Bruce Taylor

February 13, 2024

“Fast Facts About Famous People” by Bruce TaylorPosted by

Bruce Taylor

FAST FACTS ABOUT FAMOUS PEOPLE

Pol Pot liked a good laugh.
Mussolini got the trains to run on time.
Hitler wept at the opera.

Miro hated green beans;
Picasso beets.
Chagall both beets and beans.

Dickens slept facing north.
Longfellow was the first
American to have indoor plumbing.

Abraham Lincoln had no middle name.
Caesar was a pretty good swimmer.
Mao was an assistant librarian.

Churchill washed his own socks.
Bell never phoned his mother.
Edison was afraid of the dark.

—from Rattle #37, Summer 2012

___________

Bruce Taylor: “Found one of these ‘facts’ just cruising the WWW, spent the morning looking for more and ended up with two pages. Let the whole mess sit for a while, then as Rodin said, I ‘knocked away anything’ that wasn’t poem. They are all ‘true’ except one; I’ve forgotten which.” (web)

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January 2, 2015

“Good News Bad News” by Bruce TaylorPosted by

Bruce Taylor

GOOD NEWS BAD NEWS

Nothing’s what it used or ought to be:
always too much of this, never enough
of that, only a drop left to drink,
no one to drink it with. Everything is
a miracle, or the miracle fades,

the glory of the world goes or goes on
without us, as far as we know, which is
little or nothing, chosen, as we are, or
exempted, delivered or abandoned we won’t
know until it happens, if it happens at all.

—from Rattle #44, Summer 2014

__________

Bruce Taylor: “I started writing because I was a reader and those two things, and ‘running my mouth,’ as my father used to call it, were the only things I seemed to do well. Then I did it to try and get girls, successful only in that I had been so un- previously. Then to get attention, mostly from teachers. Then, at the tiny college I attended, to fit in with the even tinier artsy-fartsy crowd (and to get girls). Then to get into grad school, then to stay there. Then to get a job, then to keep it. A man, as the Bible says, may not ‘add a cubit to his stature,’ but you can always add a line to your Vita sheet. All along I thought my life made me write, of course it was the other way around. I have always been astounded, and amused, when people, over the last 50 years, say they admire my discipline, my persistence as a writer, in the face of an often massive indifference. Full disclosure, give me a little time and quiet and it’s one of the three things, well, four, if you count eating and drinking separately, that I love to do.”

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March 16, 2013

“Fast Facts About Famous People” by Bruce TaylorPosted by

Bruce Taylor

FAST FACTS ABOUT FAMOUS PEOPLE

Pol Pot liked a good laugh.
Mussolini got the trains to run on time.
Hitler wept at the opera.

Miro hated green beans;
Picasso beets.
Chagall both beets and beans.

Dickens slept facing north.
Longfellow was the first
American to have indoor plumbing.

Abraham Lincoln had no middle name.
Caesar was a pretty good swimmer.
Mao was an assistant librarian.

Churchill washed his own socks.
Bell never phoned his mother.
Edison was afraid of the dark.

—from Rattle #37, Summer 2012

___________

Bruce Taylor: “Found one of these ‘facts’ just cruising the WWW, spent the morning looking for more and ended up with two pages. Let the whole mess sit for a while, then as Rodin said, I ‘knocked away anything’ that wasn’t poem. They are all ‘true’ except one, I’ve forgotten which.” (web)

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