Snow and Stars

by Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

The grackles sing avant the spring
Most spiss -- oh! Yes, most spissantly.
They sing right puissantly.

This robe of snow and winter stars,
The devil take it, wear it, too.
It might become his hole of blue.

Let him move it to his regions,
White and star-furred for his legions,
And make much bing, high bing.

It would be ransom for the willow
And fill the hill and fill it full
Of ding, ding, dong.

Quotation

The Lord forgives many things,
so I have heard.

Mary Oliver, "More Beautiful than the Honey Locust Tree Are the Words of the Lord," from Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006), p. 31

The Proclaimers

"Throw the 'R' Away" (1987-ish?), a slightly abridged version, missing the lines

Some days I stand
On your green and pleasant land
How dare I show face
When my diction is such a disgrace

An anthology of verse

Amaryllis is made of vers libre.

The senator begins his epic
In the rhythm of The Song of Hiawatha.

Sestinas dance in Davis Square,
While sonnets snore on waterbeds.

Quatrains eat scrambled eggs for breakfast,
Heroic couplets cold cereal.

The lawyer left her housekeys
Beside the terza rima.

Refreshed by slant-rhymed villanelles,
Beachgoers lie beneath humongous parasols.

Johnny finds a hole in his pantoum
The size of a Sacagawea dollar coin.

Olivia's cinquain
Makes a noise like a dripping faucet.

Oh, for the unity of blank verse!
For the hope and change of anapests!

Winter's ballad makes the nose run,
Summer's ballade burns fair skin.

St Lawrence went to the gridiron, we are told,
Taunting his executioners
In Catullan hendecasyllabics.

Bellies

Progressive bellies are chubby.
Conservative bellies are lean.

Catholic bellies sit primly
Above legs that genuflect
Before a monstrance or a tabernacle.

Protestant bellies
Thunder the Scriptures
In the King James Version,
And often in a Southern accent.

The poet sips his fourth, maybe fifth, beer
And waxes poetic about his Chestertonian girth.

The teacher's belly is covered in chalkdust
From September to June.

A reminder

Am also blogging here.

John Hughes (1950-2009)

The blogueuse at Shredded Cheddar answers the question: Which John Hughes character was, in fact, the Devil?

Dickinson

Further in Summer than the Birds
Pathetic from the Grass
A minor Nation celebrates
Its unobtrusive Mass.

No Ordinance be seen
So gradual the Grace
A pensive Custom it becomes
Enlarging Loneliness.

Antiquest felt at Noon
When August burning low
Arise this spectral Canticle
Repose to typify

Remit as yet no Grace
No Furrow on the Glow
Yet a Druidic Difference
Enhances Nature now

Thomas Sowell

on Barack Obama's ersatz post-racialism, alluding to the President's history as a "community organizer":

What does a community organizer do? What he does not do is organize a community. What he organizes are the resentments and paranoia within a community, directing those feelings against other communities, from whom either benefits or revenge are to be gotten, using whatever rhetoric or tactics will accomplish that purpose.

Patrick Buchanan

on Sergeant Crowley.

Cummings

a salesman is an it that stinks Excuse

Me whether it's president of the you were say
or a jennelman name misder finger isn't
important whether it's millions of other punks
or just a handful absolutely doesn't
matter and whether it's in lonjewray

or shrouds is immaterial it stinks

a salesman is an it that stinks to please

but whether to please itself or someone else
makes no more difference than if it sells
hate condoms education snakeoil vac
uumcleaners terror strawberries democ
ra(caveat emptor)cy superfluous hair

or Think We've Met subhuman rights Before

"I'll speak with your mama outside"

Thus spake Skippy Gates. According to the police report (PDF).

Jennifer Paterson on "meditation"

When we were filming it was often impossible to get to Mass, as the Catholic churches were either too far away or the services were at times when we were working. Hallaton had a charming medieval church and as we were hanging about while a service was going on I told Jennifer I was going inside to meditate. She became very agitated telling me I was risking my immortal soul and that she would pray for me. It was very peaceful at the back of the church and I had done many things more likely to endanger my soul.

Clarissa Dickson Wright, Spilling the Beans (Hodder & Stoughton, 2008), p. 248

One "Fat Lady" remembers another

Jennifer was an old-fashioned pre-Vatican II Catholic. The Second Vatican Council had done away with Latin as the language of the Church and introduced the vernacular, the priest now faced the congregation during Mass and all the strange things that would send you straight to hell such as eating meat on Friday or on a day of abstinence, or attending a service in a Protestant church had gone. Jennifer was deeply disapproving of these changes and during Mass when we were told to offer each other a sign of peace she would stare fixedly ahead and if anyone put out their hand she would glare fiercely and nod! As a result of this, although she lived just behind Westminster Cathedral where the uncle she lived with was gentilhommo, or steward, to the cardinal and another uncle had been a monseigneur she would get on her bike and ride fifteen minutes through the busy streets to attend Mass in Latin with, as she put it, all the bells, smells and glamour that make it fun.

Clarissa Dickson Wright, Spilling the Beans (Hodder & Stoughton, 2008). p. 233