Cool Poem

“Grackles, Goodbye

Black of grackles glints purple as, wheeling in sun-glare,
The flock splays away to pepper the blueness of distance.
Soon they are lost in the tracklessness of air.
I watch them go. I stand in my trance.

Another year gone. In trance of realization,
I remember once seeing a first fall leaf, flame-red, release
Bough-grip, and seek, through gold light of the season's sun,
Black gloss of a mountain pool, and there drift in peace.

Another year gone. And once my mother's hand
Held mine while I kicked the piled yellow leaves on the lawn
And laughed, not knowing some yellow-leaf season I'd stand
And see the hole filled. How they spread their obscene fake lawn.

Who needs the undertaker's sick lie
Flung thus in the teeth of Time, and the earth's spin and tilt?
What kind of fool would promote that kind of lie?
Even sunrise and sunset convict the half-wit of guilt.

Grackles, goodbye! The sky will be vacant and lonely
Till again I hear your horde's rusty creak high above,
Confirming the year's turn and the fact that only, only,
In the name of Death do we learn the true name of Love.
-- Robert Penn Warren”

“It was wonderful, and made me stop being a bit self-righteous this morning...for a moment...”

“Nice, Twinks...”

“I am going to have to go to the bookstore - this man's words are incredible



Evening Hawk
Robert Penn Warren


From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through
Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds,
Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding
The last tumultuous avalanche of
Light above pines and the guttural gorge,
The hawk comes.
His wing
Scythes down another day, his motion
Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear
The crashless fall of stalks of Time.

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error.

Look! Look! he is climbing the last light
Who knows neither Time nor error, and under
Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings
Into shadow.

Long now,
The last thrush is still, the last bat
Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom
Is ancient, too, and immense. The star
Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain.

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear
The earth grind on its axis, or history
Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.”

“True Love
Robert Penn Warren


In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled. In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart. It
Thickens your blood. It stops your breath. It

Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath.
I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.
I thought I would die if she saw me.

How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?
Two years later she smiled at me. She
Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead.

Her grown brothers walked with the bent-knee
Swagger of horsemen. They were slick-faced.
Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work.

Their father was what is called a drunkard.
Whatever he was he stayed on the third floor
Of the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years.

He never came down. They brought everything up to him.
I did not know what a mortgage was.
His wife was a good, Christian woman, and prayed.

When the daughter got married, the old man came down wearing
An old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing.
The sons propped him. I saw the wedding. There were

Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable. I thought
I would cry. I lay in bed that night
And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her.

The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered.
She never came back. The family
Sort of drifted off. Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.

But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives
In a beautiful house, far away.
She called my name once. I didn't even know she knew it.”

“A Way to Love God
Robert Penn Warren



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here is the shadow of truth, for only the shadow is true.
And the line where the incoming swell from the sunset Pacific
First leans and staggers to break will tell all you need to know
About submarine geography, and your father's death rattle
Provides all biographical data required for the Who's Who of the dead.

I cannot recall what I started to tell you, but at least
I can say how night-long I have lain under the stars and
Heard mountains moan in their sleep. By daylight,
They remember nothing, and go about their lawful occasions
Of not going anywhere except in slow disintegration. At night
They remember, however, that there is something they cannot remember.
So moan. Theirs is the perfected pain of conscience that
Of forgetting the crime, and I hope you have not suffered it. I have.

I do not recall what had burdened my tongue, but urge you
To think on the slug's white belly, how sick-slick and soft,
On the hairiness of stars, silver, silver, while the silence
Blows like wind by, and on the sea's virgin bosom unveiled
To give suck to the wavering serpent of the moon; and,
In the distance, in plaza, piazza, place, platz, and square,
Boot heels, like history being born, on cobbles bang.

Everything seems an echo of something else.

And when, by the hair, the headsman held up the head
Of Mary of Scots, the lips kept on moving,
But without sound. The lips,
They were trying to say something very important.

But I had forgotten to mention an upland
Of wind-tortured stone white in darkness, and tall, but when
No wind, mist gathers, and once on the Sarré at midnight,
I watched the sheep huddling. Their eyes
Stared into nothingness. In that mist-diffused light their eyes
Were stupid and round like the eyes of fat fish in muddy water,
Or of a scholar who has lost faith in his calling.

Their jaws did not move. Shreds
Of dry grass, gray in the gray mist-light, hung
From the side of a jaw, unmoving.

You would think that nothing would ever again happen.

That may be a way to love God.”

“There once was a man from Nantucket...”

“Read you infidels!!”

“What the f does that bozo have against undertakers? It is one of the most noble of professions.


*click* first to go on this account...”

“huh?”

“He is just making intelligent use of the ignore feature. Nothing personal, just, you know, if you have different taste in poetry that someone else, the reasonable thing to do is just ignore all of their posts.”

“"Huh?"

"Who needs the undertaker's sick lie
Flung thus in the teeth of Time, and the earth's spin and tilt?
What kind of fool would promote that kind of lie?
Even sunrise and sunset convict the half-wit of guilt."


Twinks, did you just post this or did you read it first?”

“..."than" someone else...”

“I read it, flyguy, and did not understand that part at all.”

“I read it first.

I am more interested in the rest of the stanzas and the rich imagry in them.

I don't understand why the poet wrote the stanza that you are referring to. I think it confuses and weakens an otherwise brilliant poem (IMO). It definately confuses me.

Are you an undertaker? LOL!!”

“okay, well what does an undertaker do?”

“Put you in the ground. Another name for it: Mortician. Funeral Home Director. Gravedigger. Embalmer.”

“lyra! You're good at interpretation...help us out here.... :)”

“Personally, I think it has something to so with the undertaker's claims of your loved ones being forever preserved. We all know that's crap.

When you're dead, all that's left is a big piece of meat. The person is gone.

I plan on being cremated, personally.”

“ah-ha! so they make bodies look like they're still alive, and provide a place for people to go to "be with" their departed.

i think the poem is meant in the haiku, passage-of-time tradition, so an undertaker would be going against that in trying to make time stand still.

i think a grackle is a crow, and those have been used in haikus a ton, so he's prolly playing on that. yo.”

“dammit, bitpusher! stop stealing my thunder. ;-)”

“Ha ha haaaaaaaaaa.....”

“ohhh - discussion! yippee!”

“I want a Viking funeral.”

“What does copyright mean ??

One meaning is that a person buys your work and then gives it to everyone else for free.

-- Robert Penn Warren will now have to charge much more for his future books of poetry as he will only sell 1 copy.

Flip side is free advertizing, many people who have never heard of an author get to see a small sample, like it and go out to purchase the authors work.

An example being the Japanese author whose words were used by a well known US singer. When word of the copyright violation occurred, thousands of sales resulted for the original writer. The writer was a fan anyway and was happy to have his words reach a wider audience (mark of a true artist).
But Microsoft and Sony records do not subscribe to that theory.”

“what's a Viking funeral?

i'd like to be eaten by zombies.”

“The undertaker is the last guy to let you down.”

“moooooaahaahaahaahaa!”

“Viking funeral- they load your body on a Viking boat and set on fire and push you out to sea! But, I can see where the flesh eating zombie method might have some merit.”

“In some Viking funerals, the boat was set afire by shooting a flaming arrow into the sails.

I'm guessing I'm going to have to build the boat and have it towed out past the three-mile limit to have this done...”

“How about a flaming kayak?”

“You guys didn't know what a Viking funeral was?! You've obviously never seen "The 13th Warrior", and shame on you. That movie kicks Anna Nicole Smith sized a$$!”

“Nah, aero, not dramatic enough. I'm thinking dragon's head, striped sail, big shields on the sides, the works. Big bier in the middle with my tired corpus on it.”

“But Bit, if you're going to die like a Viking, you have to live like a Viking. I don't think plundering villages and raping the woman is legal, but you could probably get away with drinking some mead out of an ox's horn.”

“Mead: check.

Ox's horn: Gotta get one still...”

“I've actually got that written in my will...viking funeral and an Irish wake to follow...big party and celebration. no tears, no remorse, this is your hatian divorce.

I'm gonna go out in a blaze of glory. and tall brews all around.”

“But you've gotta be at the Irish wake so we can throw whiskey on you, man!”

“Irish wake first, then load the whiskey bloated corps into the boat, push it off and then sing the flaming arrow to the heart, and POOOOFFFF!!!! WHOOOOSH!!! big bonfire.”

“copied from a post over on TLB:

"Found at the following website, author unknown:

http://poets2000.com/myballads/p392810000000469.htm

"Ode to Vienna Sausages"

O, glorious bit of nourishment,
Thy taste is truly heaven sent.
Such pleasure thou expounds to me,
My precious tube of ecstacy!

Though many morsels touch my tongue
Thine anthem ne'er shall be outsung.
Sweet Machevellian delight
Pervades my throat with every bite.

There is no greature pleasure than
Eight sausages packed in a can.
The grandeur of thy sweet bouquet
Is faint to take one's breath away.

Thy juice and stunning succulence
Is said to conjure flatulence
And rumblings from the diaphram
Unmatched, of course, except by Spam.

But, from this land where Mozart played
And Ludwig Van conciertos made,
This land from where great music came
Is it not right you make the same?

Though other weiners may aspire
To be as plump as Oscar Meyer
Thy svelte, petitte, and sleek design
Slide freely through these lips of mine.

At weddings, thou art ever picked,
With swedish meatballs on a stick
To be the morsels of delight
On that most joyous of all nights.

My dearest treat, I bid thee well.
I love thee more than words can tell.
I take my leave....I must compose
My "Sonnet to the Oreo".”

“Lol! Cute but I still won't eat them.”

“Leonard Cohen (1972):

The killers that run the other countries
are trying to get us
to overthrow the killers
that run our own.
I for one prefer the rule of our native killers
I am convinced
the foreign killer
will kill more of us
than the old familiar killer does.

Frankly I don't believe
anyone out there
really wants us to solve
our social problems.
I base this all on how I feel
about the man next door.
I just hope he doesn't
get any uglier

Therefore I am a patriot
I don't like to see
a burning flag
because it excites
the killers on both sides
to unfortunate excess
which goes on gaily
quite unchecked
until everyone is dead.”

“I sit on the toilet
writing stupid stuff
that people think
is brilliant”

“Leonard doesn't nibble around the edges does he?”

“Leonard sounds like an uninformed dumb blond I heard at a poetry slam once. Freaking hot as molten lava, but just as dense.”

“yeah, right.”

“Glad you agree.”

“I think the perception of stupidity is one thin layer of what LC was trying to address.”

“nah, I think he just thinks anyone who doesn't see it his way is stupid.

BTW, I said dense, not stupid. He may be brilliant, but seems to be a bit hardheaded, and closed to alternative opinions.”

“Yeah but could he get a rhyme for the word ORANGE???? WELL COULD HE?

LOL”