ode to Edward Estlin
http://going.com/odetoedwardestlin
6 members
a place for poets. atmospheric diversity as permanent as the loss
of daringness to be different with words. but (because there always
seems to be one). we keep putting it out there. we, the writers of
rhythmic riot and reason with no rhyme. there is no way but to
scribe that which overfills a poets mind. post here. be here.
ponder here. be kind here. be appropriate enough without having to
censor yourself here. because I couldn't find any other place for
poets, here.
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robert
ee cummings celebration on sunday + -
this event HAD to be posted here...
http://boston.going.com/event-186379
~r
tracy
the pain that you have wasted (dec '05) + -
or so, if compared, to everybody else
most would say
I could bite into glass
right now
it would be
all that I remember
everything around me and all of us
is so far from what the individual moment
is for each of us
alone
I tapped my bowl empty
wished the smoke would hold
until
I can see
again
clear
people steer you in ways you would not think
reach out and find out
how far you might sink if someone
hadn’t said one thing
or another
I am not brave
but I am willing
to repair all of the pain
that you have wasted.
Rima
Can't you see the Celebrities need ME! + -
I don’t have time to make you a costume for the play my little girl, can’t you see they are going to reveal how Anna Nicole died.
I don’t have time to ask you why you are crying my friend, can’t you see they are talking about who is going to get custody of Britney Spears’s kids.
I don’t have time to pay my bills, can’t you see that they are talking about the feud between Rosie O’Donnell and Donald Triumph.
I don’t have time to wonder why my husband didn’t come home last night, can’t you see I must know what Nicole Ritchie’s mug shot looked like after her arrest.
I don’t have time to wonder why I drink three cocktails before noon, can’t you see I must see the latest photos of Angelina Jolie’s new baby.
I don’t have time to live my own life, can’t you see the celebrities need me!
tracy
one single twirling world + -
----
i learned a million things
from one little girl
in one single twirl
around and around
up on her toes with echoing laughter
hair freely flowing up and down
(around and around)
following the wind of her spin
and her elementary gaze to the sky
her amazement in simply trying
she flies with or without wings
tracy
saving face + -
completely
out of my mind?
I’d know it
if i was
racing against life
wouldn’t i?
should I be
doing
something different?
should I do
what you do
and be indifferent?
is today a raisin day?
can you say, shrivel up?
it doesn’t matter
is today the day I find my way?
doesn’t matter
saying grace
doesn’t matter
playing it safe
doesn’t matter
we’re all gonna end some day
and so I say
treat me
know me
accept me
as if you were
me
treat me
know me
think of me
as if you are
me or
wish you were me
or whatever you wanted to be
once upon a time.
but let me be me.
i'll be letting you do the same.
doesn't matter (the day)
tracy
to establish some feel + -
a poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feeling through words.
this may sound easy. it isn't.
a lot of people think or believe or know they feel...but that's thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. and poetry is feeling...not knowing or believing or thinking.
almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. why? because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you're a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you're nobody-but-yourself.
to be nobody-but-yourself...in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else...means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.
as for expressing nobody-but-yourself in words, that means working just a little harder than anybody who isn't a poet can possibly imagine. why? because nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. we, all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time...and whenever we do it, we're not poets.
if, at the end of your first ten or fifteen years of fighting and working and feeling, you find you've written one line of one poem, you'll be very lucky indeed.
and so my advice to all young people who wish to become poets is: do something easy, like learning how to blow up the world...unless you're not only willing, but glad, to feel and work and fight till you die.
does this sound dismal? it isn't.
it's the most wonderful life on earth.
or so i feel.
E.E. Cummings