Tag: free verse

Jammy

Consider
the fact
that
for 3.8 billion years,
not one
of your pertinent ancestors
was squashed,
devoured,
drowned,
starved,
stuck fast,
untimely wounded
or otherwise deflected
from its life’s
quest
of delivering a
tiny
charge
of genetic material
to the right partner
at the right moment
to perpetuate
the only
possible
sequence
of hereditary combinations
that could result –
eventually,
astoundingly,
and all too briefly –
in you.

Taken from Bill Bryson’s book A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003). Several words have been omitted between “3.8 billion years” and “not one”. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

Richard Stallman’s rider 1

Facilities

Or, A microphone is desirable if the room is large

A supply of tea with
milk and sugar
would be nice.
If it is tea I really like,
I like it without
milk and sugar.

With milk and sugar.
any kind of tea is fine.
I always bring tea bags with me,
so if we use my tea bags,
I will certainly like that tea without
milk or sugar.

(From the detailed requirements that Richard Stallman sends ahead of his speaking engagements)

Richard Stallman’s rider 2
Richard Stallman’s rider 3
Richard Stallman’s rider 4
Richard Stallman’s rider 5

Trunk road

A motorway in all but name
the A14 trunk road blunders into
this delectable landscape
like an unruly oik
gatecrashing
a debutante’s party.

Fortunately,
its influence is transitory
and the canal re-asserts
its rural identity,
weaving a tortuous path between
the Hemplow Hills and the curiously named
Downtown Hill.

It crosses the infant
River Avon – which goes on in later life
to find fame and fortune
as Shakespeare’s Avon –
hereabouts forming the border.

From the article ‘WW Guide to the Leicester Section’ in Waterways World, September 2012 edition, p67. ‘556ft high’ has been omitted and the last sentence cut short. Submitted by Robbie.

On Emily

There was an increasing divide
Between people she wished to know
And those she did not.

Her clarity could not endure
Social talk instead of truth;
Piety instead of “The Soul’s Superior instants”.

Her directness would have been disconcerting
If she did not “simulate” conventionality,

And this was “stinging work”.



But a more threatening challenge,
Deeper below the surface,
Fired the volcanoes and earthquakes in her poems –

An event,
As she put it,
That “Struck – my ticking – through -“.

Taken from a Guardian article about Emily Dickinson, 13th February 2012. ‘Didn’t’ has been changed to ‘did not’ in the first stanza. Submitted by Susan.

A day without deference

Let the nation’s doormen do their jobs without smiling
Let waiters at suburban restaurants leave their flair at home
Let the janitors at Princeton mop no vomit from the dormitory stairwells
Let retail greeters of every description call in sick
Let the first-class passengers board at someone else’s leisure
Let the nation’s limo drivers require their passengers to open their own damn doors
Let the production interns at CNBC send the on-air “talent” to fetch the coffee
And, for just one day, let the talent ask their interviewees hard questions

From the essay Servile Disobedience by Thomas Frank, February 2011. Submitted by Rishi Dastidar.

What Pocket Money Was Invented For

29 x glider planes
4 x toxic slime
9 x glitter cowboy hats
30 x flashing dinosaurs
20 x aeroplane bouncy balls
15 x animal bouncy balls (seals etc)
10 x squeaky smiley face yellow things
9 x gigglesticks
1 x box of rings
5 x large flower hair bobbles
1 x box of flashing frog rings
7 x stretchy lizards
5 x stretchy snakes
7 x stretchy frogs
3 x dinosaur skeletons
6 x toxic toilets
4 x tool kits
box of eyepatch + moustach + loopy lou’s
box of turkey and eggs (24)
box of mouse waterballs (12)
box of roll tongue animals (28)
4 x Dr Who pinballs
Stretchy men
Stretchy aliens
10 wooden floppy type animals
5 wooden animal rulers
10 ‘fly back’ gliders
10 spider man keyrings

A stock list from a novelty stall, picked up while tidying up from school summer fair in Macclesfield, 2012. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

Dissecting Myself

Now I can start by
pulling the heart
Superiorally
And cutting through the inferior vena cava
Which is bringing the blood back
From the regions of the body
Inferior to the diaphram

Again I’ll take the scissors
And cut through the aorta
and the pulmonary trunk
So those major outflow vessels
have now been cut

The last large vessel
That I need to cut through
Is the superior vena cava
Returning blood from
the upper limbs
and the head
back to the right atrium

So, again, I will cut through that
And the heart will be free.

Taken from a human anatomy dissection video, uploaded to youtube on 25 September 2010. Submitted by Isart.