and the beat goes on - from West of Eden, by c o mccauley

and the beat goes on

well it finally happened

            allen

                    you died

and with the usual send-off

          of incense and nonsense

                     which you understood

you reached it

saw it for generations

lit up by big blinking neon-signs

             that kept you awake

christ, what a place            

              kansas minds of broken karmas wasted

visionary high-ways vanished

                in bowels of virtual illumination

mad mountaintops of moloch capped

               by an angelic peyote haze

pardon me, while I kiss the sky  

now it’s just you and jack

     walking with moriarty

     in the skinny midnight

            looking for lorca

            and the sealed light

this is the end

      my friend

      it hurts to set you free

             in such a desperate land

Hangout For Chiggers

 

 while taking the photographs of the river turtles, the four ducklings, the underwater fish etc, I inadvertently picked up a small infestation of what we locally call chiggers which did not bother me at the time but some hours later setting on my porch my feet started itching - CHIGGERS -

the itching is intens.  I threw all my clothes in the washer, and jumped in the shower then when dry applied doctor Norvell's remedy for all things - Iodine - but the itching continued for hours.

 

Larva

The larvae, commonly called chiggers, are about 0.17–0.21 mm (0.007–0.008 in) in diameter, normally light red in color, and covered in hairs; they move quickly relative to size. The larvae congregate in groups on small clods of soil, in matted vegetation, and even on low bushes and plants, where they have more access to prospective hosts.
The larval stage is the only parasitic stage of the mite's lifecycle. They are parasites on many animals. About 30 of the many species in this family, in their larval stage, attach to various animals and feed on skin. This often causes an intensely itchy, red bump in humans (who are accidental hosts).^[15][23]

Chiggers attach to the host, pierce the skin, inject enzymes into the bite wound that digest cellular contents,^[24] and then suck up the digested tissue through a tube formed by hardened skin cells called a stylostome.^[16] They do not burrow into the skin or suck blood, as is commonly assumed. Itching from a chigger bite may not develop until 24–48 hours after the bite, so the victim may not associate the specific exposure with the bite itself.^[16] The red welt/bump on the skin is not where a chigger laid eggs, as is sometimes believed.^[25] The larva remains attached to a suitable host for three to five days before dropping off to begin its nymphal stage.^[15]
During the wet season, chiggers are usually found in tall grass and other vegetation.^[26] During dry seasons, chiggers are mostly found underneath brush and shady areas

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trombiculidae

Reality is Surreal

Types of unrhymed poetry

In this column I'll briefly mention and discuss the various forms of unrhymed poetry, including blank verse, grossblank, free iambic, free verse, cadenced verse, sprung rhythm and prose poetry

Blank Verse - an unrhymed poem almost invariably written in iambic pentameters. Great masters include Shakespeare and Milton.

Grossblank - this is a poem written in blank verse, but using iambic hexameter rather than the standard iambic pentameter of most blank verse. This is not that easy to make interesting in English but it can work for short poems. For poems of any length it tends to become rather a strain to read.

Free iambic verse - a freer and less regular form of blank verse, allowing for more flexibility in terms of line length and irregular stresses on the syllables. Perhaps the finest example of this was displayed by Shakespeare in 'Cymbeline,' where the rhythm and flow of the blank verse are both tightly compacted and extremely variable in terms of length of the lines.

Free verse - also known as verse libre or freeform verse. This has no metrical structure imposed upon it, simply allowing its rhythm to flow naturally without any use of rhyme or similar devices. It is perhaps most brilliantly used by Eliot in 'The Waste Land,' although the number of poets who employ it is too numerous to mention.

Cadenced verse - this is based on an often hypnotic and always strongly rhythmical type of verse that is more irregular than traditional metres but still has a pattern. William Blake, Walt Whitman and D H Lawrence were its greatest exponents.

Sprung rhythm - this was invented by Gerard Manley Hopkins. It is based on the number of stressed syllables in a line and allows an indeterminate number of unstressed syllables to be used in the poem. In sprung rhythm, a foot may be composed of from one to four syllables. (In regular English metres, a foot almost invariably consists of two or three syllables.) If this pattern is used without alternating stressed and unstressed syllables, as generally happens in English poetry, the resulting verse is described as 'sprung rhythm.' Hopkins also added an extensive use of alliteration and pararhyme to his verse, but these are not necessary components of the 'sprung rhythm' way of writing.

Prose poem - prose poems, as their name implies, are written in the form of prose. However, they also read like unrhymed and often arhythmical poetry. To create the poetic effect, imagery, musicality of diction and similar poetic devices are used. Probably the finest example is Roy Fisher's 'City,' around half of which is written in the form of poetic prose.

© 6 years ago, Linda Marshall    http://allpoetry.com/column/7541893-Types-of-unrhymed-poetry--by-Linda-Marshall

Frogtown - from West of Eden, written by c o mccauley

This is for you – you ancient of North East

frogtown

even an old five-and-dimer

                has to get away

                                maybe cut across main street

head for the river

                or a backwater hideout

I pedal a stripped-down schwinn

                by battered wooden shanties

                                cluttered along a dusty afternoon road

warm honeysuckle air

                mingles with guitar strum

                                fried catfish and beer

under a slouch feathered hat

                clayton wamser

                                pimp pusher preacher

                                                leans against a broken porch

                                                                smoking a cigar

his snake head moving with shaded eyes

                as I pass his fat-breasted mulatto daughter

                                sunning In her cut-offs

but the river always was my answer

where neon blue dragonflies circle

                shoreline stalks of milkweed

                                I cast into still brown water

split sinkers pull the line under a twig bobber

                my thumb and forefinger

                                feeling the line for fish

waiting for yellow perch to strike or sunfish

                I read about flowers of evil

                                and grapes of wrath

as the tide ebbs far from tomorrow’s flight decks

                on yankee station

                                in the south china sea

"I believe this is written by an old acquaintance  of mine from the little town of  North East as I am fairly certain that he served in Vietnam as a pilot."   -   was what I wrote in the post of 'a darker shade of black' but this bit on 'frogtown' with reference to 'clayton' confirms it is the Charlie that I knew long ago.  And whether Charlie knew or not I would like to point out that Clayton was a veteran from the navy of world war II and earned the hard way his right to just hang-out like a strange background character from a grade B movie.