"newsletter" poems
Spare parts
Nothing more than spare parts
Nuts and bolts and hair traps
Metal pins and elastic bands
A2 screws and P7 washer nuts
Fasten finger tight
After assembled
Repeat steps 1 & 2
Fixed too firmly
Adhere some glue
A mechanical recipe
The instructions to destroy and rebuild
3D printed
Pasted together
Real feel wood and triple stitched elastic leather
Catalog quality at half the price
Made in China mattress springs
Pantone color coordinated just right
Knock off
Imitation
Advertisement
Product placement
Everything must go
20% sale
Egyptian cotton stuffed with horsehair
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try Try Try TRY YOU NEVER GET IT QUITE RIGHT
Mar 15, 2015
Mar 15, 2015 at 11:19 PM UTC
We’re making movies that no one will see,
about things that mean the world to us,
at a certain moment in time and space,
but that mean less than a rat’s *** to anyone outside our bodies.
We never regret the echo in the large hall,
nor the words that OUR scarlett and OUR rhett say to each other
during the 126 minutes long director’s cut –
their tears are ours,
their love,
despair and
hunger for life
will be included in next month’s newsletter.
We’re making movies about those parts of our lives
that weren’t played out so well.
It’s our way of saying “sorry” or “thank you”.
We’re making movies that some don’t even call “movies” –
intimate quantum leaps, inner fights between our bodies and minds.
It hurts us, yeah. We’re not (all) made of stone.
We, sometimes, get frustrated and don’t even know exactly why.
We wake up in the middle of the night,
running the entire dialogue list in our head,
sleepwalking through the entire movie,
screaming at our non-suspecting sleeping significant other to be quiet and to get out of the frame,
“cause we’re ******* making a ******* movie here and every ******* second matters”.
We’re making (silent) movies because
we’re tired of all this noise,
because
that’s the only way we can have some “Aaaaaction” in our lives
and some frames to be proud of.
We’re not making movies to prove that the world is wrong
nor that we possess the ultimate truth.
No.
We’re not making movies to prove that the world is beautiful
and that we know nothing and that that nothingness should tickle your funny filmic bone.
No.
We’re making movies that make the entire world think that there’s something wrong with us,
that we can’t relate to our surroundings in a healthy and normal way.
We’re making movies so WE can experience, in the most familiar way,
the new wave long shot convention that YOU all hate
and diss in the digital environment,
as if your lives were made out of fast cut blockbuster shots
and not lonely, long walks through a dull park. Good for you, Max!
We’re making movies because
we don’t wanna have to explain ourselves,
like I’m doing right now.
Reality sometimes needs its own subtitle and.. **** You know what?
The truth is that we’re not making movies.
We’re making moves.
Jul 12, 2016
Jul 12, 2016 at 10:08 AM UTC
For a modest subscription -
say, £100 a month -
you can receive my weekly newsletter
outlining the manner in which I undertake
to steal your jobs,
besmirch your womenfolk
(or menfolk, if you like),
impose my religion upon you,
undermine your financial system,
eat the swans in your local park,
raise/lower house prices (as your current need dictates),
contribute to a nameless sense of dread,
dilute your cherished national identity
and produce more illiterate children than the welfare state
can reasonably support.
I will do you this service
on the understanding
that you will stop attributing blame
to your undeserving neighbours
and get on with your life
like a decent human being.
Nov 15, 2012
Nov 15, 2012 at 3:28 PM UTC
Woke up at six,
a smart tortoiseshell butterfly
was sitting on my audio.
I thought a more apposite
place would have been my dahlia.
Scattered wool pellets
over the carpet.
My brain was going nowhere slow.
The great Mister Zalbretys
had planted some weird
happenstance,
not recognising the inside
from the delirious out.
Apr 28, 2013
Apr 28, 2013 at 3:30 PM UTC
Autumn Morning On The Porch
There's a chill in the air
Goose bumps and bristled hair
Morning coffee steaming
Big yellow leafed hostas turning
Copper tree leaves falling like pennies
Lipstick red bushes burning
There's a chill in the air
Copyright 2014
Richard L Ratliff
Published in Pencil Marks newsletter Nov. 2016
Nov 2, 2016
Nov 2, 2016 at 4:07 PM UTC
Our free weekly e-mail newsletter alerts you to upcoming featured poets, news from the world of poetry, and special events like this one: again this year for Poetry Month and our annual April fund drive, we've asked 21 poets (including Tarfia Faizullah, Peter Sirr, Joshua Mehigan, and Luisa A. Igloria, pictured here) to select poems to be delivered to you by e-mail Monday through Friday of each week in April — their favorites from among The Greats — along with their comments on the poems.
Tarfia Faizullah photo Peter Sirr photo Joshua Mehigan photo Luisa A. Igloria photo
Sign up now (and tell your friends-in-poetry) before you miss our special April poems! Use the form below to subscribe (Note: if you already receive our weekly e-newsletter, you need not sign up again).
Apr 16, 2015
Apr 16, 2015 at 9:59 PM UTC
Borea, about Bob in the middle of the people,
from the Satanic content throughout,
the Yellow Age's bed is not enough,
1 lonely **** puts the radio on;
OMFG, | The terrible MOOG votes
for the actor to have been joining the Travelling
Newsletter as a Peace Center, | and **** girls,
Couples see if the brightness of the lightness
is the video and the only AUMLET;
best blistering truly with ******** shadows
on Dot's **** | one time at the Laguna,
Six mimes,
and a gray Wolf; she's wearing her War thong
and the Fed's idea of Judaism
has a lot of meanings, six of Satan's beauties
are ours if their groan is like GRRR,
caressing her opponents in danger
of being
a foreigner who has disappeared;
if you have followed 1 of us and
if it is as always
she stays in the middle of the mountain
signs that she had been attorney of the Enid
photographs, of course,
all except the App;
that is starting, | the great Chamberlain,
the general well with other bracelets,
the wings
of the weaving oh, if we remove
the carcass to say
to those who abused the face of the medium;
The Easiest's *** shows the why of the skin
of her wild girl
Oct 5, 2018
Oct 5, 2018 at 12:13 PM UTC
April
If April is cruel
May is so friendly
Pleasant and kind
The result of soft winter snow
And spring rains
May is green and pink and red
A teenage year
As summer learns to drive
Right to tulips left to peonies
June's young adult
Searches for July and August
Hoping for a tryst
Then a mellow September
Casting long shadows
To the final quarter
Copyright 2016
Richard L Ratliff
Published in April 2017 Pencil Marks newsletter
Apr 6, 2018
Apr 6, 2018 at 2:33 PM UTC
I am thankful for the free refill.
I like getting something for free.
I am thankful it is so affordable,
and easy, to get.
I just had to join the club.
And give them my personal information.
and agree to receive their newsletter,
and promotional offers.
And then I have to buy
5 expensive coffees
and then I'm in.
And now, whenever I buy
an expensive coffee—
and I finish it
before I leave the store—
I can get my cup refilled,
for as free as it gets.
Oct 19, 2015
Oct 19, 2015 at 8:46 AM UTC