Just one more form of attack to drown out discussion, break up threads, and in general, piss in other people's soup.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), November 16, 1999

Answers

Ron --

Well, the posts where these tend to occur can, most charitably, be construed as 'trolls'. And, IMHO, these individuals deserve to have their soup 'pissed in'.

Besides, I kind of like the poetry posts. They express the posters disdain for the original message, while at the same time offering those who have endured to that point an uplifting message. I, personally, *particularly* like the Rudyard Kipling and Carl Sandburg. Although W.B. Yeats would be a welcome addition. (FWIW, hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, nudge. ;-))

-- just another (another@engineer.com), November 16, 1999.

just: comin' right up!

-- NOT OG (one@of.many_poeteers), November 16, 1999.

It's hard when you can't reach out and plonk someone.

-- JIT (justintime@rightnow.net), November 16, 1999.

I hereby assault you with this vicious poem, Just Another Engineer:

William Butler Yeats. b. 1865

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I WILL arise and go now, and go to Innisfree, And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;

Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honey bee,

And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,

Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;

There midnight 's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,

And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day

I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;

While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,

I hear it in the deep heart's core.

-- By (special@request.xxx), November 16, 1999.

By --

Thank you! Thank you! Bravo! Encore! and similar sentiments. (And by the way, a VERY appropriate selection!)

(I know, I know, just blew my chances of being thought of as a 'techno-geek nerd' all out of the water, but what the hey. They were *great* poets.)

-- just another (another@engineer.com), November 16, 1999.

Bravo, for the beautiful poetry and when I see them the beautiful landscape scenes.

Thanks from a mom stressed near to death; the short relief is much appreciated :-)

obo

-- Onebyone (susanwater@excite.com), November 16, 1999.

"Assault poetry"...

Hmmmmmmm....

Has some potential for a Monty Python skit.

-- Tim (pixmo@pixelquest.com), November 16, 1999.

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.....
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

--a poet in sheets upon the hilltop,...

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 16, 1999.

Oh...forgot the reference. Yeats. William Butler Yeats. Slouching Toward Bethlehem

-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 16, 1999.

RON:

Not only assault poetry: It's an Online "SLAM"!

To speak poetically, it's sort of a hybridization of the two forms of "slamming" going on these days: the poetry "SLAM" which was best described by Robert Straus of Farar, Straus Giroux as "karaoke of the written word" (OH! how apt) coupled with the unauthorized switching of telephone service by various long-distance carriers -- to effect a quasi-poetic "SLAM" of online discussions! Deployed, often in a thoroughly anti-poetic effort -- assault poetry, like you say: poetry as an offensive weaspon to short-circuit or stifle a debate -- even a stupid, uncivic, troll-led dialogue/diatribe. Long- distance "switching" with an in-yo-face attitude.

Some of these posts, anyway. To paraphrase Sen. Lloyd Bensen: "I knew poetry, and this is not poetry". However, we may soon have more importnat things to bother about ... in fact, may have already. Best regards.

-- SH (squirrel@huntr.com), November 16, 1999.

Hey mister if yeats ain't poetry there ain't no poetry nowhere

'nother one I like is fern hill by some crazy welshman name of dylan thomas

http://www.bigeye.com/fernhi ll.htm

you probly won't like it mister

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 17, 1999.

Donna --

And a big thanks for that one too. (Always been a favorite.)

And Tom,

Got the link to the dylan thomas page. Kinda liked that one too. Thanks.

-- just another (another@engineer.com), November 17, 1999.

Yeats is utter poetry; Dylan Thomas is pure poetry. But the best of this century now swiftly falling into darkness, was and still is Les Murray, Poet Laureate of Australia. Don't know if he has a web site, but if not I'll post some os his work later.

Good Night, 20th Century.

Squirrl Huntr >"<

-- SH (squirrl@huntr.com), November 17, 1999.

Hey, whatever works to derail the discussions, eh?

Forty-something days to Moment of Truth, and we're swimming in doggerel.

-- Ron Schwarz (rs@clubvb.com.delete.this), November 17, 1999.

(speechless)

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), November 17, 1999.

And while we're on a roll here's the tail end of a long poem by Robert Frost, from "The Witness Tree", the poem, The Lesson For Today

...It sent me to the graves the other day.
The only other there was far away
Across the landscape with a watering pot
At his devotions in a special plot.
And he was there resuscitating flowers
(Make no mistake about its being bones);
But I was only there to read the stones
To see what on the whole they had to say
About how long a man may think to live,
Which is becoming my concern of late.
And very wide the choice they seemed to give;
The ages ranging all the way from hours
To months and years and many, many years.
One man had lived one hundred years and eight.
But though we all may be inclined to wait
And follow some deveopment of state,
Or see what comes of science and invention,
There is a limit to our time extension.
We all are doomed to broken-off careers,
And so's the nation, so's the total race.
The earth itself is liable to the fate
Of meaninglessly being broken off.
(And hence so many literary tears
At which my inclination is to scoff.)
I may have wept that any should have died
Or missed their chance, or not have been their best,
Or been their riches, fame, or love denied;
On me as much as any is the jest.
I take my incompleteness with the rest.
God bless himself can no one else be blessed.

I hold your doctrine of Memento Mori.
And were an epitaph to be my story
I'd have a short one ready for my own.
I would have written of me on my stone:
I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

For the full, and magnificent effect of this one of Frost's later works you'll have to look up the whole text.



-- Donna (moment@pacbell.net), November 17, 1999.