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5051. Seamus - 8/5/2003 5:33:44 AM Been there, Dear reader
We've done fog and fire and ice before.
Many times we've poured out the rain, squeezed
the clouds, shaken the sun, and held a rainbow,
dripping. The wind has been whispered, the moon has been sung,
and stars have fired, up and out. We've put men
in heaven and God through hell. The human heart,
the middle ear, rosebuds and war we've learned
to dissect. We dove into the wreck of the Empress of Ireland.
There's no profit in dreams of high places, or low--they
and the seas have already been charted. Our inner eye
can now see shadows, day and night, and cats.
So it's pointless to name the moon again. But if I
can name something that isn't the moon and place it up high
on your chest, just under your throat, and this non-moonish thing
has a mass that waxes, so the press of it keeps you from saying
its name, but you must--if I can name something that isn't
the moon and ball it up near where your mouth makes its shape
as you try to murmur, to utter its name, though
the cold scald of it will cauterise your lips, like mine--
well, there's something we've not done together before.
-------------
If the formatting behaved itself, all stanzas would be four lines. 5052. arkymalarky - 8/5/2003 5:43:17 AM It behaved beautifully on my screen. Very nice, and very good to see your moniker.
I've been so busy since January, but I've been meaning to toss out an alternative to the poetry book since I've received so few submissions (three poems, to be exact, and that was months ago), and that is that we compose a cyber-book here, selecting from what's on the thread and in archives, both your own composed favorites and those of others you like. I think it may be possible to do that with formatting and a table of contents and illustrations as a separate thread or a subthread of this one. As a separate thread, people would be more likely to look at it, especially if the cover were displayed in the thread title.
Just a thought, and I don't know how it would be approached, or what the other moderators would think about the potential. By the end of the holiday season, around January, my life should ease up and allow me some time to help in any way you all would need if you're interested.
What say you, Uz? 5053. Seamus - 8/5/2003 5:51:15 AM hello arky, a chara,
I like the sound of that. I'd be happy to find works I've liked here from others, there are so many. Otoh, as I was when you were discussing the book idea before, I remain dissatisfied with anything of my own in a finished sense, so I'd take a pass for me. That was the reason I did not send anything. 5054. RickNelson - 9/5/2003 9:41:07 PM
There once was a poet named Rick
Whose time, wished he could split
between lifes work and fun
he planned, it would be done
but "work" conked him on the head and "fun" stole his watch. 5055. RickNelson - 9/5/2003 9:52:14 PM Joining the ranks of Rita Dove and Robert Pinsky, "Wild Iris" author Louise Glück is the new U.S. Poet Laureate. Replacing Stanley Kunitz. 5056. rdbrewer - 9/9/2003 11:31:50 AM Look at this little ditty I found in the new Fray about the Old Fray:
Subject: The Wreck of the Fray in November
From: Bluto
Date: Dec 3 2001 7:02PM
The Fray wonks it's said, never count up their dead,
when the bugs of October come bitin'...
That brave Redmond crew, had a CEO who,
with the Justice Department was fightin'...
"The interface must, be updated just,
because I want new and excitin'!"
"With the XP rush on, we have to push on,
and change the old Fray overnight, men!"...
"If any nerd dares, to give me blank stares,
I'll kick his ass staight out the door!"
At seven AM, the first Fraysters weighed in,
and found out the new Fray was piss-poor.
At eleven AM, the developers came in,
and noticed new bugs by the score.
It soon became clear, to those who stood near,
that the crash would be loud and alarmin'
The crash when it came, was not somethin' lame,
'twas enough to make Bill take up farmin'!
The old Fray they say, had a most charming way,
of satisfyin' intellectu'l cravin'.
The new Fray they said, had been better born dead, and the Fraysters they might have been savin'.
Does any geek know, where the love of God goes,
when Dollar Bill's fumin' and ravin'?
The Fraysters all fled, and Slate's books went to red, in the Crash of the Fray in October.
5057. RickNelson - 9/10/2003 7:08:52 AM Very cool rebrewer.
So you have the link to that post on the Fray? 5058. RickNelson - 9/10/2003 7:13:53 AM Arky I don't have a problem with an online compilation of the poetry here. Something dedicated, a distinct set up.
There's a large body of that already in the butterscotch bar. I don't think it would be too difficult. 5059. rdbrewer - 9/10/2003 7:24:32 AM Rick Nelson (or should I say "Senor Clink"?), I found the link in my history folder. Let me know if that does it.
http://bbs.slate.msn.com/?id=3936&m=2482852 5060. rdbrewer - 9/10/2003 7:26:04 AM Oh, if it's not already obvious, that "poem" is sung to _The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald_. 5061. ScreamingSin - 9/17/2003 2:31:17 PM there was a guy
an under water guy who controlled the sea
got killed by ten million pounds of sludge
from new york and new jersey
this monkey's gone to heaven
this monkey's gone to heaven
this monkey's gone to heaven
this monkey's gone to heaven
the preacher/creature in the sky
got sucked in a hole
now
there's a hole in the sky
and the ground's not cold
and if the ground's not cold
everything is gonna burn
we'll all take turns
i'll get mine, too
this monkey's gone to heaven
this monkey's gone to heaven
this monkey's gone to heaven
this monkey's gone to heaven
rock me joe!
if man is 5
if man is 5
if man is 5
then the devil is 6
then the devil is 6
then the devil is 6
then the devil is 6
and if the devil is 6 5062. ScreamingSin - 9/17/2003 2:31:49 PM then god is 7
then god is 7
then
this monkey's gone to heaven 5063. ScreamingSin - 9/17/2003 3:21:19 PM -Pixies 5064. RickNelson - 9/27/2003 9:45:52 AM SS,
If I tell you I knew it was the Pixies, would you believe it?
Every once in a while I take out my dubbing of the cd from '88 or so and listen again.
Once NIN came out with "Pretty Little Hate Machine" I let that one sit on the shelf. Then so on and so forth.
What did you think of the late "Man in Black" Johnny Cash version of "Hurt"?
And to all, being busy seems small excuse for tidbit posts now and then. Forgive it as you may.
I've heard a few tidbits about R. Pinsky. Something he did in Sept '03 caught my attention. He visited a small college in Iowa. I would havd liked to have gone, but didn't.
I read one bit that clued me in a little further into his current approach to poetry. I'm taking this from that college paper and it wrote it as a quote. Jennifer Rogers is the editor-in-Chief. Pinsky: "The medium of poetry is not words, not a printed page, not images," " a poem's medium is one human body, the column of air shaped into a human voice. The medium is the sounds of a language."
Well, now. I would like more contex, but isn't [add emphasis now] that special. 5065. RickNelson - 9/27/2003 11:29:43 PM Well, Now that I've read some of a R. Pinsky book " The Sounds Of Poetry" (1998) I see that The quote from the college paper is nearly identical to parts of book. His book is "A Brief Guide" to understanding his "Theory" from which chapter the quote is found.
I've just read a bit, and he's right, it is a brief guide.
A wholely simple and easy guide. Though just 20 pages into it, some advice to read poets specific titles is very interesting. The titles suggest we can be instructed of poetic forms via collections of poems. For example traditional metirics can be learned by reading "The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats" or "The Complete Poems of Ben Jonson". He wrote free verse is exampled via the two-volume "Collected Poems of Wallace Stevens and W.C.W.. He considers "The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson" to be "One of the most instructive books on short lines".
[All quoted from page 7]
He makes some enlightened opening remarks about our "hearing-knowledge we bring to a line of poetry is a knowledge of patterns in speech we have known to hear since we were infants." [page 5]
He quickly gets into accent, syllable stress and the iamb foot.
Understanding R.Pinsky's choices as editor of Slate Poetry has become clearer to me now. 5066. RickNelson - 9/28/2003 2:17:12 AM Do the parts of this poem segue to you? If you will read it out loud for me, do you find a stress that does not sound good to you?
Autumns call
In 1861, a hundred years
before I was born
a local son stepped
into Old Main.
His parents, may have seen
their son’s attendance that
autumn as his passage
into man-hood.
In 2003, distance does
not sway students away
from autumns call to college,
Into new Main.
Does the summer of ones
life give deference to the
spring of their child? Perhaps,
expecting they share the parents
autumnal time of life?
I selfishly guard the love
for my daughter, her every
decision holding my rapt
attention. Pride and awe
that a human being I’m a part of-
is searching their life path.
Rick Nelson 2003
5067. ScreamingSin - 9/28/2003 3:51:18 PM RickNelson, about the Pixies, sure, lotsa people must have heard that song. To me it's poetry, like any other poem wondering why someone on top of the world (under water guy who controlled the sea) and lots going for them, at least the way they (under water guy) see things, would suddenly get stricken with death (got killed by ten million pounds of sludge). And when will I die, will I get the sludge of chemo or just get knocked down.
Yes, NIN, I saw them in NYC in some decrepit theatre that was about to be torn down, the stairs were rotten going up to the balcony. I remember, because I stuck my fashion victim heel in one of those stairs and it came out with the shoe. People were diving off the balcony and we were up there giving signs, you know how they do diving scores or perhaps ice skating scores? One holds up the cards? Oh! that guy totally smashed, he gets a 4, that one managed to get caught safely, he gets a 7, oh look at the guy crawling up on that teetery light rig, perfect 10. Judging danger, I suppose. And then a few years later I got a license plate starting with NIN, how funny. I don't know about Pretty Little Hate Machine, it was more Head Like a Hole when I saw them and they got thrown out because of the wilding and someone else came on directly after or they ushered us all out, etc etc.
Singing it out loud, your latest, the only part that rings true to me is this
'I selfishly guard the love
for my daughter, her every
decision holding my rapt
attention. Pride and awe
that a human being I’m a part of-
is searching their life path. '
The rest is off-kilter with funky punctuation. And a sentiment about your own parents that I don't understand. IMO. 5068. NuPlanetOne - 10/1/2003 5:17:18 AM
Hello my infrequent friends and subliminal scribblers. The summer has passed without much to show in our cobwebbed corridor down through a hole to box in a room with a spinning disk. Bits and bytes blinking through nights and days, either coming or going, racing or slowing like molasses in ways that only electrons can know. And yet it is nice to still see it all here.
And Rick, you have, as you say, in tidbits, at least kept enough of a presence to fill a few of the spaces where as a group we are as usual not the least prolific. But it is fun to watch you work at finding your balance in this affliction we have with trying to paste words together to spell out our various imaginings. Your efforts improve constantly! And seamus, your ‘been there, dear reader’ the fecking thing is some of your best! And pinsky, imagine earning a living off of poetry! Such an oxymoronical thing.
Anyway, just passing through…and ScreamingSin, don’t know if I’ve had the pleasure, but I have enjoyed your offerings. Very nice. Ciao.
5069. NuPlanetOne - 10/1/2003 5:20:18 AM
/
Marley’s Ghost
It would be easy to live in the past
As if the last thing I needed was something
New..some new emotion to figure out
A fresh and new complicating doubt
Or some calamity or commotion or even
An unexplained joy..unexpected to bump
Me into a different mood or to hump me
Like it always does or like it was back then
When I believed in possibility..before I gained
A sensibility and perception of alternatives
It gives me little hope for surprise where
Instead I pander to and despise unveiled
Pleas for attention as if in some dimension
At some level I have had the same experience
And as if the suspense and drama and the
Boatloads of Karma that crash on my shores
Aren’t enough..I suddenly discover that
Even in the arms of my lover there is a game
There is a name for your indifference..for
Your unyielding platitudes..ok..your superior
Your obscure attitudes and denials offset with
Smiles that play at the corners..in the corner
Of your eyes..ok lies! Perhaps even arrogance!
But what else shall I call the truth..for isn’t
Deception a perfect truth..isn’t it punishment
Enough, and to have called your bluff..do you
Then not suffer and squirm and affirm your deed?
...cont... 5070. NuPlanetOne - 10/1/2003 5:20:41 AM What I need, what I most humbly ask, no plead!
Is that just this once it ends differently, that it
Is not about possession or attention or a fragile
Contention that must so always be upheld, as if
A confession were the keys to ones soul, that an
Admission of confusion can be stamped on or
Permanently clamped around my gut dragging it
All behind like Marley’s ghost, yes, what I need
Most is a happy ending with no one defending or
Pretending or calling out names no icons in flames
No hung head brooding with a shot glance alluding
To abandonment. No. The sign is off my back
I won’t be kicked and I will not dance or be tricked
Into deluding myself…and in this happy ending
This parted sea where those parts of you and these
Parts of me drift away…is not what’s left at the end
Of the day..at the end of it all…worth remembering?
So, I will live in the past and recall that part of you
That I so dearly loved that was so nearly perfect
For so perfect a time and when once again I believe in
Possibility and trust the here and now I will look
Forward and perhaps wonder how, wonder why
I suppose, I might even try….to forgive you.
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