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Carlisle
21/Other    :^)
Chicago, Illinois    Writer & lover of poetry. Creating words of encouragement for the enjoyment of others is one of my favorite things to do. I also love …

Poems

Larry Berger Mar 24
“Foxgloves were never meant
to keep them warm,”
said Sharkboot,
from the investigative branch;
"It eats the far face
of the wind," said Bones,
tugging
at the curling slunt;
shackles groaned
as another pen fell
into the pile
which had grown
beside the ream.

"It'll be three
before we're over."
It was Jimmy Cascade
making what little grants
he could;
amounts mattered to him,
the rest of the team
had long stopped
counting.

"After's better'n before,"
said Sharkboot.
Jimmy didn't care.
Moons were a thing
of the past,
a lost shimmering
on a lake hardened
to crystal
by Thumbnose.

The slightest give
on the surface
would have seemed
like falling;
rigid, hard and
unforgiving
were colors now;
tones, too,
and the brindle
men no longer
remembered.

"To sway,"
had said the poet.
But the command
came swiftly, "To sway
will dearly destroy."
Rigid the command.
Sway was brought
before the law,
the poet
was put to sleep.

Deep below the ream,
too deep to wander,
the mistling miner
found traces
of Carlisle so brilliant
it turned all grief
to brood;
down there
below reminiscence
with no room
to turn
or return,
hope was reborn;
Carlisle was the only thing
that could save them.



Squeakdoor turned to Thumbnose.
"There is a lot
of intimation left,"
he chided.
"What you have done
will not last."
Scientifically, Carlisle
initiated the brindle
and left freedom for sway,
and Jimmy knew it,
but he had been constricted
with direction,
afraid to sway,
to float free, and now
he only grew deeper.





"You can't figure it,"
cried his teammates.
Beside the ream, squints
grew into grimace,
not gradually, but
suddenly, tearing
at the fabric of the brindle;
Jimmy was left to
ponder his dilemma
alone; the odds
were too great:
Carlisle had been forgotten.
Jimmy was afraid he
would be forgotten, too.



One after another
the miners
walked to the edge
of the ream
and tore small corners,
hurling them away.
Jimmy heard the rustling
above him; before
the confetti would have
fallen like makeshift snow,
caught with the
hand, but now
corners disappeared
around thoughts
and words
were in jeopardy.

Jimmy felt helpless.
Choices grew fewer
and fewer, until
there was only the
words below him
in the Carlisle
which he placed above,
one at a time,
the next appearing then,
lower, matchless,
it might have felt
like falling,
but he had never fallen, and
everything was
rigid and fixed
and the displacement
was slow.


Offered the perspective
of time, Jimmy
would have seen the dip,
the softness, the shimmering:
the movement like dancing
or waves, his brave act
of placing Carlisle
above him,
between himself
and an insensitive world,
one small beam
at a time,
worthwhile.



Thumbnose begat crystal,
and crystal begat the hardness,
the hardness determined,
erective, budgless;
but Squeakdoor
intimated sway,
and slowly
dip broke into the
rigid, and straight
sagged, and ripple
was born.
Ripple begat shimmer
and shimmer reminded
men of the Carlisle;
but boundaries
were never given
to Carlisle,
for in the land
of the Slunt,
Carlisle is not discernible.
There’s a whisper down the line at 11.39
When the Night Mail’s ready to depart,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble has he gone to hunt the thimble?
We must find him or the train can’t start.”
All the guards and all the porters and the stationmaster’s daughters
They are searching high and low,
Saying “Skimble where is Skimble for unless he’s very nimble
Then the Night Mail just can’t go.”
At 11.42 then the signal’s nearly due
And the passengers are frantic to a man—
Then Skimble will appear and he’ll saunter to the rear:
He’s been busy in the luggage van!

He gives one flash of his glass-green eyes
And the signal goes “All Clear!”
And we’re off at last for the northern part
Of the Northern Hemisphere!

You may say that by and large it is Skimble who’s in charge
Of the Sleeping Car Express.
From the driver and the guards to the bagmen playing cards
He will supervise them all, more or less.
Down the corridor he paces and examines all the faces
Of the travellers in the First and the Third;
He establishes control by a regular patrol
And he’d know at once if anything occurred.
He will watch you without winking and he sees what you are thinking
And it’s certain that he doesn’t approve
Of hilarity and riot, so the folk are very quiet
When Skimble is about and on the move.
You can play no pranks with Skimbleshanks!
He’s a Cat that cannot be ignored;
So nothing goes wrong on the Northern Mail
When Skimbleshanks is aboard.

Oh, it’s very pleasant when you have found your little den
With your name written up on the door.
And the berth is very neat with a newly folded sheet
And there’s not a speck of dust on the floor.
There is every sort of light-you can make it dark or bright;
There’s a handle that you turn to make a breeze.
There’s a funny little basin you’re supposed to wash your face in
And a crank to shut the window if you sneeze.
Then the guard looks in politely and will ask you very brightly
“Do you like your morning tea weak or strong?”
But Skimble’s just behind him and was ready to remind him,
For Skimble won’t let anything go wrong.
And when you creep into your cosy berth
And pull up the counterpane,
You ought to reflect that it’s very nice
To know that you won’t be bothered by mice—
You can leave all that to the Railway Cat,
The Cat of the Railway Train!

In the watches of the night he is always fresh and bright;
Every now and then he has a cup of tea
With perhaps a drop of Scotch while he’s keeping on the watch,
Only stopping here and there to catch a flea.
You were fast asleep at Crewe and so you never knew
That he was walking up and down the station;
You were sleeping all the while he was busy at Carlisle,
Where he greets the stationmaster with elation.
But you saw him at Dumfries, where he speaks to the police
If there’s anything they ought to know about:
When you get to Gallowgate there you do not have to wait—
For Skimbleshanks will help you to get out!
He gives you a wave of his long brown tail
Which says: “I’ll see you again!
You’ll meet without fail on the Midnight Mail
The Cat of the Railway Train.”
Mateuš Conrad Apr 2016
i write for an injection of a venom, for a sense of disorientation, poetry shouldn't be about the skill of narration, a clear Renaissance painting of some school, it should invoke a ******* random macabre, a sense of disorientation, there's no real technique to practice with poetry invoking a tarantula's venomous bite... poetry the art of disorientation and a fulfilling disillusionment, nothing else, nothing more... to prescribe disorientation... upon charging into a blank page... the brute of squalor and slashing of grime, marbles and marrow!*

as quoted by Bonaparte (oddly enough
a psychology student and former
girlfriend of mine who i lost my virginity
to, while she got drunk and slid into my
bed at a party, and asked dreamily for condoms
scolding me about the three pictures adorning
my student room: marquis de sade, Bonaparte
and Plato) - quicker the goat in the frying
pan than on the steep cliff face - mooch kiss
you Isabella i would a second time,
you remind me of Annie from Masterchef -
the way the stiff upper-lip is missing: signature of
french girls, the curling and cuddles -
ooh mooch chuckles and mushy peas -
p p p - belinda carlisle melted cheese goo in my heart;
stony ******* i ain't, but my drinking habits
are not boyfriend material, sorry... try next door:
se vie se la - the french know their eccentricities,
and therefore exploit them in the grey -
the english stiffen up and exploit the same
but to a too obvious exploit: bowler hats and umbrellas,
nothing will make this London gloom repent
even if you're donning St. Petersburg's architectural
multi-colour... did i mention Bonaparte the patron
saint of the Duchy of Warsaw?
over here there's Adolf with a heretics hat
never bothering to read history twice,
history you read in a blurry haze of being drunk:
reminiscence is hardly nostalgia, but sure as ****
history save Moscow from the French and the Germans
but not the Poles and Mongolians...
the Russians know this and hush thing over,
sweeping stories under the carpets using
a babushka as an excuse for the prime propaganda
technique - go on babushka ride the Ferrari
on the stairway! canapé mit crayon caviar?
yes, Isabella, if i weren't a ****** i'd move to
Grenoble - sheriff's honour.
                                                  you weren't
the first, you weren't the last,
i need bragging rights - and a hot colt to shoot with...
then the lacrosse initiation ceremony -
Lycra tights, drank a whole bottle of whiskey
of Glaswegian whiskey, stumbled into
Isabella to my shame parade of whatever that was
lad banter etc etc. - pleaded on my knees, my knees...
apologies for the inexperience,
she was seriously into Japanese cartoons,
studio Ghibli;
                          so she scolded me over Bonaparte,
and i said: it's not exactly Piłsudski - in my town of
birth they praised him, raised statues,
later with communism desecrated them, then later
raised new statues - but what's bothersome is that
she didn't mind the Marquis... a psychology student
after all... she wanted native speakers for a little
psychology experiment, that got me,
learning from scratch aged 8,
pitch-perfect elocution and she didn't bother to use me
in the experiment... that ****** with me...
hey! i'm hardly a cockney! coached croquet pears
ready for a beating... what's the rhyme, ah yes:
apples and pears = stairs... seriously, musically
cheese sometimes works, they had a Monday cheese
night at the union - all the usual buggery of
a mid-life crisis...
yeps, that Annie from the current Master Chef reminds me
of Isabella - dracul - RA!
a bit of high culture (Ezra's cantos) and a bit of low
culture (marco bailey's Enter the Dragon)...
while sitting on the throne of thrones (a toilet)...
it's like my dream... although better... Ibiza two-point-oh.