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Remember those beautiful brown eyes you saw ?
Florida
by Elizabeth BishopThe state with the prettiest name,
the state that floats in brackish water,
held together by mangrove roots
that bear while living oysters in clusters,
and when dead strew white swamps with skeletons,
dotted as if bombarded, with green hummocks
like ancient cannon-balls sprouting grass.
The state full of long S-shaped birds, blue and white,
and unseen hysterical birds who rush up the scale
every time in a tantrum.
Tanagers embarrassed by their flashiness,
and pelicans whose delight it is to clown;
who coast for fun on the strong tidal currents
in and out among the mangrove islands
and stand on the sand-bars drying their damp gold wings
on sun-lit evenings.
Enormous turtles, helpless and mild,
die and leave their barnacled shells on the beaches,
and their large white skulls with round eye-sockets
twice the size of a man’s.
The palm trees clatter in the stiff breeze
like the bills of the pelicans. The tropical rain comes down
to freshen the tide-looped strings of fading shells:
Job’s Tear, the Chinese Alphabet, the scarce Junonia,
parti-colored pectins and Ladies’ Ears,
arranged as on a gray rag of rotted calico,
the buried Indian Princess’s skirt;
with these the monotonous, endless, sagging coast-line
is delicately ornamented.Thirty or more buzzards are drifting down, down, down,
over something they have spotted in the swamp,
in circles like stirred-up flakes of sediment
sinking through water.
Smoke from woods-fires filters fine blue solvents.
On stumps and dead trees the charring is like black velvet.
The mosquitoes
go hunting to the tune of their ferocious obbligatos.
After dark, the fireflies map the heavens in the marsh
until the moon rises.
Cold white, not bright, the moonlight is coarse-meshed,
and the careless, corrupt state is all black specks
too far apart, and ugly whites; the poorest
post-card of itself.
After dark, the pools seem to have slipped away.
The alligator, who has five distinct calls:
friendliness, love, mating, war, and a warning–
whimpers and speaks in the throat
of the Indian Princess.wrong place
Night
by Mary Frances Marshall ButtsThe snow is white, the wind is cold–
The king has sent for my three-year-old.
Bring the pony and shoe him fast
With silver shoes that were made to last.
Bring the saddle trimmed with gold;
Put foot in stirrup, my three-year-old;
Jump in the saddle, away, away!
And hurry back by the break of day;
By break of day, through dale and down,
And bring me the news from Slumbertown.This is for Zuzannah who defied this song to be included
in the Studio of Shame in such a compelling way (btw
I know someone who once met Sid …)mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmLagertha (Katheryn Winnick)
from my schlampe friend in Stuttgart
who’s active with the squirty cream
Alabama-Jammayou know me, I like a good funk …
No.90
She perched quite pert on the chaise
Said it’s somewhere a girl can laze
And if I’ve been robbed
I can have a good sob
But I’d really much rather get laidI had to stop this after 41 seconds, I could take no more
/
/live as you like it …
.
.And the sunbeams cracked like jumper cables
I was cranking up the Mellencamp
And you were dancing barefoot on a picnic table
.
/
.Your hair’s all greasy and you feel like a slob
You’re only fifteen and you can’t get a job
–
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