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Gemma, I would like to compliment you on this very fine and very intense poem; I think highly of it and am impressed. I would like to encourage you in your work, and would be most interested to see more of your poems here in our forum.

To which forum I welcome you, with all my heart! You are an extraordinary poet, and still so young! I was just getting started when I was your age; I think you are better at this than I was then.

Welcome among us, and thank you so much for joining us. We are so much the richer for your having come to be among us here.

I am in unbreakable solidarity with you, my fellow poet, always.

Check out my sonnets if you have time; I hope you like them.

Namaste.

thank you

I will take a look at your sonnets!

Gemma is such a beautiful name...

Every time I see your name I burst out in song:

"Thomas gemma Cantuariae..."

I'm weird, I know, but historical (if hysterical)!

Alles Gute, und Gottes Segen!

(And I hope you like my sonnets...)

lol i never thought it was beautiful.

who is Thomas gemma Cantuariae?

I want to learn german! but more than that russian and arabic.

i read the christmas pies and christmas lies one I liked it very much.

St. Thomas, the Martyr of Canterbury, the Archbishop who was murdered by the king, the protagonist of T. S. Eliot's play, "Murder in the Cathedral," who was martyred at the high altar at his prayers. The king asked the famous question of his knights, "Who shall rid me of this meddlesome priest?" And they, like dogs, obliged.

May God forgive me, I suppose my ancestors were involved somehow, for was it not the same King Henry who ennobled them (I don't remember; so many kings, so much nobility, and fat lot o' good it's doing bloody me! I suppose I am as I am from William the Conqueror himself, even back in Normandy, but "every one was an 'Enery.")? Blood, grief, hopelessness, and death; blood unto the horse's bridle: Alles ist weg.

In any case, Thomas is the gem of Canterbury, "gemma Cantuariae."

Yes, by all means, learn foreign tongues; I enjoy them immensely, and communication is certainly facilitated thereby.

For example, if a German-speaking man is ever rude to you, say this:

FICK DICH, SCHLAPP SCHWANZ!

Then run like hell.

I even have a poem with those words as the title.

I do welcome you, with all my heart.

We are bracing for a terrorist attack down here south of the border, and we had an earthquake here today in California; the world as I know it would seem to be coming to an end...

And all I want to do is write sonnets for Silke.

Impotent rage, bluster and bravado, fear and futility; meaningless, meaningless, meaningless.

Here is another German word for you: Vernichtung.

"When this you see, remember me; it had to be, it had to be."

--Gertrude Stein, Four Saints in Three Acts (I was in the chorus once, a lifetime ago...)

I'll keep FICK DICH, SCHLAPP SCHWANZ! in mind but what does the last part mean?

I don't think anyone's ever welcomed me with all their heart (but that's probably because they knew me.) And if they did they certainly thought differently after they got to know me.

Yeah I heard about the whole high alert thing, I was talking to my brother earlier today. (Perhaps I should move back so they can kill me.)
It's too bad there was an earthquake. How bad was it?

I'll be damned if you don't almost cheer me up.

(Fick dich, schlapp Schwanz = F**K you, flaccid penis.)

The earthquake was weit davon, far away from me; kein Problem, no problem. I guess I was just getting depressed.

Vernichtung... ah, now there is a word!

A philosophical word, a Nietzschean word, a Donnerwort, a thunder-word!

It means: ANNIHILATION!

O du lieber Augustin, Alles ist weg.

Stay in Canada, and may God bless you.

What the hell, perhaps I will go out in a blaze of Vernichtung.

Now I have to shut up, or I will depress myself even further and, God forbid, others as well.

I am in unbreakable solidarity with you, no matter what; and yes, I do indeed welcome you with all my heart.

Do I digress? Well, I guess!

To return to my original point (you should hear me lecture... well, maybe not...):

You are a very good poet! Your words possess power! Take this, my praise, "to the bank," as they say!

well i don't think i'll run after i tell them that; I wouldn't want to miss the expression on their face.

annihilation sounds very appealing right now.

I will stay in Canada... if I came back the cops would be after me (as well as my dear F**KING mother) plus I don't like the united states at all. uh oh! i want to learn arabic and i don't like the united states.... I must be a terrorist!

I don't see how shutting up would stop you from depressing yourself, because you're still thinking aren't you?

I don't like it either, especially now.

I'm on my way to Sweden.

Yes, I am still thinking. Good point!

(And I'd better be careful; I think that's against the law nowadays hereabouts.)

You are very intelligent.

Oh Sweden sounds very nice. I'd like to live in London (if only I was born when punk wasn't dead and I could see a Crass show.)

well thanks but I am far from intelligent. Someone intelligent wouldn't do all the stupid things I do (especially fail at killing themselves on numerous occasions.)

Gemma!

What a great long tail your fine strong poem has grown!

Listen: you are really a good poet.

I love punk, by the way, absolutely love it.

AND! I am no longer depressed! I am flying! Why (that's Warum, in German, auf Deutsch)?

Because Silke just called me...

God, her voice drives me mad with bliss; she is the most powerful drug in the world, and I have tried them all...

I adore her, I am absolutely mad for her. Can you tell that from my sonnets?

Just to hear her incredible voice sends me soaring, flying, over the moon.

Alleluia

lol your moods change faster than mine (and that's really saying something, i'm fucked up, bipolar for one.)

Oh yeah!

Are you kidding?

I am SO fucked-up that the Bush administration, of all the fascist losers in this miserable world, actually gives me a madman's pension; I am that far gone (actually it was first given me by the Clinton administration, but these strange people have not revoked it; I am apparently hardcore hopeless)...

Kyrie, kyrie eleison!

Oh well, at least I am happy tonight, with my beautiful Silke shining in the sky, my incomparable butterfly, glorious, radiant, magnificent beyond all reckoning; I hear her and respond to her sweet beckoning...

Froehliche Weihnachten und gesegnetes Neues Jahr, and wish me a happy birthday on New Year's Eve, when I will be thirteen again, again, again.

hahahaha. lucky you.



I will wish you a happy birthday then (and i'll do it now as welll: HAPPY BIRTHDAY!)
but why you'd want to be thirteen again I can't begin to fathom.

Thank you so much!

You would love my little sister Dara, by the way; she is a great advocate for animals. She is one of our Global Moderators (I am so proud of her!). She and I founded this forum, with our dear friend Shawn, almost a year ago now.

Yes, I am going to be thirteen again, as I always am. My father, The Baron, The Don, Old Ice-Water-in-the-Veins, His Excellency, Sergeant Lance Goddamnit Sir, et cetera et cetera, was born in 1929, and is STILL thirteen; his father lived from 1893 until 1995, and was thirteen the entire time... I'm afraid it is a genetic anomaly.

So I must accept my fate. But having unnatural long life does have its advantages, daresay.

the thought that i was ever not vegan disgusts me!


you are very funny, and you seem damn upbeat. That must be nice.

In what year did you start being thirteen? Seems like quite a curse to remain thirteen your whole life.

what advantages would having a long life have?? not to mention an unnaturally long life.

One advantage: Silke.

In my father's case: Erika.

I don't remember my grandfather's second wife's name.

We Lances don't seem to get it right the first time, so it takes longer.

But it works out.

Gott sei Dank.