October 14th, 2010
You can't write poetry on the computer.
Quentin Tarantino
A poet has to tell people he's a poet. If you don't, they don't know.
Gregory Corso
Classifieds
For sale: poems written especially for you by a crack team of poets. $4/poem. Guaranteed to rhyme. Supply your name and some detail from your life that has nothing to do with either the fruit or the colour orange and we'll send you a poem. Box 99.
Mark it on your calendars: October 28th - The Return of Uncle Glennie. Creepy stories at ATOMIC., The attic of 167 Logan Avenue. Doors will open at 7:00PM. Stories: 7:30- 8:00PM; 9:00- 9:30PM.
Doors will be locked during Uncle Glennie's reading. It is cold, bring a sweater. Knock three times at ground level to be considered for entry.
I like dropping things. Do you like dropping things? pennies, lint balls (co-incidentally my nickname in high school), twist ties, aglets, those little plastic twirly things that you used to have to put in the centre of old 45 records so they would fit on the spindle, anvils, etc. Wanna get together and drop stuff? Lenny. Box 298.
Available once again: Hugh Briss's ground breaking monograph on the great French love poet, Charles Roche-Bobois (see center column), Cupid's Arrows Miss Their Mark. $5. Box 330.
For sale: Facebook page. Hardly used. No friends, likes or dislikes, events, photos etc. Like new. $75 OBO. Box 13.
For rent: log cabin. $200/week this season (October to December) located on the banks of the lovely Lachine Canal in Montreal. Should love unusual smells and people. Box 44.
Tired of reading old poetry? Want the latest most up to date poetry? Why not sign on for our new online service? We will provide live fees of actual poets as they write their actual poems. You are guaranteed poems that have been written within the last hour! Visit our website for details. We are Poetry RFN!
The Mystery of the Lost Lenore
Listen to Part Seventy-Seven
Click on the picture. (3:27)
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4 Poems by
Sally Kind
God's Gift to Women
If you are that,
(as you suppose
yourself to be)
then he
or she,
as the case
may be) is
either strapped
for cash
(as I once was)
or is
the original misogynist.
I hate
gag gifts.
Somebody loves you?
Borrow a crowbar
(or I'll lend you one).
Pry open that
wallet of yours
and buy yourself
a mirror.
Then you'll have someone
who finds you
endlessly fascinating
and you can
leave me
the hell alone.
Found Wanting
I have tried
consistently
to please you,
at great
expense
to myself,
at last
calculation:
$137.68
Upon reflection after the passing of the storm:
Why is it that
I thought
I needed
to let you get
inside me,
that I
needed
to spread
myself open
for you?
Now,
with your drool
pooling
on the pillow
beside me,
I wonder why
I desired
such
a ridiculous thing
2 1/2 Poems by
Charles Roche-Bobois
A study in color (singular)
The river is brown,
its earthen banks are brown,
the overhanging trees
are brown,
the squirrel, whose staring
expectant eyes are brown,
is brown.
A Prose Poem
I am an enigma to myself. My most obvious movements are unknown to me. My motivations are glimpsed out of an eye's corner through a delicate screen of webs woven by enormous foreign spiders in a dimly lit room on an early fall evening. I ponder them but am availess in this, my most urgent quest. I am a seeker after my own truth, which must be, the truth of the world. A world gone mad.
Ah, the women. Have they known me? They have seemed to. Their delicate hands wielding the cutting utensils that have not quite cut through the opaquening web of manufactured deception. My night cries have revealed all to them. Or so it seems.
But what of Mama? They are imitators, shades of her surely, but with thinner legs and things not fit for the eyes of Greek kings. Their softnesses unravel me and I am left alone with my confusion. It follows me from my bed and into the kitchen while I make a sandwich. A dog barks somewhere at midnight.
I am out of mayonnaise. Again.
The Moment
I seized
my glimpse
of you
from the corner
of my good
eye
just as
you began
your crossing
of the room
in which
we both were
for a moment
that
night . . .
3 Pomes by
Parker Fysche
Whatever's Larger Than a Hamlet
Oh what a rogue
and peasant slave
am I.
But what
does that
make you?
Peculiar love
So many nights
have I longed
for your warm caresses,
your loving embrace
and the soft touch
of your sweet,
gentle hands
upon the inside
of my
left elbow.
That's a bit odd
isn't it?
Planning Ahead
The pigeons soar
(their wings like vs)
eastward with the wind,
it seems happily.
But when they struggle home
against it,
will they curse
(under pigeon breath)
their shortsightedness?
A POEM EXPLAINED
Edible Ennui
by Martin Issing
With something less (1)
than my usual (2)
enthusiasm
I construct (3)
this newest (4) sandwich
Bread, meat (5)
cheese, pickle,
it's all there and
in the right
proportion (6).
but somehow
this epicurean (7)
delicacy featuring (8)
pressed meat (9)
leaves me cold (10).
I need(11)
to fix that oven(12).
(1)The poet establishes a sad, smirky tone with this figure of speech.
(2)Indicates that the poet is usually enthusiastic (tho' I doubt it).
(3) The heavy verb shows just how much effort this is taking.
(4) Obviously the last in a long series of sandwiches.
(5) Beginning with the vaguest of references the poet tantalises us and raises the question what meat? What kind of meat? It is an angst ridden question for us.
(6) Despite fulfilling all the sandwichental requirements it fails to satisfy. So like life.
(7) The word is clearly out of place in describing a sandwich. The poet's choice of it indicates that he is either an erudite and clever soul who is but exploring the woes of the underclass or possibly a gassy windbag.
(8) A delightful movie reference.
(9) Finally our suspense about the meat is relieved.
(10) There is a delicious double meaning here that will soon be obvious
(11) In the final lines the intense desperation of the poet is turned up a notch.
(12) Only in this very last line is it revealed that the poet is in fact an appliance repair man.