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5825. NuPlanetOne - 10/7/2006 10:19:11 PM Be careful what you fish for
Each choice is a parallel universe
You choose, and the other options
Just run alongside
Everything waiting, watching
In frenzied stasis, until
You decide.
Second guessing, wishing
Are on the new path
You’ve chosen.
The favored outcome
Along side, in tandem
Moving, but frozen.
It could melt
And meld, if your choice
Matched your wishes.
Or could just swim
Forever alongside
Like dead floating fishes.
5826. Ulgine Barrows - 10/10/2006 8:19:36 AM 5825. NuPlanetOne
yeah, I know, I've chosen the dead fishes.
Until my son hits his stride.
I've heard the excuses of hitting your own stride and my husband is helping my son and I can't leave just now. I'm striding low.
Quite possibly a mistake. There are finances figuring into the mix. 5827. wonkers2 - 10/20/2006 1:19:15 AM EPITAPH
Malcolm Lowry
Late of the Bowery
His prose was flowery
And often glowery
He lived, nightly, and drank, daily,
And died playing the ukulele.
Selected Poems of Malcolm Lowry
1962 City Lights Books
Malcolm Lowry's most notable endeavor was the autobiographical novel "Under the Volcano," perhaps the greatest novel by and about an alcoholic. It was also a great movie starring Albert Finney, John Huston, Jacqueline Bisset. 5828. Ulgine Barrows - 10/21/2006 12:22:14 PM short on money
but long on time 5829. NuPlanetOne - 10/23/2006 4:51:51 PM Upon Reflection
The purpose of life
Is the process
Itself
In wombs
In rooms
In plumes
Of smoke
As
Finally achieved
As
One conceived
One dies
One is born
One is two
And two is one
One big sun
Shared
By all
No gaps
No space between
The parts
Of seconds
To fall
Out of
For there is not
Any part, now
Here
Of a measurement
Of time
Where life is absent
The purpose
As planned
Compiled in a strand
Of acid
A tacit rendering
Unconcerned
With personification
Only transmuting
Useful details
As found
When a species
Fails
Is the sound
Heard
In space?
The look fixed
On a face
The only trace
Preserved
Yet
The whole thing
Dies
Unless it flies
In a suit
Kept warm
And safe
Like earth
With its coat
And core
And oceans galore
And thinkers
That tinkers
And toils
Thinking
It spoils
Or controls
The process
Is sure
There must
Be more
And will explore
And try to reach
The beach
Across the ocean
So
In living the life
In the flowing
Moment of now
I can reflect
And worship
The process
And if this
Could be
My God
How odd
Would be
My belief
So there is
A God.
5830. Macnas - 10/24/2006 12:07:59 PM Flat.
Out back, black whiskers and greasy pelts
And underneath, the slippered footfalls slap
And above, ceiling stains and cooking fat
And inside, stolen coal and sweet Afton.
5831. Ulgine Barrows - 10/25/2006 4:19:12 AM I wanted to have a child,
a girl,
part of me yearns that way,
oh
dress her in fluff and stuff,
I'm past childbearing age
I flot my eyelashes on that imagined babe 5832. Ulgine Barrows - 10/25/2006 4:48:39 AM Oh, I never walked that velvet train
do do do do....
Some light fills my roon
It's OK
....
....
If you wave that
velvet train
Oh, it's a miracle and OI can't keep up with bono/u2, fuck you very much,
I know you khow to have fun too
Syanarya...... 5833. Ulgine Barrows - 10/25/2006 4:51:11 AM Shd's living like it's the last dork on earth..... 5834. NuPlanetOne - 10/31/2006 12:27:09 AM The Strong Silent Type
We drove in silence
Coming up on a light
You asked me what was wrong
The song on the radio
Ended, and I pretended
Not to hear
You asked again
You said now and then
I do that
No, I spat
I do it all the time
I ignore you, I said
She went red with desire
I was thinking
Before the interruption
Because I smiled or
Brushed against her arm
Not like you
I said within
It is magic
And this is tragic
I thought
Then said I was joking
You shot that glance
But what was I thinking
Just now, you asked
I had a look
Like I had a secret
Like I wished
I was alone
You watched the light go green
Then said nothing more between
The next two lights
Do you love her?
The world exploded
There was crackling
Pupils darting
It was starting
To rain
It is true
When you drown
So much
Dances down
And across your mind
And if you can find
The words
If you are the kind
That uses them
You begin quietly
You won’t say anything?
She said
Then dead dusty silence
Except the wipers
Scraped the window
I reached for the radio
She hit my hand
The motion fanned
The cigarette smoke
Her image, egged me on
The freedom it meant
The time I had spent
Trying to be in love
Was hovering like a weight
All about us
Lights whizzed by
Her head trained on me
Soul, strained on me
Out of the blue
I said
Yes
Yes I do.
5835. wonkers2 - 11/9/2006 3:22:46 PM Rumsfeld's Poetry--The Unknown
Another clip plus original clip of Rumsfeld's theory of the unknown. 5836. NuPlanetOne - 11/13/2006 4:12:51 PM Bitch
I woke up. In the dream
You stood there, wagging
Your finger
Bragging. You had won
You were dragging
My corpse
In your other hand
Like you used to stand
Accusational. Ragging me
Senseless. Defenseless
Screw you. I’m awake now
It’s not about how
Or where it all went wrong
Or who did what. Nagging
Neutered. Take a bow
Yet here in the dark
Wide awake. Your bark
Just has no bite
You lurch from a dream
Canines sparkle, snagging
A pant cuff
Shook off and stomped
Not quite as tough
Why did it seem
So complicated?
5837. jexster - 11/23/2006 6:13:17 AM HOMELESS POETRY
SF Project Homeless Connect
The Friends of the San Francisco Public Library have worked closely with Project Homeless Connect, collecting poetry from homeless clients, to be included in their series, Poets Eleven,a citywide poetry series. The program includes poetry readings at one branch library in each of the eleven city districts each month for eleven months.
One recent submission was made by David Halenda who had sought services at Project Homeless Connect 13. "Man you don't know what it means to get even a little praise. Feels like I been working in a very deep hole in the ground these past years..." was David's reaction to being a part of the Poets Eleven series. Following is David's work entitled Smoking Mirror, which is also on display in District 9 at the Mission Branch of the San Francisco Public Library
Smoking Mirror
by David Halenda
all the old ones they gather about
like trinkets from another age, obsolete
coated in dust
like widows of cinders
ghost wives dancing the dance
of dead dreamers
to the rhythms of decay, dripping
dripping
while planets in regal processions
chase their suns through this littered void
in clockwork perfection
All the old ones floating in the black
past the last rotted edges of memory
like some fetus frozen in a womb of stone
fossils of children singing
there is nothing here
there is nothing here
there is nothing here
there is nothing here
in this little room of chipped and yellowed paint
walls hung with daguerreotypes of stern women
and rigid drunken men
The light bulb flickers, weakens
The electric plant falters
cylinders, cracking, groan into rusted comas
crooked shadows shuddering
while the pistons they groan
and the river gently kills
there is nothing here
in this little room, built of coal and smoke
all the old ones
stored in a chest of cedar
lost in the attic
of a wooden house
long ago burned to shadows ingrained
in the briared ground
all the old ones
like crude gods of cinder block
and pig iron
they never erode never rot
but collect themselves, thickened by stillness
like crowded prayers
all the old ones they sit motionless
mute listening to the moth's silent wailings
as they crash over and over against the screams
as to the wake of some forgotten friend
5838. Ulgine Barrows - 12/10/2006 4:52:14 AM NuPlanetOne
You write such gorgeous poetry, well done!
5834. NuPlanetOne - 10/31/2006 12:27:09 AM
The Strong Silent Type
This is brilliant, it could be a picture of a first date or 50 years of marriage.
5836. NuPlanetOne - 11/13/2006 4:12:51 PM
Bitch
I woke up. In the dream
heh, I woke up from a dream the other day where my family had actually done some housework. I strolled through a clean house in that dream. Then, it ended. 5839. Ulgine Barrows - 12/13/2006 8:22:01 AM Scotch howls
Bourbon fucks it all
Gin rages
Tequila vomits
Beer gets a gut
Wine gets snobby
Vodka goes for the money
Gin goes for the game
Rum for the bonhmoie
Liqueurs, those spicy nuts, they go for the leg
And they can bite
Champagne is my choice
Alas 5840. nuplanetone - 12/18/2006 6:28:42 PM As I do every year I thought I might write a winter poem. But try as I might, it seems the season here in the Northeast keeps attempting to resemble Spring. False starts, of course. Global warming? Global warfare! Spooky.
Anyway, I have arrived at a New Year’s resolution and since it includes all of you, I will announce it here. I have collected all of the poems I have put up in here, (and any I could find from Slate) and was amazed to realize that there are more than a hundred of them. So, I vow to create a chapbook entitled: NuPlanetOne/The Mote Poems. Or something along that line. I was equally amazed at how unfinished most of the poems really are and how many of them were illogical and in need of reworking. I want to be done with it by next Christmas. I’m hoping that I have at least fifty poems worth reading at years end. Partly to ease the financial investment and mostly in hopes I consider at least that many of them worthwhile. Discouragement, encouragement, ideas, or who cares, greatly appreciated.
And since it is so Spring like up here these days, this is one I reworked leaving only 104 to go.
Cobblestones to Heaven
There is such a relaxing exhaled feel
As I take in the warmth and odors
Of this fresh Spring morning glistening
Beyond my window. Seductive
In its complacency yet busy
Constructive little bugs and birds are
Finally at work on flowers with the hue
Of the perceivable spectrum. I am listening
Watching. Amazed at how it begins
At how it wins me over. Sucks me
Back into its eternal promise. A blue
And endless sky spread out with white
Puffs as if they were cobblestones
To heaven. That perhaps I might
Hopscotch up like a happy smiling boy
Allowed to start again. No phones
Today. Because I am looking
To where the furthest cloud
Drifts to the ground. I am looking down
Now half way up. I will jump and land softly
In a bed of buttercup and forsythia
And with hands nestled behind my head
I will doze and dream and compose
Something violet besieged with daffodil
And propose that Spring, that life
And all the things that fill us with joy
Perpetuate. Then hop on up to heaven.
5841. alistairconnor - 12/18/2006 7:44:51 PM What a gratifying project! I would love to see that on paper.
Dumb question : what is a chapbook? 5842. NuPlanetOne - 12/19/2006 6:32:28 AM Thank you Alistair, and hardly a dumb question. Here is a general description: ‘A chapbook is an informal self-published book that can be used for your own poetry or favorite recipes of your family.’
Further, there are numerous printing concerns here and there that will produce varying degrees of quality and design. They offer templates and or follow the design specifications you request. Usually one needs to order a first printing of a hundred or so copies. It is up to the poet to peddle the merchandise, setting a price per book that might allow him to recoup the initial investment, anywhere from 300-1000 bucks, depending on the amount of pages, graphics, ect. In most cases one places the order, irons out the details, and interested parties order through the printer or a designated web portal. Some folks take delivery of their first printing and go store to store hoping to catch fire. Others, like universities and poetry sites sell them off their websites. It’s all the rage these days, so I am told. Anyway, I bet wabbit could figure out how to do something like that on our homepage if everyone really wanted a copy. Otherwise I will get them to you guys one way or another.
Wabbit, please pardon my presumed assumptions about your abilities or participation.
5843. NuPlanetOne - 1/1/2007 6:13:22 PM A rewrite for the occasion.
What the dickens has gotten into me?
Happy New Year! I’m Scrooge throwing up
The window. You there! What day is this?
Do you know that poor unfortunate every
God damn bad thing in the world down the
Street there? Ya, that’s the one. Here, here’s a quarter
Go fix it. Now hurry. And with good music
And in a flurry the world had its happy ending
I am sending out for food. Screw it. Poor people do it
We can build a road right through it. Because
Today is different. It’s a new year. Two skinny
Arms on the snowy sills looking at the cold
Sunshine. How many more New Year’s days
Do I get Lord? Can I drive a new Ford if I change
My ways? The angels and other things you sent
Me last night, or was it last week, you know
The peek you gave me at my miserable and
Preposterous ending. Well, that’s me in the window
And I’m changing. I can feel it. And a Merry
Christmas to everyone! They all heard it. They
Were all stunned, even if they only glanced
Then merrily danced on their way. What could I say
To change that Lord? What if it perchanced
That I fell screaming, pleading that they stop
And listen. Then they would stop to see what
The dead guy looked like splattered in the snow
Forget that Lord. I’m a new man with a New Year’s
Resolution. I learned it hard and I learned it slow
I’m going to run in and get dressed and fix everything
But damn! If things don’t look pretty much the same
Out there. Forget that lord, I’m a born again optimist
So twinkle a star over Bethlehem and bless little Tim
And though the future ain’t promised and my chances
Are slim….It’s a new year!
5844. arkymalarky - 1/1/2007 7:40:36 PM I love starting off another poetic Nu Year!
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