John, believe it or not, Keats
Two or three posies
With two or three simples --
Two or three noses
With two or three pimples --
Two or three wise men
And two or three ninnies --
Two or three purses
And two or three guineas --
Two or three raps
At two or three doors --
Two or three naps
Of two or three hours --
Two or three cats
And two or three mice --
Two or three sprats
At a very great price --
Two or three sandies
And two or three tabbies --
Two or three dandies
And two Mrs Abbeys --
Two or three smiles
And two or three frowns --
Two or three miles
To two or three towns --
Two or three pegs
For two or three bonnets --
Two or three dove's eggs
To hatch into sonnets.
Sunday, March 16, 2003
an excerpt
Your poetry, if possible, should be extended
Somewhat beyond your experience, while still remaining true to it;
Unconscious material should play a luscious part
In what you write, since without the unconscious part
You know very little; and your plainest statements should be
Even better than plain. A reader should put your work down puzzled,
Distressed, and illuminated, ready to believe
It is curious to be alive.
-- Kenneth Koch, from "The Art of Poetry"
Your poetry, if possible, should be extended
Somewhat beyond your experience, while still remaining true to it;
Unconscious material should play a luscious part
In what you write, since without the unconscious part
You know very little; and your plainest statements should be
Even better than plain. A reader should put your work down puzzled,
Distressed, and illuminated, ready to believe
It is curious to be alive.
-- Kenneth Koch, from "The Art of Poetry"
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Flying revision's flag
via the Academy of American Poets -- poets.org
The poet Donald Hall (b. 1928) on the need for poets to take second, third, and even eighty-third looks, at their work. On the inauthenticity of spontaneity. On revising into the direction of truth.
Most poets don't revise enough. Most poems that I see--in the mail and in print--have not been gone over thoroughly enough, and include dead metaphors and redundancies and other errors that ought to expose themselves to the inquiring or depressive intellect. I've said it before: You should stare at a poem long enough so that you have one hundred reasons for using every comma, one hundred reasons for every linebreak, one hundred reasons for every and and or. Reasons include rhythm, the emphasis that rhythm bestows, consonants and vowels, and the mouth-joy or dance-movement that enforces a line or activates the metaphorical workings of the brain. Reasons can be visual, how the poem looks on the page; reasons can be semantic or formal or the two together. The point is: Try to be every bit as conscious as you can possibly be.
via the Academy of American Poets -- poets.org
The poet Donald Hall (b. 1928) on the need for poets to take second, third, and even eighty-third looks, at their work. On the inauthenticity of spontaneity. On revising into the direction of truth.
Most poets don't revise enough. Most poems that I see--in the mail and in print--have not been gone over thoroughly enough, and include dead metaphors and redundancies and other errors that ought to expose themselves to the inquiring or depressive intellect. I've said it before: You should stare at a poem long enough so that you have one hundred reasons for using every comma, one hundred reasons for every linebreak, one hundred reasons for every and and or. Reasons include rhythm, the emphasis that rhythm bestows, consonants and vowels, and the mouth-joy or dance-movement that enforces a line or activates the metaphorical workings of the brain. Reasons can be visual, how the poem looks on the page; reasons can be semantic or formal or the two together. The point is: Try to be every bit as conscious as you can possibly be.
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
from the "Lies" section
I am in New York in a cow's head.
I am still in New York in a cow's head.
I am still in New York in a cow's head.
Now I'm in New York in a flower.
I'm now in New York in a cow's head.
Now I'm in Spain taking a bath.
Now I'm in Spain taking a bath tub.
Now I'm in New England eating my friend in the bathroom.
Now I'm still in the bathroom eating my friend but I'm on a cow.
Now I'm in New York in a cow's head.
Marion Mackles, 4th grade
=============
I am grass as green as can be.
I am in a tree on a leaf.
I am in New York on a flying blueberry.
Mud is pretty.
Rain is ugly.
I am on a vine.
I am snow.
I am snow in Spain.
I am rain in Spain.
I am the sun in Spain.
I am a cloud in Spain
I am in Spain
I am Spain
Marion Mackles, 4th grade
=============
from the "I Used to/But Now" section
Last Time and This Time
When I was a baby I had no pets.
Now I have three pets.
When I was a baby I couldn't swim, I couldn't even play.
When I was a baby I wore baby clothes but little clothes.
And now I wear big clothes like size 12½.
When I was a baby I went to bed early.
And now I go to bed at 10:00 in the night.
When I was a baby my mother and father loved me,
But now love and hate me sometimes.
I just like both? Do you? I just like both.
When I was a baby I looked so pretty,
But now just forget me.
When I was a baby I couldn't play,
I couldn't play because somebody might get hurt and you know who.
But now I am strong, and I am glad I am me. Are you? I'm just glad.
Tomas Torres, 4th grade
=============
Kenneth Koch & the students of PS 61, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), MM poems p. 193, TT poem p. 170
from the "Lies" section
I am in New York in a cow's head.
I am still in New York in a cow's head.
I am still in New York in a cow's head.
Now I'm in New York in a flower.
I'm now in New York in a cow's head.
Now I'm in Spain taking a bath.
Now I'm in Spain taking a bath tub.
Now I'm in New England eating my friend in the bathroom.
Now I'm still in the bathroom eating my friend but I'm on a cow.
Now I'm in New York in a cow's head.
Marion Mackles, 4th grade
=============
I am grass as green as can be.
I am in a tree on a leaf.
I am in New York on a flying blueberry.
Mud is pretty.
Rain is ugly.
I am on a vine.
I am snow.
I am snow in Spain.
I am rain in Spain.
I am the sun in Spain.
I am a cloud in Spain
I am in Spain
I am Spain
Marion Mackles, 4th grade
=============
from the "I Used to/But Now" section
Last Time and This Time
When I was a baby I had no pets.
Now I have three pets.
When I was a baby I couldn't swim, I couldn't even play.
When I was a baby I wore baby clothes but little clothes.
And now I wear big clothes like size 12½.
When I was a baby I went to bed early.
And now I go to bed at 10:00 in the night.
When I was a baby my mother and father loved me,
But now love and hate me sometimes.
I just like both? Do you? I just like both.
When I was a baby I looked so pretty,
But now just forget me.
When I was a baby I couldn't play,
I couldn't play because somebody might get hurt and you know who.
But now I am strong, and I am glad I am me. Are you? I'm just glad.
Tomas Torres, 4th grade
=============
Kenneth Koch & the students of PS 61, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), MM poems p. 193, TT poem p. 170
Apostasy of Love
2003
When I wrote "Apostasy," it was December of 1985. The first draft had thirty lines. I was still at 43 Merritt St., in the small cozy quiet room with the purple carpet and the scenic back alley. Plenty of Smiths cassettes. Plenty of John Irving novels. And I had Dylan Thomas and those Oscar Williams anthologies as boon companions. I was learning how to make stanzas, iambic and aggressive, sinewy and lush, like a slam-dance collision between Baudelaire and Hopkins. It was the first of my two senior years. I wrote it on math paper, those big yellow-beige pads of perishable stuff. The ode was immortal. I had never been older than sixteen, at least, not to that point. I was ignorant of Strunk & White, but did well enough without them. Zac Beaulac was my friendly archrival. I liked "Original Sin" by INXS. I had no pets. The Breakfast Club was a quotidian obligation -- well, perhaps that was months before. I couldn't be persuaded to read Persuasion. (Thought of re-trying Trollope recently!) I wonder what Gillian thought of the poem. I gave the world a cup of explicit lilacs, and this in December, just before Christmas. I hadn't yet met Heather. (Or maybe I had! But we hadn't yet become best friends.) I recited "Be My Girl, Sally" with J. Chan in the crowded cafeteria. And the stars of Hamilton were far in the future. I wasn't going to church. I was seeing French movies with Lewis, who was to become a physicist, a word I can scarcely type. And Jim was only 23, and not yet a teacher. Seamus Heaney, who had signed my copy of Station Island the previous spring, was still a decade away from his Nobel. I wouldn't touch the Beats with a yardstick. I idolized Rimbaud, but that was on the wane. I met Michelle the following September. She was pregnant then. We don't talk anymore. I carried The Colossus in my pocket, even to weddings. Certainly, I had read a little Robert Lowell -- The Dolphin, most likely. Still rode the ten-speed to Winthrop and back. Bragdon still existed. At least, that's what he called himself. Sam existed, too (he was Mr. D back then -- an evangelist of addenda Catullana, the parts too racy, too earthy, too alive for the textbook). Deb existed, but I didn't know her yet (She was twelve! And she'll be thirty in the summer!). The Harvard Book Store certainly existed (with its capacious basement full of paperback classics bon marché), as did Reading International and the Caffè Avventura. Always there was pizza before Newbury Comics -- Zac and Ben added Mountain Dew, which I thought strange. Mr. Willoughby was still making puns as an English teacher at Number 78. That's an aloe plant. Speak to it. Say "aloe!" Tall fellow, conservative, Catholic, impeccable wit. Didn't like gay books, but didn't hector. Would gently admonish : "I don't think André Gide's the most salubrious reading." Hated La Nausée for being so damn depressing. He liked Eliot, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Debussy, jazz, and atrocious puns. May he rest in peace. The Celtics still had the Big Three (Bird, Parish, McHale), plus Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge. Ronald Reagan was president. Michael Dukakis was governor. Ray Flynn was mayor, and only halfway through his first term. The Pope was 65. Venus was five, Serena was four. The world was a wee bit younger than it is today. I have to find that poem. Where did I put it?
2003
When I wrote "Apostasy," it was December of 1985. The first draft had thirty lines. I was still at 43 Merritt St., in the small cozy quiet room with the purple carpet and the scenic back alley. Plenty of Smiths cassettes. Plenty of John Irving novels. And I had Dylan Thomas and those Oscar Williams anthologies as boon companions. I was learning how to make stanzas, iambic and aggressive, sinewy and lush, like a slam-dance collision between Baudelaire and Hopkins. It was the first of my two senior years. I wrote it on math paper, those big yellow-beige pads of perishable stuff. The ode was immortal. I had never been older than sixteen, at least, not to that point. I was ignorant of Strunk & White, but did well enough without them. Zac Beaulac was my friendly archrival. I liked "Original Sin" by INXS. I had no pets. The Breakfast Club was a quotidian obligation -- well, perhaps that was months before. I couldn't be persuaded to read Persuasion. (Thought of re-trying Trollope recently!) I wonder what Gillian thought of the poem. I gave the world a cup of explicit lilacs, and this in December, just before Christmas. I hadn't yet met Heather. (Or maybe I had! But we hadn't yet become best friends.) I recited "Be My Girl, Sally" with J. Chan in the crowded cafeteria. And the stars of Hamilton were far in the future. I wasn't going to church. I was seeing French movies with Lewis, who was to become a physicist, a word I can scarcely type. And Jim was only 23, and not yet a teacher. Seamus Heaney, who had signed my copy of Station Island the previous spring, was still a decade away from his Nobel. I wouldn't touch the Beats with a yardstick. I idolized Rimbaud, but that was on the wane. I met Michelle the following September. She was pregnant then. We don't talk anymore. I carried The Colossus in my pocket, even to weddings. Certainly, I had read a little Robert Lowell -- The Dolphin, most likely. Still rode the ten-speed to Winthrop and back. Bragdon still existed. At least, that's what he called himself. Sam existed, too (he was Mr. D back then -- an evangelist of addenda Catullana, the parts too racy, too earthy, too alive for the textbook). Deb existed, but I didn't know her yet (She was twelve! And she'll be thirty in the summer!). The Harvard Book Store certainly existed (with its capacious basement full of paperback classics bon marché), as did Reading International and the Caffè Avventura. Always there was pizza before Newbury Comics -- Zac and Ben added Mountain Dew, which I thought strange. Mr. Willoughby was still making puns as an English teacher at Number 78. That's an aloe plant. Speak to it. Say "aloe!" Tall fellow, conservative, Catholic, impeccable wit. Didn't like gay books, but didn't hector. Would gently admonish : "I don't think André Gide's the most salubrious reading." Hated La Nausée for being so damn depressing. He liked Eliot, Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Debussy, jazz, and atrocious puns. May he rest in peace. The Celtics still had the Big Three (Bird, Parish, McHale), plus Dennis Johnson and Danny Ainge. Ronald Reagan was president. Michael Dukakis was governor. Ray Flynn was mayor, and only halfway through his first term. The Pope was 65. Venus was five, Serena was four. The world was a wee bit younger than it is today. I have to find that poem. Where did I put it?
Friday, March 14, 2003
And they call this an Irish movie list?
via O'Rama
The USCCB recommends ... these films for 3/17.
Where, for St Patrick's sake, is The Nephew (1998), with Hill Harper, Donal McCann, Aislin McGuckin, Sinead Cusack, and Pierce Brosnan???? Where, where, said Mrs O'Hare??
via O'Rama
The USCCB recommends ... these films for 3/17.
Where, for St Patrick's sake, is The Nephew (1998), with Hill Harper, Donal McCann, Aislin McGuckin, Sinead Cusack, and Pierce Brosnan???? Where, where, said Mrs O'Hare??
Don't tell anyone I said so
Let's just keep this between you, me and the venetian blinds, but listening to Stevie Nicks sing is a sensation much like violating the innocence of a box of Brillo pads.
And when you combine that with the iconically luminous, inefffably splendid (NOT!!!) Tom Petty in "Stop Dragging My Heart Around," you have what I believe is a foretaste of veriest hell.
Let's just keep this between you, me and the venetian blinds, but listening to Stevie Nicks sing is a sensation much like violating the innocence of a box of Brillo pads.
And when you combine that with the iconically luminous, inefffably splendid (NOT!!!) Tom Petty in "Stop Dragging My Heart Around," you have what I believe is a foretaste of veriest hell.
She
by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
I think the dead are tender. Shall we kiss? --
My lady laughs, delighting in what is.
If she but sighs, a bird puts out its tongue.
She makes space lonely with a lovely song.
She lilts a low soft language, and I hear
Down long sea-chambers of the inner ear.
We sing together; we sing mouth to mouth.
The garden is a river flowing south.
She cried out loud the soul's own secret joy;
She dances, and the ground bears her away.
She knows the speech of light, and makes it plain
A lively thing can come to life again.
I feel her presence in the common day,
In that slow dark that widens every eye.
She moves as water moves, and comes to me,
Stayed by what was, and pulled by what would be.
from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (Anchor Books, 1975), p. 124
by Theodore Roethke (1908-1963)
I think the dead are tender. Shall we kiss? --
My lady laughs, delighting in what is.
If she but sighs, a bird puts out its tongue.
She makes space lonely with a lovely song.
She lilts a low soft language, and I hear
Down long sea-chambers of the inner ear.
We sing together; we sing mouth to mouth.
The garden is a river flowing south.
She cried out loud the soul's own secret joy;
She dances, and the ground bears her away.
She knows the speech of light, and makes it plain
A lively thing can come to life again.
I feel her presence in the common day,
In that slow dark that widens every eye.
She moves as water moves, and comes to me,
Stayed by what was, and pulled by what would be.
from The Collected Poems of Theodore Roethke (Anchor Books, 1975), p. 124
And more poetry
at Flos Carmeli, poems which Mr Riddle describes as inchoate, but in which this reader finds considerable splendor and magnitude.
The last two or three days, especially. Just start with the most recent posts & scroll down. Don't miss the excerpt of 31 Poems for 31 Days.
at Flos Carmeli, poems which Mr Riddle describes as inchoate, but in which this reader finds considerable splendor and magnitude.
The last two or three days, especially. Just start with the most recent posts & scroll down. Don't miss the excerpt of 31 Poems for 31 Days.
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
Run Appalosa Run!
The plants are the shadow of the Jolly Green Giant
Mr. Koch is a very well-dressed poetry book walking around in shining shoes.
Tara Housman, 4th grade
=============
The light is a seagull
Mrs. Wiener is a pretzel she is worth two cents
The dog is a door opening and closing
The book is a written reindeer
The yellow letter is a moon
Anthony Gomes, 4th grade
=============
Blank is a Blank
The snow is a snowflake.
The blue sky is an ocean.
The blackboard is a black notebook.
An apple is a red rose.
A bat is a big fat stick.
Mrs. Wiener is a lovely flower which shouts.
Tomas Torres, 4th grade
=============
I used to be a fish
But now I am a nurse
I used to read My City
But now I am up to Round the Corner
I used to be as silly as David
But now I am sillier than David
Andrea Dockery, 1st grade
=============
Kenneth Koch & the students of PS 61, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), pp. 144-5, 156.
Run Appalosa Run!
The plants are the shadow of the Jolly Green Giant
Mr. Koch is a very well-dressed poetry book walking around in shining shoes.
Tara Housman, 4th grade
=============
The light is a seagull
Mrs. Wiener is a pretzel she is worth two cents
The dog is a door opening and closing
The book is a written reindeer
The yellow letter is a moon
Anthony Gomes, 4th grade
=============
Blank is a Blank
The snow is a snowflake.
The blue sky is an ocean.
The blackboard is a black notebook.
An apple is a red rose.
A bat is a big fat stick.
Mrs. Wiener is a lovely flower which shouts.
Tomas Torres, 4th grade
=============
I used to be a fish
But now I am a nurse
I used to read My City
But now I am up to Round the Corner
I used to be as silly as David
But now I am sillier than David
Andrea Dockery, 1st grade
=============
Kenneth Koch & the students of PS 61, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), pp. 144-5, 156.
and oh the harvard book store
was good to me yesterday. They took a quartet of books off my hands (Ferlinghetti, Lamott [I apostatize from the state religion on Bird by Bird], a New Jerusalem Bible [dreadful translation, esp. the Psalms], & an underinspiring book called "Praying with the Church") & gave me $8.20 credit, so I browsed for books & came up with these three, that cost me only $3.35 more than my credit.
-- The Metaphysical Poets (ed. Dame Helen Gardner, Penguin Classics)
-- The Pocket Book of Modern Verse, ed. Oscar Williams, 3rd rev. ed. by Hyman Sobiloff (1972). I used to have the 50s version -- also bought at Hvd Bk Store -- but the 70s version has (in addition to just about everybody from Walt Whitman to Dylan Thomas) a lot of the 60s folks : Dugan, Logan, Creeley, Bly, Ginsberg, O'Hara, and an excerpt from a mammoth whimsical colorful poem called "Faces" by Kenneth Koch! -- a finer book that the earlier editions, livelier, more capacious. Begins with the Dong with a Luminous Nose.
And last but greatestly :
-- 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. Saw the film 16 years ago & many times since. Borrowed the book from the lye-berry a few times. But now I own it, under circumstances (bookbartering! a famous old New England custom!) that must please miss hanff's ghost.
You might be seeing excerpts of 84 hereabouts. Yes, in addition to the Wishes, Lies & Dreams, and the promised-but-not-proffered Anselm of Canterbury, and the dylanpoems, and the kitchen sink.
was good to me yesterday. They took a quartet of books off my hands (Ferlinghetti, Lamott [I apostatize from the state religion on Bird by Bird], a New Jerusalem Bible [dreadful translation, esp. the Psalms], & an underinspiring book called "Praying with the Church") & gave me $8.20 credit, so I browsed for books & came up with these three, that cost me only $3.35 more than my credit.
-- The Metaphysical Poets (ed. Dame Helen Gardner, Penguin Classics)
-- The Pocket Book of Modern Verse, ed. Oscar Williams, 3rd rev. ed. by Hyman Sobiloff (1972). I used to have the 50s version -- also bought at Hvd Bk Store -- but the 70s version has (in addition to just about everybody from Walt Whitman to Dylan Thomas) a lot of the 60s folks : Dugan, Logan, Creeley, Bly, Ginsberg, O'Hara, and an excerpt from a mammoth whimsical colorful poem called "Faces" by Kenneth Koch! -- a finer book that the earlier editions, livelier, more capacious. Begins with the Dong with a Luminous Nose.
And last but greatestly :
-- 84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff. Saw the film 16 years ago & many times since. Borrowed the book from the lye-berry a few times. But now I own it, under circumstances (bookbartering! a famous old New England custom!) that must please miss hanff's ghost.
You might be seeing excerpts of 84 hereabouts. Yes, in addition to the Wishes, Lies & Dreams, and the promised-but-not-proffered Anselm of Canterbury, and the dylanpoems, and the kitchen sink.
Thursday, March 13, 2003
Sam Pepys gives us a chuckle
The recentest entry begins in this wise :
This day the wench rose at two in the morning to wash, and my wife and I lay talking a great while.
And from March 10th, this delightful sentence :
He went with me to my office, whither also Mr. Madge comes half foxed and played the fool upon the violin that made me weary.
The recentest entry begins in this wise :
This day the wench rose at two in the morning to wash, and my wife and I lay talking a great while.
And from March 10th, this delightful sentence :
He went with me to my office, whither also Mr. Madge comes half foxed and played the fool upon the violin that made me weary.
Wednesday, March 12, 2003
A swan of bees
continuing with Kenneth Koch's Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
A chapter in WL&D is called "A Swan of Bees." Koch got the idea from a third-grade poem which mentioned a swarm of bees, but spelled it "a swan of bees." And so he had the kids imagine if one thing were made of something else : a window of ice, a teacher of freckles, a blackboard of nightmares, a pencil of lightning, and so on.
Sort of the same idea that goes behind the group-names for animals : An exaltation of larks, a kindle of kittens, a convocation of eagles, a grunt of dylans ...
Here are two of the students' poems :
I Would Like To Have
I would like to have a door of hearts
I would like to have a room of roses
I would like to have a window of flowers
I would like to have a book of stripes
I would like to have a desk of red strawberries
I would like to have a boat of kittens
I would like to have a surfboard of daisies
I would like to have a pocketful of bows
I would like to have a pillow full of air
I would like to have a brush full of spots
I would like to have a name full of designs
I would like to have a tree full of money.
Ilona Baburka, 3rd grade
===============
Strange Things
A blackboard of moons
A window of kisses
A flag of boxes
A swimming pool of doorknobs
A shirt made of tulips
A heart of squares
A teacher made of hearts
A man made out of balloons
A girl made out of popcorn
A boat made out of clocks
A girl made out of kittens.
Jeannie Turner, 3rd grade
===============
I'm thinking we could do this, for fun. Come up with about six or seven of these combinations, and put them in the comment box. Make them outlandish, ironic, apt, musical, whimsical -- and yes, add colors if you like.
A quibble of pebbles
A generosity of thieves
A calculation of skeptics
An ebullience of Drew Barrymores
A magnificence of deep blue sleepers
A hustle of charlatans
An intimacy of whisperings
A spool of buttons
A syrup of homilies
A perfection of bishops
A wrinkle of senators
A brace of barmaids
A divinity of troubadours
continuing with Kenneth Koch's Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
A chapter in WL&D is called "A Swan of Bees." Koch got the idea from a third-grade poem which mentioned a swarm of bees, but spelled it "a swan of bees." And so he had the kids imagine if one thing were made of something else : a window of ice, a teacher of freckles, a blackboard of nightmares, a pencil of lightning, and so on.
Sort of the same idea that goes behind the group-names for animals : An exaltation of larks, a kindle of kittens, a convocation of eagles, a grunt of dylans ...
Here are two of the students' poems :
I Would Like To Have
I would like to have a door of hearts
I would like to have a room of roses
I would like to have a window of flowers
I would like to have a book of stripes
I would like to have a desk of red strawberries
I would like to have a boat of kittens
I would like to have a surfboard of daisies
I would like to have a pocketful of bows
I would like to have a pillow full of air
I would like to have a brush full of spots
I would like to have a name full of designs
I would like to have a tree full of money.
Ilona Baburka, 3rd grade
===============
Strange Things
A blackboard of moons
A window of kisses
A flag of boxes
A swimming pool of doorknobs
A shirt made of tulips
A heart of squares
A teacher made of hearts
A man made out of balloons
A girl made out of popcorn
A boat made out of clocks
A girl made out of kittens.
Jeannie Turner, 3rd grade
===============
I'm thinking we could do this, for fun. Come up with about six or seven of these combinations, and put them in the comment box. Make them outlandish, ironic, apt, musical, whimsical -- and yes, add colors if you like.
A quibble of pebbles
A generosity of thieves
A calculation of skeptics
An ebullience of Drew Barrymores
A magnificence of deep blue sleepers
A hustle of charlatans
An intimacy of whisperings
A spool of buttons
A syrup of homilies
A perfection of bishops
A wrinkle of senators
A brace of barmaids
A divinity of troubadours
For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger
Eve Tushnet gives us Kit Smart's tribute to his cat Jeoffry.
Eve Tushnet gives us Kit Smart's tribute to his cat Jeoffry.
ceci-cela surréaliste
1. Married or single?
2. Knit or crochet?
3. Homebody or world traveller?
4. Star Search or American Idol?
5. Dancing or karaoke?
6. Elvis Presley or Elvis Costello?
7. Bus or train?
8. Batman or Superman?
9. Chocolate or vanilla?
10. Which came first...the chicken or the egg?
1. Single
2. Crotchety. Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there. What does he care?
3. Worldbody home-travel.
4. Star Search & Billy Idol.
5. Karaoke.
6. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day I write the book.
7. Train.
8. Regis!
9. Hoodsies.
10. Paramecium! Big paramecium! All over the place.
1. Married or single?
2. Knit or crochet?
3. Homebody or world traveller?
4. Star Search or American Idol?
5. Dancing or karaoke?
6. Elvis Presley or Elvis Costello?
7. Bus or train?
8. Batman or Superman?
9. Chocolate or vanilla?
10. Which came first...the chicken or the egg?
1. Single
2. Crotchety. Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there. What does he care?
3. Worldbody home-travel.
4. Star Search & Billy Idol.
5. Karaoke.
6. Every day. Every day. Every day. Every day I write the book.
7. Train.
8. Regis!
9. Hoodsies.
10. Paramecium! Big paramecium! All over the place.
Tuesday, March 11, 2003
Poems
Added links to a bunch of silly and solemn, serious and surreal, comic and tragic, experimental and old-fashioned, radical and reactionary, rhymed and unrhymed, versed and unversed poems in the left margin. Am thinking of adding links to the famous poetry found here, but ere long I'll have links to every post in the blog! Oh, well, maybe a few.
Hope every one had a good day. I think I did. Am too tired to know at the moment.
Added links to a bunch of silly and solemn, serious and surreal, comic and tragic, experimental and old-fashioned, radical and reactionary, rhymed and unrhymed, versed and unversed poems in the left margin. Am thinking of adding links to the famous poetry found here, but ere long I'll have links to every post in the blog! Oh, well, maybe a few.
Hope every one had a good day. I think I did. Am too tired to know at the moment.
Monday, March 10, 2003
And the rocks melt wi' the sun
My love is a purple snowflake that's newly tumbled in January, earthward from the æther;
My love is a timorous groundhog that blesses its own shadow in the flinchings of February;
My love is a sun-porch, homey and embracing, blazing with glacial light in the middle of March;
My love is a boon, an unexpected windfall, my true love embodies the spendless treasures of April;
My love is a mint julep, a winning wager, a blue blossom with yellow streaks, a silver sky with tracks of teal, in most adventurous Maytime;
My love is a splendid saint, a candid apparition, a white-robed roisín dubh in the secret places of June;
My love is a forest of fireworks (out-bursting politely : drastically glowing) in the luminous night skies of July;
My love is an unexpected cool spell, a Saint Lawrence autumn, arriving timely in August;
My love is the impatience of scholars, the vehemence of evangelists, the sharp first frost in the suburbs of September;
My love is a scientist (not unlike a scientist), circumambulating the cloistergarth of a ruddy blushing October;
My love is a bastion of withered foliage, a glorious cadence, a crisp epigram, a blind and desperate bluster in November;
And as for December -- well, what of it? Take your bewitching solstices, and your bright red-green eternities. And add a spark-and-a-half of miracle and glory. Plus hope, plus faith. And laughter for good measure.
She's the thirteenth month of the year, with a billion birthdays of grace, every minute, every second, every sleeping millisecond, every lively wakeful thousand dreaming hours.
My love is a purple snowflake that's newly tumbled in January, earthward from the æther;
My love is a timorous groundhog that blesses its own shadow in the flinchings of February;
My love is a sun-porch, homey and embracing, blazing with glacial light in the middle of March;
My love is a boon, an unexpected windfall, my true love embodies the spendless treasures of April;
My love is a mint julep, a winning wager, a blue blossom with yellow streaks, a silver sky with tracks of teal, in most adventurous Maytime;
My love is a splendid saint, a candid apparition, a white-robed roisín dubh in the secret places of June;
My love is a forest of fireworks (out-bursting politely : drastically glowing) in the luminous night skies of July;
My love is an unexpected cool spell, a Saint Lawrence autumn, arriving timely in August;
My love is the impatience of scholars, the vehemence of evangelists, the sharp first frost in the suburbs of September;
My love is a scientist (not unlike a scientist), circumambulating the cloistergarth of a ruddy blushing October;
My love is a bastion of withered foliage, a glorious cadence, a crisp epigram, a blind and desperate bluster in November;
And as for December -- well, what of it? Take your bewitching solstices, and your bright red-green eternities. And add a spark-and-a-half of miracle and glory. Plus hope, plus faith. And laughter for good measure.
She's the thirteenth month of the year, with a billion birthdays of grace, every minute, every second, every sleeping millisecond, every lively wakeful thousand dreaming hours.
Sestina
by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
I have reached, alas, the long shadow
and short day of whitening hills
when color is lost in the grass.
My longing, all the same, keeps green
it is so hooked in the hard stone
that speaks and hears like a woman.
In that same way this new woman
stands as cold as snow in shadow,
less touched than if she had been stone
by the sweet time that warms the hills
and brings them back from white to green,
dressing them in flowers and grass.
Who, when she wreathes her hair with grass,
thinks of any other woman?
The golden waves so mix with green
that Love himself seeks its shadow
that has me fixed between small hills
more strongly than cemented stone.
More potent than a precious stone,
her beauty wounds, and healing grass
cannot help; across plains and hills
I fled this radiant woman.
From her light I found no shadow
of mountain, wall, or living green.
I have seen her pass, dressed in green,
and thought the sight would make a stone
love, as I, even her shadow.
And I have walked with her on grass,
speaking like a lovesick woman,
enclosed within the highest hills.
But streams will flow back to their hills
before this branch, sappy and green,
catches fire (as does a woman)
from me, who would bed down on stone
and gladly for his food crop grass
just to see her gown cast shadow.
The heavy shadow cast by hills
this woman's light can change to green,
as one might hide a stone in grass.
(trans. James Schuyler)
by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)
I have reached, alas, the long shadow
and short day of whitening hills
when color is lost in the grass.
My longing, all the same, keeps green
it is so hooked in the hard stone
that speaks and hears like a woman.
In that same way this new woman
stands as cold as snow in shadow,
less touched than if she had been stone
by the sweet time that warms the hills
and brings them back from white to green,
dressing them in flowers and grass.
Who, when she wreathes her hair with grass,
thinks of any other woman?
The golden waves so mix with green
that Love himself seeks its shadow
that has me fixed between small hills
more strongly than cemented stone.
More potent than a precious stone,
her beauty wounds, and healing grass
cannot help; across plains and hills
I fled this radiant woman.
From her light I found no shadow
of mountain, wall, or living green.
I have seen her pass, dressed in green,
and thought the sight would make a stone
love, as I, even her shadow.
And I have walked with her on grass,
speaking like a lovesick woman,
enclosed within the highest hills.
But streams will flow back to their hills
before this branch, sappy and green,
catches fire (as does a woman)
from me, who would bed down on stone
and gladly for his food crop grass
just to see her gown cast shadow.
The heavy shadow cast by hills
this woman's light can change to green,
as one might hide a stone in grass.
(trans. James Schuyler)
Anselm of Canterbury
from "Prayer to St Mary (1)" -- when the mind is weighed down with heaviness
Mary, holy Mary,
among the holy ones the most holy after God.
Mother with virginity to be wondered at,
Virgin with fertility to be cherished,
you bore the Son of the most High,
and brought forth the Saviour of the lost human race.
Lady, shining before all others with such sanctity,
pre-eminent with such dignity,
it is very sure that you are not least in power and in honour.
Life-bearer, mother of salvation,
shrine of goodness and mercy,
I long to come before you in my misery,
sick with the sickness of vice,
in pain from the wounds of crimes,
putrid with the ulcers of sin.
However near I am to death, I reach out to you,
and I long to ask that by your powerful merits
and your loving prayers,
you will deign to heal me.
Good Lady,
a huge dullness is between you and me,
so that I am scarcely aware of the extent of my sickness.
I am so filthy and stinking
that I am afraid you will turn your merciful face from me.
So I look to you to convert me,
but I am held back by despair,
and even my lips are shut against prayer.
The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. with intro. by Sister Benedicta Ward, SLG (Penguin Classics, 1986), p. 107
from "Prayer to St Mary (1)" -- when the mind is weighed down with heaviness
Mary, holy Mary,
among the holy ones the most holy after God.
Mother with virginity to be wondered at,
Virgin with fertility to be cherished,
you bore the Son of the most High,
and brought forth the Saviour of the lost human race.
Lady, shining before all others with such sanctity,
pre-eminent with such dignity,
it is very sure that you are not least in power and in honour.
Life-bearer, mother of salvation,
shrine of goodness and mercy,
I long to come before you in my misery,
sick with the sickness of vice,
in pain from the wounds of crimes,
putrid with the ulcers of sin.
However near I am to death, I reach out to you,
and I long to ask that by your powerful merits
and your loving prayers,
you will deign to heal me.
Good Lady,
a huge dullness is between you and me,
so that I am scarcely aware of the extent of my sickness.
I am so filthy and stinking
that I am afraid you will turn your merciful face from me.
So I look to you to convert me,
but I am held back by despair,
and even my lips are shut against prayer.
The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm with the Proslogion, trans. with intro. by Sister Benedicta Ward, SLG (Penguin Classics, 1986), p. 107
Thomas Carew
When we began, we were convinced
Of literature's innocence.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury
When we adored these vestiges, we knew great joy.
Caught between
Rules, the ebony star.
Spenser, or Spender
Philomel's brink, the setting of façades.
Belaurelled
Sailing alone above around about. How these sloops, these sleeps, meander.
Spring
Fourteenth anniversary of a single sestina.
Marginalia, or the words you use should be your own
A sarabande the wind mowed on the mead.
When we began, we were convinced
Of literature's innocence.
Lord Herbert of Cherbury
When we adored these vestiges, we knew great joy.
Caught between
Rules, the ebony star.
Spenser, or Spender
Philomel's brink, the setting of façades.
Belaurelled
Sailing alone above around about. How these sloops, these sleeps, meander.
Spring
Fourteenth anniversary of a single sestina.
Marginalia, or the words you use should be your own
A sarabande the wind mowed on the mead.
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Spent the 10 to 11 hour
watching a show that started promising and turned rancid. I need mouthwash for the mind, to get the taste of the last ten minutes out. And to add insult (almost typed "inslut") to injury, there was a wonderfully correct message about the death penalty. And of course, the timeworn device of the criminal who's done a lot of bad stuff, but just might be innocent of the one thing that got him a date with the lethal-injection gurney. The coda of the show was a ten-minute rap video, which made my heart rejoice.
But now I'm awake, and rather fully awake, whereas at 9.30 or so, I was more than half asleep.
watching a show that started promising and turned rancid. I need mouthwash for the mind, to get the taste of the last ten minutes out. And to add insult (almost typed "inslut") to injury, there was a wonderfully correct message about the death penalty. And of course, the timeworn device of the criminal who's done a lot of bad stuff, but just might be innocent of the one thing that got him a date with the lethal-injection gurney. The coda of the show was a ten-minute rap video, which made my heart rejoice.
But now I'm awake, and rather fully awake, whereas at 9.30 or so, I was more than half asleep.
Memoranda to self
1. Add that Herbert index to the Poetry & Culture part of Places Oft. (Okay, did that. Now what about the Plath page?)
2. Start the Anselm of Canterbury tomorrow !! (Hm. Maybe not. Can't decide what, or how much, to excerpt.)
3. Climb Mount Everest. (Nah.)
4. What about the haiku?
5. Ah, forget about the haiku. (A haiku-writing contest, with first line given, might be fun.)
6. Hope those captions keep coming. (Haloscan, mon amour !!)
7. Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust shalt thou return.
1. Add that Herbert index to the Poetry & Culture part of Places Oft. (Okay, did that. Now what about the Plath page?)
2. Start the Anselm of Canterbury tomorrow !! (Hm. Maybe not. Can't decide what, or how much, to excerpt.)
3. Climb Mount Everest. (Nah.)
4. What about the haiku?
5. Ah, forget about the haiku. (A haiku-writing contest, with first line given, might be fun.)
6. Hope those captions keep coming. (Haloscan, mon amour !!)
7. Remember, man, that thou art dust; and unto dust shalt thou return.
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
My dress is as pink as a rose
The color red is like blood
The zoo is like Africa
The light is as bright as a star
Cecilia's socks are as bright as a sun shining
Magaly Rotgers, 5th grade
===============
Venice reminds me of a model of an ant hill.
The eraser is like a dusty old book.
A glass reminds me of the Atlantic Ocean.
Roberto Marcilla, 6th grade
===============
The letter Z is like a moon, almost gone.
Ruth Cobrinik, 6th grade
===============
The Things I Hear in the City
I hear traffic
I hear the Bronx bridge
When I ride on it
I hear cats go mew
I hear yelling.
Andrea Dockery, 1st grade
===============
a cat goes mewmew mewmew
a car goes PPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
Valerie Chassé, 1st grade
===============
I hear the car go honk-honk.
The dog went to the hog and said you little dog and the hog said you are a dog not me.
I hear the people go quark-quark.
I hear the drum go bum-bum.
I hear the piano go be-be.
I hear the mice go squeak-squeak.
The cat sat on the mat and the cat said meor-meor.
I heard a bird go go-go.
The Monkees sound like donkeys.
Ruby Johnson, 4th grade
===============
Kenneth Koch and the students of PS 61, NYC, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), pp. 100-113, passim
These poems, from the two sections entitled "Comparisons" and "Noises."
Worth noting : When he read poetry to the children, he didn't read "children's poetry." He read Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams ("This is just to say" and "Between walls" among others), Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens (the "Bantams in Pine-woods" poem) and García Lorca in Spanish and in English!
He did compile another book of children's poems, which take direct inspiration from the famous poets of the past and of modernity, called Rose, where did you get that red? in which he juxtaposed the students' poems with the classics by which they were inspired. When one thinks of elementary and middle-school students reading Thomas Carew, William Blake, and the other poets mentioned above !!
My dress is as pink as a rose
The color red is like blood
The zoo is like Africa
The light is as bright as a star
Cecilia's socks are as bright as a sun shining
Magaly Rotgers, 5th grade
===============
Venice reminds me of a model of an ant hill.
The eraser is like a dusty old book.
A glass reminds me of the Atlantic Ocean.
Roberto Marcilla, 6th grade
===============
The letter Z is like a moon, almost gone.
Ruth Cobrinik, 6th grade
===============
The Things I Hear in the City
I hear traffic
I hear the Bronx bridge
When I ride on it
I hear cats go mew
I hear yelling.
Andrea Dockery, 1st grade
===============
a cat goes mewmew mewmew
a car goes PPPPPPPPPPPPPPP
Valerie Chassé, 1st grade
===============
I hear the car go honk-honk.
The dog went to the hog and said you little dog and the hog said you are a dog not me.
I hear the people go quark-quark.
I hear the drum go bum-bum.
I hear the piano go be-be.
I hear the mice go squeak-squeak.
The cat sat on the mat and the cat said meor-meor.
I heard a bird go go-go.
The Monkees sound like donkeys.
Ruby Johnson, 4th grade
===============
Kenneth Koch and the students of PS 61, NYC, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), pp. 100-113, passim
These poems, from the two sections entitled "Comparisons" and "Noises."
Worth noting : When he read poetry to the children, he didn't read "children's poetry." He read Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams ("This is just to say" and "Between walls" among others), Dylan Thomas, Wallace Stevens (the "Bantams in Pine-woods" poem) and García Lorca in Spanish and in English!
He did compile another book of children's poems, which take direct inspiration from the famous poets of the past and of modernity, called Rose, where did you get that red? in which he juxtaposed the students' poems with the classics by which they were inspired. When one thinks of elementary and middle-school students reading Thomas Carew, William Blake, and the other poets mentioned above !!
February 37th
Winter has been bitchy of late, vexing the insomniac with its dolorous crooning, afflicting the pedestrian with its lachrymific sting, at almost all hours of the day. Or more than all. Twenty-five eight.
The snowdrifts, what's left of them, appeal to the imagiste bailiff to extend freezing temperatures through April, or May, or next May.
And just the other day, the wee sleekit shivering daystar was bouncing up and down in the heavens, just to keep itself warm.
It's 600 degrees below the IQ of a Belgian waffle. The spiral-bound notebooks require fuel assistance. The flatlanders pay steep heating bills, as do the barnacles on their uncozy pierstakes.
"It's been one hell of a season, I tell you," said the oldtimer in red flannel, hashing it out with the greenhorn in plaid. He sipped steam from from his coffee, or what passes for coffee in this epoch, and groaned, impervious, or at best, hemidemisemipervious, to the particulars of God's great plan. "But spring impends, you hear me? And when it comes, you don't want to be caught unawares, nodding off, asleep at the wheel, woolgathering or even lintgathering, twiddling your clichés -- in short, less than fully prepared. Best take the miscellanies out of the toolshed, just in case."
The shepherd's calendar (not to be confused with the goatherd's calendar) turns its prosaic faccia bella toward the abbreviated breviary. In between the celebrity gossip, the radio intones "...falling through the teens." Just the way we like it. The tobogganing this year has been splendid, even uphill.
Winter has been bitchy of late, vexing the insomniac with its dolorous crooning, afflicting the pedestrian with its lachrymific sting, at almost all hours of the day. Or more than all. Twenty-five eight.
The snowdrifts, what's left of them, appeal to the imagiste bailiff to extend freezing temperatures through April, or May, or next May.
And just the other day, the wee sleekit shivering daystar was bouncing up and down in the heavens, just to keep itself warm.
It's 600 degrees below the IQ of a Belgian waffle. The spiral-bound notebooks require fuel assistance. The flatlanders pay steep heating bills, as do the barnacles on their uncozy pierstakes.
"It's been one hell of a season, I tell you," said the oldtimer in red flannel, hashing it out with the greenhorn in plaid. He sipped steam from from his coffee, or what passes for coffee in this epoch, and groaned, impervious, or at best, hemidemisemipervious, to the particulars of God's great plan. "But spring impends, you hear me? And when it comes, you don't want to be caught unawares, nodding off, asleep at the wheel, woolgathering or even lintgathering, twiddling your clichés -- in short, less than fully prepared. Best take the miscellanies out of the toolshed, just in case."
The shepherd's calendar (not to be confused with the goatherd's calendar) turns its prosaic faccia bella toward the abbreviated breviary. In between the celebrity gossip, the radio intones "...falling through the teens." Just the way we like it. The tobogganing this year has been splendid, even uphill.
Ah, second-hand bookstores !!
Found the Ashbery book mentioned below ... and also (a drumroll might be fitting) ...
... the Penguin Classics edition of The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm [of Canterbury], with the Proslogion, translated and with an introduction by Benedicta Ward, SLG. This volume, three dollars! Huzzah!
Might, someday soon, begin excerpting some of the prayers at this page.
Today might be surrealist poetry day.
As opposed to, you know, all the previous days that weren't surrealist poetry days.
Found the Ashbery book mentioned below ... and also (a drumroll might be fitting) ...
... the Penguin Classics edition of The Prayers and Meditations of Saint Anselm [of Canterbury], with the Proslogion, translated and with an introduction by Benedicta Ward, SLG. This volume, three dollars! Huzzah!
Might, someday soon, begin excerpting some of the prayers at this page.
Today might be surrealist poetry day.
As opposed to, you know, all the previous days that weren't surrealist poetry days.
John Ashbery
Sailboat of the Luxembourg! Vibrations of crisp mornings ripple ever closer, the joiner joins, the ostler ostles, the seducer seduces, nor stirs far from his crimson hammock. Delphic squibs caparison the bleak afternoon and the critics love it ...
from "Theme Park Days" in Chinese Whispers (FSG, 2002), p. 9
Sailboat of the Luxembourg! Vibrations of crisp mornings ripple ever closer, the joiner joins, the ostler ostles, the seducer seduces, nor stirs far from his crimson hammock. Delphic squibs caparison the bleak afternoon and the critics love it ...
from "Theme Park Days" in Chinese Whispers (FSG, 2002), p. 9
Saturday, March 08, 2003
Karl Rahner, of all people
Two different weblogs this week have shown this theologian to advantage :
At Dappled Things, a meditation on the Heart of Christ from the eighth volume of Theological Investigations ...
... and at the Catholic Blog for Lovers, birthday wishes for the theologian, and a gentle exhortation not to dismiss the earlier work because of the later.
Two different weblogs this week have shown this theologian to advantage :
At Dappled Things, a meditation on the Heart of Christ from the eighth volume of Theological Investigations ...
... and at the Catholic Blog for Lovers, birthday wishes for the theologian, and a gentle exhortation not to dismiss the earlier work because of the later.
BJG vs DMN
redux
Fr Groeschel's response to that piece (or piece of ... ) in the Dallas Morning News.
Via Annunciations.
redux
Fr Groeschel's response to that piece (or piece of ... ) in the Dallas Morning News.
Via Annunciations.
Today, this insect
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Today, this insect, and the world I breathe,
Now that my symbols have outelbowed space,
Time at the city spectacles, and half
The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence,
In trust and tale have I divided sense,
Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double
Of head and tail made witnesses to this
Murder of Eden and green genesis.
The insect certain is the plague of fables.
This story's monster has a serpent caul,
Blind in the coil scrams round the blazing outline,
Measures his own length on the garden wall
And breaks his shell in the last shocked beginning;
A crocodile before the chrysalis,
Before the fall from love the flying heartbone,
Winged like a sabbath ass this children's piece
Uncredited blows Jericho on Eden.
The insect fable is the certain promise.
Death : death of Hamlet and the nightmare madmen,
An air-drawn windmill on a wooden horse,
John's beast, Job's patience, and the fibs of vision,
Greek in the Irish sea the ageless voice :
'Adam I love, my madmen's love is endless,
No tell-tale lover has an end more certain,
All legends' sweethearts on a tree of stories,
My cross of tales behind the fabulous curtain.'
from The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions, 1954), pp. 47-48
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Today, this insect, and the world I breathe,
Now that my symbols have outelbowed space,
Time at the city spectacles, and half
The dear, daft time I take to nudge the sentence,
In trust and tale have I divided sense,
Slapped down the guillotine, the blood-red double
Of head and tail made witnesses to this
Murder of Eden and green genesis.
The insect certain is the plague of fables.
This story's monster has a serpent caul,
Blind in the coil scrams round the blazing outline,
Measures his own length on the garden wall
And breaks his shell in the last shocked beginning;
A crocodile before the chrysalis,
Before the fall from love the flying heartbone,
Winged like a sabbath ass this children's piece
Uncredited blows Jericho on Eden.
The insect fable is the certain promise.
Death : death of Hamlet and the nightmare madmen,
An air-drawn windmill on a wooden horse,
John's beast, Job's patience, and the fibs of vision,
Greek in the Irish sea the ageless voice :
'Adam I love, my madmen's love is endless,
No tell-tale lover has an end more certain,
All legends' sweethearts on a tree of stories,
My cross of tales behind the fabulous curtain.'
from The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions, 1954), pp. 47-48
Friday, March 07, 2003
Abortionists
in addition to their other evils, protect statutory rapists, according to this article -- spotted at Fructus Ventris.
in addition to their other evils, protect statutory rapists, according to this article -- spotted at Fructus Ventris.
Wednesday
an acrostic
Sometimes, a flurry vexes the northern pines.
I claim these woods, these hospitable forest-frosts;
Wonder lives here. You can discern its ample majesty
If you simply listen to its limpid silences.
I'm a wholesomer chap in these wintry precincts,
Able to chill, keep fretfulness on the down-low,
To meditate as eastern polymaths
Do quite oft during soberest Twelfthmonth.
The deep tmesis of these gray mornings, these
Things of dim sound, of mute glow -- quanta dolcezza !
I seem fresh out of phrases, for real; they've all been
Said and resaid, old school, the gaveller's going-gone.
I resort to sly vernacularities, word-somersaults :
Would that the snowflakes could respond in kind !
2001
an acrostic
Sometimes, a flurry vexes the northern pines.
I claim these woods, these hospitable forest-frosts;
Wonder lives here. You can discern its ample majesty
If you simply listen to its limpid silences.
I'm a wholesomer chap in these wintry precincts,
Able to chill, keep fretfulness on the down-low,
To meditate as eastern polymaths
Do quite oft during soberest Twelfthmonth.
The deep tmesis of these gray mornings, these
Things of dim sound, of mute glow -- quanta dolcezza !
I seem fresh out of phrases, for real; they've all been
Said and resaid, old school, the gaveller's going-gone.
I resort to sly vernacularities, word-somersaults :
Would that the snowflakes could respond in kind !
2001
Spotted at Video meliora ...
Thomas Hibbs at National Review gives us a cheerfully depressing denunciation of February vacation, a weeklong pause in thedamage inflicted by academic activity of Massachusetts schools.
Also he quotes Keats, praises Jack Nicholson, and harbors "the radical if forlorn hope that Massachusetts will someday adopt a two-party system" (for offices besides governor) ...
Thomas Hibbs at National Review gives us a cheerfully depressing denunciation of February vacation, a weeklong pause in the
Also he quotes Keats, praises Jack Nicholson, and harbors "the radical if forlorn hope that Massachusetts will someday adopt a two-party system" (for offices besides governor) ...
Thursday, March 06, 2003
Yes
The biggest problem facing some members of the black community is not the color of their skin, but the thinness of it. Such people will never find happiness in this life or the next as long as their lives are one endless and microscopic search for things to take offense at.
Mark Shea, three weeks ago, on this story.
The biggest problem facing some members of the black community is not the color of their skin, but the thinness of it. Such people will never find happiness in this life or the next as long as their lives are one endless and microscopic search for things to take offense at.
Mark Shea, three weeks ago, on this story.
A New Zealand woman
has offered to be crucified by President George W. Bush in exchange for a guarantee that the US will not launch a military strike on Iraq.
Via the Rat. We are inclined to agree with the Rat's assessment -- that the woman from New Zealand has her cabeza firmly and cozily ensconced in proctology's paradise.
has offered to be crucified by President George W. Bush in exchange for a guarantee that the US will not launch a military strike on Iraq.
Via the Rat. We are inclined to agree with the Rat's assessment -- that the woman from New Zealand has her cabeza firmly and cozily ensconced in proctology's paradise.
I hate to break this to you, Mr Morrison .......
but if you've recently turned 40, you are not beginning your fourth decade of life. You have just ended it.
Forty years = four complete decades.
You are beginning your fifth decade. Just as I am approximately 37.5% of the way through with my fourth.
A child who is 18 months old (1.5 years old) is not in his first year of life; he's in his second. When he turns two, he begins his third year.
Am I turning into the mathematical version of nihil obstat? Oh well.
but if you've recently turned 40, you are not beginning your fourth decade of life. You have just ended it.
Forty years = four complete decades.
You are beginning your fifth decade. Just as I am approximately 37.5% of the way through with my fourth.
A child who is 18 months old (1.5 years old) is not in his first year of life; he's in his second. When he turns two, he begins his third year.
Am I turning into the mathematical version of nihil obstat? Oh well.
Te Deum Laudamus
by request
Te Deum laudamus : te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates;
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni : quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
Per singulos dies benedicimus te.
Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.
[The English translation of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer can be found here.]
by request
Te Deum laudamus : te Dominum confitemur.
Te aeternum Patrem omnis terra veneratur.
Tibi omnes Angeli; tibi caeli et universae Potestates;
Tibi Cherubim et Seraphim incessabili voce proclamant:
Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus, Dominus Deus Sabaoth.
Pleni sunt caeli et terra maiestatis gloriae tuae.
Te gloriosus Apostolorum chorus,
Te Prophetarum laudabilis numerus,
Te Martyrum candidatus laudat exercitus.
Te per orbem terrarum sancta confitetur Ecclesia,
Patrem immensae maiestatis:
Venerandum tuum verum et unicum Filium;
Sanctum quoque Paraclitum Spiritum.
Tu Rex gloriae, Christe.
Tu Patris sempiternus es Filius.
Tu ad liberandum suscepturus hominem, non horruisti Virginis uterum.
Tu, devicto mortis aculeo, aperuisti credentibus regna caelorum.
Tu ad dexteram Dei sedes, in gloria Patris.
Iudex crederis esse venturus.
Te ergo quaesumus, tuis famulis subveni : quos pretioso sanguine redemisti.
Aeterna fac cum sanctis tuis in gloria numerari.
Salvum fac populum tuum, Domine, et benedic hereditati tuae.
Et rege eos, et extolle illos usque in aeternum.
Per singulos dies benedicimus te.
Et laudamus nomen tuum in saeculum, et in saeculum saeculi.
Dignare, Domine, die isto sine peccato nos custodire.
Miserere nostri, Domine, miserere nostri.
Fiat misericordia tua, Domine, super nos, quemadmodum speravimus in te.
In te, Domine, speravi: non confundar in aeternum.
[The English translation of the 1928 Book of Common Prayer can be found here.]
I should try that sometime
Someone I worked with a few years ago told of being at Mass one Sunday, and at the exchange of peace, a cranky four-year-old child -- with an impeccably misanthropic attitude toward people thrusting their mitts at him and demanding a handshake -- shouted, "I DON'T WANT PEACE!"
Someone I worked with a few years ago told of being at Mass one Sunday, and at the exchange of peace, a cranky four-year-old child -- with an impeccably misanthropic attitude toward people thrusting their mitts at him and demanding a handshake -- shouted, "I DON'T WANT PEACE!"
Great Lent
for Orthodox Christians begins on March 10th; in anticipation, here is the Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude Metropolitan HERMAN, Metropolitan of All America and Canada. At the OCA website.
for Orthodox Christians begins on March 10th; in anticipation, here is the Archpastoral Message of His Beatitude Metropolitan HERMAN, Metropolitan of All America and Canada. At the OCA website.
Incarnate devil
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Incarnate devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple,
And God walked there who was a fiddling warden
And played down pardon from the heavens' hill.
When we were strangers to the guided seas,
A handmade moon half holy in a cloud,
The wisemen tell me that the garden gods
Twined good and evil on an eastern tree;
And when the moon rose windily it was
Black as the beast and paler than the cross.
We in our Eden knew the secret guardian
In sacred waters that no frost could harden,
And in the mighty mornings of the earth;
Hell in a horn of sulphur and the cloven myth,
All heaven in a midnight of the sun,
A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time.
From The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions, 1954), p. 46.
by Dylan Thomas (1914-1953)
Incarnate devil in a talking snake,
The central plains of Asia in his garden,
In shaping-time the circle stung awake,
In shapes of sin forked out the bearded apple,
And God walked there who was a fiddling warden
And played down pardon from the heavens' hill.
When we were strangers to the guided seas,
A handmade moon half holy in a cloud,
The wisemen tell me that the garden gods
Twined good and evil on an eastern tree;
And when the moon rose windily it was
Black as the beast and paler than the cross.
We in our Eden knew the secret guardian
In sacred waters that no frost could harden,
And in the mighty mornings of the earth;
Hell in a horn of sulphur and the cloven myth,
All heaven in a midnight of the sun,
A serpent fiddled in the shaping-time.
From The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas (New Directions, 1954), p. 46.
John Montague
Hinge of silence
creak for us
Rose of darkness
unfold for us
Wood anemone
sway for us
Blue harebell
bend for us
Moist fern
unfurl for us
Springy moss
uphold us
Branch of pleasure
lean on us
Leaves of delight
murmur for us
Odorous wood
breathe on us
Evening dews
pearl for us
Secret waterfall
pour for us
Hidden cleft
speak to us
Portal of delight
inflame us
Hill of motherhood
wait for us
Gate of Birth
open for us
J. Montague, quoted in Seamus Heaney's Preoccupations : Selected Prose 1968-1978 (FSG, 1980), p. 143.
Hinge of silence
creak for us
Rose of darkness
unfold for us
Wood anemone
sway for us
Blue harebell
bend for us
Moist fern
unfurl for us
Springy moss
uphold us
Branch of pleasure
lean on us
Leaves of delight
murmur for us
Odorous wood
breathe on us
Evening dews
pearl for us
Secret waterfall
pour for us
Hidden cleft
speak to us
Portal of delight
inflame us
Hill of motherhood
wait for us
Gate of Birth
open for us
J. Montague, quoted in Seamus Heaney's Preoccupations : Selected Prose 1968-1978 (FSG, 1980), p. 143.
Meditation on a March Wind
by Sister Mary Gilbert (dates unknown)
Should man oppose a rash rigidity
Then may the mad March strip his proud, resisting limbs
And strew the green, incipient wonder
Of his May afar;
Or may the hailstones fall as loud as summer thunder
And blast his springtime promise to an ugly scar
Before white glory rims
The naked silhouette of undelivered tree.
What childless woe to kill the unborn flower!
To summon back a fruitless world of frost
Wherein no womb-life stirs, no leafy shoot.
Wed pliancy to wisdom : let the anchored root
Give leash to swaying branches, Spirit-tossed
To pinnacles of trust and quiet power.
From Joyce Kilmer's Anthology of Catholic Poets, with a supplement edited by James Edward Tobin (Liveright, 1955), p. 356.
by Sister Mary Gilbert (dates unknown)
Should man oppose a rash rigidity
Then may the mad March strip his proud, resisting limbs
And strew the green, incipient wonder
Of his May afar;
Or may the hailstones fall as loud as summer thunder
And blast his springtime promise to an ugly scar
Before white glory rims
The naked silhouette of undelivered tree.
What childless woe to kill the unborn flower!
To summon back a fruitless world of frost
Wherein no womb-life stirs, no leafy shoot.
Wed pliancy to wisdom : let the anchored root
Give leash to swaying branches, Spirit-tossed
To pinnacles of trust and quiet power.
From Joyce Kilmer's Anthology of Catholic Poets, with a supplement edited by James Edward Tobin (Liveright, 1955), p. 356.
Wednesday, March 05, 2003
Irish stuff redux
from the Carmina Gadelica
THE INVOCATION OF THE GRACES
I bathe thy palms
In showers of wine,
In the lustral fire,
In the seven elements,
In the juice of the rasps,
In the milk of honey,
And I place the nine pure choice graces
In thy fair fond face,
The grace of form,
The grace of voice,
The grace of fortune,
The grace of goodness,
The grace of wisdom,
The grace of charity,
The grace of choice maidenliness,
The grace of whole-souled loveliness,
The grace of goodly speech.
Dark is yonder town,
Dark are those therein,
Thou art the brown swan,
Going in among them.
Their hearts are under thy control,
Their tongues are beneath thy sole,
Nor will they ever utter a word
To give thee offence.
A shade art thou in the heat,
A shelter art thou in the cold,
Eyes art thou to the blind,
A staff art thou to the pilgrim,
An island art thou at sea,
A fortress art thou on land,
A well art thou in the desert,
Health art thou to the ailing.
Thine is the skill of the Fairy Woman,
Thine is the virtue of Bride the calm,
Thine is the faith of Mary the mild,
Thine is the tact of the woman of Greece,
Thine is the beauty of Emir the lovely,
Thine is the tenderness of Darthula delightful,
Thine is the courage of Maebh the strong,
Thine is the charm of Binne-bheul.
Thou art the joy of all joyous things,
Thou art the light of the beam of the sun,
Thou art the door of the chief of hospitality,
Thou art the surpassing star of guidance,
Thou art the step of the deer of the hill,
Thou art the step of the steed of the plain,
Thou art the grace of the swan of swimming,
Thou art the loveliness of all lovely desires.
The lovely likeness of the Lord
Is in thy pure face,
The loveliest likeness that
Was upon earth.
The best hour of the day be thine,
The best day of the week be thine,
The best week of the year be thine,
The best year in the Son of God's domain be thine.
Peter has come and Paul has come,
James has come and John has come,
Muriel and Mary Virgin have come,
Uriel the all-beneficent has come,
Ariel the beauteousness of the young has come,
Gabriel the seer of the Virgin has come,
Raphael the prince of the valiant has come,
And Michael the chief of the hosts has come,
And Jesus Christ the mild has come,
And the Spirit of true guidance has come,
And the King of kings has come on the helm,
To bestow on thee their affection and their love,
To bestow on thee their affection and their love.
***************
And here it is, if you like, in Gaelic !!
from the Carmina Gadelica
THE INVOCATION OF THE GRACES
I bathe thy palms
In showers of wine,
In the lustral fire,
In the seven elements,
In the juice of the rasps,
In the milk of honey,
And I place the nine pure choice graces
In thy fair fond face,
The grace of form,
The grace of voice,
The grace of fortune,
The grace of goodness,
The grace of wisdom,
The grace of charity,
The grace of choice maidenliness,
The grace of whole-souled loveliness,
The grace of goodly speech.
Dark is yonder town,
Dark are those therein,
Thou art the brown swan,
Going in among them.
Their hearts are under thy control,
Their tongues are beneath thy sole,
Nor will they ever utter a word
To give thee offence.
A shade art thou in the heat,
A shelter art thou in the cold,
Eyes art thou to the blind,
A staff art thou to the pilgrim,
An island art thou at sea,
A fortress art thou on land,
A well art thou in the desert,
Health art thou to the ailing.
Thine is the skill of the Fairy Woman,
Thine is the virtue of Bride the calm,
Thine is the faith of Mary the mild,
Thine is the tact of the woman of Greece,
Thine is the beauty of Emir the lovely,
Thine is the tenderness of Darthula delightful,
Thine is the courage of Maebh the strong,
Thine is the charm of Binne-bheul.
Thou art the joy of all joyous things,
Thou art the light of the beam of the sun,
Thou art the door of the chief of hospitality,
Thou art the surpassing star of guidance,
Thou art the step of the deer of the hill,
Thou art the step of the steed of the plain,
Thou art the grace of the swan of swimming,
Thou art the loveliness of all lovely desires.
The lovely likeness of the Lord
Is in thy pure face,
The loveliest likeness that
Was upon earth.
The best hour of the day be thine,
The best day of the week be thine,
The best week of the year be thine,
The best year in the Son of God's domain be thine.
Peter has come and Paul has come,
James has come and John has come,
Muriel and Mary Virgin have come,
Uriel the all-beneficent has come,
Ariel the beauteousness of the young has come,
Gabriel the seer of the Virgin has come,
Raphael the prince of the valiant has come,
And Michael the chief of the hosts has come,
And Jesus Christ the mild has come,
And the Spirit of true guidance has come,
And the King of kings has come on the helm,
To bestow on thee their affection and their love,
To bestow on thee their affection and their love.
***************
And here it is, if you like, in Gaelic !!
And speaking of dappled things !!
A beautiful diptych at Gerard Serafin's praiseofglory.com : a picture in words by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Glory be to God for dappled things, &c.) and a picture in paint by Marc Chagall.
A beautiful diptych at Gerard Serafin's praiseofglory.com : a picture in words by Gerard Manley Hopkins (Glory be to God for dappled things, &c.) and a picture in paint by Marc Chagall.
From Dappled Things today
Part of Fr Jim Tucker's Ash Wednesday sermon :
Lent reminds us that Catholics don't believe in a once-in-a-lifetime conversion, after which no further work is necessary. Every day, we are called into deeper conformity to Christ Jesus, every day we are called to conversion. Lent helps to make that possible. Our penances aim in two directions, inward and outward. Inwardly, our goal is to conquer our selfishness, pride, and self-indulgence through works of self-discipline and asceticism. Outwardly, our goal is to grow in holy charity -- love and service for God, and love and service for our neighbor. Our penances are successful to the degree that they lead us to accomplish those goals. Throughout Lent, periodically ask yourself: am I becoming less self-centered; am I concretely loving and serving God more fully; am I concretely growing in charity toward my neighbor? And if not, why not?
Part of Fr Jim Tucker's Ash Wednesday sermon :
Lent reminds us that Catholics don't believe in a once-in-a-lifetime conversion, after which no further work is necessary. Every day, we are called into deeper conformity to Christ Jesus, every day we are called to conversion. Lent helps to make that possible. Our penances aim in two directions, inward and outward. Inwardly, our goal is to conquer our selfishness, pride, and self-indulgence through works of self-discipline and asceticism. Outwardly, our goal is to grow in holy charity -- love and service for God, and love and service for our neighbor. Our penances are successful to the degree that they lead us to accomplish those goals. Throughout Lent, periodically ask yourself: am I becoming less self-centered; am I concretely loving and serving God more fully; am I concretely growing in charity toward my neighbor? And if not, why not?
Lent
by Eric Milner-White (1884-1961)
Lord, bless to me this Lent.
Lord, let me fast most truly and profitably,
by feeding in prayer on thy Spirit :
reveal me to myself
in the light of thy holiness.
Suffer me never to think
that I have knowledge enough to need no teaching,
wisdom enough to need no correction,
talents enough to need no grace,
goodness enough to need no progress,
humility enough to need no repentance,
devotion enough to need no quickening,
strength sufficient without thy Spirit;
lest, standing still, I fall back for evermore.
Shew me the desires that should be disciplined,
and sloths to be slain.
Shew me the omissions to be made up
and the habits to be mended.
And behind these, weaken, humble, and annihilate in me
self-will, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction,
self-sufficiency, self-assertion, vainglory.
May my whole effort be to return to thee;
O make it serious and sincere
persevering and fruitful in result,
by the help of thy Holy Spirit
and to thy glory,
my Lord and my God.
E. Milner-White, My God, My Glory : Aspirations, Acts, and Prayers on the Desire for God, ed. Joyce Huggett (Triangle/SPCK, 1994), p. 29
by Eric Milner-White (1884-1961)
Lord, bless to me this Lent.
Lord, let me fast most truly and profitably,
by feeding in prayer on thy Spirit :
reveal me to myself
in the light of thy holiness.
Suffer me never to think
that I have knowledge enough to need no teaching,
wisdom enough to need no correction,
talents enough to need no grace,
goodness enough to need no progress,
humility enough to need no repentance,
devotion enough to need no quickening,
strength sufficient without thy Spirit;
lest, standing still, I fall back for evermore.
Shew me the desires that should be disciplined,
and sloths to be slain.
Shew me the omissions to be made up
and the habits to be mended.
And behind these, weaken, humble, and annihilate in me
self-will, self-righteousness, self-satisfaction,
self-sufficiency, self-assertion, vainglory.
May my whole effort be to return to thee;
O make it serious and sincere
persevering and fruitful in result,
by the help of thy Holy Spirit
and to thy glory,
my Lord and my God.
E. Milner-White, My God, My Glory : Aspirations, Acts, and Prayers on the Desire for God, ed. Joyce Huggett (Triangle/SPCK, 1994), p. 29
Carmina Gadelica
Hymns and poems in both English and Gaelic. Found it, stumbled onto it, whilst searching for something else. O happy find!
Hymns and poems in both English and Gaelic. Found it, stumbled onto it, whilst searching for something else. O happy find!
Lent
by George Herbert (1593-1633)
Welcome deare feast of Lent : who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authoritie,
But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now :
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev'ry Corporation.
The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and layes the burden there,
When doctrines disagree.
He sayes, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandall to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.
True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unlesse Authoritie, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it lesse,
And Power it self disable.
Besides the cleannesse of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulnesse there are sluttish fumes,
Sowre exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodnesse of the deed.
Neither ought other mens abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.
It 's true, we cannot reach Christ's fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior's purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev'n as he.
In both let 's do our best.
Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.
by George Herbert (1593-1633)
Welcome deare feast of Lent : who loves not thee,
He loves not Temperance, or Authoritie,
But is compos'd of passion.
The Scriptures bid us fast; the Church sayes, now :
Give to thy Mother, what thou wouldst allow
To ev'ry Corporation.
The humble soul compos'd of love and fear
Begins at home, and layes the burden there,
When doctrines disagree.
He sayes, in things which use hath justly got,
I am a scandall to the Church, and not
The Church is so to me.
True Christians should be glad of an occasion
To use their temperance, seeking no evasion,
When good is seasonable;
Unlesse Authoritie, which should increase
The obligation in us, make it lesse,
And Power it self disable.
Besides the cleannesse of sweet abstinence,
Quick thoughts and motions at a small expense,
A face not fearing light:
Whereas in fulnesse there are sluttish fumes,
Sowre exhalations, and dishonest rheumes,
Revenging the delight.
Then those same pendant profits, which the spring
And Easter intimate, enlarge the thing,
And goodnesse of the deed.
Neither ought other mens abuse of Lent
Spoil the good use; lest by that argument
We forfeit all our Creed.
It 's true, we cannot reach Christ's fortieth day;
Yet to go part of that religious way,
Is better than to rest:
We cannot reach our Savior's purity;
Yet are bid, Be holy ev'n as he.
In both let 's do our best.
Who goeth in the way which Christ hath gone,
Is much more sure to meet with him, than one
That travelleth by-ways:
Perhaps my God, though he be far before,
May turn, and take me by the hand, and more
May strengthen my decays.
Yet Lord instruct us to improve our fast
By starving sin and taking such repast
As may our faults control:
That ev'ry man may revel at his door,
Not in his parlor; banqueting the poor,
And among those his soul.
Is it quite proper
to begin the liturgical season with a gastronomic "this or that"?
1. Soup or salad?
Soup. Except, perhaps, in summer.
2. Hot or cold sandwiches?
Cold.
3. White or whole wheat bread (or rye, etc)?
Ça m'est égal.
4. Pack a lunch for work/school, or buy it?
Only time I pack a lunch is long bus rides.
5. If you eat out...fast-food chain, or mom & pop type place?
Chili's is quite often good, but I like mom & pop diners. I love the whole concept of diners. Particularly those that look like converted bus, trolley, or train cars. And limitless gallons of coffee, and smiles, and sun (but not too much). Breakfast in a diner. In the country. Or even in the city, if you can find a really good one. Nothing beats it. Forgive this unlenten hankering all of a sudden for a stack of sixteen blueberry pancakes in syrup. And eggs, with all the cholesterol. And orange juice, with all the fructose.
6. Tuna or chicken salad?
Salad is green and leafy. To turn meat into salad is something I've never understood. TUNA!!!
7. Cheese: Swiss or cheddar (or American, etc)?
Provolone, by the fragrant chunk. Auricchio! Bel Gioioso.
8. Mustard or mayo?
Mustard.
9. Sandwiches: wrap/pita pocket, or regular bread/roll?
Regular.
10. Sweet stuff: cookie/cake or fresh fruit?
Think Sesame Street. Think blue and hairy.
to begin the liturgical season with a gastronomic "this or that"?
1. Soup or salad?
Soup. Except, perhaps, in summer.
2. Hot or cold sandwiches?
Cold.
3. White or whole wheat bread (or rye, etc)?
Ça m'est égal.
4. Pack a lunch for work/school, or buy it?
Only time I pack a lunch is long bus rides.
5. If you eat out...fast-food chain, or mom & pop type place?
Chili's is quite often good, but I like mom & pop diners. I love the whole concept of diners. Particularly those that look like converted bus, trolley, or train cars. And limitless gallons of coffee, and smiles, and sun (but not too much). Breakfast in a diner. In the country. Or even in the city, if you can find a really good one. Nothing beats it. Forgive this unlenten hankering all of a sudden for a stack of sixteen blueberry pancakes in syrup. And eggs, with all the cholesterol. And orange juice, with all the fructose.
6. Tuna or chicken salad?
Salad is green and leafy. To turn meat into salad is something I've never understood. TUNA!!!
7. Cheese: Swiss or cheddar (or American, etc)?
Provolone, by the fragrant chunk. Auricchio! Bel Gioioso.
8. Mustard or mayo?
Mustard.
9. Sandwiches: wrap/pita pocket, or regular bread/roll?
Regular.
10. Sweet stuff: cookie/cake or fresh fruit?
Think Sesame Street. Think blue and hairy.
Tuesday, March 04, 2003
Mark Shea
on the Dallas paper's article on Fr Groeschel ... getting it, from my perspective, just about right.
Other commendable commentaries have come from Michael Dubruiel and from Domenico Bettinelli.
A substantial portion of the Dallas paper's article has been quoted by MCNS of Ad Orientem.
on the Dallas paper's article on Fr Groeschel ... getting it, from my perspective, just about right.
Other commendable commentaries have come from Michael Dubruiel and from Domenico Bettinelli.
A substantial portion of the Dallas paper's article has been quoted by MCNS of Ad Orientem.
Why Democrats are in the soup
A Catholicity.com article by Dan Coyne on Catholic Democrats who used to be pro-life, then got presidential ambitions. The embrace of "choice" is compared to Catholics in 19th-century Ireland "sipping the soup" (see the article).
Ted Kennedy among them! His 1971 remarks were news to me. Someone should quote them back to him sometime.
Via Honk.
A Catholicity.com article by Dan Coyne on Catholic Democrats who used to be pro-life, then got presidential ambitions. The embrace of "choice" is compared to Catholics in 19th-century Ireland "sipping the soup" (see the article).
Ted Kennedy among them! His 1971 remarks were news to me. Someone should quote them back to him sometime.
Via Honk.
Monday, March 03, 2003
Another blogger out there
(the rap is on friar!)
seems to believe that the media have the charism of ex cathedra infallibility when it comes to the church's sex-abuse scandal, and that Fr Benedict Groeschel, the nation's pre-eminent Franciscan, is full of what makes the grass grow for suggesting that the media have an anti-RC bias, and that this bias has let to false depictions of a bigger crisis than that which actually exists.
Harrumph. And I say yet again, "Harrumph!" Groeschel might have committed some rhetorical hyperbole here and there, but the anti-RC bias of the PMS Media can't be denied ...
Yet another blogger, a week or so ago, had an extensive summary of Fr Groeschel's recent remarks to a gathering in Natick, Massachusetts. I'll try to find those. But suffice it to say, Fr G does not believe that the scandal is an invention of the media. He just doesn't think they're being invariably helpful, or confining themselves to the known facts, when reporting.
But the media have a duty to investigate these serious charges ... Talk of a bias is bosh ...
Hmm. Well. OK. But when was the last time you heard the name Juanita Broaddrick on the evening news?
There is a definite double standard.
Have the bishops been glorious & wonderful & inspiring? Well, no. On a number of issues, one could find plenty to deride the bishops about.
But to bash Fr Groeschel for his basic thesis that there's a media bias, that a lot of the criticism of the Church is scattershot and not at all constructive, that a lot of people are taking joy in the predicament of the church ... don't expect me to greet that with applause, or with an ounce of sympathy!
(the rap is on friar!)
seems to believe that the media have the charism of ex cathedra infallibility when it comes to the church's sex-abuse scandal, and that Fr Benedict Groeschel, the nation's pre-eminent Franciscan, is full of what makes the grass grow for suggesting that the media have an anti-RC bias, and that this bias has let to false depictions of a bigger crisis than that which actually exists.
Harrumph. And I say yet again, "Harrumph!" Groeschel might have committed some rhetorical hyperbole here and there, but the anti-RC bias of the PMS Media can't be denied ...
Yet another blogger, a week or so ago, had an extensive summary of Fr Groeschel's recent remarks to a gathering in Natick, Massachusetts. I'll try to find those. But suffice it to say, Fr G does not believe that the scandal is an invention of the media. He just doesn't think they're being invariably helpful, or confining themselves to the known facts, when reporting.
But the media have a duty to investigate these serious charges ... Talk of a bias is bosh ...
Hmm. Well. OK. But when was the last time you heard the name Juanita Broaddrick on the evening news?
There is a definite double standard.
Have the bishops been glorious & wonderful & inspiring? Well, no. On a number of issues, one could find plenty to deride the bishops about.
But to bash Fr Groeschel for his basic thesis that there's a media bias, that a lot of the criticism of the Church is scattershot and not at all constructive, that a lot of people are taking joy in the predicament of the church ... don't expect me to greet that with applause, or with an ounce of sympathy!
Glory be to God
for Fr Jim at Dappled Things, who gives us the "Good, True, and Beautiful for Lent" -- an essay on God, who is summum bonum, summum verum, summum pulchrum -- and how we should have the recollection of these qualities before us throughout this coming Lent.
It is Fr Jim's happy fortune to have given us this day an example of beautiful, true, and good writing! Writing that encourages, and that speaks (in some of its particulars) directly, it seems, to this reader ... his remarks on the Mass, especially, inspire gratitude.
for Fr Jim at Dappled Things, who gives us the "Good, True, and Beautiful for Lent" -- an essay on God, who is summum bonum, summum verum, summum pulchrum -- and how we should have the recollection of these qualities before us throughout this coming Lent.
It is Fr Jim's happy fortune to have given us this day an example of beautiful, true, and good writing! Writing that encourages, and that speaks (in some of its particulars) directly, it seems, to this reader ... his remarks on the Mass, especially, inspire gratitude.
If we sin gravely, does God stop listening?
A fellow blogger wonders about the efficacy of prayer when one is not in the state of grace, or if one thinks one has disgraced oneself. Should one pray, or has God stopped listening?
I think all the saints would concur : Pray, for heaven's sake!! Pray a little, pray a lot, but just pray! God never stops listening! ... (unless we're tempted to agree with Archie Bunker that "God don't hear nobody till Sunday")!
St Maximilian Kolbe's writings appear from time to time in the Catholic monthly prayerbook Magnificat; and I believe it was he who said, (my paraphrase) "If I had sinned heinously, gravely, extremely, -- if I had fallen lower than the lowest -- I would pick myself up & instantly fling myself into the heart of the Immaculata." Or words to that effect.
Or take the psalms. Wasn't the author of Psalm 51 ("Have mercy on me, O Lord, in the greatness of your compassion ... Against you only have I sinned") or of Psalm 69 ("Save me, O Lord, for the waters rise to my neck; I stick fast in the deep mire") in a somewhat ungraced state when he raised these prayers of penitence and complaint?
And in the Rosary, we have the Hail Mary, which acknowledges that we are sinners, who need to pray --and be prayed for -- up to the hour of our death; and the Fatima prayer, which urgently beseeches the Lord, "Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy."
And there is St Isaac of Syria's meditation, which I've blogged before ... "Do not despair on account of your stumblings -- it is better to be wounded than dead," etc.
Yes, do keep praying!
Addendum
'It often happens that Satan will insidiously commune with you in your heart and say: "Think of the evil you have done; your soul is full of lawlessness, you are weighed down by many grievous sins." Do not let him deceive you when he does this and do not be led to despair on the pretext that you are being humble. What was the purpose of His descent to earth except to save sinners, to bring light to those in darkness and life to the dead?'
-- from the Macarian Homilies
A fellow blogger wonders about the efficacy of prayer when one is not in the state of grace, or if one thinks one has disgraced oneself. Should one pray, or has God stopped listening?
I think all the saints would concur : Pray, for heaven's sake!! Pray a little, pray a lot, but just pray! God never stops listening! ... (unless we're tempted to agree with Archie Bunker that "God don't hear nobody till Sunday")!
St Maximilian Kolbe's writings appear from time to time in the Catholic monthly prayerbook Magnificat; and I believe it was he who said, (my paraphrase) "If I had sinned heinously, gravely, extremely, -- if I had fallen lower than the lowest -- I would pick myself up & instantly fling myself into the heart of the Immaculata." Or words to that effect.
Or take the psalms. Wasn't the author of Psalm 51 ("Have mercy on me, O Lord, in the greatness of your compassion ... Against you only have I sinned") or of Psalm 69 ("Save me, O Lord, for the waters rise to my neck; I stick fast in the deep mire") in a somewhat ungraced state when he raised these prayers of penitence and complaint?
And in the Rosary, we have the Hail Mary, which acknowledges that we are sinners, who need to pray --and be prayed for -- up to the hour of our death; and the Fatima prayer, which urgently beseeches the Lord, "Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of thy mercy."
And there is St Isaac of Syria's meditation, which I've blogged before ... "Do not despair on account of your stumblings -- it is better to be wounded than dead," etc.
Yes, do keep praying!
Addendum
'It often happens that Satan will insidiously commune with you in your heart and say: "Think of the evil you have done; your soul is full of lawlessness, you are weighed down by many grievous sins." Do not let him deceive you when he does this and do not be led to despair on the pretext that you are being humble. What was the purpose of His descent to earth except to save sinners, to bring light to those in darkness and life to the dead?'
-- from the Macarian Homilies
And here (ouch!)
is Fred Reed, with his usual mixture of lyricism and battery acid, delivering the eulogy for the late snow-sculpture of Harvard Yard.
is Fred Reed, with his usual mixture of lyricism and battery acid, delivering the eulogy for the late snow-sculpture of Harvard Yard.
Peggy Noonan today
speaking the truth in charity about the Democratic Party in an open letter to Andrew Cuomo. Liberal snobbery, win-at-any-cost realpolitik, abstraction from the concerns of everyday human beings, a snide superiority on "values," woollyheadedness on crime, a rancid radicalism on prenatal infanticide, & dangerous flirtations with unpatriotism. Things which we all know, things which even the Democrats know but would prefer to forget.
speaking the truth in charity about the Democratic Party in an open letter to Andrew Cuomo. Liberal snobbery, win-at-any-cost realpolitik, abstraction from the concerns of everyday human beings, a snide superiority on "values," woollyheadedness on crime, a rancid radicalism on prenatal infanticide, & dangerous flirtations with unpatriotism. Things which we all know, things which even the Democrats know but would prefer to forget.
Gertrude Stein
from the "Objects" section of Tender Buttons
A PURSE.
A purse was not green, it was not straw color, it was hardly seen and it had a use a long use and the chain, the chain was never missing, it was not misplaced, it showed that it was open, that is all that it showed.
A MOUNTED UMBRELLA.
What was the use of not leaving it there where it would hang what was the use if there was no chance of ever seeing it come there and show that it was handsome and right in the way it showed it. The lesson is to learn that it does show it, that it shows it and that nothing, that there is nothing, that there is no more to do about it and just so much more is there plenty of reason for making an exchange.
A CLOTH.
Enough cloth is plenty and more, more is almost enough for that and besides if there is no more spreading is there plenty of room for it. Any occasion shows the best way.
MORE.
An elegant use of foliage and grace and a little piece of white cloth and oil.
Wondering so winningly in several kinds of oceans is the reason that makes red so regular and enthusiastic. The reason that there is more snips are the same shining very colored rid of no round color.
A NEW CUP AND SAUCER.
Enthusiastically hurting a clouded yellow bud and saucer, enthusiastically so is the bite in the ribbon.
OBJECTS.
Within, within the cut and slender joint alone, with sudden equals and no more than three, two in the centre make two one side.
If the elbow is long and it is filled so then the best example is all together.
The kind of show is made by squeezing.
EYE GLASSES.
A color in shaving, a saloon is well placed in the centre of an alley.
A CUTLET.
A blind agitation is manly and uttermost.
CARELESS WATER.
No cup is broken in more places and mended, that is to say a plate is broken and mending does do that it shows that culture is Japanese. It shows the whole element of angels and orders. It does more to choosing and it does more to that ministering counting. It does, it does change in more water.
Supposing a single piece is a hair supposing more of them are orderly, does that show that strength, does that show that joint, does that show that balloon famously. Does it.
A PAPER.
A courteous occasion makes a paper show no such occasion and this makes readiness and eyesight and likeness and a stool.
from the "Objects" section of Tender Buttons
A PURSE.
A purse was not green, it was not straw color, it was hardly seen and it had a use a long use and the chain, the chain was never missing, it was not misplaced, it showed that it was open, that is all that it showed.
A MOUNTED UMBRELLA.
What was the use of not leaving it there where it would hang what was the use if there was no chance of ever seeing it come there and show that it was handsome and right in the way it showed it. The lesson is to learn that it does show it, that it shows it and that nothing, that there is nothing, that there is no more to do about it and just so much more is there plenty of reason for making an exchange.
A CLOTH.
Enough cloth is plenty and more, more is almost enough for that and besides if there is no more spreading is there plenty of room for it. Any occasion shows the best way.
MORE.
An elegant use of foliage and grace and a little piece of white cloth and oil.
Wondering so winningly in several kinds of oceans is the reason that makes red so regular and enthusiastic. The reason that there is more snips are the same shining very colored rid of no round color.
A NEW CUP AND SAUCER.
Enthusiastically hurting a clouded yellow bud and saucer, enthusiastically so is the bite in the ribbon.
OBJECTS.
Within, within the cut and slender joint alone, with sudden equals and no more than three, two in the centre make two one side.
If the elbow is long and it is filled so then the best example is all together.
The kind of show is made by squeezing.
EYE GLASSES.
A color in shaving, a saloon is well placed in the centre of an alley.
A CUTLET.
A blind agitation is manly and uttermost.
CARELESS WATER.
No cup is broken in more places and mended, that is to say a plate is broken and mending does do that it shows that culture is Japanese. It shows the whole element of angels and orders. It does more to choosing and it does more to that ministering counting. It does, it does change in more water.
Supposing a single piece is a hair supposing more of them are orderly, does that show that strength, does that show that joint, does that show that balloon famously. Does it.
A PAPER.
A courteous occasion makes a paper show no such occasion and this makes readiness and eyesight and likeness and a stool.
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
[untitled]
by Erin Harold, 4th grade
The pretzel is a Mrs. Wiener.
The rose is a ripe cherry.
The wasp is a scream from my big sister.
A bee is a jump underneath the bed by my sister.
A cloud is a kitten playing with a breeze.
A breeze is a string for a cloud to play with.
Is the sun a ball of string which the breeze was cut from?
Maybe, but the breeze is blue and the sun is orange.
Do the cloud cats drink the rain?
Maybe, but do they like it?
No, because it isn't milk.
***************
That's Odd
by Joel London, 5th grade
I am very unusual. People called me odd and this is why
I used to cry when everyone else laughed
But now I laugh when everyone else cries
I used to be born in 1957
But now I'm born in 1857 because my birth certificate was written wrong
I used to be married
But now I'm divorced
Yet today is my sixth birthday
I used to hate a person whose name I don't want to mention
But now I still hate her
I used to throw water balloons
But now I don't because one landed in a place I don't want to mention
I used to be able to scream
But now all I can do is whisper because of a voice defect.
Kenneth Koch and the children of PS 61, New York City, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), p. 143, p. 173.
[untitled]
by Erin Harold, 4th grade
The pretzel is a Mrs. Wiener.
The rose is a ripe cherry.
The wasp is a scream from my big sister.
A bee is a jump underneath the bed by my sister.
A cloud is a kitten playing with a breeze.
A breeze is a string for a cloud to play with.
Is the sun a ball of string which the breeze was cut from?
Maybe, but the breeze is blue and the sun is orange.
Do the cloud cats drink the rain?
Maybe, but do they like it?
No, because it isn't milk.
***************
That's Odd
by Joel London, 5th grade
I am very unusual. People called me odd and this is why
I used to cry when everyone else laughed
But now I laugh when everyone else cries
I used to be born in 1957
But now I'm born in 1857 because my birth certificate was written wrong
I used to be married
But now I'm divorced
Yet today is my sixth birthday
I used to hate a person whose name I don't want to mention
But now I still hate her
I used to throw water balloons
But now I don't because one landed in a place I don't want to mention
I used to be able to scream
But now all I can do is whisper because of a voice defect.
Kenneth Koch and the children of PS 61, New York City, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), p. 143, p. 173.
Sunday, March 02, 2003
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
Anyway
by Tara Housman, 5th grade
The sky is blue as thunder, but
The cat is as striped as an airplane take-off
The globe is as round as the wind
**************
[Untitled]
by Debbie Novitsky, 5th grade
The waves in the ocean are curl-free
A classroom is like a cage
Bad weather is gloomy like our school paint
Wooden desks are like woodchucks
The snow was like tar
The flower is a grounded bird
The bees are like teachers
The girl was as pink as roses
The cat sang like Judy Garland
A heart jumps up and down like a Superball.
***************
Kenneth Koch and the children of PS 61, New York City, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), p. 96, p. 98.
Anyway
by Tara Housman, 5th grade
The sky is blue as thunder, but
The cat is as striped as an airplane take-off
The globe is as round as the wind
**************
[Untitled]
by Debbie Novitsky, 5th grade
The waves in the ocean are curl-free
A classroom is like a cage
Bad weather is gloomy like our school paint
Wooden desks are like woodchucks
The snow was like tar
The flower is a grounded bird
The bees are like teachers
The girl was as pink as roses
The cat sang like Judy Garland
A heart jumps up and down like a Superball.
***************
Kenneth Koch and the children of PS 61, New York City, op. cit. (Vintage, 1971), p. 96, p. 98.
NRO flashback
Jay Nordlinger on the left's irrational hatred for Attorney General John Ashcroft. Seven months old, but still worth reading.
Jay Nordlinger on the left's irrational hatred for Attorney General John Ashcroft. Seven months old, but still worth reading.
Saturday, March 01, 2003
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Kenneth Koch & the schoolchildren
Here are two of the poems from the classic (if underrenowned in some places?) 1970 collection of elementary school poems written at the truly whimsical instigation of the ideally suited instructor ...
***************
Untitled poem (in the "Noises" section")
by Ruben Marcilla, 5th grade
My crazy cousin drove the clickity clankity car down the street.
I shot my short shirt out the window of a shooting star.
Chimmey Chummy chirped like the camp of a chippy chappy
championship.
Arley's airplane is apt to abbreviate your apple.
The pink petunias turned purple from pumping pipes.
***************
Dream
by Annie Clayton, 4th grade
I dream of many colors making a pattern.
I clutter my mind with arithmetic examples.
I try to play piano in my sleep.
I dream that every day is October ninth.
I dream that I have a golden throne.
I dream that I have all the clothes I want.
I dream that there won't be any school tomorrow.
I dream I'm in the movies.
I dream I'm standing on the floor and diamonds snow on me.
I dream I know all the Bob Dylan songs my brother knows.
I dream all my boyfriends date me and not my friends.
I dream that every year I have my weight in gold.
***************
Kenneth Koch [and the children of PS 61, NYC], Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry (Vintage Books, 1971), p. 121, p. 128.
Here are two of the poems from the classic (if underrenowned in some places?) 1970 collection of elementary school poems written at the truly whimsical instigation of the ideally suited instructor ...
***************
Untitled poem (in the "Noises" section")
by Ruben Marcilla, 5th grade
My crazy cousin drove the clickity clankity car down the street.
I shot my short shirt out the window of a shooting star.
Chimmey Chummy chirped like the camp of a chippy chappy
championship.
Arley's airplane is apt to abbreviate your apple.
The pink petunias turned purple from pumping pipes.
***************
Dream
by Annie Clayton, 4th grade
I dream of many colors making a pattern.
I clutter my mind with arithmetic examples.
I try to play piano in my sleep.
I dream that every day is October ninth.
I dream that I have a golden throne.
I dream that I have all the clothes I want.
I dream that there won't be any school tomorrow.
I dream I'm in the movies.
I dream I'm standing on the floor and diamonds snow on me.
I dream I know all the Bob Dylan songs my brother knows.
I dream all my boyfriends date me and not my friends.
I dream that every year I have my weight in gold.
***************
Kenneth Koch [and the children of PS 61, NYC], Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry (Vintage Books, 1971), p. 121, p. 128.
The Smiths were not whiny!
A friendly controversy with the contrarian commentator
If anything, Morrissey's lyrics are savage & aggressive rather than supine. Yes, there's a mopey persona in some of the lyrics -- and the mopeyness is so over-the-top as to be funny. But to dismiss the lyricist of "Panic," "Sheila," and "The Queen Is Dead" as whiny? Oh, the mind, it's all a-boggle.
Even "Hand in Glove" is so caustically ironic ...
Naw. A whiner Morrissey ain't.
I have this gestating intuition about 'southpaw grammar' as self-defense. I've not yet heard the Morrissey disc with that title. But Stephen Fry had some thoughts on the subject which seem apt for Morrissey as well. Language -- coy, ambiguous, taunting, brash, unabashedly individualistic and unrepentantly literate -- as self-defense. As, perhaps, a form of aggression. Wallace Stevens said that poetry is the violence within that protects us from the violence without. And while we don't confuse Smiths songs with "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" or "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven," the violence metaphor seems apt. Morrissey's lyrics are delicately violent, gleefully brash, waspishly savage, brightly dark, cheerfully glum, and as wry as Christopher Buckley's martinis.
"in an epoch of UNself -- to be ONEself" to quote Three(est)Guesses(lin)Who. That's what Morrissey's all about. Of course, he can take his vegetarianism and his leftism and Fed-Ex them into a black hole, for all I care. But on the charge of being merely whiny -- an unconditional acquittal.
A friendly controversy with the contrarian commentator
If anything, Morrissey's lyrics are savage & aggressive rather than supine. Yes, there's a mopey persona in some of the lyrics -- and the mopeyness is so over-the-top as to be funny. But to dismiss the lyricist of "Panic," "Sheila," and "The Queen Is Dead" as whiny? Oh, the mind, it's all a-boggle.
Even "Hand in Glove" is so caustically ironic ...
Naw. A whiner Morrissey ain't.
I have this gestating intuition about 'southpaw grammar' as self-defense. I've not yet heard the Morrissey disc with that title. But Stephen Fry had some thoughts on the subject which seem apt for Morrissey as well. Language -- coy, ambiguous, taunting, brash, unabashedly individualistic and unrepentantly literate -- as self-defense. As, perhaps, a form of aggression. Wallace Stevens said that poetry is the violence within that protects us from the violence without. And while we don't confuse Smiths songs with "Le Monocle de Mon Oncle" or "An Ordinary Evening in New Haven," the violence metaphor seems apt. Morrissey's lyrics are delicately violent, gleefully brash, waspishly savage, brightly dark, cheerfully glum, and as wry as Christopher Buckley's martinis.
"in an epoch of UNself -- to be ONEself" to quote Three(est)Guesses(lin)Who. That's what Morrissey's all about. Of course, he can take his vegetarianism and his leftism and Fed-Ex them into a black hole, for all I care. But on the charge of being merely whiny -- an unconditional acquittal.
Two wonderfully useful French expressions
and I owe my knowledge of these expressions to a British actor and an American bishop!
L'esprit de l'escalier : When you think of the perfect retort/response/thing to say as you're on the bottom stair, leaving the party. When the witticism comes to you about a month too late. Bishop Sheen used it somewhere, I think in his autobiography. But he seems never to have had the problem!
Avant la lettre : I love this one. Stephen Fry, in his autobiography, relates a tale from the 1970s saying that one of the fellows involved looked like "a Tarantino hitman avant la lettre." Before the thing/term/type/concept existed.
and I owe my knowledge of these expressions to a British actor and an American bishop!
L'esprit de l'escalier : When you think of the perfect retort/response/thing to say as you're on the bottom stair, leaving the party. When the witticism comes to you about a month too late. Bishop Sheen used it somewhere, I think in his autobiography. But he seems never to have had the problem!
Avant la lettre : I love this one. Stephen Fry, in his autobiography, relates a tale from the 1970s saying that one of the fellows involved looked like "a Tarantino hitman avant la lettre." Before the thing/term/type/concept existed.
Poetry redux
But currently on one of the C-Spans they're showing the obnoxious poets in a Vermont Congregationalist church. Donald Hall, who is not obnoxious, just finished reading one of his farm poems. Jamaica Kincaid is currently condemning the thin-skinned First Lady and her husband, whom Kincaid denominates "the lord and master of weapons of mass destruction." Mah-stuh. As if a broad A could make elegant this toxic rhetoric.
But currently on one of the C-Spans they're showing the obnoxious poets in a Vermont Congregationalist church. Donald Hall, who is not obnoxious, just finished reading one of his farm poems. Jamaica Kincaid is currently condemning the thin-skinned First Lady and her husband, whom Kincaid denominates "the lord and master of weapons of mass destruction." Mah-stuh. As if a broad A could make elegant this toxic rhetoric.
Kenneth Koch
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
I may have to begin quoting some of the marvelous, colorful, exuberant, irrepressible, fresh, chaotic, joyful, gleeful, comic specimens of verse produced by the students of PS 61 in New York City under the tutelage of the late poet Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) some thirty-odd years ago. The book Wishes, Lies, and Dreams was published in 1970 & I believe has been in print ever since. It is something of a gem.
Wishes, Lies, and Dreams : Teaching Children to Write Poetry
I may have to begin quoting some of the marvelous, colorful, exuberant, irrepressible, fresh, chaotic, joyful, gleeful, comic specimens of verse produced by the students of PS 61 in New York City under the tutelage of the late poet Kenneth Koch (1925-2002) some thirty-odd years ago. The book Wishes, Lies, and Dreams was published in 1970 & I believe has been in print ever since. It is something of a gem.
Poem
My life is moving difficult
As a startless engine as a sparkless fire
As a book without a crux or gist
A play without a point or vital strife
My life is moving splendidly
Like Dominique at Barcelona
Like skaters in The Bishop's Wife
Like trains through tunnels slicker than grease
Like circulation like tickertape
My life is actually quite still
A pebble or a broken clock
A stylite on a stem of grace
A dusty book which no one reads
A permanent mobility
That moves so fast it does not move
My life and mind are stiller than the spheres
Serene as the commotion of commuters
As silent as a battering thunderstorm
As violent as monks as pure as lust
As awful as a sudden happenstance
As austere as the spouse of Anne Boleyn
As orderly as chaos prim and brash
My life is moving difficult
As a startless engine as a sparkless fire
As a book without a crux or gist
A play without a point or vital strife
My life is moving splendidly
Like Dominique at Barcelona
Like skaters in The Bishop's Wife
Like trains through tunnels slicker than grease
Like circulation like tickertape
My life is actually quite still
A pebble or a broken clock
A stylite on a stem of grace
A dusty book which no one reads
A permanent mobility
That moves so fast it does not move
My life and mind are stiller than the spheres
Serene as the commotion of commuters
As silent as a battering thunderstorm
As violent as monks as pure as lust
As awful as a sudden happenstance
As austere as the spouse of Anne Boleyn
As orderly as chaos prim and brash
Jordan
by George Herbert (1593-1633)
WHO sayes that fictions onely and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beautie?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines passe, except they do their dutie
Not to a true, but painted chair?
Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow course-spunne lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lovers loves?
Must all be vail'd, while he that reades, divines,
Catching the sense at two removes?
Shepherds are honest people; let them sing:
Riddle who list, for me, and pull for Prime:
I envie no mans nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with losse of ryme,
Who plainly say, My God, My King.
by George Herbert (1593-1633)
WHO sayes that fictions onely and false hair
Become a verse? Is there in truth no beautie?
Is all good structure in a winding stair?
May no lines passe, except they do their dutie
Not to a true, but painted chair?
Is it no verse, except enchanted groves
And sudden arbours shadow course-spunne lines?
Must purling streams refresh a lovers loves?
Must all be vail'd, while he that reades, divines,
Catching the sense at two removes?
Shepherds are honest people; let them sing:
Riddle who list, for me, and pull for Prime:
I envie no mans nightingale or spring;
Nor let them punish me with losse of ryme,
Who plainly say, My God, My King.
Especially with syrups
From the comment box to a recent post at Gospel M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D (direct linkage to post a little oogy at the moment).
a shit of espresso actually has less caffeine than a cup of regular brewed coffee - and I think it tastes better! especially with syrups.....
From the comment box to a recent post at Gospel M*I*N*E*F*I*E*L*D (direct linkage to post a little oogy at the moment).
a shit of espresso actually has less caffeine than a cup of regular brewed coffee - and I think it tastes better! especially with syrups.....
1. What is your favorite type of literature to read (magazine, newspaper, novels, nonfiction, poetry, etc.)?
Poetry, biographies, books about God and prayer. Newspaper and magazines, in smaller doses. Very few novels.
2. What is your favorite novel?
Toss-up between Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Liked Garp as a teenager, & other John Irving books. Like what Nabokov did with language in his most notorious novel.
3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)
Toss-up between Shakespeare's 18th sonnet ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate") and Dylan Thomas's "Author's Prologue," which is really too long to share, but here (without line-breaks, & from memory) goes :
This day winding down now, at God speeded summer's end, in the torrent salmon sun, in my seashaken house, on a breakneck of rocks, tangled with chirrup and fruit, froth, flute, fin and quill, at a wood's dancing hoof, by scummed starfish sands with their fishwife-cross gulls, pipers, cockles, sails, -- out there, crow black, men tackled with clouds, who kneel to the sunset nets, geese nearly in heaven, boys stabbing, and herons, and shells that speak seven seas, eternal waters away from the cities of nine days' night whose towers will catch and fall in the religious wind like stalks of tall, dry straw -- at poor peace I sing to you strangers (though song is a burning and crested act, the fire of birds in the world's turning wood, for my sawn splay sounds) out of these sea-thumbed leaves that will fly and fall like leaves of trees and as soon crumble and un-die into the dogdayed night.
Seaward the salmon, sucked sun slips; and the dumb swans drub blue my dabbed bay's dusk for you to know how I, a spinning man, glory also this star : bird-roared, sea-born, man-torn, blood-blest. Hark! I trumpet the place from fish to jumping hill. Look! I build my bellowing ark to the best of my love as the flood begins, out of the fountainhead of fear, rage-red, man-alive, molten and mountainous to stream over the sheep-white hollow farms to Wales in my arms.
Hoo, there, in castle keep, you king singsong owls, who moonbeam the flickering runs and dive the dingle-furred deer dead! Huloo, on plumbed bryns, O my ruffled ring dove, in the hooting nearly dark with Welsh and reverent rook coo rooing the woods' praise (who moons her blue notes from my nest down to the curlew herd)! Heigh, jack-whisking hare, who hears there, this fox light, my flood-ship's clangor as I hew and smite ...
Etcetera. A marvelous piece of work in which the last (102nd) line rhymes with the first, the second-to-last with the second, until the rhymes meet in the middle. In the poem, Thomas compares his art to Noah building the ark ("my flood ship's clangor" & other such images).
Oh, yes : and Dante's sonnet Tanto gentil e tanto onesta pare / La donna mia ... in section xxvi of La Vita Nuova. And several dozen things by Estlin Cummings, who sustains one.
4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?
Everything! Really. That's the short answer. But to name five :
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce;
Leadership by Rudolph W. Giuliani;
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law;
Beowulf in Seamus Heaney's translation;
Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore.
5. What are you currently reading?
Theology of Wonder by Bishop Seraphim Sigrist, and a few other things.
Poetry, biographies, books about God and prayer. Newspaper and magazines, in smaller doses. Very few novels.
2. What is your favorite novel?
Toss-up between Love in the Ruins by Walker Percy and The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde. Liked Garp as a teenager, & other John Irving books. Like what Nabokov did with language in his most notorious novel.
3. Do you have a favorite poem? (Share it!)
Toss-up between Shakespeare's 18th sonnet ("Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate") and Dylan Thomas's "Author's Prologue," which is really too long to share, but here (without line-breaks, & from memory) goes :
This day winding down now, at God speeded summer's end, in the torrent salmon sun, in my seashaken house, on a breakneck of rocks, tangled with chirrup and fruit, froth, flute, fin and quill, at a wood's dancing hoof, by scummed starfish sands with their fishwife-cross gulls, pipers, cockles, sails, -- out there, crow black, men tackled with clouds, who kneel to the sunset nets, geese nearly in heaven, boys stabbing, and herons, and shells that speak seven seas, eternal waters away from the cities of nine days' night whose towers will catch and fall in the religious wind like stalks of tall, dry straw -- at poor peace I sing to you strangers (though song is a burning and crested act, the fire of birds in the world's turning wood, for my sawn splay sounds) out of these sea-thumbed leaves that will fly and fall like leaves of trees and as soon crumble and un-die into the dogdayed night.
Seaward the salmon, sucked sun slips; and the dumb swans drub blue my dabbed bay's dusk for you to know how I, a spinning man, glory also this star : bird-roared, sea-born, man-torn, blood-blest. Hark! I trumpet the place from fish to jumping hill. Look! I build my bellowing ark to the best of my love as the flood begins, out of the fountainhead of fear, rage-red, man-alive, molten and mountainous to stream over the sheep-white hollow farms to Wales in my arms.
Hoo, there, in castle keep, you king singsong owls, who moonbeam the flickering runs and dive the dingle-furred deer dead! Huloo, on plumbed bryns, O my ruffled ring dove, in the hooting nearly dark with Welsh and reverent rook coo rooing the woods' praise (who moons her blue notes from my nest down to the curlew herd)! Heigh, jack-whisking hare, who hears there, this fox light, my flood-ship's clangor as I hew and smite ...
Etcetera. A marvelous piece of work in which the last (102nd) line rhymes with the first, the second-to-last with the second, until the rhymes meet in the middle. In the poem, Thomas compares his art to Noah building the ark ("my flood ship's clangor" & other such images).
Oh, yes : and Dante's sonnet Tanto gentil e tanto onesta pare / La donna mia ... in section xxvi of La Vita Nuova. And several dozen things by Estlin Cummings, who sustains one.
4. What is one thing you've always wanted to read, or wish you had more time to read?
Everything! Really. That's the short answer. But to name five :
Finnegans Wake by James Joyce;
Leadership by Rudolph W. Giuliani;
A Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life by William Law;
Beowulf in Seamus Heaney's translation;
Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore.
5. What are you currently reading?
Theology of Wonder by Bishop Seraphim Sigrist, and a few other things.
Friday, February 28, 2003
Also from NRO
A column by one Michael Long, written on the occasion of the retirement of the late Mister Rogers. Insightful about his enduring appeal.
There's a brief but necessary digression in this piece about our "culture of sarcasm," and how Fred Rogers was not a part of it.
A column by one Michael Long, written on the occasion of the retirement of the late Mister Rogers. Insightful about his enduring appeal.
There's a brief but necessary digression in this piece about our "culture of sarcasm," and how Fred Rogers was not a part of it.
Jonah Goldberg in NRO
on McCarthyism -- was it such a bad thing? Answer : Compared to Communism, no way.
Estlin Cummings was among those who weren't vexed overmuch by the vigilance of the Red-hunters. If I remember the passage from his Selected Letters aright : "macarthyism arises exactly as a result of what it decries"; namely, the presence of traitors in the USA, and the insouciance of a certain President about the Communist threat (when this President died after 3.1 terms in office, Cummings wrote : "not being a monarchist, I felt immensely relieved").
But back to Goldberg : He commits the impertinence of wondering aloud why so many on the Left are ... well, props in Simon Morley's puppet show. Even the women.
He wonders about "Jacksonism" and "Sharptonism," the reflexive tendency of black leftists to accuse their idelogical opponents of racism.
And I wonder about abortionism. The credo that would require all politicians to sign loyalty oaths to NARAL and Planned Barrenhood. The view, successfully implanted in the minds of many, that it's treasonous to be "anti-choice."
on McCarthyism -- was it such a bad thing? Answer : Compared to Communism, no way.
Estlin Cummings was among those who weren't vexed overmuch by the vigilance of the Red-hunters. If I remember the passage from his Selected Letters aright : "macarthyism arises exactly as a result of what it decries"; namely, the presence of traitors in the USA, and the insouciance of a certain President about the Communist threat (when this President died after 3.1 terms in office, Cummings wrote : "not being a monarchist, I felt immensely relieved").
But back to Goldberg : He commits the impertinence of wondering aloud why so many on the Left are ... well, props in Simon Morley's puppet show. Even the women.
He wonders about "Jacksonism" and "Sharptonism," the reflexive tendency of black leftists to accuse their idelogical opponents of racism.
And I wonder about abortionism. The credo that would require all politicians to sign loyalty oaths to NARAL and Planned Barrenhood. The view, successfully implanted in the minds of many, that it's treasonous to be "anti-choice."
Levavi oculos
(26 II 2003)
The dry and burning misery of not knowing why. Or how, or whether, or what next.
Disgrace upon disgrace? Not quite. These evils, a matter of millimeters, milliseconds even. And sensing self, seeming, bereft of support, of the love that makes all endurable, of the light that affords a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of joy.
But now it is dark, and we shall see the light more clearly. And so we hope. And so we trust.
Where is the You, where is the Thou, who sees and loves and understands?
(26 II 2003)
The dry and burning misery of not knowing why. Or how, or whether, or what next.
Disgrace upon disgrace? Not quite. These evils, a matter of millimeters, milliseconds even. And sensing self, seeming, bereft of support, of the love that makes all endurable, of the light that affords a glimpse, and more than a glimpse, of joy.
But now it is dark, and we shall see the light more clearly. And so we hope. And so we trust.
Where is the You, where is the Thou, who sees and loves and understands?
Synbeams
Books almost bought today -- wait, yesterday : One Times One by you know who; Chinese Whispers by the other fellow. Typo in the Cummings book : 'synbeams.' Page thirty-nine, was it? Almost bought the movie magazine with Kevin Spacey on the cover. Almost bought a beam of sunlight; stole one instead. Does Dialogues with Silence exist in paperback? Almost bought some discs : Rock Steady was $15. or $19., depending on where I looked.
Didn't buy Magnificat. Didn't curse the darkness. Didn't light a candle. Two beers with lunch. Scanned the fifty-cent bookshelves outside Antiquarian. Paid homage to Lefty and Guinevere. Died twice and felt sinister. Didn't purchase Belle and Sebastian. Was shocked, shocked at the Newsweek story. No tax on periodicals.
Books almost bought today -- wait, yesterday : One Times One by you know who; Chinese Whispers by the other fellow. Typo in the Cummings book : 'synbeams.' Page thirty-nine, was it? Almost bought the movie magazine with Kevin Spacey on the cover. Almost bought a beam of sunlight; stole one instead. Does Dialogues with Silence exist in paperback? Almost bought some discs : Rock Steady was $15. or $19., depending on where I looked.
Didn't buy Magnificat. Didn't curse the darkness. Didn't light a candle. Two beers with lunch. Scanned the fifty-cent bookshelves outside Antiquarian. Paid homage to Lefty and Guinevere. Died twice and felt sinister. Didn't purchase Belle and Sebastian. Was shocked, shocked at the Newsweek story. No tax on periodicals.
Thursday
Ashbery said of van Gogh, "It's okay if you like great art." We tire of sophisticates. Give us the cold north wind and an endless snowscape.
Poems for Wednesday hidden in the drawer. The operations of a loyal memory. The twentieth, to be precise. Of a time when the world was clearly much, much better. And changing for the better. Or so we believed.
Ashbery said of van Gogh, "It's okay if you like great art." We tire of sophisticates. Give us the cold north wind and an endless snowscape.
Poems for Wednesday hidden in the drawer. The operations of a loyal memory. The twentieth, to be precise. Of a time when the world was clearly much, much better. And changing for the better. Or so we believed.
Collaborative solo project
(after Stein)
Pity back. Quarrel cares, and no one with a curl. What came hither, what came hence but a wince. And a jesting thrust. Sized with pride, this rushed coast, this fallow life inept. And searches for churches at three sixteen.
This is a sculpted fact, is a facet of skill enclosed. Borrow this still note, this silent knock, at ten shillings per minute. Retrieve thou this forsaken splendor, thine abandoned bliss.
(after Stein)
Pity back. Quarrel cares, and no one with a curl. What came hither, what came hence but a wince. And a jesting thrust. Sized with pride, this rushed coast, this fallow life inept. And searches for churches at three sixteen.
This is a sculpted fact, is a facet of skill enclosed. Borrow this still note, this silent knock, at ten shillings per minute. Retrieve thou this forsaken splendor, thine abandoned bliss.
Thursday, February 27, 2003
Let me tell you how it will be
If you drive a car, they'll tax the street; if you try to sit, they'll tax your seat; if it gets too cold, they'll tax the heat ...
And in Nevada, if, uhm ... well, you know ... if you try to employ a working girl, well ... read the story.
Via Rosa Mystica.
If you drive a car, they'll tax the street; if you try to sit, they'll tax your seat; if it gets too cold, they'll tax the heat ...
And in Nevada, if, uhm ... well, you know ... if you try to employ a working girl, well ... read the story.
Via Rosa Mystica.
This is just to say
I have nothing to say at the moment! Ha!
There are no plums in my icebox. And no white chickens beside my red wheelbarrow.
I anticipated not being able to blog tomorrow, but it turns out that I may after all be able to.
As today is the feast among the Orthodox of a Bishop Raphael, I believe happy feast-day wishes are due to the blogger at Doxos.
Relatively warm day in Boston today ... saw some thermometers with readings a whisker above freezing!
Am worried about many things at the moment. But a small part of the mind says, there's nothing to worry about, or rather, there's nothing that worry can help.
If Gertrude Stein married Ben Stein : A rose is a rose is a ... anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? What is it with these Steins and repetition, anyhow.
My favorite "non-American" TV show : Without a Trace. I mean, it's American enough, but very few of the actors are American (although they're all playing Americans!) : Anthony LaPaglia, Australian; Poppy Montgomery (middle name Petal, see this week's TV Guide), Australian; Marianne Jean-Baptiste (nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Hortense in the 1996 film Secrets & Lies), British. I think Without a Trace is on tonight, as a matter of fact, after CSI.
Question : Is Jenna Elfman a dharma queen?
I might have to listen to Belle and Sebastian. On one of their discs, there's a song "Just Like Dylan in the Movies." I'm told that people who liked the Smiths generally like B&S.
I've written another quadripartite surrealist prose-poem. And as soon as I think of a title, it'll get posted.
Speaking of quadripartite, I was quadripartisan the last time I went into the voting booth : Republican, a pair of Independents, a pair of Libertarians, and one Green.
Might link to John Ashbery's 1957 review of Gertrude Stein's (gawdawful) Stanzas in Meditation. Ashbery praises the work, silly him. Tender Buttons is much better -- more colorful, more alive. I think Cummings liked Buttons, but not much else by Stein.
Typo in One Times One (around p. 39, if mem serves) : "synbeams."
I've had a lot to say for someone with nothing to say.
Now there's a possible first sentence for an autobiography!
Title : Things to Go, Places to See, People to Do. Or something like that.
Here endeth the lesson.
I have nothing to say at the moment! Ha!
There are no plums in my icebox. And no white chickens beside my red wheelbarrow.
I anticipated not being able to blog tomorrow, but it turns out that I may after all be able to.
As today is the feast among the Orthodox of a Bishop Raphael, I believe happy feast-day wishes are due to the blogger at Doxos.
Relatively warm day in Boston today ... saw some thermometers with readings a whisker above freezing!
Am worried about many things at the moment. But a small part of the mind says, there's nothing to worry about, or rather, there's nothing that worry can help.
If Gertrude Stein married Ben Stein : A rose is a rose is a ... anyone? anyone? Bueller? Bueller? Bueller? What is it with these Steins and repetition, anyhow.
My favorite "non-American" TV show : Without a Trace. I mean, it's American enough, but very few of the actors are American (although they're all playing Americans!) : Anthony LaPaglia, Australian; Poppy Montgomery (middle name Petal, see this week's TV Guide), Australian; Marianne Jean-Baptiste (nominated for an Oscar for her portrayal of Hortense in the 1996 film Secrets & Lies), British. I think Without a Trace is on tonight, as a matter of fact, after CSI.
Question : Is Jenna Elfman a dharma queen?
I might have to listen to Belle and Sebastian. On one of their discs, there's a song "Just Like Dylan in the Movies." I'm told that people who liked the Smiths generally like B&S.
I've written another quadripartite surrealist prose-poem. And as soon as I think of a title, it'll get posted.
Speaking of quadripartite, I was quadripartisan the last time I went into the voting booth : Republican, a pair of Independents, a pair of Libertarians, and one Green.
Might link to John Ashbery's 1957 review of Gertrude Stein's (gawdawful) Stanzas in Meditation. Ashbery praises the work, silly him. Tender Buttons is much better -- more colorful, more alive. I think Cummings liked Buttons, but not much else by Stein.
Typo in One Times One (around p. 39, if mem serves) : "synbeams."
I've had a lot to say for someone with nothing to say.
Now there's a possible first sentence for an autobiography!
Title : Things to Go, Places to See, People to Do. Or something like that.
Here endeth the lesson.
Cooperating with grace
Mr Riddle (of the invariably inspiring Flos Carmeli) used to think that offering up suffering was "only for trained professionals" -- those heroically saintly souls we have all heard about. But has discovered, in recent days, something else. Read, if you haven't already, his immeasurably valuable personal meditation of a few days ago.
Mr Riddle (of the invariably inspiring Flos Carmeli) used to think that offering up suffering was "only for trained professionals" -- those heroically saintly souls we have all heard about. But has discovered, in recent days, something else. Read, if you haven't already, his immeasurably valuable personal meditation of a few days ago.
And the Holy Father
is urging the church to examine its conscience with respect to the liturgy. Mr Serafin quotes the Zenit article.
is urging the church to examine its conscience with respect to the liturgy. Mr Serafin quotes the Zenit article.
the God of unlikely places
A short reflection from Mr O'Rama reminds us of what we already know but are in constant danger of forgetting, that we should most expect to find God where we least expect to find him!
A short reflection from Mr O'Rama reminds us of what we already know but are in constant danger of forgetting, that we should most expect to find God where we least expect to find him!
Gertrude Stein
from Tender Buttons, 1914
SUGAR.
A violent luck and a whole sample and even then quiet.
Water is squeezing, water is almost squeezing on lard. Water, water is a mountain and it is selected and it is so practical that there is no use in money. A mind under is exact and so it is necessary to have a mouth and eye glasses.
A question of sudden rises and more time than awfulness is so easy and shady. There is precisely that noise.
A peck a small piece not privately overseen, not at all not a slice, not at all crestfallen and open, not at all mounting and chaining and evenly surpassing, all the bidding comes to tea.
A separation is not tightly in worsted and sauce, it is so kept well and sectionally.
Put it in the stew, put it to shame. A little slight shadow and a solid fine furnace.
The teasing is tender and trying and thoughtful.
The line which sets sprinkling to be a remedy is beside the best cold.
A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.
Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.
One, two and one, two, nine, second and five and that.
A blaze, a search in between, a cow, only any wet place, only this tune.
Cut a gas jet uglier and then pierce pierce in between the next and negligence. Choose the rate to pay and pet pet very much. A collection of all around, a signal poison, a lack of languor and more hurts at ease.
A white bird, a colored mine, a mixed orange, a dog.
Cuddling comes in continuing a change.
A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.
A canoe is orderly. A period is solemn. A cow is accepted.
A nice old chain is widening, it is absent, it is laid by.
from Tender Buttons, 1914
SUGAR.
A violent luck and a whole sample and even then quiet.
Water is squeezing, water is almost squeezing on lard. Water, water is a mountain and it is selected and it is so practical that there is no use in money. A mind under is exact and so it is necessary to have a mouth and eye glasses.
A question of sudden rises and more time than awfulness is so easy and shady. There is precisely that noise.
A peck a small piece not privately overseen, not at all not a slice, not at all crestfallen and open, not at all mounting and chaining and evenly surpassing, all the bidding comes to tea.
A separation is not tightly in worsted and sauce, it is so kept well and sectionally.
Put it in the stew, put it to shame. A little slight shadow and a solid fine furnace.
The teasing is tender and trying and thoughtful.
The line which sets sprinkling to be a remedy is beside the best cold.
A puzzle, a monster puzzle, a heavy choking, a neglected Tuesday.
Wet crossing and a likeness, any likeness, a likeness has blisters, it has that and teeth, it has the staggering blindly and a little green, any little green is ordinary.
One, two and one, two, nine, second and five and that.
A blaze, a search in between, a cow, only any wet place, only this tune.
Cut a gas jet uglier and then pierce pierce in between the next and negligence. Choose the rate to pay and pet pet very much. A collection of all around, a signal poison, a lack of languor and more hurts at ease.
A white bird, a colored mine, a mixed orange, a dog.
Cuddling comes in continuing a change.
A piece of separate outstanding rushing is so blind with open delicacy.
A canoe is orderly. A period is solemn. A cow is accepted.
A nice old chain is widening, it is absent, it is laid by.
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