Long Steinbeck Poems

Spring equinox arrives March 20th, 2023 at 5:24 PM

Despite what outside temperature registers
(even absolute zero), the official arrival
of spring occurs, when thee eel hip tic
of coe phish hunt holy Mackerel
becomes tangential to barenaked ladies 
barren...

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I have known:
   of wise detectives catching crooks
   of "Thought Police" revising books
   a shipwrecked family named Robinson
   of lion, witch, and wardrobe magic
   Heathcliff's...

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"50 Words for Poe: Witch"




She liked driving fast
The number plate in the dust
Read DOT.OZ.LimaLimaBrava 
Their destination was Wichita

Foot to the Floor 
Off Route 66 Silver Lady purred
Some Kansas backwater 
Galena sped by in a blur

He...

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What is time? 
But a rotation of the planets, 
A love gone to the wind, 
Or a setting of the sun? 

Sometimes we can’t tell the day, 
But by the bottle we drink. 
Or the...

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He’s Hemingways whiskey, he’s vodka on ice
Smoke on the water, a roll of the dice
Magic and mirrors illusion to most
Thumbing his way from east coast to west coast

He’s lived on the brink, on the edge...

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“A dying people tolerates the present, rejects the future, and finds its satisfactions in past greatness and half-remembered glory.”

“A strong man makes a weak people. A strong people don’t need a strong man.”
John Steinbeck (Nobel...

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The smell of wood smoke drifts through
The air with no presence of mind to settle anywhere
Except on the clothes of old men who struggle to 
Open tin cans with the anticipation of a child with
An...

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As death mimics love itself and clutch a throbbing heart,
kindling consolation to savor flight, farther and farther 
beyond the inner yelps released as vibrating soar easily,
stimulating stress to execute its portion and naught idle,
merely trounce...

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In youth I learned to jump
First off steps, then rooftops
Spirit of adventure
Nurtured in the heart of a child

Preschool acrobat twirling on my head
Grandma swatted my bottom
Repeated words like Tomboy
Never learned to be ladylike

Catholic school discipline
Uniforms,...

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The Library (Words to the Wise)


Shhhhh!  No talking strictly enforced!
Most folks abide, except children, of course
And those who can’t read, don’t care, or don’t want
Goof off in the corners, or sneeze
As sharp, darting eyes...

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It was old Woody that lured me with
Dust Bowl Ballads and so much more
Telling stories of a West
That I'd never heard before.
I was with the Okies as
 They travelled down the road 
Got a new...

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The Inheritance
 
When my mother died, she had a flat
Belonging to social security and the was nothing
Of inheritance to speak about
She had a bookshelf full of books. Most belonged and
Were stolen at the local library...

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Listening to the Boss Singing 
The Ghost of Tom Joad,
Imagining the Okies as they
Travelled their Desolation Road.
Word Pictures  by Steinbeck,
Dust Bowl Ballads by Guthrie,
Green Pastures Of Plenty
Pretty Boy Floyd, Doh Ray Mi.

Ecological disaster,
Dust and...

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A WRITERS LIFE
 There is on Facebook pictures of dead film stars
 like Elisabeth Taylor, who was born in London 
and photos of her childhood. 
I don´t really care about this. We should remember her
as...

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I wish Cesar was here 
now
Someone who know how important
farm workers are, giving them a strong
voice,
You got to see this empire
and how it has exploited all the life
that built it,
And all the money spent to...

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I’ve strolled down Bedford from Barrow,
maybe a couple times or more.
When I would get to 86,
I headed through the garden door.

I felt inspiration flowing,
from the rafters down to the floor.
Words for future generations,
by the authors...

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Can't be weak to them 
For those who thinks
I am strong 
For them 
I have done it.
To be honest,
I am strong 
I know my moves.
I can feel
I can heal.
Them who needs me.
Breaking me,
Not so easy.
Yes....

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John Steinbeck won the Nobel and Pulitzer prize
     For his stories about struggles of the common man
His novel “The Grapes of Wrath” will bring tears to your eyes
   ...

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Favourite Novelists 

Of all the American writers I knew of
some favourites remain, like Theodore Dreiser.
John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and 
Ernest Hemingway. I mentioning him the last,
although I admired his writing, still does 
immensely, he...

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The Consequences of Typos

By Elton Camp

A typo can be far from a minor thing
Discredit and rejection it can bring
See what such errors might have meant
And if these would have gone to print

This book from Papa...

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I have found what I consider a great prize:
In an oyster was a pearl of enormous size.
The villagers have all flocked around me.
This great jewel is what they have come to see.
This could bring my...

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will it pass this way again?

 nobody knows because the community 
library
 has to many paperbacks and the clouds 
to many sins.

 will twain swirl in the rain?
will steinbeck hit the deck?


  will it...

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For who so ever comes to their ruin, 
I’ve been there before.
Your devastation is my pain, 
While your happiness is my cane.

Though, the lines I’ve drawn, 
Speak little and more.
Your smile fills me with shame,...

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4 matches left
for John Steinbeck @ Annabel Lee@of course E.A.POE

Chickens; a roaring rooster
An old house filled with flys
and many bugs
Many Mexican neighbor
   Friend
no water no elec
   No Amends
Romans 11: 29
" For...

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John Steinbeck wrote the story
Of the Okie family Joad as they
Travelled down their bleak 
Hard California bound road.
Tractored out by the Cats
After the bank had foreclosed,
No feelings of welcome as
They’d hoped and supposed.

Woody Guthrie sang...

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