Down to verse (1380)

Techne on shipped coffins

We love our defenders.

They made the choice to be so.

It is what they wanted to do.

We regret their loss,

Their falling in our uniforms.

We now share it with their loved ones

Who know it was a life’s reward

That we gave them.

Down to verse (1379)

Agnostic Titleist

Loft me just so

I may levitate

Twixt earth and ether,

Laid well

Between heaven and hell,

Wanting neither.

The contumely

Of those who call

‘Yes’ or ‘no’,

Would swing me

To tree-bound blunder

Or glorified green.

Let me find

Neither rough

Nor grassed fluff.

Let me keep my coin hard.

Let me ne’er sign my card.

Daddo's game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titleist

Down to verse (1378)

Purloined

The shrieking priest,

Ayeee of Galli,

Had lost his coins,

They’d cut him from his obols,

So he could join his mother’s cult,

Love her and beg from all us.

True mother she, O Cybele,

Of rocks from distant Lydia,

Mothered Midas and his gold,

Who brought her loins

To Attica, which stamped its coins,

Drachmas, then thirds.

But his were going,

Going, going,

Auctioner’s words, 

Were sold.

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Greek_coinage

Two late Greek sources record that King Midas of Phrygia married a Greek princess. Aristotle^[1] calls her Hermodike and says she "cut/struck the earliest coinage of Kyme." Pollux^[2] names her Demodike, the daughter of King Agamemnon of Kyme, and he notes that she was but one among several others who were alleged to have been the first to strike coins. Both sources cite Kyme in Aeolis, on the west coast of Asia minor, as the princess's home and Pollux specifically identifies her father as being king there. Given the late date (albeit derived from earlier sources) of the accounts, the fact coinage is mentioned, and that there were presumably 7th century, as well as 6th century Phrygian kings named Midas,^[8] it remains uncertain that the Midas-Mita of the 8th century BC, and not a later one...^[9]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hermodike_II

There are many, and often contradictory, legends about the most ancient King Midas. In one, Midas was king of Pessinus, a city of Phrygia, who as a child was adopted by King Gordias and Cybele, the goddess whose consort he was, and who (by some accounts) was the goddess-mother of Midas himself.^[6]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Midas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cybele

(I can think like you, my Daddo)

Down to verse (1377)

Love and money

“Follow the love and the money,” he said,

And I so pursued till I came up dead.

Flowerless, fruitless

As the priests of Galli,

Dead now, I see what the eye can see.

I can think like my Daddo,

So might have he.

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galli

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhea_(mythology)

These are the famous mysteries of Tellus and the Great Mother, all of

which are shown to have reference to mortal seeds and to agriculture.

Do these things, then,--namely, the tympanum, the towers, the Galli,

the tossing to and fro of limbs, the noise of cymbals, the images of

lions,--do these things, having this reference and this end, promise

eternal life?  Do the mutilated Galli, then, serve this Great Mother in

order to signify that they who are in need of seed should follow the

earth, as though it were not rather the case that this very service

caused them to want seed?  For whether do they, by following this

goddess, acquire seed, being in want of it, or, by following her, lose

seed when they have it?

Book 7, Ch 4,  City of God

Also, see Book 2, Ch 7, on the castrated priests of Galli.

As to money(pecunia) , which derives from agriculture and the Great Mother, see
Book 7, Ch 13,  City of God, there the editor's footnote:

Pecunia,that is, property; the original meaning of pecunia being

property in cattle, then property or wealth of any kind.

Down to verse (1376)

Apostrophe

O Porphyry,

Not your five,

Your predicables,

Your logic,

But your demons,

For through them 

And ether I must fly

For the holy coin 

Of heaven.

At least for the day

Of my flipping,

I shall read you

Against the Saint.

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porphyry_(philosopher)

For the Saint: see Augustine on the Platonists, City of God

Down to verse (1375)

Which temple?

Mite of the widow,

Put in the offering

Or the pocket

Or the locket of love

For the daughter,

Or for the bid of it,

The ask,

The little task 

Of what to do with it,

The cleaning

Of the old can,

Or drawer,

Or garment.

O what the hell,

Let the bank have it,

No, let me bank it 

Here for the while of it,

The wile of it,

The guile of my heart,

The pagan felicity of it.

Down to verse (1374)

Coinage

O the coinage

Of the heart,

Its trade

Of the head,

The tail of it,

The troubled edge

Before the flattening

Of the flip,

The spinning,

The wiggling,

To end by no means

As a binomial of the soul.

Down to verse (1373)

Ars gratia…

A few crowded about her,

Her paintings,

A troubled beauty now,

Nestled in rich crucifixes,

Colors of Santa Fe,

Priest pulling thin coins,

Of eternal worth,

Yet comestibles

From a humble purse,

Each dabbed with wine,

Couched in incantations

For one of her days

Shut in at home.

Down to verse (1372)

Traffic stop

There they were,

No saints, surely,

But camp worn,

Revelation drawn,

Shivering for a last hit

Toward eternity.

Down to verse (1371)

Dumb waiter

What was lost…

He was unaware,

Knew his words

Did not fit right

With theirs,

Some such,

Or worse.

Nonetheless,

He knew his words

Were the same,

Same speech,

Same lexicon,

Same grammar,

Yet somehow

He was not heard

To serve.

Down to verse (1370)

Agreement

She had agreed

To work with him,

That’s all he wanted,

To set about, really,

And then ask

For the day’s review,

Dressed, addressed, 

Thus rest on one

Who’d give it.

Down to words (508)

https://www.greenwichtime.com/news/article/Is-revenge-porn-protected-by-the-constitution-13857363.php

Down to verse (1369)

Wrong shore

Hard stung, he’d taken a hit,

Yet on went the work

Of his head and fired hell.

Fired he was,

And fired he did, 

Swelled,

Alone, braced,

Set uphill,

Faced the charge below, 

Shouting Springsteen’s Born,

Ne’er do well

From a wrong home shore, 

He took his high place out o’er the rest,

Who now lay there,

Moaning,

Tones of odd measure, 

Also, on a wrong home shore.

(reworked #62)

Down to verse (1368)

Figure

O Daddo, 

Cut such a figger

In the day,

Posted it,

In his old way,

Gaudier-Brzeska drawn.

Then GB died

A pawn, trench fallen,

And EP crumbled

With him.

I know, Daddo,

I know.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Gaudier-Brzeska

Down to words (507)

https://www.cnet.com/news/kisse-myne-arse-doctors-notes-reveal-bizarre-medical-cases-from-400-years-ago/

Down to verse (1367)

Dos Passos transferred

Folks had turned old,

Penurious, 

No gifts of little worth,

No greased street lives,

No Apple Annie miracles,

No vendors clinked,

Nor shoes for kids to shine,

No need for proverbs of thin dimes,

No headlines for the change of hands.

The streets were silent,

Sparked cars moved

With muffled whines,

Not to pay this day, 

Street fines.

There were no quick get outs

Or runs to little victories round corners.

The dope had dried, 

Reupped to morning teas,

Rebranded sunny names

On tattoed knees.

But look another way:

They’d all turned young,

Repeated endlessly of having fun.

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pocketful_of_Miracles

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Dos_Passos

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damon_Runyon

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Transfer_(novel)

Down to verse (1366)

Dressed up

In a way,

They were all kids,

Some meaner, 

Some nicer,

But all kids,

Dressing up

For how it worked.

So how was this bot

To be today?

Down to words (506)

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2019-may-art-auctions/?srnd=premium

https://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/world-news/exporn-star-la-cicciolina-and-the-divorce-from-hell-28390087.html

Non art dog:

 She mournfully describes him watching videos all day while she was reduced to conversing with the dog. 

Down to words (505)

https://www.citylab.com/perspective/2019/05/space-colony-design-jeff-bezos-blue-origin-oneill-colonies/589294/

Down to verse (1365)

Full grown

His father had no father,

Thus, his uncle.

The father urbane,

Kept a twenty with license

For traffic matters.

The uncle fought, 

Had gold gloves,

Corrected traffic,

Yanked those 

For faulty lefts 

Without thought.

Both knew Halstead,

Just different compasses.

Down to verse (1364)

Ricardo

Railroader, he was,

With a museum about him

In Cheekako, as he said it,

The roads he’d known,

The build-out grown,

(then the conflation)

The Dually he drove,

The billiards he played,

Rail shots he’d made,

Seed moneyed pension loans,

(then the oblation)

Sweet honey, sweet home.

Daddo’s game:

https://www.irm.org

Down to verse (1363)

great one

he raved, 

the man of forty years

that night: 

the greatest game

and greatest love

and the greatest film.

my God,

the greatest film

was not Lebowski,

but The Last Dragon.

now what to know

about this man,

this greatest lover

of all time and passion?

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Big_Lebowski

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Last_Dragon

Down to verse (1362)

Handles

Handles they’d there

For water,

An outhouse that stank

For peace 

And other bother

In that little curve of a road.

However,

Bert knew his Greenleaf

And Hornbook, 

And Bible,

And carried

The weight of God’s load.

Daddo’s game:

Benjamin Greenleaf, The National Arithmetic, Robert S. Davis, Boston, 1874.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornbook

Down to verse (1361)

His poems

His poems were rhymes,

Country tunes of times

That dug no deeper

Than a gone dog,

Inner life left sleeping

Somewhere with it,

And laugh at that

Reality at nap.

Down to verse (1360)

Dakota grave

There was a field

Some miles north,

Would still be there,

No longer set forth 

With the old tables

For a family meal

Of 50 plus ‘Stroms and ‘Vags,

Odd Norge handles to remark,

Odd for most, not her,

Who’d known them in youth,

Each uncle, in some great truth,

Odin of his own forge,

When it came to ploughing,

Otherwise, mostly quiet,

As a Quaker at a meeting,

When it came to eating.

Rude to conclude much more.

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ole_Edvart_Rølvaag

Down to verse (1359)

Sonny Boy

He held his vision,

So much the same

They thought him dazed.

Most did hold him crazed. 

Time applied silence.

He grew quiet. 

Why should he talk anyhow?

Why not say nothing

In an empty time

Where no feed of his kind

Would serve anyway?

But he cracked it wide on 49, 

Geared his ride way past a whine,

A big bore, synchromesh straight 8

Left God above to call his fate.

Daddo's game: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pontiac_Straight-8_engine

 http://www.enginebuildermag.com/2014/11/pontiacs-straight-8s/

with the Yardbirds:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4qUW0KTG5s

We gonna move, Down the highway 49
She got her head in my chest
O Sonny, ain’t this fine?

Down to verse (1358)

Blue Rima

She had her day, and he had gone to hell,

A poet’s place to which he‘d gone to play,

Eternity to witness his poor dell,

A kingdom come of words to fill his day

To last, her beatific, narrowed eyes

So false, of course, to all he’d meant to say.

Que lastimas, non sequiturs and cries,

His new establishment of barroom red

And colors to comply with malt filled flies.

He’d known her and her full uncovered bed

Of risen roses, poses they would be,

A sonnet to her love of self, instead.

Her love to prove her own rich mystery

To take her place for none save her to see.

Down to verse (1357)

Blue note

His Perigord:

Not the chord

Of a woman

To complete 12 bars

Or cross them.

His chord:

He could hear it,

Him playin’ mean

With Walter and Muddy,

Years before in time,

Then with BB,

Playing fifths and thirds,

Helping the poor and all,

Livin’ the words.

He would leave it there.

Daddo’s game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Périgord

E.P wrote Near Perigord (1915)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Walter

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muddy_Waters

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B.B._King

Down to verse (1356)

Easy jammer

He had been that way

With women.

Jam with ‘em

Subtly,

Just enough 

To make ‘em

Clear the day.

He’d had a horn

Of such expression.

Down to words (504)

https://bgr.com/2019/05/04/artificial-intelligence-video-fake-humans/

Down to verse (1355)

Hid

He hid beneath a grid 

Of parts once played,

Approached the lead

Beneath it, 

Moved from under,

Went to silence

For a while or two,

A few bars…

Then came back again

To track the sax,

A tone below.

It was his life,

Sweat from a boiler

That gave him heat

Not so intense

To cause misapprehension,

For never came the day

He’d blow the tune away.

Down to verse (1354)

Jericho

He turned his eyes,

Lowered them,

He thought, duly.

For the man would pass

Who would engage him,

And he wished no such thing.

For the man wanted all of him,

Although the man would not say it,

Yet.

There would come a time

When the man would.

Then a simple averting would not do.

Of course, he might be ill that day,

Feigned or real.

Or a Marx Brothers fall

Might also suffice.

Then his eyes could shine from a smile

That kept him safe.

But there would come a time

The man would pass,

Who would engage him,

And he would get his wish.

(#114)

Down to verse (1353)

From the cart

The maid’s cart

& its soap

& body wash

& lotions…

What he could plunder

(When he was unwatched)

For his lady love back at the center,

& the sweetness she would give him

In the broom closet

When the attendants

Took their break for lunch,

& she would have her gifts,

In the dark wonder

Of mop bucket mystery

That would rattle and tap

In those few moments

Of a trustee corsair’s

Coming home in victory.

(#479)

Down to verse (1352)

Loving sun

She shined much as a loving sun

Shone o’er an infant in a frame,

Above its crib to the acclaim

Of all four winds each blowing one,

In voice and spirit’s harmony,

Which as they sang to give their hymn,

Their corners so they blended in

To coos of one new melody.

Her grandchild’s photo in her hand,

She showed to all who wished to see

And glowed to each, for each would be

A friend to mirror her bright stand.

There as she shone as loving sun,

All corners of her heart were one.

(#617)

Down to verse (1351)

The beggars

Skid had run out of barrels and kegs.

His tiny place overflowed once again. 

His corner, with ordered cans, metal, other junk,

Could not span more scavenging.

He had time left merely to beg.

Rich in street simples,

His torn coat was dollar full, 

His beard without sweat.

He was a good sketch.

In the cold, 

Winter sun stared on his eaten wools. 

Years past, he had graded them.

He’d known his microns at one time.

Brother Moth had known them since.

City license posted anew, 

He had clipped it

Firm to bare jacket, 

Double breasted, multi stained.

He had stood stage before,

His Hamlet now bore poverty and want.

Knowing how to pose,

He looked to be striving-

Dancing for those driving.

He started singing in quiet couplets:

‘The lady loved her burning rum,

And coke to cool it on her thumb…’

‘I laugh in the bitter aft.

Folks drive by and think me daft.’

‘A union card I have to show

For work that I will never know.’

Song and coin shortened the day.

A surety about his way:

He might, but he never made change, 

However his verses might range.

Now he stood with faithful partner 

And stenciled sign,

Showing work conditions bleak

As the traffic lined.

So day went, into near dusk;

The struck six clock 

Gave an end to the day’s card, 

Hour unpunched, unblocked.

Free to cease his current begging,

His garbage love, pierced and leggy,

Had come to pull a wagon.

Deliberate, he slowly checked 

Its metal treasure,

While she copped another five

With her toothless smile.

The meth, dark,

Had got Slim years ago;

He found her,

Took her in up north.

Her hips worked well, very well,

As she held the homeless sign

That said ‘God Bless All’,

And they readied for the night

At their new motel.

(Somewhat reworked from early days, #107)

Down to verse (1350)

Somewhere,

Somehow,

Beneath the concrete of a Wimsatt,

The diction of a Barfield,

The order of a Burke,

The resonance of a Fiedler,

Ah, yes,

The everyday lives of Sigmund

And the Jungerman,

Somewhere,

Hiawatha was buried.

Daddo's game:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_K._Wimsatt

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owen_Barfield

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kenneth_Burke

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Fiedler

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Jung

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiawatha