Best Mastodon Poems
I like it when I go with one of them as I don't have to drive and I can enjoy
God's wonders. Yesterday our tank fitting took us east to the town of Douglas. As we
passed through an area where derricks and pumps replaced the ranching scenes I once
again though of another time when I contemplated the origin or fossil fuel. I know in Ash Fall,
Nebraska they have found hundreds of Rhinoceros fossils. They were killed by the volcanic
ash that fell and suffocated them as they were in or near a water hole. Camels, horses, and
numerous other creatures of the now African plains were also destroyed at this time. I went
by this fantastic place on one of my trips out here to Wyoming. But they were to close to the
surface to be used for fossil fuel. I then began to picture various dinosaurs and wondered
which was at the bottom of each of these wells. And that led to another picture. What if one
of these monsters was riding around with me in my van. After all I have to use oil to keep it
in working condition. Was it like Sue, a T-Rex, or maybe a Raptor. Then I got a little nervous
because I do a lot of long distance traveling. What if I should have trouble? Could that mean
that it were possibly coming back to life? And perhaps out alone on one of these trips they
could....... Then I took a deep breath and pictured a mastodon because they were native to
this area also. If it should turn out that were the animal at least it could possibly be another
means of transportation.
I just saw an eagle
Soar across the plain
And a dozen sea gulls
My daughters roof do claim
The wind is blowing fiercely
But the cloud above Casper Peak
Moves ever so slowly
Like a cat as it does creep
The jagged rocks piled high
Atop the pasture ridge
Speak to me of eons
Since the glacier age
The wind, the rain, the dust, the dirt
Have left scars upon their faces
But to me it matters not
For I am looking for their traces
I dig among the crumbled pile
And on my face I wear a smile
For there I find a rock so old
I can almost feel the cold
A petrified piece of wood
Tells of where a forest stood
But as I look all around
No more pieces can be found
From where did this piece come
If I dig deep will I find bone
I gaze north, south, west and east
As I stand atop this awesome ridge
The dinosaur, the mastodon
Where pterodactyls fly at dawn
Or was it later in the game
When man did live in a cave
If I could only find the place
Where the stone tools they did make
Or maybe even find a wheel
My curiosity to heal
But then that would not be true
I'd have to try and find just who
And up above God just smiles
"Be patient you'll know in a little while"
Cile Beer
July 13, 2010
Steel mountains tower over ancient minds
The mismatched soul anachronism
Instincts progressively lagging behind
Primitive brain sees a deep red cataclysm
Ghostly mastodons stalk the fluorescent plain
A daunting checklist of tasks today
Frigid rivers to be crossed in your brain
Endless list of invisible foes you must slay
A war without coffins, blood, or casualties
Teeth gritted, girded in polyester for battle
It’s knives in the back and social realities
No true combat; it’s never settled.
Unrelenting angst through every fiber
Forever hanging over the precipice of defeat
It follows you: a rapacious saber-toothed tiger
Implacable stare, neither attacks nor retreats
Gone is the clan, the intuitive belonging
Disconnected tribe inside your building
Every woman and man the empty longing
The neighbors you don’t know won’t come ringing
The dingy cement, windblown trash scene
Dreary and numbing external reality
You heart calls out for a deeper green
Light humming, phone ringing, no tranquility
No reason to fight for any tribe you see
Except, of course, your family on TV
Nothing to die for, unless the royal “we”
Beat the drum of prosperity or ideology
A Sabercat here, a Ghostly Mastodon there,
Back is bowed, veins on your nose
Run wrinkled hands through graying hair
A million drops in the bucket, it overflows
Just remember when you find
You don't understand the rage
That you are a savanna mind
Trapped in a modern cage
3/29/16
waved away from certain topics
Yolanda and her Singing Saw blade
captured the intellectual integrity
of a generation in readjustment
freedom springs only from freedom kids
so lock your shields and set your pikes
and whatever else unmasks the poseurs
making mischief upon civilization
with zero police penetration
weighed and calibrated by the
by the US Bureau of Insanity
warned by the masked men at Masked Men U.
we'll find out if your daddy raised a fool
putting on a carefree face
clinging to childhood like a lost puppy
once again it's political suicide everywhere
the archetypes are tramping
through my head like Hitlerjugen
convulsed in the Little Death championship
strutting and hooting for a mate
will today's monster be tomorrow's arbiter of grace
Godzilla was eventually tamed was he not
he now does handyman work
and can come around some time
and get that squeak out of your door
that feudal ignorance and superstition
start with whatever impedes your mind
laughter will watch your back
cognition is a word game
rally and carry the colors with insolence
like a glowing catalytic converter
streaking across the endless night
distant from instinct like a horizon
illuminating a physics of the psyche
alive with maladapted ardor
like a dynasty of serial plagiarists
what then exactly is attention
news flash we are way past neolithic
up where the power meets the grid
if your point of observation is outlawed
only the involuntary spasms will remain
and a persistent mania for theology
to be dissected like laboratory toads
and poked with battery wires
where pickpockets with scissors
leave your pants a bit breezy
while clicking the mouse button of God
in a well orchestrated decoy fiasco
a talent show for the inept
tonight we have a knockout lineup
with lots of orange explosions
horrendous vs. hellacious
mastodon hair from the freezer
slapped on the bald spots
by a rapidly wilting imagination
strumming its ukelele in a hammock
burnt to a crisp in a flaming car wash
his soul finally attained its freedom
such as it was soot and ashes by then
From "Engine of Didactic Beauty" available on Amazon
Artist Portfolio: http://walteralter.byethost32.com/
Grandma! Your talking to a fiery dragon.
Yes, one of my many talents I didn't know I
Possessed. I will not be impolite. It's standing
There in all its fiery splendor talking from the
Other side of the fence illuminating the
Darkness.
I'm honored to finally have met, seen, and
Talked to an incredible phenomenon.
Would you say your bigger than a mastodon?
I must be under a spell. Where is the sorceress?
Grandma! Your talking to a fiery dragon.
When you use your imagination John
Anything is possible and it is bottomless.
I'm honored to finally have met, seen, and
Talked to an incredible phenomenon.
Do you eat tarragon?
We are making progress.
Grandma! Your talking to a fiery dragon.
I wave my hand and said Soon all this will be
Gone
Back to lifelessness.
I'm honored to finally have met, seen, and
Talked to an incredible phenomenon.
A bonfire gave me the key to once upon.
My grandson is still talking about my
Childishness.
My grandma talked to a fiery dragon.
She was honored to have met, seen, and
Talked to such an incredible phenomenon.
I suppose the inventor of the wheel will ever remain a mystery,
A nameless face lost forever in the abyss of ancient history.
Was it a man or woman? This we will never know.
No matter who it was I'd like to postulate my theory though!
Woman from the time of Eve was, it seems, dealt a losing hand,
Facing misery under mans' thumb, acquiescing to his every demand.
Man had his sport hunting with rock, club, arrow and bow,
Piling mastodon meat and other game upon her back bent low!
One day she mused, "Ugh! I've had enough of this silly guff!"
So a woman it was who invented the wheel to carry all that stuff!
This novel idea made life easier for everyone concerned.
Man mused, "I need to find other things to pester her, by durned!"
The oldest known wheel it seems was made in Mesopotamia,
And I reckon among the citizenry caused sensational mania!
Everyone just had to have their own set of "wheels", as it were.
The sale of this unique commodity outsold frankincense and myrrh!
Now many macho guys will claim that I have betrayed their gender,
By suggesting that woman was the inventor and that to them I pander.
But we are grateful to the originator, whether it be a him or her,
As we whizz along the highway on our radials at seventy miles per!
Robert L. Hinshaw, CMSgt, USAF, Retired
(© All Rights Reserved)
LOADED UP ON CARNAGES MASTODON RADIUS
MARKINGS ON THE WALL
HEIGHTEN PICTURE PERFECT ETCHINGS ABOUT TO FALL
HAVE YOU READ ME MY, RIGHTS YET
WAIT ON ME AS I PLACE MY BET, YEAH!
DO YOU KNOW WHERE I CAN TAKE MY CHICKEN TO A VET, WELL. . .
THINK I'LL HAVE BETTER LUCK WITH THE DIANOISES OF MY PET ROCK
Lord I call on you
COVERED IN MY OWN BLOOD
NOBODY CARES NOBODY LOOKIN
I AM COVERED IN CAMGLAMORANT SLEEPING IN THE VACANT CAR IN A GARAGE
MOSKETOES AND ROACHES GIVING ME A MOSAGE (WHAT THAT AIN'T SPELLED RIGHT)
I DON'T SEE NO HELP TONIGHT
MAKING COOKIES OUT OF STYROFOAM BEADED MEMBRANCES
YOU KNOW WHAT I AM SAYIN
YOU KNOW WHAT I AM SAYIN
WHEN I'M CONFUESD
Lord I call on you
AGAIN I AM LOADED UP ON CARNAGES MASTODON RADIUS MARKINGS ON THE WALL
AND I DON'T NO LONGER INTEND TO FALL
MAKING COOKIES OUT OF STYROFOAM BEADED MEMBREANCES
WHO ATE MY PEANUT BUTTER SANDWICHES
WHERE IS Ernie Hayes, Who is Ernie Hayes?
and what band does he play IN and why is he to blame
And I can read them all, read them all
And as I read the literature that's on the wall
As I read it I call on you
As I see it I call on you
As I descript it, I call, I call on you;
have they read me my rights yet?
do you know where I can take my chicken to the vet?
think I'll have better luck with my pet rock;
what time is it, what does it say on the clock?
Lord what am I to do, it's free guess I'll just;
CALL ON YOU
03/25/14
Written words by James Edward Lee Sr.
I think of you, mother.
I think of you, grandmother.
Only three castings forward of our mitochondria over 100 years.
I think past you, grandmother,
to your mother,
and her mother,
and beyond.
The unbroken hawser of female to female.
Back so far afore the scouring of mountains,
the rising of seas, the comings and goings of saber-tooths and mastodon.
Back through time, when at one moment we were something else.
Then, in the belch of birth... the human genome.
I think of that vestige of our inimitable femininity that is unchanged...
Woman to woman to woman.
Who was the first who raised her hand in rage and fear,
in this unique humanity,
against her daughter?
Woman to woman to woman.
I am the last daughter, a Y for my X, a son.
Woman to woman to woman
would stand aghast when I said...
I do not know how to love. Take him; I do not know how to love.
I tried, but I am the last daughter,
and I will not succeed.
Mother to mother to mother to daughter.
I do not know how to love.
I am the last, the ultimate daughter.
I will not pass our inimitable femininity.
I am the ultimate daughter.
I will pass abundant amnesty.
Anticlimactic mood after February 18th, 2021 snow storm subsided
I hate spoiler alert
regarding weather forecasters prediction,
especially when meteorologist
wannabe spouse doth blurt
out impending blizzard
which never materializes.
Yours truly humbled and enamored
when Mother Nature
singly and/or nsync with old man winter
looses propensity to wreak havoc
and/or blankets landscape
I fondly think back
remembering '96 storm of the century.
At that time January 1996
me and the missus timesharing
Shawnee on the Delaware
ardently striving, yet
unsuccessful conceiving Blizzard Baby.
Now far beyond procreative age,
(though I wistfully envisage
begetting another progeny -
simultaneously stretching credulity
to breaking point)
all things considered
exhaustion would peter out
after capitulation of divining rod
necessitating lifetime to recoup energy.
Bound within figurative four walls
of Schwenksville, Pennsylvania domicile
courtesy appreciable snowfall,
I direct energy crafting poem.
Yours truly will actually
refrain comestibles despite feeling hungry -
lest metabolism to digest food
decreases potential alertness,
and full belly finds me
ready able and willing
to doze immediately into deep slumber.
Hungry stomach in tandem
with eventful weather
sends surge of giddiness
coursing thru body electric
crackling, popping, and snapping
(while O Captain My Captain)
came to witty man (me) suddenly
enervating with poignant pregnant expectancy
papa pondering his empty nest syndrome
analogously attempting to offset void
coaxing poem into existence
unsure how literary endeavor
(mine) will thrive
amidst well suited
panoply of prolific writers,
whose unseen fingers
hop lightly and gracefully
across qwerty computer keyboard
akin to heavy armed soldiers
with fearlessness and deliberation
heading off to war to acquire poetic license.
Meanwhile chafed knuckles
of one garden variety primate
previously scraping along tundra
(methinks I espy frozen Mastodon)
(before twenty first century caveman
learned to stand erect)
endeavors to strike letter combinations
eliciting, facilitating, and generating
enticing curb appeal.
What explains Trumpenstein’s command
That the U.S. borders expand?
His withered small shaft
Needs a bigger graft
Of mastodon parts from Greenland
Imagine they find your bones
in a boggy field -
it happens all the time,
speaking of which,
time is your pocket handkerchief,
your wristwatch,
and your best evening pants
all reduced to insect dust.
Only a fragment
(a rust-addled skimpy second hand)
remains to be picked up
by the pale flesh
of a much more efficient brain
than you or your many cousins
ever had.
The rest of you is much scattered,
much distributed among the small
bog dwelling children of lesser gods.
Ten or a hundred years later they may find
a distant tooth with its crown intact,
later still, a being reports your broken jaw
unearthed by the sludging rain.
Will they then have enough of your head
to commence a plaster likeness of your
drunken grin after a cocktail party,
or will they find the rest of your skull
in a deeper layer of dirt
with an old crack across its dome.
Perhaps they will assume you died
at the hands of an axe wielding foe,
never guessing
you fell heavily off your girlfriends Honda
practicing one last incautious wheelie
on a minor road in darkest Derbyshire?
Will the few decimated parts of that Honda
be thought to be a primitive metallic skeleton
of an ancient sacrificial temple?
When the elements finally reveal
more fractured bits of you
will an artificial intelligence
reassemble your last moments
while misinterpreting
the age and time of your mediocre your life?
Will they solidify your that life
the way we reconstruct diorama’s
of mastodon herds grazing in tall grass,
while illustrating for dramatic effect,
menacingly concealed packs
of saber tooth tigers lying in wait.
Be very sure to care of your wrist watch,
for they who excavate your posterity
will probably misplace your existence
by at least ten thousand years,
not that you, like the mastodons, will care,
but they might.
Turn the tables on those
haughty bosses you wait on
Turn on them aggressively
~ like a mastodon
O, how will we ever cope
The dreaded meteor is on its way
The weather mavens say ‘No hope’
that those dinosaurs will live another day
What will we tiny little mammals do
without our super-sized friends
btw: They’re also predicting an ‘Ice Age’ soon
Whoa is us, inevitable is our end
But wait, what’s this I hear
Wooly mammoth and Mr. Mastodon
Grown large of a sudden
Surely we too can overcome our fear
*****************
Millenia later, Charles Darwin wrote that all species must
change their ways from time to time...
To survive, we adjust
having accumulated too much ‘climate convenience rust’
As a child, men of science warned me
about the coming of a second ice age.
They flashed pictures of stomping mastodon
hungry saber tooth cats
and giant sloths with enormous claws.
I listened closely and was frightened
but I was all in and took quick action.
I learned how to build an igloo
by stuffing snow into hollow plastic blocks.
I sharpened the end of dozens of sticks
to battle the giant cats and mastodon.
Now, Bill Nye, Mr. Gore and Hanoi Jane
are warning me of imminent global warming
and biblical flooding rarely seen.
I'm taking them seriously.
So, I'm stockpiling tuna fish, beer and seed.
and building a tiny arc just for three
as I'll never have two of everything.
There's only the cat, an olive-eyed dove and me.
I had supposed all this was closed to me.
The age of miracles was long since gone,
no wisp of wonder left to dwell upon.
I had assumed that I was doomed to be
leaf-litter underneath a winter tree,
about as in-demand as Prester John,
as of-the-moment as the mastodon,
all middle age and mediocrity.
I ache to watch her putting up her hair,
alone before the mirror, unaware:
I love the God-sent perfume of her skin,
the olive oval of that perfect chin,
the way she graces, not just sits upon, a chair.
She came, that life-in-earnest should begin.