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I have always loved anything that glows in the dark!
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I struggle with the benefits and detriments of social media. I understand that most think it's a way to stay connected with others, but is it really? Are connections via social media really connections? I know I am spending an incredible amount of time on Facebook. It's beginning to feel like channel surfing on TV. I spend an hour scrolling through my "news feed" and the only thing I feel is that I just spent an hour that I could have been doing something else. I know I'm not the only one.
Earlier this week, I took steps to move away from social media, even just a bit. I deactivated my Twitter account and took down my Three Dollar Poetry FB page. Being on Twitter was pointless. I found myself getting irritated and angry with the uninformed opinions, the fake profiles, and the click bait posts that litter the feed. It's been four days now and I am happy to report that I don't miss it. The Facebook page seemed kind of pointless. It's main purpose for many is to promote a business. Yes, I have a business but I don't have my shop on Facebook. Anything I post in my Etsy shop can be easily shared on my personal page. It was duplication and therefore pointless. So down it went. For now, I will keep my Facebook and Instagram accounts. Instagram has been beneficial for me and my Etsy shop. Facebook, eh, well, I plan on spending less time there. You are probably reading this right now because you followed a link I posted on Facebook. That's totally a good thing, thanks for clicking the link! Here is where I ask a favor. If you like my posts and content, you can also get notifications of new posts via email. Just go to the Contact page and fill out your information. I will NOT inundate your inbox with pointless emails. I don't post very often, either. I you subscribe I will only send you a notification that says "Hey, I just posted a new....um...post, and it would be really cool if you read it" I do have the aspiration to post on a more regular basis, but it still won't be daily. I doubt it would even be weekly. There's also a newsletter form on Three Dollar Poetry, my other website. I would also love to gain a few pen pals. I love writing typewritten (of course) letters. Do you want to correspond? Email me your address at mark@threedollarpoetry.com. I would love that. So, that's it, there is my goal: to fade away and check out from most social media. I will, however, always appreciate the cat pictures, the insomnia-induced posts, and updates on how you are doing. Peace.  In Raymond Chandler's final novel, Playback, Philip Marlowe finds himself hired by an attorney that he doesn't know to follow a woman without giving any reason, only to report back to the attorney with periodic updates. Marlowe begins to suspect that he is not being given enough information, so he attempts to dig further. This, of course, brings him into contact with several unsavory characters, along with the woman he is supposed to follow. As one would guess, as they say, the plot thickens.
Playback was published in Great Britain in July of 1958 and the US the following October. Raymond Chandler died the following year. That being said, Playback is not Chandler's best work, perhaps reflecting his ongoing health issues. One senses that Chandler felt he felt an urgency to finish the novel but was unable to give it a final edit. Despite this, it is still a classic noir tale. Chandler and Dashiell Hammett (The Maltese Falcon) were the creators and masters of the noir, or hard-boiled, genre. Despite its minor flaws, such as a fairly pat finale, Playback will still be an important part of Chandler's canon. The novel was reworked from an original screenplay by Chandler. Ironically, Playback is the only novel by Chandler not made into a film. I recommend this book as an important part of the noir genre, with 4 out of 5 stars. More books by Raymond Chandler: The Big Sleep Farewell, My Lovely The Long Goodbye The Lady in the Lake The High Window The Little Sister Trouble is My Business (short stories) The Simple Art of Murder (short stories) All links are to Thriftbooks. Of course, check your local used or independent book store. To read more about Raymond Chandler, follow the link here.  Personal Poem Now when I walk around at lunchtime I have only two charms in my pocket an old Roman coin Mike Kanemitsu gave me and a bolt-head that broke off a packing case when I was in Madrid the others never brought me too much luck though they did help keep me in New York against coercion but now I'm happy for a time and interested I walk through the luminous humidity passing the House of Seagram with its wet and its loungers and the construction to the left that closed the sidewalk if I ever get to be a construction worker I'd like to have a silver hat please and get to Moriarty's where I wait for LeRoi and hear who wants to be a mover and shaker the last five years my batting average is .016 that's that, and LeRoi comes in and tells me Miles Davis was clubbed 12 times last night outside birdland by a cop a lady asks us for a nickel for a terrible disease but we don't give her one we don't like terrible diseases, then we go eat some fish and some ale it's cool but crowded we don't like Lionel Trilling we decide, we like Don Allen we don't like Henry James so much we like Herman Melville we don't want to be in the poets' walk in San Francisco even we just want to be rich and walk on girders in our silver hats I wonder if one person out of the 8,000,000 is thinking of me as I shake hands with LeRoi and buy a strap for my wristwatch and go back to work happy at the thought possibly so --Frank O'Hara (1926-1966) Francis Russell "Frank" O'Hara was an American writer, poet, and art critic. A curator at the Museum of Modern Art, O'Hara became prominent in New York City's art world.
(I was out of commission due to a visit to the dentist yesterday, so I missed posting this. -Mark)  After the Last Bulletins After the last bulletins the windows darken And the whole city founders readily and deep, Sliding on all its pillows To the thronged Atlantis of personal sleep, And the wind rises. The wind rises and bowls The day’s litter of news in the alleys. Trash Tears itself on the railings, Soars and falls with a soft crash, Tumbles and soars again. Unruly flights Scamper the park, and taking a statue for dead Strike at the positive eyes, Batter and flap the stolid head And scratch the noble name. In empty lots Our journals spiral in a fierce noyade Of all we thought to think, Or caught in corners cramp and wad And twist our words. And some from gutters flail Their tatters at the tired patrolman’s feet, Like all that fisted snow That cried beside his long retreat Damn you! damn you! to the emperor’s horse’s heels. Oh none too soon through the air white and dry Will the clear announcer’s voice Beat like a dove, and you and I From the heart’s anarch and responsible town Return by subway-mouth to life again, Bearing the morning papers, And cross the park where saintlike men, White and absorbed, with stick and bag remove The litter of the night, and footsteps rouse With confident morning sound The songbirds in the public boughs. -Richard Wilbur Richard Wilbur was born on March 1, 1921 in New York City. One of the most lauded and honored poets of 20th century American verse, Wilbur was the second poet laureate of the United States, succeeding Robert Penn Warren.
 Robert White Creeley (5/21/1926-03/30/2005) was an American poet and author of more than sixty books. He is usually associated with the Black Mountain poets, though his verse aesthetic diverged from that school. He was close with Charles Olson, Robert Duncan, Allen Ginsberg, John Wieners and Ed Dorn. Wikipedia
 The Hollow Men Mistah Kurtz-he dead A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us-if at all-not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer- Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. Thomas Stearns Eliot OM was a poet, essayist, publisher, playwright, literary critic and editor. Considered one of the 20th century's major poets, he is a central figure in English-language Modernist poetry. His other works include The Waste Land and The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
I'm going to try something new. Each week I hope to post a poem for your consideration. One that has moved me. I have taken a deep dive into reading the poetry of poets I have not previously read. I hope I can share at least one (or two) that move you. Life's Tragedy It may be misery not to sing at all, And to go silent through the brimming day; It may be misery never to be loved, But deeper griefs than these beset the way. To sing the perfect song, And by a half-tone lost the key, There the potent sorrow, there the grief, The pale, sad staring of Life's Tragedy. To have come near to the perfect love, Not the hot passion of untempered youth, But that which lies aside its vanity, And gives, for thy trusting worship, truth. This, this indeed is to be accursed, For if we mortals love, or if we sing, We count our joys not by what we have, But by what kept us from that perfect thing. --Paul Laurence Dunbar  Paul Laurence Dunbar (June 27, 1872 – February 9, 1906) was an American poet, novelist, and short story writer of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Born in Dayton, Ohio, to parents who had been enslaved in Kentucky before the American Civil War, Dunbar began writing stories and verse when he was a child. He published his first poems at the age of 16 in a Dayton newspaper, and served as president of his high school's literary society. Dunbar's popularity increased rapidly after his work was praised by William Dean Howells, a leading editor associated with Harper's Weekly. Dunbar became one of the first African-American writers to establish an international reputation. In addition to his poems, short stories, and novels, he also wrote the lyrics for the musical comedy In Dahomey (1903), the first all-African-American musical produced on Broadway in New York. The musical later toured in the United States and the United Kingdom. Suffering from tuberculosis, which then had no cure, Dunbar died in Dayton, Ohio, at the age of 33. Much of Dunbar's more popular work in his lifetime was written in the "Negro dialect" associated with the antebellum South, though he also used the Midwestern regional dialect of James Whitcomb Riley.[1] Dunbar also wrote in conventional English in other poetry and novels. Since the late 20th century, scholars have become more interested in these other works. from Wikipedia |