tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18581910175353125792024-03-09T01:30:15.424+09:00Read Short Poems Online FreeShort poems on diverse topics, for example birth, breastfeeding, war, cancer, Odysseus, the color violet, life in the degenerate West and many others. Some just short, some very short, some very very short, some just a little more mabitious. Site is by Hugh Cook of zenvirus.com. Welcome to my ideational moriawase online!Hugh Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12495379222283170957noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858191017535312579.post-73988767334629970582007-08-29T12:58:00.000+09:002007-08-29T12:59:27.777+09:00Sub-Prime PoemSub-Prime Poem<br /><br />Sometimes I'm glad I'm not a world bank.<br />I have run out of chewing gum, but that problem,<br />I think,<br />Is fixable.<br />My daughter's toilet training looked,<br />For the longest time imaginable,<br />To be intractable.<br />But she, now,<br />Miraculously,<br />Is dry.<br />(Most of the time.)<br />Into every life a little drop of rain must fall<br />So, when the bank does foreclose<br />(Which it probably will)<br />Accept it.<br />And learn from this experience.<br />Don't make the same mistake two times in a row.<br />Next time, be certain,<br />Really, really certain<br />To be born rich.Hugh Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12495379222283170957noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858191017535312579.post-13408581615704312442007-04-30T03:19:00.000+09:002007-04-30T03:20:48.551+09:00Poem About A Difficult BirthPoem About A Difficult Birth<br /><br />Note: this poem is about the birth of my daughter, a birth which was grotesquely mismanaged in a provincial hospital in Japan. Labor ended up extending to something close to or exceeding 72 hours, and, toward the end, the whole thing became something of a medical emergency.<br /><br />Being present at my daughter's birth was the one single most hideous experience of my entire life.<br /><br />When the child had finally been born, my wife had difficulty in believing that the baby was alive.<br /><br />With that preamble, here is the poem:<br /><br /><br />BIRTH ON PLANET GRAVITY<br /><br /><br />I had always thought of birth<br />As a catastrophe:<br />Forced from the world of constant warmth and water<br />To the harsh scrubbed air of Planet Gravity.<br />Unhooked from the umbilical, displaced<br />From immortal complacency<br />To the slaughterhouse of light.<br />Jumbled by shapes, lost<br />In the gesticulating air.<br />Severed from the reference frame,<br />Bewildered, baffled,<br />Screaming at fluorescents.<br />And this birth, yes,<br />Was like that,<br />Only harder, bloodier, more terrifying<br />Than the extremes of my imagination.<br /><br />I used to dream, years ago,<br />(I had forgotten those dreams)<br />Of my own birth,<br />An endless crushing pressure,<br />Darkness compressed upon darkness,<br />The infinite constrictions of nowhere<br />Inflicting identity upon me.<br />And this birth, I think,<br />Was like that.<br /><br />But what delights me about Miss Mutiny<br />(A bundle of wriggles<br />As yet pinned down by gravity)<br />Is how comfortably she<br />Inhabits her face, her features —<br />How relaxed her ease, as if<br />To be pure human was effortless.<br /><br /><br />Copyright © 2004 Hugh Cook<br /><br /><br />Photocopiable: may be photocopied for classroom useHugh Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12495379222283170957noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1858191017535312579.post-56555526905915933892007-04-29T00:34:00.000+09:002007-04-29T00:38:31.735+09:00Short Poem About BirthShort Poem About Birth<br /><br /><br />BIRTH<br /><br /><br />Signing no consent form,<br />I was crushed from the womb,<br />Head monstrous, swollen,<br />Born with pain amidst pain,<br />Welcomed by tears.<br />Birth, you may say, was an error.<br />But I do not repent it, and will not.<br />I regret nothing.<br />It is a victory that<br />Out of the sludge of possibility,<br />My lobster crawled at least this far.<br />I am not vanquished yet.<br />Limits are not absolute defeat.<br /><br /><br />Copyright © 2005, 2007 Hugh Cook<br /><br />Photocopiable: may be photocopied for classroom useHugh Cookhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12495379222283170957noreply@blogger.com0