Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Tampons with ee cummings

red-rag and pink-flag
blackshirt and brown
strut-mince and stink-brag
have all come to town

some like it shot
and some like it hung
and some like it in the twot
nine months young
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9 comments:

chickelit said...

Praise the Load!

October 24, 2012 at 6:45 PM
The Dude said...

...and pass the contamination.

October 24, 2012 at 7:05 PM
windbag said...

I'm not so sure about tampons. I'm waiting to see what this new Apple mini-Pad is all about.

October 24, 2012 at 9:56 PM
windbag said...

I taught at a private, Christian school for a few years. This kid brought a book of ee cummings poetry to class one day. I confiscated it, looked up a particularly offensive passage, then wrote a letter to the kid's parents. I pointed out the passage and assured them there were more if they cared to look for them, then asked them if they thought it was appropriate for their kid to bring that to school. Of course, the note had to be signed by the parents and returned to me the next day.

I think the kid may have contemplated suicide as a way out of that mess. Discipline was the most challenging and the most rewarding part of teaching.

October 25, 2012 at 8:39 AM
Chip S. said...

Anyone who finds discipline to be the most rewarding part of teaching has missed his calling to be a drill sergeant.

October 25, 2012 at 4:37 PM
windbag said...

Sgt. Carter and Full Metal Jacket inspired me.

October 25, 2012 at 6:48 PM
The Dude said...

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: "Who said that? Who the fuck said that? Who's the slimy little communist shit, twinkle-toed cocksucker down here who just signed his own death warrant? Nobody, huh? The fairy fucking godmother said it. Out-fucking-standing! I will PT you all until you fucking die! I'll PT you until your assholes are sucking buttermilk!

Pvt. Joker: Sir, I said it, Sir!

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: Well, no shit. What have we got here, a fucking comedian? Private Joker. I admire your honesty. Hell, I like you, you can come over to my house and fuck my sister!

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: If you ladies leave my island, if you survive recruit training... you will be a weapon, you will be a minister of death, praying for war. But until that day you are pukes! You're the lowest form of life on Earth. You are not even human-fucking-beings! You are nothing but unorganized grabasstic pieces of amphibian shit! Because I am hard, you will not like me. But the more you hate me, the more you will learn: I am hard, but I am fair!

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: [singing] Ho Chi Minn is a son of a bitch.

Recruits: [singing] Ho Chi Minn is a son of a bitch.

Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: [singing] Got the blueballs, crabs and the seven-year-itch!

Recruits: [singing] Got the blueballs, crabs and the seven-year-itch!"

That man was a font of inspiration.

October 25, 2012 at 8:11 PM
MamaM said...

Had I been the parent involved in the confiscated book situation, my own issues would have probably kicked in and I'd have been inclined to form an e.e. style reply and include this quote:

“I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance”

In the private, Christian school I attended forty years ago, study of poetry covered a variety of styles and poets and included several poems by e.e. cummings. I'm thankful it did, for the fact that phrases like “I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.” remain with me to this day.

October 26, 2012 at 2:47 AM
MamaM said...

Another favorite, in the Bunk McVane category of followers:

FOLLOW

by Roland Flint

Now here is this man mending his nets
after a long day, his fingers
nicked, here and there, by ropes and hooks,
pain like tomorrow in the small of his back,
his feet blue with his name, stinking of baits,
his mind on a pint and supper — nothing else —
a man who describes the settled shape
of his life every time his hands
make and snug a perfect knot.

I want to understand, if only for the story,
how a man like this,
a man like my father in harvest,
like Bunk MacVane in the stench of lobstering,
or a teamster, a steelworker,
how an ordinary working stiff,
even a high tempered one,
could just be called away.

It’s only in one account
he first brings in a netful —
in all the others, he just calls,
they return the look or stare and then
they “straightaway” leave their nets to follow.
That’s all there is. You have to figure
what was in that call, that look.

(And I wouldn’t try it on a tired working man
unless I was God’s son —
he’d kick your ass right off the pier.)

If they had been vagrants,
poets or minstrels, I’d understand that,
men who would follow a different dog.
But how does a man whose movement,
day after day after day,
absolutely trusts the shape it fills
put everything down and walk away?

I’d pass up all the fancy stunting
with Lazarus and the lepers
to see that one.

October 26, 2012 at 2:52 AM

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