ALL RESPONSES |
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I pull back the curtain to see my wards,
small white blurs, manicuring the world.
Millions of them. They have chosen me
to make the rains fall, the pastures green.
Shall I speak to them of over-grazing,
how the meadow turns to fields of dust,
or of wolves prowling at the gate?
I send the collies out again, to gather
them for another night of security.
They sleep well, knowing the price
of mutton is high, but wool is cheap.
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Long ago, when days were open and grass was thick—
there lived a Rich Magician, who owned a flock of sheep.
He was a strange man. He refused to hire shepherds,
or to build a fence around the pasture where the sheep grazed.
The sheep often wandered into traffic, bustled into round-
abouts, or simply ran away. They sensed The Magician
wanted their flesh and fleece, and were eager to escape.
But when one died, fear drove them back to the Great Lawn.
The Magician hated losing even one. He hypnotized the sheep,
convincing them that they were all immortal. That no harm
was done to them when they were sheared—that on the contrary,
it was good for them—a patriotic, valiant thing for sheep.
He told them that He Himself, The Magician, was a loving
master, who would do anything in the world for them.
And in the third place, if anything at all were going to happen,
it was not going to happen just then—at any rate not that day—
and therefore, they had no cause for fear. Furthermore,
he told the sheep that they were NOT sheep. To some, he
suggested they were lions, to others that they were eagles,
to others that they were human, and to still others
that they were, like himself, Magicians! After this, all his
worries evaporated into the odd glare. The sheep never bolted
again—but quietly ate and drank away their days, awaiting
the time when the Great Magician needed flesh and wool.
The Magician never agreed to hire a crew of mowers. The
guy who hosed the Rose Garden filled the trough. Amen. |
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i.
I was always the smear on my families clean slate. Black sheep. I guess I would consider myself more of a ram in the fold. However, it is no offense to me. I am whichever mutton metaphor you prefer.
Baa-fucking-baa.
ii.
TIME LINE FOR A BLACK LEATHER MONSTER
Birth-pissed in the nurse’s face.
two-danced before I walked.
three-learned how to think.
five-smoked my first cigarette.
seven-drank my first beer.
eight-wrote my first poem.
nine-kissed a girl.
ten-French kissed a different girl.
Confirmation 12, guilt 0.
fourteen-bent by a blonde.
fifteen through seventeen-serious relationships.
eighteen-given my father’s leather jacket from the fifties.
eighteen and a half through nineteen-college, colleens, and C’s.
twenty-swaggered in a rock-n-roll band.
twenty-two-found ill fortune in Hollywood.
twenty-three through seven-odd jobs, poetry and sleepwalking.
twenty-eight-went crazy...
iii.
Lambskin coat fits me sweetly; a blanket that crinkles and crackles when I flex my body. Dusky sheep grazes and waters just like the pure, white sheep. Not much contact though. There is a major difference. The white sheep run when they catch the scent of a fox in the wind. They fear the fox so much, that on occasion, they have bumped right into the threat, sealing their fate. The black ram knows the fox and is not frightened. He knows that there is a fox within us all. When challenged by the red-tailed predator, the black sheep turns and says, fuck with me, I dare you. The fox never knows what to do with a meal that talks back.
iv.
Baa, baa black sheep
have you any wool?
Yessir, yessir,
but none for you.
Go ask the master
go ask the dame,
go ask the white sheep
who live down the lane.
Baa, baa black sheep
have you any wool?
Yessir, yessir,
but none for you...
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Somebody hunkers
in front of a fireplace.
Somebody else
is knitting a sweater.
Nobody is listening.
Not to the sheep bells,
not to the blaring
angle of geese.
Not even to the fire’s
crick and crackle.
Certainly not
to each other.
In the book somebody
is reading, the letters
line up on the page
until it is shaken
and the words fall
into puddles of consonants
and vowels.
No trowel is handed
over to mop up
the mess. I guess
it is acceptable,
the letters
congealed on the floor.
Then somebody throws
a bucket of paint
into the mix
and walks through it.
Footprints in text
and texture. Stay
with me and follow
this through.
Patience is required,
as is appetite,
generosity and a great
deal of vision.
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How pleasant! On White House grounds,
the view of sheep rumps
instead of a horse’s ass.
Oh, my! Lambs, too, among the herd,
grazing away at the common
public trough. Who would be
hard-hearted enough to deny them
free lunch, or the thick, wooly
coats they’ve grown for themselves?
Let them keep warm. May their
stomachs be full, may someone always
pet them behind their innocent ears.
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Sheep graze
in the back yard,
cats sparkle from
the chimney top;
dogs float upon
the backwater
of a summer creek—
I sit naked with you
on the back porch,
gathering soft blue birds
perched between your legs
I would lick the moon
out of your eyes—
if only you’d let me.
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Thanks for poetry, and thank you for sharing your talents! Some of you may recognize the following from the introduction I gave at the Nov. 14th reading:
A poem can be a story,
description or impression.
It is expression of mind and body.
It is transmission of life-sustaining energy to readers.
It is the power of words, an instrument of the human spirit.
When words and sounds are crafted with love, they become incantations,
bridges between night and day, life and death, now and then, or two lovers. |
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He sings, “Baa baa black sheep
habyounenywoo?”
his favorite nursery tune ending in
a giggle at his own lisp
I sing it back with him, overandover,
we are in the fairy circle, the kisses
on my cheek sweeter than:
lovers, poems, ecstatic moments of
divine sea unfurling under the
roar of a boat and a dolphin leaping
in sleek arches alongside us:
nothing compares
nothing compares to you, little
boy blue, sheep’s in the meadow,
the world tilts in favor of princes
and dreams
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Oh, how I don’t want my
Music to fall on the faint
Ears of those undeserving
Blisteringly belligerent
(hand wringing) and
mangled bobcats
who cross the road to see
Ms. P_____
irregardlessly or carelessly
and
w/o looking both ways
Dangerous fools with
Floppy shoes, don’t they
Know that the gutter
Is no place to take a nap,
And wedding cakes
aren’t friends of the rain?
they look surprised
And half disappeared
When the final flashbulb
Explodes behind their
partially closed and
Debris ridden eyes…
The least they
Can do is set their
Wipers to intermit
And bend an elbow
To signal a turn. |
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It’s another night of not sleeping. Can words
help? Does it matter that I am scorched
by midnight’s burning? The bright star
outside my window winks to itself while I
toss out the day with the remains of the
party, the giving of thanks celebrated in circles.
How long it has been since I was
able to sit at table and not feel your absence like a
stabbing throb, like a toothache too tender to bite down,
that piece of bread, that meat fragrant on a blue dish
becoming a sudden intake of pain.
It is midnight and the house is silent
but for the click-clacking of my keys. The room where
my bed is single after years of company
is only one more tid-bit in a long
string of disappointments.
There is only so far to toss and turn before I fall off the
edge. There are only so many sheep
left to count before I leave them to frolic, and pour
myself out onto the blank screen, now lit with
a white tenderness I accept like caresses, like memories.
You are not here with us, at the table, cranberry
slicking a corner of your mouth, grins and gumption like
all young men deserve to be in their virile liveliness
and repartee. But this soul still somehow holds to the
joy, the gift of your being. The way you are ingrained
in my bones, my heated restlessness. This ache
that tells me you were near. And still are.
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What woolly thoughts do sheep mull
in their mutton brains?
Cud chew contemplation
of the price of grass,
trough gossip gabbing
about the best way to teach a lamb
to follow the backside of a dog?
(Better that than the snarl of its other end.)
Meadow mornings, a life unshorn,
green grass expectations.
What innocence do they drink
from wooden troughs
that leads their vacant stare to trust
the hand of the shepherd
and be hung from a slaughterhouse
hook?
Debbie Ouellet
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“You have made your own bed,
now lie in it,”
my roommate Nancy’s father said to her
years ago when her lover ran off.
I think of his flinty words and hard eyes
as I smooth fresh sheets,
plump the pillows in their crisp cases,
and cover it all with a green daisy quilt.
For years now I have made my own bed.
(Girl Scouts taught me how to fold corners.)
The mistakes are there, as are the lies,
stitched in for warmth and because they happened,
these sewed next to affection and charity,
the give and the take.
I pull what I have made up over my shoulders.
I snuggle down,
not quite ready
for golden canopies or
a bed of roses.
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Lend me your hand child,
I am but not a face
but a nation,
onto your silent wishes
Feast upon my flesh
as I feast upon you
Your heartbeat should not
falter and bow, for I am
the marrow in your calloused bones
I have waited a millennium
for you my sweet,
come closer
I talk of Eden for I was there
When she sank too Adam’s grief,
sparking the flame
that grew over the earth whole
Gather round me now children,
for I have a tale to tell
that you might not believe
But remember, I was there
when the lamb lay with the lion
I heard the words Isaiah didn’t speak;
swept into his ear by His breath
So quiet that I may have
misplaced him in my mind
Save his eyes,
brown,
silent,
weeping
Not a shepherd to keep |
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| Please click this line to read a .PDF document of Tim's play. |
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who here
believe in utility?
are your roots bared
and fed up with progress?
distant colors
all mixing lightly?
four hundred years after growth
sheep on the white house lawn--
wilson--supremacist--publicly
laughing--
that one with the black face
shouldn’t be
here in our economy.
feet, hooves, hands--yes, lets
when written
is history, then who runs the
superhero
country?
a herd of sheep, always being
driven by a master. |
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We went to drink & be merry.
My love was all for them.
O Dionysian revelry —
the candle-flame of the soul flickering.
They were dancing, or by the table
a sacred herd gathered near the temple.
I walked alone into a porch with windows
on each wall and the glassy door.
In the moonshine there were things strange to touch —
bells, chess pieces.
I stood in fascination and heard time breathe.
Then they called me back. |
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Path that means passage
Lichen that means stone
Black that means growing
Wool that means deep
Hoof that means leaping
Turd that means food
White lamb means rollick
A blend of romp and frolic
Grey means fat ewe watching
Fern means new fiddles
Tulip means light cup
Blue means bells
Red means sky
Purple means together
Love in the lambing field
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my mom has always wanted goats
not goat or kid
instead she has nine of us
but we do not chew the bark of trees
we gnaw the limbs of working class issues
and vote (most of us, but not all)
tiring of direct commentary only
when it tires of us
and becomes nonsensical
like HGWells payed out
by TomCruise
or SenatorTwice
who tires of our letters
the lasers or our eyes
trim the wool from last year
after two cocktails each begin
the dripping of our veins
the innocents are as innocence
lost
too diabolical once pushed
through the lines and pantries
of our StateFair observatory
where gypsies and meth heads
do not disappear because
they never existed
anyway
She can’t have her goats
reality bubbles up as sheep
in an old photo on the WhiteHouse lawn
where the windows are as vacant
as the country
where the sheep were raised
and the glazed canvas is replaced
by silver by color, by chemicals by pixels
that end up showing the same
old thing time again
and I finally got the message--
the livestock Are important
to the Posturates they trim the lawn |
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i wouldn’t dream
of writing memoirs,
scratching stories
of places famously
not visited by others.
Others have written
about girls they’ve bedded;
places with bright colors
or shell games and thousands
of dollars bet on fantasy.
i would only write about
Carson Park and dark bushes
and Rae Ann who i once paid
compliments to and later said please
tell no one what this has cost me.
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Soggy air. Mud covered boots.
Upper sky lavender. Lambs leap frog.
I walk down the lane to see them.
Jump the streams. Duck under beech
limbs in four directions, secret-heavy.
Bluebells fill the spaces between
rhodendrum rain. Lambs all rollick
where romp meets frolic.
Their mothers eat and guard.
Ewe eyes shift from me to lambs.
Try to hold both of us in place.
I stand watch for hours.
The large house in the background,
where humans talk and rule,
changes colors, falls, is remade.
The ending makes me glad.
Black limbs bleed into red sky.
Wooley mothers are given time.
Sunset pinks the shining lambs.
They arc like the rise and fall moon
in a cracked ice sky.
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Gather round me now children,
for I have a tale to tell
that you might not believe.
I talk of Eden, for I was there
when she sank too Adam’s grief
sparking a flame
that grew over the earth whole.
Lend me your hand child,
I am not a face
but a nation,
onto your silent wishes
you will feast upon my flesh
as I feast upon yours.
Your heartbeat should not
falter and bow, for I am
the marrow in your calloused bones
I have waited a millennium
for you my sweet,
come closer
But remember, I was there
when the lamb lay with the lion
I heard the words Isaiah couldn’t speak;
swept into his ear by His breath,
so quiet that I may have
misplaced him in my mind,
save his eyes,
brown,
silent,
weeping.
Not a shepherd to keep |
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Great lawn
Yawning wide
Catching sheep between the teeth
No one will put their tents where the sheep have been
Clever
Now the great lawn
Lies empty
Blockaded against
An imagined foreign horde
I wish for sheep
or even the sad tents. |
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