Long Tooth Poems
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Revelations of the Spirit!
Good things are known to come to those who come before their God,
who praise release from earthly woes by celebrating days
of spilling sperm (that meets its end or egg that sparks new life),
creation’s spark has pitched its tent in place of excrement.
“Both fair and foul are next of kin” (1) (if I might paraphrase
some words Jane speaks), with grave and bed compared, noblesse oblige
for those less traveled in this world! What Bishop knows a wife
(excuse)? The pleasures of the flesh called sin (despite intent)
by those who bow to Popes, to Satan’s spawn! A privilege
that they don’t practice! When they think, think those who do so odd!
Will Jane find love although her breasts have grown quite flat with time,
(though proud priests say she’s ignorant of things that matter most)?
I think she will, though dark days come and time eclipses all!
What Nature IS, what Nurtures man, is not his providence,
nor can we think to save ourselves, if God’s not real, we’re toast!
Is worth of self what Jane boasts of, the raptures of the mind?
Can body’s curves, a garment’s subtle wrap, how tresses fall,
boast they’re of what she speaks! Or lowliness her evidence
she matters? God’s grand scheme of things? Not judging (she’d call kind)!
Massaging rhythms vital, love for seasons, love of rhyme!
Long Tooth
1st of September in 2020
Poet’s Notes:
(1) One of my favorite poems by William Butler Yeats
Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop
I met the Bishop on the road / And much said he and I.
‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now / Those veins must soon be dry;
Live in a heavenly mansion, / Not in some foul sty.’
‘Fair and foul are near of kin, / And fair needs foul,’ I cried.
‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth / nor grave nor bed denied,
Learned in bodily lowliness / And in the heart’s pride.’
‘A woman can be proud and stiff / When on love intent;
But love has pitched his mansion in / The place of excrement;
For Nothing can be sole or whole / That has not been rent.’
*
*
Does anyone want to comment or have thoughts about why Yeats would be so
cavalier about meter in the last two lines of each stanza, even the 1st line of the second stanza when 'Both fair and foul..' would be such an easy fix! It seems hard to believe that he is deliberately sloppy. What is his purpose here?
Voluntary unconditional surrender woke...,
Viz hitting yours truly,
when yokel egghead doth jinx
whereby ye cannot comprehend figurative
wimpy vainglory, unequivocally, tectonically,
smoldering resentments I stoke,
he doth bare his soul no joke,
no matter insight doth severely challenge
cyber surfing passersby, who attempt
to interpret courtesy
mental torture doth invoke
brutality, difficulty, futility gobbledygook,
heavily taxing your fifty
plus shades of gray
I apologetically, grudgingly (ha),
painstakingly, unwittingly... poke,
when mine broadcast
red by anonymous folk
admittedly poetically trumpeting ambiguity
overlain donned with high falutin cloak
peace be with thee courtesy this bloke.
Electronic date/time stamp permeates
within copious, illustrious,
and porous corpus callosum
hemispheric spongy sinks
mister re: mysterious as Sphinx
validation indubitably backfires
invariably induces loosed
unicellular sized rat finks
cerebral blackout courtesy
one to many drinks,
envision sucker punched by
rockin sockin robots one named
Muhammad Ali t'other Leon Spinks,
or gordian knotted cognitive kinks
bajillion befuddled blinks,
albeit feeble analogy methinks
to render genuine concomitant
convoluted, mangled, twisted... (think
Möbius strip) sentiment
specifically linkedin with
sincere appreciation meant
pertaining to this gent
despite slight trepidation
as faux Geico petsmart agent
forced celibate nun sensical chap
considering entering convent
cloistered existence remaining
days of my life get spent,
where "15 minutes
might save me, not so shabby decent
15% or more on car insurance."
Paraphrase aforementioned Matt Speak
more easily succinctly understood,
versus gibberish as ????????
(i.e. the word Greek spelled in Greek)
essentially long in the tooth fella
self anointed literate sheikh
feeble flattered fungi with
average mushroom shaped physique
trends towards playfulness
in tandem with harmless streak
merely acknowledges how his unique
self expression oft times
tongue-in-cheek
experiences giddiness at unsolicited
positive feedback versus he/she,
who doth bitingly, flagrantly,
outrageously, witheringly... critique
modesty misunderstood equivalent
of poetic (peekaboo) hide and seek
to Dani body hook ken find me
game to reveal me re: hide and seek.
SUDDENLY SOMETHING
Have you ever spent a night in a six by ten foot cell?
Well that’s where my FESTERING fears dwell
And no one with a prescription pad will write for a junkie born and bred
Did you ever wish more earth dwellers would all suddenly be dead
Look, there’s a pretty little miss, oh it’s daddy’s little girl
She dances on my feet when she starts to whirl
I told her to hold down her pleated skirt when she begins to twirl
My little girl with a smile and every tooth a perfect pearl
In silent supplication I’d sneak up to hear her prayer for that eve
I just wanted to hear daddy’s little girl pray and then I would leave
First she blessed the Almighty, his spirit and his soul
Making prayers come true was her sole and only goal
It could be a league of angels advising her on the right thing to do
Or sprites to make all things look like new
It might be little singing stars, from above came they for you
So your daughter can ignore an errant and off key dove pleased not to coo
She looks completely comfortable in a cloak and coat of cashmere
S**t, I’d trade an arm for her body no matter what she may wear
Whatever happens next is only though fate to be willed
And if you listen closely one can hear the breeze being stilled
Alas she grows nigh with hips swinging and lips moving
And then those loquacious lips emitted “would you care to have a tea”
I knew she could hear by heart from across the table
And then it was only silence, lovely her and me
“Look, me and that lady over there are wearing the same dress”
And so whatever she was going to do it may have to be under duress
“that lady has the a copy of my original,” and she was enraged
Something tells me your friends have never been caged
I’ve been penned up with a pen, pen pals and ten pencils, but only one isn’t too dull
You’d think out of all those pencils there’d be one sharp one to cull
So you’re daddy’s little girl no longer my sweet
But I’ll let y’all know when next we can meet
So when I first talked about being caged in a cell
if asked for the truth my story would be difficult to tell
Because each eye a gem, each tooth a pearl
So tell me sweetheart, are you still daddy’s little girl
© 2011.……free cee!
And s.b.---if you are gonna ask me, so where’s the nexus from one thing to another I
say go have another glass of vintage brandy.
let every old woman with a wrinkled face,
she should be aware,she lives in disgrace,
a furrowed brow,hairy lip and single tooth,
know me well,i'll get the truth.
a squinty eye and scolding tongue,
the squeaky voice she's had from very young,
you will never hide from me,
i'm the witch hunter general you see.
my name shall be feared throughout this land,
my hunting of witches will go as planned,
first you'll be tossed into a cell,
stripped naked and starved,until you tell.
i'll start to prick to cause you pain,
and i'll do it over and over again,
then you'll be bound to stool or table,
cross legged of course,even if you're not able.
after twenty four hours the cramps will set in,
again poked and prodded,but i'll use a new pin,
you'll then walk the stones til your feet bleed,
still i reckon you don't get to feed.
then you're taken for a swim in the lake,
your baptism water you didn't take,
if you're innocent you will drowned,
but if you sink a true witch i've found.
this cruelty wasn't enough,mathew got no kicks,
a new style was developed,it only took two ticks,
he bent victims double,tied thumb to big toe,
a rope round the waist,in the water they'd go.
these people were worn down by his torturous way,
but hopkins was going to have his say,
one question he used in the brow beating session,
you're aquainted with the devil,i want a confession.
a nod or monosyllabic reply will do the trick,
or my man will beat you again with the stick,
then poor john lowes,a suffolk minister of note,
was told you're a witch,i can tell by your coat,
a quarrelsome gent of seventy was poor john,
disliked by many,they wanted him gone,
hopkins took the task to prove he was right,
john was kept awake for many a day and a night.
they ran him till he was out of breath,
he was weary, and scared half to death,
so he confessed to get some peace,
then the torturous pain would cease.
hopkins said"another one i didn't let survive",
john went to the scaffold august 1645,
no cleargy would read for him at his grave,
a villager said"to the devil john was no slave".
who knows how many poor sould were lost,
letting hopkins rule,had it's own cost,
more than 200 people this way met their fate,
by the time hopkins hit norfolk,it was too late.
his trials of blood passed through our countryside,
in his work mathew hopkins took great pride.
I wish love was enough.
I thought it was enough, how stupid could I be?
But what I thought was love is now just a distant memory.
One that got the best of me.
It took away my thoughts, my days, and my nights.
Hell, a lot of the time it even took away my apitite.
I lost focus, sleep, and a good grip on the real world.
I was blinded from everything and protected by nothing.
For a while I was stupid enough to believe the lies my heart had told.
I thought your hugs said it all,
but now that I can recall, your kiss tasted like diaster.
Now that I've tamed my heart, my emotions are no longer my master.
I had always thought we'd be together one day in perfect harmony,
I realize now that all your words were just lies you fed to me.
I thought I was your 'Ride or Die' but now you call me a whore,
I don't even know who you are anymore.
I've been fed lie after lie- I'll call you out on every one, I'm not shy.
So you say you love me, what's your name again?
Why should I believe you, your credbility is a zero out of ten.
Don't act like I should feel sorry for you, because I don't.
If I'm the only thing in your pathetic life going right,
shouldn't you try to keep me happy with all your might?
I used to be blinded by the thought of forever, but now you've opened my eyes
up to see, I don't need you for me to be happy with me.
When we fought and I caved, I'd come back and cry "I'm sorry babe, I love you"
Now that I've finally caught you in your lies, you want to say "I'm sorry baby and I love you too"
I used to be blinded by your role,
but I pray for you now because sometimes wishing isn't enough to save a soul.
What I thought was love got the better part of me.
But now I'm glad that my heart has made me see
You messed up and I hope you know it; no one will ever love you like I thought I did.
Not even your own kid.
Yeah, I know my words hurt, but yours did too.
You lied everytime you said "I love you boo".
At least I'm the one here who has always confessed or told the truth,
I'm so sick of you now I just want to knock out your every single tooth.
I used to be blinded by love,
But now that I'm not, I'm as peaceful as a dove.
I hope these words hurt, and if they do it means I've done my job right.
I'm okay about losing you without a fight.
And to be honest? I'll sleep better from now on at night.
A hint of helping this wholesome Harris son
can across thru the air
Hence this poetic expression
of gratitude Matthew Scott wants to blare
And communicate my genuine
appreciation crystal clear
Toward one whose existence
more valuable to me and dear
As thee doth become older
with natural diminishment with eyes and ear
But lo…tis unproductive to fear
The diminishing sands
of mortal time as cognitive gear
Doth get clogged as well as one
or the other organ allowing ye to hear
The sound of silence echoing
memories of the past – now a blur
Akin to a warm fuzzy feeling
soft as moss or lichen – precious as a coat of fur
Which tomorrows speed faster
becoming yesterday’s lore
Mixed with trials and tribulations less or more
Thickening as starch and ever more difficult to pour
From the egged on noggin blended
into one glob kept in secret store
Perhaps comprising partially healed wounds
at your heart tore
As if a drafted soldier once
in tiptop shape now to the bone years wore
Away whet dreams housed
within myths indistinguishable from truths of yore
Though I too sometimes fret
as tempus fugit slinks away
Where methinks how the years spin
at a quicker pace each day
Inculcating me to savor each moment,
whether weather sunny or gray
Taking stock of self of natural world
as one named John Jay
Audubon, who captured pristine lands
of America as a frieze zing May
Whereby bounteous creatures
large and small at play
Until…the inundation
of settlers did slash, burn and slay
Indiscriminately - setting precedent
for Earth in a precarious balance oye vay
Whence Mother Nature
will win this global Olympic match – yet
By which time, both thyself
and ye will be long turned to ash
Descendants will be dust off
faded photos of me self
before senescence did dash
Totally unaware that me papa Boyce Brandon
with clenched and teeth did gnash
When I fought tooth and nail
and without a word did lash
Back as protestations against behavior
of mine ye disliked and found rash
With frustration spilling forth
like acidic froth that did splash
Slash and burn within,
yet kept mum no matter
from within did thrash.
I LOVE YOU TOO DAD
NO MATTER BACK IN THE DAY YE GOT MAD
YET NOW, AS A FATHER TWAS FRUSTRATION
PERHAPS FUSED WITH BEING SAD
AT MY LIFE & HARD TIMES WHEREIN
TURMOIL ROILED MORE THAN A TAD!
Am I Vexed? No!
Am I vexed to face music? We both are ‘same sex.’
It’s beyond man to fathom the depth of man’s soul
though perhaps a computer (imagined) might spin
all the dreams love might share, why sun’s rainbows arch backs
like a cat, or why butterflies pinned in a box make us dream
we still see them in flight when collection’s their death!
Does a nugget that’s ripped from quartz crystal’s complex
miss the death of its parent, the star it was born of, feel toll
paid by hydrogen gas, that birthed star? Does gold win
that can plumb all the times it has filled a heart’s cracks!
Love grows colder confessed, that’s unable to stream
what heart wants? I’ll denounce this until my last breath!
Am I vexed we’ve both wives with whom each shares his bed,
one eternity’s hourglass suffices such friends?
Let me speak for myself and not dare to presume
who you love, but has love yet been born that is meek?
If you can, tell me please how such love can be love (so restrained),
not erupt in hot rhymes, or ice flows of free verse?
You think tides (moon might raise), or earth’s seasons reverse
(on the axis of globe knocked-off kelter), mean love’s time-constrained?
Is love full strength, or is it diluted; will squeak,
has a voice known to roar? Care can stay in the room
(if there’s good news or bad), gives short shrift to loose ends!
Our time’s brief on this earth! Save love’s honor for Dead?
Brian Johnston
29th of September in 2020
Poet’s Notes:
Craig Wilson is one of my oldest and dearest friends! We first met in
the US Peace Corps teaching 12th Form students at the Sultan Abu Bakar
Secondary School in Kuantan, Malaysia, from 1968-1970. Craig taught
Biology and I taught Physics. Craig gave his class, and mine, a three-day
sex education class (that was not in the Malaysian Syllabus!) near the end
of our two-year PC commitment. Ha!
My friend and I are both getting ‘long in the tooth!’ I’m five years older,
but our contemporaries are becoming fewer in number. I thought, why
should I wait to write Craig a love poem? I might easily pass before him,
and I am so proud to say that I love Craig, a man, period! May the heaven
(that I hope for) or the reincarnation (he dreams of) mean eternities loom
ahead for us both, though I’m (certainly?) far more ‘Right’ than Craig is!
Remembering Mrs. Sully always makes my face break out into smiling mode.
Her face was as craggy as a grave, there was an aluminum tooth on the left.
When she smiled, it gleamed with pure happiness, making her stories even better.
When I first met her, her ferocious stories kept my gentle side terrified, for hours.
I thought she was the Hansel and Gretel witch, because she looked like my vision of her.
There was a unique smell around Mrs. Sully, an earthy, vegetable-type smell.
She was always in her garden, killing snakes, big black ones, with large mouths.
She relished showing us how she whacked them with her hoe, hacking them to pieces.
Although short, stooped over and old, she was a force no snake wanted to encounter.
Her stories were full of spit and vim, anger, and devilishly mean murders and such.
If you decided to share a story, she did not hear it, she did not pause if you wanted to talk.
You had to walk along beside her, acting like wearing two or three house dresses
over each other under a pair of overalls was normal, seeing the bibs and lace stick out like crazy.
Her expertise was incessant talking, not waiting for social cues or societal nonsense like that.
She knew about all the hangings that had ever happened in the county, and relished telling
About them in full-force detail, hoping to keep us on our toes, ripe with worry.
All you have to do is mention the words Mrs. Sully, and the old-timers smile, remembering
Those awful hangings, and what happened after the rope was yanked, because we all knew.
Sometimes I swear I see her in her old black hat, pulled down nearly to her eyes,
Stooped carriage, pushing a rusty brown wheelbarrow full of produce, from one farm to another.
We were lucky, our house was smack in the middle, so we would run out and hear the tale of the day.
She owned two properties, a block and a half from each other, one of them had goats.
If we were really lucky, she would have one of her mean goats on a little leash and we could walk our block with it, as it butted us with its angry head.
Rumors said the goats slept in the house with her. It did not matter to me, she was a character
I will never forget her, sometimes picturing that amazing aluminum tooth, which told excellent
Stories. Stories I do not dare tell my own sweet grandchildren, as they stay up too late already.
I took a walk along the old country road looking desperately for a story that is not yet told, I search in the bushes and the trees but there was nothing waiting for thee.
The morning with its bright petals gleaming in the clouds and an army of birds swarm the sky moving around in slow motion communicating with the big birds on the ground and I watch them flying all around.
Something was going on, but I could not understand so I took a walk on the beach and saw thousands of birds gathered on the shore holding court and keeping a conference on the sand.
There was nothing to write about, so I continued my journey in the woods until I found a squirrel climbing out of a hole from the tree, its eyes move quickly around and for a split second it stares directly at me and hurried quickly down the tree and ran in the bushes.
I looked around to see what I could find but nothing was there except rows and rows of trees and the water flowing from a nearby stream. I took a deep breath and absorbed the wilderness around and sat on a log that lay across the stream and suddenly my childhood dream came back to haunt me.
It is the solitude that was all around and the braying donkey laden with goods going to town, and the woodpecker making a strange sound in the hole. It sounds like someone was knocking on the door and suddenly the entire place came alive, and the universe whispered in my ears and, said, "you are mine." I looked around to see who it was, but just one bird was standing on the tree limb looking.
I hurried away from that place and went back on the main road and walked a quarter of a mile before I could see any assemble of life; the country dust pushes me on and the rhythm in my feet drag me along; it is the deity that I could not understand, and I contemplate the scale as I journey up the lonely street.
I walked about half a mile and suddenly I broke down and cry; I wasn’t sure what I was sobbing about but the memory of the moose and how it gorges out my wisdom tooth overshadowed me.
Not too far from where I was, I came up on a little country shop, so I stopped to get some water, I walked in, but no one was there, and I saw blood on the counter and a man lying in a pool of blood in the corner.
I held my mouth and scream, and a car came out of nowhere and I suddenly woke up out of the dream.
He walked into the dusty saloon,
maybe an hour after high noon,
his face still smooth with the touch of youth,
eyes dead-set on seeking out the truth.
He saw him there, two men at his side,
looking just like his mother described,
the scar, gold tooth...the cold countenance,
Silas knew that he had found his man.
He strode up and said, “You’re Dalton Wise,
you killed my father, so now you’ll die.”
Dalton and the two men looked amused,
said Dalton, “Who’s gonna’ do it, boy? You?”
They laughed again, and young Silas seethed,
said, “For his death, you will answer to me.
You took Joe Hamlin from my mother,
and brought no small deal of pain to her.”
The name caught Daltons attention quick,
“You claim your pa was that weak-willed twit?
Oh kid, your mother has told you tales,
that fool Hamlin did nothing but fail.
“Joe was a coward, a sniveling fool
tuck and ran when we treated him cruel,
a pasty lunger, barely could breath,
much less attract a woman to breed.
“There was a woman, Lauri, I think,
who screamed that we did terrible things,
she pitied the fool, got in the way,
girls shouldn’t trifle with men at play.
“I told her as much, but she kept on,
blathering how we treated him wrong,
one day while smacking that fool’s face in
she dared to stand between me and him.
“With hands on hips, she flustered and fumed,
‘Stop bullying him!’ he small voice boomed,
thinking we wouldn’t lay a finger
on a woman, that’s why she lingered.
“I slapped that yapping to the ground,
took aim and shot that fool Hamlin down,
dragged her to a barn when it was done,
I took my time…had a lot of fun.”
He leered and the other men both laughed,
said Dalton, “What you think about that?”
Silas felt his rage slowly turn cold
as more of this cruel story was told.
“Hamlin couldn’t be your pa,”he said,
“’cause when I took young Lauri, she bled.
Just looking at you, it becomes clear,
Joe weren’t your pa, he’s sitting right here!”
He thumped his chest, just to emphasize,
supreme confidence blazed in his eyes.
“So wipe that bravado off your mug,
we both know that you won’t kill your blood.”
He smirked at the two friends at his side,
not a one showed real fear in their eyes,
said Silas, “If there’s truth in your words,
then I’ll have to get revenge for her.”
CONCLUDES IN PART II.