Poems- Not your own.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I like this guy.

Davey Flower Becomes a Pterodactyl

“Raaaaak! Awrrrk! Kraaa! Urrgg!” I heard from down the hall,
A piercing, plaintive, prehistoric sort of call.

“What’s going on?” I called out, and soon my wife replied.
“Your son’s become a pterodactyl. Seriously. No lie.”

It’s true indeed—our little boy, our blue-eyed Davey Flower
Had become an awkward, flapping, pointy dinosaur.

His sister promptly cheered and laughed, the bratty little wench.
“Yay, my baby brother’s gone!” then whined about the stench.

And as he tried to flap his wings, she quickly wondered too,
“Maybe could he do tricks like the parrot at the zoo?”

His mother started out concerned, but quickly justified it
As punishment for messy rooms and making her so tired.

What do you feed a pterodactyl? He’s got goldfish from the tank!
No, don’t eat the hamster too! And put down baby Frank!

Chicken fingers, popcorn, fries. Figures, some things never change,
That’s all he’d eat before too! Even then we thought it strange.

Davey gained more energy at whatever rate we lost it.
It wore off around midnight, when we were just exhausted.

By then he’d mastered flapping, and hovering in place,
And started eyeing windows, contemplating outer space.

Now he’s grown, and when I ask if he recalls those days,
He says, while diapering his kid, “It was just a phase.”

But I wonder if he dreams at night and maybe sort of cries.
I still do when I recall my blue-eyed son once knew the way to fly.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Jack Gilbert’s poem, “The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart”:

"How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
Get it wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not a language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds."

[Carruthers]

This will ring a bell with UK Dwellars.

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds -
November!

Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

[BigV]

Originally Posted by Carruthers

This will ring a bell with UK Dwellars.

No sun - no moon!
No morn - no noon -
No dawn - no dusk - no proper time of day.
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member -
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds -
November!

Thomas Hood (1799-1845)

And for those of us on the shore of the Salish Sea.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Hell.

[Carruthers]

I didn't send a postcard but I did bring back a couple of photos.





Taken on my last trip to the US in 2004. Seems like yesterday.

[xoxoxoBruce]

So you're the one! I tried to take a picture of that and the camera flashed, "It's been done" on the screen.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by xoxoxoBruce

Jack Gilbert’s poem, “The Forgotten Dialect of the Heart”:

"How astonishing it is that language can almost mean,
and frightening that it does not quite. Love, we say,
God, we say, Rome and Michiko, we write, and the words
Get it wrong. We say bread and it means according
to which nation. French has no word for home,
and we have no word for strict pleasure. A people
in northern India is dying out because their ancient
tongue has no words for endearment. I dream of lost
vocabularies that might express some of what
we no longer can. Maybe the Etruscan texts would
finally explain why the couples on their tombs
are smiling. And maybe not. When the thousands
of mysterious Sumerian tablets were translated,
they seemed to be business records. But what if they
are poems or psalms? My joy is the same as twelve
Ethiopian goats standing silent in the morning light.
O Lord, thou art slabs of salt and ingots of copper,
as grand as ripe barley lithe under the wind’s labor.
Her breasts are six white oxen loaded with bolts
of long-fibered Egyptian cotton. My love is a hundred
pitchers of honey. Shiploads of thuya are what
my body wants to say to your body. Giraffes are this
desire in the dark. Perhaps the spiral Minoan script
is not a language but a map. What we feel most has
no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds."

I like this. Thanks!