Fast Day 144 March 4 2010 {Broken Leg Eco-Blues}

Broken Leg Eco-Blues

whither, now, the wind?
he got up and gone,
broken leg and all,
without a doctor's say so;
and no big nurse pushin'
no wheelchair to the do'...

don't drive drunk, wide sea!
yer gonna blow point-2!
give me them car keys
you're one mean drunk, Sargass'
sucking the last water
at the bottom of your glass!

why're you here, sweets, rain forest ?!
ain't nothin' I can do.
you and that man used to be 
lovers, but he did you wrong;
he can't cut with that sharp blade
and expect your reg'lar song.

old man river pulls on his pants,
and creeps silently before
the wide levee break of dawn,
checking to see his stash ;
still in the levi pocket
with plastic and with cash.


-------
notes

a week early again.


Sargass'  -   Sargasso sea

Fast Day 143 February 26 2010 {Morning at the Cenotaph}

Morning at the Cenotaph


Come, Morphine, give me joy
until dark morning dawns!

Leave the morose conclave
of deathly cenotaph

whose dry marble sucks me
of my tears and humors

into its dessicate
rete granitic veins -

old-age home with staircase
carved with eery faces!

I'll go out in the world
to find a mortal mate;

and sacrament our love
with my body's hidden resin;

I'll use my plectrum hand
to braid her hirsute lyre,

and when we cry in pain,
our tears will form a sea.


---------
notes

I have to get a week ahead, for I shall be busy next week. I intend to perform the fast on the indicated day.

cenotaph - a memorial which is empty of any body or bodies.
rete - a network, and
dessicate rete granitic is a dried up network of granite-like stone within the veins of marble.
staircase - is sort of like a vein of a rete growing within the old-age home, joining parts togther.
plectrum  - in Greek it's a small piece of metal to play upon the lyre, but in Latin it reminds me of "plectere" meaning "to braid, to twist" such as hair.
So I combined them...and the instrument called a "hirsute lyre" is anyone's guess.

The essence of this to me is a new life to be lived. If you have read stuff here or in the other blog, you are aware that 2008 spelled the end of one old life for me, and I can never seen the world that way again.
The old world was a world of greatness, of power, of compulsion, of arrogance and persuasion, of myths and tales of heroes...all of which was discovered to have ended a long time since - yet still we take our uncouth illiterate ravings to be Wordsworth and Whitman, and our politics to be Burke, Pitt, Jefferson, and Washington.


The old world is the world where greedy children never grew up...and it is the old-age home where we extend unnaturally empty lives.


Old long since...

inspired by Pushkin
February 20, 2010 copyright.

Fast Day 142 February 18 2010 {Uncle Buck}

Uncle Buck

I used to have an Uncle Buck car, Mercury
Marquis, and it was rusted in all the right spots
and had more miles on it than from here to the Moon;
and Chanise's tires.

My life is the polish on a bowling alley -
the reverberating crack of ten pins falling,
reactive urethane bowling ball of silver -
mirror of Buck Russell.

I drove my Buck car young, I drove my Buck car old;
I drove it to my Schneebly days at School of Rock,
a very good year at the edge of seventeen...
long way to rock 'n' roll!

When Chronicles of Buck and Rock are written in
future time of non-comedic farce dystopic,
say I drove on Kobolowski's Firestones;
ganja studded tires!

I spoke the talk, and I walked the walk of Tone Loc's
Wild Thang into the oppressive halls of High School,
cornering the beast Principal Melanoma;
juvenile and cocky!

---------
notes

new Sapphics of 12-12-12-6  syllables ( I changed it! ) and sort of a haiku-disconnect or leap at the last line.
about some of my favorite things: Uncle Buck and School of Rock.
I used to use 11-11-11-5, but I like 12-12-12-6 better. Maybe I should interleave them.
I have no idea why some time in the past I decided that I liked a sapphic meter, other than it seems to be just about right for the modern age: more wordy than haiku, yet elegantly brief...being elegant and brief a trick which most of us have not learned.

dystopic - opposite of utopian, utopic.

studded tires - outlawed years ago...only outlaws have studded tires nowadays.

tires, mirror  -  always pronounced as 2-syllable words.

Tone Loc - a  musician and artist, notably of the song Funky Cold Medina and , of course, Wild Thang featured in Uncle Buck.

Chanise Kobolowski - Buck's girl Friday. Chanise owned a tire store.

Ned Schneebly - ........go watch the film

Nova Amica

Dextrā vidi novam amicam: Gossamer;  comes artis poeticae.
Commissit "proelium pro pacem" nobiscum, atque dicimus omnes: Ave !

Fast Day 141 February 11 2010 {Sheriff Sale}

My father said the best things

are those you cannot buy:

good woman, kids, and faithful friends

...but keep your powder dry.

At the sheriff's sale, the sheriff's sale, there is a lot of talk.

They kiss your hands and dry your tears - as you do foreclosure walk.

"Dead Man Walking", goes the buzz, dead folks walking through.

They killed them dead at Matewan, and they shall kill us, too.

Money's king, and if you ain't

got none, you're a debtor.

Invest in Gold, they always said,

but Pa said Ammo's better.

At the sheriff's sale, the sheriff's sale, there is a lot of talk.

They kiss your hands and dry your tears - as you do foreclosure walk.

"Dead Man Walking", goes the buzz, dead folks walking through.

They killed them dead at Matewan, and they shall kill me, too.

Saw my daughter looking at

her children through her tears;

I've been at war for all my life,

we'll be at war through theirs!

At the sheriff's sale, the sheriff's sale, there is a lot of talk.

They kiss your hands and dry your tears - as you do foreclosure walk.

"Dead Man Walking", goes the buzz, dead folks walking through.

They killed them dead at Matewan, and they shall kill you, too.

Fast Day 140 February 5 2010 {The Crack Grows Bigger in the Windshield of my Heart}

The Crack Grows Bigger in
the Windshield of My Heart

You break my heart
like a semi throws a tile,
and hits my windshield -
it cracks a wide, mad smile:
some roads are too long, some roads are just too long.
I can't go on anymore,
I can't fix what's wrong!

You break my heart
with all your conversation,
but there was no logic
to our sweet sensation.
some roads are too long, some roads are just too long.
I can't go on anymore,
I can't fix what's wrong.

You break my heart -
pedal down and spin your wheels;
scatt'ring asphalt marbles -
a devil in high heels!
some drinks are too strong, some drinks are just too strong.
I can't drink anymore,
so I'll move along.

You break my heart
with your cig'rette beauties;
making love like gangsters
in motels with no keys!
some smokes are too strong, some smokes are just too strong.
I can't toke anymore,
It can't fix what's wrong.