Blog Policy: Tagging

Hey guys, I think we should follow Chris's lead in tagging each of our poems with our name. Otherwise there seems to be no way to make a listing of all posts by a certain person, as primitive as such a capability might seem. So please add your first name to the list of tags ("labels" as Blogger calls them) below your posts.

Poemesis on George Starbuck

Spiggle.

Speetzle.

A-spic, a-spac.

Wa handen nufter

Ka ziggen zak!

Na linbern nortern

Kwu caften cofeten.

Inga wistle.

Inga win!

Spiggle.

Speetzle.

A-spic. A-spac.

Rifnon rafbin

Wa nella hibba hap.

Wa nella nibba lap.

Ka nella --

Ka nibba --

Lap.

La mer d'Aral est mort!

One night

At poetry club

I could think of nothing

But to write

About how I had

Nothing to write.

And then I thought,

"The Aral Sea,

Victim of lack of socialist foresight,

Is dead,

Drought and dessication

Taking its place.

Once there were islands,

Once there were cities on the sea

And railways elevated

Above the waves.

Once there were fish and fishermen

And schools and children.

Now, sands and salt

Sift sullenly

In the winds of artificial desert."

Thus were my thoughts

About the death of seas.

Do you ever feel

That your headwaters

As well have been diverted

To grow cotton in Uzbekistan?

And that the sea of your life

Is shrinking and drying,

The fishes dying,

Villagers fleeing,

Drought o'ertaking,

Workmen leaving,

Hot winds raking

The salts and sands

That are all that's left

Of an ocean of ended dreams?

I hope not.
I hope you have

No idea

What that's supposed to mean.

The Future

Well,

It's begun.

Time

Marches on

And the call

Of the future

Is drifting

In on the wind

Of the present.

So

How 'bout now?

Our days

Don't know how

To bore us --

That's the trouble.

But maybe coming 'round the bend

There's some ho-hum gonna begin.

For now it's

Every day a battle

Every day pitting our all

Against all the world

Throws at us.

Of course

We must have our wits

About us

No slack on the line

Is gonna save us

In that moment

When the ready are ready

And everyone else wonders

What hit 'em.

Still,

We wait

And see

The tunnel's terminal light

Glow brighter,

Pressing on

Though long

The distance untraveled,

Fighting on

Though few

The virtues untrammeled.

Yes

It's begun.

Indeed,

Time marches on

With the call

Of the future

An inescapable summons

Of death

Of life.

And the only answer

Is either

To live

Or die.

Can you hear it?

Do you hear it?

Will you hear it?

Live!

Club Business

We actually had a "meta" moment tonight and talked about the club itself. It was agreed that increasing our membership is a worthwhile objective as this would bring a greater diversity of poetic voices into our circle, so we brainstormed ways this could be brought about. The following are the ideas brainstormed:

• Have events
• Make fliers (e.g. readings for the public)
• Write in the "Notes" section of people's directories
• Food
• Poster of a poem
• Booklets in apartments (including the poems we've put on the blog, perhaps)
• Valentine poem deliveries on request
• Fundraiser (since clubs have fundraisers): custom poem delivery or something
• Read a poem at ward prayer
• Shirts
• Altoids (actual Altoids mints at our meetings)
• Make the club a part of the culture

There was also a suggestion to do a sort of collaborative poetry, in which lines are written by two authors alternately.

Next week Jhon is going to bring a prompt in the form of a photograph, which we will all respond to. Maybe we could put the photo up here for those following along at home?

Assignment #1: think about all of the ideas above and decide which ones are most deserving of implementation.

Assignment #2: come next week

Assignment #3: bring a friend

Parted

I see you

across the room,

and your smile curls

purring

around my thoughts.

You are as beautiful

as trees and sky

on a warm morning in April.

The kind of morning you wake up to

before sunrise

just to be sure

you won't miss it.

The kind of morning that smiles

at the whole world

and glows

with the promise of summer.

I say nothing.

Because your glowing smile

is not for me.

And I close my eyes.

Because I miss you more

when we are together.

Sorry, but I won't be at many of the Thursday meetings for a while. I'll try to contribute to the blog, and hopefully some will be more upbeat than this breakup poem. Make sure you post your poems from the meetings so I can read them!