HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

In rec.arts.poems, bkeener@cs.ulowell.edu (Brian E. Keener) writes:

> Most of the stuff I post will be just spontaneous bolshevik that I come up
> 	with on the spur o' "d" moment, so be warned : extremely lousy stuff
> 	may ensue.

Don't worry.  It will have plenty of company.

doug
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: asparrow@cs.umr.edu (Angelia Sparrow)
Subject: The Vendor
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 1992 22:11:44 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla
Originator: asparrow@mcs213f.cs.umr.edu

"No gnomes! No halflings! No unicorns!"
The fantasist's cry echoes in my ear
As I browse the selection of his box.
A few ideas look tasty.
An elven war, a swamp demon cult,
Lycanthrope and vampiric races.
"Why no gnomes?" I ask, disappointed,
Wanting tinkers.
"Anything gnomes can do
Dwarves can do better..." he sings.
I sigh.  No straight answers.
Not from a fantasy vendor.
"No gnomes! No halflings! No unicorns!"
He cries again, but I am the only taker.
The street is darkening, deserted.
A fog rolls in as we stand by
The old iron gates and marble monuments.
"It's a beautiful night for a Ripper tale.
a Ripper tale, a Ripper tale," he starts.
I silence him.  Some things are best not
Said in fog and darkness.
"I'll take the elf war, the vampire race
And the swamp demon," I say.  "Let me know
When strong women are back in stock."
"Right-o," he says, packaging my dreams.
"On you account, love."
He meanders off with his box of Fantasies.
I clutch the bundle to my chest and listen.
"No gnomes!  No halflings!  No unicorns!"

(Copyright 1991, Angelia Sparrow)

All comments and critique welcome.  Hold the flames...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--It is the coming of fierce storms
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 92 17:50:58 GMT


                        It is the coming of fierce storms

It is the coming of fierce storms
which moves in me similarly
the currents of life
tide pools spawning
in their irregular flow
squirming oscillators alive
with only movement
which drop with smooth
sometimes jagged
disruption
into open minds
jellyfish
sentient
all willing...


From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Sun, 6 Sep 1992 04:04:44 GMT
Subject: Re: Poetry Suggestion
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

In rec.arts.poems, scottj@tahiti.dml.georgetown.edu (John L. Scott) writes:

> I will soon read a poem to my Toastmasters club (a club for people
> interested in improving public speaking skills).   I am looking for a
> particular sort of poem to read--I want an inspirational poem, a rousing
> tribute to the power and spirit of the human race.  I want a poem that
> brings a lump to your throat and makes you proud to be a human being.  I am
> particularly interested in something that celebrates the the noble or
> courageous individual.  I also need it to be from a reasonably well known
> poet, one that I would be able to find in a public or college library.
> 
> So how about it?  Anybody out there have any favorites that fit the bill? 
> Any suggestions you can give me would be of the greatest help and would be
> sincerely appreciated.

Middle Passage by Robert Hayden.  I DARE ya'.  It fits the bill, but
in a way you may not like.


doug
From: denelsbe@washington.cs.unc.edu (Kevbo)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Revelry
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:02:56 GMT
Organization: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

In article <225@uiunix.ui.org> donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole) writes:
)
)Dearest rappers,
)
)I hate to burden you with yet another villanelle,

O, the weight...

)					        	but a certain fanged
)O'Toole who shall not be named was disturbed by various "while"s "and"s
)"but"s, etc in my previous villanelles that in some small way impinged on
)the sameness of certain lines.

Well, hey, YOU'RE the guy who bragged about how much closer your villanelles
were to the standard form... :->

)				  And so I post this villanelle, hoping it
)will work as a sort of literary Pepto-Bismol for the poor dear.
)
)
)The Sober Recruit
)
)
)I watched the soldiers' drunken revelry
)foiled by a distant fire's glow.
)Cinnamon usurped the flavor of my tea.
)
)Sour breath, or the smoke of an enemy
)caused my eyes to tear as if from woe.
)I watched the soldiers' drunken revelry.
)
)A private robbed the spirit from my recipe,
)I was certain the moment I saw it flow:
)Cinnamon usurped the flavor of my tea.
)
)With beverage growing cold next to me
)and no excitement pending from our foe,
)I watched the soldiers' drunken revelry.
)
)I saw that some were sobbing desperately
)and some were stiff, would never know
)cinnamon usurped the flavor of my tea,
)
)but the rest were dancing merrily,
)if any remained, dancing heel to toe--
)I watched the soldiers' drunken revelry.
)Cinnamon usurped the flavor of my tea.


Very, very nice, Posthumous.


)Posthumous O'Toole, villanellist etraordinaire

But "Suboptimal Speller", unless "etraordinaire" is one of those fancy French
literary terms that is beyond my meager background.   :->

)9-1-92
)-- 
)nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
) /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
)/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
)   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / / 

Kevin

-- 
|| +------------------+  You Yankees are so silly 
||-| Kev @ UNC        |  About matters of the heart;
||-| Master Poetaster |  Don't you know that women are the only works of art?
|| +------------------+        -- Don Henley, "Drivin' With Your Eyes Closed"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: zhu@athena.mit.edu (Erin Zhu)
Subject: Clawed Feline
Organization: Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 1992 21:02:33 GMT

stalker hunter predator:

the feral cat
flashing a toothy smirk
parades by on padded studied
indifference
or was it perhaps disdain

after all there was no
civilizing influence of glass
between it and its desire
that complacent grey sparrow
met in such (un)timely fashion

a mere flash of unsheathed claws
flurry of disheveled feathers
and the abstract splash of red on
sudden airy explosion of grey on black
so sleek coy modern

stalker hunter predator:
the feral cat
glares its lazy disregard
and takes another dainty lick.


   /-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/
      Erin Zhu    (617) 661-8151  /   Out of the ashes
      872 Mass. Ave, #707         /   I rise with my red hair
      Cambridge, MA 02139         /   And I eat men like air.
      zhu@gevalt.mit.edu          /                     --Sylvia Plath
From: tony@swrinde.nde.swri.edu (Anthony R. Benitez)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: In Memory of Elizabeth
Date: 11 Sep 92 12:06:38 GMT
Organization: Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas


IN MEMORY OF ELIZABETH

Through window looking glass she watched
Her children come and go while on
Their journeys; plans; she would not make
Or guess, or once expect to take.

And guilty all, we foolish youth,
Ran hither without thought or glance
To Mother, praying without fail
Behind her kitchen window veil.

And troubles, little woman would
Upon our shoulders half your yoke
Seem heavy; slow, and stumble we
On paths sure footed you would be.

How then we exhibit grief?
For which; the window empty-she
A fixture taken grantedly? Or
Moments now we wish had been
Or sweetly call our names again.

Dear friend, our mother, even though
A woman well aquainted; yes
With sorrow; now a treasured guest
Of he the Master she loved best.

Arrayed in promise, now she shines
In glory without blemish one...
No empty days or pain or fears
Or cause be one for secret tears.

And through some portal glass and out
Into a world made crystal clear-
A silent woman watches still
For children at her window sill.

A.R.Benitez

***************************************
tony@tex.nde.swri.edu
***************************************
From: beh@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Bruce Howells)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: spontaneous submission
Date: 11 Sep 92 17:46:22 GMT
Distribution: rec
Organization: Internet access via the Free Software Foundation


someone teach me how to sing
I have forgotten the words
once again

he asked me what I was wearing
and I replied that I always wore
a dress to work
but that I had always worn
jeans to school

I was out of school then,
you see.

He told me that he'd never known
a woman who had worn a dress
most of the time
and I despaired of telling
him that sometimes
I even enjoyed it.

Now, I want my jeans back
want to be the student I always
loved being
but could never confess to

someone teach me to sing
I seem to have forgotten 
the music.

He asked me what I was all about
and I told him
in bits and tiny pieces,
withholding nothing,
not the anger,
not the fear,
not the stupidity
not the music
nor the nights spent yearning for
something, which, when it came
was far too much to handle
and yes, I even told him about
the other ones.

He told me so much
and I thought I understood
and fell in love, you see...

Someone teach me to sing
for I seem to have forgotten
the score.

We exchanged phone numbers
and lengthy phone calls
and even more talking through
our fingertips
and soon, he came to see me
in a place he'd never been before.
I showed him all of me
as I'd tried to do with others
and never managed

Someone teach me to sing
I seem to have lost my voice

And he said that he was proud to 
love a woman who was as I am

someone teach me to sing
I know I have forgotten 
my tongue

We loved, and love,
and lived, and live
now together, 
man and wife,
and I know him now,
know the fullness of the lies
and the stories and the truths,
and the things which I always thought I
understood, but never did...

someone teach me to sing,
I've lost the music.

And now, I cannot be the person
I was...
I am the person I am now
and even in the moments of
sublimest sweetness
I do not bear my own self
but the imprint of him
on my soul

and he does not sing...

It is frightening to me
how women I have never met
shape my life
Kasandra and Marci
and Leslie and Pam
and Michelle
and Monica
and all the rest
even after I've forgotten their names
as well as my own...

someone teach me to sing
I've forgotten my soul


--Nancy Howells
(beh@gnu.ai.mit.edu through the graces of
my husband)
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Poem--You
Date: 12 Sep 92 20:15:42 GMT
Organization: Real/Time Communications


                               You
                            (for She)

You
I wanted to write a letter to
You
are a source of intrigue to me
You
make me wonder about
You
with your panties off lying there fingering yourself
You
spreading your lips opening into feeling
You
opening your mouth moaning for me to join
You...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Tomatoes
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 92 15:32:18 GMT


                                Tomatoes

Walking the beach this morning,
I come upon the Old Man,
gardening
a row of tomatoes
just a few yards from the surf
I ask him,
"How did these plants grow
so fast?
It has been only two hours since high tide."
He looks at me
hard
and shakes his head.
From: ureebob@mcl.ucsb.edu (Reeeeeenah-bob!)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: A summer daydream
Date: 11 Sep 92 07:32:40 GMT


	there's a boat in the harbor,
	and i wish i was in it.
	creep up, pull anchor, and
	sail the rays of moonlight
	into the bay, crisply cut
	the waves the wind sends me;
	lie on deck, and let a
	gracious host of dolphins
	tell me the names of the stars.
				7-16-92
	As always, C&C welcome.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Sometimes
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 11:16:28 GMT


                      Sometimes
                      (for She)


Sometimes when we're together
we try
too hard
love
has nothing to do
with trying
she's so concerned
to please
me
I want to
please her
sometimes
we try
too hard
surrender
it has
nothing
to do with anything
but the cessation
of effort.

Like
French
toast...
From: donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: New ideas...
Date: 15 Sep 92 14:45:50 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ

In article <1992Sep14.211346.26531@samba.oit.unc.edu> Jeff.Wang@bbs.oit.unc.edu (Jeff Wang) writes:
>Or, perhaps I should say old ideas...  Fall in love, then when you have
>absolutely no idea what is wrong (or right) with your life, sit down and
>write it all out.  Improves your poetry AND your relationship (yeah
>right...)
>BTW- I have a complaint for all those females out there, why is it so
>impossible to understand your kind?
>

I realize that technically I am not female, but I did find something
interesting in the Flashman O'Toole Attic Collection.  Unfortunately, the
page I found is worn at the edges and therefore I have no idea what its
source is:  a translation?  a Flashman original?  Anyway, the page I'm
discussing contains some sort of working definition of a "female", so I
feel obliged, as O'Toole Archivist, to post it:

A Woman Is


two arms somehow sticking out of
a body with a lot of shape above
the obligatory legs,
except for exceptions.

Strange Dear with Creation within you,
why frown so?  Are those tears,
or is that the very River of Life?
You are so concerned with fingernails
today that surely some cramp plagues you,
or some abiding fear of phallus (not envy),
against which claws are necessary.

I think your one really amazing ability,
so simple but which baffles men,
is merely a trick of disappearance
in which you're gone but still standing there,
pretending to listen, pretending to care.
This is beyond any male deceit,
because you, my Darling, BECAME Pretense
(about seven or so years ago)
and therefore are locked up tighter
than even me with my introversion,
my worlds within worlds within worlds.

And what's with those breasts?
Always hanging there like that,
except for exceptions.
They don't do anything, do they?
You can't play ping pong with them,
so what's the deal?


There was perhaps more to this poem, but this is all I could unearth.
More details will be shared as they become available.


Yours,

Posthumous O'Toole
OFFICIAL O'Toole Archivist
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / / 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jchien@leland.Stanford.EDU (Jennifer Crystal Fang-Chien)
Subject: "Excuse me, let me use the restroom first"
Organization: The Land of Earthquakes (Southern Cal)
Date: Wed, 9 Sep 92 05:45:55 GMT



	"Excuse me, let me use the restroom first."



	Everytime I talk to you, you say, "Excuse
	me, let me use the restroom first."  I
	asked why this happens and you said, "The
	caffiene -- I drink a lot of coffee at work."
	But this is what I think actually happens:

		You see a lovely Asian woman whom
	you made love to in subway cars standing
	on the doorstep of your expensive Beverly
	Hills house and you reminiscently smell
	the week-old whiskey and stale potato
	chips scattered on an East L.A. apartment
	floor.  The dusk wind pushes her sexy
	scent, slightly sweaty and sensual, into
	your nostrils and your blood pressure
	skyrockets adding stiffness to your
	sexual utility.  Behind your Armani
	pinstriped suit, sweat glands begin
	to dehydrate cells, and your breath
	rasps listerine-disinfected air like
	a respirator.  Your utility yearns for 
	cigarette burned sheets and a rented
	matress on which to exert its purpose
	with a yellow woman.  In the control
	center, technicians shout, "Fuck her,
	quick!"  But your Emergency Override
	kicks in and says, "Excuse me, let me
	use the restroom first."
		When you arrive augustly in
	the men's room, you activate that
	desparate self-handling which you
	hope will neutralize your charged
	utility.  This is why you are able
	to say, when you return, "Please 
	leave the premises."



			-- Jennifer Crystal Chien


Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: sheilah@wam.umd.edu (Sheila Herndon)
Subject: posthumous has red hair today Re: (happy thoughts)...
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 20:03:43 GMT

In article <236@uiunix.ui.org> donz@ui.org (Posthumous O'Toole) writes:

>against my wild red--if water washed
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Look at this!! Don has red hair! It will go well
with his flashy new crisp clean warm white shirt
I just pulled out of the dryer.
-- 
stark raving sane  sheilah@wam.umd.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: asparrow@mcs213f.cs.umr.edu (Angelia Sparrow)
Subject: Re: sestina??
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1992 16:26:18 GMT
Organization: University of Missouri - Rolla

Michelle O'Conner asks about sestinas.

The following is sexually explicit in a non-politically correct
way.  Read at your own risk.  However, it is a sestina....

Angel


Are you really sure?  It's an S&M love poem...


Slavery sestina

I kneel before you, a trembling slave;
Not daring to look on the face of my master.
I crave the whip's burning leather kiss,
You oblige me with exquisite pain.
From my throat is wrenched a hoarse cry,
The pain I need, I receive from you, my love.

I know you do not return my love,
I am nothing to you, just a slave.
A toy to be made to moan and cry
For the pleasure of my cruel master.
If I earn it, there is harsh pain.
If I earn it, a passionate kiss.

You seek my lips, biting as you kiss.
Heartless, harsh, there is nothing of love 
In it or you.  Only the need for pain,
The inflicting of it on a wanton slave.
I submit to your pleasure, my master,
As you beat me until I cry.

Under your lash, I beg, scream and cry.
Then it is over, and you claim my lips for a kiss.
My breath back, I whisper, "I love you, Master,"
Needing to declare through suffering my love.
You strike me, confirming me as a slave,
Worthy only of your scorn and pain.

"Pretty slut," you say, savoring my pain.
Running a rough hand over my back brings another cry.
Your lips descend to taste the tears of a slave;
A most revealing and condescending kiss.
You draw from me perversities made decent by love,
Violence and hurt from the hand of my master.

We know I require I severe master,
One not afraid to inflict intense pain.
One to whom I must give all my love,
Fearing no return, knowing he will make me cry
As a reward for even my very best kiss.
Even as we know you need a slave

It is my love that permits me to cry
On the whim of my master when he grants me pain.
Or the burning kiss of leather to show I am a slave.
Or the burnin kiss of leather to show I am a slave.

(Copyright 1991, Angelia Sparrow)
From: denelsbe@washington.cs.unc.edu (Kevbo)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Love/anonymous
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:54:50 GMT

Another of my  favorites.  The author is "anonymous", who is, I think,
distantly related to Posthumous...


		Love

	There's the wonderful love of a beautiful maid,
		And the love of a staunch true man,
	And the love of a baby that's unafraid --
		All have existed since time began.
	But the most wonderful love, the Love of all loves,
		Even greater than the love for Mother,
	Is the infinite, tenderest, passionate love
		Of one dead drunk for another.

			-- anonymous

-------
Kevin

-- 
|| +------------------+  You Yankees are so silly 
||-| Kev @ UNC        |  About matters of the heart;
||-| Master Poetaster |  Don't you know that women are the only works of art?
|| +------------------+        -- Don Henley, "Drivin' With Your Eyes Closed"
From: tony@swrinde.nde.swri.edu (Anthony R. Benitez)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Falling Star
Date: 10 Sep 92 15:09:19 GMT
Organization: Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, Texas



Falling Star


As I walked out my door tonight,
without intent or purpose, there
upon a lonely sky, a streak
of slender light went falling by.

And stood arrested, captured, bound
to utter low some inept sound
and slowly with my finger trace
an arc across Elijah's maze.

And cast my lot upon the sky
on star and moments passing by.
Then ask, "had not this cosmic gem
once fell, and falls my way again?"

For on a rusting pick-up hood
in summer grain fields of my youth.
With bodies prostrate, eyes affixed
upon God's universal mist;
Immensity! We lay and gazed
at scattered flecks of time ablaze
and cried aloud at every whisp
of streaking light that pierced our bliss.

It clearly seems we somehow are
all woven one our souls with stars,
flung from God's hand to meet in flight
on this, and other, starry nights.

And I, the moment, and the star
are one together as we sail
across the sky, our worthy aim,
to sparkle, fade, but fly again.


A.R.Benitez

**********************************
tony@tex.nde.swri.edu
**********************************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lugowski@ils.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: i need a poet
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Tue, 15 Sep 1992 22:02:26 GMT


		i need a poet
		------------------------------------------------------------

		write me a poem, please.
		write me a poem of court jesters and fools.
		tell me how love slips and slides
		and talk of the delicious scent of brown hair
		pulled away from your mouth. ah, marek,
		make me wet with your words.
		
		flirt with me, friend. 


			Laurae Pearson / Marek Lugowski
			15 September 1992
			San Jose, California / Chicago, Illinois
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--The calling
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Thu, 10 Sep 92 15:09:51 GMT


                           The calling

He suddenly felt called
to do the Lord's work
his first order of business
was to chop up Mom and Dad
with an ax
the Lord works in strange ways
he made
many
many
license plates
for the Lord
during the next sixty years.
From: rbear@inferno.uoregon.edu (Richard Bear)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Calendulas
Date: 13 Sep 92 23:13:40 GMT
Organization: University of Oregon Network Services
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5


She sells books from nine to six. They are
good books, well bound, well written, colorful
to the eye, and children love them, but
the town is poor. She sits waiting for hours
for one grandmother to come in and buy one book
for a favored grandchild. The owner of the store
is her friend; she cannot leave just now, but the store,
she knows, is not her place in life. All
she has ever wanted is to farm: at evening,
when the dinner things are cleared, and the hot sun
drops behind the cottonwood, she farms.
Food for the ducks, and soapy water for broccoli;
old lettuce gone to seed comes out; the hay
is rearranged, and fall peas go in. She stops
only to hear the geese pass overhead,
then bends among her plants until the stars,
first one and then another, leap and are caught
in the hair of approaching night, which is
so like her hair. She comes in, stained with soil
to the elbows, and leans against the table,
extending an open palm. "Look," she says,
her eyes on fire. "Marigold seeds! and these
are calendulas."

                         
Richard Bear rbear@oregon.uoregon.edu, rbear @inferno.uoregon.edu
From: denelsbe@washington.cs.unc.edu (Kevbo)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: The Rose Family / Robert Frost
Date: 5 Sep 92 19:51:45 GMT

This is one of my favorite poems.  Thought I'd share it with everybody...


		The Rose Family

	The rose is a rose,
	And was always a rose.
	But the theory now goes
	That the apple's a rose,
	And the pear is, and so's
	The plum, I suppose.
	The dear only knows
	What will next prove a rose.
	You, of course, are a rose --
	But were always a rose.

			-- Robert Frost

-------
Kevin

-- 
|| +------------------+  You Yankees are so silly 
||-| Kev @ UNC        |  About matters of the heart;
||-| Master Poetaster |  Don't you know that women are the only works of art?
|| +------------------+        -- Don Henley, "Drivin' With Your Eyes Closed"
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems