Verbatim Found Poetry

Birth of the Suwannee

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 19 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Cypress trees,
bottle-shaped, grotesque,
reach from the wine-colored water,
form a canopy. Light is weird and green.

Banners of
Spanish moss hide
the feathery foliage of
living trees, cover up dead stumps.

Through the vast
drowned swamp two tiny
streams creep sluggishly to join
at last before a spit of quaking land.

From Suwannee River Strange Green Land, Cecile Hulse Matschat (1938). Submitted by Dawn Corrigan.

Fundamentally Curious

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 17 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

It’s an act so
immense, so apparently monstrous and yet
deeply personal that it’s
almost
impossible to judge.
He erased himself, and all
those 8,000 souls, for

one woman.

Because he loved her.

There’s something
terrifying
in that kind of love, something that asks
for so much
it can’t possibly be returned,

or ignored.

Taken from an AV Club review of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Children of Time". "Possible" has been corrected to "possibly" in line 14. Submitted by Wesley Brown.

Semenology

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

fructose sugar
water
ascorbic acid
citric acid
enzymes
protein
zinc

and more!

From Semen Health Benefits: It Really Does Have All The Nutrients Of A Protein Shake, Huffington Post, 5 June 2013. Punctuation changed. Submitted by Richard Eno.

Advice from Metta World Peace to Jeremy Lin

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Yeah, we talk
about him. We think
he needs a better
haircut. I don’t
like that style.
You’re in New
York, the fashion
capital. Change
your haircut, OK?
You’re a star now.
Wear some
shades. Shades,
OK? Put down
the nerdy Harvard
book glasses. Put on
some black shades,
OK? With some leather
pants. Change
your style.
Fashion.
You’re Jeremy Lin,
for godsakes…
You’re in New
York City. Put
your hat on
backwards. Come
to practice with
your pants sagging
and just tell
them, I don’t feel
like practicing. Practice?
You know? Practice?
And wear
an Iverson jersey.
Come to practice
with a cigar. Lit.
I’m Jeremy Lin.

From Metta to Lin: Get some swag, CBS Sports, 10 February 2012. Submitted by Brett Foster.

Skint

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Emma
I want better for Tai
I want just a normal life
Just where I can get up in the morning
Get Tai off to school or whatever
Get about my housework
Do you know what I mean?

Do things with Tai at the weekend
Save up for holidays
Do you know what I mean?

I want it to be where eventually
I’m off the methadone and everything
Maybe even go back to college
Do a counsellors course
I’ll get a little office job or summat

Just normal
Do you know what I mean?

Gail
My partner died
He was thirty-seven years old when he died
To see him come off heroin
get his life sorted out
and then to go on drink
and then to die
through drink
it’s hard
It’s really hard

Life throws some things at you sometimes,
don’t it?
And you’ve just got to get on with it
You’ve got to be strong
And if you’re not strong,
and you’re weak
you fall apart,
don’t you?

Skye
Yeah, but it’s because I can
because I can do it
and I wanna do it
I can
so I don’t give a fuck
Do you know what I mean?

Do you know what, yeah?
that’s sticking up for your mates that
She’d booted her in the stomach
and winded her
so I just went over
I was just like
Boom

Dropped her
Banged her
Fucked her up
Stamped on her head
and everything

Tracey
Since I’ve lost me kids
I don’t care anymore
What else have I go to lose
apart from my head?
I regret the prostitution
and not fighting a bit harder
for me kids
but you can’t turn the clock back,
can you?
If you could,
we’d all have perfect lives,
wouldn’t we?

Taken from episode 4 of the Channel 4 series Skint. Submitted by Lisa Oliver.

All Correct

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 07 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

We anthropologists
have to be
as gender neutral
in our language
as possible.

That's why I say critters a lot.

From a college classroom lecture, overhead in the hallway. Submitted by J.R Solonche.

Skidegate

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 05 Jun 2013 09:33:00 +0000

House to which the high tide comes
House unknown
Fort house
Grizzly bear house
Grizzly bear’s mouth’s house
House making a noise
House of dishes
Box house
House unknown
House of contentment
House unknown
House of the stormy sea
Grizzly bear house (again)
House unknown
House unknown
Thunder and lightning house
Shining house
Dugout house - Chief Skidegate’s house
House in which people must shout to be heard
Eldjiwus’s house
Chief’s house
Raven’s house
House chiefs peep at from a distance
Mountain house
House on which storm clouds make a noise
Killer-whale house
Always wanting more house
Mosquito hawk house
House people are ashamed to look at - it is so great
Fin house

From a diorama in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, noted around 2000. Translations of house names from the original native American dialect of the Haida people. Submitted by Simon Williams.

I hope...

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 03 Jun 2013 08:00:00 +0000

I hope you always get your squash to water ratio wrong;
the new carpet in your office means that you constantly get static shocks;
you approach someone in the street and you both move to the same side
and the top comes off your salt pot and you get too much on your chips -
not loads, just too much for them to be nice.

I hope you’re offered a Revel and get the coffee one;
the next delivery you’re to receive between 8am-6pm arrives at 5.59;
in the middle of the night you need a wee, and in the dark end up standing on a lego brick
and you make toast one day, really looking forward to toast and jam,
and don’t have any jam.

I hope you accidentally get given a foreign coin in your change;
you discover the milk is off only once you’ve added it to your tea;
you can’t play your favourite pentatonic song because you’ve removed the black keys
and you ask for The Wicker Man on dvd for your birthday
and get the Nicolas Cage remake.

I hope your tattoo artist can’t spell Britain.

Selected from tweets with the hashtag #Edlmisfortunes. Semicolons have been added to the first two lines of each stanza; 'and' has been added to the beginning of line 4. Submitted by Angi Holden.

The Shape of a Dead Man

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 31 May 2013 07:51:00 +0000

I have the shape of a dead man
on the wall of my cell.
It was left behind by the last occupant.
He stood against the wall
and traced around himself with a pencil,
then shaded it in.

It looks like a very faint shadow,
it’s barely noticeable until you see it.
It took me nearly a week to notice it for the first time,
But once you see it you can’t un-see it.

I find myself lying on my bunk
and looking at it several times a day.
It just seems to draw the eyes like a magnet.
God only know what possessed him to do such a thing
but I can’t bring myself to wash it off.

Since they executed him,
it’s the only trace of him left.
He’s been in his grave almost five years now,
yet his shadow still lingers.

He was no-one and nothing.
All that remains of him is a handful of old rape charges
and a man-shaped pencil sketch.

From the diary of Damien Echols - an inmate on death row for 18 years. Via How to Survive Death Row in The Observer magazine, 26th May. 'And' omitted from the eighth line. Submitted by Lisa Oliver.

Hello for people

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 29 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Hello for people
who play music
because it feels
so good
and is very fun,
but also
want to share it
live a lot
and get free french fries
places.
Let's play your
neighbors
front yard.

From a Craigslist ad for musicians, 4 April 2013. Submitted by Cathy Barber.

It will soon be dark

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 27 May 2013 09:56:00 +0000

Writing is
excessive drudgery. It
crooks your back,
it dims your sight,
it twists your stomach
and your sides.

As the harbour is welcome
to the sailor, so is
the last line
to the scribe.

Marginalia from medieval manuscripts, posted on Wesley Hill's tumblr, 13th April 2012. Submitted by Marika.

Autoverse 2

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 24 May 2013 12:04:00 +0000

More than iron, more than lead,
more than gold I need electricity.
I need it more than I need lamb
or pork or lettuce or cucumber.
I need it for my dreams.

More poetry from the output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write English prose at random. Via Futility Closet. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Autoverse

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 22 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Bill sings to Sarah.
Sarah sings to Bill.
Perhaps they will do
other dangerous things together.
They may eat lamb
or stroke each other.
They may chant of their difficulties
and their happiness.
They have love
but they also have typewriters.

From the output of RACTER, an early 1980s computer programmed to write English prose at random. Via Futility Closet. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

Cry me a rainbow

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 20 May 2013 08:59:00 +0000

Down by the Fairway waterfront
where all of those artist
studios are the surge
broke into the first floor studios
drawing out paint and chalk across
the whole walkway, splashing
it back up against
the side of the building,
wave by wave,
making this insane rainbow
colored splatter paint all
across the Red Hook
shore. There must have been
mostly red paint
because the ocean in that
little alcove has turned a deep maroon.

Taken from a letter describing the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. Submitted by Marika.

The Wisdom of the East

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 17 May 2013 20:58:00 +0000

The face
of nature

reflects
all of

life’s ups
and downs.

Carve your
name on

your heart,
not in

marble.
You are

the center
of attention

wherever
you go.

Three slips of paper inside fortune cookies from a Chinese restaurant in Chinatown, New York City. Submitted by J.R. Solonche.

Cold hands

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 15 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Feel me 'ands.
Go on, feel em.
Freezing.
I've got gloves in me bag,
can't wear em.
Make me 'ands cold.
Got em off our Mandy for Christmas.
I'll wear them next week though.
Going down to see our Mandy.
Look at me fingers.
Blue wi' cold they are.
Feel me 'ands.
They're freezing.

A customer in my place of work, January 2013. Submitted by Pauline.

Life With Only Its Head Out Of Water

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 13 May 2013 09:52:00 +0000

Why should we
tolerate
a diet of
weak poisons, a home in insipid
surroundings, a circle
of acquaintances
who are not
quite
our enemies, the noise
of motors with
just enough
relief to prevent
insanity?

Who would want to live in a world which is just not
quite
fatal?

Taken from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p 12. Submitted by Wesley Brown.

Valentine

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

You haven’t forgotten
Anastasia
Marina
Natasha
have you?
i hope you stay well.

will you be my valentine?
there are no
obligations.
no fee to pay

this chance comes just once
in a lifetime
again
this chance comes
just once
in a lifetime

Svetlana is waiting.

A compilation of various subject lines from my Spam box. Submitted by Mr. Wilson.

Kinship and Community

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 08 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Him

In our turning we do this, that or the other. I’ve lived in this turning for fifty years,
and here I intend to stay. They’re new here they’ve only been here eighteen years.

I’ve got friends at work and friends at sport and friends I have a drink with. I know
all the people around here, and I’m not invited into anyone else’s home either.

It doesn’t seem right somehow. Your home’s your own.

They’re all related in this street. It’s awful, you can’t talk to anyone in the street about any of the others,
but you find it’s a relative. You have to be very careful.

Her

It’s friendly here. You can’t hardly ever go out without meeting someone you know. Often it’s someone you were at school with.

Since we’ve had the children I’ve got no more friends – outside the family I mean.
I don’t see my best friend much. She’s married too, and she’s always round

her Mum’s like I’m always round mine. Since we’ve had the baby, I’ve got no men friends – outside the family, that is.

Direct quotes from the research commentary in Family and Kinship in East London, by Michael Young and Peter Willmott (Pelican Books, 1957). Submitted by Peter Raynard.

Mythologise Anything

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 06 May 2013 08:42:00 +0000

A recent exhibition of the work
of American artist Jeff Koons was
called Everything's Here. I subscribe to that
worldview: you can live on "lipgloss and
cigarettes". There are more references to
TV shows and showbiz entertainers

in my songs than references to the
Greek myths but it's all valid. You can
mythologise anything if you put
your mind to it. In a way it's more fun
to look for profundity in something
that's not designed to have it. Or maybe

that's just awkwardness on my part – I do
have a tendency towards that. When I
was nine years old, we were learning how to
draw bar charts at school when the teacher
decided to construct one based on the
times we got up in the morning to get

ready for school. For some reason I was
determined to have a bar on the graph
all to myself and so claimed to rise at
6am every morning (which was an
obvious lie as I was usually at
least five minutes late each day). The teacher

was sceptical but let it go and, much
to my satisfaction, I got my own
exclusive bar. I don't know why I was
so determined to be different from all
the other members of my class, but it
felt important to me. Perhaps it still

is. But I'd like to think that it was more
than mere cussedness on my part, that it
was the start of a sensibility,
a desire to look in the less obvious
places – less obvious because they were
right under your nose. Pulp was the perfect

name for the band because this was an attempt
to find meaning in the mass-produced and
throwaway world that was, after all, what
we were surrounded by on a daily
basis. To sift through and find some beauty
in it all. Take a look – it is there.

Taken from Jarvis Cocker: the secrets of Pulp's songs, The Guardian, 16th October 2011. Submitted by Marika.

Shizzle

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 03 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

fo shizzle ma nizzle
is a bastardization of

fo' sheezy mah neezy
which is a bastardization of

for sure mah nigga
which is a bastardization of

I concur with you whole heartedly
my African american brother

Definition 3 for 'fo shizzle ma nizzle' in the Urban Dictionary. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

I was playing D&D when I Came Out

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 01 May 2013 08:00:00 +0000

and I don't know if
I would have
been able to

had it not been
for the positive influence

that the game had
on me.

Why?

Because
it taught me
to be self-reliant.
It taught me to not

stand around

waiting

for some man to rescue me.

It taught me to always,
always,

check the ceiling
before entering a room.

From the LiveJournal blog of wyrmwwd. Submitted by Veronica.

Wanted

noreply@blogger.com (Marika) — Mon, 29 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Easy Work! Excellent Pay!
Must be able to service the greater Northwestern area
Must have ability to climb poles
Must be willing to work varying hours and days

Must be a highly motivated, honest and aggressive self-starter
Must be able to service the greater Northwestern area
Must be clean, reliable, good with people, and have good morals
Must be willing to work varying hours and days

Must be hardworking and have own truck and tools.
Must be a highly motivated, honest and aggressive self-starter
Must be a skilled, "hands-on" person with a desire to create quality product
Must be clean, reliable, good with people, and have good morals

Assemble products at home.
Must be hardworking and have own truck and tools.
Must be fun, and energetic with a customer-service attitude
Must be a skilled, "hands-on" person with a desire to create quality product

Must be an aggressive, motivated, enthusiastic, retired military officer
Assemble products at home.
No experience or training required.
Must be fun, and energetic with a customer-service attitude

No phone calls please.
Must be an aggressive, motivated, enthusiastic retired military officer
Must be bondable and know federal regulations
No experience or training required.

Must be familiar with procedures and equipment
No phone calls please.
Must be trustworthy, dependable and possess leadership ability
Must be bondable and know federal regulations

Prefer high school graduate
Must be familiar with procedures and equipment
Earn money at home reading books.
Must be trustworthy, dependable and possess leadership ability

Must comprehend English well and be in good physical shape
Prefer high school graduate
Must be an ambitious, level-headed problem-solver
Must be trustworthy, dependable and possess leadership ability

Must be friendly and zippy
Must comprehend English well and be in good physical shape
Must have a neat and clean appearance.
Must be an ambitious, level-headed problem-solver

Will train.
Must be friendly and zippy
We want some hard working, clear thinking, basically good people.
Must have a neat and clean appearance.

Must be outgoing, ambitious, patient, and work well with children
Will train.
Must be dependable, enthusiastic, reliable, highly motivated, articulate and well-dressed
We want some hard working, clear thinking, basically good people.

$4.50 per hour (depending on experience)
Must be outgoing, ambitious, patient, and work well with children
Must be well-groomed and able to drive a stick-shift.
Must be dependable, enthusiastic, reliable, highly motivated, articulate and well-dressed

Easy Work! Excellent Pay!
Must have ability to climb poles

Taken from the want ads in the San Francisco Chronicle, 1991, and arranged into a pantoum. First published in Trade Trax, the newsletter of an organisation called Tradeswomen. Submitted by Lita Kurth.

Hanging Lie

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 08:00:00 +0000

Looks at the ground
So little light left
No wind at all
It has to happen now

Avenue of humanity
Red, clamouring together

What have I done? 

All words taken from commentary of the final day of the US Augusta Masters golf tournament. BBC Radio 5, 10.30–11.00pm BST, 14 April 2013. Submitted by Winston Plowes.

More Pigs Occur

noreply@blogger.com (Gabriel Smy) — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 09:47:00 +0000

So.

The first thing we see
is a plastic trash bag
with some paper chains spilling out.
A man
in a green t-shirt grabs it and deposits it
in a dumpster.
A boy
on a bike watches him.
A man uproots
some plants in a greenhouse
and harvests the squiggling maggot-y worms in the potting soil.
He puts a couple of them into medicinal capsules. Mirrors figure
conspicuously.

Later
something happens to Kris.
The man
puts her under a spell. She sees, tastes, feels
and does whatever he tells her to, but she can't
look at him because he says

his head is made of the same substance as the sun.

Her mind records
entire conversations, and the complete text
of Henry David Thoreau's Walden.
Another man collects, records
and plays sounds
and performs synchronous surgery on Kris
and a pig, apparently transferring a parasite
from one to the other, establishing
an indefinable psychic link
between them.

Kris encounters Jeff
on a train.
They connect. Their thoughts
get mixed up, which is to say that they're both convinced
that some of their memories have been
appropriated by the other. Their conversations
transpire
in several different places at once, or perhaps
at different times
in the same place.

Or different times at once. Some orchids growing
on tree roots
by the edge of a stream
change color.

More pigs occur.

Some association
is evinced between them, Kris
and other somnambulists.

Kris is
confused
and afraid.

From a review of the film Upstream Colour, RogerEbert.com, 11 April 2013. A few subclauses left out. Submitted by Wesley Brown.