Poem a Day 17/09/11

Yesterday's poem from my poem-a-day. For more go to poetryatalexleclez.blogspot.com


Drunk as drunk
Pablo Neruda

Drunk as drunk on turpentine
From your open kisses,
Your wet body wedged
Between my wet body and the strake
Of our boat that is made of flowers,
Feasted, we guide it - our fingers
Like tallows adorned with yellow metal -
Over the sky's hot rim,
The day's last breath in our sails.

Pinned by the sun between solstice
And equinox, drowsy and tangled together
We drifted for months and woke
With the bitter taste of land on our lips,
Eyelids all sticky, and we longed for lime
And the sound of a rope
Lowering a bucket down its well. Then,
We came by night to the Fortunate Isles,
And lay like fish
Under the net of our kisses.

Poem a Day 16/09/11

Here is yesterday's poem for the day. Head on to my poetry site to catch today's.

Since feeling is first
e.e.cummings

since feeling is first
who pays any attention
to the syntax of things
will never wholly kiss you;

wholly to be a fool
while Spring is in the world

my blood approves,
and kisses are a better fate
than wisdom,

lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry
- the best gesture of my brain is less than
your eyelids' flutter which says

we are for each other; then
laugh, leaning back in my arms
for life's not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis

Death of the newspaper? Part Two: Highstreet creation

I'm writing this as a second part to the question: what will happen to the newspaper and codex? It's a second parter because it branches of somewhere else. To read the first part go here.

This is an appeal to all those who enjoy the smell of a freshly printed newspaper. An appeal to those who prefer their bookshelves full rather than a Kindle sitting on their shelf. And more broadly; this is an appeal to those who like having a high street and would potentially like more bookshops on it and fewer Ladbrokes, or even the other way round.
With internet shopping permeating society it is no surprise that our highstreets are emptying. The facility of being able to purchase your groceries, clothing or technology online draws a huge audience. Laziness does too. But i would advocate taking those extra minutes each day to buy what you want from the highstreet.
We've all heard of buying local to support local businesses in their fight against global companies such as Sainsbury's or Tesco. The ethos here is the same. I enjoy the fact that my highstreet, Godalming High Street if anyone was wondering, has a bookshop i can dip into, has a bakery i can dawdle past to catch the smell of freshly baked bread, has an antiques shop that from time to time has interesting things in the window. I buy from these outlets not because they are cheaper (which they aren't - they have to pay rent which is a cost that a website simply does not have) but because i like having them there every time i walk down the street.
My idea is this: Buy from your highstreet so you still have a highstreet but also buy from the shops you like. If you hate seeing gambling shops on the highstreet but do enjoy gambling, do it online. The shop will not be able to continue as demand will be down (obviously as a result of a combination of people doing this, well, that is unless you have a serious gambling addiction) and it may be replaced by another bookshop given the success of Waterstones in the town.
This has obviously always been the way. The consumer votes with their pocket as to which shops survive and which don't but in the digital age i feel we can make more of a difference as some shops may just go online rather than staying on the highstreet. So, to come full circle,I am going to enter into some highstreet creation i will try to buy newspapers from newsstands rather than just reading online and i hope you do too. Well, unless you don't like bookshops or bakeries in which case maybe just go online.

Death of the newspaper? Part One

I would like to know the future of news media. With the crash of News International in Britain following the phone hacking scandal inevitably leading to a loss of faith in journalism and union strikes in France potentially forcing Le Monde online the future of newspapers in print format is surely in doubt.
In fact, in a world where Kindle sales continue to rise and the book shop giant that was Borders is closing down, is there much hope for the printed word at all? It seems evidence from studies suggest that there is a relationship between the reader and the codex form due to the tactile pleasure of holding a book that goes back to primitive tool use. Whilst Kindle sales increase many of us still prefer the old-fashioned book but novels are evolving in a way that newspapers surely cannot. There's a novel that is cut out entirely from another novel leaving spaces so you can glimpse the future plotlines through the spaces between the remaining words and Danielewski's House of Leaves breaks all the rules of page structure set out by early novelists such as Defoe and Dickens. Books like these are re-invigorating the novel making them more akin to works of art than simple stories.
In the current environmental climate it also seems that perhaps it is time to stop inefficiently printing papers and simply release them online. This, of course, is by no means perfect. It still necessitates electricity and there's something of a bygone era that the opening of a freshly printed newspaper evokes. Besides, newspapers are as much a part of our heritage as fish and chips, tea and Shakespeare and for news stands to disappear from our street corners would be a terrible shame.

Poem a Day 15/09/11

Here is yesterday's poem from the poem-a-day i run at poetryatalexleclez.blogspot.com

I know why the caged bird sings
Maya Angelou

The free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wings
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with fearful trill
of the things unknown
but longed for still
and is tune is heard
on the distant hill for the caged bird
sings of freedom

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn-bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

Pescetarianism?

Hey there. I am considering becoming a pescetarian on ethical grounds and i was just wondering what people thought about it in general but specifically if seafood is sentient as that is important to me. If you comment below that would be great, thank you.

Poem a Day 14/09/11

I'll be posting the day before's poem here. For today's poem head on over to poetryatalexleclez.blogspot.com - yesterday's is a personal favourite so i'll let you have a look.

Bosnia Tune
Joseph Brodsky

As you pour yourself a scotch,
crush a roach, or check your watch,
as your hand adjusts your tie,
people die.

In the towns with funny names,
hit by bullets, caught in flames,
by and large not knowing why,
people die.

In small places you don't know
of, yet big for having no
chance to scream or say good-bye,
people die.

People die as you elect
new apostles of neglect,
self-restraint, etc. - whereby
people die.

Too far off to practice love
for thy neighbor/brother Slav,
where your cherubs dread to fly,
people die.

While the statues disagree,
Cain's version, history
for its fuel tends to buy
those who die.

As you watch the athletes score,
check your latest statement, or
sing your child a lullaby,
people die.

Time, whose sharp blood-thirsty quill
parts the killed from those who kill,
will pronounce the latter tribe
as your tribe.