Ode to Spring

- Frederick Seidel

I can only find words for.
And sometimes I can't.
Here are these flowers that stand for.
I stand here on the sidewalk.

I can't stand it, but yes of course I understand it.
Everything has to have meaning.
Things have to stand for something.
I can't take the time. Even skin-deep is too deep.

I say to the flower stand man:
Beautiful flowers at your flower stand, man.
I'll take a dozen of the lilies.
I'm standing as it were on my knees

Before a little man up on a raised
Runway altar where his flowers are arrayed
Along the outside of the shop.
I take my flames and pay inside.

I go off and have sexual intercourse.
The woman is the woman I love.
The room displays thirteen lilies.
I stand on the surface.


from: Poems 1959-2009. Copyright 2009.

Regardless of Your Political Bent, If You Love Poetry You Can Appreciate a Magnificent Nod to a Classic Poem . . .

i.e. The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service.

This wonderful little paean comes from Geoffrey Dunn at HuffPo. In case you hadn't noticed, Mr. Dunn includes links to some of the scandalous claims in his poem. I've only excerpted the poem here, so please head on over to HuffPo to read the rest.

The Cremation of Sarah Palin

There are strange things done in the midnight sun
By politicians who moil for graft;
The Juneau jails have their secret tales
That would make you burn in the ass;
The Northern Lights have seen queer sights,
And heard every wolf a wailin',
But none hit the soul, as those two recent polls,
And the cremation of Sarah Palin.

Now Sarah Palin was from Wasilla,
Where methamphetamine runs and flows.
Why she left Lake Lucille for an outside thrill,
The good God only knows.
She was always ambitious, if a little oblivious,
New York and Hollywood cast their spell;
Though she lied through her teeth and padded bra underneath,
That "she'd soon rather live in hell."

Near Valentine's Day, Todd was grinding his way
Over the Iron Dog Trail.
Talk of your cold! Through her Arctic Cat parka's fold,
It stabbed like a driven nail.
The only things worse, was listening to her
When the governorship she was bailin'.
It was absolutely a curse, and politically perverse,
To hear the whining of one Sarah Palin.


Only last month, came a chilling cold front,
As the Harper and Public Policy polls showed quite clearly,
Alaskans had had their fill of the Wasilla shrill,
And no longer loved her so dearly.
So she turned to Todd, seated right next to God,
sayin' : "I think I'll cash in with Fox;
And if I do, I'm pleading that you
Free me from Seward's Ice Box."

On her political deathbead, with Begich ahead,
Even Hilary trounced her in 2016.
"It's the cursèd political cold, and it's got right hold,
'Til I'm chilled clean through to the spleen.
Yet 'tain't being dead -- it's my awful dread
Of being ignored that pains;
So I want you to swear that, foul or fair,
You'll cremate my political remains."

A gal's last need is a thing to heed,
So Todd swore he would not fail;
And with her makeup gone, at the streak of dawn;
But God! she looked ghastly pale.
She screeched at Todd, and those who blog,
Raving about days past on the campaign trail in...;
But come nightfall, a political corpse was all,
That was left of one Sarah Palin.

There wasn't a breath in that land of death,
And Todd hurried on, guilt-ridden,
With a corpse half hid that he couldn't get rid,
Because of his promise given;
It was lashed to the Cat, and it seemed to blat:
"You may tax your brawn and few brains,
But you promised true, and it's up to you
To cremate these last political remains."

 CONTINUE READING . . .

So What will it Be to Kick Start the Week . . .

teddies

or kilts

or flowers

or teddies in kilts

or teddies with flowers

or

something completely different?

Let me know in the comments how you best like to face Monday.

It's National Poetry Month!

As most of you know, we have poetry nearly every day here at the Hearth, but for National Poetry Month it is a definite daily occurrence!

Are there poets you'd like to see that I've yet to post?

I have a wonderful array of anthologies that I post from, as well as poets' collections. But my To Buy list is always way too long.

Sometimes it's just so hard to decide!

Please, let me know in the comments and I will do my best. 

Some links for teachers: here & here.

Pastoral
- Jennifer Chang

Something in the field is
working away. Root-noise.
Twig-noise. Plant
of weak chlorophyll, no
name for it. Something
in the field has mastered
distance by living too close
to fences. Yellow fruit, has it
pit or seeds? Stalk of wither. Grass-
noise fighting weed-noise. Dirt
and chant. Something in the
field. Coreopsis. I did not mean
to say that. Yellow petal, has it
wither-gift? Has it gorgeous
rash? Leaf-loss and worried
sprout, its bursting art. Some-
thing in the. Field fallowed and
cicada. I did not mean to
say. Has it roar and bloom?
Has it road to follow? A thistle
prick, fraught burrs, such
easy attachment. Stem-
and stamen-noise. Can I lime-
flower? Can I chamomile?
Something in the field cannot.

from: The History of Anonymity. Copyright 2008.

May None of Your Eggs Remain Hidden. Honestly. Do You Know How Long it Takes to Get that Rotten Egg Smell Out of the Drapes?

Butterfly Catcher

- Tina Cane

In the Sixties
Nabokov switched

from ink to eraser-
topped pencil

on index cards a box
of cards for Ada a box

of cards for dreams
whose "curious features"

include "erotic tenderness
and heart-rending enchantment"

in one draft
he traded "stillness and heat"

for "silence, a burning"
so picture:

Vladimir seated
at the trunk of a tree

a spring day
at Wellesley where

he marvels at his students
and their cable-knit socks

the way each elastic
grips without binding

just below
the knee so exquisite

an application of pressure
that when said sock

is slowly
peeled off

the skin shows
no trace at all


Copyright 1994.

I Hope U Duz Tu!

Birds Again

- Jim Harrison

A secret came a week ago though I already
knew it just beyond the bruised lips of consciousness.
The very alive souls of thirty-five hundred dead birds
are harbored in my body. It’s not uncomfortable.
I’m only temporary habitat for these not-quite-
weightless creatures. I offered a wordless invitation
and now they’re roosting within me, recalling
how I had watched them at night
in fall and spring passing across earth moons,
little clouds of black confetti, chattering and singing
on their way north or south. Now in my dreams
I see from the air the rumpled green and beige,
the watery face of earth as if they’re carrying
me rather than me carrying them. Next winter
I’ll release them near the estuary west of Alvarado
and south of Veracruz. I can see them perching
on undiscovered Olmec heads. We’ll say goodbye
and I’ll return my dreams to earth.