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People who are readers of fiction aren't particularly interested in comic books.

quote by Harvey Pekar
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Joseph's Gloss On God

When Joseph tells his brothers: “I
am not God, ” he perhaps implies
that unlike God he sometimes lies,
and unlike Him, is doomed to die.

The words that Joseph never said
are wrong, as we find out when burned;
God often lies, a lesson learned
from history, and God is dead.

Inspired by a review by Paul Buhle of R. Crumb’s The Whole Book of Genesis, in Forward, October 10,2009 (“In the Image of God: The Ambition of R. Crumb’s Graphic Genesis”:

To say this book is a remarkable volume or even a landmark volume in comic art is somewhat of an understatement. It doesn’t hurt that excerpts of the book appeared during the summer in the New Yorker and that the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles is opening an exhibit of the original drawings from which the book’s contents were adapted. “The Book of Genesis, ” Robert Crumb’s version, nevertheless stands on its own as one of this century’s most ambitious artistic adaptations of the West’s oldest continuously told story.
No comic artist has been more influential than Crumb. In terms of sales, his work is dwarfed by the superheroes and, in comic art prestige. Art Spiegelman, and a short list of others including Alison Bechdel and Marjane Sartrapi may have displaced Crumb. But Crumb’s influence abides and endures in his occasional LP/CD covers, in his volumes of collected work (16 volumes so far and counting) , his artistic prizes and a generation of artists who have incorporated his particular view of humanity.
Surprisingly, his best work in 20 years has actually been in the genre of adaptation, specifically an adaptation of Franz Kafka, dating to the mid 1990s. On that highly curious point, any consideration of this “Genesis, ” as a highly personal comic art, properly begins. Notoriously, Crumb is a gentile who fled from his deeply dysfunctional Delaware family to the Cleveland neighborhood of Harvey Pekar and the arms of the first of two Jewish wives. “Crumb, ” the 1994 film documentary, was in many ways about emotional pain (including a brother doomed to suicide) and his craving for a certain kind of woman, who, although possibly any female with a bemuscled backside, was in fact most likely to be Jewish. She, reality and image, was his consolation. The strips that he drew of Jewish-American life, nevertheless, reworked stereotypes, some funny (he visits Florida with his second wife, and holds a tiny grandfather on his knee) , and some, doubtless, insulting to many readers.
In the pages of “Introducing Kafka, ” Crumb became his fictional protagonist with such depth of insight into the logic of the doomed writer, as well as of Kafka’s famed works, that many readers were simply astonished, this reviewer among them. Kafka is the exemplar par excellence of a type of ambiguous, tortured mittel European Jewish personality as it hovered between faith and uncertainty, shortly before the Holocaust. Not Spiegelman, not Ben Katchor, nor Sharon Rudahl, nor others who drew historical or quasi-historical strips about Jewish history, had taken the characterization as far as Crumb. An earlier escape from Middle American culture had propelled Crumb toward his satirical protagonist Mister Natural, a Zen-like, robed quasi-prophet of the 1970s-80s. Three decades later, Crumb’s robed prophets are far from Zen.
Crumb’s “Genesis” is then perfectly serious and the author wants us to know it. As he says on the cover, “Nothing Left Out! ” Every “beget” from the King James Bible can be found here, along with plenty of scenes censored from previous graphic adaptations. And more prose, in the final “Commentary” segment of the book, than non-writer Crumb may have put on the page anywhere, aside from his published letters. More striking for anyone but the seasoned Crumb fan: unlike previous Biblical comic adaptations, including some published and drawn by Jews, Crumb’s characters actually look Jewish, the women even more than the men. The contrast to the classic work, EC Comics’ “Picture Stories from the Bible” (1945) in that respect is most illuminating. But more recent works like the best-selling “Manga Bible” (2000) are not much different (nor was the “The Wolverton Bible” by one of the strangest of comic artists Basil Wolverton) . Close readers will see Crumb’s wife Aline Kominsky, to whom the book is dedicated, again and again, in various guises; perhaps only Chagall drew his beloved wife so often and with such varied imagination.
Not only are the characters Jewish here, they are all ages and sizes. If, for instance, there are more drawings of Jewish elders in any single volume of comic art anywhere, I have never seen them. The women here are beautiful when young, heavily busted with large, muscular thighs. The men are strong, their beards full and noble. The deity has a really big beard and retains his notoriously bad temper, as well as his commanding presence, and absolute demand for loyalty. The animals of Genesis (in Noah’s ark and elsewhere) may be where Crumb is most similar to earlier comic art adaptations of Biblical texts, but they are drawn, like everything else, with such loving care that they are special and demand repeated viewing.
In those extensive notes at the end, Crumb comes as close as he is ever likely to revealing the sources and depth of his commitment to the text. He had been puzzling, no doubt under a wave of feminist criticism, about the gender struggle, until Torah scholar Savina Teubel’s “Sarah the Priestess” (1984) gave him new insight: a matriarchal background, female deities and actual female power, in a society turning toward patriarchy but retaining some elements of women’s prehistorical strength and centrality to the direction of early civilization. If anything is reinterpreted purposefully in “Genesis, ” it is in gender, and Crumb does so not by scoring points but by rearranging the visual subtext. Gender issues also help him reframe somewhat the class dimension of tribal society, which endures not through brute force but because of the strength of its women.
The commentary on his visual choices and his broader interpretations explores and explains his few intentional deviations, not only in the name of narrative clarity but artistic intent. Mainly, his notes drive home how he struggled to interpret the text in suitable graphic form, chapter by chapter, sometimes even character by character. There is no doubting the artist’s integrity or hard work, in no small part because he redrew again and again, trying to find historically accurate clothing and scenery. The Old Testament of cinematic Charlton Heston, so to speak, became the Genesis of lived and perceived experience, socially real and super-real. Clues are provided with translations of specific Hebrew names within the visual text, essentially metaphorical in meaning. These clues may be the closest to footnotes that Crumb has ever provided.
Comics scholar Jeet Heer, has noted in “Bookforum” that Crumb’s biblical characters, with the exception of the deity, have no internal lives: only the deity has depth and personality. As with the original text, much more is implied in Crumb’s visual text than can be stated, because scenes rush by so fast and because the artist forever works out, pen or brush in hand, a unique meaning that escapes easy interpretation. Even closer to the mark, Heer argues that above all, this is a book about bodies, the natural expression of an artist whose work has, possibly more than any other master of comic art, been concerned with body structure and expression.
And offending the deity? Crumb treads with a caution all the more remarkable for an artist, who, short decades ago, allowed himself the full run of his imagination, heedless of the consequences. Crumb’s innovation might be summed up in his characterization of Joseph, brilliant in subjugating Egypt but weary of his own powers. In the final phrases of the book, the artist suggests a radical view several thousand years previous to Jewish Karl Marx. “In the very last chapter, when his obstreperous brothers fling themselves at this feet and proclaim, ‘Here we are, your slaves, ’ he says to them, “I am not God, am I’ Joseph has learned a much finer humility than the fear-driven kind shown by his barbaric brothers.” So says a humble Crumb.

10/22/09

poem by Gershon Hepner
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First Book

OF writing many books there is no end;
And I who have written much in prose and verse
For others' uses, will write now for mine,–
Will write my story for my better self,
As when you paint your portrait for a friend,
Who keeps it in a drawer and looks at it
Long after he has ceased to love you, just
To hold together what he was and is.

I, writing thus, am still what men call young;
I have not so far left the coasts of life
To travel inland, that I cannot hear
That murmur of the outer Infinite
Which unweaned babies smile at in their sleep
When wondered at for smiling; not so far,
But still I catch my mother at her post
Beside the nursery-door, with finger up,
'Hush, hush–here's too much noise!' while her sweet eyes
Leap forward, taking part against her word
In the child's riot. Still I sit and feel
My father's slow hand, when she had left us both,
Stroke out my childish curls across his knee;
And hear Assunta's daily jest (she knew
He liked it better than a better jest)
Inquire how many golden scudi went
To make such ringlets. O my father's hand,
Stroke the poor hair down, stroke it heavily,–
Draw, press the child's head closer to thy knee!
I'm still too young, too young to sit alone.

I write. My mother was a Florentine,
Whose rare blue eyes were shut from seeing me
When scarcely I was four years old; my life,
A poor spark snatched up from a failing lamp
Which went out therefore. She was weak and frail;
She could not bear the joy of giving life–
The mother's rapture slew her. If her kiss
Had left a longer weight upon my lips,
It might have steadied the uneasy breath,
And reconciled and fraternised my soul
With the new order. As it was, indeed,
I felt a mother-want about the world,
And still went seeking, like a bleating lamb
Left out at night, in shutting up the fold,–
As restless as a nest-deserted bird
Grown chill through something being away, though what
It knows not. I, Aurora Leigh, was born
To make my father sadder, and myself
Not overjoyous, truly. Women know
The way to rear up children, (to be just,)

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Revel In The Joy Of Books

Revel in the Joy of books

Revel in the joy of books
On the joy of get hooked
It’s an addiction that’s boredom proof
Indulge, it’s fun to revel in the joy of books

Take up a book and get hooked
Nothing’s wrong with getting hooked on the joy of books
Don’t’ be a fool change your outlook take up a book
Look into the joy of books

Revel in the joy of books
In monotony don’t remain stuck take a journey with a book
Find adventure and excitement in the joy of books
A book will certainly change your gloomy outlook

Take up a boot and leisurely get hooked
Books are enlightening just try reading
Free your imagination with a book allow it to roam freely
Shucks get with the program revel in the joy of books

Books they are boredom proof just revel in the joy of books.

Anthony S.Phillander©280112

Revel in the Joy of books

Revel in the joy of books
On the joy of get hooked
It’s an addiction that’s boredom proof
Indulge, it’s fun to revel in the joy of books

Take up a book and get hooked
Nothing’s wrong with getting hooked on the joy of books
Don’t’ be a fool change your outlook take up a book
Look into the joy of books

Revel in the joy of books
In monotony don’t remain stuck take a journey with a book
Find adventure and excitement in the joy of books
A book will certainly change your gloomy outlook

Take up a boot and leisurely get hooked

[...] Read more

poem by Anthony Shurland Phillander
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Tale XXI

The Learned Boy

An honest man was Farmer Jones, and true;
He did by all as all by him should do;
Grave, cautious, careful, fond of gain was he,
Yet famed for rustic hospitality:
Left with his children in a widow'd state,
The quiet man submitted to his fate;
Though prudent matrons waited for his call,
With cool forbearance he avoided all;
Though each profess'd a pure maternal joy,
By kind attention to his feeble boy;
And though a friendly Widow knew no rest,
Whilst neighbour Jones was lonely and distress'd;
Nay, though the maidens spoke in tender tone
Their hearts' concern to see him left alone,
Jones still persisted in that cheerless life,
As if 'twere sin to take a second wife.
Oh! 'tis a precious thing, when wives are dead,
To find such numbers who will serve instead;
And in whatever state a man be thrown,
'Tis that precisely they would wish their own;
Left the departed infants--then their joy
Is to sustain each lovely girl and boy:
Whatever calling his, whatever trade,
To that their chief attention has been paid;
His happy taste in all things they approve,
His friends they honour, and his food they love;
His wish for order, prudence in affairs,
An equal temper (thank their stars!), are theirs;
In fact, it seem'd to be a thing decreed,
And fix'd as fate, that marriage must succeed:
Yet some, like Jones, with stubborn hearts and

hard,
Can hear such claims and show them no regard.
Soon as our Farmer, like a general, found
By what strong foes he was encompass'd round,
Engage he dared not, and he could not fly,
But saw his hope in gentle parley lie;
With looks of kindness then, and trembling heart,
He met the foe, and art opposed to art.
Now spoke that foe insidious--gentle tones,
And gentle looks, assumed for Farmer Jones:
'Three girls,' the Widow cried, 'a lively three
To govern well--indeed it cannot be.'
'Yes,' he replied, 'it calls for pains and care:
But I must bear it.'--'Sir, you cannot bear;
Your son is weak, and asks a mother's eye:'
'That, my kind friend, a father's may supply.'

[...] Read more

poem by George Crabbe
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Science Fiction Woman

She was my science fiction woman,
I was her science fiction man,
Yet our love was no fiction
In our science fiction land.

I wore my science fiction spacesuit,
She wore a spacesuit just like mine,
While we were floating together
In our science fiction minds.

She said her name was Taylor Trippy-
A flower child light years beyond-
She was a science fiction hippy-
A spacey and vivacious blonde.

She told me of our global warming,
Greenhouse gases, acid rain,
She told me everything I know
About the structure of the brain.

So we cruised through constellations
In our science fiction ship,
Transcending time and generations-
Forever free, forever hip.

She came from some unknown planet
In some uncharted galaxy,
And we were both kindred souls
In our cosmic fantasy.

And I don't know how I knew her
Or how we came to meet that night-
She was my science fiction woman,
Who traveled at the speed of light.

At night I look upon the ocean,
The distant stars where she might be-
She was my science fiction woman,
Who set my heart forever free.

June 17,2008

poem by Alexander Shaumyan
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Comic Books

Long before I was 12 I would read by myself.
Archie, josie, super-heroes.
I would read them by myself.
I had the stars on my wall.
14 was a gas for me.
Batman on tv.
I would cheer the super-heroes.
They were all I wanted to be.
I had the stars on my wall.
18 I was guaranteed.
I would lose my teenage dream.
But its so funny how I got to look.
Like all the people in my comic books.
Now Im a star on my wall.
Comic books.
Comic books.
Comic books.
Comic books.

song performed by Blondie
Added by Lucian Velea
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Books

The universe (which others call the library). . .
-Jorge Luis Borges

Books which are stitched up the center with coarse white thread
Books on the beach with sunglass-colored pages
Books about food with pictures of weeping grapefruits
Books about baking bread with browned corners
Books about long-haired Frenchmen with uncut pages
Books of erotic engravings with pages that stick
Books about inns whose stars have sputtered out
Books of illuminations surrounded by darkness
Books with blank pages & printed margins
Books with fanatical footnotes in no-point type
Books with book lice
Books with rice-paper pastings
Books with book fungus blooming over their pages
Books with pages of skin with flesh-colored bindings
Books by men in love with the letter O
Books which smell of earth whose pages turn

poem by Erica Jong
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The Rosciad

Unknowing and unknown, the hardy Muse
Boldly defies all mean and partial views;
With honest freedom plays the critic's part,
And praises, as she censures, from the heart.

Roscius deceased, each high aspiring player
Push'd all his interest for the vacant chair.
The buskin'd heroes of the mimic stage
No longer whine in love, and rant in rage;
The monarch quits his throne, and condescends
Humbly to court the favour of his friends;
For pity's sake tells undeserved mishaps,
And, their applause to gain, recounts his claps.
Thus the victorious chiefs of ancient Rome,
To win the mob, a suppliant's form assume;
In pompous strain fight o'er the extinguish'd war,
And show where honour bled in every scar.
But though bare merit might in Rome appear
The strongest plea for favour, 'tis not here;
We form our judgment in another way;
And they will best succeed, who best can pay:
Those who would gain the votes of British tribes,
Must add to force of merit, force of bribes.
What can an actor give? In every age
Cash hath been rudely banish'd from the stage;
Monarchs themselves, to grief of every player,
Appear as often as their image there:
They can't, like candidate for other seat,
Pour seas of wine, and mountains raise of meat.
Wine! they could bribe you with the world as soon,
And of 'Roast Beef,' they only know the tune:
But what they have they give; could Clive do more,
Though for each million he had brought home four?
Shuter keeps open house at Southwark fair,
And hopes the friends of humour will be there;
In Smithfield, Yates prepares the rival treat
For those who laughter love, instead of meat;
Foote, at Old House,--for even Foote will be,
In self-conceit, an actor,--bribes with tea;
Which Wilkinson at second-hand receives,
And at the New, pours water on the leaves.
The town divided, each runs several ways,
As passion, humour, interest, party sways.
Things of no moment, colour of the hair,
Shape of a leg, complexion brown or fair,
A dress well chosen, or a patch misplaced,
Conciliate favour, or create distaste.
From galleries loud peals of laughter roll,
And thunder Shuter's praises; he's so droll.
Embox'd, the ladies must have something smart,

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Churchill
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Interested

Your favorite food
What you like to do
Your favorite color
or any other
The thing on your mind
That you like to share
Cause I can stay here
And listen to every word
Because I'm interested
Can I be an instrument
For changing your life
Is that all right?
Because I'm interested
I'd rather be with you instead
Than anyone else
Cause I'm interested in your middle name
Now don't be ashamed, Naw
It's between me and you
Everything you do
Let your guard down
Because there's a new girl in town
gonna turn it around
I hope that you are down
Because I'm interested
Can I be your instrument
In changing your life
Is that allright?
Because I'm interested
I'd rather be with you instead
of anyone else
I'm wide open
No more secrets
No lie
Don't wanna live like a fool
But I will
For you
So I'll beg
I'll scream
I'll call
I'll write
If that's what it takes for you to be in my life
Because I'm interested
And I'll be an instrument
In changing your life
Is that all right?
Because I'm interested
And I rather be with you instead
Of anyone else
Oh No
Because I'm interested

[...] Read more

song performed by India Arie
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'

Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.

Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,

[...] Read more

poem by James Russell Lowell
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Second Hand Books

Books! Books! Books! There are so many different designs.
There are some which, by the author, are personally signed.
Some books have pages with gilt edges, which look all posh.
Some have nice pictures on their covers, which are embossed.

Some books have hard covers, while some have soft.
Some are all dusty, where they’ve been kept in the loft.
Some books have fancy covers; some just have plain.
Some have suffered mishaps, and are now all stained.

Some books are all dog-eared at the corners of their pages.
Some have gone yellow, where they’ve been around ages.
Inside some books, there can be seen a pencilled name;
Someone, who once, on this particular book, had a claim.

Some are obviously well read; their spines are all creased.
From out of a book, amazing adventures can be unleashed.
Some books have pages which are spoiled or a bit torn.
Some have covers which are grubby and look well worn.

Some just have text, while others also include illustrations.
Some are former prize winners; once the toast of the nation.
There are books by famous authors, as well as the lesser known.
Some are former library books which, to the public, were loaned.

There are romances, poetry, classics, sci-fi, humour, and histories;
Gardening, cookery, travel, thrillers, manga, and murder mysteries.
In wooden bookcases, the books are categorised, and are neatly lined.
In a second hand bookshop, you just never know what you may find.

poem by Angela Wybrow
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Virginia's Story

Elizabeth Gates-Wooten is my Grand mom.

She was born in Canada with her father and brothers.
They owned a Barber Shoppe.
I don't remember exactly where in Canada.
I believe it was right over the border like Windsor or Toronto.
I never knew exactly where it was.

When she was old enough she got married.

First, she married a man by the name of Frank Gates.
He was from Madagascar.
He fathered my mom and her brother and sister.
The boy's name was Frank Gates, Jr.
Two girls name were Anna and Agnes.

Agnes was my mother.

Frank Gates went crazy after the war
He drank a lot and died
Then grandma Elizabeth married a man by the name of Mr. Wooten.
He had a German name, but I don't think he was German.
She took his last name after they got married.

Then they moved to West Virginia in the United States.

Their son, Frank Gates Jr. Became a delegate in the democratic party.
He use to get into a lot of trouble because he liked to fight.
He was a delegate from the 1940's to 1970's.
He died of gout in the 1970's.

Anna was a maid and cook.

She baked cakes and stuff for people as a side line.
She had a hump on her back (scoliosis) .
She had to walk with a cane.
She could cook good though.
She did this kind of work all of her life, just like her mom, Elizabeth

They were both good cooks

They had a lot of money because they had these skills
Especially when people had parties.
Because they would make all of this food and then they would have left-overs.
We got to eat a lot of stuff we normally wouldn't get because of that.
When they cooked, they didn't use no measuring stuff, they would just use there hand.

My moms name was Agnes Barrie Gates.

She married James Wright and moved to Cleveland.

[...] Read more

poem by Talile Ali
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All Different, But Still The Same

Some people have short hair, some have long.
Some people have thick hair; some people’s hair is all gone.

Some people have black hair, some have gray.
Some people have brown hair, some blonde, some red.
Some people’s hair a color unsaid.

Some people are short, some people are tall.
Some people will love you; some won’t like you at all.

Some people like hot weather, some like cold.
Some people are timid, some people are bold.
Some people have dark skin, some people have light.
Some people have black skin, some people have white.

Some people eat meat; some won’t touch it at all.
Some people have a good memory, some can’t recall.
Some people accept Christ, some never will.
Some people are stingy, some people give.

Some people like school, some people don’t.
Some people will excel, some people won’t.
Some people smoke cigarettes, some never will.
Some people are honest, some people steal.

Some people have book knowledge;
But don’t know the Holy Book.
Some people burn food, some people can cook.

Some people are old, some people are young.
Some people do smart things, some people do dumb.

Some people just have a diploma
Some people have degrees.
Some people do things slow, some with a breeze.
Some people are complainers, some easy to please.

Some people hate shopping, some stay in the mall.
Some people hate God, but God loves us all.

We are all different, but still the same.

When I get cut, I bleed red;
You get cut, red blood you’ll shed.

Some people are plump, some people are thin.
But we are all the same, we’re all human being.

Copyright © 2010-Phyllis Strong

poem by Phyllis Strong
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My Science Fiction Twin

My science fiction twin
Is doing better than expected
He captured a little blonde trophy wife
Whos really very well connected
And when he calls home with his alibi
She says is this really necessary?
But she knows that a man cant be a man
Unless hes punishing his secretary
He sips in the glow of a 61 vintage
Just as the day is dimming
With every intention of surrendering
To fifty-foot women
Who put the fascination back into my science fiction twin
My science fiction twin
Decided to become invisible
He has my eyes, my face, my voice
But hes only happy when Im miserable
The words flew from his mouth
And they were gently gathered by reporters
Trying to frame his once infamous flame
With tattered pictures of her daughter
Her hair is all made out of porcupine
Her figure is fantastic
But as you know, they corrupted her
So theyre being sarcastic
Who put the fascination back into my science fiction twin
Hell scream and shout
Everything is working out just as he predicted
Pride and position in the gallery of attempted people
Oh and the pain is so sweet
Better stamp his little feet
And youll even have time to pity me
How can you feel content?
You wonder where this fellow went
My science fiction twin
Escorted by his lovely nieces
Filled up his purse dictating verse
While painting masterpieces
His almost universal excellence
Is starting to disturb me
They asked how in the world he does all these things
And he answered superbly
Hes trapped in his own parallel dimension
Thats why Im so forgiving
But how could I possibly forget to mention those fifty-foot women
Who put the fascination back into my science fiction twin
My science fiction twin [4x]

song performed by Elvis Costello
Added by Lucian Velea
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Dad and Me

Inside our house you'll find crannies and nooks.
Crevices and cracks and fissures and books!
Books under the bed and on the floor,
Books around the table and beside the door,
Books on the bookshelf and surrounding it,
Books all over the house, every single bit!
Not a one of these books are non-fiction,
Different worlds are their depiction.
Fictional, sci-fi, dark and fantasy,
Horror and happy, more books for me!
Books belonging to my father,
Or belonging to me as I rather.
My father and I in bookworm heaven,
Until mum cleans up around half past seven.
She throws the books in a huff,
Says it's a mess and to clean it up!
Well dad and I try to clean,
But on the work we quickly wean
And in one of the larger nooks
You'll find dad and me reading our books.

poem by Lenore Lee
Added by Poetry Lover
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These Are Just Years

i thought home is where we went when we fell out of favour
ive since learned that home is where we go to learn what favours are
home is a language we all understand
and this is how the language came to me
i realise
home is where we dont feel things
fortune has arranged that the language wont abandon us
it never will abandon us
if you dont miss your home
i cant remember much about my home
when im away from...
home, where were welcome
we appear to be like you
the were welcome when we
appear to be alike
living in fiction
just seems much better than living in words
if you live in fiction
homes no match for a word
ever existence
the more you go on the same as before
the more you light up the same as this time
the more you sing
all your songs about
all your...
living in fiction
is much more better than living in words
if you live in fiction
homes much better than words
living in fiction
just seems much better than living in words
if you live in fiction
then homes no better than words
im in fiction [x6]
and what i see it seems so standard
it always seems that youre left stranded [x6]
why dont you look beond
the village wall?
look beyond the village wall
weve got four walls at home
got four walls at home
and these walls around your head
thats what they are
theyre walls around your head
an empty head is creative
and direct me
to where you come from
and what you thought you knew
where you come from
[?]

[...] Read more

song performed by Idlewild
Added by Lucian Velea
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Telling Stories

There is fiction in the space between
The lines on your page of memories
Write it down but it doesnt mean
Youre not just telling stories
There is fiction in the space between
You and me
There is fiction in the space between
You and reality
You will do and say anything
To make your everyday life
Seem less mundane
There is fiction in the space between
You and me
Theres a science fiction in the space between
You and me
A fabrication of a grand scheme
Where I am the scary monster
I eat the city and as I leave the scene
In my spaceship I am laughing
In your remembrance of your bad dream
Theres no one but you standing
Leave the pity and the blame
For the ones who do not speak
You write the words to get respect and compassion
And for posterity
You write the words and make believe
There is truth in the space between
There is fiction in the space between
You and everybody
Give us all what we need
Give us one more sad sordid story
But in the fiction of the space between
Sometimes a lie is the best thing
Sometimes a lie is the best thing

song performed by Tracy Chapman
Added by Lucian Velea
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Third Book

'TO-DAY thou girdest up thy loins thyself,
And goest where thou wouldest: presently
Others shall gird thee,' said the Lord, 'to go
Where thou would'st not.' He spoke to Peter thus,
To signify the death which he should die
When crucified head downwards.
If He spoke
To Peter then, He speaks to us the same;
The word suits many different martyrdoms,
And signifies a multiform of death,
Although we scarcely die apostles, we,
And have mislaid the keys of heaven and earth.

For tis not in mere death that men die most;
And, after our first girding of the loins
In youth's fine linen and fair broidery,
To run up hill and meet the rising sun,
We are apt to sit tired, patient as a fool,
While others gird us with the violent bands
Of social figments, feints, and formalisms,
Reversing our straight nature, lifting up
Our base needs, keeping down our lofty thoughts,
Head downward on the cross-sticks of the world.
Yet He can pluck us from the shameful cross.
God, set our feet low and our forehead high,
And show us how a man was made to walk!

Leave the lamp, Susan, and go up to bed.
The room does very well; I have to write
Beyond the stroke of midnight. Get away;
Your steps, for ever buzzing in the room,
Tease me like gnats. Ah, letters! throw them down
At once, as I must have them, to be sure,
Whether I bid you never bring me such
At such an hour, or bid you. No excuse.
You choose to bring them, as I choose perhaps
To throw them in the fire. Now, get to bed,
And dream, if possible, I am not cross.

Why what a pettish, petty thing I grow,–
A mere, mere woman,–a mere flaccid nerve,-
A kerchief left out all night in the rain,
Turned soft so,–overtasked and overstrained
And overlived in this close London life!
And yet I should be stronger.
Never burn
Your letters, poor Aurora! for they stare
With red seals from the table, saying each,
'Here's something that you know not.' Out alas,
'Tis scarcely that the world's more good and wise

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Hunting or Fishing?

Hunting or fishing – which is better?
That is what I am thinking about!
In business many hunt for customers;
Some men prefer casting net to catch fish!
Even for poets the position is the same
In poetry websites to catch readers!
Some lay wise traps to catch readers!
I use fishing rod with a needle and bait
To catch readers who can understand!

Whether the rank is high or low it is
Immaterial but the true comment is!
Hunting readers to comment and rank
Or fishing readers to comment and rank
Are not really going to enhance one’s status;
For, voluntary comments are indeed valuable!
Poets are jealous to appreciate others’ merit
But some poets raise the status of others!
So, letters to such poets increase sans end!
This is the status of poetry websites now!
So, it is left to you to hunt or fish or lay trap
As you wish to catch readers for rank, etc.!

poem by Ramesh T A
Added by Poetry Lover
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Canto the First

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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