Tag Archives: poetry

SISSIP

katapeuk papasow
nehapi metoci shacahocan
sissip apiw numeskotut
aminekarak nummabukkamut

This poem is in Virginia Algonquian a.k.a. Powhatan.  Here it is in English:

BIRD

Spring, it is sunrise
I sit like a stone
A bird sits on my leg
Seeds in my head

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult

I’ve found that you’ve given me
Give to me, give to me
Much more than I meant to give
Give to me, give to me
You came from the killing tree
And I from the bull and bee
But I gave and you gave to me
I called and you came to me
Hear my plea, hear my plea

If I lost what you gave to me
Give to me, give to me
Four locks and trilling three
Hear my plea, hear my plea
I’d hunt for the world to see
I’d run to the rocks and sea
I’d dig for the golden key
I’d wait in the broken lee
Hear my plea, hear my plea

One source and it’s you for me
One thing and it’s meant to be
One step and it’s meant to be
Give to me, hear my plea

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult

From the bolt she measured and paid
Four yards of rope, a triangle squared and laid
A cream-colored coil, a circle wound
She knew the yarn but not the story
The line was cincture bound

Clerical top and layman’s bottom
The fancy top is my pronotum
To hold me tight, arcanely tied
Binds up ego, holds in lies

Into my hand she pressed rope, receipt
I took them both with self-deceit
Rushing off to communion adventure
Unaware of my indenture

Somewhat stilted, self-aware
Involuting, standing there
Trying to be and love and fly
The more I limp the more I try

Meal is over, dalmatic gone
Alb laid by, cincture withdrawn,
The receipt beckons like a prayer
The note she wrote lays be bare

Grand loves yes, but small ones too
Seed the fields and spirit breathe
Small kindnesses, simple things allow
The pupil of the greater eye to see
The true I within the I

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult

RUINS

I was there once, a secret place known to few
Where sound was muffled by vines
The dew ever-settling, glistening in perpetual twilight ~
It might have been evening when I knelt
In the half light of that temple
A place more ancient than philosophy
Older than Babel

I say, I proclaim
(as if to prove)
Seek attention as evidence of existence
(it can’t be proved)
Repeating myself, making pointless noise
(there is no proof)
I am like a tourist in a foreign land
who speaks louder to be understood
Talking loudly to myself but I don’t understand
that even speaking rarely is far too often
(If invisible I’d be free)
There is a way back
(a mile beneath the tomb of Ozymandias)
But the road requires sacrifice
Each step a drop of blood apace
Until, foot upon the jamb of the primordial palace,
drained and coronated
I slip the crown and take the nameless throne.

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult

THUMBS

Happy as long as we’re manic
That’s probably what it is anyway
But who knows — drawn forward
Sucked into the emptiness of the future
Running from the failures of the past
Trying to remake the now
But time is an illusion, and
Whatever we are or ever will be
Is only what we are at this very moment
Quicksand mind clicking, unable
To take a bite of the silence
Even though the wafer is right there waiting
Waiting for us to open wide
And accept its sacrament
Tongues, instead of lying calm and flat, expectant,
Wag and slice, carve up life into shards of time
Thumbs typing messages
Instead of hooked in pants pockets

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult

CRESTS AND WAVES

Crests and waves — cycles, gyres and tides
I think I control — pushing and pulling and
I suspect it’s brain chemistry more than anything else
But if it isn’t then I’m just a jellyfish

Pulsing and floating — moon, wind and stars
I think I can’t control — drifting and moving and
I expect I’m part of them more than anything else
But if that’s true I’m just a puzzle piece

Doing and working — projects, books, and art
I think and create — pushing and pulling and
I suspect my problem is, more than anything else,
I can’t stop doing and merely be

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult

CHRYSOPOEIA

Dare to seek the fixed point, crawl
Out of your iron box of fluid paranoia
By the road to Magnum Opus
Use the chemistry of metanoia

Intellects in highest form
Reveal themselves in metaphors
Similes, over against another
You know that’s what this is for

Square the circle ’round us now
Triangulate into four rows the decade
Up, up, reducing up to one, this is how
We find the fixed point we mislaid

“Hey Mitch, what’s this poetry thing all about?” I want to collaborate with Blue Öyster Cult and I’m hoping the Öyster Boys will think this would make a good lyric.

Did you know I wrote a paranormal/mystery/romance book inspired by Blue Öyster Cult’s lyrical themes?  Click here to download it here for free!

The cover to my book “Chatters on the Tide” inspired by the music of Blue Öyster Cult