Bright and brittle gems

I love your poem one can only imagine finding valuables tossed aside like beach floatsam people flapping like seagulls over third rate pop pulp fiction fibre for the soul cranked out redemption bisquits I can only imagine bookstores we have one here in the mall and i longlingly look in (very long and not lon ) its forbidden No cash no time to read Oh who is Chomsky by the way Chomsky Born 1878 created candy apples and Kraft dinner while trying to patent a device for photographing souls from old discarded mirrors He was best credited for his transfer dispensing machine aboard buses in the city of Chomkowski until that time a hand cranked dispensing machine was in use that used old tarot cards He was buried in a paupers grave in the outskirts of his city that he was named after ..O..

if anyone could make working at a mega sized bookstore chain soulful, it is you my brother, and you did. I've had those very moments where I wondered why the world would flock, FLOCK to the drivel they do, while good writers (musicians, playwrights, etc.) get swept aside. Perhaps there is a place in heaven for the misfits like us. Mark

is Chomsky on sale, Shelley's usually on sale, Shakespeare's usually on sale, Lovecraft's usually on sale, Keat's is usually on sale, Adorno is usually on sale. (Gunter Grass was in the bargain bin the last time I shopped.) This doesn't present a problem for the poet hard-up on money, but it does for the entire world, and by extension perhaps the poet himself--if they don't care about it, why should they care what he says?

I find, too, that when I check out books of poetry at the city library, there is never a hold placed on one by another person when it comes up for renewal. I suspect, esp. in the U.S., the dearth of emphasis on English in schools has contributed overmuch to this present unpleasant sad state of affairs. Too much attention is placed on developing self-esteem ... without attending to the accomplishment so necessary to back it up. As a result, graduates of elementary, high, and even college level are left lost and at sea when it comes time for them to evaluate their own (and others') works. We are a nation of incompetents who, by our educational system, just pass it on. Sorry for the rant, but I felt compelled to go there. Regards, Chuck

All this intellectual bantering as I am not that educated. Not a by product of the lackluster US school system but the offspring of abuse. Having said that. . I offer this. Jess, this is perhaps the most touching and well written piece I have read of ANYONE'S work here OR the other sites I belong to. I can see, literally see the massive passion in you. It warms me to no end. (figuratively speaking!) By the way, do you know why I am not getting emails anymore when I get a review? K. Mulroney

If you finished reading him please send and we'll call it even :) Mark

because I know that bookstore eventually lost its own gem. :( I could see how you would identify with those lost gems. There is something about a book that begs to be read, just as we long to be explored for who we are. I'm a geek - love the smell and feel of a new book, afraid to break the binding by opening it, even though I cannot wait to unwrap the story within. Okay, it's after 2 a.m. and I'm beginning to wax poetic. ~ Ronda