Monday's Poetry: "The Buck in the Snow"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

Today's selection is "The Buck in the Snow" by Edna St. Vincent Millay, an exceptional poet of the early twentieth century. This poem was taken from the poet's 1928 collection of the same name. I am drawn to it because of the the realistic subject - life and death in the snow - and the strength of the poet's captivating words. It could easily be a companion piece to Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening," a poem that was featured in this space several weeks ago. I've probably been in the desert too long: sand is ubiquitous, and jeez Louise do I miss the snow!

The Buck in the Snow
by Edna St. Vincent Millay

White sky, over the hemlocks bowed with snow,
Saw you not at the beginning of evening the antlered
buck and his doe
Standing in the apple-orchard? I saw them. I saw them
suddenly go,
Tails up, with long leaps lovely and slow,
Over the stone-wall into the wood of hemlocks bowed
with snow.

Now lies he here, his wild blood scalding the snow.

How strange a thing is death, bringing to his knees,
bringing to his antlers
The buck in the snow.
How strange a thing, -- a mile away by now, it may be,
Under the heavy hemlocks that as the moments pass
Shift their loads a little, letting fall a feather of snow --
Life, looking out attentive from the eyes of the doe.

Poetry Monday: "ABCs"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

One day last week I experienced a National Public Radio "driveway moment," where I became so wrapped up in a story that was airing that I could not get out of the car. Fortunately, I was out in traffic heading to work and had no need to get out of the car!

The radio story that caught my attention was a piece on a young South African poet by the name of Lebo Mashile. Ms. Mashile was actually born in the United States to black South African exiles, but she and her parents returned to their native land when she was sixteen. The poet had a forceful story, but it wasn't her story that captivated me - it was her poetry. As I listened to Lebo Mashile reading one of her poems, I was transfixed. Her words were beautiful, and they flowed with great power and passion.

A few of Lebo Mashile's poems can be found on the Internet, but she has apparently not published a collection at this time - at least there is not one available on Amazon.com. When she does publish, I plan to be an early purchaser - because she is very, very good.

Trivia: Lebo Mashile had the small part of Odette in the movie "Hotel Rwanda."

Below is one example of her poetry:

ABCs
by Lebo Mashile

It takes just 26 letters to create a universe
The world is dismantled and then reassembled
Through the lens of a pen and verse
I have lost myself in books
And then found myself in words
Living in a world without imagination
I can think of no fate that is worse

I’ve walked through the lives of individuals
Whose eyes I’ve never known
I’ve been to cities and villages and country sides
Whose skies, to me, have never been shown
It was in this solitary cell
That my greatest strength was honed
I saw that my mind was just a shell
And it’s abyss simply a hole
And the hell of a heaving heavy heart
Is still my friend
Every story has its place
And history never ends

The writer is an architect God child at play
On a canvass of memories
She lies naked between the covers
Her own lover
Her own worst enemy
Navigating between extremes
She is both the judge and the judged
The vile despised and attacked
The unashamedly beloved
The unassuming friend who’ll tell your business
When you’re not in sight
She pulls commotion out of stillness
In the cavern of the night

And South Africa is a fractured mirror
A paradox of schizophrenic selves
Who don’t talk to one another
Who fear each other
Who revere each other
Who loathe
And pretend
And try to blend in
With each other

And this is the time when you can become
The greatest substance of your dreams
Unless you live in a shack
And don’t speak English
And don’t know what this poem means
Tell me how it’s possible for people
Who walk on gold to not know how to read
Tell me how publishers who’ll never taste their tongues
Can comprehend the words that these people need
Because they’ve never been scared of stories
The ones who uttered the very first
The ones who’ll hand them to their children
Calling out the rivers of their self worth
The ones who’ll write a narrative in the ear
But who won’t call the ear a page
The ones who’ll rhyme without pens
And perform without a stage

I don’t have all the answers
I’m just a colonized African
Who breaks down the Queen’s English
Until Sesotho understands it
Still I’m compelled by those
Who may never inhabit my language
I wonder if trials and translations
Could help them to traverse my landscape

South Africa is an old fashioned mutt
Who knows how to sing
And knows even better how to cuss
Who knows how to piece together prayers
When she’s about to run out of luck
Who knows how to laugh real hard
When the tears have run her into a rut
Who knows that race is a farce
Because when the light’s are off
Every body’s fucked
And when the welts and wounds
Demand healing salve
Words are just enough

Monday's Poetry: "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"

by Pa Rock
Poetry Appreciator

This evening, and for the next several Monday evenings, I am going to talk poetry. In particular, I am going to present poems that have had some impact on my life, and attempt to explain how and why they touched me. The initial selection for Monday's Poetry is Robert Frost’s simple, yet beautiful, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, a poetic account of a traveler pausing briefly in the woods to contemplate the solitude and snowfall.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening
(by Robert Frost, 1923)

Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound’s the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

I went to high school in the small town of Noel, Missouri. My senior year was the last year that high school was in operation, because it was being consolidated into a county school system the following fall. My twenty-one classmates and I literally shut the little school down in May of 1966.

One of the classes that I took my senior year was speech, and my teacher, Jennibel Paul (who was also my English and Latin teacher), came up with the idea of taping all of the speech students reading a poem early in the school year, with the intent of playing the tape back at the end of the year to have some sort of measure as to our level of public speaking progress. She borrowed a large reel-to-reel tape recorder for the project.

I have no idea what poem I chose to read, but my friend and classmate, Linda Merchant, selected Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening. Sadly, I can still hear her reciting those stanzas over forty years later.

Linda and her younger sister, Susan, had moved to Noel that year from the neighboring small town of Sulphur Springs, Arkansas, a community five miles south and just across the state line. They lived in a large house on Sulphur Street, just off of Main and about three blocks from the school. Most mornings I would ride to town with my dad and then walk to school. Many mornings I would pass Linda and Susan’s house just as they were emerging, and we would all walk together.

It was a warm Saturday night early in the school year. I had just gotten off duty at the local movie theatre when the horrible news started making its way up and down Main Street. Linda and Susan, as well as two other sisters, Shirley and Thelma Todd of Sulphur Springs, had gotten into a car with a young man who was home on leave from the military, and they had just been in a bad accident south of town on a treacherous piece of highway prophetically referred to by the locals as “Dead Man’s Curve.”

We quickly learned that the car had been travelling downhill and had careened into the path of a semi-tractor trailer that was struggling uphill. Several of the kids in the car had, according to the flying rumors, been killed.

Linda and the Todd girls did die that night, as well as the driver of the car. Susan hung on for a few days longer before joining her sister in death. Several weeks later Mr. and Mrs. Merchant heard about the taped recording that their oldest daughter had made just days before her death. The class presented it to them in remembrance.

Linda Merchant and those other young people should have had many more miles to go before they slept, but that was not to be. We need to appreciate our snowfalls as they happen - and experience each as though it might be our last.

The Savage Detectives

by Pa Rock

I've just finished reading The Savage Detectives, a splendid but rather lengthy tome about a group of poets who were on a mission to protect a prostitute from her pimp while scouring the Sonoran Desert in search of a legendary poetess who faded from view fifty years earlier. The book also covers the last three decades of the twentieth century and follows the individual lives of these visceral realist poets as they tramp across Mexico, Central America, Europe, and Africa in search of life. They were a scroungy lot living on the fringe of literary relevance, yet their stories were as deeply touching as they were troubling.

The Savage Detectives looks at the world in a realistic fashion, and, as an honest spectator, it is certain to become a banned book. There are several reasons that make it inevitable that the work will not be welcome on the shelves of high school libraries in the inbred areas of rural America, particularly in the South.

First of all, the book was written by a foreigner. Roberto Bolano, Chilean by birth, accurately captured the sense of outrage and desperation among average Chileans when the United States stepped in and helped Pinochet and his uniformed thugs murder Salvador Allende, the elected President of Chile. (That probably qualifies as a couple of reasons!) The book was about foreigners and presented them as ordinary people, not the stuff of a good Christian education. Also, there was sex...lots and lots of casual sex, mostly heterosexual, yet none of which was performed with the benefit of marriage. And the sex was constantly presented in such a way as to imply that it was a natural act that could be enjoyed for reasons other than procreation!

The icing on the cake, as far of the banning of this book is concerned, is that the lefty New York Times named The Savage Detectives as one of the ten best books of the year. There ain't no way that marker will slip by the religious censors and other small minded people who want to control what we read, write, watch, listen to, and enjoy.

I plan to hang onto my copy of The Savage Detectives until it receives its proper recognition and is placed on some of the more prestigious lists of banned books. Then I will carefully wrap it and send it to the Wasilla, Alaska, Public Library.

The Freshet by Henry David Thoreau

Tis now the twenty-third of March,
And this warm sun takes out the starch
Of winter's pinafore - Methinks
The very pasture gladly drinks
A health to spring, and while it sips
It faintly smacks a myriad lips.

A stir is on the Wooster hills,
And Nobscot too the valley fills,
Where scarce you'd dip an acorn cup,
In summer when the sun is up,
Now you'll find no cup at all,
But in its place a waterfall.

The river swelleth more and more,
Like some sweet influence stealing o'er
The passive town; and for a while
Each tussock makes a tiny isle,
Where on some friendly Ararat
Resteth the weary water rat.

Our village shows a rural Venice,
Its broad lagoons where yonder fen is;
Far lovlier that the bay of Naples,
That placid cove amid the maples;
And in my neighbor's field of corn
I recognise the Golden Horn.

Here nature taught from year to year,
When only red men came to hear.
Methinks 'twas in this school of art
Venice and Naples learned their part,
But still their mistress, to my mind,
Her young disciples leaves behind.

Pleasure Island

by Rocky Macy

Auntie Arabella has a smelly plate of fish,
But the kids all like her cooking
And their cats will clean the dish.

Boone peels bananas and bakes banana bread,
And all the baboons grab a loaf
Before they go to bed.

Carmen found a coconut lying on the beach,
And in the palms were dozens more
Far beyond her reach.

Dickie Drake, the show-off, has a duck egg in his ear,
But the kids all ignore him
And the mama duck stays near.

Erin feeds the elders beneath the lemon tree,
Where they enjoy their fish and poi
And the lemonade is free.

Frankie chases fireflies along the sandy shore,
And the kids all cheer him on,
Until the rain begins to pour.

Garlo climbs a grapevine way up to the sky,
And the kids all like his spirit
So they wait below with pie.

Happy Henry plays lots of silly tricks,
But the kids don’t think he’s funny
And they chase him with their sticks.

Irma says that Indigo is her favorite ink,
But the kids prefer papaya
Which is a peachy pink.

Jumping Jimmy Joe has a frog in his pants,
But the kids all like his moves
And they love to watch him dance.

Kewpie throws kisses to everyone in town,
And the kids all like her lots and lots
And they will never make her frown.

Laughing little Lauren has a lemon and a lime,
And she would like to catch a lizard
But she cannot make it rhyme.

Molly juggles mangoes beneath the moon so bright,
And the kids must like her show
Because they watch her every night.

Nicky pulls his fishing nets from the deep lagoon,
And all the kids help grab the fish
That will be cooking soon.

Olive dives for oysters searching for a pearl,
And yesterday she found one,
She is such a lucky girl!

Pete the playful pirate has a parrot on his head,
But the kids all like him anyway
And the parrot’s name is Fred.

Queenie was very quick and also very quiet,
But when she tripped on a snoring boar
Queenie started quite a riot!

Rocky chases rabbits just to watch them run,
And all the kids jump aside
While Rocky has his fun.

Sebastian likes to picnic down by the sea,
Where he serves the kids sea biscuits
And a hearty seaweed tea.

Timmy thought it was funny to pull the tiger’s tail,
But the kids did not laugh
And they sent him off to jail.

Uma plays her ukulele softly in the breeze
And the kids all listen quietly
As they lie beneath the trees.

Victor went to the volcano to watch the lava flow,
But when the lava came to close
Victor had to go!

Wanda Wiki-Wiki picks orchids for her lei,
But the kids would like her much, much more
If she took some time to play.

Xavier bangs a steel drum and a xylophone,
And all of the kids savor
Each and every tone.

Yolanda has a raft that she calls a yacht,
And she sails each day at sunrise
If the weather’s not too hot.

Zeke zips among the palms looking for a treasure,
But the kids all see what he cannot:
Their lives are rich with pleasure!

A Night's Tale

by Rocky Macy

Momma has a new boyfriend,
His name is Uncle Matt.
He’s really not my uncle,
He just makes me call him that.

I know my momma likes him
Because he’s sleeping in her bed.
It’s good to see her happy,
But I wish she slept with me instead.

My momma works at night
While Matt stays home with me.
He’s usually in his underwear
Watching our TV.

Matt’s videos are nasty,
But he makes me watch them, too.
And when he puts his hands on me,
I don’t know what to do.

Matt’s tells me to keep secrets,
And that what we do is good.
But I want to tell my momma,
I know I really should.

He says that if I tell her,
She’ll know that I’m to blame.
She won’t want me any more
Because I played his game.

I want to tell my momma,
But I’ve got too much to lose.
If she knew what we were doing,
Who would momma choose?

Ode on a Pet Rock

by Rocky Macy

Palsied mind that wrought so profound a frame
Exact with count and the structure of rhyme
Tortured mind of thoughts contorting for time,
Reason and rhyme – fix your discipline game.
A flaw is present which you may not claim,
Reaching deep, as to the heart of a crime,
Clipped ever precise is half of your climb,
Half, though, is ragged and mortally lame.

Go rework your scheme from the beginning,
Open each line with an important clue,
Only by doing this type of penning,
Fair thoughts made more pregnant will you imbue.
Embolden each verse with empowered meaning,
Demand your pen add dimension to you.

We Don't Talk That Way in Tulsa

by Rocky Macy

Today I found a naughty word,
I picked it up at school.
And when I said it to my friends,
They all thought I was cool!

After recess my teacher asked me
To describe a certain bird.
But when I opened my mouth to do it,
Out fell that naughty word!

My teacher gasped and stammered
As she said for all to hear,
“We don’t talk that way in Tulsa.
You must go see Missus Fear!”

Missus Fear, the principal, asked what I had done.
Had I been a bully, or did I throw a rock?
When I opened my mouth to tell her,
We both got quite a shock!

The principal huffed and powder-puffed
And proclaimed that I’d gone wild.
“We don’t talk that way in Tulsa.
You’ve become a problem child!”

Missus Fear called my mother
Who left work to come to school.
And when my mother heard my word,
She wasn’t very cool!

“We don’t talk that way in Tulsa!”
My mother yelled at me.
“And if you think we do,
Well …well…well…”

And there it was, another naughty word,
Alive and kicking, loud and clear!
Maybe they don’t talk that way in Tulsa,
But that’s not exactly what I hear!

Horsemen!

by Rocky Macy

Murderous Horsemen are storming the wall,
Surrounding the town, there is no escape.
Horsemen! More Horsemen! The gate will soon fall
And horsemen will plunder, butcher, and rape!
Slaughtering pigs and serfs without battle
Horsemen will drink the pale blood of this clan.
Flee to the fields and stay with the cattle,
Or take to your hovels, hide while you can!

And as the carousel slows down, slows down
Each handsome young rider calmly goes round.
Up and down, round and round, they take the town
And rope their steeds to the carnival ground.
The little Horsemen have ravaged their share,
Each must go home and await the next fair.

Decrescendo

by Rocky Macy

The characters in my story are going now,
Quietly, and in somber cadence,
Stepping off the brittle pages,
Drifting through the evening shadows
And landing softly in wilted piles
Among the dime store relics and old clippings
That are mere whispers of my fading life.

Ballad of the Middle Ages

by Rocky Macy
Sonneteer

“And what of me? Should I dare to ask it?
Where is my due for the mortar and sweat
That I gave from the heart, without regret,
To house our marriage? A house? A casket!
Our marriage is dead, I’ve tried to mask it
With public embraces, a false face set
To show love that has flown, love to forget!
Am I to blame? Should I dare to ask it?”

“Bitter old woman inflamed with such spite,
Your shackles of hate no longer bind me
To our stagnant union, that loveless blight!
As the dusk settles she and I will flee
Through the village gates to some star-strewn site
Hidden among the dunes of Arabie.”

"The really frightening thing about middle age is that you know you'll grow out of it." -- Doris Day