VFW

VFW
by catnapping
11/08/2008, 9:31 AM #

Sitting with friends
at a long table cluttered
with bowls of oatmeal
and cold stacks of pancakes,
he holds his coffee mug
with both hands.

And recites the memory
of a cold ditch in Korea,
of hot chinese metal
and smoldering wool,
and the certainty
that he would burst into flames.


© catnapping

Crazy Shapes and Impossible Colors

Subject: cat
From: Ted_Burke
Date: Sep 11 2006 2:54AM

Crazy Shapes and Impossible Colors

We take a hard look as
each comes into the house

still breathing, no bullet holes,
no signs of rigor, the skin a hail pink,

and everyone gets a hug, a handshake,
are told to make themselves a drink while
the turkey finishes cooking in its own juices,

somehow the year feels
lighter than it seemed,
less like overcoat pockets lined
with lead weights and rocks

and more a windbreaker that lets the
latest wind from up the canyon
a bone chill with
each fingering gust,

most of us are still here,
our tales have been

added too, our families
have gained more
than we've lost,

small kids jump
on the beds

where the coats are laid,
investigate alien closets and

their landscape of dress shoes in
crazy shapes and impossible colors,

someone is already impossibly loaded,
stewed in his juices,

baked with his smoke,
hand gestures that speak

too loud of love
that never dies when

it's a good man
with a woman at his side,

dinner comes ten minutes late
and just in the nick of time,
the world has seldom been this delicious,

Sarah Vaughn sings a blues
that is the color of every night sky.

http://fray.slate.com/?id=3936&m=18152234

MichaelRyerson - The Fishermen

Subject: The Fishermen
From: MichaelRyerson
Date: Feb 8 2006 2:56PM

The boy sits up, wrinkling his face
in that frown of self awareness,
waiting to come full awake,
licks his lips and looks out
at the sun slanting in at near horizontal.

'Hey,' I say
and he smiles at the rearview mirror,
'Hey,' he answers in a whisper.

We pass two bait shops on the right,
fishermen in baseball caps leaning
against their pick-up trucks drinking
coffee from styrofoam cups.

'Live Bait, licenses and tackle,
finger mullets, live shrimp,
coffee, donuts and soft drinks,
ICE!' the signs say...

a ragged, bone-colored hound
pisses on a tire
and beyond the clapboard buildings,
in the back bay,
a couple of rust-stained runabouts
rise and fall on a gentle swell,
riding their anchor chains.

dead weight

Afraid of Spiders

The Properties of Ether

Subject: The Properties of Ether
From: LoveGeek
Date: Sep 13 2005 7:00PM

(CH3 CH2)2O – hydrolyzed ethanol
colourless; aromatic;
highly flammable.

Aristotle said ether
was inalterable,
having no beginning
and no end.

I thought
it would be safe,
-life in the ether-

You were ribbons of thought,
recipes for rye bread,
formulas for finding
the circumference of a circle.

Your existence
was a theory.
I didn't know you'd bleed.


© 2005 catnapping

Rewriting The Hits

Subject: Rewriting The Hits
From: IdesOfMarch
Date: Feb 23 2005 4:57PM

Desitnranta

Go placidly amid the Stormy Poets,
and remember what peace there may be in Amber.
As far as possible without regurgitating
be on good terms with all posters.
Write your absurdities quietly and clearly;
and read the others,
even Katip and Fritz Gerlich;
they too have their fantasies.

Avoid loud and aggressive liberal wingnuts,
they are vexations to the spirit.
If you compare yourself with neocons,
you may become vain and bitter;
for always most are greater and few are lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your checkmarks even though you don't derserve them.


Abandon your professional duties, however urgent;
it is a lot more fun to be posting your crap on the Fray.
Exercise caution in posting your pictures;
for the world is full of psychotic stalkers.
But let this not blind you to what pleasure there is;
many persons strive for lower standards;
and everywhere life is full of whoredom.


Be anybody but yourself.
Be The Bell or someone who can actually write.
Neither give any thought to love;
for in the face of all such sappy sentiments
it is more popular to write as s gras.


Take kindly the counsel of Itrati,
gracefully surrendering the joys of youth.
Nurture throngs of sycophants to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with important issues.
Many diatribes are born of fatigue and loneliness.
Beyond a wholesome bohemianism,
be gentle with twiffer and Geoff.


You are a child of the internet,
no less than the banned and the stars;
you have a right to be queer.
And though little or nothing seems clear to you,
no doubt you have waaayyy too much time on your hands.


Therefore be at peace with locdog,
whatever Kevin may conceive Him to be,
and whatever JV-12 or Bluto may counsel,
in the noisy confusion of Tempo keep peace with Slendid_IREny.


With all its Darknight, Skeptical, and FreedomLost,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be zinya.
Strive to be silly.


http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=13938524

Snowflakes

Subject: Snowflakes
From: Daysman
Date: Dec 14 2004 7:39PM

In bits of rhythm, laced together by rushes of tethered thoughts
It fell upon my clothes, and brushed my eyelashes
Whispering thought in my ear, asking me why I care
So much, for what? The way I waste my years…
But I shrug them aside, a natural motion of pace
Moving ahead to my destiny, not straying in their
Beckons to relinquish the thoughts of the day
Tonight I'll gaze out my window and try to remember
What they told me, why I was here, what to watch for,
Why I should have strayed…
Why are they always right, when they come they cause panic
They fall into our lives, they take over our paths
Gentle, soft, but powerful, and in control of agenda and time
"Not that way!" they insist, "don't be so harsh!"
…give it time, it will carry, there's no need to rush
Remember your thoughts in your youth? The days
When cares were fleeting, when time was not the enemy?
Why do you make it a weight? Crush yourself with the lie?
Come look out at the moment, breathe the fresh humid puff
Stare at the cloud, your hot steam stirring with the cool reprise
If you rush, you will lose the chance to peer into the stillness
Steal one more invisible take of the lovely quiet,
the dream; You can't hold and can't let go
Like the quality of the misty air in front of you
Something you know so well and forget so readily
To not kill your life on the hard stuff
Return to the quiet, take back your own heart
That's what they were telling me
I hate them, they are so free to follow the wind
While I return to my room and worries of the night




(daysman's visit to the poems fray Wintersol contest)

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http://fray.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=13284497

Odd