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 (twenty years ago) link
I know the Nipper's Muldoon pome quite well. I suppose I am not keen on it really because it reminds me of Muldoon's sexually-fuelled arrogance.
But it makes me think that it may be time for me to start my long-delayed Muldoon thread.
― the pomefox, Saturday, 29 May 2004 12:57 (twenty years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Sunday, 30 May 2004 16:38 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 30 May 2004 17:55 (twenty years ago) link
"At a bit of a loss...my good friend and budding geniusjoined the Hare krishna following.I hope he finds god and all thatbecause I don't expect to ever find him again. Swallowed upby the machine of religion,his orb controlled by diet.They say his last words were:"I don't know, these people are real nice..." Goodbye, Eric.I'm sorry we weren't as nice as rice."
LMcMamara
― aimurchie, Monday, 31 May 2004 02:03 (twenty years ago) link
― aimurchie, Monday, 31 May 2004 02:12 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 31 May 2004 10:50 (twenty years ago) link
I see a butterfly go byAnd for the first time in the universe I noticeThat butterflies do not have color or movement,Even as flowers do not have scent or color.Color is what has color in the butterfly's wings,Movement is what moves in the butterfly's movement,Scent is what has scent in the flower's scent.The butterfly is just a butterflyAnd the flower just a flower.
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Monday, 31 May 2004 17:14 (twenty years ago) link
Duino Elegies - R.M. Rilke, trans by John Waterfield
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 31 May 2004 19:29 (twenty years ago) link
Acre of graves, I lay down my gasping rosesAnd lilies pale as ice as one who knowsNothing is certain, nothing; unless it isMy own small place and people, agony and sacrifice.
--Leslie Norris, THE DEAD (after the Welsh of Gwenallt, 1899-1969)
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 31 May 2004 23:19 (twenty years ago) link
A READING IN SEATTLE
....In the evening I thoughtOf Dylan, how he had readin Seattle. "The little slob,"My friend said, marvelling,"He read Eliot so beautifully,Jesus, I cried." I did not answer.In the city now the bars areEmpty of his storiesAnd only the downtown IndiansAre drunk as his memory.
I read in a hall fullOf friends, students, seriousListeners. The great dead had Had spoken there, Auden,Roethke, Watkins, many others.There was room for a plump ghost.I thought I heard his voiceEverywhere, after twenty yearsOf famous death. The party over,I walked home, saw on peaksThe coldest snow, white as bone.
--Leslie Norris (again)
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Monday, 31 May 2004 23:31 (twenty years ago) link
(from a song)
Perhaps I was born kneeling,born coughing on the long winter,born expecting the kiss of mercy,born with a passion for quicknessand yet, as things progressed,I learned early about the stockadeor taken out, the fume of the enema.By two or three I learned not to kneel,not to expect, to plant my fires undergroundwhere none but the dolls, perfect and awful,could be whispered to or laid down to die.
Now that I have written many words,and let out so many loves, for so many,and been altogether what I always was—a woman of excess, of zeal and greed,I find the effort useless.Do I not look in the mirror,these days,and see a drunken rat avert her eyes?Do I not feel the hunger so acutelythat I would rather die than lookinto its face?I kneel once more,in case mercy should comein the nick of time.
* * *
Also, a note to let anyone who's interested know that I'm now working on this thread's "anthology" through May 31st. If you're wanting a copy for personal use, send me a note.
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 15:38 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 1 June 2004 19:13 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 02:41 (twenty years ago) link
from "voices" - antonio porchia
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 2 June 2004 16:39 (twenty years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 3 June 2004 13:28 (twenty years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Thursday, 3 June 2004 18:19 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 4 June 2004 17:24 (twenty years ago) link
Cozen: we had a good crack at TSE on ILE. I will revive it, for you.
I had serious intentions of starting the Muldoon thread to go seriously at Muldoon. But other things came along, I drifted from Muldoon more quickly than I expected to. But we should still have the thread - when we are ready.
― the pomefox, Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:04 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 6 June 2004 14:27 (nineteen years ago) link
(My copy cost £3! Only a couple of months after it came out!)
― the pomefox, Sunday, 6 June 2004 15:17 (nineteen years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Sunday, 6 June 2004 15:49 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 6 June 2004 16:06 (nineteen years ago) link
In going from room to room in the dark,I reached out blindly to save my face,But neglected, however lightly, to laceMy fingers and close my arms in an arc.A slim door got in past my guard,And hit me a blow in the head so hardI had my native simile jarred.So people and things don't pair any moreWith what they used to pair with before.
Robert Frost - The Door in the Dark
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 7 June 2004 20:00 (nineteen years ago) link
from the ballad of the lonely masturbator - anne sexton
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 7 June 2004 20:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 7 June 2004 20:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 7 June 2004 20:58 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Monday, 7 June 2004 21:08 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Monday, 7 June 2004 21:10 (nineteen years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 7 June 2004 22:56 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 7 June 2004 23:31 (nineteen years ago) link
God's joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box,from cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.As roses, up from ground.Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,now a cliff covered with vines,now a horse being saddled.It hides within these,till one day it cracks them open.
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 8 June 2004 03:12 (nineteen years ago) link
O poplar, you are greatamong the hill-stones,while I perish on the pathamong the crevices of the rocks.
-H.D.
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 8 June 2004 15:24 (nineteen years ago) link
Who's this moving alive over the moor?
An old man seeking and finding a difficulty.
Has he remembered his compass his spare socksdoes he fully intend going in over his knees off the military track from Okehampton?
keeping his course through the swamp spacesand pulling the distance around his shoulders
the source of the Dart - Cranmere Pool on Dartmoor,seven miles from the nearest road and if it rains, if it thunders suddenlywhere will he shelter looking roundand all that lies to hand is his own bones?
- Alice Oswald.
― cozen (Cozen), Tuesday, 8 June 2004 19:04 (nineteen years ago) link
[Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) Spelt from Sibyl’s Leaves]
― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 08:26 (nineteen years ago) link
under her dark veil - anna akhmatova
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 15:28 (nineteen years ago) link