You are just in the middle of a struggle with words which are really very stubborn things, with a blank page, with the damn thing that you use to write with, a pen or a typewriter, and you forget all about the reader when you are doing that.

quote by Guillermo Cabrera Infante
Added by Lucian Velea
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I remember being out here at the Sunset Marquis, and whoever knocked on the door, I would take that picture that I was writing and I would put that in the typewriter, so when I had the meeting, they would say: 'Oh, you're working on it right now?'

quote by John Sayles
Added by Lucian Velea
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I always value my large kitchen because it was better to do everything there, you wash up, you do everything, rather than messing up another room and I pop my typewriter just next to it. So I still write now but I was doing more writing when the children were younger.

quote by Buchi Emecheta
Added by Lucian Velea
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You know...that a blank wall is an apalling thing to look at. The wall of a museum -- a canvas -- a piece of film -- or a guy sitting in front of a typewriter. Then, you start out to do something -- that vague thing called creation. The beginning strikes awe within you.

quote by Edward Steichen
Added by Lucian Velea
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Woman Enough

Because my grandmother's hours
were apple cakes baking,
& dust motes gathering,
& linens yellowing
& seams and hems
inevitably unraveling
I almost never keep house
though really I like houses
& wish I had a clean one.

Because my mother's minutes
were sucked into the roar
of the vacuum cleaner,
because she waltzed with the washer-dryer
& tore her hair waiting for repairmen
I send out my laundry,
& live in a dusty house,
though really I like clean houses
as well as anyone.

[...] Read more

poem by Erica Jong
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Pussy Willow

In the half-tone light of a young morning
She sighs and shifts on the pillow.
And across her face dancing, the first shadows fly
To kiss the pussy willow.
In her fairy-tale world shes a lost soul singing
In a sad voice nobody hears.
She waits in her castle of make-believing
For her white knight to appear.
Pusy willow --- down fur-lined avenue
Brushing the sleep from her young woman eyes.
Runs for the train --- see, eight oclocks coming
Cutting dreams down to size again.
Pussy willow --- down fur-lined avenue
Brushing the sleep from her young woman eyes.
Runs from the train. hear her typewriter humming
Cutting dreams down to size again.
She longs for the east and a pale dress flowing
An apartment in old mayfair.
Or to fish the spey, spinning the first run of spring
Or to die for a cause somewhere.

[...] Read more

song performed by Jethro Tull
Added by Lucian Velea
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Pibroch (Cap In Hand)

In the half-tone light of a young morning
she sighs and shifts on the pillow.
And across her face dancing, the first shadows fly
to kiss the Pussy Willow.
In her fairy-tale world she's a lost soul singing
in a sad voice nobody hears.
She waits in her castle of make-believe
for her white knight to appear.
Pusy Willow down fur-lined avenue
brushing the sleep from her young woman eyes.
Runs for the train, see: eight o'clock's coming
cutting dreams down to size again.
Pussy Willow down fur-lined avenue,
brushing the sleep from her young woman eyes.
Runs from the train. Hear her typewriter humming,
cutting dreams down to size again.
She longs for the East and a pale dress flowing
an apartment in old Mayfair.
Or to fish the Spey, spinning the first run of Spring
or to die for a cause somewhere.

[...] Read more

song performed by Jethro Tull
Added by Lucian Velea
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Goodbye Dick

Goodbye dick, goodbye dick.
But I saw you walkin the white house lawn.
Goodbye dick, goodbye dick.
Goodbye rosemary, goodbye rosemary.
I saw you take your typewriter out of the white house door
No one wants you to type here anymore
Goodbye rosemary, goodbye rosemary.

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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Bad Lighting From Oil Lamps

Applying today,
What worked yesterday...
And seemed a perfect fit.
May have lost its usefulness.
The benefits have been exhausted.
And yesterday for many has gone as lived.

Those living today,
Are not patiently awaiting...
For updated versions,
Of that which for them does not exist.
That kind of patience for them,
Is not authentic!

And those minds left to praise war,
As a cause to maintain an elusive peace...
Are as outdated as the typewriters they use,
To get their messages across.
Lost they are...
In the bad lighting from oil lamps of times passed.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Once Upon A Time Feb 4th 2011

I came from an era where typewriters were few and far between,
Where ball point pens were modern but even then, seldom seen,
Is it possible to stop the clock and maybe turn it back?
Things seemed better then when no one even heard of a heart attack.

Those country singers that were part of my young life, long ago,
Like Johnny Cash and his wife at the Opry singing Troubadour,
Somehow or other they’re not front and center any more,
What has time done to country music that I wish I could restore?

Sometimes I can hear them on TV, someone selling their CDs,
If I could turn back the clock instead of being inclined to agree,
Back to long before the UN got sidetracked in New York,
Almost all the way back to the time that I left County Cork.

Feb 4th,2011

poem by James Bredin
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The Writer

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

[...] Read more

poem by Richard Wilbur
Added by Dan Costinaş
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I Refuse To Get Old And Die

Too bad, I’m getting very old and gray and I’m not too pleased,
I’m still reasonably healthy and I’m still not too diseased,
Unfortunately, I still think as though I just turned seventeen,
Which is probably illegal and criminal, if not obscene.

And I’m also stuck in the present tense and there’s no going back,
And many of my old friends and comrades have died of heart attacks,
Because they too seemed to have been stuck in nineteen sixty two,
Long before computers when even typewriters were few.

Many of them didn’t even know how the keyboard was laid out,
And they were much too proud to even ask, what’s it all about,
Many of their names are on headstones in the cemetery now,
It all depends on how much time I have what god will allow.

Dec 7th,2010

poem by James Bredin
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Misty Pings

Sometimes fat fingers on the keyboard
produce the surreal that leaves me
not cursing as usual
at the way my brain brain he says
and hand were not wired up properly,
but laughing out loud
with sheer delight like a child
meeting the joy of absurdity in words
which somehow gets suppressed
in the years of growing... down?

I've just written a comment
about such matters of mistyping, and
there on the paper it is in black and white -
'misty pings'...

remember those old steam typewriters
with their tap tap and just before the end of the line,
a bell pinged to warn you?

[...] Read more

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Room 205

What could walls tell now of Dylan Thomas
speak to me of love and death
of madness of a kind he sometimes knew
beneath the paper cracks of genius

nothing left in his decay only
ghostly words once played so well
on an old typewriter with some letters lost
and he blunted by another whisky
embraced a welcome rush to die
and cut the loss

as floor boards squeak in vain
little drama left to fit
the bill in Hotel Chelsea.

poem by Alan Halford
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Early Works - Tribute To The Teacher

For the late Maurce Callard (The teacher)

Typewriter keys click in succession
words flow gentle and unobtrusive
pages increase in number
books and plays together
thoughts mingle and intertwine
growing more and more with time
master, teacher and friend
not one of us could condemn
we sit and listen with content
the appreciative smile for our achievement.
I could go on and on with praise
but a sonnet is what was desired
so I’ll gracefully retire.

Date unknown (Late 1970’s I think)

poem by David Harris
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A silly poem about keys

Keys can open doors
they can lock you in
keys on a piano
but not on a Violin.
Keys to a safe
inside a vault
keys lost again
well that's your fault.
Keys on an old typewriter
and on a modern laptop
keys stolen by a thief
to break into a shop.
Keys hang on a keyring
or on a fancy chain
but how on earth can you
dropp them down a drain?
Keys for this and that
a key lying under the mat
having to rush to the Vet
it's been swallowed by the cat.

[...] Read more

poem by Kevin Halls
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A Spring Piece Left In The Middle

Taut, thick fingers punch
the teeth of my typewriter.
Three words are down on paper
in capitals:
SPRING
SPRING
SPRING...
And me -- poet, proofreader,
the man who's forced to read
two thousand bad lines
every day
for two liras--
why,
since spring
has come, am I
still sitting here
like a ragged
black chair?
My head puts on its cap by itself,
I fly out of the printer's,

[...] Read more

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Sonnet: God’s our strength and refuge!

Now that I find myself in troubles wedged,
Not many souls help me to tide over;
The charges showered are untrue, alleged;
To Thee O God, I run to take cover.

All human help is wasteful and in vain;
My human strength could fail when I need most;
The ones I helped, never help me but feign;
Injustice looms over me like a ghost!

What have I done to deserve such treatment?
Will God not tilt the balance to help me?
Who will help me in this predicament?
My faith in God is stronger really!

And spring will come after every winter!
My typewriter is like a teleprinter!

poem by John Celes
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Not at a Loss Chord - after Adelaide Anne Procter – A Lost Chord

Not at a Loss Chord

Playing one day with my organ,
I was blissful – not ill at ease -
while five fingers wandered wildly
web-cams recording each wheeze.

I know the spot vibrating,
less what I was dreaming then,
but I strummed with both will and spirit
and an “Oh My God! Amen! ”

Adrenaline flowed not vainly
from heart to crimson palm,
as it coursed both veins and spirit
with little akin to calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
like love overcoming strife;
it seem[en]ed orgasmic echo

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Robin
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That Day

This is the desk I sit at
and this is the desk where I love you too much
and this is the typewriter that sits before me
where yesterday only your body sat before me
with its shoulders gathered in like a Greek chorus,
with its tongue like a king making up rules as he goes,
with its tongue quite openly like a cat lapping milk,
with its tongue - both of us coiled in its slippery life.
That was yesterday, that day.
That was the day of your tongue,
your tongue that came from your lips,
two openers, half animals, half birds
caught in the doorway of your heart.
That was the day I followed the king's rules,
passing by your red veins and your blue veins,
my hands down the backbone, down quick like a firepole,
hands between legs where you display your inner knowledge,
where diamond mines are buried and come forth to bury,
come forth more sudden than some reconstructed city.
It is complete within seconds, that monument.

[...] Read more

poem by Anne Sexton
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