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Showing posts with label January 1 2011. Show all posts
Showing posts with label January 1 2011. Show all posts

Sunday, January 02, 2011

The Second Bell [Combatwords Poem Repost, From Jan 1, 2011]

The Second Bell [Combatwords Poem Repost, From Jan 1, 2011]
From http://combatwords.blogspot.com/2010/12/combatwords-december-31-2010-new-year.html

Leave your gonads at home,
We'll ride on the trolly
Switch the ding for a bomb.
For now we'll make do
Walking the first minutes
Of a year we don't need.
Brace all your nonsenses
For the streetcar will come.
Take vitamins, subways;
Take kisses on Market—
Cute strangers might cure you,
Could give you their herpes.
You could wander and want,
You might listen for lore
When the armpits of crowds
Have a radium glow.

They roar
On streetcars—new
Because the year is new—
And sip their brandy laughing, packed.
They stink of cigarettes, of coke and weed
And semen, pussy goo or danker smells—like shit.
Your friend can smell like that sometimes—he's only twenty two.
His mother called you up to say another friend of his just died.
That's two this year; the first one shot inside the park at night while deejays spun.
You saw the poster walking home: it said 'Reward' and showed a smile you met one time,
While juxtaposed beside that pic, a smiley face with neutral mouth and three eyes looking blank.
The second one got flu and stayed at home, too broke to call the hospital, too scared
To call his friends to ask for loans. I heard he slept instead and only when
He missed his pool-hall league event did someone send the cops to check
His pulse, to check his bottles, check his dog and see what makes
It possible—at forty one—to die amidst
Such wealth and liquify for several days
With Daily Show, Colbert Report.
It's time to hear the bell,
The second bell:
Ding Dong.



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Saturday, January 01, 2011

The Golden Year or Two [Guest News Poem by Jack Granath, January 1, 2011]

The Golden Year or Two [Guest News Poem by Jack Granath, January 1, 2011]
By Jack Granath

After forty-five years of work
in a manufacturing plant,
I finally retired
to the Floating Island of Plastic.

I’ve got a beach chair,
a supply of disposable
novels, and earphones
made of leatherette—
whatever that is—
a cooler for my cola,
and a collection of stuffed
birds on crucifixes. I bask
in what my doctor calls

“the enemy,” synthetic
beach togs revealing a grilled-cheese
tan beneath grizzled chest hair.
I’ve earned this. My wife
Evangeline would have loved it,
had she lived.

And I’ve got the Internet.
I’m a gentleman scholar now
(from the Greek for “leisure”)
and know that plastic comes from
plastikós, from plássein: to
shape or mold. I’m shaping it,
Angie, if only by watching it go.


Jack Granath is a librarian in Kansas City. His website is www.jackgranath.com





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The Architecture of Degrees and Commands [Today's News Poem, January 1, 2011]

The Architecture of Degrees and Commands [Today's News Poem, January 1, 2011]

Order your magnitudes, multitudes—bind them with language;
For even the hex is a shape that recurs through creation,
Blessing the matter and gracing phenomena, matter
Or form with a union of life and unlike; with persona,
Person... a pure equilibrium—all algorithms
Expand in the vacuums of emptiness; marking the options,
Banishing voids with degrees of perception, so order
Your magnitudes—know and be known, you must own and be owned.

"Dominique Buttitta wanted to get married in style, so she spared no expense on her upcoming nuptials: $30,000 to reserve a banquet hall outside Chicago; $11,000 for flowers and spot lighting; $10,000 for an orchestra; $5,000 on her wedding dress and veil... As Buttitta excitedly continued preparations, the costs kept mounting. Then, four days before the big day, her fiance called the Oct. 2 wedding off... With such short notice, she could not recover most the money she had spent — so the 32-year-old lawyer is suing... seeking more than $95,000 in damages, plus the costs of filing the suit."
—Hugo Kugiya, Todayshow.com , updated 12/29/2010 10:12:54 AM ET
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/40821215/ns/today-today_people/

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