1) Sometime in the last few weeks, someone posted a poem by (I believe) an English-language poet from the last 50-60 years. They didn't credit it, but I liked what I read enough to Google it and track it down. I want to say the author was someone like John Ashbery, or Galway Kinnell, or Philip Larkin, but I don't know that any of those are right (I'd guess maybe Ashbery if pressed). From what I cam remember, the poem was in short, unrhymed, and fairly regular lines (4-5 words each), took as its subject the viability of some approach to life or living, and ended with a backhanded comment about the topic in question.
I bookmarked it, but have since lost all my bookmarks in a computer glitch. Can anyone point me to the right thread, or the poem itself? I want to say it was M. White, or possibly Aimless -- i.e. some literate and thoughtful -- who posted the poem originally. Also, they might've posted it a while ago, perhaps on a thread that only recently got revived.
2) Completely different question: I have a friend in his late twenties who grew up in New Jersey and who remembers watching a locally-produced Saturday morning show when he was a kid in the early '80s. The plotline involved a boy who used his Commodore 64 to talk to aliens -- basically, from what he described, the kid just sat in his basement and typed, and that was practically the whole show. It was almost definitely made in either Philly or NJ, had super-low production values (most likely, anyway) and probably never saw widespread distribution. He's been trying to track this one down for ages; does it ring a bell with anyone?
― lurker #2421, Saturday, 19 November 2005 00:30 (twenty years ago)
I. NAMING OF SARAH'S PARTS
To-day we have naming of Sarah's parts. Yesterday,We had daily cleaning of Sarah. And to-morrow morning,We shall have what to do after firing Sarah . But to-day,To-day we have naming of Sarah's parts. JaponicaGlistens like coral in all of the neighboring gardens,And to-day we have naming of Sarah's parts.
This is the lower sling Sarah. And thisIs the upper sling Sarah, whose use you will see,When you are given your slings. And this is the piling Sarah,Which in your case you have not got. The branchesHold in the gardens their silent, eloquent gestures,Which in our case we have not got.
This is the Sarah-catch, which is always releasedWith an easy flick of the Sarah. And please do not let meSee anyone using his finger. You can do it quite easyIf you have any strength in your Sarah. The blossomsAre fragile and motionless, never letting anyone seeAny of them using their finger.
And this you can see is the bolt. The purpose of thisIs to open the breech, as you see. We can slide itRapidly backwards and forwards: we call thisEasing the Sarah. And rapidly backwards and forwardsThe early Sarahs are assaulting and fumbling the flowers:They call it easing the Sarah.
They call it easing the Sarah: it is perfectly easyIf you have any strength in your Sarah: like the bolt,And the breech, and the cocking-Sarah, and the point of Sarah,Which in our case we have not got; and the almond-blossomSilent in all of the gardens and the Sarahs going backwards and forwards,For to-day we have naming of Sarah's parts.
-- Matt (Mat...) (webmail), November 16th, 2005.
From the thread What do y'all think Sarah's tits would feel like on the Ask A Drunk forum.
― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 19 November 2005 02:02 (twenty years ago)
― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 19 November 2005 02:15 (twenty years ago)
(Though anytime someone uses find-and-replace to make an anti-war poem into...something remarkably creepy...why, I can't help but smile.)
xpost Wait, were you serious? No, this was in fact a poem that was quoted in its entirety and verbatim. I wish I could remember the exact subject...
― lurker #2421, Saturday, 19 November 2005 02:18 (twenty years ago)
― lurker #2421, Saturday, 19 November 2005 02:23 (twenty years ago)
― lurker #2421, Saturday, 19 November 2005 02:26 (twenty years ago)
Lose something every day. Accept the flusterof lost door keys, the hour badly spent.The art of losing isn't hard to master.
Then practice losing farther, losing faster:places, and names, and where it was you meantto travel. None of these will bring disaster.
I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, ornext-to-last, of three loved houses went.The art of losing isn't hard to master.
I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.
---Even losing you (the joking voice, a gestureI love) I shan't have lied. It's evidentthe art of losing's not too hard to masterthough it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
-- Elizabeth Bishop
― estela (estela), Saturday, 19 November 2005 03:18 (twenty years ago)
― lurker #2421, Saturday, 19 November 2005 03:21 (twenty years ago)
― estela (estela), Saturday, 19 November 2005 03:23 (twenty years ago)
Nothing connected to Ask A Drunk is remotely serious, unless you count cirrhosis of the liver and delerium tremens.
― Aimless (Aimless), Saturday, 19 November 2005 03:37 (twenty years ago)
― Trayce (trayce), Saturday, 19 November 2005 04:53 (twenty years ago)
Sometimes you hear, fifth-hand,As epitaph:He chucked up everythingAnd just cleared off,And always the voice will soundCertain you approveThis audacious, purifying,Elemental move.
And they are right, I think.We all hate homeAnd having to be there:I detest my room,It's specially-chosen junk,The good books, the good bed,And my life, in perfect order:So to hear it said
He walked out on the whole crowdLeaves me flushed and stirred,Like Then she undid her dressOr Take that you bastard;Surely I can, if he did?And that helps me to staySober and industrious.But I'd go today,
Yes, swagger the nut-strewn roads,Crouch in the fo'c'sleStubbly with goodness, if It weren't so artificial,Such a deliberate step backwardsTo create an object:Books; china; a lifeReprehensibly perfect.
― THIS IS THE SOUND OF ALTERN 8 !!! (noodle vague), Saturday, 19 November 2005 08:55 (twenty years ago)
― emsk ( emsk), Saturday, 19 November 2005 13:22 (twenty years ago)
bollocks
every thing on the internets is serious business
― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!, Saturday, 19 November 2005 13:46 (twenty years ago)
Thank you so much, that's exactly the one. "Poetry of Departures", by Philip Larkin.
Now for #2. Commodore 64, talkin' to aliens. Any leads?
― lurker #2421, Saturday, 19 November 2005 17:18 (twenty years ago)
― Al (sitcom), Sunday, 20 November 2005 01:00 (twenty years ago)
Yeah emsk, it's Philip Larkin. I'd recommend everything he saw fit to publish. (The Collected Poems includes a bunch of stuff he didn't want to publish, which is interesting if you're a fan but kind of undermines Larkin's own meticulous self-censorship.)
― THIS IS THE SOUND OF ALTERN 8 !!! (noodle vague), Sunday, 20 November 2005 10:09 (twenty years ago)