The Poem Modern Rivers

Come Read Taxi Murders!
Taxi Murders

Four Poems

Poems: "Wonderful History," "Jack's Mountain Road," "My Grandfather's Crocus," and "Snowman".

Jacob van Ruisdael 1628-1682

Dutch landscape painter whose baroque works,
such as "Wheat Fields" (c. 1670), depict
the majesty of and delicate planning of nature.

  

Grandfather Tom
For Tom Farragher

I stumble through the twigs
to reach your grave
I need some talk,
some bits of string,
some knots untied

I remember our home—
the dog I rode when three,
the daffodils, crocus,
forsythia, mock-orange—

blue bachelor's-buttons
strung through your lapel

Each June I see again
the red porch
with the paint and oil smell
I think of lemons

I loved your green swinging couch

As I sit among the graves
the rains begin
then I was eight
standing by the Chesterfields
near your favorite chair

Often I would watch you
walk down our hill
newspaper under arm,
and then,
the snow began
and we sled and sled
until wet to our drawers

we fell home
and you made some tea
smoked a cigarette,
and then
we wrestled

and you read to me of Mars
or Saturn's men
until I yawned asleep—
your white hair
blurred by the motions
of your fingers tucking
me under Grandma's quilt

As I leave your grave
the rain stops,
and we walk up that hill
on your last day.
Then the bus came,
took you away,
and you waved smiles through the glass,
and the roar of the bus stopped,
and we could not touch

I am never able to walk down that hill
and not see you with your newspaper
under your arm—
and the silence each Christmas
is sad even when the family gathers
with new children

no one is there to play card for pennies,
and no one has your vision; and for a time
even I didn't want to remember that there
were no strong hands to help steer my wagon

through the distance
and its chill.

Irish Love Letter

In the mirror
I see our breath
skin to skin.
We melt on the gravel
on the sea cliff--
Beyond Rosses Point
we follow sailing ships
Within this rubble,
fallen masts, falcon,
and shattered glass--
the rain blessed
Lean grass stalks lead
water to our flesh;
the glass leaf reflects
her shawl--her hand bent,
dress over knees
crimson skin on rocks covers
our bodies with human beaks;
blood wets this bed,
mixed to the sea's rain
As I drink her thighs
with blood's cream,
talons as a talisman
moor us to the dock, --
the tarred timbers squawk,
and I see us in the sheets
in that grand hotel
on College Green
I see us in the morning
with tea, cake and a tray.
I see our wet, our breasts, our hands.

We follow children home,
first milk,
we drag our fingers to our spines
(sea salt and sea bird feathers)
As we dance off the sea
and the sun wakes the pier,
wild tulips on the table.
Our back churn,
our eyes blind--
my spit swears oaths
to a winding stair.
I wait with her,
her hair on my arms,
sleep marks on our cheeks
Scum on our breasts
At twilight we walk down Grafton Street,
Dublin ablaze;
next morning we worship at sailing ships
vending fish before dawn,
for her I am air, first light, fire
seed and good knife
I see galleons scull our sea
I see our mirror, our flesh breathes.

Monday, January 31, 2005
Tsunami

Note: Dedicated to the disaster victims of this great catastrophe. The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was a magnitude 9.0 undersea earthquake on December 26, 2004 which generated tsunamis that caused one of the deadliest natural disasters in modern history. This rare type of earthquake known as a megathrust earthquake struck at 00:58:53 UTC (07:58:53 local time) in the Indian Ocean off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia. It was the largest earthquake on Earth since the 9.2-magnitude Good Friday Earthquake off Alaska in 1964, and tied for fourth largest since the establishment of accurate global seismographic record keeping by 1900

December 26, 2004

The ocean rolls civilization into layers of peat
and the air, full of great waves, dry desert
nothing to breathe but the songs of the curls
of tsunami so large a universe is lost in seconds.

There is no musical phrase but echoes as oceans
war with the trees throwing human tantrums

At the edge of the water there’s a dirge
simple beat, like musical dirty coins,
an accordion playing porno loops for puppets.
Nothing heard but the mime of the clarinet
and the churn of the bass and an off pitch guitar;
we assume as the skies are clouds and burnt
sienna rushed from wings and all sex stands
still in the tips of waves that crack spines
and killer whales cannot escape rip-line.


2
On the last day healing began.
We will make water clean again
The buildings empty; dunes rebuild --

The underside of the river blends
zing and zarrow as sand melds fingertips
in the usual ways of sediment, which
sometimes brushed my cheek as sensory
idols turned the leer and make the hot face
that instant calm after love a complete
lake, where water is more than fire
quenched lakes at fundus or sentiment.

Sex began the wave and recovery too.
Pieces of skin were the seeds of the faces
that will haunt the waters of 100,000 dead
and the human rage off the terror we know
visits on the underside of hysteria and loneliness.

Nature has its obituary and we mark down
numbers in red and black, minus light
again, always the loss of light on the edge of leaf
where the stars such small items actually
are the compendium of miracles for tongues
she broke open with a brief morning swim --
for chance has no alphabet and no lies.

After, when time was water and walls
I no longer count the graves of ancestors
but mark their acts with fervor
and when I step to the altar
I count my life as evidence
for mystery plays and docudrama;
I climb down cliff without any guide;
my mask is lost, no longer protects
from ocean or waves without mercy.

Here in the courtyard, the water from the fountain
runs over the statue dedicated to the nightmare.

Even in tide pools, terror pastes after shock
vibrates when wave commits when the beach
has lost all dimensions. There’s nothing
to do but run. Every step buries mollusk,
brachiopods and Silver Star;
faithful ashes blown out again
where nothing remains but return.

Extinct blog of Sean Farragher (November 2004-2005)
(sfarragher.blogspot.com)

Poetry: "Tsunami," "Irish Love Letter," "Grandfather Tom"

Ashley Sonata #2

Self Portrait Vincent Van Gogh

Ashley Sonata #2

I look into the box where you have drawn
genius, yours and mine. Your life is not as
set; well maybe no life should be arranged.

I have changed over the years. I love thought;
the ability to create what is not and to love
what is, of course, a royal map we obey.

I walk into the box where we have gathered
every strand of light and pleasure, and
as night sounds, jazz, sex and delirium
ride with us in a carriage in London
we run out of time. We live in the years before
gas puttering engines when you my Lady
and I walked into the park for a quick squeeze.

Everyone looked. They assumed we were
committed, but pleasure drew us as lovers
beyond the silk walls of one box in paradise.

Today I argue for love 10/26/2006

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh."

San Antonio Sonata

When love has its own pitch
the deceit we practice cannot
be measured anymore. We are
quiet and soft, hard and loud,
and the extremes connect
in that moment when our bodies
decide the path between atoms
and that wedding with no preacher
and without witness will be
a grand victory for anonymous time
setting itself on the horizon
watching the successive waves
drift above and river dust reigns.

You measure my orbit and I
count your rings. You cover
my landscape and I caress
peaches and pubic pear.

Come out of the darkness
we bless our bed and carry
the waters with us to eidolon.

The sun rises and moon
never falls, and when we enter
the ether, light is revised.

Song of Innocence -- William Blake

Song of Ashley
After William Blake's
Song of Innocence

If you push too hard on the sun,
it will backup and flood the sea.

Put pressure on the sphere to
let it roll as hoops with wet
summer performance letting
the arm hold up sky to sweat
the rain across the plains and
in that revue we keep the
actors working on their past.


Something good will shuffle
out of the work we extend
to pit the sun against gravity
and every electro magnetic
swirl of lips kissing gray eyes

in the uniform earth no one
can observe the good man

call with the shark for revival
and affirmation of sexual poles

We do make love not as ritual
but as a storm rising out of mouth
with your skin and nipples heated.

I am taken by you my female God.
You give birth to me from your lips
where you taste the sudden salt

of your struggle to purge the sea
of some poison only you dear myth
can calm in the days after magnetic
poles shift from north to south,
the world will spin soon too late
will stop for another million years.


Dear Blake Garden Man Grower of
Grapes resumes thy Ploy to Never End.
Come dangerous pestilence costumed
to be safe while waiting for reviews,
lift up your floral sheath and show me
how to make love again on a new
flower we grew from broken clocks.

I cannot count the time as you with
scythe pass away and I wait for lights
too shallow to keep the earth aglow
forever watching for relief of dark.
No one can see the first strokes.
You are in my arms forever again.


 

Moment of Great Art By William Blake

Today, I will write a poem or poems for illustrations/water colors by William Blake.

"William Blake ( November 28, 1757-August 12, 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, his work is today considered seminal and significant in the history of both poetry and the visual arts.

"According to Northrop Frye, who undertook a study of Blake's entire poetic opus, his prophetic poems form "what is in proportion to its merits the least read body of poetry in the English language." Others have praised Blake's visual artistry, at least one modern critic proclaiming Blake "far and away the greatest artist Britain has ever produced."

"While his visual art and written poetry are usually considered separately, Blake often employed them in concert to create a product that at once defied and superseded convention. Though he believed himself able to converse aloud with Old Testament prophets, and despite his work in illustrating the Book of Job, Blake's affection for the bible was belied by his hostility for the church, his beliefs modified by a fascination with Mysticism and the unfolding of the Romantic movement around him. Ultimately, the difficulty of placing William Blake in any one chronological stage of art history is perhaps the distinction that best defines him.
Once considered mad for his single-mindedness, Blake is highly regarded today for his expressiveness and creativity, and the philosophical vision that underlies his work. As he himself once indicated, "The imagination is not a State: it is the Human existence itself."

***

Such beauty in our darkest lies. My poems will not rot as his paintings, illustrations for poems, epiphanies continue. I met a woman. I said we were an odd couple. I am wrong. We are precisely matched. My age, her life, are connected. We can march together in another sphere, and I don't care who objects. I am a free man and she a free woman. We owe no one explanation.

She told me she loved Matisse before I said I loved the man. We are an adventure. Isn't that the first steps of a love affair that is almost god like.

William Blake. You are magnificent. Ash, you are my inspiration.

Frank Gehry's Disney Concert Hall

  

Random Thoughts 10/23/06

$500,000,000,000.00 Wasted on Iraq

How many more deaths? 2800 Americans? 20,000 Wounded in Action Plus. A million soldiers and marines who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder after mulitple tours in Afganistan and Iraq? $300,000,000,000.00 spent and another 200 billion projected. We shall see what the 06 elections will stir from the pot. Random thought.

Random thought: I met someone beautiful and intelligent. She is elegant and graceful. We would make an odd couple. I love those who love my poetry. Words are powerful tools that love settles in our spirits. Love generates clichés, but that's the beauty of it.

Sean Farragher
http://seanfarragher.com
greatriverpress@gmail.com

Sunday, October 22

I woke to the fever of words. I didn't put them down. Instead I read about Rutgers. I thought that Matt Simms should go there instead of Louisville. I wish I could tell him. He will the win the Heisman Trophy if he goes RUTGERS. He will earn 2 million a year as number one in the draft. The coach at Rutgers there knows what he is doing. So. Matt at Don Bosco Prep sign when you can on line for RUTGERS. I wonder if you watched them beat Pittsburgh. If Rutgers had a quarterback this year they would be unstoppable as national champ. New York is New Brunswick. Don't make the mistake of your brother and bury yourself in your Texas, Kentucky. I know Louisville has great coaches and a fantastic offense. You have had a father and brother to mentor you. All those coaches are still available to you and more. I am not a graduate of Rutgers. I graduated from Columbia, but all my life I have wanted a powerful New York/New Jersey team that could compete with PA State, Notre Dame and yes, Ohio State this year. Go Knights. Matt, you would be served by Rutgers. You would get back more or as much as you give.

Narratives of New Netherland

Narratives of New Netherland

Collected Poems

Collected Poems

Abused as a Child. 1948-1957

Two entries in another Blog

When I was five my father beat me. My mother nursed my sister. And I sat and watched, and then she pulled me into nurse too. Finally, she pulled on my woody while my sister nursed or I did. She called it her woody, and she increased her abuse of me directly proportional to the violence of my father towards the three of us. My mother and father made it all uglier by participating with other adults in a dysfunctional sexual relationship. I don't remember the first time I was actually inside my mother, my sister or my mother's lesbian friend. This continued until I was 14, and no one ever caught it. My parents are dead. My step father is dead. My mother's lesbian lover is dead. I have been writing about his for ten years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Masturbation is God

Shame. I love to masturbate. No guilt. I made my sheets thick with semen by the age of twelve and I imagine my mother washing them, as I saw her once, smelling them, and smiling. Then she leaned against the washing machine.

There is never shame in pleasure experienced between mutually vulnerable adults. Children change the equation. NO SHAME TO THE CHILD. The Adults, who were probably abused as children, bear the shame but not because masturbation is wrong, but the exploitation of children is criminal and more than shame.

Meeting the Spirit Nile

Accidents happen. I woke up to the progress of my computer maintenance. I felt frustration at not being able to play with words, run my art through the barrel of time as a gun. I realize what I write here will not be censored, self censored or in anyway modified by my agendas. Oh yes, we all have them. I recently met one of the most talented writers, photographers, artists who walked across the street and carried me up in her arms. I don't want to disrupt her life. She is young, and curious about the world. I am in my own way her contemporary. I too want to set the world open and straight about the poetry and prose that I write. I want to expose the pain in the world, not that it doesn't get sufficent treatment in the daily news summaries and tv spot ads for war machinery (how to make McDonalds in Iraq) ... The Green zone is open. You are safe like standing down in Nam. No ops today. No secret ops. No assassination today. No childbirth. Medics had the opportunity in Thailand to deliver infants from the moss and mold of some broken down space. The woman I met on line. She had a great field of light that broke from her lips. Last night she asked me questions and felt what she saw as disloyality and ran from her own questions. I understand and realize that is the purpose of this blog. I will show my reaction to particular images (true or false) as they evolve from my fingertips. She caught me, and it pleased me. I am flattered by what she perceived. No, her name is not, will not be divulged by me ever. When she spoke her desire to know what it feels like, what she will see, and became a part of the dialogue, she realized I believe that you cannot separate the process from the honest descriptions of life. She is unique in that her intelligence allows her to be in my skin, and I in hers, but of course there is sexuality which bubbles in both of us. I welcome her to comment here using an alias. Shall I call her Mother Light, Ms. Light -- no let her choose if she wishes to participate in this blog her own name. Sean Farragher greatriverpress@gmail.com http://seanfarragher.com -- that's all you need, or be a friendly fire, used in its opposite sense, as a gadfly madador of some noble discovery.