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debra hely the real dissidents remember the glory days of high school when poetry was way too uncool unless tortured by some rock band? "not another poem!" they’d gripe and they’d snipe "it’s all forced rhyme with predictable lines and simple words for schoolies to make’em drool like the fools they are – total nerds addicted to words." "Who cares," they cried "if Eliot’s table was etherised or if Donne’s mosquito died? As for Chaucer and Shakespeare they were probably queer! ’cause poetry’s useless, for losers or boozers like Dylan!" iambic verse or even worse sonnets with structure, rhythm and metre were hated and dreaded and as studies, neglected except by the few who somehow knew to keep quiet then alone after school, safe from mob rule more smart than courageous they opened their pages and devoured poem after poem until finally they wrote their own. 'the real dissidents' is published in Initio – 2004. Anatomy Once upon a time in another life I used to teach I enjoyed teaching one of my biggest challenges in human reproduction was finding good illustrations it took me years but finally, there it was a textbook picture with labels clearly pointing naming, validating, the clitoris. Anatomy is published in Sappho’s Dreams and Delights – 2001.
tired. I am tired. that’s tired with a full stop any other punctuation has too much energy — so it is tired. not tired the full stop lets air escape from weary lips like a sigh ever sighing because I’m too tired to breathe easily / normally yes I am tired. all the time — imagine the word tired – with a full stop typed once on a page any font of 12 points you would see tired. now repeat it again and again until "tired." becomes a full line tired full stop tired full stop tired full stop repetitive – yes boring – yes did you remember to sigh / rest / pause in between the tireds? still you haven’t experienced tired. so repeat the line – again and again until it fills a page don’t stop continue till you have a book 400 pages — I’m feeling generous but "tired." does not appear enough not nearly enough to even begin to explain to begin to understand chronic fatigue to understand tired beyond tiredness. 'tired.' is published in Crossing the Lino – 2003.
TV or no TV? TV or no TV? That is the question. Weather it is nobler than the news we suffer while flings and harrows from outrageous channels see us take plaque against a sea of fluoride as oppositions rate us. Too bored we sleep the more: and by a dull repeat we groan through heart-aches, and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is put to weekly, consummating, devouring in a swish. Ads lie, ads cheat they cheat perchance to fool, Ha! there’s the joke, for those they fool are those who pay to do ’em as facts are shuffled off, believed by none. So we must pause, and think for once of the calamity of long lost life – or else endure the whips and scorns from shows by oppressors, who produce, promote and buy pangs of despised lovers and laws’ replays: such insolence to offer! and those spurned sick patients should inherit unworthy ratings. In power strikes, quietly glum we sit, then, venture into life outdoors, burdened, we grunt and sweat, cursing this unweary strife: But that dread of nothing after TV, the undiscovered world where few do dwell, leaves us voyeurs of life, puzzled still and makes us rather wish we had the nerve to fly towards the switch and leave it off – yet some conscience makes cowards of us all: and thus the strongest of resolutions with slicker shows is seduced, doomed, lost to thought; false enterprises of great worth and moment have no regard – their currents lure us still – we lose the skill of action. The TV wins. 'TV or no TV?' is published in Browsing by the Beach – 1999.
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