Love at a Reasonable Price

[Bartleby’s Poetry Corner]

So angry I am made; your perfidy so galls!
You’re bad. Is thus my loathing righteousness?
Yet ofttimes I was a seagull’s caw
up on the jagged wind.

Not every company deserves tomorrows.
But anger pays its way with soul.
A lien for which but fools borrow.
And who among’s never sinned?

A lady’s hair is loosed, outlining now
broad gulping gusts atop a scudding sea.
Pale pekid crimes foglike the streets prowl
while warlords relax at home.

So tired I am made; your perfidy so bores!
You waste your strength. Is my disdain then wise?
But oft you were a lizard’s shaking dash
across bright desert stone.

Some jobs more harm than help.
Contempt, though, also nothing adds.
Arranging glass animals on shelf,
I lose the thread.

Still it remains the case that you make business decisions with the intent of hurting other people for the sake of private gain.
What you are up to is not OK.
You should rethink your approach.
Beyond this, I wander lonely back to this standard desperate prayer: that God heal us all so that we may all all-together better know how we are all all-together One.

Author: Fergie Mees Elff
Editor Team: AW/BW
copyright: AMW

[Bartleby’s Poetry Corner]

America, cross the sea
Jerusalem, watching me
In Africa, with long round coast
In China, mit einem sanften ‘Prost!’
It’s everywhere we may be

Who can this Evil business stop?
A field of clovers sidely flops
Who’ll carry us to better worlds?
A dash of legwork a jig construes

We all together can all
the Evil altogether halt.
linked histories, shaped by whips
and shackles loosed and slipped;
as one, answering the call,
our many voices, shapes, and hues.

Author: BW/AW
copyright: AMW

Editor’s Note: “mit einem sanften ‘Prost'” is “with a soft ‘cheers!'” in German.
Language most likely chosen because (1) it is a non-English-language the author easily speaks; & (2) “Prost!” rhymes with “coast”.

A human’s conscious moment takes their whole
space up. Light fills the mind, and body too.
A human’s conscious moment fits the Soul;
but how? Godlight shines in and out and through;
but how?

We grow in wisdom when the space between
Awareness bright within and bright without
grows thinner. With “enlightenment” I mean
the gap’s gone; kindness chosen without doubt.
But how?

I cannot open belly to the Light!
The Hurt’s afraid and pulls my navel in.
Please give me God a push beyond all fright.
Night shadows swirl! The tangled mists will win!
Unless yon thund’ring, dustcloud-churning steed
across parched vale in watchful glory speed.
no master save all-watchful-care will heed.

Author: Conch I.S. Pille
Editorial Oversight: B. Willard & A. Whistletown
Copyright: AM Watson

From the Liner Notes:
Today, the staff once again split their head over how to push towards the better and away from the worse.
They do not seem to know.
They do not seem to have the wide and clear vision.
They pace the beach
and throw sonnets at the waves

[Bartleby’s Poetry Corner]

Do you recall that song?
Pasted together schmalz
1980s longings

I was found young in the room
with a gifted fake-wood
clock radio
Sun through two thin windows
we’d not yet broken
Light across the air-dust

Who was the one
you first
yoked it against?
with red dashing hair
and ceaseless freckles
across a tiny nose.
Lie on weird fabric-vinyl tiles
probably asbestos
in a tiny one-window bathroom
imaging a meeting
upon a wooden bridge
astride a wide-wrinkling creek
Bridge long gone
Creek (“crick”) beneath new brick

I’m a crystal shard
splitting your daydreams
throughout the years
I’m a sliced laugh
catching your catcalls
over various barrios

now it’s become true
that every life’s too
precious for me
to answer

now time’s grown bold:
every anger’s sold
more
than it bought

So I was wrong
So I didn’t know
So I’m your ghost
So we shape the snow
So down we coast

lying on a wide skateboard
with a Max Headroom graphic
on its underbelly
we take turns
we lie on the rough sandpaper top
see how many blocks past the bottom turn
we can drift
I shoved you against the small green hill
(preceding a fine white corner home
neither of us belonged to)
for saying you went one more block
than I chose to believe
you really had
You went home crying
I knocked on the door crying
arms in the air

little boys play soldier
in bombed out towns
and safe sound
snulgy-untouched ones

how can we all together
push against the evil
and towards the good
?
?

BW/AW
copyright: AMW

[Bartleby’s Poetry Corner]

NEW VERSION OF “STRANGE MARTYRS”:

Reverse: to fresh begin my journey home!
For home I’ve come yet home from me has flown.
I lay another human form atop
soft-sanded river bank, and obols* drop
by twos and threes as boney fingers clack
and clatter, closing. Smuggled in a sack
of burlap across dark waters I glide.
No use. One cannot from oneself well hide.

When dead, as yet again I am, a heart
is bare and yearns to share, not stand apart.
When torn from mind-in-body, souls admit
what flesh pretends away. They say, “I quit
all meanness, cruelty, greed, despair. I need
community where all together feed
upon love’s feast and laugh; are friends and glad
to share with all; and withal never mad.

No soul refuses any soul at all.
And least of all could God a soul not call.
All are invited; all must par-tay**
yet souls who’ve broke love stay away
the reason is simple; it’s nothing deep;***
they’re just unready for God their soul to keep.***

So don’t build a bonfire around my broken head
and rally anger to burn children in their beds.
Remember those moments when I was kind;
build your flames about the harmless times,
when I was young and smiled in the wide summer light
grateful for friends, to run and play into the night

[Notes:

*”obols” were the coins traditionally given to Charon by dead souls for ferrying them across the River Styx

**”all are invited; all must par-tay”
See “Nabarismo” (esperanto for “neighborism”, film by Tom Watson and others (is there a copy anywhere anymore?)
poem was mostly heroic couplets, but dissolved its rigor at the end

***the reason is simple; it’s nothing deep;
***they’re just unready for God their soul to keep.
In the morning light, the Poetry Review Board has isolated these two lines as being particularly potentially possibly aesthetic and metaphyiscally problematic.
A gentle reminder to the Gung Ho Department while we carry out our difficult and careful task: Stop posting things to social media on the same day you right them!!!!
]

ORIGINAL REVISED VERSION

In the space after life
as Kindness rushes in
out past timespace
where madness mists away

I’m caught deep

Please no more
world-leader-pretend
I await them here
our estate now clear:
all creatures all are friends

Please great God
greater than my wildest
speculation
gentler than my mildest
countenance
Please
forgive

unhook us
this pointless
back and forth
digging madly
backwards

That we become
a tale of wisdom
of clarity
a poem beyond power
outside hope
other-siding fear

bring us back to you.

That all people rise up
in one embrace
that their leaders bow down
before gentle resolve
seven billion
heart-sick of lies
follies, wrongs
Let kachinas
fill the skies
help us evolve

I pray that you God
make things better than I did
that you bare the Light I hid
share the song
within me all along
Please
let me die
into Beauty

MOST ORIGINAL VERSION THAT IS STILL IN WORDPRESS’S MEMORY

In the space after life
as Kindness rushes in
out past timespace
where madness mists away

I’m sorry broad
caught deep

Please no more
world-leader-pretend
I await them here
where all is clear
where love does not end

Please great God
greater than my wildest
speculation
greater than my mildest
countenance

Please
forgive me
release us
of
this pointless
back and forth
digging madly
backwards

That we all
together become
a tale of wisdom
a song of clarity
a poem beyond power
outside hope
other-siding fear

bring us back to you.

That the people rise up
as one embrace
that the leaders bow down
before their gentle resolve
these seven billion
heart-sick of lies
follies, wrongs
Let kachinas fill the skies
set us free to evolve

I pray that you God
make things better than I did
that you bare the Light I hid
that you share the song
within me all along
Please
let me die
into Beauty

Authors: AW/BW
copyright: AWW

[Bartleby’s Poetry Corner]

Assuming for the sake of argument
the seven chakras, starting in the bowl within the hips,
and moving up and up along the spinal column until the seventh is a pyramid of Light streaming out the crown of your head
Letting the Light in on all sides and at the shoulders;
What would that assumption, if true-ish,
teach us about
right and wrong,
the way forward for everyone,
how to actually make things better,
what is really going on and what is really worth pursuing and how to fit oneself within the flow of things to bring about worthy goals?

What would that fable about a superabundant, life-giving, healing spiritually-conscious Light
tell us about
the nature of human consciousness,
the proper use of feelings ideas and actions,
good government,
how to guide oneself and the many interconnected and overlapping collectives away from worse and towards the better,
the right balance between pursuing material safety and thriving versus emotional safety and thriving versus intellectual achievement versus staying centered on the spirit?
(The different needs are not necessarily always in conflict, and it is better to find a way to avoid conflicts between them; but sometimes conflicts arise and of course one has to always prioritizing staying centered in the spirit, but it isn’t always clear where you stand within all these exigencies.)

A Light shines in the darkness
A Way presents Itself through the void
A challenge fizzles in the Light of Wisdom
But what to actually say and do?
What to actually believe and follow?

AW/BW
copyright AMW

Yeah look at me go
look at me strong
gonna stop the evil
watch out now
I’m the key
here I come
Mister Clutch

Gonna stop the evil
got the power
got the danger
got the wild
to make things right
in this drizzling
and car-parking world

Hooray hooray
hooray for me
hooray hooray
hooray for me

Oh he’s just so tough
things are getting rough
oh he’s got the moves
oh cool: blood grooves!

Gonna stop the evil
got the pizzazz
got junk and jazz
got the wild
to make things cool
in this fizzling
and car-honking town

The slobber jaws
with their foaming teeth
with their hacking cough
and heavy claws
all that heavy beef
and our shackled stuff

I can’t stop the evil now
I’m no match for the crime
I’m another mutton
braised in the stew

I can’t stop the bad ever
I’m a victim of the storm
a shift in the weather
my muscles too warm
I can’t hold the line
troubles in the sky
and under my skin
monsters that fly
troubles that win

I thought I’d stop the evil
I thought I’d make a mark
This mark is soot
this heart can’t put
anything back into place
restore life its taste
give love a start

He was wrong
oh oh oh oh
He was wrong
he can’t stop
ain’t no one
gonna stop
the Evil

Not like that
Not all badass
Not in a way
that makes us proud
that shouts out loud,
forgets to play
pretends to pray
ignores the pay

How can we stop the Evil?
Its beyond our parameters
with the stink beetle
and the flash cameras
with the red children
at the gray windows

How can we stop the Evil?
It’s beyond our ken,
out past our grasps
we live a day and then
strikes the turning asp

I can’t stop the Evil
I can’t stop the Crime
I can’t stop the Monster
I can’t keep anyone from Harm

God is lonely in the kitchen
making sandwiches
out of breads and meats
you shouldn’t steal
God is bold in the rhythm
taking all that which is
made of flesh and eats
we admit we feel
we admit its real
we ask for a blessing

AW/BW

copyright: AMW

We thought we’d add a few samples from our websites to “Superhero Novella”, since the novella is only a novella and thus (by definition) cannot be very long.
When will we release the novella?
Hopefully sometime in January 2020, which is the very same month we’re in now.

But what should include in the Web Sampler?

We thought we’d break it down by sites.
So we need a few pages of material from each of the following:
PureLoveShop.com
From-Bartleby.com
LanguagesAndLiterature.com

PureLoveShop.com sells Pure Love.
Not really, of course.
But there are Product Descriptions, Usage Instructions, and FAQs about the Pure Love we pretend to sell.
And a brainstormed Business Statement.
And many advertisements for Pure Love, as well advertisements for T-shirts and greeting cards relating to Pure Love / the Something Deeper, and other nonperishable/eternal g(G)oods.
Also, a few blog entries sketch the daytoday operations of Bartleby Willard’s Pure Love Shop (see https://www.pureloveshop.com/chapters/ for organized links to the blogposts).

Samples from PureLoveShop.com will be:
The opening blurb:
We at the Pure Love Manufacturing, Harvesting, Mining, Collecting; Warehousing; Distributing; Branding, Marketing; & Vending Company of Justkiddingaroundville deliver the highest-quality professional-grade industry-standard Pure Love immediately, directly, and discretely to your heart of hearts!

All purchases are 100% irrevocable, and will possess you, overtake you, and save you body, mind and soul.

And then:
Should We Consume What We Deserve? (an advertisement for Pure Love)
Description & Usage
And both tip jars:
The Original and Revised Tip Jars.

From-Bartleby.com is where we release our books (so far just “First Loves”, but “First Essays” and “Superhero Novella” expected soon). It also has very many poems, essays, sketches, stories and freewrites written over the last almost-decade.

Selections from From-Bartleby.com as follows:
A couple poems (index to poems is B. Willard’s Poetry Corner):
Hmm, not sure; let’s pick a few from this handfull:

To GB’s Dad Sonnet

Hike Mt Thumb Sonnet

Fall onto Handlebar Sonnet

[pick at one nostalgia sonnet]

America

Gentle Poem

Pure Love Poem

Preface Poem: Old Timey Hymn

Lonely River

And maybe an essay or freewrite??
No, that section (Index of Essays page) feels like it needs some work.
Maybe just include a little bit from each of the other two books. Like perhaps some of “From a Disappointed Consumer” (“First Loves”) and “Amoeba Salvation” (from “First Essays”)

LanguagesAndLiterature.com hasn’t really gotten going quite yet.
So far there’s not much beyond a few side-by-side originals/translations in Spanish, French, and German.
But we only did the translations for the German ones (for Spanish and French we smushed together public domain originals with public domain translations).

Perhaps I’ll just include the English translation of https://www.languagesandliterature.com/kafka-translations-1-die-sorge-des-hausvaters-the-worries-of-a-family-man
And link to the https://www.languagesandliterature.com/stories-by-franz-kafka-side-by-side-translations-german-english/ in case anyone wants to read that side-by-side translation; and/or the other two currently available.

Consideration by B. Willard, with the occasional off-hand suggestion by A. Whistletown
Copyright by AMW

They two rafted down the lonely river
that whispered and licked at the edges of every thought.
They two drifted with the widening, muddying, lazying current.
They two snuck beneath a full moon behind dark woolen clouds.
In their straining ears, the waters crinkled, the logs moaned and squeaked, the wind scurried.
I cannot tell you how long they floated through the dark and sleeping world.

Some days
in the morning light, when the sirens resound and grown-up moralities fail,
a child and an old man hide together in the green bending reeds where hid Moses long ago.

Some days
in the brightest widest, most wondrous daylight, while adults confuse right with wrong,
a child and an old man wait in fear and trembling
within a little wood
dappled with cheery springtime light
and rattled by rivertrees shaking
in the mellow springtime breeze

Some days
the great God has to forgive so much

BW/AW
copyright AM Watson

Susan stands slowly up, hands still on the table, eyes still closed, breathe still flowing slowly out her nose

A nose once so propositionably-pert
And how many propositions there were!
A nose now a little figlike
But —
a proposition long ago seized and vows sung; rings worn; deed done; children born, swaddled, whelped, and in comfort and possibilities raised and then released —
its purpose served.

Long romantic walks
Snuggles, giggles, safety
A shared glow of safety, thriving, pleasure, fun, and happiness
Sexual satisfaction, biological completion, expansion through multiplication of one’s physical essence.
Warmth, togetherness, snuggles, bedtimes stories, headaches, stress over money illness misbehavior, fun vacations loading up all of one’s heart-treasures into a newish used minivan with books tapes puzzles water bottles and other expedition material, heartache and worry as your child stumbles, delight and pride as your child grins in success from a podium or parking lot
Christmas wrapping paper while kids in one-piece PJs play with new toy cars, dolls, tapes, books, cds,
Christmas wrapping paper as kids and grandkids delight in orange rolls, toy cars, dolls, books, and streaming services.
How much a winning nose can win you!!!!

By Bartleby Willard
To be included in his upcoming novella about superheroes, which will most likely be named “Superhero Novella”
Copyright Andy Watson