Take Life By The Balls

Sister, I'm No Poet

William Carlos Williams’ minimalist work of early 20th century literature titled This Is Just To Say is considered a piece of found poetry. The story goes that Dr. Williams* left his wife a note that later he published, which the American literati deemed a classic. I love the work of Dr. Williams but in today’s world of incessant communiqués delivered willy-nilly on touch screens and discovered instantaneously—or ignored and acknowledged later—it seems by the law of large numbers theorem we are bound to accidentally produce something akin to this particular poem. Something which doesn’t necessarily convey a profundity, nor which is particularly artful. 

My recent text to a friend might fit these two criteria (not profound but found, and certainly not particularly artful). So, in spite of their mundane topics, are the samples below more alike than antithetical?

This Is Just To Say   

by William Carlos Williams (1934)

This is just to say
I have eaten

the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which

you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
 

This Is Just To Text You

by Waarlowe (2013)

This is just to text you
that I am pinching a loaf
and it got me to thinking about
how many loaves I've pinched today.
I have pinched a total of five loaves,
all completely healthy and firm loaves, too.

One loaf was delivered at home this morning,

and then the second loaf came along at Panera.

Back at home I pinched a late afternoon loaf after feeding the dogs,
and myself.
(I watched them loaf around in the yard and then... guess what they did?)

Then I found myself in the evening at a different Panera where, by golly,
I pinched a loaf!

So now it's 11pm and I find myself pinching the conclusive loaf of the day—
or at least I hope so.

What does all of this mean?
Three loaves came into the world at home,
while forty percent of my loaves were set free at a place where they sell...
loaves of things!
Also, not one of these loaves was pinched at a strip club.

Sent from my iPhone

 
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*William Carlos Williams was a practicing physician.
 

"HE ORT" (The Worst Day)

Throughout elementary and middle school, each person in my class was forced to come up with a story for the Young Authors program. It had prizes, which I never won. So I wrote at least eight of these terrible things.

My eighth and final attempt was wrought in rebellion. I decided to ditch the languagey part of storytelling and make a picture book. Basically a 72-frame comic strip. Surely my peers
—the rightful judges of this contest—would appreciate not having to actually read anything else forced upon them in the halls of Westport Middle. Consequently, I produced the only book I cared to keep for prosperity on my bookshelf. But it didn't win shit either.

While it bore the dazzlingly original title The Worst Day, it became known by my sister and I as "HE ORT" because most of the construction paper lettering fell off.

Because I wrote it in February of 1989, I was extremely pleased by the subsequent release of one of my favorite films of all time, Falling Down, which screened in the winter of my senior year of high school (1993). I won't say my little book was exactly a crafty portent of the movie, but, you know, there is a shotgun and a briefcase in the movie poster.

So here's a story from the mind of a healthy 13 year-old, who may or may not have known what S&M stood for (see penultimate page) at the time. Maybe that part was portentous.