HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: a favorite poem by someone else
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 03:34:08 GMT


Always one to follow a trend, I am posting a favorite poem here.  
For some reason, the recent stuff on rap reminded me of this.  I 
used to love Auden for his precision, but now I admire his brevity too.

This is from Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats"

	You were silly like us; your gift survived it all:
	The parish of rich women, physical decay,
	Yourself.  Mad Ireland hurt you into poetry.
	Now Ireland has her madness and her weather still,
	For poetry makes nothing happen:  it survives
	In the valley of its making where executives
	Would never want to tamper, flows on south
	From ranches of isolation and the busy griefs,
	Raw towns that we believe and die in; it survives,
	A way of happening, a mouth.



Even Don should like that one.  ;)


Marie Coffin
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 15:45:12 GMT
Subject: Re: blue Re: CopyRights
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

In rec.arts.poems, zola@hardy.u.washington.edu (Zolette- Reine de la Netherlands) writes:

> 
> doug, 
> much as I hate to say this, I do remember josef writing something like this. 
> since posthumous is lacking in his archivist duties I will search for the
> damned file myself.  not of course because I want to attack you, just to set
> the record straight.  besides posthumous is just upset that i would not give
> him josef's new e-mail address.

Ok, thanks.  I appreciate it.  I really do want to know.

> 
doug
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: messer@utkvx2.utk.edu (The Jagged of your Dreams!)
Subject: Re: asdf
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    
Organization: University of Tennessee Computing Center
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 15:01:00 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.022604.22450@cs.ucla.edu>, lichter@oahu.cs.ucla.edu (Michael I. Lichter) writes...
>Two quick comments:
> 
>1.  We just got a couple of poems posted with headers like this:

lalala... 
>2. I think "d" (not much of a name) otherwise known as zen@death.Corp.Sun.COM 
>   made a rather poor choice in titling his poem "if i was a nigger i'd".
>   I'm not blind to irony, but "nigger" carries some pretty heavy
>   baggage, and as a white person it's one that I steer well clear of
>   in my speech or writing.  Otherwise an interesting polemic.
> 
>Michael

On behalf of words everywhere...
Bite me, Michael.
:)


Damie
From: sstover@sumax.seattleu.edu (Maven o'Mirth)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: A poem I like by Anne Sexton
Date: 7 Nov 92 03:34:51 GMT
Organization: Seattle University, Seattle WA

And so I return in kind.

From _The Jesus Papers_ (by Anne Sexton)

	Jesus Dies
	----------------------
	From up here in the crow's nest
	I see a small crowd gather.
	Who do you gather, my townsmen?
	There is no news here.
	I am not a trapeze artist.
	I am busy with My dying.
	Three heads lolling, 
	bobbing like bladders.
	No news.
	The soldiers down below
	laughing as soldiers have done for centuries.
	No news.
	We are the same men, 
	you and I,
	the same sort of nostrils,
	the same sort of feet.
	My bones are oiled with blood
	and so are yours.
	I want to kiss God on His nose and watch Him sneeze
	and so do you.
	Not out of disrespect.
	Out of pique.
	Out of a man-to-man thing.
	I want heaven to descend and sit on My dinner plate
	and so do you.
	I want God to put His steaming arms around Me
	and so do you.
	Because we need.
	Because we are sore creatures.
	My townsmen,
	go home now.
	I will not do anything extraordinary.
	I will not divide in two.
	I will not pick out My white eyes.
	Go now, 
	this is a personal matter,
	a private affair and God knows
	none of your business.
From: wprovinc@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu (drunken_philosopher)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: tresa's vacuum  / bill
Date: 12 Nov 92 04:40:03 GMT
Article-I.D.: rat.1992Nov12.044003.18270
Organization: Bleeding Heart Liberals Association (and proud of it!!)



             tresa's vacuum
           ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
           they gave my sister thorazine when
           they put her in the institution and
           our uncle's death was really nothing
           if not like bricks weighing upon us but
           there were too many to carry so i put
           them to the floor where she picked 
           them up and carried them for both then
           gave me new bricks made from feathers and
           used them to build me walls until she 
           told me that she missed her cat sparky her
           voice was just a whimper but mine was
           a synthesizer that perhaps had 
           taken her thorazine through her body but
           affecting me so i stuck my arms around her
           but could not comfort a black hole vacuum 
           of lost emotion to which my voice said 
           "i know" but 
           i really
           knew
           nothing.

                               -- bill province 11/5/92

         I had originally written this in the context of a series
   of poems, but seeing as how this was the only one for which
   I felt any satisfaction, I decided to re-title it and see how
   it would stand on its own.

         Comments, insults, discussions about throwing cats out
   of windows, all of these are welcome...

       -- bill

-- 
"Each game of chess means there's one less  | bill province
variation left to be played.                | wprovinc@polyslo.csc.calpoly.edu
Each day got through means one or two       | wprovinc@athena.calpoly.edu
less mistakes remain to be made." -- Chess, the musical
From: jtrue@acpub.duke.edu (jtrue)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: expensive cartoons / jtrue
Date: 12 Nov 92 04:20:40 GMT
Organization: the gospel of zagnut

My trip up the eastern seaboard was quite enjoyable and well worth it
and Sheila, Matt, Don, Kate, Tom, and Mark were indeed well met in
Md, Md, NJ, NJ, NJ, and Manhattan, respectively.  I am still digesting
Magritte, having gotten over the sensory overload of the quite large
(IMO) retrospective (couple of hundred paintings).  Anyway, interstates
at twilight are good places for writing, as long as the cruise control
is on...

expensive cartoons

The dead painter will please forgive
this insolent poet-boy
for my pidgin brand of analysis,
but there are so few words in his eloquent language
that they are like unknowable names;
his treatises, collages outlining
or detailing the retinal flashes
left by the torches of the century.

His wisdom is conveyed through these pictures, 
to onlookers stretching their necks,
these pictures embedded in
modernity like a spike into a now-ancient tree.

As I fell out the ends
of all the rooms,
sometimes into the accursed cumulus,
I could have done
without the fragmented women
or all the phalli
(or the women as phalli,
or the phalli as women),
but maybe the lathe
that made the bedposts
has something to do with
why these symbols can be one and the same.
And is the lathe still turning?
I may never look under the tablecloth
the same way again.

How trees are leaves
and candles become intestines
I'll not know soon or easily.
But dreams are indeed stone
when looked back upon.
And memories might as well be
forms of pitted concrete,
still-lifes rendered in the near-dark
for a day without cathode rays,
where the frame-within-the-frame
is more real
than here outside
where we're still looking. 

-jtrue1992
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: girl boy: an existential play, sad and rife with strife / Marek+Marie
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 00:38:35 GMT


		girl boy: an existential play, sad and rife with strife
		-------------------------------------------------------------

		girl: i feel really horny and like getting fucked.
		boy: your eyes are limpid pools in which i lose my thought.
		girl: my cunt is swimming and i am squirming.  fuck me.
		boy: i long to hold you in my arms (forever [optional]).

		girl: would you please rub my back and kiss my neck.
		boy: i desire to know your every thought, every want.
		girl: fuck me immediately, you dweeb.
		boy: i think i like my christie brinkley poster better.

			Marek Lugowski / Marie Coffin
			8 November 1992
			Chicago, Illinois / Ames, Iowa
From: PROWSE@Meena.CC.URegina.CA (Prowse, Natalie)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Living in Sin (C&C welcome)
Date: 6 Nov 92 18:23:04 GMT
Article-I.D.: sue.1992Nov06.182304.146441
Organization: University of Regina, Regina, Sask., Canada
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24


I can understand 
why you stay.
But I cannot say that I could
under the same circumstances.
You do not respect her.
You do not share the same goals.
She does not have your same
lustful needs,
Though she occasionally gives in
like some automaton,
Acquiescing to some 
unpleasant task.

You say you love her
but it cannot be the love of
lovers, the love which bonds a marriage.
Without the uniting force
of bodies entwined in 
shared lustful, thrusting
touching, wanting,
You have only the love of friendship,
and perhaps not even that.
Perhaps it is not love, 
but only a sense of responsibility.

She might have been 
your first transgression
But she will not be
your last.
Like a light coming on briefly, 
in a darkened room,
You are now keenly aware of what is lacking.
You have tasted the addictive pleasure 
of another's passion.

And though you try
to rationalize away your motives,
You will always remember 
that feeling of having someone want you 
for something other 
than a paycheck and household repairs and doing dishes.

And though you try,
you will not be able to forget
that sensation of giving ecstacy.
Of having it joyfully received,
and returned
in gasps and moans and sighs.      

And though you try
to contain your desires
by burying yourself in work,
The lingering hunger
cannot be quenched
by papers and meetings and projects.


(C&C welcome)
From: cecilw@access.isc-br.com (Cecil Williams)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Hell
Date: 10 Nov 92 14:07:39 GMT
Organization: ISC-Bunker Ramo, Spokane, WA





		I opened the dictionary today
		to the exact page for my word. 
		The very page on first opening,
		in a big book
		with pages thin as onion skin
		and 1561 of them numbered. 
		Page 562. 
		      "HELL",
		"a nether world in which
		the dead continue to exist".
		
		Hell is also another way
		to spell love
		after the passage of time.


		Cecil Williams
		11/9/92
		**************



C&C
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: sswieren@nyx.cs.du.edu (stephan swierenga)
Subject: beauty_pageant_of_the_gods
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 92 02:18:45 GMT

Posting for a friend, will redirect responses to him.

================================================================= 
    
   BEAUTY PAGEANT OF THE GODS:(1)


                  Cool sidewalks in a missing lie.
                     
                  The elected gods feel beautiful.
               
   Intoxicate me now, with your toxic waste;
                       
I got my fix in a body stone


                        Feels so good(8x)

              I can't see anything more.
              
    High above the air nobody cares.
         
      Slowing down for Corporal Flesh.
             
       Everybody Primal Scream(2x)

              Come down and fight me, if ya got the guts;
              put down your  be in grass huts
carrying rhythms between body bags,
as the mountains sag
               bouncing carnage through our legs.
       hopping the circle square pegs
  Stop the hits of hate and splash it down.


           Crowded  notes spill my eyes.
        Some bodies lie to me,
                 some bodies are free.
                 Heavy angst in your lips.

          Shaking toes and covered tips.
          I lost it to the red beetles.
       Empty  neon shivers through wastelands;
          tiny blossoms cherry in a row.


Hajii

==============================
sswieren@nyx.cs.du.edu
From: gt7244c@prism.gatech.EDU (John G'alt)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: first walk on top of the fence
Date: 12 Nov 92 23:59:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: hydra.74633
Distribution: usa
Organization: Georgia Tech


   Take It Off / Take Me On

There's so much to say
About the outfit you wore today,
But even now without it
There's nothing greater about it
Than your neglect of negligee.
My vocabulary's on loan,
And to spite that which is gone,
Below to behold, as my stupor has told,
The repossessor is shown -
Who can blame me if I groan?
By now my anticipation
Has destroyed my caution, my reason,
So let's to participation -
As an option, 'tis the season!
-- 
John Greenawalt, alive for this particular branch of reality...
Tourist lost somewhere at Georgia Tech            
Internet: gt7244c@prism.gatech.edu
un pelirrojo q' prefiere las morenas...
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Sufficient
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 14:40:23 GMT


                                Sufficient

                Sufficient
                but not necessary
                am I to you
                there are others to serve your need
                so many with the requisite configuration
                of two legs nesting the organ
                which provides your pleasure
                why me
                chosen
                selected
                among so many others available to you
                first impressions
                which introduce their successors
                successful
                I am the one.



-- 
ralph@wixer.cactus.org
cactus.org!wixer!ralph
From: benge_kl@lrc.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Can't They See?
Date: 4 Nov 92 14:07:31 EDT
Organization: Lenoir-Rhyne College, Hickory, NC

Can't They See?
===============

"How's it going?" ??
How can they ask me how it's going?
Don't my eyes scream out my pain?
Doesn't the set of my mouth belie my lonliness?
As they stand close enough to smell my melancholy,
How can they stand there asking "How's it going?"
With smiles on their faces?

And even worse, 
How can I calmly reply "Fine."
Just because it's the polite and expected answer?

                                                KLeB the NoMad

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Subject: My Tree... (Mortality and a quest for life...)
Reply-To: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 18:00:53 GMT


	[old]


	My Tree... (Mortality and a quest for life...)


	So many friends beneath, passed before long ago,
	My ancient backyard travesty, my ever-haunting woe.
	Ever green this haunting 'lithe, this tower of a tree,
	Which passes by my memories when sadness cripples me.
	This daunting neighbor of youthful days, always challenging,
	Forever young while my life wanes, and time by me is passing,
	Stands high above my petty world, mute to my heart wrecks.
	It follows me, my every thought and mocks my every beck,
	Desiring naught but simple love, and peace at my behest.

						msj
From: donz@ui.org (Don Zirilli)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Well-Met in Manhattan
Date: 13 Nov 92 19:51:08 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ


(cont'd)

So, the following people had breakfast onboard the ferry:

Lily O'Toole nee Miguez
Sir John True
Posthumous O'Toole nee Zirilli
Kate O'Mirthless (or is that Merciless?  I'm afraid Pluto has a lisp)
Tom Wachtel

btw, Tom provided me with a proper pronunciation guide:

 	start with a 'v' sound. say 'vulture', but stop before the 'l'
 	sound.  then make a 'h' sound, not 'k' or 'tch', just 'h'.
 	then say 'tell'.  vu-h-tell. stress the first syllable, so it
 	has the rhythm of 'bucket' rather than 'bouquet'.
 

Poor Tom spent a good deal of time adjusting to the American menu.  I
suggested English Muffins, but he didn't go for that.  Instead he ordered
blueberry pancakes that he only half-finished.  I though perhaps he was
averse to the color (not purple enough?), but it may have been due to a
lack of planning (mostly my fault) that had left him eating just an hour or
two earlier with a lovely family of bottlenose dolphins.  Kate ordered the
all-you-can-eat buffet, knowing that her high metabolism and fierce
intensity would allow for a feast that would in no way impact on her tight
and beautiful body, the very flesh that has me eternally seduced and within
her roguish and arbitrary power.  I don't remember what Sheila ordered, but
I do remember her going on about Gravity, which Tom doesn't believe in.

"You don't?  What do you believe in?" I asked, hoping perhaps for a new
faith.  Perhaps this at last would be my key to get beyond the Mask of Void
Man.

"It's simple really.  Things fall in all different directions, but
obviously the only things that are going to stick around are those that
fall downward.  Gravity has nothing to do with it."

I of course asked why we don't get smacked occasionally by things falling
sideways, to which he responded, "Oh, don't you ever get smacked?" and of
course I have been smacked many times and sometimes I even enjoyed it, so
that deflated my argument.

Perhaps Void Man is Lord of All Things That Fall Up.


John suggested that we do a seance right there and then, but Tom wanted
nothing to do with it.  He said he had come a long way to see those
dolphins and had to hurry back.  We all kissed his chipmunkish cheeks and
then off he went over the side.

"Ta!" we yelled bittersweetly.

And then the boat docked.

"Dammit, Posthumous.  This is Harlem, idiot.  You were supposed to take us
to Midtown."  That was Kate.  She was very angry and started to unsnap her
bullwhip....


to be cont'd
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / / 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ktw@cbnewsb.cb.att.com (kenneth.t.wolman)
Subject: Walking Home From School Under the Polar Star....
Organization: AT&T
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 21:21:25 GMT

 
      WALKING HOME FROM SCHOOL UNDER THE POLAR STAR,
      ARCHER STREET, THE BRONX, 1955

      Home-wandering, there is space to drift between
      the daily repetitions of the polarities,
      escape from the magnetic leaden traps
      of school and the apartments that loom
      beyond the trees on either side
      like distant spectral fortresses:
      two constructs of perfection, sculpted,
      their disembodied brick confining
      tiny airless rooms.

      Here there is the free dream-space
      of small frame houses
      and disordered tomato gardens whose vines
      ascend on invisible stakes,
      like Jack's beanstalk or red round puppets
      dancing on hidden strings.
      Here there are broken narrow sidewalks,
      a slate deck on an unseen vessel
      on an ocean that buckles and falls,
      where I ride and dream
      of the stars above me.
      Here there is imperfection
      and warm disorder, where I am.

Kenneth Wolman, November 12, 1992
-- 
Ken Wolman   AT&T Bell Laboratories   (201)564-2866   ktw@mhwpa.att.com

   "When hope is gone, the ultimate sanity is to grasp at straws."
					--Raymond Carver
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Subject: A poem my mother wrote for me...
Reply-To: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 18:07:06 GMT



	...when I was 2 1/2 yrs. old and staying with her parents
	(she was ill).

	Hide and Seek...
	by Bessie May Jessop

	Two little robins sat in a tree.
	Said one robin, "you can't catch me!"
	Off he flew, to hide in a cloud,
	The other robin chirped aloud.
	Soon others came to hear his words,
	Then up they rose, that flock of birds.
	They all joined wings to make a curtain.
	The robin in the cloud was very uncertain.
	Could night come as fast as this?
	Or is there something much amiss?
	The flock of birds had blocked the sun;
	It was dark, as if night had come.
	The bird in the cloud without the light
	Decided to leave, "something's not right.
	I'll fly to the tree and wait for my friend.
	He'll know what brought the day to an end."
	With a downward glide he reached his perch,
	On a tall thin tree of white, white birch.
	The birds above all laughed with glee.
	They saw his fright; they saw him flee.
	The little robin looked up at the sound,
	Then his friends came flying down.
	"We tricked you, tricked you little one!
	Day's not done, we hid the sun!"
From: rhh@alice.att.com (r hardin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Urdu Ignorance (part II)
Date: 12 Nov 92 23:23:26 GMT
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill NJ



Melynda Reid writes:
>there is a larger ignorance at work here---the consequences of
>animosities generated by a babble of tongues. i do not mind being
>taught gently about the culture and language of those outside of my own
>linguistic family or tribe. but i feel very strongly that it is is
>highly unethical to cultivate attacks on other people and other
>languages. i object to such obscenity. you have an opportunity to
>educate a world of users of electronic media. use your resources to
>create understanding not hatred.

What of the fine poem in the current New Yorker,

	Little Zooks, of whom no one was fond.
	They shot towards the roof and beyond;
	The infant's trajectory passed him over
		the rectory
	And into a lily-choked pond.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: da003b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu (Vogon Poet)
Subject: Vogon Poetry
Summary: read please
Keywords: grunt
Organization: University of Rochester - Rochester, New York
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 92 23:31:26 GMT


Note: This is copyrighted material.


"Oh freddled gruntbuggly...
...thy micturations are to me
As plurdled gabbleblotchits on a lurgid bee.
Groop I implore thee,
my foonting turlingdromes.
And hooptiously drangle me with crinkly bindlewurdles,
Or I will rend thee in the gobberwarts with my blurglecruncheon,
see if I don't!"

There you have it.

Vogon.
-- 

Vogon Poet, aka Darrell Anderson [da003b@uhura.cc.rochester.edu]
"I can be expected to look for truth but not to find it."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: sheets the color of your eyes / Marie Coffin
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 00:44:06 GMT


	sheets the color of your eyes
	------------------------------------------------------------
	
	hands to hold
	a big bowl
	of apples in the sun
	and eyes crinkle.
	
	but in the shade
	you strip the skin
	from my skin and remove
	the faces from my face
	and your palms 
	fit perfectly on
	my shoulders
	
	and in this dim room
	the city below us
	we grow peaches and apples
	and pears firm that give
	to your finger's press
	and a green grove
	of trees in fruit.
	
	we bite and the juices
	run sweet
	on our skin.


Marie Coffin
November 5, 1992

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Subject: Remorse...
Reply-To: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation
Date: Mon, 9 Nov 1992 17:53:02 GMT




	Remorse...


	Putrifying, decaying, ...  remorse:
	A wasting away of one's will, one's life;
	A shifting, a deviation of one's course
	In the midst of an emotional strife.

	The body feels tired,
	    As tho' the blood has thinned
		To nothingness.

	The heart cannot be heard,
	    In its aching sorrow
		As if it's ceased...

	To beat.


				msj
From: wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: you curl in my
Date: 12 Nov 92 17:09:38 GMT
Reply-To: wachtel@canon.co.uk
Organization: Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd

=


	you curl in my glowing hand
	with crimson expectation
	as we dance in our own chosen monochrome ways
	with all the windows open and all the doors ajar
	just wide enough to see the skyly colours
	and breath the polychrome haze
	of your warm glowing curls in my hand


-- 

Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems