You Latinist

You Latinist?
I doubt it.
Nah lad.
You alive?
Year man, hope so.
I’ve survived on ice cream.

It’s all good in the hood
thank you
prick.
I’m gonna get cained and wash-up
In the bath. Ahhh

The new terms will take effect from
7:30 pm
with balls and like a man.
Start your year helping someone else –
Just destroy the toilet and leave non alive.

Lines picked at random from recent text messages received by class members of the year 2 Music Practice Degree at UCLAN (Preston University). By Winston Plowes with contributions (in order) from DF, TF, AL, BE, JH, KM, JH, MG, SO, LG, JL, CE, NW, CH and MM.

Controlled Burn 1

We bite
When people have something to say

Every second counts

Wires
In tune
Like a record player
Screaming at a wall

Die, die my darling
Wayfarer

Die alone
Wide awake on Lake Street
Black heart broken

Sunbelt scars
Where are they now

Red Sky
Navigation point

Where we’re going we don’t need roads

Atlanta
Doormat

You’re all welcome

The first 20 songs shuffled by my iTunes in the Punk genre. By Ryan Falls.

Mysterious ways

I needed a new car
as my old one was so unreliable
it kept breaking down.
I couldn’t see any way
that I could afford to get one.
After I prayed the way you said,
I not only got a better car
but it was bright red.

A testimonial on the website More Than Life, retrieved 4 February 2014. By Howie Good.

Melody of the soul

Across a nation long captivated
By Western classical music,
People reacted with remorse, outrage
And even the rare threat of a lawsuit
After Mr. Samuragochi’s revelations
That he had hired a ghostwriter since the 1990s
To compose most of his music.

The anger turned to disbelief
When the ghostwriter himself
Came forward to accuse Mr. Samuragochi
Of faking his deafness,
Apparently to win public sympathy
And shape the Beethoven persona.

The scandal has brought
An abrupt fall from grace
For Mr. Samuragochi,
A man who looked the part
Of a modern-day composer
With his long hair,
Stylish dark suits
And ever-present sunglasses.

From In Japan, a Beloved Deaf Composer Appears to Be None of the Above, NYT. By Mark Dzula.

Working life

People simply empty out.
They are bodies with fearful
and obedient minds.
The color leaves the eye.
The voice becomes ugly.
And the body. The hair.
The fingernails. The shoes.
Everything does.

Charles Bukowski in a letter to John Martin, Reach for the Sun, Selected Letters, 1978-1994, vol. 3. By Howie Good.

Typo in a Dead Language

The scene is in a synagogue,
but the word probably has nothing to do with religion.
It seems that the butchers in town
were either at fault, or the ones faulted.
Something about meat being sent out of the shtetl,
and the butchers collecting money.
Those protesting in half-mumbled sentences
end their words with “kupkes kupkes”
or possibly “kuFkes kuFkes.”
I don’t see how hats or head-coverings would be involved,
unless it was somehow used as a symbol of protest
(maybe something “socialist,” like waving the flag,
or similar to the Bund motto: sher un ayzn [scissors and iron])
or something like throwing down a gauntlet
(in this case a hat – maybe like the Muslims throw shoes)
or used as a swear word or curse…
and someone else suggested a typo (twice?).

Discussion about the Yiddish word ‘kupkes’ on Mendele (vol23011.txt). By Howie Good.

Ha-Ha

The force of laughing can dislocate jaws,
prompt asthma attacks,
cause headaches, make hernias protrude.

It can provoke cardiac arrhythmia, syncope
or even emphysema (this last,
according to a clinical lecturer in 1892).

Laughter can trigger the rare but possibly grievous
Pilgaard-Dahl and Boerhaave’s syndromes.

There are choking hazards,
such as ingesting food during belly laughs.

We don’t know how much laughter is safe.

There’s probably a U-shaped curve:
laughter is good for you,
but enormous amounts are bad, perhaps.

From Who Says Laughter’s the Best Medicine?, NYT, 20 December 2013. By Howie Good.

Stroke

In case you don’t know me, Hi. Im Diana.
I’m a 30 year old lady.
Itallerthan your average girl,
thinner tha your average girl,
and and active than your average girl.

Yeah I run an ice crea business for a living,
but like to thing
I’m healthier than your average girl too.
No priorn medical history. Nothing.

my first ever ride in an ambulance
was uneventful – the hops;ital
is a 5 minute drive from my folks’ house.

By now I had somehow regained some ability to sspeak
and answered the EMT’s incessant questionsining.
still stuumbling over my words,
even laughin at my mstakes.

From Bad Year for Boars, an immediate account of suffering a stroke.