Poems that you love

[Brownlie]

D. H. Lawrence
Snake

A snake came to my water-trough
On a hot, hot day, and I in pyjamas for the heat,
To drink there.
In the deep, strange-scented shade of the great dark carob-tree
I came down the steps with my pitcher
And must wait, must stand and wait, for there he was at the trough before
me.

He reached down from a fissure in the earth-wall in the gloom
And trailed his yellow-brown slackness soft-bellied down, over the edge of
the stone trough
And rested his throat upon the stone bottom,
i o And where the water had dripped from the tap, in a small clearness,
He sipped with his straight mouth,
Softly drank through his straight gums, into his slack long body,
Silently.

Someone was before me at my water-trough,
And I, like a second comer, waiting.

He lifted his head from his drinking, as cattle do,
And looked at me vaguely, as drinking cattle do,
And flickered his two-forked tongue from his lips, and mused a moment,
And stooped and drank a little more,
Being earth-brown, earth-golden from the burning bowels of the earth
On the day of Sicilian July, with Etna smoking.
The voice of my education said to me
He must be killed,
For in Sicily the black, black snakes are innocent, the gold are venomous.

And voices in me said, If you were a man
You would take a stick and break him now, and finish him off.

But must I confess how I liked him,
How glad I was he had come like a guest in quiet, to drink at my water-trough
And depart peaceful, pacified, and thankless,
Into the burning bowels of this earth?

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him? Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him? Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.

And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!

And truly I was afraid, I was most afraid, But even so, honoured still more
That he should seek my hospitality
From out the dark door of the secret earth.

He drank enough
And lifted his head, dreamily, as one who has drunken,
And flickered his tongue like a forked night on the air, so black,
Seeming to lick his lips,
And looked around like a god, unseeing, into the air,
And slowly turned his head,
And slowly, very slowly, as if thrice adream,
Proceeded to draw his slow length curving round
And climb again the broken bank of my wall-face.

And as he put his head into that dreadful hole,
And as he slowly drew up, snake-easing his shoulders, and entered farther,
A sort of horror, a sort of protest against his withdrawing into that horrid black hole,
Deliberately going into the blackness, and slowly drawing himself after,
Overcame me now his back was turned.

I looked round, I put down my pitcher,
I picked up a clumsy log
And threw it at the water-trough with a clatter.

I think it did not hit him,
But suddenly that part of him that was left behind convulsed in undignified haste.
Writhed like lightning, and was gone
Into the black hole, the earth-lipped fissure in the wall-front,
At which, in the intense still noon, I stared with fascination.

And immediately I regretted it.
I thought how paltry, how vulgar, what a mean act!
I despised myself and the voices of my accursed human education.

And I thought of the albatross
And I wished he would come back, my snake.

For he seemed to me again like a king,
Like a king in exile, uncrowned in the underworld,
Now due to be crowned again.

And so, I missed my chance with one of the lords
Of life.
And I have something to expiate:
A pettiness.

[cidermaid]

I think this came up in the poem of the day not that long ago - also love this one.

[Kvathairein]

That Ode to Melancholy one.

[Brownlie]

This might not be the best translation....

The Albatross



Often to pass the time on board, the crew
will catch an albatross, one of those big birds
which nonchalently chaperone a ship
across the bitter fathoms of the sea.

Tied to the deck, this sovereign of space,
as if embarrassed by its clumsiness,
pitiably lets its great white wings
drag at its sides like a pair of unshipped oars.

How weak and awkward, even comical
this traveller but lately so adoit -
one deckhand sticks a pipestem in its beak,
another mocks the cripple that once flew!

The Poet is like this monarch of the clouds
riding the storm above the marksman's range;
exiled on the ground, hooted and jeered,
he cannot walk because of his great wings.


Charles Baudelaire

[bogpan]

My favorite poem of all time!

Raven, George Seferis

Years like wings. What does the motionless raven remember?
What do the dead close to the roots of trees remember?
Your hands had the color of an apple ready to fall,
and that voice which always returns, that low voice.

Those who travel watch the sail and the stars
they hear the wind they hear the other sea beyond the wind
near them like a closed shell, they don't hear
anything else, don't look among the cypress shadows
for a lost face, a coin, don't ask
seeing a raven on a dry branch what it remembers.
It remains motionless just over my hours
like the soul of an eyeless statue;
there's a whole crowd gathered in that bird
thousands of people forgotten, wrinkles obliterated
broken embraces and uncompleted laughter,
arrested works, silent stations
a deep sleep of golden spangles.
It remains motionless. It gazes at my hours. What does it remember?
There are many wounds inside those invisible people within it
suspended passions waiting for the Second Coming
humble desires cleaving to the ground
children slaughtered and women exhausted at daybreak.
Does it weigh the dry branch down? Does it weigh down
the roots of the yellow tree, the shoulder
of other men, strange figures
sunk in the ground, not daring to touch even a drop of water?
Does it weigh down anywhere?
Your hands had a weight like hands in water
in the sea caves, a light careless weight
pushing the sea away to the horizon to the islands
with that movement we make sometimes when we dismiss an ugly thought.
The plain is heavy after the rain; what does the black
static flame against the gray sky remember
wedged between man and the memory of man
between the wound and the hand that inflicted the wound a black lance,
the plain darkened drinking the rain, the wind dropped
my own breath's not enough, who will move it?
Within memory, a gulf--a startled breast
between the shadows struggling to become man and woman again
stagnant life between sleep and death.

Your hands always moved towards the sea's slumber
caressing the dream that gently ascended the golden spiderweb
bearing in to the sun the host of constellations
the closed eyelids the closed wings...

[ambrosial revelation]

The Weary Blues

by Langston Hughes

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway . . .
He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
"Ain't got nobody in all this world,
Ain't got nobody but ma self.
I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
"I got the Weary Blues
And I can't be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can't be satisfied—
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

[rayheinrich]

German Undershirts
- Grace Andreacchi.

Just the way they feel against my skin
it must be some special kind of German cotton
I don’t know
I put one on
it slides over my skin
and immediately I see a whole world
that city where I lived
where I did so many things
like Oz, a strange place
but most of its was beautiful!
I see my flat where I used to live
staying up all night with music
and dancing and crazy things
I smell the coal again
and the snow
just from this undershirt
I bought the child’s size
Germans are much bigger than I am
they’re really big ladies
they’re like beautiful Valkyries
I missed my German undershirts
then I found them on the internet
made in Germany
the quality is unbelievable
they last forever

- - -

[Aish]

Meditations on a File
by Yusef Komunyakaa

I weigh you, a minute in each hand,
With the sun & a woman's perfume
In my senses, a need to smooth
Everything down. You belong

To a dead man, made to fit
A keyhole of metal to search
For light, to rasp burrs off
In slivers thin as hair, true

Only to slanted grooves cut
Across your tempered spine.
I'd laugh when my father said
Rat-tail. Now, slim as hope

& solid as remorse
In your red mausoleum,
Whenever I touch you
I crave something hard.


(I smell sawdust and my grandpa when I read this.)

[Leanne]

Lovely poem, Aish -- and hello, beautiful lady

[Aish]

Thank you, and a warm hello again to you, ms. foxy britches

[Apophrades]

Emily Dickinson at her most elliptic.
Poem 627

The Tint I cannot take—is best—
The Color too remote
That I could show it in Bazaar—
A Guinea at a sight—

The fine—impalpable Array—
That swaggers on the eye
Like Cleopatra’s Company—
Repeated—in the sky—

The Moments of Dominion
That happen on the Soul
And leave it with a Discontent
Too exquisite—to tell—

The eager look—on Landscapes—
As if they just repressed
Some Secret—that was pushing
Like Chariots—in the Vest—

The Pleading of the Summer—
That other Prank—of Snow—
That Cushions Mystery with Tulle,
For fear the Squirrels—know.

Their Graspless manners—mock us—
Until the Cheated Eye
Shuts arrogantly—in the Grave—
Another way—to see—

[ScurryFunger]

If I was to have one of them there signature things, I would have Dorothy Parkers: 'you can take a whore to culture but you can't make her think' (she might have used horticulture, but I'm sure it meant the same thing)

Apart from that, I flippin love John Cooper Clarke, as he said, the title's in the last line.

ha ha


Like a Night Club in the morning, you’re the bitter end.
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you’re clean round the bend.
You give me the horrors
too bad to be true
All of my tomorrow’s
are lousy coz of you.
You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain

You’re certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag.
Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag.

You’re like a dose of scabies,
I’ve got you under my skin.
You make life a fairy tale... Grimm!

People mention murder, the moment you arrive.
I’d consider killing you if I thought you were alive.
You’ve got this slippery quality,
it makes me think of phlegm,
and a dual personality
I hate both of them.

Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay.
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away.
Like a death at a birthday party,
you ruin all the fun.
Like a sucked and spat our smartie,
you’re no use to anyone.
Like the shadow of the guillotine
on a dead consumptive’s face.
Speaking as an outsider,
what do you think of the human race

You went to a progressive psychiatrist.
He recommended suicide...
before scratching your bad name off his list,
and pointing the way outside.

You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart.
You’re heading for a breakdown,
better pull yourself apart.

Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss.
Your attitudes are platitudes,
just make me wanna piss.

What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you,
but I can...
TWAT.

[ChristopherSea]

Emily Dickinson's other 1,869 poems aren't bad either, but don't try to use all of those dashes here, as you will be bashed!

---

Too many favorites, but this may be in the top 50:

Birthplace Revisited

Gregory Corso

I stand in the dark light in the dark
street
and look up at my window, I was
born there.
The lights are on; other people are
moving about.
I am with raincoat; cigarette in
mouth,
hat over eye, hand on gat.
I cross the street and enter the
building.
The garbage cans haven't stopped
smelling.
I walk up the first flight; Dirty Ears
aims a knife at me…
I pump him full of lost watches.

[billy]

i feel like i have an affinity with this poet

If I was to have one of them there signature things, I would have Dorothy Parkers: 'you can take a whore to culture but you can't make her think' (she might have used horticulture, but I'm sure it meant the same thing)

Apart from that, I flippin love John Cooper Clarke, as he said, the title's in the last line.

ha ha


Like a Night Club in the morning, you’re the bitter end.
Like a recently disinfected shit-house, you’re clean round the bend.
You give me the horrors
too bad to be true
All of my tomorrow’s
are lousy coz of you.
You put the Shat in Shatter
Put the Pain in Spain
Your germs are splattered about
Your face is just a stain

You’re certainly no raver, commonly known as a drag.
Do us all a favour, here... wear this polythene bag.

You’re like a dose of scabies,
I’ve got you under my skin.
You make life a fairy tale... Grimm!

People mention murder, the moment you arrive.
I’d consider killing you if I thought you were alive.
You’ve got this slippery quality,
it makes me think of phlegm,
and a dual personality
I hate both of them.

Your bad breath, vamps disease, destruction, and decay.
Please, please, please, please, take yourself away.
Like a death at a birthday party,
you ruin all the fun.
Like a sucked and spat our smartie,
you’re no use to anyone.
Like the shadow of the guillotine
on a dead consumptive’s face.
Speaking as an outsider,
what do you think of the human race

You went to a progressive psychiatrist.
He recommended suicide...
before scratching your bad name off his list,
and pointing the way outside.

You hear laughter breaking through, it makes you want to fart.
You’re heading for a breakdown,
better pull yourself apart.

Your dirty name gets passed about when something goes amiss.
Your attitudes are platitudes,
just make me wanna piss.

What kind of creature bore you
Was is some kind of bat
They can’t find a good word for you,
but I can...
TWAT.

[Truerenigma]

Emily Dickinson's other 1,869 poems aren't bad either, but don't try to use all of those dashes here, as you will be bashed!

---

Too many favorites, but this may be in the top 50:

Birthplace Revisited

Gregory Corso

I stand in the dark light in the dark
street
and look up at my window, I was
born there.
The lights are on; other people are
moving about.
I am with raincoat; cigarette in
mouth,
hat over eye, hand on gat.
I cross the street and enter the
building.
The garbage cans haven't stopped
smelling.
I walk up the first flight; Dirty Ears
aims a knife at me…
I pump him full of lost watches.

A beats fan? I wouldn't have guessed it.

---

by RICHARD HUGO

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs—
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.

Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it’s mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

[ChristopherSea]

Emily Dickinson's other 1,869 poems aren't bad either, but don't try to use all of those dashes here, as you will be bashed!

---

Too many favorites, but this may be in the top 50:

Birthplace Revisited

Gregory Corso

I stand in the dark light in the dark
street
and look up at my window, I was
born there.
The lights are on; other people are
moving about.
I am with raincoat; cigarette in
mouth,
hat over eye, hand on gat.
I cross the street and enter the
building.
The garbage cans haven't stopped
smelling.
I walk up the first flight; Dirty Ears
aims a knife at me…
I pump him full of lost watches.

A beats fan? I wouldn't have guessed it.

Not so much the poetry pontificating on sphincters, but I liked their counter-culture excitement in that gang. Corso and Ferlinghetti were my favorites from that group.

---

by RICHARD HUGO

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs—
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.

Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it’s mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

This is a great piece and makes me want to read more of Richard Hugo!

[Truerenigma]

Emily Dickinson's other 1,869 poems aren't bad either, but don't try to use all of those dashes here, as you will be bashed!

---

Too many favorites, but this may be in the top 50:

Birthplace Revisited

Gregory Corso

I stand in the dark light in the dark
street
and look up at my window, I was
born there.
The lights are on; other people are
moving about.
I am with raincoat; cigarette in
mouth,
hat over eye, hand on gat.
I cross the street and enter the
building.
The garbage cans haven't stopped
smelling.
I walk up the first flight; Dirty Ears
aims a knife at me…
I pump him full of lost watches.

A beats fan? I wouldn't have guessed it.

Not so much the poetry pontificating on sphincters, but I liked their counter-culture excitement in that gang. Corso and Ferlinghetti were my favorites from that group.

---

by RICHARD HUGO

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs—
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.

Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it’s mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

This is a great piece and makes me want to read more of Richard Hugo!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-hugo#about

Enjoy. I know I did.

---

Not so much the poetry pontificating on sphincters, but I liked their counter-culture excitement in that gang. Corso and Ferlinghetti were my favorites from that group.

I see, well as far as Beat poets go, it's Ginsberg or bust for me. I know, typical, but still...nonetheless. . .

[ScurryFunger]

i feel like i have an affinity with this poet


Feeling like you have an affinity with a poet is probably a great minds think alike, fools never differ - kinda deal, either way, they should be flattered! lol, how could I forget about Tim.

Tim Minchin - Storm

Inner North London, top floor flat
All white walls, white carpet, white cat,
Rice Paper partitions
Modern art and ambition
The host's a physician,
Bright bloke, has his own practice
His girlfriend's an actress
An old mate of ours from home
And they're always great fun.
So to dinner we've come.


The 5th guest is an unknown,
The hosts have just thrown
Us together as a favor
because this girl's just arrived from Australia
And she's moved to North London
And she's the sister of someone
Or has some connection.

As we make introductions
I'm struck by her beauty
She's irrefutably fair
With dark eyes and dark hair
But as she sits
I admit I'm a little bit wary
because I notice the tip of the wing of a fairy
Tattooed on that popular are
Just above the derrière

And when she says "I'm Sagittarien"
I confess a pigeonhole starts to form
is immediately filled with pigeon
When she says her name is Storm.


Conversation is initially bright and light hearted
But it's not long before Storm gets started:
"You can't know anything,
Knowledge is merely opinion"
She opines, over her Cabernet Sauvignon
Vis a vis
Some unhippily
Empirical comment made by me

"Not a good start" I think
We're only on pre-dinner drinks
And across the room, my wife
Widens her eyes
Silently begs me, Be Nice
A matrimonial warning
Not worth ignoring
So I resist the urge to ask Storm
Whether knowledge is so loose-weave
Of a morning
When deciding whether to leave
Her apartment by the front door
Or a window on her second floor.

The food is delicious and Storm,
Whilst avoiding all meat
Happily sits and eats
As the good doctor, slightly pissedly
Holds court on some anachronistic aspect of medical history

When Storm suddenly insists
"But the human body is a mystery!
Science just falls in a hole
When it tries to explain the the nature of the soul."

My hostess throws me a glance
She, like my wife, knows there's a chance
I'll be off on one of my rare but fun rants
But I shan't, my lips are sealed.
I just want to enjoy the meal
And although Storm is starting to get my goat
I have no intention of rocking the boat,
Although it's becoming a bit of a wrestle
Because - like her meteorological namesake -
Storm has no such concerns for our vessel:


"Pharmaceutical companies are the enemy
They promote drug dependency
At the cost of the natural remedies
That are all our bodies need
They are immoral and driven by greed.
Why take drugs
When herbs can solve it?
Why use chemicals
When homeopathic solvents
Can resolve it?
I think it's time we all return-to-live
With natural medical alternatives."

And try as hard as I like,
A small crack appears
In my diplomacy-dike.
"By definition", I begin
"Alternative Medicine", I continue
"Has therefore not been proved to work,
Or been proved not to work.
You know what they call "alternative medicine"
That's been proved to work?
Medicine."


"So you don't believe
In ANY Natural remedies?"


"On the contrary, Storm, actually:
Before we came to tea,
I took a natural remedy
Derived from the bark of a willow tree
A painkiller, virtually side-effect free
It's got a weird name,
Darling, what was it again?
Ma-Ma-Masprin?
Basprin?
Oh yeah, Asprin!
Which I paid about a buck for
Down at the local drugstore.

The debate briefly abates
As my hosts collects plates
but as they return with desserts
Storm pertly asserts,
"Shakespeare said it first:
There are more things in heaven and earth
Than exist in your philosophy...
Science is just how we're trained to look at reality,
It doesn't explain love or spirituality.
How does science explain psychics?
Auras; the afterlife; the power of prayer?"


I'm becoming aware
That I'm staring,
I'm like a rabbit suddenly trapped
In the blinding headlights of vacuous crap.
Maybe it's the Hamlet she just misquothed
Or the sixth glass of wine I just quaffed
But my diplomacy dike groans
And the arsehole held back by its stones
Can be held back no more:

"Look ah, Storm, I don't mean to bore you
But there's no such thing as an aura!
Reading Auras is like reading minds
Or tea-leaves or star-signs or meridian lines
These people aren't plying a skill,
They're either lying or mentally ill.
Same goes for those who claim to hear God's demands
And Spiritual healers who think they've magic hands.


By the way
Why do we think it's OK
For people to pretend they can talk to the dead?
Isn't that not totally fucked in the head
Lying to some crying woman whose child has died
And telling her you're in touch with the other side?
I think that's fundamentally sick
Do we need to clarify here, that there's no such thing as a psychic?

What, are we fucking 2?
Do we actually think that Horton Heard a Who?
Do we still believe that Santa brings us gifts?
That Michael Jackson didn't have facelifts?
Are we still so stunned by circus tricks
That we think that the dead would
Wanna talk to pricks
Like John Edwards?

Storm, to her credit, despite my derision
Keeps firing off clichés with startling precision
Like a sniper using bollocks for ammunition

"You're so sure of your position
But you're just closed-minded
I think you'll find
Your faith in Science and Tests
Is just as blind
As the faith of any fundamentalist"

"Hm that's a good point, let me think for a bit
Oh wait, my mistake, that's absolute bullshit.
Science adjusts it's beliefs based on what's observed
Faith is the denial of observation so that Belief can be preserved.
If you show me
That, say, homeopathy works,
then I will change my mind
I'll spin on a fucking dime
I'll be embarrassed as hell,
But I will run through the streets yelling
It's a miracle! Take physics and bin it!
Water has memory!
And while it's memory of a long lost drop of onion juice is Infinite
It somehow forgets all the poo it's had in it!
You show me that it works and how it works
And when I've recovered from the shock
I will take a compass and carve Fancy That on the side of my cock."

Everyones just staring at me now,
But I'm pretty pissed and I've dug this far down,
So I figure, in for penny, in for a pound:

"Life is full of mysteries, yeah
But there are answers out there
And they won't be found
By people sitting around
Looking serious
And saying isn't life mysterious?
Let's sit here and hope
Let's call up the fucking Pope
Let's go watch Oprah
Interview Deepak Chopra

If you're going to watch tele, you should watch Scooby Doo.
That show was so cool
because every time there's a church with a ghoul
Or a ghost in a school
They looked beneath the mask and what was inside?
The fucking janitor or the dude who runs the waterslide.

Throughout history
Every mystery
EVER solved has turned out to be
Not Magic.


Does the idea that there might be truth
Frighten you?
Does the idea that one afternoon
On Wiki-fucking-pedia might enlighten you
Frighten you?
Does the notion that there may not be a supernatural
So blow your hippy noodle
That you would rather just stand in the fog
Of your inability to Google?


Isn't this enough?
Just this world?
Just this beautiful, complex
Wonderfully unfathomable world?

How does it so fail to hold our attention
That we have to diminish it with the invention
Of cheap, man-made Myths and Monsters?
If you're so into Shakespeare
Lend me your ear
"To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw perfume on the violet... is just fucking silly"
Or something like that.

Or what about Satchmo?!
I see trees of Green,
Red roses too,
And fine, if you wish to
Glorify Krishna and Vishnu
In a post-colonial, condescending
Bottled-up and labeled kind of way
That's ok.

But here's what gives me a hard-on:
I am a tiny, insignificant, ignorant lump of carbon.
I have one life, and it is short
And unimportant...
But thanks to recent scientific advances
I get to live twice as long as my great great great great uncles and auntses.
Twice as long to live this life of mine
Twice as long to love this wife of mine
Twice as many years of friends and wine
Of sharing curries and getting shitty
With good-looking hippies
With fairies on their spines
And butterflies on their titties.


And if perchance I have offended
Think but this and all is mended:
We'd as well be 10 minutes back in time,
For all the chance you'll change your mind.

[ChristopherSea]

A beats fan? I wouldn't have guessed it.

Not so much the poetry pontificating on sphincters, but I liked their counter-culture excitement in that gang. Corso and Ferlinghetti were my favorites from that group.

---

by RICHARD HUGO

You might come here Sunday on a whim.
Say your life broke down. The last good kiss
you had was years ago. You walk these streets
laid out by the insane, past hotels
that didn’t last, bars that did, the tortured try
of local drivers to accelerate their lives.
Only churches are kept up. The jail
turned 70 this year. The only prisoner
is always in, not knowing what he’s done.

The principal supporting business now
is rage. Hatred of the various grays
the mountain sends, hatred of the mill,
The Silver Bill repeal, the best liked girls
who leave each year for Butte. One good
restaurant and bars can’t wipe the boredom out.
The 1907 boom, eight going silver mines,
a dance floor built on springs—
all memory resolves itself in gaze,
in panoramic green you know the cattle eat
or two stacks high above the town,
two dead kilns, the huge mill in collapse
for fifty years that won’t fall finally down.

Isn’t this your life? That ancient kiss
still burning out your eyes? Isn’t this defeat
so accurate, the church bell simply seems
a pure announcement: ring and no one comes?
Don’t empty houses ring? Are magnesium
and scorn sufficient to support a town,
not just Philipsburg, but towns
of towering blondes, good jazz and booze
the world will never let you have
until the town you came from dies inside?

Say no to yourself. The old man, twenty
when the jail was built, still laughs
although his lips collapse. Someday soon,
he says, I’ll go to sleep and not wake up.
You tell him no. You’re talking to yourself.
The car that brought you here still runs.
The money you buy lunch with,
no matter where it’s mined, is silver
and the girl who serves your food
is slender and her red hair lights the wall.

This is a great piece and makes me want to read more of Richard Hugo!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-hugo#about

Enjoy. I know I did.

---

Not so much the poetry pontificating on sphincters, but I liked their counter-culture excitement in that gang. Corso and Ferlinghetti were my favorites from that group.

I see, well as far as Beat poets go, it's Ginsberg or bust for me. I know, typical, but still...nonetheless. . .

Oh, I like Allen Ginsberg's work too, just not crazy about references to a-holes in poems.

[Truerenigma]

This is a great piece and makes me want to read more of Richard Hugo!

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/richard-hugo#about

Enjoy. I know I did.

---

Not so much the poetry pontificating on sphincters, but I liked their counter-culture excitement in that gang. Corso and Ferlinghetti were my favorites from that group.

I see, well as far as Beat poets go, it's Ginsberg or bust for me. I know, typical, but still...nonetheless. . .

Oh, I like Allen Ginsberg's work too, just not crazy about references to a-holes in poems.

Can't say I blame you.