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Poetry

Poetry: Blackflies, Hence Wisdom

May 14, 2022 by Edward Zahniser 1 Comment

Blackflies, Hence Wisdom

The summer after I got out of the Army
in February 1968, Chris and I, who had
married while I was still serving, lived at
Mateskared from mid-April into October.
This was, even to this day, my worst ever
experience of blackflies. My family’s habit
of August vacations put us in the “between
season,” as the late Earl Allen often said:
“First the snow flies, then the blackflies.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson would have added:
“Blackflies live up to the brag about them.”
[Read more…] about Poetry: Blackflies, Hence Wisdom

Filed Under: Adirondacks & NNY, Arts Tagged With: art, Poetry

Poetry: Spin Painting

May 7, 2022 by Neil Shaw Leave a Comment

Spin Painting

Blood spurted out from pale nostrils,
White stars surrounded green eyes,
Rocks crashing down on soft foreheads,
Glaring shock, the result of hot lies.
Explosions occurred all around me,
The pole, for a moment, stood still,
Missions were burnt in a cloud-burst,
Sparks flew through the air in the chill.
Vines, breathing fire, began crawling,
While the globe lay there burning too fast,
Aqua leaves, off red branches, were falling,
Scarred women all wept for the past.
Kaleidoscope spun in the meadows,
The heavens awkward and still,
Illusions of love danced around me,
The cadence increased with the thrill.
Hot flash! Then it all started slowing,
Beads of sweat became salty and dried,
Flaming disc in my mind sank fast, glowing,
I just stared at the colors and cried.

Read More Poems From the New York Almanack HERE.

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: art, Poetry

Dear Teacher… (A Teachers’ Day Poem)

April 30, 2022 by Guest Contributor Leave a Comment

Dear Teacher…

Thank you –

From the child you taught to read
From the battered child you held close
From the one you taught to act on stage
So she could be herself
From the one who couldn’t count
Until you convinced him he did
From the one who stuttered
And you waited
From the friendless one
You shared lunch with
From the heavy one
You taught to dance
From the immigrant
You welcomed
From the one they teased
And you told I’m with you
From the one who acted tough
But you weren’t fooled
From the one whose writing was an angry shout
That you read and corrected
From the one whose life was closed
And you opened a door
From the one who said no
And you said yes
From all the kids you taught were okay
And can be better

Thank You.

Jerry McGovern of Peru, NY, taught at Peru Central School and SUNY Plattsburgh for many years, beginning in 1969.

Read More Poems From the New York Almanack HERE.

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: art, Poetry

Poetry: The Holy Braille

April 2, 2022 by Guest Contributor 2 Comments

The Holy Braille

Not seeing, but feeling. Not seeing, but being able to discern,
like the difference between bad and good………
Feeling correctness – eliminating prejudices and hatred.
Feeling the joy derived by giving pleasure to others.
Feeling the goodness in man.
Feeling the splendor of appreciating and living in harmony with Nature.
Feeling the balance by controlling our population.
Feeling our magnificence, by breeding out the undesirable,
inherent, qualities in man.
Feeling satisfaction, by differentiating which technologies are important
and which are products of greed and shortsightedness.
Feeling pride in having leaders with these qualities.
Feeling inner peace – finally being able to see.

Neil Shaw was born in New York, New York and grew up on Long Island. From his earliest age he became one with Nature. The land, the sea and wildlife have played a big part in his life. Naturalist, adventurer, philosopher, businessman, rancher, boater, songwriter, inventor, he has traveled widely. He and his wife Maria live in the Adirondack Mountains.

Read More Poems From the New York Almanack HERE.

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: art, Poetry

The Late Horrid Massacre in King-Street (A Boston Massacre Poem)

March 5, 2022 by Editorial Staff 1 Comment

Boston Massacre Poem“The 29th Regimt on Duty. A Quarrell between the soldiers & Inhabitants—The Bells—Rung—A Great Number Assembled in Kingstreet A Party of the 29th under the Command of Capt Preston fird on the People they killed five—wounded Several Others—particularly Mr. Edw Payne in his Right Arm—Capt Preston Bears a good Character—he was taken in the night & Committed also Seven more of the 29th—the Inhabitants are greatly enraged and not without Reason.” – Diary of John Rowe, 5 March 1770

Unlike the quote above, penned by an eventual Loyalist, stating the facts, the poem “A Verse Occasioned by the Late Horrid Massacre in King-Street” propagandizes the events of March 5th, 1770 in Boston when soldiers fired into a crowd of rioting Bostonians. The event is now known as the Boston Massacre. [Read more…] about The Late Horrid Massacre in King-Street (A Boston Massacre Poem)

Filed Under: Arts, History Tagged With: American Revolution, Boston, Boston Massacre, Massachusetts, Massachusetts Historical Society, Poetry

Poetry: “Gotcha One Donut!”

February 19, 2022 by Edward Zahniser Leave a Comment

“Gotcha One Donut!”

I was deemed too young for the expedition.
My bro Matt was the leader by seniority. He
had eight years on me but only six on the
two Tommys, one Sennet and one Taylor,
Cub Schaefer, and John Hitchcock who lived
year-round on Edwards Hill Road, halfway
to the hamlet of Bakers Mills from our cabin. [Read more…] about Poetry: “Gotcha One Donut!”

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: Johnsburg, Poetry

Poetry: Night Crawler Double Trouble

February 5, 2022 by Edward Zahniser 1 Comment

Night Crawler Double Trouble

On a joint Schaefer-Zahniser expedition
into the Adirondack Flowed Lands area,
led by Moms Carolyn and Alice, we boys—
Cub Schaefer, my brother Matt and I—
decided we’d catch lots of trout to feed
our crew. So, we carried-in a big, bailed
construction bucket, with some dirt,
slung on a pole for two of us at a time
to transport night-crawlers, in shifts. [Read more…] about Poetry: Night Crawler Double Trouble

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: art, Poetry

Poetry: The Diet of Worms

January 29, 2022 by Edward Zahniser 1 Comment

The Diet of Worms [Read more…] about Poetry: The Diet of Worms

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: Poetry

Jonathan Swift’s Oyster Test: Oysters, Sex and Culture

January 22, 2022 by Jaap Harskamp Leave a Comment

satirical print after Robert Dighton, Molly Milton, the Pretty Oyster Woman, 1788At least since Roman times oysters were associated with sex. The most obvious reason for this association is the oyster’s resemblance to the pudendum. Raw oyster was praised as an aphrodisiac. Giacomo Casanova boasted to have eaten fifty at breakfast together with a lady of his fancy.

European painters used oyster as a symbol of fertility and sexual pleasure. Aphrodite (Venus), the Goddess of love and lust, was blown over sea on an oyster shell landing at either Cythera of Cyprus (both islands were regarded by the Greeks as territories of Venus). In “The Birth of Venus” Botticelli painted her approaching the shore on a giant oyster (clam) shell. By then, the associations with female beauty and physical love were well established. [Read more…] about Jonathan Swift’s Oyster Test: Oysters, Sex and Culture

Filed Under: Arts, History Tagged With: Art History, Culinary History, Cultural History, Food, Literature, Musical History, Oysters, painting, Poetry, Vice

Poetry: Atammayata

January 15, 2022 by George Cassidy Payne Leave a Comment

Atammayata

Birth and death, love and hate, the burnt scent
of cloves on fingers and campfire on jeans,
nothing is attached for long.
In the butter-soft leather light of purple fog,
a royal procession of swans announces themselves.

Not made of that, the lake is restless for now

Read More Poems From the New York Almanack HERE.

Filed Under: Arts Tagged With: Poetry

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