Hello I am also bored

I'm at home all by my lonesome,
reading and waiting a little while
before I brush my teeth
and go to bed.

I could go for some conversation
if you're interested.
Don't much have
a particular topic in mind.

I worked ten hours today
and ate Taco Bell for dinner.

Do you like stuff?
Do you hate stuff?

Things? Place, people, ideas?
For/against any topic?

Want to discuss
the weather?

I'm all eyes for what you have to say.
Hope to hear from you.



From Craigslist Strictly Platonic, 23 December 2014. Submitted by Erica Tucker.

Typo in a Dead Language

The scene is in a synagogue,
but the word probably has nothing to do with religion.
It seems that the butchers in town
were either at fault, or the ones faulted.
Something about meat being sent out of the shtetl,
and the butchers collecting money.
Those protesting in half-mumbled sentences
end their words with "kupkes kupkes"
or possibly "kuFkes kuFkes."
I don't see how hats or head-coverings would be involved,
unless it was somehow used as a symbol of protest
(maybe something "socialist," like waving the flag,
or similar to the Bund motto: sher un ayzn [scissors and iron])
or something like throwing down a gauntlet
(in this case a hat - maybe like the Muslims throw shoes)
or used as a swear word or curse...
and someone else suggested a typo (twice?).



From a discussion about the Yiddish word 'kupkes' on Mendele, a moderated mailing related to the Yiddish language. Original post on this page (vol23011.txt), 9 November 2013. Submitted by Howie Good.

Shoreham harbour

In the harbour a single Guillemot
and two Purple Sandpipers roosting
with Turnstones on the inner wooden breakwater
and Peregrine sitting in the nest box
on the Power Station chimney.

Widewater; I searched the entire length
of the beach from the flats to the sailing club
without finding the Snow Buntings once again.

On the beach a single Rock Pipit
and twenty-four Sanderling, off shore little other 
than a few regular gulls.



From the Sussex Ornithological Society, a Recent Sightings post by Bernie, 12 Dec 2011. The post has been topped and tailed, and the word 'very' removed from line 10. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.

In Case of a German

Between dog and wolf
– horse horse tiger tiger –
rabbit skins are falling.

A mute eating yellow lotus,
like a bee to a crying face;
thinking about the immortality of the crab.
It rains enough to drink while standing up.

The devil knows more for being old
than for being the devil. He'd steal 
your chickens and beg for eggs.
Speaking of Cao Cao, Cao Cao is here:
he's trying to shit higher than his ass can reach.

Never say that priest is not my dad –
this ain't my first rodeo.
Every creature that walks ends up in a grill.
If you are going to screw me, at least give me 
a kiss, oiling your moustache in anticipation
of the jackfruit tree bearing fruit.



Foreign sayings from a multitude of other languages, including the title (from Polish), all taken from a Reddit discussion about culturally untranslatable phrases started 3 December 2010. Submitted by Gabriel Smy.