HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--What do you mean
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Sun, 30 Aug 92 16:50:19 GMT


                        What do you mean


I told her
I can't go on like this
she asked
what do you mean
I couldn't tell her because I didn't know
I had missed
the beginning
of the movie...
From: donz@ui.org (Don Zirilli)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Orpheus
Date: 27 Aug 92 18:51:53 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ


The Writer Keeps His Distance


I saw Orpheus singing but I couldn't hear a word.
The massive trees like curtains closed upon a devious night.

kee-raiiiist!  kee-raiiiist! called the calling birds,
their heads adorned with masking tape, 
their beaks a-bumping into things
like babies, clouds, and words.

I sent these messengers outward to bring back signs of land.
The massive trees like promises convinced me of nothing but leaves.

A gentle dancing kitchen wench
whirled among the appetizers,
salted all the fried potatoes
as I sat, as I pouted on the bench.

I kissed her like a spoonful of beans but could not taste her.
The night convinced me finally.  I sang Orpheus myself.

Sweet, sweet, everywhere dying,
the berries held the season's scent,
the petals colored pathways
I overlooked while flying.


Posthumous O'Toole
8-28-92
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / / 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems,alt.romance,alt.romance.chat
From: sakata@uhunix.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Henry Sakata)
Subject: Words Without Faces
Organization: University of Hawaii at Manoa
Date: Tue, 1 Sep 1992 06:02:05 GMT


Word Without Faces
==================

Words without faces
No lips nor intonation
Appear before these eyes
Only names and places
From around our nation
Something within cries
Who's leaving traces
Of heart's concentration
Giving words to the wise
Creating a basis
For anon adoration
Forcing the mind to surmise
This heart's pulse races
In great expectation
Wanting to see it tries
But letters and spaces
Impede exploration
And bittersweet implies
And words without faces
No lips nor intonation
Appear before these eyes


hns
august 31, 1992
(c) 1992

From: duanej@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Duane Jacobson)
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:22:50 GMT
Subject: Cerebral Byways
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems


                Cerebral Byways

        Forging straight through every crossroad,
        Never veering left or right.
        Even though the path I'm taking,
        Has no distant goal in sight.

        Who determines what is progress,
        Those that muster fame and might.
        Or consensus of the masses,
        With their often twisted plight.

        Should I take the time to wander,
        Either North or South tonight.
        Or to settle down and ponder,
        In the ever fading light.

        If I close my eyes and travel,
        Inward on a mystic flight.
        Will I flee this road of burden,
        Or just wake in dead of night.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Fallen men
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 92 01:38:07 GMT


                        Fallen men

They speak of the solitude of deep space
I wonder
about the untold endings
of astronauts untethered
fallen men
held against the cosmos' breast
until blackness covers all.
I know the sands of Mars to be friendly
yet
I wonder
about the floating deaths
of those who let go
so far away...

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: terri@cwis.unomaha.edu (Teresa L. Jelinek)
Subject: One of Life's Imperfections
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 03:22:11 GMT


		One of Life's Imperfections

You must enter it every day--this place,
Not knowing what lies ahead for you to face,
One day you shall be released from this institution,
To make your very own resolution,
Some may go from here into another,
Others may very well not bother,
Only to later on learn of their mistake,
To see what they had put at stake,
But for those who do go on,
They awake to another dawn,
Only to find their dreams come true,
As not very many young ones do...
From: boutell@cshl.org (Tom Boutell)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: TB: Poem: Ragweed
Date: 26 Aug 92 14:02:10 GMT
Organization: Cold Spring Harbor Labs

Ragweed
-------

My heart pounds -- not the day - glo abstraction,
Not the triangle - and - two - semicircles cake,
Not the Feburary - 14th lonely - spasm pink - center
I - Love - Lucy colorforms playset paper - doll origami toy,

But this, which I can hear too easily
When I try to sleep at night, and which
Is beginning to make me worry less about getting laid

And more about getting up in the morning. When the ragweed
Grows high behind houses, when the pollen paints them yellow,
I have no choice but to inhale, and my body masquerades: 
Twenty years older. And I'm honestly scared

By the heart that I see there.

-- 
Tom Boutell, boutell@cshl.org

Clausthaler is the best non - alcoholic beer in the known universe.
From: mtaranto@shearson.com (Mark Taranto)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: 20 Century Poetry
Date: 25 Aug 92 23:25:40 GMT


marek@mermaid.msel.unh.edu (Marek Lugowski) writes:

> I have two suggestions for topics:

> 1.  Compare and contrast Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton with their
>     contemporaries, women poets of eastern Europe.  Baranczak's text
>     should give you a point of departure for eastern Europe.  You can
>     always call him at his office in Harvard. :)

Contrast:  Sylvia Plath and Anne Sexton killed themselves and wrote in English.
Compare:   Their Eastern European contemporaries wrote poetry.

I'll be able to say more when I finish the Anne Sexton biography (and even
more if I ever read any Eastern European poets).

> 2.  Poets as political prisoners.  Contact Amnesty International USA
>     and Asia Watch, Africa Watch and America Watch for sources.

Poetry and Politics -- sounds like an oxymoron to me.

Mark
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jondarr@macadam.mqcs.mq.oz.au (jondarr c g h 2 gibb)
Subject: For Blackmist
Organization: Macquarie University, School of Mathematics, Physics, Computing and Electronics
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 06:23:11 GMT

Hi Stacy ! 8)
While everyone posts of the unicorn, I thought I'd spend a
few moments to add this :


        Blackmist

Dream on, Blackmist, hell's unicorn,
Much time has gone since you were born
But you live on, your ebon horn
As darkly shone since light forsworn.

The darkness in my soul ignites
A flame itself these lonely nights,
But on these mystic midnight flights
Of fantasy through sacred sites

Of hell and heaven, Blackmist, dream
Of splashing through my conscious stream
And make this flight of passion seem
More real : the cooling mist was steam,

The water boiled away from fire,
The flame that burns with hot desire
Of amber-red and glowing higher,
The passion of love's funeral pyre.

No more than dream since it'd begun :
The shadow's passed and I am done.

                          26th August, 1992



                    
              Anyway the wind blows ...
                                                //\         /\\
                             /                 || * \ . . / * ||
               .  _   _   _/  _   _  _          \\____\X/____//
              / /_/ / / /_/ /-/ /  /             / *  /O\  * \
          ._/                                    \__/  "  \__/

jondarr@macadam.mpce.mq.edu.au  (137.111.216.12)
jondarr@mpce.mq.edu.au
jondarr@macgraw.mpce.mq.edu.au
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: possession / Marie Coffin
Date: 31 Aug 92 23:09:15 GMT
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University


	possession
	-----------------------------------------------------
	
	it wants out, out.
	something in me
	is making my skin crawl.
	something in me
	is making me claw its way out.
	some allergy
	is forcing the surface
	looking for the air
	looking to set up shop
	
	growing chives on my legs.
	
	why doesn't anything want in?
	
	there's so much room 
	under my blanket,
	so much company:
	the i that scratches,
	the i that watches,
	the baby me that cries,
	the eye that analyzes
	every emotion for sincerity,
	the i that doubts,
	the i that wants,
	the i that says don't reach:
	if you prove your indifference
	they will reward you.
	
	if i could get all these
	people to sleep,
	or talking to each other
	like at a successful
	cocktail party,
	i would slip out after dark
	and harvest my chives.


Marie Coffin
September 1, 1992
	
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: paulchem@tigger.cs.Colorado.EDU (Icarus)
Subject: My eyes were opened.
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder
Date: Sun, 23 Aug 1992 22:27:28 GMT



rain makes me remember,
the sunset in that golden hour,
when my eyes were first opened,
and I,
could see your eyes, 
no longer blind.

I tried to explain,
the secret of being me,
and all you did was smile.

you hid your hands from me,
all winter,
wouldnt let me look,
hiding behind that artless mask.

when we got around,
to telling futures,
we saw loves stigmata,
set in the middle of your little palms.

now my eyes are opened,
and I see a little further,
beyond the story of our lives,
beyond the tick of the relentless clock,
beyond the beat of april rain,
beyond the warmth of forgotten tears,
beyond the ache of remembered longing,
myself walking alone.



------------------------------------------------------------------------------
.    ~ ~                                                                     .
.    o o      signito ergo sum.              paul chemmanoor.                .
.     |    i sign therefore i am.            Computer Science department.    .
.     =                                      Univ. of Colorado, Boulder.     .
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Xref: sparky rec.arts.poems:8599 rec.arts.books:15522
From: proberts@informix.com (Paul Roberts)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems,rec.arts.books
Subject: Re: I give up...
Date: 3 Sep 92 02:43:53 GMT
Distribution: usa
Organization: Informix Software, Inc.

In article <1992Sep2.204622.19919@news.acns.nwu.edu> tilden@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Robert Tilden) writes:
>OK, I asked around, and looked in a few books, but I couldn't find it...
>I'm embarassed to have to turn to the experts, but here it is: who wrote it
>and what's it from?
>		
>	Ah, love, let us be true
>	To one another! for the world, which seems
        [etc]

It is from this:

Dover Beach

  The sea is calm to-night;
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the Straits; - on the French coast, the light
Gleams, and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!
  Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then begin again,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
the eternal note of sadness in.

  Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Aegean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
  Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.

  The sea of faith 
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled;
  But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
  Retreating to the breath
Of the night-wind down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

  Ah, love, let us be true 
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

		-  Matthew Arnold  (1822 - 1888)
From: donz@ui.org (Don Zirilli)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: A Sudden Insertion Into Life
Date: 26 Aug 92 15:51:44 GMT
Organization: UNIX International, Parsippany, NJ


A Sudden Insertion Into Life


Her breezy little curves
and the flutter of her eyes,
her hips that rattle and wag,
the squeezy juices of her hips--
I love the woman who killed my father.

Sure I was in a big white room
and everyone was leaning toward me
with incisor teeth like surgical knives
and big bright popped-up eyes,
but I didn't sit down.

Oh, the blue sky of his death,
the big careening gazelles
in my furious clouds.
Oh, we ran in that field and kissed.
Never was anything more alive.


Posthumous O'Toole
8-26-92


p.s. Aaron Radomski where are you???
-- 
nobody/not even the rain/              	/	   /      /  /    
 /   /   /     /   /   / /     /       /    /    // /    /  /         /    
/     / / /   /   /     /   / /    / /   / / /  /  /   /      /      /
   / /   /   /	/	 / /      //    /   / /     / /      / / / 
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Subject: seasonings / Marek+Marie
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 18:17:23 GMT


		seasonings
		----------------------------------------------------
		
		this is not the season of incense.
		the season of incense runs
		from advent until pentecost.
		
		before that season we have
		the season of burned leaves,
		the season of crisp air,
		the season of apples 
		and of wool sweaters.
		
		the season of new shoes.
		
		after incense is the season
		of turned earth,
		wet ground,
		endless rain.
		the season where trees shield themselves
		from the sun.
		
		now we are in the season of iced tea,
		early mornings, late nights.
		now is the season of state fairs, which smells
		of fried cheese and looks
		like vast meticulous quilts.
		
		in this season, the scent of burned leaves 
		is on the tip of my nose
		and the hot air cuts with the edge of snow.
		out here, the cold is always turning
		say, over there, around the dark corner
		the one with the flashing red light.
		
		
			Marek Lugowski / Marie Coffin
			3 September 1992
			Chicago, Illinois / Ames, Iowa
		

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: kate@cactus.org (Katherine M. Catmull)
Subject: Re: I give up...
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas UNIX Society, Austin, Tx
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 21:11:06 GMT

John Nall writes:
>
>  One of the others was the one that says
>  something along the lines of "The grave is a nice place, but none do
>  there embrace".  (Yes, I know those are *not* the exact words - I
>  can't recall them).  

If Josef O'Toole were still around he'd have a stroke. "The grave
is a NICE place"????? I know John admits to not quoting the poem
exactly, but this made my ears ring for hours. So I'm back,
sternly, to inform him that the grave's a fine and private place
but none I think (nice touch, Andy) do there embrace."


>  Janis Joplin said it better: "Get it while you can".

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, buddy.


Kate


-- 
- - - - - - - -
kate@cactus.org
Be the voice of night and Florida in my ear.
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 1992 19:45:23 GMT
Subject: Re: One of my favorite poems
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

In rec.arts.poems, jss6@jaguar.uofs.edu writes:

> 
>  
>                      But God hath promised
>                            Strength for the day,


God apparently forgo to provide
from the depths of his godly pride 
enough strength for men
like Ellie who raised his eyes
from the smoking ovens to the brazen skies
to look wonderingly, loningly at the monstrous train
carrying all good from the earth, to leave only pain.

Many millions of these maltreated men decided 
that god did not, in fact, exist, 
just before they ended resistence
and stepped to the train 
and rose ghostly to heavens
not yet stained 
with too much blood.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Visiting the doctor
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 19:17:12 GMT


                           Visiting the doctor

I was visiting the doctor
at his invitation
outside the building
there was an arboretum
built as a circle
I thought all the dinosaurs had died
but there were a number of them
one walking on hind legs
and five feet tall
I shooed him away
only to notice the head
of a brontosaurus
looming into the
my
foreground
I turned to another man
just to check
Brontosaurus's were
are
vegetarians
aren't they?
Not wanting to become
a source of mistaken indigestion
I ran like hell
realizing
I dislike being a snack
even more
than visiting
the doctor.


Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: kammerer@cwis.unomaha.edu (Al Kammerer)
Subject: Re: Witches' brew (poem)
Organization: University of Nebraska at Omaha
Date: Thu, 3 Sep 1992 19:13:05 GMT


A Pennsylvania plantswoman uses a rifle
Targeting witch's brooms nestling at tree-top
And even if it takes 200 shots she plucks
These emblems of sorcery to stratify
Between cold layers of cheesecloth the seeds
She tweezes from the cones
To sprout their genetic quirks
Into another of the nana species
She calls for her own.
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lugowski@ils.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: The Rail Terminal / Wislawa Szymborska / trans: Marek+Joanna
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 18:30:55 GMT


		The Rail Terminal (translation of Dworzec)
		-------------------------------------------------------------
 
		My nonarrival in the city N.
		was right on time.
		 
		You were advised of it in advance
		through a letter never sent.
		 
		You managed not to meet me
		at the appointed hour.
		 
		The train came in on track 3.
		Lots of people got off.
		The crowd hurried toward the exits
		and with it, my nonpresence.
		 
		A few women rushed
		to take my place
		in the crush.
		 
		Someone unknown to me
		approached one of them
		but she recognized him
		immediately.
		 
		They exchanged kisses
		that were not ours
		during which time
		the suitcase that wasn't mine disappeared.
		 
		The rail terminal in the city N.
		did well on its test of objective existence.
		 
		The whole remained the same.
		The details moved
		on assigned tracks.
		 
		Even the agreed meeting
		took place.
		 
		Beyond the reach
		of our presence.
		 
		In the paradise lost
		of probabilities.
		 
		Somewhere else.
		Somewhere else.
		How these little words ring.

		 
			Wislawa Szymborska
			Poland
		 
				translated from Polish
				by Marek Lugowski / Joanna Trzeciak
				Tennessee, Arkansas, 1989
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lugowski@ils.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: For Friends / Wislawa Szymborska / trans: Marek+Joanna
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Tue, 25 Aug 1992 18:46:20 GMT


		For Friends (translation of Przyjaciolom)
		--------------------------------------------------------------
 
		Well versed in the spaces
		from ground to the stars,
		we get lost in the space
		from ground to the head.
		 
		It is so interplanetary
		from sorrow to tears.
		On the way from lies to truth
		you lose your youth.
		 
		The jets look funny to us,
		that crevice of silence
		between the flight and the sound
		-- a new world record.
		 
		There were speedier departures,
		their belated echoes
		brutally tear us from sleep
		years, only years later.
		 
		Now a call can be heard:
		We are innocent!
		Who's calling?  We're running,
		openning windows.
		 
		The voice abruptly breaks off.
		Outside the windows, stars
		fall, just like after a salvo
		plaster falls off the wall.
		 
		 
			Wislawa Szymborska
			Poland
				 
				translated from Polish
				by Marek Lugowski / Joanna Trzeciak
				Dallas / New York, 1989
From: keyush@cis.ksu.edu (Keyush Shah)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: books on poetry writing.
Date: 3 Sep 92 19:25:52 GMT
Article-I.D.: procyon.keyush.715548355
Distribution: usa
Organization: Kansas State University, Dept. of Computing and Information Sciences
NNTP-Posting-Host: procyon.cis.ksu.edu

This is my first posting on this newsgroup. I write poems in Gujarati,and
want to learn about writing poems in english. Can someone tell me the name
of good books available on this subject? You may e-mail me at
keyush@cis.ksu.edu

Thanks

keyush shah
From: root@bing.UUCP (Administrator)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: attempt at brevity
Date: 27 Aug 92 03:28:22 GMT
Organization: Bing's Rubber Chicken Factory -- "Our clucks are boneless."

attempt at brevity

last valentines day
i actually managed to use a dozen roses
as an instrument of destruction

we're still friends
but it's not like before

i have a phone that can call people
with just one button
i have one button labeled
with her name
but for the sake of brevity
i never use it any more

August 25, 1992
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               +---------------------------+
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Poem--Bargain day
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Thu, 27 Aug 92 00:29:51 GMT


                        Bargain day

Quickly
she said
down here
I saw there was a
hole
in the floor
just large enough
for a man
I crawled through
it came out
in the appliance section
at K-Mart
where I found myself
on sale.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: lugowski@ils.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: The Rehabilitation / Wislawa Szymborska / trans: Marek+Joanna
Organization: The Institute for the Learning Sciences
Date: Wed, 26 Aug 1992 02:18:01 GMT


		The Rehabilitation (translation of Rehabilitacja)
		------------------------------------------------------------- 
		 
		I use the oldest law of imagination.
		For the first time in my life, I call on the dead.
		I seek their faces, I listen for their footsteps,
		Though I know that whoever dies, dies completely.
		 
		It's time to take my own head in hand
		and say:  Poor Yorrick, where's that ignorance of yours,
		and where is that blind faith, where is that innocence,
		that Things-Will-Work-Outness, that even-keeled spirit
		balancing truths that came true with those that didn't?
		 
		I believed they treasoned, thus forfeiting their names
		from the time the weeds poked fun at their unknown tombs, 
		the ravens taunted them, and the snow storms sneered at them
		-- but these were all, my dear Yorrick, false witnesses.
		 
		The immortality of the dead
		lasts so long as we pay them in memory.
		Weak currency.  There goes not a day
		without someone losing their forever.
		 
		Now I know more about forever:
		We can bestow it and we can take it away.
		Whomever we call traitor -- he and
		his name are fated to die together.
		 
		This power of ours over the dead
		requires an impartial judgment
		for the court not to last into the night
		with the judge presiding all naked.
		 
		The earth is boiling -- and it is them who are earth,
		they're rising, clump after clump, fistful to fistful,
		returning from silent omissions to names,
		to the nation's conscience, to new garlands and cheers.
		 
		Where is my command of words?
		Words have sunk into tears,
		words, words no good for bringing people back to life,
		description dead as a photograph  frozen-flashed.
		I cannot awake them for even half a breath,
		I, a Sysyphus assigned to the hell of verse.
		 
		They're coming.  And sharp as diamond
		-- at chic displays, with polished fronts
		at tiny windows of sweet homes
		at rose-colored glasses, glassy
		minds, hearts -- stealth-quietly, they cut. 

		 
			Wislawa Szymborska
			Poland
		 
				translated from Polish
				by Marek Lugowski / Joanna Trzeciak
				Dallas / New York, 1989