Join us every Monday evening for drinks at the Daily Kos community political poetry club. Drop by and speak your mind in rhyme or blank verse. Poetry is always welcome in the comments. Let’s use language to scream our passion to the world. Bongos, berets and turtle neck sweaters are optional. The keypad is mightier than the sword.
There is a certain kind of bliss that comes with the state of being lost in the act of creativity. This ecstacy can be defined as rapture, a deep form of joy or delight. This is one reason we create. It is an undefinable urge, yes, but it is this high we are seeking as well; the high of being in the flow.
Now, that’s my kind of rapture.
This week’s rhymes are from an Indigo Kalliope open call for poetry. Mother Shipper offers us her take on the muse coming through, even under deadline. Ulookarmless brings us his life through the power of the rhythm of the beat. Rubyr wrote a gorgeous poem about the tragedy unfolding in her home state right this very minute. Whimsical Rapscallion composed “...a little ditty about the rapture. It’s extra fun if you imagine it as an upbeat pirate shantie.” And I played around with the word ‘conservative’.
Grab a drink of any kind and join us below the mystery squiggle.
Mother Shipper
Dead Lines
No one likes the pressure
Of poem being late
Lost of every pleasure
Just won’t resign to fate
Emptiness surrounding
The blankness minds the page
Seams are lost and founding
Where stitches might engage
Then the VOICES always
Find ways into the pen
Dark inertia waylays
Vague juices ooze again
Subcranial threads quicken
As knots get strangely loosed
Subsuming inner chicken
And words come home to roost
—
ulookarmless
A Beat Poet
Lyrics for a Drum
(5/6/2011)
56 was a good year for drums
Beat was all
Beat beat all
I was twelve and just entering
The world of sex
Musicloverhythmbeatsex
Beatdrumsgirlselvissex
Guitarsdrumsbeatdancekiss
Breastssighsrhythmdance
Poetry
66 was better by then the drums
Beat for me
Only for me
In cold hard cash a rhythm of brash
Young brilliant sexy
Geniusbusinessbrainboysbody
Handsomereadytoconquerworlds
Headedforexoticclimesbackedby
Rationalthoughtnolyricalthoughtsfor
Poetry
76 saw collapse of the drum head
Beaten hard
Beaten once too often
By living 32 hour days
In every 24
Drinkingsmokingworking
Repeatedinendlesscycles
Aimlesscyclesaimlessuseless
Activitydevoidofanyuplifting
Poetry
86 and the first flickers of life
Beating heart
Beat beat
At last attempting to make
A difference on the planet
Savingenergyenvironment
Resourcemanagementcarbon
Footprintpollutioncontrol
Turninguglyblacktogreenwith
Poetry
96 real contribution with
New heart beat
Beat beat
A fourth son child of the
Environmental age: ecoboy
Symbolicindependentaction
Antiracistsupranational
Politicianrejectingproblemsolving
Soulfulfilledmusiciangerminated
Poetry
06 beat almost ceases
Heart beat stops
No beat, not
Beating for several minutes
Until the shock and awe revives
Thumpthumpthumpclearokwehave
Pulsehesback4daysinicuwaketofind
Heartbrainspiritfilledwith
Rhymebeatlovebeatpassionbeat
Poetry
11 the beat persists
Poetry
(© CJ Campbell May 2011)
—
rubyr
Water/Oil/Home
Will moss hanging from the great cypress be torn to
Float on the top of troubled waters as the mighty
Mississippi rages down a land ravaged by
Two hundred other types of wet misery? Cannot dry.
Water can’t ever wash clean the sea and land
Buried in gushing oil just one-year past.
Water—sustainer/destroyer of life
Cannot wash clean. Cannot repair.
At the Atchafalaya, the spillway will open.
Diversion of nature for willful
Protection of big cities, tourism, commerce.
“Sad shame”, they’ll say. Cannot avoid it.
Oysters, the sea, and staunch bayou people see
A world of history abandoned to angry
Nature that is fighting back hard against
Mankind’s assault. Cannot overcome.
Massive snow turned to water—too much
For a saturated Earth to absorb.
Beale Street to Bourbon floating in filth yet
Graceland will be saved. Cannot spare it.
Will those who deny that we have ravaged
Our world see bare ground where happy homes
Once stood and wonder
What they’ve wrought? Cannot learn.
Dead in the path of this fearsome flood, Baton Rouge to
The Big Easy, easy no more from fear of water.
Lives dirtied, torn apart, disrupted, frantically
Reach out for relief. Cannot find it.
Politicians turn away from the flood of misery.
Greed and neglect pour like water. Heartbreak follows
Down to the levees. Where long in my life
I sat soaking in Southern sun. Cannot forget.
©2011, Ruby S. Jones
For Hell
—
Whimsical Rapscallion
The Rapture is a-Comin’
Now gather ‘round, ye beautiful freaks and set ye for a spell
And hearken to me joyous tale of our escape from hell
Friends, I bid you listen, friends, I bid you listen well,
I know there’s been stuff
That’s been kinda rough,
But soon there’s no need to fear!
The righteous are oppressing us, it’s time and time again
With the, “atheists are evil and the gays are too,” and then
There’s the hate and there’s the looks, but the truth is this, my friends:
We’re through the worst,
On may twenty-first,
They’re all gonna disappear! Oh!
They’re all gonna disappear! They’re all gonna disappear!
The rapture is a-comin’ and they’re all gonna disappear, Oh!
They’re all gonna disappear! They’re all gonna disappear!
It’s here in a hurry
And then there’s no worries!
They’re all gonna disappear!
They’re shouting at my friend Susan, Well, it doesn’t come as a shock
Because she fancies Lisa with her long and lovely locks
They’re yelling at my friend Christopher because he likes the concept
Of holding the hand
Of his lover named Dan
and they’re marrying later this year!
They’re all irate with Kate because last year she went by Kyle.
They can’t abide Alberto or his loud flamboyant style.
My friends won’t have to be afraid in just a little while
‘Cause all of the hatred
Will go with the sacred,
When they all disappear, Hey!
They’re all gonna disappear! They’re all gonna disappear!
The rapture is a-comin’ and they’re all gonna disappear, Oh!
They’re all gonna disappear! They’re all gonna disappear!
It’s here in a hurry
And then there’s no worries!
They’re all gonna disappear!
It’s gonna be grand When God’s merciful hand
delivers our kind from the shallow of mind,
It’s gonna be great when we’re free of the hate
Of the big cosmic winners who see us as sinners.
At last we’ll be free just to live as we please
We can have a few drinks and not watch what we think
It’s God’s greatest gift, here-- have a hit of this spliff.... and...
drink up me hearties, I’m throwin’ a party
the night that they disappear! Oh!
They’re all gonna disappear! They’re all gonna disappear!
The rapture is a-comin’ and they’re all gonna disappear, Oh!
They’re all gonna disappear! They’re all gonna disappear!
It’s here in a hurry
and then there’s no worries!
They’re all gonna disappear!
—
asterkitty
Conservatively Speaking
So, they sit there shouting nonsense
spouting arbitrary keywords
strung with random prepositions
flapping failure on a fishing line
reel them in, those flukey tales
and print them out on fishwrap
conservatively speaking
it’s just confabulated crap
So, if conservative means anything
does the word imply conserve
or do they simply spread their tarts
with reddish fruit preserves
while denigrating conservation
as both a concept and an actuality
feeding history and the environment
to the dusty moths of memory
So, when war and subdivisions
are hell-bent on our destruction
in the place where conservative values
convert into a dollar amount
and what then has been conserved
by such aimless acts of conversation
meant to muddle what is conservation
when it’s now defined by devastation
So few synapses snapping jaws
inside their cranial specks of brain
hairballs built from molehills
cluttering up the conservative pate
another covert operation
wrap it up in caution tape
conversely deconstructed
the convention is to subjugate
(©Alexandria Levin, May 2011)
—
Hairy Larry
The Only World There Is
The only world there is
Is in your mind.
When you change your mind
You change the world.
If music can reach someone
And change their mind
It changes their world.
It changes the world.
The only world there is
Is in your mind.
©Larry Heyl, May 2011
—
Im a frayed knot
Song to my Selves
My selves are like children in a schoolyard:
Some hold together in ranks and phalanx
Integrated, congregated around a leader,
And others are left out, lonely and alone
While still another, removed and separate by his own choice
Watches.
Lorinda Pike
four this morning
I know I have two hearts
one is free
the other bound
never to meet
that collision
would destroy me.
one watches you
as you sleep
moonlight washing windowshades
the other wanders
stranger shores
a solitary traveler
one holds comfort close
a deep strength
the other seeks
controlled chaos
living always
on an edge of sanity
one is cinched
by long-woven threads
the other flutters like a bird
trapped behind glass
seeing freedom
but unable to attain it
I am condemned
to forever maintain
the tenuous space
between
and prevent
my own annihilation
©lp/md 2007
—
All poetry above is copyright their respective authors.