"editor" poems
slave is someone who does not have authority over their own lives slave is someone subservient controlled dominated by somebody something slave works very hard for little or no pay slave is property of somebody something slave is someone forced to obey
sycophant is someone servile who overly flatters more powerful individual for personal gain sycophant is bootlicker brown-noser fawner flunkey doormat lackey lap-dog yes-men parasite toad-eater (pause reposition) somebody possessed of excessive vanity may cultivate sycophant swarms
side by side they stand clothed in black not quite similar the one slightly taller possibly because the other suffers poor posture perhaps they are related because in odd way they appear alike or of same ilk yet upon closer scrutiny it becomes apparent they have very little or nothing in common the taller one with troubled sad eyes the other smiling obsequiously the taller one more muscular ***** from working menial labor the other with curved spine slumped shoulders because of undue bowing and crouching while blowing smoke up other people’s *****
sadist is someone who attains ****** gratification by inflicting physical pain shame to other people sadist is someone who delights in excessive cruelty degradation to others
********* is someone who achieves ****** pleasure from being hurt humiliated abused dominated punished often self-inflicted ********* is someone who enjoys being harmed misused mistreated ignored by others
sadomasochist is someone who gets ****** gratification by alternately or simultaneously enduring hurt causing pain to somebody else sadomasochist is combination of sadistic masochistic tendencies in someone who obtains ****** pleasure from inflicting submitting to pain cruelty
sycophant slave snakes up leg of movie actress dictator who gains pain through pleasure 2000 miles from equator IED cell phone detonator sycophant dilettante ***** up to sadistic art critic or publishing editor on escalator while below on main floor of shopping mall ice rink figure skater pirouettes bows to nominator surreptitiously bribed by infiltrator mutilator
Feb 27, 2011
Feb 27, 2011 at 4:38 AM UTC
I had a gf that used to get called a feminazi,
but no one ever called me a feminanarchist;
I think what we really were is Feminihilists.
FFP opposed ***********
defined as the sexualized degradation,
********** humiliation, objectification,
subjugation, violation, psychological
annihilation, exploitation, & violence
against women as distinguished from
erotica based on the mutuality
of power and pleasure.
According to FFP's pioneering founder Page Mellish,
*********** provides the training for ******
assault & **** results in the objectification
of women; affects women's ability to get equal rights
& equal pay, & encourages men to associate
*** with violence; Page ultimately claimed
that _all_ feminist issues | [ , ], [ ]
are rooted in ***********
& in a 1986 letter to the editor of The Wall Street Journal,
she asserted that FFP is "not against love & not against ***
Page held that all men or women
who did not fight against ***********
were accountable for the violence
against women, claiming that women
who enjoy *********** or rough ***
had internalized the male [gaze] & |
male definitions of power
Page's positions on ***********
have been debated outside FFP,
including with respect to porn's agency
on crime & feminist & gay definitions of ****
Legislation alone was not a solution,
according to Page; it was also necessary to remove _"the need for ****
vehemently anti-censorship & pro-sex,
Page taught me to show everything from
all sides; my other feminista professors
were pro-monogamy [patriarchy] while
Page was a combat boot wearing girly-girl;
she had these cute little doe-eyed Q's following
her around carrying the placards [ ] for her
spontaneous demonstrations against underwear
Aug 21, 2018
Aug 21, 2018 at 5:54 AM UTC
the phone rang at 1:30 a.m.
and it was a man from Denver:
"Chinaski, you got a following in
Denver..."
"yeah?"
"yeah, I got a magazine and I want some
poems from you..."
"FUCK YOU, CHINASKI!" I heard a voice
in the background...
"I see you have a friend,"
I said.
"yeah," he answered, "now, I want
six poems..."
"CHINASKI ***** CHINASKI'S A *****
I heard the other
voice.
"you fellows been drinking?"
I asked.
"so what?" he answered. "you drink."
"that's true..."
"CHINASKI'S AN *******
then
the editor of the magazine gave me the
address and I copied it down on the back
of an envelope.
"send us some poems now..."
"I'll see what I can do..."
"CHINASKI WRITES ****
"goodbye," I said.
"goodbye," said the
editor.
I hung up.
there are certainly any number of lonely
people without much to do with
their nights.
4.3k
This morning,
I walked with god and man, and animal
I've come to believe,
no other possibility,
He denies me sleep
as His insurance policy
some One wants to be sure,
someone sees His sunrise poem,
He selected this ancien regi-man
to be His admiring audience,
with deer, squirrels, rabbits, a red fox, an osprey
always complaining, why do they get
the cheap seats
so up at five,
no jive,
gotta get there early,
for a good seat,
on the dock by his name
watch the color blue transgender
from feminine elegy elegant pale
to peacock royal male,
the water,
a contributing editor,
phases in with a steely grin,
with ermine whitecap hints
and an orange marmalade sky homage,
I cannot try to describe
and here is where man comes in...
as the tableau reveals a still life
come to be,
a painting enlivened,
come to me free,
bursting with
effervescence and
animal life tribunes,
paying on...
strange...
my Pandora app
back to back,
plays for me
Gershwin's Rhapsody In Blue,
hard upon it comes
Saint-Saëns's
The Carnival of the Animals
and I
enfeebled amateur,
needy for a
word titan Titian,
can think only
this trite thought:
*I know not who is the
instrument and who
is the
artist,
but virtuous us,
We, all, now-capital-buddies,
now, all, well-color-capitalized,
god and man and animal,
crooning a chorus of appreciation
let this "accidental" miracle,
this collaboration,
enthuse me,
to live happily
with anticipation
for just one more day...*
June 2014
Jun 15, 2014
Jun 15, 2014 at 6:56 AM UTC
An Open Letter to Really Important People
The Old Dime Box, Texas Statement
A Manifesto Made Manifest in Manifesting Manifestingness
We post this serious looking document
Bloated with long vocabulary words
Sodden with weak dependent clauses
Marshaled in numbered ranks, down, down they go
To the GossipNet all serious like
And everyone has to pay attention to us
Because it’s AN OPEN LETTER, y’know -
You may sign it if you’ve got letters behind your name
Signatories:
Apostle-Disciple Magic Dawn, DD., Non-Binary, Author of Green Polar Bears I Am, Co-Equal-Director of the Anti-Oppressionist Theatre Against the Occupation, Agent of the Revolution, Auteur, Guest on The Wheel of Fortune and Parent of Two AMAZING children of indeterminate Gender with Their AWESOME and AMAZING Life-Partner Sven-Marie.
Massive Ferguson, M.Ed., Poet, Rector of Admissions, The University of Where the Old Circuit City Use to Be
Poncy Tworbst, M.A., PUBLISHED Author, Seeker, Inspirational Singer-Songwriter, PUBLISHED
Heather-Mistee La’ Thwitte-Tworbst, Ph.D., Director of Library Resources at Saint Margaret ****** Homeschool Resource Authority Collective, Inc., Certified Ordained Consecrated Priest in The Worldwide Church of Me-ness and Pastor of the World-Famous Weddings ‘R’ Us Chapel of Rainbow Dreams in Magdalena, New Mexico
Lawrence Hall, HSG, Thinker of Thinky-Ness and, Like, Stuff, Endowed Chair he found at Goodwill, His Mark: X
(Sean Ian Johann Johnson, MBA, J.D., Chief Photocopier Operator at Donald Trump University and Fashion Editor at Gun, God, and Guts Magazine, was not able to sign today; he is sharing a cell with other White House staff and patiently awaiting The Day of Greatness.)
Aug 22, 2018
Aug 22, 2018 at 3:48 PM UTC
*No, no, no, Dirtbreath. I say we call the big one an elephant,
and the small one a mouse*.
Eve
I'm sure red's a better color for me.
M. Monroe
She has a face that could sink a thousand ships.
Ulysses
*Now that Hawking's dead, I'm the smartest
guy on Earth.*
D. Trump
You're too Jung to understand the Superego.
S. Freud
No. You keep it. I have enough.
B. Graham
Are you sure that's the Delaware?
G. Washington
E=Mc Donalds.
A. Einstein
Go pound salt.
Gandhi
What day is it?
Roosevelt
That's one small.... oops!
N. Armstrong
I don't remember any of my dreams.
M.L. King, Jr.
Hey, John, I can see your house from up here.
Jesus
Beaches, fields, streets, hills. Did I leave anything out?
W. Churchill
Yeah, yeah, yeah, of course I wrote 'em all.
R. Starr
It's just too big to wrap your brain around.
S. Hawking
Don't lose your head. This won't change a thing.
Robespierre
Before I was fined, I walked the line.
J. Cash
Could you lengthen the title and shorten the book?
Tolstoy's editor
What if we put the workers on conveyor belts?
H. Ford
I have a splitting headache... hmmm, interesting.
Oppenheimer
I've never liked orange juice.
N. Brown
Really? You want to blame me?
******
He stings like a butterfly.
S. Liston
#timesup #metoo
A. Boleyn
Mr. Watson. Come here. Spare me a dime?
Bell
Roebuck said he'd be back in ten minutes.
R.W. Sears
To be or to do be do be do.
Shakespeare/Sinatra
*When you call me Whitey, I get cotton pickin ****** off.*
E. Whitney
We're the team to beat!
Toronto Maple Leafs
Don't call me a Mother!
Mother Theresa
Is that a Cuban?
M. Lewinsky
Apr 30, 2018
Apr 30, 2018 at 6:50 AM UTC
Yahya Kemal Beyatli translations
Yahya Kemal Beyatli (1884-1958) was a Turkish poet, editor, columnist and historian, as well as a politician and diplomat. Born born Ahmet Âgâh, he wrote under the pen names Agâh Kemal, Esrar, Mehmet Agâh, and Süleyman Sadi. He served as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, Portugal and Pakistan.
Sessiz Gemi (“Silent Ship”)
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
for the refugees
The time to weigh anchor has come;
a ship departing harbor slips quietly out into the unknown,
cruising noiselessly, its occupants already ghosts.
No flourished handkerchiefs acknowledge their departure;
the landlocked mourners stand nurturing their grief,
scanning the bleak horizon, their eyes blurring...
Poor souls! Desperate hearts! But this is hardly the last ship departing!
There is always more pain to unload in this sorrowful life!
The hesitations of lovers and their belovèds are futile,
for they cannot know where the vanished are bound.
Many hopes must be quenched by the distant waves,
since years must pass, and no one returns from this journey.
Full Moon
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation by Nurgül Yayman and Michael R. Burch
You are so lovely
the full moon just might
delight
in your rising,
as curious
and bright,
to vanquish night.
But what can a mortal man do,
dear,
but hope?
I’ll ponder your mysteries
and (hmmmm) try to
cope.
We both know
you have every right to say no.
The Music of the Snow
by Yahya Kemal Beyatli
loose translation/interpretation by Michael R. Burch
This melody of a night lasting longer than a thousand years!
This music of the snow supposed to last for thousand years!
Sorrowful as the prayers of a secluded monastery,
It rises from a choir of a hundred voices!
As the organ’s harmonies resound profoundly,
I share the sufferings of Slavic grief.
Then my mind drifts far from this city, this era,
To the old records of Tanburi Cemil Bey.
Now I’m suddenly overjoyed as once again I hear,
With the ears of my heart, the purest sounds of Istanbul!
Thoughts of the snow and darkness depart me;
I keep them at bay all night with my dreams!
Translator’s notes: “Slavic grief” because Beyatli wrote this poem while in Warsaw, serving as Turkey’s ambassador to Poland, in 1927. Tanburi Cemil Bey was a Turkish composer. Keywords/Tags: Beyatli, Agah, Kemal, Esrar, Turkish, translation, Turkey, silent, ship, anchor, harbor, ghosts, grief, Istanbul, moon, music, snow
Oct 30, 2020
Oct 30, 2020 at 4:28 AM UTC
I like to do those quizzes
in glossy bubbles that you
find
in Cosmopolitan and
Elle and
Seventeen.
Which girl should I be?
Should I
dump paper flowers
on my milkmaid braid?
Long skirts, long chains, and
Beatles on my radio
during their ‘Indian’ phase?
Should I
paint it all
black, strip life down to
a middle finger,
blare punk at full
scream,
and cram my toes in ratty Docs,
smash all emotion
into smithereens?
Should I
sugar-coat my mouth with
Maybelline, button up
collars, laughs, opinions,
read books on behaving
just like a
daydream,
sip teas, bake cookies, aim for
Ivy Leagues?
Which gilded box do I crawl
into?
Which skin to don
this week?
Which fashion editor-friendly
stereotype to fulfil?
Which girl should I be?
Apr 30, 2015
Apr 30, 2015 at 3:24 PM UTC
Corina Junghiatu is a bilingual poet/writer hailing from Romania. She holds a Master Degree in Philology and Phychopedagogy and likewise she graduated from The Faculty of Letters and Philosophy in Bucharest. She speaks five foreign languages.
Corina has written and publishing two books of poetry: „Exile in the light” and „The ritual of a Sunrise”. She is Administrator and Publication Coordinator of Motivational Strips, editor of "Bharath Vision" website, and Chief Advisor of World Nations Writers' Union Kazakhstan. Corina has won many awards from international institutions of repute, for poetry.
Recently, Corina Junghiatu, together with 350 poets and writers from 80 countries, received a certificate of appreciation for her entire literary activity, on the occasion of the 74th anniversary of the Independence Day of the Republic of India. This certificate was was handed by the famous writer Shiju H. Pallithazheth the Founder of Motivational Strips, World's Most Active Writers Forum and Padma Shree Dr. Vishnu Pandya, President of Gujarat Sahitya Akademy, a government institution of the state of Gujarat (India).
Aug 31, 2020
Aug 31, 2020 at 10:45 AM UTC
You know, you just gotta love
poetry blog sites
Poetry sites make you comfy
You post a poem
and they tell you how
useless your poem is
with various comments and statistics
Like how? Like below…
You posted this poem 36 hours ago.
This poem is public and visible on your profile.
It has been read by 1 other person.
Loser!
(Actually, was that you using another account?)
Loser!
It’s been 36 days now since
you posted this poem
and 360 other poems.
You’ve had 1 hit –
****** loser!*
It’s all so consistent…
You’ve had no likes…
You’ve had no recommendations…
No one has favorited you…
Loser! Loser! Loser!
****** loser!*
You've no Friends.
You've had no Invitations.
You’re not on the
Most Frequented Poet List.
You’re not on the
Most Commented List.
You’ve had 390 poems
and none has been chosen
to be featured at our site
and none of your poems
ever became Editor’s pick.
Loser! Loser! Loser!
O, What’s wrong with you?
*Loser! Loser! ****** Loser!*
Jul 31, 2011
Jul 31, 2011 at 6:28 PM UTC
The Isle of Print
What a place it can take you anyplace you can meet anyone I met Sandra Locke when she wrote about
Her relationship then her break up with Clint she told about as a child how she sold pop bottles at a
General store that was one that took me back but even more exciting was where she was at a place
Called Shelbyville Tennessee I know it firsthand one reason it is seventy miles from Nashville and is the
Tennessee walking horse capital and all so my wife was born and raised there until she was six we would
Take trips there quiet often until two trips we carried her parents to the family cemetery on horse
Mountain we have my wife’s brother fighting Leukemia he said thats where he wants to be buried but for
Now God’s mercy is preventing that I met a guy and I’m sure you have met him many times also his
Name is Samuel Clemens he got a little more famous name when he had one of his many jobs as a Mississippi
River boat captain they called him just like when they measured the rivers depth mark twain he was a
News paper editor in Calaveras County he brought a simple frog leaping contest national notoriety for
Ever after known as the Calaveras bull frog jumping contest I bought three acres for retirement
Unfortunately I made like a bull frog and jumped off the property I drove a truck several times into
Hannibal Missouri you got a quick leap in your heart and head as you thought about the great river
Running by and all of the characters Twain created two losses are recorded there of course twain met
A fiery personage that was even greater than him a space traveler with a glory all together wondrous went by
The name of Haley the other less known but my heart slows when I think of her eight years old blond
Blue eyed her father’s and mother’s pride and joy he was a pastor in northern Illinois she lays in her
Sacred rest in Hannibal until that great waking up day as time goes on I get less and less patient if it
Weren’t for so many precious ones in danger I would be tempted to pray come Lord Jesus. Well not done
By any means just going to stop for now plan on going and doing some hard thinking
Jan 9, 2012
Jan 9, 2012 at 6:27 PM UTC
Dear Ms. Di Prima,
I really,
Really,
Think that Alchemy—Alchemy--Al-Chem-EEEEE
Is a
Nifty
Topic.
But,
My mother has a ring
Of gold.
Standard Gold,
No lead. None.
Or had,
Until our house was
B-R-O / K-E / N
Into
By some lowlife scumbag with
Too much ability
And
Not enough intelligence.
With Alchemy
I could make a shitload
Of Gold (wasn't that the point?),
Provided I had the
Lead,
And not that
IMPOSTER
Crap in pencils (Graphite. My childhood was a shambles.).
But it's only valuable
Because
We're willing to pay so much.
Like with Diamonds.
Or Japanese Akita.
Or Wagyū.
It's not a lie.
Just a trick.
Making you think you want things that you don't need because it helps someone else who you've never met make more money than they'd ever be able to use in a legitimate way
(HOOKERS AND BLOW).
All of these things are synthetic.
With the exceptions of
Gold
And
Graphite.
So,
Maybe,
Alchemy did work out alright,
Just not in the anticipated way.
We can make all sorts of things.
But they become coveted only when they exist.
Just ask Swipey McStickyfingers.
It actually wasn't gold.
You just got a bunch of painted junk,
And passports.
No rubies.
We weren't international crooks,
Renowned and beloved
By jealous zealots.
It was purely sentimental.
But you can't understand.
You can't fondly look at the earrings as the last reminder of a deceased parent.
You can't flip through the identification booklet and be flooded with memories of your first trip out of the country.
You ****** You can't even cash the savings bonds that were bought to put someone through college.
No. He got a box of documents and some cheap jewelery.
But still. Probably called for celebration. A successful heist
Because his brain is still in his head.
We create people as well as objects.
Ms. Di Prima,
In the end,
Some people will always be
Clasping ********
Dec 27, 2011
Dec 27, 2011 at 6:38 PM UTC
pieces of flotsam
soak and float on the paper,
jetsam thrown to lighten
the load,
or goad,
the alligator, away
the guttural noises, sound like harsh
commentary the closer the
gator
is allowed to get,
not wanting to look over the shoulder,
but stop in for biting remarks,
the gator's teeth are so large and famous
they have names and voices;
"punctuation or punctures, I can help"
"point of view tch, tch, tch"
"your grammar needs work"
"doubt you will finish"
"no one will read IT"
"you will never find the right word"
"is your audience a six year old"
"borrrrring"
"what a croc"
"are you enjoying what you are doing?"
"successful writers are all published"
"you call that a sentence, keep it up and it will be a death sentence "
"how many tenses can you misuse in a paragraph"
and these are the names of some of the smaller teeth,
the molars, are more than a mouthful,
have polar names, that would leave anyone cold,
even the bold,
and shall not be put in print,
they bring out the PTSD,
imprinted for eternity, by
the gator which
comes at the sounds
of splashing, flailing, and failing,
as the pounding of the heart,
the deepened breathing,
as the ink from
the pen, unfiltered,
leaves nerves and veins exposed,
while leaving to find home, a safe haven, a storybook ending,
away from the gator's keen sense of
overt criticism, intended to gut,
and eviscerate, cutting remarks,
putdowns to hold down and under,
the piece that IT is trying to tear off
while spinning or shaking the head
side to side, which is both NO!
and to bash the will, the self-esteem, into little pieces
of me...
and my worst enemy,
my internal, infernal editor,
with the voracious appetite for self-defeating
Mar 8, 2014
Mar 8, 2014 at 12:08 AM UTC
I remember the Tropicana Beau from Syndale,
She delivered my order at the welcome pub Dazzle-
It was the smile she was affording that day,
And now she is the jealous infection from the social bay…
I looked at her same contours hesitantly,
And they have been exposed much sharper delightedly-
She appealed me her demystified glory,
Two weeks later she left her job for the clearance money…
I remember her tears washing the ***** streets in the market,
She was refused by every seller for credit-
Those scanty clothes she was affording that day,
And now she prices her perfection in that way…
I looked at her eyes and she believed in me,
And ma editor startled me, “Sir, who is she?”
She gave me her perfect look and the rest did my camera…
We worked hard to frame her saying, “Love You…Rihanna!”
Feb 16, 2010
Feb 16, 2010 at 10:46 PM UTC
Feathered Fiends
by Michael R. Burch
Fascists of a feather
flock together.
Alternate:
Conformists of a feather
flock together.
I came up with the "Fascists of a Feather" epigram after Donald Trump repeatedly praised authoritarian "strong men" like Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong Un, Rodrigo Duterte, Xi Jinping and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Heroic Americans fought a war against fascism and many of them paid the ultimate price, so why is Trump giving comfort to the enemy of democracy?
The alternate version of this couplet was written first and won a National Couplet Contest sponsored by the Society of Classical Poets. The couplet has now been published in one form or another on the websites of major newspapers and news services like TheHill.com, Haaretz.com (Israel), Crikey.com (Australia), Cleveland.com (as the headline of a letter to the editor), Reddit Political Humor, and Humane Conservatives Unite Blog. Sometimes the epigram is quoted in reader comments, sometimes by the writers of letters to the editor, and sometimes within articles.
Keywords/Tags: fascists, flock, together, fascism, conformists, nazis, blackshirts, brownshirts, dictator, tyrant, autocrat, despot, totalitarian, cultist, militarist
Mar 25, 2020
Mar 25, 2020 at 12:48 AM UTC
the other day
seated in his office
I asked my stubborn, mean-looking
bushy-eyebrows editor
if he’d consider two books:
“Short Stories for Real Short People”
and “Truly Tall Tales for Tall People”
and he sat back with that air
(actually, made you think he wanted to release air)
and he said:
*“You’ll get shot for titles like that…
'Short Stories for Real Short People'
will directly offend people
who are vertically challenged
And the same people would shoot you
for excluding them by implication
in the epithet 'Tall' –
They’ll sure shoot you for that…
They’re both just politically incorrect”*
And I leaned forward
(releasing air myself –
anything he can do, I can do better!)
and I said:
*“Sure, it’s not politically correct – but it sure
ain’t psychologically correct, given our times,
to speak of shooting while we are in an office”*
I hear the Editor no longer works there
and is now in some publishing house
who are specialists in books on Accounting
and Engineering
where he knows, for sure, I’m never likely to go
Feb 13, 2014
Feb 13, 2014 at 4:49 PM UTC
[Dedicated to Frank Harris, editor of Vanity Fair]
On the black night, beneath the winter moon,
I clothed me in the limbs of Codia,
Swooning my soul out into her red throat,
So that the glimmer of our skins, the tune
Of our ripe rhythm, seemed the hideous play
Of death-worms crawling on a corpse,afloat
With life that takes its thirst
Only from things accurst.
Closer than Clodia's clasp, Death had me down
To his black heart, and fed upon my breath,
So that we seemed a stillness -whiter than
The stars, more silent than the stars, a crown
Of Stars ! For in the icy kiss of death
I found that God that is denied to man
So long as love and thought
And life avail him aught
2.1k
New York Sun Editor John B. Bogart once said
When a dog bites a man, that is not news because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, now that's news.
I think the same could be said of life,
at least, mine anyway.
Don't worry, I'm not going around biting dogs,
but I am living it up as if my life were a story,
because it is, otherwise, I'd be bored.
But, if it were up to my parents,
I'd be working some dead-end desk job
at some marketing firm shilling packaged bread
so I could pay off my student loans,
own a home, get a wife & make enough dinero
to march to retirement, just like everyone else.
Same 'ol story.
Dog bites man.
Isn't it more exciting to read
about a roving poet skipping around
the world from Cairo to Toronto
occasionally stopping to smoke on beaches
all the while meeting people
who seem like they're from a different dimension?
I'm not saying I want a book written about me,
but... if one should be in the works,
I know it'd be a real page turner.
Although, most in my generation has been told
we're all unique and special;
getting participation trophies in baseball
& ribbons for being in the spelling-bee,
yet we're all also told, or rather it's highly suggested we
follow suit & get in line like our parents & grandparents did,
continuing their stories of countless wars and conformity.
Same 'ol story.
Dog bites man.
But nobody will read all these identical stories.
That's part of the problem with people,
only a few are living like they have a story to tell
while most fade away in some gray apathy hell.
Well, my brothers and sisters,
I can only frame it to you this way,
if you had a choice between reading the headlines:
Person Does What they're Told Until Death
or
**Person Dies in a Skydiving Sound Circle **** & Bake Sale**
which story are you going to read?
Now, if you'll excuse me,
I have to make some magic brownies
because I'm late to my skydiving ****** education lesson.
May 7, 2014
May 7, 2014 at 12:33 PM UTC
The excerpt below is from an interview Philip Roth gave to Daniel Sandstrom, the cultural editor at Svenska Dagbladet, for publication in Swedish translation in that newspaper, and in its original English in the Book Review of the New York Times (March 1, 2014).
It was laid out in normal article (paragraph) form, but I chose to re-present here, line by line, sentence by sentence, for it struck me as I first read it, as a prose poem, and a source of inspiration for me. But then I realized, I could not improve upon his words, just risk diminishing them.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“The struggle with writing is over” is a recent quote. Could you describe that struggle, and also, tell us something about your life now when you are not writing?
Everybody has a hard job.
All real work is hard.
My work happened also to be undoable.
Morning after morning for 50 years,
I faced the next page
defenseless and unprepared.
Writing for me was a feat of self-preservation.
If I did not do it, I would die.
So I did it.
Obstinacy, not talent, saved my life.
It was also my good luck that
happiness didn’t matter to me
and I had no compassion for myself.
Though why such a task
should have fallen to me I have no idea.
Maybe writing protected me
against even worse menace.
Now?
Now I am a bird sprung from a cage
instead of (to reverse Kafka’s famous conundrum)
a bird in search of a cage.
The horror of being caged has lost its thrill.
It is now truly a great relief,
something close to a sublime experience,
to have nothing more
to worry about than death.
------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/16/books/review/my-life-as-a-writer.html?_r=0
Mar 6, 2014
Mar 6, 2014 at 12:18 PM UTC
*(A message to you
Inspired by the THR Family)*
You came to us sick, frightened, confused
What happened next became international news.
We saw you so ill, with everything to lose
Our goal was to help you because that’s what we do.
Alone in a dark ICU room
We fought for your life, our team and you.
We cared for you kindly
No matter our fear
You thanked us each time that we came near.
As each day pressed on, you fought so hard
To beat the virus that dealt every card.
No matter how sick or contagious you were
We held your hand, wiped your tears, and continued our care.
Your family was close, but only in spirit
They couldn't come in; we just couldn't risk it.
Then the day came we saw you in there
We wiped tears from your eyes,
knowing the end was drawing near.
Then it was time, but we never gave up
Until the good lord told us he had taken you up.
Our dear Mr. Duncan, the man that we knew
Though you lost the fight, we never gave up on you.
All of us here; at Presby and beyond
Lift our hats off to you, now that you’re gone.
You touched us in ways that no one will know
We thank you kind sir for this chance to grow.
May you find peace in heaven above
And know that we cared with nothing but love.
*~ postscript.
this poem is not mine; it was penned by a nurse who wishes to remain anonymous. it spoke to me of the passion with which so many, many caregivers serve, so i wanted to share it with you, and in so doing salute each of those who serve us all in the medical community.
the following was published by ABC News on 10/20/14:
"The last nurse to leave the hospital room where Thomas Eric Duncan died has written a poem about the Ebola patient, penned during the sleepless days after Duncan's death, a source told ABC News.The Associated Press. The source provided the poem to ABC News, noting that the nurse who wrote it asked to remain anonymous. Duncan, the first person in the United States to be diagnosed with Ebola, died at the Dallas hospital on Oct. 8. Two of the nurses who cared for Duncan -- Nina Pham, 26, and Amber Vinson, 29, have been diagnosed with Ebola.(Editor's note: THR refers to Texas Health Resources, the company that owns Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital.)"*
Oct 21, 2014
Oct 21, 2014 at 3:06 AM UTC
for Jeannie Kristufek Hawrysz who once quoted me Shakespeare -
*"Of all the words in the universe, when stated thrice, only one royal above all gleams best, an uncoded mathematical tripartite repetitive stating:
love love love this."*
----------------------------
third attempt and just not happening
then recall a Ben Folds hand-me-down
heard on Tuesday, passed onto me by Sara B.
about writer’s block
“Kick the editor out of the room”
the best don’t even flow,
they fall out of ya, rough and tumbling,
screaming did ya get that,
are ya keeping up,
you can be the self-editing-I need-perfection roadblock
or the delivery guy, the one with the towel and the scissors, who brings ya a clean new baby, and/or a veggie pizza,
which ya gonna pick?
another nougat nugget:
when you’re stuck, write about the block,
what’s sticking you; one would have thought
some one thousand five hundred poems later,
this one would have been midwifed a long, long time ago,
but at 4:32am, it’s all I got
rather than throw false news confetti on myself
from the rafters that don’t exist in a citified apartment,
I’ll reward myself with some
rock n’ pop,
a revisitation to the scene of the crime, and listen quiet like and maybe leak back to prone sleep,
in hopes that the rest of the gang,
hoping the words to a poem-in-transit,
“confetti is just tomorrow’s garbage”
gets off at my dreamy new subway stop
should the wordy birdies shotgun come sneaking in
thru the correct ear
i.e. not the sunken pillow one,
so I have half a fat chance of
recalling its dimensions in an hour,
when I wake up-officially,
fat chance
later, like 4:56am
https://hellopoetry.com/poem/2471979/confetti-is-just-tomorrows-garbage/
Apr 19, 2018
Apr 19, 2018 at 5:03 AM UTC
why and how should you know?
behind beneath in between the teeth
my fingerprint whorls and whirls
under other's names and
my secret identities
a word a phrase a hatchet a blade a
pruning knife,
a confession of confusion,
relieved by my cutting saves.
my stamp secreted my ***** implanted
my style unseen yet bidden,
my name hidden, my children born
but still is my heart,
like the parent that
has given up the child.
but you love my
screamed and un screamed, and my undoing of
the doing you not see me named
nature in paces and means
admit pleasure at my scrivinings
there but for the grace of whom
but to me
for am I but the
editor
o'er my bones that
*nobody knows
nobody sees,
nobody knows,
but me^
you tread,
crunching my invisibility
to smoke and smithereens,
the pimple on the poem
lifeless turned luscious,
yet, gnome gone the next day
Jan 5, 2014
Jan 5, 2014 at 11:25 PM UTC
Reading poems is the way of discovering
that people write for fun, they write of
the very things that you think preposterous.
They write of love, and you write of hate.
Poetry is in many ways charade of indiscipline,
even gross indignity. Gives you joy rides and goose
bumps. Why do people write- poetry?
I deliberate and out of it curse people, write a poem
send it for publication. The laptop creaks. The editor whines
when flooded by my irksome mails.
In the streets of the city, and there are plenty, I see a rag picker.
I see the *****
I see the blinded with begging bowl, but singing. Chanting.
I see barely seven or eight a child pleading for coins and mercy.
I stalk away. Walk away. My hauteur a new demeanour.
Why do people write- poetry?
Oct 9, 2015
Oct 9, 2015 at 5:29 AM UTC