#Shel Silverstein

[picturebookshelf]

Falling Up (1996)

Poems and Art: Shel Silverstein

[apoemaday]

Peckin

by Shel Silverstein

The saddest thing I ever did see Was a woodpecker peckin' at a plastic tree. He looks at me, and "Friend," says he, "Things ain't as sweet as they used to be."

[dabiconcordia]

The Bridge

This bridge will only take you halfway there To those mysterious lands you long to see: Through gypsy camps and swirling Arab fairs And moonlit woods where unicorns run free. So come and walk awhile with me and share The twisting trails and wondrous worlds I've known. But this bridge will only take you halfway there- The last few steps you'll have to take alone. by Shel Silverstein

[bnmxfld]

I can be someone’s and still be my own.

Shel Silverstein / The Missing Piece

[casualfoxwitch]

Shel Silverstein is hardcore

[qvotable]

I can be someone’s and still be my own.

Shel Silverstein; The Missing Piece

[adventuresofalgy]

Algy had volunteered to help with the preparations for his birthday party, which was going to be held on the very next day… but the wild west Highland wind was blasting from the north again, and even when he settled in the most sheltered spot he could find, Algy had a wee bit of bother…

As he struggled to control his wayward charges, Algy recalled a poem he had once read, and hoped very much that he could prevent his own balloons from breaking loose and popping…

Eight balloons no one was buyin' All broke loose one afternoon. Eight balloons with strings a-flyin', Free to do what they wanted to. One flew up to touch the sun - POP! One thought highways might be fun - POP! One took a nap in a cactus pile - POP! One stayed to play with a careless child - POP! One tried to taste some bacon fryin' - POP! One fell in love with a porcupine - POP! One looked close in a crocodile's mouth - POP! One sat around 'til his air ran out - WHOOSH! Eight balloons no one was buyin' - They broke loose and away they flew, Free to float and free to fly And free to pop where they wanted to.

[Algy is thinking of the poem for children Eight Balloons by the 20th century American writer Shel Silverstein.]

[askyea-poesy]

But all the magic I have known I've had to make myself.

Shel Silverstein

[melodiousmonk]

Ethan Hawke asks, "Why does masculine energy so often manifest itself as idiocy? Why is male sensitivity so often linked with perceived weakness? How does one be, as Johnny Cash said; ‘a dove with claws?'"

Kris Kristofferson takes a long beat, then says, “Yeah, that used to piss Shel Silverstein off.”

“What did?” Ethan asks.

“That whole ‘dove with claws’ thing. He just thought, ‘What the hell is that?'”

“Why do you think Cash said it?��

“I think he was feeling the very thing that you’re talking about – that if people think you are against the war, that in some way you’re a pussy.”

“Your first recorded song was a pro-Vietnam War song, right?”

“Yeah, I wrote it when I was in the Army on my way to Nashville, and I came upon a protest march. I had a lot of friends over there; and I was thinking we were fighting for freedom. And I wasn’t thinking very deeply.”

“Why did you end up changing your mind about that war?”

“I was flying helicopters in the Gulf of Mexico on one of those offshore oil rigs, and I was talking to some guys coming home. The stories they were telling me were so horrible that I think it just shocked me enough to change my thinking 180 degrees. I’m talking about things like this young vet telling me about taking people up in a helicopter and interrogating them and if they didn’t say what they were supposed to, they’d throw them out, stomping on the fingers of the prisoner holding on to the skids, you know? The guy telling me this particular story was still just a green kid when he returned from the war. The notion that you could make a young person do something so inhuman to another soldier – or even worse, a civilian – convinced me that we were in the wrong. I hadn’t been thinking in human terms of what that military action was.” He pauses, stroking my dog. “I agree with you totally about all the conditioning that makes us want to feel masculine and tough. I mean, I’m sure that’s why I went to Ranger School and Jump School. And I’m proud of that Ranger tab – still am. But the notion of bombing a defenseless country that’s never threatened us and the fact we all accepted it and said, That’s politics!’ Damn. I’m not really interested in polities. We’ve come to a place that I never dreamed and I know my father never dreamed that America would get to.

"That’s why Shel didn’t like that ‘dove with claws’ thing,” Kris goes on.

“Johnny Cash should have just said he was a dove and proud of it?”

“Exactly. ‘Cause people would have accepted anything from John,” says Kris. “We knew he was a man. I don’t really think anybody would have called Johnny Cash a pussy. But John was conditioned, just like you and me. You really have to get past all of that — where you have enough feeling about what’s right and wrong in the world to not give a shit about what kind of names anybody throws at you.

[Source - Rolling Stone Magazine]

[gavamont]

Fuck! I can’t have anything nice!

I was working on domesticating a living Christmas tree in the woods for all of the orphans of the village to play with. It was going great, he even let me swing from some of his branches and he was very good at gently handling the halfling I was using for a child stand in.

But then! Some motherfucker came by last night and affixed knives to every limb on the tree!

Now it’s The Shivving Tree!

[quotemadness]

I can be someone’s and still be my own.

Shel Silverstein

[qvotext]

I can be someone’s and still be my own.

Shel Silverstein

[apoemaday]

Batty

by Shel Silverstein

The baby bat screamed out in fright, "Turn on the dark, I'm afraid of the light."

[dabiconcordia]

When I Am Gone

When I am gone what will you do? Who will write and draw for you? Someone smarter—someone new? Someone better—maybe YOU! By Shel Silverstein

[poetassignment]

Shel Silverstein

[tilbageidanmark]

”Well, that was a total waste of time”