(2) "How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand?"

"P x I = G [perfection times importance equals greatness]. Excrement!"
 

(1) "You will contribute a verse"

Dead Poets Society is a wonderful film, obviously filled with a lot of references to English and American poetry. In this scene, John Keating (Robin Williams) teaches his pupils the reason for reading and writing poetry, quoting Whitman's Leaves of Grass:

O ME! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here—that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse.

Shape of my Heart

I exercise as a meditation –
For two-to-three hours, rigorous-to-quiet.

I do not need the music to distract me
From the exertion or the repetition.

I do not need the others in the gym.
I exercise for focusing myself –

To find another pocket of effort
When tissues of my strength begin to break,

To find a reservoir somewhere inside
With slips of oxygen when my lungs scream,

To know for sure what measure of a man
I am, and can be in the ‘red zone’ of

Adversity or pressure, tragedy,
To bring what short supply of blood I can

To parts of me in high demand for it,
To find the algorithm to deduce

And solve at last the quandary of time,
When intervals feel like eternity.

Shape of my Heart © Ron Villejo
 

Laundry

Realtime GPU 3D, Fractal, Generative, Videowal, by Daniel Brown

Hang it up on the rack –
One by one, carefully,
Each shirt and underwear.
You know what order it
Should be hung up, and how
It should be folded. You
May double up, and put
One piece on top another,
So you save space and time.
Remember that physics
Is secure, logical.
But poetry, not so –
Clothes-pin each piece, or else
A freak wind blows it off.

Laundry © Ron Villejo
 

Writing Poetry, this Month

Rushing River, by Alicia Dunn

How immersion is defined –
Commandeering of the mind

Shattering, from which the body reels –
How explosive really feels

Soul may know transcendence in
Rushing rivers with no sin

Writing Poetry, this Month © Ron Villejo
 

Song of Myself #3

Song of Myself #2