robinhl

Moving to wordpress

2011-10-11T08:34:00.002-05:00

To focus on 'The Gospel According to the Romans', I have moved blog activity to http://robinhl.wordpress.com

Roughing It In Europe

2011-02-18T21:32:00.002-05:00

One two three four
Is OK, but you need more:

Un deux trois quat’
If you want a welcome mat

En to tre fire
With the krone getting dearer,

Bir iki uç dirt
Selling off your jeans or shirt

Wahid zoozh teleta arba
In a cafe by the harbour

Üks kaks kolm neli
For some food to fill your belly;

Jeden dwa trzy cztery
Language may be shaky, very,

Uno dos tres cuatro
But they’ll love you if you’re up to

Eins zwei drei vier
Trying freely, laughing freer.

Published online in Unsplendid, February 2011

NEVER BELIEVE

2010-08-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

Never believe the lies of war, and the orders
That seem to make sense –
Whether Hitler or Bush, no one storms over borders
“In self defence”.

“Leading the Free World” by having the biggest gun
Has always chilled
Those on whom the guns are turned, on everyone
Free to be killed.

Published, Ambit No. 200, UK, April 2010

MANY WAYS TO DROWN

2010-07-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

America gives many ways to drown:
Unsupervised motel pools trap stray tots
Who can’t reverse their tiptoe down the slope;
Kids who can swim explore the same pool’s drain,
Get suctioned to it, have their guts ripped out;
Teens play in creeks in flood, or riptide beach;
A flooding river sweeps cars off the road;
New Orleans’ levees break and thousands die.
For all of these, poor government shares blame –
Loose laws, weak education, lack of funds,
All driven by those tax breaks for the rich.
(Oh - add rendition’s waterboarding deaths.)
But I drown in girls’ large-eyed innocence,
Pools of enchantment and primordial depth.

Published, Ambit No. 200, UK, April 2010

FLAGS WE HAVE FEARED

2010-07-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

The Swastika, that ancient Vedic sign,
The lightning wheels with which the Aryan bands
In lightning war overrun other lands,
Wheeled juggernauts that crush, self-claimed divine.

Hammer and Sickle, commoners’ work-tools;
Weapons for rising up, and tearing down
The castle of the rich, the bourgeois town;
Fake honor to the poor the Party rules.

A flag with Stripes, memorial for flogged slaves,
Striped jail clothes for resulting underclass;
And Stars like bullets through the windshield’s glass
For leaders by the CIA shot down,
Star earned for each election overthrown,
Star for each land the flag invades, or ‘saves’.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

ZOMBIES AND WOLVES

2010-07-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

Women I’ve failed or wronged or left behind
Approach my thoughts like zombies for the kill;
I’ve literary walled defences – still
Given the chance, they’ll eat my brains, my mind.

Through forest, orchard, farmyard in decay,
A shadow of a wolf slips greyly in,
My thoughts of death, grim, wasted, ill, rib-thin,
Tracking my weak resolve, hungry to slay.

Mountaintops blown apart, forests clear-cut,
Where’s there to hide? Nature doesn’t exist;
Her landscapes crushed in patriarchal fist.
This former farmland hides my ruined hut.

Impotent, I still write, thus giving birth
To future wolves and zombies of the earth.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2009

HUMIDITY

2010-06-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

Once every few years (maybe every year?)
There comes a humid summer of desire:
Kids flaunt uncovering clothes and rip a beer,
Younger teens test their part-discovered fire;
Then sun and sweat break like waves on a reef,
Hands brush, eyes laugh, lips smirk -
A roll of thunder, and the pool is closed…
The kids pair off with interchanging clothes
And who the hell can concentrate on work!

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, October 2009

2010-06-12T19:31:00.001-05:00

GOLDEN CHILDHOOD

2010-06-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

Golden girl on a sunset beach
With a dog and a horse,
Golden boy spears a silver shark
Under the sea;

Is such a dream forever in reach
Or forever false?
We stumble, emotional, through the warm dark
Back to the sea.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2009

THIS APE I AM

2010-06-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

Under our armored mirrors of the mind

Where eyes watch eyes, trying to pierce disguise,
An ape, incapable of doubt, looks out,
Insists this world he sees is trees, and tries
To find the scenes his genes have predefined.

This ape I am
Who counts “One, two, more, more”
Has lived three million years in empty lands
Where all the members of the roving bands
He’s ever met have totaled some ten score;
So all these hundred thousands in the street
With voided eyes and quick avoiding feet
Must be the mere two hundred known before.

This ape I am
Believes they know me too.
I’m free to stare, smile, challenge, talk to you.

This ape I am
Thinks every female mine,
At least as much as any other male’s;
If she’s with someone else, she can defect –
Her choice, and she becomes mine to protect;
Just as each child must be kept safe and hale
For no one knows but that it could be mine.

This ape I am
Feels drugged, ecstatic, doped,
Hallucination-torn, kaleidoscoped,
That Earth’s two hundred people includes swirls
Of limitless and ever-varied girls.

This ape I am
Does not look at myself
Doesn’t know about mirrors, lack of health,
Doesn’t know fear of death, only of cold;
Mirrorless, can’t be ugly, can’t be old.

Published: Ambit No. 200, UK, April 2010

DIMINUENDO

2010-05-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

In the garden that is sweeter than the water,
In the sea that beats the beach with playful wave,
In the sunrise like a moon,
In the blinding sun at noon,
In the sunset turning sky to fire-lit cave,

Using sweet bush scents that vary through the hours,
Using thrumming, trilling sounds both dark and bright,
There’s impressed upon my eye -
On my brain as on the sky -
The after-image of a girl in blinding light.

And I sacrifice my life upon her altar
In my alternating focus and despair
At parental altercation
And my glacial alteration
As I lose ambition, wisdom, strength, and hair.

But the thrashers sing so sweet, so sweet,
And I soak in sun so warm
With that soft sea breeze,
Those whispering trees -
That I fade with no sense of alarm.

Bring back, O bring back, O bring back my sweet one to me…

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2009

SONG TO A STUDENT

2010-05-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

We only study History
To find out more on who we are,
We only study Chemistry
So we can brew a drink;
If we didn’t study Cooking, then
Our food would all be gooier,
If we had no Religion, why,
Instead we’d have to think!

So Learning makes life easier
And that is why we coddle it;
We study what applies to us,
That’s only common sense;
You only like Biology
Because you’ve got a body; let
Me help you with your studies, I’ve
Got more experience!

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, October 2009

Congratulations to Martin Bax and Ambit

2010-05-03T22:49:00.003-05:00

The 200th quarterly edition of Ambit is out, with a front-cover kiss and proud boast "Still at it after all these years".
Ambit was founded by Martin Bax in 1959, and he has edited it ever since. This in addition to a career as a pediatrician, being the editor of 'Developmental and Child Neurology', publishing a couple of novels...
Congratulations on turning 50, Ambit, and thank you Martin Bax!

OBSESSION

2010-05-02T00:01:00.001-05:00

Like a wasp making a nest under your chair
Like a lizard, watching from ceiling and wall
Like a spider living in a crack in the floor
I am closer than you know, I am here.

One day I was not there, and the next, like the pink and yellow lilies after the rain,
I am all around you, underfoot wherever you go.

You will be moving like a golden butterfly from flower to flower in a poinciana
And, coming upon you as a blackbilled cuckoo, snap!, I will have you.

Your parents may blow like a storm - like a coconut palm I bend and recover;
They, hurricanes, blow all my fronds off - and I sprout new;
They can uproot me and knock me flat - I bend my new growth up, I rise up again.

Like the sea at the rocks, I will lap against you day and night;
Like the waves on the sand I run up, and when I go down, I come up again.

Consider the fish in the sea:
I come back with the tide, with the night, with the dawn, with the moon, through all seasons and years.

Like a singing cicada by day in the bush, like a singing mosquito at night in your room,
Know: I am there with you, whether you see me or not.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2009

GOD LIMERICKS - 4

2010-04-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

God saw how Religion had deadened
And said to His host, “Armageddon’d
“Look good on this lot”
For His plans were all shot
And His angels teased Him till He reddened.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GOD LIMERICKS - 3

2010-04-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

God, blessed with what one must call humour,
Decided to start up a rumour
That Himself as a dove
Came to Mary with love
And begat an Immaculate Tumour.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

Triangularization

2010-04-02T04:50:00.004-05:00

A recent New York Times article called "The Next Big Thing in English" reviews what makes fiction interesting to us from an evolutionary psychology perspective. I especially like the comments of Lisa Zunshine, a professor of English at the University of Kentucky.

"Ms. Zunshine is particularly interested in what cognitive scientists call the theory of mind, which involves one person’s ability to interpret another person’s mental state and to pinpoint the source of a particular piece of information in order to assess its validity. (...)
"Humans can comfortably keep track of three different mental states at a time, Ms. Zunshine said. For example, the proposition “Peter said that Paul believed that Mary liked chocolate” is not too hard to follow. (...)
"Perhaps the human facility with three levels is related to the intrigues of sexual mating, Ms. Zunshine suggested. Do I think he is attracted to her or me? Whatever the root cause, Ms. Zunshine argues, people find the interaction of three minds compelling. “If I have some ideological agenda,” she said, “I would try to construct a narrative that involved a triangularization of minds, because that is something we find particularly satisfying.”

In other words, my story will be inherently more interesting to the reader if, rather than just a conflict between two characters A and B, I have the interplay of a third, C. Filtering the conflict between A and B through the opinions of C will not only enrich the situation, it will make it more interesting to the reader because we have evolved to be absorbed by events involving different people's perceptions.

That A says B is a jerk, and B says A is naive, is made more interesting by each expressing their views to C (somewhat differently from the way they express their opinions to each other, which interests us because it helps us assess their credibility).

C's replies are also interesting, because C's prior involvement with each will also color the responses, and again force us to think of issues of credibility and personal histories.

This is not just a richer description of the conflict in an objective way. It draws our attention like a flashing light, because we have evolved to be interested in - especially - the interaction of three minds.

Hence the Eternal Triangle. But it applies to all conflicts in all stories, whether romance is involved or not. It appears to be fundamental to human thinking and to what interests us.

GOD LIMERICKS - 2

2010-04-02T00:01:00.000-05:00

God looked out a Heavenly portal
And what He saw made Him just chortle:
Some dude, on a cross,
Claiming he was the Boss!
For his hubris, God made him immortal.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

ABNA

2010-03-24T17:42:00.003-05:00

My historical novel, "The Gospel According to the Romans" has made the Quarterfinal cut of ABNA, the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award. Meaning that of the 5,000 adult novels, only 250 of us remain. there's still a long way to go!
You can read the first 5,000 words as a free download in Amazon's Kindle Store at http://www.amazon.com/Gospel-According-Romans-ebook/dp/B003CV7S4A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&m=AG56TWVU5XWC2&s=digital-text&qid=1269470744&sr=1-1
And if you don't have a Kindle, you can get a free Kindle-for-PCs download at the same place.
All reviews and comments greatly appreciated. Warning: it is not a Christian view of Jesus, but a skeptical pagan view.

GOD LIMERICKS - 1

2010-03-22T00:01:00.000-05:00

God made Heaven, earth, plants, people, fleas
In six days, and then rested at ease;
Then He thought: “In those stones
“I’ll hide dinosaur bones!”
(He was always a bit of a tease.)

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

WHEN DREAMS DRY UP

2010-03-12T00:01:00.000-05:00

When dreams dry up—
When dead dolls dance in rags—
Children are grown—
The full tit, withered, sags—
In memory and wish
The wrinkled penis rises, not in flesh—
Gardens are left to weeds—
Taps drip unfixed—
Dishes reused unwashed—
The music skips—
When there’s no love, not tenderness or lust—
Then let the decades crumble, and the dust
Of marriage not be swept up, but blow away
away
away

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, September 2009

GURU LIMERICKS 4 - HITLER

2010-03-02T00:01:00.001-05:00

Hitler, son of a half-Jewish bastard
Dreamed of occult power; Europe, aghast, heard
Race-hate psychodrama;
His unending trauma
Destroyed the whole state that he’d mastered.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GURU LIMERICKS 3 - MARX

2010-02-22T00:01:00.002-05:00

A second-rate father, Karl Marx
Let his kids die while writing remarks
On Struggle and Might
And the duty to fight
For state-owned newspapers and parks.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GURU LIMERICKS 2 - JESUS

2010-02-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

A radical rabbi called Jesus
Assumed if he loved us he’d please us;
Though he loved Mary Magdalene,
John, and small children,
His power was no match for Caesar’s.

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

GURU LIMERICKS 1 - BUDDHA

2010-02-02T00:01:00.002-05:00

A wealthy young prince called Gautama
Loathed worship of Krishna and Rama;
“It’s inside you,” he said
But, once he was dead,
He was worshipped.... That’s interesting karma!

Published: Ambit No. 196, UK, April 2009

HOME THOUGHTS FROM THE NORTH

2010-01-22T00:01:00.004-05:00

Dog-skinny, winter’s mangy sun
Slinks between clouds.
A Caribbean dog – there are none such here in the UK …
Nor, there, such mangy suns.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2009

CAMELOT AT DUSK

2010-01-12T00:01:00.001-05:00

From under low clouds spreading from the south
The red sun drops slow to night’s waiting mouth.
Rush lamps are lit; the guards changed on the walls;
Supper will not be served in the Great Halls
With Arthur still away. Each in their room,
The members of the Court leave books or loom
To say their Vespers in the encroaching gloom.

Lancelot, up in his tower,
Sees the sunset storm clouds glower,
Feels his blood’s full tidal power,
Knows he has to go.
In her bower, Gwenivere
Puts a ruby to her ear,
Brushes firelight through her hair,
Feels her heartbeat grow.

Guard, guard, watch well:
For the daylight thickens
And the low cloud blackens
And the hot heart quickens
To rebel.

From his tower, caring not
For consequences, Lancelot
Crosses courts of Camelot,
Pitying his King.
In her bower, Gwenivere
Feels his presence coming near,
Waits for footfalls on the stair,
Lets her will take wing.

Guard, guard, watch well:
If attention slackens
When the deep bond beckons,
Evil knows Pendragon’s
In its spell.

And as the storm clouds, rubbing out the stars,
Deafened the castle and carved lightning scars,
Drenched Arthur rode for flash-lit Camelot
Where he, by Queen and Knight, was all forgot.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2009

HITCHHIKER

2010-01-01T00:01:00.001-05:00

Sometimes you’d sell your soul just to get warm! –
Your clothes are rags in the wind, your skin goes blue,
You doubt your mouth can ever smile again;
The lonely world grows dark before the storm
Whose icy rain’s a mile away… and then,
The sun breaks through!

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2009

DIATRIBE AGAINST UNVERSED POETS

2009-12-29T17:37:00.003-05:00

Ignoring clockwork towns and fertile farms
Tied to the sun-swing as the seas to moon,
They searched for verse in deserts without rhyme,
Lifted erratic rocks nonrhythmically
In search of poetry, then through the slough
Of their emotions hunted for a trail:

“The scent is cold. Its Spirit must have fled;
The body of its work, though dead,
Has been translated to some higher plane.
Look how the world’s translated verse
Comes to us plain—why can’t we emulate?
Then if the words themselves are unimportant,
If poetry in essence is idea,
And song is wrong,
Rhyme a superfluous flamboyance
(Like colour to Van Gogh),
Rhythm a distraction to the memoring mind,
Then we determine poetry’s true form is mime!”

While in the air the deafening blare
Confounds their silence everywhere:
Before our hearts began to beat
We were conceived in rhythmic heat;
So, billions strong, we sing along
For all the time, in time, our time, the song
Goes rocking on in rhythmic rhyme. Rock on!

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, September 2009

ABNA Review of 'The Gospel According to the Roman Occupation'

2009-03-18T16:19:00.007-05:00

My novel about Jesus from the point of view of the Roman occupation of Palestine made it to the Quarterfinals in the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award (ABNA) competition.

In ABNA, the first 18 pages of the book had two professional reviews, both excellent. Here is one:

"This is exceptionally erudite, flawless, and subversively delicious. The author blends an almost vicious comedy to some serious history for a compelling historical fiction. The characters are richly drawn, the narrative fierce, muscular, compelling. The author has mastery of prose and story and knows how to mold the English language into an empire of a story. The action and dialogue move the story forward as well as develop the characters. The setting is atmospheric with the era pitch perfect. This is a story I would like to read in full."

Oh well. I'll try again in 2010...

SO LISTEN NOW

2009-02-21T00:01:00.001-05:00

So listen now to what the prophet saith,
He teaches anything, he gladly learns,
He follows scientists and what they say,
And now, Philosophy of DNA
Regard the spiral of it as it turns,
And listen now to what the prophet saith:
The two as one, entwining intercourse,
Then separate from toes to very head,
And, separated, seek another bed,
Their separation procreation’s cause.
So listen now to what the prophet saith—
And this the canniballed male spider learns,
Eaten by her, as her he’d try to lay,
Who procreates in separation’s day—
No spark of love or life or hate there burns,
But, listen now to what the prophet saith,
Only a life of procreating death.

Published in Metverse Muse, India, March 2009

FINGERPRINT

2009-02-14T00:01:00.000-05:00

I want to fingerprint you
All over.
I want to fingerpaint you
All over.
I want to finger you, finger you,
Linger and lingua you,
Finger you everywhere,
Everyhow, everywho,
Finger you, all of you,
Paint and imprint on you,
All of all over.

Published: Shit Creek Review, US, Sept-Oct 2008

CINDYLEE

2009-02-07T00:01:00.002-05:00

Utterly subtly,
Sinuous Cindylee
Slyly and shyly ties
Knots in my life;
Claiming to operate
Unparadoxically,
Cuts through my heart like a
Butter through knife.

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, January 2009

SUMMER DREAM

2009-01-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

Quick foot, soft smile, soft voice, soft form -
Come back to the house before we get the summer storm.

Soft step, slim form, slow smile, sleep-warm -
Wet foot in the garden, let me wrap you in the dawn.

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, October 2008

CRYO LIMERICK

2009-01-24T00:01:00.002-05:00

The correct thing to do, when you’re dead,
Is have someone take care of your head;
There’s no chance of more drama
Without Futurama -
Don’t say you weren’t warned - act, instead.

Published online: Transhumanity, US, November 2005

COMMUNICATION BREAKDOWN

2009-01-17T00:01:00.000-05:00

I love you with that love floppy and large,
As one of us a man - the other, dog;
Involved, detached, our life's a travelogue
Of countrysides seen from a rented barge,
"Travels With You" along some river's marge,
Failing at interspecies dialogue
Till tries at talk are lost in night and fog,
Drifting with batteries we can't recharge.

Yet there's no option but to travel on,
Each varied day no different than before,
Wondering if we'll find some magic door
Which, risking entry, gives communion;
And if, by talking, love would be enhanced,
Or if we'd then destroy all we have chanced.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2007

OXFORD

2009-01-10T00:01:00.000-05:00

Purple voices, rich and rare,
Glowing in the jeweled air,
Handling esoteric themes,
Mysteries like running streams
Dammed with unexpected care
Into almost-answered prayer
Where you’d think no calmness could
In the wildest of the wood.
Thoughts and unknown meanings dance,
Wordwise weave you in a trance,
Darkly glowing, rich and rare,
Purple voices, glowing air.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2006

NEVADA

2009-01-03T00:01:00.000-05:00

The light in your eyes is as the sun rising behind mountains in a cloudless sky.
Your smile is like the first rain falling on desert land.
The memory of you is like a long-forgotten childhood song.
Your wisdom is like a fresh breeze springing up, slapping slack ropes against their masts.
Your being gives the seasons to my life.
If you should ever go, and take the sun and rain, the breezes and my youth,
I’d sit in the dark cave of my heart, feeling its dry walls crumble into dust.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2006

MY LIFE TWISTS

2008-12-31T00:01:00.000-05:00

My life twists
Dangling in the mists
A spider in the earliest hint of dawn.
My mind roams
Lost in a thousand homes,
Amnesiac messenger still trying to warn.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2008

MOON LANDING, 1969

2008-12-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

All the little people
Who lived on the Moon
Went into hiding,
Not a bit too soon.

Nixon promised cars and cokes
And Nixon promised strings,
But they were worse than Communists
And didn’t want such things.

So, in case the President
Got it in his head
To bomb the little Moonies
If he thought that they were red,

All the little people
Who lived on the Moon
Went into hiding,
Not a bit too soon.

They tore up all their houses
And they spread some dust around,
And dug up all the trees they had
And took them underground.

When Nixon saw the mess they’d left,
The craters, rocks and sand,
He said on TV coast to coast
“We’ve reached the Promised Land.”

“Since the week of the Creation”
(As Old Glory was unfurled)
“This week is the greatest
“In the history of the world.”

“Americans” he said, “Revere
“The steps that we have trod;
“This here’s the new Paradise;
“And this time, guess who’s God.”

But what with bombing Communists
And wasting oil and men,
America’s resources
Were back to scratch again.

They cut back on expansion
And left alone the Moon,
And all the little people said
“Not a bit too soon!”

They put back all their houses
And replanted all their trees,
And as they passed a pipe around
They said to God, “O please –

“We know those people are a mess,
“And bound for trouble soon,
“But with a little less, they’d be
“As happy as the Moon.”

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

CRYO LIMERICK

2008-12-20T00:01:00.001-05:00

The correct thing to do, when you're dead,
Is have someone take care of your head.
There's no chance of more drama
Without Futurama -
Don't say you weren't warned! Act, instead!

Published online: Transhumanity, November 2005

THE THIEF

2008-12-13T00:01:00.001-05:00

More than the actual loss, it’s helplessness
That we most loathe when suffering a theft:
The arbitrary way one daring, deft,
Brass act leaves careful order in a mess;
The knowledge the thief’s wilder and cares less;
The easy way he tears the warp and weft
Of dull security; the insight left
The cosmos can as quickly curse as bless.

Therefore the fears are mostly overblown –
The thief himself causes no loss or strife
More than insurance or day’s work redeems.
But there’s a greater thief, and more unknown,
Who comes each night and steals one third your life,
Leaving no more than fingerprints, your dreams.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2008

GRIM REAPER

2008-12-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

The Reaper, with hourglass and hoar locks,
Sees me dreaming of witches and warlocks,
Of doing and fighting,
Of loving, of writing,
Taps my shoulder and says “I’m from Porlock’s.”

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, October 2008

WARRIOR

2008-11-29T00:01:00.000-05:00

His armor is silver, his ’chute is khaki,
A grenade on his belt, and a shield on his arm;
And she thinks of the kiss by the loom and TV
And his camouflaged, war-painted lost face’s charm.

He went off with his pals in the longship and jeep,
As brave as his rockets in the boat prow.
And disease, gas and tomahawk put him to sleep….
What is his mouth, to laugh or kiss now?

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

NORTH AMERICAN FALL

2008-11-23T00:01:00.000-05:00

The red leaves in the sunshine are
So red! So red! So red!
There are no buried Caesars here – instead,
The dispossessed of all the Earth,
With native wisdoms, human worth,
Bleed through the trees like a reopened scar.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2008

MAYA

2008-11-22T00:01:00.001-05:00

When God took Time to spin a length of Matter,
And, nothing at each end, tied the ends together,
He held between his fingers and surveyed
The first cat’s-cradle, and since then has played.

Flames dazzle, dance, and fade to a friend’s face;
Dogs mime all features of the human race;
The willow weaves a walker from the air;
All Nature helps us see things that aren’t there.

To read Life’s Meanings, we must write the text:
What’s Right one day is often Wrong the next –
I’m rich or poor only as I profess,
Must ask your love or hate, for you can’t guess.

If love’s illusion, so are hate and fear…
Why not choose love?, when it’s so great, and near?!

Published: Rubies In The Darkness, UK, Summer 2005

CEMETERY - First Robishover and Chelmer Graveyard, NJ

2008-10-31T00:01:00.002-05:00

Places of rest and quiet
Places of death
Where the leaves of crowding trees fall;
Where the squirrel buries nuts,
But no new tree will grow;
Where a swarm of tiny flies in the last hot and shaded air
Live short lives
Before the year dies;
Where the grass lives to be mown
Where the bones rot beneath their polished headstones
Saying Chesner and Shaber are at rest
But the dead do not rest
For the dead cannot rest
For the dead no longer exist.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2008

SOME FLING AWAY

2008-10-25T00:01:00.000-05:00

Some fling away
Some stay and cling—
Each their own Way
To do their own thing.

Sacrifice meaning
For love of the rhyme;
Know that in dreaming
You make up the time.

Sacrifice meaning—
When thought becomes sight
Your soul from its mole-hole
Blinks into life-light.

Published: Metverse Muse, India, March 2008

THE BUDDHA DIED AT 80

2008-10-19T13:00:00.000-05:00

The Buddha died at 80, and they say
That Lao Tzu reached 200, by the Way;
But Jesus, only 33, was stood
Arms out against the circus side-show wood:
His hands first, then his feet and side and heart
Pierced by the drunken dagger-thrower’s darts;
The crowd had lost a man, but, quite unbothered,
Named him a God, and went and killed each other.
And you and I and sanity lost out
With Christ’s name from Humanity crossed out.

Published: Rubies In The Darkness, UK, Winter 2005

THE MORAL AESTHETICS OF POLITICS

2008-10-18T00:01:00.000-05:00

The sense of poetry pervades all life:
Intense sensation, far-abstracted math,
Calm observation, passion-fired strife,
The glorious rise, the decadent aftermath.

Forgive me, pitying gods, for loving all
When “all” includes the tortured, starving, mad.
Symphonic raptures round pride’s bugle call
Drown out the truths where glory would be sad.

The very movement of the people lives,
Starring a missionary, or clown, or thief;
The moral climate either steals or gives –
It faithfilled strives, or slumps in disbelief.

So, in these patchwork years of peace and war,
Detached to calm the passionate lies that lurk,
We love life’s good and ill, but, more and more,
Our sympathetic vision makes us work.

Published: The Penwood Review, US, Fall 2005
Awarded Editor’s Choice certificate

NOTHING'S YOURS ALWAYS

2008-10-04T16:54:00.000-05:00

Nothing’s yours always, anyhow,
And Time shall lift from off your brow
Your troubles, wrinkles, hat and wig,
Leave you the basis for “long pig”.

Published: Metverse Muse, India, March 2008

DEATH WILL BE HARDER NOW

2008-09-29T17:00:00.000-05:00

Death will be harder now, as, year by year,
We solve the clues of immortality:
Emotions sink to animality
As false hopes tighten screws of desperate fear.
Hormone control will make age disappear—
After false starts, most horrible to see—
But those already old must beg to be
Frozen for the genetic engineer.
While war, starvation, pipe Earth’s gruesome jigs,
Successful businessmen will fight to gain
Some dead teen’s body, to transplant their brain,
The already-old beg to be guinea-pigs.
Children, look back, hear our despairing cry:
We bred immortals, but we had to die!

Published: Ambit, UK, October 2007

FOR PETER, DRUGGED IN A MENTAL HOSPITAL

2008-09-22T16:36:00.000-05:00

In the winter the Interior stops

The shops close
Clocks unwind
Clothes hang frozen on the line.

With the summer tourists gone
Birdsong is ended
The water is locked away in the hills
And the waterfall hangs suspended.

No one takes down the signs that read
“Entering tunnel, remove sunglasses”.
Stopped by the wind at the top of the passes
We look down
On some tiny, frozen, unmoving town,
Down on a land without seed.

The city, car-filled, cascading, bickering,
Seems so long, long ago.
Look down on the river trickling
Through the desert dusty with snow –
The tracks of coyote and deer
Echo the unseen in our own austerity.
Will Spring ever come, here?
In this desolate clarity?
With blossoming fruit trees and softening lakes?

It will, and the snow will be brushed from the sage
But until then the only life that we see
Is:
Giant snowflakes
Lily pads of ice
Flowing down the Fraser to the sea.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2004

YOGIS

2008-09-15T16:14:00.001-05:00

Though mystified why yogis walk
Across the burning coals,
We know they stand upon their heads
To elevate their soles.

Published: Metverse Muse, India, March 2008

AUNTIE'S MODEL NIECE

2008-09-08T20:24:00.002-05:00

Auntie got her
Maid to knit a
Set of under-
Wear,

For my frozen
Sister Flo's end
That was posing
Bare;

Flo then wore 'em
With decorum
And she swore 'em
Grand,

Undismayed by
Undies made by
Auntie's maid by
Hand!

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, August 2008

TO MYSELF IN 50 YEARS TIME

2008-09-03T21:13:00.001-05:00

Old fool! You really think yourself the same
As I who write to you, aged 22?
Ha! All we’ve got in common is my name:
I’ll wear it out, throw it away,
You’ll pick it up some other day....
But who are you?

My life’s before me; can you say the same?
I choose its how and why and when and who.
I’ll choose the rules by which we play the game;
I may choose wrong, it’s not denied,
But by my choice you must abide....
What choice have you?

If, bored, I think one day to see the world
I pack that day and fly out on the next.
My choice to wander, or to sit home-curled;
Each place has friends, good fun, good food,
But you sit toothless, silent, rude....
And undersexed!

Cares and regrets of loss can go to hell:
You sort them out with Reason’s time-worn tool.
Today’s superb; tomorrow looks as well:
The word “tomorrow” is a thrill,
I’ll make of mine just what I will....
What’s yours, old fool?

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, September 2008

OLD SOLDIERS

2008-08-25T18:43:00.004-05:00

Sitting blowing bubbles,
Each one a tiny world
Of monumental troubles
And how they all unfurled:

"The desert - Cairo - jaunty -
A blue room and a whore -
And so I said to Monty -
And so we won the war!"

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, August 2008

The Score So Far - 45

2008-08-08T18:26:00.003-05:00

One of the joys of getting my poetry published has been to realize a) how diverse it is, b) how careful I have to be in sending the right stuff to the right place:

Bleak, sarcastic: Ambit
Flippant, silly: Snakeskin
Landscapes as expressions of personalities or moods: Candelabrum
Religious, Christian: Penwood Review
Religious, non-specific: Rubies in the Darkness
Anti-religious: Ambit

So my stuff is totally contradictory? So what? They're just expressions of different moods or ideas.

Fun, isn't it?

WHY VINES?

2008-08-08T18:23:00.003-05:00

Why vines on desolate winter hills? we ask;
The chill bird seeks—a fruitless, wormless task;
But still, with faith from deeper knowledge grown,
The calm vine-grower renovates his cask.

As vines in winter store, and bloom in spring,
Our hearts, though dull, absorb, later to sing;
Grapes ripen, and are picked, ferment to wine;
Our sweet-grown works, inspired, true knowledge bring.

Our wheat-yield’s up, and Science we exalt,
And say life’s pointlessness is not its fault;
And wonder why our bread’s so tasteless now—
Forgetting that we are ourselves the salt!

So we learn Triad, Twelveness, Mystic Seven,
In seeking knowledge for a rise to Heaven;
As with the best in West we didn’t rise,
The dough we are with Eastern yeast we leaven.

As wine aspires to grape, water to wine,
The guided mass aspires to the Divine;
We only ask the guidance of the Mass
To further our intention to refine.

As Calyx turns the petals to sun-glance
Chalice turns flower of Chivalry to Lance;
The purple grape foretold impassioned Christ,
The shared Cup turns and feeds us in the Dance.

Choose faith as you would choose a favourite star:
The one that’s brightest to you where you are;
Search for your key right here where it was lost,
With light of Tao, or Christ, or Inch’allah.

Only: exemplify by work your love—
Clear the blocked way for those too weak to shove,
Light up life’s scene for eyes to weak to see,
And help transform Below into Above.

Published: Rubies In The Darkness, UK, Winter 2005

FOR ELIOT

2008-08-08T18:17:00.001-05:00

I guess
Success
Not elation
Or creation
Alone may men not mock;

God bless
T.S.,
Spared the temptation
Of our generation —
Writing rhymes for rock.

Published: Metverse Muse, India, March 2008

GOD IS TWO BROTHERS

2008-08-04T19:45:00.001-05:00

God is two brothers, one dark and one light,
Riding out Time in a tiny ship;
Half day and half night gives little room;
God knows that a rose, red rose or white,
Is a rose is a rose is a bud is a bloom
Is brown blown petals and a drying hip;
And the length of Time’s budding, blowing park
Walk the arm-linked arguers, Light and Dark.

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

OLD SAILORS

2008-08-03T15:38:00.004-05:00

Two tars talked of sealing and sailing; one said with a sigh
“Remember gulls wheeling and wailing, we wondering why,
“And noting bells pealing, sun paling — it vanished like pie!
“And then the boat heeling, sky hailing, the wind getting high,
“And that drunken Yank reeling to railing and retching his rye,
“John missing his Darjeeling jailing, and calling for chai?
“While we battened, all kneeling and nailing, the hurricane nigh,
“And me longing for Ealing, and ailing?” His mate said “Aye-aye;
“I could stand the odd stealing, food staling, not fit for a sty,
“And forget any feeling of failing, too vast to defy –
“Home-leaving your paint-peeling paling too far to espy –
“All because of the healing friend-hailing, the hello! and hi!
“And, with the gulls squealing, quick-scaling the mast to the sky.”

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, August 2008

No No Nse Nse

2008-08-03T15:32:00.001-05:00

No
No
Nse
Nse
And things like that
May look like nonsense
But there is
No
No
Nse
Nse

Published online: Snakeskin, UK, August 2008

PHOTO OF A DEAD IRAQI

2008-07-17T21:34:00.001-05:00

Hard to describe blown-off-ness of a head:
No head, neck, shoulder – only flopping flesh,
Unfinished ending of a smooth-limbed, fresh,
Strong, naked body on white-sheeted bed;
A tangled, mangled churning; then, instead
Of the anticipated face (serene
As marble statue, Christmas figurine)
Instead, disorganized meat, spilling red.

No face or brains or hair. We’re sick, confused.
The torn-off torso seems to have the calm
Proportions of an adult – look again:
The genitalia of a boy of ten.
“Collateral damage” is the term that’s used.
Beside the body, on the sheet, an arm.

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

SONG FOR PLANET EARTH

2008-07-17T21:30:00.003-05:00

The tall trees are so green, so green,

Hidden birds sing so sweet;
And men, women and children are
Starved, raped, and murdered.

Published: Ryerson Free Press, Canada, April 2008

KNIFE OF NIGHT

2008-05-12T19:56:00.003-05:00

The knife of night
Spreads swirls of black and white
Over the slice of here.

The taste is bold:
A pinch of cold,
Spiced with primeval fear.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, April 2008

WHEN LIKE A BRAINLESS TOAD

2008-02-07T13:48:00.001-05:00

When, like a brainless toad in the swamp of God’s mind,

The Universe bellies up its throat to emit a cacophony of galaxies,

Who can be sad to know that the raucous noisemaker is merely mortal

And that one day peace undisturbed will return to the swamp of God’s mind?

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007

BAHAMAS

2007-12-05T18:43:00.000-05:00

You are my Bahamas,
My land of promiscuous promise,
My exotic erotic erratic-ecstatic strange land,
One of the many unrealistic hopes of my life.
If I could have you, all would improve,
I dream.
I suit your shores as the single-anchored boat that drifts about with the tides.
Your morning glories cover wild bush in vines,
Unpotted, ungreenhoused, unnurtured, untrained, unrestrained.
Droughts are real, with months without rain;
I watch a small rainstorm that comes up and passes nearby.
And real rain washes the soil from the fields and the lawns to the sea,
And storm waves smash up high over cliffs and flood roads.
And in heat-shrill summer
One strip of a palm frond clatters in no breeze
And casuarinas stroke the stillest skies
Most delicately.

Published: Candelabrum, UK, October 2007

POST-HUMAN

2007-12-04T22:49:00.000-05:00

On the graphed time-descent of years since birth -
The time-line of my life from birth to present -
The initial line dividing life from nothing
Hangs like a thunder-cloud atop my life
Dividing ME from Ancient History
(That rumored world, alleged before I lived)
And threatens dispossession once again
Through final death if I should make one slip
In seeking to survive to the New Age:
The genome-driven world of nanotech
Which will allow my line to drop forever
Beyond humanity, across starred gulfs,
Into a Universe-wide consciousness:
The interlinked intelligence of all.

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007

BEAT THIS LEVEL

2007-12-02T18:18:00.001-05:00

Forget that crap about some God or Devil –
You’re on your own against the Universe;
But till you’re free of our Stage One’s perverse
Orientation, you won’t beat this level.
The Heaven idea is fraudulent, and worse:
Father McKenzie wields a deadly shovel.
Stage Two’s extended life – hard, but don’t snivel.
Stage Three: genetic change, youthful reverse.

You must want Life – must fight Death all the way,
Ignoring social norms, pressure from peers;
Such life will need a gamer’s vigilance.
Your other futures are: ashes, or clay.
And if help’s late, as you slide down the years,
Cryonics is your waiting ambulance.

Published: Ambit 190, UK, October 2007

THE SQUIRREL IN THE ATTIC OF HIS BRAIN

2007-11-21T15:12:00.002-05:00

The squirrel in the attic of his brain
Shreds photographs, pulls memories apart;
The old dog in the basement of his heart
Howls, lonely, soft, monotonous as rain;
And somewhere further underneath, a snake
In hibernation stirs, irked by its skin.
Up where the world’s news and supplies come in
Through the five senses of his face, to make
The room in which a garrulous parrot squawks
And sometimes songbirds sing – it’s his belief
Mice gnaw behind the wainscots of his teeth.
The cat of consciousness, impassive, walks
Toward the door to go out for the night:
Is everything (oh dog, shut up!) all right?

Published: Visions International, US, October 2007

NC Writers Conference - recommended!

2007-11-19T21:36:00.000-05:00

This post is a mental review and a private thank-you. I'm wondering why I enjoyed the NC Writers Conference so much more this year, compared to the one I attended several years ago. I assume the change is in me, rather than in the procedures.

All I remember (vaguely) from last time was David Sedaris sitting on a desk and reading one of his hilarious pieces; and Lee Smith leading a performance by several women. Well, those were fun, but provided no benefit to my writing ability or to career progress. I don't know what I had been working on at that point; and maybe someone critiqued something I'd written, but I doubt I paid for any extra services.

This time I had lower expectations; but I'd also completed a novel that is far stronger than anything I'd written before; I went to learn the business side of writing and presenting my work, not the writing side; I paid to have 20 minutes with an agent who had reviewed 20 pages of my novel, and I paid to be taught and to practice pitching my manuscript in 90 seconds. And I skipped all the (proudly parochial) readings and performances.

The result was phenomenal.

The single most valuable session was "Perfect Pitch", taught by Lauren Mosko. Her insightful review of how to present your concept in the briefest and most engaging form, together with her incisive comments on the presentations made by several participants, caused me to clarify the driving concepts of my manuscript, "The Gospel According to the Occupation", in my own mind. I can now express what the novel is about far more succinctly. And not only that, but I clearly have some more rewriting to do, in order to make the novel truly express those concepts, now that I have had to focus and prioritize my thoughts. Not just the presentation, but the book itself will be better! This in itself made the conference worthwhile.

The most uplifting experience was spending 20 minutes with Ellen Pepus, an agent based in Washington, DC. I suspect she had given my 20-page excerpt a fairly superficial read, but she was sharp enough to home in on some key issues of historical and contemporary prejudice and ask repeated questions until she could see where the novel was going. I may not have to rewrite the novel on account of Ellen's questions, but I am certainly going to have to be even more sensitive to the possible readings and misreadings that it could be subjected to. That Ellen then asked to see the next 50-60 pages of the manuscript - well, I came out on a happy high. Again, this alone would have made the conference worthwhile!

Then there was Mike Curtis, fiction editor at the Atlantic Monthly, discussing when and why short stories don't work. Not only were the anecdotes he told and the letters he read fully as hilarious as anything by David Sedaris, but they were directly relevant to crucial aspects of writing fiction. In fact, his comments triggered for me a solution to a problem I'd been wrestling with for months: how to create a stand-alone short story out of the complex novel. Yet again, this alone would have made the conference worthwhile!

So I feel I had triple value from attending... and there was even more! In a separate session, 30 of us who had attended Lauren Mosko's "Perfect Pitch" were given a series of 3-minute opportunities to pitch our manuscripts to various editors and agents, and get a response. 90 seconds to pitch, 90 seconds of response and discussion. You'd be surprised how much, or how little, can be communicated in that time! I pitched to Laurel - her response was as crisp, clear and revivifying as bright sun on a hard frost. I pitched to Sheryl Monks, publisher/editor of Press 53; she said that my novel was outside her normal Southern range, but the concept was so intriguing that she would like to see the synopsis and first chapters - they sometimes went outside their normal range. And I pitched to a couple of other people, which was all good practice.

All this (and more) in a day and half! Blogging and podcasting insights from Mur Lafferty and Amy Tiemann. Random conversations with other writers, published and unpublished, with outlooks very similar or radically opposed, but all exceptionally useful...

Of course, there were no guarantees offered from any of these contacts, and unfortunately I have no hope of making any sale through Lauren, who is an Editor at Writer's Digest Books. And I didn't find it all perfect, either - I walked out of one session because it was just too local and amateurish. And the box lunch provided was tasteless. And the decaf at the coffee stations and at dinner was disgusting.

But so what? Hey, listen: depending on your situation (and your attitude), you, like me, will find a Writers Conference an investment of time and money that will have a major impact on your writing, your presentation, your self-confidence, and your career!

The Score So Far

2007-09-08T22:17:00.001-05:00

My first publication of a poem was in April 2004, in Candelabrum in the UK. I have now been published in Ambit and in Rubies In The Darkness in the UK, in The Penwood Review and in Visions-International in the US, in Metverse Muse in India, and online in the Fifth International Anthology On Paradoxism, among others.

The score is now over two dozen poems published or currently scheduled.

It is both satisfying in itself, and disturbing: how much of the past 30 years have I wasted by not concentrating more on writing? When will I live fully by my favourite Castaneda maxim, to "follow the path with a heart"?

POETS

2007-06-08T17:35:00.000-05:00

We are the natterers,
We are the masters of arts polyglot;
The patterners,
Marks on the paths that you plot;
The batterers,
Iron-headed rams that you fear;
The chatterers,
Sons of the sins that you bear;
The flatterers,
Down on our knees to the tall;
The smatterers,
Dangerous knowledge and small;
The shatterers,
Haters of forces above;
But, most, we are the clatterers,
We are the hooves of the horses we love.

Published in Metverse Muse (India), Spring 2007

MY OUTSIDE

2007-05-24T16:17:00.000-05:00

My outside stroking your inside
Your inside gloving my outside
My outside stroking your
Inside gloving my
Stroking your
Gloving my
Stroking
Gloving
Stroking
Gloving
My your my your my your
Our

Published online in "Fifth International Anthology for Paradoxism", January 2007

The Novel

2006-11-26T19:20:00.000-05:00

"Yes - oh dear, yes - the novel tells a story." Or so says E.M. Forster regretfully.

What then of Maugham's "Ashenden"? Short stories around the same protagonist, in the form of a novel, therefore not a novel? It tells no story, only many stories.

What of Steinbeck's "Cannery Row", or Huxley's "Crome Yellow"? Novels, or not?

Strangers

2006-11-23T09:34:00.000-05:00

Of course we dislike strangers.

Someone shows up at a farm or a village: they entertain everyone with their jokes and their stories of the outside world for a couple of days, and then they move on. And a pie is missing from the window sill where it was cooling. A chicken has gone, maybe taken by a fox, but you never find the feathers. A month later a young man, who has never stopped talking about the stranger, runs away to the city or the sea. Another month or two, and it turns out your daughter is pregnant.

If, in another couple of months, crops fail or the weather is particularly harsh, it merely confirms the power and the malice of strangers.

EVA AGED 14

2006-11-03T20:32:00.001-05:00

Some of the girls I know
Go to the University
Sit so pretty
Prissy
Kiss-kiss and cissy
With beautiful boys that they know
Friends to drink tea with
Chat with and be with
Feather-headed into the feather-bedded night.

Oh no sweet Jesus hear me I scream
Such a life of show
Is beyond what I dream
Give me a man who I'll never know
A man without feelings, without wrong or right
Without obligations
Except for the money
Let him be cold and hard as the money
And the money as dirty and evil as me
I can't trust feelings, I never trust feelings
And I don't care
That I can't care....
I don't dare.

Some of the girls that I've seen
Listen to that classy music, they sit
And play piano while they drink their tea.
That's somewhere I've never been.
Cello! Piano!! What SHIT!

Sweet JESus CATCH me beFORE i SCREAM
give me ROCK, ROCK, give me ROCK oh give me ROCK
ROCK, give me ROCK, give me ROCK
blast my MIND let me DROWN give me SO much of ALL
that my HEAD and my BODy are FINally SOUND
give me ROCK, ROCK, give me ROCK, ROCK
give me ROCK rock ROCK rock ROCK, ROCK
DROWN me DROWN me, LET me go DOWN
aWAY
aWAY
aWAY

Some of the kids from my school
Would sit down to a smoke, have a toke and cool down
Drift round the town feeling cool
Not me

Some of the students I've seen
Trip out on acid, they want to expand
They want to feel all that they can, and still more
Not me

Give me JUNK
Give me the rush and the bliss of fuck all
Give me the unsatisfaction of life
Give me the treadmill toward the next fix
The stealing or whoring, the need, the despair
Of being whipped up an unending stair
A problem of Now I can just about handle
The safety in knowing tomorrow's the same
And the whole problem thank god unthinkable
Only the treadmill toward the next fix
The fix of nothingness, of peaceful nothing
And let me not think
LET me not THINK
Sweet JESus if i THINK even ONCE
i'll SCREAM i'll SCREAM i'll SCREAM
i'll DIE.

Published in Ambit 186 (UK), October 2006

Underwater Neolithic Archaeology

2006-11-02T21:56:00.000-05:00

Some time after the end of the last ice age, say 12,000 years ago, some human groups of hunters and gatherers began to settle down and farm plants and animals, and to live in settlements of increasing size and complexity.

That's the standard idea. But what if they had started earlier, during the ice age itself? What if the earliest such settlements were in the fertile river deltas, or along the flat shores of present-day China, Indonesia, South Asia, the Middle East, or the Gulf of Mexico?

That would have been unfortunate. As the icecaps melted, sea levels rose hundreds of feet, sometimes gradually, sometimes in a catastrophic event in which earthquake, tsunami and irreversible coastal flooding were combined.

That kind of event would destroy any nascent civilization, destroy all the artifacts of technology, destroy all the tools for recreating the life they had, destroy most of the population, and make scattered refugees in an unfamiliar landscape of some random survivors with their random skills. As that generation died out, not all the skills would have been transmitted properly, because the conditions for training and practise would not be appropriate.

Perhaps, over a period of hundreds of years, their descendants would reestablish the understanding of early farming, herding, construction, astronomy, mathematics, simple metalworking, whatever had been lost; and we, today, would naturally think they were developing it for the first time.

Because the oldest neolithic archaeological remains may not yet have been found, if they are two hundred feet underwater, and covered by a hundred feet of silt.

SHE STOOD IN THE DOORWAY OF HER SMILE

2006-10-30T21:25:00.001-05:00

She stood in the doorway of her smile,
Wordlessly asked me in;
I opened my mouth to reply, but she
Hopped over and entered.
If you were to lift off the top of my skull
You'd see her making a home in my head,
Blowing the dust out of corners,
Drawing on the back of abandoned manuscripts,
Turning friends' photos and postcards into collages,
At night curling up in a nest of yellowed newspaper clippings.
I wish her well -
My head has been empty too long.
But... does she realise there are stairs down?

Published in Ambit 186 (UK), October 2006

Rap poetry

2006-10-29T15:15:00.000-05:00

Rap is a manifestation of three things:

The human search for poetic expression
The potential expressions in rhythm and rhyme that are specific to English
The abysmal standard of literary education in the United States

American education does virtually nothing to develop skills in rhythm and rhyme - specifically, it does very little to develop the ability to recite long passages emotionally and verbatim (for both of which rhythm and rhyme are extremely useful).

However, the natural desire for emotional and verbatim recitation still finds an outlet, even among the least skilled, in rap.

I find it putrid, for the most part.

"Let us go then, you and I"

2006-10-28T17:08:00.000-05:00

Dear Mr. Eliot, delightful though I find The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock, surely the correct phrase should be "Let us go then, you and me".

"Us" is "you and me"; "we" is "you and I". So "you and me" is what it has to be, unless you opt for, say, Jamaican patois: "Mek we go den, you an I"... or maybe, "Mek we go den, you an I an I!"

BEE

2006-10-27T20:33:00.000-05:00

Through the honeyed halls of autumn
Hums the angry, aging bee;
With her work facing fruition,
And her life, redundancy.

Published in Candelabrum (UK), October 2005

HIGHLAND SPRING

2006-10-26T15:06:00.000-05:00

Bulls lean head to head
In motionless battle;
Notionless cattle
Stroll the strand
And graze;
Sheep
Sleep
Or idly stand
Idly gaze
Down on the rocks
By the sea snore.

Published in Candelabrum (UK), April 2005