in celebration of the things we consume (365 Poems #44)

Hot actress: Katee Sackhoff

The Book of a Thousand Eyes [The Lost Pines Inn would be a good name for a motel]

 

by Lyn Hejinian

The Lost Pines Inn would be a good name for a motel, or No Sheep in the Meadow, The Lost Egos, The Downtown Country Inn, Mike and Ann's, Doug and Diane's, Bob and Joe's or Just Joe's Hotel, Warm Toes Hotel, Anything Goes Inn, The Come Inn, The Company Retreat, The Hermit's Den, La Cave, The Little House Hotel, The Reliquary, The Happy Family Inn, The Rooster's Coop, The Corky Floor, The Henhouse Hotel, The Egg-in-a-Nest, The Rooks Retreat, The Cooks Inn, The Beat A Retreat, and a music group could call itself Crested Loader, or 10-Second Crossing, or 9 Car Train, or Thumb on the Space Bar, or the Unlike Minimums, The Shepherds Without Sheep, Sheep Without Sleep, Two Feminines, Autism, The Twice Maniacs, The Genetics, The Nasty Uncles, Interfering Women, but streets get named typically after numbers or trees of they're given the names of prominent as well as lesser-known citizens or the names of great cities of the world or the great letters of the alphabet from A to Z but in celebration of the things we consume the names of products and objects should be given to some streets (Tagliatelle Lane, Glue Stick Street, iPod Alley) and to encourage pursuit of intellectual professions a city's central thoroughfare might be called Mathematics Avenue, Neurochemistry Street, Jurisprudence Boulevard, or Lit Crit Street while at the edge of town the thoroughways and by ways could commemorate abstractions and generalized conditions (as in Global Capital Street, Logic Throughway, Affluence Alley, Interruption Boulevard, Domination Interstate, Accumulation Highway) and another great name for a motel would be The Soporif's Inn, or The Archive, and Duke, High Spot, Drummer, Archimedes, Shadow, Ranger, and Gamelon might name some of the 220 horses at work under the hood of the blue 2003 220-horse power P.T. Cruiser that got me home by bedtime.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The actual title of this series of posts is "365 Awesome Poems That Rhyme And Are Worth Reading," as part of the point of the series was to find poems that rhyme, because in my opinion poems that don't are not.  Poems, that is: they exist, but if they not rhyme they are not true poems.  They are horses to poetry's zebras.

This poem rhymes a bit, in the beginning, if you read it aloud, and I picked it on that basis even though rhyme and meter get sort of thrown out the door by the end, but I stuck it in here anyway because I liked it, for a couple of reasons:

First, I like to think up what would be good names for things, sometimes, especially bands, a habit I picked up even though I was never in a band, from reading Dave Barry's column way back when.

Second, I was driving home yesterday listening to the book Look Me In The Eyes and the book was saying how the author had moved to a place where all the city streets had the word "hill" in them, and I began thinking what might make good street names.  I decided it would be kind of neat to name a whole neighborhood's streets after science-y stuff, like "Quark Lane" and so on.

Then I saw this poem this morning, where the poet did me one better.  So I chose it and it's got enough rhymes in it to count.

On the other hand, at least the movie's not based on a board game. (365 Poems, #43)

about 1/9 of the way through this!

Love is Not All (Sonnet XXX)

 

by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Love is not all: it is not meat nor drink

Nor slumber nor a roof against the rain; 

Nor yet a floating spar to men that sink 

And rise and sink and rise and sink again; 

Love can not fill the thickened lung with breath, 

Nor clean the blood, nor set the fractured bone; 

Yet many a man is making friends with death 

Even as I speak, for lack of love alone. 

It well may be that in a difficult hour, 

Pinned down by pain and moaning for release, 

Or nagged by want past resolution's power, 

I might be driven to sell your love for peace, 

Or trade the memory of this night for food. 

It well may be. I do not think I would. 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

If you read that poem, you realize that while 90% of the poem argues that love isn't what you need to survive, the speaker would not trade even the memory of that single night with her lover for food or peace -- even if the need for food or peace was "past resolution's power."

So is the rest of the poem an effort to convince the speaker herself? Or is it instead simply a statement of fact -- that despite it being that love cannot be eaten or drunk or floated after a shipwreck, the proof that love is more powerful than all those things lies in the fact that men kill themselves for lack of love?

The Hot Actress is Naomi Watts, who stars in the "most controversial movie" of the year:  "Adoration."  The plot?

The real story unfolds when Roz had a passionate one-night stand with Lil's son Ian (Xavier Samuel). Roz's son and Ian's best friend Tom (James Frecheville) found out about the one night thing and told Lil about the rendezvous. Consequently, Tom took revenge against his mother and his best friend through having a revenge affair with Lil.

You could see that movie, or you could simply watch the humorous video from Andy Samberg from which the plot is stolen:

Or....... was it? (365 poems, Poem 42)

Bad Morning
by Langston Hughes

Here I sit
With my shoes mismated.
Lawdy-mercy!
I's frustrated!
______________________________________________________________________

What I found most interesting, really,  about this poem, was how simple it was -- seemingly.  If you read any Langston Hughes, you know that his poems are about racial and class divisions, poems designed to read like diatribes that rhyme, and then you come across this poem, and I read it and thought "neat", but then I thought, no, there's go to be more than that and I remembered William Carlos Williams' "Red Wheelbarrow," a poem that is sparse but still paints a picture of a farm and family near the edge of poverty.

So I took another look at this poem, and wondered, could it be about poverty? Could it be a parody of what the upper class (and white) people thought about blacks when Hughes was writing?

Yeah, I think so.

Here's another thing I learned today: before he wrote his first novel, Hughes was supported by a woman for two years who was deemed his "patron," sort of the way rich families would support artists in the Renaissance. It'd be nice if things worked that way, now, wouldn't it? Imagine if Bill Gates would send me a check for $10,000,000 so I could finally finish that short story I'm working on. Instead of having to shill for pennies by posting obvious click-bait like poems by Langston Hughes.  NOTHING gets people on the Internet going to your site like posting a Langston Hughes poem.

Oh, yeah, there's also this, which I throw in to get the snobbish literary elite:

"Name a hot actor," I said to Sweetie.
"Start pulling your weight on this blog," I told her.
"JT Timberlake," she said,
which is not his name.
(NOTE: THIS WAS NOT A HAIKU)

Entangled in the telephunk (365 Poems, Poem 41)

Hot Actress:
Lena Headey

Eletelephony

  by Laura Elizabeth Richards


Once there was an elephant,
Who tried to use the telephant—
No! No! I mean an elephone
Who tried to use the telephone—
(Dear me! I am not certain quite
That even now I've got it right.)
Howe'er it was, he got his trunk
Entangled in the telephunk;
The more he tried to get it free,
The louder buzzed the telephee—
(I fear I'd better drop the song
Of elephop and telephong!)

___________________________________________________________________________________

I have been reading poems off and on all day long, or at least all morning long, in between phone calls and emails, taking a little break here and there to read a poem while I tried to find something that I thought merited being in the list of 365 poems that are worth reading and rhyme, etc., and I stumbled across this one.

I liked it because of the wordplay and the fun way it read; even reading it silently to myself I enjoyed the way the words jumped around in my mind.  It immediately made me want to read this poem to kids, to Mr Bunches and Mr F, perhaps, although I'm not sure how much they would appreciate it, but I wanted to read it to them, anyway, right away.

To me, that's one of the hallmarks of a good, or great, poem: you want to read it aloud, again and again, and share it with people, and it rolls around in your mind.  That may be true of anything you read that is good or great, but with poems, the rhythm and the rhymes make them more... sticky.

"From the floor of the double-damned." (365 Poems, Poem 40)

I was looking for a summery poem to post today and came across... this.  It's not summery at all, but it is awesome.

  A Tale Of The Thirteenth Floor

by Ogden Nash


The hands of the clock were reaching high
In an old midtown hotel;
I name no name, but its sordid fame
Is table talk in hell.
I name no name, but hell's own flame
Illumes the lobby garish,
A gilded snare just off Times Square
For the maidens of the parish.

Hot actor:
Armie Hammer. No idea who he is.
He just turned up on a google search.

The revolving door swept the grimy floor
Like a crinoline grotesque,
And a lowly bum from an ancient slum
Crept furtively past the desk.
His footsteps sift into the lift
As a knife in the sheath is slipped,
Stealthy and swift into the lift
As a vampire into a crypt.

Old Maxie, the elevator boy,
Was reading an ode by Shelley,
But he dropped the ode as it were a toad
When the gun jammed into his belly.
There came a whisper as soft as mud
In the bed of an old canal:
"Take me up to the suite of Pinball Pete,
The rat who betrayed my gal."

The lift doth rise with groans and sighs
Like a duchess for the waltz,
Then in middle shaft, like a duchess daft,
It changes its mind and halts.
The bum bites lip as the landlocked ship
Doth neither fall nor rise,
But Maxie the elevator boy
Regards him with burning eyes.
"First, to explore the thirteenth floor,"
Says Maxie, "would be wise."

Quoth the bum, "There is moss on your double cross,
I have been this way before,
I have cased the joint at every point,
And there is no thirteenth floor.
The architect he skipped direct
From twelve unto fourteen,
There is twelve below and fourteen above,
And nothing in between,
For the vermin who dwell in this hotel
Could never abide thirteen."

Said Max, "Thirteen, that floor obscene,
Is hidden from human sight;
But once a year it doth appear,
On this Walpurgis Night.
Ere you peril your soul in murderer's role,
Heed those who sinned of yore;
The path they trod led away from God,
And onto the thirteenth floor,
Where those they slew, a grisly crew,
Reproach them forevermore.

"We are higher than twelve and below fourteen,"
Said Maxie to the bum,
"And the sickening draft that taints the shaft
Is a whiff of kingdom come.
The sickening draft that taints the shaft
Blows through the devil's door!"
And he squashed the latch like a fungus patch,
And revealed the thirteenth floor.

It was cheap cigars like lurid scars
That glowed in the rancid gloom,
The murk was a-boil with fusel oil
And the reek of stale perfume.
And round and round there dragged and wound
A loathsome conga chain,
The square and the hep in slow lock step,
The slayer and the slain.
(For the souls of the victims ascend on high,
But their bodies below remain.)

The clean souls fly to their home in the sky,
But their bodies remain below
To pursue the Cain who each has slain
And harry him to and fro.
When life is extinct each corpse is linked
To its gibbering murderer,
As a chicken is bound with wire around
The neck of a killer cur.

Handcuffed to Hate come Doctor Waite
(He tastes the poison now),
And Ruth and Judd and a head of blood
With horns upon its brow.
Up sashays Nan with her feathery fan
From Floradora bright;
She never hung for Caesar Young
But she's dancing with him tonight.

Here's the bulging hip and the foam-flecked lip
Of the mad dog, Vincent Coll,
And over there that ill-met pair,
Becker and Rosenthal,
Here's Legs and Dutch and a dozen such
Of braggart bullies and brutes,
And each one bends 'neath the weight of friends
Who are wearing concrete suits.

Now the damned make way for the double-damned
Who emerge with shuffling pace
From the nightmare zone of persons unknown,
With neither name nor face.
And poor Dot King to one doth cling,
Joined in a ghastly jig,
While Elwell doth jape at a goblin shape
And tickle it with his wig.

See Rothstein pass like breath on a glass,
The original Black Sox kid;
He riffles the pack, riding piggyback
On the killer whose name he hid.
And smeared like brine on a slavering swine,
Starr Faithful, once so fair,
Drawn from the sea to her debauchee,
With the salt sand in her hair.

And still they come, and from the bum
The icy sweat doth spray;
His white lips scream as in a dream,
"For God's sake, let's away!
If ever I meet with Pinball Pete
I will not seek his gore,
Lest a treadmill grim I must trudge with him
On the hideous thirteenth floor."

"For you I rejoice," said Maxie's voice,
"And I bid you go in peace,
But I am late for a dancing date
That nevermore will cease.
So remember, friend, as your way you wend,
That it would have happened to you,
But I turned the heat on Pinball Pete;
You see - I had a daughter, too!"

The bum reached out and he tried to shout,
But the door in his face was slammed,
And silent as stone he rode down alone
From the floor of the double-damned.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Notes on a poem:

First, I had never read this poem before I wrote my own horror poem, Lazy Bones Jones, which you can read here and which is something like this one.

Second, "Walpurgis Night" is a night exactly six months before All Hallows' Eve, and figures into such stories as Bram Stokers' "Dracula's Guest." In Germany, where the tradition is the spookiest, it is the night that witches meet to party with the Gods.  It was mentioned, also, in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

Third, "Dr. Waite" was a doctor who poisoned his victims, first with diptheria and other germs, then arsenic when that didn't work.

Fourth, "Ruth and Judd" may refer to "Winnie Ruth Judd," who shot her two roommates, hacked up their bodies and hid them in trunks.

"Nan... from Floradora bright" is Nan Patterson, a "Floradora girl," or Broadway show girl, who was having an affair with a man she shot (?)-- while riding in a coach with him the morning after a breakup fight.  Patterson claimed that her victim shot himself in the chest. A mistrial and two hung juries later, all charges against her were dropped.

There's probably many more fascinating stories in this poem, but I'm out of time and have to do some legitimate work now.

It's a TWOFER! (Or should that be "Two-Fer"? I'm never sure when to hyphenate my -fers)(365 Poems)(Your Saturday Morning Feel-Good Song)

First the poem:

What a queer bird, the frog are

When he sit he stand (almost)

When he walk he fly (almost)

When he talk he cry (almost)

He ain't got no sense, hardly

He ain't got no tail, neither, hardly

He sit on what he ain't got hardly

Then the song:

That's suitable for:

-- writing stories about little boys pretending to be frogs.
-- thinking the poem comes from Ogden Nash
-- learning it does not.

Instead, according to Wikipedia, the poem is an anonymous 19th century poem, and says not much more about the poem.

Musanim, which did that video, says the poem appeared in 1920s publications.  This guy, who was born in 1924, says his grandpa used to recite the poem to him, so it must have been around in 1924 or earlier.

That is where the story ends.  Other sites say it has appeared in other countries, Canada, New Zealand, and the like, but nobody knows where it started or who wrote it or what the story behind it, if there is one, might be.

It just exists.

And, finally, the Hot Actress, who I asked Sweetie to name but she didn't so we'll go with...

Elsa Pataky, who is in Fast and Furious 6 and plays

... I forgot what I was saying.

Today, I am off of work to go on a field trip to a farm with my kids. To celebrate, it's a poem about farm-ish stuff. (365 Poems, Poem 38)

Tender Buttons [Chicken]

  by Gertrude Stein

Hot Actor:
Chris Pine.
(Gotta get Michael Offutt to read
these poems SOMEHOW)

CHICKEN.

Pheasant and chicken, chicken is a peculiar third.

CHICKEN.

Alas a dirty word, alas a dirty third alas a dirty third, alas a dirty bird.

CHICKEN.

Alas a doubt in case of more go to say what it is cress. What is it. Mean. Why. Potato. Loaves.

CHICKEN.

Stick stick call then, stick stick sticking, sticking with a chicken. Sticking in a extra succession, sticking in.

Great Gatsby! Two handwritten poems by F. Scott Fitzgerald... (365 Poems,etc.)

.... handwritten by Fitzgerald in 1931 (the first one) and 1937 (the second one), while he wrote "Tender Is The Night" and cared for his dying wife, Zelda.  The poems were written to a friend's daughter -- and the daughter would die of polio at 19.

Also, your hot actress and actor, from The Great Gatsby:

Hot actor: Leonardo DiCaprio

Hot actress: Carey Mulligan.

I'm having a good day, but I know how the elf feels. Poem 35 (365 Poems)

Bad Day

Hot Actress: Hillary Duff.

Kay Ryan

Not every day
is a good day
for the elfin tailor.
Some days
the stolen cloth
reveals what it
was made for:
a handsome weskit
or the jerkin
of an elfin sailor.
Other days
the tailor
sees a jacket
in his mind
and sets about
to find the fabric.
But some days
neither the idea
nor the material
presents itself;
and these are
the hard days
for the tailor elf.



 INDIE  AUTHORS  FOR 

BEN WOLVERTON!

Don't know who Ben Wolverton is?   Ben Wolverton is the son of a sci-fi writer.  He was injured in an accident in April, and is recovering, but the cost of his recovery is estimated at more than $1,000,000.  So the writing community is banding together and donating sales of their books for the month of May to Ben's fund.  Buying any of the books below will help him!

Click here to go to the website dedicated to Ben and his recovery.  There's updates on his condition, plus t-shirts to buy and other ways to donate.  Or keep on reading to find out who else is donating sales of their books to the cause!

Nightingale, (sci-fi) by David Farland.  David is Ben's dad, with two books to buy.  Nightingale, a speculative fiction book about a young man raised in foster care who learns he can sing and affect evil, and Million Dollar Outlines, a nonfiction book to help writers learn to write better outlines.  The books start at $6.99 in pretty much every format.

To buy either of these books, CLICK THIS LINK.

The Lost Road Chronicles 
(ya/speculative fiction) by J. Leigh Bralick, The "Lost Road" Chronicles begin with "Down a Lost Road," in which a 16-year old uncovers family secrets and gets swept into Earth's mystical past.)

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF J. LEIGH BRALICK'S BOOKS ON AMAZON.





Books by Briane Pagel.  Pagel is the indie author of books like

Eclipse, a harrowing sci-fi story about an astronaut who wanted nothing more than to reach the stars, and did so -- but it took murder to get there.  Or did it?

the After: Saoirse's life didn't begin until she died in a plane crash. But with everything perfect in the After, why is she so unhappy? With the help of a possibly-unfriendly William Howard Taft, Saoirse looks for, in her afterlife, the meaning she never had in her life.

The Scariest Things, You CAN'T Imagine: short horror stories that will leave you lying awake at night wishing you'd stuck with something lighter.  Try "The Grave-Robbers," in which New Sam learns that there have been a lot of prior Sams born to Mom and Dad.  And they're all down in the catacombs...

All these books and more, just $0.99 on your Kindle.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF BRIANE'S BOOKS FROM AMAZON.

BOOKS BY RUSTY CARL:  

Rusty is a master artist and the author of several books:

A Dead God's Wrath (spec fic/novella): A mysterious stranger shows up to help avenge a brutal murder, unlocking magic of the best, and worst, kind in a sleepy 1895 western town.

War Angel: Like your romance with a bit of adventure and history? In this story, a young man learns of his grandmother's remarkable escape from Nazi Germany with the help of a dashing stranger.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OR MORE OF RUSTY'S BOOKS FROM AMAZON.

Books by S.K. Valenzuela:

S.K. Valenzuela writes the Silesia series: Silesia: The Outworlder,
and The Lords Of Askalon:  Freed when her prison ship crashes, aided by a rogue fugitive, Saraha is trying to foment a rebellions against the Dragon-Lords. 

CLICK HERE TO HELP BEN BY BUYING ONE OF S.K.'S BOOKS ON AMAZON.





Want to join? Cut and paste that part, put it on your blog, add your info, and let me know it's there.  I'll post about you, too, and add you to the list!

Poem 34 -- and it's got pictures, but I'll still put a hot actor in there. (365 poems, etc.)

From Incidental Comics.
Read more here. He's really good.

And the Hot Actor, picked by Sweetie:

"Christopher Meloni."


Actual conversation:

Me:  Pick a hot actor.

Sweetie:  *sigh* Christopher Meloni.

Me:  You always go to him.

Sweetie: I don't know. *walks away*

Maybe I'm getting a little lax on the rhyming thing? (Poems 32 and 33)

But whattaya gonna do about it, huh? That's what I'd like to know.

These poems are part of the many moods of a Friday:

Hot Actress: Elizabeth Banks
(ALSO: NSFW? Sorry that's a bit late.)

A Note on Absence


by Martin Corless-Smith

The story over having wished it otherwise

The water surface/friendship

The drunk euphoric

Good Friday music

Not in this lifetime

A fig tree grows

No miserable deed will do

Space and time, dimensions that just bring more of this

For anyone who has a nose

Show gratitude

A king sat in a box

8 p.m. Friday

rain defeating snow

a space too narrow to pass through

Hot Actor:
Chris Hemsworth

I wish I'd written this poem.  I'm glad I read it:



Battle of Will & Exhaustion, Mother & Child

  by Jenny Factor

Two knights surrounded by dinosaurs
are cornered in the kitchen--all threat and bluster.
Action figures always act
even as night tries to soothe them under.

I am the one who laid a nervous hand
on a child's exhausted threat and bluster.
The bunk bed creaks as the story settles,
as night's cool hand tries to soothe us. Under

a Seussian drone I am thinking, anxious,
about someone with a nervous hand.
Will he sleep? Will he sleep? When will he sleep?
The bunk bed creaks as the shipboard settles.

What is the myth of a woman alone
who's thinking through Seuss? Her thoughts are drones
serving a terrible queen of their own.
Can she sleep? Will she sleep? When will she sleep?

The toilet's crystalline drip and the ghosts
of the walls are a myth. And this woman, alone,
is a captain steering too close to the rocks
where the ocean is serving a terrible queen.

Up on the cliff of a Friday midnight
the toilet's crystalline drip and the ghost-
ly snore of the sleepy one riding his dragons
can steer this sad captain away from her rocks.

"Rock me to sleep," cries the wild girl at twenty
up on the cliff with a young man at midnight.
Far below, waves from the sea of Alaska
snore back and forth filled with moon's breath and dragon.

Up on the cliff of a Friday's midnight,
rock me to sleep with the sound that the fridge makes.
Warmth of a tub, hole of a drain.
Memories sleep in the seas of Alaska.

Action figures always act
upon the cliff of a Friday's midnight.
Warmth of a bird's heart. Chill of a stone.
Two knights surrendered. The dinos snore.

Hot actress:
Malin Ackerman

I had another one, but it was long and I'll leave it for another Friday, perhaps.

We're supposed to be on poem 37 by now. I'm behind. Here's three more, poems 29, 30, and 31

Can you figure out what these three poems share in common?

OOoohhhh, it's a mystery! Or a pop quiz. Seems less fun that way, though. Go with mystery. Jeekies!

Oh, and today they're hot athletes because Sweetie has decided that the guy who won the Masters needs to be on here.  DOESN'T EVEN READ THIS BLOG, and she's still telling me what to do.

Marriage, amiright?

This is the guy who won the Masters. When Sweetie told me to put him in,
she said "Adam Scott, but not that Adam Scott. The guy who won the
Masters."
I said: "Who is that Adam Scott?"
And she said: "Ben from Parks & Rec."
So the moral of the story is:
1. Sweetie is weirdly knowledgeable about guys named Adam Scott.
2. Winning the Masters doesn't make you "the" person with your name
3. You can have more than one moral of the story.
4. Take that, Aristotle!

To Earthward

  by Robert Frost

Love at the lips was touch

As sweet as I could bear;

And once that seemed too much;

I lived on air

That crossed me from sweet things,

The flow of--was it musk

From hidden grapevine springs

Downhill at dusk?

I had the swirl and ache

From sprays of honeysuckle

That when they're gathered shake

Dew on the knuckle.

I craved strong sweets, but those

Seemed strong when I was young;

The petal of the rose

It was that stung.

Now no joy but lacks salt,

That is not dashed with pain

And weariness and fault;

I crave the stain

Of tears, the aftermark

Of almost too much love,

The sweet of bitter bark

And burning clove.

When stiff and sore and scarred

I take away my hand

From leaning on it hard

In grass and sand,

The hurt is not enough:

I long for weight and strength

To feel the earth as rough

To all my length.

This is Sasha Cohen. Not "the" Sasha Cohen.
She's a figure skater. I found her by Googling "hot girl athletes."
Now, off to delete my search history!

Atlantis—A Lost Sonnet

  by Eavan Boland

How on earth did it happen, I used to wonder

that a whole city—arches, pillars, colonnades, 

not to mention vehicles and animals—had all 

one fine day gone under?

I mean, I said to myself, the world was small then.

Surely a great city must have been missed?

I miss our old city —

white pepper, white pudding, you and I meeting 

under fanlights and low skies to go home in it. Maybe 

what really happened is 

this: the old fable-makers searched hard for a word

to convey that what is gone is gone forever and 

never found it. And so, in the best traditions of 

where we come from, they gave their sorrow a name

and drowned it.

El Dorado

This is Ryan Lochte.
He makes it in here because I made
Sweetie pick another hot athlete
and she said "Ryan Lochte,"
mostly because Mr Bunches saw
an ad for Lochte's new show
and has been going around all week
asking "What Would Ryan Lochte do?"
The moral of the story is:
Sweetie loves abs.
Also, my son's ethical and moral compass
in this world is Ryan Lochte.

by Edgar Allan Poe

   Gaily bedight,
   A gallant knight,
In sunshine and in shadow,
   Had journeyed long,
   Singing a song,
In search of Eldorado.

   But he grew old,
   This knight so bold,
And o'er his heart a shadow
   Fell as he found
   No spot of ground
That looked like Eldorado.

   And, as his strength
   Failed him at length,
He met a pilgrim shadow;
   "Shadow," said he,
   "Where can it be,
This land of Eldorado?"

   "Over the mountains
   Of the moon,
Down the valley of the shadow,
   Ride, boldly ride,"
   The shade replied,--
"If you seek for Eldorado!"

Four poems about days (Poems 25, 26, 27, and 28 of those 365 Rhyming Poems You Should Read)

Hot Actress: Kathryn Morris

Holy Thursday


by William Blake

Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery
Fed with cold and usurous hand?

Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!

And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns.
It is eternal winter there.

For where-e’er the sun does shine,
And where-e’er the rain does fall:
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.

Hot actor: Johnny Messner

Thursday

  by Edna St. Vincent Millay

And if I loved you Wednesday,
   Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday—
   So much is true.

And why you come complaining
   Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday,—yes—but what
   Is that to me?
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22723#sthash.1e5JofhO.dpuf

Hot Actress: Kaley Cuoco

Yesterday

  by W. S. Merwin

My friend says I was not a good son
you understand
I say yes I understand

he says I did not go
to see my parents very often you know
and I say yes I know

even when I was living in the same city he says
maybe I would go there once
a month or maybe even less
I say oh yes

he says the last time I went to see my father
I say the last time I saw my father

he says the last time I saw my father
he was asking me about my life
how I was making out and he
went into the next room
to get something to give me

oh I say
feeling again the cold
of my father's hand the last time
he says and my father turned
in the doorway and saw me
look at my wristwatch and he
said you know I would like you to stay
and talk with me

oh yes I say

but if you are busy he said
I don't want you to feel that you
have to
just because I'm here

I say nothing

he says my father
said maybe
you have important work you are doing
or maybe you should be seeing
somebody I don't want to keep you

I look out the window
my friend is older than I am
he says and I told my father it was so
and I got up and left him then
you know

though there was nowhere I had to go
and nothing I had to do
- See more at: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15741#sthash.vJe1Dma5.dpuf

Hot Actor:
Robby Benson.
FORMER HUNK OF THE WEEK!

Unday

  by Fanny Howe


From no nowhere not near the sea
on blue field flax
the cemetery's absolutely solitary
you and you and a third

of a pound of bread
for supper in the refectory
where I would die of hunger
if you--if soon--if on this unday--one

undoing would be undone

Poem 24

Hot Actress: Olivia Munn

A Drinking Song


by W. B. Yeats

Wine comes in at the mouth
And love comes in at the eye;
That’s all we shall know for truth
Before we grow old and die.
I lift the glass to my mouth,
I look at you, and I sigh.
______________________________________________________________________________

INTERESTING:  On my site, "lit," where I post original short stories, long stories, and poems, the poems are the highest-page-view-getter.  That wouldn't be because of the hot actresses, though, right?

Click here to read all of my Friday's Sunday's Poems.  All original! 99.9% rhyming!

#(#*%^# Haiku, and also Poems 20, 21, 22, and 23 and they are sexy!

Did you  hear that the New York Times is celebrating April as Poetry Month by starting a haiku Tumblr?

No, I won't link to it because #(@&# haiku and #(#&$ Tumblr, too.

Here's some sexy poems:

Hot Actress: Evangeline Lilly

Arts & Sciences

  by Philip Appleman


"Everyone carries around in the back of
his mind the wreck of a thing he calls
his education." —Stephen Leacock

SOLID GEOMETRY Here's a nice thought we can save: The luckiest thing about sex Is: you happen to be so concave In the very same place I'm convex. BOTANY Your thighs always blossomed like orchids, You had rose hips when we danced, But the question that always baffled me was: How can I get into those plants? ECONOMICS Diversification's a virtue, And as one of its multiple facets, when we're merging, it really won't hurt you To share your disposable assets. GEOGRAPHY Russian you would be deplorable, But your Lapland is simply Andorrable So my Hungary fantasy understands Why I can't keep my hands off your Netherlands. LIT. SURVEY Alexander composed like the Pope, Swift was of course never tardy, And my Longfellow's Wildest hope Is to find you right next to my Hardy. PHYSICS If E is how eager I am for you, And m is your marvelous body, And c means the caring I plan for you, Then E = Magna Cum Laude. MUSIC APPRECIATION You're my favorite tune, my symphony, So please do me this favor: Don't ever change, not even a hemi- Demi-semiquaver. ART APPRECIATION King Arthur, betrayed by Sir Lancelot, Blamed the poets who'd praised him, and spake: "That knight's nights are in the Queen's pantsalot, So from now on your art's for Art's sake." ABSTRACT EXPRESSIONISM I couldn’t do Goyas or Grecos, And my Rembrandts had zero panache, But after I junked all my brushes, My canvases made quite a splash. PHILOSOPHY 1. Blaise Pascal Pascal, reflecting tearfully On our wars for the Holy Pigeon, Said, "Alas, we do evil most cheerfully When we do it for religion." 2. René Descartes The unruly dactyls and anapests Were thumping their wild dithyrambic When Descartes with a scowl very sternly stressed: "I think, therefore iambic!" 3. Thomas Hobbes Better at thinking than loving, He deserved his wife's retort: On their wedding night, she told him, "Tom, That was nasty, brutish – and short!"

*****************************************************************

That's actually how it's written! Just like that: a paragraph.  And yet it rhymes! And it's not a stupid haiku which stupid everyone stupidly thinks they can write.

5-7-5, about nature, BINGO! It's a poem.  I hate to be like the Neil DeGrasse Tyson of poetry -- Tyson regularly and systematically attempts to take people's enjoyment of science away from them in order to prove how smart (and unlikable) he is -- but haiku is worse than free verse.

Seriously.

I would rather get mugged by a bunch of poetry slam beatniks than read a single haiku.

Here's another sexy poem:

Hot Actor: Christopher Meloni

The Elephant is Slow to Mate

  by D. H. Lawrence
The elephant, the huge old beast,
     is slow to mate;
he finds a female, they show no haste
     they wait

for the sympathy in their vast shy hearts
     slowly, slowly to rouse
as they loiter along the river-beds
     and drink and browse

and dash in panic through the brake
     of forest with the herd,
and sleep in massive silence, and wake
     together, without a word.

So slowly the great hot elephant hearts
     grow full of desire,
and the great beasts mate in secret at last,
     hiding their fire.

Oldest they are and the wisest of beasts
     so they know at last
how to wait for the loneliest of feasts
     for the full repast.

They do not snatch, they do not tear;
     their massive blood
moves as the moon-tides, near, more near
     till they touch in flood.

****************************************************************

And Tumblr? Everything on Tumblr is such a one-note joke that by now, simply saying "Tumblr" means that the joke has gotten old.

Try it:

"I put on Tumblr...nevermind, I'm already bored with it."

Here's a third sexy poem:


Couple Sharing a Peach

  by Molly Peacock

Hot Actress: Kelly Carlson

It's not the first time
we've bitten into a peach.
But now at the same time
it splits--half for each.
Our "then" is inside its "now,"
its halved pit unfleshed--

what was refreshed.
Two happinesses unfold
from one joy, folioed.
In a hotel room
our moment lies
with its ode inside,
a red tinge,
with a hinge.

**************************************************************************

So DO NOT celebrate April is Poetry month with some crappy haiku about jerks.  Read REAL poems.  I've already posted 23 of them.  There's more everywhere.  Read something that takes some effort and actually attempts to convey a thought -- a thought more complex than "I can string together 17 syllables that sound profound."

Here's the fourth sexy poem:




The Hug

by Thom Gunn

Hot Actor: Ryan Reynolds

It was your birthday, we had drunk and dined
    Half of the night with our old friend
        Who'd showed us in the end
    To a bed I reached in one drunk stride.
        Already I lay snug,
And drowsy with the wine dozed on one side.

I dozed, I slept. My sleep broke on a hug,
        Suddenly, from behind,
In which the full lengths of our bodies pressed:
        Your instep to my heel,
    My shoulder-blades against your chest.
    It was not sex, but I could feel
    The whole strength of your body set,
           Or braced, to mine,
        And locking me to you
    As if we were still twenty-two
    When our grand passion had not yet
        Become familial.
    My quick sleep had deleted all
    Of intervening time and place.
        I only knew
The stay of your secure firm dry embrace.

Three poems by Elizabeth Bishop (Poems 17, 18, and 19)

One Art

Hot actress: Aisha Tyler

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster,

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.

- Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like a disaster.




A Miracle for Breakfast

Hot Actor: Justin Theroux

At six o'clock we were waiting for coffee,
waiting for coffee and the charitable crumb
that was going to be served from a certain balcony
--like kings of old, or like a miracle.
It was still dark. One foot of the sun
steadied itself on a long ripple in the river.

The first ferry of the day had just crossed the river.
It was so cold we hoped that the coffee
would be very hot, seeing that the sun
was not going to warm us; and that the crumb
would be a loaf each, buttered, by a miracle.
At seven a man stepped out on the balcony.

He stood for a minute alone on the balcony
looking over our heads toward the river.
A servant handed him the makings of a miracle,
consisting of one lone cup of coffee
and one roll, which he proceeded to crumb,
his head, so to speak, in the clouds--along with the sun.

Was the man crazy? What under the sun
was he trying to do, up there on his balcony!
Each man received one rather hard crumb,
which some flicked scornfully into the river,
and, in a cup, one drop of the coffee.
Some of us stood around, waiting for the miracle.

I can tell what I saw next; it was not a miracle.
A beautiful villa stood in the sun
and from its doors came the smell of hot coffee.
In front, a baroque white plaster balcony
added by birds, who nest along the river,
--I saw it with one eye close to the crumb--

and galleries and marble chambers. My crumb
my mansion, made for me by a miracle,
through ages, by insects, birds, and the river
working the stone. Every day, in the sun,
at breakfast time I sit on my balcony
with my feet up, and drink gallons of coffee.

We licked up the crumb and swallowed the coffee.
A window across the river caught the sun
as if the miracle were working, on the wrong balcony.


A Summer’s Dream

Hot actress: Selena Gomez

To the sagging wharf
few ships could come.
The population numbered
two giants, an idiot, a dwarf,

a gentle storekeeper
asleep behind his counter,
and our kind landlady—
the dwarf was her dressmaker.

The idiot could be beguiled
by picking blackberries,
but then threw them away.
The shrunken seamstress smiled.

By the sea, lying
blue as a mackerel,
our boarding house was streaked
as though it had been crying.

Extraordinary geraniums
crowded the front windows,
the floors glittered with
assorted linoleums.

Every night we listened
for a horned owl.
In the horned lamp flame,
the wallpaper glistened.

The giant with the stammer
was the landlady’s son,
grumbling on the stairs
over an old grammar.

He was morose,
but she was cheerful.
The bedroom was cold,
the feather bed close.

We were awakened in the dark by
the somnambulist brook
nearing the sea,
still dreaming audibly.

Poems 14, 15, and 16: Poems from movies!

Funeral Blues (Song IX / from Two Songs for Hedli Anderson)
W.H. Auden

Hot Actor: Hugh Grant

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone.
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling in the sky the message He is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever, I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun.
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Auguries of Innocence
  by William Blake

Hot Actress: Angelina Jolie

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State
A Horse misusd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear
A Skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul
The wild deer, wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belovd by Men
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity
He who torments the Chafers Sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song
Poison gets from Slanders tongue
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envys Foot
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity
This is caught by Females bright
And returnd to its own delight
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of Death
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole Nation sell & buy
He who mocks the Infants Faith
Shall be mockd in Age & Death
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons
The Questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to Reply
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown
Nought can Deform the Human Race
Like to the Armours iron brace
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out
To be in a Passion you Good may Do
But no Good if a Passion is in you
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate
The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse
Dance before dead Englands Hearse
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day

Used in "In The Bedroom" and "Lara Croft, Tomb Raider."

We never know how high we are
  by Emily Dickinson

Hot Actor: Tobey Maguire

We never know how high we are
  Till we are called to rise;
And then, if we are true to plan,
  Our statures touch the skies—
 
The Heroism we recite
  Would be a daily thing,
Did not ourselves the Cubits warp
  For fear to be a King—

Used in Seabiscuit