Magazine

Poetry Slam America

Inspire your muse through this first episode of Brave New Voices. Young poets who are brave enough to write their truth, sometimes brutally, in poetry competitions. I found this when I was looking up writers from Guam. If anyone has a good Guam writer let me know so that I can add them to my list of 50+ Writers of the United States of America (and its territories).

Nostalgia’s Thread Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell Paintings

a compacted punch,

 of literary power 

We yearn for a return to Eden; we yearn to return to commune with the untarnished world, a world that lacks pain, ugliness, and evil.  Nostalgia's Thread by Randall R. Freisinger takes another look at the perfect world illustrated in Norman Rockwell's paintings. Freisinger constructs words that eloquently juxtapose the imperfect world we live in to the perfect 1950's portrayed by Norman Rockwell. 

 He speaks to the desire to be 

"young again, and clean

of conscience, returned to the embrace

of a loving family that never truly existed

and which you mostly now visit

only in fading photos or rote prayers

at church when the liturgy's script

cues you in time for the dying to remember

the dead. You want to recall the vanished home

of childhood without the collateral damage of wrath

and uneasy laughter." (Page 24-25)

Freisinger's thoughtful poems are an invitation to remember our childhood dreams of a more perfect place. We once thought that life could be endemic. We are now older and have hung up those childhood dreams in our walk in closets; and yearn for prelapsarian dreams. Freisinger is a master of creating images by selecting pertinent words: "postman's pouch heavy with grief." Freisinger's book is small, but is a compacted punch, of literary power that knocks the reader out. 


 A definite Cluck, Cluck, Cluck.

  Nastalgia's Thread: Ten Poems on Norman Rockwell's Paintings

Randall R. Freisinger

Holartbooks.com

U.S. $12.95

ISBN: 9781936102037

Genre: Poetry (Secular)

Note from Human Resources, one should update their Read Across the United States Map:  Randall R. Freisinger is from Michigan's Upper Peninsula.  One should color in the upper peninsula of Michigan as soon as possible.