Wildwood Flower

I really love this song and know that there are several versions. This is my interpretation of it. I combined some of Maud Irving's original lyrics with the Carter family's, plus a few edits of my own. Let me know what you think. :) -par

"Wildwood Flower"

Oh I’ll twine with my tendrils of raven black hair

With the roses so red and the lilies so fair

And the myrtle so bright with emerald dew

The pale and the leader and those eyes so bright blue

Oh I’ll dance and I’ll sing and my life shall be gay

I will charm every heart then his crown I will sway

When I woke from my dreaming my idle play

My visions of love had faded away

Oh he told me to love him and promised to love

And to cherish me over all others above

My heart is now wondering; such misery to tell

He left me no warning, no words of farewell

He taught me to love him and called me his flower

That was blooming to cheer him through life’s dreary hour

Now I live to see him regret the dark hour

When he plucked out the heart of his pale wildwood flower

I will think of him never, I’ll be wildly gay

I’ll cease this wild weeping, drive sorrow away

Tho’ my heart may be breaking, he never shall know

His name makes me tremble sets my pale cheeks aglow

Now my petals are drooping and long is the day

This blossom he loved is wilting away

How I long to see him and regret the dark hour

He’s gone and neglected this frail wildwood flower...

Ode to a "Fundie"

Sin, sin, sin!
Everybody's worried about everyone else's sin.
What about the speck in your own eye?
Maybe it's an eye booger.
Either way, it's not polite to preach with all that crust.

Scream

This poem is driving me crazy. I cannot seem to get it quite the way I want it. I am interested in psychology especially disorders such as sociopathy. I am curious about nature vs. nurture and as a teacher feel it is my responsiblity to recognize the beginnings of these personality traits and guide my students on the correct path. It is my understanding that sociopathy is simply someone with the personality subtype "adventurous" that goes awry for some reason usually in the early years of life, occasionally later on if a head injury is involved. This poem is about a combination of sociopaths I have encountered through media as well as real life. -par

Munch's scream
stifled
behind
a wax museum figure

with cold dead eyes
dispassionately abstract

purpose driven and patient
like a praying mantis
plucking the life out of its victim

a predator with a plan
antiseptic, sterile
more machine than man

progressive or primeval
either way you are set apart
or perhaps left behind

for you, life is a factory
dirty and dull
churning out useless crap that
in the end
nobody really wants
they just pretend to
so you pretend, too

sometimes you sense its presence by its absence
like when a stranger helps you out and
you think...sucker

you walk down the streets comfortable in your mask
spying on neighbors through open windows
talking, laughing, fighting
completely at ease with each other
their intimacy eludes you

always the cool one
you begin to sweat

and when the wax starts to melt
even its noisy silence
cannot hide
your scream

Birdlady

She loved birds

Audubon pictures of:

red winged blackbirds
bluebirds, her favorite
finches
orioles
cardinals
blue jays
starlings
woodpeckers and
nightingales

printed on sugar packets
inside a milk glass jar
on her kitchen table

such a treat for six year-old hands to open
pretending it was birdseed
that we put into our tea

those six year-old hands are almost forty now
I look at them and they don't seem like they belong to me
out the window a cardinal pecks at some unseen prey
I rip open the packet and pour the seed into my cup

I am flown back to her turquoise kitchen
remembering the milk glass jar, the "bird sugar"
those strong arms folded over her calico apron
soothing like the coos of a mourning dove

perched against the counter
eyes fixed on the specks in the clear blue beyond the window

"You know why I love birds, Treela?
They are the luckiest animals. I want to be like them so that one day
I can fly away too."

(c) 2007 with all my love to you, Grandma. I know you are up there, flying high and loving those wings!

As the Flowers Break Free

(c) 2005 Watercolor

Half Empty Girl

the mean reds
I think Holly Golightly was onto something
lately I’ve had
quite the case

washing machine stomach
suction pump throat
teeth of mortar
clogged brain

this cold stone inside me

to pick it up
to throw it in the marsh
to hear its plop as it sinks to the bottom

a scene too surreal
when seeing red
in a technicolor world

I remember watching this movie,
The Angry Red Planet
when I was a kid
its Martian world
barely believable in black and white

perception, it’s all about perception
"You’re just not a half full kind of girl”

but how can I tell?
when the glass is broken
its shards cutting into my skin
white turning to shades of red

mean reds

Cool Shot of a Dead Tree

playing with my digital camera thought these came out pretty cool