Here are some pieces of Spam Haiku I just composed from copying and pasting subject lines.

Once you get started, it's almost too easy.

Replica Watches
Can a Christian commit it?
Amaze her in bed

Your application
Important information
Only 6 days left

I saw your profile
completely incapable
Banking manager

Perfectly crafted
This is an automated
New portfolio

are you insecure
Overwhelmed with ideas?
Women will love you

Legal software sales
We sell BRAND & GENERIC
New mail from Olga

Wanna be more man?
CanadianPharmacy
Begin second youth

And lo, the skies darkened and the earth shook, and there were many links upon the land.

"Cholitas" women wrestlers in Bolivia: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/node/8973

A beautiful, short poem called "Seeing the Eclipse in Maine"

Japanese scientists craft the world's smallest ramen bowl, complete with microscopic noodles

And, for those who like trying to puzzle out foreign languages, check out this picture from http://ma-gnus.livejournal.com/8869.html:

Any translations for me? Hugh, I know you can do it!

This morning, I thought I would repost a lighter poem I wrote a few years ago about the hypermuffin. But it applies to the wren, too. :-)


Nine Months of Punctuation
( Read more... )

I've also put some other older poems up, back-dated to the correct date as near as I could figure.

Apiary (Aug. 18, 2005) -- one of my first, and still my favorite
Daydream (Aug. 25, 2005)
Nails (Sept. 1, 2005)
Golden Apple (Sept. 13, 2005)
Recipes (Feb. 20, 2006)
On a Book (Feb. 21, 2006)
Civitas (April 6, 2006)
3D Tetrahedron C (May 6, 2006)
Spring Dance (May 28, 2006)
Storm Front (June 5, 2006)
Prayer for the Sky (July 6, 2006)
Conversation with a Disgruntled Ex-Tenant (Aug. 18,. 2006)
Minnow (Aug. 28, 2006)
Te Pito O Te Henua, 1722 (Sept. 4, 2006)
To My Mother's Ghost (Oct. 1, 2006)

So for anyone who likes commenting on other people's poetry, have fun. My skin is fairly thick, because back in 2005 and '06 I was posting these at poetrycritical.net (then poetry.tetto.org). (I got some very kind comments, but also some very unkind ones that made me grow the previously mentioned thick skin.) Anyway, later I got disgusted with the site and pulled my stuff down.

But now here it all is, back on the internet again. :-)

Srsly, 3countylaugh is the source of pretty much everything. But we knew that already.

Thanks to her, I know (or have been reminded) of NaPoWriMo -- National Poetry Writing Month. Which is now. Yes, now. April.

The concept: Write a poem a day during April. Simplicity itself! Until you try doing it...

Today is the 3rd, so I have three poems to write today to get all caught up...

There's already a LiveJournal community for this -- napowrimo -- but it seems to have fallen into disuse. Join it, if you want, and help 3countylaugh and me revive it with our wurdz and stuff!

echsdoc challenged me to write a sestina. Since this is my first sestina, I am calling it:

So, here's that poem about compost I started last week. I'm not sure if I like it yet.

Was trying to follow a link to a poem. Got to this page:


First off, "System Error" is a great name for a poem. ;-)

In a post-post-postmodern kinda way, I think a lot of these elements work, especially line 20, "die Cannot connect $DBI errstr." The blank lines before and after serve to highlight the content in lines 19 and 20.

What happened to lines 1 - 14? They are mysteriously absent... like the American soul in this technological age??? ;-)

The final line, "raw error," ends on a hopeful note. Maybe if we click that link, we will understand what it all means... or maybe not.

OK, I'm now done being silly.

I saw someone playing electronic Sudoku on the bus this morning. Reminded me of a "Trois-par-Huit" poem I wrote on the subject a year or two ago.

("Trois-par-Huit" -- a made-up modern poetic form I found on ShadowPoetry's list of poetic forms. At one point I was going to try to write one of each kind, just to see if I could... maybe I should take that up again.)

Anyway. My 3-6-9-12-12-9-6-3, aabbbccc poem:

Today is Ash Wednesday. If I'd remembered that last night was Mardi Gras, I would have done something beyond going to bed at 9:30. :-P

Another poem. I wrote this on the bus on the way home, from the last snatches of a dream this morning.

This may be a rather esoteric piece of humor. You need to have at least a passing familiarity with T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland," and you also need to have been exposed to the within-the-last-year-or-so "LOLcat" genre on the internet. (See www.icanhascheezburger.com)

If that's you, then prepare to revel in the glory that is --

LOLcat Wasteland

(First stanza or two, to give you da flavah...)

"1. IM IN UR WASTELAND BURYING UR DEAD

april hates u, makes lilacs, u no can has. (1)
april in ur memoriez, making ur desire.
spring rain in ur dull rootzes.

earth in ur winter, covered in snow
can has potato. PO-TA-TO.
INVISIBLE SUMMER! RAININGZES!
im in ur hofgarden, drinking ur coffeez."

. . .
OMG funniez!!!!1!!! :-D

Thanks to John Bryan for the tip. (John, you really need your own LJ account.)

It's been a long time since I posted a poem.

Recent odd news: Chinese couple tries to name their baby "@"

As the article explains, " While the "@" simple is familiar to Chinese e-mail users, they often use the English word "at" to sound it out -- which with a drawn out "T" sounds something like "ai ta", or "love him", to Mandarin speakers."

Reminds me of a light poem I wrote for Vivian in June, 2006...

Andrew bought a compilation of "Dragon" magazine articles entitled "Monster Ecologies."

When I glanced at it in passing, I thought it said "Monster Eclogues."

(Eclogue: "A poem in a classical style on a pastoral subject." The most notable example is probably Vergil's Eclogues, the fourth one of which supposedly predicted a future Golden Age which would be brought about by a child...)

I can just see one of these written by a couple of D&D monsters...

(Krenshar):
O Beholder friend, within this dungeon fair
Let us recline and pass the silver'd hours
With tales of mayhem wrought on those who'd dare
Confront us with their surface-dwelling powers!

(Beholder):
Your forkéd tongue so sweetly sings this lay
That hearing it, all those within the range
Of that fell radius must surely be our prey;
By that dread Fear Effect doubtless deranged!

Thanks to autumnbottom for this link...

"I Wandered Lonely As A Cloud has undergone the “rap” treatment in the bicentenary year of its publication to help the next generation of Lake District visitors connect with his work.

The new “hip-hop” version of the famous poem and an accompanying pop video can be listened to and watched for free at Cumbria Tourism’s website at www.golakes.co.uk/wordsworthrap It features MC Nuts in the leading role –  better known as Sam -  the Lake District Red squirrel mascot for Ullswater Steamers."

...very, very surreal.

Minnesota introduced a bill that would create a state poet laureate. The twist is that they wrote it in rhyme.

Read more at http://www.snopes.com/politics/humor/laureate.asp

Because I have no life, I've rewritten it to make the poetry part a bit better, though I may have lost some legal accuracy in the process.

O hear, Calliope, this legal draft,
which seeks to elevate poetic craft
by instituting now in our fair state
of Minnesota, a Poet Laureate.

A four-year term, without a salary
(though with a stipend, small as it may be)
is here set forth; the Governor to choose
which bard-elect best serves the Poet Muse.

The state Humanities Commission can advise
as to which rhapsodist deserves the prize.
Appropriating gifts and grants galore
will fund this stipend now and evermore.

And once this stellar odist has been hired,
No Senate confirmation is required.
To strip the poet of the Laureate name
will only be "for cause" -- tut-tut, shame-shame.

Well, after not attending last week due to illness, and walking out the week before, I was back at UUC this morning. And I really enjoyed it.

The February 11, 2007 service at UUC was all about sending off the senior minister, Jon Luopa, on a 6-month sabbatical. It inspired me to think about transitions in my own life, as I'm starting to worry more about Baby # 2 and how another addition will affect our lives. Jon reminded us that change is always frightening, but that we need to have enough trust to take the next step forward in faith that we will find the inner reserves to handle what may come.



This sabbatical, which is only for 6 months, has been very well-planned. There's an associate minister in place, plus the staff, the board of trustees, etc., and also a "Sabbatical Committee," which has put out a pamphlet (!) with the Sunday speakers in Jon's absence! I was a bit surprised, although it shouldn't have surprised me that the sabbatical would have been well-choreographed months in advance.

But really, they are way more prepared for this than I was for my own wedding, or for either pregnancy. 

A recent "American Life in Poetry" selection:

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/columns/092.html

So, yesterday autumnbottom, my friend visiting London (Hiya!) told me about a local story -- a full-grown tomato plant, complete with fruit, growing in a crack of a busy highway there.

This tale of hope and gritty perseverance inspired me to write a poem last night. I tried a new form for me, a villanelle, which is a difficult form to pull off. It's a 19-line poem with the rhyme scheme aba aba aba aba aba abaa, with lines one and three repeating in certain set places throughout the rest of the poem.

I've posted it to the poetry site I go to every so often. Since I'm so proud of myself for writing a villanelle, I'll post it here also. ;-)

To My Mother's Ghost

Come for a walk with me –
let the dishes wait
until Orion shivers through autumn air.

Scrunch your face, so,
but say yes -- we'll leave
the men TV for their dessert.

Come for a walk, and hear
birds' farewells stinging
like needle sleet.

Come for a walk with me --
we'll find winter in the twig of a tree.

Te Pito O Te Henua, 1722

We near the old ones beneath a clouded moon.
The salt wind cuts our cheeks, brings smells
of those strange crafts riding off the coast.
Strange men, to steer such tall canoes;
eyes like birds', skins like pale shells, words bubbling,
gestures swirling like ash wraiths from deep chasms.
They have no women, only things queer
and marvelous -- daggers, clicking circles,
and common goods besides: fruit and lumber,
poultry, leather.

                         The people are swayed.
Things are not as they were in grand-chief's time;
this chief is raw, wood is scarce, the youth
have no respect, omens foretell calamities.
So we come to ask for guidance:
to concord, or to war.

The wide sea turns around these points,
mana focused in hardened ash-men
buried in folds of lichened earth.
The air burdens our feet. Puissance
carves paths to bone, leaving flesh
to quiver like sponges on hot sands.

Volcano's sons with eyes from the sea,
tell us the future, we implore,
and shudder at our daring.

The answer is slow. Starlight falls
on shoulders, before the great heads creak
to hiss their answer into naked ears.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To hear it, some of us stand staring,
eyes rolling like death ships on a mad sea.
Some run to quench their anguish in water
or in liquid rock.

                        And I, alone,
turn up my head and laugh, tears
carving memories of screams
down my ashen face.