Best Asimov Poems
Read Tolkien
Read Howard Fast
Asimov
is sure to last
as we walk
omto the 21st
century
our minds must be
free from terror
free from pain
free to start
all over again
read a poem
all alone
an ancient dream
brought to life
avoid the strife
avoid the strife
say happiness - LONG LIFE
How high can we fly?
(After all, we must try!)
Like the mythical Icarus
Can we touch the sky?
Yo, the answer is 'Yes.'
We've already done THAT
Soared into space
Returning and landing
Without going Splat
Yet the question remains
Just how far can we travel?
Will we achieve Intergalacticity
'Fore the Universe unravels?
The paradigm for success was laid out long ago
By a sci-fi writer whose name you might know:
Mr. Isaac Asimov, who created Hyperspace with his brain
As he never once in his life ever boarded a plane!
February 26, 2018
Isaac Asimov wrote of scenarios unimaginable
Robot companions and industry-wide takeovers
His 1940 classic, "I Robot," is now quite actionable
If anything, a bit outdated, ripe for a make-over
In the 1950's we marveled at the audacity
A woman totally oblivious, a 'seashell in her ear'
Ray Bradbury's "Fahrenheit 451" fantasy
Today is surely audible, easy to hear
We couldn't believe his notion of 'entertainment walls'
Now we mount flat screens in living rooms and on stores in the mall
No way, we felt, that real-life 'firemen' would ever burn printed books
~ Yet those very kind of books are now being replaced by digital looks
Yesterday's science fiction is flat-out routine today
Pay attention to new prophesies ~ they're already well on their way
Day in, and day out, from the ripe old age of five
I’ve take to sharp objects and whittled at their sides.
Plotting the precise angle with penetrating gaze,
the slant of slice, just so nice, as memory replays.
With curt tongue and tireless ire, I shred the sages
Burroughs, and Asimov, the Shakespeare past ages.
Butchering with rare delight, the language on the page
lancing every metaphor and simile upstaged.
and so I've arrived her in rhythm and in rhyme
killing the English language as other people dine.
*Nibbs are the pointed ends of fountain pens
as well as being an important or self-important person
I’m not sure what’s happening in this country…sometimes I think it’s being overrun by fools…in some states they’re banning books…in my state, Florida, they’re banning talking about gender and sexuality in schools.
While closing up the bookstore the other night I was thinking how crazy can this be…
as I was re-shelving one of the books they’ve banned in Tennessee.
Topics not allowed to be discussed…books not allowed to be read…I don’t have the words to express my sadness and dismay…so I walked around our bookstore and listened to what the voices around me had to say.
Kurt Vonnegut was first to speak…at how banning book displeases:
“I hate”, he said, “that Americans are taught to fear some books and some ideas, as though they were diseases”.
Mart Twain was next on banning speech and books…he doesn’t want to see us do it:
“Censorship”, he said, “is telling a man he can’t have a steak just because a baby cannot chew it”.
Next stood Benjamin Franklin…with his willingness to teach
“Whoever wold overthrow the liberty of a nation,” he said, “must begin by subduing the freeness of its speech”.
Stephen Chbosky waited his turn in the bookstore to be heard that night:
He said, “banning books gives us silence when we need speech…
it closes our ears when we need to listen
and it makes us blind when we need sight”.
Isaac Asimov weighted in next…he was succinct in what he was conceding:
“Any book worth banning," he’s said, “is a book that is worth reading.”
Up and down the bookstore I walked listening to a multitude of authors from the present and past…and fortunately for me…I saved the best for last..
It was Maya Angelou whose words are always inspiring, thought provoking and wise…She said, “You may kill me with your hatefulness but still, like air…I rise”.
I thanked Maya and all the other authors for their insights as I turned off all the lights
Then wished them a calm and peaceful sleep as I locked up for the night
Filled with hope that for those who want to ban books and speech…there will come a day when they will take a walk through a bookstore or a library and listen to what the voices have to say,
*** THIS WEEK ***
(“If my doctor told me I had six minutes left to live, I wouldn’t
brood. I’d type a little faster.” Isaac Asimov)
The sliced portions of this week
Collapsed, an almost eloquent fall
Into a slow-motion slide
Of morsels
Then, still unnoticed, on into
The soft blue crystals of
This week’s ending — being
Merely a measure of the journey’s recipe
For this grouping of days — thus…
I now see their floating,
Their flour-misty cloud descending
Through a sieve Life quickly set
Over time’s mixing bowl, wishing
To gather anew
A batter for next week’s
Offered cakes.
——————————————————————————————————-
(c) sally young eslinger 5/19/22
With thanks to God
Who was first to write of cultures we read,
With their trans-galactic real estate greed?
The Greeks were dreamers of heaven above
Where the gods and their men fought wars for love.
The Asian myths were clever old stories:
Supernatural ancestral glories.
The Mayan drawings fulfill that desire
To dream of ships and men propelled by fire.
The Saxons gave us warriors and more
By wrath and raw maternal spiteful gore.
Hawthorne and Rappaccini’s human bud
Pollinated Shelley’s electric stud,
But Wells was first to say it straight and plain:
Perhaps to think we are alone is vain.
Before that Verne took us down in a ship,
And later Huxley’s World loosed brother’s grip.
Now Ray Bradbury’s chronicles of Mars
And Philip K’s Mars with cars and geek bars,
Are “you must read” or “you just gotta see,”
Like 2001: A Space Odessey.
Asimov built up a firm Foundation
For Herbert’s arid alien nation.
Cult fans know Vance, Wilhelm and Bova, Too,
But of Gloss or McElroy they ask “Who?”
Not all writers have what Card has to show:
Hugo-Nebula two years in a row!
Seasoned are LeGuin and Michael Critchton;
Deux maîtres dans le genre they write in.
Unlike your Mr Asimov
Whom I hear likes Rachmaninoff
My limericks are clean
the point clear to be seen
Perhaps he drinks too much Smirnoff!
Spelling used is how the man spelt his name when writing English.
I was walking down the streets one day
Through lanes so dark and still
When a sudden light lit up the way
And I found my body thrill.
The shadows on the walls were dark
My riot thoughts couldn't endure it
When, in the doorway to a park
I met a familiar spirit.
From Asimov to Zandra Rhett
I've seen the far-fetched mind
But myself, I never,ever met -
In terror I left myself behind!
The Enemy
He was sleeping when he felt the edge of the knife
Cold, sharp, hard against his throat.
“I am going to kill you now” the enemy said.
“Freind” said the waking sleeper
“You can kill me if you choose
“I lay here helpless at the cutting edge of your razor
“But before you spill my blood
“And leave me gurggling here in its spreading stain
“Please think on what I am about to say
The keen edge trembled and quavered
“Go on” the enemy said.
“Friend, you may kill me, end my life
“If you so choose
“But it is not me, who will die
“But you
“I will go on, on to the eternal realms
“The next life awaits
“I am unafraid of death
“But you my friend, you will live
“And carry in your conscience this thing you did
“You will know
“You will carry this deed long after
“And forever in your immortal soul
The enemy hesitated, but a moment
Before slitting the victims throat
Such is the monumental stupidity
Of the enemy
"And against stupidity; even the Gods themselves; contend in vain" ( Issac Asimov )
CharlaX Pleas
Writers have a deadline most people work at something even written work is
work it takes some typing with both hands not every poet is an ASIMOV not every
writer is Heinlein pleas read the charlax poems please for the day will come
quite soon infact when there is only none someday eye will not be able to refresh
the website while I’m able to write down these pearls of wisdom given to a poor
man from his GOD make a journey in my poem list given me from the poetry vine
look at some read them listen to the pretty music look at all the stolen pictures
while there is still some time gentle reader ewe be mine a homeless creature
eye become.
Stranger
I never really met him
But I know him
I know his face in profile
The furrows of his brow
I’ve seen it enough times
At Barnes & Noble browsing Asimov
I’ve seen him
Leaving the loft
Watched his hands
Holding the door
For his momma at the beauty parlor
He always tips the stylist who frosts his mamma’s grays
The other day I just missed him
Leaving the last row of the church pews
The handout he left behind was still warm
His pencil still on the floor beneath the ancient wooden bench
And on Tuesday, I watched him do a coffee run
for the guys at the office
I know it was him
I floated in on his Perry Ellis
He takes his coffee black with extra sugar
He goes running on Saturday mornings rain or shine
Always listening to Miles
I still hear the bass echo in the trees
He has his board meeting
Every third Thursday
I know ‘cause he always picks up his dolce suit
Every third Wednesday
Then stops for a fade
Spends an hour with his boys
If I time it just right
I might get lucky
And bump into him
Accidentally of course
I betta’ do it this Sunday
‘Cause this Monday
Is his first date
With the chick who frosts his mamma’s grays
BIG BROTHER
The science fiction of yesteryear
Is now here, or all coming true
A futuristic view was imagined
Wunderkind authors like Asimov
Thought much of, and influential
So much potential on every page
In this modern age, it has emerged
As tech has surged, dominating all
But heed the call, it can go wrong
And mankind’s song can soon end
It may depend on how we learn
When books burn, it’s a reminder
To find a better way to progress
Leave no mess, for the planet’s sake
What’s at stake is all our futures
Computers taking over with A.I
But ask why, don’t blindly accept
Anyone can attend this school of thought
The only requirements are that you read
An enormous amount of science fiction
Be a dreamer of the future’s past
Be it a modern-day prophet or
At the very least, a writer
With a very creative imagination
I invite all intelligences to join in
For I believe, there is nothing artificial
In being smart
Certainly, there’s nothing artificial
About God’s creation
Why think any less of ours
I am not a robot.
Snowflake
When asked if he worried about a robot replacing him
the author, Isaac Asimov, came up with this little gem
When I myself don’t understand what it is that I do
How can a machine expect an Asimov novel to construe