What a total tool bag Iago was. He sets both Desdemona and Cassio up by getting his wife to pick up a discarded handkerchief Desdemona accidentally dropped. He had it planted as so that Othello would believe that the very personal handkerchief he gave her as a present, would prove that she was having an affair.

Othello thinking she has had an affair with Cassio kills her. But then Iago’s wife tells the truth that she, not Cassio was the one who picked up the handkerchief and he, Othello had murdered his wife based on the lie of Iago.

Turrets, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Swivel and pivot,
Nothing to aim at
Pill box I hide in

I am done in
Arrows in the bullseye
I am about to die

A ribbon of jackets
I wear over a surplice
That does not exist

I feed it, it spits
Watermelon seeds
Or sunflower, high speed

The graveyard I see
Makes dust of thee
Decay rapidly

The turrets bleed
The seasons grieve
My mind deceived

The termite tree
Maggots eat
All of me

I cannot see
Cannot see
What is left of me.
(end)

Strictly a poem of metaphor. It is about how one can be chewed up by paparazzi and social media and sometimes fighting back seems futile.

I have very high anxiety, and am my own worst critic and feel worthless sometimes over the most trivial things others don’t. But with mental illness you can rationally know you are being irrational, but still be irrational.

So just now after letting a frozen meatless veggie patty burger though, I was looking forward to having a burger. It is true , these companies can make them taste like a real beef burger, and I do like them.

But I have also always been a klutz. I went to flip the burger and it ended up slipping off the spatula and hit the floor. Most people would be annoyed but not get so down on themselves. But I do. When I misspell a word, especially in a poem, feel lower than dirt. But I also feel stupid and worthless when I do what I did with the burger, and I do shit like that every damned day.

I cant fix it, I really can only take anxiety medications to reduce my symptoms and simply rant. I am not looking for answers, but sometimes I need to bitch, because it sucks. I know I am not being rational, but mental illness isn’t that easy to offer simple quick cliche answers.

Yea Iago is really letting everyone know how pissed off at Othello he is for giving the promotion to Cassio. Not quite sure where Desdemona’s father plays in, other than to maybe rile him up to take arms against Othello, but he only mentioned prison time for him, so I am a bit confused, maybe act two will clear that part up.

In the middle of reading Othello, on the first act. If you know what “the beast with two backs” means, get your mind out of the gutter, and let mine float by.

That Green Eyed Monster, By Brian37(AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Alabaster on one side
Ebony ink onyx raven
Feathers of Iago disturbing

Cassio got the job
And not that of he
Iago thought of him

Unqualified, not of
Bruises or scratches
Lead not legions

What was that Moor thinking
How could he overlook me
I am Iago, far better than he

I shall convince you
Your wife Desdemona
Is worthy by your hand

Ceasing of to breath
You shall make her beyond
Then be of deep regret

When you realize
What you you’d done
And turn that knife on me.

Then on yourself
Out of unimaginable guilt
Of your insidious deed.
(end)

Really really short plot summery of the play Othello, which I am reading right now. This is my take on the plot summery. I like to read those before actually reading the play itself. It helps keep me focused on who is who and what is what, because Shakespeare is so fucking hard to read, and with that it still makes it easier to keep up rather than simply reading it blind like some can go into for the first time. Not me. I need that cheat sheet to understand his plays.

But by this time tomorrow I will have completely read the entire play. Only my second. I read Macbeth for the first time a couple weeks ago.

An aside, this also brings up my malady of A.D.D. . For some stupid reason I at first saw the character name “Iago” as a lower case “L” or “l” and didn’t realize it was a capital “I” so I originally typed “Lago” which has since been corrected. I thought it was some stupid Medieval spelling. But that is corrected now.

“Anneplath” by Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

You read the title
You look perplexed
You don’t know exactly
What to make of it

Maybe, maybe,
I can explain it
It is a hybrid name
Of two poet’s fame

Anne Sexton’s first name
The prefix
Sylvia Plath’s last name
The suffix

What of this you ask?
Why did you do this
It looks silly to me
It makes no sense

You can laugh
You can scoff
I do not care in the least
Not one bit at all

The name is a new word
I created, to honor
Contribution to the arts
Of the world

The poems
Their stories told
All to be read
All to behold

Soaring into the sun
Envying the reaper’s robe
Tempest oceans
And sea coves

I marvel and wonder
Over their prose
Will this new name
I have proposed

Take on a life of it’s own
It means “Female Poet”
The power of her words
The talent they’ve shown.
(end)

Not that it will, but a new first name suggestion for a child, or pet. The name would simply mean “Poet”, or “female poet”.

And the explanation is in the title.

I’d suggest however, my preference of pronunciation would be like

“Little Orphan “Annie”-“Plath”. Or “Ann-a-plath” or “Ann-i-pleth” but spelled like the title “Ann-e-Plath”.

The lines “The poems
Their stories told” (was on purpose, not my malady, not an accident.)

Hullabaloo, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

When death is due
What of our fury
Our flurry, our hullabaloo?

Cancer may take you
Or maybe a mugger
Maybe a virus, six feet under

And what of you
Of you, this activity
Commotion, your hullabaloo?

Nothing at all,
You can do,
Delay at best, hullabaloo?

Wring your fist
Pound your chest
Kill your enemy, hullabaloo

They think they are
Better than you
Their social norms, labels too

Their skin tones
As white as bone
They founded America

And they killed you
They brought you on ships
And forced you

But they’re dead now too
All of that power
And nothing to do

Popping the corks
New Years too
All for not, this hullabaloo.
(end)

The oppressor dies as well as the oppressed. MacBethish on my part a bit I guess. But it is to say all of that power, squandered asserting some feigned superiority over other humans, and you still died anyway.

Pincushion, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Like pirates we landed
And walk the plank
Landing on the beach

Half moon shaped
Glimmering glass water
We walked through the shark’s mouth

And we found a path
A bit sandy, and stony
We ended up at a gift shop

It had a tiny bar, t shirts
Flip flops, picnic tabletops
Knick knacks, magnates

We chomped down
Under the sun peaking through
The tropical greenery, trying to sneak in

And there was a small grassy lawn
Lining the path to our left
It dared not invade the sand

But through the lined garden
Of the path, and the lawn
Two our left,

This little lumbering thing
Wobbling while it was walking
Not a care in the world it seemed

It could have curled up
In a tiny ball, like a hedgehog
But it wasn’t one of those at all

It was no bigger
Than a mandarin orange
With an anteater’s nose

In miniature size
Looked like something
Mom pulled out of her sewing bag

Little cute pincushion
Not worried about us at all
Foraging through the grass

In the midday sun
I couldn’t think of any
Predators who would want one

I wanted to take you home
But my cat, I don’t think
He’d have been a fan of that.
(end)

My friend and I got to visit The Great Keppel Island just off the coast of Yeppoon in Queensland Australia. You literally have to walk down a metal plank onto the beach. And to get to the garden pathway to walk around the island, we had to go through a fabricated fake shark’s mouth.

We stopped on our walk at a little bar/gift shop, it was about midday. We got done eating and my friend had his camera out taking pictures of the tropical flowers and he spotted an Echidna. Neither of us had ever seen one before. I thought it was absolutely adorable.

Goucher College, By Brian37 (AKA Brian James Rational Poet on FB/META and @brianrrs37 on Twitter)

Everyone has
Some sort of Mecca
A bucket list
A pilgrimage

But you,
You denied me
I don’t know
If it would have mattered anyway

I did run into
Someone who
Lived next to you
Talked to you

They were around
My age back then
Just a kid, squandering
Wandering, playing

While you wrote of paintings
Of pain, of dogs, of Jesus
Of divorce, of fury
Of your lust of death

I can only listen now
On YouTube
A reading you did
Stuck in my head

Oh what it must have been
To be in that auditorium
Watching you
Put a spell on them

Poem after poem
Picture after picture
Using no camera
At all
(end)

This is a poem about a reading Anne Sexton gave at Goucher College in 1974 shortly before she killed herself.