Verbatim found poetry is an intriguing collection of found poems. Poems found in ordinary, and not so ordinary places. Submit yours.
‘beautiful’ changing to ‘good’ after thirty
to be kept busy
capacity for sex
escaping from men
locking up; but who will guard the guardians?
From the subheadings under “women” in the index of Michael Montaigne’s The Essays: A Selection (Penguin, 1994), p445. By Jenny Williams.
The reason I hesitate to give you the full maximum
is that although there is a charge at Fergus Falls against you,
I must consider you are innocent of that until you are
proven guilty, and these crimes that you have committed,
outside of this juvenile crime, you haven’t used aggressive
tactics:
you haven’t used a gun,
you haven’t hit a man over the head.
Also, I am going to consider that you have plead guilty
and have saved the State some money in trying you
although the County Attorney is of the opinion that he would
just as soon try you and all the rest of them.
He doesn’t think you have a chance in the world
of ever getting out of it.
I am going to take into consideration the fact that
I can’t say that you have committed an aggressive crime;
if you had, I would give you the very limit I possibly could,
because I don’t think the court should monkey around
with a man that hits anyone over the head.
Court Report, Hennepin County, Minnesota, Fourth Judicial District Court, 23 October 1958, pp 23-24. By Kelly Nelson.
You know the sort.
He’s baking organic vegetable snacks
while she’s teaching the two-year-old
how to count in Catalan.
They organised the right school
moments after conception.
They know everything,
you know nothing.
Their baby has never cried,
never thrown up on the hire car,
it never even really seemed to be a baby at all,
more like a middle-aged Archers’ fan
hidden in a macrame shawl.
A glass of white wine the size of Greenland
has been poured, it’s late in the evening,
they’re coming across the room to share
some of their worldly wisdom,
to pass on the secrets of their special way.
They want to give you the benefit of their expertise.
You don’t want to do it like that…
And they just can’t resist giving you
that little special bit of advice
picked up from an old French villager.
Just learn how to say non.
From 10 types of irritating advice for parents. By Angi Holden.
When I was young, there was one kind of prosciutto.
It was made in the winter, by hand, and aged for two years.
It was sweet when you smelled it.
A profound perfume.
If it’s too warm, the aging process never begins.
The meat spoils.
If it’s too dry, the meat is ruined.
It needs to be damp but cool.
The summer is too hot.
In the winter—that’s when you make salumi.
Your prosciutto.
Your soppressata.
Your sausages.
An old Italian butcher talking about making prosciutto, via Bill Buford, according to Wikipedia.
You can look at the rock
and call it a pet,
even though it does nothing.
God does not have to live up to prayers.
He does not have to
solve world hunger, war, poverty.
He just has to sit there
and you are content.
Taken from “God, The Pet Rock“, a blog post on RationalHub.com. By Tanya J. Reed.
Just the way they feel against my skin
it must be some special kind of German cotton
I don’t know
I put one on
it slides over my skin
and immediately I see a whole world
that city where I lived
where I did so many things
like Oz, a strange place
but most of its was beautiful!
I see my flat where I used to live
staying up all night with music
and dancing and crazy things
I smell the coal again
and the snow
just from this undershirt
I bought the child’s size
Germans are much bigger than I am
they’re really big ladies
they’re like beautiful Walkyries
I missed my German undershirts
then I found them on the internet
made in Germany
the quality is unbelievable
they last forever
From a product review on German Amazon. By Grace Andreacchi.
It’s an act so
immense, so apparently monstrous and yet
deeply personal that it’s
almost
impossible to judge.
He erased himself, and all
those 8,000 souls, for
one woman.
Because he loved her.
There’s something
terrifying
in that kind of love, something that asks
for so much
it can’t possibly be returned,
or ignored.
From an AV Club review of the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode “Children of Time”. By Wesley Brown.
Yeah, we talk
about him. We think
he needs a better
haircut. I don’t
like that style.
You’re in New
York, the fashion
capital. Change
your haircut, OK?
You’re a star now.
Wear some
shades. Shades,
OK? Put down
the nerdy Harvard
book glasses. Put on
some black shades,
OK? With some leather
pants. Change
your style.
Fashion.
You’re Jeremy Lin,
for godsakes…
You’re in New
York City. Put
your hat on
backwards. Come
to practice with
your pants sagging
and just tell
them, I don’t feel
like practicing. Practice?
You know? Practice?
And wear
an Iverson jersey.
Come to practice
with a cigar. Lit.
I’m Jeremy Lin.
From Metta to Lin: Get some swag, CBS Sports, 10 February 2012. By Brett Foster.
Emma
I want better for Tai
I want just a normal life
Just where I can get up in the morning
Get Tai off to school or whatever
Get about my housework
Do you know what I mean?
Do things with Tai at the weekend
Save up for holidays
Do you know what I mean?
I want it to be where eventually
I’m off the methadone and everything
Maybe even go back to college
Do a counsellors course
I’ll get a little office job or summat
Just normal
Do you know what I mean?
Gail
My partner died
He was thirty-seven years old when he died
To see him come off heroin
get his life sorted out
and then to go on drink
and then to die
through drink
it’s hard
It’s really hard
Life throws some things at you sometimes,
don’t it?
And you’ve just got to get on with it
You’ve got to be strong
And if you’re not strong,
and you’re weak
you fall apart,
don’t you?
Skye
Yeah, but it’s because I can
because I can do it
and I wanna do it
I can
so I don’t give a fuck
Do you know what I mean?
Do you know what, yeah?
that’s sticking up for your mates that
She’d booted her in the stomach
and winded her
so I just went over
I was just like
Boom
Dropped her
Banged her
Fucked her up
Stamped on her head
and everything
Tracey
Since I’ve lost me kids
I don’t care anymore
What else have I go to lose
apart from my head?
I regret the prostitution
and not fighting a bit harder
for me kids
but you can’t turn the clock back,
can you?
If you could,
we’d all have perfect lives,
wouldn’t we?
Taken from episode 4 of the Channel 4 series Skint. By Lisa Oliver.
House to which the high tide comes
House unknown
Fort house
Grizzly bear house
Grizzly bear’s mouth’s house
House making a noise
House of dishes
Box house
House unknown
House of contentment
House unknown
House of the stormy sea
Grizzly bear house (again)
House unknown
House unknown
Thunder and lightning house
Shining house
Dugout house – Chief Skidegate’s house
House in which people must shout to be heard
Eldjiwus’s house
Chief’s house
Raven’s house
House chiefs peep at from a distance
Mountain house
House on which storm clouds make a noise
Killer-whale house
Always wanting more house
Mosquito hawk house
House people are ashamed to look at – it is so great
Fin house
Translations of house names from the original native American dialect of the Haida people, from a diorama in the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Ottawa, noted around 2000. By Simon Williams.
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