HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mstringh@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu (Mike Stringham)
Subject: WHERE MIGHT YOU GO
Originator: mstringh@ent1.ent.ncsu.edu
Organization: Dept. of Entomology - NCSU, Raleigh, NC
Distribution: na
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 14:43:27 GMT

Here's a bit somewhat in the classical vein.  Just happened to be
thinking about opportunities/poetic threads lost....

WHERE MIGHT YOU GO

Where might you go
late in the late night
when the fire burns low
and shadows wind close
round the ember's glow
if faint from the wood
a silver voice spoke,
"Come! Little brother.
Come run with us!"

Where might you go
by the Muse's grace
in the sweep of time
and well of space
if seven league boots
were yours to lace
there beneath the oaks?
"Come! Little brother.
Come run with us!"

"Too late, little brother.
It was when, not where
you might run with us."

                     -- Mike Stringham
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--New radicals
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 92 12:54:36 GMT


                                New radicals

They talk about Nature
as if it were a new product
speak of readying the planet
for a wonderful renaissance
in which their self-hatred
accomplishes the task of scouring the earth
clean
of humanity.
From:  (Michael Snider)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Another Story  (divorce poem)
Date: 23 Aug 92 15:28:20 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.poems
Organization: BNR

all comments welcome--



Another Story


I helped my ex-wife move in with her girlfriend
so now IUve got a cat and some more furniture
and another weird story to tell,
some more plants, tooQdonUt know
what they are, but plants arenUt too hard
almost all of them you just waterQ
I used to feel guilty telling people my troubles
but think about thisQ

IUve got 10 trillion cellsQand every one
came from just one egg and one sperm 
out of the hundreds of eggs my mother had 
and the billions of sperms my father hadQ
and then there are things like
RWhat  if my great-great-great-etc. grandfather
had bad breath the night my one less great grandmother
was conceived, would they still have fucked?S and so onQ
IUm a pretty improbable guy, not even counting the gravitational constantQ

And as amazing as I am, the really amazing thing
is that IUm really not meQthose 10 trillion cells
are outnumbered 10 to 1 by aliensQ
mites, bugs, viruses, bacteria, worms, 
all kinds of things in my hair,
in my guts, in my mouth and on my skinQ
IUm a walking universe and so are you,
all of you, all 110 trillion of each of youQ

Anyway I like the cat, which I got because
they canUt afford the deposit.
All those other things, you canUt pet them.


QQ  Michael Snider  QQQQalas, no email, so reply by postQQQQQQ
Talk of fame, honor, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with
affection.
                                                    Charles Darwin
Critics quarrel with other critics. With an artist, no sane man quarrels.
                                                    George Santayana
BNR can't have any opinion, not even mine.
From: tmhoff@oogoody.Corp.Sun.COM (Todd Hoff)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: haiku: Early Frost
Date: 16 Aug 1992 00:23:09 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Distribution: world
Reply-To: tmhoff@oogoody.Corp.Sun.COM
NNTP-Posting-Host: oogoody.corp.sun.com


Rose's smile came early
Her loving light left
She wilts once again
From: cecilw@access.isc-br.com (Cecil Williams)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Gringo in Mexico City
Date: 15 Aug 92 17:03:36 GMT
Organization: ISC-Bunker Ramo, Spokane, WA







	I'm a Gringo in Mexico City
	wandering along Avenida Reforma, or
	is it a Boulevard? I don't know
	where I belong, or where I'm going.
	I stand here quietly watching 
	local life proceedings,
	time consuming itself.
	And us.

	Three thousand pesos;
	that'll buy a buck
	or a short ride in a cab.
	Make sure it has a working meter
	or it will cost you
	twenty thousand pesos
	and an argument.

	Mexico City is crawling with beetles
	of the Volkswagen taxi variety.
	New beetles are green, and use
	unleaded gas; "Magna Sin" as they
	say. Air pollution is a problem
	but here the new beetle mania
	will help.

	There are many mustangs 
	in Mexico City,
	the early ford mach boss varietys.
	Someone said they were built here.
	I don't know.
	Why are there 
	beetles and mustangs in Mexico,
	and 1965ish ford falcons 
	in Buenos Aires?
	They still make those, it seems.
	I wonder which countries got the
	gremlin, and pacer, and

	the rambler american...




	Cecil Williams  8/15/92
	***********************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lugowski@ils.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: Thinking Up the World / Wislawa Szymborska / trans: Marek+Joanna
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 1992 17:04:35 GMT


		Thinking Up the World
		(translation of Obmyslam Swiat)
		------------------------------------------------------------
 
		I'm thinking up the world, second edition,
		second edition, improved,
		for idiots to laugh at,
		for melancholics to cry about,
		as a proverbial comb for the bold,
		ditto, as shoes for dogs.
		 
		Here's chapter one:
		The speech of animals and plants,
		wherein each species
		has its own glossary.
		Even a simple good morning
		exchanged with a fish
		will keep more firmly alive
		you, the fish and everybody.
		 
		That long ago anticipated,
		now suddenly arrived, in the waking of words...
		improvisation by the forest!
		What epic artistry of owls,
		what aphorisms of the porcupine
		set in such verse, and, see,
		we were so sure that
		the thing just sleeps!
		The time (chapter two)
		has the right to butt in
		into everything good or bad.
		However -- the kind that crushes mountains,
		moves oceans, and that is
		present at the circling of stars
		will have no authority whatsoever
		over lovers, for lovers are too naked,
		for lovers are too embraced,
		with a common soul
		puffed-up like a sparrow
		scared out of its wits.
		 
		Now, old age is a moral -- sagging
		 at the end of a criminal life.
		Ah, so everyone is young now!
		The suffering (chapter three)
		does not mistreat the body.
		Death,
		comes when you sleep.
		 
		And you will dream
		that breathing is not a must,
		that breath-free silence
		is not too bad a music.
		You are small as a spark.
		You darken on the beat.
		 
		Only such a death.  You have hurt more
		when you held that rose in your hand
		feeling a greater terror
		watching its petal fall.
		 
		Only such a world.  Only such
		a way to live.  And to die only so.
		And all else is just like
		Bach, briefly played
		on a saw.
		 
		 
			Wislawa Szymborska
			Poland
		 
				translated from Polish
				by Marek Lugowski / Joanna Trzeciak
				Dallas / New York, 1989
From: zen@death.Corp.Sun.COM (d)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: dust
Date: 20 Aug 92 08:08:15 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems Inc., Mountain View, CA
NNTP-Posting-Host: death.corp.sun.com

skin -- tight with muscles
     and scratchy chin
juxtaposed with the soft beauty on my right
 your eyes a brilliant blue and love
his lips and hands keeping motion
no different than me or you
excitement white and unspoken

later, when i left
  he was on your right
and you looked like lovers
 after a long and happy night
what was it i felt
as i drove along
burning rubber on stone
skin on bone
i felt alone
with a joy i couldnt share
From: root@bing.UUCP (Administrator)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Poem--Phone-line poet
Date: 12 Aug 92 03:07:40 GMT
Organization: Bing's Rubber Chicken Factory -- "Our clucks are boneless."

Ralph.Cherubini@mdf.FidoNet.Org (Ralph Cherubini) writes:
> 
>                               Phone-line poet
>  
> I send my images through the phone
> yes
> I am a poet of pulses
> not just of the heart
> organ of transmission of feeling delight
> but of electrons
> I give daily
> the phone lines streams of caressing warmth
> a dance of wavicles mamboing down the wires
> in fact
> it could be said
> that every affect of these words
> is incidental
> merely
> to my love of metallic strands.
>  
> 
Very good.  I wrote something in a simular vein years ago:

no moving parts
lights blink to my keystrokes
without switches
letters appear magically
a singular kind of illusion
brought on by of all things
the slowness of your eyes
to percieve changes
so now as i'm typing this,
i see by not seeing
i move my thoughts to you
through a device
with no moving parts
in the hopes of moving something in you
that is not very easily moved.

Feb 3, 1988
Bing H Bang
--
Bing H Bang                                  +---------------------------+
Senior Systems Analyst                       | This is my home computer. |
National Data Corporation, Atlanta, GA       | I do not speak for NDC.   |
uucp: gatech!warlord!bing!root               +---------------------------+
From: donz@ui.org (Don Zirilli)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: ashes
Date: 12 Aug 92 17:57:09 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ

Ashes


What Campbell has said let no man impugne:
The time of ashes has begun.

Ten years by the fire, hand and foot
the shade of night, the hue of soot,
the man of ashes sits still,
his dry tongue ignoring the meat on the grill.

Gone his heart, gone his soul,
his body timber, his hair charcoal,
the man of ashes forgets the sun:
The time of ashes has begun.

As Robert Bly shakes his wild hair
and men dance in their underwear
beating the life from tired drums,
the time of ashes has begun.

Black as the socket of a skull
where the emaciated hand finds no gold,
cold as steel that rips the tongue,
the time of ashes has begun.

Ten years by the fire, you feel no heat,
digging through ashes, finally complete
in emptiness, in the staggering distance
between pain and your resistance.

Jesus cannot find the entrance to the tomb:
The time of ashes has begun.


Don Zirilli
8-12-92
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / / 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: tsai@tecrus.enet.dec.com (Kuo-Yeang Tsai)
Subject: Translated Taiwanese Poem (5)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 1992 04:26:29 GMT



	Hibernation	written by Xia4-Yu3
			translated by Kuo-Yeang Tsai

I simply want to store up enough love
enough tenderness and shrewdness
Lest that I should 
come to meet you after I wake up

I simply want to store up enough pride
enough solitude and indifference
Lest that you should
have been gone after I wake up
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: djohn@maths.tcd.ie (Derek John)
Subject: WORDSWORTH
Organization: Dept. of Maths, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland.
Date: Fri, 14 Aug 1992 07:46:13 GMT



I was reading somewhere that in his old age wordsworth became a bit of 
a crank and started writing sonnets in praise of capital punishment
Is this true?

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ken@dakota (Kenny Chaffin)
Subject: Re: Spring1
Organization: U S WEST Advanced Technologies
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 1992 18:03:22 GMT

In article <9909@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au> michaeln@cs.uq.oz.au writes:
>
>	Spring
>	------
>
>this morning the sun slapped my face
>well before the alarm blew raspberries
>snatched away my half-written dream
>crumpled it and flicked it out the window
>give it back you bastard, let me finish
>pinned in bed by a sharp, snuggle-up chill
>rise to silence, echoes, hot shower
>i remember now. it's a new day.
>my desk is tidy now. my life is tidy enough.
>last night I made a hazardous pact
>downstairs where my past is stored
>three Tom Waits albums and the grand old bong
>cleaned with care and ritual
>gonna get maudlin, gonna get sleazy and bent
>a comb, a dinner suit, a set of weights
>gonna get fit, gonna lose the beard
>keep polish on the shoes, space in the diary
>gonna get astute - gonna go a-hunting
>blow the dust off a ton of lust
>gonna shoot up on spring fever.
>
>				-Michael Norris.

Nice poem Michael. I particularly appreciate the fact that just as I was 
getting gloomy about it turning fall here, I am reminded that spring is
beginning where you are! Thank you!

KAC


Kenny A. Chaffin                      {...boulder}!uswat!ken
U S WEST Advanced Technologies         ken@dakota.uswest.com
4001 Discovery Drive  Boulder, CO 80303	     (303) 541-6355
 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: water772@Armstrong.EDU (Kelly Waters)
Subject: Beauty  (criticism requested)
Organization: Armstrong State College, Savannah, GA
Date: Sat, 15 Aug 1992 19:49:39 GMT


		Beauty
 
She broke the water and ripples assured 
the surface would never again be the same.
I watched as she smoothed her hair. 
Beads glistened as they ran to breasts 
beneath a chin held high--their pace
teasing me, questioned my own.

As she turned in the sun
its warmth seemed eager to caress her.
Water squeezed from her hair, 
splattered from the rocks 
as though desperate to reach her knees.

In life she saw exuberance. 
As she walked toward me,
her spirit quickened my own.
 

L. Kelly Waters
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jtice@ophelia.UVic.CA (Jason W. Tice)
Subject: A sonnet for an answering machine...
Originator: jtice@ophelia
Organization: University of Victoria, Victoria, BC, Canada
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 92 05:26:55 GMT



Well, I whipped this off yesterday, when my answering machine was 
in extreme need of a new message... it's not fully iambic, (a couple
of trochaic portions, i'm sure) but it is pentameter....


	I am not around to receive your call
	though urgency wraps its wings around you
	clawing and pecking, forcing you to fall,
	to stumble, to hurry and miss whats due.
	But--do not fear! I will yet hear your words,
	though the wild beasts be at your door clawing
	panting, hoarse with hunger, driven in herds
	to the brink by the birds and their cawing
	By Macha and Nemain, be free to speak
	just leave your name and number at the beep.


The responses have been mildly amusing....

Jason W. Tice
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: i believe in god the father almighty / Marie Coffin
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 00:42:29 GMT


	i believe in god the father almighty
	-----------------------------------------------
	
	of course i have doubts -- who doesn't?
	they come upon me at odd times.
	i find
	myself floundering.
	next thing i know,
	i'm telling my doubts
	to the christ whose existence i question
	asking him to understand.
	
	so in the end i admit that i believe.
	this is not a choice i remember making.
	it is a hard fact
	like the stones in the harbor.
	my doubts crash against rock
	and splinter.
	the bits float on the waves
	bobbing
	bobbing up and down.
	

Marie Coffin
August 22, 1992
From:  (Michael Snider)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Calyx, Core, Cunt
Date: 23 Aug 92 15:25:56 GMT
Followup-To: rec.arts.poems
Organization: BNR

In article <1992Aug22.222006.805@miavx3.mid.muohio.edu>,
loredich@miavx3.mid.muohio.edu (That one girl) wrote:
> 
> Calyx, Core, Cunt
> 
good stuff edited for bandwidthQ
>  
> But the ferny humidity, freshly-mown hay scent
> of women enjoying themselves is still better.
>  
> "He touched her core, her center, her sex,"
> is how it is said in a lavender novel.
> My core is my mind, and my center my heart.
> He touches my cunt, but does not interfere.
>  
> And have I said
> a dirty word?
> 
> I think there is nothing
> more deeply compelling
> than clean female folds,
> and their calyxes, cores.
> The nasty inflection
> affixed to the word
> can be jettisoned as we dispel floral myths.
> 
>
> Loredich
> August 22, 1992

what a strong finish to a good poem, especially the first two lines aboveQ
reminds of D. H. Lawrence when he forgets to be pompousQ

at the risk of hubris, here's a poem of mine with a related themeQ

Romance at the Laundromat


I had a washer and dryerQ
I was marriedQ
I hadQI have!Qthe best of daughters
and a dog and a lawnmower
that I keep in my garageQ
But now when I fart
I think about my underwear
at the laundromatQ

I know she'll be there,
the one I should have married,
who might have loved me,
and the only thing she'll see
is shit stains at the crotch!

Maybe I should wear brown underwear,
but you can only get bikinis I'd have to lose weight,
or stop eating onionsQno, not thatQ
I can't give up beer eitherQ
I'll sing
	"Everyone in the laundromat is equal!"
and point out where her tampon leakedQ

Think she'll know I mean that we both
live in real bodies that sometimes stink
and sometimes make messes, that I
am not afraid of her body, that I'd rather smell
her sweat in my bed than sandalwood and rosesQ

Think it'll get me kissed?


QQ  Michael Snider  QQQQalas, no email, so reply by postQQQQQQ
Talk of fame, honor, pleasure, wealth, all are dirt compared with
affection.
                                                    Charles Darwin
Critics quarrel with other critics. With an artist, no sane man quarrels.
                                                    George Santayana
BNR can't have any opinion, not even mine.
From: jaguar@netcom.com (Crazy Poem Head)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Impulsive Impromptu
Date: 14 Aug 92 22:33:53 GMT
Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services  (408 241-9760 guest)

Reading these words
Day in day out, so on and so forth
Sometimes wearying of the dross and the mud
But still coming back for more

The gold that shines between the black leaves
The eyes that have other wisdom
I come to know things that have never been
But now have been there all along.
-- 

*jaguar woman*				words are not enough
[jaguar@netcom.com]			
[jaguar@ardath.slisp.cs.cmu.edu]	
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: on a blind date with god / Marie Coffin
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Sun, 16 Aug 1992 19:33:19 GMT


	on a blind date with god
	------------------------------------------------------------
	
	i look for your flesh
	but your bones are everywhere
	you touch me
	with one finger now and then
	sometimes i give in.
	this longest foreplay leads
	to the final seduction.
	
	i eat bread from the plate of your indifference.
	what scares me more:
	that you might draw me in,
	or that already you have cast me out?
	i walk where i fondly imagine
	is the shadow of your wing
	but perhaps i merely swim in darkness.
	
	this urge to embroider pulls me through life.
	only you know the end of the thread.
	
	life is alive.  alive is life.  life is alive.
	
	amen.


Marie Coffin
August 16, 1992
From: michaeln@cs.uq.oz.au (Bunweasel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Invective
Date: 13 Aug 92 17:32:38 GMT
Reply-To: michaeln@cs.uq.oz.au
Organization: Department of Computer Science, The University of Queensland

In article l8jhsuINNbap@aludra.usc.edu, stedman@aludra.usc.edu (Ian D. Stedman) writes:

>    Invective

>Out of the gloom that covers me,
>Black as a mine from shaft to shaft,
>I blaspheme what gods must be,
>With the flowers of my craft.

>In the fell clutch of depression
>I let it wash up over me
>And use the foulest of expression
>The diamonds of profanity.

>Beyond my speech of curse and sneer
>Looms the danger of the fate,
>And all mankind that fears the fear,
>Makes, and shall make, everyone hate.

>It matters not how sweet the glade,
>How gentle and kind the race
>I am the Demon of my trade,
>I am the master of disgrace.

>                     IS`91

Those first two stanzas bite nicely.

For "use the foulest.." you could try "wield the foulest...", or is that
a bit overused?
"everyone" seems too weak a word.
It falls down a bit in the final stanza - you could find a way
 to avoid blatant poeticisms like "It matters not how sweet the glade".
		----------------------
I just found this great word in the dictionary - "belial". I wouldn't
necessarily use it, I just like the definition -

	*Belial*

	Worthlessness, wickedness
	Without use or profit
	The spirit of Evil personified
	Used by Milton
	as the name of one of the fallen angels.

And while I was there, I also found -

	*Bdellatomy*

	The practice of cutting leeches
	to empty them of blood
	while still sucking.
	(is that what this slit is
	in my soul)

-michaeln.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Not I
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Thu, 20 Aug 92 02:20:36 GMT


                        Not I

You would have me pure and simple
like the structures of ancient Greece
imagined all vestal and white
til
they too were revealed to have origins
blatant
colorful
like a rainbow.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: tmcfarla@fraser.sfu.ca (Tara McFarlane)
Subject: Re: Pan on the subway
Organization: Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, B.C., Canada
Distribution: rec.arts.poems
Date: Mon, 17 Aug 1992 03:24:06 GMT


i loved this poem!
please send/post more!

tara

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien)
Subject: Re: No new Temples
Organization: The Land of Earthquakes (Southern Cal)
Date: Sat, 22 Aug 92 06:38:56 GMT

In article <1992Aug16.120820.202404@uctvax.uct.ac.za> hornpete@uctvax.uct.ac.za (Peter Horn) writes:

>No new temples to old idols!
>----------------------------
>
...
>The sun-gods who were eating living hearts
>torn out of the jerking bodies
>of sacrificial victims grin with bloody mouths.
>The moon-goddess had her daughter
>baked in an ox and served for lunch.
>Abraham was ordered to slaughter his son.
>The Christian god slobbered over burned offerings
>of heretics, witches and other culinary beauties.
>Calvin burned Michael Servet at the stake.
>Widows turned into ashes of their husband's desires.
>Mullahs and Imams heaped mountains of corpses
>to glorify Allah and to cleanse the earth of Kaffirs.
>The Zen Buddhists practiced their martial arts
>on opponents: butchers all for heavenly kitchens.

Thanks to Dave Roberts for the inspiration in form.


	Genesis


	In the beginning, there was Nothing.
	And Nothing attempted to find something,
	but It could not.

	Unexpectedly, out of this first Failure arose Fear.
	And Nothing was satisfied because It
	had created a subject, for Fear's
	object is always the unknowable Nothing.

	But Fear caused a schism, because
	it wanted to escape Nothing.
	So Nothing became dual -- it separated into
	Nothing and Nothing Else.

	Nothing was similar to Nothing Else,
	but Else contained Fear, which was a
	small something.  And their separation
	allowed for Comparison.

	When Nothing observed a small something
	in Nothing Else, there arose Envy and Pain,
	because the something would always be
	in Else, not in Nothing.

	And because Nothing had Else to focus
	Its attentions on, It did not realize
	that It had created two small somethings.
	Instead, Nothing set out to destroy Nothing Else.

	But the Fear in Nothing Else warned it
	of Envy and Pain, and now Hatred.  So
	Nothing Else fled, and tried to find
	a way to placate Nothing.

	Nothing Else fled for an endless time,
	as Nothing pursued.  And in all this time,
	Nothing Else schemed and devised the best
	way to deter Nothing.

	So it was that Nothing Else became Man,
	and raised up Nothing as God, and worshipped
	It.  For in worship, Nothing felt singularly important,
	and Its Envy and Pain abated.

	And even while worshipping and writing bibles,
	building temples and sacrificing,
	Man continued to flee, for it knew that if God
	were ever to catch it, Its Hatred would destroy
	it.