― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 20 February 2006 19:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 20 February 2006 23:59 (eighteen years ago) link
http://www.albany.edu/~litmag/resources/images/work/2005/grenier/01.gif
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 00:53 (eighteen years ago) link
there should be a barbara guest thread in light of recent news
― kenchen, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 02:05 (eighteen years ago) link
I have had Guest on my "to read" list for ages, and perhaps I should finally get around to being more familiar with her. The telegram poem I copied from a friend's blog.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 06:57 (eighteen years ago) link
(Also influenced by weather reports)
"Our sex is a toy weather. It is the clear, magnificent, misunderstood morning; we pick up the connections. Toy weathers mean less than we assume. IT is the regular dripping of twigs; we deal with technical problems. It is too strange for sorrow; we tried to make the past. It leaves behind fragments; we repeat the embarrassment. It screams sensation; we must be vast and blank. It seems moister; the web bing folds. It strives to pierce the fog which shuts the view; we flow through the loops. We duck into the tink." etc.
― kenchen, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 13:32 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:40 (eighteen years ago) link
― kenchen, Tuesday, 21 February 2006 16:50 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 21 February 2006 17:11 (eighteen years ago) link
A Day Unlike Any Other
When Rutherford B. Hayes comes to town,Squirrels are charmed out of the eaves.The editor breaks down and sobs.It's a rare day. So rare we almost want it back.But we give it to Mr. Hayes, the manElected by the skin of his teeth.We honor his teeth. We wish he were king.We live in a different world, the right world,The world of mules and Rutherford B. Hayes.Our inventory of beards has been replenished.His unrecorded remarks fill the air.It's impossible to breathe, without breathingThe ether around him. He's the world'sSlowest speaker. He addressed us yesterday,And look here, he addresses us today.Our township rises on his tide.The police sleep the sleep of the innocent;The river is sweet, the catfish mighty.
James Haug
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 23 February 2006 00:13 (eighteen years ago) link
my career continuesI fill in for every guitarist whose notes squeak out of that boxthe box dies, I go on, guitarists die, I go onI am the expert fake, I do Townshend, I do Belew, I do Prince,I do it just like them but in my own way, just like them but better,I branch out and thump bass like Bootsy, wham drum like Bonham,my silent rendition of Janet Joplin would make tears leak from a rutabaga,I do every song on any radio station, every solo on "Radar Love"my all-time record is one afternoonI do all four sides of Tales From Topographic Oceansall four sides of Songs in the Key of Lifeand the first three and a half sides of Jethro Tull liveuntil I collapse during the drum solomy brothers find me twitching, manaical, prideful like Satan
and my career continuesin high school I fake my way through my daypound hands with everybody, I'm down for anything anyone says,I know I can do it, I can handle anything, I can speak any language,I get summer jobs working in warehouses with Mexican dudes,end up with the most authentic accent of us allthen go to golf lessons at the country club, chip onto the green with my smile,I am the universal solvent, I can fake anythingfake my job, fake my friendships, my marriage, my hatreds, beliefs, unbeliefspull it all off with high style, with flourishes,twirl my sticks cause it looks cool, throw my pick out into the audiencesmash my guitar, don't worry, got another one right here, never gonna run out.
― Sorry-for-all-that-o-nym (Haikunym), Thursday, 23 February 2006 05:57 (eighteen years ago) link
Weatherman
When he cried, it rained.When he sighed, the wind swelled.When he stared into the sun, it snowed and snowed and snowed and snowed.And when he closed his eyes, my weatherman, night fell.
Pat Boran
― accentmonkey (accentmonkey), Thursday, 23 February 2006 09:22 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Thursday, 23 February 2006 14:45 (eighteen years ago) link
IN THE VILLAGE OF MY ANCESTORS, by Vasko Popa
One hugs meOne looks at me with wolf-eyes One takes off his hat So I can see him better
Each one of them asks me Do you know who I am
Unknown men and women Take on the names Of boys and girls buried in my memory
And I ask one of them Tell me venerable sir Is George Wol still alive
That's me he answers In a voice from the Otherworld
I stroke his cheek with my hand And beg him with my eyes to tell me If I am still alive too
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Friday, 24 February 2006 22:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Saturday, 25 February 2006 01:51 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 25 February 2006 04:55 (eighteen years ago) link
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Saturday, 25 February 2006 06:09 (eighteen years ago) link
I wonder how you are going to feelwhen you find outthat I wrote this instead of you.
that it was I who got up earlyto sit in the kitchenand mention with a pen
the rain-soaked windows,the ivy wallpaper,and the goldfish circling in its bowl.
Go ahead and turn aside,bite your lip and tear out the page,but, listen--it was just a matter of time
before one of us happenedto notice the unlit candlesand the clock humming on the wall.
Plus, nothing happened that morning--a song on the radio,a car whistling along the road outside--
and I was only thinkingabout the shakers of salt and pepperthat were standing side by side on a place mat.
I wondered if they had become friendsafter all these yearsor if they were still strangers to one another
like you and Iwho manage to be known and unknownto each other at the same time--
me at this table with a bowl of pears.you leaning in a doorway somewherenear some blue hydrangeas, reading this.
--Billy Collins
― j c (j c), Sunday, 26 February 2006 15:13 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 26 February 2006 17:06 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 26 February 2006 18:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Sunday, 26 February 2006 18:42 (eighteen years ago) link
This is sort of a found poem, a telegram my uncle got from an actress he had apparently insulted in his newspaper column. He framed it.
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Monday, 27 February 2006 23:31 (eighteen years ago) link
Try again.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 03:37 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 14:42 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 16:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 16:18 (eighteen years ago) link
http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/perloff/anth.html
― tom west (thomp), Tuesday, 28 February 2006 16:22 (eighteen years ago) link
When the rain-whelmed skydrove the birds in low flight I decidedI would search for saints.
In coffee shops I kept my ear cockedfor the bell poised over the door to bounce,in case a saint came in with a wet umbrella.On the street my eyes ran afterthe backs of walkers.
All winterI entered empty phone boothsto read the pencilled messages.I tried alleyswhere bottle glass, webbed on labels sat, limp, lashed in related green bits.But always the saints wereelsewhere just then,or I'd have noticed them standing about.
Holy figures billowed through my dreamsas vanes, their faces grey-veiled,holding staves tall as themselves, drifting away as day began.
I would have settled for one black eyelash,any holy mite as evidence.But the city emptied where I looked.
Eating cold bread on a bench one daya paltry truth popped into my head. As the bread mess rested in my teeth I thought,a saint can have no saintly lifeuntil his bones are shaved of flesh. I ran my tongue along my hard crowns about an hourbefore I decidedto spend the springrunning with dogs in the park.
-- Written by me in (I think) 1977, resurrected for this thread
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 06:35 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:33 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 17:46 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 18:01 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 18:05 (eighteen years ago) link
― Beth Parker (Beth Parker), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 20:11 (eighteen years ago) link
Here is "Facing It" by Yusef Komunyakaa:
My black face fades,hiding inside the black granite.I said I wouldn't,dammit: No tears.I'm stone. I'm flesh.My clouded reflection eyes melike a bird of prey, the profile of nightslanted against morning. I turnthis way--the stone lets me go.I turn that way--I'm inside the Vietnam Veterans Memorial again, depending on the light to make a difference.I go down the 58,022 names,half-expecting to findmy own in letters like smoke.I touch the name Andrew Johnson;I see the booby trap's white flash.Names shimmer on a woman's blousebut when she walks awaythe names stay on the wall.Brushstrokes flash, a red bird'swings cutting across my stare.The sky. A plane in the sky.A white vet's image floatscloser to me, then his pale eyeslook through mine. I'm a window.He's lost his right arminside the stone. In the black mirrora woman's trying to erase names:No, she's brushing a boy's hair.
― Haikunym (Haikunym), Wednesday, 1 March 2006 21:33 (eighteen years ago) link
The chandelier of stars hung low above the field when the angel closed on him. He could not pry porphyritic fingers from his thigh, nor break the granite hold. Stone has no heart for pity. He was lamed before night's end, named before dawn; shriven, driven, broken, repaired. The angel could have gone on and on. God asks much for little, little for much. We who have no choice must choose: to win, to lose, to wrestle with angels.
--Jane Yolen
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 00:06 (eighteen years ago) link
we bad news force fly? similar side sandwich not.wife am edge similar. news immediate purpose back.slow whom music make pretty, bad wanted force window servants night. teach servants being goes companion?drew carefully she rich why reference, principle wanted next immediate off, thus reply across,letters a somewhere why servants music. how nothing studied speaking allow. added arms mentioned development shining anybody?
― tom west (thomp), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 21:27 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 22:28 (eighteen years ago) link
― Aimless (Aimless), Wednesday, 22 March 2006 23:05 (eighteen years ago) link
That one, though, is really exceptional. Hm.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 23 March 2006 02:49 (eighteen years ago) link
All the time they were prayingHe watched the shadow of a treeFlicker on the wall.
There is no need of prayer,He said,No need at all.
The kin-folk thought it strangeThat he should ask them from a dying bed.But they left all in a rowAnd it seemed to ease himTo see them go.
There were some who kept on prayingIn a room across the hallAnd some who listened to the breezeThat made the shadows waverOn the wall.
He tried his nerveOn a song he knewAnd made an empty noteThat might have come,From a bird's harsh throat.
And all the time it worried himThat they were in there prayingAnd all the time he wonderedWhat it was they could be saying.
--Waring Cuney
― j c (j c), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:48 (eighteen years ago) link
54.
ereupboi ncheeose
idira,toap t, stima disopera teoxc
firty oeur pofour
paosleys lbecua
orusis vocm
mucis
cham
[David Melnick, from PCOET]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 26 March 2006 03:57 (eighteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Sunday, 26 March 2006 12:15 (eighteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 26 March 2006 12:17 (eighteen years ago) link
― PJ Miller (PJ Miller 68), Monday, 27 March 2006 13:38 (eighteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 27 March 2006 14:04 (eighteen years ago) link
I didn't even realize he was still alive. Oh well.
http://static.flickr.com/53/119009857_fbce943275.jpg
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 28 March 2006 00:01 (eighteen years ago) link
Wanting one good organic lineI wrote a thousand sonnets
Wanting a little peace,I folded a thousand cranes.
Every discipline a new evasion;every crane a dodge:
Basho didn't know a thing about wateruntil he heard the frog.
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 6 April 2006 21:52 (eighteen years ago) link
― Jaq (Jaq), Thursday, 6 April 2006 22:00 (eighteen years ago) link