may i be gay
like every lark
who lifts his life
from all the dark
who wings his why
beyond because
and sings an if
of day to yes
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Monday, April 06, 2009
Tweaking the template
Please bear with me. I wanted to make the "followers" widget a bit more readable, so I first tried an entirely different template, but soon began to miss Rounders 3, and so reverted to it, but have been fiddling with the fonts and colors. I think this is good for now. "Dark speech" has become a bit brighter, it seems!
Sunday, April 05, 2009
According to St Mark's Gospel
the last words that Christ heard before his death on the cross were a bitter joke: "Let's see if Elijah comes to take him down."
Friday, April 03, 2009
Thursday, April 02, 2009
Don't know if I can do it for the whole month
... but I'm going to attempt NaPoWriMo, with the ambitious minimum of two lines a day.
Entries (they can hardly be called poems!) will be posted here.
Entries (they can hardly be called poems!) will be posted here.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
A discovery!
Additions to the blogroll:
This is one heck of a blog. Very edifying and fascinating.
Discovered thanks to the Summa Mamas.
This is one heck of a blog. Very edifying and fascinating.
Discovered thanks to the Summa Mamas.
Monday, March 30, 2009
Am I really against difficulty in poetry?
I favor it, like it, even enjoy it, but sometimes feel guilty for doing so!
Welcome to the readers of Silliman's Blog, led here by a link reading "Against difficulty."
Welcome to the readers of Silliman's Blog, led here by a link reading "Against difficulty."
Saturday, March 28, 2009
A facebook meme
(Copied from Eve. I'm not on Facebook.)
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Shakespeare? Wilde? Cummings?
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I've gone through several copies of Dylan Thomas's poems; Seamus Heaney's Field Work.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
That's a fake rule. So, no.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Don't read much fiction. Probably someone from the movies.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
My copy of Marianne Moore's prose is pretty beat up.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Believe it or not, it was probably something about baseball.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
I don't read many bad books. A bad book is one I can't finish.
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Oh, I don't know. Probably something I've reread. Cummings.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Cummings; Roethke; Dylan Thomas. I can't choose.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Wendy Cope. Better yet, Stephen Fry.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Michael Ramsey: A Life by Owen Chadwick.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Dunno.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Dreamed I was in my high-school auditorium after a Dylan Thomas reading. I asked for the poet's autograph, and he hastily scribbled "Dylan Moreorless Thomas." Also dreamed, more weirdly, of meeting President Eisenhower on a park bench.
14) What is the most low-brow book you've read as an adult?
A Bobby Darin biography. Wait -- the autobiography of the Weakest Link lady. No, wait -- Rush Limbaugh's The Way Things Ought to Be. But I've always wanted to read Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore.
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
I attempted both Ulysses and The Glass Bead Game in high school.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I've just seen the biggies.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The world needs both. But I think I'll give the slight edge to the French.
18) Roth or Updike?
From what little I know of both, Updike.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Sedaris. Who's Eggers?
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare. As Eve said, duh.
21) Austen or Eliot?
For the most part, I've escaped them both (if Eliot means George, as I suspect). I also suspect I'd find them both unendurable. But then again, most fiction is, to me.
Auden or (TS) Eliot, now there's a question! (Auden for me.)
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Recently admitted to a friend that I've read neither Brave New World nor Fahrenheit 451. Addendum, 3/29 : Chesterton! Inexcusably for a Catholic in the English-speaking world, I've read nothing by him save a few poems and his biography of St Francis of Assisi. And I haven't read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books.
23) What is your favorite novel?
19th century: The Picture of Dorian Gray. 20th century: Walker Percy's Love In the Ruins.
24) Play?
I'm tempted to steal Eve's answer of Lear, but I give the slight edge to Hamlet.
25) Poem?
Shakespeare's 18th sonnet; Dante's "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare"; "Prayer" by George Herbert; Dylan Thomas's "Prologue."
26) Essay?
Any prose by Marianne Moore can be counted on to edify.
27) Short story?
Don't have one.
28) Work of non-fiction?
Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry. (It's not for the prudish, as Miss Moore would say.)
29) Who is your favorite writer?
At the moment, Cummings.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Tom Robbins? John Irving? Anne Lamott? And several poets.
31) What is your desert island book?
The Atlantic Book of British and American Poetry, edited by Dame Edith Sitwell.
32) And... what are you reading right now?
Re-reading Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled; also, two books about Eastern Orthodoxy.
1) What author do you own the most books by?
Shakespeare? Wilde? Cummings?
2) What book do you own the most copies of?
I've gone through several copies of Dylan Thomas's poems; Seamus Heaney's Field Work.
3) Did it bother you that both those questions ended with prepositions?
That's a fake rule. So, no.
4) What fictional character are you secretly in love with?
Don't read much fiction. Probably someone from the movies.
5) What book have you read the most times in your life (excluding picture books read to children; i.e., Goodnight Moon does not count)?
My copy of Marianne Moore's prose is pretty beat up.
6) What was your favorite book when you were ten years old?
Believe it or not, it was probably something about baseball.
7) What is the worst book you've read in the past year?
I don't read many bad books. A bad book is one I can't finish.
8) What is the best book you've read in the past year?
Oh, I don't know. Probably something I've reread. Cummings.
9) If you could force everyone you tagged to read one book, what would it be?
Cummings; Roethke; Dylan Thomas. I can't choose.
10) Who deserves to win the next Nobel Prize for Literature?
Wendy Cope. Better yet, Stephen Fry.
11) What book would you most like to see made into a movie?
Michael Ramsey: A Life by Owen Chadwick.
12) What book would you least like to see made into a movie?
Dunno.
13) Describe your weirdest dream involving a writer, book, or literary character.
Dreamed I was in my high-school auditorium after a Dylan Thomas reading. I asked for the poet's autograph, and he hastily scribbled "Dylan Moreorless Thomas." Also dreamed, more weirdly, of meeting President Eisenhower on a park bench.
14) What is the most low-brow book you've read as an adult?
A Bobby Darin biography. Wait -- the autobiography of the Weakest Link lady. No, wait -- Rush Limbaugh's The Way Things Ought to Be. But I've always wanted to read Little Girl Lost by Drew Barrymore.
15) What is the most difficult book you've ever read?
I attempted both Ulysses and The Glass Bead Game in high school.
16) What is the most obscure Shakespeare play you've seen?
I've just seen the biggies.
17) Do you prefer the French or the Russians?
The world needs both. But I think I'll give the slight edge to the French.
18) Roth or Updike?
From what little I know of both, Updike.
19) David Sedaris or Dave Eggers?
Sedaris. Who's Eggers?
20) Shakespeare, Milton, or Chaucer?
Shakespeare. As Eve said, duh.
21) Austen or Eliot?
For the most part, I've escaped them both (if Eliot means George, as I suspect). I also suspect I'd find them both unendurable. But then again, most fiction is, to me.
Auden or (TS) Eliot, now there's a question! (Auden for me.)
22) What is the biggest or most embarrassing gap in your reading?
Recently admitted to a friend that I've read neither Brave New World nor Fahrenheit 451. Addendum, 3/29 : Chesterton! Inexcusably for a Catholic in the English-speaking world, I've read nothing by him save a few poems and his biography of St Francis of Assisi. And I haven't read Tolkien's Lord of the Rings books.
23) What is your favorite novel?
19th century: The Picture of Dorian Gray. 20th century: Walker Percy's Love In the Ruins.
24) Play?
I'm tempted to steal Eve's answer of Lear, but I give the slight edge to Hamlet.
25) Poem?
Shakespeare's 18th sonnet; Dante's "Tanto gentile e tanto onesta pare"; "Prayer" by George Herbert; Dylan Thomas's "Prologue."
26) Essay?
Any prose by Marianne Moore can be counted on to edify.
27) Short story?
Don't have one.
28) Work of non-fiction?
Moab Is My Washpot by Stephen Fry. (It's not for the prudish, as Miss Moore would say.)
29) Who is your favorite writer?
At the moment, Cummings.
30) Who is the most overrated writer alive today?
Tom Robbins? John Irving? Anne Lamott? And several poets.
31) What is your desert island book?
The Atlantic Book of British and American Poetry, edited by Dame Edith Sitwell.
32) And... what are you reading right now?
Re-reading Stephen Fry's The Ode Less Travelled; also, two books about Eastern Orthodoxy.
About Marianne Moore
Moore’s hospitality never flagged throughout her long life. Donald Hall recounts a touching lunch visit to Cumberland Street in 1965 at which Moore, then in her seventies, suspecting that he was still hungry, poured a small pile of corn chips onto his tray. A known lover of health foods, she quipped: “I like Fritos. They’re so nutritious.” Hall was delighted.
Here.
Here.
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Hmm
From the Wikipedia page on English poet Geoffrey Hill (b. 1932):
(Of course, this could be an inaccurate paraphrase of whatever he said in the interview. Still. The idea fascinates.)
My 2 cents: I know I can't live without the apparent obscurities of Dylan Thomas and Hart Crane, the luminous intricacies of Wallace Stevens, and at one time was even seduced by the somewhat surreal (some would say meaningless) verse of John Ashbery. But when does obscurity become an evasion? I hear Miss Marianne Moore chiding, "Nor can we dignify confusion by calling it baroque." There is, of course, a difference between obscurity and confusion: something very meaningful can be obscure at a first glance.
Geoffrey Hill is no idler or surrealist. As Donald Hall noted with admiring bewilderment in the 1970s, Hill was still writing devotional sonnets when everyone else was letting it all hang out. Hill's writing has weight, and is not (at least in the poems I half-remember) as obscure as the work of the others I've mentioned.
So: how much obscurity does a poet have a right to? Should we ask the surrealists, the Language poets, the ghost of Gertrude Stein?
I guess what puzzles me about the paraphrase of Hill's words (and I hope Wikipedia is being true to what he said) is the bit about obscurity being democratic. Obscurity is certainly libertarian; I don't know about democratic.
As usual, I find myself a bit confused. Anyone out there with a helpful thought or two?
In an interview in The Paris Review (2000), which published Hill's early poem 'Genesis' when he was still at Oxford, Hill defended the right of poets to difficulty as a form of resistance to the demeaning simplifications imposed by 'maestros of the world'. Hill also argued that to be difficult is to be democratic, equating the demand for simplicity with the demands of tyrants.Thoughts?
(Of course, this could be an inaccurate paraphrase of whatever he said in the interview. Still. The idea fascinates.)
My 2 cents: I know I can't live without the apparent obscurities of Dylan Thomas and Hart Crane, the luminous intricacies of Wallace Stevens, and at one time was even seduced by the somewhat surreal (some would say meaningless) verse of John Ashbery. But when does obscurity become an evasion? I hear Miss Marianne Moore chiding, "Nor can we dignify confusion by calling it baroque." There is, of course, a difference between obscurity and confusion: something very meaningful can be obscure at a first glance.
Geoffrey Hill is no idler or surrealist. As Donald Hall noted with admiring bewilderment in the 1970s, Hill was still writing devotional sonnets when everyone else was letting it all hang out. Hill's writing has weight, and is not (at least in the poems I half-remember) as obscure as the work of the others I've mentioned.
So: how much obscurity does a poet have a right to? Should we ask the surrealists, the Language poets, the ghost of Gertrude Stein?
I guess what puzzles me about the paraphrase of Hill's words (and I hope Wikipedia is being true to what he said) is the bit about obscurity being democratic. Obscurity is certainly libertarian; I don't know about democratic.
As usual, I find myself a bit confused. Anyone out there with a helpful thought or two?
Archbishop Chaput
If 65 million Catholics really cared about their faith and cared about what it teaches, neither political party could ignore what we believe about justice for the poor, or the homeless, or immigrants, or the unborn child. If 65 million American Catholics really understood their faith, we wouldn’t need to waste each other’s time arguing about whether the legalized killing of an unborn child is somehow ‘balanced out’ or excused by three other good social policies.
Here.
(HT: Peony.)
Here.
(HT: Peony.)
NaPoWriMo
The Academy of American Poets' website, poets.org, reminds us that April is National Poetry Writing Month, when poetbloggers (?!?!) write and post a poem a day for thirty days.
It might be great fun to try rhymed iambic couplets, something small.
Apparently, there's a pledge drive associated with NaPoWriMo this year. The link provides more details.
It might be great fun to try rhymed iambic couplets, something small.
Apparently, there's a pledge drive associated with NaPoWriMo this year. The link provides more details.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
10 random thoughts
10.
News of the day: from grim to just plain dull.
It has been ever thus since Adam fell.
9.
Hip-hop vernacular grows quickly stale.
8.
It's time to put the winter boots away.
Soon, we shall have a fourteen-hour day.
7.
iPods and cellphones on the noonday bus.
6.
"The very bastard son of a mongrel bitch ..."
5.
Squawking of seagulls or the crank of crows?
4.
The Muses are not easily astonished!
They can detect when skill and strength have vanished.
3.
Cloudless cerulean, no trace of white.
Still, we prefer the teeming stars of night.
2.
Nightmare: I failed to save a long lost friend.
1.
Gregarious in solitude, strange scribe
Who bids his muses romp, carouse, imbibe.
News of the day: from grim to just plain dull.
It has been ever thus since Adam fell.
9.
Hip-hop vernacular grows quickly stale.
8.
It's time to put the winter boots away.
Soon, we shall have a fourteen-hour day.
7.
iPods and cellphones on the noonday bus.
6.
"The very bastard son of a mongrel bitch ..."
5.
Squawking of seagulls or the crank of crows?
4.
The Muses are not easily astonished!
They can detect when skill and strength have vanished.
3.
Cloudless cerulean, no trace of white.
Still, we prefer the teeming stars of night.
2.
Nightmare: I failed to save a long lost friend.
1.
Gregarious in solitude, strange scribe
Who bids his muses romp, carouse, imbibe.
Monday, March 23, 2009
Soonest, sonnets!
There's a sonnet contest going on, courtesy of the blogger at Enchiridion. With the winners to be announced shortly after Easter, if memory serves.
Ah, the reader exclaims; that's why dylan's been foisting all these fourteen-line misadventures in rhyme and metronomic meter upon us. The Cummings was the only decent one!
Be that as it may: I've even produced a sonnet with the word "Enchiridion" in it. Which, of course, I can't submit to the contest, lest it seem like I'm trying to curry favor with the judge. Nothing of the sort. Really. I just like pentasyllables that begin with "E"!
Maybe I'll work the name "Enbrethiliel" into a sonnet. Hmmm ...
Ah, the reader exclaims; that's why dylan's been foisting all these fourteen-line misadventures in rhyme and metronomic meter upon us. The Cummings was the only decent one!
Be that as it may: I've even produced a sonnet with the word "Enchiridion" in it. Which, of course, I can't submit to the contest, lest it seem like I'm trying to curry favor with the judge. Nothing of the sort. Really. I just like pentasyllables that begin with "E"!
Maybe I'll work the name "Enbrethiliel" into a sonnet. Hmmm ...
This is kinda cute
The 5th Dimension as presenters at the '72 Grammys:
Part of the fun in seeing this for the first time was trying to predict who would win!
Part of the fun in seeing this for the first time was trying to predict who would win!
Friday, March 20, 2009
Quotation
Love is the shining starr of blessings light;
the fervent fire of zeale, the roote of peace,
that lasting lampe fed with the oyle of right;
Image of fayth, and wombe for joyes increase.
Lady Mary Wroth, sister of Sir Philip Sidney
(via The Penguin Book of the Sonnet)
the fervent fire of zeale, the roote of peace,
that lasting lampe fed with the oyle of right;
Image of fayth, and wombe for joyes increase.
Lady Mary Wroth, sister of Sir Philip Sidney
(via The Penguin Book of the Sonnet)
Another poem by Cummings
out of the lie of no
rises a truth of yes
(only herself and who
illimitably is)
making fools understand
(like wintry me)that not
all matterings of mind
equal one violet
rises a truth of yes
(only herself and who
illimitably is)
making fools understand
(like wintry me)that not
all matterings of mind
equal one violet
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Suspended under the twilight canopy
Yes, another one by the 5th Dimension. "Up, Up and Away":
I think this was 1967.
And incidentally, you couldn't pay me enough to ride in a balloon.
I think this was 1967.
And incidentally, you couldn't pay me enough to ride in a balloon.
Cummings again!
one's not half two. It's two are halves of one:
which halves reintegrating,shall occur
no death and any quantity;but than
all numerable mosts the actual more
minds ignorant of stern miraculous
this every truth--beware of heartless them
(given the scalpel,they dissect a kiss;
or,sold the reason,they undream a dream)
one is the song which fiends and angels sing:
all murdering lies by mortals told make two.
Let liars wilt,repaying life they're loaned;
we(by a gift called dying born)must grow
deep in dark least ourselves remembering
love only rides his year.
All lose,whole find
which halves reintegrating,shall occur
no death and any quantity;but than
all numerable mosts the actual more
minds ignorant of stern miraculous
this every truth--beware of heartless them
(given the scalpel,they dissect a kiss;
or,sold the reason,they undream a dream)
one is the song which fiends and angels sing:
all murdering lies by mortals told make two.
Let liars wilt,repaying life they're loaned;
we(by a gift called dying born)must grow
deep in dark least ourselves remembering
love only rides his year.
All lose,whole find
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Cummings
the greedy the people
(as if as can yes)
they sell and they buy
and they die for because
though the bell in the steeple
says Why
the chary the wary
(as all as can each)
they don't and they do
and they turn to a which
though the moon in her glory
says Who
the busy the millions
(as you're as can i'm)
they flock and they flee
through a thunder of seem
though the stars in their silence
say Be
the cunning the craven
(as think as can feel)
they when and they how
and they live for until
though the sun in his heaven
says Now
the timid the tender
(as doubt as can trust)
they work and they pray
and they bow to a must
though the earth in her splendor
says May
(as if as can yes)
they sell and they buy
and they die for because
though the bell in the steeple
says Why
the chary the wary
(as all as can each)
they don't and they do
and they turn to a which
though the moon in her glory
says Who
the busy the millions
(as you're as can i'm)
they flock and they flee
through a thunder of seem
though the stars in their silence
say Be
the cunning the craven
(as think as can feel)
they when and they how
and they live for until
though the sun in his heaven
says Now
the timid the tender
(as doubt as can trust)
they work and they pray
and they bow to a must
though the earth in her splendor
says May
Monday, March 16, 2009
Distractions
During Mass yesterday, I found myself wondering: Is the "o" in the word one a consonant or a vowel? Can it be both?
And during a bus ride today, a better scene for such distractions, I was wondering: Is "economics" pronounced eck-onomics or eek-onomics?
And during a bus ride today, a better scene for such distractions, I was wondering: Is "economics" pronounced eck-onomics or eek-onomics?
The 5th Dimension
Last night I didn’t get to sleep at all,
The sleeping pill I took was just a waste of time …
The jukebox gave me the '70s sweetest voice
For just a quarter. Or was it a dime?
Forty years ago! I would rejoice
To hear the mellow (slightly maudlin) tune:
Marilyn sang of a lover she might call,
Of restless darkness lit by a wakeful moon.
Those were the days of AM radio,
Of Nixon, Agnew, Watergate, and Ford –
Names found in newspapers, which I ignored.
Those years of innocence! Where did they go?
Lost like last fall's leaves. I’ve found the song
On YouTube. Has it really been that long?
Sunday, March 15, 2009
Saul
Their cloaks lay piled before him as they stoned
One of those wild blasphemers. He looked on
Approvingly as the business was done:
Limbs blood-stained and a brain mortally stunned.
Stopping those upstarts, that hot-headed band
Who placed faith in a cross-killed Nazarene,
This was his duty as a citizen.
So, to Damascus, where more could be found.
Struck by a fearsome flash, he fell prostrate
And felt the full voice of divinity:
"Why do you persecute Jesus the Christ?"
For three days, Saul was blind; scales kept the light
From entering his eyes. Love's mystery
Involved his heart, restored the sight he'd lost.
1996
One of those wild blasphemers. He looked on
Approvingly as the business was done:
Limbs blood-stained and a brain mortally stunned.
Stopping those upstarts, that hot-headed band
Who placed faith in a cross-killed Nazarene,
This was his duty as a citizen.
So, to Damascus, where more could be found.
Struck by a fearsome flash, he fell prostrate
And felt the full voice of divinity:
"Why do you persecute Jesus the Christ?"
For three days, Saul was blind; scales kept the light
From entering his eyes. Love's mystery
Involved his heart, restored the sight he'd lost.
1996
Friday, March 13, 2009
I do not approve
I do not approve of death
Unless it is sensual,
Something forbidden, ecstatic
Entered into.
A sweet desideratum and delight.
The torpidinal
Stygian kisses
Of an ageless avatar.
I will not venture into love
Unless it is secular,
Some stultifying wine or water
Swallowed.
Astonishing intoxicant!
The vertiginal
Liquid image
Of a masterful tempter.
I cannot accept hostility
Unless it is intimate,
The fear-concealing armour of the heart
Removed.
A flesh-and-bone opponent.
The original
Sinister body
Of an unabashed warrior.
first draft, January 1986;
revised a few times during the subsequent twenty-odd years
Unless it is sensual,
Something forbidden, ecstatic
Entered into.
A sweet desideratum and delight.
The torpidinal
Stygian kisses
Of an ageless avatar.
I will not venture into love
Unless it is secular,
Some stultifying wine or water
Swallowed.
Astonishing intoxicant!
The vertiginal
Liquid image
Of a masterful tempter.
I cannot accept hostility
Unless it is intimate,
The fear-concealing armour of the heart
Removed.
A flesh-and-bone opponent.
The original
Sinister body
Of an unabashed warrior.
first draft, January 1986;
revised a few times during the subsequent twenty-odd years
Sonnet
The sonnet that was here is no longer here.
It's wretched, it's bad, it makes me want to hurl. So I removed it.
It's wretched, it's bad, it makes me want to hurl. So I removed it.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The wisdom of the Archbishop of Los Angeles
Ann Scolari: What are your thoughts on the Tridentine mass?
Cardinal Mahony: Ann: The Tridentine Mass was meant for those who could not make the transition from Latin to English [or other languages] after the Council. But there is no participation by the people, and I don't believe that instills the spirit of Christ among us.
More here.
(HT: Dyspeptic Mutterings.)
Cardinal Mahony: Ann: The Tridentine Mass was meant for those who could not make the transition from Latin to English [or other languages] after the Council. But there is no participation by the people, and I don't believe that instills the spirit of Christ among us.
More here.
(HT: Dyspeptic Mutterings.)
Wednesday, March 11, 2009
Doggerel by a Senior Citizen
by W. H. Auden (1907-73)
Our earth in 1969
Is not the planet I call mine,
The world, I mean, that gives me strength
To hold off chaos at arm's length.
My Eden landscapes and their climes
Are constructs from Edwardian times,
When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
And, before eating, one said Grace.
The automobile, the aeroplane,
Are useful gadgets, but profane:
The enginry of which I dream
Is moved by water or by steam.
Reason requires that I approve
The light-bulb which I cannot love:
To me more reverence-commanding
A fish-tail burner on the landing.
My family ghosts I fought and routed,
Their values, though, I never doubted:
I thought their Protestant Work-Ethic
Both practical and sympathetic.
When couples played or sang duets,
It was immoral to have debts:
I shall continue till I die
To pay in cash for what I buy.
The Book of Common Prayer we knew
Was that of 1662:
Though with-it sermons may be well,
Liturgical reforms are hell.
Sex was of course -- it always is --
The most enticing of mysteries,
But news-stands did not then supply
Manichean pornography.
Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
Like learning not to belch or fart:
I cannot settle which is worse,
The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.
Nor are those Ph.D's my kith,
Who dig the symbol and the myth:
I count myself a man of letters
Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.
Dare any call Permissiveness
An educational success?
Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
Compelled to study Greek and Latin.
Though I suspect the term is crap,
If there is a Generation Gap,
Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.
But Love, at least, is not a state
Either en vogue or out-of-date,
And I've true friends, I will allow,
To talk and eat with here and now.
Me alienated? Bosh! It's just
As a sworn citizen who must
Skirmish with it that I feel
Most at home with what is Real.
Our earth in 1969
Is not the planet I call mine,
The world, I mean, that gives me strength
To hold off chaos at arm's length.
My Eden landscapes and their climes
Are constructs from Edwardian times,
When bath-rooms took up lots of space,
And, before eating, one said Grace.
The automobile, the aeroplane,
Are useful gadgets, but profane:
The enginry of which I dream
Is moved by water or by steam.
Reason requires that I approve
The light-bulb which I cannot love:
To me more reverence-commanding
A fish-tail burner on the landing.
My family ghosts I fought and routed,
Their values, though, I never doubted:
I thought their Protestant Work-Ethic
Both practical and sympathetic.
When couples played or sang duets,
It was immoral to have debts:
I shall continue till I die
To pay in cash for what I buy.
The Book of Common Prayer we knew
Was that of 1662:
Though with-it sermons may be well,
Liturgical reforms are hell.
Sex was of course -- it always is --
The most enticing of mysteries,
But news-stands did not then supply
Manichean pornography.
Then Speech was mannerly, an Art,
Like learning not to belch or fart:
I cannot settle which is worse,
The Anti-Novel or Free Verse.
Nor are those Ph.D's my kith,
Who dig the symbol and the myth:
I count myself a man of letters
Who writes, or hopes to, for his betters.
Dare any call Permissiveness
An educational success?
Saner those class-rooms which I sat in,
Compelled to study Greek and Latin.
Though I suspect the term is crap,
If there is a Generation Gap,
Who is to blame? Those, old or young,
Who will not learn their Mother-Tongue.
But Love, at least, is not a state
Either en vogue or out-of-date,
And I've true friends, I will allow,
To talk and eat with here and now.
Me alienated? Bosh! It's just
As a sworn citizen who must
Skirmish with it that I feel
Most at home with what is Real.
Monday, March 09, 2009
Music for your Monday
Great vocal! (Video, not so much.) "(Last Night) I Didn't Get to Sleep At All" by the 5th Dimension.
Marilyn McCoo is now sixty-five. (Astonishing, to one who remembers the attractive thirty-something host[ess] of the early 1980s pop-music showcase Solid Gold.)
Marilyn McCoo is now sixty-five. (Astonishing, to one who remembers the attractive thirty-something host[ess] of the early 1980s pop-music showcase Solid Gold.)
An apparition
In Fulton J. Sheen's autobiography, Treasure in Clay, the bishop tells of a lady who approached him sometime in the late '30s or early '40s and said, "Monsignor, every time I cross Fifth Avenue I get a pain in my left leg, and the Blessed Mother appears to me and says, 'Tell Monsignor Sheen to go to Germany and convert Hitler.'"
Sheen responded, "My dear lady, it's funny you should say that, because every time I cross Fifth Avenue I get a pain in my right leg, and the Blessed Mother appears to me and says, 'Please ignore what I told that lady this morning.'"
The venerable cleric reports that "the lady went away satisfied."
Sheen responded, "My dear lady, it's funny you should say that, because every time I cross Fifth Avenue I get a pain in my right leg, and the Blessed Mother appears to me and says, 'Please ignore what I told that lady this morning.'"
The venerable cleric reports that "the lady went away satisfied."
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