The Cows

[Lumiere]

Every day I drive past
five black cows in a field.
To me, they are all
both male and female.
To me, if you poured wine,
milk, mud, and s h i t
over a human grave and let it
sit long enough and warm enough,
it would swell into this thing,
a cow.

I think about them often.
lf my dog licks my ear in the morning
and I’m not quite awake, I think
The cows have come for me!
They’ll take the ends of my clothes in their teeth,
and carry me away, straight out the window!

I think of clambering over the barbed wire fence
with a plate of my feces so they could smell that
I’m in love and doomed, this time really
doomed, and surround me with their bulk.

It’s ridiculous.

When I come home at night,
there they are, right where
they left me.

[Bar22do]

I hope I sense what you say in this poem, Lumière, and to me it's a bit tragic, submissive attitude to life... for "the cows are always there". It's well written, IMO, reads authentic and flowing from the root of the poet's mood... somewhat mirroring my own.

Best, Bar

[Jerrybaldy]

Unique, dark and quirky and downright wierd. It is right up my street Lumiere. Good job :)
Jerry

[blank|verse]

This is brilliantly inventive, Lumiere. I don't think I've laughed at a poem on LitNet quite as much as this! :)

It reminds me of Charles Simic, a poet who has influenced my own writing lately, with his skewed, surreal, and sinister interpretations of the world.

The thought expressed in the first stanza is brilliantly profane, and opens the suggestion that 'the cows' are in fact docile people. The hilarious second stanza shows how spooked the narrator is by the cows and provides the reader with an crazy visual image, as does the third.

In terms of 'craft' the lines are very well controlled; it would be easy to let a poem like this run out of control. I wasn't overly keen on the repetition of 'To me' at the start of two successive sentences in the first stanza, but the rhythm of 'long enough and warm enough' slows the lines nicely, before the reader is brought back to the omnipresent cows. The longer lines in the second stanza nicely reflect the narrator's heightened emotions; and the last stanza winds things down nicely with its shorter lines.

The only things I'm not so sure about are the word 'doomed', which seems slightly out-of-place in the poem; and the 'It's ridiculous' line, which I'm not sure is needed, particularly as a separate stanza.

Those aside, this is hilarious, absurd and well-written. An exceptional poem.

[Delta40]

I like it! faeces? what bravado you have as a poet to mention that word in art!

I like cows but I sense they are symbolic of much more.

[PrinceMyshkin]

Much as B|V said, this is a poem that dares to open with audacious surrealism, then meets and raises its own bet and goes on from there. The turnabout in the last line is genius.

[Lumiere]

I hope I sense what you say in this poem, Lumière, and to me it's a bit tragic, submissive attitude to life... for "the cows are always there". It's well written, IMO, reads authentic and flowing from the root of the poet's mood... somewhat mirroring my own.

Best, Bar

Bar . . .
A tragic, submissive attitude to life. Yes, maybe. I've been thinking about this throughout the day, because I wrote this with little introspection and am now wondering what it has to do with me, and what it means.
If not quite tragic, there is at least a desperation about it.
Thanks for reading, Bar

Jerry . . .
I always beam at "downright weird" --- thanks!


B/V . . .


This is brilliantly inventive, Lumiere. I don't think I've laughed at a poem on LitNet quite as much as this! :)

It reminds me of Charles Simic, a poet who has influenced my own writing lately, with his skewed, surreal, and sinister interpretations of the world.

The thought expressed in the first stanza is brilliantly profane, and opens the suggestion that 'the cows' are in fact docile people. The hilarious second stanza shows how spooked the narrator is by the cows and provides the reader with an crazy visual image, as does the third.

In terms of 'craft' the lines are very well controlled; it would be easy to let a poem like this run out of control. I wasn't overly keen on the repetition of 'To me' at the start of two successive sentences in the first stanza, but the rhythm of 'long enough and warm enough' slows the lines nicely, before the reader is brought back to the omnipresent cows. The longer lines in the second stanza nicely reflect the narrator's heightened emotions; and the last stanza winds things down nicely with its shorter lines.

The only things I'm not so sure about are the word 'doomed', which seems slightly out-of-place in the poem; and the 'It's ridiculous' line, which I'm not sure is needed, particularly as a separate stanza.

Those aside, this is hilarious, absurd and well-written. An exceptional poem.

You're much more conscious of rhythm in reading this than I was in writing it.
You're much more conscious in general.
I like and appreciate that; poetry depends on this collaboration.

And you thought it was funny! How interesting!
Silliness touches everything I do, but usually without my intention.

As for "doomed", I'm only telling the truth. Or the truth as I feel it.
I really do drive past these cows.

Thanks for this in-depth reading and comment!

And thanks for the Charles Simic tip-off . . . I wasn't familiar . . .

Delta . . .
Thanks. In a purely phonetic sense, feces is a beatiful word!
I'm sure The Cows mean much more than The Cows. I don't quite know what yet.

Prince . . .
The Cows are very surreal to me, too. (As I mentioned above, I really do drive past these cows.) Thanks.

[Bar22do]

For sure, desperation expresses it more adequately... and indeed, some introspection in relation with this poem could prompt a welcome change, not only for you. Because your (so effective a) poem leaves a strangely disturbing trace in the reader (at least this one)...!

Best from Bar

[blank|verse]

It must be just me! If anyone is willing to expand on their deeper interpretations, I'm willing to be enlightened. :) I can see how the cows could be interpreted as people, and how the narrator has some form of social phobia or something... but that's to ignore the fact the poem is about cows which have an intrinsic comical value.

Or maybe I've just seen one too many of these milk adverts on tv (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz8xnXblo1Q). :)

[firefangled]

Lumiere, I read this as about how cows process existence. They represent a sort of "wormhole" in the fabric of reality. They stand mostly in one place eating reality and ****ting it out.

To meditate on cows is to enter their space where reality comes in one end and out the other. It's another way of watching the world go by in its simplest form.

In that sense I saw this not as passive, but primordial and almost outside of time, which is how I felt while reading it.

I'm not sure why cows are sacred in India, but it makes sense that they would be.

And you are definitely in Simic land. Try his "Hotel Insomnia" and "Walking the Black Cat"

Thanks for a very enjoyable read

[qimissung]

I like what firefangled said. It best expresses how I feel about this-primordial.

I especially love these lines:

"The cows have come for me!
They’ll take the ends of my clothes in their teeth,
and carry me away, straight out the window!"

A brilliant poem.

[luspin]

There is a pasture directly behind the subdivison I live in that has cows in it. Recently the owner started feeding the cows in the pasture right behind my house.

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