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-   -   Poems- Not your own. (http://cellar.org/showthread.php?t=16916)

Gravdigr 05-06-2012 01:28 PM

Sister Joan

by Paul Gilmartin


Sister Joan, age 42, ignores the desert sun,
The stranded church bus smoking, no sign of anyone.
Buzzards circle overhead, panic starts to set.
The kids are getting restless, her habit's soaked with sweat.
The minutes become hours, she wobbles in the heat.
Then, a distant engine roars, approaching from the East.
She squints through horn-rimmed glasses, her pure heart skips a beat.
Snake McGinty's Harley Hog, parts the dusty heat.
Black leather-clad from head to toe, his eyelids barely open,
Sister Joan says, "Holy Ghost, please tell me that you're jokin'."
He parks his bike, stands six foot four, then gives her a nod.
Through leather pants his manhood shows, she rolls her eyes at God.
"Havin' trouble?", he barely mumbles. "Yes sir", she replies.
He pops the hood, takes off his shirt, she covers up her eyes.
"Kids", she says, "Back on the bus. Everyone be good."
Her fingers part, her eyes take in his reflection off the hood.
She grips her rosary tight with guilt and stares down at her socks.
Her mind protects her vows with God, but her body picks the locks.
He bends to check the fan belt, her nipples say, "Hello".
Her eyes climb up his leather chaps like a snail with vertigo.
She shuts her eyes and shakes her head, her legs start feeling funny.
"Lord", she says, "For work like this, I'm making lousy money."
He shuts the hood, "My name is Snake, I'm wanted in five states."
She says, "Snake you're my forbidden fruit, and I need a little taste."
The kids look on in disbelief. The kisses slow, then faster.
Cheering rocks the school bus, till she says "Snake let's ditch these bastards."
As they left, the kids screamed "No", she turned around and waved.
Her next confession killed the priest and lasted seven days.
For years the scandal rocked the church, but she regained their trust.
She still teaches Sunday school, but she doesn't drive the bus.

BigV 05-11-2012 10:26 AM

:thumbsup:

DanaC 06-29-2012 04:15 PM

I've been trying to find a reading of The Dolly on the Dustcart, by Pam Ayres. It was my favourite poem when I was a kiddiwink.

Couldn't find it, but did find her doing a reading of a more recent poem but found an audio only reading of two of her best known:

I wish I'd looked after me teeth & The voice at the foot of the stairs: (parents might find the second one quite funny)



And a more recent one:

Should have asked my husband


DanaC 06-29-2012 04:22 PM

Here is the poem I was trying to find a reading of:

The Dolly on the Dustcart, by Pam Ayres

I'm the dolly on the dustcart,
I can see you're not impressed,
I'm fixed above the driver's cab,
With wire across me chest,
The dustman see, he spotted me,
Going in the grinder,
And he fixed me on the lorry,
I dunno if that was kinder.

This used to be a lovely dress,
In pink and pretty shades,
But it's torn now, being on the cart,
And black as the ace of spades,
There's dirt all round me face,
And all across me rosy cheeks,
well, I've had me head thrown back,
But we ain't had no rain for weeks.

I used to be a 'Mama' doll,
Tipped forward, I'd say 'Mum'
But the rain got in me squeaker,
And now I been struck dumb,
I had two lovely blue eyes,
But out in the wind and weather,
One's sunk back in me head like,
And one's gone altogether.

I'm not a soft, flesh coloured dolly,
Modern chidren like so much,
I'm one of those hard old dollies,
What are very cold to touch,
Modern dolly's underwear,
Leaves me a bit nonplussed,
I haven't got a bra,
But then I haven't got a bust!

Yet I was happy in that dolls house,
I was happy as a Queen,
I never knew that Tiny Tears,
Was coming on the scene,
I heard of dolls with hair that grew,
And I was quite enthralled,
Until I realised my head
Was hard and pink.....and bald.

So I travels with the rubbish,
Out of fashion, out of style,
Out of me environment,
For mile after mile,
No longer prized....dustbinized!
Unfeminine, Untidy,
I'm the dolly on the dustcart.
There'll be no collection Friday.

Gravdigr 07-14-2012 05:39 PM

1 Attachment(s)
Ima copy that for Momdigr.
__________________________________

An illustrated poem...'Woulda-Coulda-Shoulda' by Shel Silverstein:

Attachment 39629

DanaC 07-14-2012 05:59 PM

That's awesome

BigV 07-16-2012 12:29 PM

Dana,

your poem reminded me of this song:


DanaC 07-16-2012 12:30 PM

Ha! I can see why it did.


I love it. That chorus is going to be going around my head for the rest of the day :p

Lamplighter 07-16-2012 12:53 PM

V, very nice :)

Gravdigr 07-16-2012 01:49 PM

That was pretty cool.

anonymous 09-21-2012 11:46 AM

Loneliness by John Matthew

I pause midway in the whirl,
Of deadlines, things undone,
And average the sadness and joys -
There remains only loneliness,
Of which I see no cure,
No bitter palliatives, no anodyne.

We remain in life’s journey,
Like loners sitting depressed,
On solitary park benches, or,
Standing in balconies, staring,
Loneliness gnawing at our minds,
As hungry ants at a grain of food.
Often in life’s vicious lanes,
In lonesome moments,
It’s our failures we ponder,
Not trasient joys and victories,
We do not remember other's courage,
Only their faults, and habits.

When in each passing lonely moment,
I count the millions of joyous seconds,
I was alive to witness this world, and,
Hurtful mimetic thoughts that passed me by,
My loneliness vanishes, I scream,
“I live; I am alive this lonely moment.”

Trilby 10-14-2012 09:04 AM

God's Grandeur
by Gerard Manley Hopkins

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared
with toil;
And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell:
the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs--
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah!
bright wings.

orthodoc 10-14-2012 09:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigV (Post 820418)
Dana,

your poem reminded me of this song:


Very late finding this, V, but ... I love it.

BigV 10-15-2012 06:35 PM

good orthodoc. I love it too. I've been the bear and I've been the boy and both are blessings.

Trilby 10-19-2012 06:23 AM

Poppies in October

Even the sun-clouds this morning cannot manage such skirts.
Nor the woman in the ambulance
Whose red heart blooms through her coat so astoundingly ----

A gift, a love gift
Utterly unasked for
By a sky

Palely and flamily
Igniting its carbon monoxides, by eyes
Dulled to a halt under bowlers.

O my God, what am I
That these late mouths should cry open
In a forest of frost, in a dawn of cornflowers.

-Sylvia Plath


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