"Rumpeta" is to be found in The Elephant and the Bad Baby, a children's book by Elfrida Vipont (and illustrated by Raymond Briggs).

Dionysian Dance
 

Awakening Winds

Sucked dry by drought, my stand of trees
shrieks like maenads crazed with wine
when Santa Ana winds assault.
Their sires and whipping saplings moan
and frenzied limbs pound on my home
for three anarchic days of dance
that cease when twisting crowns bow down.
Inspired by Bacchic spins and tunes,
some trees burst buds to snowy blooms.

Fruit Market


I rob the bees
for my skull of wax.

Behind yellow sunglasses
and a summer cold
that keeps me distant,
that justifies syrupy reactions,
I am drowsy happy.

The day seems dirty gold
and reveals itself through
honeycomb lattice,
drip-feeds me glazed images,
traffic a choked lemon blast.

Others seem busy
in the hive, productive
as I should be:
a girl dances secretly, almost
imperceptibly buzzing
as she lays unripe fruit
on fake grass,
the just-lit smell of her sneaked
cigarette makes me
suck my pencil and
buy a plum.

It looks unreal as does
my tinted hand and
I hardly taste it,
but my teeth break
the skin and the wet spray
hits my mouth
like unpeeled reality.

Like summer.

Here's one that I didn't write, but was workshopped here some years ago. I think it's one of the best poems ever to be posted at Eratosphere, and it's a happy one. It's online at First Things as well.


FLIPSIDE
by Rose Kelleher

For joy like this, the only words I know
I’ve had to borrow from the other side:
knocked out, steamrollered, damn, I almost died,
familiar phrases for some crushing blow
that brings you to your knees. I’ve been laid low
by love, ground into dust by heaven’s wheels.
Funny how much like this rock bottom feels,
the tears, the weakness, and the letting go.

My blessing: May you, in your turn, break down
and lose your marbles. May you fall apart,
be smashed to smithereens and blown away,
scattered in all directions. May you drown.
May happiness make mincemeat of your heart;
and helpless, may you wring your hands and pray.

Yesyesyes to all of these.
This morning I woke up empty-handed. This evening I am basking in poetry-induced wisps of euphoria.

Roger, your Happy and Vongole poems are funny. They seek happiness but cannot avoid reality. Thanks, too, for Flipside. It is exhilarating. Have you heard L. Cohen’s “Ain’t No Cure for Love”? It mines the same territory.

Mark, Fruit Market is gauzily, honey drenched euphoric with a touch of sensuality. I am easily caught up in your altered state. (I’m reminded of your poem where you were enamored by the soft place behind a woman’s ear in front of you while attending a school meeting – I can’t remember the name of it – I’m pathetically unorganized in that regard). I think much of what you’ve written that I’ve read has a transcendent quality that is euphoria-inducing. At least it often produces that effect on me.

Ralph, In nature is where euphoria is best manifested, I think. Are the Santa Ana winds a good thing?

Here’s a poem by Van Morrison entitled, “On Hyndforde Street” that appears on his “Hymns To The Silence” album (one of his best.) It is all about that feeling. He finds it in remembrance. He recites it to haunting music. It’s as much a meditation as it is a poem. Van at his mystical best.

Euphoria I have known ...

I went mad in a Midlands market town

Let’s call it Jericho, I’m sure
they had a cattle market there.

I wore a tubular trombone
modelled on a curled ram’s horn
and cast from Israelite tin.

Each time I smiled the sun came out,
the light poured in, the world was bright
and looking on I saw that it was good.

And drawing fire into my lungs
I blew upon a crooked back
that leant upon a walking stick,

and by the magic of my breath
I made it straight – and lo, I learned
that I could heal the sick.

I walked into the market place.
The auctioneer began to sing:
Old iron, old iron. Oh, Chas and Dave,
you brought me quickly in.

I laid piano hands upon a cow
and calmed it lest its master’s stick
be laid against its side.

Before my gaze the TVs in
the TV shop switched on and sang
along, and when I looked away
they stopped.

And all this time I sang old hymns
mixed in with modern song

and marched around a market town
until the walls, the crumbling walls,
oh yes, those walls
had all come tumbling down.

----
For the culturally deprived: Chas & Dave Any old iron

Ceremonies

I saw the Brazilian Olympic team strut and sashay into Meiji Stadium
.....Tokyo, 1964, opening ceremony.
My friend Klaus in the outside row,
two years running, world champion, Flying Dutchman class,
here as the favorite with a brand new fast new boat,
windmilled both arms over his head,
threw kisses to the crowd,
sang the anthem aloud like a big rube.
Stumbling to a samba beat,
he pawed at his eyes with huge sailor’s hands.

I am the most Brazilian on the team.
It was me who decided to be a Brazilian.
I sailed twice around the world, and when I came here
I saw the mountains touch the sea,
and the brown and gold girls on the white beaches.
I ate shrimp cooked with lemon juice and coconut milk
in a straw hut on Praia do Salvador,
and I heard the laughter
and the music.
When I came here I stayed.

When the new boat broke apart in an early round, he
left the Olympic Village,
moved into our four-tatami guest room.
We could hear him weeping every night,
as he did his push-ups, sit-ups, crunches.

He skipped the closing ceremony
where the drunken young athletes of the world broke
ranks, jumped fences, cartwheeled across the field,
picked up the Japanese flag bearer and
carried him around the stadium,
tried to kiss every woman on the Japanese team;
removed and exchanged
clothing, embraced each other, invited spectators to join them,
refused to end the Games
as the loudspeakers repeated:
Will the athletes please march in ranks
Will the athletes please follow their nation’s flags
in five languages.

I saw the Brazilian Olympic team
parade down Avenida Presidente Vargas
at midnight at Carnaval,
covered with gilt paint, feathers, rhinestones, mirrors.
Someone was hitting a hubcap with a little hammer;
they had flutes, whistles, bells, sticks, rattles;
one girl was bare-breasted, twirling in a half slip,
a light-skinned man shook a gourd with pebbles.
A few wore huge dildos and threatened the crowd with them.
Stones on Coke bottles, drums, singing;
.....Cidade maravilhosa
tens of thousands of team members
streaming down from the Rio favellas
.....Coracao do meu Brasil
to dance half naked in the streets.

I have the most beautiful woman in Botafogo
sings the taxi driver.
Sunday, I will go to the beach and meet another.
Then I will have the two most beautiful women.
I will call them both Patricia.

The Brazilian Olympic team stretches concrete arms on a hill above Rio;
eagles perch on its finger tips and scream at the new sun.
I must take Klaus here.
We will drink cachaca, and fly like eagles to the sea,
and call it a closing ceremony.

Never put down "puppy love".


The Flying Moment

One season, back in ’65,
when cups and saucers came alive,

when time stood down — and up — to death,
when dark dimensions, length and breadth,

soared off with senses, bees and birds
in a futility of words,

a purple, orange, silver kiss
anointed ignorance with bliss.

But now the world’s a shadow box
of butterflies. And there are clocks:

the sun comes up, the moon goes down.
Love’s just another common noun.

Yet — somewhere — constellations swirl
above a fifteen-year-old girl.

The world is getiing crueller and gorier,
Yet every day, I feel this strange euphoria.
Why is it permanently resident?
Because I'm smarter than the President.

A Kind of Rain
 

This wasn’t a light drizzle that comes and stays for a month
growing mildew and long shank weeds.
Not a thunderous downpour that drives up under doors and window sills
chokes gutters and washes garden plants away in a rush.

This was a generous rain that the land celebrated in advance.
(ants built raised mounds, birds played acrobat on overhead wires
farmers got high with anticipation)

This rain showered morning soft on the dry earth
a tip toe around the yard giving new purchase to old roots
by afternoon it was a fox-trot in your head
then turned into an evening jig a jig on the roof
a soft shoe lullaby came later.

This was the sort of rain that made ducks quack louder and people go quiet,
this rain was gone by first light and left the countryside bejewelled with promise
making you want to go out and do something outrageous

it was that kind of rain.