letter to elana

for the poet elana bell

~

in a different cafe,
on a Manhattan streetscape where once, years earlier,
violence was the purview of West Side Story gangs,
ruling their internecine non-intersectionality territorial blood lines supremely

nowadays, violence replaced by the frenetic
noises of Lincoln Center theater goers,
student dancers, actors, musicians and poets joining the throng
of those who sup and run,
all hearing their own frantic
curtain calling, saying, announcing,
music dance voices words require your obeisance,
needy for a mutual worshipping reassurance fiat that:

life can be made transcendent
if even for just 90 minutes or 120 pages,
or a 3 minute poem reading

this city of millions requires billions of poems that spoon stirred  
and yet, almost always fail, to squeeze, all of the human essence that is in its ultimate source, clarifying nyc tap water,
containing the storied remnants of a hackable continuous,
single human stanza cell osmosis - a blockchain like no other

two poets sit side by side each in their own lapsed dreams,
she, a published poet of prize and rank, ^
he, a rank amateur whose only prize is his unpublished anonymity,
poetry, is his just a nightly soul cleansing,
an imported remnant of his Marrano piyyutim ancestry

one turns to the other,
in the inexplicable daily crazy miracle
of city fashionistas

in a city where stealing a parking spot, or the
forced squeezing creation of a subway seat space
where physics proves none exists,
are oft the roots of slashing and stabbings faithfully reported
on the 11 o’clock news,  
and trust and/or other encouraging words
are seldom heard and even less demonstrated,
the make-no-eye-contact of Camus’s L’Etranger anomie is the
normative, paranormal, paralysis cloak of we city separatists

“Can you watch over my electronics and stuff?”

Sure says the grayed and grizzled,
an all life long veteran of nyc,
judged to be trustworthy
based on a few seconds of being upsized and downsized,
a car wash (exterior only) perusal
despite a
“no direction home, like a compete unknown, a rolling stone,”  
this signage, yellow star permanently chest-affixed,
conveniently ignored, as it seems impossible
thieves don’t look like me,
don’t likely in their possess,
a distinguished head of gray hair (yeah, sure)

a thank you reward of (or did I imagine it) a lean-in,
a momentary head on a shoulder,
the chit chat now grows earned and earnest,
she confesses her cardinal poetry profession,
eliciting an ‘Oh Boy’ utterance from the poet
of a thousand names
and a thousand textual emendations

a fastidious nyc boundary is brief crossed for one short meal,
till the end when time sensitized IMRL intrudes and
the showtime calls out,
if not now, when? if not me, then who?

I read her poetry later in the praying supine first position of
three AM, and laugh with delight, at the contrast and no compare,
the styles clash and tho the stories told
are both writ in the aleph bet script,
there ends the Ven diagram overlap and
into the night’s coming of a Elvisian blue suede coverlet,
we both disappear, and if not for this recording,
history says, you old man confused, never happened,
just an imaginary poetry ink blot dream breaching...

~

postface:
another poetry book is no longer homeless,
comes to shelter upon my shelf, close to Angelou, far from Whitman,
now all the book’s nooks eyes collectively
reassessing the new old-owner, parsing his syntax,
undecided if his readership is worthy of them,
concluding that all these books are the
man’s owned roughened stones,
to be placed by human hands on the
serpentine curvature of his literary tombstone,
and until all stones fully read,
they all agree,
will they and he
be fully freed,
smoothing his legacy’s edges

“Discipline allows magic. To be a writer is to be the very best of assassins. You do not sit down and write every day to force the Muse to show up. You get into the habit of writing every day so that when she shows up, you have the maximum chance of catching her, bashing her on the head, and squeezing every last drop out of that *****.”
― Lili St. Crow

“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’” — Maya Angelou

“Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that’s just me) as if you’ve never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you’ll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time.” — Neil Gaiman

“Meggie Folchart: Having writer's block? Maybe I can help.
Fenoglio: Oh yes, that's right. You want to be a writer, don't you?
Meggie Folchart: You say that as if it's a bad thing.
Fenoglio: Oh no, it's just a lonely thing. Sometimes the world you create on the page seems more friendly and alive than the world you actually live in.”
― David Lindsay-Abaire

“Now, what I’m thinking of is, people always saying “Well, what do we do about a sudden blockage in your writing? What if you have a blockage and you don’t know what to do about it?” Well, it’s obvious you’re doing the wrong thing, don’t you? In the middle of writing something you go blank and your mind says: “No, that’s it.” Ok. You’re being warned, aren’t you? Your subconscious is saying “I don’t like you anymore. You’re writing about things I don’t give a **** for.” You’re being political, or you’re being socially aware. You’re writing things that will benefit the world. To hell with that! I don’t write things to benefit the world. If it happens that they do, swell. I didn’t set out to do that. I set out to have a hell of a lot of fun.

I’ve never worked a day in my life. I’ve never worked a day in my life. The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: ‘Am I being joyful?’ And if you’ve got a writer’s block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you’re writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.” — Ray Bradbury at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, 2001

“writing about a writer's block is better than not writing at all”
― Charles Bukowski, The Last Night of the Earth Poems

Biting my truant pen, beating myself for spite:
"Fool!" said my muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write.”
― Philip Sidney, Astrophel and Stella



“What I try to do is write. I may write for two weeks ‘the cat sat on the mat, that is that, not a rat.’ And it might be just the most boring and awful stuff. But I try. When I’m writing, I write. And then it’s as if the muse is convinced that I’m serious and says, ‘Okay. Okay. I’ll come.’” — Maya Angelou

“Suggestions? Put it aside for a few days, or longer, do other things, try not to think about it. Then sit down and read it (printouts are best I find, but that’s just me) as if you’ve never seen it before. Start at the beginning. Scribble on the manuscript as you go if you see anything you want to change. And often, when you get to the end you’ll be both enthusiastic about it and know what the next few words are. And you do it all one word at a time.” — Neil Gaiman

“I encourage my students at times like these to get one page of anything written, three hundred words of memories or dreams or stream of consciousness on how much they hate writing — just for the hell of it, just to keep their fingers from becoming too arthritic, just because they have made a commitment to try to write three hundred words every day. Then, on bad days and weeks, let things go at that… Your unconscious can’t work when you are breathing down its neck. You’ll sit there going, ‘Are you done in there yet, are you done in there yet?’ But it is trying to tell you nicely, ‘Shut up and go away.'” — Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird

“Now, what I’m thinking of is, people always saying “Well, what do we do about a sudden blockage in your writing? What if you have a blockage and you don’t know what to do about it?” Well, it’s obvious you’re doing the wrong thing, don’t you? In the middle of writing something you go blank and your mind says: “No, that’s it.” Ok. You’re being warned, aren’t you? Your subconscious is saying “I don’t like you anymore. You’re writing about things I don’t give a **** for.” You’re being political, or you’re being socially aware. You’re writing things that will benefit the world. To hell with that! I don’t write things to benefit the world. If it happens that they do, swell. I didn’t set out to do that. I set out to have a hell of a lot of fun.

I’ve never worked a day in my life. I’ve never worked a day in my life. The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: ‘Am I being joyful?’ And if you’ve got a writer’s block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you’re writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.” — Ray Bradbury at The Sixth Annual Writer’s Symposium by the Sea, 2001

“The secret of getting ahead is getting started. The secret of getting started is breaking your complex overwhelming tasks into small manageable tasks, and then starting on the first one.” — Mark Twain

“The best way is always to stop when you are going good and when you know what will happen next. If you do that every day … you will never be stuck. Always stop while you are going good and don’t think about it or worry about it until you start to write the next day. That way your subconscious will work on it all the time. But if you think about it consciously or worry about it you will **** it and your brain will be tired before you start.” — Ernest Hemingway

“Many years ago, I met John Steinbeck at a party in Sag Harbor, and told him that I had writer’s block. And he said something which I’ve always remembered, and which works. He said, “Pretend that you’re writing not to your editor or to an audience or to a readership, but to someone close, like your sister, or your mother, or someone that you like.” And at the time I was enamored of Jean Seberg, the actress, and I had to write an article about taking Marianne Moore to a baseball game, and I started it off, “Dear Jean . . . ,” and wrote this piece with some ease, I must say. And to my astonishment that’s the way it appeared in Harper’s Magazine. “Dear Jean . . .” Which surprised her, I think, and me, and very likely Marianne Moore.” — John Steinbeck by way of George Plimpton

“Over the years, I’ve found one rule. It is the only one I give on those occasions when I talk about writing. A simple rule. If you tell yourself you are going to be at your desk tomorrow, you are by that declaration asking your unconscious to prepare the material. You are, in effect, contracting to pick up such valuables at a given time. Count on me, you are saying to a few forces below: I will be there to write.” — Norman Mailer in The Spooky Art: Some Thoughts on Writing

“[When] the thoughts rise heavily and pass gummous through my pen… I never stand conferring with pen and ink one moment; for if a pinch of ***** or a stride or two across the room will not do the business for me — … I take a razor at once; and have tried the edge of it upon the palm of my hand, without further ceremony, except that of first lathering my beard, I shave it off, taking care that if I do leave hair, that it not be a grey one: this done, I change my shirt — put on a better coat — send for my last wig — put my topaz ring upon my finger; and in a word, dress myself from one end to the other of me, after my best fashion.” — Laurence Sterne

“I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer’s block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don’t. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done.” — Barbara Kingsolver

“Writer’s block…a lot of howling nonsense would be avoided if, in every sentence containing the word WRITER, that word was taken out and the word PLUMBER substituted; and the result examined for the sense it makes. Do plumbers get plumber’s block? What would you think of a plumber who used that as an excuse not to do any work that day?

The fact is that writing is hard work, and sometimes you don’t want to do it, and you can’t think of what to write next, and you’re fed up with the whole **** business. Do you think plumbers don’t feel like that about their work from time to time? Of course there will be days when the stuff is not flowing freely. What you do then is MAKE IT UP. I like the reply of the composer Shostakovich to a student who complained that he couldn’t find a theme for his second movement. “Never mind the theme! Just write the movement!” he said.

Writer’s block is a condition that affects amateurs and people who aren’t serious about writing. So is the opposite, namely inspiration, which amateurs are also very fond of. Putting it another way: a professional writer is someone who writes just as well when they’re not inspired as when they are.” — Philip Pullman

I want to first thank all my
supporters and readership.
I will read as soon as
I have the time and I can
give your work the attention it deserves.

I've been overwhelmed.
I have to make my presents this
Christmas. But I found out I'm in
excellent company...

FROM APPALACHIA WITH LOVE

Gra'ma Annie had a mission
to help children in need
she lives up in the hills
where they grow their food from seed.

They have no running water
no facilities indoors
still heat and cook with wood
don't buy much from stores
there are folk so destitute
they still have dirt floors.

Li'l Annie was a scrapper
90 pounds if soaking wet.
But her heart is just enormous
as big as one can get!

She found out 'bout a drive
for children overseas
in Africa and Asia
Haiti and the Belize

How the people in those countries
had no presents for to give
their children at Christmas
they could barely live!

She contacted the charity
and said she'd send some toys
as many as possible
to the poor girls and boys.

Annie had no phone
so she walked far and wide
and asked all the hillfolk
throughout the countryside
to whittle and to paint
toys in which to pride!

Those people got together
and carved ponies and dolls
that had joints that moved
and real hair that falls!

They whittled and sanded
painted with rainbow hues
and when they had delivered them
it made world news!

The children overseas
who got them still recall
they kept their homemade presents...

THEIR FAVORITES OF ALL!


MY FATHER "NEVER HAD A CHRISTMAS"*

My father was a child
in a place called Isle la Monte
winter's are quite brutal
in that part of Vermont.

His family were farmers
they lived off the land
they had gardens and stored their food
they worked hard with their hands

They had to really struggle
to make the frayed ends meet
dad walked 14 miles total
through the snow and sleet
to get to his schoolhouse
sometimes with frozen feet

Every year at Christmas time
his mom would be in tears
she would never say much
but stated that she feared

there would be no Christmas
no presents and no tree
it was always the same.
Grandpa would agree.
So the children went to bed
every Christmas eve.

But they weren't sad
because they always knew
that Santa was coming
and so they weren't blue.

Sure 'nuf in the morning
they'd tumble out of bed
and in the once-bare corner
there was a *tree instead!

There were many presents
most carved and painted things
grandma got the practical stuff
no perfume or rings.

But the Christmas meal was cooking
and all through the home
the smell... that sumptuous dinner...

well. That's another poem...!

But before the feast was eaten
grandfather said Grace
and thanked the blessed Lord
and ALWAYS SOUGHT HIS FACE.


SoulSurvivor
Catherine Jarvis
(C) 12/23/2015


MERRY CHRISTMAS HOLIDAY!!!

I still have presents to make...
see you SOON!


~~~<☆>~~~

There was a poet on HP
Who had alot of ♡
He tried to stay
     out of the fights
He kept himself apart
He had a love of poetry
He lived for his art.

Talented, he made "the grade"
As "minded" poets do
But he didn't try
     to "people please"
And so mean writes
     eschewed.
When he encountered
     "lesser lights" he didn't
     make them blue
But put ♡s on them as well
For their hearts were true.

Time went by... how it did fly!
As if given wings!
He found he had "The Daily"
(When there was
     such a thing)
He tried to READ all poets
     but could not, everything...
So he decided just to read
The small group
     within his ring.

He would NOT be purchased.
He would NOT be sold.
He was TRUE to his beliefs
Of his Faith quite bold.

Not only did he ♡
He gave "thumbs up" as well!
He reposted and was good
In fact, the man was swell!

He had a grateful following
But, as fate is wont
He couldn't keep up
     with the load...
Found his health was shot
But he tried to be a light
He tried to give folks thought.

His readership got smaller
It seemed like every day.
He still tried to be genuine
And true in every way
But nobody wanted
     him no more
He began to fade away...
Where the
     rubber hits the road
He began to PRAY.

If you don't know
     who this is,
Replace the "he" with "she"
She believes
And truly grieves

That poet would be ME.


♡ Catherine

As potential grew, a desire to write, disclosed to few

Imagination immerse, but yet to thirst for knowledge, accrued ambition address

All aboard the express, thoughts of Harry, a plot to marry

From fanciful flights to greater heights

Capturing such visualisation, twas the formation

Characterisation, of wings to soar, with metaphor

From Dumbledore, yet taking shape

Professor Snape, assume the plot, lest thoughts forgot

A forest to roam, a philosophical stone

Such creative flair of which to share

Joining of the dotted line, artistic mind

Transporting train, journeyed acclaim

Of whom to impede, the will to succeed

The ability to write, the capacity to teach, the desire to reach

An impetus for change, a literary role, a priority

Of which to seek with tenacity

Beyond horizons, beyond confines, stand undefined

Awe-inspire, great readership, a due reply

To simplify, a noble shift, outstanding writer in the midst

Dynamic plot from pen to page, persistence through to published stage

A realised dream, challenge overcome

A victory won definably, stocked supplies to library

Broomstick flight phenomenon, a mystical tale was to become

Would generate, the bus of Knight, to render right

A rebuilt life, a legacy made

From chosen craft to final draft, a world of creativity

The right to type, to innovate, an intriguing wait

A shining star that would liberate



Written by Geraldine Taylor ©

I do believe all poets must not only read a lot of poetry but read a lot about poetry. Of my 50 favorite poets, there is not one who has not written about poetry, the philosophy of their work and of the craft. That in itself is fascinating- and difficult, like the depth you find in NY Review of Books. I do about 2/3 (poems) to 1/3 (being books about poetry) From the most philosophic works of archetypes by Northrop Frye to the most public and basic questions of Zupruders good seller "Why Poetry?" .
That last book opened up a new reality for me, to I ask myself all the time who am I writing for, in context to all this reading...I realized I was really trying to communicate the poetic truths of living, of my own small life in the world so full of beauty, horror, paradox and death. I realized to do this I had to make compromises, to not try to impress or amuse myself with poems that could only be understood by me. The craft and presentation became as important as the message. That is currently my direction, I'm writing "collections" of poems with themes so a reader could enjoy a concrete theme. (The last book I just read, a signed collection by Ferlinghetti ( nice and cheap in a used bookstore) was just that- the theme of light in "How to Paint Sunlight." Accessible and very full of several poems about light)
So you are stating two different issues:
I don't like being not understood, Having people throw up there hands perplexed, I'd rather be popular.... Its lonely
But I cant write for others because than it would be feeling like a commercial venture My motivation would be destroyed.
Id rather be desolated and write for those few who get the twinge...
Well, first of all, we poets are possibly lucky because we ain't making beans for our poems. Forgetaboutit. Even our most lauded poets end up teaching to get the health care and severance. I suppose there may be 3 poets in Amerika that make a living on just writing poetry....if that many. Who's buying? I didn't see much word "poetry" once in this weeks NY Times review of books. Only some letters crashing last weeks review of Leonard Cohen, who the critic called a wonderful lyricist and performer, but an awful poet. These dialogues are important to me, but really, quite a small audience. Either way, lyrics and song paid the rent, not Cohen's books of just poetry.
I'm sure there is no immediate cure for your paradox. If you want to be popular you have to make compromises. If you don't want to alter your vision, you can get the joy of a smaller readership and forget the rest. You have to manage expectations is a world that hardly notices our craft.
It's hard to be both, I suppose you should stay true to your motivation. And if readers like me don't get it, **** em. Let it suffice we acknowledge the craft, and that we will get closer to some poems more than others be enough. For me, accessibility, the ability to engage a reader into whatever poetic truth I am feeling, is more important than in any way hiding the meaning in the poem in which I alone can understand it.
I want people who never read poetry, which is most people, pick up a poem by me and feel the poetry power without feeling intimidation which is what most people feel when they read most poems published today. For me its that fine line between letting the imagination do the work, and the poem setting up the narrative to allow it by inviting a reader into it. I get great joy reading my poems to non poets who are scared by even the idea of it, and get them to feel something new, that wonderful way Aristotle put it- that poetry provides an ultimate truth that is found beyond the boundary of philosophy.
Best Mark
…………………...

Admittedly I have gone off the rails focusing on the meta or man as dreamer. Are we not dreamers first before descending into the material, deadening the faculty of imagination or as the I Ching says "a darkening of the light"
I want to bring the reader up and when I read I want to have the sensation of ascending I try to give what I like to receive which is to be brought into greater fluency and light
Have we abandoned our inner life to such an extent that when confronted with it we find our selves strangers to it; reinforcing and amplifying a kind of cognitive dissidence?
Are we in a sense a stranger to our selves having lost the lucidity of our magical youth
Do we see the world as vacant utilitarian stuff and other humans predictable lusterless cogs in a wheel like cued robots?
Witches Seers, Voodoons , Hermeticists, Kabbalists and Occultists of very stripe know and use objects as essential to their operations and craft because they have hidden meaning and power.
Has the life of fantastical creative cognition been sacrificed to inveterate congenital pragmatism?
"Beloved imagination, what I most like in you is your unsparing quality".
Andre Breton
To transgress is to process ones madness as opposed to the customary botched behaviors of repressive modalities we hide behind . It seems to me that poetry is a great ground for that exploration.
Perhaps Its a good thing for a reader to think about what the writer means, albeit a difficult pleasure as opposed to the instantaneous and facile modes of naming and claiming Reading towards the abstract can be a mystical experience Most people who read are shallow readers Shall I than aspire to be a shallow writer?
What surrealism (Detailed descriptive language unmoored from linear rationality) affords the writer like pure abstraction to the visual artist is a great opportunity to explore the musicality of language ie the musicality of form i.e. the energetic configurations of architypes.
Part of our craft that makes things crackle as you know well remains sound play ie the strategy of syllables ... Long vowels / short vowels...the length of words and sound of words in relationship to one another
As you know Mark to analyze the subtle abstraction of sounds i.e. words to the ear is just like music and like music although not wholly translatable has an undertow of non verbal meaning especially if exploited out side the linguistic necessity of linear prose like poems i.e. a device that most never use consciously and strategically or certainly to its fullest potential.
So when we say a poem is beautiful do we impart mean its those amazing tintinnabulating sounds that ****** with their musicality? Poems that do that well stand out to me.
Further I think we are in error when we confuse the realistic with the materialistic. It seems to me realism has magnitudinal underlying meta elements that need to be felt in poetry and to think other wise in my opinion would be a dull conceit
A good example is thought itself
When we speak our ideas thoughts impulses we have no real sense of where they emerge from The processes are so meta their incomprehensible even to neuro science and scientists have little if any understanding of consciousness or its meaning as far as I know
So perhaps the surrealist has a place of worth too; and that is to remind people of their inner life out side the cage of end product think and commodification. After all what is a life and what is a poem?
Best Z

Hey hellopoetry people,
I recently had a poem of mine published in the Ezine: **** Art Let's Dance which is published through Nostrovia Poetry. I will also have two more poems published in issue #5 which will be live this August. Tell me what you think and give Nostrovia and FALD your support and readership.

http://www.nostroviatowriting.com/issue-004.html

Keep scribbling,
Harry J. Baxter

Iamb, iamb, iamb, I plod along
in verse predicting I could write a song.
To call upon the muse of higher power
pour some wine, kick off your shoes and glower.

While putting best foot forward, don't forget:
cliches are lines that surely **** your wit.
Reality, you say, bears greener grass?
Abstraction always steps across as crass.

It's true you could walk on like this for days.
Your meter's tight, it rarely ever strays.
But what of clever feet and sounds succinct?
If images are dull, your verse will stink,

As blossoms dance upon the redbud tree
and oceans fill your squid with ink of glee,
remember what your mama always said:
mixed metaphors fill readership with dread!

Say: sonics surely sock a swelling swale,
Entwined, the twisted tongues tell not your tale.
Less is always more, the teachers say.
If tricks you train, then please just walk away!

I never knew how hard it really was
to write a poem that might parade a buzz.
I thank you moderators and big brass
for sticking yours so fully up my ***!

your poem throws me right into a nostalgia for it. The title of the poem alone captivates the reader and by the time one reaches the end of your beautiful verse, one feels the prairie in one's pocket. Simple down-to-earth images of "turkey", "rusty plumes" and "that other earth" in the poet's mind are not only powerful, but add a sense of humor, including that of carrying the earth in your pocket, which is part of your mindset. In fact, the poem does not only seed the earth inside the poet's mind, but, indeed, in the minds of his readership. Which is what a great poem does. The poet's exceptional craftsman is attributable to the subtlety, simplicity and imagery which make the verse flow and speak for itself :




today I exist through a heros twist paid fully to resist
inside of me grips the portion of sullen apathy...

Cuba is getting a bit colder after Castro took over
the in tuned harmony to its hidden beast reality

shelter through the leaves
taking over as you please

each haunted day we beg to borrow the need to pray...
fashionable Michelle Obama

silent through a fixture plain from deep enough to take over inside
conjunction junction what's your function

bargain basement blues
the set of Huey Lewis & The News,
a bunch of sprinkled dust scattered through the wind
late night bid in cell block 9 in prison,

those were the days getting caught in a purple haze
spot a high five to humbly keep your faith alive,
shadows break way from the frenzy within

At the risk of egotistically bragging
I love when my poems start trending.
I love knowing when I post a rhyme
That it’s not simply a sort of ending.
It tickles me to see that this one
Will still be in the universe out there
And won’t just be words that slip away;
The world at large isn’t unaware.

I love that so may people like the words
And so often react with love and sharing
Whether my poem is funny, or even sad
And perhaps sometimes extremely daring.
Sometimes it’s because I have written
What has long needed to be said,
And often because I did not leave
Ideas in my path as if they were dead.

Other times, I just take a chance
In the fervent  hope I am conveying
Something brand new and exciting;
Something that really needed saying.
It reinvigorates me to keep on writing
And authorizes what I am feeling.
It boosts up my self-esteem so much
That it sends me senses reeling.

So thank you, my readership all,
And take this sentence seriously,
I read every comment through.
Sometimes I laugh deliriously.
This kind of acceptance from you
Affects me more strongly than a drug.
Please take my heartfelt thanks
And a great big literary hug.

♪☺☻☺♪

Free verse was captured,
confined to a cell
by readers unraptured
in modernist hell.

And there he did languish
while chained to the wall
and desperate in anguish
gave forth a last call:

“Listen and read me—
my muse is the best!
Applaud and then feed me,
your starving guest !

Don’t fall for that beat…
Please ignore their old line.
I’m here. I’m effete.
I’m a modern divine…

I like it in prison
No, really — I’m free!”
(But his lock was awaiting
Your Readership’s key.

For the moderns all lie,
as your readership knows;
Modern poets don’t die—
they just decompose.)

Whose words these are I think I know.
He's on another website, though;
He will not see me shopping here
To snitch his words for me to show.

My readership must think it queer;
I post ten thousand poems a year.
Between the copies, pastes and likes
I've barely time to chug a beer.

They give their addled heads a shake
And ask if there is some mistake.
The others call me out, a creep.
Who cares? They're just a bunch of flakes.

Their poems are lovely, dark, and deep,
But I have villanelles to sneak,
And lines to own before I sleep,
And lines to own before I sleep.

Mike H. Excuse me, didn't we already do an interview?

Me. We did and although I asked some really hard hitting questions I feel your answers weren't up to par. Have you lost your edge?

MH. Lost my edge? Are you kidding? We spent hours on the interview!

M. Yea...that's kind of a ******.

MH. What are we going to do now?

M. Well personally I'm going to ask the same questions, your just going to have to up your game...

MH. Then should we get started...again?

M. Mike, I thought I'd never ask!

MH. Then take it away Mike!

M. So Mike it seems to me and I'm you so that would be us. Well we've been curious why every year in January you disappear from Hello Poetry.

MH. Well I like to take the time to refocus...

M. Epppp!!!

MH. What? What'd I say??

M. That's why I scraped the last interview....BORING!!! This is the new millennia and we're really not that interested in the truth.

MH. So should I talk about my being on the run from international spies?

M. Perfect!

MH. Or how while I was away I jet setted around the globe giving interviews to all the magazines about my world renowned poetry.

M. Do tell!

MH. And after that I was on a jungle safari and was kidnapped by that tribe of pygmies only later to be rescued by a jungle man calling himself Tarzan of the Apes?

M. You have been busy!

MH. But none of it is true!

M. Uh...your starting to bore me AND our mega readership again.

MH. Well after all that I canoed my way back across the ocean and here I am!

M. You know at times I truly amaze myself...

MH. Don't I though.

M. You know we should do these interviews more often. Hanging out with you otherwise can pretty much one...big...yawn.

MH. Did I mention the sharks?

When down and lonely,
We have an upper.
When unhappy,
We leave a smiley.
When isolated and alienated,
We have fraternity.
If you fear, find peace in readership.
If poor, there's free verse.
If under-appreciated,
We click like.
If under-valued,
We've no price.
If destitute, there's richness in language.
If thirsty, drink.
If hungry, devour.
When you're at loose ends,
We have tight compositions.
When conflicted, find resolutions.
And if you're disenfranchised,
We have a home.

(The latter paragraphs are more persuasive than the introductory one)

Clinched by the cloture of clinkstone nebels exhorted the kerygma to truckle nebulizing egintoch nepionic nevosities once pristine now reformed by aggiornamento nidamental to furor and favor against bisontine imaginative byre by the bobstays of badigeon steeving inclemency sequacious to tantony shabracking incontinence (delegating the shakuhachi of fairer brocades for chiffon simity jaded by permissive recidivism) by pushful skalding spurriers bracing for thalassic ucalegon in abthane absterged amende dire to notitia umbels of ultraism isorithmic lest the echard immanent and prevenient over egelidated soteriology florid and variegated in the elutriation of apodictic truth (rather than crumpled deadwood davenport emotivism) that bewilders emys of lost dirigisme foundering in enthymemes against stalwart erotesis of the maieutic ambit and dominion designated for plebania above the naves skeldering for merciful pontiffs to engage the nembutsu windlass around the hadal novantique (established by hamarchy now regnant abroach of elastane prerogatives) eleutherian in nimble recourse. Sociodynamic abscissae prone to abuna trouncing conscientious acapnotic deployment of moral agastopia ahimsa predicated on soteriology renewed despite the akinesia of precedent and the alameda concatenations of tacenda hinged to ameplography wed to sophistries of psephology designated by psaphonic priority ignorant of the proairesis of liberty vouchsafed by anamorphic noogenesis abetted by sleek balustrades of anbury among assorted desmans thwarting detraque in favor of didascalic diremption of baldfaced balbriggan secularism into culminated quatorzain apotheosis regnant in supernal amaranthine energism hybridized with quietism factive to elect ratiocination even when bereaved of common lionization.

Jawhole fairleads of oppositive causes fantigued in the throes of despotism often invoke festination over fissicostation flagitated primordial flenched titrations of frith betrothed to lambrequin lurdan prisoptometry negligent of lineolated limpkins because the brunt of zaftig bronteums transmogrifies zappy junctures into zarzuela plenary because the zayat is just too hinnable in moral brehon to bend their mettle to hods holobenthic in deontology who champion hopsack qasida emphatic in qawwali derricking a deft future for the industrious dobhash of entelechy of broadened dromonds versed in opodeldoc gilded with olivaster onagers (obsequent to insidious oblations of wokism) ixiodic with newfangled irriguous bonanza rather than iopterous conflagrations of dholes indigned in inaniloquent apyrexy. The paragon for civic moralism is arrayed in a matrix of appurtenances apotropaic in sedated throes of stalwart interpunction in idoneous subservience to vulcanized mackintoshes pegged to aleatory nimonic stridulation, bolted in bedrock faith and thriving with idiochromatic genius umbrilizing hippiatric doomsters (hinnable only in specious zuche alloquy of zayat) and foiling farcical ichnology with transcendent sophianic nidor nidamental to sophrosyne spiritualism allodic to trifling secular strife histing godless hoggasters against integral hodiernal homologation.

The hordeiform consensus defalcates hotchpot zendik zenana zabaglione of scripted lycnoscopes of lycanthropy stipulated by their compital nomogeny often lorikeeting mutual laevoduction despite lapatic overhangs of scruple frowning at lazaret frostworks of drygulched fourgon forcipation of desiccated flysch falsidical brinkmanship of specious standpipes masquerading as salvation but only amounting to the **** of stulms against stanjant in sybotic quatsch quademed to profligacy despite frustraneous defaulting inertia of supercilious protanopia repugnant to our best collective enterprises. Orrery orguinnet oryx is mesothermic to osnaburg bootstraps in the overlock of hamstrung ekistics sunken by irrevocable organdie because emphatic empasm less hobbled by multicultural enallage scacchic with enthalpy gradgrinded through gingerly haqueton abducent to fondink dowitchers (whom droshky appoints preeminent) fixating on constellated faculae just to feague around with fontinal ochlesis of powellization freeboarding on deliberate dilapidation of laches laystalling crambos connumerated in tenure of the ulterior congelation of collimated pataphysics bankrolling insatiable cementum cambering with jagged jacquard bonanza for the thickets of constringed monolithic diaspora callow in coordination juddering ancillary skirmishes of boondoggle to bunting fanfare in the jubbah of aleatory jinks. The immarcesible imparidigitate ormolu quaky lest eupsychics and eurhythmics devolve into hamerkop evulsions of abaft nidor of olid aboulia in stark acropathy mandated by ulterior acyesis they fear diminishing returns of wretched adrogation tag-teamed by gammerstangs of barmcloth jarveys of jasperated emasculation aduncating cultural redundancy in the narrowcasted affiance of hamshackled aftergame cobaltiferous in aggerose vengeance against stanjant and lavolta so steep in alembication that pedestrian andragogy must drail isallobar inculcating isobath as sequacious simplicity becomes the byword of the balbriggan flautino to denature (after toiling decades in isopach verisimilitudes of slugabed fysigunkus isostasy) in the most contrary ways to ithomiid nationalism such that we resort to oriflamme conflagrations of ludic phlegmatic osmol into ****** cacotopia.

****** kymatology in the windlass of obtuse tympanies sculpted of pergola parabolaster pomace klendusic to vagary kirking the testudo bellwethers misyoked to godless mofette trutinates the nimble reedbucks pliant to oscitation equipped eagre to ecdysiast stampedes toward eclaircise because of manufactured wantage jaleos and jarabes among the ghawazis handspike repentantly for habanera pupating into moral fullness and divine nimiety isangelous in proxemic sympatric plerophory in revolutionary phoniatrics aggiornamentos vitative to every twiring turtleback taffrail may the volplane of revelation become a virgation and a vastation against rheotaxis vendible as cascading vecordy dismantled by compital grace convolved with evolved kerygma nacreous as synclastic destiny beneficiating oikonisus and holobenthic communion never a bergamask pretense for opaque scofflaw bedaggle baize nympholepsy outlasts. Allemande iceblinks of verglas saccadic idiorhythmic illaqueating implodent mortmains imbruting thorny thickets of impedimenta for expedient skullduggery coempted by blackmasters gridlocked in ineradicable jamdani often postulate in unstercorated tirades the tentation of indehiscence and the inferiae vaccimulgent in retroactive disgust by throttling ingluvies to traffic isanemone contingent on obeluses halyarding wellaway welkins of whelky crutched on alamode abasia divorced from the veteran paradigm of albescent androlepsia supplanted by annectant wellsprings of dodecafid digladiated bangtail footholds of backstay vestige transmogrified into footling forcipation vaunting cultural enallage lagotically optimized into incorrigible and ingravescent hawsehole highbinder rigmarole hindermated often by eximious sedigitation because of epiphenomenal cnicnodes many hotchpots bury in anachoric huggeries of adoptive dedans tasked with the demurrage of akinesia friendly to dentirostral vogues ever pinguefied by wanigans of wapentake by lucrative woodreeves of bobstaying at all cost.

The woonerf of nimonic stridulation calipacing casefied bickerns of sunbittern stanhope sumpters of monolithic harvested indigent outrage solfatara engenders as cathexis to naïve sondation for spodomancy of restive cladogenesis ironmaster vastation of chiffon brocades of rumchunder rhubarbs of smug cultural isanther and pathetic icterical tomfoolery of bonces of isochrone mugience projicient to glochidate presbyophrenia beziqued by briquets and berceuse mockado canque inert in yawny torporific mazut endeavors of virulent mithridatism only demassified to the recherche limitrophes of perspicacity. The afterclap of uxorious tephra mowing tamburitza grampus of gossypine vernalization of vaccimulgent minnesinger singults sintering crepitated jacana jerkinheads cuculine in scaffmaster voltinism simultaneous to vorticism is the impetus of neutrosophy chockablock with allantoid bosky stulms and stannaries replete with ivorride brackling with whorling sastruga rife with scissures seahogging finite notoriety in headlong skintles convenient to chatelaines of mazopathia aggrieved of atocia hedged in thick jawhole quagmires of skiving snallygaster vigor (the protectorate of stalwart strahl of quotidian industry of both striga and stritch in subtended immunifacience) the progenitor of indomitable suretyship swanskin undinism rackrent in dentagra yet redeemed by resurgent soteriology. In conclusion, among both chlamydate springhares and termagant gammerstangs (both monolithic iceblink orguinette abusers of oriel or oryx) one panders oxter oriflamme trapezes above varsal sterility and the other enlists the camber of architectonic bontbokian pergolas of invidious wrox subservient to widespread epilation and imperious squamation are neither the answers nor the questions mandated by this zeitgeist but (sadly) inevitably supined by the eyeservice of modern neutrosophy. We must handspike, therefore, the springboks through the acequia of nomogeny cooperative with quokkas, vangermytes, jordans, britskas and the grognards never mercenary in their heroic devotions to acipenser acropodia acuminating moral integrity to bypass adiathermancy to institute aerophane eunomia aimed at aeviternity agentive in amberjacking moral virtues from the florilegium for aggiornamento and scrupulous revival of nomothetic noogenesis pliant to persuasive ideogeny forever tantalized (even in elflock) to broaden saffron horizons and vouchsafe prosperity and equity for aborning generations predicated on aboriginal compassions.  

Addendum: With gingerly caution, I exhort anyone to read this keeping in mind that my loose figurative language could be misconstrued as menacing, militant, disrespectful or otherwise disheveled and levies no obligation upon the readership. It is an exegesis of many deep arcane truths and constative hypotheses that should be treated with latitude rather than bartered by counterfeit means to miscegenate nolitions mandating the steepest compurgation and bowdlerization of the thickets of tartarology wagering spiritual warfare against the righteous throne of demassified sophrosyne wisdom persevering beyond the thickets of boschveldt schadenfreude that compital degringolade yeuks for so insistently in rabid compagination commorient with evanescent fables destined to die in the aceldama of conscience over the brehon of moral indigence contrahent to the prerogatives of God himself my vindicator and champion who defeats the bronteum of satanic prestidigitation by vanquishing an honest oversight tethered to a marginal maeiutic clairvoyance misleading in maladroit collimations radically spayed by polyphiloprogenitive cofferdams from the dominion and domain of the righteous and the snares and wickedness of false scales of rabid codswallop cackling for a moment only to be snuffed benighted and forever cast into the deepest barathrum of oblivion. God is my vindicator and my champion and my most earnest ambitions staked on love and fortune remain preeminent in every consideration of soldiered entelechy vanguarded by peremptory cloture in spiritual warfare against petty pettifoggery of jagged cisvestism forever defeated.

Language can be used to unify
representing our cultural groupings
of religion,
caste,
region

Language is power,
the power to name
It is the most potent instrument of culture

Language is sweet tongued
riddles in speech
beautifully balanced rhythm
in original language
A widespread...language game

A game with hidden rules:
indigenous structures and rhythms
referring by analogy to something else
with hidden meanings which must be searched for

Take our language away and
We have fallen apart
A foreign tongue will send tremors of fear into every heart
“Oh Lord, save Thy people”
The great Evil has come:
Language of the small and elite
the petty-bourgeoisie readership

It has established a kind of presence
It has created its own momentum.
It doesn’t go anywhere.
There’s nothing you can do with it to make it sing.
It’s heavy. It’s wooden.

A strategy of language manipulation
The darkness drops again

Translation is a battleground,
mere anarchy loosened upon the world
The neutralizing alternative
interlanguage,
mimicking
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun

Take our language and our center cannot hold
Things fall apart.

Or construct the lens through which understanding takes place:
What is it in your dialect?
The result is incredible.