John Lambremont. Sr. - Poet
September 19, 2012

Hurricane Isaac has come and gone, and caused a lot of damage in south Louisiana, but we were lucky and were spared for the most part. Thanks to you all for your prayers and good wishes.

Speaking of wishes, here's a little poem of mine that got to "hit lead-off" in this summer's issue of Words & Images, the lit mag of the University of Southern Maine.


WHAT WE NEED

What we need is
auto bodies and parts
that are edible.

What we need is
is an instrument that
will make useless measurements
like the distance between
two nipples.

What we need is
velcro fasteners
between our knees and
a way of voiding
without the fuss, and

what we need is
a scenic overlook
of ourselves
that can be had
without leaving the car.



The recent hurricane did give us a lot of high winds. In a swirling tropical storm, the winds come in different directions at different times; in Isaac, the winds came first from the south, then from the east at the height of the storm, from the north after the center had passed, and from the west as the residual bands passed through.

This windy poem appeared previously in Acreage Journal:

THE EVOKER

Wind chimes at my window
a sextet in D,
long, silver cylinders,
no trinkets, these,
lull me into blissful nod
or cudgel me from sleep.

No thoughts can they compose,
but respond they to the wind rose;
they cannot distinguish
Boreas from Notus,
nor Zephyrus from Eurus,
who often anger to tempest in
gusts that send discord clanking
off the glass panes, or leave
in a huff for days, withholding
propulsion in disgust.

Like snowflakes, each sound-scape
is different; yet, some-how,
The Song Remains the Same,
whether mild or strident,
violent or quiet.

Sometimes, these Bells of
Rhymney are sounded in
drunken symphony by a rapt
conductor-poet.

It looks like the litigation involving the B.P. oil spill of two years ago that killed thirteen good people and harmed tens of thousands more is winding its way toward the end. I thus reprint this angry visual poem/rant that the disaster prompted in me, which was previously published in the U.K. in Disingenuous Twaddle:

DON'T GO THERE

                             I        &

                             am    no,

                             the   not

                              guy you,

                                who

                                can

                                 see

                                  all

                                   the

                                   rot

                                   and

                                   the

                                  bad

                                 men

                                who

                                lie

                               and

                               try

                           to pass it

                        off as pure truth.

                       I have lived in the

                     shadow of the Big River

                    all of my days, and I know

                   the scent of the sea. I know

                  rivers, lakes, bayous, creeks,

                  marshes and swamps and canals,

                 oxbows, borrow pits, and oceans.

                  I have hiked the levees of the

                   muddy Mississippi , peed into

                   its currents, and crapped on

                    its banks. I have been and

                     am still a fisherman in

                      paradise. I have been

                       through hurricanes,

                        tornadoes, floods.

                         Now I don't know

                         if I should vent

                         or just go mad,

                        as once again we

                        are in the way,

                        and told it is

                       our own damned

                        fault for being

                        such dumb fools.

                        I remember the day

                        our Paulie, then age

                         four, fell into the

                          Mississippi River in

                           a final, nearly fatal

                            attempt to skip a rock

                             more than three times.

                              We'd finished our throws

                               and I said "Let's go now,"

                                and turned our backs, then

                                 heard a loud splash, and

                                 found Paulie in the water

                                  clinging grimly to a small

                                   patch of rocky ground, his

                                    feet swaying in the eddies.

                                    We pulled him out okay, and

                                    made a conscious decision not

                                    to tell his mom about it, no

                                   need to scare her with a thing

                                   that did not happen. We kept

                                  this secret for fifteen years.

                                 Many years laters, I found a

                                brass bust of Shiva, the god

                               of rivers, in a curio shop

                              in the French Quarter. His

                             hair was all snakes, and I

                            found his stern glare was

                           interesting. The price was

                          right, so I bought him and

                         took him home, and hung

                        him on our living room

                       wall. Everything then

                      turned immediately to

                     crap. No money would

                    come in, and no new

                   work could be found,

                  so quarrels ensued.

                 Then one night over

                Sunday dinner, the

                 tale about Paulie's

                  dip in the big river

                   was revealed, and his

                    poor mom was mortified.

                     She said we should have

                      told her about it right

                       away; she would have, as

                        would any wise Buddhist,

                         have set up an altar at

                          the point of his entry,

                           burned joss sticks and

                            offered flowers to the

                             kind river god for not

                              taking away her child.

                               No wonder, she told us,

                                that Paulie had been so

                                 beset with psoriasis and

                                  adolescent obesity; the

                                   god of the river wrought

                                    his revenge on Paul for

                                    our rude lack of thanks.

                                     I thought about this for

                                    many days, and I was well-

                                   determined to make amends.

                                  I took the Shiva with me

                                 downtown to the same spot

                                where Paul had taken his

                               plunge. I clasped Shiva

                              between my palms, and

                             I bowed and kow-towed 

                            ten times, giving the

                           god of the river our

                          thanks for sparing my

                         son, adding my true

                       apologies as I asked

                      for his blessings.

                      Then I hurled the

                     Shiva into the big

                      river as far as it

                       would go, and watched

                        it splash into the deep

                         water beyond the eddies.

                          Everything then took an

                           sudden turn for the better,

                             but my wife said I was silly.

                              I worked the tugs and crew boats

                               as a youth, through the canals and

                                in and out to the massive oil rigs

                                 we supported. I have seen injury

                                 and death come from mankind's

                                 pursuit of the almighty crude.

                                 The man-made canals were a

                                large part of the intrusion

                              of sea water that caused the

                             levees to fail after Katrina

                            barely touched New Orleans ;

                           but, through the greed and

                          short-sightedeness of our

                         so-called leaders, most

                        of The City That Care

                       Forgot went under ten

                      feet of water, and we

                      wonder still if anyone

                     cares, as much of Haiti

                     is being re-built faster

                      than is New Orleans East.

                       So now we have an "oil leak"

                        in the Gulf below the mouth

                         of the river due to the cheap

                          Charlies that run Blimey Petrol

                           and the rig-wrasslin' cowboys of

                            Holy Burton. This "leak" made an

                             oil slick bigger than Rhode Island ,

                              but where is the hue and cry like

                             we heard for the Exxon Valdez? Of

                             course, that was pristine Alaska

                            shore-line invaded, not a grubby,

                           trashy, Louisiana waste pit that

                          has nothing to offer but gators,

                         swamp rats, and mosquitos "as

                        big as birds," according to

                       one Alabama ass-clown's Net

                       missive. Oh, wait. The winds

                       are shifting. Mobile Bay and

                        the Emerald Coast are next.

                        

                         You may have to cancel

                          your trip. That is a

                           real catastrophe,

                           eff the shrimpers,

                           fishers, crabbers,

                            processors, and

                            vendors at the

                             butt of the

                             food chain.

                              Your fish

                               sandwich

                                you want 

                                  fresh,

                                   nice

                                    and

                                     hot,

                                      and

                                       so

                                        do

                                         I.

Finally, I close with the second installment in my series about the foibles of the Holy Grand Poo-Bah, which was published previously in my first book, Whiskey, Whimsy, & Rhymes, available on Amazon.com and all major bookstore websites. (Book disclaimer: "The aging lawyer/warrior resuscitates his Muse to try to assuage his tired mind and aching soul, with mixed but interesting results.")

A BIG SLAUGHTER

Grand Pooh-Bah did send
his troops to the fields
then to the Holy Gods
he faithfully kneeled

"Give us the strength, Lords
to conquer our enemies
please hear my words
and harken to my pleas!"

But the Boo-pahs fell back
again and again
mortally wounded
friend among friend

the Grand Poo-Bah looked on
and gnawed on his thumb
"Oh, well! What the hell,
plenty more where they came from."

That's all for now. Please send in your comments and critiques, and thanks.

John Lambremont, Sr.

P.S. Don't forget to visit our review, Big River Poetry Review, at bigriverpoetry.com!