Billy for Bogus

[annaswirls]

okay Billy is cool but

I would never want to dominate Leonard. I would just nod my head, bring him slippers, pipe and newspaper and perhaps be worthy of warming his feet by curling myself around them.

TAKE THIS LONGING
L. Cohen

Many men have loved the bells
you fastened to the rein,
and everyone who wanted you
they found what they will always want again.
Your beauty lost to you yourself
just as it was lost to them.

Oh take this longing from my tongue,
whatever useless things these hands have done.
Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one you love.

Your body like a searchlight
my poverty revealed,
I would like to try your charity
until you cry, "Now you must try my greed."
And everything depends upon
how near you sleep to me

Just take this longing from my tongue
all the lonely things my hands have done.
Let me see your beauty broken down
like you would do for one your love.

Hungry as an archway
through which the troops have passed,
I stand in ruins behind you,
with your winter clothes, your broken sandal straps.
I love to see you naked over there
especially from the back.

Oh take this longing from my tongue,
all the useless things my hands have done,
untie for me your hired blue gown,
like you would do for one that you love.

You're faithful to the better man,
I'm afraid that he left.
So let me judge your love affair
in this very room where I have sentenced
mine to death.
I'll even wear these old laurel leaves
that he's shaken from his head.

Just take this longing from my tongue,
all the useless things my hands have done,
let me see your beauty broken down,
like you would do for one you love.

Like you would do for one you love.

 

[Angeline]

Pablo Nerudo appeared one day in the new poems and well, sans e. I did give it a rave review, though before realizing eh hem, that it was him...

okay it was early, you do not have to get up That early to fool me anyway.

and a young woman told me to check it out and I felt like a fool. least I mentioned the poem in new poems reviews

I'm appalled! Someone here actually posted a Neruda poem as their own? LOL!

<rushes off to submit Hamlet as an Erotic Horror story>

 

[bogusbrig]

Pablo Nerudo appeared one day in the new poems and well, sans e. I did give it a rave review, though before realizing eh hem, that it was him...

okay it was early, you do not have to get up That early to fool me anyway.

and a young woman told me to check it out and I felt like a fool. least I mentioned the poem in new poems reviews

Well you can feel smug for mentioning it.

Before feeling a fool for giving it a review, thugh I'm sure Pablo would have been honoured to have a review on Lit.

Here, have a rose, at least the humiliation wasn't so great you felt you had to change your handle.

 

[jthserra]

Well you can feel smug for mentioning it.

Before feeling a fool for giving it a review, thugh I'm sure Pablo would have been honoured to have a review on Lit.

Here, have a rose, at least the humiliation wasn't so great you felt you had to change your handle.

Remembering the occasion, I had to wonder why the poem didn't get a "greenie". Wow, those editors must be very selective if Pablo Neruda can't even garner one of those.

jim : )

 

[bogusbrig]

Remembering the occasion, I had to wonder why the poem didn't get a "greenie". Wow, those editors must be very selective if Pablo Neruda can't even garner one of those.

jim : )

Jim! This is Lit! There are standards!

 

[annaswirls]

Well you can feel smug for mentioning it.

Before feeling a fool for giving it a review, thugh I'm sure Pablo would have been honoured to have a review on Lit.

Here, have a rose, at least the humiliation wasn't so great you felt you had to change your handle.

ha! maybe it really Was Pablo under a different nic. Gosh, I cannot even remember the name of the guy who posted it. Pretty smooth. Wonder if he got laid before Laurel got a chance to remove it.

Thanks for the roses... I am making a salad. Yum!

 

[bogusbrig]

OK I've been reading Billy and he's been growing on me. He's not your archetypal macho muscle word, emotionally charged, shoot from the hip, in your face American hero type writer. He is rather sedate, civilised and understated and is never going to get you to put him on your literary hero or literary villain list but he has a quiet charm that eventually wins you over.

I'm getting over my prejudice of hiim, my aversion to him was after all, because he was introduced to me by a two faced lying bitch. Damn, I think I'd have to say I've enoyed the odd hour in the company of Billy and a whiskey.

Nightclub


You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

 

[Angeline]

OK I've been reading Billy and he's been growing on me. He's not your archetypal macho muscle word, emotionally charged, shoot from the hip, in your face American hero type writer. He is rather sedate, civilised and understated and is never going to get you to put him on your literary hero or literary villain list but he has a quiet charm that eventually wins you over.

I'm getting over my prejudice of hiim, my aversion to him was after all, because he was introduced to me by a two faced lying bitch. Damn, I think I'd have to say I've enoyed the odd hour in the company of Billy and a whiskey.

Nightclub


You are so beautiful and I am a fool
to be in love with you
is a theme that keeps coming up
in songs and poems.
There seems to be no room for variation.
I have never heard anyone sing
I am so beautiful
and you are a fool to be in love with me,
even though this notion has surely
crossed the minds of women and men alike.
You are so beautiful, too bad you are a fool
is another one you don't hear.
Or, you are a fool to consider me beautiful.
That one you will never hear, guaranteed.

For no particular reason this afternoon
I am listening to Johnny Hartman
whose dark voice can curl around
the concepts on love, beauty, and foolishness
like no one else's can.
It feels like smoke curling up from a cigarette
someone left burning on a baby grand piano
around three o'clock in the morning;
smoke that billows up into the bright lights
while out there in the darkness
some of the beautiful fools have gathered
around little tables to listen,
some with their eyes closed,
others leaning forward into the music
as if it were holding them up,
or twirling the loose ice in a glass,
slipping by degrees into a rhythmic dream.

Yes, there is all this foolish beauty,
borne beyond midnight,
that has no desire to go home,
especially now when everyone in the room
is watching the large man with the tenor sax
that hangs from his neck like a golden fish.
He moves forward to the edge of the stage
and hands the instrument down to me
and nods that I should play.
So I put the mouthpiece to my lips
and blow into it with all my living breath.
We are all so foolish,
my long bebop solo begins by saying,
so damn foolish
we have become beautiful without even knowing it.

He's a cozy sort of poet, isn't he? The kind you wouldn't mind having a drink and a talk with. He's neither a thunderer nor a whiner. I like that about him.

Anyway you've bested the bitch by liking him. So there!

 

[My Erotic Tale]

He's a cozy sort of poet, isn't he? The kind you wouldn't mind having a drink and a talk with. He's neither a thunderer nor a whiner. I like that about him.

Anyway you've bested the bitch by liking him. So there!

"I'm gonna go 'Shovel snow with Buddha' <grin>"

 

[RhymeFairy]

Had to bump Billy a bit.
I have been reading his poetry for days
and days.

It goes down smooth as whiskey
settles like a cat around yon feet
warm 'n snugly. Just picture him,
smoking pipe, hair all tufted up
from ringing it through,
searching for that word, on the tip
of his tongue, yet it is not willing
to tumble free, so he mutters 'n writes
.... searching ~


*just a thought ~

 

[bogusbrig]

Billy and bogus's thread reborn.

I've read a fair bit of Billy's work and I've reread him and I have to say I enjoy his easy reading. It's simple but its hard to copy and get his freshness. I thought he was worth another brief moment in the limelight.

 

[bogusagain]

Just thought I'd bump up Billy again. Is he still around? He just come into my head which means I have to dig him out again. I've moved twice since this thread so its gonna be a search but hey, it took me awhile to find my Silvia Plath whose books I had to dig out again because someone reminded me abour her.

Any thoughts on Billy?

 

[Angeline]

Just thought I'd bump up Billy again. Is he still around? He just come into my head which means I have to dig him out again. I've moved twice since this thread so its gonna be a search but hey, it took me awhile to find my Silvia Plath whose books I had to dig out again because someone reminded me abour her.

Any thoughts on Billy?

I haven't heard of anything new from him in a few years, but then I haven't looked that hard either. I'm so glad we convinced you to enjoy his poems. He never pretends to be particularly deep, imho, but his poems have a warmth that draw you in and make more of an impression than you might expect at first read.

I don't know if this one's in the thread already or not. It's old and maybe a mite culturally incorrect but as someone who once smoked, it resonates with me.



The Best Cigarette
Billy Collins

There are many that I miss
having sent my last one out a car window
sparking along the road one night, years ago.

The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

How bittersweet these punctuations
of flame and gesture;
but the best were on those mornings
when I would have a little something going
in the typewriter,
the sun bright in the windows,
maybe some Berlioz on in the background.
I would go into the kitchen for coffee
and on the way back to the page,
curled in its roller,
I would light one up and feel
its dry rush mix with the dark taste of coffee.

Then I would be my own locomotive,
trailing behind me as I returned to work
little puffs of smoke,
indicators of progress,
signs of industry and thought,
the signal that told the nineteenth century
it was moving forward.
That was the best cigarette,
when I would steam into the study
full of vaporous hope
and stand there,
the big headlamp of my face
pointed down at all the words in parallel lines.

 

[bogusagain]

I don't know if this one's in the thread already or not. It's old and maybe a mite culturally incorrect but as someone who once smoked, it resonates with me.


The heralded one, of course:
after sex, the two glowing tips
now the lights of a single ship;
at the end of a long dinner
with more wine to come
and a smoke ring coasting into the chandelier;
or on a white beach,
holding one with fingers still wet from a swim.

I'm going to have to write a cigarette poem now. That's the best advert for cigarettes I've seen in a long time, which isn't surprising since cigarette adverts are banned.

 

[Angeline]

I'm going to have to write a cigarette poem now. That's the best advert for cigarettes I've seen in a long time, which isn't surprising since cigarette adverts are banned.

Glad to be of help.

 

[twelveoone]

Just thought I'd bump up Billy again. Is he still around? He just come into my head which means I have to dig him out again. I've moved twice since this thread so its gonna be a search but hey, it took me awhile to find my Silvia Plath whose books I had to dig out again because someone reminded me abour her.

Any thoughts on Billy?

He's bald. which makes him a poet. either you're bald, have curly hair, or breasts, and I don't know which one to shoot for. I think I'll try drinking.

 

[GuiltyPleasure]

I just want to know what it was that put BB off so thoroughly.................if it's not too painful to relate - a poem perhaps?

 

[bogusagain]

I just want to know what it was that put BB off so thoroughly.................if it's not too painful to relate - a poem perhaps?

I'll write a poem about it, it should be entertaining. Billy was introduced to me by a woman I generally regard as a scaborous double dealing two-faced lying sociopathic psychopathic I'm god's chosen godess evil bitch I am prejudiced against everything she liked and touched. She gave me a book of Billy's.

 

[bogusagain]

He's bald. which makes him a poet. either you're bald, have curly hair, or breasts, and I don't know which one to shoot for. I think I'll try drinking.

I bought a hat for the part. Really coooool

 

[twelveoone]

I'll write a poem about it, it should be entertaining. Billy was introduced to me by a woman I generally regard as a scaborous double dealing two-faced lying sociopathic psychopathic I'm god's chosen godess evil bitch I am prejudiced against everything she liked and touched. She gave me a book of Billy's.

OK who gave you the Plath book?

 

[butters]

He's bald. which makes him a poet. either you're bald, have curly hair, or breasts, and I don't know which one to shoot for. I think I'll try drinking.

become a lepidopterist

i hear they make neat poets. really able to pin things down....


*oops*

 

[butters]

and btw, i am glad this thread got bumped. i have hardly read a thing of BC's before and it's as angie says - he's a cosy kind of poet. not an earthshaker by any means, but he touches on the small truths we understand on a personal level. well, it seems that way to me

 

[bogusagain]

OK who gave you the Plath book?

A raving fallopian, though I didn't realise it at the time. This was years ago. It was Ariel I believe. Anyway I read it, was impressed and expected to chat about the book when I got the man hate accusatory rant. I thought, that book gets put away nice and safely in the bottom of a box somewhere, we don't want any more of those little episodes. Then I planned how to get rid of this raving fallopian without having to endure the, you used me you bastard accusatory rant so I stopped shaving and washing, started scratching my balls and dragging my knuckles along the floor.

 

[twelveoone]

A raving fallopian, though I didn't realise it at the time. This was years ago. It was Ariel I believe. Anyway I read it, was impressed and expected to chat about the book when I got the man hate accusatory rant. I thought, that book gets put away nice and safely in the bottom of a box somewhere, we don't want any more of those little episodes. Then I planned how to get rid of this raving fallopian without having to endure the, you used me you bastard accusatory rant so I stopped shaving and washing, started scratching my balls and dragging my knuckles along the floor.

I hate the knuckle dragging part, as I tend to keep my hands in Vaseline in leather gloves
(Steinbeck?)
To be honest I much prefer Plath to Billy Boy. Plath I view as a causality of the Drug Industry. Billy Boy didn't take enough.
Although, I don't think I could spend 15 minutes alone with either.
Unlike Buk and Melville, we would get drunk and kill some whales and make a career out of it.

 

[bogusagain]

To be honest I much prefer Plath to Billy Boy. Plath I view as a causality of the Drug Industry. Billy Boy didn't take enough.
Although, I don't think I could spend 15 minutes alone with either.
Unlike Buk and Melville, we would get drunk and kill some whales and make a career out of it.

I think you are right, Plath is head and shoulders above Billy and some more.

Plath certainly had problems made worse by the medical industry. It's a long time since I took notice of her and reading her biography again she was certainly demented, a state without you which you feel her poetry wouldn't have been as powerful but who knows.

I think 15 minutes with Plath is five times longer than advisable and I suspect 15 with Billy would cure insomnia. I like Buk, there is something earthy and honest about him even when he's being a lying bastard.