HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: ralph@wixer.cactus.org (Ralph Cherubini)
Subject: Pome--Unsent
Organization: Real/Time Communications
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 92 12:52:17 GMT


                               Unsent

                I was about to write him
                tell him it was the best
                he had ever written
                and it was
                except someone else wrote it
                first
                and he was simply quoting
                it
                was still
                the best
                he had ever written.




-- 
ralph@wixer.cactus.org
cactus.org!wixer!ralph
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: PROWSE@Meena.CC.URegina.CA (Natalie)
Subject: A Couple of poems by Marge Piercy
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 20:55:57 GMT
X-News-Reader: VMS NEWS 1.24
Organization: University of Regina, Regina, Sask., Canada

In light of recent postings of favorite authors works, I offer up
2 of mine....  (Taken from the Norton Introduction to Literature, but
also published in "The Moon is always Female"...)


To Have Without Holding
By Marge Piercy (1980)

Learning to love differently is hard,
love with the hands wide open, love
with the doors banging on their hinges,
the cupboard unlocked, the wind
roaring and whimpering in the rooms
rustling the sheets and snapping the blinds
that thwack like rubber bands
in an open palm.

It hurts to love wide open
stretching the muscles that feel
as if they are made of wet plaster,
then of blunt knives, then
of sharp knives.

It hurts to thwart the reflexes
of grab, of clutch; to love and let
go again and again.  It pesters to remember
the lover who is not in the bed,
to hold back what is owed to the work
that gutters like a candle in a cave
without air, to love consciously,
conscientiously, concretely, constructively.

I can't do it, you say it's killing 
me, but you thrive, you glow 
on the street like a neon raspberry,
bright bachelor's button blue and bobbing
on the cold and hot winds of our breath,
as we make and unmake in passionate
diastole and systole the rhythm
of our unbound bonding, to have
and not to hold, to love
with minimized malice, hunger
and anger moment by moment balanced.

-----------------

September Afternoon at Four O'clock.
by Marge Piercy (1080)

Full in the hand, heavy
with ripeness, perfume spreading
its fan: moments now resemble
sweet russet pear glowing
on the bough, peaches warm
from the afternoon sun, amber
and juicy, flesh that can
make you drunk.

There is a turn in things        
that makes the heart catch.      
We are ripening, all the hard    
green grasping, the stony will   
swelling into sweetness, the acid
and sugar in balance, the sun    
stored as energy that is pleasure
and pleasure that is energy.     
                                 
Whatever happens, whatever,       
we say, and hold hard and let     
go and go on.  In the perfect     
moment the future coils,          
a tree inside a pit.  Take,       
eat, we are each other's          
perfection, the wine of our       
mouths is sweet and heavy.        
                                  
Soon enough comes the vinegar.    
The fruit is ripe for the taking  
and we take.  There is            
no other wisdom.                  
                                  

(prowse@meena.cc.uregina.ca)

 "I won't cherish grudges. I'll forgive those who change their minds and
  actions, just as I reserve the right to change my own mind and actions."
        -Bruce Sterling
From: daq@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM (Doug Quarnstrom)
Date: Thu, 5 Nov 1992 04:28:03 GMT
Subject: Re: poets
Organization: Hewlett-Packard, Fort Collins, CO, USA
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems

The next post I make to this string will be a poem by the poet
Robert Hayden.  I love this poem.

This post is the disclaimer (skip it if you want):

The poem is Middle Passage.  I did not write it.  I did not
write the estate of Robert Hayden and ask for permission
to post it.  I assume this falls under reasonable use.
If not, Mr. Hayden, being dead, will just have to haunt me.

The idea to post poems by poets we like was not mine.  It 
was Sheila's.  But it occurs to me that the stylistic
gesture of asking people to post poems by people they like
is not really Sheila's either.  Clearly, since she did
not state that she did not invent this gesture, she
is guilty of plagiarism.  Evil Sheila.  Nasty, bad Sheila.

I wish to point out that while I am engaging in sarcasm, I
did not invent the style.  I do not know who did, but I am
assuming that pointing out that I did not will save me
from the silly accusation that I am stealing the style.

Many ideas are going into this disclaimer, and I must confess
that I invented almost none of them.  I did not invent letters
or sentences or paragraphs.  The english language was invented
be someone else, and while I endorse its use and try to
emulate it (somewhat brutishly), I cannot claim to have originated
the idea.

The closure I am about to engage in is meant to provide a feeling
of completion to weary readers.  While this stylistic habit
has fallen out of favor with some, I still like it and use
in indiscriminately.  As you know, I did not invent it.

Oh, the above discussion is NOT prose.  It is poetry.  Nyaah.
The false assertion that obvious prose is poetry is not
something I invented either.  In fact, it sees widespread
use in this forum, and I do not recall ever seeing anyone
confess that the rhetorical tactic was not their original idea.
I use it not so much to convince anyone that it is true
as to annoy certain people.

Well, that is it (the word it appears here without the
permission of the inventor of articles).  I doubt
I have covered everything, but at least I have made the gesture.

Oh, and if Joe made this same gesture at any point during his
tenure in this group, I am sorry.  I am forced to wonder who
he stole it from.

Josef, you evil bastard.

Rumors that I am even now possessed by the demon Josef and attempting
to allow him to use my stunted and childish writing abilities
through direct control of my mental faculties are strictly false.  
I do not know to whom to credit the rumor. 

doug

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: marek@casbah.acns.nwu.edu (Marek Lugowski)
Subject: emyergencee, emyergencee, evreebody to get from street / Marek
Keywords: seek cover
Organization: Jubal College, Department of Harp and Organ
Date: Sat, 7 Nov 1992 06:57:25 GMT

CHICAGO (ML) -- Sometime near midnight, Friday, November 6, 1992, 
a malfunction of the Pnews program on a Jubal College computer caused
inadvertant multiple spawning of "the last dino".  Further compounding
this grave threat to the community, an additional "last dino" was 
released remotely in New Hampshire.

It was not until three "last dinos" were seen together in New Hampshire
that steps were taken to partially ameliorate this disaster.  Readers
familiar with Stanislaw Lem's _The Cyberiad_ will be undoubtedly struck
by the resemblence of this situation to the story contained therein,
"The Third Sally, or the Dragons of Probability".

Henceforth, a blistering volley of "C" (message cancel) directives
were aimed at the "lone dino"s with the exception of the one originating
in New Hampshire, because it was cuter than the rest, and besides, it
refused to be cancelled, claiming emancipation.  ("My little runaway"
-- Peter Gabriel/Genesis, _Lamb Lies Down on Broadway_)

This bulletin is to alert net.users to the unlikely possiblity of facing more 
than one "lone dino".  This concludes the emergency bulletin.

                       ------------------------

And here is the obligatory poem.  Since everyone is quoting Anne Sexton,
one of my very favorite poets, I will, too:

		Just Once
		-------------------------------------------------------------

		Just once I knew what life was for.
		In Boston, quite suddenly, I understood;
		walked there along the Charles River,
		watched the lights copying themselves,
		all neoned and strobe-hearted, opening
		their mouths as wide as opera singers;
		counted the stars, my little campaigners,
		my scar daisies, and knew that I walked my love
		on the night green side of it and cried
		my heart to the eastbound cars and cried
		my heart to the westbound cars and took
		my truth across a small humped bridge
		and hurried my truth, the charm of it, home
		and hoarded these constants into morning
		only to find them gone.


			Anne Sexton
			1969
			Massachusetts

	from _Love Poems_ or _Anne Sexton: The Complete Poems_
	Copyright 1981 Linda Gray Sexton and Loring Conant, Jr.
From: petersm@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Marguerite Petersen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: A Mother's Plea
Date: 13 Nov 92 12:48:45 GMT
Article-I.D.: leela.1992Nov13.124845.24105
Organization: Computer Science Outreach Services - Oregon State University

I wrote this little poem for my future daughter-in-law when she and my
son got engaged.  She even liked it!  


A Mother's Plea

Blond hair curling
gently onto your shoulders
Clear blue eyes
that sparkle with life.
A shape the envy of
any Hollywood star.
You, with the background
and family
unknown to me
Have become a part of my family.
You hold my son's heart
in your hands.

Be gentle with it.

October 23, 1992

Kathleen O'Toole,
Bringer of Light
-- 
*************************************************************************
"Insufficient facts always invites danger, Captain."- Spock in Space Seed
	Marg Petersen	petersm@jacobs.cs.orst.edu
*************************************************************************
From: sltwc@cc.usu.edu
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: the true
Date: 4 Nov 92 22:03:24 MDT
Organization: Utah State University

the true 
are dead 
let them 
lei in 
their own
puddle of
hopes while
you (all
of you)
lie in mine.



		MorRY sLymE
From: block@iccgcc.decnet.ab.com (Rolling Thunder)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: ?
Date: 12 Nov 92 11:58:26 EST



          ?

Alone and feeling displaced
Where should I be?
Trapped in a fog of confusion
Where am I headed?
The dark side surfaces and takes control
Who will stop it?
Arm extended, reaching toward a distant glow
Is anybody out there?
Darkness has me, I can not escape
Where is the light?
Stretched out on the floor, face down, motionless
Who will help this victim?
Who will heal the wounds?

================================================================================
Note to  "gabby@b3.b3.ingr.com"
          I don't know how to send you email
          unless I reply to a post
================================================================================
From: wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: another poem that is not mine
Date: 10 Nov 92 12:25:04 GMT
Reply-To: wachtel@canon.co.uk
Organization: Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd

sstover@sumax.seattleu.edu (Maven o'Mirth) writes:

> For all of you discussing what poetry is or is not, and says or does not say:
> 
> 
> 		Ars Poetica
> 		------------------------
> 		A poem should be palpable and mute
> 		As a globed fruit,
> 
> 		Dumb
> 		As old medallions to the thumb,
> 
> 		Silent as the sleeve-worn stone
> 		Of casement ledges where the moss has grown --
> 
> 		A poem should be wordless
> 		As the flight of birds.
> 
> 			*
> 
> 		A poem should be motionless in time
> 		As the moon climbs,
> 
> 		Leaving, as the moon releases
> 		Twig by twig the night-entangled trees,
> 
> 		Leaving, as the moon behind the winter leaves,
> 		Memory by memory of the mind --
> 
> 		A poem should be motionless in time
> 		As the moon climbs.
> 
> 			*
> 
> 		A poem should be equal to:
> 		Not true.
> 
> 		For all the history of grief
> 		An empty doorway and a maple leaf.
> 
> 		For love
> 		The leaning grasses and two lights above the sea --
> 
> 		A poem should not mean
> 		but be.
> 
> 			-Archibald MacLeish


	a poem should not should
	nor would not bleed
	nor bloody deed not did
	nor couldn't can
	or be not am
	oh damn


"ars poetica" is an anagram of "prosaic tea", "opiate scar", "to
airspace" and "scare patio". "ars magna" is an anagram of "anagrams".



-- 

Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)
From: petersm@jacobs.CS.ORST.EDU (Marguerite Petersen)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Re: Thanksgiving dinner...
Date: 6 Nov 92 23:01:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: leela.1992Nov6.230121.7617
Organization: Computer Science Outreach Services - Oregon State University

In article <1992Nov6.151435.7089@midway.uchicago.edu> moh2@midway.uchicago.edu writes:
>In article <1992Nov5.225634.21285@rdg.dec.com> jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria) writes:
>>
>>
>>	'Saurian flesh 'tween greasy lips,
>>	Tasty meat both dark and light,
>
>>	...Belly full of turkey sleep...
>
>Saurian flesh???!!!
>You're eating dinosaurs?  Lizards?
>I mean, it's a pretty line, but I'm pretty damn sure that turkeys are
>*not* saurians.
>
>>				msj
>
> - Mary Anne

Perhaps you are not aware of the most recent theory concerning dinosaurs.
The suggestion is that dinosaurs did not completely disappear from the
earth, they merely devolved into the various types of bird life we now
have.  The bone structure is similar and the latest theory is that
dinosaurs were not cold-blooded lizards but were instead warm-blooded.

Kathleen O'Toole,
Bringer of Light



-- 
*************************************************************************
"Insufficient facts always invites danger, Captain."- Spock in Space Seed
	Marg Petersen	petersm@jacobs.cs.orst.edu
*************************************************************************
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: bkv2673@ritvax.isc.rit.edu (Miester aLster)
Subject: prophet or prophetess?
Reply-To: bkv2673@ritvax.isc.rit.edu
Organization: Rochester Institute of Technology
Date: Wed, 11 Nov 1992 03:29:18 GMT

        
	sitting alone in a cold corner
	sculpting and scraping 
	at the broken 
	i begin to feel
	but i can't see why 
	they sent him away 
	with inked guns and grenades
	to win a bloodless war
	that couldn't be lost or won
	and why he fought with passion 
	to die and rise again to fall 
       	nobody will know
	can he see into the distant future
	like the neighborhood magician 
	or humanity's prophet
	that knows 
	she will wait for serenades 
	or a hand 
	from a familiar sillouhette in the dark?
	and how does she know 
	if he'll rise again 
	in her far away night
	to make a mark?
  
		- aL on 11/10/92
		  /* high on life and pink floyd "Final Cut" */
From: tringg@rs6217.ecs.rpi.edu (George Joseph Tringali)
Subject: A yellow rose
Organization: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 21:02:44 GMT


           she gave me a yellow rose
           -------------------------


           yellowblackgreenwhite
           the flower melting into the background of its shadow
           fluid until I focus and now concrete, etched in my eyes
           a single light source giving a true single shadow
           like a child traced it from black paper
           but bigger, as if the shadow knew that the rose
           represents something bigger







   I woke up to see my lover's rose in the corner 
of my room.  This is that moment's poem.  But
something about the poem irks me.  It just doesn't 
"do it" for me.  I tried replacing "bigger" and
"single" with other words, but still no luck.
I NEED COMMENTS!  PLEASE help me out.  As a romantic,
I have the urge to express my feelings, but as yet
not the proper tools to do so.  I appreciate
any comments that are sent.  Please post here
or send to tringg@rpi.edu  


    Jake  11/10/92
From: klaw@ecst.csuchico.edu (Almighty Nodens the Master of the Elder Sign)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: Another untitled poem by Jason Livingston
Date: 9 Nov 1992 12:05:48 GMT
Organization: California State University, Chico
NNTP-Posting-Host: cscihp.ecst.csuchico.edu

Golden locks cast evil shadows
as they fly with the wind
Deep blue eyes light the skys
as they burn into my skin
I sence your essence, its very presence
has me hyptnotised
When I think I think of you
your golden hair and blue eyes
It's been so long since we parted
and my heart still yearns for you
I wish that we could love again
but love... it takes two
Golden locks cast evil shadows 
as I slowly die away
Deep blue eyes light the skys 
as they burn into my heart
A piece of me is gone and lost
but your memory still remains...

Jason Lee Livingston
klaw@ecst.csuchico.edu
Any feedback welcomed
------------------------------------------------------------------
From: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: the poet of the second kind / Marie+Marek
Date: 10 Nov 92 02:58:49 GMT
Article-I.D.: IASTATE.1992Nov9.205849
Reply-To: mcoffin@IASTATE.EDU (Marie Coffin)
Organization: Iowa State University



		the poet of the second kind (romantic),
		above salads and fucking
		-------------------------------------------------------------

		oh.  i thought those were
		gilded angels hovering overhead
		and i thought the earth
		moved, trembled, tremored.
		
		but.  it was just a romantic poet
		strumming on his mango-flavored lips
		making the muse sick.

		of the air.  it was.  just.
		a great.  fucking.  above.
		the salads.  (ponder tabouli, and the
		creamy tits of lebanese women.  never mind.
		they are not true love.  true love lies in dill.
		true love is idyllic and knows no tit.)

		and into.  the steak.  (medium-rare)
		god, never rare, that would be too.  much.
		like.  well, you know what.
		
		approaching.  the bitter chocolate.
		cake.  dripping great many bitter flakes.
		
		none as transparent as the poet, though.
		the poet of the second kind.  blind to lust.
                affixed on eyes, like bloody bandage in an accident.

		above salads and fucking.
		a poet never spent.


			Marie Coffin / Marek Lugowski
			9 November 1992
			Ames, Iowa / Chicago, Illinois
From: beh@kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu (various Howellses)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: gray on gray
Date: 13 Nov 92 19:50:48
Organization: Internet access via the Free Software Foundation
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: kropotkin.gnu.ai.mit.edu


Gray on gray,
shades of nothing on nothing.
Two people meet,
and embrace;
they knead each other,
need each other,
and then pass on.
I am gray.
Gray on gray on gray,
and each day is gray on gray.
Gray skies pressing into gray buildings,
pressing into gray concrete city-ground.
People go past, one by one,
dragging their lives behind them,
some leashed, some wild,
some simply pretend, like the
wire-stiffened leashes of my childhood,
invisible dogs to captivate the imagination.
Gray souls, gray minds, gray fingers
in the cold of autumn.
Pressed up against the gray columns of 
MIT, I huddle in my own grayness,
feeling the life in me ebbing,
ebbing, leaving,
and never to bring forth color or light,
or life.

Should I reach for the pinnacle, 
to fly?
Can I fly?
My wings are gray skeletons,
cartilege stretched over nothingness.
Should I drop to my lowest pinnacle,
and push myself over the edge,
to fall into gray,
into gray,
into graying gray...

There is gray creeping through my body,
inch by inch by inch,
starting deep inside me,
little cells treading through my blood,
through the orb of the giver of life,
and up through my once-vibrant skin and
hair and fingers and face
and turning them all to ashen gray.

Gray on gray on gray on gray on gray on

soon.

--Nancy Howells
(beh@gnu.ai.mit.edu)
From: Ben.Magid@launchpad.unc.edu (Ben Magid)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: ebony coast
Date: 14 Nov 92 05:38:12 GMT
Organization: University of North Carolina Extended Bulletin Board Service


	This is a poem that i wrote just a few minutes ago. Please tell 
me what you think.

	ebony coast

	it tastes like magic!
	the jet ink heavens
	surround and hold me,
	like a lover tight.
	and the soul sucking darkness
	screams to something wild
	in my soul, where ivory tipped
	plumes glow like lucifer himself
	riding forth to claim mankind
	as his own. and i laugh!

	i yell to the winds 
	that reach forward to pull
	the hat 


	off my head into the
	hungry surf. and so i feed
	it with my own body,
	all that i own and possess,
	trying to satisfy its hungers 
	with my own.

	and the white phosphorous foam,
	burns the sandy shoreline
	where it crashes down 
	from its moon-starved mount
	and sends its curling tendrils 
	about my body.

	and once again i laugh,
	to show my love and awe
	for this mighty god of the sea,
	who so effortlessly throws
	my body onto the sand.



	and to show him that i have
	no fear for his dark, rolling waters,
	or the song that they sing  
	to the part of my mind that i keep
	shut far away.  no, i scream
	to the mist covered waves
	that whisper so suggestively,
	i have no fear!
	but it is the wild god
	that laughs the louder.

	and i turn my back
	and leave the ebony god,
	walking towards the light
	that burns on the pier;
	there is a different magic
	there.  the only waves
	are the tumoltous crash
	of busy human voices,
	and the bubbly surf
	is composed of frothy laughter.

	this is magic that i can comprehend;
	it is not separated from me,
	by ageless wisdom and elemental force.

			-Ben Magid

--
   The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the University of
     North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the Campus Office for Information
        Technology, or the Experimental Bulletin Board Service.
           internet:  laUNChpad.unc.edu or 152.2.22.80
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: 890661b@ace.acadiau.ca (MATTHEW EARL KEITH BALL)
Subject: pieces (c&c welcome)
Organization: Acadia University
Date: Tue, 10 Nov 1992 02:04:34 GMT

pieces

i peered into a silver mirror
to search for what i could never see
and all i found was an unsolved puzzle
with many pieces missing, parts of me.

i climbed a green hill that loomed ahead
to search for my soul throughout the land
and though i searched the world from pole to pole
what i longed for was closer, right at hand.

i walked a path through a lonely wood
with only my fears for company
the darkness revealed what the light never could
a hollow shell, begging for sympathy.

i sat awhile by the sea and stared
and watched the waves crash upon the shore
the more i thought, the less i seemed to know
and the emptiness grew, filled me more.

Any comments, criticism, advice, opinions, etc. would be much appreciated.
If you don't feel like posting, please e-mail.

Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: <Untitled>
Date: 5 Nov 92 22:40:15 GMT
Article-I.D.: rdg.1992Nov5.224015.20526
Reply-To: jessop@ljohub.enet.dec.com (Class Dinosauria)
Organization: Digital Equipment Corporation




	Withered willows at swamp's end
	Entrapped as stagnant waters wend,
	Seeping 'round soft swollen roots;
	Branches blacken, sag and bend.


				msj
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
From: jjimenez@magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu (Joel A Jimenez)
Subject: RRM: Who are you to read my mind
Summary: Poem to future readers
Organization: The Ohio State University
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 22:43:09 GMT


   Oh, who are you to read my mind,
   Or say my life was good and kind,
   Unless I'd written so?

   Though most of what I say is true,
   Meaning is often hidden view,
   From your perspecting eyes.

   For when you think you've seen the light,
   Your shining shows, only so bright,
   Rhythmic rhythms of mind.

                       - Joel A. Jimenez
                            9/16/92
From: wachtel@canon.co.uk (Tom Wachtel)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.poems
Subject: whatever was the fruit
Date: 10 Nov 92 12:42:03 GMT
Reply-To: wachtel@canon.co.uk
Organization: Canon Research Centre Europe Ltd

=

	whatever was the fruit of the juice
	darkly red in your one cup
	sitting shiny white across from each
	as the snow for the tree with no pears
	framed in the window, so pretty
	when we went out to get the last together pumpkins
	and dirt on our cold warm wet dry tingling twinkling hands
	across from each hand to hand
	as I watched you all through
	bringing them in from where they grew for you
	whatever was that darksome juice
	I drank it all down bright
	you speaking all the words


-- 

Tom Wachtel (wachtel@canon.co.uk)