Tim & Ben, rock on!

This one seems to fit, no matter which spring we arrive at.

Spring

spring explodes
green
outside
my window
rattles
the universe
with
natural magic

half a world
away
spring bursts on
bloody ground
and
the explosions
are
a different
hue

the cry of
birds
in this spring
light
carry little
above
the cries
of
displaced humanity
bleeding
suffering
another spring
on Planet Earth

our own
third rock from the sun
spilling doom
into the
deep well
of
forever

Thanks, Carter. I wrote that one in December last year but not sure I ever posted it anywhere. I think the posting forum was gone by then.

It dawned on me

that we all sing
songs of self
for others
no matter the key
or tempo
the shades or tones

whether by
big lakes in
long white dreams
or down in
provinces where
the hickory nuts grow
or even in
the realm of
deeper Dixie South

too far below
the Mason D to even
see a shadow
skirt the ground

poems are now
jungle drums on
electric wires
speed of light
transmissions
of thought
or something posing
as thought

poems are purveyors
of what's shakin'
inside and out
up and down
words that fit
or don't

poems are as
natural as
cigarettes and coffee
daylight in the window
news or weather
rattling in the
TV background

maybe even breath

I write no
great poems
this day
just a mass
of words
flung through ether
by marvels
beyond my
comprehension

characters that
come to rest
on retinas
that never burned
my image
in reality

and it dawns
on me that
life may be
much more grand

than we are
ever willing

to admit

Ah, the big question and how we get to it. Good one, Carter.

And Ben, I like yours too. I've read that somewhere before, but it's real as hell.

Yeah, Eric and Ben, I enjoyed both of these. Tim, you need to hit us with some of your fine poems. And Harry Calhoun, who is lurking around somewhere.

Nah, no rules, just whatever. Not going to be many of us in any case.

The below poem is Ben's, which I by accident deleted trying to remove a long hr line that knocked the links out of kilter

---

Here is an old one of mine to maybe get some verbs shakin' around here.


CUTTING UP THE ROAD KILL

I was by the sink
working the big cuts
off a front shoulder
with my Buck Knife

Ed was trimming
the rough stuff
off the big cuts
& trying to keep
his kids
from wrecking the house

Benny was at the table
slicing steaks
a quarter-inch thick
perfect for jerky

Warren was holding forth
with a beer
in one hand
and a joint in the other

Steve came wandering in
and announced,
"Hey Benny,
there's some old guy
out front.
Wants to talk to you."

Benny looks up, blood
to the elbows
and says
"Invite him in."

Turns out to be the guy
who owns this old house
in the canyon.
First lived here with his bride
35 years ago. He is woods
boss for a local lumber company.
His true believing wife
drags him to church every Sunday.

Though he hasn't hunted
in twenty years
he knows damn well that
April ain't deer season.
But he saunters into his
old kitchen, looks around
and grins.

Benny looked up and said,
"Road Kill, Kenny, we couldn't
let it go to waste.
Besides, this sumbitch
cost me a headlight."

Kenny's grin broadens.
"Boys, that ain't the first
old doe that's been
cut up on that
kitchen table. Save
me some jerky."

And he was down the road
while we just kept cuttin'
on that fresh road kill,
horning down the beer
& smokin'.
// posted by Ben L. Hiatt @ 9:49 AM

---

That's got the poem back anyway.

GOD DAMN, when I deleted that long line it must have got the whole poem, Ben. Put it back again.

Good one Ben. A chunk of real life, that.

BTW, I had to take that horizontal line out, it put the links all the way to the bottom. Let me stick in a short rule here to see if it also throws everything out of whack:

---

Tried the HR and it works fine to separate comments from poems. Use the code below, except close the <> on end:
< HR ALIGN="CENTER" WIDTH=33% SIZE=3 >

Thanks Carter. And welcome to Harry Calhoun, whose invitation link seemed to work.

Another old one:

boozeville

at 10 i'd steal
a pack of the old man's
camels & fill a big
empty listerine bottle with
some of his booze
make sure to run water
back in the fifth so
the loss wouldn't be
so noticable

then off to the
lumber yard
i'd cut through
wooden valleys
between stacks
find a shorter
pile somewhere in
the middle

my nose filled w/the
smell of sawn pine & oak
poplar & sycamore
momentarily
good sweet camel &
kentucky's finest
sipping whiskey

i'd sip away
lying there on my back
atop a wood stack
with the blue sky
revolving around my head
my mind flying
w/the clouds
on alcohol & tobacco

i could get
high just
inhaling those
unfiltered shorts

a drunken
young thing all
full of myself
i'd dream of
killing people
i'd heard
about in
someplace called
north korea

& about
hank williams
who died drunk
in the back
seat of a car

& about my
fishing pole
& the river
swimming down by
the bluffs where
snakes sunned
on the rocks

the wooden
planks on the
bridge that
clattered musically
when cars passed over

4 years later i
drank a whole fifth
of the old man's
seagrams golden gin
while the folks were
out juking one
saturday night

they came in after
midnight & found me
lying in the
kitchen floor
out cold

dad was angry that
i'd drunk his booze
but i heard
a trace of pride
when he said
you drank that
whole bottle
by youself

that listerine bottle
& the woodstacks
were the start of
a half-century road
to boozeville & back
w/all the good & bad
that brings

but damn
i hope to tip
a couple more before
they slam the lid
and say so long
old hoss

ride
steady

No don't mind, Ben, but I just put on a link to your site in the last upgrade a few minutes ago.

Good to see you here, Ben. Lurk or post as you wish. I wish some of the other guys who have tried could get hooked up, but there are apparently some problems still. Maybe we'll get those ironed out.

I haven't written anything in quite some time, but I'll stick on the last thing I did and finished. Have several more in this series but none of them completed.

on the paint line - '63

dust & noise on
the midnight shift
the hiss of sprayers
blasting overspray
machines roaring around
the lot, skidding corners

madness in the pomona night
the mexicans bring
hot burritos & tamales
for breaktime
sing spanish songs above the roar

laughing madmen
good guys who befriended a young
hillbilly newlywed
from a world so different

old gil chavez likely a
dead saint now
slap a sombrero on his dark head
& he could have passed for every
mexican bandit in any western movie
you ever saw

paco the singer throwing down
his grinding wheel to pose in song
arms spread wide as he yodels out
a lick that should be spinning on
sixties acetate
a smile wide as t-town splitting
his mustachioed face

booger manzito sneaking to
the locker room to hit on quarts of
thunderbird wine smuggled in
going down one night behind his electric
wire brush which spun
inside his coverall fly before choking down
drunken seizure victim

bald "curly" champa the dago nodding
behind a big heavenly beer
after shift change grinning 'til
his forehead wrinkled
lifer on the paint line

cowboy in the main spray booth
bigmouth with his honda 50 newfangled
little jap iron trying to drag terry
with the new ford 427 after work
slaughter on reservoir blvd
the putter of one tiny cylinder &
the squall of rear wheels turned by
425 horsepower pulling a fiberglass body

sometimes the little dwarf woman
a tiny marilyn monroe clone perfect
in every tiny dimension
strutted past the outer fence under
the lights & when she did the tools went down
& everybody dug her moves until she
faded from sight behind the bushes
laughter & jokes about just "stickin' her on it"
& spinning her around

big ed in his golf cart smiling drunk all night
cruising the darkened alleys inside the complex
his face beet red from whiskey
he didn't care much what you did
long as you did something & didn't
break too much & you didn't get his stool
at ellie's lounge for long morning drinks

a year of it & i was gone
pissed off one night i took a walk as
22 yr olds will do & i went on to other things
& wondered about the place i was
decided that the golden west was just
another armpit like most places

and remembered that when
i first moved there i thought
the palm trees looked so exotic until
i learned that rats lived in

the top of them

Some people are having a problem accepting the invitation I sent. Remember, if the link to the "accept" or "decline" page works, you have to do one or the other at that point and not decide to come back to it later, because the link is just good for one click--why it's that way I have no idea. The link can also be copied and pasted in the browser address bar, which seems to work better sometimes than attempting to click through with various URLs.

Another point: if you use Google toolbar you can blog right from your browser no matter where you are on the 'net. That's one of the features since Google bought out the blog outfit.

Damn, you got in the groove with that one. I really like the use of language, sort of explosive.

I started this blog today and will invite a select few fellow writers to post here. The intent is to post information/thoughts/poems or anything related to that realm--we'll reserve the rancor and "attack" material for the other blogs created for that purpose. Of course, valid criticism is not discouraged.

So, if you join here post whatever you wish. If you want a link added to the sidebar just email it to me and I'll be glad to put it on.