poets Alexander Beetle wandering around staring at nothing the faraway look in their eyes mouths barely moving no sounds coming out same pained expression on their faces spiral notebooks clutched in hand sometimes carried in a backpack or a purse or something ye ken well what i mean anyway always black ink i've never seen it otherwise always black ink scrawled lightly or stamped deeply it all depends on how depressed they were when they were writing they're all depressed you know you hardly ever see a happy poem and when you do you just know there was some kind of raging inferno lurking just beneath the surface you can just tell by looking at it their parents worry about them they usually dress all in black but that's not a requirement if they're not depressed then they're mad actually now that i think about it it's probably the mad ones who write all the happy poems that makes sense doesn't it dance dance dance but i digress i was trying to make a point here but i forgot what it was oh yes now i remember i hate poets i think maybe it was something else before but that's what it is now yep 010501 ... mushroomman dream of a rose as beautiful as this.. 010601 ... marjorie looks as though you'll have to prove it if you want to be called it. tapered tarrycloth time tables... and alliteration for everyone 010601 ... rollins have you ever seen poets? what a miserable fuckin bunch for the most part. i mean thers a few shining stars here and there. but thers a lot of substitute teachers who teach at harvard college in long beach and they dress in 800 year old courderoys and drive old fucked up toyota corollas and they write some really shitty stuff. and they only write poems for the other asshole poets in the room. "This is for you stewart, m'ok? This is a revenge poem for your accusatory poem last week at the Long Beach Alcoholics Anonymous Poetry Slam Night., Ok and here it is..." 010809 ... kingsuperspecial there is a poet living inside me, I think up my ass somewhere. every once in a while, between the mockery and the loudmouthing, some poetry like subsance will ooze out of my mouth. it's usually fairly frigtening, and I try not to get it on myself or anyone I care about. every once in a while I go inside looking for this poet person, and I give him a good ass whipping. poets thrive on misery. 010809 ... jestification we sat at the bar... and we read some poetry b/c all the kids went home for christmas.... and they talked about the slam team.... and we talked about spoken word.... and poetry is like this fucking rock that i can always run to to stand up straight. 011218 ... ClairE I wonder if I could fall in love with one of you. Oh, wait, I did. 011218 ... misstree 000916 Poets everywhere are bleeding for love. The pain is the knife in their back, keeping them stumbling forward through a scarlet void, hands outstretched, groping through crashing waves of sensation, singing and howling to express the outline of hte blade, to name the pain that sets them afire. Or maybe it's just me. 031223 ... oE No it's totally not just you mtree..I totally get what your saying..beautifully rendered...:-) 031223 ... quotree Ars Poetica by Czeslaw Milosz (copypaste into word for proper fomatting) I have always aspired to a more spacious form that would be free from the claims of poetry or prose and would let us understand eachother without exposing our reader to sublime agonies. In the very essence of poetry there is something indecent: a tihng is brought forth which we didn't know we had in us, so we blink our eyes, as if a tiger had sprung out and stood in the light, lashing its tail. That's why poetry is rightly said to be dictated by a daimonion, though it's an exaggeration to maintain that he must be an angel. It's hard to guess where that pride of poets comes from, when so often they're put to shame by the disclosure of their frailty. What reasonable man would like to be a city of demons, who behave as if they were at hime, speak in many tongues, and who, not satisfied with stiling his lips or hand, work at changing his destiny for their convenience? It's true that what is morbid is highly valued today, and so you may think that I am only jokin or that I've devised myself just one more means of praising Art with the help of irony. There was a time when only wise books were read, helping us to bear our pain and misery. This, after all, is not quite the same as leafing through a thousand works fresh from psychiatric clinics. And yet the world is different from what it seems to be and we are other than how we see ourselves in our ravings. People therefore preserve silent integrity, thus earning the respect of their relatives and neighbors. The purpose of poetry is to remind us how difficult it is to remain just one person, for our house is open, there are no keys in the doors, and invisible guests come in and out at will. What I'm saying here is not, I agree, poetry, as poems should be written rarely and reluctantly, under unbearable dress and only with the hope that good spirits, not evil ones, choose us for their instrument. 031223 ... quotree All religion, all life, all art, all expression, come down to this: to the effort of the human soul to break through its barrier of loneliness, of intolerable loneliness, and make some contact with another seeking soul, or with what all souls seek, which is (by any name) God. -Donald Robert Perry Marquis 031223 ... oE Man I wanted to get that book! CM is the master..even in his 90's his mind, his imagery is still devestating.. thankyou quotree queen of all things decidous.. 031223 ... misstree quite welcome... milosz was the start of a norhterneuropean poetry jag for me... his writing is so clear but so expressive, humble but still grand... "a frivolous conversation" was another of my flavorites, and "angels" spawned another wonderful quote: "day draws near / another one / do what you can." marina tsetzaevna was also a focus during that strange time... very thick imagery, but it speaks under its breath with such passion... 031223 ... oE mtree have you read any of smborska's(sp)work..i think she wrote something called the onion..among other poems..her most prolific and visceral poetry seems to have been those written during the german occupation of polandl..of course i could be totally wrong here as my memory slips in and out 031223 ... Sirius True poetry always comes from the bottom of a poets heart..there is a poet in each of us...u just have to listen deeply into your Soul - to find 050513 what's it to you? who go blather from