Poetry
grrlscientist | April 10, 2008tags: Down the Stream the Swans All Glide, Spike Milligan, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend who writes that "I've attached a poem by Spike Milligan. It should break up the more serious ones (honestly, who decided that the cruelest month should be dedicated to poetry?). It's scanned from Silly Verses for Kids -- his drawings are half the fun."
[larger view]
Down the…
grrlscientist | April 9, 2008tags: The Hen and the Oriole, Don Marquis, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend who writes that "I am not much for poetry, generally. But I have always had a soft spot for Don Marquis. This is one of my favorites."
The Hen and the Oriole
well boss did it
ever strike you that a
hen regrets it just as
much when they wring her
neck as an oriole but
nobody has any
sympathy for a…
grrlscientist | April 8, 2008tags: Mesopotamia, Rudyard Kipling, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend who writes that "my favourite poet is Kipling; sad to say, this [poem] is as appropriate today as it was 91 years ago. The question is still valid and I fear we'll do nothing, as our ancestors did nothing, those who embroiled us in the war will retire in comfort and assumed honour. The dead will lie…
grrlscientist | April 7, 2008tags: At the Quinte Hotel, Al Purdy, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem, one that I've never read before now, was suggested by a reader, who said it is his favorite. Also includes streaming video of the poem being performed/read by Gord Downie of The Tragically Hip [5:18].
-- Al Purdy, Beyond Remembering: The Collected Poems of Al Purdy (Harbour; 2000).
grrlscientist | April 6, 2008tags: The Lake Isle of Innisfree, William Butler Yeats, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend.
The Lake Isle of Innisfree
I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes…
grrlscientist | April 5, 2008tags: God, A Poem, James Fenton, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and friend.
God, A Poem
A nasty surprise in a sandwich,
A drawing-pin caught in your sock,
The limpest of shakes from a hand which
You'd thought would be firm as a rock,
A serious mistake in a nightie,
A grave disappointment all round
Is all that you'll get from th'Almighty,
Is all that you'll get underground.
Oh…
grrlscientist | April 4, 2008tags: A Dream Deferred, Langston Hughes, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader who wrote; "My favorite poem has always been 'A Dream Deferred' by Langston Hughes, even before I was old enough to know the context behind it." I agree with my reader, I also loved this poem as a child, and still do.
A Dream Deferred
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun…
jlynch | April 3, 2008
Seeing the Ox
Oriole in the branch chirps and chirps,
Sun warm, breeze through the willows.
There is the ox, cornered, alone.
That head, those horns! Who could paint them?
K’uo-an (trans. Stanley Lombardo)
[image source]
grrlscientist | April 3, 2008tags: On Punctuation, Elizabeth Austen, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by a reader and bird pal, Diane, who wrote; "I like the flow -- the freedom -- the not-so-subtle irreverent urging to think outside the box -- the joyful, (very) suggestive sauciness..." . This poet, Elizabeth Austen, is based in my original home, Seattle, and this poem appears here with her kind permission (the author…
grrlscientist | April 2, 2008tags: The Family is all There is, Pattiann Rogers, poetry, National Poetry Month
April is National Poetry Month, and I plan to post one poem per day, every day, this month (If you have a favorite poem that you'd like me to share, feel free to email it to me). Today's poem was suggested by my friend, Professor of Poetry at KSU, Elizabeth Dodd.
The Family Is All There Is
Think of those old, enduring connections
found in all flesh -- the channeling
wires and threads, vacuoles, granules,
plasma and pods, purple veins, ascending
boles and coral sapwood (sugar-
and light-filled), those common…
jlynch | March 28, 2008
Finding the Tracks
Along the river, under trees - jumbled tracks! Thick fragrant woods, is this the way? Though the ox wanders far in the hills, His nose touches the sky. He cannot hide.
K’uo-an (trans. Stanley Lombardo)
[image source]
grrlscientist | March 28, 2008tags: LBJ Journal, avian life: literary arts, nature, poetry, birds, birding
I have no connection whatsoever to this new journal, but my friend, professor of poetry at KSU, Elizabeth Dodd, told me about it last night, and I am very very excited about it.
There is a new biannual journal that is dedicated to birds and creative writing, The LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts. Those of you who are birders will recognize the title of this new journal, LBJ, as the birders' acronym for "little brown job" -- a name applied to that group of small brown birds that move quickly and are difficult to…
jlynch | March 20, 2008
Looking for the Ox
Searching through tall endless grass,Rivers, mountain ranges, the path trails off.Weary, exhausted, no place left to hunt:Maples rustle, evening, the cicada’s song.
K’uo-an (trans. Stanley Lombardo)
[image source]
chaoticutopia | February 20, 2008"A feminine text cannot fail to be more than subversive. It is volcanic; as it is written it brings about an upheaval of the old property crust, carrier of masculine investments; there’s no other way. There’s no room for her if she’s not a he. If she’s a her-she, it’s in order to smash everything, to shatter the framework of institutions, to blow up the law, to break up the truth with laughter.
For once she blazes her trail in the symbolic, she cannot fail to make of it the chaosmos of the personal--in her pronouns, her nous, and her clique of referents.... On the one hand she has…
aardvarchaeology | February 16, 2008
Here's a particularly fine song lyric from Californian 80s indie band Camper Van Beethoven, off of their 1989 disc Key Lime Pie. The song is a folky number in march time with violin, and David Lowery's singing is exquisitely pained and raw. Following this, they released no new material until 2004.
All Her Favorite Fruit
By David Lowery
I drive alone, home from work
And I always think of her
Well late at night I call her
But I never say a word
And I can see her squeeze the phone
between her chin and shoulder
And I can almost smell her breath
faint with a sweet scent of decay
She serves him…
aardvarchaeology | February 8, 2008
The past week I've twice heard Nirvana's 1993 song "Heart Shaped Box" on the radio. I realised that its lyrics have a number of remarkably powerful lines. Kurt Cobain was a talented man. Here are the song's two verses.
She eyes me like a Pisces when I am weak
I've been locked inside your heart-shaped box for weeks
I've been drawn into your magnet tar pit trap
I wish I could eat your cancer when you turn black
Meat-eating orchids forgive no one just yet
Cut myself on angel hair and baby's breath
Broken hymen of your highness, I'm left black
Throw down your umbilical noose so I can climb right…
chaoticutopia | February 1, 2008I figured I'd post this fractal set while it is still Friday somewhere (here in Colorado, for instance.) My thoughts on it follow below.
Flying in Vapor: A poem and a fractal for riding the waves
I know what it's like
To be down in the water
And tossed by the waves
Each day, crashing into the next
Pulling me, seething, frothing
Falling
Exhilarating ride through time
Through the tumbling surf
Dance on the shimmering crests
Only then to be pushed beneath
Into the surrounding, suffocating
Cold
Plunging and diving
Grows wearisome after a while
And so I'll ride above
Flying, so to speak…
jlynch | January 31, 2008
The Story of Isaac
The door it opened slowly,My father he came in,was nine years old.And he stood so tall above me,His blue eyes they were shiningAnd his voice was very cold.He said, Ive had a visionAnd you know Im strong and holy,I must do what Ive been told.So he started up the mountain,I was running, he was walking,And his axe was made of gold.
Well, the trees they got much smaller,The lake a ladys mirror,We stopped to drink some wine.Then he threw the bottle over.Broke a minute laterAnd he put his hand on mine.Thought I saw an eagleBut it might have been a vulture,I never could decide.…
jlynch | January 25, 2008>
Kindred
Musing, between the sunset and the dark,
As Twilight in unhesitating hands
Bore from the faint horizon’s underlands,
Silvern and chill, the moon’s phantasmal ark,
I heard the sea, and far away could mark
Where that unalterable waste expands
In sevenfold sapphire from the mournful sands,
And saw beyond the deep a vibrant spark.
There sank the sun Arcturus, and I thought:
Star, by an ocean on a world of thine,
May not a being, born like me to die,
Confront a little the eternal Naught
And watch our isolated sun decline--
Sad for his evanescence, even as I?
George Sterling
grrlscientist | January 20, 2008tags: mollusc, photography, subway art, art, Boston, Logan Airport
The photographer writes: I love the pictures you have posted of the subway mosaics. Thought you might be interested to know that other forms of transportation (Boston's Logan Airport) have attempted their own such art. Well, not really -- these are not elaborate terrazzos, but simply floor tile designs -- but they are still fun. There are sea stars, eels, angler fish, whales, seahorses, and of course octopuses, squid, and cuttlefish.
Image: Digital Cuttlefish [wallpaper size].
Your pictures I truly adore
So, for your…