Thanks, guys! <3
A poem can exist in and of itself, outside of any community. Let the poem be the poem, it may bloom in isolation or outside bubbles. Does it not blossom, that is ok too. We all die alone etc.
I agree, of course, but I keep failing that 'test of solitude', as Emmanuel Hocquard put it.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 5 October 2019 11:15 (four years ago) link
Great offerings from everyone so far! Elusive, but not too much so. There's definitely lots to unpack in all three. Thanks for starting this up, Aimless! An exciting time.
― tangenttangent, Saturday, 5 October 2019 11:56 (four years ago) link
I wonder who will be the first trickster to submit an undetectable offering by an established poet so we can have our yearly debate about the weight of proper names and whether plagiarism is acceptable in literature.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 5 October 2019 13:07 (four years ago) link
Or the first to use Talk To Transformer...
― imago, Saturday, 5 October 2019 14:52 (four years ago) link
i will submit one constructed from an anagram of the initial letters from the most ugly/best meta thread i can find
― too many cuckth thpoil the broth (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2019 14:54 (four years ago) link
If that’s going to be the attitude I won’t bother
― YouGov to see it (wins), Saturday, 5 October 2019 15:38 (four years ago) link
poets society is dead
― too many cuckth thpoil the broth (darraghmac), Saturday, 5 October 2019 16:11 (four years ago) link
Just a friendly bump. I'm hoping to get some kind of a start on a poem this week. It all depends on this wheelbarrow and the weather. I can't explain it any better than that.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 15 October 2019 04:34 (four years ago) link
ANAMNESIS
Remember when you wanted what you have;it took two dreams of dog bites,a month of mosey,year by the sill;caught sibling wishes in fettered breath soothed regal guilt from nosing the tufts (though mostly wilt)Now new night spills like scarlet to sinkThe old oaken limbs kiss streetlamps unlitThe cats mimick - all shadows awryI cultivated calm now new night is mine
Now new night spills like scarlet to sink
The old oaken limbs kiss streetlamps unlit
The cats mimick - all shadows awry
I cultivated calm now new night is mine
― meaulnes, Tuesday, 15 October 2019 04:59 (four years ago) link
telegraphic. kinetic. nice.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 15 October 2019 19:29 (four years ago) link
Fucksake none of youse cunts care, do I need to write a second just to bump this thread?
Whatever you're thinking, I THOUGHT IT FIRSTHowever you feel, I FEEL WORSEI took three buses to get here tonightAnd smoking's only sexy in black and whiteThe migraine pills will get me through itA shotgun with a torch taped to itA paper bag to breathe intoAnd a drink for every thought of you
Little Timmy would have gave her the worldBut LITTLE TIMMY AIN'T INTO GIRLSHe's into Some Came Running and The Great PretenderAnd nostalgia for days he can't rememberSandinista! from his bedSix sides just to clear his headThe beats will fade then what we got?Time-and-a-half, but all for what?
"Corbusien Purity", the "Boy/Girl Aesthetic"Filtered through his dialecticHalf-past-nothing and I can't feel my legsJust concentrate on the last thing saidReflected glory comes in wavesAnd starts to sting my eyes againFlinch from a ghost, snow falls on snow Where did all the good times go?
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 1 November 2019 19:11 (four years ago) link
Sorry, the title is SLOW MOTION WHEN IT MATTERS
― Jonathan Hellion Mumble, Friday, 1 November 2019 19:12 (four years ago) link
heh im not beating that or your other one so as a motivator its unideal
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Friday, 1 November 2019 19:19 (four years ago) link
I'll try to post something mediocre, so deems can get motivated.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 1 November 2019 19:21 (four years ago) link
OK. It's time for all you freeloaders to get serious about pulling your weight. If you can't come up with something original, plagiarize yourself from back when you still had interesting thoughts.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 9 November 2019 17:31 (four years ago) link
sorry the muse sang to me of puke and shite this month and shes off again
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Saturday, 9 November 2019 18:13 (four years ago) link
A bit short, but I like it!
― Frederik B, Saturday, 9 November 2019 19:21 (four years ago) link
I need to get drunk and power something out in twenty minutes like usual
― imago, Tuesday, 12 November 2019 11:12 (four years ago) link
ok stud
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Tuesday, 12 November 2019 11:13 (four years ago) link
I'll post something by the end of this week, even if I am forced to use Trump tweets as 'found poetry'.
― A is for (Aimless), Tuesday, 12 November 2019 20:02 (four years ago) link
Flarf is ripe for a comeback anyway.
― pomenitul, Tuesday, 12 November 2019 20:03 (four years ago) link
Seurat Upon the Asteroid
Seurat upon the asteroidfound the lack of atmosphereoppressive. Nothing softened, rounded,everything displayed unwanted harshness.
Seurat upon the asteroidcomplained most of the monochromeand felt embittered by its ill-adaptednessto the pallette he was fond of.
He found the jagged edges of light too sharpbeyond what his tender eyes could accept.He gripped his brush in impotent rageagainst the bleakness and barbarity there.
Seurat upon the asteroid sat, and sighed, and soothed his loss in dreaming,attempting to fill his empty surroundingsby lingering in the intangible.
"Must I invent it all again" he thought,"the muslins, bustles, upswept hair?"The trees that secretly are clouds?"Here such inventions seem beyond impossibility."
Obstinate, without intention, the asteroidimposed itself upon the artist, untilSeurat upon the asteroid reconciled himselfto the angularity of the shattered light - and painted.
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 14 November 2019 19:38 (four years ago) link
Intriguing. I can picture him drawing inspiration from the clusters of stars.
― pomenitul, Thursday, 14 November 2019 19:42 (four years ago) link
My wife has often asked me why I never write poems about our daughter. Today, sitting under a tree in the dunes near the ocean, I was reading Rexroth's translations of Tu Fu and they showed me a possible way to accomplish this, for me, difficult feat. So, this will be my second entry:
My Daughter's Misfortunes
My daughter's misfortunes seem never to end.They accumulate beyond counting, beyond tears.For three decades I have shared her struggles.Her body is as near to useless as a body can be.She cannot move herself, she waits to be moved.She cannot speak, her mind is fathomless to me,Yet sometimes her face can be read like a book.She never laughs, a smile is the limit of her delight.She never cries, for tears could bring her no relief.
In autumn a surgeon cut off part of her femur.In winter she nearly joined the legion of ghosts.In spring a permanent slit was put in her bladderSo that a tube might empty the urine from it to a bag.For her, my wife, and I, these few bald linesDescribe nothing other than a daily truth,The texture of her entire life and half of ours.
It is hard to tell others how it is we live.Around strangers I dread their conventional questions,Our mutual awkwardness as my poor answers are revealed.But there is nothing here that is unspeakable.On Sundays we all visit together without exception.We lie down all three adjacent, close, familiar.I place my head against her head, lightly touching,And she relaxes hers to mine, accepting the contact.For an hour or two there is space for contentment.This one thing, more than any other, is how we live.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 01:55 (four years ago) link
:) ;_; !
i have actually read those rexroth translations so i know exactly what you mean by them offering a path
― imago, Friday, 15 November 2019 02:11 (four years ago) link
While I'm here:
the deadline for submissions is some time vaguely around mid-November, 2019. This may change, depending on the weather, the number of submissions, and my judgment.
I'd say we need to extend this vague deadline for about another week or so, to gather in some of the strays who have been out galivanting instead of giving their muse the honor she deserves. But in fairness to those who submitted early, my indulgence for procrastination will not last forever, so all you poets, get to poetizing!
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:31 (four years ago) link
that is really moving, aimless, thank you
― Peaceful Warrior I Poser (Karl Malone), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:46 (four years ago) link
Okay, so I'll post a few from this project I've been working on.
6.
The people of Des Moines, Iowa, are no strangersto economic upheaval.It never goes out of style.He cleared the pipe and passed it. We all close like water, and once this floodplain hitched to the coast, blubbering over the scape.
My observations inform mehis real ambition was to start a bandplaying music in the vein of Jimmy Buffett— he liked the relaxed lifestyles, baby let's cruiseaway from here:
"how to wreck a hard drive,""water damage to a notebook computer." Just browsing, treading, it's not illegalto not want to be found. It's been explainedrepeatedly. The tourists are covered in crude,the schoolchildren started to vomitscanning for shore. Nothing on the camerasperchance to dream how the film depictedin light's painful rigor a thirstunplugged, a handwritten note leftin the unremarkable roomwhere we burned our papers and set off the alarm.A crowd gatherson a strip of grass.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:51 (four years ago) link
3. No wonder the dinosaursthrew in the towel,would for a softer ending, a coo at last light'sintense waveforms, but no, instead it's the first time we've been forced to thinkabout how we fight war.
Is that the raclette or the diaperof history bestirring my schnoz?
The aged loosen and it's a fright. I palpate but the air is filled with zither music andhaggling in Vietnamese,my intentions likely misplacedas I tongue congee off a cleaver.
Snort all you want. Let's pretend we're viruses.
I call nipah and supply the mansionswith palm toddy, chucking thoat swabsin the dustbin. Some were violent, and screaming;they were pacified with injections.I wanted to craft fictions.It's a skull thumpon concrete.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 02:52 (four years ago) link
finally, one from today:
7.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 03:00 (four years ago) link
oops....
A particularly telling symbol is an absence.My shame is right on, then, the spreading thorn strapped and surfing copperunease crisp a celebrationof life padding parking lots and structures'demanded lineation, looking behind me lustily.
It was all dell, surrender surrenderin fluxed splendor the jumbo word finda recursive embrace of hurt's spillage,pump up the contrast the ordersa view dimmed to gruel.
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Friday, 15 November 2019 03:04 (four years ago) link
ty, ttitt
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 03:59 (four years ago) link
I'm gonna bump this at least once a day for a few days.
― A is for (Aimless), Friday, 15 November 2019 18:38 (four years ago) link
Daily bump.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 16 November 2019 16:02 (four years ago) link
^
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 17 November 2019 17:29 (four years ago) link
I think it's time to set the deadline for entries: midnight (GMT) Saturday, November 23. I'll cobble together the poll sometime soon after that.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, 18 November 2019 16:24 (four years ago) link
On a Rooftop in Manhattan
The planes performed their dance above LaGuardia,banking lightly into a slow descent.
Margaret regarded the procession with envy. When she was younger she thought the whole world movedlike gears inside a clock, churning indifferently around the mounting catastrophe of her life.
Someone told her that this fantasy was called libertarianism, evoking images of gun shows and New Hampshire that quickly dissipated into a mosaic haze.
Margaret had no judgments and no idealsat this moment in time, and she caught herself saying that fatigue was a kind of nihilism when she meant to ask for another drink.
― treeship., Wednesday, 20 November 2019 03:49 (four years ago) link
thanks, treesh. Last time there were 17 poems. yours makes 9 so far this time around. I'm hoping we can harvest a few more before Saturday.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 20 November 2019 05:36 (four years ago) link
one last bump before this thread shuts down over the weekend
― A is for (Aimless), Thursday, 21 November 2019 18:35 (four years ago) link
poets! submit!
― blue light or electric light (the table is the table), Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:16 (four years ago) link
― imago
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:51 (four years ago) link
poets! start drinking!
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:56 (four years ago) link
I've already made an ass of myself. It's everyone else's turn now!
― pomenitul, Saturday, 23 November 2019 18:58 (four years ago) link
One last reminder:
If you can't come up with something original, plagiarize yourself from back when you still had interesting thoughts.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:07 (four years ago) link
Just 'thoughts' will do at this point.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:09 (four years ago) link
I dug up an Onegin stanza I left unfinished, but I just can't get it to work.
― Frederik B, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:13 (four years ago) link
I left it unfinished ten years ago, I should say
― Frederik B, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:14 (four years ago) link
That's OK. You're already a blood donor.
― A is for (Aimless), Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:16 (four years ago) link
Slap '(A Fragment)' on it and call it a day.
― pomenitul, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:16 (four years ago) link
But it's the middle part that doesn't work...
― Frederik B, Saturday, 23 November 2019 19:17 (four years ago) link
yours and mordy's were the other best things to ever be in this maybe
― imago, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:13 (four years ago) link
id read a book of hellion mumble's stuff, and i wont read a book of anything usually tbh
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:18 (four years ago) link
there are forgotten heroes
Gatemouth did some truly staggering forgotten-hero work for instance, and then stopped posting
― imago, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:19 (four years ago) link
mordy's 2014 poem is the great one from the the archive if anyone is ever making a zine
― tangenttangent, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:20 (four years ago) link
careful, deems won't forget you said that ;)
― imago, Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:21 (four years ago) link
in a smallshit factory town down westthe college is hosted macabrelybetween st marys, where the nurses now train(amongst the easier cases)and teresas
johnny was easy. hed wander the campusasking have ye fags, have ye fags- he was harmless but startling
fergus another, he wandered around onceone thursday (id had an accounting exam)saying i kilt a mani kilt a man ah god help us i kilt a man
hed stabbed johnny five times in the back, out the backfergal probably shouldnt have been in st marys,we reckoned
that was for easier cases
the other flank of my beloved alma materwas teresas: secure, for the difficult cases.secured to their bedsor secured by prescriptionor secured in the first and last instance by mickwho was alright of a guy, all considered
i never got used to visiting teresasbut many years later, with clipboard and tiei carried out duties vested in my personby the county of mayo-god-help-usand a fella climbed onto my car while i did soand wouldnt come down til they threatened the doctorand i thought
ive had worse visits to this fucking kipthat left worse dents and scratchesand at least this time its on the clockand none of my brothers are crying
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 02:36 (four years ago) link
AI think it's time to set the deadline for entries: midnight (GMT) Saturday, November 23.
― A is for (Aimless), Monday, November 18, 2019 8:24 AM (five days ago)
According to my calculations, midnight had passed had passed at the Greenwich meridian when deems posted both of his poems to this thread. Personally, I am not averse to including them in the official balloting, but I throw open the floor to other participants who may feel aggrieved by darraghmac's flouting of the announced rules. Until I hear further, they are held in official limbo, pending adjudication.
Hint: Some sitting in ashes, or thoughtful bribery, might soothe the feelings of the other contestants.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 04:18 (four years ago) link
serve me right
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 11:18 (four years ago) link
This morning, upon further thought, I remembered that flouting announced rules is vmic for poets, so any caviling would be ungenerous of us. You're in. I'll post a polling thread in an hour or two.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 18:27 (four years ago) link
i knew pretenitence would do the job
― deems of internment (darraghmac), Sunday, 24 November 2019 18:27 (four years ago) link
Voting for your most-preferred poem may be done on 2019 ILX Poetry Competition: VOTE HERE.
Poets who vote for themselves will be judged in heaven upon a scale of perfect justice, but since all votes are anonymous let's just accept the eventual outcome as being uninfluenced by undue vanity. I'm just hoping there are more total votes than the eleven poets who saw fit to show us their poems. Good luck, y'all.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 19:35 (four years ago) link
btw, you have invented a new and valuable word - well done, deems:
Your search - "pretenitence" - did not match any documents.
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 24 November 2019 21:26 (four years ago) link
ack too late to submit - alas. next year i'll do better.
― Mordy, Monday, 25 November 2019 17:12 (four years ago) link
Have to work tomorrowBut will be back here again believe meOnce the barmaid options are exhaustedBack here to fucking decompose
― calstars, Friday, 20 December 2019 02:25 (four years ago) link
(Aimless opens thread, expecting to find a decomposing calstars. Does not and is relieved.)
― A is for (Aimless), Sunday, 22 December 2019 04:15 (four years ago) link
I forgot to say thank you to my voter!
And, by the by, via some weird cold clockwork of the stars, Christopher Fairbank ended up reading and recording my poem: https://soundcloud.com/mattpoacher/deer
― Ngolo Cantwell (Chinaski), Saturday, 29 February 2020 21:25 (four years ago) link
it was me fwiw
― strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Saturday, 29 February 2020 21:56 (four years ago) link
pfft
― BSC Joan Baez (darraghmac), Saturday, 29 February 2020 22:17 (four years ago) link
Thanks imago.
― Ngolo Cantwell (Chinaski), Saturday, 29 February 2020 22:20 (four years ago) link