― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 15 May 2004 20:12 (twenty years ago) link
"The Truth About Horace."
It is very aggravatingTo hear the solemn pratingOf the fossils who are stating That old Horace was a prude;When we know that with the ladiesHe was always raising HadesAnd with many an escapade his Best productions are imbued.
There's really not much harm in aLarge number of his carminaBut these people find alarm in a Few records of his acts;So they'd squelch the muse caloric,And to students sophomoricThey'd present as metaphoric What old Horace meant for facts.
We have always thought 'em lazy;Now we adjudge 'em crazy!Why, Horace was a daisy That was very much alive!And the wisest of us know himAs his Lydia verses show him,--Go, read that virile poem,-- It is No. 25.
He was a very owl, sir,And starting out to prowl, sir,You bet he made Rome howl, sir, Until he filled his date;With a massic-laden dittyAnd a classic maiden prettyHe painted up the city, And Maecenas paid the freight!
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Sunday, 16 May 2004 13:26 (twenty years ago) link
The pedigree of HoneyDoes not concern the Bee,Nor lineage of EcstasyDelay the ButterflyOn spangle journeys to the peakOf some perceiveless thing—The right of way to TripoliA more essential thing.
--
The Pedigree of HoneyDoes not concern the Bee—A Clover, any time, to him,Is Aristocracy—
~Emily Dickinson
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Sunday, 16 May 2004 13:35 (twenty years ago) link
[...]Here I am, floating through the skywith my head on wrongso that my hair tickles my neckand my chin sticks up,and the lovers kissing in the gardenlook comical, their feet strainingto touch the ground.It's been a long time since someonekissed me in the garden.My mouth's up too high.[...]
Rene Wenger - "After Chagall"
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 17 May 2004 01:42 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 17 May 2004 05:03 (twenty years ago) link
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Monday, 17 May 2004 13:12 (twenty years ago) link
The tide comes in and goes out again, I do not wantTo be always stressing either its flux or its permanence, I do not want to be a tragic or philosophic chorusBut to keep my eye only on the nearer futureAnd after that let the sea flow over us.
Come then all of you, come closer, form a circle, Join hands and make believe that joinedHands will keep away the wolves of waterWho howl along our coast. And be it assumedThat no one hears them among the talk and laughter.
['Wolves' - Louis Macneice]
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Monday, 17 May 2004 13:58 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 17 May 2004 14:31 (twenty years ago) link
1 For three days and three nights, he has listened 2 to the pounding of a terrible jug band 3 now reduced to a wheezy concertina 4 and the disinterested thump of a tea-chest bass. 5 It seems safe to look: wires trail on the pillowcase, 6 a drip swings overhead; then the clear tent 7 becomes his father's clapped-out Morris Minor, 8 rattling towards home. The windscreen presents 9 the unshattered myth of a Scottish spring; 10 with discreet complicity, the road 11 swerves to avoid the solitary cloud. 12 On an easy slope, his father lets the engine 13 cough into silence. Everything is still. 14 He frees the brake: the car surges uphill.
- Don Paterson
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 17 May 2004 17:56 (twenty years ago) link
- Federico Garcia Lorca
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 17 May 2004 18:06 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 17 May 2004 18:56 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 17 May 2004 18:57 (twenty years ago) link
I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve; What then? poor beastie, thou maun live! A daimen-icker in a thrave 'S a sma' request: I'll get a blessin wi' the lave, An' never miss't!
Thy wee-bit housie, too, in ruin! It's silly wa's the win's are strewin! An' naething, now, to big a new ane, O' foggage green! An' bleak December's winds ensuin, Baith snell an' keen!
Thou saw the fields laid bare an' wast, An' weary Winter comin fast, An' cozie here, beneath the blast, Thou thought to dwell, Till crash! the cruel coulter past Out thro' thy cell.
That wee-bit heap o' leaves an' stibble, Has cost thee monie a weary nibble! Now thou's turn'd out, for a' thy trouble, But house or hald. To thole the Winter's sleety dribble, An' cranreuch cauld!
But Mousie, thou are no thy-lane, In proving foresight may be vain: The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men, Gang aft agley, An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain, For promis'd joy!
Still, thou art blest, compar'd wi' me! The present only toucheth thee: But Och! I backward cast my e'e, On prospects drear! An' forward, tho' I canna see, I guess an' fear!
― aimurchie, Tuesday, 18 May 2004 03:55 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 07:13 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Tuesday, 18 May 2004 10:06 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 10:07 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Tuesday, 18 May 2004 11:01 (twenty years ago) link
― Scott & Anya (thoia), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 13:37 (twenty years ago) link
― Scott & Anya (thoia), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 13:38 (twenty years ago) link
(translated by K. Kalocsay)
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 17:22 (twenty years ago) link
what language is that translated to/from, chris?
― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 17:34 (twenty years ago) link
you sweetly laughing, when all mysenses have been torn from me: for, Lesbia,as soon as I see you I've nothing left[...]
but my tongue is choked, my limbs shiver aflame, my ears echo with their own ringing, my eyesshroud in night.
Leisure, Catullus, is bad for you:at leisure you luxuriate and lust too much.before now, leisure has ruined kingsand great cities.
Catullus 51, translated by me (with much (poetic) licence. pls to forgive).
Casuistry, is that in Esperanto, or?
― cis (cis), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 17:45 (twenty years ago) link
It's translated from English, but now I'm going to get all coy.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 19:03 (twenty years ago) link
in shoeless corridors, the lights burn. how isolated, like a fort, it is -the headed paper, made for writing home(if home existed) letters of exile: now night comes on. waves fold behind villages.
philip larkin - friday night in the royal station hotel
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 21:02 (twenty years ago) link
― cis (cis), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 21:25 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 18 May 2004 22:09 (twenty years ago) link
(from Ghost of a Pear by Ayala Kingsley)
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 21 May 2004 08:51 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Friday, 21 May 2004 12:28 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 21 May 2004 13:10 (twenty years ago) link
Tell themI was a persimmon eaterwho liked haiku
--Masaoka Shiki, the fourth "great master" of haiku (the other three are Basho, Buson, and Issa)
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 22 May 2004 00:07 (twenty years ago) link
Amatory Epigram(to Aristotle or Ignatius Loyola)
I'd have to be drunk to fuck around with youAnd sober to liveTherefore I am dying
[Bernadette Mayer]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 22 May 2004 05:27 (twenty years ago) link
I drank at every vine.The last was like the first.I came upon no wineAs wonderful as thirst.
I gnawed at every root.I ate of every plant.I came upon no fruitSo wonderful as want.
Feed the grape and beanTo the vintner and monger;I will lie down leanWith my thirst and my hunger.
--Edna St. Vincent Millay
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 22 May 2004 12:08 (twenty years ago) link
"Air For Mercury" - Brenda Hillman
― bnw (bnw), Saturday, 22 May 2004 15:13 (twenty years ago) link
Once when our blacktop citywas still a topsoil townwe carried to Formicopolisa cantaloupe rind to shareand stooped to plop it downin their populous Times Squareat the subway of the ants
and saw that hemisphereblacken and rise and dancewith antmen out of handwild for their melon toddiesjust like our world next yearno place to step or standexcept on bodies.
Virginia Hamilton Adair
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Saturday, 22 May 2004 15:23 (twenty years ago) link
My book was closed,I read no more,Watching the fire danceOn the floor.
I have left my book,I have left my room,For I heard you singingThrough the gloom.
Singing and singingA merry air,Lean out of the window,Goldenhair.-James Joyce, Chamber Music
― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 22 May 2004 15:53 (twenty years ago) link
In Breughel's great picture, The Kermess,the dancers go round, they go round andaround, the squeal and the blare and thetweedle of bagpipes, a bugle and fiddlestipping their bellies, (round as the thick-sided glasses whose wash they impound)their hips and their bellies off balanceto turn them. Kicking and rolling aboutthe Fair Grounds, swinging their butts, thoseshanks must be sound to bear up under suchrollicking measures, prance as they dancein Breughel's great picture, The Kermess.
--William Carlos Mofo Williams
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Sunday, 23 May 2004 12:35 (twenty years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Sunday, 23 May 2004 13:24 (twenty years ago) link
When the day comes, as the day surely must,when it is asked of you, and you refuseto take that lover's wound again, that cupof emptiness that is our one completion,
I'd say go here, maybe, to our unsunginnermost isle: Kilda's antithesis,yet still with it own tiny stubborn anthem,its yellow milkwort and its stunted kye.
Leaving the motherland by a two-car raft,the littlest of the fleet, you cross the minchto find yourself, if anything, now deeperin her arms than ever - sharing her breath,
watching the red vans sliding silentlybetween her hills. In such intimate exile,who'd believe the burn behind the housethe straitened ocean written on the map?
Here, beside the fordable Atlantic,reborn into a secret candidacy,the fontanelles reopen one by onein the palms, then the breastbone and the brow,
aching at the shearwater's wail, the rowanthat falls beyond all seasons. One morningyou hover on the threshold, knowing for certainthe first touch of the light will finish you.
- Don Paterson.
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 24 May 2004 18:20 (twenty years ago) link
Today's poem, by Aram Saroyan:
priit
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 24 May 2004 23:00 (twenty years ago) link
I tell with severity, I think what I feel.Words are ideas.The purling river passes, and not its sound,Which is ours, not the river's.So I wanted my verse: mine and not-mine,To be read by me.
--Ricardo Reis
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 00:04 (twenty years ago) link
[Paul Muldoon, 'The Avenue']
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 07:02 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 10:43 (twenty years ago) link
[...]
12. Have you broken the following TenCommandments? Answer each just yes or no.
24. With a view to bioengineering suggest atleast six names for new animals...
36. Describe the onset of your first period. ORAvoid this subject entirely.
- Robert Crawford
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 10:45 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 19:42 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Tuesday, 25 May 2004 22:51 (twenty years ago) link
One strokes the leg of a chairUntil the chair movesAnd gives him a sweet sign with its leg
Another kisses a keyholeKisses it O how he kisses itUntil the keyhole returns his kiss
A third stands asideStares at the other twoShakes shakes his head
Until it falls off
--Vasko Popa
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 00:04 (twenty years ago) link
I was browsing the poem in the bookshop and it's tremendously funny / hurtful (which is rare for Crawford - he usually writes opaque, 'interesting' poems, or not very good ones.)
If I find it anywhere online (I doubt it), I'll post up the link.
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 26 May 2004 09:54 (twenty years ago) link
Or does it? Is nature exactly aligned with grief?Is the window, washed in rain, an echo of sadness and despair?I should mourn the hands that built it, long gone,and the faces that have pressed against it,and then ask, and then compare.
Breath leaves its imprint, the sure symbol of bloodbeing pumped, a soft and malleable canvas bornfrom the first and last action ourbodies will ever perform.I could use my finger to write this onto the glass:Save me, I am here, God is coming.And then breathe once moreand watch it all disappear.
Something has been lost, I knowthat much. I would like to feel a shiver of response at least.A wind through orange and purple and countless leaves orfor everything to fall down at once.I would like to know how to rustle, how to bend,how to sway. How to grow crooked and survive.How to give and die as if it werethe most natural thing.
A riot of color is fragmented in cracked wood.The slow descent of rain frompurged clouds sounding upon foggedglass and my own breath upon it,like everyone before.
I would like to know that I did it,that I completed the task,that I did say I love you one last time.That breath can be on breathLong after the last is taken.
Now the window is to my left.The storm has progressedand rumbling comes over the roof and in.One real second resuscitates the view.Breathing at all is a small matteras this illumination occurs. An instantwhen all seems both right and wrongwith the world.
― aimurchie, Friday, 28 May 2004 01:06 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Friday, 28 May 2004 15:43 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 29 May 2004 05:31 (nineteen years ago) link