A sonnet by Sarah Gilbert and Mara Collins
Sarah Gilbert (“mama, military wife, writer, cooker of inconvenient food, photographer of life, finance geek, keeper of chickens, beginning farmer”) posted a poem called oil leak: a sonnet.
The final couplet:
‘Twas me, and you, our thirst, indelicate
gulping, our leak, our spill, our oil-stained foot.
It’s Memorial Day. Sarah’s husband recently deployed to the SouthWest Asia perma-war zone. She writes in short bursts of 140 characters or less here, and in longer form in many places.
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Frank. I really don’t mean to come off a complete asshole when I say that this is a perfect example of why I don’t spend much time excitedly dancing around the internet in search of more of the above. I admit, this woman seems to be very nice, and in terms of the environment her heart is certainly in the right place. But Frank, this particular sonnet is an exercise in need of exorcism. And the twittering that follows makes me understand Betty White when she referred to social networking as “an enormous waste of time.” I see this girl has 4,577 followers. Still, like Crocodile Dundee, I’m left wanting to ask, “Don’t you have any Mates?”
Again, I really don’t mean to be a downer. And I’m fully aware that many truly wonderful and gifted people spend endless hours posting little digital notes to strangers. Hell, I know a brilliant physicist who spends virtually all his spare time playing something called “Worlds at War?” In both cases there has to be something I’m missing.
Please, someone give me one compelling reason to get a facebook or twitter account!
No way… you shouldn’t waste your time with Facebook or twitter. Facebook is just a website, but people think it’s the net. Stupid them. Twitter is largely an exercise in “So what?” Unless you really want to follow Ashton Kutcher’s grooming habits, I suppose.
Also, I’m the meanest son-of-a-bitch on the internet. It’s been proven. I have the plaque. I invented flame-mail in 1978 and I was one of the original Usenet trolls. No one is more surly than me. That said, Sarah is a perfectly fine person. I’ve never met her in real life, but we worked together for several months a year or so ago at the Supereco blog and I got to know her a little and enjoy her bike-riding, locavore, neo-birkenstock framing. She reminds me a little of the good old days, and I share a lot of her values and perspectives.
Not everything you read here will be interesting to you, though some might find it so. You won’t like everything I like. I’m working on a couple of projects to spread out my rantings across several web sites. I’ll tell you more about that as it gels.
Regarding the sonnet: it’s drafty, it’s stiff, and it’s a co-written work…
You might like this YouTube thing better: (it’s more Gaga)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQrN56fczgc
And for a more balanced look at Sarah, there’s this:
http://portlandonfire.com/sarahgilbert/
Now just shut up or I’ll have to come over there and put the nasty on ya’.
And also, it’s World of Warcraft. Everyone knows that. And obviously your physicist friend has too much spare time!
Like a man with a lift in one shoe…I stand corrected!!
So I walked in, flipped open my Apple, and checked the stock report on “Daily Finance” as I often do to be certain that all my money is still gone. And by God if I didn’t find myself staring directly into the admittedly beguiling puss of none other than Sarah Gilbert! The exact Sarah of our last evening’s discussion no less! And it seems she is the authoress of the lead article of the day (which I read) and is listed as a feature writer and is referenced to a whole bunch of other articles she’s written (which I skimmed). Right away I got the picture that this girl is a pretty damned good writer who knows a whole lot of stuff about a whole lot of stuff. Which made me begin to feel really inadequate. So I went back and re-read the sonnet and came immediately to the conclusion that it’s without a doubt the best poetry thing I ever read.
So please Frank, extend my sincerest apology to Sarah. My only defense is that I may have been in a condition similar to that recently experienced by the Duchess of York and she is hoping it will excuse her from saying some really stupid shit. No, I’m not claiming to be royalty, but remember “forgiveness is the better part of valor.” And I say that with discretion.
Oh, and for the sake of completeness, all my money is still gone.
Oh yeah. Did I mention she has an MBA from Wharton?
And did I mention I’ve got an advanced wanding cirtificate from Hogwarts?
Phallic phreakiness raises it’s ugly little head.
Ugly? Little? I take offense!!