Tag: free verse

This dress checks your movements

with that wasp waist,
your lungs, stomach, liver, and other organs
squeezed down out of place,
and
into one half their natural size,
and
with that long trail dragging on the ground,
how can any man of sense,
who knows that life is made up of use, of service, of work;

how can he take such partner?

He must be desperate to unite himself for life with such a deformed,
fettered, half-breathing ornament.

If I were in the matrimonial market, I might marry
a woman that had but one arm, or one eye,
or no eyes at all,
if she suited me otherwise; but
so long as God permitted me to retain my senses,
I could never join my fortunes with those of a woman
with a small waist.

A small waist!

I am a physiologist, and know what
a small waist
means.

From Our girls by Dio Lewis (1871). By John Rodzvilla.

Delineated Invitation

You may come whenever the library is open.
No prior contact is needed.

You may use any open computer in the library.
No log-in is required.

You may use your own laptop, if it has a wireless card.
However, you will have to go to the Plaza level

to register for walk-in permissions.
A login window may pop up.

Please log in as GUEST.
A guest has access to all resources.

Monday through Friday, between 7 AM and 5 PM,
you must use visitor parking.

After 5 PM, and on weekends,
you may park in any non-restricted lot.

Instructions for library usage provided on the website of librarian and educator Susanna Cowan, September 2008. By Dawn Corrigan.

The Empty Bell

No spring this evening
It is indeed autumn that returns
Face diluted in water

The lights are all out
Nothing stays anymore
Not a footprint
Nothing but blue spots in the corner of a sheet
The color which night decomposes

Rise up carcass and walk

Index of first lines in Pierre Reverdy: Selected Poems, translated by Kenneth Rexroth (New Directions, 1969). By Howie Good.

That was a woman

The other day I saw a woman in an omnibus
open a satchel and take out a purse,
close the satchel and open the purse,
take out a penny and close the purse,
open the satchel and put in the purse.

Then she gave the penny to the conductor
and took a halfpenny in exchange.

Then she opened the satchel and took out the purse,
closed the satchel and opened the purse,
put in the halfpenny and closed the purse,
opened the satchel and put in the purse,
closed the satchel and locked both ends.

Then she felt to see
if her back hair was all right,
and it was all right,
and she was all right.

From The Windsor Magazine, November 1907.

Smells Like Team Spirit

1
Mountains are the earth’s muscles.
If your lady friends ever summit
the actual Matterhorn, they’ll think,
“This mountain smells just like
(insert your name)’s armpit.”

2
Is there a better image

than one of those landlords
that live in outer space

and never just “stops by”
to make sure the refrigerator
has been cleaned?

It’s a rhetorical question.

3
You can send your armpits
to where they will smell
like palm trees and sunshine,

the exotic islands of Fiji
walking off into the sunset
with live Komodo shoes.

4
While other men
may choose

to transport
themselves
via minivans, bikes
or filthy taxis,

you choose
to turn invisible,

both hands
raised triumphantly
in the air.

Compiled from phrases found on the Old Spice website. By Howie Good.

Swiftly

I am going to be a bit of a crush on you
and your lovely email address and
password for the first time today
and get a different thing to do it
for you to the gin bar in the UK who
are you a call on the anti-Russia
LGBT backlash the UK and Ireland
and the other day and night and
I am a beautiful person to person
who is the best address to to
the café now and then you came to
the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the
the the the the the the the

Text created by accepting all the predictive text suggestions made by the Swiftkey typing app, 11 August 2013. By Marika.