Carrot World

Carrot World,

Soundlessly swaying, slow slow steps,
one after another, make the carrot swing
Swing, swing, count the seconds
Plodding, plodding, up the long road

Lead us, fool, we follow
the orange stick at the end of the rope.
I have long lashes and watery eyes
but my eyes can not see what lies straight ahead.

Too slow, feel the sting
Senseless Braying,
A quicker step
Brings the carrot closer

Not sweet the tasteless reward
Ever promised and never given
Taste instead the sweet hay
Drink instead the cool water

What lies ahead I cannot see
Nor do I really care
It is ever the same in
the carrot world.

A short play in the style of Yeats (2)

Lady: Aye and the cherries have pebbles and when those pebbles are planted grow in Irish ground and become English trees.
Old Man: Says ye that now. I could not agree more. Everything that stands may be commanded
Lady: And ye in the woods with the boy's axe?
Old Man: I reckon I plan to be planted to, and then I be as English as any other dead man.
Lady: He'll not dig your grave with his axe.
Old Man: There's some that make two grave's with an axe, but I am not such a man.
Boy: And I am not such a one neither!
Lady: No you're a good child and never made a mother weep.
Boy: It would have been hard since I have not a mother.
Lady: Not so, all men even him who had no earthly father have a mother. But it was her who made your eyes water... (laying her hand on his shoulder)
Boy: Not so! (striking her hand)
Lady: What's this?
Old Man: Aye, the boy knows his case and does not want pity. He is ready to learn his lot. Come along with me.
Boy: (Shaken) Only if the lady commands.
Lady: Do as ye like.
Old Man: Come along.
Boy: What am I to do?
Old Man: Come along.
Lady: You know where your home is, but I have seen you pawing the earth and see now your inclinations (touching her own stricken hand).
Boy:(hesitantly) ma'am. I am sorry.
Lady: Away with ye then, ye seem to wish it. Take your axe and follow the old man. You all follow the same road, tarrying here and there for a while. And some never rise but sleep.

A short play in the style of Yeats (1)

Scene: A cottage as you might find in any county, far from the sea. A road, a stone wall behind which are hills webbed with stone walls and dotted with cottages. AGainst the stone wall lies various farming implements, picks, shovels, etc. A young boy is using a hoe in the garden.

A man comes on stage. He is old but walks with long strides.

Old Man: Go grab your axe, boy and come with me!
Boy: Where are we going?
Old Man: To the forest that lies underneath the stone house.

A window in the cottage opens up

Lady: Boy! Who is that calling?
Boy: It is the old man.
Lady: Old man! Why are you waking the dead?
Old Man: It is not I who wake the dead but you who do not let them sleep.
Lady: Phaw.
Old Man: Now grab your axe.
Lady: Boy! Keep your hands to the hoe and your eyes to the praties.
Old Man: She will be telling you that boy until you can't see moon or sun even if you did look for them.
Lady: Shut your gab, if we have words it will be nose to nose and eye to eye.
Old Man: Fist to fist suits me better.
Lady: Have you no respect?
Old Man: Aye ma'am. I have respect for the young one here and his axe.
Lady: I am coming out and we'll see whose boot is sharper.

[Window shuts]

Old Man: Listen here boy, get your axe and come away now. We'll have so many words you will eat no dinner tonight 'less you come right now.
Boy: I must not upset the lady.
Old Man: What does she ever do for you?
Boy: She gives me praties.
Old Man: It's you that give them to her you young fool.
Boy: But it's her garden.
Old Man: Does she plant it? Does she turn it? Does she pull all the brown stones out and make herself a wall?
Boy: No, she but she boils the cabbage in her pot and sweeps the table and mends my socks.
Old Man: You could do all that for yourself. Now come away.

Lady: What is this? Why are you stealing my boy? Are your ears long now and your coat green?
Old Man: I ain't stealing nothing but what can't be stolen 'cause it can't be owned.
Lady: Boy, is he talking of the sweet wild cherries?
Old Man: Aye, that I am talking of the cherries is certain.
Lady: Go inside boy and you can eat now.
Old Man: Go on in and eat the fruit of your labor boy, but first listen to what I will say after she has it out.
Lady: Well enough for him to hear.
Old Man: Aye well enough.
Lady: Let him hear of this work he will do with the axe.
Old Man: He will make a clearing in the wood beneath the stone house.
Lady: Near the creek?
Old Man: Aye, where the cherries grow and where there are harts.
Lady: And build you a hut?
Old Man: Of dry wood and he can live there too.
Lady: Until the Lord of the Stone House comes back.
Old Man: There is no more Lord there. He himself is stone and wood now.
Lady: I will not hear of it.
Old Man: Boy, I am an old man, and I know it is true. There is no lord in that stone house but a lord in england who says that is tenant land. But there are no tenants, the last one died and I know he was so poor that he never paid and he never owned and yet he had his hut.
Lady: You tell me you old fool what pebble in Ireland is not loaned back to us? What silver we have that is not from the English and goes back to London?
Old Man: Aye, the Irish Pebbles are English and rightly so. The english may have them all for all I care of them. But there is no beast in Ireland save those on the pinion that is not Irish. And no Irish cherry in the mouth of a lark is the property of the man in a bowler hat.

Before

Before

Kiss my lips while they are still warm
And the breath you gave me
Still dwells in my breast
Before the last sigh
While I still have time.
Before.

Who named me such a name,
To bear before the world,
A constant accusation,
Of all the pagan gods?
To remember for all,
That our days are counted,
And every sin is weighed.

Open my lips, so that I may confess
Through suffering and pain,
But before torment.

The empty

Don't you know he can fly?

Willow, willow, wailing
We will wisp about the baby
With a nonny-nonny-nonny
And a nonny-nonny-noo

With a nonny-nonny-nonny
And a wisp-o-will-o wailing
Wisp-o-wispy whisper, whisper
Willy-Chilly-whispy-whisper

A nonny-nonny

Empty all about the shadow
Nothing about, nothing about
Steady, steady, hand is shaking
Breathless giggles, giggles quaking
Laughing, smirking.

Colder lips, lips upon my cold lips,
Breath taking, breath stealing,
Dull dead air lifeless air
Stirless, black, and silent air:
Sharp as flint, hard as stone,
Shiny and black against the dull, dull, shadow

Eyes winking, eyes twinkling,
Starry, splintery, glintery,
Nonny, nonny, whisteley
Prickly, prickly, bristeley

A sudden Crack

A snap, a snap, a mighty snap!
A snap a snap, it made me clap!
Twig, twig, dance a jig!
Dance a jig, with mister pig!

Worse o worse to think of things,
Things with featherless, leathery wings,
Wings that beat upon that air,
Shrunken, twisted, clawed or fisted.

Nonny-nonny, will-o-whispery
Empty, O God it's so empty!
Nothing at all about it,
Nothing there, there's nothing there,

Empty-hempty-shmempty
So giggly, so wiggly-jiggly
All about, so empity-jempity
Giggaly, wiggaly, let's all be giggaly

What is that sound
In the distance
That dull thudding?

To the up-and-coming...

"To know the soul of another, one must know the soul that resides within. To come to know that soul, one must seek to know God, and in so doing come to know the soul-source of humanity itself."

if and when

Young man says:
I want folks to treat me with respect,
I want folks to know what I got inside,
know that what I got can't be bought,
and I ain't sellin'

Young man says:
People are going to look at me and they gonna say:
Look where he's been!
Look what he's done!
Look who that fella knows!

Young man says:
Ain't no place gonna kick me out,
My skin be black as coal,
and people still gonna let me in,
If somethin' ain't right,
I'm gonna tell 'em,
and they're gonna listen.

Young man says:
What's nasty is nasty,
Ain't no use lyin' to people to make them feel good.
I know what's right and I know what ain't,
People are gonna listen.

Young man says:
The world is on fire,
It's burnin' down and goin' to hell,
And if I go with it, I don't care,
because I did what I wanted.

Young man says:
If and when I die,
I'm gonna die knowin'
I didn't take nothin'
That I didn't want.

Old man says:
Let me breathe...
... one more time ...
... without no more pain ...
... breathe ...
... one more time ...

There once was...

There once was a quaggle of bearstrich (a peculiar creature, it bore a striking resemblance to a bear, with a bear's head, and four bear claws, but the body and tail feathers of an Osterich).

Like the Osterich, the creature ran on its back two legs, which were quite spindly for a bear, but all it had to support were these two massive (think "Popeye") bear arms and an unusual, large and stinky, bear's head.

This quaggle (about a half-a-quag more than a meeka and three-and-a-half times less than a terugala) of bearstrichs would spend the entire day standing on these two, spindly hind legs of a bear and drink manhattans in the blazing heat of the Death Valley sun (for they lived here to avoid the interruption of men).

They would drink and discuss politics.

Like Englishmen, they did this, all-the-while, in the heat of the sun.

Bearstrichs loved the sun.

And manhattans.

It was most peculiar, for they never became intoxicated.

Their speech never slurred.

All day, they would drink and tarry, drink and tarry, drink, and tarry.

They tarry about the situation in Miler's Bluff, (for everyone knows those sofu (a Bearstrich expletive) Miler's are a bunch of corrupt ninny-poos), or about some sort of nothing that was usually going on in Pigpoodle holler.

The pigpoodles HATED bearstrichs, and the bearstrichs didn't care much for the pigpoodles either.

It all went back to the great war that transpired one half terugayar before the great migration to the Easterlunds.

A couple of the

Sparkplug Soul

Ok, so "Motorhead" does not really have a song entitled "Sparkplug Soul"; they should have. It fits them.

If they did, I think it would go something like this;

"I wish I had a sparkplug soul,
to go along with my rocker-armed mind.

I wish I had a sparkplug soul,
to lay down some tread on some weary bones.

With a sparkplug soul,
I'd fire every piston.

I'd slam them into my rocker-armed mind.

Electric blast feeling the gaseous sqeeze
in my spark-chamber brain.

With my sparkplug soul,
synapse they fire,
and my crankshaft legs,
they fly, baby, they fly.

Oh how I loves my sparkplug soul.

Sizzle spark.

Sizzle spark.

Sizzle spark.

Ram it home, baby.

Fire me up another spark.

My sparkplug soul.

Drunken Reverie on the loss of a true, blue, friend

My hat is off, to you, my pal.

Long days, and drunken nights...together we spent!

What a ride it was, this "l'enfant terribleee".

She was a great, old gal, a grand dame, in deed!

And what a grand ol' flag above her did once waive (and now, no men, together, can save).

But now, she is daid...and all that we have before us, and before us is mourn, mourn, mourn.

For the life of a gal, who was once...so grand ! God love her soul.

God, love her soul !

A Grande Dame was she (Vespuci will vouch). A Grande Dame, a grand gal, and the

love

of the South.

Young scouts they did pledge, an honor so deep.

But now, she is gone, all piled up in a heap.

Oh now, she is gone, and what have we left? A memory of her, and a life, now bereft.

But here's the grand deal (and a grand deal 'tis indeed)...

A man once commented to me, as I sat in the East, that "our thang" was on wane, that "she", like her, was dying, slow death.

And to him I did reply from my seat way on high "if she lives in one heart, she lives without 'part' ".

And so it must go; "virtus junxit mors, non separabit" !

Grand dreams, grand schemes (and even grandier idears) - they too, they will live, if only they live in one heart (that beats true. That, beats true).

And so I must go, and so I must do, as those who before me, brave bastards knew too.

True dinkem, true dinkem, true dinkem 'til dee.

So drink 'til you drop, mon frere and mon ace!

Together we live, if (in secret) our hearts - they do keep pace, keep pace, keep pace - until end of long race...

And onward, and upward, together we will trudge, and an eagle one day, us both, she will judge.

From this pit we will fly, and rise from crevace, and above lousey fray, cherub raptors we will boss.

And order she will come, to a chaos that is high, and at talon-swords that we weild, she-devils they will die!

We will rip, we will tear, ripping flesh until bone - she will bear.

Uncovering truth from she-devil's dark, dank, deep lair.

And forsooth, God will reign, and we upon knee, upon knee we shall bear - a burden so light, hard burden, but no care.

Insomnia

At night my mind devolves upon
a rising tide of pain
that quells the echoes of God's voice
and spreads the mortal stain

And sleepless, facing fears unknown
to the clarity of day
One paranoia climbs another;
thoughts surmount and fray

How to subdue an unchecked mind
put down this madding fission?
Tame this beast of consciousness
and regain sober vision?

Till gears are stripped and bearings lock
and shafts both burn and freeze
Abed I'll lay tormented just
a madman at his ease

Click, click, click

http://mbshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/09/14/click-click-click/

One from our sister site

http://mbshepherd.wordpress.com/2008/05/24/and-only-god-prevails/

Twightlight Fell on Forest Hill

An old man enslaved. Chained, to his will. He champed the cigar, and considered the till.

He chewed that old stogy, and his mind melded in a falling, twilight sky.

An unbelievable shade of blue it was; and it is true, there can be no doubt, absolute. He'd never seen nothin' like it, in all his years beneath them mountains he always held, so dear and close to his still beating (thank God), heart.

It was such a pale blue. It mimicked his eyes, and a tear almost came, but then came to subside.

Fireflies flickered against this pale, beaten sky, and his lantern, it shimmered, in rhythm to an oncoming, dark sky.

He knew there'd be stars, later that night, and they too would flicker, and rule the dark sky. They surely would live longer than these seasonal flies, but somehow they were kin, and their existence...in line?

But in that moment between, when it's neither darkness or light, the old man took repose, and considered his plight.

He was abandoning, in sort, but grasping in another. While his life had been through changes, he'd never quite given up - even through changes there was not a quitting, but only a shifting; like a chain on a sprocket to a tearing, new high.

This change was no doubt of monumental import; but somehow he took refuge in knowing the sort.

On Forest Hill he did love, he built and he toiled. He had his own place, and he sewed fertile soil.

One thing was for certain in his dubious mind; here he would live, and here he would die.

This circle of life, what a grand scheme it is...it yields perfect habit, of that, there can be no pretense.

So the old man did puff another deep drag, and ponder his existence in this fairytale wag.

What a beautiful life it is, against this deep, blue-green hue; another day just shy of heaven on this forested hill, this shelter from life's cruel skew, with an explosively simple, and monumentally incredulous, serene, sweet view!

He gasped one last evening gasp as his soul's eyes did peer, upon the heart of the Lord in a splendor he so deeply revered.

And with that, he turned in, awaiting the fray, for the changes that come in yet another, new day.

The Chattering Tale

This is the tale of a cutty-sark sail,
of a winch's lip
and a Dragon's tail.

Of Dragon Beast' foal
running down Dragon Beast' spine
with sprocketed chain
chattering metered time.

Humming in unison
they soar, head to tail
the beast clad in iron,
they run as on rail.

"And what is there mission,"
quips curious, young lad
"for they run and they run,
turn 'round back up, it's sad!"

Answered, old man:
"The mighty Mother, Dragon Beast,
she calls out her lads,
she sends them a' scurry
for the dreams that she'd had...

From points farther East,
her breath doth return
as mist from the sea,
cooling belly fires that burn.

And her children have riders,
like Wraiths, they hold on
through the spine's knotty curves,
Man, maiden and sons.

Young girls they line up,
for rides on the beasts,
their hair like the pony,
leather clad for the feast.

Mortal food's not their object,
on this ride through curved hell.
To be seen by the subjects
those Demons 'neath scales.

'Tis a long ride down'
cries bloggers from sides,
"and over edge you will tumble
for the Demon's dark prize".

But onward and onward they travel
they travel, they do
their purpose, you ask?
like their piston's, redeux.

They clamor and clank
they hum, and they purr
but kitty's not timid
wire rifled, her fur.

"But where will they end up,"
questioned young son
"since their mission like piston
see-saws backwards and yon?"

"Ah, their's is no mission,
on that you can bet
to ride Dragon's tail
is all they have left."

"But what of the wraiths
holding on to their backs?"

"Ah, they will keep going
long as God sets their tracks".

And the winds blew the fog
from far out at sea
the sails like chains chatter
a Pirate's ship carries "she".

The winch, she is coming,
like a whore on a breeze
she comes to take mountain,
Dragon's lair at it's knee.

And what will be left of stout spine
and it's brood?

The foals, they will gallop
and wraiths run for good.

And Dragon, she'll stay
and lick at her wounds,
until another day
engineer's and their children
and eggs hatch new brood.

And so they will run
and race through those curves
Until winch and ship come take them
and send souls beyond Earth.

-Sir S.E. Visum, esq.
on being brought back to life

Agape

No one loves God as Jesus.
And for Christ, none could love Him as God.
From the wilderness we cry "Jesu, Jesu, Jesu",
and from home, only, "My Dearest Dear Lord".
But alas, we must all and always merely, pitifully and meagerly try, try, try.

For grace, it is, good enough?

For the Dashing Racontour of Haberdashery

The Spinning Song

It's stuck in my head, really.

Has been, all my life.

A catchy ditty, it's about spinning.

Not auguring, or falling out of the sky in a tail-spin; not political either - it's plain, old-fashioned spinning, on a spinning wheel.

No, not like the song from the 60's (let the spinnin' wheel spin) - yarn (and not "talking a yarn" either, actual, bona fide yarn (of the kind used to make afghans, and funky capes that old women and hippies wear).

It's actually a song, composition, really. Played on the piano. It's a catchy tune.

But, isn't that the way of spin. Spin is contagious...it sticks with you.

It binds, and it magically takes small fibers and through some mystical quirk of nature it forms them into this structure that does not unravel but yet clings in a manner that can not be fully explained (or at least, not to satisfaction - why does it not simply unwind?).

How is it that this song, this piece, this composition is so like the yarn it tries, through cadence and tonality, through rhythm and vibe, to mimic?

Da, da, da, da, da, da...da DA.

Over and over and bloody over, clickety-clack, just like that damned wheel...spinning, pumping with their feet, spinning, spinning, spinning.

It's mind numbing, really.

Like the political quacks and hacks...always spinning.

I have to ask, though; with the yarn, it binds and makes something useful. Something we can wear, or keep our bodies warm in the Winter (if we are old women or hippies - although I did once see a bikini made from afghan - quite fetching until it got wet at which point it looked as though she had cocker spaniel puppies attached to all her nasty bits. Wet and nasty cocker spaniel pups. Oooo, I just keep getting a deeper state of funkiness).

What then is accomplished by the political variety of spin? Is there a double-helix array formed from the spin that binds into this form that covers our bodies not unlike the array that forms the skin that contains and manifests our bones, our brains, and even, to extent, our souls?

I think it more like the airplane, beginning its descent in a tailspin, and then like the auger binding itself into the muck of the earth. Rather than forming something of the earth, it digs into its mire.

Ironic that political spin would be of that sense of the word, you know, twisting into the dirt seeking its origin in the depths of the planet - in the hell from which it was formed rather than providing anything of noble use to man.

Oh well; I do have to get my heart right. It is, after all, an election year and it is, frankly, time to talk turkey.

Clickety, clickety....clack.

Cool Breeze

A cool wind blew through town today.

It was odd for the breeze to be cool this time of year.

Oh granted, I suppose, it could still be considered early Spring (if not late, early), but still, peculiar.

Whiley wondered, what would be the outcome of it all?

With the townsfolk in such uproar, maybe this cool snap would cool the hot heads as well.

They are pretty perked up over this one. Goes deep too...down in the roots.

They're worked up over who they are...over where they come from, and more, where the outsiders are from. There can be no doubt, the town was changin', and not necessarily for the better.

Lot's of outsiders blowin' in, like the cool breeze.

The breeze is temporary, but these outsiders, seems like they're gonna stay.

Whiley wasn't sure he wanted to go back to town. Mamma brought him some chicory coffee, and they sat on the front porch swing, watching the humming birds on the tiger lily's and commentin' on the blue birds and purple martins.

Looked like a good year for them. Nothing ever changes with them.

Happy birds, they were.

Approaching the Rationalist's Idiom

So, because you only have a hammer, and not a screwdriver, you advance the argument that nails are naturally preferable to screws.