The BlueIris Semi-Nightly Poetry Break, 12/5/07

[BlueIris]

—from "The Blackstone Rangers"

                                    III
                             Gang Girls

                           A Rangerette

Gang girls are sweet exotics.
Mary Ann
uses the nutrients of her orient,
but sometimes sighs for Cities of blue and jewel
beyond her Ranger rim of Cottage Grove.
(Boundary Boys, Disciples, Whip-Birds will
dissolve no margins, stop no savory sanctities.)

Mary is
a rose in a whiskey glass.

Mary's Februaries shudder and are gone.  Aprils
fret frankly, lilac hurries on.
Summer is a hard, irregular ridge.
October looks away.
And that’s the Year!
                        Save for her bugle-love.
Save for the bleat of not-obese devotion.
Save for Somebody Terribly Dying, under
the philanthropy of robins.  Save for her Ranger
bringing
an amount of rainbow in a string-drawn bag.

"Where did you get the diamond?"  Do not ask.
but swallow, straight, the spirals of his flask
and assist him at your zipper; pet his lips
and help him clutch you.

Love's another departure.
Will there be any arrivals, confirmations?
Will there be gleaming?

Mary, the Shakedancer's child
from the rooming-flat, pants carefully, peers at
her laboring lover.    .    .
                    Mary!  Mary Ann!
Settle for sandwiches!  settle for stocking caps!
for sudden blood, aborted carnival,
the props and niceties of non-lonliness—
the rhymes of Leaning.

—Gwendolyn Brooks

[BlueIris]

1. Kick.

[BlueIris]

2. People. Gwendolyn Brooks is HUGH.

She is a poet everyone should know.

[BlueIris]

3. Links to Gwendolyn Brooks books and related products (including a CD of her reading her poetry):

http://www.harpercollins.com/authors/1183/Gwendolyn_Brooks/index.aspx

[UndertheOcean]

5. looks interesting

thank!

[UndertheOcean]

4. And Death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Dead mean naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon;
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud on the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift its head to the blows of the rain;
Through they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

~Dylan

[BlueIris]

6. Kick.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

7. My dear BlueIris...

Maybe she's famous, and all that...

But this poem makes no sense to me at all...

Or maybe I'm just tired...

Sorry, sweetie...

Usually I like your selections...:hug:

[BlueIris]

8. It's about the poisonous nature of life in a gang.

More or less.

[BlueIris]

9. HUGH.

[BlueIris]

10. Kick.