What happened to Word?
Once its creator realized certain posts concerning his favorite writer were appearing on search engines the page entered a period of collapse. The pusillanimity of the comments of certain others regarding the creator's classical routines of insolence brought on the final deletion & word went the way of the Maya. Ughhh, he exclaimed, blogging's for the birds. Rest assured his poem to you is safe in his bitter little noggin & will be restored to you in a special edition of one by the waters of Cow Coulee.
Pusillanimous? From a guy who's afraid to have his page indexed? Frankly, Big Bird, the wounded child routine is getting stale. So you're an instigator; looks like you got what you asked for, just not what you expected. Life is like that. Wiping word puts you in the same boat with dear departed Pamela, except she really was a mixed up kid, and the last time I checked, you're adult-with-young. But she's gone, and you're still lurking about. Reminds me of the kid who "runs away from home" in the morning, then slinks back in for dinner. Not to worry, I guarantee ya: YOU ARE LOVED. But note the passive voice, and do something to activate it.
Pusillanimous, yes they were & absolutely. Afraid to be indexed,me, hardly; just mindfully respectful of the L(R) J Board of Literary Management & equally bored with a page of my own. Wounded child my hiney... this is the very essence of the absence of levity I found so odious in the first place...o the impotence of being earnest. The noms des plumes are just that. I mean, there's a reason there's no room for comments on The Arboretum, eh? Love, well this was never in doubt & endless as wine. Your brisltly & brotherly defensive posture toward our beloved leader is altogether touching nonetheless. Always lurking, never slinking & not the least bit anonymous, consider me
..a bore
Yeeeeeeeeehaw, are we really switching to the ad hominum strain again...you know our leader frowns on such pettiness. Not me though, I thrive on alpha egress, after all, I'm a buskid from New Jersey. I mean I HAVE seen your artwork Wilbur, styrene nodules in a plexiglass box were they ? But hey, who says a sentence is a complete thought ? Todo se lo debo a mi mano !
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
IV
To Sleep I give my powers away;
My will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should'st fail from thy desire
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
"What is it makes me beat so low?"
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken'd eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss."
Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
From the OED online, new meanings were recently added to the following entries:
basket, n.
bollock,n.
colour, n.
combat, n.
crunchy, a.
crystal, n & a.
drag, v.
enjoy, v.
envelope, n.
forum, n.
gay, a, adv., & n.
gnarly,a.
gopher,n.
hump, n.
implicate, v.
package, n.
post, n.
post, v.
poster, n.
posting,n.
push-up, n. & a.
safe, a.
skinny, a. & n.
trigger, n.
whizz, n.
What they mean of course is new uses, new usage. I mean how can meaning be new? Is this the cat's pajamas or what?
What they mean of course is basket, be new.
What they mean of course is bollock, be new.
I mean how can meaning be colour?
I mean how can meaning be combat?
Is this the cat's crunchy crystal pajamas
or Is this the cat's drag,
enjoy new usage.
I mean Is this the envelope,
Is this the forum,
Is this the cat's gay,
gnarly, a
gopher,
how can meaning hump usage?
I mean how can meaning
implicate the cat's package?
Is this the post, of course,
poster, how can meaning be new posting?
Is this the cat's
push-up pajamas or what?
What they mean of course is safe.
I mean how can meaning be skinny?
What they trigger is new uses,
Is this the cat's whizz or what?
Looks like rope. Looks like rebar. Looks like really really beefy thread. Making fun of Oscar Wilde, shame on you boys. You sure are glad Bounty Hunting is illegal in Mexico, aren't you Higgy ?
You can say that again !
Mexico, a place so excellent they jail Born Again Bounty Hunters, vend cell phones in Coke machines, & provide totally uncensored internet access from the street for a mere peso ! Let's all move & plant the tree there !
Which that is that? Is that the that which would implicate the cat? Is that the this which would make the meaning miss?
The onus is upon us poets, as you know ; the squeeze is on. In the same way Salinger's Teddy tells us exactly where he is sick & tired of poems telling the sky what to do with our flash in the pan.
As if a little sadness & portentous ambiguity is all the fragile vessel of the lyric doth instill. Onerous
the boner of embarrassing forthrighteousness, I think not. Better to remain the annoying, unworried & squawking infantile messenger at midnight forever croaking: " Nevermore." Overheard,
underfoot, ignored, the noisome unnewsworthy nuisance, the truth; Brothers & sisters, blink your response ! Once for whatever, twice for why not ?
Singing in the dead of nite....
"Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes."
No it isn't.
Is too.
'Tisn't!
What is the alternative? Thwarted warped people condemning the order of things, cripples condemning the upright, autocrats slumped in expectant coronary attitudes, the tragic spetacle of people working out their own imbalance & frustration on others.
Yoga, as practiced by Mr Iyengar, is the dedicated votive offering of a man who brings himself to the altar, alone & clean in body & mind, focussed in attention & will, offering in simplicity & innocence not a burnt sacrifice, but simply himself raised to his own highest potential
In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. Life knows us not and we do not know life -- we don't even know our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like the mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow -- only the string of my platitudes seems to have no end. As our peasants say : "Pray, brother, forgive me for the love of God." And we don't know what forgiveness is, nor what is love, nor where God is. Assez.
Karl and Davies, The Collected Letters, 2:17.
Back in the US...
Back In the US...
Back in the USSR.
This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know; but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot.
She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
Hey, indentations of the left hand margin seem to get stripped off after one hits the post button. This makes it impossible to duplicate the original typography of Keats' great odes. Is this a problem for anyone else? Is this blog a halfway house or a lonely hearts club? Nice fort.
It was a problem for me, viz above, when I tried to build a fort out of dashes and underlines and pipes and equal marks. I'm sure someone clever could have figured it out.
the "pre" html tag allows use of preformatted text, otherwise browsers strip out "unnecessary" white space
The Poor Poet
The first movement is singing,
A free voice, filling mountains and valleys.
The first movement is joy,
But it is taken away.
And now that the years have transformed my blood
And thousands of planetary systems have been born and died in my flesh,
I sit, a sly and angry poet,
with malevolently squinted eyes,
and. weighing a pen in my hand,
I plot revenge.
I poise the pen and it puts forth twigs and leaves, it is covered with blossoms
And the scent of that tree is impudent, for on the real earth,
Such trees do not grow, and like an insult
To suffering humanity is the scent of that tree.
Some take refuge in despair, which is sweet
Like strong tobacco, like a glass of vodka drunk in the hour of annihilation.
Others have the hope of fools, rosy as erotic dreams.
Still others find peace in the idolatry of country,
Which can last for a long time,
Although little longer than the nineteenth century has.
But to me a cynical hope is given,
For since my eyes have opened I have seen only the glow of fires, massacres,
Only injustice, humiliation, and the laughable shame of braggarts.
To me is given the hope of revenge on others and on myself,
For I was he who knew
And took from it no profit for myself.
Czeslaw Milosz
Warsaw, 1944
I am the Gross National Product
absorb & including all things all goods Fab with Borax
Kleenex Clorox Kotex Kodak & Ex-Lax
I contain the spectacular car-crash death of the movie star Jayne Mansfield
& the quiet death of John Masefield the word star equally
the Baby Ruth no less than the Crab Nebula
I do not distinguish or discriminate the murmuring
of pine & poison The gross the great the grand National
pure products the good doc said go crazy
Lord God of Hosts I am the Gross National Product of the United States of America & here celebrate the New Fiscal Year
this fourth of July in the Lord's anno
one thousand plus one thousand minus one hundred plus fifty plus ten plus five plus three ones
in Mod. Am. Eng. ALFA DELTA 11110110000
I am the grand central Brother Jonathan & Uncle Sam
red white & blue-black all
I am first second & third persons singular & plural nominative genitive accusative & focative
absorbing & subsuming all including Mister Fats Domino
Alexander Hamilton the handsome treasurer & Gaylord Wilshire & Sylvester Graham & Mary Baker Eddy
O national product composed of compositions of all sorts of sorts
melting pot mulligan mulligatawny & huge buildings
& I reject the government as such for the government as nonesuch
& I categorically deny education religion youth communication love industry poetry & all arts
& sciences & games & nature & culture
all subordinated quite to one gross & national product in terms of
the lordly Long Green
money the only mother
money the only poetry
they say LSD in England pounds shillings pence O pounds of money
money the only gross national poem & noumenon
for it is a good thing to me including all things & by its intermediation making them all holy one & all
the cheap ugly vulgar things
& language
holy body of money the only poetry
O gross & national bills coins post stamps lard futures bonds vouchers gilt-edged blue-chip shares checks & military payment certificates & rapid-transit tokens
Treasury Holiday : Thirty-four Fits for the Opening of Fiscal Year 1968, Wesleyan 1969.
what I yearn for in my breast is an adequate collection of pork foetry and sprocken word artism emphasizing our common humaninity
I understand now which side my breast is buttered on
There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.
He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.
He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn't catch me.
Vachel Lindsay, The Little Turtle, 1923
what about the unquenchable thirst for violence?
Yo juan maria ramirez, you & adolph whitman & emily von braun are just a bunch of lower case babes locked in some dude's anger management dungeon. Get some self esteem, capitalize your names & tell us more.
What about it?
serocomic commerce of night and blood
there aren't enough police in all the world
rending the evelope at both ends
I bit my lip and truth dripped out of a hideous flesh donut
everything smells like cheap scifi
the elegance of dining
just makes me want to die
A honest stab at a poem, Dash Asterisk, if that is your real name. Not particularly well hashed out, maybe it's just the typos, but the last two lines still score with a fine couplet-quality punch. Table manners are an extremely emotional & interesting subject. Whatever lead you here to this cul de sac of a thread on the web, my manifold alterity thanks you & invites you to have at a sonnet before you toss all your cookies to the coroner.
Irish was the great language of conversation, of quips, hyperboles, cajoleries, lamentations, blessings, cursings, endearments, tirades. Its unsuspected rhythm had even given an intimate and personal quality to the great Irish writers of English. It was the winged word in its flight that was beautiful. Stuffed and mounted on the page of a schoolbook, it stank.
The reader will be familar with the storms which have raged over this most tantalising of holograph survivals. The ' Codex ' ( first so-called by Bassett in his monumental De Selby Compendium ) is a collection of some two thousand sheets of foolscap closely hand-written on both sides. The signal distinction of the manuscript is that not one word of the writing is legible. Attempts made by different commentators to decipher certain passages which look less formidable than others has been characterised by fantastic divergencies, not in the meaning of the passages ( of which there is no question ) but in the brand of nonsense which is evolved. One passage, described by Bassett as being ' a penetrating treatise on old age ' is referred to by Henderson ( biographer of Bassett ) as 'a not unbeautiful description of lambing operations on an unspecified farm '. Such disagreement, it must be confessed, does little to enhance the reputation of either writer.
|
- sarah 6-11-2003 10:00 am
Once its creator realized certain posts concerning his favorite writer were appearing on search engines the page entered a period of collapse. The pusillanimity of the comments of certain others regarding the creator's classical routines of insolence brought on the final deletion & word went the way of the Maya. Ughhh, he exclaimed, blogging's for the birds. Rest assured his poem to you is safe in his bitter little noggin & will be restored to you in a special edition of one by the waters of Cow Coulee.
- Black Bird (guest) 6-11-2003 6:52 pm [add a comment]
Pusillanimous? From a guy who's afraid to have his page indexed? Frankly, Big Bird, the wounded child routine is getting stale. So you're an instigator; looks like you got what you asked for, just not what you expected. Life is like that. Wiping word puts you in the same boat with dear departed Pamela, except she really was a mixed up kid, and the last time I checked, you're adult-with-young. But she's gone, and you're still lurking about. Reminds me of the kid who "runs away from home" in the morning, then slinks back in for dinner. Not to worry, I guarantee ya: YOU ARE LOVED. But note the passive voice, and do something to activate it.
- alex 6-12-2003 5:24 pm [add a comment]
Pusillanimous, yes they were & absolutely. Afraid to be indexed,me, hardly; just mindfully respectful of the L(R) J Board of Literary Management & equally bored with a page of my own. Wounded child my hiney... this is the very essence of the absence of levity I found so odious in the first place...o the impotence of being earnest. The noms des plumes are just that. I mean, there's a reason there's no room for comments on The Arboretum, eh? Love, well this was never in doubt & endless as wine. Your brisltly & brotherly defensive posture toward our beloved leader is altogether touching nonetheless. Always lurking, never slinking & not the least bit anonymous, consider me
- Sparse Bunting (guest) 6-12-2003 6:15 pm [add a comment] [edit]
..a bore
- bill 6-13-2003 12:03 am [add a comment]
Yeeeeeeeeehaw, are we really switching to the ad hominum strain again...you know our leader frowns on such pettiness. Not me though, I thrive on alpha egress, after all, I'm a buskid from New Jersey. I mean I HAVE seen your artwork Wilbur, styrene nodules in a plexiglass box were they ? But hey, who says a sentence is a complete thought ? Todo se lo debo a mi mano !
- Chismofocles (guest) 6-13-2003 4:28 am [add a comment] [edit]
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz
- bill 6-13-2003 7:12 pm [add a comment]
IV
To Sleep I give my powers away;
My will is bondsman to the dark;
I sit within a helmless bark,
And with my heart I muse and say:
O heart, how fares it with thee now,
That thou should'st fail from thy desire
Who scarcely darest to inquire,
"What is it makes me beat so low?"
Something it is which thou hast lost,
Some pleasure from thine early years.
Break, thou deep vase of chilling tears,
That grief hath shaken into frost!
Such clouds of nameless trouble cross
All night below the darken'd eyes;
With morning wakes the will, and cries,
"Thou shalt not be the fool of loss."
Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam
- Tom G 6-14-2003 3:28 am [add a comment]
From the OED online, new meanings were recently added to the following entries:
basket, n.
bollock,n.
colour, n.
combat, n.
crunchy, a.
crystal, n & a.
drag, v.
enjoy, v.
envelope, n.
forum, n.
gay, a, adv., & n.
gnarly,a.
gopher,n.
hump, n.
implicate, v.
package, n.
post, n.
post, v.
poster, n.
posting,n.
push-up, n. & a.
safe, a.
skinny, a. & n.
trigger, n.
whizz, n.
What they mean of course is new uses, new usage. I mean how can meaning be new? Is this the cat's pajamas or what?
- Lowly Worm (guest) 6-18-2003 4:19 am [add a comment] [edit]
What they mean of course is basket, be new.
What they mean of course is bollock, be new.
I mean how can meaning be colour?
I mean how can meaning be combat?
Is this the cat's crunchy crystal pajamas or Is this the cat's drag,
enjoy new usage. I mean Is this the envelope,
Is this the forum,
Is this the cat's gay,
gnarly, a
gopher,
how can meaning hump usage? I mean how can meaning
implicate the cat's package?
Is this the post, of course,
poster, how can meaning be new posting?
Is this the cat's
push-up pajamas or what?
What they mean of course is safe.
I mean how can meaning be skinny?
What they trigger is new uses,
Is this the cat's whizz or what?
- Tom G 6-19-2003 6:58 am [add a comment]
Simulacrum or El Mondo Nexus ? You decide. Either way I'm moving my sorry ass to Mexico.
- Higgs Boson (guest) 6-19-2003 9:01 am [add a comment] [edit]
Looks like rope. Looks like rebar. Looks like really really beefy thread. Making fun of Oscar Wilde, shame on you boys. You sure are glad Bounty Hunting is illegal in Mexico, aren't you Higgy ?
- Lowly (guest) 6-19-2003 7:35 pm [add a comment] [edit]
You can say that again !
- Senor H. Boson (guest) 6-19-2003 7:37 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Mexico, a place so excellent they jail Born Again Bounty Hunters, vend cell phones in Coke machines, & provide totally uncensored internet access from the street for a mere peso ! Let's all move & plant the tree there !
- Lowly (guest) 6-20-2003 12:48 am [add a comment] [edit]
Which that is that? Is that the that which would implicate the cat? Is that the this which would make the meaning miss?
- Tom G 6-20-2003 4:25 am [add a comment]
That is I am glad Mexico cans bounty hunters & bounties alike.
- Higgs (guest) 6-20-2003 5:24 am [add a comment] [edit]
The onus is upon us poets, as you know ; the squeeze is on. In the same way Salinger's Teddy tells us exactly where he is sick & tired of poems telling the sky what to do with our flash in the pan.
As if a little sadness & portentous ambiguity is all the fragile vessel of the lyric doth instill. Onerous
the boner of embarrassing forthrighteousness, I think not. Better to remain the annoying, unworried & squawking infantile messenger at midnight forever croaking: " Nevermore." Overheard,
underfoot, ignored, the noisome unnewsworthy nuisance, the truth; Brothers & sisters, blink your response ! Once for whatever, twice for why not ?
- Lowliest (guest) 6-23-2003 8:17 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Looks like a captive audience. Yer better off having a conversation with yer answering machine, Worm.
- Elmer Vadar (guest) 6-23-2003 8:32 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Quoth !
- Fr*nk (guest) 6-23-2003 9:45 pm [add a comment] [edit]
i am lost whats happening here??
- Skinny 6-23-2003 9:52 pm [add a comment]
Repartee, of course, seemingly internally generated along the lines of a left-handed smoke shifter.
The non linguistic items have elements of the rebus. Think of "Beau" Nash & John Wesley meeting
on the narrow pavement. Nash was brusque. "I never make way for a fool," he said. "Don't you? I always do," responded Wesley, stepping to one side.
- Frank (guest) 6-24-2003 7:10 pm [add a comment] [edit]
You gotta fight for your right to reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeparty !
- Chismofocles (guest) 6-24-2003 7:14 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Rodomontade !
- Requiem aeternam dona eis, Dom (guest) 6-24-2003 8:08 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Singing in the dead of nite....
- Skinny 6-12-2003 12:17 am [add a comment]
Drink to the bird.
- Tom G 6-12-2003 3:29 am [add a comment]
As old Elmer Vadar once said to Darth Fudd:
I will see yous twos later, my dear Mr Flood...
- Darth Fudd (guest) 6-22-2003 10:03 pm [add a comment] [edit]
o o
o
xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
x
x x
x x
- Tweek Tweek (guest) 6-22-2003 10:22 pm [add a comment] [edit]
|===========|
||__________||
||-------|=|-------||
||-------|=|-------||
||-------|=|-------||
||____|=|____||
||____|=|____||
- Tom G 6-25-2003 4:53 am [add a comment]
Thank you Tom for making all the pictures of my fort.
- Ren (guest) 6-25-2003 7:09 am [add a comment] [edit]
"Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of any statement the other person makes."
- bill 6-14-2003 5:31 pm [add a comment]
No it isn't.
- mark 6-14-2003 8:59 pm [add a comment]
Is too.
- jimlouis 6-15-2003 12:21 am [add a comment]
'Tisn't!
- mark 6-15-2003 1:46 am [add a comment]
'Tis
- jimlouis 6-15-2003 2:57 am [add a comment]
What is the alternative? Thwarted warped people condemning the order of things, cripples condemning the upright, autocrats slumped in expectant coronary attitudes, the tragic spetacle of people working out their own imbalance & frustration on others.
Yoga, as practiced by Mr Iyengar, is the dedicated votive offering of a man who brings himself to the altar, alone & clean in body & mind, focussed in attention & will, offering in simplicity & innocence not a burnt sacrifice, but simply himself raised to his own highest potential
- Yehudi Menuhin (guest) 6-16-2003 5:15 pm [add a comment] [edit]
In a dispassionate view the ardour for reform, improvement for virtue, for knowledge, and even for beauty is only a vain sticking up for appearances as though one were anxious about the cut of one's clothes in a community of blind men. Life knows us not and we do not know life -- we don't even know our own thoughts. Half the words we use have no meaning whatever and of the other half each man understands each word after the fashion of his own folly and conceit. Faith is a myth and beliefs shift like the mists on the shore; thoughts vanish; words, once pronounced, die; and the memory of yesterday is as shadowy as the hope of to-morrow -- only the string of my platitudes seems to have no end. As our peasants say : "Pray, brother, forgive me for the love of God." And we don't know what forgiveness is, nor what is love, nor where God is. Assez.
Karl and Davies, The Collected Letters, 2:17.
- Joseph Conrad, 1898. (guest) 6-22-2003 9:48 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Back in the US... Back In the US... Back in the USSR.
- bruno 6-14-2003 6:43 pm [add a comment]
This devoted band called itself the Eldorado Exploring Expedition, and I believe they were sworn to secrecy. Their talk, however, was the talk of sordid buccaneers: it was reckless without hardihood, greedy without audacity, and cruel without courage; there was not an atom of foresight or of serious intention in the whole batch of them, and they did not seem aware these things are wanted for the work of the world. To tear treasure out of the bowels of the land was their desire, with no more moral purpose at the back of it than there is in burglars breaking into a safe. Who paid the expenses of the noble enterprise I don't know; but the uncle of our manager was leader of that lot.
- Charlie Marlow (guest) 6-28-2003 8:21 pm [add a comment] [edit]
She dwells with Beauty--Beauty that must die;
And Joy, whose hand is ever at his lips
Bidding adieu; and aching Pleasure nigh,
Turning to poison while the bee-mouth sips:
Ay, in the very temple of Delight
Veil'd Melancholy has her sovran shrine,
Though seen of none save him whose strenuous tongue
Can burst Joy's grape against his palate fine;
His soul shall taste the sadness of her might,
And be among her cloudy trophies hung.
- j keats (guest) 6-25-2003 5:52 am [add a comment]
Hey, indentations of the left hand margin seem to get stripped off after one hits the post button. This makes it impossible to duplicate the original typography of Keats' great odes. Is this a problem for anyone else? Is this blog a halfway house or a lonely hearts club? Nice fort.
- Sir Felix Chatterton (guest) 6-29-2003 7:16 pm [add a comment] [edit]
It was a problem for me, viz above, when I tried to build a fort out of dashes and underlines and pipes and equal marks. I'm sure someone clever could have figured it out.
- Tom G 6-30-2003 12:47 am [add a comment]
the "pre" html tag allows use of preformatted text, otherwise browsers strip out "unnecessary" white space
- mark 6-30-2003 9:34 pm [add a comment]
The Poor Poet
The first movement is singing,
A free voice, filling mountains and valleys.
The first movement is joy,
But it is taken away.
And now that the years have transformed my blood
And thousands of planetary systems have been born and died in my flesh,
I sit, a sly and angry poet,
with malevolently squinted eyes,
and. weighing a pen in my hand,
I plot revenge.
I poise the pen and it puts forth twigs and leaves, it is covered with blossoms
And the scent of that tree is impudent, for on the real earth,
Such trees do not grow, and like an insult
To suffering humanity is the scent of that tree.
Some take refuge in despair, which is sweet
Like strong tobacco, like a glass of vodka drunk in the hour of annihilation.
Others have the hope of fools, rosy as erotic dreams.
Still others find peace in the idolatry of country,
Which can last for a long time,
Although little longer than the nineteenth century has.
But to me a cynical hope is given,
For since my eyes have opened I have seen only the glow of fires, massacres,
Only injustice, humiliation, and the laughable shame of braggarts.
To me is given the hope of revenge on others and on myself,
For I was he who knew
And took from it no profit for myself.
Czeslaw Milosz
Warsaw, 1944
- Tom G 7-03-2003 3:25 pm [add a comment]
I am the Gross National Product
absorb & including all things all goods Fab with Borax
Kleenex Clorox Kotex Kodak & Ex-Lax
I contain the spectacular car-crash death of the movie star Jayne Mansfield
& the quiet death of John Masefield the word star equally
the Baby Ruth no less than the Crab Nebula
I do not distinguish or discriminate the murmuring
of pine & poison The gross the great the grand National
pure products the good doc said go crazy
Lord God of Hosts I am the Gross National Product of the United States of America & here celebrate the New Fiscal Year
this fourth of July in the Lord's anno
one thousand plus one thousand minus one hundred plus fifty plus ten plus five plus three ones
in Mod. Am. Eng. ALFA DELTA 11110110000
I am the grand central Brother Jonathan & Uncle Sam
red white & blue-black all
I am first second & third persons singular & plural nominative genitive accusative & focative
absorbing & subsuming all including Mister Fats Domino
Alexander Hamilton the handsome treasurer & Gaylord Wilshire & Sylvester Graham & Mary Baker Eddy
O national product composed of compositions of all sorts of sorts
melting pot mulligan mulligatawny & huge buildings
& I reject the government as such for the government as nonesuch
& I categorically deny education religion youth communication love industry poetry & all arts
& sciences & games & nature & culture
all subordinated quite to one gross & national product in terms of
the lordly Long Green
money the only mother
money the only poetry
they say LSD in England pounds shillings pence O pounds of money
money the only gross national poem & noumenon
for it is a good thing to me including all things & by its intermediation making them all holy one & all
the cheap ugly vulgar things
& language
holy body of money the only poetry
O gross & national bills coins post stamps lard futures bonds vouchers gilt-edged blue-chip shares checks & military payment certificates & rapid-transit tokens
Treasury Holiday : Thirty-four Fits for the Opening of Fiscal Year 1968, Wesleyan 1969.
- William Harmon (guest) 7-04-2003 9:00 pm [add a comment] [edit]
what I yearn for in my breast is an adequate collection of pork foetry and sprocken word artism emphasizing our common humaninity
- adolph whitman (guest) 7-04-2003 10:35 pm [add a comment]
Sounds like the indurated resentment of a talking horse.
- Darth Fudd (guest) 7-05-2003 6:23 pm [add a comment] [edit]
Yes, but is not the mere allusion to the Nazis, thru the name Adolph, the very thread-ending dead-herring itself. Where is the man behind this curtain anyway ? How do we know he's even playing anymore?
- Higgs Boson (guest) 7-07-2003 2:50 am [add a comment] [edit]
I understand now which side my breast is buttered on
- emily von braun (guest) 7-05-2003 12:11 am [add a comment]
Is your penis enlargement system patented ?
- Elmer Fudd (guest) 7-05-2003 6:29 pm [add a comment] [edit]
What amazes me is that despite the obfuscation of an alias we can still clearly discern the voice of one familiar. Is it the imbecile quality of an indifference to words or just the known quantity of rat hairs per appetizer ?
- Elmer Vadar (guest) 7-05-2003 7:03 pm [add a comment] [edit]
There was a little turtle.
He lived in a box.
He swam in a puddle.
He climbed on the rocks.
He snapped at a mosquito.
He snapped at a flea.
He snapped at a minnow.
And he snapped at me.
He caught the mosquito.
He caught the flea.
He caught the minnow.
But he didn't catch me.
Vachel Lindsay, The Little Turtle, 1923
- Tom G 7-05-2003 7:26 pm [add a comment]
what about the unquenchable thirst for violence?
- juan maria ramirez (guest) 7-06-2003 4:03 am [add a comment]
Yo juan maria ramirez, you & adolph whitman & emily von braun are just a bunch of lower case babes locked in some dude's anger management dungeon. Get some self esteem, capitalize your names & tell us more.
- Lowly Worm (guest) 7-06-2003 9:28 am [add a comment] [edit]
What about it?
- Tom G 7-06-2003 5:41 am [add a comment]
serocomic commerce of night and blood
there aren't enough police in all the world
rending the evelope at both ends
I bit my lip and truth dripped out of a hideous flesh donut
everything smells like cheap scifi
the elegance of dining
just makes me want to die
- * (guest) 7-06-2003 8:51 pm [add a comment]
A honest stab at a poem, Dash Asterisk, if that is your real name. Not particularly well hashed out, maybe it's just the typos, but the last two lines still score with a fine couplet-quality punch. Table manners are an extremely emotional & interesting subject. Whatever lead you here to this cul de sac of a thread on the web, my manifold alterity thanks you & invites you to have at a sonnet before you toss all your cookies to the coroner.
- Black Bird (guest) 7-07-2003 2:08 am [add a comment] [edit]
Irish was the great language of conversation, of quips, hyperboles, cajoleries, lamentations, blessings, cursings, endearments, tirades. Its unsuspected rhythm had even given an intimate and personal quality to the great Irish writers of English. It was the winged word in its flight that was beautiful. Stuffed and mounted on the page of a schoolbook, it stank.
- Arland Ussher (guest) 7-15-2003 11:05 pm [add a comment]
The reader will be familar with the storms which have raged over this most tantalising of holograph survivals. The ' Codex ' ( first so-called by Bassett in his monumental De Selby Compendium ) is a collection of some two thousand sheets of foolscap closely hand-written on both sides. The signal distinction of the manuscript is that not one word of the writing is legible. Attempts made by different commentators to decipher certain passages which look less formidable than others has been characterised by fantastic divergencies, not in the meaning of the passages ( of which there is no question ) but in the brand of nonsense which is evolved. One passage, described by Bassett as being ' a penetrating treatise on old age ' is referred to by Henderson ( biographer of Bassett ) as 'a not unbeautiful description of lambing operations on an unspecified farm '. Such disagreement, it must be confessed, does little to enhance the reputation of either writer.
- Myles na gCopaleen (guest) 7-16-2003 1:45 am [add a comment]