Nobody really likes a short-form read
a small screed about the mind-shattering infinitude of the universe
or the endless grandeur of nature - I mean not really.
We must move along, be willingly captured
by a more comprehensible minutiae.
The ordinary is the realm of the poet,
let the mystics ponder that big stuff.
For it is we who make our omelets
just a little different every time.
And do we list, label, depict, add, or subtract?
You bet we do.
Do we paint with a fine tipped brush - gush about
the normal, the humdrum, the passed-over,
the often overlooked and so typically common;
all those very ordinary unmemorable
yet essential ingredients of a small egg meal
for one?
Yes we do,
and you like it.
Love poems are easy.
Hate poems even more so.
An intellectual screed
can make a poet believe in his truth
without even a spot of evidence.
Nature poetry is hardly ever
about nature,
it's more the observed
seen through a personal filter,
never much deeper.
People want poetry to move them,
but a poet in not a 'moving' company,
simply shuffling emotional content
from here to there.
Too easy.
Weird, strange, impossibly
enigmatic, wildly abstract
is often better
than a recycled copy
of the time worn and predictable.
Replication is easy.
Never claim to be a poet
or you might be guilty of all of the above
as at times we all are.
If water can penetrate the hardest stones
Let the Heavens storm forth God's word
lashing rocks round His altar
Glancing off those that pay no heed
Saturating those who feel the need
~ forging good deeds, sans the screed
If I refuse to watch the news
It's not like I'm uncaring,
But rather that some people's views
Can lead me to despairing.
A late report about the Court
Will get my teeth to gnashing
And tales of states that won't abort
Will have my spirits crashing.
I do indeed take time to read
The paper so I'm knowing
The highlights of the daily screed
And how the world is going.
But on TV I will not see
Events that are unfolding,
For words are quite enough for me,
The images withholding.
Let us deport-- with skill--
Let us discourse--with care--
Powder exists in Charcoal--
Before it exists in Fire.
~ Emily Dickinson
Good words anoint, ill words kill
~ Florio
It's said that sticks and stones break bones
but words can serve as weapons too,
so wield with caution what you write
let civil discourse have its due.
A finely crafted turn of phrase
will prove more winsome than a harsh
phillipic or a raging rant
that drags one's soul down like a marsh.
Are not our writings most effective
when our readers wish to read
our inner thoughts, instead of feeling
whipped by some ill-tempered screed?
When I hear thunder's crash, I flee
from lightning's sharp, injurious ray -
I hear your thunder, not your words
As though you speak a mile away.
I'm not promoting caged emotions;
ire and outrage have their place,
but when the missile shrieks, there's few
still left the message to embrace.
Written 21 Dec 2021
See the stalking of the weed,
I think he's angry at the screed.
He finds it hard to see the shark,
Overshadowed by the small starke.
Who is that squealing near the bats?
I think she'd like to eat the dats.
She is but a lying teenager,
Admired as she sits upon a wager.
Her sarcastic car is just a cube,
It needs no gas, it runs on uterine tube.
She's not alone she brings a spouse,
a pet tiger, and lots of lighthouse.
The tiger likes to chase a pond,
Especially one that's in the gironde.
The weed shudders at the scary eagle
He want to leave but she wants the spiegel.
does a church bell still toll upon your soul
in death your need to succeed impede greed
has shame found your name through the pain i bleed
as you watch the heart you stole become whole
the seed you sown now grown ink her mind's screed
can you feel the fraught in my every thought
as tears rain down in drops of crimson pain
my blood scribes of eyes taut not of love sought
as my voice screams your name again in vain
yet i cannot undo what you have wrought
time does not alter a memories' reign
January 28, 2020
Sowing a seed to make me bleed
Wisdom murmurs amid paucity of things—
seekers contemplative in cross-legged trance.
Pondering vaguities pensive meditation brings—
to apprehend with nonchalance of glance.
While to acolytes, such subtleties impinge—
denied are those of stifled grasp.
For in their minds a fetid dinge,
mundane failure to enclasp.
Stunted ones thus held in thrall,
ever signal their incurious pose.
While unmuted is a mounting wrawl,
from those abhorrent in appose.
The blind above in fog would lead,
who daily task us for our gaze.
They tire us with unending screed,
and we ignore while they abrase.
Rather would I summon stillness—
watch quiet water smooth a stone.
Free myself of this world’s illness—
love gently life I choose alone.
To lie’s always wrong, Kant decreed.
Very few were convinced by his screed,
Seeing if he’d instead
Held a gun to their head,
They’d have shamelessly said they agreed.
“That’s what I love about baseball –
it doesn’t mean anything.” – Woody Allen
The sun is shining, flags are flying,
Spring is here once more:
fresh-mown grass, and onions frying –
and so you know the score.
No criticizing, analyzing –
pack away the screed:
today there’ll be no need
for diagnostic apparatus:
we’ll live without divine afflatus
until the coming Fall.
No gyres or Gaias, or signifiers,
no pyres , no lyres, Heraclitean Fires:
Just bunts and grunts, and foul-back fliers,
and eighteen guys with heavy thighs,
all chasing on a ball.
There is a place for the poetic preacher,
even in this forum---one can so feature
a castigating word, narrow-minded screed,
up to each person to decide what they read,
and while I don’t much like damning lines,
exploding like old-fashioned land mines,
I’ll hold my tongue while they do their work,
unless they become an insufferable jerk.
Sing me a song,
a song to keep us away from the cold;
The cold that falls like a screed,
And even took the breath,
In a white mist.
A song that we'll sing together,
Words that are woven,
All along the verses,
Respond and embrace them,
And our tears fade away ...
A melody of the past,
As voice resurrected,
Silence of the exit ...
Extracts it from the cold ;
A bridge over the time.
-
Chante-moi une chanson....
Une chanson pour nous garder loin du froid,
Le froid qui tombe comme une chape,
Et saisit même le souffle,
Dans une nuée blanche...
Une chanson que nous chanterions ensemble.
Des mots qui se tissent,
Au cours des couplets,
Se répondent et s'enlacent,
Et que nos larmes s'effacent ...
Une mélodie du passé,
Que la voix fait renaître,
Sortie du silence ...
Elle s'extrait du froid ,
C'est un pont par-dessus le temps .
-
RC apr 2015
LUST IS AS ILL-CONSIDERED A WEED
AS EVER STOLE SCENT
Rejected in the main as superstition -
A gadfly, I’m alone upon the weed:
A hot cinquefoil brooding on position,
Declared intent of being in need of screed -
Now the subject of each idle bee
Gorged already, needing a restful stop
What if his gyrations bring to me
No true syncopation of a honeyed hop?
Beauty – not recognised as such – I wonder
Why man and woman excavate a flower garden
Tear my fertility, so they may squander
Wild possibility, and the earth around me harden.
Can the joy I have before I’m torn asunder
Be worth it when they never ask my pardon?
(C) Rosemarie Rowley
Here's a thought
from a not so unusual stance
and others, perchance,
have had it too:
Suppose, through a world war three,
a mr. bush and a mr. chaney
decide to impose a new law ...
surprise! surprise!
and it would be they have
decided to stay in office
since this grave emergency
of world war three
dictates that they remain.
Perhaps, I've grown insane
and then again,
prophecy is an Aquarian trait
and I have a birthday
approaching through the mists
of the monoxide air ...
Whatever your pleasure
I would surely treasure
your thoughts on my screed.
From a seed, started on the shelf.
I Planted with care. Elements to dare.
No fertilizer or chemicals seen.
It grew leaves of green.
The head large and full of seed.
Surrounded by a yellow screed.
Looking down from it's lofty perch.
It dances and gives a lurch.
Vibrant and strong.
The wind can do it no wrong.
Deep and thick are the roots.
Stands, like a pair of boots.
The stem, thick as my arm.
Making the wind seem calm.
Perfect in every way.
Forever and a day.
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