Envy
is a disturbed state,
and so, in short,
is NV.
[Note: Perhaps NY is a bored state, since "NY" sounds a bit like "ennui." Then there's "antsy (NC), many others, but none as elegant as NV, right? Amen (which is my home state, MN).]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems
)http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
CLOQUE!
Hollow "CLOQUE!" The dog's teeth
nimbly glom a milkbone
from my hand.
[Note: Fun to find spelling for sounds. No, he wasn't a French poodle, just a big streamlined black mutt, but somehow the look of "oque" conveys the robust richness of the sound of his teeth on the bone. Whatever this poem may mean to you, to me it's a kind of love poem. And it's about trust, for despite the vigor of the sound, despite his toothy avidity, those big teeth never touched my hand, even when the milkbone was small and even though the bite was quick. I knew he wouldn't bite me, and that knowledge became part of the pleasure I took in those full, but precise sounds ("cloque" and "glom"). I trusted him as he trusted me. Look, Reader! Two hands!]
IF YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO MIGHT ENJOY RECEIVING THESE DAILY POEMS, PLEASE PASS THE WORD ON TO THEM.
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
nimbly glom a milkbone
from my hand.
[Note: Fun to find spelling for sounds. No, he wasn't a French poodle, just a big streamlined black mutt, but somehow the look of "oque" conveys the robust richness of the sound of his teeth on the bone. Whatever this poem may mean to you, to me it's a kind of love poem. And it's about trust, for despite the vigor of the sound, despite his toothy avidity, those big teeth never touched my hand, even when the milkbone was small and even though the bite was quick. I knew he wouldn't bite me, and that knowledge became part of the pleasure I took in those full, but precise sounds ("cloque" and "glom"). I trusted him as he trusted me. Look, Reader! Two hands!]
IF YOU KNOW ANYONE WHO MIGHT ENJOY RECEIVING THESE DAILY POEMS, PLEASE PASS THE WORD ON TO THEM.
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
We ARE History
Just when you think you're safe,
even safe enough to exchange pleasantries
with strangers in elevators, you hear
that someone has been upset with you
because of something stupid you are
supposed to have said 15 years ago.
And elsewhere, perhaps, someone
you've utterly forgotten (or remember only,
in a crowd, a smiling face that briefly
frowns)--someone daily cherishes
the rosary of your misdeeds
and hones a dagger.
[Note: I wrote this shortly after encountering someone I had no idea disliked me who, it turned out, had indeed been pissed off with me for 15 years. Kind of sad for her. When I asked her what the upset was, she told me--it was something I dimly recalled having said--something that was not malicious, by the way. But I apologized for having upset her. She received that sulllenly. About a year later, when I heard that she'd done some truly psychotic things, it became clear to me that this was her story, not (my) history. So I no longer have to hide in a cave lest I destroy someone with a remark that communicates something I had no idea it might communicate.]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
even safe enough to exchange pleasantries
with strangers in elevators, you hear
that someone has been upset with you
because of something stupid you are
supposed to have said 15 years ago.
And elsewhere, perhaps, someone
you've utterly forgotten (or remember only,
in a crowd, a smiling face that briefly
frowns)--someone daily cherishes
the rosary of your misdeeds
and hones a dagger.
[Note: I wrote this shortly after encountering someone I had no idea disliked me who, it turned out, had indeed been pissed off with me for 15 years. Kind of sad for her. When I asked her what the upset was, she told me--it was something I dimly recalled having said--something that was not malicious, by the way. But I apologized for having upset her. She received that sulllenly. About a year later, when I heard that she'd done some truly psychotic things, it became clear to me that this was her story, not (my) history. So I no longer have to hide in a cave lest I destroy someone with a remark that communicates something I had no idea it might communicate.]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
Monday, February 23, 2009
SAVE ME FROM FAME!
Lime: That's what you put corpses in.
It eats them up. What, then,
is the effect on artists
of limelight?
[Note: Curious that the lime that eats corpses is called "quick lime." Why not "dead lime"?
When I wrote this poem, I had the vague idea that I was punning--that "limelight" had to do with the green fruit, maybe was green-tinged. But not so, says the dictionary. The "limelight" of fame is light generated by some chemical process involving the same lime into which the murderer submerges the embarrassing corpse.
Lime the fruit (acid) and lime the caustic substance (alkaline) are not from the same root. As for Liam the Neeson...well, that pun is lame, not lime. (Besides, the name is taken.) (Liam stars in the movie "Taken.") These puns are all lame, and far from sub-lime. (Yet another root.)]
[Oh, all right, if you insist, I'll be famous. I guess someone's got to be. So go ahead, make me famous. Go ahead, Fame, eat me up!]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
It eats them up. What, then,
is the effect on artists
of limelight?
[Note: Curious that the lime that eats corpses is called "quick lime." Why not "dead lime"?
When I wrote this poem, I had the vague idea that I was punning--that "limelight" had to do with the green fruit, maybe was green-tinged. But not so, says the dictionary. The "limelight" of fame is light generated by some chemical process involving the same lime into which the murderer submerges the embarrassing corpse.
Lime the fruit (acid) and lime the caustic substance (alkaline) are not from the same root. As for Liam the Neeson...well, that pun is lame, not lime. (Besides, the name is taken.) (Liam stars in the movie "Taken.") These puns are all lame, and far from sub-lime. (Yet another root.)]
[Oh, all right, if you insist, I'll be famous. I guess someone's got to be. So go ahead, make me famous. Go ahead, Fame, eat me up!]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
Sunday, February 22, 2009
HOW MUCH PER VERSE?
Kinky sex saps an artist--
you can see the craft ebbing.
[For those of you who are not yet groaning, here's the start of a Wikipedia article:
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (August 14, 1840 – December 22, 1902) was an Austro-German sexologist and psychiatrist. He wrote Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a famous series of cases studies of sexual perversity. The book remains well known for his coinage of the term masochism from the name of a contemporary writer, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose partly autobiographical novel Venus in Furs tells of the protagonist's desire to be whipped and enslaved by a beautiful woman.
I assume you are groaning now, right? If not, hint hint nudge nudge "craft ebbing"/"Krafft-Ebing," c'mon already! I wanna hear that groan!
Not you, kid, you're too Jung, I'm aFreud.]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
you can see the craft ebbing.
[For those of you who are not yet groaning, here's the start of a Wikipedia article:
Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing (August 14, 1840 – December 22, 1902) was an Austro-German sexologist and psychiatrist. He wrote Psychopathia Sexualis (1886), a famous series of cases studies of sexual perversity. The book remains well known for his coinage of the term masochism from the name of a contemporary writer, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, whose partly autobiographical novel Venus in Furs tells of the protagonist's desire to be whipped and enslaved by a beautiful woman.
I assume you are groaning now, right? If not, hint hint nudge nudge "craft ebbing"/"Krafft-Ebing," c'mon already! I wanna hear that groan!
Not you, kid, you're too Jung, I'm aFreud.]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
Saturday, February 21, 2009
SO HELP ME...
God help us
help those in whom
God has ceased
to help Himself.
[Note: Here's a question: Can God be helped? If not, poor God, no exchange, just one-way help. This is a difficult concept, the notion of something that can only cause effects and not be recipient of them. After all, that's what's implied. If help can go in only one direction, ditto causation.
We must find this hard to think with. (For example, can God perceive or receive communication from us without, to that extent, being affected by us? Can what we can't understand have any understanding of us?)
Oddly, those who sweep these difficulties aside as mere cobwebs in the face of faith are likely to be obsessed with helping God: Those who most ardently insist that God is out there and separate and all-powerful and beyond man's concerns are usually the ones who feel most strongly impelled to help God by, for example, visiting God's vengeance on people they feel might be annoying to God. God is all-powerful and all-impervious, so be very careful not to upset God! He has these fits of jealous anger, you know.
At least one notion of God makes him infinitely able to be affected, what one does to the least of his children being done to Him as well. This is easier for me to see. If I could create any effect I wanted, I'd be able to receive any effect, including help. As one becomes more powerful, one becomes MORE willing (not less willing) to experience and to receive effects. At least that's been my own experience in these finite arenas. But it's not hard to extrapolate. If you can create a sun, surely you can enjoy the full blast of a sun and survive to say it is good. (Perhaps it tickles.)
But my poem is merely a variation on "God helps those who help themselves"--showing what the adage becomes if we postulate that it is God in us that is what is helping (or not helping)Him/Herself. (OK, I stuck a "Her" in there, but let's go back to unslashed pronouns, with "Her" and "It" understood.)
God not helping Himself? Why not? Perhaps God can forget He is God and imagine himself to be what we often imagine ourselves to be: A piece of briefly mobile meat. Can God forget? If God is unlimited in ability, and if forgetting is an ABILITY, then yes.
And forgetting IS an ability. It's required that one be able to forget in order to have a game. At least this is the case for one who knows all and is all-powerful. He would have to locate himself in a time-line and forget knowing how things come out in order to be able to experience play and winning and losing.
Seeing that forgetting is an ability is easier if we recognize that it is tantamount to saying that playing a game is an ability. You'd better forget you can fly over the line of scrimmage or vaporize the opposition if you want to find any thrill or even mild interest in scoring a touchdown.]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
help those in whom
God has ceased
to help Himself.
[Note: Here's a question: Can God be helped? If not, poor God, no exchange, just one-way help. This is a difficult concept, the notion of something that can only cause effects and not be recipient of them. After all, that's what's implied. If help can go in only one direction, ditto causation.
We must find this hard to think with. (For example, can God perceive or receive communication from us without, to that extent, being affected by us? Can what we can't understand have any understanding of us?)
Oddly, those who sweep these difficulties aside as mere cobwebs in the face of faith are likely to be obsessed with helping God: Those who most ardently insist that God is out there and separate and all-powerful and beyond man's concerns are usually the ones who feel most strongly impelled to help God by, for example, visiting God's vengeance on people they feel might be annoying to God. God is all-powerful and all-impervious, so be very careful not to upset God! He has these fits of jealous anger, you know.
At least one notion of God makes him infinitely able to be affected, what one does to the least of his children being done to Him as well. This is easier for me to see. If I could create any effect I wanted, I'd be able to receive any effect, including help. As one becomes more powerful, one becomes MORE willing (not less willing) to experience and to receive effects. At least that's been my own experience in these finite arenas. But it's not hard to extrapolate. If you can create a sun, surely you can enjoy the full blast of a sun and survive to say it is good. (Perhaps it tickles.)
But my poem is merely a variation on "God helps those who help themselves"--showing what the adage becomes if we postulate that it is God in us that is what is helping (or not helping)Him/Herself. (OK, I stuck a "Her" in there, but let's go back to unslashed pronouns, with "Her" and "It" understood.)
God not helping Himself? Why not? Perhaps God can forget He is God and imagine himself to be what we often imagine ourselves to be: A piece of briefly mobile meat. Can God forget? If God is unlimited in ability, and if forgetting is an ABILITY, then yes.
And forgetting IS an ability. It's required that one be able to forget in order to have a game. At least this is the case for one who knows all and is all-powerful. He would have to locate himself in a time-line and forget knowing how things come out in order to be able to experience play and winning and losing.
Seeing that forgetting is an ability is easier if we recognize that it is tantamount to saying that playing a game is an ability. You'd better forget you can fly over the line of scrimmage or vaporize the opposition if you want to find any thrill or even mild interest in scoring a touchdown.]
Dean Blehert
Blogs:http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
Friday, February 20, 2009
AMULET SHAMULET!
"It's an amulet--it protects my spirit."
But how can she HAVE a spirit?
Didn't we outlaw slavery?
No wonder we seldom meet
spirits who are free--every body
HAS one.
_______________________
And since we're on the subject of the "amulet" (a small amu?), here's an old one of mine about the danger of fancy foreign pronunciations that reek of NPR fund-raising -- this might result in your having to eat an amulet. [Note: An umlaut is two dots placed over a letter, as often happens to the letter "o" in German, giving it a sort of eheow sound, just a tiny bit rounder than the "a" in amulet.]
Little Homily
If you umlaut the "o", ordering omelet,
Your waiter may bring an old amulet,
To eat which would surely humiliate
Your date, whose hot scorn would quite immolate
Your umlauted dignity. Emulate,
When in Rome, simple Romans--else ambulate
Elsewhere. That's all to my homilette.
Dean Blehert
Blogs:
http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
But how can she HAVE a spirit?
Didn't we outlaw slavery?
No wonder we seldom meet
spirits who are free--every body
HAS one.
_______________________
And since we're on the subject of the "amulet" (a small amu?), here's an old one of mine about the danger of fancy foreign pronunciations that reek of NPR fund-raising -- this might result in your having to eat an amulet. [Note: An umlaut is two dots placed over a letter, as often happens to the letter "o" in German, giving it a sort of eheow sound, just a tiny bit rounder than the "a" in amulet.]
Little Homily
If you umlaut the "o", ordering omelet,
Your waiter may bring an old amulet,
To eat which would surely humiliate
Your date, whose hot scorn would quite immolate
Your umlauted dignity. Emulate,
When in Rome, simple Romans--else ambulate
Elsewhere. That's all to my homilette.
Dean Blehert
Blogs:
http://deanotations.blogspot.com (short poems)
http://dearreader08.blogspot.com (essays and longer poems)
WWW.BLEHERT.COM
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