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5205. RickNelson - 4/27/2004 10:15:41 PM

Thanks Macnas, your poems are very good. I'm thinking that second offering will repeatedly be a good read.



From Slate's Poem offering, I found it a good topic.



"#883" by Emily Dickinson
Read by Robert Pinsky
Posted Tuesday, April 27, 2004, at 6:26 AM PT



"Slate has observed Poetry Month for the last three weeks by publishing poems that are not part of the usual repertoire of poetry celebrating poetry. Here is the final (and most celebratory) installment, Emily Dickinson's proposition that the poet is mortal, while the poem is not, if it is vital. She also seems to say that each age widens or disseminates the light of a poem in a different way."

Listen to Robert Pinsky reading Emily Dickinson's #883

#883

The Poets light but Lamps—
Themselves—go out—
The Wicks they stimulate—
If vital Light

Inhere as do the Suns—
Each age a Lens
Disseminating their
Circumference—

5206. jexster - 5/13/2004 2:48:56 PM

From the CD "The Poetry of Donald Rumsfeld"
Rumsfeld Song
Dial-up
Broadband

The Unknown

As we know,

There are known knowns.

There are things we know we know.

We also know

There are known unknowns.

That is to say

We know there are some things

We do not know.

But there are also unknown unknowns,

The ones we don't know

We don't know.


5207. NuPlanetOne - 5/19/2004 4:52:37 AM


/

OH WOE IS ME

Oh, I get it. There are a million
Zillion cells and enzymes and receptors
And bells and whistles and chimes
And epistles working against my being
Fully aware of my demise, against
Knowing the actual size and breadth
Against seeing, against showing me
The best picture of what my purpose
Really is here. That death is not actually
Anything really, anything clear or fair
Or actual at all, but little functions and
Combining conjunctions to express a lipid
Or mold a molecule. To address a need
To plead or build a shelter, implant a seed
Continue a sequence or argue in a tense
Way why it all matters toward a new
A greater consciousness… How simple is
That? What greater joys or more complex
Toys can you give a fully aware breathing
Teething organism than perpetual awareness
And that is the flaw that I saw that I see
The blinking off of one light but billions
Of lights remain blinking and thinking and
Winking at each other. So the sublime
The great eternal consciousness is now
I am a feeder cell doing my part and not
Really fooled or tricked or hardly picked
Specifically or separate or kicked to a higher
Sphere or transition but merely aware of
My actual condition, my plight, my function
Not to know it. My clock set and scalable

Cont……

5208. NuPlanetOne - 5/19/2004 4:53:04 AM

And though it seems I have uncovered the
Meaning about me, or that I am somehow
Greater than it, dreams and schemes and
Diversions replete and aside, before and
More and after and always or collide with
Any of these concepts…accepted, or denied
That in all creation myths and threads of being
What I am continually seeing is the always now
And only what is in it and various other traces
Of how things came to be, on a need to know
Basis with my surroundings yet enveloped
In a membrane of wall to wall molecules, skin
To air, I really shouldn’t care about beginnings
Or endings because in the webs and wendings
Through millions of minds where I begin, began
End, or ended might effect a gradual shift in our
DNA yet where does it say or how is it shown
On the chain in the helix that I existed, persisted
In some drama or wanting or pleasure, resisted
Destructive impulses, saved a life, or started many
Is there any other way to sort this out and as I
Shout at a complacent altar and ramble and gesture
And needlessly pester the gods…I get it
For it is my misfortune…my tragedy…my woe
As if you didn’t know….that.


5209. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:36:21 PM

tulip petals fall
red among the bright green
autumn of the spring

5210. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:37:23 PM

[strike that]

tulip petals fall
red in the bright green hedgerow
autumn of the spring

5211. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:40:02 PM

apple blossom white
profusion - but who can trust
the promise of spring

5212. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:45:49 PM

autumn's first hard frost
warm morning rays, ash leaves fall
like champagne bubbles

5213. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:47:39 PM

[same tree]

spiky lacy ash
budding fingers reach skywards
asserting the spring

5214. Macnas - 5/19/2004 9:52:31 PM

Have you hit a birthday alistair?

5215. alistairConnor - 5/19/2004 9:59:38 PM

har.

midlife crisis if you like.

Never tried poetry before. Perhaps the rigours of the haiku form are mere trainer wheels, but I like the constraints for the moment.

5216. Macnas - 5/19/2004 11:19:18 PM

I wrote my Missus a clumsy one many years ago,

I know two emeralds
They burn in a sea
of red gold fire

5217. alistairConnor - 5/20/2004 6:28:43 AM

I'm starting with the most rigorous form, 5-7-5, must reference a season.

Finding it fun so far.

5218. Macnas - 5/20/2004 7:11:52 PM

A car hit my bike
My fucking bike is knackered
Wheels and springs banjaxed

5219. NuPlanetOne - 5/25/2004 8:14:06 AM

Some Things I Forgot

There are some things I left behind
Words that still hang in the air like
A help cry unheard and muffled

You know that moment when you
Lose the ability to speak as emotion
Hurts the vocal chords, like that

But what I did say and because I
Didn’t realize you didn’t care just hung
In space after it passed your head

You waited for the part where I couldn’t
Speak the look on my face that assured you
I realized in horror how alone I was

I remember fumbling around for a cigarette
And how loud the sound was after you tossed
A pack toward me and it hit the glass table

A tear splashed next to the cigarettes
As I reached down and the next tear hit the
Back of my hand and I watched it trickle

And you could watch comfortably like seeing
Tragedy on television and feeling safe and secure
Because nothing was happening to you

Then I watched you and I had enough grief
Momentum that you weren’t aware that I was
Looking suddenly at your situation

And going through the motions of my pain
And disbelief I saw what you looked like
And though I was confused I oddly felt relieved

I don’t know exactly when this all came back to me
But now going back to get my things I could feel
It all hanging in the air as if waiting for me

You walked in as I was about to leave and as the door
Opened all the muddle in the room seemed to suck
Out and whoosh down the hallway ahead of me.

5220. Ulgine Barrows - 5/25/2004 4:27:29 PM

Bitch, don't tell me to open any more doors
I been holding them open for ages

5221. alistairConnor - 5/25/2004 6:53:36 PM

That's very palpable, Nu. Moving. Moving out.

UB, one wants to reply : don't let it hit you on the...

5222. Macnas - 5/25/2004 7:28:22 PM

Alistair, did you like my haiku in no.5218?

5223. alistairConnor - 5/25/2004 8:22:45 PM

Yes I did. A pedant might object that the use of the word "springs" is cheating, if you mean it to qualify as a seasonal haiku...

but I find it has the vivid evocation and the emotional charge of the authentic haiku.

Is it a true story?

5224. Macnas - 5/25/2004 8:47:02 PM

Thankfully no, it is not true, but I do appreciate your kind analysis. I do not think I'm much good at the seasonal thing though.

One can imagine the Samurai, as they prepare for battle, using the haiku to express their true feelings before they engage the enemy:

Have you seen my sword?
I put it with my armour
Some bastard took it.

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