Verbatim found poetry is an intriguing collection of found poems. Poems found in ordinary, and not so ordinary places. Submit yours.
Feel me ‘ands.
Go on, feel em.
Freezing.
I’ve got gloves in me bag,
can’t wear em.
Make me ‘ands cold.
Got em off our Mandy for Christmas.
I’ll wear them next week though.
Going down to see our Mandy.
Look at me fingers.
Blue wi’ cold they are.
Feel me ‘ands.
They’re freezing.
A customer in my place of work, January 2013. Submitted by Pauline.
Why should we
tolerate
a diet of
weak poisons, a home in insipid
surroundings, a circle
of acquaintances
who are not
quite
our enemies, the noise
of motors with
just enough
relief to prevent
insanity?
Who would want to live in a world which is just not
quite
fatal?
Taken from Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (Houghton Mifflin, 1962), p 12. Submitted by Wesley Brown.
You haven’t forgotten
Anastasia
Marina
Natasha
have you?
i hope you stay well.
will you be my valentine?
there are no
obligations.
no fee to pay
this chance comes just once
in a lifetime
again
this chance comes
just once
in a lifetime
Svetlana is waiting.
A compilation of various subject lines from my Spam box. Submitted by Mr. Wilson.
fo shizzle ma nizzle
is a bastardization of
fo’ sheezy mah neezy
which is a bastardization of
for sure mah nigga
which is a bastardization of
I concur with you whole heartedly
my African american brother
Definition 3 for ‘fo shizzle ma nizzle’ in the Urban Dictionary. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.
and I don’t know if
I would have
been able to
had it not been
for the positive influence
that the game had
on me.
Why?
Because
it taught me
to be self-reliant.
It taught me to not
stand around
waiting
for some man to rescue me.
It taught me to always,
always,
check the ceiling
before entering a room.
From the LiveJournal blog of wyrmwwd. Submitted by Veronica.
Looks at the ground
So little light left
No wind at all
It has to happen now
Avenue of humanity
Red, clamouring together
What have I done?
All words taken from commentary of the final day of the US Augusta Masters golf tournament. BBC Radio 5, 10.30–11.00pm BST, 14 April 2013. Submitted by Winston Plowes.
So.
The first thing we see
is a plastic trash bag
with some paper chains spilling out.
A man
in a green t-shirt grabs it and deposits it
in a dumpster.
A boy
on a bike watches him.
A man uproots
some plants in a greenhouse
and harvests the squiggling maggot-y worms in the potting soil.
He puts a couple of them into medicinal capsules. Mirrors figure
conspicuously.
Later
something happens to Kris.
The man
puts her under a spell. She sees, tastes, feels
and does whatever he tells her to, but she can’t
look at him because he says
his head is made of the same substance as the sun.
Her mind records
entire conversations, and the complete text
of Henry David Thoreau’s Walden.
Another man collects, records
and plays sounds
and performs synchronous surgery on Kris
and a pig, apparently transferring a parasite
from one to the other, establishing
an indefinable psychic link
between them.
Kris encounters Jeff
on a train.
They connect. Their thoughts
get mixed up, which is to say that they’re both convinced
that some of their memories have been
appropriated by the other. Their conversations
transpire
in several different places at once, or perhaps
at different times
in the same place.
Or different times at once. Some orchids growing
on tree roots
by the edge of a stream
change color.
More pigs occur.
Some association
is evinced between them, Kris
and other somnambulists.
Kris is
confused
and afraid.
From a review of the film Upstream Colour, RogerEbert.com, 11 April 2013. A few subclauses left out. Submitted by Wesley Brown.
This is how Americans live today
drinking coffee made from snow
and living in tents and
buying guns to kill each other
especially children
some people complain about the guns
These trees are full of snow
You’ll see there are no birds
they’ve been eaten by the people
who live in these tents and corridors
this man awaits heroin
their houses blow down very easily
and they have to live in tents like these
Again, there are no birds in the trees
apart from these
which will be eaten on Tuesday
they are yummy
You can also eat the snow
of which there is plenty
These people lie huddled together
with their dead friends in blue body bags
drinking coffee-cups full of local snow
They are very good friends
They are together in adversity
In other parts of America
often disguised as foreign countries in Europe
people live the same terrible life
This man, a former Republican candidate for Oregon
is now having to get coffee made of snow
from these trucks
Many Americans have to live like this daily
and are entitled to one cup most days
The weather is freezing
but the hot snow tastes nice
They enjoy it immensely
Meanwhile in the major offices
factories and railway stations
people sit around
under expensive adverts for Dell computers
drinking snow from plastic cups
People pass by, not caring
for they are all in the same situation
These telephones no longer work
There is no one to call
This is how they live in modern day America
Huddled together – the poor, the cold, the lonely
and the homosexual
Mean time these people queued up for handouts
from the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea
and were each given a cake
Taken from a North Korean propaganda film. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.
I have a vision of the universe
– because nobody can find the end of it –
as stuffed in a glass jar
on someone’s desk,
maybe God’s desk
but a desk, anyway.
I think the white noise on TV
is the leftover noise
from the Big Bang.
Overheard at Macclesfield station, March 2013. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.
And finally the storm recedes.
Insects begin to stridulate,
just a few at first — then in their thousands
and countless exotic birds
starting to call out to one another,
their cries reverberating
as if in a giant cathedral.
(From BBC Radio 4’s Noise: A Human History, episode 3. Submitted by Stevie Ronnie)
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