Friday, January 1, 2112
Tuesday, March 16, 2021
Millions of Suns
Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor
feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
~ From Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor
feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
~ From Song of Myself by Walt Whitman
PonyOneDog: Blog Bookmarks
Jung Connections
- A Form of Self-Education
- The Diamond Net
- Jungian Typology Theory: Michael Pierce
- Pacifica Lectures
- This Jungian Life
Parts of My Poems
- End of August: At the Swimming Pool
- Night Light: Half Awake
- Figure: Persephone
- Endless Summer: The Carnival by the Sea
- Shadows: The Unconscious
- Poet: In the Beginning
The Music of the Aztecs
- Poetry Experiment
- A World of Pictures The Magic Theatre
Inspiring Artists
Quintessential Listening
Tuesday, June 30, 2020
Tuesday, June 16, 2020
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Lucky Finds
In Midlife: A Jungian Perspective by Murray Stein
pages 49-53
“At midlife a person runs into a period when the liminality that is produced by external facts such as aging, loss of loved ones, or the failure to attain a dream of youthful ambition combines with the liminality that is generated internally by independently shifting intrapsychic structures, and the result is an intense and prolonged experience of liminality, one that often endures for years. At this point diachronic and synchronic liminality come together synchronistically. "Synchronism" is defined in Webster’s Third International Dictionary with an image that aptly portrays this kind of cooperation of forces: it is ''the condition of excessive rolling obtaining where a ship's rolling period is equal to the wave period or to one hall the wave period." When these two motions collide in this pattern of cooperation, the ship's natural roll becomes excessive. This is midlife liminality. Always the ship is rolling, and always some liminality is present within the psyche. Always, too, the sea is rolling: life throws up crises and failures that prove our limitations all the time. But when these two motions get together, and the force of each is great enough, they produce a degree of rolling that can reach excessive proportions. In this excessive rolling, through an intense and prolonged experience of liminality, the Hermetic attitude and the presence of Hermes are particularly welcome and valuable...
Like the unconscious itself, which in part resists being boxed into fixed temporal contexts and causal sequences but always keeps to itself a measure of freedom to float and to drift, to pass though the keyholes of the psychological shelters we construct' Hermes and liminality appear surprisingly and unexpectedly in the forms of dreams, fantasies, and synchronistic events. While Chronos-controlled consciousness seeks to fix these and box them in, Hermes and the world of liminality slip past its control Points and hasten away, remaining elusive.
Is there a more Hermetic method, then, that might be up to the job of elucidating midlife liminality, and conveying its quality and meaning? Perhaps we should free our method, like liminality frees the soul, from the strictures of systematic order and diachronic progression and move Hermetically instead by floating freely, by associative wandering, by apercu, by backtracking and rhetorical repetition, by stealth add thievery. Brainstorms, insights, lucky finds, intuitions, the play of dreams – if these are threaded together and held somewhat loosely in hand, will we not have a style that belongs to Hermes rather then to grandfather Chronos (or to brother Apollo)? But will this method 'produce,' or will it like Hermes who ''beguiles endlessly the tribes of mortal men throughout the night” (Hymn 577-78) deceive us into thinking we have a result, some thing to hold on to, to take away and apply, when in fact the gain is liable to evaporate with the turning of a page or the closing of this book, leaving us empty-handed and confused? If we are deceived in this way, however, it is a taste of liminality itself and also authentically Hermetic. To be beguiled into thinking there is something solid where there are actually only mirages and insubstantial vapors resembles the experience we are trying to explore and depict. So if this is the result, it will be a true picture of liminality. When people come out of midlife liminality and think back on it, they may not believe it really happened. It has the quality of dreams.”
pages 49-53
“At midlife a person runs into a period when the liminality that is produced by external facts such as aging, loss of loved ones, or the failure to attain a dream of youthful ambition combines with the liminality that is generated internally by independently shifting intrapsychic structures, and the result is an intense and prolonged experience of liminality, one that often endures for years. At this point diachronic and synchronic liminality come together synchronistically. "Synchronism" is defined in Webster’s Third International Dictionary with an image that aptly portrays this kind of cooperation of forces: it is ''the condition of excessive rolling obtaining where a ship's rolling period is equal to the wave period or to one hall the wave period." When these two motions collide in this pattern of cooperation, the ship's natural roll becomes excessive. This is midlife liminality. Always the ship is rolling, and always some liminality is present within the psyche. Always, too, the sea is rolling: life throws up crises and failures that prove our limitations all the time. But when these two motions get together, and the force of each is great enough, they produce a degree of rolling that can reach excessive proportions. In this excessive rolling, through an intense and prolonged experience of liminality, the Hermetic attitude and the presence of Hermes are particularly welcome and valuable...
Like the unconscious itself, which in part resists being boxed into fixed temporal contexts and causal sequences but always keeps to itself a measure of freedom to float and to drift, to pass though the keyholes of the psychological shelters we construct' Hermes and liminality appear surprisingly and unexpectedly in the forms of dreams, fantasies, and synchronistic events. While Chronos-controlled consciousness seeks to fix these and box them in, Hermes and the world of liminality slip past its control Points and hasten away, remaining elusive.
Is there a more Hermetic method, then, that might be up to the job of elucidating midlife liminality, and conveying its quality and meaning? Perhaps we should free our method, like liminality frees the soul, from the strictures of systematic order and diachronic progression and move Hermetically instead by floating freely, by associative wandering, by apercu, by backtracking and rhetorical repetition, by stealth add thievery. Brainstorms, insights, lucky finds, intuitions, the play of dreams – if these are threaded together and held somewhat loosely in hand, will we not have a style that belongs to Hermes rather then to grandfather Chronos (or to brother Apollo)? But will this method 'produce,' or will it like Hermes who ''beguiles endlessly the tribes of mortal men throughout the night” (Hymn 577-78) deceive us into thinking we have a result, some thing to hold on to, to take away and apply, when in fact the gain is liable to evaporate with the turning of a page or the closing of this book, leaving us empty-handed and confused? If we are deceived in this way, however, it is a taste of liminality itself and also authentically Hermetic. To be beguiled into thinking there is something solid where there are actually only mirages and insubstantial vapors resembles the experience we are trying to explore and depict. So if this is the result, it will be a true picture of liminality. When people come out of midlife liminality and think back on it, they may not believe it really happened. It has the quality of dreams.”
Thursday, April 30, 2020
Monday, April 27, 2020
Things that Matter
The Dangling Conversation
It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.
Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.
~ by Simon & Garfunkel
It's a still life water color,
Of a now late afternoon,
As the sun shines through the curtain lace
And shadows wash the room.
And we sit and drink our coffee
Couched in our indifference,
Like shells upon the shore
You can hear the ocean roar
In the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
The borders of our lives.
And you read your Emily Dickinson,
And I my Robert Frost,
And we note our place with bookmarkers
That measure what we've lost.
Like a poem poorly written
We are verses out of rhythm,
Couplets out of rhyme,
In syncopated time
And the dangling conversation
And the superficial sighs,
Are the borders of our lives.
Yes, we speak of things that matter,
With words that must be said,
"Can analysis be worthwhile?"
"Is the theater really dead?"
And how the room is softly faded
And I only kiss your shadow,
I cannot feel your hand,
You're a stranger now unto me
Lost in the dangling conversation.
And the superficial sighs,
In the borders of our lives.
~ by Simon & Garfunkel
Frederick Wiseman - High School (1968) Extract : Simon and Garfunkel : The Dangling Conversation
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Her Own Society
The Soul Selects Her Own Society (303)
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine Majority—
Present no more—
Unmoved—she notes the Chariots—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—
I've known her—from an ample nation—
Choose One—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—
~ by Emily Dickinson
The Soul selects her own Society—
Then—shuts the Door—
To her divine Majority—
Present no more—
Unmoved—she notes the Chariots—pausing—
At her low Gate—
Unmoved—an Emperor be kneeling
Upon her Mat—
I've known her—from an ample nation—
Choose One—
Then—close the Valves of her attention—
Like Stone—
~ by Emily Dickinson
Friday, March 6, 2020
Unaswerable Questions
Under the Harvest Moon
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~ by Carl Sandburg
Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.
Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.
~ by Carl Sandburg
Saturday, February 29, 2020
Whatever's Offered
To a Child Dancing in the Wind
I
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
II
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn’d?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
I could have warned you, but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.
O you will take whatever’s offered
And dream that all the world’s a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.
~ by W.B. Yeats
I
Dance there upon the shore;
What need have you to care
For wind or water’s roar?
And tumble out your hair
That the salt drops have wet;
Being young you have not known
The fool’s triumph, nor yet
Love lost as soon as won,
Nor the best labourer dead
And all the sheaves to bind.
What need have you to dread
The monstrous crying of wind?
II
Has no one said those daring
Kind eyes should be more learn’d?
Or warned you how despairing
The moths are when they are burned,
I could have warned you, but you are young,
So we speak a different tongue.
O you will take whatever’s offered
And dream that all the world’s a friend,
Suffer as your mother suffered,
Be as broken in the end.
But I am old and you are young,
And I speak a barbarous tongue.
~ by W.B. Yeats
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
The Old Sun
Meditation
Be tranquil, O my Sorrow, and be wise.
The Evening comes, is here, for which you sought:
The Dusk, wrapping the city in disguise,
Care unto some, to others peace has brought.
Now while the sordid multitude with shame
Obeying Pleasure's whip and merciless sway,
Go gathering remorse in servile game,
Give me your hand, my Sorrow, come this way,
Far from them. See the years in ancient dress
Along the balconies of heaven press,
Smiling Regret from deepest waters rise;
Beneath an arch the old Sun goes to bed,
And like a winding-sheet across the skies,
Hear, my Beloved, hear the sweet Night tread.
~ by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Barbara Gibbs
Be tranquil, O my Sorrow, and be wise.
The Evening comes, is here, for which you sought:
The Dusk, wrapping the city in disguise,
Care unto some, to others peace has brought.
Now while the sordid multitude with shame
Obeying Pleasure's whip and merciless sway,
Go gathering remorse in servile game,
Give me your hand, my Sorrow, come this way,
Far from them. See the years in ancient dress
Along the balconies of heaven press,
Smiling Regret from deepest waters rise;
Beneath an arch the old Sun goes to bed,
And like a winding-sheet across the skies,
Hear, my Beloved, hear the sweet Night tread.
~ by Charles Baudelaire
translated by Barbara Gibbs
Friday, January 10, 2020
The Professors of Water
Whenever I Go There
Whenever I go there everything is changed
The stamps on the bandages the titles
Of the professors of water
The portrait of Glare the reasons for
The white mourning
In new rocks new insects are sitting
With the lights off
And once more I remember that the beginning
Is broken
No wonder the addresses are torn
To which I make my way eating the silence of animals
Offering snow to the darkness
Today belongs to few and tomorrow to no one
~ by W.S. Merlin
Whenever I go there everything is changed
The stamps on the bandages the titles
Of the professors of water
The portrait of Glare the reasons for
The white mourning
In new rocks new insects are sitting
With the lights off
And once more I remember that the beginning
Is broken
No wonder the addresses are torn
To which I make my way eating the silence of animals
Offering snow to the darkness
Today belongs to few and tomorrow to no one
~ by W.S. Merlin
Friday, December 27, 2019
Under a Spell
Two songs sung by Sally Ann Howes
Doll on a Music Box
What do you see? You people gazing at me
You see a doll on music box that's wound by a key
How can you tell, I'm under a spell,
I'm waiting for love's first kiss
You cannot see, how much I long to be free
Turning around on this music box that's wound by a key
Yearning... Yearning...
While I'm turning around and around
Toyland
Toyland! Toyland!
Little girl and boy land
While you dwell within it
You are ever happy then
Childhood’s joyland
Mystic, merry toyland
Once you pass its borders
You can ne’er return again
Doll on a Music Box
What do you see? You people gazing at me
You see a doll on music box that's wound by a key
How can you tell, I'm under a spell,
I'm waiting for love's first kiss
You cannot see, how much I long to be free
Turning around on this music box that's wound by a key
Yearning... Yearning...
While I'm turning around and around
Toyland
Toyland! Toyland!
Little girl and boy land
While you dwell within it
You are ever happy then
Childhood’s joyland
Mystic, merry toyland
Once you pass its borders
You can ne’er return again
Sunday, December 8, 2019
Wednesday, November 13, 2019
Wonders There
America
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
~ by Claude McKay
Although she feeds me bread of bitterness,
And sinks into my throat her tiger’s tooth,
Stealing my breath of life, I will confess
I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.
Her vigor flows like tides into my blood,
Giving me strength erect against her hate,
Her bigness sweeps my being like a flood.
Yet, as a rebel fronts a king in state,
I stand within her walls with not a shred
Of terror, malice, not a word of jeer.
Darkly I gaze into the days ahead,
And see her might and granite wonders there,
Beneath the touch of Time’s unerring hand,
Like priceless treasures sinking in the sand.
~ by Claude McKay
Memory Storage
The American Short Story (Perspective Films)
“Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Melville: Film and Text
“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” by Fitzgerald: Film and Text
“The Golden Honeymoon” by Lardner: Film and Text
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Porter: Film and Text
“Paul’s Case” by Cather: Film and Text
“Rappaccini's Daughter” by Hawthorne: Film and Text
Voices & Visions Film Series on American Poets
Elizabeth Bishop, Hart Crane, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Robert Lowell,
Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams
“Bartleby, the Scrivener” by Melville: Film and Text
“Bernice Bobs Her Hair” by Fitzgerald: Film and Text
“The Golden Honeymoon” by Lardner: Film and Text
“The Jilting of Granny Weatherall” by Porter: Film and Text
“Paul’s Case” by Cather: Film and Text
“Rappaccini's Daughter” by Hawthorne: Film and Text
Voices & Visions Film Series on American Poets
Elizabeth Bishop, Hart Crane, Emily Dickinson, T. S. Eliot, Robert Frost, Langston Hughes, Robert Lowell,
Marianne Moore, Sylvia Plath, Ezra Pound, Wallace Stevens, Walt Whitman, William Carlos Williams
Sunday, October 27, 2019
The Lively Air
The Waking
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
~ by Theodore Roethke
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.
We think by feeling. What is there to know?
I hear my being dance from ear to ear.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Of those so close beside me, which are you?
God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,
And learn by going where I have to go.
Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?
The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
Great Nature has another thing to do
To you and me; so take the lively air,
And, lovely, learn by going where to go.
This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.
What falls away is always. And is near.
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I learn by going where I have to go.
~ by Theodore Roethke
Sunday, October 6, 2019
Other Gardens
Autumn Fires
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The gray smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
~ by Robert Louis Stevenson
In the other gardens
And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
See the smoke trail!
Pleasant summer over
And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
The gray smoke towers.
Sing a song of seasons!
Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
Fires in the fall!
~ by Robert Louis Stevenson
Monday, September 23, 2019
Thursday, September 12, 2019
Saturday, August 31, 2019
Clock
The Babysitters
It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children's Island.
The sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead.
That summer we wore black glasses to hide our eyes.
We were always crying, in our spare rooms, little put-upon sisters,
In the two, huge, white, handsome houses in Swampscott.
When the sweetheart from England appeared, with her cream skin and Yardley cosmetics,
I had to sleep in the same room with the baby on a too-short cot,
And the seven-year-old wouldn't go out unless his jersey stripes
Matched the stripes of his socks.
Or it was richness! --- eleven rooms and a yacht
With a polished mahogany stair to let into the water
And a cabin boy who could decorate cakes in six-colored frosting.
But I didn't know how to cook, and babies depressed me.
Nights, I wrote in my diary spitefully, my fingers red
With triangular scorch marks from ironing tiny ruchings and puffed sleeves.
When the sporty wife and her doctor husband went on one of their cruises
They left me a borrowed maid named Ellen, "for protection,"
And a small Dalmation.
In your house, the main house, you were better off.
You had a rose garden and a guest cottage and a model apothecary shop
And a cook and a maid, and knew about the key to the bourbon.
I remember you playing "Ja-Da" in a pink piqué dress
On the game-room piano, when the "big people" were out,
And the maid smoked and shot pool under a green shaded lamp.
The cook had one walleye and couldn't sleep, she was so nervous.
On trial, from Ireland, she burned batch after batch of cookies
Till she was fired.
O what has come over us, my sister!
On that day-off the two of us cried so hard to get
We lifted a sugared ham and a pineapple from the grownups' icebox
And rented an old green boat. I rowed. You read
Aloud, cross-legged on the stern seat, from the Generation of Vipers.
So we bobbed out to the island. It was deserted ---
A gallery of creaking porches and still interiors,
Stopped and awful as a photograph of somebody laughing
But ten years dead.
The bold gulls dove as if they owned it all.
We picked up sticks of driftwood and beat them off,
Then stepped down the steep beach shelf and into the water.
We kicked and talked. The thick salt kept us up.
I see us floating there yet, inseparable--two cork dolls.
What keyhole have we slipped through, what door has shut?
The shadows of the grasses inched round like hands of a clock,
And from our opposite continents we wave and call.
Everything has happened.
~ by Sylvia Plath
It is ten years, now, since we rowed to Children's Island.
The sun flamed straight down that noon on the water off Marblehead.
That summer we wore black glasses to hide our eyes.
We were always crying, in our spare rooms, little put-upon sisters,
In the two, huge, white, handsome houses in Swampscott.
When the sweetheart from England appeared, with her cream skin and Yardley cosmetics,
I had to sleep in the same room with the baby on a too-short cot,
And the seven-year-old wouldn't go out unless his jersey stripes
Matched the stripes of his socks.
Or it was richness! --- eleven rooms and a yacht
With a polished mahogany stair to let into the water
And a cabin boy who could decorate cakes in six-colored frosting.
But I didn't know how to cook, and babies depressed me.
Nights, I wrote in my diary spitefully, my fingers red
With triangular scorch marks from ironing tiny ruchings and puffed sleeves.
When the sporty wife and her doctor husband went on one of their cruises
They left me a borrowed maid named Ellen, "for protection,"
And a small Dalmation.
In your house, the main house, you were better off.
You had a rose garden and a guest cottage and a model apothecary shop
And a cook and a maid, and knew about the key to the bourbon.
I remember you playing "Ja-Da" in a pink piqué dress
On the game-room piano, when the "big people" were out,
And the maid smoked and shot pool under a green shaded lamp.
The cook had one walleye and couldn't sleep, she was so nervous.
On trial, from Ireland, she burned batch after batch of cookies
Till she was fired.
O what has come over us, my sister!
On that day-off the two of us cried so hard to get
We lifted a sugared ham and a pineapple from the grownups' icebox
And rented an old green boat. I rowed. You read
Aloud, cross-legged on the stern seat, from the Generation of Vipers.
So we bobbed out to the island. It was deserted ---
A gallery of creaking porches and still interiors,
Stopped and awful as a photograph of somebody laughing
But ten years dead.
The bold gulls dove as if they owned it all.
We picked up sticks of driftwood and beat them off,
Then stepped down the steep beach shelf and into the water.
We kicked and talked. The thick salt kept us up.
I see us floating there yet, inseparable--two cork dolls.
What keyhole have we slipped through, what door has shut?
The shadows of the grasses inched round like hands of a clock,
And from our opposite continents we wave and call.
Everything has happened.
~ by Sylvia Plath
Thursday, August 22, 2019
Where the Chalk Wall Falls
Look, Stranger
Look, stranger, on this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.
Here at a small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the suck-
-ing surf,
And a gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.
Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands,
And this full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.
~ by W.H. Auden
Look, stranger, on this island now
The leaping light for your delight discovers,
Stand stable here
And silent be,
That through the channels of the ear
May wander like a river
The swaying sound of the sea.
Here at a small field's ending pause
Where the chalk wall falls to the foam and its tall ledges
Oppose the pluck
And knock of the tide,
And the shingle scrambles after the suck-
-ing surf,
And a gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.
Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands,
And this full view
Indeed may enter
And move in memory as now these clouds do,
That pass the harbour mirror
And all the summer through the water saunter.
~ by W.H. Auden
Sunday, July 21, 2019
Through All the Summer Weather
When the Last Long Trek is Over
When the last long trek is over,
And the last long trench filled in,
I’ll take a boat to Dover,
Away from all the din;
I’ll take a trip to Mendip,
I’ll see the Wilshire downs,
And all my soul I’ll then dip
In peace no trouble drowns.
Away from noise of battle,
Away from bombs and shells,
I’ll lie where browse the cattle,
Or pluck the purple bells.
I’ll lie among the heather,
And watch the distant plain,
Through all the summer weather,
Nor go to fight again.
~ by Alec de Candole
When the last long trek is over,
And the last long trench filled in,
I’ll take a boat to Dover,
Away from all the din;
I’ll take a trip to Mendip,
I’ll see the Wilshire downs,
And all my soul I’ll then dip
In peace no trouble drowns.
Away from noise of battle,
Away from bombs and shells,
I’ll lie where browse the cattle,
Or pluck the purple bells.
I’ll lie among the heather,
And watch the distant plain,
Through all the summer weather,
Nor go to fight again.
~ by Alec de Candole
Thursday, July 11, 2019
Sunday, June 30, 2019
In an Evening of July
A Boat Beneath a Sunny Sky
A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?
~ by Lewis Carroll
A boat beneath a sunny sky,
Lingering onward dreamily
In an evening of July —
Children three that nestle near,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Pleased a simple tale to hear —
Long has paled that sunny sky:
Echoes fade and memories die:
Autumn frosts have slain July.
Still she haunts me, phantomwise,
Alice moving under skies
Never seen by waking eyes.
Children yet, the tale to hear,
Eager eye and willing ear,
Lovingly shall nestle near.
In a Wonderland they lie,
Dreaming as the days go by,
Dreaming as the summers die:
Ever drifting down the stream —
Lingering in the golden gleam —
Life, what is it but a dream?
~ by Lewis Carroll
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Limitless
Across the Universe
Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
Are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Images of broken light
Which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
Restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe
Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
~ The Beatles
Words are flowing out
Like endless rain into a paper cup
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow waves of joy
Are drifting through my opened mind
Possessing and caressing me
Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Images of broken light
Which dance before me like a million eyes
They call me on and on across the universe
Thoughts meander like a
Restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe
Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Sounds of laughter, shades of life
Are ringing through my opened ears
Inciting and inviting me
Limitless undying love
Which shines around me like a million suns
It calls me on and on across the universe
Jai Guru Deva, Om
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Nothing's gonna change my world
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
Jai Guru Deva
~ The Beatles
Thursday, May 30, 2019
Most Real
Cybele's Reverie
Childhood is very nice
Childhood brings magic
What to do when one has done everything?
Read everything, drunk everything, eaten everything?
Given everything in truth and in detail,
When one has cried on all the rooftops,
Wept and laughed in the towns and in the country?
Childhood is the most real
The garden of new visions
The house, the house, of other times
The house, the house that we have left
And the silence
That penetrates me
Cybele's Reverie
Matières sensuelles et sans suite
L'enfance est plus sympathique
L'enfance apporte le magique
Que faire quand on a tout fait
Tout lu tout bu tout mangé
Tout donné en vrac et en détail
Quand on a crié sur tous les toits
Pleuré et ri dans les villes et en campagne
L'enfance est plus authentique
Le jardin au haut portique
Les pierres, les arbres, les murs, racontent
La maison la maison d'autrefois
La maison la maison à venir
Et le silence
Me pénétrera
~ Stereolab
Childhood is very nice
Childhood brings magic
What to do when one has done everything?
Read everything, drunk everything, eaten everything?
Given everything in truth and in detail,
When one has cried on all the rooftops,
Wept and laughed in the towns and in the country?
Childhood is the most real
The garden of new visions
The house, the house, of other times
The house, the house that we have left
And the silence
That penetrates me
Cybele's Reverie
Matières sensuelles et sans suite
L'enfance est plus sympathique
L'enfance apporte le magique
Que faire quand on a tout fait
Tout lu tout bu tout mangé
Tout donné en vrac et en détail
Quand on a crié sur tous les toits
Pleuré et ri dans les villes et en campagne
L'enfance est plus authentique
Le jardin au haut portique
Les pierres, les arbres, les murs, racontent
La maison la maison d'autrefois
La maison la maison à venir
Et le silence
Me pénétrera
~ Stereolab
Wednesday, May 15, 2019
Picture Sequence
Childhood
It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely -and why?
We’re still reminded-: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on
as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.
And became as lonely as a shepherd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.
~ by Rainer Maria Rilke
It would be good to give much thought, before
you try to find words for something so lost,
for those long childhood afternoons you knew
that vanished so completely -and why?
We’re still reminded-: sometimes by a rain,
but we can no longer say what it means;
life was never again so filled with meeting,
with reunion and with passing on
as back then, when nothing happened to us
except what happens to things and creatures:
we lived their world as something human,
and became filled to the brim with figures.
And became as lonely as a shepherd
and as overburdened by vast distances,
and summoned and stirred as from far away,
and slowly, like a long new thread,
introduced into that picture-sequence
where now having to go on bewilders us.
~ by Rainer Maria Rilke
Tuesday, April 30, 2019
Blossoms Now
An Adieu
Sorrow, quit me for a while!
Wintry days are over;
Hope again, with April smile,
Violets sows and clover.
Pleasure follows in her path,
Love itself flies after,
And the brook a music hath
Sweet as childhood’s laughter.
Not a bird upon the bough
Can repress its rapture,
Not a bud that blossoms now
But doth beauty capture.
Sorrow, thou art Winter’s mate,
Spring cannot regret thee;
Yet, ah, yet—my friend of late—
I shall not forget thee!
~ Florence Earle Coates
Sorrow, quit me for a while!
Wintry days are over;
Hope again, with April smile,
Violets sows and clover.
Pleasure follows in her path,
Love itself flies after,
And the brook a music hath
Sweet as childhood’s laughter.
Not a bird upon the bough
Can repress its rapture,
Not a bud that blossoms now
But doth beauty capture.
Sorrow, thou art Winter’s mate,
Spring cannot regret thee;
Yet, ah, yet—my friend of late—
I shall not forget thee!
~ Florence Earle Coates
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
When in April
April Come She Will
April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June she'll change her tune
In restless walks she'll prowl the night
July she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September I remember
A love once new has now grown old
~ by Paul Simon
April come she will
When streams are ripe and swelled with rain
May she will stay
Resting in my arms again
June she'll change her tune
In restless walks she'll prowl the night
July she will fly
And give no warning to her flight
August die she must
The autumn winds blow chilly and cold
September I remember
A love once new has now grown old
~ by Paul Simon
Sunday, March 24, 2019
Time's Scythe
Sonnet XII
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
~ William Shakespeare
When I do count the clock that tells the time,
And see the brave day sunk in hideous night;
When I behold the violet past prime,
And sable curls, all silvered o'er with white;
When lofty trees I see barren of leaves,
Which erst from heat did canopy the herd,
And summer's green all girded up in sheaves,
Borne on the bier with white and bristly beard,
Then of thy beauty do I question make,
That thou among the wastes of time must go,
Since sweets and beauties do themselves forsake
And die as fast as they see others grow;
And nothing 'gainst Time's scythe can make defence
Save breed, to brave him when he takes thee hence.
~ William Shakespeare
Sunday, March 10, 2019
Twilight Hour
Early March
March having come this year mild, hazy-skied and calm,
With hill-top airs from northward breathing frost-like smell,
I dawdle along the lane that leads to Sundial Farm.
Beguilements (which my middle-age can't yet dispel)
Steal into me. Rejuvenescence works its charm.
Designlessly in love with life unlived, I go
Content with the mere fact that fields are drying fast
And tiny beads of bud along the hedge foreshow
The blackthorn winter that will come too late to last.
Beyond that bare untidy orchard, now and then,
One thrush half tells how in the twilight hour he'll sing
To no one but himself his wild belief in spring
Meanwhile I'm thankful for this almost dusty road,
Celandine's lowly gold, and daylight lengthening when
The winterbournes, like time, past February have flowed.
~ by Siegfried Sassoon
March having come this year mild, hazy-skied and calm,
With hill-top airs from northward breathing frost-like smell,
I dawdle along the lane that leads to Sundial Farm.
Beguilements (which my middle-age can't yet dispel)
Steal into me. Rejuvenescence works its charm.
Designlessly in love with life unlived, I go
Content with the mere fact that fields are drying fast
And tiny beads of bud along the hedge foreshow
The blackthorn winter that will come too late to last.
Beyond that bare untidy orchard, now and then,
One thrush half tells how in the twilight hour he'll sing
To no one but himself his wild belief in spring
Meanwhile I'm thankful for this almost dusty road,
Celandine's lowly gold, and daylight lengthening when
The winterbournes, like time, past February have flowed.
~ by Siegfried Sassoon
Wednesday, December 19, 2018
Poetry Matters
Tell all the truth but tell it slant,
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise;
As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.
~ by Emily Dickinson
Success in circuit lies,
Too bright for our infirm delight
The truth's superb surprise;
As lightning to the children eased
With explanation kind,
The truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind.
~ by Emily Dickinson
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)