Blasting Caps from the Vault, Part 2

[creativesoul]

i also equate cold and death

[Steve Plonk]

Thanks for your comment, Creativesoul. "Winter Hollow" was written in a low point in my life. It is one of the bleakest poems I've ever written. I tried to communicate the cold and the fear of death. The last line had a little bit of hope in it...

[Steve Plonk]

PAGINATION

By Steve Plonk

Filling up a page

Brings me happiness

I am simply pleased

To get into cheap whimsy

Of filling up a page/

Gets my ya-yas down

So I am again

Cleaned up to start anew/

Filling up a page

Is like filling up

A gas tank in a car/

Sometimes one does it

Over & over in spite

Of a low mileage car...

I have a low mileage mind &

I am searching for the right

Phrase to qualify it—

The perfect fuel

The bulls-eye word...

Takes me somewhere new.


Author’s note: Circa 1978,

Slightly revised poem and new title Feb. 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

ONE BRIGHT NIGHT WITH SISTER MOON

By Steve Plonk


Once at a gathering
In the woods at half past eight,
We held hands in a clearing
We did not hesitate...
We sang hymns to God's creation
We sang hymns to the sun & moon
The evening turned to dawning
It was over much to soon
Wilding time was what it was
Like days of the reformation
All our prayers became like spells
To help with night’s sanguination—
For in everything we said
Blood rushed through our head...

“Hello, Sister Moon,” we would sing
“Won’t you shine down now on me
You aren’t as bright as Brother Sun,
But you help us all to see...”
The owls would hoot along
Whippoorwills would whistle, too,
The rabbits would thump
Near the old well pump and
Up the cranes would fly, calling so strong,
It seemed that even the raccoons
Were joining in our song...

We ate our mushroom & onion soup
We ate our pumpernickel bread,
We ate our "poor man’s caviar”,
The medicine was in our head,
We sang our chanting hymns to God,
To the oak tree grove and the Moon
The night flew like a blue jay
Dawn approached like a shining spoon—

We wrapped up all our prayer blankets,
Our altar & our robes,
Our tents and our utensils & tomes &
Headed back toward homes,
Beating our old shaman drums,
Praising great Brother Sun,
Because another day had begun.
But we’ll always remember the lyrics
We’ll always remember the tune &
That one bright night with Sister Moon...

Author's Note: The above poetry/lyric came to me in a dream. The above
poem was also a featured item in Litkicks.com's Action Poetry, Feb. 23, 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

MARKING TIME

By Steve Plonk

Marking time again
Marking time again...
Set up like a window dummy &
Marking time again...
The display changes in the window
But the old department store
Dummy stays the same...
But has on different clothing &
Trim to become more proper & prim...

Marking time again...
Time is your enemy sometimes
Time is your depravation
But the past is your storeroom
With old memory integration
Stacked up like magazines
Volumes in the gloom
Your set repeating with different scenes
Time is your enemy so soon...
Marking time with the clothes of now...

Winter 1979-80, Revised Feb. 2011

[Steve Plonk]

WARM HARBOR BLUES (Lyric)

By Steve Plonk

Warm Harbor Blues
Got off the boat in San Diego,
Motored up to San Francisco,
Stepped out onto
North Beach scene,
Lived out life with Cyndy
In a pipedream...

Woe de doe doe...
My Hudson was so polished & new,
Warm Harbor Blues/
All my friends have grandchildren now,
I'm a widower and all alone,
Very few left who remember our youth.
Warm Harbor Blues...

The winter of time
Chills my bones
Warm Harbor Blues/
Here I am in Motown,
Snow has fallen on the ground...
Where is Cyndy now?
Wish I could catch a train to San Francisco,
Wonder where is Cyndy now?
Warm Harbor Blues...

Circa Winter 1979-80, Revised slightly, Feb. 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

DON’T CALL IT THE SCHOOL OF FOOLS

By Steve Plonk

I believe in the “golden rule”
I heard I’m part of the so-called school of fools
Why am I believing in the golden rule?
Because I learned it in Sunday school...

I’m not saying it to be uncouth
But it seems that the world has learned
To live by “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”
But I continue to believe that karma is earned
I believe it is better to tell power the truth

So I learned the golden rule and I learned it well
It’s saved me from plenty of trouble & hell
I keep my own counsel and I try to shut it
When my life is down the tubes, seems like shit,
I really give authority the truth to tell
I learned the golden rule and I learned it well...

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”
It’s a simple rule and it’s helped out my life
I think it’s helped me consult with friends and my wife
I keep it close to my mind and my heart
Guess I’m just a fool right from the start
But I’d rather be kind than be mean
I really think it helps with the modern scene...

Why am I believing in the golden rule?
Because I learned it in Sunday school/
Don’t call it the School of Fools
What I learned in church was really real
God is alive in my heart with zeal
I can’t deny or pollute my soul
Need to own up before I get old.

[Steve Plonk]

PENNY HAIKU FROM HEAVEN (A Dream)

By Steve Plonk

Angels will sing penny haiku for all of you,
Which soon will chase away winter’s
Storm rusty clouds out of the desert,
Spring rains will wet all the dusty cinders...
As rainy days are apt to do...

After God’s bringing rain to the thirsty young
Mouths of the creatures of mother earth,
Rains will fill the swamps again with frogs,
Rains will bring salamanders back to the bogs...

Fogs will hug the shores of filled lakes once again,
Green will come winging with bird’s beaks in the wind,
Trees will burst their newborn buds with leaves,
Seeds will burst forth from the leftover sheaves...

Earth will blossom the desert into pastures & shrubs
Mother bears & lions will emerge from caves with their cubs...
The lambs will bleat unafraid as the Shepherd brings safety,
Singing along with the angels, as the Spirit of heaven,
Number of angels, I believe, it’ll be seven....

Resurrection lyrics of renewed agape love,
Spirit of heaven’s spring descends like a dove...
Coming down from on high,
Coming down from above...
Echoing their song, swinging down low,
To the shepherds & sheep far below...


Created, March 18, 2011, Also, submitted to Litkicks.com’s Action Poetry, March 19, 2011, published late on same day... was featured item.

[Steve Plonk]

EARTHBOUND ASTRONAUT

By Steve Plonk

I am a man of suffering
A man of suffering
Have seen my body dying
My own...&
Left a sea of crystal hives upon this moon
Vastness from whence we all came hence
Smiling seen in His shadow...
Am I a retired earthbound Conrad &/or Bean?
***
Only the cosmos knows
What has been seen...
The deathly cold,
The silent rocks
The unpolluted foreign sky of stars...
***
Many eves of nights of ebony pitched chasms—
Notes of ethereal anti-matter spots,
When are they bringing home the astronauts?...
Astral-body light-ships wandering...
The gases of Jupiter hold pieces of my missles,
Mars of my flesh,
Which lit upon Saturn & like a starving horde,
Made my prison in the stars:
Alpha Centauri, Sirius, Betelgeuse, Antares, Proximi Centauri,
Castor, Pollux, super-novas & quasars—
Temponauts being lost/
Many useless names appear...
Some real, some imagined “inner space”—
All for naught?!
***
I thought, when coming home, an earthbound astronaut,
That things may be recognized by me in a similar frame or guise...
As when I left for oceans of space, light, & time,
Whistling Terra’s old tunes—been seen in the shadow
Of many moons—Light-soldier colonist be damned—
Priest of light, not might, prophet of the Elves of Terra,
Needed for a new-cloned mutant woman...
***
Part 2

But, use me well, for I have seen, & am wise, & while shingles of
Amino acid piddle about & when we could be cognizant of
What it is to be loud & blatant, our receivers up too high
Chorus humming, grisly white robots bumming quatros for our coffee/
Humbled by the disjointed visions...
***
Heard a new silent protest deepening from those who push the buttons,
Clean the broom sweepers & are poor & misunderstood, because, to them
You changed nothing...
Their good was bad, their right was wrong/ & besides:

A person’s insides is better than transistor batteries/
Metal-man robot machine private tinkling has a plastic brain for thinking/
One must be mad to feel this truth, how could people become uncouth &
Try to spare-part the human race—
***
I am the Earthbound Astronaut. I have no races to run/
We are within our solar circle sailing...
Orbiting near Mars—we looked around, we wrote things down,
We learned from what we found...we burned in the knowing—
Windows facing stars, contacted those from the inner & outer “milky way”...
Now the Andromeda galaxy blips is upon our fingertips,
But, losing ourselves & becoming snippy little elves...
I am the Earthbound Astronaut, I been around through space & time/
***
We lost our old garden, been reborn, but we need our garden restored &/or found...
I have been to see dreamscaped things which are being shown & in the name of
The Most High, & I offer up this poem into the sky—that we might try to grasp
The mystery of the “northern lights”, I sing this lullaby tonight...Selah.

August 1973, Revised slightly, April 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

THE VICTORY OF THE WANDERER

By Steve Plonk

Bubbling wine glasses, a glittering star partakes of the liquid light undying—
Like some victor of the day—the wanderer returns—
He laughs, the wanderer, the watcher, lingering, listening,
Leering & admiring, the wenches abounding,
Dancing, wrenching themselves around—
Ladies becoming hysterical and wincing in the presence of a star—
The wanderer laughs—the winking wizard of roust...
“When will we begin the joust?”/
***
“Rippling waters of speedboats charging
Across the finish line tape, enlarging bigger than the race he won/
The wanderer explores for what reason or purpose or beginning, or
Whatever, thrill seeking...Jumps out of planes, skydiving like a fool,
But would rather pack the chute...the man who packs the chute would
Rather jump out, but is nervously content with the precision of his folds”/
***
“Guitar army comes to change you
Wants to re-arrange you
Guitar’s a weapon with its bullets of
Words & musical sounding in “inner space”
May cause a pool of doubt
To surround you within & without”—
***
“It’s no propaganda, just the jive of now,
Flying for flying’s sake, not to break a speed record—
Walking on the ceiling, weightless, for art’s sake only—
To invigorate, to absorb experience & to enjoy”—
***
“Our guitar army will teach you how to survive:
No premonition...No superstition...
Just to survive the heat & cold of growing old—
Walking, Waking, Wondering, Whimpering, Wiggling,
Sneezing, Snorting, Snoozing, Sporting, Slobbering...
Moreover, we commence the voyage to the Jovian red-eye wilderness—
Reality of testing suits, the harness, the pack, the Capsule &
Endure to do what has never been done.”
***
Part 2--

He says to “prepare to be a pioneer of thought, explore and find out”/
Suddenly, in flight beyond the moon as we linger toward Mars...
I wait for myself to catch up with me as once I was/
I cringe with discovery & apprehension about what awaits unfolding
Like a crocus in spring of youth...
“Are there unseen faces? Will we be confounded, dumfounded,
Amazed, glazed like pottery in some fierce cold or heat?...”
***
“What of Mars dried seabeds of salt & lava, old streams of water or magma,
Seeping steam of water, howling winds, mad as battles, or magma
Seeping steam into nocturnal cavernous mysterious canyons...
We are hovering above all this?!”/
***

Suddenly, again, icy air behind my head lifts me up as Mars gravity fades away...
“Do we walk astral unknown or are we seen, cogs in a machine, or
Inside some colossal Being, whatever being may be”—
It’s a dreamscape while exploring inner screams/
***
“Behind eyelids of awe, before beads of lizards begin to crawl,
Is dawn of knowledge &/or frustration for lack of it...
In the presence of a comet-star, which is blinding,
Getting into what we are,” the Wanderer says as he
Returns to partake of a new fiesta of giving of himself.
Howdy, Earth people...

September 1973, Revised April, 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

Kind folks, read my archived poetic visions, written while being spaced out...Visions of wanderlust, of the future, & the promise of space explorations
is what these are about..."Earthbound Astronaut" & "The Victory of the Wanderer"...
They were written on my first anniversary of my cross-country trip
from coast to coast...when I met Dr. Hunter S. Thompson...
Ziggyboogiedoo

[Steve Plonk]

THINGS OF SPRING (LYRIC)
By Steve Plonk

Things of Spring--feel the comfort
Of a warm spring lawn
Smell of lilies, poppies, morning glory--

Serenading of returning birds,
Strumming of pupas coming out as kings--
Monarchs--the butterflies
That travel to each whistle stop--
Life comes alive when Spring rings
Its rosebuds,
Waves its newborn flags of leaves,

Things of Spring--feel the comfort
Of a warm spring lawn,
Smell of lilies, poppies, morning glory--

Everyone & everything is out again--
I can love trees outside
Glass windowpanes,
I can love wisteria which grows
On the wall once more--
Spring has come
Mother nature's happy story has returned--

Life comes alive when Spring rings
Its rosebuds,
Waves its newborn flags of leaves
Now I know that Spring has come
With blossoms & rainy days...

Circa May 1968, Revised May 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

THE LIVING DAY
by Steve Plonk

If night is dying,
Then day is living--
Bless the living day--
Flowers spring up
With the light
Opening petals
Toward sunshine--
When night dies
Lazy pups & kittens squirm
Stretch awake...
This wretched drunk
Stirs awake by the tracks--
Countryside is reborn
From winter's night,
Aurora's eye flashes
With childhood wonders...
Lazy people's eyes focus on
Light in the living hour
Of spring's living day
For winter's night has been dying...

[Steve Plonk]

"PTOMAINI RHYMES—A Macabre Satire"
By Steve Plonk

Ring around the posies
Pocket full of rosies,
Cinders, Cinders,
They all fell in the fire/
Listen while the wind chimes
Ring higher and higher...

Little Miss Puffet
Died on a tuffet
Eating her canned shards of whey,
Along came a spider,
Which sat down beside her,
Then ate her eyeball away/

Old King Shoal was a merry old soul
A merry old sire was he,
He was dead, ‘cause he bumped his head...
He bled out in his bed,
Now from Shoal’s body, his soul did flee...
Listen to me, while the wind chimes sing higher,
Like a swinging old used lyre...
"Fried green tomatoes" grilled on the fire/

Little Jack Porner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a pumpkin pie.
He stuck in his thumb
Had a cut on his thumb,
Got ptomaine poisoni...poisoned ptomaini....

Jack Spat could eat no fat
His wife could eat no whey
They were both dead ‘cause
They weren’t well fed
They got ptomaine poisonney/

One little, two little, three little ptomaines,
Four little, five little, six little ptomaines,
Seven little, eight little, nine little ptomaines,
Ten little, eleven little, twelve little...
All poisoned folks food--like heavy metal lead...
Listen to me, while the buzz saw sings higher,
To a ruminating bovine choir...

Here comes the coroner to announce you are dead,
Here comes autopsy, where they chop off your head...
Remember the hive, at “Slaughterhouse Five”?
Ptomainey rhymes, ptomainey rhymes,
Everybody’s gotten formula rhymes,
WO! Comin’ up with ptomainey Rhymes!!

Remember the beef you chew, used to make a bovine “moo”!
Make sure meat's not spoiled ‘fore you cook your stew!

Circa June 1967, Revised Spring 1980, Final revision, Spring 2011.

[Steve Plonk]

BROWN COWL
By Steve Plonk

Folks are more contrary,
Outside the monastery...
Howl now brown cowl,
We feel the e-lec-tri-city now,
Velocity has sprang up in our jowl,
Like from the Goliards in
The middle ages,
We find ourselves making
Brand new pages...
We catch the continuum
In the times & run run run
Till daddy-o takes the
PC awayyyyyyy...
We had more funnery
When we left the nunnery
Of staid and sterile
Straight & narrow--
Took the fast track
On the bullet train,
Hopped that hip-hop
Jet airplane,
Break danced our bad selves
Until it was all so good
Changed ourselves & our neighborhood--
Times need to catch up
So we need to sing for our sup,
Get on with it & solve the shell game,
Bring in the clothesline clothing from the rain...
To be more succinct,
With what is fragrant & what stinks--
Time for more progressive action, methinks...