If I Controlled The Internet

Hey all, this is the next poem that I have recently become obsessed with. It's by the same man who wrote mockingbird (Rives)...in this you get to watch him actually perform/recite it because, well, I couldn't find it in print form and its cool to watch him. So here it is:

If I Controlled The Internet

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/26

P.S. there is a good chance that the link won't work cause I c&p-ed it.

Mockingbird

I'll try and get a new poem up every other day but it all depends on how much other stuff I had to do. Anyway, I got this poem from a friend who recited it last night at my schools poetry reading. I love it (and in advance, not all will be poems I don't personally like but I respect the writer and the form they posses) and I hope you enjoy it too.

Alli

P.S. Thanks for the comments guys, maybe I'll get some from people who aren't my friends ;-D


Mockingbird by Rievs

Mockingbirds are bad-ass.
Mockingbirds are the MC's of the animal kingdom--
they listen, and mimic, and remix what they like,
they rock the mic.
Outside my window every morning
I can hear them sing
the sounds of the car alarms
like they were songs of spring.
I mean: if you can talk it,
a mockingbird can squawk it.
So check it:

I'm gonna catch mockingbirds.
I'm gonna trap mockingbirds, all across the nation
and put them gently into mason jars
like mockingbird Molotov cocktails.
And as I drive through a neighborhood, say,
where people gotta lotta
I'll take a mockingbird I caught in a neighborhood
where folks ain't got nada
and just let it go, y'know--
Up goes the bird, out come the words:
"Juanito! Juanito! Vente a comer, mi hijo!!"

I'm gonna be the Johnny Appleseed of sounds.
Cruising random interstates and city streets,
rockin' a drop-top Cadillac with a big back seat,
packing like thirteen brown paper Wal-Mart bags
full of loaded mockingbirds.
And I'll get everybody.

I'll get the nitwit on the network news, saying:
"We'll be back in a moment with more on the crisis."
I'll get some asshole at a watering hole
asking what brand the ice is.
I'll get that lady at the laundromat
who always seems to know what being nice is.

I'll get your postman making dinner plans.
I'll get the last time you lied.
I'll get: "Honey, just give me the frikkin' T.V. Guide"
I'll get a lonely little sentence some real bad judgment in it:
"Yeah, I guess you could come inside--
but only for a minute."

I’ll get an ESL class in Chinatown, learning:
"It's raining, it's pouring..."
I'll put a mockingbird on a late-night train
just to get an old man snoring.
I'll get your ex-lover wishing someone else good morning.

Cuz I'll get everyone's good mornings,
I don't care how you make 'em:
Aloha. Konnichiwa. Shalom. A salaam malaikum.

I'll get uptown gurus, downtown teachers,
broke-ass artists, and dealers, and Filipino preachers.
Leaf blowers, bartenders, boob job doctors,
hooligans, garbagemen, your local Congressman
and the spotlight guys in the overhead helicopters.

Everybody gets heard, everybody gets this
one honest mockingbird
as a witness.

And I'm on this. I'm on this 'til the whole thing spreads
with chat rooms and copycats and moms, maybe,
tucking kids into bed, singing: "Hush little baby, don't say a word--
wait for the man with the mockingbirds."
And then come the news crews, and the man-on-the-street interviews
and the letters to the editor--everybody asking:
"Just who is responsible for this citywide,
nationwide, mockingbird cacophony?"
And somebody's finally gonna tip the city council
of Washington D.C. off to me
and they'll offer me a key to the city,
a gold-plated, over-sized key to the city,
and that's all I need, cuz if I get that--I can unlock the air.

I'll listen for what's missing--
and I'll put it there.

First Post!!

Hey all! My name is Alli and this is my blog about poetry. As weird as an admission this may be- I love poetry. There is just something differenet about writing a poem then a story or skit/play.

Anyway, this blog is going to be devoted to collecting poems to share with others. For now they will be by famous authors but maybe, eventually, I'll get the courage to put up some of my own. So, enjoy the following poem- and please leave a comment letting me know what you thought of it (you hated it, you loved it, you don't get it- anything you feel like)

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DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.