Posterity

[Leanne]

*for NobodyNothing

Here in death, lack of breath frees words from their 
fluidity, freezes them in this moment that stretches
for a poet's concept of eternity.  Shaken loose of the flesh
that once subjected them to endless editing in an agony
of self-doubt, they shine briefly with the phosphorescence
of the decaying that does not yet admit its inevitable 
irrelevance.  For a while they are sustained by 
occasional indulgent recollection until one by one they
lose context and sink into the skeletal horror that is
textbook and examination; supported only by 
foetid strands of academia, they become no more than black
and white.

[NobodyNothing]

*for NobodyNothing

Here in death, lack of breath frees words from their 
fluidity, freezes them in this moment that stretches
for a poet's concept of eternity.  Shaken loose of the flesh
that once subjected them to endless editing in an agony
of self-doubt, they shine briefly with the phosphorescence
of the decaying that does not yet admit its inevitable 
irrelevance.  For a while they are sustained by 
occasional indulgent recollection until one by one they
lose context and sink into the skeletal horror that is
textbook and examination; supported only by 
foetid strands of academia, they become no more than black
and white.

Thank you, Clarice.

(Did you just wing that?  I hate you if you did.)

[Leanne]

Yeah, I did, sorry. Straight onto the site too -- so it only exists here.

[NobodyNothing]

If you're ever in Seattle, I'll show you a good time (nothing sleazy). 

[Leanne]

I've been told that there's no way to have a good time in Seattle unless you're doing something sleazy.

[NobodyNothing]

I just can't do that.  I kill 99 words out of 100, and then lose my train of thought, my raison d'etre. 

Best.

---

Ive had a couple of drinks, so I'll *somewhat* share one of the two or three most embarrassing moments of my life.  I once chased a woman I barely knew all the way to Australia.  I mean four sheets to the wind.  I just threw everything away.

It ended quick and badly.  Ive left most of the embarrassing elements out of it.

Me.

I ended up returning to the states (California), and a friend of mine took me in there before I went home to Seattle (didn't have it in me to go back yet).  I stayed there for a month and just about completely rehabilitated her home.  I almost fell in love by accident.  I still love her for nursing back to reality.

Anyway...the fool that I am (somewhat intelligent and otherwise responsible).

[Leanne]

I tried raison d'etre once, but today I'm drinking sauvignon blanc.

[milo]

I am actually drinking spiced rum and cherry kool-aid but lets pretend I'm drinking a cabernet sauvignon.

[NobodyNothing]

Not bad.  When it's wine, I vacillate between French Bordeaux and a chilled California Chardonnay.

But that's just me.  Whatever one's pleasure.  Fine by me.

Give them what they want.

---

By the way...why was this poem such a "groundbreaking" American poem (though I did like it)?

The Great Figure
William Carlos Williams

Among the rain
and lights
I saw the figure 5
in gold
on a red
fire truck
moving
tense
unheeded
to gong clangs
siren howls
and wheels rumbling
through the dark city

[Leanne]

Look, I don't want to be too rude, but what you Americans consider to be amazing poetry has pretty much always kind of left me bored stiff.

I hate your imagism and your Eliot and your Pound and your stupid cummings. So there.

I'm glad it's taught in American schools. That means someone else has to read it and we're spared the trauma.

[NobodyNothing]

What American poets do you like?  I admit to a "thing" for the English romantic poets (most all of them), certain French poets (Mallarme, Valery, Baudelaire), Shakespeare, of course, Dante, of course, Homer, of course, Virgil, of course, Petrarch, of course, Borges and Neruda, of course, Whitman, Dickinson, Stevens, Crane, of course, the main ones, whom I find something great or interesting in...then Yeats, Rilke, certain Eliot poems, Pushkin, anon, anon....then you start getting into personal favorites...so many....Elizabeth Bishop, Robinson Jeffers, Louise Gluck, etc, etc, etc...Leane, Milo, Keith...