bluegargantua: (Default)
[personal profile] bluegargantua
Hey,

So April is National Poetry Month and I wanted to post a couple of my favorite poems. Two short and one long(er):

1.

I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body.
I think of you always.

- Yamabe No Akahito


2.

Not speaking of the way,
Not thinking of what comes after,
Not questioning name or fame,
Here, loving love,
You and I look at each other.

- Yosano Akiko

3.

Watching baseball
sitting in the sun
eating popcorn
reading Ezra Pound
and wishing Juan Marichal
would hit a hole right through
the Anglo-Saxon tradition
in the first canto
and demolish the barbarian invaders
When the San Francisco Giants take the field
and everyone stands up for the National Anthem
with some Irish tenor's voice
piped over the loudspeakers
with all the players struck dead in their places
and the white umpires like Irish cops
with their black suits and little black caps
pressed over their hearts
standing straight and still
like at some funeral of a blarney bartender
all facing east
as if expecting some great white hope
or the Founding Fathers
to appear on the horizon
like 1066 or 1776 or all that
But Willie Mays appears instead
in the bottom of the first
and a roar goes up
    and he clouts the first one into the air
      and takes off
        like a footrunner from Thebes
    The ball is lost in the sun
      and maidens wail after him
        but he keeps running
          through the Anglo-Saxon epic
And Tito Fuentes comes up
    looking like a bullfighter
    in his tight pants and small pointed shoes
And the rightfield bleachers go mad
    with the chicanos & blacks & Brooklyn beerdrinkers
       "Sweet Tito! Sock it to heem, Sweet Tito!"
And Sweet Tito puts his foot in the bucket
    and smacks one that don't come back at all
      and flees around the bases
  like he's escaping from the United Fruit Company
    as the gringo dollar beats out the pound
      and Sweet Tito beats it out
      like he's beating out usury
      not to mention fascism and anti-Semitism
And Juan Marichal comes up again
  and the Chicano bleachers go loco again
    as Juan belts the first fastball
      out of sight
        and rounds first and keeps going
    and rounds second and rounds third
        and keeps going
        and hits pay dirt
      to the roars of the grungy populace
As some nut presses the backstage panic button
for the tape-recorded National Anthem again
to save the situation
but it don't stop nobody this time
in their revolution around the loaded white bases
in this last of the great Anglo-Saxon epics
in the Territorio Libre of baseball

- Lawrence Ferlinghetti "But Willie Mays Appears Instead"


later
Tom

Date: 2011-04-15 12:40 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] dancingwolfgrrl.livejournal.com
When beetles battle beetles with their paddles in a puddle
and the beetle battle puddle is a puddle in a bottle
We call it
A tweedle beetle
bottle puddle
paddle battle
muddle.

That's right.

Date: 2011-04-15 03:00 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] z-gryphon.livejournal.com
Joe wants me to praise C++
I don't give a shit
finals suck
I turned in my C program
it doesn't work
I don't care.
I have physics due tomorrow at 12
it won't be done by then
I have classes from 8 until 12
I had better do my physics tonight
I'm going to die
I have a jazz gig at the Centrum tomorrow
it will effectively take care of all the time I have from 2 til 8
then I have to study for 3 tests the next day
and do a microcalc assignment
but friday all my tests will be done by 11
and microcalc isn't due until 4
so maybe that'll have to wait until friday
and that afternoon I'm going to just die
but saturday I get to go to Boston to see the Sick & Twisted Animation festival
and maybe buy new combat boots
and maybe see Dubois
and maybe see Ruth
and maybe see the Jurassic Park exhibit at the science museum
although I'll be dead from fatigue
and then I get to get up early sunday morning
so I can get a ride back here by 10 or 11
so I can leave to go home when my ride is leaving
hopefully sometime around noon
and then when I go home I finally get to sleep

and I will be happy
and I'll give you a call monday afternoon/night

but I'll be dead by then anyway
and it's hard to use the phone when you're dead

and you should post this to rec.poetry

and now I must go and do physics
later

- [livejournal.com profile] brainiac69, ca. 1992

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