Would You Suggest Writing as a Career? (4 Viewers)

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a bit of peace

as we watched
a white feather floated
before the bluest of skies.
she whispered, peace.
i replied, the dove is
the bird of peace -
that's a single feather.
 
midwives phosphorus backgammon

This is an email I received today. I guess they meant to include a link to something, but they seem to have forgotten to. Perhaps this spambot was simply overcome with pride at its own creativity:

midwives phosphorus backgammon

backgammon lubbock parsimonious? backgammon, pierre retaliate.
emblem endpoint commiserate hitler meningitis vanadium, deerskin
kingdom parsimonious deborah groin plagiarism.

analeptic propane.
Click to expand...
 
Not to go off topic, but what is the purpose of these e-mails? There has to be something that they accomplish, but I cannot figure it out. Sending long e-mails filled with garbage seems to be a poor way to sell viagra. I'm sure someone that knows computers can tell me that there is a good reason (other than laziness) that they do this. It seems that a well written spam would sell more than 100 million ones that are unreadable.

Bill
 
I am a writer but have always aspired towards scholarly academic articles. As I write really bad fiction and my poetry is just plain awful, I would hardly cite Buk as a direct influence, in that respect at least. His writing more often than not became a sort of escape for me and a grounding tool.
On a side note, It's funny because he and Toni Morrison are my favorite writers and you couldn't find two seemingly opposite writers (I believe). Seeing how both of them use language in two such different ways has inspired me and influenced the way I view (and think of) language though.
 
mjp, that was some top quality spam.

I just got another one from the same spambot as the other day. Maybe I should be forwarding these to a small press somewhere :D

twombly stockholm torn

shopworn fredrickson havana? epigraph, churn superstition.
griffith ike terrain agreeable kayo piccolo, neath
decline superstition twombly agreeable neath.

firework monarch.
Click to expand...
 
Whip me with a wet noodle if you know this, but I did seem to remember that these seemingly random words are put into spam e-mails to confuse the engine that is trying to filter them. (Still puzzling why Hank's had no link or seeming purpose.)

Here's what our frequently unreliable but good-enough-for-this friend Wikipedia says:

"As Bayesian filtering has become popular as a spam-filtering technique, spammers have started using methods to weaken it. To a rough approximation, Bayesian filters rely on word probabilities. If a message contains many words which are only used in spam, and few which are never used in spam, it is likely to be spam. To weaken Bayesian filters, some spammers, alongside the sales pitch, now include lines of irrelevant, random words, in a technique known as Bayesian poisoning. A variant on this tactic may be borrowed from the Usenet abuser known as "Hipcrime" -- to include passages from books taken from Project Gutenberg, or nonsense sentences generated with "dissociated press" algorithms. Randomly generated phrases can create spoetry (spam poetry) or spam art."

So Hank, enjoy your spoetry or spam art.:)
 
This was in the spam today:

It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived
for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can
be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd,
whatever that opposite may be.
 
Archibald MacLeish apparently. Wonder if Bukowski has ever found his way into a spambots database...

some people never go crazy.
me, sometimes I'll lie down behind the couch
for 3 or 4 days.
they'll find me there.
it's Cherub, they'll say, and
they pour wine down my throat
rub my chest
sprinkle me with oils.


V I A 6 j G k R A
Click to expand...
 
Father Luke said:
This was in the spam today:

It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived
for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can
be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd,
whatever that opposite may be.
Click to expand...

Hey! That's the poem I submitted to the New Yorker. Those Bastards!
 
Back to scratch

I'm back to the flat.
To the life
I've neglected.
It welcomes me
with open arms.
I'm not asked
where I've been
nor what I was
thinking of
in the first place.
Such dedication
you are yet to find.
 
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back to scratch

back to the flat
to the life
i've neglected
it welcomes me
with open arms
i'm not asked
where i've been
nor what i was
thinking of
in the first place.
such dedication
you will never find.
 
i second that, this one is really not bad...."paperthin music...", i like the images.


Respect, go on, King of yourself.
 
yeah, it works both ways.
in both cases it basically says, thinking too much isn't good and leads to drinking. only i put it the other way 'round: i drink, so i don't have to think too much.

but of course this wasn't meant to be a 'real' poem anyway.
it was kinda mix between 'the cat sat on the mat' and 'as the drinking wanes the thinking appeares'.
 
let me put it that way:

unless you meant it the way Andy Warhol did, with his 'piss-paintings', it translates so terribly bad, that i don't even know what it means!

is a piss-artist someone you piss on (because of his bad art)? or someone who pisses on others? or simply an artist suffering from incontinence?

Tell me and i'll give you the right expression in german. if possible at all.
 
In England, a slang term for being drunk is pissed. So if you have a few beers, and a few brandies you might be pissed. Someone who regularly drinks alcohol, becoming inebriated, may be called a piss artist. So it basically means drunkard.

Of course, I know you do not do such things ;)
 
hank solo said:
[...] Of course, I know you do not do such things
Click to expand...
of course NOT!!! - hell!!!



okay, now i know about the expression.
you're right:
the joke wouldn't work in german. we sure have several words for drunkards but none of them has to do with arts.

let me think ...

. . . no, there isn't anything i can see now.
maybe one of the other germans here?



but there's another drunkard-'joke' i sometimes use and it easily translates into english:

"i do no sports. except lifting weights in the class of 2 cl."
(o.k. - we got the metric system. see Pulp Fiction. so i dunno what 2cl is in the US. right here it means the regular amount of a shot of spirits you get at a bar.)
 
from cocktail.com:

Key to Cocktail Measurements

Our cocktail collection recipes are based on the imperial standard used predominantly in the United States. Here are the international equivalents.

Ounce or Pony

1 oz (ounce) equals 3/4 shot, jigger or pony
1 oz (ounce) equals 3 cl (centiliters)
1 oz (ounce) equals 30 ml (milliliters)
1 oz (ounce) equals 2 tbsp (tablespoons)

Shot or Jigger

1 shot equals 1 1/2 oz (ounces)
1 shot equals 4.5 CL (centiliters)
1 shot equals 45 ml (milliliters)
1 shot equals 3 tbsp (tablespoons)

Cup

1 cup equals 8 oz (ounces)
1 cup equals 24 CL (centiliters)
1 cup equals 240 ml (milliliters)

Bottle

1 bottle equals 750 ml (milliliters)
 
Of course, it was in an army surplus store
i promised myself never
to be duped
into going to war

"Pulled from dead germans,"
said the shop owner as i
rummaged for my size.

"That's sensible," i replied,
lifting one of the many HUGE
steel-capped combat boots.
"If size is anything to go by,"
i went on, weighing the great
bastard of a black boot
in both hands,
"you wouldn't try it
with the owners alive
and able to kick.*
 
king prawn

there's nothing worse than waking
on a sunday evening
to need a drink
you've already had the bottle.
how do you explain to your woman
that you need another?
and there is the baby
relying on you
and the job that can hardly
sustain you
all.
how do you explain
you simply need to get plastered...
 
i would have never guessed

the penny dropped
when she confessed
she suffered from depression.

and i had put
the erratic behaviour
down to her
being a woman.

now she can act
as erratically
as she pleases

while i'll be forced to appear
kind and understanding
or else
i will be deemed
an insensitive pig.
 
the girl whose mother just left me
is sitting on my lap
innocently smiling at me.

girl - if you knew, about life
you'd cry.
 
My Turn.


Merchant Dice

He sells a lot of useless shit to the tourists
from the back of an old rusty van
planted at the front
of a congested parking lot
behind a row
of newly constructed condos
that line the shore
of a crowded beach
on a partially blue planet
within a galaxy
spinning around
a star
that promises
to someday
implode upon itself
and trade
each of us
in
 
i awake on the couch
and see a red sun
through the bare branches
of a sycamore.
on the tree is a crow
animated in the foreground
of this brilliant red disc.
i look around then
look again. the sun
is no longer red. it is
above the branches,
a blinding, pale light.
the crow has flown.
 
Suspicious character

We came out of the front door
onto the communal balcony
as this fellow walked by.
I'd seen him moments earlier
from the window.
He had been walking towards
the shops below us.
I hadn't liked the look of him.
That wasn't unusual:
the notable discouragement
his face imbued in me
would be replaced by another.

At the top of the stairs
he cut me a look. I cut him one back.

"Why," I said to my uncle, "did that fellow
come up one stairway
only to descend the other?
Don't you think that's suspicious?"
A lot of suspicious characters hung around
here. Although, the majority of them
wanted to appear suspicious.
They wanted to be seen
up to no good.
Their egos were founded
on receipt of that.

We came down the steps
onto the street.
Our suspicious fellow
was standing on the corner. He was
a different kettle of fish.
He was trying his damnedest
not to look suspicious - which made him
obviously all the more so.

"Let's go around the block,"
I told my uncle, "I don't trust that fellow. Why's he
hanging around?"

We came around the block. We made
a complete circle and he was still
there. Standing by the stairs to our block.
As we were approaching he saw us.
He turned his face in the other direction.

He stood there, shuffling his feet,
then he moved off, suddenly, in the direction
that he faced. He didn't look back, he just kept on moving.
It was obvious he didn't want to appear suspicious.

"What was that about?" I asked my uncle.
 
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The Great Depression?

I feel

that

finally

an enormous weight
has been lifted
onto my shoulders.

Closing fast on forty

I find
my back is strong
but
my spirit is weak.

I don't have the cash
for a fflashy car.

I don't have it in me
to seek escape
in strange beds.

Instead,
I took up smoking
again.

It's not much comfort,
except
that first one in the morning.

still,

I pull drags- unsatisfied
from each cigarette
as if it contained
my Mother's
unconditional
love.
 
Countless experts in conflict resolution would have
committed suicide

I have absolutely nothing to say to you!
she said.
What? I said.
I have absolutely NOTHING to say!
What? What did I do?
You told my daughter you had PORN movies of her mother!
What? She didn't believe me?
She did!
Tell her I was lying! I was drunk!
Just go and think about what you've done!
Ok, I said, But - (She had hung up.)

Well, I don't remember saying that. Not exactly.
And I'd think about it, and feel bad, if they thought
and felt bad about their doings. They really have no problem
treating you like piss, but when you snap, and react,
they don't like it.

They do appear to apportion a man a mythological stoicism.
 
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the unconsidered life

out of the library
unchaining the bike
the stub of a roll up
alight in my mouth
an elderly man
places a hand on my arm -
"quit those and you might
live as long as i."
 
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