This poetry contest should celebrate or mourn or somehow document diseases not of a sexual nature (non-sexually transmitted). Many poems have been written about AIDS and chlamydia, as well as herpes and Hepatitus C as aspects of the Sexual Revolution, and the concomitant casualties among its ardent soldiers. But what about other diseases? What about Lyme, and the swine flu, and the whooping cough, as well as Lou Gehrig's? Poems featuring stressed joints such as Carpal Tunnel, or knee pain, dental misery, will also be considered.
Autobiographical or absurd, trenchant or sorrowful, amusing or tragic, historical and contemporary, all poems are accepted. The contest will end on November 11th of next week, which is Veterans Day. Everyone is entitled to two submissions.
All those who enter the contest are entitled to vote, but you can't vote for your own poem or poems. You have to vote for someone else's (voting is not obligatory -- it is a right that you can choose to forego). Winner receives a subscription to the Center for Disease Control's monthly electric newsletter: a Howl for our times, for sure.
78 comments:
Foxophila
Please give to the cure!
Tortured souls lost to reason,
Doleful howls, to endure.
O'Reilly reads treason,
From a red lettered page,
For 'tis now ratings season.
His watchers doth rage,
And thence off to Beck,
where delusion takes stage.
Please write a check,
And swift heaing assure,
for these pains in the neck.
The Deviated Sceptum Blues
OR
An ode to western medicine (First Draft, real time)
Oh sweet sceptum, how deviated
Crooked sinus, bacteria infections
On Vitamin C and G.S.E fixated
Those hippie doctor's fave confections.
But lo, behold, the sick don't go!
It stays and swells and keeps me down,
A magic potion's what I look fo'
'Till the Western Doctor comes around
It's simple, friend! He softly said
You've got a problem in your head
Your bones are bent, your head's unfit
To drain the snot into your gut.
a tweak of that, a flick of wrist
All will be will! I promise this.
You'll get boogies now instead of mucus
And nevermore be ever-sick.
Sweet Life! I be free again,
From the always-nose-infection,
But then the soar throats come back to me.
Stat, say I, bring on the tonsillectomy!
no way can i match the previous two poems
but shit
here goes
tooth implant
difficult to express
how this prosthetic tooth feels
like a stone in my jaw
very expensive pain
somedays i cry
a seering jolt of pain
goes from my jaw just below my left nostril
right up around my skull
drugs leave you dull
what i cannot figure out
is
why i would pay to be
in
so much pain
john hanson osb
O my shadow limb!
God has taken you to Him
so now I must swim
parabolically; dim
memories of you, limb
tingle like megrim
as if my head were at the brim
of my shoulder, a victim
mysterious as thummim,
like Utnapishtim
subject to divine whim
I shall remember you, limb
whenever I play Tiny Tim.
LYME
I talked with the doctor at the
Faculty Retreat.
He was going to teach Anatomy.
Said he had Lyme,
And that he was only good a few hours every day,
That he'd go to bed every night
With cold sweats.
His kid babysat for us a few times.
A bright kid on his way to Harvard Law in a few years.
Meanwhile, his dad had been a top doctor in Manhattan, but had a disease even he couldn't diagnose.
Years blew past.
They thought it was Chronic Fatigue.
Maybe he had Herpes.
Maybe this, maybe that.
Finally they figured out it was Lyme, but couldn't cure it.
They'd blast it with medicine, and he'd feel better, yet it would come back.
The headaches were the worst.
Seven years at the time he'd been driven before the bug (Seven years under the weather, unable to function, but he had a good pension from the hospital so they could still get along)
I looked up the disease
And was shocked at the number
Of people who had it,
And couldn't get well.
The doctor had gotten it on a day hike.
A few years ago he committed suicide.
You can't write that & say you don't like Plath. . .
TINNITUS (a prose poem)
OH MY GOD WHY WON'T THE RINGING EVER STOP?
PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE MAKE THE RINGING STOP
NAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
kirby has stated elsewhere that plath did not have a sense of humour
whereas ted hughes did have a sense of humour
gm it would appear
that your little ode
to amputation
leaves the rest of us in a dust storm
swim parabolically
that's priceless
and i never knew the meaning
of megrim
if i've ever seen the word
stu may have let the politics of the day drown out
the problems of health crises
seems like we were primed for a poetry contest
this saturday i will
sing the blues brett
at a local dive here
i will dedicate my townes
van zandt covers to you
close your eyes
tecumseh valley
and pancho and lefty
i'm due to learn a few more townes tunes
autumn is the time of poetry for it is the time of harvest
the poem is a harvest of sorts
anyway i think plathe would have treated the subject matter with a lot more dourness than kirby does
she would have shown this doctor sitting in the office surrounded by the best medicine in the world
and pondering his utter helplessness thinking about the kitchen stove or the garage
but i registered immediately with what you mean
perhaps the greatest futility we face on this blog is trying to understand kirby
i hope the girls weigh in with poems of troubling sickness and medical despair
jh
I object also to Plath's florid language.
Bacterial Meningitis
At two weeks old, my mother sensed a fever
My body did not yet express.
They pumped antibiotics
Straight into my head.
Something in me likes to believe
It was the first time my father prayed.
Thanks for the dedication JH!
Do you know To Live is To Fly? Definitely a Townes song that needs to be in your Repertoire...
And Many A Fine Lady would be Awesome coming from a monk:-)
Billy, Boney and Ma is a good'n if you need to go somewhere weird - I needs to learn it myself.
I too liked GM's "swim parabolically"
I think we need more stuff like that in this contest. Let's give everyone at least three tries, so that we can try to raise to the level of GM's parabolic swimmer.
I never said IT WASN'T passed by other means, but they are also passed in that way.
In the same way, AIDS can be transferred via transfusion, or through boxing, or by any means in which blood is exchanged.
It doesn't mean that it's not also an STD.
You have this very strict dichotomous thinking that you keep attributing to the rest of us, but you are by far the worst offender.
You are so stupid that it's almost strange.
STDs of course can be transferred in other ways. Herpes can be transferred in a great number of ways besides sex. Why is your logic so narrow. It's like you're in some kind of teeny box and are afraid to think outside of it.
In other words, you're not thinking. Since you've come here, you haven't actually told anybody anything except that you are a strange guy who desperately needs help. Get the help, take the meds, and come back.
Also, read the Wiki page on your best friend, Lovecraft.
A racist from the ground up.
Look at the mote in your own eye, please, and start seeing a professional or two. Thank you.
Hepatitus C Wikipedia Page:
Sexual transmission of HCV is considered to be rare. Studies show the risk of sexual transmission in heterosexual, monogamous relationships is extremely rare or even null.[17][18] The CDC does not recommend the use of condoms between long-term monogamous discordant couples (where one partner is positive and the other is negative).[19] However, because of the high prevalence of hepatitis C, this small risk may translate into a non-trivial number of cases transmitted by sexual routes. Vaginal penetrative sex is believed to have a lower risk of transmission than sexual practices that involve higher levels of trauma to anogenital mucosa (anal penetrative sex, fisting, use of sex toys).[20]"
The contact is through blood. It is the same route as AIDS.
Try to read, try to think! It's almost very important!
My Grandfather
Syringomyelia
Back when my grandfather was young,
The father of two girls, four boys,
He got a pain in his back.
No big deal in the hubbub and noise
Of his Lutheran parish.
Weren’t there many suffering worse?
Didn’t he preside at funerals
And send folks away in a hearse?
He didn’t have time to even know
What the pain was, or even what
It would become, that it would grow.
But with years, the pain started to cut
And scrape his very nerves, it seemed.
So he paid a visit to his doc.
“Syringomyelia” he said,
After much looking through rare books.
“You will experience increasing
Pain for the rest of your life.
And I have a question, does your wife
Work? She’ll need to soon, to support
Your family. You’ll have to retire.”
“What?!” grandfather said, “I can’t do that.”
“This rare disease will conspire
Against every remaining day
And sooner than not, steal you away.”
“I’m so sorry” the doctor said.
“But in a few years you’ll be dead.”
Thirty years my grandfather said “NO!”
And my grandmother with him,
Til mercifully the lights dimmed
And Syringomyelia let go.
More from Wikipedia:
"Sexual activities and practices were initially identified as potential sources of exposure to the hepatitis C virus. More recent studies question this route of transmission. Currently it is felt to be a means of rare transmission of hepatitis C infection. These are simply the current known modes of transmission and due to the nature of Hepatitis there may be more ways that it is transmitted than the current known methods."
My information may have been out of date but this is different from lying or knowingly prevaricating. Besides, it says that the sexual means of transmission is being QUESTIONED. This doesn't mean that it has been ruled out.
I never said it was the only way.
Again, you just don't seem to be able to think, or to even care to think about the truth.
It's quite puzzling. You think of yourself as a scientist of some sort, and yet you read lame racist porn like Lovecraft, and can't think straight on almost any topic.
Why don't you check yourself in, mate?
Yr little Lovecraft rant/reaction doesn't mean jack either, Kirby O. I quoted a paragraph, and said I respected HPL's prose style. That doesn't mean I agree with his views (and anyway, he died before WWII, and evidence suggested HPL objected to the nazis)
Kirby - remember what you said about ignoring J?
I think that's a good approach. Do it. Don't 'pick up the rope.'
Otherwise, you're becoming mean and/or frustrated, and you don't need to let J have that power.
In a brownstone called the Wilsonian
Little old ladies and little old men
Sit around staring cold death in the face.
We met each other in that lonely place.
Cancer it was that tried to destroy her,
Skin deep it ravaged Rose Mary Warrior,
Beauty unmarred, yet a sight none too pretty,
The Black Panther Queen of OK City.
To Seattle she came to cure her condition,
In just three months time, complete remission,
A sharecropper's daughter far, far from home,
No one to hold her at night so alone.
Her man, Carl, he bustin' rock in state pen,
His getaway got him two years to ten.
A thug at heart, but an actress by trade,
On stage in Medea a fury she played.
"Hey doo-dah," she said, she knew not my name,
"You shoot pool? If so I'll play you a game."
Now what's a poor vagrant white boy to do?
"You bet your shortcake I'll shoot pool with you."
Three hours a day on a table she lay,
While machines above her would hum and sway,
Hair fallen out, nails eaten away,
Cramps and nausea the rest of the day.
"I ain't going back tomorrow," she'd say.
I lived her death, she dyed my life,
Could a bond be closer 'twixt man and wife?
Our souls alloyed in two moons' span,
What did that black woman to this white man?
craig i have a confession
and you've allowed me to state it publicaly at least cyberly
i love narrative poems
this thing you wrote is great
i loved it the minute i got through it i read it again
i'm sitting here literally stunned
i'm not even going to bother submitting another poem
it's over
thanks for that
i heard yevgeny yevteshenko tonite
or sort of heard him
the sound system of course
was messed up but his spirit charged through richly
he went back and forth with some guests between english and russian
and it would have been really fine had i been able to hear the half i never got to hear...but it it sort f interesting with a guy like that
he dances dn moves and does some acting facial expressions russian moods exaggerated clown antics -- and it was almost to the point where i could say the words aren't that important it's the expressions
there were moments that i felt miles away from the poet and he was maybe 50 ft from me and the sound system sukked
but i am delighted to have been in his presence nonetheless
his style is loaded with graciousness
and goofiness
his poems politically economically historically charged
An unmourned condition is fixed easily enough
A pill, a dilation or a scraping’s enough
A parasite, a leech, a vampire’s fangs
Burrowing deep into the wall of an organ
That has no reason to be
Except when that parasite digs its roots in
When you lose your flat stomach
And your boyfriend tells you
You’d better lose it or you’ll lose him
Then you drag your feet to the clinic
And they make you hate
The heartbeat that threatens to ruin your
36/24/38
A heart that beats at only eighteen days
Tits will sag and
Rotundous ass will repulse him
And disappoint your parents
They’ll never forgive you
But as they give you the shot that makes you forget
And your eyes close
You can’t help but think—is he an Einstein; is she a Curie
Can they help save the starving in Africa?
Or is he just a loafer in the making, a druggie,
A good for nothing fucker like me
Who messes up his life and ends up
Screwing a girl who doesn’t know any better
And before you know it you’re all on welfare,
Making more kids you know will turn out just like you?
Or does God with His grace have a say
In this day and age of convenience and
Lack of concern
For the least among us,
The most fragile souls
Who live and die at our childish discretion.
You thought you said stop
But when you wake up, you’re all alone
In a very cold room with a sanity napkin
between
the thighs that once gripped him.
Somewhere in a drain, in a sewer
In a plastic bag,
Lives a priest, a prophet, a king,
A wife, a mother,
A scientist, a philanthropist
Who will never see the day.
So you shuffle back to your house,
Your apartment,
Your high-school or your
Dorm
You put on your p.j.’s and hope you’ll someday forgive
Yourself.
And pray.
i may have spoken too soon
emmy has given the whole thing a new bar raised high
wow emmy
way to tackle the troubled issue
i like the whole thing
from beginning to end
i may have to throw in another poem
just to save face
i wish i had waited till morning to read this
and not now before i go to sleep
it's that troubling
but perhaps i can pray some too
for my sistes in so much pain
thanks
jh
Thank you, JH
Pray for our sisters in conflict and in pain.
God loves the least of these, and also their mothers.
I'll be praying tonight for their souls and hearts.
Son of a bitch, Emmy.
"sanity napkin" is brilliant.
Not that it's a surprise, JH, but I love narrative, too.
Craig & Emmy are hittin' the rhymes hard (though, Craig we need to work on that scansion I think).
Looks like I might have to quit screwin' around and write something if I want to be the king of this poetry heap.
Emmy's poem is out in front. I unleash this little one without hope of reaching it.
Foxophobia
Fear of a news network?
Against the grain
O'Reilly, Hannity, Beck & co.
Attack the administration's czars,
Its incompetent liars,
Its Maoist redistribution schemes,
While the president and his men
Sound the bugle, & give chase.
The Fox gives them the slip,
Discussing hedge funds,
Elaborate funding dinners,
& how the white House is now a hotel
For anyone with ready cash.
Fear of a network?
The whole left is in zigzags,
As the chasers become the chased.
I call it Eight Ball In The Side Pocket. I wrote it about thirty years ago. I had written only one poem previously, but that one didn't really count because the writing was involuntary. It was supposed to be a five page paper for a Shakespeare course. This one was originally a five page short story that a creative writing instructor thought needed to be a novella.
Aww, you guys are very kind. G.M. is a real poet, and to get encouragement from him feels REALLY good, I have to say! Craig's poem was not short of fantastic, Brett's deviated septum blues--I mean a poem about a deviated septum! That's super! Kirby, did that doctor really kill himself? Oh my God, that's awful.
I'm not very good with verse in general, but I think the thing about abortion is the silence surrounding it. It is a hot-button topic, but when you think about the people involved, a troubled and conflicted mother who says nothing for fear of having to justify her decision, a Doctor bound by confidentiality, a baby who can't even make sounds yet with her voicebox, it is very sad.
Sometimes I wonder if it would be better to talk about it even if you don't agree with someone's decision to have an abortion. The whole industry seems awful "back-alley" to me, even though it is supposedly safer than it used to be. It crushes souls in silence and that's something I can't tolerate.
"supposedly safer" becuase coroners are instructed to not report deaths as due to abortion -- they're due to hemorrage or infection. Never hemorrage or infection due to abortion. Sad but true.
pedofoxomania
a disease from which
one can never be cured
if the child takes the time to
listen to foxnews
she will surely be abused
by
the fox
all the blue there is an affront
to the eyeball
blue public indecent exposure
lesson one
don't be too sure about
knowitalls
one stares in disbelief
that righteousness has
such command
the voice of radical
self confidance
smashes into the soundscape
dishes smashing
afterwards
we all feel really dirty
this blue gunk
all over my new shetland wool sweater
h ha ha ha han han han hannity gets to smirk and say
with his { } look -.-.-. i get to do
this
it means (absolutely) nothing at all ^^^^^ *&*& ]\
but and i do mean
but
i get paid in one (sundays not included) month more than you'll ever make
so phuq U you
ssorry american bastardss...or am i reading
2 much mush into rinto winto ginto finto binto
that that that
commercial vomit
nothing to
clean it up
just sit ss
in a stewing pile
fermenting
as
it
were
a forgotten death
in an abandoned hospital
(!!) ==
As with Bagels and with Lox
or Tel Aviv ho's suckin' cox--
wealthy perps do crave their Fox
QE f-n D
finally J has shown
that he can do rhymes
J your rant and banter sounds to me
like
a drunken hannity
hannity with
profannity
the guy who proves
with extraordinary effort
every night
simply nothing
unless i'm mistaken
i've just been called a
monk girl
Throw mocks at Fox,
Learned asses--
Your prof-nik sasses
Are but a pox.
Yet for the contemptible pc major media mouthpieces in their alphabet soup, state-run Pravdas as for "know-nothing" Pasha Obama who fancy "problematising" the most recent free-lance act of domestic Islamofascist jihadi terrorism, Pope will do:
"Lo! thy dread Empire, CHAOS! is restored;
Light dies before thy uncreating word:
Thy hand, great Anarch! lets the curtain fall;
And universal Darkness buries All."
Prayers for the dead, their families, friends, and comrades-in-arms.
And . . . never forget!
My vote goes to the missing limb.
a person disposed to be a persistant pain in the ass will take up almost all the energy
br john hanson's physical axioms for the 21st century
i'm amazed that not one person has commented on the rather real and gut wrenching poem by w b picklesworth
first thing i read today
man
whats' to say
and i thought of this web of weave of words and persons on this blog spog run by kirby that it is sort of a very expensive weaving complete with that craftsman sense of weaving imperfection into the warp and woof
curtis and ed baker the two very best practioners of poetica have not deemed this contest a worthy whirl nor has rhetorical jadl the pros are letting the amateurs haggle it out in the trenches
i thought sally might drop a bomb about health care but no
i'm simply amazed to be here
jh
John, my "real" name is John. It's on my birth certificate. But two other kids on my block were John, and so my parents started using the middle name, and then I got to choose when I was about four. I loved making the choice.
Maybe you could just have us call you Kirby, to confuse everything.
Thanks for sticking in here with me.
Communism is to Nazism what Lyme is to AIDS.
For some reason, many people think of Lyme and Communism as at best innocuous, and not as the deadly evils that they really are -- at least as bad as the latter half of each of the comparisons, they nevertheless do not rally objections as they should.
Lyme is really truly horrifying, as is communism.
What's really funny is that many people see communism as good because it's somehow well-intentioned. Perhaps the name LYME is also associated with a nice town in Connecticut and with deer instead of with decades of headaches.
Not a poem, but just meant to inspire a bit more poetry.
Poetry can change perceptions and inspire funding battles!
20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin wall!
In 20 years I hope we have conquered Lyme. But maybe we ought to rename it by some nastier name somehow.
Capitalism (Marx's term) should also be renamed something like individual market freedom, or something.
Poetry can rename everythng, and juggle the order of values thereby!
Oh what the heck--one more poem!
A poem in honor of my grandmother who died of Alzheimer's. At the end, she thought we were all characters from her favorite books, and that suited us fine!
Sometimes late at night
She wakes to check the alarm clock
It’s 2am and no one lay beside her
In social security
A man named John loves her so
And wants to be her husband
But no
Two checks are better than one.
At 9am she wakes herself
To the silence of an alarm set to 9pm
And makes coffee without the filter
Before running a bath she’s forgotten.
The bubbles get flat, and the water runs over
And the apartment below bangs with a broom
But they might as well bang on an old musty tomb
For all the attention she pays them.
For she’s out and about with her old newest blouse
And she’s trying to find the cleaners
She knows it’s on Miller or Muller or Mueller
But is it in St. Paul’s or St. John’s?
There’s a party tonight and she’s been invited
And darned if she won’t be looking her best
But how did she get to this old bus station
And it’s way downtown.
But which town?
Someone in a crowd takes her hand,
And takes her purse, and a strange face promises help
His lips move and say he’s John but she doesn’t remember
And he knows he can’t help, but he tries.
At 5pm in the evening, not in the morning,
People gather round as she enters the hall
She feels like a princess as people hug her
And ask her how she’s been and if she remembers them.
Of course she remembers; that one there’s Jane,
And over there’s Dick and his little dog Spot,
Just at the other table are the boys named Hardy,
And a little girl named Nancy Drew.
Oh! She musn’t forget sweet Elizabeth Bennet
And her new groom Fitzwilliam Darcy,
They got married last June
Or is she now Emma Knightley?
No matter, she says,
“I don’t know who you are
But I’m having a wonderful time!”
Settling home after a very big day,
Grandma pads about her flat
In slippered feet
Wondering just where the kitchen’s got to
And thinking
Just how good things were in the good old days.
Em's first poem is probably the one to beat in this contest. I think everybody should try to top that one. My poem about the guy at work was partially invented. He didn't stick around as an adjunct and may have gotten back to health by now. I didn't know. I confess I added the bathos of the suicide. It was a poem, and in a poem, you can invent stuff, as it's a kind of fiction. Or is it? Is that fair to tamper with the truth, in poems?? That is, in order to make the pattern stronger and more meaningful? Perhaps that's a topic for another thread, another day.
LYME AS COMMUNISM
It came as a kiss
And ended as a curse
The event under the apple tree
Didn't result in a sudden insight
But in a tick bite
That took years to develop.
Communism can be like that.
You're just sitting around,
While someone else is plotting
World government.
It might be just a phrase
Hidden in an appendix of a 1900-
page document.
Oh, did you miss it?
It says you're on your way to jail
If you criticize Karl Marx
Or his homies.
The country turns pale
With bright red blotches over it.
Catholics beheaded.
Lutherans emigrate to Mexico
By underground railroad,
And a grave illness sets in.
It seems to have no inception.
No key moment.
No one even felt the initial bite.
Kirby, your Lyme/Communism poem is fantastic!
"World government [. . .] Hidden in an appendix of a 1900-
page document."
Youch! I love that!
Actually, the other day I wondered if there were something hidden in one of these bills that get rubber stamped and never actually read.
And no one felt the initial bite...
That's fantastic, Kirby. I love the analogy. I'm thinking I might vote for this one, but Picklesworth's poem was really good, and I do have do say I'm rather partial to Jacques' "Pasha Obama." This is going to be a close one!
Kirby, you've given me something to think about!
Thanks, Em! You're the best poet in the line so far, I think. Yours is the one to beat.
Let's open it up so everyone can do as many poems as they want. Everyone except J. I don't want to hear from him any longer.
kirby:
"felt the first bite"
Alliteration, man!
what i worry about in the whole lyme thing kirby is that you somehow think you've arrived at the true problem with humanity that it really did begin with a tick bite and we're all suffering from the lyme disease and nobody realizes this
but if we could just take care of lyme disease life would be better and we could go a long way in curtailing the effects of original sin and the sad delusions of life as well and the marxists would go away and peace and harmony would reign in peoria illinois
as a theological proposition there are flaws in that for if you're making a case for universal understanding you undoubtedly have to pass through the halls of theology
and while i may go so far as to agree that a certain degree of civility would ensue if we would simply focus on the right diseases i am not at all sure that the condition of mankind would sustain a happy harmonius existence for very long
i mean
it always descends into some sort of squalor no matter what does it not
health care with a shut door on the abortion issue
girls are crying all over the place because govt won't help them by giving them reprorights
maybe repro is a gift un deduced
i applaud what the democrats pulled out in the house
health care should be more about the care than the busniness of it all
you seem to be favoring emmy in the contest and it seems a littel paternalistic to me i think she has put together soem fine poems but there are others in the list who have exhibited real poetic sensetivity no matter how overrated the sentiment
i mean just because emmy has florid prose and can argue a point with sharp blade like precision it doesn't necessarily follow that she rules the roost over here with her poems of social justice on the human level...i think even bretts first zannee effort into clinical vaudeville carries an edge a meaning more fitting in the realm of lutheran surrealism as i understand it
i'm not sure that emmy has displayed the virtue of deep clownishness to which the rest of us or almost all of us aspire
and i would simply like to have you stick to your aesthetic guns as it were and take the fake arrow off your head or put it back on whatever
i mean we're not to be serious here is we
jh
Fair enough that human misery itself won't be ended if we end Lyme disease, but one kind of misery will end for the specific kids who have it.
I think it can be ended. Lyme has such a long causal chain that even such a relatively blunt instrument as a helicopter gunship could end if the president would just give the orders.
AIDS keeps morphing and has a strange causal chain that can be defended against if people stay away from sharing needles, or each other's filthy butts.
There are infinite miseries, but some miseries are more finite than others. Lyme strikes me as a very finite misery that could easily be pounded to earth with 50 million bullets from helicopter gunships.
50 million dollars would probably also produce a medical breakthrough.
I don't know if anything can save us from communist sympathizers, another mental malady, to my mind far worse than Fox News (which could be the cure, and is not worse than the disease).
but of course we all differ as we do on the evaluation of our poems.
All poems are good, even if they are bad, because poetry itself is a net good.
but all poetry can always be better. No poem is perfect, just as no person is perfect.
i'm with you on the needlws adn the filthy buts stuff
pal
there should be some rules about all that
i tuned into fox news for a bit last night and was rather edified by the level of discussion about the state of the dysfunctional union of USA
event eh pretty blond haired young lady who looded liek she was just out of college had something substantial to say
amid the sea of babble
i find myself wishing that it was all in black and white again
all the intense color is just too damn much
jh
i think i shall compose a pome about
carpaltunnel syndrome
there'sa bit of a disconnect between my brain my wrist and my fingers
i may have to see a doctor
aghhh!!!
Apparently the wrist bones are called the Carpal bones. A biology instructor taught me this on the elevator today.
What does the word mean, etymologically?
I liked the Picklesworth poem. It made me think of my grandfather who died twenty years before I was born, when my dad was five years old. My grandfather was an evangelical minister in what has since become the United Methodist church. He didn't have syringomyelia. The obit I saw in the newspaper from the town of Jefferson, Wisconsin, called it a "respiratory collapse." I suppose it could have been TB or a stroke or perhaps just the result of working in a sawmill from the age of 13 until he was 25.
When two of his younger sisters were old enough to teach school he went away to college with an eighth grade education in 1909. The college had an institute and a seminary. Apparently the institute and the college were free if you agreed in advance to attend the seminary. He made up four years of high school in two years at the institute, went through college in four and after two years at seminary he was ordained in 1916. His collapse came in 1930.
He didn't linger in pain for 30 years. He died two years later in 1932. The last funeral my grandfather officiated may have been in 1930 for a fellow German-American, a man who was about the same age as my grandfather. The obituary for him said he belonged to the Methodist Episcopal church and worked for the federal government in the Department of Agriculture. He had a Ph.D. in plant pathology. The obit said the highlight of his career was a trip to Europe in 1914 when he visited botanical gardens in London, Paris, and half a dozen different cities in Germany. He was in Dresden when war was declared. The trip ended when he was recalled to the United States because of the war.
the wiki bleep say
carpal relate t
carpus meaning wrist
in a verb form to
pluck or sieze
as n carpe diem
craig i always find your ongoing narratives fascinating
personal history always resonates a little clearer than the more generalized approach
i suffer from literary snowblindnes
jh
Here's my second submission.
Aquagenic Pruritus
Fires you’d never believe crawl
over my skin like succubi
then disappear, and I have spent
an age not knowing what this meant,
but now in deathless books I scry
“fires you’d never believe,” crawl
into the pages, and eat all
the words as if they’d clarify
but disappear; and I had spent
years scratching for an abirritant
but the only cure is to “get by.”
Fires you’d never believe crawl,
claw, tear, and gnaw me in their squall
until it would be bliss to die.
Fires you’d never believe crawl
then disappear and leave me spent.
(Since Kirby has to approve the comments anyway, I'm hoping he'll use this version; I like the line breaks better -- thanks, Kirby!)
Aquagenic Pruritus
Fires you’d never believe crawl
over my skin like succubi
then disappear, and I have spent
an age not knowing what this meant,
but now in deathless books I scry
“fires you’d never believe,” crawl
into the pages, and eat all
the words as if they’d clarify
but disappear; and I had spent
years scratching for an abirritant
but the only cure is to “get by.”
Fires you’d never believe crawl,
claw, tear, and gnaw me in their squall
until it would be bliss to die.
Fires you’d never believe crawl
then disappear and leave me spent.
I thought we had until tomorrow to write the poems! So here's one, not as finished, nor quite as polished as I'd like, but still, I hope, worthy.
Oh, for a longer line...
Mathophobia
The unenlightened see only symbols,
their darkness not penetrating the meaning within.
In mute confusion they consider the question,
their answer echoes their perplexity.
Designed conundrums do not live on a featureless plane,
answers lie at the bottom of tended slopes.
The insensate climb mountains of their own erection,
the steep rocky path that leads away from what they seek.
THE UNDERARM'S ILL-DEFINED EMERGENCY
The underarm stinks
It's the way it traps moisture
Leading many to tortured regret
Should government jump in
& decare a national take-over
of the deodorant industry?
Billions spent
Target the moisture &
Turning the wheels of the economy.
Soap, deodorant, prayer:
Nuances of fragrance
To make us forget Neanderthal smells.
An olio of pomp & pulchritude but
Could government do it better?
Obama's men write a 1900-page bill,
To push through the turnstyles
Of legislature: fines for not
Wearing government cologne,
Penalties for non-purchase.
Surely that will provide jobs,
Obama thinks,
And puts out his cigarette:
Having solved another emergency.
Entries can continue to come in until midnight, but these are my last minutes on the computer for today. I shall send everything through in the morning. Let's reserve voting until 6 pm Thursday evening, the 12th.
I apologise for the slow-down of messages, but I rather like not having to feel the explosions of J., and the lesser explosions of some of my more committed blog members (Only JH never really caused me concern along these lines, I must confess, although Brett has changed his tunes a lot of late).
Plus, I have to confess, it's rather fun to be a dictator. I could get used to this.
the only problem is emigration!
I might lose my whole citizenry!
Oh well, that's a problem all dictatorships face, but meanwhile, oh, the peace!
my vote is for emmybee's abortion poem.
GM,
I LOVE Aquagenic Pruritus. I almost feel pervy with how much I like it! Your penultimate line, and the ending stanza were just perfetto! Top marks for that one--this poem's in my final 4!
Stu,
Great poem for us Matho-phobes! You've caught it so precisely! I'm very surprised that you can even imagine what it is like for someone who isn't or thinks she isn't good at maths, what with your being so prodigiously brilliant at it. Good work! Much better than Foxophilia, if I do say so :)
I'm voting also for Emmy's first anti-abortion poem.
EB:
I definitely don't like having Aquagenic pruritis, but I'm damn glad to know I'm not crazy. Can't wait to see whose poem comes out on top!
MP
my friend seems to sleep too much
more than half the day
he claims his pillow
is the anodyne to the tension
he cannot help but feel
he does not understand the rush
he has nothing more to say
to humanity, would wallow
in a room in a mansion
in a fishermans' creel
he is not lazy as lazy goes
he is not disinterested
he does not begrudge
the madness all around
he only prefers to ignore
with sleep
with sleep
sole valuable activity
one has to protect against bedsores
but that's about it
this is an illness which is it's own cure
somnomombastasis
a sleep dance always performed in the horizontal position
might sleep be
the ultimate
responsibility
doctor patient one
the final civility
my last entry
my vote goes to the poem of
picklesworth
the explorations into the given theme of the contest were superlative all the way around i think picklesworth outdoes us all in terms of technical attention to important details of making poems
everyone else seems to come in a close second on my score sheet again i'm being ignored because i dared to be inventive and explore styles approaching the avantegard of the 21st century of course i will be disregarded because well if we haven't noticed not only is kirby rethinking the political value of stalin he is taking an interest in the inherent assertiveness and logic of such cultural maneuvering so i don't stand a chance hell might end up in prison
i should hope they'd supply some paper and writing tools at least there...i can see it now kirby writing to obama requesting rulership over the gulags of american literature
yeah so i have a chance to win this contest? like a donkey will win the preakness or something
o no i'm not bitter i'm just tired of the neglect makes me sad boohoo for all i put out here the only reason i'm here is
I"M A CYBERORPHAN
HEP M JESU
i knock on the door of lutheran surrealism church and the door opens and what
i'm walking in an escher print
i would warn everyone that perhaps we shouldn't be taken in by the offer for a vote
kirby will decide at last because
in case you haven't noticed
he's getting a little drunk
on authoritarianism :/)
(chuckle)
All votes should be in by 6 pm today (Thursday) in order to count.
I cast my vote for Emmy's first.
Only one hour to vote!
My vote goes to Emmy's poem about Alzheimers. It left me both sad and smiling.
God this is so hard! I've had to make a decision, but if I could, I'd vote three times!
For me, the decision was between Kirby's Lyme as Communism, GM's Aquagenic Pruritis, and Picklesworth's My Grandfather; Syringomyelia.
By a very very tiny margin, since I have to make a choice, I vote for My Grandfather; Syringomyelia.
Kirby:
Count my vote for Emmy's first poem (I sent this in yesterday by email as well)--JA
Emmy is the winner for her first poem against abortion. She will receie a lifetime subscribe to the Center for Disease Control monthly newsletter! Congratulations to Emmy!
5 votes to Emmy's first poem
1 vote to Emmy's second poem
1 vote for GM's poem Syringomylia
Remember, the important thing is participation, not winning!
Next contest (start your engines) will be on the conflict between Puritans and Native Americans and shall conclude on Thanksgiving Night at midnight. I shall post separately on this tomorrow afternoon, announcing a new contest!
All hail Emmy, great poet of us all, and on Thanksgiving -- may she be toppled by yet a better poet -- or hold her crown for yet another fortnight!
picklesworth
has at least one vote
or
don't my votes count
at least i can trust emmyz tastes for she saw what i saw in the grandfather poem the GREAT grandfather poem...my knee jerk reaction was to say
this blog is actually anticatholic
but then i thought no hey wait a minute the winner is catholic so it can't be that then i thought hey it's OK to experiment on this blog but not too much i mean i was stretchin it out there and not even a GD honorable mention
brett was right this is like summer camp and the lead counselor is a tyrannt ( and reportedly getting worse) yeah and just like the...o what the hell i concede emmy wrote a great poem...maybe there is no justice in poetry...nothing objective about it at all....i could go on and on chewing this gristle of a poetic judgement or i guess i could do the gentlemanly thing and just go down on one knee and give the rose of victory to emmy...i mean i guess i'd have to give her a prize just for stickin with this crowd of clowns...she should have a flower to go with her year subscription to global epidemic or whatever that rag is called
she done herself and her ole man jacques proud this time around
real catholic girls are smarter yet
yahoo
jh
I have been assuming that Picklesworth is GM, but I could be wrong.
At any rate congratulations to all who entered. I liked Stu's math poem enormously, read it through several times. I'm amazed that a mathematician can write a poem.
I can't write in math.
1+1=7
That's how I think at least, get two people together and there are at least seven opinions if at least one of them is me, as I will shift opinions just to keep the conversation going, or so it seems to me.
Congratulations again to Emmy. We are looking forward to your first volume.
We would welcome back poems from Sally, although the women too often win.
Thanks so much to everyone for participating.
I think we should have a poetry contest next about Indians and cowboys, or Puritans and Indians.
For Thanksgiving. do those parameters seem ok?
Kirby,
Why would you assume I'm Picklesworth? I certainly like his posts here, but I'm not him. Very odd of you.
His turn of mind reminded me of yours.
heye when you start pullin this midsummernightsdream schlock it all get's a little weird
i'm all for people being who they are and not someone else
can't we believe that people are honest about who they are and what they do in the blog world
if not
hey i'm out of here
it's like living in a weirdly contorted novel written by atransgender criminal in for life
hurling venom at the world for natural injustices
should not this be a place of contortion of poetry a sort of yoga studio of interconnected cognitive entities stretching toward the same dharma point get your eyes off her dharma bum
i shall from here on in play the minimaliste
can we choose our roles
roll on big river roll on
jh
It is quite correct that I am not GM. (Nor am I W.B. Picklesworth, strictly speaking.) I am a Lutheran. And thanks for the positive comments.
i
m no math genius either but her'e zwhat i've figured out i mean this is corruption at the highest most devious levels
first let me say while i think it honorable for a husband to vote for his wife in these matters it is a matter that should at least exist in the rule book as a questionable practice jacques should be obligated to defer his vote to sommeone else ( i would've been more than willing to receive his vote by the way) i mean because in effect he is voting for himself...so that's one vote
the other thing is look kirby you thought pickleworth a lutheran was gm palmer the enlightened baptist so at least one vote is probably to picklesworth there i mean you screwed up somewhere along the way
so that would mean
3 to 3
i know you think 2 + 1 = 16 and i agree there is a certan symmetry about all that that is attractive but we're living in the real world here dude or havent you noticed people are dying for some poetry and i think if you're going to run contests like this you should mandate some more well defined rules for us or else throw us willy nilly to the winds of the muses and hope for the best and what good would that do i mean a bunch of forlorned deranged poets wondering why nobody pays any attention to them walking the streets pushing abandoned shopping carts wheels squeeeking hey buddy you have a couple bucks for a cup o coffee
no i think your policies encourage persoanl decadence
once this sort of tyranny got into the russian soul it was all over
years and years in the gulags
but we must admit
some great russian writing emerged from the gulags
so maybe all the blood does just wash into the ditch and disappear
JUSTICE HERSELF CRIES JUSTICE!!
jh
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