Whoopie Ti Yi Yo Get along little blogger

Dagnabbit. I missed Cowboy Poetry Week, the third week of this poetry month. Cowboy poetry is something I encountered years after my brief acquaintance with the genuine article cowboys on a dude ranch in Wyoming. Hearing them later, at a folk festival in the Cuyahoga valley was a breath of the long prairie coming to my hilly part of the world. Though there is much excellent poetry, charming doggerel and touching Hallmark moments in the huge gamut that is cowboy poetry as a genre, my favorite is still the poem that sets the bar, sets the mood, holds the banner for this kind of expression in the larger world:

Reincarnation
Wallace McRae

"What does Reincarnation mean?"
A cowpoke asked his friend.
His pal replied, "It happens when
Yer life has reached its end.
They comb yer hair, and warsh yer neck,
And clean yer fingernails,
And lay you in a padded box
Away from life's travails."

"The box and you goes in a hole,
That's been dug into the ground.
Reincarnation starts in when
Yore planted 'neath a mound.
Them clods melt down, just like yer box,
And you who is inside.
And then yore just beginnin' on
Yer transformation ride."

"In a while, the grass'll grow
Upon yer rendered mound.
Till some day on yer moldered grave
A lonely flower is found.
And say a hoss should wander by
And graze upon this flower
That once wuz you, but now's become
Yer vegetative bower."

"The posy that the hoss done ate
Up, with his other feed,
Makes bone, and fat, and muscle
Essential to the steed,
But some is left that he can't use
And so it passes through,
And finally lays upon the ground
This thing, that once wuz you."

"Then say, by chance, I wanders by
And sees this upon the ground,
And I ponders, and I wonders at,
This object that I found.
I thinks of reincarnation,
Of life and death, and such,
And come away concludin': 'Slim,
You ain't changed, all that much.'"

Hymnody/Parody/Song glee

A Mighty Fortress is our Brain
Mark Graham

A mighty fortress is our brain, the mind a perfect treasure
To seek its worth, 'twould be in vain, its value beyond measure.
Aloft the neck the brain resides in high rent penthouse splendor
O'er fleshy empires it presides and suffers no pretenders.

The mighty brain is oft beset by life's cruel tribulations,
In drugs and demon alcohol it seeks its liberation.
Although its trials may be great, it still seems quite ironic
That it should feel subdominant and return to the tonic

But lurking in rebellion are the wily genitalia,
A-waiting 'til the brain's engaged in wild bacchanalia
And if thus engaged the brain receives a winged shaft from Cupid
The genitals and hormones strike, the brain is rendered stupid.

The brain sometimes for exercise will pump some mental iron
At Harvard, Princeton, Dartmouth, Yale or other like environs,
Does twenty reps of calculus or speeds through Shakespeare's sonnets,
But mostly lifts the tons of shit that will be heaped upon it.

The brain and thumb together wrought our whole civilization,
The humble thumb just does its job, contented with its station.
And while the brain proclaims itself God's gift to all creation
If anyone would like the job we're taking applications.

Mark Graham is one of the funniest folk singer-songwriters around. His chops in traditional music are substantial as well, having performed in old time bands and 8 years as part of Kevin Burke's "Open House" band. Quite a number of other performers have covered his songs "Zen Gospel Singing," "I Can See your aura and it's ugly," "Their brains were small and they died." If Gary Larson were a folk singer-songwrter, he might want to be Mark Graham.

With my wild harp

Thomas Moore's Minstrel Boy has always been my image of a singing soldier. Singing "a song to cheer us" no matter the battle is likely as old a tradition as battle itself. Lately I've been thinking about the purpose of my autoharp playing, both why I do it, and who benefits from my doing it. In examination and critique it's both an encouraging and a humbling experience.

The Minstrel Boy
Thomas Moore

The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;

"Land of Song!" cried the warrior bard,
(Should) "Tho' all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy rights shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's steel
Could not bring that proud soul under;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;

And said "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and brav'ry!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free
They shall never sound in slavery!


The Strange Music
G.K. Chesterton

Other loves may sink and settle, other loves may loose and slack,
But I wander like a minstrel with a harp upon his back,
Though the harp be on my bosom, though I finger and I fret,
Still, my hope is all before me: for I cannot play it yet.

In your strings is hid a music that no hand hath e'er let fall,
In your soul is sealed a pleasure that you have not known at all;
Pleasure subtle as your spirit, strange and slender as your frame,
Fiercer than the pain that folds you, softer than your sorrow's name.

Not as mine, my soul's annointed, not as mine the rude and light
Easy mirth of many faces, swaggering pride of song and fight;
Something stranger, something sweeter, something waiting you afar,
Secret as your stricken senses, magic as your sorrows are.

But on this, God's harp supernal, stretched but to be stricken once,
Hoary time is a beginner, Life a bungler, Death a dunce.
But I will not fear to match them-no, by God, I will not fear,
I will learn you, I will play you and the stars stand still to hear.

Sappy Cat Blogging

Thanks to Ktty for the best of the Bad Kitty Gang, Upsidedown Jake. Thanks to the modern poetry "it" book of the 70s "Reflections on a Gift of Watermelon Pickle..." for the second poem.

Cat's Dream
Pablo Neruda

How neatly a cat sleeps,
Sleeps with its paws and its posture,
Sleeps with its wicked claws,
And with its unfeeling blood,
Sleeps with ALL the rings a series
Of burnt circles which have formed
The odd geology of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
With all the fur of time,
With a tongue rough as flint,
With the dry sex of fire and
After speaking to no one,
Stretch myself over the world,
Over roofs and landscapes,
With a passionate desire
To hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
Would undulate, how the night flowed
Through it like dark water and at times,
It was going to fall or possibly
Plunge into the bare deserted snowdrifts.

Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
Like a tiger's great-grandfather,
And would leap in the darkness over
Rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night with
Episcopal ceremony and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams
Control the obscurity
Of our slumbering prowess
With your relentless HEART

Catalogue
Rosalie Moore

Cats sleep fat and walk thin.
Cats, when they sleep, slump;
when they wake, stretch and begin
Over, pulling their ribs in
Cats walk thin.

Cats wait in a lump,
Jump in a streak.
Cats, when they jump, are sleek
As a grape slipping its skin-
They have technique.
Oh, cats don't creak.
They sneak.

Cats sleep fat.
They spread out comfort underneath them
Like a good mat,
As if they picked the place
And then sat;
You walk around one
As if he were City Hall
After that.

If male,
A cat is apt to sing on a major scale;
This concert is for everybody, this
Is wholsale
For a baton, he weilds a tail.

(He is also found,
When happy, to resound
With an enclosed and private sound.)

A cat condenses.
He pulls in his tail to go under bridges,
And himself to go under fences
Cats fit
In any size box or kit,
And if a large pumpkin grew under one
He could arch over it.

When everyone else is just ready to go out,
The cat is just ready to come in.
He's not where he's been.
Cats sleep fat and walk thin.

To His Coy Daffodil

Had we but bloom enough and time...ah, the time of daffodils is waning. The first blooming ones are withered and gone, the hearty yellow now is the last of the late bloomers, tulips and the first of the dandelions. Last week, in their prime, Steve went on a photo safari on Liberty (a braver man than I, but then he walks farther, which helps) and he's given me permission to post this set of pictures.


To Daffodils
Robert Herrick

Fair Daffodils, we weep to see
You haste away so soon;
As yet the early-rising sun
Has not attain'd his noon.
Stay, stay,
Until the hasting day
Has run
But to the even-song;
And, having pray'd together, we
Will go with you along.

We have short time to stay, as you,
We have as short a spring;
As quick a growth to meet decay,
As you, or anything.
We die
As your hours do, and dry
Away,
Like to the summer's rain;
Or as the pearls of morning's dew,
Ne'er to be found again.



Gloriously at their peak are the magnolias-with-small-petals that surround the female statue that is a personification of the Ukrainian spirit.

It also looks like there are going to be two new gardens or installations in Rockefeller Park's Cultural Garden collection, either side of the street, just north of St. Clair. One looks suspiciously like it could be a fountain, once they take the tarp off.

May I be of Service?

Robert William Service, an Englishman raised partially in Glasgow with a Scottish gran and a batch of doting aunts, came of a wealthy family, had a career in banking, but is most known for his Poems of the Yukon, where he sowed his wild oats in his youth, and reaped a context for his writing for years to come. "The Shooting of Dan McGrew," "The Cremation of Sam McGee," "The Ballad of the Ice-Worm Cocktail" all with the flavor of the wild parts and wild men of the Yukon, are just a tiny bit of his prodigious output. With Kipling as a hero, I think of him as an inspiration to the cowboy poet movement, in particular with this poem:

The Joy Of Little Things

It's good the great green earth to roam,
Where sights of awe the soul inspire;
But oh, it's best, the coming home,
The crackle of one's own hearth-fire!
You've hob-nobbed with the solemn Past;
You've seen the pageantry of kings;
Yet oh, how sweet to gain at last
The peace and rest of Little Things!

Perhaps you're counted with the Great;
You strain and strive with mighty men;
Your hand is on the helm of State;
Colossus-like you stride . . . and then
There comes a pause, a shining hour,
A dog that leaps, a hand that clings:
O Titan, turn from pomp and power;
Give all your heart to Little Things.

Go couch you childwise in the grass,
Believing it's some jungle strange,
Where mighty monsters peer and pass,
Where beetles roam and spiders range.
'Mid gloom and gleam of leaf and blade,
What dragons rasp their painted wings!
O magic world of shine and shade!
O beauty land of Little Things!

I sometimes wonder, after all,
Amid this tangled web of fate,
If what is great may not be small,
And what is small may not be great.
So wondering I go my way,
Yet in my heart contentment sings . . .
O may I ever see, I pray,
God's grace and love in Little Things.

So give to me, I only beg,
A little roof to call my own,
A little cider in the keg,
A little meat upon the bone;
A little garden by the sea,
A little boat that dips and swings . . .
Take wealth, take fame, but leave to me,
O Lord of Life, just Little Things.

I confess there's a bit of the following in me, though my vice tends to be "how to" books for projects that I try once or never get around to pursuing.

Book Lover

I keep collecting books I know
I'll never, never read;
My wife and daughter tell me so,
And yet I never head.
"Please make me," says some wistful tome,
"A wee bit of yourself."
And so I take my treasure home,
And tuck it in a shelf.

And now my very shelves complain;
They jam and over-spill.
They say: "Why don't you ease our strain?"
"some day," I say, "I will."
So book by book they plead and sigh;
I pick and dip and scan;
Then put them back, distrest that I
Am such a busy man.

Now, there's my Boswell and my Sterne,
my Gibbon and Defoe;
To savour Swift I'll never learn,
Montaigne I may not know.
On Bacon I will never sup,
For Shakespeare I've no time;
Because I'm busy making up
These jingly bits of rhyme.

Chekov is caviare to me,
While Stendhal makes me snore;
Poor Proust is not my cup of tea,
And Balzac is a bore.
I have their books, I love their names,
And yet alas! they head,
With Lawrence, Joyce and Henry James,
My Roster of Unread.

I think it would be very well
If I commit a crime,
And get put in a prison cell
And not allowed to rhyme;
Yet given all these worthy books
According to my need,
I now caress with loving looks,
But never, never read.

A sentiment I heartily endorse:
A Song For Kilts

How grand the human race would be
If every man would wear a kilt,
A flirt of Tartan finery,
Instead of trousers, custom built!
Nay, do not think I speak to joke:
(You know I'm not that kind of man),
I am convinced that all men folk.
Should wear the costume of a Clan.

Imagine how it's braw and clean
As in the wind it flutters free;
And so conducive to hygiene
In its sublime simplicity.
No fool fly-buttons to adjust,--
Wi' shanks and maybe buttocks bare;
Oh chiels, just take my word on trust,
A bonny kilt's the only wear.

'Twill save a lot of siller too,
(And here a canny Scotsman speaks),
For one good kilt will wear you through
A half-a-dozen pairs of breeks.
And how it's healthy in the breeze!
And how it swings with saucy tilt!
How lassies love athletic knees
Below the waggle of a kilt!

True, I just wear one in my mind,
Since sent to school by Celtic aunts,
When girls would flip it up behind,
Until I begged for lowland pants.
But now none dare do that to me,
And so I sing with lyric lilt,--
How happier the world would be
If every male would wear a kilt!

Keep on Kipling

Rudyard B. Kipling is one of the first poets I became aware of, from a young age, as a writer with a body of works. "If" was a poem boys were drawn to when they were required to memorise something. In looking back, the more remarkable and enthusiastic performance was of "Gunga Din" by a wee girl named Julie. I came across Kipling's poetry and prose again and again, with each age bringing different parts of his astonishing production to my attention.



















Runyard Barking Kipling, the world's smallest GOOD looking sheltie

The Power of the Dog
Rudyard Kipling

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and women to fill our day;
And when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers and Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear.

Buy a pup and your money will buy
Love unflinching that cannot lie--
Perfect passion and worship fed
By a kick in the ribs or a pat on the head.
Nevertheless it is hardly fair
To risk your heart for a dog to tear.

When the fourteen years which Nature permits
Are closing in asthma, or tumour, or fits,
And the vet's unspoken prescription runs
To lethal chambers or loaded guns,
Then you will find--it's your own affair--
But...you've given your heart for a dog to tear.

When the body that lived at your single will,
With its whimper of welcome, is stilled (how still!);
When the spirit that answered your every mood
Is gone--wherever it goes--for good,
You will discover how much you care,
And will give your heart for the dog to tear.

We've sorrow enough in the natural way,
When it comes to burying Christian clay.
Our loves are not given, but only lent,
At compound interest of cent per cent.
Though it is not always the case, I believe,
That the longer we've kept 'em, the more do we grieve:
For, when debts are payable, right or wrong,
A short-time loan is as bad as a long--
So why in Heaven (before we are there)
Should we give our hearts to a dog to tear?

It's near impossible to pick out every Kipling poem I love, but I know the joy I take in them has been forever enhanced by the late Peter Bellamy, who made it his life's work to reunite Kipling's verse with the tune it was set to, and failing that, to compose his own. This he did with great dexterity, and a braying nasal voice that was an acquired taste for those not anglophile to the hilt. Of all of the Bellamy/Kipling, I think I most love "The Road to Mandalay" as performed on the Mandalay album by the Friends of Fiddlers's Green. Next would be "Smuggler's Song" as performed by either Roberts & Barrand or Anne & Cindy. John and Tony have a wonderful album Naulakha Redux, all of Kipling songs, first sung to the background of Kipling's Vermont home, Naulakha, near to where Tony lives. Not least, but definitely hardest to sing, is the setting of "The Sea Wife" that has come down in aural tradition in Gordon Bok's family. Bok/Muir/Trickett recorded it and I can't unravel the harmony to get the solid melody, much as I love the song. Percy Grainger did settings of Kipling - "The Sea Wife" and "We Have fed our Seas" among others.

Kipling seems to need some historical context for the young. Those to whom Political Correctness is the only god to worship, decry what they see as racism. Yep, he was an English Colonial, with all the possibility for condescension that it implies. I don't think that his main function was a British Colonialist apologist, however. As a traditionalist, I value the things about his work that put it solidly in a geographic and temporal context.

Mandalay
Rudyard Kipling

By the old Moulmein Pagoda, lookin' eastward to the sea,
There's a Burma girl a-settin', and I know she thinks o' me;
For the wind is in the palm-trees, and the temple-bells they say:
"Come you back, you British soldier; come you back to Mandalay!"
Come you back to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay:
Can't you 'ear their paddles chunkin' from Rangoon to Mandalay?
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

'Er petticoat was yaller an' 'er little cap was green,
An' 'er name was Supi-yaw-lat -- jes' the same as Theebaw's Queen,
An' I seed her first a-smokin' of a whackin' white cheroot,
An' a-wastin' Christian kisses on an 'eathen idol's foot:
Bloomin' idol made o'mud --
Wot they called the Great Gawd Budd --
Plucky lot she cared for idols when I kissed 'er where she stud!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

When the mist was on the rice-fields an' the sun was droppin' slow,
She'd git 'er little banjo an' she'd sing "Kulla-lo-lo!"
With 'er arm upon my shoulder an' 'er cheek agin' my cheek
We useter watch the steamers an' the hathis pilin' teak.
Elephints a-pilin' teak
In the sludgy, squdgy creek,
Where the silence 'ung that 'eavy you was 'arf afraid to speak!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

But that's all shove be'ind me -- long ago an' fur away,
An' there ain't no 'busses runnin' from the Bank to Mandalay;
An' I'm learnin' 'ere in London what the ten-year soldier tells:
"If you've 'eard the East a-callin', you won't never 'eed naught else."
No! you won't 'eed nothin' else
But them spicy garlic smells,
An' the sunshine an' the palm-trees an' the tinkly temple-bells;
On the road to Mandalay . . .

I am sick o' wastin' leather on these gritty pavin'-stones,
An' the blasted Henglish drizzle wakes the fever in my bones;
Tho' I walks with fifty 'ousemaids outer Chelsea to the Strand,
An' they talks a lot o' lovin', but wot do they understand?
Beefy face an' grubby 'and --
Law! wot do they understand?
I've a neater, sweeter maiden in a cleaner, greener land!
On the road to Mandalay . . .

Ship me somewheres east of Suez, where the best is like the worst,
Where there aren't no Ten Commandments an' a man can raise a thirst;
For the temple-bells are callin', an' it's there that I would be --
By the old Moulmein Pagoda, looking lazy at the sea;
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the old Flotilla lay,
With our sick beneath the awnings when we went to Mandalay!
On the road to Mandalay,
Where the flyin'-fishes play,
An' the dawn comes up like thunder outer China 'crost the Bay!

From the knowledge and praise of the exotic, to the praise of the everyman, Kipling covers the waterfront, the landscape, and all the places of the heart and soul (A recording of this as a song on John & Tony's album Twiddlum Twaddlum):

The Pilgrim's Way

I do not look for holy saints to guide me on my way,
Or male and female devilkins to lead my feet astray.
If these are added, I rejoice -- if not, I shall not mind,
So long as I have leave and choice to meet my fellow-kind.
For as we come and as we go (and deadly-soon go we!)
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

Thus I will honour pious men whose virtue shines so bright
(Though none are more amazed than I when I by chance do right),
And I will pity foolish men for woe their sins have bred
(Though ninety-nine per cent. of mine I brought on my own head).
And, Amorite or Eremite, or General Averagee,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

And when they bore me overmuch, I will not shake mine ears,
Recalling many thousand such whom I have bored to tears.
And when they labour to impress, I will not doubt nor scoff;
Since I myself have done no less and -- sometimes pulled it off.
Yea, as we are and we are not, and we pretend to be,
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

And when they work me random wrong, as oftentimes hath been,
I will not cherish hate too long (my hands are none too clean).
And when they do me random good I will not feign surprise.
No more than those whom I have cheered with wayside charities.
But, as we give and as we take -- whate'er our takings be --
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

But when I meet with frantic folk who sinfully declare
There is no pardon for their sin, the same I will not spare
Till I have proved that Heaven and Hell which in our hearts we have
Show nothing irredeemable on either side of the grave.
For as we live and as we die -- if utter Death there be --
The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!

Deliver me from every pride -- the Middle, High, and Low --
That bars me from a brother's side, whatever pride he show.
And purge me from all heresies of thought and speech and pen
That bid me judge him otherwise than I am judged. Amen!
That I may sing of Crowd or King or road-borne company,
That I may labour in my day, vocation and degree,
To prove the same in deed and name, and hold unshakenly
(Where'er I go, whate'er I know, whoe'er my neighbor be)
This single faith in Life and Death and to Eternity:
"The people, Lord, Thy people, are good enough for me!"

A watched Daffodil...(Daffodilly Watch, part the last)

It would be the week where my attention had to be focused elsewhere that the last bits of the daffodils came to bloom, decking out (the drive formerly known as) Liberty in yellow splendour. Around Shaker Lakes in Madam's yard, she suspects this last weekend was the peak for the daffodils there. My camera and I missed it all. In between frantic to-ing and fro-ing I did note that at this time last week the only green in the trees was a dim haze on the willows, and in that week's time the magnolias have bloomed, the redbuds are shedding enough that looks like someone spilled a bag of cheap kitty kibble under them, the forsythia is in full fabulous bloom, and more than the willows have that misty green haze of new leaves on them.

Poems with Sharp Edges

I've always had a taste for poetry that was a bit sharp, particularly with the knife turn at the end. The one that comes to mind first in this vein is:

Incident
Countee Cullen

Once riding in old Baltimore,
Heart-filled, head-filled with glee;
I saw a Baltimorean
Keep looking straight at me.

Now I was eight and very small,
And he was no whit bigger,
And so I smiled, but he poked out
His tongue, and called me, "Nigger."

I saw the whole of Baltimore
From May until December;
Of all the things that happened there
That's all that I remember.

Early exposure to the Norton Anthology of poetry set the bar for me. I was enchanted to find that some of the poems I'd studied had been sung ballads, come down through the aural tradition. While murder ballads have been a steady diet in my singing repertoire, less gruesomely detailed, stark and shocking poems like Richard Corey by Richard Arlington Robinson woke many up to poetry not being all loveydovey saccharine.

Though even the stark, bare bones can be put to music:

I Shall Not Care
Sara Teasdale

When I am dead and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain-drenched hair,
Though you shall lean above me broken-hearted,
I shall not care.

I shall have peace, as leafy trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough;
And I shall be more silent and cold-hearted
Than you are now.

I've hauled out the Dorothy Parker already, so what on earth is left? There are the outwardly facetious, yet sharp poems. Since high school (or because of it?), this one by Samuel Hoffenstein has had my vote:

Love Song

Your little hands,
Your little feet,
Your little mouth --
Oh, God, how sweet!

Your little nose,
Your little ears,
Your eyes, that shed
Such little tears!

Your little voice,
So soft and kind;
Your little soul,
Your little mind!

Earth
John Hall Wheelock

"A planet doesn't explode of itself,: said drily
The Martian astronomer, gazing off into the air-
"That they were able to do it is poof that highly
Intelligent beings must have been living there."

Also on the facetious side is Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies (where illustration is part of the wry).


For down and dirty GOTCHA with nice scansion and meter, you just can't beat Houseman. Although his Is My Team Plowing has the best knife twist ending:
...I cheer a dead man's sweetheart
Never ask me whose.
Not as succinctly sharp edged, yet the poem that did the most to put me on the trail of this sort of poem is:

-from A Stropshire Lad
A. E. Housman

"Terence, this is stupid stuff:
You eat your victuals fast enough;
There can't be much amiss, 'tis clear,
To see the rate you drink your beer.
But oh, good Lord, the verse you make,
It gives a chap the belly-ache.
The cow, the old cow, she is dead;
It sleeps well, the horned head:
We poor lads, 'tis our turn now
To hear such tunes as killed the cow.
Pretty friendship 'tis to rhyme
Your friends to death before their time
Moping melancholy mad:
Come, pipe a tune to dance to, lad."

Why, if 'tis dancing you would be,
There's brisker pipes than poetry.
Say, for what were hop-yards meant,
Or why was Burton built on Trent?
Oh many a peer of England brews
Livelier liquor than the Muse,
And malt does more than Milton can
To justify God's ways to man.
Ale, man, ale's the stuff to drink
For fellows whom it hurts to think:
Look into the pewter pot
To see the world as the world's not.
And faith, 'tis pleasant till 'tis past:
The mischief is that 'twill not last.
Oh I have been to Ludlow fair
And left my necktie God knows where,
And carried half way home, or near,
Pints and quarts of Ludlow beer:
Then the world seemed none so bad,
And I myself a sterling lad;
And down in lovely muck I've lain,
Happy till I woke again.
Then I saw the morning sky:
Heigho, the tale was all a lie;
The world, it was the old world yet,
I was I, my things were wet,
And nothing now remained to do
But begin the game anew.

Therefore, since the world has still
Much good, but much less good than ill,
And while the sun and moon endure
Luck's a chance, but trouble's sure,
I'd face it as a wise man would,
And train for ill and not for good.
'Tis true, the stuff I bring for sale
Is not so brisk a brew as ale:
Out of a stem that scored the hand
I wrung it in a weary land.
But take it: if the smack is sour
The better for the embittered hour;
It will do good to heart and head
When your soul is in my soul's stead;
And I will friend you, if I may,
In the dark and cloudy day.

There was a king reigned in the East:
There, when kings will sit to feast,
They get their fill before they think
With poisoned meat and poisoned drink.
He gathered all that sprang to birth
From the many-venomed earth;
First a little, thence to more,
He sampled all her killing store;
And easy, smiling, seasoned sound,
Sate the king when healths went round.
They put arsenic in his meat
And stared aghast to watch him eat;
They poured strychnine in his cup
And shook to see him drink it up:
They shook, they stared as white's their shirt:
Them it was their poison hurt.
--I tell the tale that I heard told.
Mithridates, he died old.

Patterns

The daffodils are blooming. Loved men and women are coming home from today's war dead or worse. The mannered seasons of the heart are on view at the Playhouse with Jane Austen's characters sweeping the stage in their ballgowns. The costuming and the arena of war may change, but the depth of loss does not.

Patterns
Amy Lowell

I walk down the garden paths,
And all the daffodils
Are blowing, and the bright blue squills.
I walk down the patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
With my powdered hair and jewelled fan,
I too am a rare
Pattern. As I wander down
The garden paths.
My dress is richly figured,
And the train
Makes a pink and silver stain
On the gravel, and the thrift
Of the borders.
Just a plate of current fashion,
Tripping by in high-heeled, ribboned shoes.
Not a softness anywhere about me,
Only whalebone and brocade.
And I sink on a seat in the shade
Of a lime tree. For my passion
Wars against the stiff brocade.
The daffodils and squills
Flutter in the breeze
As they please.
And I weep;
For the lime-tree is in blossom
And one small flower has dropped upon my bosom.
And the plashing of waterdrops
In the marble fountain
Comes down the garden-paths.
The dripping never stops.
Underneath my stiffened gown
Is the softness of a woman bathing in a marble basin,
A basin in the midst of hedges grown
So thick, she cannot see her lover hiding,
But she guesses he is near,
And the sliding of the water
Seems the stroking of a dear
Hand upon her.
What is Summer in a fine brocaded gown!
I should like to see it lying in a heap upon the ground.
All the pink and silver crumpled up on the ground.
I would be the pink and silver as I ran along the
paths,
And he would stumble after,
Bewildered by my laughter.
I should see the sun flashing from his sword-hilt and the buckles
on his shoes.
I would choose
To lead him in a maze along the patterned paths,
A bright and laughing maze for my heavy-booted lover,
Till he caught me in the shade,
And the buttons of his waistcoat bruised my body as he clasped me,
Aching, melting, unafraid.
With the shadows of the leaves and the sundrops,
And the plopping of the waterdrops,
All about us in the open afternoon --
I am very like to swoon
With the weight of this brocade,
For the sun sifts through the shade.
Underneath the fallen blossom
In my bosom,
Is a letter I have hid.
It was brought to me this morning by a rider from the Duke.
"Madam, we regret to inform you that Lord Hartwell
Died in action Thursday se'nnight."
As I read it in the white, morning sunlight,
The letters squirmed like snakes.
"Any answer, Madam," said my footman.
"No," I told him.
"See that the messenger takes some refreshment.
No, no answer."
And I walked into the garden,
Up and down the patterned paths,
In my stiff, correct brocade.
The blue and yellow flowers stood up proudly in the sun,
Each one.
I stood upright too,
Held rigid to the pattern
By the stiffness of my gown.
Up and down I walked,
Up and down.
In a month he would have been my husband.
In a month, here, underneath this lime,
We would have broke the pattern;
He for me, and I for him,
He as Colonel, I as Lady,
On this shady seat.
He had a whim
That sunlight carried blessing.
And I answered, "It shall be as you have said."
Now he is dead.
In Summer and in Winter I shall walk
Up and down
The patterned garden-paths
In my stiff, brocaded gown.
The squills and daffodils
Will give place to pillared roses, and to asters, and to snow.
I shall go
Up and down,
In my gown.
Gorgeously arrayed,
Boned and stayed.
And the softness of my body will be guarded from embrace
By each button, hook, and lace.
For the man who should loose me is dead,
Fighting with the Duke in Flanders,
In a pattern called a war.
Christ! What are patterns for?

Daffodilly Watch, Part 3

Ah, now there's something to see on MLK (the drive formerly known as Liberty)! The clutches of golden yellow Daffodils are in full bloom, particularly near the tenniscourts and pond. Shyer late bloomers of a paler yellow are still getting the lemony yellow tips starting to bend over, ready to bloom. Other sections have the daffodils at different stages, from short foliage to full bloom. Red buds are showing on some of the trees, though the glitter of light green leaf tips has yet to start. At the end of MLK drive, there was the utter delight of sitting at the traffic light in front of the Church of the Holy Oilcan, and rolling down the windows to better hear their carillon peal out Hayden's "Austria" (Glorious things of thee are spoken...)

I DO believe in spring, I DO, I DO!

Love, when alteration finds.

I love bookstores. There used to be more independent bookstores when I was growing up as a pampered reader. I needed no persuading that a trip to the fabulous Loganberry Books (to see the altered book show in the gallery) would be a perfectly splendid thing to do on a sunny spring Monday afternoon, and JanC would be the perfect person to do it with. I talked Jan into including me in her east side safari. She shooed me out of the bookstore before I either drooled in public over a table of Edward Gorey books/cool merchandise or let my pen write a check I ought not.
We had a nosh at Shaker Square, where in nostalgia for the burgers of the 1970's vintage Fairmount Circle Our Gang, we were delighted to find something VERY like what used to be their "Dave's" burger on the menu. The excellence of the burger and potato fries cut in waffle discs balanced out the iced tea that was about the shade of Canada Dry Ginger Ale. If there was any caffeine content, it was totally indiscernible. The day,the company, the book gawking, and a great burger, all getting spring off to a great start!

Toto, we're not in Narnia anymore

If folks recognize nothing else of Clive Staples Lewis, they know of Narnia. I've long enjoyed the range of Lewis' writing, and appreciated his particpation in a group of like minded souls, The Inklings, whose membership included the more famous Profesor Tolkein. Much of what Lewis wrote about was Christianty (Mere Christianity being a book that still sells well today) and what I appreciated most about his writing is how intelligent it is. "The Thinking Man's Christian" doesn't even catch it all...he's fine for the doubting woman, too. In today's atmosphere of fundiewackos making it look like thinking and Christianity are at odds, particularly over evolution, I found this bit of wry from Lewis amusing:

Evolutionary Hymn
C. S. Lewis

Lead us, Evolution, lead us
Up the future's endless stair;
Chop us, change us, prod us, weed us.
For stagnation is despair:
Groping, guessing, yet progressing,
Lead us nobody knows where.

Wrong or justice, joy or sorrow,
In the present what are they
while there's always jam-tomorrow,
While we tread the onward way?
Never knowing where we're going,
We can never go astray.

To whatever variation
Our posterity may turn
Hairy, squashy, or crustacean,
Bulbous-eyed or square of stern,
Tusked or toothless, mild or ruthless,
Towards that unknown god we yearn.

Ask not if it's god or devil,
Brethren, lest your words imply
Static norms of good and evil
(As in Plato) throned on high;
Such scholastic, inelastic,
Abstract yardsticks we deny.

Far too long have sages vainly
Glossed great Nature's simple text;
He who runs can read it plainly,
'Goodness = what comes next.'
By evolving, Life is solving
All the questions we perplexed.

Oh then! Value means survival-
Value. If our progeny
Spreads and spawns and licks each rival,
That will prove its deity
(Far from pleasant, by our present,
Standards, though it may well be).

A bit more acid for your pen?

Oh, but I love Dorothy Parker, whose acid toungued rhymes and well turned comments skewered many an ego in four lines or less. She would likely have scared me silly face to face. “The first thing I do in the morning is brush my teeth and sharpen my tongue.” Ruthless in critique: “This wasn't just plain terrible, this was fancy terrible. This was terrible with raisins in it.” Her jaundiced view of love has fit my mood many a time. I find her necessary seasoning in a meal of romantic poetry.

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Should Heaven send me any son,
I hope he's not like Tennyson.
I'd rather have him play a fiddle
Than rise and bow and speak an idyll.

Bohemia

Authors and actors and artists and such
Never know nothing, and never know much.
Sculptors and singers and those of their kidney
Tell their affairs from Seattle to Sydney.
Playwrights and poets and such horses' necks
Start off from anywhere, end up at sex.
Diarists, critics, and similar roe
Never say nothing, and never say no.
People Who Do Things exceed my endurance;
God, for a man that solicits insurance!


Ballade at Thirty-five

This, no song of an ingénue,
This, no ballad of innocence;
This, the rhyme of a lady who
Followed ever her natural bents.
This, a solo of sapience,
This, a chantey of sophistry,
This, the sum of experiments, --
I loved them until they loved me.

Decked in garments of sable hue,
Daubed with ashes of myriad Lents,
Wearing shower bouquets of rue,
Walk I ever in penitence.
Oft I roam, as my heart repents,
Through God's acre of memory,
Marking stones, in my reverence,
"I loved them until they loved me."

Pictures pass me in long review,--
Marching columns of dead events.
I was tender, and, often, true;
Ever a prey to coincidence.
Always knew I the consequence;
Always saw what the end would be.
We're as Nature has made us -- hence
I loved them until they loved me.

Unfortunate Coincidence
By the time you swear you're his,
Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is
Infinite, undying ---
Lady, make a note of this:
One of you is lying.

Transient Pleasures.

Today is what a spring Sunday ought to be! It's warm, its sunny, and the crocuses are in full tilt beauty on the flat and on the hill in the neighborhood. I was spared the feeling of "I ought to be doing yard work" by having a day trip planned to Hiram College for an Irish music session anchored by fiddler Liz Carroll, who was brought in just for the event. With windows open, it was a lovely hour singing car trip down, taking just a basket of soda bread. I'd helped with the benefit that had financed this luxury, and at this event they went through my soda bread as completely as they'd done at the benefit.

The large room was filled most of the afternoon. There were musicians and former dancers I'd not seen in years who turned out. Participants and listeners came a farther than I did, from the western parts of Ohio and PA. The wide range of ages and sorts of people was astonishing. A wee girl with her fiddle was fit for an illustration of "cute." There were older gentlemen with their accordions, telling tales of folks long gone. There were several fiddlers, flutes and whistles, a couple bodhran players of some talent. I teased Bill about his sitting with his mandolin: "are you going to play that thing, or just hug it all day?" The button box player and his wife got some songs into the mix, particularly "Wild Mountain Thyme" which got good group participation. Mazur did one of his spot-on channelings of Tom McCaffrey, a recitation and a raft of quips about marriage, when the conversation turned to the Toms. Hiram college girls wandered in to listen, like a herd of spring fawns, gawky and graceful all at the same time, in that beauty of youth.
All that fun, and I still have more music to make tonight.

Daffodillly Watch, Part 2

On the "Drive formerly known as Liberty" the clumps of greenery that will be sprays of golden daffodils soon, most of the leaves are up from 4 to about 8 inches, and in perhaps a third of the clumps, a slender, not quite full hint of yellowgreen bud shows. Soon, it'll be soon. And the snow never showed, huzzah!

Night Journey

Night Journey
Theodore Roethke

Now as the train bears west,
Its rhythm rocks the earth,
And from my Pullman berth
I stare into the night
While others take their rest.
Bridges of iron lace,
A suddenness of trees,
A lap of mountain mist
All cross my line of sight,
Then a bleak wasted place,
And a lake below my knees.
Full on my neck I feel
The straining at a curve;
My muscles move with steel,
I wake in every nerve.
I watch a beacon swing
From dark to blazing bright;
We thunder through ravines
And gullies washed with light.
Beyond the mountain pass
Mist deepens on the pane;
We rush into a rain
That rattles double glass.
Wheels shake the roadbed stone,
The pistons jerk and shove,
I stay up half the night
To see the land I love.

In case of snow

Take one poem and call me in the morning

Loveliest of Trees
A. E. Housman

Loveliest of trees the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now of my three score years and ten,
twenty will not come again.
And take from seventy years a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom,
Fifty Springs is little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.

The trees aren't in bloom here just yet, but the crocuses are. There's a house on Fairmount, that has a lawn planted all over with purple crocuses. A shame it rained all over it today, because it's about at it's peak of purple bloom, and I heard some noise about snow on the way. Spring in Cleveland, what would we do without more snow?

Lust in the time of Concertinas

There's a very great danger that spring has actually arrived. Critters two and four legged are getting frisky. Last year, when spring restlessness hit me hard, and there wasn't a lad I was feeding and chatting with regularly, in my weakness I fell prey to the temptation to buy a concertina. Betsy had seen one at a music store near her, and I'd sold myself on the idea even before I got there. What they had were things I came to think of as crapcertinas, because seriously, how much instrument can you get for $99? I bought it anyway. I got it home and one reed unit had fallen out and was rattling around inside the bellows. I unscrewed the ends, stuck the reeds back where they came from (they put 'em together with beeswax, amazingly) It still didn't sound great. When I took it back, they'd only let me exchange it for one with a bit better sound. I grumbled. I went to music rehearsal where Carol kindly said "Oh, I can lend you a good one." And she did, for six months. Since I had to give it back, my fingers have been itching for a good 60 button anglo concertina, and I find myself in sympathetic accord with Les Barker's Arnold.

A fortunate few in the folk world are aware of Les Barker and his poetry and recitations, moreso in England than here. Les is the font of all puns, particularly doggy ones, a dean of doggerel, and one of the single funniest smart people I know. The poetry section of my downstairs "reading room" is stocked well with Les' books with charming titles like "Roverdance" "Corgi and Bess" "101 Damnations" "Waiting for Dogot." Watching him read a poem is an adventure, frequently with needed audience participation. He's written deliciously wry parody lyrics to songs from highly traditional to do-wop, and there are several albums full of songs sung and played by some astonishing folk artists. He also writes serious poems and political poems that I would appreciate more if I followed British politics more closely.

Arnold
Les Barker

Arnold was an armadillo
And oh so in need of romance
And it chanced that one Saturday evening
Arnold went out to a dance.
The moment he walked in the room
He saw her as if he had known
She'd be there at the side of the stage
All he wanted, all in black, all alone
She was there, she was his, dressed to kill
Oh, if only his glasses were cleaner
For he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina

He struggled to make conversation
He leapfrogged from topic to topic
If only she'd say something back.
If only he wasn't myopic
Bright silver buttons in rows
From head down to toes in black leather
Could this beauty love him,
Here goes poor Arnold thought it's now or never
He could picture her head on his pillow
He'd loved her the moment he'd seen her
But he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina

You can't help but feel for the lad though
How happy poor Arnold would be
If they could make love in the shadow
And no one but no one would see
Alas, what he hoped might have been
A sweet secret was soured complete
Sex with a concertina Is rarely accomplished discrete
The dancers stopped stripping the willow
It was oh, such a loud misdemeanor,
For he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina.

Picture love as a kind of concerto
Poor Arnold his verse was unfinished
For what let everyone who was there know
A very loud C sharp diminished
Somebody said look: it's Arnold
And he ran from their scorn and their laughter
Into the darkness outside and never returned ever after
Tales of lost love dreams of love unfullfillo.
Cruel Cupid you've never been meaner,
For he was an armadillo, and she was a concertina.

A Litttle Night Neruda

Leaning Into The Afternoons
Pablo Neruda

Leaning into the afternoons,
I cast my sad nets towards your oceanic eyes.
There, in the highest blaze my solitude lengthens and flames;
Its arms turning like a drowning man's.
I send out red signals across your absent eyes
That wave like the sea, or the beach by a lighthouse.
You keep only darkness my distant female;
From your regard sometimes, the coast of dread emerges.

Leaning into the afternoons,
I fling my sad nets to that sea that is thrashed
By your oceanic eyes.
The birds of night peck at the first stars
That flash like my soul when I love you.
The night, gallops on its shadowy mare
Shedding blue tassels over the land.

A less humid melancholy - this poem has been with me, heart and soul, since the 5th grade, when it was in our science book as a challenge to memorization. I don't remember the scientific point the book was trying to make about memory, but I succinctly remember the poem, the classroom, my seat toward the back of the far right aisle, and the sounds from the gym a floor below.

The Day is Done
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The day is done, and the darkness
Falls from the wings of Night,
As a feather is wafted downward
From an eagle in his flight.

I see the lights of the village
Gleam through the rain and the mist,
And a feeling of sadness comes o'er me
That my soul cannot resist:

A feeling of sadness and longing,
That is not akin to pain,
And resembles sorrow only
As the mist resembles the rain.

Come, read to me some poem,
Some simple and heartfelt lay,
That shall soothe this restless feeling,
And banish the thoughts of day.

Not from the grand old masters,
Not from the bards sublime,
Whose distant footsteps echo
Through the corridors of Time,

For, like strains of martial music,
Their mighty thoughts suggest
Life's endless toil and endeavor;
And tonight I long for rest.

Read from some humbler poet,
Whose songs gushed from his heart,
As showers from the clouds of summer,
Or tears from the eyelids start;

Who, through long days of labor,
And nights devoid of ease,
Still heard in his soul the music
Of wonderful melodies.

Such songs have a power to quiet
The restless pulse of care,
And comes like the benediction
That follows after prayer.

Then read from the treasured volume
The poem of thy choice,
And lend to the rhyme of the poet
The beauty of thy voice.

And the night shall be filled with music,
And the cares, that infest the day,
Shall fold their tents, like the Arabs,
And as silently steal away.

Unexpected Serenade

I love gloom and doom. I read creepy stuff.
So why on earth do I get such delight out of perhaps the LEAST creepy/gloomy/morbid of Poe's poems?

Serenade
Edgar Allan Poe

So sweet the hour, so calm the time,
I feel it more than half a crime,
When Nature sleeps and stars are mute,
To mar the silence ev'n with lute.
At rest on ocean's brilliant dyes
An image of Elysium lies:
Seven Pleiades entranced in Heaven,
Form in the deep another seven:
Endymion nodding from above
Sees in the sea a second love.
Within the valleys dim and brown,
And on the spectral mountain's crown,
The wearied light is dying down,
And earth, and stars, and sea, and sky
Are redolent of sleep, as I
Am redolent of thee and thine
Enthralling love, my Adeline.
But list, O list,- so soft and low
Thy lover's voice tonight shall flow,
That, scarce awake, thy soul shall deem
My words the music of a dream.
Thus, while no single sound too rude
Upon thy slumber shall intrude,
Our thoughts, our souls- O God above!
In every deed shall mingle, love.

Coffee, Tea or Blog?

When you have a wonderful teacher, they don't stop being wonderful when they stop being your teacher. Over Holy Week I had the delightful experience of getting to chat briefly with my highschool art teacher, Sister Donna. I mentioned my blog, and today I got a note from her saying "this reminded me of your blog." Gosh, I wonder why? I don't drink coffee...

Daffodilly Watch

Washington DC may have it's cherry blossoms, but in Cleveland the glorious sign of spring for east siders is watching the patches and fields and swathes of Daffodils perk up and come to bloom along Liberty er... Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Drive for those younger than 30 or relentlessly PC.
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An aside here.. can I get snarky? As a child I was told that Liberty Blvd. was given that name in honor of men who died in the First World War & that many of the trees were planted as specific memorials to them. I know the tree memorial was true up around the Shaker Lakes - some of the brass circles set in concrete cubes are still there at the foot of the trees. Now if that's a true thing, taking an honor away from a large number of honored dead to give it to one seems unjust. It sets up arguments for "well who had a bigger impact, blah blah blah" Ain't the point. Dr. King should have gotten something wonderful named for him, absolutely. Should they have burdened one of the main gorgeous commutes with an unwieldy name (when Liberty was so short, sweet, pronounceable and well known) ? I feel sorry for folks looking for it on the freeway, might think they're going for a typo'd dairy: MLK Drive. SO, if the naming of Liberty is NOT based on WW1 casualties, I take a huge Roseanne Rosannadanna "Neverrrrrmindddd" (for the very young, that's like "whatever²") My snark about how stupid it looks, and hard to read it is, still stands.
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As I was sayin... the daffodils are the joy of spring. Between last week and this, the nubs of green have come up.. there are now 2-3 inch high clumps of daffodils-to-be all up and down Liberty/MLK. I believe in spring, I believe in spring, I do.

April is the coolest month

T. S. Elliot's The Waste Land famously starts:

April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers

I love April for the outpouring of poetry that floods the world each spring. Years ago, Kevin introduced me to a plethora of poems and poets I'd never heard of before, and one April he provided a poem a day. That was a gift I've decided to pass on, but with my own ecclectic tastes. T. S. Elliot isn't so much my taste outside of Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats (especially as illustrated by Edward Gorey) but his well known line about April gives good enough reason for his work to launch the month's effort.





The Naming of Cats
T.S. Eliot

The naming of cats is a difficult matter,
It isn't just one of your holiday games;
You may think at first I'm mad as a hatter
When I tell you a cat must have three
different names.

First of all, there's the name
that the family use daily,
Such as Victor, or Jonathan,
George or Bill Bailey--
All of them sensible everyday names.
There are fancier names
if you think they sound sweeter,
Some for the gentlemen,
some for the dames;
Such as Plato, Admetus,
Electra, Demeter--
But all of them sensible everyday names.

But I tell you,
a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that is peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he
keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers,
or cherish his pride?

Of names of this kind,
I can give you a quorum,
Such as Munkustrap, Quazo or Coripat,
Such as Bombalurina, or else Jellyrum--
Names that never belong
to more than one cat.

But above and beyond
there's still one name left over,
And that is the name that you will never guess;
The name
that no human research can discover--
But The Cat Himself Knows,
and will never confess.

When you notice a cat in profound meditation,
The reason, I tell you, is always the same:
His mind is engaged in rapt contemplation
Of the thought, of the thought,
of the thought of his name:
His ineffable effable
Effanineffable
Deep and inscrutable singular Name.

But JUST beacuse it's also April Fool's Day, a bit of foolishness from one of my favorites, Uncle Shelby:

Bear In There
Shel Silverstein

There's a Polar Bear
In our Frigidaire--
He likes it 'cause it's cold in there.
With his seat in the meat
And his face in the fish
And his big hairy paws
In the buttery dish,
He's nibbling the noodles,
He's munching the rice,
He's slurping the soda,
He's licking the ice.
And he lets out a roar
If you open the door.
And it gives me a scare
To know he's in there--
That Polary Bear
In our Fridgitydaire.