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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 07/12/2009 : 07:49:30
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I would rather bite my tongue than admit it, but I am a published poet. Please do not ask me the what, where & when of it all, as it is one of my strongest desires that that wretched load of dreck never again sees the light of anyone's reading lamp. Demand it of me, and I will plead the 5th, even as I reach for the pistol.
That is not to say that I no longer enjoy poetry. I am a reader of Robert Burns, Sandburg and Yeats. Also Alan Seegar and Rudyard Kipling, among a goodish number of others.
FISH CRIER
I KNOW a Jew fish crier down on Maxwell Street with a voice like a north wind blowing over corn stubble in January
He dangles herring before prospective customers evincing a joy identical with that of Pavlowa
dancing.
His face is that of a man terribly glad to be selling fish, terribly glad that God made fish, and customers to whom he may call his wares, from a pushcart.
The Three Monuments
THEY hold their public meetings where
Our most renowned patriots stand,
One among the birds of the air,
A stumpier on either hand;
And all the popular statesmen say
That purity built up the State
And after kept it from decay;
And let all base ambition be,
For intellect would make us proud
And pride bring in impurity:
The three old rascals laugh aloud.
I HAVE a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.
To the legion of the lost ones, to the cohort of the damned,
To my brethren in their sorrow overseas,
Sings a gentleman of England cleanly bred, machinely crammed,
And a trooper of the Empress, if you please.
Yea, a trooper of the forces who has run his own six horses,
And faith he went the pace and went it blind,
And the world was more than kin while he held the ready tin,
But to-day the Sergeant's something less than kind.
Powerful stuff, that!
So, this Scattershot is a poem, certainly not one of mine and you might add that to your blessings when you count 'em. Some of the old-timers here will recognize it, as I've put it up before. Readers of Larry Niven will also enjoy the re-visit.
The Friggin' Falcon
© 1966 by Theodore R. Cogswell
I went out to take a friggin' walk by the friggin' reservoir,
a-wishin' for a friggin' quid to pay my friggin' score,
my head it was a-achin' and my throat was parched and dry,
and so I sent a little prayer, a-wingin' to the sky...
And there came a friggin' falcon and he walked upon the waves,
and I said, "A friggin' miracle!" and sang a couple staves,
of a friggin' churchy ballad I learned when I was young.
The friggin' bird took to the air, and spattered me with dung.
I fell upon my friggin' knees and bowed my friggin' head,
and said three friggin' Aves for all my friggin' dead,
and then I got upon my feet and said another ten.
The friggin' bird burst into flame - and spattered me again.
The burnin' bird hung in the sky just like a friggin' sun.
It seared my friggin' eyelids shut, and when the job was done,
the friggin' bird flashed cross the sky just like a shootin' star.
I ran to tell the friggin' priest - he bummed my last cigar.
I told him of the miracle, he told me of the Rose,
I showed him bird crap in my hair, the bastard held his nose.
I went to see the bishop but the friggin' bishop said,
"Go home and sleep it off, you sod - and wash your friggin' head!"
Then I came upon a friggin' wake for a friggin' rotten swine,
by the name of Jock O'Leary and I touched his head with mine,
and old Jock sat up in his box and raised his friggin' head.
His wife took out a forty-four, and shot the bastard dead.
Again I touched his head with mine and brought him back to life.
His smiling face rolled on the floor, this time she used a knife.
And then she fell upon her knees, and started in to pray,
"It's forty years, O Lord," she said, "I've waited for this day."
So I walked the friggin' city 'mongst the friggin' halt and lame,
and every time I raised them up, they got knocked down again,
'cause the love of God comes down to man in a friggin' curious way,
but when a man is marked for love, that love is here to stay.
And this I know because I've got a friggin' curious sign;
for every time I wash my head, the water turns to wine!
And I gives it free to workin' blokes to brighten up their lives,
so they don't kick no dogs around, nor beat up on their wives.
'Cause there ain't no use to miracles like walkin' on the sea;
They crucified the Son of God, but they don't muck with me!
'Cause I leave the friggin' blind alone, the dyin' and the dead,
but every day at four o'clock, I wash my friggin' head!
If this has inspired anyone to wax poetic, in verse or lyric, do feel free to loose your Wilde, Dickinson, Emerson, Byron, Angelou, Service, Frost, Kilmer, Poe, or anyone else, or, indeed, the inspirations of your own, personal, inner moose.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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Scattershots: A poem
