Shortest poem ever? (1 Viewer)

PhillyDave

“The essential doesn't change.” Beckett
Longest? Interesting thread. Never really thought about that before. So, what would be Buk's shortest?
 
OK, bear with me: it depends on how you define shortest. Art contains seven words and 30 characters (not counting the period at the end). However, I would include the title as part of the poem. So that's eight words and 33 characters. In Bottle of Smoke Press' as Buddah smiles, card 1 of 20 is an untitled poem that contains eight words and 32 characters (also not counting the period at the end), so it is shorter than Art by one character.
 
It's a poem when the author says it's a poem. Or gives it a title.

If all short poems are aphorisms (hate that word, it stinks of college, we need a new one), then the Guerilla Poetics Project should have been called the Guerilla Aphorisms Project.

Not quite as snappy a name, but what can you do.
 
Strictly speaking, "art" is an excerpt off a longer poem, "it's difficult to be a god when bananas eat monkeys".

Here's one of B.'s shortest poems ever:

“your move”
Aganippe is empty.
we move on to Hippocrene.
 
poem1979-09-26-your_move.jpg


Untitled-2.png
 
Not me, my two pets* (Vietnamese pot belly pigs) are called Aganippe and Hippocrene.
*They're not actually pets, I'm planning to eat them.

Nulla dies sine linea.
 
Who knew!

How about a different short poem? Anyone got any better ones without having to google half the poem? I guess I'll have to dig for something myself.

I'll be back...
 
"my fate", for instance, was part of a longer poem, "my doom has wire wheels and girls in light green tight green dresses smile at me," which was published under a different title in The Flash... with lots of changes. "my fate" wasn't changed in The Pleasures... because it had already been changed in The Flash...
 
For what it's worth, and for those of you keeping score:

"a dead romance" is from "rosary for a once tenderness" (Back to the Machinegun Vol. 1), and "moaning and groaning" (Love is a Dog From Hell - a.k.a. "you'll be moaning and groaning in your poems")


moaning and groaning

she writes: you’ll
be moaning and groaning
in your poems
about how I fucked
those 2 guys last week.
I know you.
she writes on to
say that my vibe
machine was right—
she had just fucked
a third guy
but she knows I don’t
want to hear who, why
or how. she closes her
letter, “Love.”

rats and roaches
have triumphed again.
here it comes running
with a slug in its
mouth, it’s singing
old love songs.
close the windows
moan
close the doors
groan.


rosary for a once
tenderness


the rats and roaches have
triumphed
again

the fury that lifted the rose
is gone

close the windows
close the doors

bury it with shopping bags and
flowers

be kind
kill it

here it comes running
with a slug in its mouth
singing old
love songs.


"dark night poem" is the end of "thoughts while eating a sandwich" (Flash of Lightning - a.k.a. "thoughts while having a sandwich and coffee at 12:45 p.m. at a local cafe"), and the intro to section 3 in The Night Torn Mad.

thoughts while eating a sandwich

we demand that our leaders possess
a certain clever charm, a certain mild wisdom, but no madness,
at least not madness at its
best.
maybe the energy is just not there anymore, maybe
not only is the air polluted, maybe the brain has been
poisoned, maybe the human spirit has been
diluted down to a dim imitation of
itself
until anybody who appears half-right half-the-time is
almost always accepted as our new
hero-leader.

it is more and more difficult—no, it’s just damned
impossible—to accept and admire those who are
deemed great in our time.
they all
are suspect
they all seem to lack:
nobility
originality
intelligence
honesty
and especially that which is most needed:
a simple, good heart.

just bones and more bones
bleaching in the sun.

they say that nothing is wasted:
either that
or
it all is.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top