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5572. wonkers2 - 1/18/2006 3:47:04 PM Your taste, your privilege. Whitman's just the greatest American poet, according to my American Lit teacher. I would have guessed that you would have liked Whitman. Have you read "When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloomed?" or "Oh Captain, My Captain," his elegies to Lincoln? 5573. arkymalarky - 1/19/2006 4:29:37 AM I agree with Wonk's professor, at least to the point of being one of the greatest. I like Taps. I especially like "As toilsome I wandered Virginia's woods...." when he comes across the hastily placed wooden marker for a fallen soldier after the Civil War was ended...." Bold, cautious, true, and my loving comrade."
Of course, modern song lyrics they ain't. 5574. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 5:12:58 AM No, we've got Bob Dylan for that. 5575. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 5:47:03 AM Arky, much as I'm reluctant to admit it, because I'm, as you know, no fan of Eliot, "The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock" may well be the second greatest poem after the poems in Whitman's "Leaves of Grass." I find Whitman's view of the world so much more compatible with my own than Eliot's cramped and pessimistic outlook in "The Wasteland" and "Prufrock." 5576. arkymalarky - 1/19/2006 6:02:17 AM My dad loves both (I mention because he's a professor emeritus in Literature and Linguistics), but he's much closer to Whitman. I love Prufrock and The Wasteland, but I love reading more Whitman (as opposed to loving Whitman more). 5577. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 6:14:54 AM Hoping to fashion a mirror, the lover
doth polish the face of his beloved
until he produces a skull.
Erotic Epigrams
John Updike 5578. wonkers2 - 1/19/2006 6:19:25 AM Cog
No, not for him the darkly planned
Ambiguities of flesh.
His maker gave him but one command:
Mesh.
John Updike 5579. NuPlanetOne - 1/21/2006 5:17:51 AM
Beatles, Who, Whitman, Eliot, Dylan. Not sure about the Who. Liked their wasteland better, actually.
5580. NuPlanetOne - 1/21/2006 5:18:25 AM
At least we plan things
Somewhere along the line
No matter how you phrase it
We are going to eat a fresh killed
Organism. That thing, somewhere
Along the line ate some other
Organism. Or killed one to survive
It should be clear by now that
Even the vegetables do it.
They kill organisms that try to
Kill them. Or hitch a ride.
Pathogens, microbes, just simple
Bacterium. Living. Breathing
Shitting, adapting. Learning
Writing it all down. Ok. That
Stuff is weird. Below the surface
But there is no not taking part
In organism slaughter. I don’t
Care who you vote for or where
You go to church. I don’t care
What magical mystical essence
You assign our core existence
The rules are simple. And old.
And obvious. Cellular organisms
Eating each other and in a constant
War to the death of the individual
Entity so the group survives.
The thinking ones new in the
Battle, but fighting well. Outnumbered
Beyond reasonable math,
A foolish amount of organisms floating
All around hoping to devour us
I’m sorry, I know we’re special
But I just can sense all those
Other organisms thinking
we are just a blip on the radar.
And it sucks because they don’t
Really care or have a plan.
5581. wonkers2 - 1/21/2006 6:32:41 AM Nice pome. For some reason it reminds me of "The Wasteland." 5582. RickNelson - 1/21/2006 9:00:56 PM I've lingered on much of the writing. I've been kind of numb minded for words for some time. It happened when my dear aunt passed away last year from lung cancer. She was a writer too, and I wrote a few for her for her Caring Bridge site.
Here's one.
Happiness:
A moment meant for ease,
Walking through willow boughs,
while our baby is babbling.
Stream clear and bubbling,
warbling and vividly iridescent.
Drops of water-
Drops of sun-
happiness arrives anew-- and anew.
By: Rick Nelson, 8/10/2005
5583. NuPlanetOne - 1/21/2006 11:37:32 PM
…thanks wonk. I was a little wasted when I wrote that. Seemed important at the time.
Mr. Rick. Sorry about the passing, but the sounds and sights in ‘Happiness’ nicely portray how it all continues to unfold and renew itself.
5584. NuPlanetOne - 1/21/2006 11:38:04 PM
Delays
And if that was my only love
My one precious chance
How could I know, expect
Understand the dance
The correct words, in effect
Have acted differently?
Do you look back?
What do you remember?
Because I see your skin
Soft and pure and forever
The touch of it, the sin
The awful wonderful never
Daring to go on with it
The way we fit together
The lust and trust and day
We said goodbye
What were you thinking?
Because I thought,
As I drove off blinking
Back a torrent of tear,
That I would survive
You waved goodbye
With too long a pause
Was it because you changed
Your mind?
That is the kind of dread
I lived with
A million nights of you
Running after the car
And like your delayed
Wave goodbye I prayed
You would still be there
Waiting for the train
Because I did go back
And I sat there in my car
The sun set and glistened
Off the track, and the whistle
Of the last arriving train
Woke me, and in vain
I walked about expecting you
Did you change your mind?
I did survive,
So I couldn’t know
That was my chance
My only precious love
What do you remember?
5585. Ulgine Barrows - 1/22/2006 8:49:44 AM Babe, babe, babe, babe
I remember that threat
let's forget
babe,babe,babe,babe 5586. Ulgine Barrows - 1/22/2006 9:14:20 AM You got me workin day and night
Just tryin to keep a hold on you
~ Bee Gees - More Than A Woman 5587. Ulgine Barrows - 1/22/2006 9:21:31 AM Pixies: The Happening fromt Bossanova
I was driving doing nothing on the shores of great salt lake
When they put it on the air I put it in the hammer lane
I soon forgot myself and I forgot about the brake
I forgot about all laws and I forgot about the rain
They were talking on the 9 and all across the amy band
Across the road they were turning around and headed south with me
It got so crowded on the road I started driving in the sand
My head was feeling scared but my heart was feeling free
The desert turned to mud it seems that everybody heard
Everybody was remembering to forget they had the chills
Then I heard the voices on a broadcast from up on the bird
They were getting interviewed by some good man whose name was bill
I’m almost there to vegas where they’re puttin’ on a show
They’ve come so far I’ve lived this long at least I must just go and say
Hello
5588. NuPlanetOne - 1/29/2006 2:55:52 AM Reality Disguised
Circumcised, baptized
Usually surprised
Once I've realized
That I've jeopardized
My soul.
To have idolized
But felt demoralized
And somehow compromised
And merely catorgorized
My beliefs.
Downsized, marginalized
Disorganized, reorganized
Wrong things prized
Nothing ever materialized
Or will.
Fantasized, idealized
Confused and traumatized
Hoping to be recognized
Screaming in an supersized
Universe.
Digitized then analysed
Through the air computerized
Sterilized and immunized
Reassembled then resized
And filed.
Ostracized, capitalized
Nationalized, galvanized
Institutionalized, despised
Revised, eventually reprised
Then beat down again.
Suddenly revitalized
Better things visualized
Opportunites optimized
Pessimism exorcised
A deal with the Devil.
Damage internalized
Happiness romanticized
Tragedy dramatized
The corpse attracting flies
So bury it.
5589. Ulgine Barrows - 1/30/2006 6:27:26 AM Oh, I like that!
I could see it being sung with some slow folky sound or better yet, smashingly quick drums and blurted vocals. 5590. Macnas - 1/30/2006 10:22:52 AM Being sung? 5591. Macnas - 2/1/2006 10:47:30 AM The Cabinet Table -- Paul Durcan
Alice Gunn is a cleaner woman
Down at Government Buildings,
And after seven o'clock Mass last night
(Isn't it a treat to be able to go to Sunday Mass
On a Saturday! To sit down to Saturday Night TV
Knowing you've fulfilled your Sunday obligations!)
She came back over to The Flats for a cup of tea
(I offered her sherry but she declined--
Oh I never touch sherry on a Saturday night--
Whatever she meant by that, I don't know).
She had us all in stitches, telling us
How one afternoon after a Cabinet Meeting
(One of those afternoons when it gets dark so early
That the streetlamps are all lit up by 3.30 pm)
She got one of the Security Men
To lie down on the Cabinet Table,
And what she didn't do to him--
And what she did do to him--
She didn't half tell us;
But she told us enough to be going on with.
Do you know what it is?--she says to me:
No--says I--what is it?
It's Mahogany--she says--Pure Mahogany.
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