This week’s poem of the week is Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. The reason for selecting this particular poem should be obvious.

For once, neither the rant of the week nor the poem of the week calls to mind a poem. So for this week’s poem we will call your mind to the best poem that Gerard Manley Hopkins ever wrote. After all, Spring and Fall is a poem that is worth reading at anytime.

John Keat’s is not one of my favorite poets by a long shot. But his poem When I have Fears that I may cease to be is what came to my mind when I read this week’s Essay of the Week.

Seeing as I saw this linked to off of a message board, in all likelihood 98% of the civilized world has already seen this, but, for the last poor deprived 2%:

Right around the time of Matisse and all the others who pretend they don’t know how to draw, you almost might as well stop watching. But before that, watching each face fade into another heightens their differences and especially their emotions. The movements of the features as the form from one expression to another makes every thought more powerful. It’s also very eerie, because as the faces are in mid-shift, you could almost swear you see glimpses of someone you recognize. I think this feeling is most powerful right before it solidifies into new face.

I wish that it cycled through slower, but I have a feeling it’s as effective as it is precisely because it doesn’t give you time to stop and think, and your imagination has to fill in so much of it.

This week’s Poem of the week is called All my striving is fire. It has relevance to this week’s rant by the Ape Man.

Technically we are breaking the rules today. The clip below is no poem by any conventional measure. But if you conceive of a poem as being something that expresses what you can not say with prose, then it follows that the clip below is poetic. Besides, we feel that it goes well with this week’s essay and rant.

Spring 007 from foopaux and Vimeo.

If this clip meant nothing to you, then maybe you should go watch this one instead.

Tatterdemalion is still going on about a Dressaday post that really got under her skin. So as usual, she is leaving no prisoners. We figured that we would alert the world to this fact as a kind of public service warning.

So take heed and don’t annoy The Tatterdemalion or this will be your fate.

This week’s poem of the week is called The Church of Aalder and it was written by J. Dueck. While we are confident that this poem is a worthy piece of work and worth reading, we must protest Mr. Dueck’s inclusion of a foot note. It is just not proper.