I do not want to be reflective any moreEnvying and despising unreflective thingsFinding pathos in dogs and undeveloped handwritingAnd young girls doing their hair and all the castles of sandFlushed by the children's bedtime, level with the shore. [...]
(when I say for PF I mean because he mentioned Macneice, not because the particular poem is somehow relevant to him. Though it may be. It is to me.)
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 11:29 (twenty years ago) link
Brazil? He twirled a button,Without a glance my way:"But, madam, is there nothing elseThat we can show to-day?"
― Fred (Fred), Tuesday, 20 July 2004 14:15 (twenty years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Friday, 23 July 2004 15:58 (twenty years ago) link
...I don't know exactly what a prayer is.I do know how to pay attention, how to fall downinto the grass, how to kneel down in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,which is what I have been doing all day.Tell me, what else should I have done?Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?Tell me, what is it you plan to dowith your one wild and precious life?
--Mary Oliver
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 24 July 2004 14:07 (twenty years ago) link
― Fred (Fred), Saturday, 24 July 2004 19:29 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 25 July 2004 15:32 (twenty years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 31 July 2004 15:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 31 July 2004 16:03 (twenty years ago) link
--
If You Had Two Husbands
If you had two husbands.If you had two husbands.Well, not exactly.If you had two husbands would you be willing to take everything and be satisfied to live in a large house with love and a view and plenty of flowers and friends at table and the young ones and cousins who said nothing.This is what happened.
She expressed everything.She is worthy of signing a will.And mentioning what she wished.She was brought up by her mother or her father. She had meaning and she was careful in reading. She read marvelously. She moved.She was pleased. She was thirty-four. She was flavored by reason of much memory and recollection.
[...]
[Michael Coffey, from "Sweet Suite: Gertrude Stein"]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 31 July 2004 18:49 (twenty years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Saturday, 31 July 2004 19:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 August 2004 03:14 (twenty years ago) link
I am not certain about that pome - what MacNeice is saying; whether he is being more original and searching than he looks.
Cozen, when are we going to discuss Don Paterson?
― the pomefox, Sunday, 1 August 2004 10:56 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 August 2004 16:56 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Sunday, 1 August 2004 18:10 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 1 August 2004 21:44 (twenty years ago) link
Robert Frost - Directive
― bnw (bnw), Monday, 2 August 2004 03:15 (twenty years ago) link
Tho' much is taken, much abides; and tho'We are not now that strength which in the old daysMoved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;One equal-temper of heroic hearts,Made weak by time and fate, but strong in willTo strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
(Tennyson - Ulysses)
― Mog, Monday, 2 August 2004 12:35 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Monday, 2 August 2004 12:38 (twenty years ago) link
(from 'My Last Duchess' by Robert Browning)
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 3 August 2004 12:45 (twenty years ago) link
"O my pretty pink frock,I sha'n't be able to wear it!Why is he dying just now? I hardly can bear it!
"He might have contrived to live on;But they say there's no hope whatever:And must I shut myself up, And go out never?
"O my pretty pink frock,Puff-sleeved and accordion-pleated!He might have passed in July, And not so cheated!"
-T.H.
― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 20:48 (twenty years ago) link
We're foot-slog-slog-slog-sloggin' over Africa -Foot-foot-foot-foot-sloggin' over Africa -(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)There's no discharge in the war!
Seven-six-eleven-five-nine-an'-twenty mile to-day -Four-eleven-seventeen-thirty-two the day before -(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)There's no discharge in the war!
Don't-don't-don't-don't-look at what's in front of you.(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again)Men-men-men-men-men go mad with watchin' em,An' there's no discharge in the war!
Try-try-try-try-to think o' something different -Oh-my-God-keep-me from goin' lunatic!(Boots-boots-boots-boots-movin' up an' down again!)There's no discharge in the war![...]
-Rudyard Kipling
― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 4 August 2004 20:50 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 5 August 2004 01:11 (twenty years ago) link
Meanwhilelet us cast one shadowin air or water
our mouths wide as saucersour tongues at work in their tunnelsour shut eyes unimportant as freckles.
Let us turn to, untilthe giant flashlightcomes down on us
and we are rammed home on the corkscrew gigone at a timeand lugged off belly to belly.
TURNING TO, Maxine Kumin
(Whatever your particular political persuasions may be, watch out for those giant flashlights, corkscrew gigs, and keep your shut eyes open....)
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Thursday, 5 August 2004 14:42 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Thursday, 5 August 2004 20:19 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Thursday, 5 August 2004 23:14 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 6 August 2004 08:02 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 6 August 2004 08:29 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 6 August 2004 11:05 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 6 August 2004 15:36 (twenty years ago) link
― cºzen (Cozen), Friday, 6 August 2004 15:56 (twenty years ago) link
I worked for a woman, She wasn't mean--But she had a twelve-roomHouse to clean.
Had to get breakfast, Dinner, and Supper, too--Then take care of her children When I got through.
Wash, iron, and scrub, Walk the dog around--It was too much, Nearly broke me down.
I said, Madam, Can it beYou trying to make aPack-horse out of me?
She opened her mouth. She cried, Oh, no! You know, Alberta, I love you so!
I said, Madam, That may be true--But I'll be dogged If I love you!
― Begs2Differ (Begs2Differ), Friday, 6 August 2004 17:37 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 6 August 2004 19:39 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 6 August 2004 21:11 (twenty years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Friday, 6 August 2004 22:51 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 7 August 2004 00:28 (twenty years ago) link
― bnw (bnw), Saturday, 7 August 2004 03:17 (twenty years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Saturday, 7 August 2004 20:13 (twenty years ago) link
Prince Rupert's Drop
It's brilliant. It's a tear you can stand a car on, the hard eye of a chandelier ready to break down and cry like a baby, a rare birth, cooled before its time. It's an ear of glass accidentally sown in the coldest of water, that sheer drop, rock solid except for the tailor neck which will snap like sugar, kick like a mortar under the surefire touch of your fingernail.
It's the pearl in a will-o'-the-wisp, the lantern asleep in the ice, the light of St Elmo's fire in your eyes. It's the roulette burst of a necklace, the snap of bones in an icicle's finger, the snip of your pliers at the neck of my heart, the fingertip working the spot which says 'you are here' until you are suddenly not.
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 24 August 2004 09:35 (twenty years ago) link
I wrote them down.
I looked up at the sunand I looked down.
The words formed a sunin their own fragile sky.
I wrote it down.
I was blinded twiceback into sight.
― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 25 August 2004 16:45 (twenty years ago) link
Yes, I write verse now and then, But blunt and flaccid is my pen,No longer talked of by young men As rather clever.
In the last quarter are my eyes,You see it by their form and size;Is it not time then to be wise? Or now or never.
-- Walter Landor
I hope y'all are out there writing wonderful stuff, since you're not here. Now or never?
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Tuesday, 31 August 2004 15:09 (twenty years ago) link
I stand in the ticking room. My dear, I takeA moth kiss from your breath. The shore gulls cry.I leave this at your ear for when you wake.
- WS Graham
― Archel (Archel), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 13:21 (twenty years ago) link
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 18:16 (twenty years ago) link
-joyce
― tom cleveland (tom cleveland), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 18:40 (twenty years ago) link
― Fred (Fred), Wednesday, 1 September 2004 21:16 (twenty years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 2 September 2004 07:10 (twenty years ago) link
Brown from the sun's mid-afternoon caress,And where not brown, white as a bridal dress,And where not white, pink as an opened plum.
And where not pink, darkly mysterious,And when observed, openly furious,And then obscured, while the red blushes come.
--William Dickey
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Thursday, 2 September 2004 18:25 (twenty years ago) link
...And down the other air and the blue altered skyStreamed again a wonder of summerWith applesPears and red currantsAnd I saw in the turning so clearly a child'sForgotten mornings when he walked with his motherThrough the parables Of sunlightAnd the legends of green chapels
And the twice told fields of infancyThat his tears burned my cheeks and his heart moved in mine.These were the woods the river and seaWhere a boyIn the listeningSummertime of the dead whispered the truth of his joyTo the trees and the stones and the fish in the tide.And the mysterySang aliveStill in the water and singingbirds.
...POEM IN OCTOBER--Dylan Thomas
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Thursday, 2 September 2004 18:32 (twenty years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Thursday, 2 September 2004 20:02 (twenty years ago) link
(...)So we must be careful, those of us who were born with the wrong number of fingers or the giftof loving; we must do our best to behavelike normal members of society and not make nuisancesof ourselves; otherwise it could go hard with us. It is better to bite back your tears, swallow your laughter,and learn to fake the mildly self-depreciating titterfavoured by the bourgeoisiethan to be left entirely alone, as you will be,if your disconformity embarrassesyour neighbours; I wish I didn't keep forgetting that.
- Alden Nowlan, from "He Attempts to Love His Neighbours"
― rrrobyn (rrrobyn), Thursday, 9 September 2004 05:23 (twenty years ago) link