ANGRY WOMAN i. A hard-working folk-poet and hick’s last thought before Nodding off after way too much kvass with his lunch and then Lurching to rest in the shade of their tiny allotment’s sole Wrinkled, worm and pecker-fretted joke of an apple tree—
This felt like a folk myth dug out of a poisoned garden. The imagery - the beauty and yet the darkness of it, the density of the objects - stays with me: the watermelon, the horsefly, the tiny apple tree. Everything felt physical, almost painfully alive.
I love the dream or nightmare logic of an old village tale, where the ordinary becomes strange and the domestic becomes mythical. Where love slowly turns into cruelty, and cruelty becomes another language of intimacy.
It's been in my head for years, or since I was 4! I write about it in my so-called most recent PERSONAL POETICS #4, about missing my mother while enduring a bogus but inexpensive summer camp at a rundown farm somewhere on Cape Cod's wastelands. I was miserable and discovered she had tucked a book of so-called Russian Folktales for Children in my cardboard suitcase, maybe intending I entertain myself with its pictures. But she'd read it to me so many times it was lodged in memory and I knew the alphabet, so I recreated her voice in my head for comfort and taught myself to read. No kidding. Thanks for your comment.
Hah! If only men were not dogs, women would not need to perform such lethal courtesies! Or so they believe, in words borrowed from their own folk-poets.
The ice floe upon which this eskimo squats melteth rapidly. And the only song he hears, stirring from the choir, is "We Didn't Start the Fire."
John, thank you. My granddaughter who was in Seville for 6 weeks was here and told me she like Ibiza the best. Otherwise zip. Either I'm standing still and the world has gone crazy or I'm a dervish and the world is its same old self. Tempo, pragmatic proportion, always just beyond my fingertips.
The poem seems to live somewhere between peasant folklore and myth, where manure, watermelon, gods, and marriage all belong to the same strange universe. <3
I write at The Reflective State, where one of my ongoing series is Mountain Mysteries—atmospheric tales of mystery, folklore and the unexplained set in the mountains of India.
If curiosity ever brings you my way, I'd genuinely love to know what you think.
This felt like a folk myth dug out of a poisoned garden. The imagery - the beauty and yet the darkness of it, the density of the objects - stays with me: the watermelon, the horsefly, the tiny apple tree. Everything felt physical, almost painfully alive.
I love the dream or nightmare logic of an old village tale, where the ordinary becomes strange and the domestic becomes mythical. Where love slowly turns into cruelty, and cruelty becomes another language of intimacy.
It's been in my head for years, or since I was 4! I write about it in my so-called most recent PERSONAL POETICS #4, about missing my mother while enduring a bogus but inexpensive summer camp at a rundown farm somewhere on Cape Cod's wastelands. I was miserable and discovered she had tucked a book of so-called Russian Folktales for Children in my cardboard suitcase, maybe intending I entertain myself with its pictures. But she'd read it to me so many times it was lodged in memory and I knew the alphabet, so I recreated her voice in my head for comfort and taught myself to read. No kidding. Thanks for your comment.
Great assessment of this rich piece!
Hey, nice to hear from you! Thanks.
Hah! If only men were not dogs, women would not need to perform such lethal courtesies! Or so they believe, in words borrowed from their own folk-poets.
The ice floe upon which this eskimo squats melteth rapidly. And the only song he hears, stirring from the choir, is "We Didn't Start the Fire."
Great work as always, Ser Kenneth!
Bravo Rafalo! Listening for 2nd time today to Haydn Symphony 49. An ounce of civet, as Lear told his pharmacist, to sweeten his imagination.
Shall a finer play than Lear ever be penned by the hand of man?
Well done, Kenneth!
John, thank you. My granddaughter who was in Seville for 6 weeks was here and told me she like Ibiza the best. Otherwise zip. Either I'm standing still and the world has gone crazy or I'm a dervish and the world is its same old self. Tempo, pragmatic proportion, always just beyond my fingertips.
unless one is Moroccan
or on a nude beach
Ibiza is where the action is! For the young and the beautiful!
The poem seems to live somewhere between peasant folklore and myth, where manure, watermelon, gods, and marriage all belong to the same strange universe. <3
“No flying vampire with wings / Of veined iridescence should spoil / her man’s hard-earned…slumber.”
That watermelon ending is gloriously absurd.
Earthy. Bizarre. Deliciously wicked. I'M SUBSCRIBING!
I write at The Reflective State, where one of my ongoing series is Mountain Mysteries—atmospheric tales of mystery, folklore and the unexplained set in the mountains of India.
If curiosity ever brings you my way, I'd genuinely love to know what you think.
That homemade kvass does it every time :)
Bob chorba
The musical fruit
The more you eat
The more you toot.