Free Verse Poster

I

I Celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.

My tongue, every atom of my blood, form'd from this soil,
 this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and 
 their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.

Creeds and schools in abeyance,
Retiring back a while sufficed at what they are, but never
 forgotten,
I harbor for good or bad, I permit to speak at every hazard,
Nature without check with original energy.

II

Houses and rooms are full of perfumes.... the shelves
   are crowded with perfumes,
I breathe the fragrance myself, and know it and like it,
The distillation would intoxicate me also, but I shall not let it.

The atmosphere is not a perfume.... it has no taste
   of the distillation.... it is odorless,
It is for my mouth forever.... I am in love with it,
I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked,
I am mad for it to be in contact with me.

The smoke of my own breath,
Echoes, ripples, and buzzed whispers.... loveroot, silkthread,
   crotch and vine,
My respiration and inspiration.... the beating of my heart....
   the passing of blood and air through my lungs,
The sniff of green leaves and dry leaves, and of the shore
   and darkcolored sea-rocks, and of hay in the barn,
The sound of the belched words of my voice.... words loosed
   to the eddies of the wind,

A few light kisses.... a few embraces.... reaching around of arms,
The play of shine and shade on the trees as the supple boughs wag,
The delight alone or in the rush of the streets, or along
   the fields and hill-sides,
The feeling of health.... the full-noon trill.... the song of me
   rising from bed and meeting the sun.

Have you reckoned a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned
   the earth much?
Have you practiced so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin
   of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.... there are
   millions of suns left,
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor
   look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres
   in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

VI

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full
 hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any
 more than he.
I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful
 green stuff woven.

Or I guess if is the handkerchief of the Lord,
A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,
Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we
 may see and remark, and say Whose?

Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of 
 the vegetation.

Or I guess it is a uniform hieroglyphic,
And it means, Sprouting alike in broad zones and narrow
 zones,
Growing among black folks as among white,
Kanuck, Tuckahoe, Congressman, Cuff, I give them the
 same, I receive then the same.

And now it seems to me the beautiful uncut hair of graves.

Tenderly will I use you curling grass,
It may be you transpire from the breasts of young men,
It may be you are from old people, or from offspring taken,
It may be if I had known them I would have loved them,
 soon out of their mother's laps,
And here you are the mothers' laps.

This grass is very dark to be from the white heads of old
 mothers,
Darker than the colorless beards of old men,
Dark to come from under the faint red roofs of mouths.

O I perceive after all so many uttering tongues,
And I perceive they do not come from the roofs of mouths
 for nothing.

I wish I could translate the hints about the dead young men
 and women,
And the hints about old men and mothers, and the offspring
 taken soon out of their laps.
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and
 children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
 at the end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
 luckier.

LII

The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains
 of my gab and my loitering.

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The last scud of day holds back for me,
It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds,
It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.

I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.

Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Middle Mindz

Saddle Soap-Benjamin Moore-2110-30

Saddle soap-Benjamin Moore-2110-30

 

The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

Through the sands of time we’ll travel

In the desert watching caravans go by

Seeing ancient myths unravel

The camels lit in the sun

 By each and every ray

The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

Out to sea the fisherman goes

Waiting for his catch

He knows the sea like the back of his hand

He respects it and takes only what he needs

He knows no man can be more powerful

Than the waves from the deep

For it is mighty

 No man could be its match

The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

Into distant jungles

Forests thick with underbrush

The constant hum of crickets

In the day they seem to hush

Parrots squawk and capuchins swing

On their vines effortlessly

The howler’s yawps echo off the jungle leaves

To my ears like thundering  

The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

Standing by a majestic oak

In its shade, so sweet it is

In the shadow of a giant

Oh what it evokes

I stand before a pillar

A monument to nature

No photograph

Could ever capture

There it stands so still

Waiting in a pasture

 The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

In all the different countries

Holidays galore

Celebrations definitely aren’t rare

They party until daybreak

The festive spirits over there

The streets are decked with reefs decorated with merry leaves

This is so very jovial

On all kinds of different eves

The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

Glowing off into the night lights from cities shine so bright

Bring a luminescence to life

All is calm since dusk

Even with the nightlife not a single sound of strife

The cobbler works the old worn soles with ease.

He thinks of the people who let their soles carry them to foreign lands.

Travelling as they please.

Into a forest at dawn when all is quiet

When all holds its breath as the sunrise approaches

All seems frozen like the world has stopped in its tracks

The wind blows, the trees are umbrellas shading over all

Before the day has started they sway

Before life has taken course

They wave from side to side, saying hello to the waking hours

When all the animals come out to greet the day

And sniff the morning air

They do not fear for danger

For life is calm and is a glassy lake

Clear, an untouched sheet of water

It looks like it is frozen over

But once the wind blows

The leaves and pine needles fall

Onto the lake’s surface

Sending ripples of beginning out into the world

Telling the lake and its proximity to let the day

Take the plunge and commence

Now to the cobbler we shall go

On adventures his shoes have gone

If you listen closely

Their soles will whisper what they know

Middle Mindz

Where I am From

Where I am from

I am from sap

from maple syrup and chocolate chips

I am from the basement

(Sublime world of play and imagination)

 I am from the lilacs,

trees of the olive family

Whose violet flowers smelled of sweet honey

I 'm from chickadees that come to my hand,

and sunflower seeds that stay nestled in my palm,

until a blur of feathers capped and black and white  

comes, then takes, then goes

I’m from shortbread and brown eyes,

from Roach and Gauthier

I’m from the questioners 

and the bullied,

from Mon Petit Bonhomme! and don’t worry be happy!

I’m from shadows of angels on my bedroom wall

and experienced miracles.

From Mon Dieu est ma roche and butterflies,

Cardinals and red cedar 

I’m from brick house, 74, red bricks, brown bricks, and oak door  

from omelets and jasmine green tea

From the ability to ambulate that my Grand-papa 

lost to Multiple Sclerosis

and the hydrangeas from Wilda’s garden  

Pictures to me are not just pieces of paper

They are the only way I can know who I am

And where

I am from

The dandelion seeds that drift through the wind

And the samaras that come down like little helicopters

Upstairs in a closet memories,

flow like a raging river

a new world for me to explore

of pictures taken before I had

come into existence

A place where past hours become new hours

Of gazing into the eyes of those I was told were family

I sometimes imagine who they were what they said

I’m from those pictures faces, ink, and paper

Knowing why these pictures are worn

From family before me fumbling with them

Remembering past memories

Imagining what those memories could have been like

The memories from other generations

Hidden in the depths of the pictures

Middle Mindz