What do you think about when you go for a walk? How does the mind work? It wanders along with your feet. The things you see along the path prompt your thoughts and vice versa. The transitions are invisible, unless you're paying attention, like today's poet. When you are ready, sometime today, take a walk with A.R. Ammons around Corsons Inlet. The poem is from 1965. more...

Posted by: annika at 09:12 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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From the best contemporary Danish poet out there, Henrik Nordbrandt:

Sailing

After having loved we lie close together
and at the same time with distance between us
like two sailing ships that enjoy so intensely
their own lines in the dark water they divide
that their hulls
are almost splitting from sheer delight
while racing, out in the blue
under sails which the night wind fills
with flower-scented air and moonlight
- without one of them ever trying
to outsail the other
and without the distance between them
lessening or growing at all.

But there are other nights, where we drift
like two brightly illuminated luxury liners
lying side by side
with the engines shut off, under a strange constellation
and without a single passenger on board:
On each deck a violin orchestra is playing
in honor of the luminous waves.
And the sea is full of old tired ships
which we have sunk in our attempt to reach each other.

Posted by: annika at 09:18 PM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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I'm a friend of haile selassie
I'm a friend of mother jones
I'm a friend of jackie passey
I'm a friend of long john holmes

I'm a friend of kathy griffin
I'm a friend of clay aiken
I'm a friend of old cal ripken
I'm a friend of barbie's ken

I'm a friend of stuart smalley
I'm a friend of michael moore
I'm a friend of janey pauley
I'm a friend of daniel schorr

I'm a friend of tuning sporky
I'm a friend of ned lamont's
I'm a friend of doc kevorky
I'm a friend of the country france

I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
I'm a friend of a friend but you don't know me
I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
And if I go there tonight, can I get in free?

I'm a friend of sarah connor
I'm a friend of miles dyson
I'm a friend of the party donner
I'm a friend of andre rison

I'm a friend of molly ringwald
I'm a friend of lance armstrong
I'm a friend of what's this thing called?
I'm a friend of long duk dong

I'm a friend of frida kahlo
I'm a friend of ed asner
I'm a friend of a girl named j-lo
I'm a friend of fat bastard

I'm a friend of lindsay lohan
I'm a friend of billy gates
I'm a friend of joshie groban
I'm a friend of norman bates

I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
I'm a friend of a friend but you don't know me
I'm a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend
So can I get in tonight . . . cuz I have to pee!

I'm a friend of chelsea clinton
I'm a friend of jar jar binks
I'm a friend of hergé's tintin
I'm a friend of michael spinks

I'm a friend of debbie schlussel
I'm a friend of that crocodile
I'm a friend of simon cowell
I'm a friend of katherine heigl

I'm a friend of kathleen willey
I'm a friend of blue man crew
I'm a friend of anything silly
I'm a friend of youtube too

I'm a friend of brian boitano
I'm a friend of what's-his-face
I'm a friend of kazakhstan-o
I'm a friend of the human race

Posted by: annika at 08:48 PM | Comments (6) | Add Comment
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1 Annie's drunk!!!

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 21, 2006 09:22 PM (o9M49)

2 Though, I gotta say, rhyming Ed Asner with Fat Bastard was pretty dang funny. Not to mention sporky/kevorky, of course.

Posted by: Tuning Spork at August 21, 2006 09:49 PM (o9M49)

3 OMG ur a friend of linsey lohan cn u get me her email addy she is SOOOOOOOOO AWSUM k thx by

Posted by: Leif at August 22, 2006 10:19 AM (CPQ57)

4 I got no friends and I hate everyone. What can I rhyme with that?

Posted by: kyle8 at August 22, 2006 02:25 PM (R+pIN)

5 kyle8, you simply say what you just posted, to the tune of Talking Heads' "Girlfriend is Better".

Posted by: mitchell porter at August 22, 2006 08:12 PM (shx+O)

6 But it really doesn't matter who you put upon the list.Cause there's none of them be missed.There's none of them be missed.

Posted by: colin at August 24, 2006 06:29 PM (fNoD4)

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Sorry I didn't post a poem this morning. But today's find is worth waiting for, I swear.

Wendy Battin has quickly become one of my favorite contemporary poets. In a just world, she'd be a household name.

Can you tell that Battin once taught at MIT?

And the Two Give Birth to the Myriad of Things

--said Lao-tse, sage of waterfalls, who

knew how the courtly heart keeps trying the world.
Heart wants only the good: dreams like a glass

harmonica, ringing light's measures. Love like art
if art could grow from seed, unfolding the code

inside it. But what the mind has sundered
cannot stay long uncluttered. Innocent heart, I

think, good heart, it wants, wants just now good
hands to coax my shoulders loose. What are we

birthing, when one thing leads to another,
two swimming the body's heat together?

If you want to know how the Way makes
a world, desire. But if you want to know the Way,

want nothing. A tall order, either way, worse
in the wanting not to want, as if desire can only

redshift like the galaxies who fly from us, who never
knew us. The distant water insists on falling inward,

to earth, to hell with all the stars retreating around us. O
Lao-tse, o Hubble, o love. It all comes down

to the ocean, in time, singing more deeply
the farther it travels. Its bass line thrums

the floorboards, the walls, such slow decay I can't
feel the dust on my skin until he is sleeping.

Posted by: annika at 09:05 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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This skeptical piece is by Iraqi poetess, Amal al-Jubouri; written in 2002.

Veil Of Religions

If you are One
and your teachings are One
why did you inscribe our infancy in the Torah
and adorn our youth in the Gospels
only to erase all that in your final Book?
Why did you draw those of us who acknowledge your oneness into disagreement?
Why did you multiply in us, when you are the one and only One?

Posted by: annika at 08:00 AM | Comments (4) | Add Comment
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Old Norse Poetry from the "Vellekla," an Icelandic epic of the tenth century.

Hakon the earl, so good and wise,
Let all the ancient temples rise; --
Thor's temples raised with fostering hand
That had been ruined through the land.
His valiant champions, who were slain
On battle-fields across the main,
To Thor, the thunder-god, may tell
How for the gods all turns out well.
The hardy warrior now once more
Offers the sacrifice of gore;
The shield-bearer in Loke's game
Invokes once more great Odin's name.
The green earth gladly yields her store,
As she was wont in days of yore,
Since the brave breaker of the spears
The holy shrines again uprears.
The earl has conquered with strong hand
All that lies north of Viken land:
In battle storm, and iron rain
Hakon spreads wide his sword's domain.

Posted by: annika at 08:42 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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