"literati" poems
start
set the scene...
somewhere enclosed, close and closed
like a bed
(tight, restricted like, uh, the world all around me, how fitting
now it’s political)
on a morning
and maybe the sun will be rising,
or setting−yes−to represent the ethereal dusk of my cognition,
Say I’m with someone−don’t identify whom−it’s meant to be a mystery:
unfinished, left.
it could be you
and I’ll search the dictionary
for words to make my pseudo-philosophical, imagist, absurdist poem obfuscated, esoteric,
tanquam yet favillous; beyond recognition
So that it sounds like Dr. Seuss,
that is, a Dr. Seuss that knows Althusser, Derrida and the early writings of Flaubert.
add some random enjamb-
ment. cut out the capitalizationandspacing. start a sentence;
end it. Section break
Oh, I’ll need more words, you know, to remind my peers of my intellectuality,
-out of place words that don’t actually mean anything:
Specificity or
literati
that’s good. Now, to end-
bring it to a close in one all-encompassing word:
(to be read over-dramatically)
pretension.
Jul 31, 2013
Jul 31, 2013 at 3:26 PM UTC
(for Cyril Connolly)
The piers are pummelled by the waves;
In a lonely field the rain
Lashes an abandoned train;
Outlaws fill the mountain caves.
Fantastic grow the evening gowns;
Agents of the Fisc pursue
Absconding tax-defaulters through
The sewers of provincial towns.
Private rites of magic send
The temple prostitutes to sleep;
All the literati keep
An imaginary friend.
Cerebrotonic Cato may
Extol the Ancient Disciplines,
But the muscle-bound Marines
Mutiny for food and pay.
Caesar's double-bed is warm
As an unimportant clerk
Writes I DO NOT LIKE MY WORK
On a pink official form.
Unendowed with wealth or pity,
Little birds with scarlet legs,
Sitting on their speckled eggs,
Eye each flu-infected city.
Altogether elsewhere, vast
Herds of reindeer move across
Miles and miles of golden moss,
Silently and very fast.
4.8k
The literati are moaning
about the crowning
of a comical smiley-face
with tears of joy
springing from its eyes
as Oxford Dictionaries 2015
"Word of the Year"
it's historic
indicative of a generation
raised on media shorthand
though some people think
the distillation of thought
to acronyms, symbols, emoji
is a bad thing too
but in these icons
heavy black heart
face throwing a kiss
reversed hand with middle finger extended
even the simple : )
I see emotion
stripped bare
the whole gorgeous
heart-rending, horrible
hateful range of it
illustrating the dark
and light
of who we are
as a human race
So I say hail and welcome
to the "tears of joy" emoji
may his vivid counterpoint
shine around the world
eclipsing all the words
we've learned this year
for hate.
Dec 29, 2015
Dec 29, 2015 at 11:29 AM UTC
They say
"Time heals
all wounds."
"It glues
the pieces of you
that broke
when you were torn
from your lover's heart
and thrown onto
the ground."
I say
that's a lie.
For after 3 years,
5 months,
12 days,
22 hours,
42 minutes,
and 50 seconds;
you are still
haunting me.
The puzzle
never fits.
The heart
still aches.
The candles
stay unlit.
And at times
I break.
No,
time does not
heal all wounds.
But it gives you
the strength
of a 10-ply tissue,
the memory
of the finest sieve,
and the melancholy
of a young literati.
It gives you
threads of silver and red;
and it's up to you
to weave the mess
into a conceivable,
beautiful,
tragic scar.
Nov 30, 2013
Nov 30, 2013 at 12:07 AM UTC
You
Literati
I want you to know
I’m writing to you drunk
With a sober mind that thinks in its own
One that is independent
One that is great and strong-willed
To know
You are not pursuing a life of greatness
Merely of pettiness
Of worthless endeavors that requisition an
Agenda of procreation
Of Darwinism
****
I may be drunk or beneath the tyranny of the ALMIHGTY BEZOS
But I am consistent in my beliefs
And all destroyers of
Existence
And freedom are
Bound for
Destruction.
SO KEEP FIGHTING BECAUSE
i AM A BEING BORN OF REBELLION
AND SO ARE you.
Jun 12, 2014
Jun 12, 2014 at 5:56 AM UTC
Sound of a pen clattering
Admonishing beauty of arts rendering
Lines of rhyme rhyming
Mixed with rhythm rhythming
Like a poem life flowing
Like a drama life pushing
Like a prose life rushing
And then comes representing
Unrepentant life projectoring
The literati's lyrical lyricalling
Recalling the gods of writing
With written words calling
Calling calling calling coming
And hence societal ills hiding
Bad leaders, leadership running
Disillusioned souls troubling
Marginalised masses crying
And crime rate like jet flying
Bombs like pure water exploding
Politicians still stealing and looting yet fearing
Fear! phobia! fear embracing
Minimum wage hurting Governors like bee stinging
Unemployment destroying like earthquaking
Half baked graduate graduating
Our education unseriously provoking
Undefined boundaries exposing
Immigrants immigrating
Police, Soldiers, customs, Road safety, etc all corrupting like they feeding...
Inec election in chaos resulting
Nigeria a name of peoples's confusing
NEPA, WATER, ROAD, HOSPITAL unrealistic absurding...
Corruption! corrupting!! corruptioning!!! Are we starting or finishing? Building or destroying?
The lyric of the literati busy deconstructing...
Apr 20, 2015
Apr 20, 2015 at 2:07 PM UTC
alliteration
delving delusory,
a literati shun
thy commissions,
galore,
the line goes around the
corner
Entrusted.
write us a prayer -
as if I were thus worthy
t'is a delusion
which is worse than
Illusion
my fingers command me -
not I, them
I scribe inky,
they write what they deem
the most unfitting fulfilling
thy requests
more crosses to bear,
this Jew has walked the
Via Dolorosa
then, and again,
now
oh yes delve delve
with archaic *****
turn over earth unsubstantiated
long time un~disturbed
**"bring us your truths
in whatever form
they spill from you"**
Thus, they command me, Lord
**"Go back to living,
like it used to be.
No more tortured soul
to slow you down"**
Thus, they command me, Lord
sleep restful,
feet bathed,
Pavorotti & Pachelbel
comforted,
let it go,
live the fleeting,
well,
drink the wine,
wafer, taste,
Jew,
but stay away from the confessional
don't
delve into your own
thesaurus
when opened,
one can vision
right through us
don't
delve in to the recesses
thankfully receding, eroding,
except for the enlightening flashbacks
that stone cold come with no
forewarning
don't
let the sin memories
of ancient words,
black gold bubble up
with the first striking of the blade
Delve
(excavate your soul deep)
Not
I did not come this poem to write
I did not come to repeat
Solomon's poem,
nothing new under the sun
don't,
daunting
wish to delve into my delusions,
my original sin
the deceit
the conceit
I am unique
I am original
but let us weave as I best could
diagrammed prayers
as the sun rises over my eastern river
for it the seventh day,
the sabbath day,
which the commandments
commend as the day to remember and
*to keep it holy.
Six days you shall labor,
and do all your work,
but the seventh day is a Sabbath
to the LORD your God.
On it you shall not do any work,
you, or your son, or your daughter,
your male servant, or your female servant,
or your livestock,
or the*
sojourner
*who is within your gates.
For in six days the LORD
made heaven and earth, the sea,
and all that is in them,
and rested on the seventh day.
Therefore the LORD
blessed the Sabbath day
and made it holy.*
no delving today
I will observe thy reader's,
all of them my teacher's,
commandments
rest easy,
spill no truths this day
but on the new born morrow
I shall fresh
delve and sin again
and write them
joyful hymns
to sing
on the profane workweek,
for my torture,
my spilled and soiled truths
shall be
re-presented
to joyous comfort
and then,
I shall sojourn among them
Mar 22, 2014
Mar 22, 2014 at 7:26 AM UTC
*yeah, let's compose the alphabet in music for each letter we try to sound like a wine bottle cork unplugged from vintage; it won't work, i known, but it might get a few skidding on gizmo go go, trying to democratise iran: try turning iran sunni first, you, you defrosted snowman worth a carrot and two chalk coal ******** writing: hardboiled into sight of believable. oh here comes a white man talking privy aloud with the rapper loosing breath, but keeping it up and replacing the pelvic hinges with easy, drool, rhymes; a kind of rubric tablature of scores for rodeo with alternative sounds to: moo, ow, ah, broomstick shoo, take the cow for a milking home from the dead bull dazzled into genesis on t.v.; or that other literati spectator sport of not reading but talking oneself into academic bibliography for an intro.*
the great thing about being an alcoholic...
you never quiet know
when you're drunk or hungover;
but it makes up for great twilight sunsets
pooh lonely; ah ooh smooch -
kisses a honey stick stuck to ****
in a hollywood crescendo of
paparazzi and applause;
and anorexia; and dyslexic oiling for a facelift:
that's called smiling i have you know -
enter michael jackson - hippie hip he;
if i die aged thirty, i'll be happy to have
been frisky twenty-nine into a thong.
*or, alt., tell ****** about the swimming pool and the tadpole kenyans sprinting into impregnated landownerships of priests: sounds like this: pst - herr führer - die schwimmin poolst erst niener jessy ovens geeignet. no one said that african buttocks couldn't bayou the ships ashore, but they did; what?! i'm not the 12" dangle! you keep up racism, i'll keep up mozart's austria; alt. please see how censoring adjectives in relation to objects gives you a false moral subjectivity that's only a matter of pleasantries.*
Sep 15, 2015
Sep 15, 2015 at 11:04 PM UTC
To the many readers, I ****** off with my poem about Bukowski.
I don't loathe Bukowski. My point is that he is a cult writer. His cult seems to be made up of people who are ignorant of other much better writers of his time. If they read the Beats (in particular Gary Snyder) or others like Richard Brautigan, Jim Harrison, Wendell Berry and many others, they would see how poorly his writing stands up to comparison.
Bukowski's persona is what seems to attract people. He knew that and cultivated it. It was his meal ticket. The poor, drunken, uncouth, outsider, loser who was scorned by the literati of his time. In truth, he was a writer of pulp poetry. What he needed was a good editor. You could take all of his books of poems, cut out the rambling, self-serving, tedious, self-glorifying ******** and cut them down to maybe two books of decent poetry. His prose is better, but not that much.
Young people, lacking better poetry for comparison, are mainly attracted by this cult of personality. Young people are attracted to rebels, even bogus ones. He himself said he didn't write, he just typed. Some hero.
He portrays himself as a big, tough *** willing to fight the whole world. Actually, he was a fat drunk barely six feet tall. That's why I laughed at him when he threatened me. I was 20, just three weeks back from Vietnam. The thought of fighting an old drunk seemed pathetic to me. I could have easily killed him. Who goes to a poetry reading for that?
There was also his attitude toward women. I believe he really hated women. He saw them as receptacles for his ***** nothing more. He used his fame to **** a good many young admirers. He's not alone in having done that, but he was obsessive about it. Women were a perk, nothing more.
In the end, his cult status will remain, but he will never be taken seriously as a writer, because - by his own admission - he wasn't. There is much excellent poetry out there by better writers of his time. Do yourself a favor, read them, educate yourself. If you only read mediocre poetry, you'll only ever be a mediocre poet.
Even at his most unheroic, he is the hero of his stories and poems, always demanding the reader’s covert approval. That is why he is so easy to love, especially for novice readers with little experience of the genuine challenges of poetry; and why, for more demanding readers, he remains so hard to admire.
Please: Join in. Tell me why I am wrong or right.
Mike Essig
Jan 20, 2016
Jan 20, 2016 at 4:28 AM UTC
the moment I realized I could
write a novel was back in 2013
when it was one on one care-work
with a paranoid schizophrenic, and
every evening after the days events
had crowded on past, I would sit at
the counter chatting conspiracy theories
and literature elitist literati with coworker
churning out 3 to 5 pages on the mornings
notable events (*threats of suicide, talk of
ghosts, diamond planet, cigarettes*) and
after a month and a half I would have an
entire books-worth of meta-material (not
prosed and honed, be it) sitting in archival
binder, locked and clocked inside a cupboards
future reference.
SO
why not my trickling thought-seas?**
Jun 29, 2014
Jun 29, 2014 at 4:30 PM UTC
Your snores are like a poem, your silence - writer’s block
Your tears a bleeding pen, your ****
A double-entendre for a sock
Please stop writing about writing
No one cares if you haven’t scribbled a haiku
In two days. Or if angelic Whitmans sing to you
Like bearded cherubs, baby-boo
Please stop writing about writing
And no one cares about its state
Or what it does or doesn't, or its fate
Or what it takes to be first rate
Please stop writing about writing
It's a literati twerk
Watch your fellow wordsmiths go to work
At the meta-circle ****
Please stop writing about writing
Yes, you’re spitting rhymes and flow
Basking in the muse's glow
Dropping learnéd metaphors , we know
Just please stop writing about writing
Like so
Jul 26, 2016
Jul 26, 2016 at 6:23 PM UTC
Circa Holy Roman Empire
between ninth
and thirteenth century
after common era
(approximately 800 AD and 1200 AD)
benchmark year 780 bracketed
Benedictine monks
of Corbie Abbey
devised cheeky guttural lingual rapartee
vis a vis European
calligraphic standard script inked lined
writ via extant Irish and English monastic
members nsync
strong influence of Irish literati
eased communication
popular Latin cognoscenti
common lingua franca
spawned Carolingian Renaissance
Codices, pagan and Christian text
plus educational material
written viz Carolingian minuscule
Emperor Charlemagne issued prescription
(hence named Carolingian)
boosted unified modus operandi
he advocated learning,
though somewhat illiterate
recognized value of education
predicated on singular
codified regional alphabet,
the then webbed wide world
linkedin, sans uniform symbolic shapes
uncontested salient advantage
offered up ease to master
clear distinct explicit letter formation
simple logic boosted
rapidly transmitted standardization,
especially with exceptional legible
readable characteristic
adequate spaces between words
Merovingian "chancery hand"
still reserved to draft traditional charters
Gothic and Anglo Saxon
favored traditional local script
as opposed to Latin
learning latter involved less tricked out
embellished flourishes
or interconnected strokes
drawn by a scribe
allowing, enabling, and providing
greater popularity to teach masses,
latent etymological nuances apparent
centuries following implementation
quasi initial Carolingian letters
steadfast, where Carolingian
influence moats strong
adopted local stylistic signature flavor
divergence woke since proliferation
stoking diffuse prospects
decreeing entrenched footing,
where auspices boded prescient
until groundswell didst surcease
sub limb mated into modern patois.
May 14, 2018
May 14, 2018 at 7:39 PM UTC
(Dedicated to the late Prof Chinua Achebe)
Mountain ranges in the east wind,
Like wet dew on a grass.
Amid soggy tears,
Enthusiasm denies us.
Squeal of gongs and drums
Sound throughout the land,
North and South:
Poignant blood runs through our veins.
Indeed, things have fallen apart...
Spring thunder -The Iroko has fallen!
Albert Chinualumogu Achebe.
You it was who issued the great call
For us to rebel against despotic rule.
A glittering colossus among literati,
With an esoteric mastery of proverbial dictions.
The literary luminary and patriot,
It's the very best we have had.
Storms of the societal reformation
have brought a flowering of heroes on the land.
In the wind and thunder of cultural revolution,
The rising sun casts a myriad reflections.
Achebe's thought glows golden bright,
Struggle-criticism-transformation;
flowering everywhere.
Though the dogged messenger has become silent,
The candid message-wave still dance in my ear,
I wipe warm tears from my eyes,
And press my hand to my throbbing heart,
Keeping the peerless books in my *****
Oh yes! Achebe was here,
And we felt his magical pen.
Adieu! Great Iroko of our land.
© A. O. Nwulia Literary Diary 2013
Mar 18, 2017
Mar 18, 2017 at 3:26 AM UTC
If this were ready to sow, who would know?
All true, is it altruistic to make a mind
to not lie by some alteration in the source
code feeding the mind the energy
required of being, itself?
Alter
ego- stopped Ernest Becker, the importance
of being aware he was there, in my ear,
halted all progress in the direction
beyond my ken and any kenner's ken, hearken,
have we a word we hear,
which means a thing to some who hear it
and nothing to others?
Alteration on altruistic first response,
all thru, truly easy upgrade, just think
alter was the spoken sound used as
English uses other, in Latin
thus in the code of the literati,
altruistic is other selfishness.
Utter spoke, not rote hm
--
wedoms in reality
we are al
ways altruistic, true
not all who claim the name, we, the people,
are the only people, the species formed
from wormish droppin' doin'drottenin'
darkenin' fertile soil, black
land, by god,
I got me a blackland farm, zactly near
as I believed, left be, alternant
real enough, to hope for
as mentioned
you better believe
= hear that from the other, clenched jaw,
canines clearly dis-
playing…
playinwitcha
c'mon, c'mon
Comte, gimme a position, make me a point,
as truth always will out after in, in any
breathing situation.
--- this expanded to here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1JbUUmqVA4ZJI1BJMNMTcLe4nd7ZAbCsxP8muHHguJbM/edit?usp=sharing
Oct 1, 2020
Oct 1, 2020 at 5:12 PM UTC