I kinda think that I'm not a big fan of poetry (which is a sweeping generalization made from the standpoint of someone who hasn't taken the time to read very much of it), just as I think I am not a big fan of self-serving blogs such as this one. So it is with some surprise that lately I've stumbled on some uncommonly good poems self-published (presumably, 'cause what else are blogs for if not a mass-frenzy of self-promotion) on the 'net.  A couple of these deserve mention and publication:



Whatever Floats Your Pequod

Call me Ishmael
—no, on second thought don’t

Call me Lazarus because
I now have a second skin
—the old one was flayed
by a single-minded madman
ambulating on a stump

Below decks
you’d hear him articulating
his loathing of life
to the cadence of the thud
of his wooden leg upon
quarter-deck boards
a rumble overhead
like the thunder
of a gathering storm

Call me Lone Survivor
alive by dint of flotsam and luck
—if you call it luck to have been
under the spell and thumb
of a lunatic chasing a
malevolent memory

Call me Happy To Be Alive
—and do I have a story for you!
Now when I breath the air
of summer blossoms
and taste its berries
I know what they mean

Call me The Old Man And The Sea;
someone eventually will
—big fish are hard to let be
and we all know the allure
of horizons; but

no, really

call me Queequeg's Confidant,
buddy of a harpooneer, an island
prince in a tattoo shirt
in a small boat chasing
mammoth mammals
psyched for murder
aiming to slay them
with a tiny, tooled spear
its tip all meanness
and barbarity

Call me Henchman in pursuit
of lamplight, of oil and cash reaped
from the flesh of leviathan

Call me Ishmael or call me Man
whatever floats your Pequod
It’s all the same to me

by Jim Culleny, 6/23/11 as posted on 3quarksdaily



And a poem that keeps haunting me: 

Estrangement

(Genesis 22:1–19)

The familiar voice that bids me

go to an unknown mountain

pierces my heart but stays the knife

in a trembling hand.

The deed’s undone,

yet the unspeakable lingers

between me and Sarah,

Isaac and his dad,

the three of us and that voice,

suddenly alien.

James L. Crenshaw

29 March 2000

 (sadly, I can no longer find the link, but I'll keep trying)

 

And, in inane god-help-us-people-are-stupid news:

 

From The New Inquiry on the issue of rampant plagiarism and the practice of purchasing papers:

Teacher recounting Cheat's reply to charges of plagiarism: 

When I informed this student that I suspected her paper was plagiarized, she said to me, “I got my paper from one of the students who was in your class last semester. How was I to know that she had plagiarized?”

And finally...

Go CANADA.  Watch the beautiful game.

Fifa Women's World Cup 2011

 

arrgh! wtf is happening with my fonts Google blogger?!!