#Shel Silverstein

[aclaywrites]

Shel Silverstein for Playboy, 1965

[apoemaday]

Batty

by Shel Silverstein

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

[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

[dabiconcordia]

“This boat that we just built is just fine - And don't try to tell us it's not The sides and the back are divine - It's the bottom I guess we forgot” ― Shel Silverstein

[poetassignment]

Shel Silverstein

[tilbageidanmark]

”Well, that was a total waste of time”

[adventuresofalgy]

There were only a few days left in which to practise before his special Hogmanay Hootenanny, so Algy thought he had better get on with it without further delay, or he might not be ready in time…

Collecting his bagpipes from the place where his assistant had kindly stored them during his absence, Algy set himself up discreetly under a bush in her garden, and started to blow… but the bagpipes just said "Aaooga". Algy thought this strange, as he had played the pipes successfully not so long ago, so he tried again, but the bagpipes would not cooperate: they didn't say "yes" and they didn't say "no", they just said "Aaooga":

It was nine o'clock at midnight at a quarter after three When a turtle met a bagpipe on the shoreside by the sea, And the turtle said, "My dearie, May I sit with you? I'm weary." And the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "I have walked this lonely shore, I have talked to waves and pebbles--but I've never loved before. Will you marry me today, dear? Is it 'No' you're going to say dear?" But the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to his darling, "Please excuse me if I stare, But you have the plaidest skin, dear, And you have the strangest hair. If I begged you pretty please, love, Could I give you just one squeeze, love?" And the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "Ah, you love me. Then confess! Let me whisper in your dainty ear and hold you to my chest." And he cuddled her and teased her And so lovingly he squeezed her. And the bagpipe said, "Aaooga." Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "Did you honk or bray or neigh? For 'Aaooga' when you're kissed is such a heartless thing to say. Is it that I have offended? Is it that our love is ended?" And the bagpipe didn't say no. Said the turtle to the bagpipe, "Shall i leave you, darling wife? Shall i waddle off to Woedom? Shall i crawl out of your life? Shall I move, depart and go, dear– Oh, I beg you tell me 'No' dear!" But the bagpipe didn't say no. So the turtle crept off crying and he ne'er came back no more, And he left the bagpipe lying on that smooth and sandy shore. And some night when tide is low there, Just walk up and say, "Hello, there," And politely ask the bagpipe if this story's really so. I assure you, darling children, the bagpipe won't say "No."

Algy is thinking of the poem for children The Bagpipe Who Didn't Say No by the 20th century American writer Shel Silverstein.]

To join Algy's amazing Hogmanay Hootenanny on his sideblog @lovefromalgy on New Year's Eve/New Year's Day please use the submission form on Algy's sideblog @lovefromalgy or send Algy a link to a post on your own tumblr blog.

[victusinveritas]

I think folks should use Shel Silverstein's author photos as reactions wherever possible.

[loveisthemostimportantthingever]

[its-blorbin-time]

hannibal inspired poem for my style imitation assignment in my creative writing class based off Shel Silverstein

[apoemaday]

Blue

by Shel Silverstein

She had blue skin, And so did he. He kept it hid And so did she. They searched for blue Their whole life through, Then passed right by -- And never knew.

[andrewisdoing]

[labelleizzy]

A storyteller's invitation...

[movietonight]

Imagine Hawkeye reading the comics in Stars and Stripes to distract himself from the Horrors and seeing that one