Oh Prince.Originally Posted by PrinceMyshkin
Oh Prince.
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
Considering the very lovely poems so far, I almost didn't post this, but then I suppose every parent will relate to this most dreaded of words. Synonymous with childhood.....
Why?
Why do the rainbows come when it rains?
Why can't I fish the leaves from the drains?
Why can't I have chocolate cake for my tea?
Why won't you let me climb the tree?
Why can the birds fly, but not I?
Why do you always know when I lie?
Why do my Grandma's teeth come out?
Why do you tell me not to pout?
Why do you send me to bed at night?
Why can't me and my sister fight?
Why is the grass green and not blue?
Why do you tell me what to do?
Why don't you answer my questions Dad?
Why do they always make you mad?!
Perhaps you could add your own?
Want to know what I think about books? Check out https://biisbooks.wordpress.com/
But why? hehe
Very good. I'm glad you added it because childhood would not be complete without why. Thank goodness...and children...for it.
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
For me the troublesome word was "when," especialy at the beginning of a question. After the mothre of my kids and I separated, I would have them every week-end. The drive was about 30 minutes long and inevitably my daughter, at 3 or 4 or 5 would ask: "When are we going to get there, Dad?"
Assuming that she had only a hazy sense of time, I forbade her to ask questions that began with "when." Of course it took her about three seconds to come up with: "How much longer until..."
Across my bed I would build with random size
blocks of wood, the cities you and I protected;
armies of molded soldiers under my command
and you ever vigilant against intrusive eyes.
Though I listened poorly, it was you who gave
the gift of story as my life’s reason and my refuge,
castles from crates, enhancing Autumn leaves,
and lost within a patch of trees, a voice to save.
Never named, your voice calls, enchanted friend,
from beyond the wall, the briar thicket, darkness,
all that has grown or been built for years between us:
Carve out a door; follow me to childhood’s end.
Leave what you can, whatever blocks your way. Keep
what you must keep, what love and hate have burned
into your soul. These pages are no longer in the past,
they rush at you in your aerie, lifting you to see.
Great Fire...my molded soldiers were on a big pile of top soil. Fresh and cool when you dug deep into it. Thanks.
~Poppy
"Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God." -Tony Blake
Childhood, part one
Begat by force, the mystery
surrounds this smiling thing
that she holds at arms length,
this thing that seems to require
nothing of her, just the basics.
Of that she is expert and the
smiling thing is so perfect in
frills and patent and bouncing
ringlets of red, a father is
captured and held with his
utmost approval by the tiny
antics of this happiness, and
the lavish gift of freedom to
roam outside fences, is given.
The smiling thing pays no heed
to furious fights or hot Georgia
sun blisters, but offers mudpies
and magnolia sandwiches to
satisfy their hunger, and they,
they call her daughter.
amp, August ThirtyFirst, TwoThousandSeven
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
Excellent amp. Gosh I love the South!!!!!
"Some go to church and think about fishing, others go fishing and think about God." -Tony Blake
Poppy, thank you so much. I don't know why I struggled coming up with a poem about childhood. I had such a happy one that when word was chosen several ideas just jumped out. But when I tried to complete them, they all dead ended. But this one does capture my youngest years. I lived in Georgia for many of those so I also love the south.
Last edited by ampoule; 09-01-2007 at 09:31 AM.
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
This so celebrates the genius of children to see beyond what we call reality and create. Something, Ampoule, you were born to do! Wonderful poem. I can't wait to see Part B.
The smiling thing pays no heed
to furious fights or hot Georgia
sun blisters, but offers mudpies
and magnolia sandwiches to
satisfy their hunger, and they,
they call her daughter.
amp, August ThirtyFirst, TwoThousandSeven
And now I can click my heels together and go off to meet my day with a nice little smile that will make people wonder.Thank you Fire, very much.
We have gotten quite a lot of mileage with the word CHILDHOOD so do you think we should move on to Prince's choice.....
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
And now I can click my heels together and go off to meet my day with a nice little smile that will make people wonder.
We have gotten quite a lot of mileage with the word CHILDHOOD so do you think we should move on to Prince's choice.....Novelty
I second that emotion (in my best Smokey voice)
Ooooo....sing it!
I'm in love with The Vinegar Man and Mr. Tanner, but be careful, it could just as easily be you.
"If you're going to write you better have somewhere to come from." Flannery O'Connor
What if the iPod and the Blackberry, Wii,
the Razor and the Blackjack were renamed?
Instead of Captain Crunch, or Improved
Tide or, now, Green Mountain, Seattle’s Best,
Newman’s Own coffees, or, where there is White
Ice Tea, Pastel Bottled sugar of an infinite variety,
what if they were all named Dernier Cri? Every fad
the way Frank Wakefield names his mandolin tunes —
Jesus Loves His Mandolin Player #2, Jesus Loves
His Mandolin Player #67. No more misleading words
like BEST, Healthy, or Less Tar. We would be free
from the curse of embellishment affecting our choice.
If there were Dernier Cri #5, Dernier Cri #183? What then?
Which would we choose, in their brightly illustrated
boxes, the layers of packaging, each revealing
a different material concealing the prize. Digging
like a paleontologist for the celebrated bones, past
gauzy styrofoam, boxes within boxes of felt lined
compartments, their Nalgene™ skeletons pressed
out in a wonder of contemporary manufacturing,
slanted on each side to a 57.01234 degree angle,
intended to cast a slight shading between
the latest thing and its rapidly disappearing edge.
Finally, you would reach the desired strata, the find,
the presentation layer, and it would lie framed in shadow,
the User Manual in Vellum Bristol, nestled in a niche
on the underside of the lid, calculated to impress.
The thing itself covered in a unique sheet of bubbles,
each tiny dome bearing the initials DC, lying gently
over your quest, 3.00314572 by 5.88986989 inches,
the label in Garamond 9.5, Sunlight on Wicker glaze,
or Blue Tsunami, the LED covered in a smoke E-Z Peel™
film, the Satin Brushed finished, the long awaited, Dernier Cri #999.
Last edited by firefangled; 09-03-2007 at 10:18 AM.
God, Dernier Cri is glorious! Glorious! Who would have thought that in addition to your brightly coloured palette, your fine brushes, you possessed a rapier as well?
Smite the infidels! Discomfort the comfortable! Sail on, O ship of state! Sail on, O union strong and great! Humanity, with all its fears, With all the hopes of future years, Is hanging, breathless, on thy fate...
(What this has to do with your poem, I don't know. But it got lodged in my brain & this was the only way I could get it out. And by the way I can do a fairly creditable imitation of Winston Churchill quoting that from a handwritten note he'd received from FDR before the US joined in fighting WWII.)
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