Justifications

A few days ago, I came across a picture of "The Altar," a poem by English poet George Herbert.

Here it is:


Its form makes it a pattern poem, which is a 17th century version of concrete poetry.

Herbert also was a member of the school one of metaphysical poets; John Donne was the most famous of them. To these poets, religion and lust are often co-equivalent.

Then I thought of a person who once told me that sex was like a sacrament. When I heard that, I rolled my eyes are one of the most foolish things that men do:

Using God, their beliefs in it, and its power to justify your beliefs.

I'm reminded of the Roman Catholic Church, which considers all -- all -- sexual activity sinful unless it's between a husband and wife to conceive children.

I would respect organized religion in general and Christianity specifically if they were not so quick to use God as their theological support for anything they want.

ess & ess

eliot ness...
loch ness...
it's all strangeness
miss agnes...
and to that i will confess...
so with my mind
please do not mess...
or things will get crazy...
no need to guess
if they'll go otherwise
they truly will happen...
as sure as the sun
will set in the west...
as sure as jim tressel
will wear a vest...
as surely as bugs
are nasty little pests...
and the men you know?
i'm definitely the best...
and of the story
I'll be like paul harvey
and you now know the rest!

A Haiku That Works...

At least in English.

It's one of the few I've read that DOES work because it fits the 5-7-5 syllable scheme and has a succinct message.

Here it is:

I am done trying.
If you want me in your life,
let me know. Good bye.

I found it on the net and wrote it down. Now, I present it to you.

Two Poems About Marriage

I didn't write these. I found them on the net.

In
her $667.16
satin wedding gear
she said,
"I do!"
and high heeled
it
to the champaign.

By the way, I believe $667 and change for a satin wedding dress and accessories is very cheap. The poem must've been written when that amount was a high price.

Marriage
is
two
people in love
standing
in
the same
bathroom.

Three Short Poems

Full Of ...
My shoes are full of feet
My head is full of fuck
My soul is full of lust
My cock is full of blood
My mind is full of ... want! ... now!

Sign of the Times ... and Lives
A sign on the sidewalk...
Please smoke, eat, drink, argue, fight, kiss, hug, fuck, stab, shoot, love, hate, piss, shit, puke, and bleed ...
more or less live ...
outside this store.

Envy
Envy wears a long trench coat
and hangs out in dimly lit
hallways, alleys, streets,
doorways, closets --
any place with shadows --
always ready to take over
and conquer thoroughly.

Haters Gonna Hate

Haters gonna hate.
Gators gonna gate.
Waiters gonna wait.
Taters gonna tate.
Graters gonna grate.
Painters gonna paint.
Baiters gonna bait.
But skaters --
They gotta skate.

Literary Connections

Recently, I read this quote, which is the opening sentence from the novel Neuromancer, by William Gibson:

The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.

Immediately, I was reminded of the opening lines of poem The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, by T.S. Eliot:

Let us go then, you and I
When the evening is spread against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.

And in some parallels, Neuromancer was one of the first and among the most influential cyberpunk novels. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock was one of the first and among the most influential modernist poems.

Here Rolls The Sea

Here rolls the sea
And even here
Lies the other shore
Waiting to be reached
Yes, here
Is the everlasting present
Not distant
Not anywhere else

--By Rabindranath Tagore, Bengali poet and winner of the Nobel Literature Prize in 1913

Doggerel About Anna

Gentlemen --
Once upon Anna --
Or once atop Anna --

You won't want to get off
Until you get off!

O yeah!
Definitely!
If you know what I mean ...

Now who's first?
Get in line!
A buck a minute --
Five bucks the max!

Yeah, I'm her pi --
er, no --
I'm her business agent.

O yeah!
Definitely!
If you know what I mean ...

Four And 20 And So Forth

Four and twenty black birds baked in a pie.
Five and twenty red birds caught in a lie.
Six and twenty blue birds set free -- they fly.
Eight and twenty convicts sentenced to die.
Nine and twenty fresh fish -- they soon will fry.
One and thirty redheads -- Jack made them cry.
Two and thirty people Jack conned -- he's so sly.
Three and thirty people watch Jack, and sigh.
Four and thirty drunkards drink beer and rye.
Five and thirty people say of that -- oh fie!
To all of this I say -- oh my oh my oh my!

A Poem For Valentine's Day

I'll spend tomorrow -- Sunday, Feb. 14, also known as Valentine's Day -- by myself.

However, for those who have someone else in their lives, I offer you this:

For each other, they had a thing.
And then one night, they had a fling.
And how they made each other sing
In strongly orgasmic cries!

Two Actions To Take

I saw the nub of the following poem on the Internet. I didn't note who wrote it or where it was posted.

This is my addition to it:

Run.

Just run.

Run fast.

Never stop.

Run.

Love.

Just love.

Love deep.

Never stop.

Love.

Night Spreads And Tail Ends

Here' s a poem I've entitled Night Spreads. It's not one that I recently found in my notebooks, but one I had typed out. I don't know when I wrote it; vague memories tell me it might've been in the middle 1990s.
*
One
Night spreads and forwards before us
over the rooftops of this city
like the wings of a large, dark bird
flying on its hunt. and as night goes forward,
it does not think of us
as it comes to replace the day.
Soon, under night's protective wings,
men act as they would not
during the harsh, exacting light
of the pitiless day, its gods, and its priests.
Murders, lusts, thefts, lies, and secrets flourish
under the protection of night
which gives the promise
of anonymousness --
the crazy ones
do those things in the daytime,
anyway. that's why they're considered
crazy.

Two
You and I lay on a rooftop
watching the night spread as we left our room,
too hot for tolerance. As we watched
the night spread, the lights came up,
breezes came down, and we felt cooler.
But the heat came up as we made love
and we covered each other as the city
whirled and spirled around
beside us on the roofs, beneath us on the streets.
It sweat, we sweat, all sweat -- a good sweat.
The poisons left our bodies.
We drank some water, and a little bit
of red wine, cooled by ice,
as we rested while the night
covered us like a sheet.
and we wondered if the heat
would curdle the loves and hopes
of the city's residents
into hates and cynicisms.
*
If the poem above is like a kite, these tail end pieces are like the tail attached to it.
*
I want to be inside
the mind of a bird
to understand the
mysteries of
flight, especially
in the blindest
darkness of the
night.
*
We talked of the differences between people who say maybe and the people who say perhaps.

We talked of people who are nice and good for the sake of being nice and good and the people who are nice and good so others won't be nasty or bad toward them.
*
I'm trying to imagine an oyster that's producing a pearl.

I wonder what it feels like.

Is it like a woman, pregnant?

Is is irritating at first, then do oysters get use to it?
*
She told me of a young man's face, smooth and blank, like that of a comic strip character. His eyes and dark pupils didn't help him make look more human.
*
I once sat, like a hen on a chickless egg, trying to hatch something that wasn't there.

Sterility, emptiness, passiveness -- nothing alive in the shell.

Incantations and drugs didn't help.

Patience is running out or getting smaller.

Whatever.

There's less of it inside me to use.
*
The stillness
in the center
of a circle --
that's how
I feel now.
*
It's hard to love
just anybody, but
it's easy to love
someone.
And by loving
a woman, I enter
the world outside
myself.
*
We slept.
We woke.
We dressed.
We left the house
where there was
no rest for
the wicked
and
no sleep for
the victims.
*
Lord Lord ... how mortal these fools be!
*
I saw the bohemian
who comes from the world
that considers a tie as
a hangman's noose for
the soul,
and a suit as a walking
combination of
coffin and
burial shroud.
*
"She may talk too much," said A to B. "But it's like the hum or a refrigerator. It's a sign that she's here and all's well with her. If I didn't hear it, I'd be worried."

"In the old days," said B to A, "people would've said that sound was like that of a teakettle brewing."
*
The womb
for the woman
is the equivalent
of the penis
for the man.

Think about it.
*
The rot of a dying gentility hung in one room. No air freshener or hardblowing breeze could remove it, for it had soak into the walls and floors. Only by tearing down the house could it be removed from the scene.
*
There's a world outside there that I must bump against at all times.

How much must I bump against it?

How much will it bump into me and against me -- either from indifference or malice?
*
I felt the adrenalin
of fight-flight fear.
*
We could plan a murder, or start a religion.
--Jim Morrison.

Before The Fact

I found this on the net while surfing it last month. It comes from a blog written by Luc Sante, a native of Belgium who moved to the United States with his parents as a youth and has written about New York things.

If you want to read the entire post about it, and I recomment that you do, the link at his blog is here.

Green Eggs And Hamlet

This verse must be the bastard stepchild of Shakespeare and Dr. Suess:

I ask to be, or not to be.
That is the question, I ask of me.
This sullied life, it makes me shudder.
My uncle's boffing dear, sweet mother.
Would I , could I, take my life?
Could I, should I, end this strife?
Should I jump out of a plane?
Or throw myself before a train?
Should I from a cliff just leap?
Could I put myself to sleep?
Shoot myself, or take some poison?
Maybe try self immolation?
To shudder off this mortal coil,
I could stab myself with a fencing foil.
Slash my wrists while in the bath?
Would it end my angst or end my wrath?
To sleep, to dream, now there's the rub.
I could drop a toaster in my tub.
Would all be glad if I were dead?
Could I perhaps kill them instead?
This line of thought takes consideration,
For I'm the king of procrastination.

Life And Leaves

Life and leaves --
in autumn, both on the ground,
brown, yellow, red, orange, in piles
small and large,
and the trees are naked.
It's kind of embarassing to see
branches with no protection.
You remember the difference
between naked and nude,
and you remember
the girl, the copper head,
the copper top,
the brown/yellow/red/orange hair,
so nice in her short haircut,
white turtleneck, blue pullover,
and the way she wrinkled her nose
when you told one of your bad jokes.
She's kind of skinny, but
you'd like to see her nude
and do all the intimate
things that can happen
between a man and a woman.
But such reveries are best
for spring -- not autumn,
when the leaves are on the ground
and you have other things
to do with your time
like get your storeroom filled
with your choice of nuts
for the winter, upcoming.

Indifference

I don't care
How you are
As much as I
Don't care
Who you are,

Alleged superior --
To me? Ha!
Prove it!
By age? You're probably senile.
By money? I'm not yours
To buy and sell.
By brains? Wise men persuade,
And don't coerce.
By prisons? Lock me up.
I'll be free --
Someday, eveNtually.
Kill me and others
Will take my place.

You wanted a reason?
I just gave you four.
And you don't like them?
Tough shit. Fuck you.

Dragon Flies

Some people only skim
the surfaces of life --
touching only lightly,
and never deeply,
from fear of drowning,
the death that can make you
heavy,
sink you from sight,
and therefore from memory,
or from fear of burning,
the death that can make you
light
like ashes, to be blown away
and gone and forgotten,
with nothing to show for
a memorial.
They are like dragon flies.
They glide over the top.
They never give back,
but always take, And sometimes,
they leave behind
a great pain.

Writ On Water

When I saw this picture, I was reminded of this quote by the English poet John Keats. He wanted to have it on his tombstone:

Here lies one whose work is writ upon water.

It isn't a putdown of his talents and his works. It was a statement that he thought his work would only last for a brief time.

In a way, you could say the same thing about the Internet. Here today, gone maybe in a week if not less. And it's not writ on water but on electrons.

(At one time, Keats was my favorite poet. Although I haven't read him in years, I still like his work. Also, the phrase from La Belle Dame Sans Merci -- made sweet moan -- is one of the best euphemisms for making love that I know.)

on the third day ...

on the third day
of the third month,
the seventh son
of the seventh son
will do a million
different things
on the third stone
from the sun ...