Poet and Writer
5. I know, I know, it’s a Walmart add. But I CANNOT STOP LAUGHING when I watch it. Fear of spiders and heights I understand, but what is the natural original of Coulrophobia?
4. The definition of marriage, according to the word of the Bible.
3. I get really excited every time I hear Pat Robertson begin a sentence with “you know …..”
2. Welcome to Franz Kafka airport.
1. Tom Waits, and Tom Waits only, should read Charles Bukowski.
For Susan
by Billy Collins
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
I remember the quick, nervous bird of your love.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Always perched on the thinnest, highest branch.
Thinnest love, remember the quick branch.
Always nervous, I perched on your highest bird the.
—
It is time for me to cross the mountain.
It is time for me to cross the mountain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
And find another shore to darken with my pain.
Another pain for me to darken the mountain.
And find the time, cross my shore, to with it is to.
—
The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
The weather warm, the handwriting familiar.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
Your letter flies from my hand into the waters below.
The familiar waters below my warm hand.
Into handwriting your weather flies you letter the from the.
—
I always cross the highest letter, the thinnest bird.
Below the waters of my warm familiar pain,
Another hand to remember your handwriting.
The weather perched for me on the shore.
Quick, your nervous branch flew from love.
Darken the mountain, time and find was my into it was with to to.
—
NOTE: The paradelle is one of the more demanding French fixed forms, first appearing in the langue d’oc love poetry of the eleventh century. It is a poem of four six-line stanzas in which the first and second lines, as well as the third and fourth lines of the first three stanzas, must be identical. The fifth and sixth lines, which traditionally resolve these stanzas, must use all the words from the preceding lines and only those words. Similarly, the final stanza must use every word from all the preceding stanzas and only those words.
Actually, the above note is mostly B.S. Collins made it up as a statement against what he felt was the rigidity of form poetry. Despite that, the paradelle caught on, and remains a popular form of poetry in many circles to this date.
1. December 2000: North American premier of Guy Ritchy’s black comedy Snatch . Guns, criminals named Boris the Blade (or Boris the Bullet Dodger), Bullet Tooth Tony, Franky “Four Fingers”, and the unforgettable Brick Top.
2. January 2002 – Canadian mocumentary FUBAR is premiered. The film follows the days in the lives of two rockers living in Calgary. Spawns the famously manly expression : Just give’r.
3. August, 2003 – Penthouse files for bankruptcy protection, marking the dominance of the internet as the medium for pornography. According to Top Ten Reviews: Every second – $3,075.64 is being spent on pornography. Every second – 28,258 Internet users are viewing pornography. Every second – 372 Internet users are typing adult search terms into search engines. Every 39 minutes: a new pornographic video is being created in the United States.
4. March, 2003 – Cluster bombs, napalm, and bunker busters. A US-led military coalition invades Iraq.
5. May, 2005 – The release of John Vaillant’s Golden Spruce, the nonfiction recount of a slightly deluded logger who is so tough, that although he disappears while kayaking the most dangerous waters in the world, the Hecate Strait, and even after his gear washes up on shore, the RCMP refuse to write him off as deceased. As a former supervisor explains, “You’re dealing with a person who, with few resources, could be dropped anywhere on earth and come up smelling like a rose.” A tough book about a tough, slightly crazy man.
6. February, 2006 – While hunting, Vice President Dick Cheney shoots a friend in the face with a shotgun.
7. June, 2006 – The release of District 13, and the mainstreamization of the Parkour, the sport of running, jumping, vaulting, climbing over whatever urban obstacles get in your way.
8. July, 2006 – Zinedine Zidane headbutts Marco Materazzi in World Cup Final. At first, it was thought that Marco had insulted Zinedine’s mother, but as it turns out, when Zinedine offered Marco his shirt – the Italian player had grabbed it – Marco responded: Preferisco la puttana di tua sorella, or to put it nicely, I would prefer your whore of a sister. The headbutt was lampooned on the internet and even spawned an online video game.
9. September, 2006 – Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic, father and son tale The Road, is released. It’s a straight-forward concise story of a man, a boy, a shopping cart and a thousand miles of cannibal-ridden wasteland America to get through.
10. February, 2009 – 70 people charged in a bust of a cockfighting ring in East Gwillimbury, Ontario.
11. December 2009 – Pirates! And we a talking the read deal here, not the scrawny cyber kind, nor the Boy-Chicks of the Caribbean. 2009 marked a record year for the grizzled, armed buccaneers operating across the Gulf of Aden and along the coast of Somalia. They attacked 214 vessels this year, resulting in 47 hijackings. Twelve of those ships, with a total of 263 crew members, now are being held for ransom by the pirates. In comparison, only 111 ships were attached in 2008.