Best Novelists Poems
Writers! Writers! Write what you know.
That's what they say, all the pro's.
Phooey on that gobbledygook.
I mean, get real, take a good look.
Let's say you have a great notion
To put words of a book in motion.
Want to write about real cowboys?
Means you can't come from Illinois?
Poets are sensitive, even men
A saga poem they'd like to pen.
Of women in love and their pain
They can't now if their name's not Jane?
Well, maybe. Maybe they are right
I'm not trying to pick a fight.
Seems to me that writing is fun
You can shoot sans owning a gun.
Think of the love sonnets and such
You needn't have lived all that much.
What about all those dreams of love
Too ugly to be deserving of.
Halloween makes us conjure up ghosts
Don sheets, we're monsters we can boast?
Ghouls and witches in poems do clash
Oh! Where is that real monster mash?
Sweet thing wants to celebrate her cat
On her knees should she eat a rat?
I'd think that sweet thing would say no,
She'll imagine it; let her words flow.
Poets, novelists, are writers is not this true?
Does this have to mean they haven't a clue?
They can't expand their horizons from mundane
And the dullness to something wild and insane?
They write about murder if that's their bent
Without encasing someone's feet in cement.
Some write from deep held passionate zeal
About sunrises, sunsets, tho blind in the real.
The agonies of war can be expressed in truth
By a middle-aged wife full of gin and vermouth.
And while we cannot all write most profound
I still say we have more intellect than a hound.
Which gives us the ways and means to think
About life in other places we can be in sync.
I don't think that crime queen Agatha Christie
Left to kill and maim after her tea and biMaurice Yvonnescuits.
Novelists and Nobodies
Ah, now this my domain, the library
Where cultures collide.
Men of leisure reeking from their latest dumpster dive
mingling with men in leisure suits studiously swimming in their work.
And me, in my disguise?
I'm hidden between both,
Like bookends.
Where else can a man of my means
In my situation loiter all day
and still look poignant -
Though I've really no place to go.
Like the man from the street
and the man incomplete,
I am simply another book on a shelf
waiting to be read.
R. Biffany '09
Spring comes
Quietly--
Not with the bleating of lambs or
The tweeting of birds or the
Beating of butterfly wings
Spring comes
Silently--
Celtic through the Neolithic stones,
Unheralded by peering shadow-seekers
Rummaging around on the Second of
February, and unannounced by a
Banner on the front page of the
National Enquirer…
Unpresaged by pregnant April
Showers,
Spring comes--
Alive
Nota bene: This is one of the few pieces of juvenilia I have preserved. It was written when I was at college (the University of Florida), in 1979, when I was in the English Department High Honors Seminar. We had an assignment to write a poem about Spring, but to try not to fall into the usual cliches. I thought it might be fun to mention some of those cliches ironically. We had one-on-one tutorials with a number of well-known novelists and poets; one of mine was with the poet Richard Eberhart. He told me he liked this poem and that it was a good one, so I have kept it these four decades.
WOMEN CAN’T BE COMPASSIONATE
Women can’t be compassionate, or their reputation’s dead
Can’t comfort the lost tourist, he’s the surrogate lover
As he sits on the theatre steps, wearing loud red
Checks and braces, bewildered when the play is over.
Women must be professional and never huddle
In doorways after rain, like an angel in a stupor
With life’s rejects, looking for a cuddle
Sad casualities of money, or of having worn Lee Cooper*.
Women can’t be friends with male novelists, or film-makers
Or poets, who want to define mistresses, and wives,
Leaving creativity to the movers and the shakers,
Taking dignitas and money out of women’s lives.
This narrows the field to the tycoon, or the bore –
Feminists – choose death first! Webster’s honest whore.
*Apologies to Lee Cooper – I couldn’t resist the rhyme, in fact their jeans are as good as anyone else’s – at one time they were very cool indeed.
from IN MEMORY OF HER, 2004, 2008
Even a mention of his name is inspiring
The father of the theory of psychoanalysis
And the inventor
of id-ego-superego hypothesis
His profound thinking was instrumental
In shaping movements in art & literature,
Surrealism is solely based on Freudian
concept
Oedipus-complex still is a hot theme
For novelists and men of letters
The first man to dissect dreams
in Interpretations of dreams
and dissociate them from the haze of mythology
Without him we would not have understood
the basis of psychological ailments
For his theory of subconscious
paved way for curing many functional
disorders...
Tony Kushner wrote plays as a telephone operator,
Kafka wrote stories at night after working as an insurance adjuster,
Grisham penned court room dramas religiously for three years before
being published.
These playwrights and novelists and poets,
Lived a dual existence-
By day,
They lived an ordinary existence,
Maintaining a 9-5 or overnight shifts
While balancing obligations like
family, grocery shopping, taxes, rent or mortgage
friends, bills, lovers
At night,
Undercover,
In their precious time-
They were on a lonely, thankless journey,
Only their desk, the lamp and their pen and paper/typewriter/computer
as company,
Communing with their muse,
Creating, Rewriting, editing, repeat
Telling stories for the mere pleasure, to satisfy an
Incurable hunger for their words, thoughts, voices
To be expressed, considered, read,
Without the guarantee of money, fame, recognition or success..
I remember them when verse rushes through my mind
like an angry, swollen April river,
That I forget the words as quickly as I conceive them,
or I compose long winded poems
with no direction, shape or grace.
I remember them when procrastination and writer’s block
Prevents me from writing for days, months or years,
or when I hear that my high school nemesis is a doctoral
Candidate in poetry
I remember and thank them for giving my inspiration
To continue.
to those that think they're 'real' writers
'real' poets'
'real' novelists
riddle me this:
why are you posting your master pieces on a site that any tom, dick of harry can?
reality check:
'real' writers
'real' poets
'real' novelists
have 'contracts'
with 'publishing companies'
they get 'paid'
real 'money'
not monopoly
and could care less about glory
so say what you will
write what you like
feel how you want
and be all you can
but keep that ego in check
because after all
we are just hacks
CATS AND CATS
At night all the male cats
they are gray and the female cats
suited to them ...
OVERPOPULATION
The earth has 7 billion
inhabitants and plus those
the novelists and filmmakers
create ...
MY DAUGHTER
She loves men as much as
the horses ... and have them on the short bridle
as you do in the trot ...
PS my adaptations to the epigrams
from my friend the french poet
Barbara Botton
At this moment in time
There are moms giving birth,
While gravediggers shovel
A plot in the earth.
At this moment a plane
Is preparing to soar,
While a soldier’s blown up
In a far-away war.
At this moment some people
Confess all their sins,
While the gamblers assess
All their losses and wins.
There are folks who are sleeping
Or cooking or reading;
Shoplifters stealing
And knife victims bleeding.
Actors rehearsing and
Bar patrons drinking.
Cars crashing crazily;
Novelists thinking.
Knitters are knitting
And lovers embracing;
Criminals learn of
The sentence they’re facing.
Capture one moment
And measure the arc.
Everything happens –
The light and the dark.
Here in this moment
Some journey from home,
While I sit and ponder
And jot down this poem.
The appearance of gentleness
shows many gracious ways
and this image of godly meekness
is being totally true to oneself;
it can't be stirred by rage,
or even irrational revenge:
indignation is an unthinkable bluff!
Do nobles often embrace folly?
Be it envy, betrail or debauchery,
they all fall into the pit of misery;
someone belonging to their bloodline got clever
and invented the trick of alchemy...
he imagined one sleeping when he was dead:
the transformation was grandly achieved,
the Veiled Christ was a showcase of grandeur!
Sculptors with chisels and hammers
create faces that are realistically divine;
they embody their own spirit on those faces
with expressions that exceed human beauty:
more than paintings they exude emotions.
Novelists write stories, poets write poems;
who hasn't memorized a specific line
written with cleverness and simplicity?
Are we engaged more in remote interaction
than in human emotions that spread affection?
Do we forget to give a hug in our rush for success
heading to a destination where dialogue is about affairs,
not realizing that we are trading our happiness,
for wealth, our temptation for holiness;
and all the permissive actions that transgress?
Do we see an end to obsessive and unyielding greediness?
Can we ignore the voice of irreversible trust,
and allow deafness to define our worthiness
turned into mindlessness not connected to emotions?
Never expect to be compensated by lust:
it's not a guaranteed way to feel good without resentment:
can we achieve glory without the virtue of our passions?
(A bit of fun for Thomas W. Case - I think he lives in Iowa)
Hawkeye pride burns bright in Iowa City,
the place where Tennessee Williams learned to curse.
Iowa City hosts the 4th of July, Iowa speedway race, unique perhaps
because the cars have to stay behind a tractor for the first 199 laps.
How polite are the people in Iowa City? I saw a news report where a man was mugged,
traumatic? Sure, but the man still remembered to say “Thank you” before the perp bugged.
There are over twenty-six churches here, people can be a bit pious and obnoxiously reflective.
There’s a Hawkeye infestation in Iowa City because of the university, classified as ‘moderately selective.’
Geographically, Iowa’s where the rolling plains meet a limestone rise.*
Did I mention that the bars close at 2am? A travesty in any serious drinker’s eyes.
Some noted authors came from Iowa City, the locals are proud of that and own it.
Most were playwrights and novelists, luckily, few of them turned out to be poets.
* whatever that is
note...
We’re in Paris (Peter and I) at the Régis oyster bar. We just polished off a dozen oysters (each) and we ordered "Plateau de fruits de mer" (a seafood platter) and they’re taking forEVER to bring it. Peter’s reading a book. “Mind if I.. ?” he’d asked. I looked at the cover, which read, "Heavy Quark Physics." ick.
So I pulled out my iPad and Thomas W. Case - a poet far above my station had, once again, lavished my latest piece “Brilliant and Wonderful,” (which I seriously doubted). But it inspired me to pen this (while we waited) - his poet page says he’s from Iowa. (5 minutes research on Iowa and 5 minutes to write.)
Ooo! Here comes our platter - bye!
Favourite Novelists
Of all the American writers I knew of
some favourites remain, like Theodore Dreiser.
John Dos Passos, John Steinbeck and
Ernest Hemingway. I mentioning him the last,
although I admired his writing, still does
immensely, he was a master, like Dos Passos,
in short sentences, but I disliked his theme
often about hunting and shooting, personally
I think he was a big softy never killed
A thing in his life. These days if I read a novel
I rarely do – lack of patience- I prefer
the way John Steinbeck wrote.
I`m thinking of writers using the English
language, I find some English writer like
Martin Amis practically unreadable as he
appears to need to impress
readers with his erudition; in all should know I sit
down and read I would prefer an American
novelist
Log cabin in the woods
Curly rugs and wood fire
Your with the one you love
Wonder what will transpire.
Steaks in the fridge ready to cook
Potatoes wrapped up with foil
Your favourite novelists no.1 book
Libido starting to boil
Which will come first, book or bed
Come now its holiday time
Get those boots on lets get out the sled
Fresh air will cool you down
A roll in the snow face all aglow
Smiles from ear to ear
Its fun letting your hair down
Acting like children without fear
Tired muscles hungry bodies
Climb back to the hut at last
Bubbling jaccuzi and hot toddies
Sleepy, happy and relaxed.
By the end of August or early September,
I'll be handed a pink slip, to keep my sanity:
I must be a quick thinker to help me see clearer;
many plans scribbled on my lineless pad:
good fortune and willingness are needed on my path,
and wouldn't this be the harshest test?
Here's my chance to try something new,
to grab the first thing which comes into view;
and stubborn and headstrong as I am, with this unchangeable vanity,
where the thoughts of uncertainty would lead me?
Expanding my horizons into the furthest blue,
sticking to impossible tasks and repeating the mistakes I can't undo;
sharing my concept with someone with a great insight,
should ease my worries and accomplish much!
Suggestions and hints, to advance into my endeavors,
I'll take from the literary greats and their struggles will entwin mine;
and reading successful stories of published poets and novelists,
will entice my excitement and show me that positivel sign!
Gather friends and let's discuss this matter further with sincere esteem,
your advice will bring a breath of fresh air to a stale room,
come and rescue me from the pit I have fallen into;
lay out your ideas and draw the map from which I will depart,
the longest jeourney I am willing and able to take,
despite the unseen perils, wonders and probable heartbreaks!
Who wouldn't follow his vocation and turn it into a most unbelievable dream?
Besides, being unrealistic and skeptical: I am expanding my horizons!
Copyright 2009 by Andrew Crisci
You must create, it's not for another,
your specious needs to delineate.
After decades, I, walking life's treacherous
highway with no God,
Thinking I was sufficient unto myself and
needed no spiritual prod!
My life had an empty, dark echo.
At times I felt dead, lying under rainy
sod.
Oh, how sorry I felt for myself!
This poet-clod!
The Bible, not for me!
I had poets, philosophers and novelists
aplenty.
To think I almost ended my days at
twenty?
Gives me more than shivers!
With my stomach pumped, an experience
you do not want.
So, find God as soon as you can!
The world is a dance macabre without
Him.
In a most colorful costume to draw you
away from Him and His Teachings.
Only He can bear your sorrows.
Not one of us knows what lies in
our tomorrows.
There is a place called Heaven!
And getting in, well, it's not
automatic.
Get off your knees and stop
worshipping the only the earth.
That may send you to a place,
of great misery and dearth.
"Do ask for His mercy and grace,
to find Him in a time of need!"
Hebrews 4:16
Stop being afraid of using His
name.
You may write fantastic poetry!
Ignoring His sacrifice, His Holy
Name, may bring you much
popularity.
And the price you pay?
Eternal pain and ignominy!
September 10, 2019