POEM: "Far more crap than"

"Far more crap than"

Far more crap than 
I can shake a stick at
knowledge and poems
don’t help flush away

Point, shout all you like
many won't be looking
it could be true, wanting
but listening like a bird

Bend, twist everything
that includes the strange
shaped by anything, we–
I try to relax and breathe

Sound waves, light waves
exit through the gift shop
over the fence, down the lane
all goes through the mirror.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

A Heather McHugh Poem (3)

Language Lesson 1976

When Americans say a man

takes liberties, they mean

he's gone too far. In Philadelphia today I saw
a kid on a leash look mom-ward

and announce his fondest wish: one
bicentennial burger, hold

the relish. Hold is forget,
in American.

On the courts of Philadelphia
the rich prepare

to serve, to fault. The language is a game as well,
in which love can mean nothing,

doubletalk mean lie. I'm saying
doubletalk with me. I'm saying

go so far the customs are untold.
Make nothing without words,

and let me be
the one you never hold.

(1994)

POEM: "Yearn"

Yearn


In a room that has no corners
on a bend that sees no lights

like a dripping cave with claws
it's trying to expel something

out of the past — a malignant
forgiveness, an axial flexor

a branch line or terminus-fret
these are forests without trees

seas without shipping bubbles
only a nausea that's like noise

oil sickness, fumes & machinery
you would expel it all willingly

for one night's steady beacon
a pure melody above the drum

sure, but everyone must have it
caveat emptor, diddle-dee-dum

entry was below a bridge this time
its structure looked solid enough.


© 2012 Rob Schackne

POEM: "First Nights Of A Chinese Autumn"

First Nights Of A Chinese Autumn 


I wish I had a mood
About autumn instead of
A sore back, a hangover

Memories of love like
Cicadas drop from trees
Washed in hot rain

I wish I had an autumn
About a mood instead of
Noisy insects, the summer

Still whistles, not autumn yet
It mumurs with fans and sweat
Days are long, calm is rare 

I’m a long horse-tail
Swatting at the flies
I try to order more wine


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Trust In Me (If You Can)"

Trust In Me (If You Can)

                                        for Jack Heseltine

No referees in a game that

Has no beginning and no end

On a scrambled field of hope

After half-time or just before

Ex-Croatian national team

Not just another sack of shit

When 2 years later I played

Elbows and feet to his 6 foot 3

Now these words on a page

Is a poem like a bee sting?

The war zone and the refugees

Games played with brutal rope

The electricity was lethal

I had misjudged my step

Did Plato ever guarantee

The one authentic voice?

Did Thamus actually believe

That Thoth of the sacred ibis

Invented writing as a whip

Or martial football, any game?

I wouldn’t trust any poem

Farther than I could throw it.

© 2012 Rob Schackne

A Sam Ross Poem

sext

I believe this is
as real as anything
but safe. It’s like
Puccini: we’re so close
to the moon up here
let me tell you who
I am — and guess
about you: do you like
to fable — I mean
danke — I mean
dance? What I like
is not knowing
what we look like
to each other. Isn’t it
that way anyway?
I saw silverberries
so high atop stones
they were black
against the sky.
Limbs, finger-thin.
More evidence
never hurt a case
for handsome but
by the time you
reach me, I may be
somewhere else.
You might not
even know — like
sleeping in a tent
on a dune moving
miles through
the night. Or now
when I’m close. Are you
close?

(2015)

A Christina Rossetti Poem

The Heart Knoweth Its Own Bitterness

When all the over-work of life
Is finished once, and fast asleep
We swerve no more beneath the knife
But taste that silence cool and deep;
Forgetful of the highways rough,
Forgetful of the thorny scourge,
Forgetful of the tossing surge,
Then shall we find it is enough?
How can we say "enough" on earth--
"Enough" with such a craving heart?
I have not found it since my birth,
But still have bartered part for part.
I have not held and hugged the whole,
But paid the old to gain the new:
Much have I paid, yet much is due,
Till I am beggared sense and soul.
I used to labour, used to strive
For pleasure with a restless will:
Now if I save my soul alive
All else what matters, good or ill?
I used to dream alone, to plan
Unspoken hopes and days to come:--
Of all my past this is the sum--
I will not lean on child of man.
To give, to give, not to receive!
I long to pour myself, my soul,
Not to keep back or count or leave,
But king with king to give the whole.
I long for one to stir my deep--
I have had enough of help and gift--
I long for one to search and sift
Myself, to take myself and keep.
You scratch my surface with your pin,
You stroke me smooth with hushing breath:--
Nay pierce, nay probe, nay dig within,
Probe my quick core and sound my depth.
You call me with a puny call,
You talk, you smile, you nothing do:
How should I spend my heart on you,
My heart that so outweighs you all?
Your vessels are by much too strait:
Were I to pour, you could not hold.--
Bear with me: I must bear to wait,
A fountain sealed through heat and cold.
Bear with me days or months or years:
Deep must call deep until the end
When friend shall no more envy friend
Nor vex his friend at unawares.
Not in this world of hope deferred,
This world of perishable stuff:--
Eye hath not seen nor ear hath heard
Nor heart conceived that full "enough":
Here moans the separating sea,
Here harvests fail, here breaks the heart:
There God shall join and no man part,
I full of Christ and Christ of me.

(1857)

POEM" "After Reading A Poem"

After Reading A Poem 


Because it is a poem again 
despite the stretch of darkness
and there is echidna, octopus and cat
and so long as there’s that in the world
sealed bags will not go around the head.
There will be more quarrels with the self
that will demand more meaning, while
the profound self adjusts to the search for it.
Although, as always, I suppose there may
come a time when enough is fair enough
and to give it no more never more
will be the better, yes, alternative.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Untilted"

Untilted

It’s said that one word writ
upon a wall is not a poem, that
a leopard may not know its spots
whether behind or with or during
and some new love only requires that
an old love jumped the fence – so today
I can talk about how we frame things
and I speak of being released by history
by gender and neglect and all the dreams
of the poor and the angry – then I see
six bored students I’d put in a sacred circle.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "She Saved My Ass"

She Saved My Ass


During an altercation
in a bar one night
she saved my ass
my back was turned
he came up with a knife
she hit him with a bottle
she was from the mountains
they believe in hard things
it was then I fell in love
big arms and shoulders
every inch of her 6 foot tall
it was such a simple thing
when we were leaving
she stomped hard on his hand
after that the graceful years
lord she was so tender
her feet were lovely &
she loved me very well.

© 2013 Rob Schackne

A Louise Bogan Poem

Song for the Last Act

Now that I have your face by heart, I look 

Less at its features than its darkening frame
Where quince and melon, yellow as young flame,
Lie with quilled dahlias and the shepherd's crook.
Beyond, a garden. There, in insolent ease
The lead and marble figures watch the show
Of yet another summer loath to go
Although the scythes hang in the apple trees.

Now that I have your face by heart, I look.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read
In the black chords upon a dulling page
Music that is not meant for music's cage,
Whose emblems mix with words that shake and bleed.
The staves are shuttled over with a stark
Unprinted silence. In a double dream
I must spell out the storm, the running stream.
The beat's too swift. The notes shift in the dark.

Now that I have your voice by heart, I read.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see
The wharves with their great ships and architraves;
The rigging and the cargo and the slaves
On a strange beach under a broken sky.
O not departure, but a voyage done!
The bales stand on the stone; the anchor weeps
Its red rust downward, and the long vine creeps
Beside the salt herb, in the lengthening sun.

Now that I have your heart by heart, I see.

(1968)

A Jennifer Chang Poem

Patsy Cline

She’s in the desert
releasing the ashes of her father,
the ashes of her child,
or the ashes of the world. She is not

what she observes. The rare spinystar.
It does not belong to her. Bright needle threading
a cloud through the sky. There’s sun enough,
there’s afterlife. Her own body, a pillar of ash.
I fall to pieces, she says. Faithless

nimbus, faithless thought. In my life,
I have lost two men. One by death,
inevitable. One

by error: a waste. He wept
from a northern state,
hunger too cold
for human knowledge.

Once I was a woman with nothing to say.

Never did I say ash to ash.
Never has the desert woken me up.
I said
who releases whom?

Inevitably, all have known
what the desert knows. No one
will count the lupine when I’m gone.

No one looks to the sun
for meaning. For meat
I’ve done so much less.

Cattle in the far basin, sagebrush, sage.

I live in the city where I loved that man.
The ash of him, the self’s argument.

Now and then, I think of his weeping,
how my body betrays me:
I am not done with releasing.

(2015)

POEM: "Reach the top of the mountain, keep climbing"

"Reach the top of the mountain, keep climbing"

Imagine a ladder into the clouds
After the wealth of all that sweat
You’re climbing for what? Heart
Or endurance, ¿flaco o flojo? Stars
Ever closer to the gateway of your soul.
You finally get there. All around it
Looks forlorn it took you so long.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Sign Of The Times"

Sign Of The Times


Gruesome reminder, the mountain
Always gives up its dead. Time
However, ticks a little differently.
All kinds of unexpected men & women
A glacier releases, slowly, like gold
Or a butterfly. A tree gets green leaves.
I get my heart back. I get art. I get you.
A family gets their sons back, plus
Old boots and a rope that couldn't hold.
Meditate on this when sitting in a crevasse.
Look down, listen, as your dark shelf moves.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

A Robert Herrick Poem

To His Dying Brother, Master William Herrick


LIFE of my life, 'take not so soon thy flight,
But stay the time till we have bade good-night.
Thou hast both wind and tide with thee; thy way
As soon despatch'd is by the night as day.
Let us not then so rudely henceforth go
Till we have wept, kissed, sigh'd, shook hands, or so.
There's pain in parting, and a kind of hell,
When once true lovers take their last farewell.
What! shall we two our endless leaves take here
Without a sad look or a solemn tear?
He knows not love that hath not this truth proved,
Love is most loath to leave the thing beloved.
Pay we our vows, and go; yet when we part,
Then, even then, I will bequeath my heart
Into thy loving hands; for I'll keep none
To warm my breast when thou, my pulse, art gone.
No, here I'll last, and walk (a harmless shade)
About this urn, wherein thy dust is laid,
To guard it so as nothing here shall be
Heavy to hurt those secret seeds of thee.

(Ca. 1652)

POEM: "The hell to be inside"

“The hell to be inside” 


The hell to be inside
the mind of a racist
marked by his old code
shaping an angry world
yes I too am marked
by my old codes by
what is human man
is an important signpost
we take our bearings from
that we wander not too far
from reason else our conviction
destroys us liberal dream broke.

© 2015 Rob Schackne

A Gerard Manley Hopkins Poem (3)

"No worst, there is none."

No worst, there is none. Pitched past pitch of grief,

More pangs will, schooled at forepangs, wilder wring.
Comforter, where, where is your comforting?
Mary, mother of us, where is your relief?
My cries heave, herds-long; huddle in a main, a chief
Woe, wórld-sorrow; on an áge-old anvil wince and sing —
Then lull, then leave off. Fury had shrieked 'No ling-
ering! Let me be fell: force I must be brief."'

    O the mind, mind has mountains; cliffs of fall
Frightful, sheer, no-man-fathomed. Hold them cheap
May who ne'er hung there. Nor does long our small
Durance deal with that steep or deep. Here! creep,
Wretch, under a comfort serves in a whirlwind: all
Life death does end and each day dies with sleep.

(Ca. 1870)

MUSIC: Jim James, "State Of The Art (A.E.I.O.U.)" (2013)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUYf2yu78Ts

Daylight come
Daylight go
How far will it reach?
Ain't nobody know

And when the dawn breaks
The cradle will fall
And down will come baby
Cradle and all

And now I know you need the dark
Just as much as the sun
But you're signing on forever
When you ink it in blood

A.E.I.O.U., A.E.I.O.U.
I use the state of the art
Technology
Suppose to make for better living
Are we better human beings?
We got our wires all crossed
The tubes are all tied
And I'm straining to remember
Just what means to be alive

A life worth living
Now you can feel it in your chest
Building like the little birds
Just building up the nest
And you build it up strong
And you fill it up with love
And you pray for good rain
All from the Lord above

A.E.I.O.U., A.E.I.O.U.

I use my state of the art
Technology
Now don't you forget it
It ain't using me
'Cause when the power goes out
I got other means
'Cause when the power's going out
I hear the power's going out
I mean it the power's going out
I really mean it the power's going out

Jim James

A Philip Levine Poem (4)

What Work Is


We stand in the rain in a long line
waiting at Ford Highland Park. For work.
You know what work is—if you're
old enough to read this you know what
work is, although you may not do it.
Forget you. This is about waiting,
shifting from one foot to another.
Feeling the light rain falling like mist
into your hair, blurring your vision
until you think you see your own brother
ahead of you, maybe ten places.
You rub your glasses with your fingers,
and of course it's someone else's brother,
narrower across the shoulders than
yours but with the same sad slouch, the grin
that does not hide the stubbornness,
the sad refusal to give in to
rain, to the hours wasted waiting,
to the knowledge that somewhere ahead
a man is waiting who will say, 'No,
we're not hiring today,' for any
reason he wants. You love your brother,
now suddenly you can hardly stand
the love flooding you for your brother,
who's not beside you or behind or
ahead because he's home trying to
sleep off a miserable night shift
at Cadillac so he can get up
before noon to study his German.
Works eight hours a night so he can sing
Wagner, the opera you hate most,
the worst music ever invented.
How long has it been since you told him
you loved him, held his wide shoulders,
opened your eyes wide and said those words,
and maybe kissed his cheek? You've never
done something so simple, so obvious,
not because you're too young or too dumb,
not because you're jealous or even mean
or incapable of crying in
the presence of another man, no,
just because you don't know what work is.


(1991)

POEM" "From The Three-Self Movement"

From The Three-Self Movement


I too would be all gunfighter
And explain how death hits
The floor, except that the floor
Is constructed with the sweat
Of many workers, mostly men
And some don’t much mind death,
But in the early morning they lay
The foundations of the rest of us.

And I too would be all Casanova
And explain love and how it smells
The body, except that this body
Is constructed of the serial fears
Of unknown lovers, who don’t know
That heartbreak isn't the end of life,
But still take their chances, even though
It's late in the afternoon of the rest of us.

And I too would be all Zen master
And explain how old dust accords
To new dust, that hitting the wall
Is dripping with the mind of billions
While the Three-Self Movement cries
Wisdom won't take your life on the street,
But please come take a late walk by the river
While the moon waits there for the rest of us.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "On The Edge Of Joy"

On The Edge Of Joy 

                          This art of behavior.
                          Poetry into the ground.

                               Qin Fei


When we barely know
we're     going down
the clouds are beautiful

in the sweet curves
of our deliverance
a few degrees of angels

if only she stopped
screaming     her beauty
could start the engines

on the edge of joy
we weigh nothing
except our hearts

we yearn to be birds
like birds yearn to be
butterflies     clearly

it is impossible

we are going home


© 2015 Rob Schackne

MUSIC: The Who, "Baba O'Riley" (1971)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kr6aQDxj7D8

Out here in the fields
I fight for my meals
I get my back into my living
I don't need to fight
To prove I'm right
I don't need to be forgiven


Pete Townshend

POEM: "To A Stuffed Hedgehog"

To A Stuffed Hedgehog

To your stuffed hedgehog 
the one that the car missed
who ambled off road to dream
of the perfected hedgedom—

Although the humble hedgehog
(whom we must regard as good)
looked everywhere for puddles, now
it sees its antecedent before the glass.

For we are guardians of the water.
We are the guardians of reflection.
We are guardians of subsequent mirrors.
We look to the perfection of our minds.

© 2015 Rob Schackne

An Ed Skoog Poem

Gwendolyn Brooks Park, Topeka


They carved the letters yellow,
and painted
the wood around the letters green,
chained a picnic table to the grass
out near where the roof of the dead
mall directs a crack
of sunset to radiate the Burger King sign gold.
Last place open after midnight:
then apartment windows hold
stars and satellites in the cold.
A creek runs like a paper fold
from one corner of park to other,
twenty or thirty blocks from where
she took her first breaths of infancy
in the only city I know of
with the letters for poet
that does not also carry
a port or a point in its name.


(2015)

MUSIC: Michael Andrews & Gary Jules, "Mad World" (2001)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N3N1MlvVc4


All around me are familiar faces
Worn out places, worn out faces
Bright and early for their daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere

Their tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I wanna drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world, mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday
And I feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen

Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher tell me what's my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kinda funny
I find it kinda sad
The dreams in which I'm dying
Are the best I've ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles
It's a very, very mad world, mad world

Enlarging your world
Mad world

Roland Orzabal

POEM: "Pathos: The Poem"

Pathos: The Poem


The pestering mouth
a table across the way
the hurt eyes are filling
her head is on my breast
prolepsis? I don't know
but wait my gentle reader
the busboy drops the dishes
the lamp is 3000 drachmae
I am sure this was my table
she was the love of my life.


© 2014 Rob Schackne

MUSIC: Silver Jews, "Random Rules" (1998)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKl4Wpu75W0


In 1984 I was hospitalized for approaching perfection. 
Slowly screwing my way across Europe, they had to make a correction.
Broken and smokin' where the infrared deer plunge in the digital snake.

I tell you, they make it so you can't shake hands when they make your hands shake.

I know you like to line dance, everything so democratic and cool,
But baby there's no guidance when random rules.

I know that a lot of what I say has been lifted off of men's room walls.
Maybe I've crossed the wrong rivers and walked down all the wrong halls.
But nothing can change the fact that we used to share a bed
and that's why it scared me so when you turned to me and said:

"Yeah, you look like someone
Yeah you look like someone who up and left me low.
Boy, you look like somene I used to know."

I asked the painter why the roads are colored black.
He said, "Steve, it's because people leave
and no highway will bring them back."
So if you don't want me I promise not to linger,
But before I go I gotta ask you dear about the tan line on your ring finger.

No one should have two lives,
now you know my middle names are wrong and right.
Honey we've got two lives to give tonight.

David Berman

http://www.americansongwriter.com/2014/12/lyric-week-silver-jews-random-rules/

MUSIC: The Shins, "New Slang" (2001)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYwCmcB0XMw

Gold teeth and a curse for this town were all in my mouth
Only, I don't know how they got out, dear
Turn me back into the pet I was when we met
I was happier then with no mind-set

And if you'd a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind
Well, I'd a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores

And the rest of our lives would a fared well

New slang when you notice the stripes 

The dirt in your fries
Hope it's right when you die 

Old and bony
Dawn breaks like a bull through the hall
Never should've called
But my head's to the wall and I'm lonely

And if you'd a took to me like
A gull takes to the wind
Well, I'd a jumped from my tree
And I'd a danced like the king of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would a fared well

Godspeed all the bakers at dawn 

May they all cut their thumbs
And bleed into their buns 

'Til they melt away
I'm looking in on the good life 

I might be doomed never to find
Without trust, flaming fields am I too dumb to refine?

And if you'd a took to me like
Well, I'd a danced like the queen of the eyesores
And the rest of our lives would a fared well.

James Mercer


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvRnYLKJ4gA

POEM: "Poems For Airports"

Poems For Airports


During the mitosis of writing these, I was listening to Eno's music. Naturally I owe much to that. It's funny that while these poems were once about the friction of the air, of the ground, about the weariness of the destination, and the weariness of the way back -- they now feel like they aren't really about airports at all, but about us all getting safely to the places we're going. Godspeed. We are bees.


1. At A Remote Airport 


Black thrumming runway 
its deep core solid and cold 

there's a beach someplace
you won’t stay there long 

the minutes will look fixed
it could be a strange mess 

the sea retakes the shells

all tomorrow’s parties
must begin today. 



2. In Darkness 


                   The moon is the mother of pathos and pity. 
                    Wallace Stevens 


Finally at the baggage claim 
the humming rock the cradle 

cranked away from sight
in sortation about the system 

your electric shaver tossed
because it's a useless current 

your favourite sweater now
worn by a sweating freak 

some undecided cretin tries
to decipher your precious book 

the start of this big machine
bumps against the rubber belt 

at their carousel of waiting
a bawling toddler’s pointing 

at a chicken foot going 'round
in a fog you barely see 

ignore the lunar paraphrase
this aerodrome isn’t safe. 



3. Sura Of The Baggage Claim 


From the sky to the stun of day 
off the plane and down the ramp 

you left last week’s paper there 
a bad novel dogged at page 35 

the sun is blinding (where is this?) 

the goons you see at 4 o’clock 
control your usual breeze of air 

waiting for the big bag to come off 
Customs Customs moment coming

you’ve now forgotten al-Qur'an 
3 children and an evil mother-in-law 

you suspect your faith is wanting. 



4. The Thirdspace


A loving treatment of time 
where did it go post-nostalgia 

present serendip cool across 
the tarmac and swept away 

instead I have no more time 
sitting in this dark room alone 

no more gifts please let me sleep 
stop asking if I’m already there 

my note to self in a book of hours 
Jewel into the gift box tomorrow 

this morning in the airport pursuant 
to baggage claim you claimed nothing. 



© 2013 Rob Schackne


Photo: Yann Arthus-Bertrand

An Ansel Elkins Poem

Reverse: A Lynching


Return the tree, the moon, the naked man
Hanging from the indifferent branch
Return blood to his brain, breath to his heart
Reunite the neck with the bridge of his body
Untie the knot, undo the noose
Return the kicking feet to ground
Unwhisper the word jesus
Rejoin his penis with his loins
Resheathe the knife
Regird the calfskin belt through trouser loops
Refasten the brass buckle
Untangle the spitting men from the mob
Unsay the word nigger
Release the firer’s finger from its trigger
Return the revolver to its quiet holster
Return the man to his home
Unwidow his wife
Unbreak the window
Unkiss the crucifix of her necklace
Unsay Hide the children in the back, his last words
Repeal the wild bell of his heart
Reseat his family at the table over supper
Relace their fingers in prayer, unbless the bread
Rescind the savagery of men
Return them from animal to human, reborn in the long run
Backward to the purring pickup
Reignite the Ford’s engine, its burning headlights
Retreat down the dirt road, tires speeding
Backward into rising dust
Backward past cornfields, past the night floating moths
Rescind the whiskey from the guts
Unswallowed, unswigged, the tongue unstung
Rehouse the flask in the field coat’s interior pocket
Unbare the teeth, unwhet the appetite
Return the howl to its wolf
Return the shovel to the barn, the rope to the horse’s stable
Resurrect the dark from its heart housed in terror

Reenter the night through its door of mercy

(2011)

POEM: "Desire"

Desire

Desire
not love
presses
heat to body 
write it

she says
not love
nevertheless
aimless
sunrise
and still
see tomorrow
it's true
the quill
sharpens
all but the heart


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Root Down, 1961"

Root Down, 1961 

Our new typhoon is hitting
albeit with diminished punch.
So far. They say it's a big wind
collected of three different storms.

The streets are awash with
unspeakable debris. Walk there.
The eyes are not down watching
all that the world cannot give.

Those last three meals were bad
oily gruesome running sock smells.
Brother Andrew gives me avocadoes
dark green deep earthy pebbly bark.

Yes I do like food. And single-malt
whiskey and unpebbly imported beer.
But see this old dream that wants more
than food. And probably more than love.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

POEM: "Mock"

Mock

At the core of desire
A woman stops and turns
And says I waited for so long

It’s not my age we laugh
I say you aren’t the face
You say I’m not the heel

The fruit eventually ripens
Split pomegranate in two
A little light gets through

The moth mocks the flame
All burns bright for a day
And the sun sets with a puff

Later the dust is scattered 
The world opens and shuts
We eat the blood and bone.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

MUSIC: 4 Non Blondes, "What's Up?" (1992) / POEM: "Wish"

Yes. Bigger, better, faster...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6NXnxTNIWkc

...more?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TRJYCW_dCN4

_____________

Wish


To hell with the mousetrap
I'd like to build a better planet
put my best team on it yessir
the materials are outdated
the springs are all worn out
and the critters just wander in
and take whatever they want.


© 2015 Rob Schackne

An E.B. White Poem

Natural History


The spider, dropping down from twig,
Unwinds a thread of his devising;
A thin, premeditated rig
To use in rising.

And all the journey down through space,
In cool descent, and loyal-hearted,
He builds a ladder to the place
From which he started.

Thus I, gone forth, as spiders do,
In spider's web a truth discerning,
Attach one silken strand to you
For my returning.


(1929)

A James Tate Poem

The Blue Booby

The blue booby lives
on the bare rocks
of Galápagos
and fears nothing.
It is a simple life:
they live on fish,
and there are few predators.
Also, the males do not
make fools of themselves
chasing after the young
ladies. Rather,
they gather the blue
objects of the world
and construct from them

a nest—an occasional
Gaulois package,
a string of beads,
a piece of cloth from
a sailor’s suit. This
replaces the need for
dazzling plumage;
in fact, in the past
fifty million years
the male has grown
considerably duller,
nor can he sing well.
The female, though,

asks little of him—
the blue satisfies her
completely, has
a magical effect
on her. When she returns
from her day of
gossip and shopping,
she sees he has found her
a new shred of blue foil:
for this she rewards him
with her dark body,
the stars turn slowly
in the blue foil beside them
like the eyes of a mild savior.

(1969)

MUSIC: moe., "Happy Hour Hero", "Plane Crash" (1998)

Yeah OK. Sure. It was some guy looked like you was ordering them 3 at a time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dNN1tBPIZ-E

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0wTHvkhBVqk

PAINTING: Georges Seurat, "Alfalfa Fields, Saint-Denis" (1885-6)

You might wonder 
how you could get out of this. 
And if you could, whether 
you'd ever be the same afterwards. 
(But yeah, alfalfa...so probably not.)

A Ravi Shankar Poem (2)

Double Rainbow


Speeding, without destination, after dark
torrents have poured & been returned
at home, the skies above mirror my mood,

windshield wipers knifing through sheets,
back roads slick with pooling, when a shard
of cloudlessness opens. Pulling over, cutting

the ignition, I unstitch myself from the humid
seat, still fuming, to greet a full spectrum
of color arcing past the treetops in lockstep

with its fainter inverse. Archer's bow, hem
of the sun god's coat, bridge between worlds,
reconciliation & pardon. They don't last.


(2011)

POEM: "Thirty-Three And A Bird"

Thirty-Three And A Bird


I'd be amazed too if other animals couldn't do it

Why only yesterday in Oz
the chestnut-crowned babbler bird
came clean something never before
seen in animals first sign

Outside of the human
an animal can use they
use meaningless sounds
in a different way

3 months ago Rabbit Angstrom ran out to buy his wife cigarettes. 
He hasn't come home yet.

Another monkey poem
that is not a game of chess

Thunder thirty-three and a bird

Even the smoke is attracted to him

It follows after he leaves the fire

Why do I bother?


© 2015 Rob Schackne

PHOTO: F.A. Loumis, "Independence Day, 1906"

OK Junior...how about let's not blow up some shit today.

A Michael Robbins Poem

To The Drone Vaguely Realizing Eastward


This is a poem for President Drone.
It was written by a camel.
Can I borrow your phone?
This is for President Mark Hamill.

Newtown sounds a red alert.
Mark Hamill asks is Ernie burnt?
Every camel’s a first-person shooter.
The Prez’s fez is haute couture.

It seems strange that he should be offended.
The same orders are given by him.
Paging Pakistan and Yemen.
Calling all the drone-dead children.

The camel can’t come to the phone.
This is for the drone-in-chief.
Mumbai used to be Bombay.
The bomb bay opens with a queef.


(2012)

A Michael Robbins Poem (2)

Lust For Life


The elephants ate each other then they dreamed
of eating elephants till their captors came
to feed them. Then they died. My meth lab
tends to explode. I move to a new one
like a hermit crab. I give the gift of gab.
The truth gets me hard. Song selection
is key. The idiot Swedes do a number on me.
They invent refrigeration and sleep in shifts.
I’m tired of being compared to Britney Spears.
She’s so pretty. I’m covered in petroglyphs.
That sorcerer bewitched my penis!
I’m speed and space, an Aztec princess.
The truth makes me hurl, the truth’s a mistake.
John Milton jumps out of my birthday cake.
The psyched Mohican oils the beaver.
Fruit Stripe gum soon loses flavor.
Everything’s flammable. Everything’s flash.
Postmen like doctors and doctors like cash.


(2010)

A Guy Laramée Poem

I carve landscapes out of books 

and I paint romantic landscapes 

Mountains of disused knowledge 

return to what they really are 

                                              mountains

they erode a bit more and they become hills 

Then they flatten and become fields 

where apparently nothing is happening 

Piles of obsolete encyclopedias return to that 

which does not need to say anything 

                                       that which simply is

Fogs and clouds erase everything we know

                          which is everything we think we are.

(2015)

http://www.guylaramee.com/index.php/lineage/adieu/