Category Archives: Poetry

Mitch Hedberg on Logging

Minute 5:44

I bought a doughnut and they gave me a receipt for the doughnut. I don’t need a receipt for a doughnut. I just give you the money, you give me the doughnut. End of transaction. We don’t need to bring ink and paper into this. I just can not imagine a scenario where I had to prove I bought a doughnut. Some skeptical friend. Don’t even act like I didn’t get that doughnut. I got the documentation right here. Oh, wait it’s back home in the file. Under D.

This log entry sponsored by Bob’s Doughnuts on Polk Street in San Francisco, where you can find the freshest piping hot doughnuts just after 1 am to close out a live music/comedy night in style, and they don’t give receipts.

Just kidding, I hate doughnuts.

Sailor Song

by Regina Spektor

She will kiss you ’til your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana

All the sailor boys have demons
They sing oh Kentucky
why did you forsake me?
If I was meant to sail the sea
Why did you make me?
It should’ve been another state, oh state

Because Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch

Does it matter that our anchor
Couldn’t even reach the bottom of a bath tub?
And the sails reflect the moon
It’s such a strange job
playing Black Jack on the deck

Still, atop this giant bottle
dressed in white we quietly huddle with our missiles
And we miss the girls back home
Oh home sweet home

Because Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch
Mary Anne’s a bitch

She will kiss until your lips bleed
But she will not take her dress off
Americana, Tropicana
Americana, Tropicana
Americana, Americana

I posted this poem because I really love the imagery and the twists of bottles and tubs, missiles and kisses. Her words are as sweet and varied as verses — sung in staccato, spiccato, and legato. She’s so very prescient, but my favorite work of hers lately is actually Fidelity. I wonder if there is any connection since the guy in Fidelity resembles a Russian sailor…

To Mrs. Reynolds’ Cat

by John Keats (1795-1821)

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand climacteric,
   How many mice and rats hast in thy days
   Destroy’d? How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick
   Thy latent talons in me – and upraise
   Thy gentle mew – and tell me all thy frays,
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists –
   For all thy wheezy asthma – and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off – and though the fists
   Of many a maid have given thee many a maul,
Still is that fur as soft, as when the lists
   In youth thou enter’dest on glass bottled wall.

Viceversa

by Benedetti, translated by Katya Rascovsky

Viceversa

Tengo miedo de verte
necesidad de verte
esperanza de verte
desazones de verte

tengo ganas de hallarte
preocupación de hallarte
certidumbre de hallarte
pobres dudas de hallarte

tengo urgencia de oírte
alegría de oírte
buena suerte de oírte
y temores de oírte

o sea,
resumiendo
estoy jodido

y radiante
quizá más lo primero
que lo segundo
y también

viceversa.

   Vice versa

I’m scared to see you
need to see you
hope to see you
am anxious to see you

I want to find you
worry about finding you
am certain to find you
have poor doubts of finding you

I urge to hear you
am happy to hear you
fortunate to hear you
I fear hearing you

so
in summary
I’m screwed

and radiant
maybe more the first
than the second
and also

vice versa.