A White Rose for Remembrance

God bless all of the Folks, known and unknown, in uniform and out, who gave their lives for our Democracy. May they rest in Peace and Honor.

Sometimes the work of a photographer is so beautiful that no words can do it justice. So it is with the work of Eddie C. More of his photographs can be found here:

THE YOUNG DEAD SOLDIERS DO NOT SPEAK

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them?

They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts.

They say: We were young. We have died. Remember us.

They say: We have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done.

They say: We have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave.

They say: Our deaths are not ours: they are yours, they will mean what you make them.

They say: Whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say, it is you who must say this.

We leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning.

We were young, they say. We have died; remember us.

- Archibald MacLeish (1892-1982)

Manhattan Don

Baggie of Blow in your pocket.
Lick your finger, stick it in the bag,
Stretch and reach over the Bar,
Offer your frosted finger to the Dancers.

I am not the only floozy who went SNORK
On that stubby coke-finger 

And then went home alone

And laughing at you.

You never ever got laid
Cuz the bouncers kept you
But not your coke-finger,

Far away from the pu^^y.

 
When you ran out of coke and got itchy
Off into the night you lurched

To grab rich girl pu^^y.
They had their own coke.

You say LIE! 

Pocketful of Dope.
You are fake news. 

Bad news. So You.

 - M. de Angelis.

 

Mike Pence is Running for President

CLOTHESPIN OPTIONAL

I know a guy
Who lives in a shoe.
Every day he has
Nothing to do.
But cavil and sigh.

I know a guy
Who swallowed some poo.
No one knows why
He swallowed doo doo.

I know why he did that jig.
He swallowed doo to help a Pig.
Let's make him cry.

I know a guy with a bleeding eye.

I know why he's covered by fly.

It's all because he swallowed pig doo.

Smells foul now morning poo from the prig do.

Cavil and sigh. 

April Rain Song

April Rain Song by Langston Hughes

Let the rain kiss you
Let the rain beat upon your head with silver liquid drops
Let the rain sing you a lullaby
The rain makes still pools on the sidewalk
The rain makes running pools in the gutter
The rain plays a little sleep song on our roof at night
And I love the rain.

 by erikemiranda

o

James Mercer Langston Hughes (February 1, 1901 - May 22, 1967) was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist from Joplin, Missouri. One of the earliest innovators of the literary art form called jazz poetry, Hughes is best known as a leader of the Harlem Renaissance. He famously wrote about the period that "the Negro was in vogue", which was later paraphrased as "when Harlem was in vogue."

Photograph by Carl Van Vechten - Library of Congress

Information above is from Wikipedia the writer's friend. I send them a very small sum monthly to keep them free.

Veteran's Day

The Latin in this poem means: "Sweet and fitting it is to die for one's country."
(From Horace, Odes, III. ii. 13)

2nd Lt, Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 5th Bn. Manch. R., T.F., attd. 2nd Bn.
Awarded the Military Cross for conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty in the attack on the Fonsomme Line on October 1st/2nd, 1918. On the company commander becoming a casualty, he assumed command and showed fine leadership and resisted a heavy counter-attack. He personally manipulated a captured enemy machine gun from an isolated position and inflicted considerable losses on the enemy. Throughout he behaved most gallantly.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!
--An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams before my helpless sight
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs
Bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

- by Wilfred Owen

 Benjamin Britten's War Requiem incorporating the poetry of Wilfred Owen.

Being Neither White Nor Black

CROSS by Langston Hughes

My old man's a white old man
And my old mother's black.
If ever I cursed my white old man
I take my curses back.
If ever I cursed my black old mother
And wished she were in hell,
I'm sorry for that evil wish
And now I wish her well
My old man died in a fine big house.
My ma died in a shack.
I wonder where I'm going to die,
Being neither white nor black? 

 

Sign of the Month - July 2015 - Socialist Snow

Go Bernie!  It's your birthday. Go Bernie!

Burlington Snow written for Bernie Sanders by Allen Ginsberg

Socialist snow on the streets
Socialist talk in the Maverick bookstore
Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops
Socialist poetry in socialist mouths
—aren’t the birds frozen socialists?
Aren’t the snowclouds blocking the airfield
Social Democratic Appeasement?
Isn’t the socialist sky owned by
the socialist sun?
Earth itself socialist, forests, rivers, lakes
furry mountains, socialist salt
in oceans?
Isn’t this poem socialist? It doesn’t
belong to me anymore.

Bernie Sanders is a Work of Art - UPDATE

Portrait of Bernie Sanders by Buddy McCue

UPDATE: BERNIE DOING HIS BERNIE THING

Burlington Snow

written for Bernie Sanders by Allen Ginsberg

Socialist snow on the streets
Socialist talk in the Maverick bookstore
Socialist kids sucking socialist lollipops
Socialist poetry in socialist mouths
—aren’t the birds frozen socialists?
Aren’t the snowclouds blocking the airfield
Social Democratic Appeasement?
Isn’t the socialist sky owned by
the socialist sun?
Earth itself socialist, forests, rivers, lakes
furry mountains, socialist salt
in oceans?
Isn’t this poem socialist? It doesn’t
belong to me anymore.

Happy Earth Day!

These Poems seem appropriate. Peace.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting–
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

I Think I Could Turn And Live With Animals...
By Walt Whitman
from Song of Myself

I think I could turn and live with animals,
they are so placid and self-contain'd,
I stand and look at them long and long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

October's Bright Blue Weather

Fall is my favorite season. Time to make Pumpkin Pie and enjoy good Soup. Halloween will soon be here. The colors of Fall are so rich - eggplant purple, bright blue sky, bright orange squashes. Time for children to dive into piles of golden leaves with abandon. Life is good. Poet is Helen Hunt Jackson.

October’s Bright Blue Weather

O SUNS and skies and clouds of June,
And flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather;
When loud the bumble-bee makes haste,
Belated, thriftless vagrant,
And Golden-Rod is dying fast,
And lanes with grapes are fragrant;
When Gentians roll their fringes tight
To save them for the morning,
And chestnuts fall from satin burrs
Without a sound of warning;
When on the ground red apples lie
In piles like jewels shining,
And redder still on old stone walls
Are leaves of woodbine twining;
When all the lovely wayside things
Their white-winged seeds are sowing,
And in the fields, still green and fair,

Late aftermaths are growing;
When springs run low, and on the brooks,
In idle golden freighting,
Bright leaves sink noiseless in the hush
Of woods, for winter waiting;
When comrades seek sweet country haunts,
By twos and twos together,
And count like misers, hour by hour,
October’s bright blue weather.
O suns and skies and flowers of June,
Count all your boasts together,
Love loveth best of all the year
October’s bright blue weather.

Doggerel can be Sweet and Romantic

 From a poster named Flying Junior:

A MORNING POEM

My weenie is just tiny,
He's like a little mouse;
But even though he's little,
He has a tiny house.

He mostly likes to stay inside,
And come out for a peep.
But there is a girl he likes,
And dreams of when he sleeps.

Happy Juneteenth!

• 
  

  

  Homage to Ben Shahn

  Annee Robson

  Scarborough Art Gallery

  
  
  
  

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him. - Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

I think this is a poem. Is this a title?

CRIB GIRL

I wrote this poem by accident on a social media thread. Maybe I am leaking? Ack!

I think this is a poem. Is this a title?
by Mary De Angelis

There is no problem.
You are the problem.
If there is a problem,

It is the same old problem.

Since it is the same old problem, 

There is no problem.
Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Let it snow!

Snowy Night

A poem by Mary Oliver 

Last night, an owl
in the blue dark
tossed
an indeterminate number
of carefully shaped sounds into
the world, in which,
a quarter of a mile away, I happened
to be standing.
I couldn’t tell
which one it was –
the barred or the great-horned
ship of the air –
it was that distant. But, anyway,
aren’t there moments
that are better than knowing something,
and sweeter? Snow was falling,
so much like stars
filling the dark trees
that one could easily imagine
its reason for being was nothing more
than prettiness. I suppose
if this were someone else’s story
they would have insisted on knowing
whatever is knowable – would have hurried
over the fields
to name it – the owl, I mean.
But it’s mine, this poem of the night,
and I just stood there, listening and holding out
my hands to the soft glitter
falling through the air. I love this world,
but not for its answers.
And I wish good luck to the owl,
whatever its name –
and I wish great welcome to the snow,
whatever its severe and comfortless
and beautiful meaning.

It was silent until about twenty minutes ago. Then the girls discovered they could swim in the snow drifts. The cats are bored. I ate lamb chops for breakfast. Happy New Year? So far, so good.

February - The Love Month #2

I love poetry. Shameless hot love. I found the Poetry Foundation. 

I went there hunting poems about Love. This poem was listed under Funny Love Poems. The poem comes from the book Bar Napkin Sonnets. 

I have lived this and I ain't laughing. Poem so good it hurts. I am remembering, lusting after and loving all and everyone who was there. I love them now. Even those who do not talk to me anymore.

Bar Napkin Sonnet #11

Things happen when you drink too much mescal.
One night, with not enough food in my belly,
he kept on buying. I'm a girl who'll fall
damn near in love with gratitude and, well, he
was hot and generous and so the least
that I could do was let him kiss me, hard
and soft and any way you want it, beast
and beauty, lime and salt—sweet Bacchus' pards—
and when his friend showed up I felt so warm
and generous I let him kiss me too.
His buddy asked me if it was the worm
inside that makes me do the things I do.
I wasn't sure which worm he meant, the one
I ate? The one that eats at me alone?

by Moira Egan

February - the Love Month #1

since you’ve been gone

since you’ve been gone, I’ve been alone.
like an arm without a bone.
dangling limply like a phone that’s out of charge.
like homer without marge.
like an egg without a spoon.
like a dugong on the moon.
like a clownfish without nemo.
like twilight without emo.
like hardy without laurel.
like high ground without the moral.
like disney without walt.
like battery without assault.
like a pet shop without gerbils.
like hitler without goebbels.
like a dilemma without the di,
just a lemma and a sigh.
like déjà without vu,
I am nothing without you.
till the day that you come back,
I’m like whitney without crack.

- Bill Bailey (via acupofpoetry)

The Dream

"Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism." - Martin Luther King

Countee Cullen is a giant of an American poet. I dream America free of bigotry of the killing kind - so exquisitely expressed in Cullen's poem.

Countee Cullen

INCIDENT

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee,
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, 'Nigger.'

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

Rest in Peace Martin Luther King Jr. The struggle continues.

Lyrics to Lift Every Voice and Sing written by another poet of the Harlem Renaissance James Weldon Johnson. Composer is J. Rosamond Johnson. History of the Harlem Renaissance and its Poets HERE. 

Lyrics:

Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;

Let our rejoicing rise
High as the list'ning skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.

Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chastening rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?

We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the gleam of our bright star is cast.

God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.

Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land.

Merry Christmas Cat

cat haiku

You never feed me.  Perhaps I'll sleep on your face.  That will sure show you. You must scratch me there!  Yes, above my tail!  Behold, elevator butt. The rule for today:  Touch my tail, I shred your hand.  New rule tomorrow. In deep sleep hear sound  cat vomit hairball somewhere  will find in morning. Grace personified.  I leap into the window.  I meant to do that. Blur of motion, then --  silence, me, a paper bag.  What is so funny? The mighty hunter  Returns with gifts of plump birds --  your foot just squashed one. You're always typing.  Well, let's see you ignore my  sitting on your hands. My small cardboard box.  You cannot see me if I  can just hide my head. Terrible battle.  I fought for hours. Come and see!  What's a 'term paper?' Small brave carnivores  Kill pine cones and mosquitoes,  Fear vacuum cleaner I want to be close  to you. Can I fit my head  inside your armpit? Wanna go outside.  Oh, poop! Help! I got outside!  Let me back inside! Oh no! Big One  has been trapped by newspaper!  Cat to the rescue! Humans are so strange.  Mine lies still in bed, then screams;  My claws are not that sharp.

mail welcome: admin @ strangeplaces.net

I finally got this poem right. Merry Christmas to me and thee.

A Bitty Ditty for Marilyn

Fornicate! Fornicate!

Who gave us this SEX so great?

It's God.

As I do the in and out,

I have oft been known to shout:

Oh God!
Amen.

And here is a Christmas poem for your enjoyment
by Anonymous .

Twelve Days of Christmas

On the 12th day of Christmas, my Rupert gave to Me:

12 dullards droning
11 ranters ranting
10 bores-a-boring
9 baggers bragging
8 hawks-a-hawking
7 spinners spinning
6 geezers greying
5 Ben-gha-zis
4 Blondes with Thongs
3 Freedom Fowl
2 Phony Facts
and a pervert named Bill O' Reilly.

I think the Revolution might be all my Sister's fault.

Graphic by Buddy McCue. If you go to the subject panel on the left panel and click on his name, you can see more of his work. 

My Sister Margie is a righteous all hymning no sinning Bible believing Black Woman. Margie calls me her "Italian Sister." We canvased for Obama together. 

I wanted a house. Margie and I prayed about it. I got a house. I needed money for a new roof. We prayed about it. New roof. I do not invoke our little prayer circle lightly. Be sure you want whatever it is you trying to get from Universe. Hang with Margie and you might get it. 

About 6 years ago, Margie and I started praying for a Revolution. We were of the opinion that we needed one bigtime. Ta da! Shazam! One appeared.

I am a terrible Christian. Terrible. Lapsed Catholic. Angry Quaker. Margie is one of the best people I know. So, our current upheaval must all be Margie's fault. I know God loves me absolutely. I think God does not take me seriously. 

I know I am not the only one who takes Gil Scott Heron seriously.