Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poetry. Show all posts

Sunday, November 02, 2008

Poem: What color is water?


Water comes in many colors
Because of the items suspended
In the water.

Water absorbs red and green
And reflects back the blue
When the water is pure.

Puget Sound is green
Because the water is alive
With thousands of critters.

The Aegean is blue
Because it's not so alive.
Now you're thinking "this is hokum,"

"What about this glass of water
In my hand?
It is crystal-clear and it sparkles."

It does look clear.
But if you made that glass
Of water as large

As the Empire State Building,
It would be dark blue.
If you don't believe me, try it.
---o0o---

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Poem: Why are bubbles round?



1
Bubbles are round because Mother Earth
And the moon are round,

Because the sea-tumbled grey and green pebbles
Are round, and the clock,

Compass, sextant, disk, L.E.D.,
And ring of fire, are round.

2
Bubbles are round because water molecules
Are attracted downward and inward,

Creating a fragile skin of surface tension
That cradles water like a baby.

3
Bubbles are round because tension
Draws the water into its most compact shape

And the most compact shape—
On this planet—is a ball.
---o0o---

Jack Brummet poem: The Resurrection




He was ready to live again
Even if living just meant running
To keep ahead of the ghosts.
---o0o---

Friday, October 17, 2008

Jack Brummet Poem: The Quest



It’s all one story—
A ragged shape-shifting tale

Of incredible coherence and constance,
Encompassing all you know,

All you don’t know you know,
And all you one day will know.

There is more
To be seen, tasted, heard, and felt

Than can ever be known or told.
Our myths flourish and spread,

Person to person,
And the mysteries of the seas and skies and stars

Fill our collective conscience
With mystical scenery,

Quests, and tales of greatness.
These myths, tales, and fables

Cannot be invented, ordered, or denied.
When you strip away the stage flats, makeup, and costumes,

It’s all one story
Starring our private heroes and dreams.
---o0o---

Monday, September 29, 2008

Poem: Summer leaves in autumn hit the winter of their life



The crisp dappled grey, mottled rust,
And crumbling mustard leaves and fronds
Tumble to the beckoning loam.

They sink to the brown earth
Like we all do
Sooner or later,

But they get to do it every year,
Reincarnated green in the spring
For one more run at life above the earth.
---o0o---

Friday, August 15, 2008

Jack Brummet Poem: Survival



1
Around and within you—
The cunning enemy
Calculates your fall,

And a traitor within
Beats in your chest.
Know when to stand and when to run.

2
You gather your friends
Around you
Like a shock of wheat,

Like a bulwark
Or a last ditch bivouac
In the cold rain and snow.
---o0o---

Friday, July 11, 2008

My poetry reading in Heraklion, Crete

I am literally falling asleep as I try to write this, so will wrap it up tomorrow. We stumbled into a Greek poetry bookstore today. After some incredible name drops on both sides of people we mutually loved, the owner looked up some of my poetry and then hauled out a bottle of wine, and wanted to talk poetry.

After a glass of wine, he handed me two books of translations of Kazanstakis and Odysseus Elytis. He wanted me to read two long poems in English aloud and we both had a great time hearing them in English. One was the prologue to Kaz's Sequel to the Odyssey. I was very moved by the event, and it was a real highlight of the trip so far. What a great, random find and event. I have now had my first European poetry reading, and made a friend in the poetry world of Greece.
---o0o---

Friday, June 27, 2008

Poem in Göreme

A breeze carries
The scent of horses
Along the creek
________________

A band of swallows
Spins a circle
Fifty meters toward heaven
________________

The creek alongside me
Carries raindrops, tears, and snow
That may once have landed

In Johannesberg, Soho
Bucerias, Constantinople,
Athens, Ketchikan, or Saskatoon.
________________

Six ducks, looking exactly like
Their American brethren
Wait for handouts of bread

From the waiters
As each table of German, French,
And Japanese tourists

File out, refueled and ready
To restock the tour buses
And move on to the next stop.

---o0o---
Göreme, Turkey, June 27, 2008

Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Poem: Endurance & Limits



We all like to secretly believe
We could endure anything for eight minutes

But those neat theories cooked up
In your hermetic study or bedroom

Come apart at the seams instantly
When you imagine being on fire

Or having crows feast
Upon your eyes.


[A tip of the hat to Luke Burbank of Too Beautiful To Live, who inspired this poem by mentioning being on fire and crows pecking your eyes]
---o0o---

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

Index of Jack Brummet's Poems on All This Is That


This is a sporadically-appearing index to all the poems I've published here (and elsewhere) over the last few years. I also wrote 64 poems based on the Book of Changes a/k/a the I Ching that are indexed here.

Poems published since the last index (October, 2007) are colored red. Click on the poem to read it...

Poem: How He Lived
Poem: In California, I write down the names of every great tree name I can remember
Poem: When the devil comes knocking
Poem: Into the wind
Poem: The Outlet
Poem: The riptide beneath my feet
Poem: The sounds on Puget Sound
Poem: Stages
Poem: But you can't
Poem: [with your back to the wall]
Poem: [The surging sea]
Poem: Are they on the way or is it "just my 'magination (once again)?"
Poem: The telepath
Poem: Catch 23
Poem: Narcissism
Poem: Midnight Madness
Grey USA
On seeing the photo of a long lost friend
Imaginary Friends
Alkyvision
[The streetlight's blue shadows...]
There's A Civil War In His Head[
Jesus Walks On Water
On The Plain: just a song of Gomorrah
Why I won't run for President
The story of a long long journey
Dawdling
Landing, or, Aviophobia, Part 26
The eyes have it
You Rehearse Dying
How the first baby in the world
The Big Boat
Babylon and the unfinished tower
Late Spring
Higher Ground Poem: The Icarus Factor).
Truism 1
The Grey Convoy Flies Over the UFO Crash Site
Dual Mortality
Ephemeral Communications
toast
3 A.M.
I'm agnostic about atheism
Snow Day In Kirkland, Washington
Squirrel poem
Going Mad Might Be Like A Bad Eight Track Tape Deck
Fall Haiku
Jericho & How Joshua Caused The Walls To Come Tumbling Down
The Orgy In The Pantry (starring Duncan Hines, Betty Crocker, Pilsbury Dough Boy, Aunt Jemima, Chef Boy-Ar-Dee and more
With Or Without The Words
Hello. . .My poem is. . .
You Gather Your Friends
The Way We Were
Scarred for life
The White Flag
The Cover-up
The Good German
Dream Of The Grey
Torches & Pitchforks
The Red Flag
Don't look back
The Tenth Planet (Or An Incredible Facsimile?)
Anger management is a slippery slope
the vault
The Moon's In Tune
Another politician resigns in disrace
Rub-a-dub
Tendrils
The Candidate
Reds
Making Room
The revolt in heaven
Found Poem: The Richmond Hill Oracle
The Robot Wars
Ten ways of looking at lies
The Broken Chord
With our heads in the sand during the transit and eclipse
the sun plays its red song
Litany
Poem: The Developers
A raindrop's life
The mystery of the first amendment to the Ten Commandments
The Bay Of Delusion
Mad Song
Reasons To Keep On
Conspiracy Theory
The Moon Race
Mr. Flue's Grave In Hillcrest Cemetary, Kent, Wash.
The World Seems Especially Calming And Verisimilitudinous Today
Kent, Washington
Rollover
[It's the Lee Harvey Oswald smile]
Zombie Breakdown
Heaven
The Variations
Sonnet For Hari
Defensive Daydreaming
The Dream
Dogpaddling
The Prostethic Head & The Absence Of Blood
Tetuan - "No Paranoia, My Friend"
The Grey Ambassador
The Bad Movie
The Bucket
The Man In The Mirror
Liftoff
Optimism
Perspective
A Flight Of Swallows
Audioblog - The Prevaricator
Weather Report
Your Wooden Leg
The Revelations Sermon At The First Church Of The Mojo Apocalypse
Dosvidaniya, Ivan Ivanovitch
The Late Excavation
Poem: Jack Kerouac, Meet John Barleycorn
The Gideon Bible In My Nightstand
At The Acropolis
When Aliens Land, Or, The Return Of The King
The sous-chef is a sociopath
James Wright
Falling
[Life Is Not A Hardy Novel]
Seven
Coyote Comes Home Like A Salmon
Shorts For Jerry Melin ca. about 1988
Bird
Monism
The Golden Rule
The Countdown
AT HILLCREST CEMETARY IN KENT, WASHINGTON, I WALK BY THE GRAVE OF SAM THE GRASSEATER
Notes On Flying
Daybreak
Explosions
Not Past Tense Yet
the glass is not half-full
It's Getting Crowded Here
Li Po In Disgrace
The Clock
A Love Song
Bad Timing
The Killer
The Absence of Footprints
Growing Up
Gone Fishing
The M.D.s
Acrylic
The Marriage
Driving Home To Seattle, We Watch Deer Drinking from the Skookumchuck River
---o0o---

Saturday, March 29, 2008

Poem: The riptide beneath my feet




1
Standing by the sea
The riptide sucks the sand
From beneath my heels

2
Every time it happens
I feel just a hemidemisemiquaver
Of panic that the holes will open up

And a succubus will grab my ankles
Or the holes will open up and I'll fall
Straight down to China

3
I've felt that same panicked moment
In Greece in Malibu and the O.C.
On San Francisco Bay

In North Africa and in Kalaloch
At Tatoosh and La Push and Big Sur
In Spain on Crete and at Montauk

4
It's all part of the seven seas
Which aren't seven seas at all
But one big ocean circling the earth

And if you are 75% of anything
You get to do pretty much
What you want where and when you want

We can pollute it bridge it and tunnel under it
But the ocean has always had and always will
Have a mind of its own.

---o0o---

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Poem: Into the wind



I watch three herring gulls
Fly South into the wind
And they're losing ground,

Tumbling and righting themselves
In the shifting currents
Scouring the air.

It's not that they want
To migrate South
So much as not go North.

Something in the gull's hearts
Tells them to stay clear
Of Ketchikan, Skagway, and Nome.
---o0o---

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Poem: But you can't



You can withdraw it
Marginalize it
Forget it
Hide it
Lie about it
Or deny it three times before the cock crows.

You can laugh about it
Weep about it
Shout about it
Hide it under a bush (oh no)
Sing the blues about it
Or sweep it under the rug.

You can get an ulcer over it
Commit suicide over it
Lose your family over it
Lose your shorts over it
Lose your mind over it
Or pretend it never happened.


You can dream about it
Run away from it
Rationalize it
Explain it away
Or drink it away
But you can't take back love.

---o0o---

Friday, December 07, 2007

Poem: Stages

I am no one's grandchild
Or nephew or great nephew
I've never been a great grandson

I am still a son
Still a brother and uncle
Son- and brother-in-law
First second and third cousin
Daddy and husband

I am still to be a grandfather
Great uncle and father-in-law

And always have been

And always will be God's boy.
---o0o---

Monday, November 05, 2007

Poem: Are they on the way or is it "just my 'magination (once again)?"



From the rolling verdant hills of Karleekanosh
To the roiling oceans of Trunobulax,

We wait and watch the shifting skies
For the approach of our long-lost cousins,

Whirring in from far far away,
And wonder what they will bring—

A bag of goodies
To transcend life as we know it,

Or a Pandora's box
Of the unknown and unknowable,

Filled with plagues
And darkness?
---o0o---

Poem: [The surging sea]

1
The surging sea
Slots its surf
Into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

2
Two islands down the line
A lone crow
Cries out for its kind,

Bouncing on the fragile limb
Of a lodgepole pine parked
On Mount Constitution's summit

3
I hear the musical murmur
Of two voices in the next room
Like a rhythmic background

With no melody
Coming from
The other channel.

4
Tell Saint Peter
At the Golden Gate
He's just going to

Have to wait
Because I am not coming
The day before tomorrow

Or the day after yesterday.
I am in no rush
To be issued a harp

And besides
I can't tell an E flat
From a B sharp.

I think heaven can wait
They have enough people already
And do they really need a date?
---o0o---

Poem: [with your back to the wall]



With your back to the wall
Feet to the fire
Head in a vise
And tit in a wringer
You frantically search
For the way out
And the door back.
---o0o---

Saturday, November 03, 2007

William Shakespeare: All the world's a stage

Just because it's good for your soul to read Willy The Shake every once in a while:


[All the World's a Stage]

by William Shakespeare


All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man in his time plays many parts,
His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,
Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.
Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel
And shining morning face, creeping like snail
Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,
Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad
Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,
Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,
Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,
Seeking the bubble reputation
Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,
In fair round belly with good capon lined,
With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,
Full of wise saws and modern instances;
And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts
Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,
With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;
His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide
For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,
Turning again toward childish treble, pipes
And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,
That ends this strange eventful history,
Is second childishness and mere oblivion,
Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.
---o0o---

Monday, August 27, 2007

Poem: [The streetlight's blue shadows...]



The streetlight's blue shadows
Pool on the macadam of 24th Avenue

As stars coruscate through a nebulous fog.
I tilt my head to see The Big Dipper,

Polaris, Ursa Minor, Cassiopeia, and Andromeda.
The streetlight's falling shadows

Mark a twilight world I take for granted.
The bats' sonar, the chirp of the crickets,

And the muffled bark of sea lions
Are songs I only hear those moments

I step outside to scan the heavens
And thank God for this.
---o0o---

Tuesday, August 21, 2007

Bible Stories 7/How the Lord Caught Jonah's Attention In The Belly Of The Beast




The LORD called Jonah out one day
To head to Nineveh where "
wickedness is on the rise"
Instead of going Jonah hit the bricks

And sailed to Tarshish and hoped the LORD
Wouldn't notice his insubordination
But the LORD sent down a three alarm

Blast of a mighty wind that sucked up
Everything in its path like a King-hell vacuum
And left behind mud rubble and ashes

And roiled a tempest in the sea
So the ship groaned and creaked
Tossed to the top of waves and into the trough

Parts of the boat broke off
The mariners were sorely spooked
And prayed to their gods

They hurled cargo and ballast over the side
So they wouldn't have to fight the boat itself
Jonah was hiding in a closet

And was sleeping when the captain found him
What meanest thou, O sleeper?
Arise and call upon thy God, if you have one

So God will think kindly and we might not perish
The sailors said let us cast lots so that we know
Who did what to bring this evil down around our heads

And when they cast lots the lot fell upon Jonah
Tell us they asked why this evil has befallen us?
Who are you what do you do?

And from what people do you hail?
Jonah said I am a Hebrew and I fear the LORD
Who made the sea and the land

And the men were petrified now and said
What have you done?
They knew he had scampered off

Ducking He who cannot be ducked
What do we do for you to calm the sea for us?
He said toss me into the water

And the sea will be calmed
This typhoon is here because of me
The men rowed like madmen to land the boat

But the sea fought back
We beseech you LORD save us
Why should we go down with the ship

Because Jonah burned you?
They grabbed Jonah and hucked him into the sea
The wind stopped and the water stilled

Until it was as calm as a painted boat
On a painted sea
A great big fish breached the calm waterline

And sucked Jonah into its maw
And Jonah was in the belly of the beast
Three days and nights and prayed to God from the belly

You cast me deep in the midst of the seas
And the water flooded around me
And the billows and Your waves passed over me

My soul fainted within me and I remembered you LORD
I sent out prayers to you
The LORD sent down some celestial Ipecac

And the great big fish vomited Jonah
And he fell upon a sandy beach
And the LORD said one more time

Go to Nineveh that great city
And testify like I told you
Jonah trudged three days to Ninevah

And became the town crier
In forty days he said Nineveh shall be overthrown
So the people of Nineveh took the LORD at his word

From the lowest to the highest
They fasted and put on sackcloth
And tried to make amends

The king of Nineveh rose from his throne
Put on sackcloth quit shaving and and sat in ashes
And he said let neither man nor beast herd nor flock

Taste anything not food or water
Let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
And cry mightily unto God

And turn away from evil
In hopes God will turn away from his fierce anger
And God saw they turned from their evil ways

And God Himself repented of the evil
He said he would do unto them
But it displeased Jonah and he was very angry

When I fled to Tarshish I thought you a gracious God
O LORD take my life from me
For it is better for me to die than to live

The LORD said doest thou well to be angry?
Jonah left the city and sat on the east side of the city
And built a hut so he could see what would become of the city.

The LORD God prepared a gourd
And sent it over Jonah like a shadow to deliver him from grief
And Jonah was glad for the gourd's presence

But the next morning the LORD smote the gourd and it withered
And when the sun did arise God called up an east wind
And the sun beat upon the head of Jonah

And he fainted and wished to die and said
It is better for me to die than to live.
And God said to Jonah are you angry about the gourd?

You have pity on the gourd which you did not make
or labor for and the gourd grew in a night
And perished in a night

And should not I spare the great city Nineveh,
Where there are 120,000 people
That cannot discern between their right hand and their left hand
---o0o---