― Jerry the Nipper (Jerrynipper), Wednesday, 9 June 2004 19:04 (nineteen years ago) link
Reasons run out and we are ready to play backgammon once again. Come on, I say. I know when I am being watched. Even in the washroom here's a window left unlatched and various small monsters have nipped softly in to take up key positions amongst sunny patches on the walls. Look at the little angels. Chits of demons. Fools and spies. Look at the conclusive way in which their detail lies. One touch would be catastrophe or a whisper to the wise.
[...]
- R. F. Langley
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 10 June 2004 10:53 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 10 June 2004 10:54 (nineteen years ago) link
Btw cozen, you asked somewhere else about getting hold of my book. The website for ordering it is broken, but if you send me your address I will post you a free copy - you can send me something of your choice in return if you like :)
rp30@sussex.ac.uk
― Archel (Archel), Thursday, 10 June 2004 11:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― yesabibliophile (yesabibliophile), Thursday, 10 June 2004 15:40 (nineteen years ago) link
...Between melting and freezingThe soul's sap quivers. There is no earth smellOr smell of living thing. This is the spring timeBut not in time's covenant. Now the hedgerowIs blanched for an hour with transitory blossomOf snow, a bloom more suddenThan that of summer, neither budding nor fading,Not in the scheme of generation.Where is the summer, the unimaginableZero summer?...- from Little Gidding
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 11 June 2004 11:48 (nineteen years ago) link
So I had another reading tonight. I read the first 20 minutes of my 4-hour piece as part of this experimental dance/music/poetry deal. So here's the cool part: there were all these kids unexpectedly in the audience. About 7 of them, 8-12 years old. And, it turns out, they really enjoyed my piece. They were all very polite and came up to me to tell me how much they liked it and they said some smart things about the piece (and the other pieces as well). It was great!
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 13 June 2004 05:44 (nineteen years ago) link
CJD I was plundered by a pirateCJF Describe the pirateCJN She is armedCJP How is she armed?CJS She has long gunsCJW I have no long gunsBLD I am a complete wreck
[Hannah Weiner, from her book "Code Poems", "from the International Code of Signals for the Use of All Nations"]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 08:24 (nineteen years ago) link
Btw congrats on the reading and the response :)
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 08:44 (nineteen years ago) link
Before the Roman came to Rye or out to Severn strode,The rolling English drunkard made the rolling English road.A reeling road, a rolling road, that rambles round the shire,And after him the parson ran, the sexton and the squire;A merry road, a mazy road, and such as we did treadThe night we went to Birmingham by way of Beachy Head.
-- GK Chesterton
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 11:39 (nineteen years ago) link
― aimurchie, Tuesday, 15 June 2004 12:25 (nineteen years ago) link
from city winter - frank o'hara
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 16:33 (nineteen years ago) link
I brought Selected O'Hara to Dublin!
― the finefox, Tuesday, 15 June 2004 20:04 (nineteen years ago) link
the snow drifts lowand yet neglects to cover me, and idance just ahead to keep my heart in sight.how like a queen, to seek with jealous eyethe face that flees you, hidden city, whiteswan. there's no art to free me, blinded so.
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:42 (nineteen years ago) link
i want my feet to be bare,i want my face to be shaven, and my heart -you can't plan on the heart, butthe better part of it, my poetry, is open.
― lauren (laurenp), Tuesday, 15 June 2004 21:47 (nineteen years ago) link
― aimurchie, Wednesday, 16 June 2004 01:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 June 2004 18:40 (nineteen years ago) link
:)
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 17 June 2004 19:23 (nineteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 17 June 2004 23:28 (nineteen years ago) link
― tom west (thomp), Thursday, 17 June 2004 23:30 (nineteen years ago) link
cozen: yay!
― Archel (Archel), Friday, 18 June 2004 07:30 (nineteen years ago) link
You canSINGhere
'Notice in Hell'
HALT'COMMIT ADULTERY
- Edwin Morgan
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 19 June 2004 09:42 (nineteen years ago) link
Or maybe think so; the eloquence of meltis however upon me, the path become astream, and I lay that downtrusting the ice to withstand the heat;
- J. H. Prynne (for mark s)
― cozen (Cozen), Sunday, 20 June 2004 13:48 (nineteen years ago) link
that's an amazing phrase.
― lauren (laurenp), Sunday, 20 June 2004 17:53 (nineteen years ago) link
Maybe yes, maybe no; the pattiness of meltis however upon me, the cheese drippingin a stream, and I scream thatno lettuce is cold enough to salve;
― Casuistry (Chris P), Monday, 21 June 2004 21:13 (nineteen years ago) link
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 07:06 (nineteen years ago) link
Forget the clatter of ballistics,The monologue of falling stones,The sharp vectorsAnd the stiff numbered grids.
It's so much more a thing of pliancy, persuasion,Where space might cup itself around a planetLike your palm around a stone,
Where you, yourself the planet,Caught up in some geodesic dream,Might wake to feel it enfold your weightAnd know there is, in fact, no falling.
It is this, and the existence of limits.
- Rebecca Elson
― Archel (Archel), Tuesday, 22 June 2004 07:16 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 05:08 (nineteen years ago) link
We stitched and sutured Ill-fated futures, Amassed the past in archaic computers Come join the ranks in our data banks, It's a life without thanks
Remember that night I drank and you cried? And on your bed all night's where we lied I stayed awake, you fell asleep On tear soaked sheets
And we're so new and young like science Full of ideas and naive defiance We'll lose it all with each passing fall As our wake up call
We'll stare straight up and wonder why the Sky is blue; it reflects the sea We'll all be sayin' "Science explained Our lives again"
And we're always sayin' Science explained Our lives again That's the science of the seasons
We'll travel countries and sit beneath palm trees And feel the heat in a warm pastel breeze Let's take a trip; let's go to Spain By all night train
Or across the sea in Ocean Liners To opium dens in Asia Minor We'll spend our days wasting our pay on Wasting away
We'll stare straight up and wonder why the Sky is blue; it reflects the sea We'll all be sayin' "science explained Our lives again"
And we're always sayin' Science explained Our lives again That's the science of the seasons.
- M. A. Hart (mp3 here.)
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 07:50 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 07:56 (nineteen years ago) link
'Museé des Beaux Arts'
In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns awayQuite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman mayHave heard the splash, the forsaken cry,But for him it was not an important failure, the sun shoneAs it had to on the white legs disappearing into the greenWater; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seenSomething amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.
- W. H. Auden
― cozen (Cozen), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 08:01 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 14:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― lauren (laurenp), Wednesday, 23 June 2004 14:38 (nineteen years ago) link
Under her brow the snowy wing-case delivers truly the surpriseof days which slide under sunlight past loose glass in the door into the reflection of honour spreadthrough the incomplete, the trusted. So darkly the stain skips as a liveryof your pause like an apple pip, the baltic loved one who sleeps.[...]
I mean, wow.
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 24 June 2004 02:38 (nineteen years ago) link
Just as good, and half as long!
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 24 June 2004 05:15 (nineteen years ago) link
As white is sheAnd to my touch as choice and briefly satisfactoryAs whitebeam leaves that the wind whips aloft,That tell to the eye their texture soft:Sweet message sentTo fingertips, and sweetness quickly spent.
Where she goesSliding curtains of the rain on rods of sun her ways enclose,River-whirling gulls her gay sky recieves,Road, their hostile posters furled,Bless with arching eaves;She my love by London gentled as by space the spinning world.
- Anne Ridler, Young Man's Song
― cis (cis), Thursday, 24 June 2004 09:15 (nineteen years ago) link
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Thursday, 24 June 2004 18:44 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 24 June 2004 21:09 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 24 June 2004 21:19 (nineteen years ago) link
Now, not that there's anything wrong with the poem for using those words -- they do slide into one another nicely, and it's well crafted enough and it doesn't seem to be trying to hit you over the head with some obvious meaning -- but where the poem gets interesting (for me) is where it leaves the obviously poetic words behind and finds poetry someplace I haven't seen before, such as the phrase "an apple pip". "Pip" and "slide" are both great onomatopoetic [sp?] words, but "slide" has been in a jillion poems and "pip" hasn't.
And "baltic" is such a nice change after "apple pip" -- /b/ being so similar to /p/, the /aw/ and /i/ in "baltic" so similar to the /a/ and /i/ in "apple pip", with the "tic" really lauching you off into new sonic territory -- but then it just goes back to more obviously poetic terms again.
― Casuistry (Chris P), Thursday, 24 June 2004 21:31 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Thursday, 24 June 2004 21:36 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Friday, 25 June 2004 16:03 (nineteen years ago) link
― tom cleveland (tom cleveland), Friday, 25 June 2004 19:30 (nineteen years ago) link
Well, the index doesn't list any but it does have an entry for "sled":
Glass was the Street -- in tinsel PerilTree and Traveller stood --Filled was the Air with merry ventureHearty with Boys the Road --
Shot the lithe Sleds like shod vibrationsEmphasized and goneIt is the Past's supreme italicMakes this present mean --
[1498, c. 1880.]
[Hm, it came out a sort of Christmas-in-July offering.]
― Casuistry (Chris P), Friday, 25 June 2004 20:23 (nineteen years ago) link
I was, as they later confirmed, a very sick boy. The star performer at the meeting-house, my eyes rolled back to show the whites, my arms outstretched in catatonic supplication while I gibbered impeccably in the gorgeous tongues of the aerial orders. On Tuesday nights, before I hit the Mission, I'd nurse my little secret: Blind Annie Spall, the dead evangelist I'd found still dying in creditable squalor above the fishmonger's in Rankine Street. The room was ripe with gurry and old sweat; from her socket in the greasy mattress, Annie belted through hoarse chorus after chorus while I prayed loudly, absently enlarging the crater that I'd gouged in the soft plaster. Her eyes had been put out before the war, just in time to never see the daughter with the hare-lip and the kilt of dirty dishtowels who ran the brothel from the upstairs flat and who'd chap to let me know my time was up, then lead me down the dark hall, its zoo-smell, her slippers peeling off the sticky lino. At the door, I'd shush her quiet, pressing my bus-fare earnestly into her hand.
Four years later. Picture me: drenched in patchouli, strafed with hash-burns, casually arranged on Susie's bed. Smouldering frangipani; Dali's The Persistence of Memory; pink silk loosely knotted round the lamp to soften the light; a sheaf of Penguin Classics, their spines all carefully broken in the middle; a John Martyn album mumbling through the speakers. One hand was jacked up her skirt, the other trailing over the cool wall behind the headboard where I found the hole in the plaster again. The room stopped like a lift; Sue went on talking. It was a nightmare, Don. We had to gut the place.
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 21:58 (nineteen years ago) link
I think this is definitely a 'working class poem' despite his protestations, to the contrary, that he's written only one of those ('an elliptical stylus'). again, this, like that, challenges the reader's (or writer's) impulse towards indentification and is actually more emetic than angering, I think. the first 7 lines of the second stanza are quite flat I think, clichéd almost ('strafed', 'mumbling', the careful breaking), perhaps it's intent made apparent. you can almost feel the rhythm of the poem stop, with its lift, as if your body, your thoughts have ceased to progress but yet your eyes, drawn in by the poem, on rails now, your eyes read on and, on surface, take in what the rest of you doesn't take in. that shift into italics, a shift into another person's voice heard rather than spoken. god, what a poem.
what does it mean? thread?
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:05 (nineteen years ago) link
― cozen (Cozen), Saturday, 26 June 2004 22:08 (nineteen years ago) link
Cozen, you should! I don't know what yours means either, but I'd love to hear what people thought, it's pretty extraordinary.
― Gregory Henry (Gregory Henry), Saturday, 26 June 2004 23:44 (nineteen years ago) link
I wish I had written that. *sigh*
From Cardigan Bay (by Leslie Norris)
For those who live hereAfter our daylight, ICould wish us to lookOut of the darknessWe have become, teachingThem happiness, a true love.
What more could we (or anyone) wish for on a Sunday morning than happiness, a true love?
― pepektheassassin (pepektheassassin), Sunday, 27 June 2004 16:19 (nineteen years ago) link
― Casuistry (Chris P), Sunday, 27 June 2004 23:38 (nineteen years ago) link