Poetry post one, take two. Action.

Some of you are looking at the size of this post and going “oh lord, that’s a big post” (or something to that effect). First of all, allow me to congratulate you on your observational skills. VERY GOOD!

Second- uhh, Sue me, I guess. Yeah. I’ll take a Leah approach and say “This is my blog, I don’t care if you don’t like it” even though that is total hogwash since I get a lot of satisfaction from the comments area. But wait! I am a considerate blogger- that’s right! You see, this is actually a cut version. Or rather, a sliced version. I have decided to slice up my poetry post- hereafter referred to as my “poest”- into smaller, more digestible mini-morsels or poest perfection.

This poest I supoest, (sorry) will include (I)ntroduction through (S)hwab… I know that doesn’t mean anything to you, but it made me laugh. Anyway…

Like many things in life, I respect, admire and attempt poetry- but I usually end up being too distracted by other things to do much of any of those verbs. And so, like most everything else, I will go on a binge, or a mood, and just take in or write poetry. This is basically how I operate; I do the same thing with computers, movies, electronics or anything that fascinates me. It is probably a blessing or a curse, but more likely a mix of the two- but alas, that is another topic altogether. This is a poest after all.

My current poetic kick probably started with lit class- We were to get some 20^th century poems to read. I chose my friend, Mr. Frosty. I decided to do In a Disused Graveyard.

I heard a lot of good stuff, including some pieces by people with weird names like E.E. Cummings, and people who’s names half of us mistook for the wrong gender. Next class is 21^st century American authors. We are supposed to bring our own poetry or short stories. I of course, am not intimidated by this; I have a good poetic arsenal I can draw from as you can see by the new link on the right side bar to my poetry and prose page. But there are so many other people I wanted to share that I am fighting hard for the ability to show case their work as well… In case it doesn’t make it, here are some of the contestants:

Andrew Shwab

First the lead singer from the hard rock band Project 86, Shwab has recently self published several of his own short books. If you were a fan of his lyrics, it would seem a no-brainer that he would cross over to poetry; his lyrics have always been amazingly poetic, despite his hard-edged aggressive vocal style. As I have seemed to misplace my book of poetry by him, I will instead give you this example from his song “Bleed Season”. See if you can spot the symbolism:

Trace the tree and the veil will flee me

And now I see with salty eyes

Consistent tragedy persisting in me

This disability's my soul's demise

Deaf to self and mute to mind

Muddled wallowing nebulous blind

My crippled confidence is chafed away

With the answers I'm pulled astray

The habits laced embrace me

With a cold, chaotic flinch

Kiss of old deaths erase me

Soft, subtle, inch by inch

You can find the full lyrics here.

I will go into some more, cooler yet poetry in my next poest. Until then, discuss! Comment like you care. Humor me. What do you think the song is about? (Read the whole thing for context). I think I've cracked it, but I'm interested in other interpertations.

I just lost a billion words... give or take.

I was about one or two sentences away from finnishing a HUGE post. It was all about poetry, and I had it formatted beautifully, with exerts I had gathered from everywhere. It was LONG. It was probably coming up on three pages, at least. Then firefox crashed. BLOODY BROKEN BROWSER!!

I'll see if I can recreate it tomarrow. I can rebuild it. Better, badder, stronger. More better. Betterist. Dang, its late. Dang, I just lost a big post.

I will close this post with a type of poem called a 'fib'. I am not going to tell you what it is tonight (cause I just did, and then lost it), but here is a little 'teaser' if you will (and I hope you do):

It
Is
so late
All work lost
My sanity gone
Where, blogger, did it all go wrong?
The big bit bucket in the sky has ate my data

----

One
More
Strange Verse-
A poem.
Spot the pattern, try!
Perhaps soon now you will get it.

The infamous SB 268

(This is Little Man hamming up for the crowd control. Just kidding.)

Today I went over to Concord to protest SB 268 with some others from the home school gang. SB 268, for those who do not know, is a bill that would hike the mandatory age for attending high school from 16 to 18. It also has a lot of negative effects on current home school law.

Anyway, the protest was great. We had probably about 30 people or so, spread out all around the main building where the representatives were going in to vote on the bill today. It has already passed the house, but we have a real chance of getting it killed or brought to further discussion with the representatives. I only have the above pic of Little Man because, even though I brought my camera, I was to stupid to remember to take pictures with it... we had a lot of fun anyway though. New Hampshire is so cool- we have a house of representatives second only to the Brit's house of commons and most of them are very approachable. We had a lot of reps tell us that they were going to vote no on the issue, and we even had a few who were undecided come up to us and ask what are reasons were. Most people are cool like that in the house- they only get paid something like $100 plus parking, so they are not really career politicians.

We should be able to find out what happened with the bill later today. Stay tuned...
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UPDATE: The bill has been rejected by the house! Read about it on WMUR. Congratulations to everyone involved!

Lynch is not happy with this at all of course, and neither are a few reps. They have tried to make it look like the house has "given up" on the problem. One of them vowed to get it passed, possibly by sneaking it into another bill. So... looks like we might have a fight on our hands. All I can say is...

BRING IT ON!