Poems you like

[Capsaicin]

I like "Bluebird" by Charles Bukowski

 

 

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I'm not going

to let anybody see

you.

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery clerks

never know that

he's

in there.

 

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there's a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I'm too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody's asleep.

I say, I know that you're there,

so don't be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he's singing a little

in there, I haven't quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it's nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don't

weep, do

 

you?

 

[Guest disparaissant]

one of my friends wrote this and i thought it was briliant. its called "thirteen ways of drinking at starbucks"

 

I.

the journey

of coffee is

from tap to cup

 

II.

flapping her arms a

Big Issue seller shudders from

the cold, head wrapped, voice

a drone of despair,

 

the thick black, warm

tongue of coffee swirls

in my mouth.

 

III.

a cafeteria coffee is worth £1.30

a Gregg’s coffee is worth £1.80

a Costa coffee is worth £2.35

a Starbucks coffee is worth £2.50

 

IV.

Newcomers Alter Northeast Neighbourhood

The Irvington neighborhood,

well along the gentrification path,

is just south of the new Starbucks.

 

To the north is Sabin, where houses with stylish

three-tone paint jobs are

steadily gaining on houses

with security bars

across the windows.

 

From 1990 to 1996,

the latest year census data are available,

 

Sabin’s housing prices soared 136 percent.

Average household income grew about 5 percent after inflation.

 

And the neighborhood lost

about 300 African American residents

while gaining about 150 whites.

 

V.

HOW YOUR COFFEE IS MADE: A DIAROMA

 

here in the first tray the beans

are green. as you can see,

by the fourth tray they

have turned brown. this is how

coffee is made.

 

VI.

i spend £2.50, from which

 

the cashier earns 20p

the VAT costs 50p

 

starbucks spends 83p,

takes £1.17,

 

and the farmer makes

1 and a quarter pence,

 

which is known as

fair trade

 

VII.

walking into the starbucks in

birmingham, i am unsettled to find

they have put oxford street here,

 

the same art nouveau piece above

cracked green leather sofas

 

on the street, plastic

lurid colours are bursting from

buildings, and the same striking letters:

GAME CURRYS ICELAND H&M

call out to me

 

we have turned britain

into a

shopping aisle

 

VIII.

FOR THE PRICE OF A CUP OF COFFEE

(from Starbucks passion for coffee: A Starbucks coffee cookbook)

 

You can chat with friends,

join in heated discussions or

read in solitude. You can

study, sketch or write.

You can listen to music or

hear poetry recited. You can play

cards, checkers,

backgammon, chess.

 

IX.

how did people pretend to not

ask for dates before starbucks

 

X.

STATISTICS:

 

being starbucks ceo is

460 times harder than being a store manager,

1100 times harder than being a barista,

7800 times harder than being an ethiopian.

 

XI.

find coffee bitter? don’t worry!

 

cover that nagging sensation

by looking at our yucca plants,

our solid, wooden tables,

our green seats, walls, and logos,

our photographs of ethopians

 

XII.

bitches brew plays

on the speakers, above the

milk station there are

community events, in

that corner a woman writes

her first

book of poetry

 

we are not

the counter-culture

we are over

the counter culture

 

XIII.

HOWARD SCHULTZ’S PERSONAL COFFEE RECIPE

 

take 10 hours work

value it at $9

lay on a hot patio for 7 days

to process into $47

 

roast at 300 degrees

for 7 minutes

(the beans will pop and

start to brown, seeping

a bitter oil)

continue roasting

for 3 more minutes, until

you have a value of $5160

 

serve strong,

no milk, no sugar,

 

put it in an espresso cup

and call it

black man’s misery

 

its SOCIALLY AWARE

[YO303]

" It would be spiteful To put jellyfish in a trifle" - Karl Pilkington

[vertsk8er419]

 

...that rare phenomenon

The iridule—when beautiful and strange,

In a bright sky above a mountain range

One opal cloudlet in an oval form

Reflects the rainbow of a thunderstorm

Which in a distant valley has been staged—

For we are most artistically caged.

 

from "pale fire" by vladimir nabokov

 

[baph]

Best eerily SF poem:

Archibald MacLeish

Epistle to be Left in the Earth

...It is colder now,
  there are many stars,
   we are drifting
North by the Great Bear,
  the leaves are falling,
THe water is stone in the scooped rocks,
 to southward
Red sun grey air:
 the crows are
Slow on their crooked wings,
  the jays have left us:
Long since we passed the flares of Orion.
Each man believes in his heart he will die.
Many have written last thoughts and last letters.
None know if our deaths are now or forever:
None know if this wandering earth will be found.
We lie down and the snow covers our garments.
I pray you,
  you (if any open this writing)
Make in your mouths the words that were our names.
I will tell you all we have learned,
   I will tell you everything:
The earth is round,
 there are springs under the orchards,
The loam cuts with a blunt knife,
   beware of
Elms in thunder,
 the lights in the sky are stars——
We think they do not see,
  we think also
The trees do not know nor the leaves of the grasses hear us:
The birds too are ignorant.
  Do not listen.
Do not stand at dark in the open windows.
We before you have heard this:
   they are voices:
They are not words at all but the wind rising.
Also none among us has seen God.
(...We have thought often
The flaws of sun in the late and driving weather
Pointed to one tree but it was not so.)
As for the nights I warn you the nights are dangerous:
The wind changes at night and the dreams come.
It is very cold,
 there are strange stars near Arcturus,
Voices are crying an unknown name in the sky

[Guest moonchild]

A down pour

liquid, languid, limpid.

questions we don't ask for proprieties sake

carefully constructed bounderies

twigs, stones, ribbon

locks of hair and flocks.

lines we mustn't cross so we can still send christmas cards and what nots.

knots. nuts. The silent mewling of the child you used to be bleeding in the corner, still begging for acceptance.

and it's not about forgiveness, and it's not about transcendence. I couldn't tell you if you asked. only breath and sigh and ticking apply. The measure of your life in a cup of tea and me, still scraping at your door.

[Fred McGriff]

Senryu #263

by Fred McGriff

 

Slapping you

across your fat ass with

an undercooked bratwurst

[Guest iep]

----

 

 

""It is hot, here, and it is quiet. I think I'm going to be a monk, the ones that wear the robes, and think about trees and rocks all the time. I am good at that. All you do is think, that tree over there, it has bark, and some leaves. And that rock over there, it is round, and it is sitting there. You have to think about that for a long time, until dinner."

 

----

[Guest ex-voto]

"The Road Not Taken" by Robert Frost

 

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

 

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

 

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

 

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

[beerwolf]

The Listeners by Walter de la Mare. First time I read this I was mesmerised. Spooky and haunting I read it in the book The Nations Favorite Poems. It's considered a classic and thanks for reminding me about it.

 

 

 

 

"Is there anybody there?" said the Traveller,

Knocking on the moonlit door;

And his horse in the silence champed the grass

Of the forest's ferny floor;

And a bird flew up out of the turret,

Above the Traveller's head:

And he smote upon the door again a second time;

"Is there anybody there?" he said.

But no one descended to the Traveller;

No head from the leaf-fringed sill

Leaned over and looked into his grey eyes,

Where he stood perplexed and still.

But only a host of phantom listeners

That dwelt in the lone house then

Stood listening in the quiet of the moonlight

To that voice from the world of men:

Stood thronging the faint moonbeams on the dark stair,

That goes down to the empty hall,

Hearkening in an air stirred and shaken

By the lonely Traveller's call.

And he felt in his heart their strangeness,

Their stillness answering his cry,

While his horse moved, cropping the dark turf,

'Neath the starred and leafy sky;

For he suddenly smote on the door, even

Louder, and lifted his head:—

"Tell them I came, and no one answered,

That I kept my word," he said.

Never the least stir made the listeners,

Though every word he spake

Fell echoing through the shadowiness of the still house

From the one man left awake:

Ay, they heard his foot upon the stirrup,

And the sound of iron on stone,

And how the silence surged softly backward,

When the plunging hoofs were gone.

[Braintree]

The Suicide's Soliloquy

 

"Here, where the lonely hooting owl

Sends forth his midnight moans,

Fierce wolves shall o’er my carcase growl,

Or buzzards pick my bones.

 

No fellow-man shall learn my fate,

Or where my ashes lie;

Unless by beasts drawn round their bait,

Or by the ravens’ cry.

 

Yes! I’ve resolved the deed to do,

And this the place to do it:

This heart I’ll rush a dagger through,

Though I in hell should rue it!

 

Hell! What is hell to one like me

Who pleasures never knew;

By friends consigned to misery,

By hope deserted too?

 

To ease me of this power to think,

That through my bosom raves,

I’ll headlong leap from hell’s high brink,

And wallow in its waves.

 

Though devils yell, and burning chains

May waken long regret;

Their frightful screams, and piercing pains,

Will help me to forget.

 

Yes! I’m prepared, through endless night,

To take that fiery berth!

Think not with tales of hell to fright

Me, who am damn’d on earth!

 

Sweet steel! come forth from your sheath,

And glist’ning, speak your powers;

Rip up the organs of my breath,

And draw my blood in showers!

 

I strike! It quivers in that heart

Which drives me to this end;

I draw and kiss the bloody dart,

My last—my only friend!"

[Guest KY]

there once was a man from nantucket

something something something

sexual assault case settled out of court