Reply: Little Experiment

Question posed by the only person who read this: What sort of non-essential material things do YOU guys want, and what do they say about you?

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New bike wheels, one yellow and one blue:


Mario and Nintendo stickers to put on my bike:

Tools:


Big Azz HD TV:


A new desktop computer:

A frolf set:


Dog:


A teleportation device (probably far in the future):
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What do they say about me? The first few reflect my new hobby, my bike, and making it look nice as well as thinking about riding it around Ft. Collins with my friends this summer. I really want some ballin' tires, stickers for added sweetness, and then tools to actually be able to get work done. The next few items, TV and computer, reflect me wanting to have more ways to hang out with my roommates. We used to all console game and watch the football games in the living room. We gave the TV to someone and now my roommates are computer gamers, leaving me to consoles. I definitely want to pick up Star Craft 2, but I don't have the computer, money or time to do so. The frolf (frisbee golf) set is so that I can pick up another, more outdoorsy hobby and play that with my friends. Next, the dog. I love dogs and really want one, but there is no way that I could have another living thing dependent on me right now, hell, probably not for the next 4-8 years until I'm fully done with schooling and settled down. The last item is so I can transport between here, Colorado, and Japan. That way, I would never have to be missing someone continually, friends or family.

But all I REALLY want, which to me is not a 'non-essential material thing', is a medical school interview...

Third image in Google search of 'medical school interview,' and exactly how I feel when waiting

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Ogden Nash

My favorite poet is along with Frost is Ogden Nash. He writes "light verse," light hearted and witty/pun filled poetry. It reminds me of Dr. Seuss, and I just can't get enough of it. In his own words, "my field -- the minor idiocies of humanity." Once again, if you're lazy, just read the last 2 poems:

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A Lady who Thinks She Is Thirty

Unwillingly Miranda wakes,

Feels the sun with terror,

One unwilling step she takes,

Shuddering to the mirror.

Miranda in Miranda's sight

Is old and gray and dirty;

Twenty-nine she was last night;

This morning she is thirty.

Shining like the morning star,

Like the twilight shining,

Haunted by a calendar,

Miranda is a-pining.

Silly girl, silver girl,

Draw the mirror toward you;

Time who makes the years to whirl

Adorned as he adored you.

Time is timelessness for you;

Calendars for the human;

What's a year, or thirty, to

Loveliness made woman?

Oh, Night will not see thirty again,

Yet soft her wing, Miranda;

Pick up your glass and tell me, then--

How old is Spring, Miranda?

----

The Tale of Custard the Dragon

Belinda lived in a little white house,

With a little black kitten and a little gray mouse,

And a little yellow dog and a little red wagon,

And a realio, trulio, little pet dragon.

Now the name of the little black kitten was Ink,

And the little gray mouse, she called hum Blink,

And the little yellow dog was sharp as Mustard,

But the dragon was a coward, and she called him Custard.

Custard the dragon had big sharp teeth,

And spikes on top of him and scales underneath,

Mouth like a fireplace, chimney for a nose,

And realio, trulio daggers on his toes.

Belinda was as brave as a barrel full of bears,

And Ink and Blink chased lions down the stairs,

Mustard was as brave as a tiger in a rage,

But Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Belinda tickled him, she tickled him unmerciful,

Ink, Blink and Mustard, they rudely called him Percival,

They all sat laughing in the little red wagon

At the realio, trulio, cowardly dragon.

Belinda giggled till she shook the house,

and Blink said Weeck! which is giggling for a mouse,

Ink and Mustard rudely asked his age,

When Custard cried for a nice safe cage.

Suddenly, suddenly they heard a nasty sound,

And Mustard growled, and they all looked around.

Meowch! cried Ink, and Ooh! cried Belinda,

For there was a pirate, climbing in the winda.

Pistol in his left hand, pistol in his right,

And he held in his teeth a cutlass bright,

His beard was black, one leg was wood;

It was clear that the pirate meant no good.

Belinda paled, and she cried Help! Help!

But Mustard fled with a terrified yelp,

Ink trickled down to the bottom of the household,

And little mouse Blink strategically mouseholed.

But up jumped Custard snorting like an engine,

Clashed his tail like irons in a dungeon,

With a clatter and a clank and a jangling squirm,

He went at the pirate like a robin at a worm.

The pirate gaped at Belinda's dragon,

And gulped some grog from his pocket flagon,

He fired two bullets, but they didn't hit,

And Custard gobbled him, every bit.

Belinda embraced him, Mustard licked him,

No one mourned for his pirate victim.

Ink and Blink in glee did gyrate

Around the dragon that ate the pirate.

But presently up spoke little dog Mustard,

I'd been twice as brave if I hadn't been flustered.

And up spoke Ink and up spoke Blink,

We'd have been three times as brave, we think,

And Custard said, I quite agree

That everybody is braver than me.

Belinda still lives in her little white house,

With her little black kitten and her little gray mouse,

And her little yellow dog and her little red wagon,

And her realio, trulio little pet dragon.

Belinda is as brave as a barrel full of bears,

And Ink and Blink chase lions down the stairs,

Mustard is as brave as a tiger in a rage,

But Custard keeps crying for a nice safe cage.

----

The Purist

I give you now Professor Twist,

A conscientious scientist,

Trustees exclaimed, "He never bungles!"

And sent him off to distant jungles.

Camped on a tropic riverside,

One day he missed his loving bride.

She had, the guide informed him later,

Been eaten by an alligator.

Professor Twist could not but smile.

"You mean," he said, "a crocodile.

----

To My Valentine

More than a catbird hates a cat,

Or a criminal hates a clue,

Or the Axis hates the United States,

That's how much I love you.

I love you more than a duck can swim,

And more than a grapefruit squirts,

I love you more than a gin rummy is a bore,

And more than a toothache hurts.

As a shipwrecked sailor hates the sea,

Or a juggler hates a shove,

As a hostess detests unexpected guests,

That's how much you I love.

I love you more than a wasp can sting,

And more than the subway jerks,

I love you as much as a beggar needs a crutch,

And more than a hangnail irks.

I swear to you by the stars above,

And below, if such there be,

As the High Court loathes perjurious oathes,

That's how you're loved by me.

----

My Dream

This is my dream,

It is my own dream,

I dreamt it.

I dreamt that my hair was kempt.

Then I dreamt that my true love unkempt it.

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On a side note, I found my notebook with some of my poems that I thought I left in Colorado. I almost feel like burning it to forget my high school self...

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Robert Frost

Robert Frost is one of my all-time favorites. Not only does he use nature a lot in his poems, his rhythm and pace just really appeal to me, with a mix of serious and lighthearted poems. His classics of course are The Road Not Taken, Mending Wall, and Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (one of my favorite of Frost's). Here are some other that you may not be familiar with. The very last line of this post may be my favorite line of poetry ever in the history of ever-ness:

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Acquainted with the Night

I have been one acquainted with the night.

I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.

I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.

I have passed by the watchman on his beat

And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet

When far away an interrupted cry

Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;

And further still at an unearthly height,

A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.

I have been one acquainted with the night.

----

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I've tasted of desire

I hold with those who favour fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.

----

A Minor Bird

I have wished a bird would fly away,

And not sing by my house all day;

Have clapped my hands at him from the door

When it seemed as if I could bear no more.

The fault must partly have been in me.

The bird was not to blame for his key.

And of course there must be something wrong

In wanting to silence any song.

----

Frost wrote his own epitaph:

And were an epitaph be my story

I'd have a short one ready for my own

I would have written of me on my stone

I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Def Jam Mix

Most of these are the ones I remember from my slam poetry phase:

Gemineye- A Penny for Your Thoughts

George Watsky - V for Virgin (skip to 1:10)

Rafael Casal - Barbie & Ken 101

Lemon - Love Poem

Beau Sia- Love

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Oscar Brown Jr.

Tired of reading? How about just listening then? I went through a phase where I was only listening to slam poetry from Def Jam Poetry. The next few post will be about those.

Here is Oscar Brown Jr. Not only his is poetry awesome, his delivery is even better. If these don't stir anything in you, I think you should go to the doctor because you have no soul:

Children of Children

I Apologize

This Beach

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Mix Bag

Now for a mixed bag of poets I like, but these are pretty much the only poems of theirs that I enjoy. Especially the middle one:

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A Contemplation upon Flowers

BRAVE flowers--that I could gallant it like you,

And be as little vain!

You come abroad, and make a harmless show,

And to your beds of earth again.

You are not proud: you know your birth:

For your embroider'd garments are from earth.

You do obey your months and times, but I

Would have it ever Spring:

My fate would know no Winter, never die,

Nor think of such a thing.

O that I could my bed of earth but view

And smile, and look as cheerfully as you!

O teach me to see Death and not to fear,

But rather to take truce!

How often have I seen you at a bier,

And there look fresh and spruce!

You fragrant flowers! then teach me, that my breath

Like yours may sweeten and perfume my death.

-Henry King

----

The Heavy Bear Who Goes With Me

"the withness of the body" --Whitehead

The heavy bear who goes with me,

A manifold honey to smear his face,

Clumsy and lumbering here and there,

The central ton of every place,

The hungry beating brutish one

In love with candy, anger, and sleep,

Crazy factotum, dishevelling all,

Climbs the building, kicks the football,

Boxes his brother in the hate-ridden city.

Breathing at my side, that heavy animal,

That heavy bear who sleeps with me,

Howls in his sleep for a world of sugar,

A sweetness intimate as the water's clasp,

Howls in his sleep because the tight-rope

Trembles and shows the darkness beneath.

--The strutting show-off is terrified,

Dressed in his dress-suit, bulging his pants,

Trembles to think that his quivering meat

Must finally wince to nothing at all.

That inescapable animal walks with me,

Has followed me since the black womb held,

Moves where I move, distorting my gesture,

A caricature, a swollen shadow,

A stupid clown of the spirit's motive,

Perplexes and affronts with his own darkness,

The secret life of belly and bone,

Opaque, too near, my private, yet unknown,

Stretches to embrace the very dear

With whom I would walk without him near,

Touches her grossly, although a word

Would bare my heart and make me clear,

Stumbles, flounders, and strives to be fed

Dragging me with him in his mouthing care,

Amid the hundred million of his kind,

the scrimmage of appetite everywhere.

-Delmore Schwartz

----

The Man with Night Sweats

I wake up cold, I who
Prospered through dreams of heat
Wake to their residue,
Sweat, and a clinging sheet.

My flesh was its own shield:
Where it was gashed, it healed.

I grew as I explored
The body I could trust
Even while I adored
The risk that made robust,

A world of wonders in
Each challenge to the skin.

I cannot but be sorry
The given shield was cracked,
My mind reduced to hurry,
My flesh reduced and wrecked.

I have to change the bed,
But catch myself instead

Stopped upright where I am
Hugging my body to me
As if to shield it from
The pains that will go through me,

As if hands were enough
To hold an avalanche off.

-Thom Gunn

Poetry I Wish I Could Write: Wallace Stevens

Wallace Stevens writes in a strange, choppy style with pretty vivid imagery. He also tends to number stanzas, and have a series of poems about the same subject. I definitely prefer some stanzas to others, but the poems require all of the stanzas to see which ones stand out from the rest. This is a longer post, so if you're lazy, just read stanza III of Six Significant Landscapes and the last poem, my favorite of Wallace Stevens.

========

Anecdote of the Jar

I placed a jar in Tennessee,

And round it was, upon a hill.

It made the slovenly wilderness

Surround that hill.

The wilderness rose up to it,

And sprawled around, no longer wild.

The jar was round upon the ground

And tall and of a port in air.

It took dominion everywhere.

The jar was gray and bare.

It did not give of bird or bush,

Like nothing else in Tennessee.

----

Six Significant Landscapes

I

An old man sits

In the shadow of a pine tree

In China.

He sees larkspur,

Blue and white,

At the edge of the shadow,

Move in the wind.

His beard moves in the wind.

The pine tree moves in the wind.

Thus water flows

Over weeds.

II

The night is of the colour

Of a woman's arm:

Night, the female,

Obscure,

Fragrant and supple,

Conceals herself.

A pool shines,

Like a bracelet

Shaken in a dance.

III

I measure myself

Against a tall tree.

I find that I am much taller,

For I reach right up to the sun,

With my eye;

And I reach to the shore of the sea

With my ear.

Nevertheless, I dislike

The way ants crawl

In and out of my shadow.

IV

When my dream was near the moon,

The white folds of its gown

Filled with yellow light.

The soles of its feet

Grew red.

Its hair filled

With certain blue crystallizations

From stars,

Not far off.

V

Not all the knives of the lamp-posts,

Nor the chisels of the long streets,

Nor the mallets of the domes

And high towers,

Can carve

What one star can carve,

Shining through the grape-leaves.

VI

Rationalists, wearing square hats,

Think, in square rooms,

Looking at the floor,

Looking at the ceiling.

They confine themselves

To right-angled triangles.

If they tried rhomboids,

Cones, waving lines, ellipses --

As, for example, the ellipse of the half-moon --

Rationalists would wear sombreros.

----

The Poem That Took The Place Of A Mountain

There it was, word for word,

The poem that took the place of a mountain.

He breathed its oxygen,

Even when the book lay turned in the dust of his table.

It reminded him how he had needed

A place to go to in his own direction,

How he had recomposed the pines,

Shifted the rocks and picked his way among clouds,

For the outlook that would be right,

Where he would be complete in an unexplained completion:

The exact rock where his inexactness

Would discover, at last, the view toward which they had edged,

Where he could lie and, gazing down at the sea,

Recognize his unique and solitary home.

----

Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird

I

Among twenty snowy mountains,

The only moving thing

Was the eye of the blackbird.

II

I was of three minds,

Like a tree

In which there are three blackbirds.

III

The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.

It was a small part of the pantomime.

IV

A man and a woman

Are one.

A man and a woman and a blackbird

Are one.

V

I do not know which to prefer,

The beauty of inflections

Or the beauty of innuendoes,

The blackbird whistling

Or just after.

VI

Icicles filled the long window

With barbaric glass.

The shadow of the blackbird

Crossed it, to and fro.

The mood

Traced in the shadow

An indecipherable cause.

VII

O thin men of Haddam,

Why do you imagine golden birds?

Do you not see how the blackbird

Walks around the feet

Of the women about you?

VIII

I know noble accents

And lucid, inescapable rhythms;

But I know, too,

That the blackbird is involved

In what I know.

IX

When the blackbird flew out of sight,

It marked the edge

Of one of many circles.

X

At the sight of blackbirds

Flying in a green light,

Even the bawds of euphony

Would cry out sharply.

XI

He rode over Connecticut

In a glass coach.

Once, a fear pierced him,

In that he mistook

The shadow of his equipage

For blackbirds.

XII

The river is moving.

The blackbird must be flying.

XIII

It was evening all afternoon.

It was snowing

And it was going to snow.

The blackbird sat

In the cedar-limbs.