Month: October 2016

Regarding (Most) Songs

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

by Thomas Lux

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Whatever is too stupid to say can be sung.

The human voice can sing a vowel to break your heart. It trills a string of banal words, but your blood jumps, regardless. You don’t care about the words but only how they’re sung and the music behind-the brass, the drums. Oh the primal, necessary drums behind the words so dumb! That power, the bang and the boom and again the bang we cannot, need not, live without, nor without other means to make sweet noise, the guitar or violin, the things that sing the plaintive, joyful sounds. Which is why I like songs best when I can’t hear the words, or, better still, when there are no words at all.

“Regarding (Most) Songs” by Thomas Lux from The Street of Clocks. © Houghton Mifflin Company, 2001.

 

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Thomas Lux is an American poet that holds the Margaret T. and Henry C. Bourne, Jr. Chair in Poetry at the Georgia Institute of Technology and runs Georgia Tech’s “Poetry at Tech” program.
Wikipedia
Born: December 10, 1946 (age 69), Northampton, MA
Education: Emerson College (2003), Emerson College (1972–1970)
Awards: Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US & Canada, Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award
Influenced by: Galway Kinnell, James Wright, Hart Crane, Federico García Lorca

God Particles: Thomas Lux: 9780983823803: Amazon.com: Books

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Editorial Reviews. From Publishers Weekly. The prolific Lux (The Street of Clocks ) should … God Particles [Thomas Lux] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Poetry. The latest collection of dazzlers from one of the few poets writing …

BLESS THEIR HEARTS

/ Ken Finton / Leave a comment

 

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Bless Their Hearts
by Richard Newman

At Steak ‘n Shake I learned that if you add
“Bless their hearts” after their names, you can say
whatever you want about them and it’s OK.
My son, bless his heart, is an idiot,
she said. He rents storage space for his kids’
toys—they’re only one and three years old!
I said, my father, bless his heart, has turned
into a sentimental old fool. He gets
weepy when he hears my daughter’s greeting
on our voice mail. Before our Steakburgers came
someone else blessed her office mate’s heart,
then, as an afterthought, the jealous hearts
of the entire anthropology department.
We bestowed blessings on many a heart
that day. I even blessed my ex-wife’s heart.
Our waiter, bless his heart, would not be getting
much tip, for which, no doubt, he’d bless our hearts.
In a week it would be Thanksgiving,
and we would each sit with our respective
families, counting our blessings and blessing
the hearts of family members as only family
does best. Oh, bless us all, yes, bless us, please
bless us and bless our crummy little hearts.

“Bless Their Hearts” by Richard Newman, from Domestic Fugues. © Steel Toe Books, 2009.

 

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Richard Newman is an American poet and the editor of River Styx. He is the author of three full-length poetry collections: All the Wasted Beauty of the World, Domestic Fugues, and Borrowed Towns. Wikipedia
Born: March 25, 1966 (age 50), Illinois
Education: Washington University in St. Louis

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A SHADY SPOT WHERE I WILL NEVER SIT

/ Ken Finton / 1 Comment

 

 

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I believe in planting trees in whose shade I will never sit.

We would all be happier if we all did this.

The artist within us strives to perfect for perpetuity.

The writer within us knows that most of their words are not read.

The caregivers within us know that their efforts will not be returned.

We know we cannot take our efforts and our concerns with us.

We plant seeds for tomorrow even if tomorrow does not come.

Likely, we would likely go mad if we did not do this.

A good parent is a parent that gives to the future.

The future is about the quality of life of the child and the grandchild.

Yet there are those of us who do not believe in the future.

There are among us those that believe the world is ending.

They believe that the end of time is the will of beings greater than themselves.

There is no factual evidence that their beliefs are correct.

Riches are better than poverty. Wealth provides comfort.

Health is better than illness. It maintains our being.

Contentment is better than depression.

To know something is much better than believing something.

To know is a personal fact.To believe is a personal wish.

And every word I write is a shady spot where I will never sit.

 

 

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