“
Life is a gift that must be given back and joy should arise from its possession. It's too damn short and that's a fact. Hard to accept this earthly procession to final darkness is a journey done, circle completed, work of art sublime, a sweet melodic rhyme. A battle won.
”
”
Dean Koontz (The Book of Counted Sorrows)
“
like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that’s what life is like.” “That’s what life is like?” I was trying to get his meaning. “Yeah. It rhymes, but not in the way you expect.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
I like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that's what life is like.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
Star friendship.— We were friends and have become estranged. But this was right, and we do not want to conceal and obscure it from ourselves as if we had reason to feel ashamed. We are two ships each of which has its goal and course; our paths may cross and we may celebrate a feast together, as we did—and then the good ships rested so quietly in one harbor and one sunshine that it may have looked as if they had reached their goal and as if they had one goal. But then the almighty force of our tasks drove us apart again into different seas and sunny zones, and perhaps we shall never see one another again,—perhaps we shall meet again but fail to recognize each other: our exposure to different seas and suns has changed us! That we have to become estranged is the law above us: by the same token we should also become more venerable for each other! And thus the memory of our former friendship should become more sacred! There is probably a tremendous but invisible stellar orbit in which our very different ways and goals may be included as small parts of this path,—let us rise up to this thought! But our life is too short and our power of vision too small for us to be more than friends in the sense of this sublime possibility.— Let us then believe in our star friendship even if we should be compelled to be earth enemies.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
Have it compose a poem- a poem about a haircut! But lofty, tragic, timeless, full of love, treachery, retribution, quiet heroism in the face of certain doom! Six lines, cleverly rhymed, and every word beginning with the letter S!!” [sic]….
Seduced, shaggy Samson snored.
She scissored short. Sorely shorn,
Soon shackled slave, Samson sighed,
Silently scheming
Sightlessly seeking
Some savage, spectacular suicide."
("The First Sally (A) or The Electronic Bard"
THE CYBERIAD)
”
”
Stanisław Lem
“
Poetry vs. Prose
One difference of course
is the length of the line.
And some people suppose
that prose doesn’t rhyme.
But I have a theory
that’s more like a question:
If prose is lengthy fiction
is poetry short suggestion?
”
”
Daniel Klawitter
“
Step, step, step, I fall and they lift me, slip-slop, slip-slop, through the watery mud. Each step is a heartbeat on my way to the grave, and the longest walk I will ever take. Plip, plip, I slip and they gather me. How strong are these savages, and how tight is their grip! Plip, plip, plip patters the rain, and I fall, and I call, and I stall for more time.
But my time has run out.
”
”
Louise Blackwick (Jump into the Abyss!)
“
If you cannot understand my argument, and declare "It's Greek to me", you are quoting Shakespeare; if you claim to be more sinned against than sinning, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you recall your salad days, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you act more in sorrow than in anger; if your wish is farther to the thought; if your lost property has vanished into thin air, you are quoting Shakespeare; if you have ever refused to budge an inch or suffered from green-eyed jealousy, if you have played fast and loose, if you have been tongue-tied, a tower of strength, hoodwinked or in a pickle, if you have knitted your brows, made a virtue of necessity, insisted on fair play, slept not one wink, stood on ceremony, danced attendance (on your lord and master), laughed yourself into stitches, had short shrift, cold comfort or too much of a good thing, if you have seen better days or lived in a fool's paradise -why, be that as it may, the more fool you , for it is a foregone conclusion that you are (as good luck would have it) quoting Shakespeare; if you think it is early days and clear out bag and baggage, if you think it is high time and that that is the long and short of it, if you believe that the game is up and that truth will out even if it involves your own flesh and blood, if you lie low till the crack of doom because you suspect foul play, if you have your teeth set on edge (at one fell swoop) without rhyme or reason, then - to give the devil his due - if the truth were known (for surely you have a tongue in your head) you are quoting Shakespeare; even if you bid me good riddance and send me packing, if you wish I was dead as a door-nail, if you think I am an eyesore, a laughing stock, the devil incarnate, a stony-hearted villain, bloody-minded or a blinking idiot, then - by Jove! O Lord! Tut tut! For goodness' sake! What the dickens! But me no buts! - it is all one to me, for you are quoting Shakespeare.
”
”
Bernard Levin
“
Andrew is going to be one of my problems. Dean thinks it's great fun--he knows what is in the wind as well as I do. He is always teasing me about my red-headed young man--my r.h.y.m. for short.
"He's almost a rhyme," said Dean.
"But never a poem," said I.
”
”
L.M. Montgomery (Emily Climbs (Emily, #2))
“
Sam.” Only he could say my name with so much exasperation and fondness all at the same time. It was really quite remarkable.
“I might have written an ode to his penis in iambic pentameter that goes on for forty-seven stanzas,” I admitted. “I feel better now that I’ve said that out loud.”
“Of course you did.” Morgan sighed.
“Did you know that penis doesn’t rhyme with as many things as one might think? That was a lesson I learned far too late.”
“Oddly enough, I don’t spend time trying to rhyme words with penis.”
“Wow,” I said. “You put a lot of disdain in such a short sentence. I wish I could do that.
”
”
T.J. Klune (A Destiny of Dragons (Tales From Verania, #2))
“
I like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that's what life is like."
"That's what life is like?" I was trying to get his meaning.
"Yeah. It rhymes, but not in the way you expect.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
We are meant to be heroes. We are meant to fight witches and monsters and evil spirits, even if it appears that we will not survive the encounter. In short, we are meant to hope and to believe in the impossible. The meaning comes from the fight itself, from fighting against such great odds and such great powers, regardless of whether there is a great victory at the end, or not. Our victory is in the trying.
”
”
Francisco X. Stork (Two and Twenty Dark Tales: Dark Retellings of Mother Goose Rhymes)
“
Fallacy, Fallacy. - He cannot rule himself; therefore that woman concludes that it will be easy to rule him, and throws out her lines to catch him;-the poor creature, who in a short time will be his slave.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science with a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
Ashes, ashes.” Her whispered words of an old rhyme smashed through the silence as thunder, and in unison, the shadow figures answered.
“We all fall down.
”
”
A.F. Stewart (Killers and Demons II: They Return)
“
We have some ideas about the afterlife, about why we’re still here. The thing about a life being cut short, when it’s not by choice and not with any rhyme or reason or hinted at by diagnosis or threat, is that sometimes, some of you will want to hang on. We do. We can’t seem to find a way to leave.
”
”
Nova Ren Suma (The Walls Around Us)
“
Be thou the first true merit to befriend;
His praise is lost, who stays till all commend.
Short is the date, alas, of modern rhymes,
And 'tis but just to let 'em live betimes.
No longer now that golden age appears,
When patriarch wits surviv'd a thousand years:
Now length of Fame (our second life) is lost,
And bare threescore is all ev'n that can boast;
Our sons their fathers' failing language see,
And such as Chaucer is, shall Dryden be.
”
”
Alexander Pope (An Essay On Criticism)
“
They are constantly colonists and emigrants ; they have the name of being at home in every country. But they are in exile in their own country. They are torn between love of home and love of
something else; of which the sea may be the explanation or may be only the symbol. It is also found in a nameless nursery rhyme which is the finest line in English literature and the dumb refrain of all English poems, 'Over the hills and far away.
”
”
G.K. Chesterton (A Short History of England)
“
History does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. In other words, just because something happened once doesn’t necessarily mean it will happen again in the same way.
”
”
Peter Atkins (Life Is Short And So Is This Book)
“
She cares about fall’s magnificence in the rain
The dipping raindrops' dance assigning thence Indicated rhyme that eases her refrain
Before they met - her paces commence.
”
”
Victoria Kulik (Diary of the Mad: A Short Story Collection)
“
UTTERLY NONSENSICAL things happen in this world. Sometimes there is absolutely no rhyme or reason in them: suddenly the very nose which had been going around with the rank of a state councillor and created such a stir in the city, found itself again, as though nothing were the matter, in its proper place, that is to say, between the two cheeks of Major Kovalyov.
”
”
Nikolai Gogol (The Overcoat and Other Short Stories (Dover Thrift Editions: Short Stories))
“
I like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that's what life is like."
"That's what life is like?" I was trying to get his meaning.
"Yeah. It rhymes, but not in the way you expect.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
I like short poems with weird rhyme schemes, because that’s what life is like.” “That’s what life is like?” I was trying to get his meaning. “Yeah. It rhymes, but not in the way you expect.
”
”
John Green (Turtles All the Way Down)
“
Such was the short bitter life of Brother Tod Clifton. Now he’s in this box with the bolts tightened down. He’s in the box and we’re in there with him, and when I’ve told you this you can go. It’s dark in this box and it’s crowded. It has a cracked ceiling and a clogged-up toilet in the hall. It has rats and roaches, and it’s far, far too expensive a dwelling. The air is bad and it’ll be cold this winter. Tod Clifton is crowded and he needs the room. Tell them to get out of the box,’ that’s what he would say if you could hear him. Tell them to get out of the box and go teach the cops to forget that rhyme. Tell them to teach them that when they call you nigger to make a rhyme with trigger it makes the gun backfire.
”
”
Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
“
It is often written that a kind of medieval footstool was called a tuffet—a presumption based entirely on the venerable line “Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet.” In fact, the only place the word appears in historic English is in the nursery rhyme itself. If tuffets ever actually existed, they are not otherwise recorded.
”
”
Bill Bryson (At Home: A Short History of Private Life)
“
Consciousness is the last and latest development of the organic, and consequently also the most unfinished and least powerful of these developments. Innumerable mistakes originate out of consciousness, which, "in spite of fate," as Homer says, cause an animal or a man to break down earlier than might be necessary. If the conserving bond of the instincts were not very much more powerful, it would not generally serve as a regulator: by perverse judging and dreaming with open eyes, by superficiality and credulity, in short, just by consciousness, mankind would necessarily have broken down: or rather, without the former there would long ago have been nothing more of the latter!
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
Such was the short bitter life of Brother Tod Clifton. Now he's in this box with the bolts tightened down. He's in the box and we're in there with him, and when I've told you this you can go. It's dark in this box and it's crowded. It has a cracked ceiling and a clogged-up toilet in the hall. It has rats and roaches, and it's far, far too expensive a dwelling. The air is bad and it'll be cold this winter. Tod Clifton is crowded and he needs the room. 'Tell them to get out of the box', that's what he would say if you could hear him. 'Tell them to get out of the box and go teach the cops to forget that rhyme. Tell them to teach them that when they call you nigger to make a rhyme with trigger it makes the gun backfire.
”
”
Ralph Ellison (Invisible Man)
“
When I roll my eyes, she just shakes her head like I couldn't possibly understand how important all this stuff is. And she's right - I don't. I don't think prancing around in short skirts repeating stupid rhymes, flashing their underwear to cheer on boys without doing so much as a cartwheel. It's the twenty-first century - shouldn't we be more evolved than this?
”
”
Louise Rozett (Confessions of an Angry Girl (Confessions, #1))
“
Poems are surmountable. They have rhymes and rhythms to help you make meaning. They're short enough. . . to read and reread until you've made some sense of them. Short stories are a different ballgame. You read them and understand the words completely. You know what happens in each sentence. You follow the dialogue and action. at the end, you know exactly what's happened. And also you have no idea.
”
”
Laurie Frankel (The Atlas of Love)
“
I reach out and trace the dragon relic on his back, my fingers lingering on the raised silver scars, and he stiffens. They're all short, thin lines, too precise to be a whip, no rhyme or reason to their pattern but never intersecting. 'What happened?' I whisper, holding my breath.
'You really don't want to know.' He's tense, but doesn't move away from my touch.
'I do.' They don't look accidental. Someone hurt him deliberately maliciously, and it makes me want to hunt the person down and do the same to them.
His jaw flexes as he looks over his shoulder, and his eyes meet mine. I bite my lip, knowing this moment can go either way. He can shut me out like always or he can actually let me in.
'There's a lot of them,' I murmur, dragging my fingers down his spine.
'A hundred and seven.' He looks away.
The number makes my stomach lurch, and then my hand pauses. A hundred and seven. That's the number Liam mentioned. 'That's how many kids under the age of majority carry the rebellion relic.'
'Yeah.'
I shift so I can see his face. 'What happened, Xaden?'
He brushes my hair back, and the look that passes is over his face is so close to tender that it makes my heart stutter. 'I saw the opportunity to make a deal,' he says softly. 'And I took it.'
'What kind of deal leaves you with scars like that?'
Conflict rages in his eyes, but then he sighs. 'The kind where I take personal responsibility for the loyalty of the hundred and seven kids the rebellion's leaders left behind, and in return, we're allowed to fight for our lives in the Riders Quadrant instead of being put to death like our parents.' He averts his gaze. 'I chose the chance of death over the certainty.'
The cruelty of the offer and the sacrifice he made to save the others hits like a physical blow. I cradle his cheek and guide his face back to mine. 'So if any of them betray Navarre...' I lift my brows.
'Then my life is forfeit. The scars are a reminder.'
It's why Liam says he owes him everything. 'I'm so sorry that happened to you.' Especially when he wasn't the one who led the rebellion.
He looks at me like he sees into the very depths of who I am. 'You have nothing to apologise for.
”
”
Rebecca Yarros (Fourth Wing (The Empyrean, #1))
“
The Buried Bishop’s a gridlocked scrum, an all-you-can-eat of youth: ‘Stephen Hawking and the Dalai Lama, right; they posit a unified truth’; short denim skirts, Gap and Next shirts, Kurt Cobain cardigans, black Levi’s; ‘Did you see that oversexed pig by the loos, undressing me with his eyes?’; that song by the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl booms in my diaphragm and knees; ‘Like, my only charity shop bargains were headlice, scabies, and fleas’; a fug of hairspray, sweat and Lynx, Chanel No. 5, and smoke; well-tended teeth with zero fillings, revealed by the so-so joke — ‘Have you heard the news about Schrodinger’s Cat? It died today; wait — it didn’t, did, didn’t, did…’; high-volume discourse on who’s the best Bond … Sartre, Bart Simpson, Barthes’s myths; ‘Make mine a double’; George Michael’s stubble; ‘Like, music expired with the Smiths’; and futures all starry; fetal think-tankers, judges, and bankers…power and money, like Pooh Bear and honey, stick fast — I don’t knock it, it’s me; and speaking of loins, ‘Has anyone told you you look like Demi Moore from Ghost?’; roses are red and violets are blue, I’ve a surplus of butter and Ness is warm toast.
”
”
David Mitchell
“
MANIFESTO OF THE HUNGRY GENERATION
Poetry is no more a civilizing maneuver, a replanting of the bamboozled gardens; it is a holocaust, a violent and somnambulistic jazzing of the hymning five, a sowing of the tempestual Hunger.
Poetry is an activity of the narcissistic spirit. Naturally, we have discarded the blankety-blank school of modern poetry, the darling of the press, where poetry does not resurrect itself in an orgasmic flow, but words come out bubbling in an artificial muddle. In the prosed- rhyme of those born-old half-literates, you must fail to find that scream of desperation of a thing wanting to be man, the man wanting to be spirit.
Poetry of the younger generation too has died in the dressing room, as most of the younger prosed -rhyme writers, afraid of the Satanism, the vomitous horror, the self-elected crucifixion of the artist that makes a man a poet, fled away to hide in the hairs.
Poetry from Achintya to Ananda and from Alokeranjan to Indraneel, has been cryptic, short-hand, cautiously glamorous, flattered by own sensitivity like a public school prodigy. Saturated with self-consciousness, poems have begun to appear from the tomb of logic or the bier of unsexed rhetoric.
Published by Haradhon Dhara from 269 Netaji Subhas Road, Howrah, West Beng
”
”
Malay Roy Choudhury
“
The age was the Elizabethan; their morals were not ours; nor their poets; nor their climate; nor their vegetables even. Everything was different. The weather itself, the heat and cold of summer and winter, was, we may believe, of another temper altogether. The brilliant amorous day was divided as sheerly from the night as land from water. Sunsets were redder and more intense; dawns were whiter and more auroral. Of our crepuscular half-lights and lingering twilights they knew nothing. The rain fell vehemently, or not at all. The sun blazed or there was darkness. Translating this to the spiritual regions as their wont is, the poets sang beautifully how roses fade and petals fall. The moment is brief they sang; the moment is over; one long night is then to be slept by all. As for using the artifices of the greenhouse or conservatory to prolong or preserve these fresh pinks and roses, that was not their way. The withered intricacies and ambiguities of our more gradual and doubtful age were unknown to them. Violence was all. The flower bloomed and faded. The sun rose and sank. The lover loved and went. And what the poets said in rhyme, the young translated into practice. Girls were roses, and their seasons were short as the flowers. Plucked they must be before nightfall; for the day was brief and the day was all.
”
”
Virginia Woolf (Orlando)
“
A fair, sweet, and honest country face was revealed, reposing in a nest of wavy chestnut hair. It was between pretty and beautiful. Though her eyes were closed, one could easily imagine the light necessarily shining in them as the culmination of the luminous workmanship around. The groundwork of the face was hopefulness; but over it now I ay like a foreign substance a film of anxiety and grief. The grief had been there so shortly as to have abstracted nothing of the bloom, and had as yet but given a dignity to what it might eventually undermine. The scarlet of her lips had not had time to abate, and just now it appeared still more intense by the absence of the neighbouring and more transient colour of her cheek. The lips frequently parted, with a murmur of words. She seemed to belong rightly to a madrigal - to require viewing through rhyme and harmony.
”
”
Thomas Hardy (The Return of the Native)
“
At present ye have still the choice: either the least possible pain, in short painlessness and after all, socialists and politicians of all parties could not honourably promise more to their people, or the greatest possible amount of pain, as the price of the growth of a fullness of refined delights and enjoyments rarely tasted hitherto! If ye decide for the former, if ye therefore want to depress and minimise man's capacity for pain, well, ye must also depress and minimise his capacity for enjoyment. In fact, one can further the one as well as the other goal by science! Perhaps science is as yet best known by its capacity for depriving man of enjoyment, and making him colder, more statuesque, and more Stoical. But it might also turn out to be the great pain-bringer! And then, perhaps, its counteracting force would be discovered simultaneously, its immense capacity for making new sidereal worlds of enjoyment beam forth!
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
I know a ton of poetry by heart,” Tartt says, when I comment on her recital of the Nabokov rhyme. It’s true. She has an alarming ability to simply break into passages, short or long, from her favorite writing. She quotes, freely and naturally, from Thomas Aquinas, Cardinal Newman, Buddha, and Plato—as well as David Byrne of Talking Heads and Jonathan Richman of the Modem Lovers. And many others.
“When I was a little kid, first thing I memorized were really long poems by A. A. Milne,” she says. ‘‘Then I went through a Kipling phase. I could say ‘Gunga Din’ for you. Then I went into sort of a Shakespeare phase, when I was about in sixth grade. In high school, I loved loved loved Edgar Allan Poe. Still love him. I could say ‘Annabel Lee’ for you now. I used to know even some of the shorter stories by heart. ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’—I used to be able to say that.
‘‘I still memorize poems,” she says. ‘‘I know ‘The Waste Land’ by heart. ‘Prufrock.’ Yeats is good. I know a lot of poems in French by heart. A lot of Dante. That’s just something that has always come easily to me. I also know all these things that I was made to learn. I’m sort of this horrible repository of doggerel verse.
”
”
Donna Tartt
“
What then makes a person "noble"? Certainly not that he makes sacrifices; even the frantic libertine makes sacrifices. Certainly not that he generally follows his passions; there are contemptible passions. Certainly not that he does something for others, and without selfishness; perhaps the effect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons. - But that the passion which seizes the noble man is a peculiarity, without his knowing that it is so: the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in things which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented: a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God: a bravery without the desire for honour: a self-sufficiency which has superabundance, and imparts to men and things. Hitherto, therefore, it has been the rare in man, and the unconsciousness of this rareness, that has made men noble. Here, however, let us consider that everything ordinary, immediate, and indispensable, in short, what has been most preservative of the species, and generally the rule in mankind hitherto, has been judged unreasonable and calumniated in its entirety by this standard, in favour of the exceptions. To become the advocate of the rule - that may perhaps be the ultimate form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself on earth.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
The Ultimate Nobility of Character.—What then makes a person "noble"? Certainly not that he makes sacrifices; even the frantic libertine makes sacrifices. Certainly not that he generally follows his passions; there are contemptible passions. Certainly not that he does something for others, and without selfishness; perhaps the effect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons.—But that the passion which seizes the noble man is a peculiarity, without his knowing that it is so: the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in things which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented: a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God: a bravery without the desire for honour: a self-sufficiency which has superabundance, and imparts to men and things. Hitherto, therefore, it has been the rare in man, and the unconsciousness of this rareness, that has made men noble. Here, however, let us consider that everything ordinary, immediate, and indispensable, in short, what has been most preservative of the species, and generally the rule in mankind hitherto, has been judged unreasonable and calumniated in its entirety by this standard, in favour of the exceptions. To become the advocate of the rule—that may perhaps be: the ultimate form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself on earth.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
The Ultimate Nobility of Character. What then makes a person "noble"? Certainly not that he makes sacrifices; even the frantic libertine makes sacrifices. Certainly not that he generally follows his passions; there are contemptible passions. Certainly not that he does something for others, and without selfishness; perhaps the effect of selfishness is precisely at its greatest in the noblest persons. - But that the passion which seizes the noble man is a peculiarity, without his knowing that it is so: the use of a rare and singular measuring-rod, almost a frenzy: the feeling of heat in things which feel cold to all other persons: a divining of values for which scales have not yet been invented: a sacrificing on altars which are consecrated to an unknown God: a bravery without the desire for honour: a self-sufficiency which has superabundance, and imparts to men and things. Hitherto, therefore, it has been the rare in man, and the unconsciousness of this rareness, that has made men noble. Here, however, let us consider that everything ordinary, immediate, and indispensable, in short, what has been most preservative of the species, and generally the rule in mankind hitherto, has been judged unreasonable and calumniated in its entirety by this standard, in favour of the exceptions. To become the advocate of the rule - that may perhaps be the ultimate form and refinement in which nobility of character will reveal itself on earth.
”
”
Friedrich Nietzsche (The Gay Science: With a Prelude in Rhymes and an Appendix of Songs)
“
But, after one quick trace of his tongue between her lips, he abruptly pulled away and stepped back from her. She was leaning into him so hard he had to put his hands on her shoulders to steady her.
Catherine’s eyes flew open. Releasing her shoulders, he pointed past her to the books he’d set on the desk.
She opened her mouth to protest, but closed it again. As she followed Jim, she caught a glimpse of his profile when he picked up the books and slate. There was a smug grin on his face. He was toying with her, teaching her a lesson—that two could play at heating things up and abruptly cooling them down.
Indignation and amusement competed in her as she took her seat beside him and he handed her the paper he’d written. She hadn’t set him any homework. He’d done it on his own, printed a brief description of their picnic in short sentences or single words. It was
almost like a poem without rhyme. “Fish swim water. Sky. Trees. Leaves. Eat food. Drink.”
She smiled at him. “Very good.”
He touched his lips, puckering them in
a kiss, and tapped the signing book.
“Kiss,” she said and looked up the sign for it. “Fingers touching thumbs as both
hands come together,” the text said. Her cheeks flushed as she read, “trembling slightly to indicate the degree of passion.”
Catherine made the movement as she repeated the word aloud. “Kiss.”
Jim copied the movement, shaping his lips like hers. He pointed to the slate and offered her the chalk so she could spell the word. He studied each letter as she wrote it, before printing them himself: K-i-s-s.
Catherine’s cheeks flamed even hotter from seeing it written in glaring white against the black slate. Kiss. Kiss. Somehow there seemed to be no denying or hiding it now that it was written down. She glanced at Jim’s lips and her nipples tightened at the memory of
his mouth sucking them.
”
”
Bonnie Dee (A Hearing Heart)
“
Farewell, ye gilded follies, pleasing troubles;
Farewell, ye honour'd rags, ye glorious bubbles;
Fame's but a hollow echo, Gold, pure clay;
Honour the darling but of one short day;
Beauty, th' eye's idol, but a damask'd skin;
State, but a golden prison, to live in
And torture free-born minds; embroider'd Trains,
Merely but pageants for proud swelling veins;
And Blood allied to greatness is alone
Inherited, not purchas'd, nor our own.
Fame, Honour, Beauty, State, Train, Blood and Birth,
Are but the fading blossoms of the earth.
I would be great, but that the sun doth still
Level his rays against the rising hill:
I would be high, but see the proudest oak
Most subject to the rending thunder-stroke:
I would be rich, but see men, too unkind
Dig in the bowels of the richest mind:
I would be wise, but that I often see
The fox suspected, whilst the ass goes free:
I would be fair, but see the fair and proud,
Like the bright sun, oft setting in a cloud:
I would be poor, but know the humble grass
Still trampled on by each unworthy ass:
Rich, hated wise, suspected, scorn'd if poor;
Great, fear'd, fair, tempted, high, still envy'd more.
I have wish'd all, but now I wish for neither.
Great, high, rich, wise, nor fair: poor I'll be rather.
Would the World now adopt me for her heir;
Would beauty's Queen entitle me the fair;
Fame speak me fortune's minion, could I " vie
Angels " with India with a speaking eye
Command bare heads, bow'd knees, strike justice dumb,
As well as blind and lame, or give a tongue
To stones by epitaphs, be call'd " great master "
In the loose rhymes of every poetaster ?
Could I be more than any man that lives,
Great, fair, rich wise, all in superlatives;
Yet I more freely would these gifts resign
Than ever fortune would have made them mine.
And hold one minute of this holy leisure
Beyond the riches of this empty pleasure.
Welcome, pure thoughts; welcome, ye silent groves;
These guests, these courts, my soul most dearly loves.
Now the wing'd people of the sky shall sing
My cheerful anthems to the gladsome spring:
A pray'r-book, now, shall be my looking-glass,
In which I will adore sweet virtue's face.
Here dwell no hateful looks, no palace cares,
No broken vows dwell here, nor pale-fac'd fears;
Then here I'll sit, and sigh my hot love's folly,
And learn t' affect an holy melancholy:
And if contentment be a stranger then,
I'll ne'er look for it, but in heaven, again.
”
”
Izaak Walton (The Compleat Angler, or the Contemplative Man's Recreation)
“
Pissed-Off Poet's Credo: Limerick My Ass Motherfuckers
There was a spoken-word poet from the hood
Who busted kick-ass rhymes that nobody could.
The homeboys believed he had a gift;
Jealous poets gave this nigga short shrift ~
'Till he busted a cap in their asses
and the jealous poets shut-the-fuck-up for good.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
Shall I Compare thee to a Hashtag Hater?
Shall I compare thee to a hashtag hater?
Thou art less self-promoting and gots no marketing skillz, bitch.
My razor wit tumbles thy humongous ass off thy high horse;
Even Frank's makes better sauce than thy lame sauciness.
Sometime my hot-wing-ed words set you aflame,
And the kickass rhymes I bust dull thy bleak provincial mind.
In every bullshit hate you chant, thou art abated,
Hung by thine own petards, ye redneck retards.
But thy noisome toll shall soon fade;
With every hateful word ye spout, my followers grow boundless;
Death shall boast that thou wand’rest in his shade,
As Time, O wisest judge, diminishes thee in his eternal lines.
So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,
My wit and my poetry, shall make short shrift of thee.
”
”
Beryl Dov
“
Nowhere in all this elaborate brain circuitry, alas, is there the equivalent of the chip found in a five-dollar calculator. This deficiency can make learning that terrible quartet—“Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision,” as Lewis Carroll burlesqued them—a chore. It’s not so bad at first. Our number sense endows us with a crude feel for addition, so that, even before schooling, children can find simple recipes for adding numbers. If asked to compute 2 + 4, for example, a child might start with the first number and then count upward by the second number: “two, three is one, four is two, five is three, six is four, six.” But multiplication is another matter. It is an “unnatural practice,” Dehaene is fond of saying, and the reason is that our brains are wired the wrong way. Neither intuition nor counting is of much use, and multiplication facts must be stored in the brain verbally, as strings of words. The list of arithmetical facts to be memorized may be short, but it is fiendishly tricky: the same numbers occur over and over, in different orders, with partial overlaps and irrelevant rhymes. (Bilinguals, it has been found, revert to the language they used in school when doing multiplication.) The human memory, unlike that of a computer, has evolved to be associative, which makes it ill-suited to arithmetic, where bits of knowledge must be kept from interfering with one another: if you’re trying to retrieve the result of multiplying 7 X 6, the reflex activation of 7 + 6 and 7 X 5 can be disastrous. So multiplication is a double terror: not only is it remote from our intuitive sense of number; it has to be internalized in a form that clashes with the evolved organization of our memory. The result is that when adults multiply single-digit numbers they make mistakes ten to fifteen per cent of the time. For the hardest problems, like 7 X 8, the error rate can exceed twenty-five per cent.
Our inbuilt ineptness when it comes to more complex mathematical processes has led Dehaene to question why we insist on drilling procedures like long division into our children at all. There is, after all, an alternative: the electronic calculator. “Give a calculator to a five-year-old, and you will teach him how to make friends with numbers instead of despising them,” he has written. By removing the need to spend hundreds of hours memorizing boring procedures, he says, calculators can free children to concentrate on the meaning of these procedures, which is neglected under the educational status quo.
”
”
Jim Holt (When Einstein Walked with Gödel: Excursions to the Edge of Thought)
“
Author’s Note This series of stories are set in Australia and use Aussie words, expressions and spelling. We say ‘mum’ to rhyme with ‘thumb’. Year 9 is the same as ninth grade and high school begins in Year 7 and goes all the way through to Year 12. Christmas is in the summer. We do maths, not math, and we spell analyse (and a bunch of other words) with an ‘s’, not a ‘z’. In fact, lots of our spelling is just slightly different, so don’t get worried if it’s not what you’re used to.
”
”
Cecily Anne Paterson (The Coco and Charlie Franks Boxed Set: Love and Muddy Puddles, Charlie Franks is A-OK and Bonus short story (Coco and Charlie Franks #1-2))
“
the Nero Award, and he is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award.
”
”
Jeffery Deaver (The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme, #13))
“
My favorite time of year will soon be here, new scary rhymes will soon appear, I love to write them yes that's true, won't you please read one or maybe two. Happy Halloween 2022!
”
”
Ray Bella (Pretty Evil: My Halloween Store (My Holiday Shorts Book 13))
“
Publishers Weekly, September 9, 2022
The Donkey’s Song: A Christmas Nativity Story
"The humble donkey that transported Mary to the Bethlehem stable describes the sights, smells, and sounds it experiences in this peaceful imagining of Jesus’s birth. Using short rhyming stanzas and reiterative phrasing (“A bit of a manger,/ a bit of snug hay,/ a bit of a soft, silent night”), debut author Kellum creates an understated tone matched by Hanson’s pastoral scenes, which are gently washed in light. Friendly-faced farm animals—including the large-headed donkey and a kind, sprightly mouse—fill most of the spreads, leading in closing pages to the donkey’s moving song: “I lifted my head/ above His hay bed...// ...and sang of this morning of grace.” A sweet and gentle introduction to the nativity story". Ages 3–7. (Oct.) - Publishers Weekly
”
”
Jacki Kellum
“
Paranoid Systems of History (PSH), a short-lived periodical of the 1920s whose plates have all mysteriously vanished, natch, has even suggested, in more than one editorial, that the whole German Inflation was created deliberately, simply to drive young enthusiasts of the Cybernetic Tradition into Control work: after all, an economy inflating, upward bound as a balloon, its own definition of Earth's surface drifting upward in value, uncontrolled, drifting with the days, the feedback system expected to maintain the value of the mark constant having, humiliatingly, failed. . . . Unity gain around the loop, unity gain, zero change, and hush, that way, forever, these were the secret rhymes of the childhood of the Discipline of Control—secret and terrible, as the scarlet histories say. Diverging oscillations of any kind were nearly the Worst Threat. You could not pump the swings of these playgrounds higher than a certain angle from the vertical.
”
”
Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow)
“
Before long those booklets morphed into The Weather Vein, a free “monthly magazine” featuring a beaming cartoon character named The Mechanical Weather Man, “Mech” for short, whose control-valve body was emblazoned with the phrase “EVERY DAY A GOOD DAY.” In cartoon-strip format and in rhyme, Mech visited businesses
”
”
Salvatore Basile (Cool: How Air Conditioning Changed Everything)
“
It's a little bit sad, when you seem very near
To adventures and things of that sort,
Which nearly begin, and then don't; and you know
It is only because you are short.
”
”
Amy Lowell (A Dome Of Many Colored Glass)
“
Necessary Equals by Stewart Stafford
The grandest hearth cannot warm,
Once grave chills touch the aged,
The beggar donates his last coin,
At a counting house of the well-waged.
The giant is meek and misunderstood,
As the slighted short one grows fiery,
Life's spun gold pawned for pennies,
The stricken strive to buy back entirely.
In old age, winter shadows lengthen,
As babes on tiptoes crave growth,
So-called leaders spit out patron's lies,
As a street madman roars his frank oath.
Opposing siblings they are, but needed,
Fellow travellers orbit on a path seeded.
© Stewart Stafford, 2023. All rights reserved.
”
”
Stewart Stafford
“
It's not as if I ran away, either. But this world...is too vast if you're searching for something important. No rhyme or reason. True, it was like that from the beginning.
”
”
Kafka Asagiri (The Ghost in the Shell: Five New Short Stories)
“
THE BEAR
A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at;
He gets what exercise he can
By falling off the ottoman,
But generally seems to lack
The energy to clamber back.
Now tubbiness is just the thing
Which gets a fellow wondering;
And Teddy worried lots about
The fact that he was rather stout.
He thought: "If only I were thin!
But how does anyone begin?"
He thought: "It really isn't fair
To grudge one exercise and air."
For many weeks he pressed in vain
His nose against the window-pane,
And envied those who walked about
Reducing their unwanted stout.
None of the people he could see
"Is quite" (he said) "as fat as me!"
Then, with a still more moving sigh,
"I mean" (he said) "as fat as I!
Now Teddy, as was only right,
Slept in the ottoman at night,
And with him crowded in as well
More animals than I can tell;
Not only these, but books and things,
Such as a kind relation brings -
Old tales of "Once upon a time,"
And history retold in rhyme.
One night it happened that he took
A peep at an old picture-book,
Wherein he came across by chance
The picture of a King of France
(A stoutish man) and, down below,
These words: "King Louis So and So,
Nicknamed 'The Handsome!'" There he sat,
And (think of it!) the man was fat!
Our bear rejoiced like anything
To read about this famous King,
Nicknamed "The Handsome." There he sat,
And certainly the man was fat.
Nicknamed "The Handsome." Not a doubt
The man was definitely stout.
Why then, a bear (for all his tub )
Might yet be named "The Handsome Cub!"
"Might yet be named." Or did he mean
That years ago he "might have been"?
For now he felt a slight misgiving:
"Is Louis So and So still living?
Fashions in beauty have a way
Of altering from day to day.
Is 'Handsome Louis' with us yet?
Unfortunately I forget."
Next morning (nose to window-pane)
The doubt occurred to him again.
One question hammered in his head:
"Is he alive or is he dead?"
Thus, nose to pane, he pondered; but
The lattice window, loosely shut,
Swung open. With one startled "Oh!"
Our Teddy disappeared below.
There happened to be passing by
A plump man with a twinkling eye,
Who, seeing Teddy in the street,
Raised him politely to his feet,
And murmured kindly in his ear
Soft words of comfort and of cheer:
"Well, well!" "Allow me!" "Not at all."
"Tut-tut! A very nasty fall."
Our Teddy answered not a word;
It's doubtful if he even heard.
Our bear could only look and look:
The stout man in the picture-book!
That 'handsome' King - could this be he,
This man of adiposity?
"Impossible," he thought. "But still,
No harm in asking. Yes I will!"
"Are you," he said,"by any chance
His Majesty the King of France?"
The other answered, "I am that,"
Bowed stiffly, and removed his hat;
Then said, "Excuse me," with an air,
"But is it Mr Edward Bear?"
And Teddy, bending very low,
Replied politely, "Even so!"
They stood beneath the window there,
The King and Mr Edward Bear,
And, handsome, if a trifle fat,
Talked carelessly of this and that….
Then said His Majesty, "Well, well,
I must get on," and rang the bell.
"Your bear, I think," he smiled. "Good-day!"
And turned, and went upon his way.
A bear, however hard he tries,
Grows tubby without exercise.
Our Teddy Bear is short and fat,
Which is not to be wondered at.
But do you think it worries him
To know that he is far from slim?
No, just the other way about -
He's proud of being short and stout.
”
”
Milne A. A. (A World of Winnie-the-Pooh: A collection of stories, verse and hums about the Bear of Very Little Brain)
“
And sure we may
The same too of the Present say,
If Past, and Future Times do thee obey.
Thou stopst this Current, and dost make
This running River settle like a Lake,
Thy certain hand holds fast this slippery Snake.
The Fruit which does so quickly wast,
Men scarce can see it, much less tast,
Thou Comfitest in Sweets to make it last.
This shining piece of Ice
Which melts so soon away
With the Suns ray,
Thy Verse does solidate and Chrystallize.
Till it a lasting Mirror be;
Nay thy Immortal Rhyme
Makes this one short Point of Time,
To fill up half the Orb of Round Eternity.
”
”
Abraham Cowley
“
Soothe and sly stamina with a short sword they slice
They are beyond precise making the victim pay the price
”
”
Justin Bienvenue (Like A Box Of Chocolates)
“
Wee, wee, wee, wee, all the way home,” Hazlit quoted the nursery rhyme. Portmaine paused before sipping his own drink. “Did Maggie Windham strike you on the head?” “No. She hired me, and it took me half my walk home to figure out what she’s truly about.” “She wants to have her way with your tender young flesh,” Portmaine suggested. “You’re overdue to get your wick dipped, you know.” “Your concern is touching, Archer.” “You always get short-tempered when you’ve neglected your romping. Maybe you should go a round or two with Lady Norcross.” “Maybe I should find a partner who can think beyond his next swiving.” “I like swiving.” Portmaine pushed off the desk and refilled his drink, then came to rest on the sofa a couple of feet from Hazlit. “It’s normal to like swiving. Lady Norcross apparently understands this. You used to understand this. I certainly understand it. More brandy?” “You’re outpacing me,” Hazlit said, smiling slightly at Portmaine’s predictable simplicity. “And
”
”
Grace Burrowes (Lady Maggie's Secret Scandal (The Duke's Daughters, #2; Windham, #5))
“
was a lean, unsmiling man, a dusting of short gray hair on his head.
”
”
Jeffery Deaver (The Burial Hour (Lincoln Rhyme, #13))
“
letter, we have added a short alliterative rhyme to each page. The purpose of each rhyme is to bombard children with the appropriate sound while they are looking at the picture and the letter. This technique aids memory and helps children discriminate speech sounds. Also, care was taken to write funny or seemingly impossible rhymes because children remember and like absurd associations better than commonplace ones. Added to the alphabet pages of the book are 26 different sound games to play with your child. These games were carefully developed to appeal to children and to be easy
”
”
Lisl Fair (My First Book of ABC and 123)
“
D. Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Book Review writes:
"Sea Creatures and Poems: Plus Some Other Fish Rhymes illustrates the fun that poetry can embrace, providing a zany collection for all ages that is both ocean-focused and whimsical. The operative description for both poems and pictures is "silly," and the book fulfills this promise with a series of engaging observations that belay the usual staid approaches of too many poetry books.
Art combined with poetry is "a delicious combination," as Richard Merritts reflects in the collection's introduction. The poems inspired the author to add illustrations which are just as whimsically touched...and, also, quite artistically rendered.
These aren't demanding works. Take "Pompano Pompano Pompano," for example. Its very short observation concludes with an ironic twist after identifying the "flat fish from Florida" outside of its normal sea environment. Succinct? Yes. But the poem really...snags readers, landing a winning insight on both the pompano and its ultimate fate.
Readers trawling for humor will find plenty in this book. Even the poetry titles present original, fun observations, as in "By Jove, I Hooked a Snook."
Aside from its delightful observations, the poems represent diverse structures, from free verse to rhyme: "From the depths of the sea;/Came a fish that could be;/From a prison did flee;/Dressed in stripes, so you see..."
From redfish and ahi to the anglers who long for them, Sea Creatures and Poems will appeal to a wide audience, especially those who do not view poetry as an opportunity for philosophical and psychological analysis alone.
Its blend of natural history info, inviting color illustrations, and accompanying fun insights is recommended for those who fish to those who enjoy eating or studying them, as well as poetry lovers who will appreciate the very different approaches, poetic variety, and whimsical inspections within.
Libraries catering to these audiences will want to include it in their collections, but Sea Creatures and Poems will prove a delightful choice for adults who seek to instill in the young an appreciation for poetry's capability for fun and its diverse structural representations.
”
”
D. Donovan, Senior Editor, Midwest Book Review
“
suggests that we can choose thoughts that will bring us out of depression. Practically anything that is repeated again and again will work. Remember the importance of repetition?[89] It could be a nursery rhyme. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, I’ve seen the results firsthand. People have kicked out depression simply by repeating phrases such as “blue cat” or “purple dogs” or “pink frog.” It’s true! These new phrases directly initiate activity in the brain, away from the parts that respond to depressed thinking. The new words activate neurons in the thinking part of the brain. Activity in the feeling portion slows. Stress chemicals being poured into the brain diminish. You might choose to short-circuit the cycle of thinking that leads to depression by repeating the phrase, “Yes, praise God.” Or you might pray for yourself or someone else. You could also say, “I can do this!” Any affirmations will work.[90] You also can improve mood and eliminate
”
”
H. Norman Wright (A Better Way to Think: Using Positive Thoughts to Change Your Life)
“
Instead, the new thought actually creates activity in the neocortex—the thinking part of the brain. Depressive thoughts activate the subcortex, the feeling part of the brain. We have the choice of using either the subcortex (feeling portion) or the neocortex (thinking portion) region of our brain. Remember, your mind will move in the direction of the most current and dominant thought. You can make a thought dominant by saying it over and over again. Even repeatedly saying, “I am depressed” has an effect upon your depression. And when you’re depressed you tend to act in a way that reinforces your depression. You may look depressed. You think defeatist, depressive thoughts. When you’re depressed you’re letting your mind tell you what to feel, think, and do. The author of BrainSwitch Out of Depression suggests that we can choose thoughts that will bring us out of depression. Practically anything that is repeated again and again will work. Remember the importance of repetition?[89] It could be a nursery rhyme. Sounds ridiculous, right? Well, I’ve seen the results firsthand. People have kicked out depression simply by repeating phrases such as “blue cat” or “purple dogs” or “pink frog.” It’s true! These new phrases directly initiate activity in the brain, away from the parts that respond to depressed thinking. The new words activate neurons in the thinking part of the brain. Activity in the feeling portion slows. Stress chemicals being poured into the brain diminish. You might choose to short-circuit the cycle of thinking that leads to depression by repeating the phrase, “Yes, praise God.” Or you might pray for yourself or someone else. You could also say, “I can do this!” Any affirmations will work.[90] You also can improve mood and eliminate
”
”
H. Norman Wright (A Better Way to Think: Using Positive Thoughts to Change Your Life)
“
Yet nature turns a dumb face toward us like a cow. When we read its wonders, we wonder whether we haven't written them ourselves. We are in ferment, but our greatness grows like a bubble of froth. We sense that existence itself lacks substance; that it is serious in the wrong sense; that its heaviness is that of wet air. The sublime. . . ah, the sublime is far off, though we call for its coming. Yes. Life falls short--it is never what it should be. Rhymes will not rescue it. Days end, and begin again, automatically. Only the clock connects them. Sullen sunshine is followed by pitiless frost, and the consequence is we are a tick or two nearer oblivion, and the alarm for our unwaking.
”
”
William H. Gass (Habitations of the Word: Essays)
“
Ode to Charlie
THE DOG OF A LIFETIME
We got a pup named Charlie
One year at Christmastime.
He changed our lives completely
So I’ll share this dog rhyme.
His ears were long and dangly,
His legs were short and fat,
His naps were almost constant,
’Cept when he chased the cat.
I dressed him up in outfits,
In dresses, shirts, and jeans,
In boots and leather loafers--
The dapp’rest pup I’d seen!
He started working cattle
With Ladd and all the crew.
He thought this was his purpose.
Oh, if he only knew!
That he was just a Bassett
And bred for not so much.
But Charlie rose above it
And learned that cowdog touch.
But man, that short dog syndrome…
He thought he was in charge
And ruled the other doggies
His bravado, always large!
But deep down, all he wanted
Were tummy rubs all day
And sausage, ham, and burgers
And bacon, I would say.
He snored just like an engine,
His breath was not so great,
His ears were always crusty
From hanging in his plate.
But Charlie Boy was perfect
And loyal through and through.
He knew what we were thinking,
He sensed what we would do.
We thought he’d live forever
But cancer came and stayed,
Then left with our dear Charles
And left us all dismayed.
And yet, we feel so lucky
He got to be our friend.
We have a million memories
Right up until the end.
We loved you, Charlie, you were the best
We never will forget you
And the very second we get to Heaven…
We’re coming straight to get you!
”
”
Ree Drummond (The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Come and Get It! Simple, Scrumptious Recipes for Crazy Busy Lives)
“
Ghost Sonnet (Parapsychology 101)
Do you believe in ghosts, someone asked.
Plenty mysteries to unfold, I replied.
Most cases, commoner curiosity gives in,
supernatural explanation is convenient.
Thus mysteries become paranormal,
despite being born of a natural world.
Question is not, is there an explanation,
but how far are you willing to unravel!
In short, there is no supernatural,
only natural yet to be understood.
If human mind perseveres long enough,
every mystery soon reveals its truth.
Bluntly put, there is no ghastlier
ghost than a wicked personality.
We are the gods, we are the goblins,
of our own elaborate story.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations (Sonnet Sultan))
“
In short, there is no supernatural,
only natural yet to be understood.
If human mind perseveres long enough,
every mystery soon reveals its truth.
”
”
Abhijit Naskar (Brit Actually: Nursery Rhymes of Reparations (Sonnet Sultan))