Got Poetry?

[Tony&Cheri]

Originally Posted by melliedee

"What Do Women Want?"
by Kim Addonizio

That is one great friggin' poem.

Papa T

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by Tony&Cheri

That is one great friggin' poem.

Papa T

I thought you might like it.

[Tony&Cheri]

I remember once reading or hearing some old guy explaining the concept of universal connectedness as follows: we tend to think of ourselves as a single dot in time and space. "You are here" type of thing. But if you think of time and space as unending lines which intersect at the "now" point of your life you see that we are just part of one long string of nows and are really part of all space and all time. (whew, that made my head hurt.) Anyway this essay/poem by Gary Snyder reminded me of that:

One Day in Late Summer by Gary Snyder

One day in late summer in the early nineties I had lunch with my
old friend Jack Hogan, ex-longshoreman union worker and activist of
San Francisco, at a restaurant in my small Sierra town. The owner
had recently bought and torn down the adjoining brick building
which had been in it's time a second hand book store, 3R's, run by
a puckish ex-professor. Our lunch table in the patio was right where
his counter had been. Jack was married to my sister once. We all
hung out in North Beach back in the fifties, but now he lives in Mexico.


This present moment
that lives on
to become
long ago



Papa T

[cpfstich]

I wrote this quite a few years ago:

MIDNIGHT SHIFT

Dark Alley, Dark Night
Tall Silhouette, Open Door
Gleam of Silver!
Gun? Knife? Keys?
No Time! Decide Now!
Judge, Jury, Executioner, Decide Now!
Six Blinding Flashes!
Belching Flame!
Wait! Cold Sweat!
Just a Dream, Just a Dream
Calm, Calm
Wake Up
Midnight
It's Time......
Bring On the Night!

[Tony&Cheri]

Originally Posted by cpfstich

I wrote this quite a few years ago:

MIDNIGHT SHIFT

Dark Alley, Dark Night
Tall Silhouette, Open Door
Gleam of Silver!
Gun? Knife? Keys?
No Time! Decide Now!
Judge, Jury, Executioner, Decide Now!
Six Blinding Flashes!
Belching Flame!
Wait! Cold Sweat!
Just a Dream, Just a Dream
Calm, Calm
Wake Up
Midnight
It's Time......
Bring On the Night!

Nicely done. I like the way it starts in the middle of high tension, builds higher, pulls back ("just a dream"), and then leaves you with the building anticipation...will this dream become reality tonite? Good stuff.

Papa T

[Ginger]

So, so you think you can tell Heaven from Hell,
blue skies from pain.
Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail?
A smile from a veil?
Do you think you can tell?
And did they get you to trade your heroes for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage?
How I wish, how I wish you were here.
We're just two lost souls swimming in a fish bowl, year after year,
Running over the same old ground.
What have you found? The same old fears.
Wish you were here.

[popeye]

Think Pink!! Muy Bueno- hey I like Kelsey's "New Do" too!

[Ginger]

Originally Posted by popeye

Think Pink!! Muy Bueno- hey I like Kelsey's "New Do" too!

Great song...great meaning.

Thanks, I'll tell her. It suits her!

[Tony&Cheri]

Thanksgiving’s coming soon. In about a week and a half. It will fall on November 27th this year. There will be many things to be thankful for. It will also be a day of memories for me.

On that date thirty years ago today I was an Assistant District Attorney for San Francisco. I worked in a building on Mission Street, sharing an office the size of a closet with another attorney. On that particular November day I was alone in the room, sitting at my desk when Ed Rendleman appeared in the doorway.

Ed was Chief of Investigators. He was fullback big and could be hard as a rock when needed. But he was teddy bear friendly to folks in the office, and was always flirtatious with the ladies. No day was complete without hearing Ed’s deep voice down the hall calling “You are lookin’ good today baby”.

Now he simply stood in the doorway, silently. Finally he said “You gonna have to leave. We’re closing all City Offices. Right now.”

“Why?” I asked.

He started to cry. Filling the entire doorway with his massive body, holding onto the doorframe on either side, he began to sob.

“George and Harvey are dead. Dan White just shot them in City Hall”.

Oh.

My God.

That night, after dark, I walked down the hill from my house to where the Gay neighborhood of the Castro district flows into Market Street, the City’s main thoroughfare. I watched thousands pour out of houses and apartments carrying candles and head silently towards downtown. It went on for hours.

The next week, after the funerals, I went back to work. I walked from my office over to City hall where the courtrooms were. On the way in I passed the statue of Lincoln. A massive bronze sculpture, it rests near the building’s entrance and shows Lincoln sitting in a chair as if about to rise and speak out for his country. The large concrete base of the statue was completely covered in the melted wax from hundreds, maybe thousands of candles that had been placed there the night George Moscone and Harvey Milk died.

Today, the candle wax is gone of course. Eventually it was all scraped away. People went back to their lives and moved on. Harvey’s been dead for thirty years now, and if he were alive today…he still couldn’t get married in the City Hall where he served and where he died.


To protect it from the wind,
I placed a candle beside
Lincoln’s sheltering form

As the wick burned down
the flame grew higher,
fed from other lights.

The wax ran in hot rivulets,
dripping into the dirt
at the Emancipator’s feet.


~Papa T

[susango]

Originally Posted by Tony&Cheri

Thanksgiving’s coming soon. In about a week and a half. It will fall on November 27th this year. There will be many things to be thankful for. It will also be a day of memories for me.
~Papa T

Wow. Sounds like SF had a couple of bad years around this time. I was 9 so I never heard of this. As I researched, I saw that Moscone appointed Jim Jones as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. I know of the Jim Jones story, but I didn't realize he was in San Francisco. Did you know anyone that belonged to the People's Temple? That all seems pretty f'd up to me.

Why did Dan White kill them? Over his job or more? I found this so it didn't sound like it was because Milk was gay. I can't believe he only served 5 years. Then he killed himself. He sounds like he definitely had some mental problems. He supposedly planned to kill others that day too.

White was initially on civil terms with Milk and supported some of Milk's political initiatives. After the two had a falling out over a land zoning matter, however, White frequently clashed with Milk and other members of the Board. White claimed that his dissatisfaction with the corrupt inner-workings of San Francisco city politics prompted him to resign his seat in 1978. However, he reversed his position after his supporters lobbied him to withdraw his resignation and seek re-appointment from Moscone. Among his reasons was the difficulty in making a living without a police officer's or firefighter's salary (both illegal for a Supervisor). He had opened a potato restaurant at Pier 39, which had failed to thrive.

Moscone refused the re-appointment at the urging of Milk and others. On November 27, 1978, White went to San Francisco City Hall to meet with Moscone and make a final plea to get his job back. After Moscone turned down his request, White shot and killed Moscone, then reloaded and walked over to Milk's office and shot Milk five times, resulting in his death, the final shot made at very close range. He then fled City Hall and turned himself in at a police station where he had been an officer.

In 1998 Frank Falzon, the homicide inspector with the San Francisco police to whom White had turned himself in after the killings, claimed to have met with White in 1984. At that meeting, Falzon said that White had confessed that not only was his killing of Moscone and Milk premeditated, but that he had actually planned to kill another supervisor, Carol Ruth Silver and then member of the California State Assembly Willie Lewis Brown, Jr. as well. Falzon quoted White as having said, "I was on a mission. I wanted four of them. Carol Ruth Silver, she was the biggest snake... and Willie Brown, he was masterminding the whole thing." Falzon indicated that he believed White, stating: "I felt like I had been hit by a sledge-hammer.... I found out it was a premeditated murder.

[Tony&Cheri]

Originally Posted by susango

Wow. Sounds like SF had a couple of bad years around this time. I was 9 so I never heard of this. As I researched, I saw that Moscone appointed Jim Jones as Chairman of the San Francisco Housing Authority Commission. I know of the Jim Jones story, but I didn't realize he was in San Francisco. Did you know anyone that belonged to the People's Temple? That all seems pretty f'd up to me.

Why did Dan White kill them? Over his job or more? I found this so it didn't sound like it was because Milk was gay. I can't believe he only served 5 years. Then he killed himself. He sounds like he definitely had some mental problems. He supposedly planned to kill others that day too.

Rather than discuss the social/political implications of Jonestown and The Milk-Moscone Murders here on the poetry thread, lets move it to the issues thread. Ask me again over there and I will gladly give you the history as I remember it.

On this thread I just wanted to set out my personal memories to give the poem I wrote context and meaning...which mellidee will probably yell at me for (the poem should stand alone I suspect she will correctly say...I just ain't that good at poetry).

However, in short, very short terms: Dan White's obvious mental instability was fed by a serious battle in SF between right and left for control of the City. And saying Harvey wasn't killed because he was gay is like saying Martin Luther King wasn't killed because he was black.

~Papa T

[susango]

Originally Posted by Tony&Cheri

Rather than discuss the social/political implications of Jonestown and The Milk-Moscone Murders here on the poetry thread, lets move it to the issues thread. Ask me again over there and I will gladly give you the history as I remember it.

On this thread I just wanted to set out my personal memories to give the poem I wrote context and meaning...which mellidee will probably yell at me for (the poem should stand alone I suspect she will correctly say...I just ain't that good at poetry).

However, in short, very short terms: Dan White's obvious mental instability was fed by a serious battle in SF between right and left for control of the City. And saying Harvey wasn't killed because he was gay is like saying Martin Luther King wasn't killed because he was black.

~Papa T

Great poem and education on history!

[melliedee]

Originally Posted by Tony&Cheri

Thanksgiving’s coming soon. In about a week and a half. It will fall on November 27th this year. There will be many things to be thankful for. It will also be a day of memories for me.

On that date thirty years ago today I was an Assistant District Attorney for San Francisco. I worked in a building on Mission Street, sharing an office the size of a closet with another attorney. On that particular November day I was alone in the room, sitting at my desk when Ed Rendleman appeared in the doorway.

Ed was Chief of Investigators. He was fullback big and could be hard as a rock when needed. But he was teddy bear friendly to folks in the office, and was always flirtatious with the ladies. No day was complete without hearing Ed’s deep voice down the hall calling “You are lookin’ good today baby”.

Now he simply stood in the doorway, silently. Finally he said “You gonna have to leave. We’re closing all City Offices. Right now.”

“Why?” I asked.

He started to cry. Filling the entire doorway with his massive body, holding onto the doorframe on either side, he began to sob.

“George and Harvey are dead. Dan White just shot them in City Hall”.

Oh.

My God.

That night, after dark, I walked down the hill from my house to where the Gay neighborhood of the Castro district flows into Market Street, the City’s main thoroughfare. I watched thousands pour out of houses and apartments carrying candles and head silently towards downtown. It went on for hours.

The next week, after the funerals, I went back to work. I walked from my office over to City hall where the courtrooms were. On the way in I passed the statue of Lincoln. A massive bronze sculpture, it rests near the building’s entrance and shows Lincoln sitting in a chair as if about to rise and speak out for his country. The large concrete base of the statue was completely covered in the melted wax from hundreds, maybe thousands of candles that had been placed there the night George Moscone and Harvey Milk died.

Today, the candle wax is gone of course. Eventually it was all scraped away. People went back to their lives and moved on. Harvey’s been dead for thirty years now, and if he were alive today…he still couldn’t get married in the City Hall where he served and where he died.


To protect it from the wind,
I placed a candle beside
Lincoln’s sheltering form

As the wick burned down
the flame grew higher,
fed from other lights.

The wax ran in hot rivulets,
dripping into the dirt
at the Emancipator’s feet.


~Papa T

I appreciate the context when it adds to the understanding of the poem (especially for subjects where I do not know a lot of the history, as with this). It reminds me of how you might set it up at a poetry reading. How that place of witness is such a powerful one. I love the last image.

I just saw the trailer for the film they are making about Milk.

And speaking of Lincoln, and tributes, you've recalled this for me today, so I thank you :

O Captain! My Captain!

by Walt Whitman


O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weather'd every rack,
the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my Captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.
O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up- for you the flag is flung- for
you the bugle trills,

For you bouquets and ribbon'd wreaths- for you the shores
a-crowding,
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head!
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still,
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will,
The ship is anchor'd safe and sound, its voyage closed and done,
From fearful trip the victor ship comes in with object won;
Exult O shores, and ring O bells!
But I with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

[Tony&Cheri]

Christmas Card from a Hooker In Minneapolis

By Tom Waits

hey Charley I'm pregnant
and living on 9-th street
right above a dirty bookstore
off Euclid avenue
and I stopped taking dope
and I quit drinking whiskey
and my old man plays the trombone
and works out at the track.

and he says that he loves me
even though its not his baby
and he says that he'll raise him up
like he would his own son
and he gave me a ring
that was worn by his mother
and he takes me out dancin
every saturday nite.

and hey Charley I think about you
everytime I pass a fillin' station
on account of all the grease
you used to wear in your hair
and I still have that record
of little anthony & the imperials
but someone stole my record player
how do you like that?

hey Charley I almost went crazy
after mario got busted
so I went back to omaha to
live with my folks
but everyone I used to know
was either dead or in prison
so I came back in minneapolis
this time I think I'm gonna stay.

hey Charley I think I'm happy
for the first time since my accident
and I wish I had all the money
that we used to spend on dope
I'd buy me a used car lot
and I wouldn't sell any of em
I'd just drive a different car
every day dependin on how
I feel.

hey Charley
for chrissakes
do you want to know
the truth of it?
I don't have a husband
he don't play the trombone
and I need to borrow money
to pay this lawyer
and Charley, hey
I'll be eligible for parole
come valentines day.

[cpfstich]