HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: In Fields Where They Lay
From: jabolliger@miavx3.mid.muohio.edu
Date: 12 Oct 92 12:58:35 EST

Excerpt from a letter written to me from  Maj Ragain a freind of mine.

	"Tomorrow I'll give copies of your poems to the classes.
Wonder where they/you will go from there.  The Buddhists call this 
transmission of mind to mind with mind.  Fly, angels.
					Maj "

.. So Maj I return in kind.


		In Fields Where They Lay
		__________________________

	Across the table, tonight, my son
	is wearing his hat down on his shoulders.
	I cannot lift it from him.
	He looks like three men in one skin.
	All his life I have been after him
	to go away with me and not come back.
	When spring comes, we make a last run
	back to the Ozarks, Noel, Missouri,
	to fish the Elk River that bends its way
	through the village and along the bluffs.
	We were there years ago when
	Sean was a boy, back when I could still 
	hear water talk.
	I told him then that this would be my home,
	with the indians and the hillbillies
	and anybody else who hadn't been rounded up.

	I want to buy a cabin in Noel,
	with a screened in porch, right out over
	the river, no electricity, just
	a white gas burner, heat, no lights.
	I am tired of lights.
	At the center of the room,
	we'll set up a silver coffee pot,
	the size of a trash can, and perk up
	river water coffee the way the old man
	showed me, with a handful of egg shells
	and a touch of salt to clear the grounds,
	enough coffee to keep the whole village awake.
	And when it finds us, tracking our scent
	up the river, and everything begins to collapse
	like a dark star, the kitchen will hold.
	The children will come wrap their arms 
	around our legs, pressing their faces 
	to our knees.
	We will keep each other 
	and blunt the teeth of the wind.

	In the morning calm,
	Sean and I will walk down to the river
	And on our hands and knees,
	drink like animals.
	The hunter can't see us.
	I will take the heavy helmet
	from my son's head and drink
	my part of the morning from it.
	He will never wear it again.

	Then we will do what I have imagined
	for us all our lives together.
	Sean springs to his feet
	and stands perfectly erect, hands poised
	above his head, like a diver,
	and then sommersaults lightly
	onto my bony shoulders.

	I do not stagger.
	I slowly extend my arms for balance,
	straighten my legs
	and raise him toward
	those other strong and resined hands
	that reach down for his grip.
	In one motion,
	they lift us up,
	and we are gone.


			Maj Ragain
			Kent Ohio
			October 1992
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 1992 19:22:49 GMT
Subject: Re: Creation of Urdu newsgroup
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

In rec.arts.poems, donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole) writes:

> the initials r.a.p.u. are the same as my proposed newsgroup:
> 
> 
> 	REC.ARTS.POEMS.UNICORNS
> 

How about rec.arts.poems.erotica? 
> 
> Yours,
> 
> Posthumous O'Toole, Defender of the Realm

You LIE!  You LIE!

I am the defender of the realm.  I am.
I always have been.  Not you, you 
son of perdition, you dead thing,
you offal of Pluto and Cerberus.

Have a care O'Toole 
or this just might lead
to a duel.


doug
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: steele@aem.umn.edu (Stephanie Steele)
Subject: Re: Calliope O'Toole
Organization: University of Minnesota
Distribution: na
Date: Wed, 14 Oct 1992 04:47:43 GMT

o'toole,

i'm not sure what's up with satan and all you alias' ( i kind of feel
like i came in on the middle of the millenium with a lot of the stuff
you write) but this is really...NICE...i just loved all the garden/poetry
stuff and, wow, it all rhymed! really great images, thanx!

sls

--

=======================================================================
			   Stephanie Steele
			steele@chip.aem.umn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: tolman%asylum.cs.utah.edu@cs.utah.edu (Kenneth Tolman)
Subject: Time has turned
Date: 7 Oct 92 20:17:17 MDT
Organization: University of Utah, CompSci Dept

Time has turned
Against the flowers it has unfolded
Every gift opened
Is hurredly destroyed
Is there a place of cool reflection
To savor some trifle
Forever?



Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lichter@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter)
Subject: kids/frozen yogurt mountain
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Distribution: na
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 07:32:05 GMT

A friend of mine reads her 4.5 year-old daughter poetry each night
before she sends her off to bed.  This has inspired me to try to write
some children's poetry.  I haven't exactly figured out what it means to
write children's poetry, unfortunately.  It seems that poetry for kids
needs to rhyme and really ought to have an interesting rhyme scheme.
It probably doesn't have to be fantastic in nature (talking animals,
fairy-tale places) but I suppose that would help.  What I'd like to
strive for is poetry that addresses issues relevant to a contemporary
child, as older nursery rhymes sort of did.  Relevant doesn't mean
preachy, but ...  Following are a couple tries, the first of which is
(I think) more successful than the second.


	frozen yogurt mountain
	------------------------------------------------
	high atop frozen yogurt mountain
	the carob chip monster dwells
	he bathes each day in a fountain
	of granola and pistachio shells

	he swims in a lake of strawberries
	and eats crumbled orios for lunch
	he hunts peanut chips and tarries
	thinking of sweet things that crunch

	when to frozen yogurt mountain you travel
	go with a friend, not alone
	or the carob chip monster will have you
	served up in a dish or a cone


If you have suggestions for additional verses, post or let me know.
Following is a really poor draft of a children's poem that I was just
working on:


	tv
	-----------------------------------------------
	when i turn off my tv
	the world calls to me
	because where i'll be
	- on the blue blue sea
	- in the air flying free
	- climbing up a tree
	- making a cup of tea
	i can't be watching tv


Anyway, I'd be interested in comments on (a) how to write stuff for
kids, (b) your poems for kids, and (c) any really good poetry books you
know of for kids.

By the way, my friend's daughter's favorite is "The Owl and the
Pussycat", which is really wonderful and I'd post it if I had the text
with me ...

Michael
From: schouten@sp95.csrd.uiuc.edu (Dale Schouten)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Name that poet
Date: 16 Oct 92 17:51:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: sp95.SCHOUTEN.92Oct16105115
Organization: Center for Supercomputing R & D

Could you please tell me the name of the poet who wrote the poem
(the name of the poem would be nice too) that contains the line:

`All I need is a tall ship and a star to sail her by'

email would be appreciated.
Thanks
Dale Schouten
schouten@uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: cgf@ednor.bbc.com (Chris Faylor)
Subject: Two tries
Organization: Boston Business Computing, Ltd.
Date: Mon, 12 Oct 1992 02:41:34 GMT

	Pity

Through the back streets
Near the bay
Walking slowly
With a sway
That told of many
Nights alone
With a bottle
To atone
For past sins.
Some never known.


	Cruisin'

You won't find God in a radio
Of a darkened car
Travelling late at night.
I know you won't,
because I've tried often enough
To switch Him in;
And find some meaning for me
In some scratchy disc jokey's voice
Or in the lyrics of some soulful song.
No, you won't find him there,
But I think He may be
On the air,
For many times, I've strained to hear Him,
In that dusty static
That lies below static,
Where there has possibly been a hint
Of unbreached meaning
Humming,
From who-knows-where.
But then it is gone,
And there is only static,
Plain and bare.
-- 
Chris Faylor		Boston Business Computing, Ltd.
cgf@ednor.bbc.com	"I am not here."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: alvin@ucsu.Colorado.EDU (Kenneth Alvin)
Subject: If I'd Won the Lottery
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 1992 17:30:48 GMT



          If I'd Won the Lottery
          ----------------------


          We'd drink like fish 
          and die of starvation.
          
          The hand trembles at the thought
          of limitless idle, 
          the sinking of ambition.
          
          Feel now how a small hunger
          ignites passion in the late hours,
          how songs emerge without effort.
          
          I'd try and recreate love 
          with fifty silver dollars,
          or simply give it away
          and wonder if the choices were right.
          
          I'd hold my fortune
          close as a mink
          and shiver in its warmth.
          
          I'd buy a country
          and watch it revolt.
          
          I'd chew gum
          and cry for more sugar.


-- 
comments, criticism welcome...
-Ken
alvin@ucsu.colorado.edu
From: bunny@bsu-cs.bsu.edu (Marsh)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Poem - Pirouettes
Date: 11 Oct 92 18:54:49 GMT
Organization: CS Dept, Ball St U, Muncie, Indiana


PIROUETTES

Pirouettes in moonless night
and languid sighs engulf my senses,
make me numb, and rich with life;
renew my intellect with meaning.

Phantom arms embrace me tight
and, tender, lift my soul in toto,
whole, with down, and dew, and spice;
warm mouth to feed my own with longing.

Full and sweet you pull me close
then, resignation in your whisper,
dance again; and then we lie -
cool, breast to breast - we sleep til morning.

-Tracy Flynn-Marsh
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Trust one another to grow
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Tue, 6 Oct 92 11:16:46 GMT


                        Trust one another to grow

Let's do it then
trust one another to grow
carefully
into that direction
we are a thrust into some future state
a vector of inclination
towards which the beings which we are
already at birth
hunger and yearn
my end is the goal poised
at the very least beginning
I have been on this trail a lifetime
the door at the other circular pole
is approaching...
-- 
ralph@wixer.cactus.org
cactus.org!wixer!ralph
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien)
Subject: Re: For jchien@leland.stanford.edu
Organization: The Land of Flowers (Stanford U.)
Date: Thu, 15 Oct 92 10:55:13 GMT


	I meant to answer to this earlier, but I got busy. =(

     Anyhow, this poem [see subject line above] was the first dedicated 
to me =) (geez i feel honored, but my newsreader wiped out the article
so I can't properly credit by name... pardon).  So here is a reply,
in his honor:


	too short
	

	your mother tugs at your
	skirts, she calls them,
	"too short!
	it's beyond me how
	any decent woman
	could show so much skin!"

	     apparently, the baked chicken
	wears more clothes than you do.  so
	you spend an entire afternoon
	sewing patches and buttons to
	every skirt you own.  finally,
	you ask, "is this enough?"

	     she exclaims, "too motley!"
	and a night of 60 minutes,
	reporting on the prevalence
	of domestic violence, is lost.
	instead, you painstakingly match
	the colors of each fabric to
	cut and resew
	the horrid contraptions of
	clothing.

	     shown to her now,
	at last she says, "that looks fine, dear,"
	but in the morning
	when you attempt to wear these clothes,
	they simply don't fit.

	so out come the familiar shears
	to shorten the hems.  and in the afternoon,
	when you are back from school,
	your mother shrills,
	"too short!"


			--jennifer crystal chien
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: nothing is less lonely than the wind / Marie Coffin
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:55:05 GMT
Article-I.D.: IASTATE.1992Oct13.165505
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University


	nothing is less lonely than the wind
	------------------------------------------------------------
	
	once i had a friend
	from india.
	she had never seen fall before.
	
	say sayla,
	are you still in the west?
	listen:  the wind blows again
	nothing is less lonely
	and the leaves are thick on the ground.
	are you out walking?
	are you stomping in the leaves?
	i saw one so big today
	you could wear it for a hat.
	
	you don't wear hats.
	that would be too conventional
	too stale.
	
	say sayla,
	let's hire a boat and sail away
	this wind makes me restless
	it's time to migrate
	and i want to watch you
	discover something new,
	
	like waves on the boat
	or running in the sand.
	let's catch a whale.
	the wind is younger all the time
	and i picked up this apple
	just for you.


Marie Coffin
October 13, 1992
From: v131p9t3@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Ninstar Cybermage - Back Again from the Mists!)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: +==[====----Jessica Hugs II:Thank you----====]==+
Date: 13 Oct 92 21:02:00 GMT
Article-I.D.: acsu.Bw2vsM.FI0
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

Jessica Hugs II:  Thank you

Walking Round the house.  
No company but a daughter
Who can't understand
My loneliness.

As I walk around
She's a source of noise
A headache with legs
A chaos of sound and motion
Yet I'm alone.

I need to speak to someone
And get a reply in kind
I sit on the couch and cry
In my futile search for solace.

I feel a small hand
Touch the shaking shoulders 
Looking up I feel warmth
Arms around my neck
Small lips on my cheek
Tiny words,"Don't cry daddy"
"Don't cry..."

Icy tears of loneliness
Swell into the warm tears of love
I'm only crying on the outside
And it's time to play.

James Shank           	#		v131p9t3@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu
AKA: Ninstar Cybermage  #	or	shank@acsu.buffalo.edu
###############################################################################
"Ten thousand years old...He could be trouble." -Vampire Hunter D
"Every night I say a prayer, in the hope that there's a heaven..."-Styx
"How do you make ammends for a god's sins?"-Forgotten Realms
##############################################################################
Sneaky Types,Inc.:Clandestine operations for the common man.
	"Don't call us.  We'll just bill you when it's done."
From: seth@cie.uoregon.edu (Seth Scott)
Subject: Wanted:  Native American poetry
Organization: University of Oregon Network Services
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Thu, 8 Oct 92 13:58:24 GMT

Does anyone out there have any Native American      poetry (modern-- written by someone living today)to recommend?  Please email replies to seth@cie.uoregon.edu ...  Thanks!
From: gschlesi@scott.skidmore.edu (gabriel schlesinger)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Queen of night
Date: 11 Oct 92 21:19:35 GMT
Article-I.D.: scott.1992Oct11.211935.7918
Organization: Skidmore College, Saratoga Springs NY

This was told to me one night in a playground about a year ago, it's
supposed to be said on stormy nights, or nights where you otherwise
might feel in danger.

Queen of Life
Queen of Death
Queen of all that gives breath.
Guide us through this sacred night
until the coming of the light.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: tconnors@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Tim Connors )
Subject: Gorrilla Triplets
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Date: Tue, 13 Oct 1992 01:16:22 GMT

           "Omnipotent Beagle"

          He is viewed by the neighbours as better.
          And he is.
          He is my beagle, and he can speak, draw and cook.
          Not your average beagle.
          Why is my omnipotent beagle bothered by lesser taunts?
          He reads Azimov post-prandial.
          Tears in his eyes he muses
          "Omnipotence is bad"
  


tconnors@morgan.ucs.mun.ca
     Tim Connors

Poetic Wheelbarrow. Comments accepted with a flourish.
                    So are flannel sweaters.

P.S. Is there a message here?
From: donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Creation of Urdu newsgroup
Date: 13 Oct 92 17:57:28 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ

In article <1992Oct13.141902.29594@wam.umd.edu> sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Sheila Herndon) writes:
)
)Doug and Don bickering like quer...ulous cats. 
)>)Have a care O'Toole 
)>)or this just might lead
)>)to a duel.
)>)
)>I fear not thy miscreant hands.
)
)(You silly gentelmen! you perturbatious scoundrels!
)stop this petty fighting. 
)Fight for something more than vanity.

All right, then.  Doug, let us fight for Sheila!  What worthier cause?



The gauntlet has been dropped,

Posthumous

)
)(oh Sure - you say it is honor. pfah!))
)
)(spelling?)
)-- 
)I am always wrong. Don't believe me ever.
)stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu


-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / /
From: cweir@morgan.ucs.mun.ca (Corey Weir)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Indigo Virus
Date: 16 Oct 92 15:18:09 GMT
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland

Followup-To: 
Distribution: 
Organization: Memorial University of Newfoundland
Keywords: 
                       "Rusty Spatula in the Mud"
                       --------------------------
                   Can there never be another, the people asked
                   No, I'm afraid not, he was forced to reply
                   It was an outrage, a total calamity
                   Blood, violence, screaming, torn tendons
                   Strange feelings sometimes overcome people
                   when their favorite shrine to Ted Danson
                   is desacrated by a wandering herd of yaks.
                   Oh, the tragedy, the horror, the horror...
                   Spam-sicle in the sun, melting...
From: morej@augustana.ab.ca
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: The "Pompous Ones" work in progress
Date: 10 Oct 92 09:39:01 MDT
Organization: Augustana University College, Camrose, aAlberta

I often question the perception of TRUTH.

The Pompous Ones readily offer their difinitive answers,
in finite intoned voices.

I wonder,
Having lost touch with their feelings,
And being walled in by bricks of the social status quo,
Are they desperately seeking to convince themselves of what they are saying,
Alone and hurting,
Through their masks of certainty.

I don't know the truth,
Or even a truth,
Except hurting.

I often question if feeling ever stops hurting.
I often find myself asking the heavens to numb my own pain,
In helpless supplications seeking an end to the plague.

My heart,
Now housed within a vacant, hollow form,
Once enjoyed the pulses and rhythms of loves' nourishment,
But now it lies shrivelled and parched from the heat
Of my own loneliness.

May be the gods have answered my requests.

I understand this truth.

Time cycles.

I become comfortable
Alone in the crowds,
And like the "Pompous Ones" I now offer my difinitive truths,
To those too young,
Or those too heartless to penetrate my mask.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: steele@aem.umn.edu (Stephanie Steele)
Subject: Re: Criticism
Organization: University of Minnesota
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 12:38:12 GMT

jason,   

please email me your address.  i'm new at all this computer stuff and
have no idea how to look yours up on this thing. i'll be happy to send
you some of my stuff, although most of it is posted and i believe you
can do a n(name) command at the opening of rap, type in stephanie steele,
and have all of my stuff come up, so that you may read it at your leisure.
i'd like to read some of your stuff as well.

please don't worry about me ever letting 'those around me' dictate who i
am or how i write...you see, you may not be able to tell from here, but
i am such an overpowering character that i am constantly fighting against
the opposite!

thoughtfully yours,

sls
--

=======================================================================
			   Stephanie Steele
			steele@chip.aem.umn.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: moving
From: conrad@kryton.UUCP (Konstantin Kallikanza)
Date: Fri, 16 Oct 92 00:35:43 PDT
Organization: Paradox Alley F&SF BBS 805-492-8789


	Moving along

	I sat and watched the thistle blow
	rolling fluff rolling slow, hesitation.
	wandering through the empty lot below
	chugging trains behind me in the station 


	the station man said move along, friend
	his tone implied he was not, at all.
	I decided that compliance was a better end
	than fighting with a stranger, blue and tall	


	I boraded the three O'clock for home 
	watching thistle down smear 'cross the lot
	searching through the barren city for some loam
	fortuitous concrete cracks, a fertile slot


	moving along the clickety, noisy tracks 
	sleep filling eyes, and my head
	with visions of green filled, city cracks
	realizing cities aren't really dead


	while seeds and men keep moving along

conrad
 
Comments?
From: hornpete@uctvax.uct.ac.za (Peter Horn)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Keith -Gottschalk Poem
Date: 14 Oct 92 23:19:48 GMT
Article-I.D.: uctvax.1992Oct14.211948.203112
Organization: University of Cape Town


                JOY OF FLYING

Turbines roar, their rush surges through us
lights dim, a hush descends
mid-deck silence: only ailerons creak
as they lean into the wind, shoulder us upwards:
our fuselage bumps & rolls on waves of air
wings tug with winds, high-minded.

Tail-flaps rudder us, awash with direction
racing this ocean, so insubstantial & infinite:
"now we shall praise the cities, long-surviving
 we watch them in awe, great constellations of earth"
their lights recede below, the great fields too;
all shrink into pixels.

Port pulses red, starboard's green
the Moon's above, clouds below:
aluminium is lighter than air
as we slalom through snowscapes of sky
wings dance us past cloud-cornices, airy sastrugi
these nivi of atmosphere, soaring.

Now rocketing power to leap up steps of air
ascend this stairway of sky, until horizon bends to a ball
heaven crackles violet, & weight's only a memory
rise beyond all summits, ascend above aurora
sound faster than sound, mach 25, orbit:

Now to begin.

Keith Gottschalk
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted by Peter Horn 
German Department, UCT 
43 Trevor Road, Lansdowne 7764, Cape, Republic of  South Africa . 
Phone Home ZA-(021)696-1983		e-Mail: HORNPETE@UCTVAX.UCT.AC.ZA 
      Work ZA-(021)650-2936		Fax ZA-(021) 650-3726 
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Peter Horn
From: donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Shades of Green
Date: 8 Oct 92 14:34:59 GMT
Distribution: na
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ

In article <1992Oct8.134002.1425@cbnews.cb.att.com> webdw@cbnews.cb.att.com (bruce.d.woods) writes:
>In article <262@uiunix.ui.org> donz@ui.org (Don Zirilli) writes:
>>
>> [my article deleted]
>
>
>BIGGEST WASTE OF BANDWIDTH I'VE EVER SEEN!

Well, NOW the biggest waste of bandwith you've ever seen is your re-posting
of my entire article.


Yours anyway,

Posthumous O'Toole
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / /