I have been posting poetry for a little while on DailyKos. The response has been quite positive. I've received a lot of support, advice and encouragement from belinda ridgewood, JayRaye, bigjacbigjacbigjac and Brecht. There is a much longer list of regular readers who have been tipping, reccing and commenting on my stuff and this diary is a tribute to all of them.
I also owe a huge debt of gratitude to Creosote, who pushed me to actually send my stuff to a publisher and then helped me get a manuscript together. That manuscript is sitting in a publisher's inbox at this very moment, waiting for the blue fairy to turn it into a real, live, book. (If you have any fingernails to spare, please feel free to chew them on my behalf.)
Thank you Creo!
As a way of thanking the readers who have been following my poems, I've put together this DailyKos Chapbook of poems that were left as comments in my diaries. I've only included one poem of my own, because it sets up an unusually fine response:
The Hearth and the Planting Ground
by ruleoflaw
If I wore a coat of ignorance like armor,
If I spread the bile of hate on my planting ground,
I could never feel the wind of doubt to school me
or taste the corn of mercy and respect.
If I grew a crop of trust between my neighbors,
If I wove a shawl of kindness and compassion,
I could feast in peace with all my brothers and sisters.
I could leave the windows open when I sleep.
If the summer rain falls on both friends and enemies,
If the fire burns trash or pine or ebony,
It won't matter if there is no god to save them.
Their blood and tears are precious gems to me.
If the houses that we build have sheltered doorways,
If the path to those portals are lined with chicory,
The blueness of those flowers will shout a welcome.
My hearth is all the world to give you rest.
Here's the spectacular comment/response by Brecht
If I wore a coat of ignorance like armor,
And a snug helmet wrought from pride and gold,
Then I could brave your weak-willed winds and wishes;
I'd trample on your crops, I'd rend your shawl.
Your precious gems offend my sense of purpose,
Your blood and tears are meat and drink to me;
I can't abide soft rain or open windows,
Your hearth is fit for turtles and old fools.
Your blueness is a myth I'll never hear of,
What power is there in your murmuring song?
This hunger is so sharp beneath my breastplate,
Your evil wind of doubt disturbs my dreams.
The chill creeps through me, I torch your portals;
Now house and heart are cinders, silent peace.
Outstanding!
More gems await below the impressionist cheese doodle.
This diary by sligowoman began as a comment on one of my poems and became a diary in its own right.
To keep this diary to a reasonable length, I've only linked to two separate poems that Kossack john keats left in one of my diaries here and another farther downthread. If you are reading this, john keats, please take my advice and post those poems as a diary.
Our Man in Twisp left this poem in a comment on the same diary:
Election Day
You voted today. And you quit early.
I am here with you in your hickory striped bar,
in the wood stove, bar chain oil and two stroke smoke.
I can see forty cords memorized in the curl of your hand.
You voted today, angry as a badger, angry as a bull.
You almost cried today seeing Old Glory in the sun,
French horns, snare drums and the whole Samsung wide screen sky.
You voted today. For freedom and liberty and honor
the American Way and your flag in the sky.
You voted against Harvard lawyers, deal makers,
parsers and policy geeks, compromisers and swizzle-beaks.
You voted liberty, your flag, the American dream.
You punctuate with a swallow of American whiskey,
hissing, bastards, why can't they be on our side?
I'm here with you on election day and I can't say why.
You almost cried today, remember? The way the sun.
The way the sun hit it. The way it unfurled.
You almost cried today looking at it against the whole sky.
The way it felt to salute your three fingers as a boy.
Old Glory on the moon, remember? You cried.
Rumble of Harleys. Grumble of V-8s. Flag, bugles, taps.
Freedom. The way it looks against the whole sky.
The American Dream, almost crying, up in the whole sky.
Standing tall. 21 guns. Iwo Jima John Wayne in the sky.
You voted today. Crying against the whole sky.
The way it looked. The way it looked in the sun.
The vote. The vote in plaid and frayed hickory stripes.
The bar chain oil, two stroke smoke and Swiss bank accounts.
The way it is against the whole sky. The dream.
The way your vote and stars spangle against the sky.
You almost cried in the sun today voting against the whole sky.
triptych
by nathantyree
I am not embarrassed by the scars that line my face
like a badly folded map that has been tossed, ignored
on the floorboard, forgotten in the heaps of cigarette ash
and crumpled foil strewn over dead hours as the truck
traces its way past boarded shops and burned out houses
Her memory, my pain and the white line form an ancient
triptych of need hot desire pulled like sweet agony and
sweat from the taut flesh of the quivering highway at dusk
their broken blades laid out like shards of bone thrown
on the red earth as dark spreads over the horizon
The passenger seat carries a bottle, which needs no
protection from the belt or air-bag and never fucks
with the radio or complains about the air conditioning
or asks the difficult question about our
destination. We'll get there soon enough
After The Darkness
by nathantyree
It will be an adjustment for the dogs when we are finally gone
When the last woman has coughed her last bloody breath
And the last man, realizing that he is the last man,
Has put the last bullet through his eggshell skull and slumped
The dogs will have to learn how to deal with things on their own
The Labradors and German Shepherds
will do just fine
The Shih Tzus and Pomeranians
will have to learn to scavenge and hide
The Sharpeis will be fucked
The cats, though, will just be glad to see us gone
They never wanted us around anyway
Carpenter's Truth
by gmoke
I don't really believe in Truth.
For me, it is a carpenter's term:
when something is straight,
level,
and plumb,
it is true.
It's like truing a wheel,
making sure
that the rim
is not twisted.
The Rusty Table
by vacilando
the rusty table
and the garden delights
we serve there
as we sigh to the corn swaying
and listen to the cicadas
sing in solidarity, forever.
The Tsar
by WB Reeves
The Tsar is in your eyes;
limpid hand inside the heavy glove.
Absurd figure,
rattling about the Winter Palace.
All your days kneel down to him,
taxing each grain and sheaf.
His eagle beak has left its mark
on every part of you.
In Siberian night you listen for his boot steps,
as your neighbor leads him to your door.
Dead man with fatherly beard,
he eats at your heart.
Smiler at the camp gate.
Soap maker by the shower door.
Skipping through flickering villages,
the Holy Father is with you.
Towers of glass will not bar him.
The city subways will not bury him.
You are Trotsky facing the iceman.
A Slavic Jew beyond the pale.
Garden Haiku
by jvantin1
Corn getting fatter
Zucchini just keeps coming.
Insects, take your share!
Hating Feels Good
by Mike Kahlow
I have a purpose,
an enemy,
a cause.
I rant and scream
I seethe and plot
But my hate doesn't do anything
It doesn't help anything
It doesn't change anything
It just breeds more hate.
Here's a tightly written, untitled rhyming response to my poem Elegy Becoming Fire
by
BusyinCa
Words you will not hear
Love that you will not fear
Hands become stone
Flesh becomes bone
Words become stone.
Memories will not die
fade
or degrade away.
Ms. America pie says goodbye.
we all sigh.
No levee can protect us
No protest can discuss much
We all wait. For the rising tide.
To ride this carnival ride.
and wave to the shore from afar.
The Green Man in America
by Meteor Blades
Forsooth, saith the Gee Oh Pee,
this Green Man fella has gotta go.
Pagan symbols we give no lee...
way because they are oh so
unChristian. And we can't have
none of that here in the land
of the pavement and the home of the free.
Whereas bad poetry.....
by Mother Shipper
Wells up through the fracking
That goes on in my soul
Never frets for lacking
Some bottom to this hole
Nothing short of banning
Will ever stop the words
From popping out and fanning
These flaming writs absurds....
I bubble-wrapped a poem for you
by murasaki
So fragile it was, with bendable arms
that keep the auto-hugger working.
So brittle it was, with tension wires
to keep the baked clay bits brangled
So beautiful it was, to the unaided eye
made clueless by the inconsistancies.
I bubble-wrapped a poem for you.
I will close this with a benediction from
Creosote:
May the sun live on in us and in the dust
across the empty aeon, center within center.
Light to you, ruleoflaw, and soft rich water.
And so to you, Creo, and to all my friends on Dkos!
Good night.