Paul Foreman

[anirbas]

Blackbeard

Easy to write seductive poetry,
A brief glimpse of bare breasts
swelling under the print blouse,
the thighs that stretch and motion
in slow movies.
These poets, all harpies,
Like Edward Teach leading
his mare with the lantern
tied round her neck at Nag's Head,
to see what ships can be lured
aground on the outer banks
when night storms lash the sea.
All those shades in constant moan,
churn the sands that eat the wild oats.
Who knows the glitter of his sword,
the rage in his black beard,
or if one eye was out, the other
aflame with hot desire.
The shipwrecked, alone, can tell
what pleasure he plucked from their thighs,
what lies are fixed to their bones.

~Paul Foreman.

[anirbas]

Berkeley Panormamic

Cool melons pass
from hand to lip;
gold fish swim
in the ear of the sea.
Sonoran braid winds
round the hip
to the sound
of the blues King,
sad in our vibraphone.
Our wounds are bound
by the knowledge
that parting
is temporary;
our friends return
like the grape to the vine,
the wine to the glass.

~Paul Foreman.

[DavidMc]

Another new name. I paticularly liked the first poeem

Thanks for sharing.

[anirbas]

You're welcome. Just an obscure book of poetry, I found in a second hand bookstore. Never heard of him, til I came across the slim volume of his writings.

[glenn]

Interesting poems.

Always worthwhile looking through the poetry books in secondhand bookstores!

[anirbas]

On the Signing of the Peace Treaty in Vietnam


The final months of war so deadly....

Bombs fell as hellstones

In the hot, wet jungle

Melting flesh and tree and shrub.


One blinding photograph by day:

Napalm running naked on the highway.


Death shook the planet so hard, I felt

Death's rattle in my own chest.

My unborn son, unwilling to look

Upon the world, kicked and died

In his mother's womb.

Now I sit by banks

Of the rivers of Babylon

Under the willows and weep.

~Paul Foreman.

~*~

Hamburger Hill Proscenium

Men come up the hill
cradling death in their arms
under the white-heat
noon of the tropics.
A banana cluster in the close
shade; paradoxical desire
to eat bananas and kill,
all in the same breath.
Kill or be killed; die
for the mother whore, Folly.
But folly dies only when
man, the chief carrier,
falls to carry no more.
(Whatever became of Dayton, Ohio
and 25 cent hamburgers?)
Rivers of sweat bathe ticks
sucking blue veins beneath
the skin. To tired now
even to brush them off,
and anyway,
what's the difference, "I see death
coming up the hill."

~Paul Foreman.

~*~

My Lai, an American Battlefield

I'll dig up the dead at Lexington

and remember no more.

And sweep Old Hickory down

from his saddlebag, leaving New Orleans

an empty stirrup in the plaza.

I'll cut down the trees at Gettysburg,

plow and salt the land.

And I'll burn the church at Shiloh

with my own bare hands.

Chateau Thierry, your name no longer haunts,

I will forsake your woods.

I'll raze Bastogne and leave no

two bricks on top another.

Even the Arizona

at the bottom of Pearl, putrefies.

Song My! My Lai! --

You have forever stained the honor

of all our other battlefields.

*Your battle made clear the agony--

the mental death of wars.

This battle of frustration

leaves killing of the body

for killing of the mind.

There is honor in

both of the sacrifices.

~Paul Foreman.

*In the book of Mr. Foreman's that I found in the second hand bookshop, the asterisked piece, is written in pencil, in his own hand, as it matches the handwriting, where he signed the book, at the front, for some lady named Suzy Schmid, in Dallas at Neil and Lana's knot-tying. I'm assuming he added the penciled in verse, after the book was printed. It was copyrighted in May of 1973 and printed by The Headstone Press.

[anirbas]

Oh, my stars, guys It appears Yam's Bukowski and my Foreman, were contemporaries and peers!!!!!!!!!!!!

Was just doing a search for information about P.F and was already wowed to learn, he's a native Texan out of Granbury...Colleged at Berkely in Cali and not only wrote poetry of his own, but published poets whom might not otherwise have been published! I though he might be from the south or southwest area, because he did one poem, titled Pecans...

He lived one of my dreams! To publish poets whose work was as worthy, if not better than those being published in his times...

The softcover book I have, I also found out, is one of a few titled Redwing Blackbird, that he published...Even found a review on it...It said it was bad left wing poetry...hahahahaha...I found it intriguing...I believed he lived from 1917 to 1979...Not sure on
those dates, yet...His last publishing house, stopped publishing in the early nineties...

In that search, is where I found he was a contemporary of Bukowski's...He and Bukowski did a book,
titled Redwing Blackbird: poems-- in 1973, published in San Francisco by Headstone Press...Their poems, in the same book!

I am finding this so hehelarious and so small world-ish...I had no idea, Foreman was a native Texan...And I had no idea Foreman and Bukowski were peers...

Learn something new, everyday...I love it!

Take care, folks! Wonderous Wednedaying to ya'll!
Wait a second...It's Tuesday...LOL...It's typed so there it stays...
Besides, it's almost Wednesday or is Wednesday, in some parts of the world, so I'm not totally daft! *t-he* Just mindblown
from finding out Foreman and Bukowski were contemporaries and peers!!!!!!!! Sabrina.

;D