Auntie's Anti-Poems

Yes yes yes! I read this I think Friday but didn't leave a comment as I was in a rush. But I'm surprised no one else commented yet. That's what I found really disheartening with the state of Litnet poetry section. Other than the usual suspects that we hear from, there are just too many folks who post their stuff and solicit comments, but they *never* offer any themselves. In this cold hard world of one-way street, we still got each other Auntie!

Nice use of cynicism here. That's about the size of it — we go through the motion on these holidays, we even have a script for each occasion. I think the ital'd notes-to-self reads brilliantly. Some of the subtleties might be lost to those in other countries who don't celebrate Thanksgiving, but for us, well, from sharing a meal with people we have had a history, getting past all the baggage or maybe not, to smelling the nutmeg and tasting the turkey, it's all here. A lot of nice touches, including the visual of children stretching the bird. Lovely ending, cold breath puffing like a ghost. There is so much to love, like a full and fulfilling Thanksgiving dinner, minus the drama. Great job.

Yes, I guessed at Thanksgiving. But never mind that. This is a seriously good poem, probably one of the best I've seen on here. Each little vignette seems stright from life, each one separate and connected, then a story, a character, an attitude emerges. I found it totally engrossing.

The only moment that jarred was your "forever-so-humble" pun, which is so typically AuntShecky that it broke the mood for a second and pulled me out of the story. But never mind that, good stuff.

Yours fooly was getting a bit discouraged and disheartened, but thanks to Haunted and Prendrelemick I feel much better now.

I Thought of You, Joan K was a beautiful poem consisting of mixed emotions. It would certainly move whoever received that poem as a letter. An indescribable feeling flowed through me as I read the poem - something more than just bittersweet. You are a beautiful poet and never forget to write!

I must also add that the two featherweights are really heavyweights — where self deprecation and irony conspires into a great poem.

And it's just so pretty "on the Lake Road" like I'm there...

Premature Ejaculations*

The solstice hasn’t yet arrived,
but already the sun is slouching,
skulking in a low spot in the sky.
It’s far too soon
to think of Spring.

Yet the trees and fields,
donned in wintry finery,
proclaim white as the new color,
and from the roof some rhythmic drops
drip down to mark a sprightly melody,

as the boisterous jays
go crazy for black oil
sunflower seeds, like dope.

For miles around
almost everything sings
and dances beneath
bubbles of glee,
as if celebrating
the life to come.



*

Quote:

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[from Webster’s New World Dictionary] :
ejaculation n. 1. A sudden ejection of fluid, esp. of semen, from the body.
2. A sudden vehement utterance; exclamation
3. R.C.Ch. Any very brief, private prayer

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"A murky stream from a source unknown
churns deep beneath our unschooled reckoning"


This sums up so much in one line. The natural flow of poetry from the unknowing urge/source, its murkiness since not quite filtered through schooling. Ah! i love it!

oops, I thought this was going to reply where I intended for it to. Well, I dont think I can delete this can I? Is there a way to post on previous poems without being placed at the end of the thread? It was for your first post on this thread the "Puzzle and Pity" poem.

Might as well comment on the next one here too.

An Exhortation Forbidding Suicide


"Yet lacking me, the world won't wet its sleeve
with weeping. Dogs will wag their tails,
and songs of birds will hold their tones.
Skies will stay blue against white points of sails,
while stems won't cease to bend where winds have blown.
The world would stay, if I left it alone."

This reminded me when a friend committed suicide. I was left so completely devastated and yet the world seemed unchanged. It was a difficult realization, I felt that somehow people and things should have been different, but they were only different for me. You invoked within me that memory here.

OMG! I think this is my favorite poem I have every read on here! Within it's light-hearten rhythm you bring an enormously strong binding to humanity. This is the truth of all religions, in one poem combined. I can't tout enough this has made my heart a thousand times more joyous than any hymn at church. this should be the hymn of humanity, we are all from the same wood and everybody is good!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

Everybody’s Everybody

Everybody’s every color,
a multi-grain cake of yeast.
Everyone’s a hundred percent Jewish,
and a Moslem facing east.

Everybody’s an Asian
speaking Swahili in the rain.
Everybody’s an Amer-Indian
with ancestors from Spain.

Everybody’s an atheist
who reads the Good Book every day.
Everybody’s Irish-Northern-Catholic,
and everyone’s a little bit gay.

Everybody needs a place to sleep
after he hugs his kids at night.
Everybody wants to eat and drink,
but nobody – really – wants to fight.

Everybody on this elevator
feels the plunging down the chute.
That’s why everybody gets the shaft,
no matter whom they persecute.

Each of us is born a unique scion
from the same old piece of wood.
Every body will die some day,
but every body’s good.

Everybody’s everyone,
and Everyone is good.

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I would agree to some extent this describes the human condition, but then again I guess it depends on what your goals were. Grabbing for fortune,success, or fame even if reached doesnt gain that cure to , that inward question to the purpose of it all. Maybe god's goal wasnt perfection, just experience and the desire to return. SOOOOO BEAUTIFUL! thank you AuntieShecky, i am loving this collection, add me to your fan club :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

“The whole earth is our hospital”
–T. S. Eliot

Condition: Human


From first gasp to final sigh
we claim we owe everything to the Divine,
the source of all existence, in Whom
we place our awe and lay our care.

At what ill-starred point in history
did Mammon’s blinding light
deflect our turn to gold – or
at least its lesser, yet all-consuming, ores? (1)

Amid fatigue we drive ourselves sick and sore,
devoted to the chronic, pecuniary chase.
Our sights veer from sheer survival to comfort, then
back, since relapse always stalks the cure.

Eros grabs our temporary interest,
a long desire not quite fully quenched
with quickly-quaffed, febrile doses.
We aim to love eternally, but we don’t.

For a time we delight in scions of ourselves,
reaching farther out toward deep posterity,
each of us a little Achilles, ever-striving
for legendary status, settling for ersatz fame. (2)

We do not concern ourselves with why,
preferring to act and direct the pain
of an inward gaze away. We’d rather sit
than stand, and rather move than think.

We aspire to live perfectly,
but we fail.
We never really want to die,
but we do.




(1) Matthew 6:24; Paradise Lost, I, 674
(2) Lines near the conclusion of The Iliad suggest that Achilles will achieve immortality from the stories which future ages will tell about him.

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Reading all this wonderful poetry, I would feel so sad if you had ever felt this way. Each poem is a testament to your talent. I hope that spring brought you your well deserved plenty.


"This strange myopia of mine
weakens my view in prisms of ways.
It strains my eyes when hours shine,
with its focus on the darkest days."

- yes, that narrow shortsighted view of only our faults, well put.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AuntShecky

The following, which attempts to channel the spirit of "April Inventory" by W.D. Snodgrass and "The Reckoning" by Richard Wilbur -- with maybe a passing nod to the great Frank Loesser, as an entry in a recent LitNet poetry contest, is re-posted here for comments:

Hindsight

This strange myopia of mine
weakens my view in prisms of ways.
It strains my eyes when hours shine,
with its focus on the darkest days.
I can't see my way clear enough to shake
the sight of every dumb mistake.

I see more flaws than I can count.
The list gets longer. Wrongs arrange
themselves into a steep amount.
I'm blind to faults that I could change.
And I have felt at my heart’s core
a thousand needles, maybe more.

Past peers misread Marcuse off the shelves.
Aloof, I looked at them askance.
Now wealth has claimed their former selves,
while failure long since has seized my stance.
No doubt those folks have pity to share.
(Of that, this self has plenty to spare.)

The times I squandered, wasted, spent
chasing silly dreams or foolish men!
No dough, a deadbeat with the rent:
the same old me I've always been.
I could patch my wounds with duct tape and string,
or open my eyes and look at spring.

The blackbird with his rosy stripe,
the waking frogs down in the mud,
the forsythia so eagerly ripe
to welcome its early golden bud
all show that stale old winds have blown.
I'll force an April of my own,

and with each green spear that pokes its head
up through the ground that’s soft at last,
I'll soundly spank and send to bed
all the bad winters of my past.
For spring gives me another chance
to live -– without a backward glance.

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

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Thanks for your comments. ^^^^
The following is the current, most recent post in the thread:



Premature Ejaculations*

The solstice hasn’t yet arrived,
but already the sun is slouching,
skulking in a low spot in the sky.
It’s far too soon
to think of Spring.

Yet the trees and fields,
donned in wintry finery,
proclaim white as the new color,
and from the roof some rhythmic drops
drip down to mark a sprightly melody,

as the boisterous jays
go crazy for black oil
sunflower seeds, like dope.

For miles around
almost everything sings
and dances beneath
bubbles of glee,
as if celebrating
the life to come.



*

Quote:

---

[from Webster’s New World Dictionary] :
ejaculation n. 1. A sudden ejection of fluid, esp. of semen, from the body.
2. A sudden vehement utterance; exclamation
3. R.C.Ch. Any very brief, private prayer

---

I loved this! Witty title too aunty - gives a positive spin to the term. Lovely imagery as I travel to work on a hot summers morn...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Delta40

I loved this! Witty title too aunty - gives a positive spin to the term. Lovely imagery as I travel to work on a hot summers morn...

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Thanks, Delta! Enjoy your summer sun. I like Winter, but I don't have to drive in it. (See today's anti-humor post.) A big snowstorm (a foot plus) along with another storm yesterday. Maybe too much of a good thing.

Starting Point

It may have been the day
winter storms got names,
though we’ve known snow
and coldness
and ice, always;

or when art became
a tawdry trinket,
thinner ware for sale,
like common cans of corn,
when musical comedies
lost their comedy and music.

Or when money tended
to favor the already-monied,
gaining more respect than God
and making poverty a sin;

when a mantle of guilt
hung around scrawny shoulders
shivering beneath
a garland of grief,

and the Sabbath became
a synonym for despair.

It may have been the dawn
of consciousness–-
and with it, pain
in the reality of lack,
lack of power,
lack of usefulness,
lack of grace

amid the awareness
that the self which most
would purely love to shed
is the only thing we have.

But probably in the moment
of that infinitesimal spark
of nothing
into something
into everything.

This is so well crafted Auntie. Cans of corn could tie in better with musical comedies. Each great on its own but the juxtaposition not quite as smooth as the rest. It feels so symbolic considering it's the new year. Heck, even the snow is real!