This topic is whatever you want it to be, one size fits all

[PalacePaul]

"America is a mere ingraft of Modern Europe: thought (religion), politics, finance, even the language, is merely a transplant of the best of Europe in a new space where (swept the natives that were in their way) those principles could develop freely.

The problem of America is that, instead of advancing where Europe left it, as it started developing on its own, it also developed its own ballast: all the American XIXth century is basically the Anti-XVIIIth century America, substitute Law and ecumenism for the Bible and the rule of the "Good People”."

Wow, this thread really is amazing

 

[Spunky Jizzmore]

 

[Peloso]

Zippers are wonderful things, and considering how they work, it's amazing that they don't malfunction more often. But when they do, well, all is lost.

 

[Dargelos]

Zippers are wonderful things, and considering how they work, it's amazing that they don't malfunction more often. But when they do, well, all is lost.

I totaly agree. The Zipper is my all time favourite ride. The motion is the most violent and random of them all, it's a near death experience you can enjoy again and again. The Zipper has a reputation for danger, the early models, which had more powerful motors, did cause a good few heart attacks, that's why I love it. The ride is that intense.

 

[Peloso]

 

[Dargelos]

I must find out where Julijonas Urbonas works today. Then make sure to never go there.

 

[Essex Boy]

I stumbled upon a rather interesting Ethiopian nun at the weekend. She died in March last year aged 99. See what you think.

Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou

 

[Essex Boy]

I was tempted to put this in as a reply to this thread but it's better off here. This is dedicated to all those who are over the hill, maybe haven't had a whole lot o' lovin' in their lives, and have realized they can't get it up now anyway ...

And yet in the end the longing dies,
just as flowers die in a cellar,
waiting every day for a little sunshine.
Just as animals die if they are kept without love,
and everything in the world which isn't cared for!
You no longer ask: "Where did it go?"
Calmly you wake up, calmly you go to sleep,
looking back on the vanished days of your youth,
and someone tells you gently: "How lucky you are!".
Then you think that maybe that really is the case,
while quietly wondering why you are still not happy.

 

[Essex Boy]

https://www.jopvandriel.com/

 

[LilBit]

Am I allowed to post offensive gender slang in this thread?

 

[Essex Boy]

Is Ted Kooser well known in America? I ask because American writers generally and poets in particular seldom catch on in this country. This is from the introduction to his collection Winter Morning Walks.

In the autumn of 1998, during my recovery from surgery and radiation for cancer, I began taking a two-mile walk each morning. I’d been told by my radiation oncologist to stay out of the sun for a year because of skin sensitivity, so I exercised before dawn, hiking the isolated country roads near where I live ... One morning in November, following my walk, I surprised myself by trying my hand at a poem. Soon I was writing everyday.

Two specimens of Ted Kooser's poetry. Specimen A:

Walking by flashlight
November 18. Cloudy, dark and windy.

Walking by flashlight
at six in the morning,
my circle of light on the gravel
swinging side to side,
coyote, racoon, field mouse, sparrow,
each watching from darkness
this man with the moon on a leash.​

Specimen B:

The Urine Specimen

In the clinic, a sun-bleached shell of stone
on the shore of the city, you enter
the last small chamber, a little closet
chastened with pearl, cool, white and glistening,
and over the chilly well of the toilet
you trickle your precious sum in a cup.
It’s as simple as that. But the heat
of this gold your body’s melted and poured out
into a form begins to enthrall you,
warming your hands with your flesh's fevers
in a terrible way. It’s like holding
an organ—spleen or fatty pancreas,
a lobe from your foamy brain still steaming
with worry. You know that just outside
a nurse is waiting to cool it into a gel
and slice it into a microscopic slide
for the doctor, who in it will read your future,
wringing his hands. You lift the chalice and toast
the long life of your friend there in the mirror,
who wanly smiles, but does not drink to you.​

 

[Essex Boy]

Here we go again. The dreadful countdown has begun. I fancy another trip to Brighton on Saturday. I don't get out much. It's the last weekend of summer and the weather looks like being good. Anyone in Brighton this weekend? Let me know and I'll buy us lunch in JB's Diner. Maximum £20 per person, I'm not made of money. No cash alternative. T&Cs apply.

 

[Essex Boy]

Nobody can tell ya
There's only one song worth singing.
They may try and sell ya,
Coz it hangs them up to see someone like you ...