I'm picking through this graveyard sniffing
for Frank Stanford
but the ice is too thick
bang! bang! bang!
to the heart. I want a piece
of that stained shirt for a bookmark.
Frank-you-swamprat-Rimbaud
cut your eyeteeth on fly shit
fuck you
3 shots to the heart
and that warm blood
would sure as hell melt
this contemporary permafrost:
beatrice on speed sweeping snow in her housecoat
Author notes
“Better go down upon your marrow-bones
And scrub a kitchen pavement, or break stones
Like an old pauper, in all kinds of weather;
For to articulate sweet sounds together
Is to work harder than all these, and yet
Be thought an idler by the noisy set
Of bankers, schoolmasters, and clergymen
The martyrs call the world."
WBY, Adam's Curse
What did you think
Comments
1 - 25 of 25
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really like this
such great imagry. I feel as if i am there hanging out in this womans mind. I can see clearly the snow the cold hands surching the wet cold knees. this is an incredible piece and I am glad to have found it. thanks Nic
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'I want a piece
of that stained shirt for a bookmark. '
A wonderful, dashing line.
This has some great imagery.
I will need to come back when I'm not working.
J
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i want to write
glad you are and i took a few minutes to read
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i have just noted
you wrote.
(glad you stopped by) -
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i did
thanks for noting
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Ofttimes a poet conjures from their knowledge and experience things which they do not know--often they do not know that is so, thinking perhaps that they are simply relating a certain idea, or recounting some experience which for them has some significance. At times though they are mistaken as to their purpose, as the poem itself will assume an entirely new perspective which they, perhaps did not intend. Poets often like to think that they are in control of the poem, but in the end the poem wins.
I'm picking through this graveyard sniffing
for Frank Stanford
but the ice is too thick
The first question which we must ask ourselves
is where is this graveyard? Our title tells us we are in cold Abyssina, an abysmal place to be sure we feel without knowing anything else about it--We learn in the second line that a Frank Stamford is buried there. who is he we ask ourselves? Does it matter? being in cold Abyssinia he may be Nobody, yet he must be somebody the author mentions him by name. reinforcing the cold is the ice under which poor Frank is buried. It would seem that who ever he is, he far away from us.
bang! bang! bang!
to the heart. I want a piece
of that stained shirt for a bookmark.
OMG! what's happened! Bang bang bang sounds very ominous. to the heart no less!
I want a piece
of that stained shirt for a bookmark.
why would the author of a poem want a stained shirt for a bookmark?
Maybe Frank was a poet, bang bang bang might indicate that Frank got shot, Who would shoot poor old Frank?
Sad we are at this revelation, yet now there is the new question? that stained shirt, blood on it, and the author wants it for a bookmark, why?
Frank-you-swamprat-Rimbaud
cut your eyeteeth on fly shit
fuck you
3 shots to the heart
Frank was a poet for sure, cause he was a swamprat Rimbaud! Why everybody knows Rimbaud was a poet, wasn't he? yeh well and a few other things besides--
but frank he wasn't a Rimbaud, nopey, he was a swamprat rimbaud, surely being a swamprat wasn't a good thing, Maybe Frank knew that cause he cut his "eyeteeth on flyshit"! fuck you the author says, mebbe somebody didn't shoot Frank atall? "3 shots to the heart".
and that warm blood
would sure as hell melt
this contemporary permafrost:
beatrice on speed sweeping snow in her housecoat
Now then when you get to the last verse lots of times you figure you can figure out just what's going on since all we have to go on is the information in the poem.
and what do we find?
and that warm blood
what warm blood? only blood we find is maybe on that stained shirt the author wants to use as a book mark--
the last verse indicated that author was kinda angry at old Frank for being dead, 3 shots to the heart and all, maybe it if he were alive tho his blood would still be warm?
would sure as hell melt
this contemporary permafrost:
Remember we are standing in cold Abyssinia in a graveyard where Frank is buried under ice.
beatrice on speed sweeping snow in her housecoat
given the colon after permafrost:
this last line must be just exactly what it is believed to be!
who the devil is beatrice? Why Dante's guide of course! Oh no another poet. I am beginning to think this must be about poetry--she seems to be in a hurry, sweeping the snow in her housecoat on speed no less.
Dante's guide cleaning the landscape, but only scraping the surface? so we are led to believe, thus the landscape is the permafrost that Frank if he were warm would melt?
Would it be possible that in melting "this" landscape, poetry would occur? Let us hope so. At any rate now we can surmise why the author would want that stained shirt for a bookmark, it is perhaps to remind them of what things could be.
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Thank you Lute ... yes. Was is the archeological remnants the poem left on the page that helped you decipher this with such accuracy? I hope so.
So nice to see you commenting. I appreciate it. Much.
Lisa xo
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if you knew lancashire dialect and accents, then you'd understand if you heard me say, when leaving... abbysinnia then!! ( as in - i'll be seeing you then) it's a pun/play on words ...
and your title made me smile and think of it.. ramble ramble
but as for the piece... i think Frank needs to clean house and get out more, truly... he has a story to tell
beautifully done
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NURSE
so good to see you out and about. I like imagining your accent, I do. Thanks for your props here. I hope I can kick my Muse into motion. But one never knows -- it has been a cold, long winter.
xo
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I love the
Frank-you-swamprat-Rimbaud
cut your eyeteeth on fly shit
and the last line. Well I love it all of course. Once I read up about Frank Stanford (I am so ignorant)
I guess you are in love with another dead poet with a moustache.
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Are you shooting that thing at me.. ?
Thanks for reading and commenting. It is a strange little thing, this, but I suppose it had to be.
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As usual you bring the dead to life and with your glimpse make me want to put others aside and turn to the bloodsoaked page.
Always a pleasure.
John
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John,
I was beginning to worry about you. I guess you have been very busy! Great to see your smiling face and comments. Happy 2009. Hope you and yours are staying warm and happy.
Lisa
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how cold the moon, and frank too. absyssinia . . . i only know from the cat breed so named. and the happiness of warm blood and a warm gun: these and all your poetic morphemes of metaphor and imagery are blowin' my mind, babe. -lexicalfish
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Glinty fish,
I'm delighted that the metaphors broke your watery plane.
Happy Friday and thanks for the looksee.
xo
Lisa
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You have encapsulated the feeling Stanford's work, and death, gave me. Who better for a eulogy that Yeats? Maybe stones and bones are all there is, when a poet's work is done, yet I feel Stanford had more to write, and I am lost in the moment when he fired 3 shots - how could he?
Your poem, and the grisly memento, is a wonderful focus on love. The final stanza holds us all to blame, the final line punches home his connection to the great poets.
I am lost in his work at the moment, so my comment probably doesn't make much sense. I love what you have done with the essence of this poet, though, through your own power. Such work keeps him alive somehow.
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Thanks -- your comment made writing it all worth while. Probably it is for you -- ya know. The poem.
xo
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I think real idlers have absolutely no brain activity aside of
vital function and vague impulses circumvoluting their job activities
they can't even emit a reasonable set of definitions that would cover personal tastes not mentioned in the media
subtle matters don't even enter in discution here
suggestion about the poem
I'd replace sniffing with sweeping and vice versa
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Hello B.B.
Thanks for the read and comment. I don't think I'm comfortable with switching the two because it feels a bit "clever" then and I loathe clever in poems. Snob that I am.
But did read it that way for grins.
You know, I just write em. And hope someone can find a way in.
Happy Friday.
Lisa xo -
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knew ud grin
ure evil clever
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brick stone and soft crockery...
nerve damage into silicone membrane shatters caste recompense; hardware store romances and guillotine lip service spent on broken heaters and wishes made of fish loaves in the back of old catholic churches, are still a few of the only ways that salvation has still yet to be discussed. you unnerve the most faithful of a few, i must say...
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poems job to unnerve us from our mundaneness don't you think?
your comments do that. jolt. thanks ballsy.
xo -
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let the swerving minerva come to you, stacked sideways in silence, rolled over in peace and nervelessness...
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I like the story of Frank
been too long since I've left you a comment
I will try to make it a shiny one..
can I suggest some kind of punctuation after Frank..
"Frank, you...."
or something like that
feels like it needs some kind of something there to me
not sure you need the 'and' in the last stanza, though that could just be me overparsing I've been known to chop an epic down to a single statement 
Love this, though
and I'd take that bookmark, too
strange oddities make the best bookmarks, methinks
wrire more moments like this, Lisa
I've missed your words
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SuziQ
Yes the poems seem always at arms length these days. Trouble catching them.
Glad you liked this though. I gave some dashes to the Frank-you area -- sort of waht that like bullets I guess. Maybe that works some.
Appreciate the critical eye as always.
Chopping is a good thing, poems need only be what is necessary. I think the and might be necessary -- but I'll certainly give it another look.
xo
Oh and IT IS FRIDAY!!!!
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