"minimalists" poems
So, long ago
we had the Renaissance Period,
and then there was
the Baroque Period,
and then there was
the Classical Period,
and then there was
the Romantic Period,
and then we got to
the Twentieth Century,
and we called it modern
and we called it contemporary
but we can't use
those words anymore,
so I say
we call it
the Weird-Ass Period,
where every artist,
musician, playwright,
composer, poet,
and so on,
were doing weird-shit.
I love this period.
So, in the sixties or so
we had the killing
of music
by John Cage
in his silent piece,
and the death
of painting
in the blank canvas,
and there must have been
a blank piece of paper
that was a poem,
and then
we had the rebirth
of art
in the work
of the minimalists,
and of course,
don't forget
the conceptual artist
who had himself shot,
so now,
we are well into
the Twenty-First Century,
so it must be
the Post Weird-Ass Period,
but maybe
we should call it
the Bizarro Period,
or something like that.
Oct 4, 2012
Oct 4, 2012 at 4:55 AM UTC
(picture of feindflug's vierte version compact album sleeve not included.)
one day a compact silver,
might be worth more than a 33 1/3,
as tim wonnacott might say:
today’s youth are not into clutter,
they’re moby minimalists;
but i say: what sort of still life
would anyone paint without the clutter
of things, colours people?
i guess modern art is also anti-clutter:
throw in a black rhombus and
you get the end-scale of cubism,
like a single ****** contortion of
block-bulging triangle: a mixture of
them all: equilateral isosceles and scalene
(but not a pythagorean triangle in sight)
on the faces of les demoiselles d'avignon
(the young ladies of avignon) - ripped
off the page and given a whole new canvas.
Feb 2, 2016
Feb 2, 2016 at 11:46 AM UTC
it goes beyond just getting rid of things,
it's a way of life.
it means no unnecessary action.
imagined if you lived in your home by yourself
and you only did literally the things that needed to be done,
no extra stuff. no excess action.
that is minimalism.
the key is to be able to do that
when there's other people around.
the key is to be able to recognize
what's just filler and bull
and what is actually the meat of life,
because most of it is just
nonsense that gets in the way
of the important stuff.
but
it comes
from a perspective shift.
it's about seeing that
wealth is futile
and self preservation is futile
and that really the only purpose
to any of this ****
is to help others.
that is the only thing that means anything: helping others.
think about it...
why even live a long life?
why preserve yourself?
of what purpose is any of this?
we are only beneficial
when we are of use to each other.
we are of no use to ourselves.
Jun 24, 2016
Jun 24, 2016 at 3:30 AM UTC
1.
The scent; amber
The color; pine
The touch; echos
The sound; blind
They are
All
of the senses
Intertwined.
2.
Sweet Robin, alight... takes to wing
Bruce's laughter, a booming thing.
Mark serenades, Michelle My Belle
Rog recants exploring tells
Scott japes, and keith's ad libs
Karen oh Karen, heaven forbid!
Artists Dreamers Escapists Poets.
Jesters Lovers Genius Knowers.
Alarmists minimalists
Extroverted introverts
Fighters flighters
Together
Loners
Nov 10, 2014
Nov 10, 2014 at 10:25 PM UTC
ten men beginning to show outward signs of starvation are standing shoulder to shoulder on the other side of the small window my son is looking through while balancing himself on an exercise ball in a room I am convinced expands. I am not allowed to have this dream. when my wife whispers, I whisper back and god continues to be here by choice. repeating myself means I’m here when I wake up. son, ball, room, window. ten ************ minimalists. I am not supposed to admire the travel writing career taken on by my son your surgeon. I am saddest knowing my wife’s dream is not the same. ten women and the chance I haven’t done it. were it the first year of my probable eleven, god is the lie I’d pick to get out of the room.
Nov 12, 2013
Nov 12, 2013 at 4:22 PM UTC
There are words
tucked away
in minds,
to incite,
move forward,
shake cores,
turn hoarders
to minimalists,
create
lists,
tasks,
set to do,
choose for me,
shift between
different places,
draw different
faces,
passing by on
streets
I’ve got a tweet
for each
one of you,
wrapped in
treats,
a delicious bonbon,
desserts of
verbs,
adjectives,
nouns,
and more
words.
Dec 13, 2012
Dec 13, 2012 at 10:38 AM UTC
we’re not too sure about these people
we’ve become, minimalists in deliverance
but gluttons in our feeling—protecting our
belongings but not really protecting them
at all, while yielding ourselves to those
people who join us on our train home.
though we might confess, in hesitance, how we were
moved to tears by the man in the window seat
who ignored his reflection as we rode through
a tunnel, how we suddenly began to crave
bare flesh when the hood of her jacket barely
blessed our shoulder, and even how we swore
we saw the outcome of our lives as we were
stung by the eyes of a stranger—we quietly crave
this power to distort somebody. it is a language
we are already fluent in, yet we all dream about
how great it must be, to be able to adjust
sentiment purely by thinking or touching.
Jan 11, 2013
Jan 11, 2013 at 9:41 PM UTC
it’s a daiquiri colored morn, countlessly
as I, gazing never tiring, of a vista I’ve seen,
awoken to, endlessly changing, voyagers of
birds and boats, the redecorating minimalists,
moving pieces on a latticed shadow lawn
the Sun eastern, asking the trees to turn and bow,
hence the shadows their branches cast are a waffling,
hopscotch pattern irregular, so jumping from/to
yellow-green sunspots, the children are delighted by a
new game, moving to and from and between an ever
changing crazy chessboard of light-patches unsquared
described, written of, yet here I am, once again, a servant
despairing, looking for new combinations of superlatives,
though I never spoke before of it as a vista,
until today, wondering why, perhaps because
it’s here, one lives, one doesn’t conceive of being
part and parcel of a vista, humans, just visitors,
pawn observers, gallery visitors, art appreciators,
transient hobos after forty years, truthfully claiming
that they’re merely still, passing thru, passing by
9:40 am, respectable hour to meander over
to the throne room, the four Adirondacks, them,
the year round poetry nook authorities, are equal
sunned, shaded, simultaneous, stately shadowing,
observing, advertising as perfect for composing,
willing to make verbal suggestions, rhyming notions,
especially when the poem pays proper obeisance
and so it does, and so it is, as you can clearly read
9:53am Sunday Jun 14
Year of the Pandemic
Jun 17, 2020
Jun 17, 2020 at 8:45 AM UTC
There was this boy I once loved, one of the last ones.
When he walked, a trail of poetry followed him,
Words that came from Poe, Whitman, and Eliot.
His friends were overrated minimalists compared to him.
He wasn’t a lover of literature, although his face read like one
Of those old library books with the yellowed pages and the feel of
Somebody having loved the words before you, running their fingers along the lines
Passing it on and now it’s your turn, but remember, you can’t have it forever.
Oh no, he wasn’t a lover of literature.
His friends told him stories though, and they were ugly ones.
One day he said, “Hey, are you writing stories about me?”
I pause and think about what lies I should spill next
Because although I want to say, “Well, yes, I write you
“Like the ink was spilling and slipping uncontrollably from my grasp,
“Staining my fingers like you’ve stained my heart.
“I write you because your smile is like the world’s currency
“The one thing we die for, bleed for, dream for, steal for
“Slyly taking and unitedly fall when it’s breaking,
“The one thing everyone sees themselves in, reflected so clearly
“Although we couldn’t be more different, you and me.
“I see myself in you, the poetry, the words overtaking life, the beauty,
“You come onto the pages in a storm of passion and dreams, like a fantasy, you see?
“Like something out of Lewis or Tolkien, like the final empire or a savage song
“Or a wrath and a rose, or a castle made of glass, or the dawn when it comes.
“You look like the stories I love so dearly. You are the words that made me dream
“And have hope when I’m alone.”
Well, of course I don’t say those things because Christ, who does, right?
No matter how cathartic, we never say the words in our head, the words that cry to be let out.
We all think in poetry, but say things that slander the works of Plath and Poe.
So I do that, and I cast my exploding mind so far aside, I swear I heard my bones break.
I said, “No. That’s a lie.
“I don’t write.”
Mar 14, 2017
Mar 14, 2017 at 11:27 AM UTC
An indigent old man, in a drunken stupor, with the grime of the streets on his skin, with twigs and **** in his beard, indecently exposes his junk. And a cardboard sign saying he’s hungry.
The flasher from the window of a motel, opens the curtains for the lunch crowd to view his flaccid, Rolly Polly obesity, just standing there Full Monty, ******* his thumb. The audience grow restless, having had a laugh, they begin to grumble and point their fingers with concern angering their faces.
The **** bearded *** points along with the crowd, “hey look! There’s a streak—burp! —in the window there! Look! Heheh.”
“Your fly’s undone dude,” claims a passerby.
**** you! No flies will come, it was just a movie!” His **** still hanging out.
In the nursing home, sometimes old age can’t catch up with the fact that everything seems like it’s slowly melting, especially them home folks’ skin.
A sagging sad white haired lady, with nothing on, holding on for dear life, stuck in her walker, in the middle of the hallway right before the lunch crowd. “Help Lifealert!”
Feb 18, 2021
Feb 18, 2021 at 1:04 PM UTC