Some Favored Message Artists

I love it when my eyes act up.

Having a Ulysses kind of day, I recalled a post of the same title, here on the imitable elle est belle la seine la seine elle est belle.                                                                                                                                                                                 (Yes, I've reached the end of all things new, and am having to repeat the various endings of the interwebs.)

Yes, it was a jaw-drop of a coincidence to see that this previous post had been writ almost two years ago to this day, excepting and accepting the six day gap!  O, synchrony!

I doubt that anyone else in the history of reading typeface has confounded "perils" -- a good, solid,
Ulyssean, er, Odyssean poetic word -- with "penile," and did not miss a beat, a meter, a sound, a meaning!

But what really launched my ship?

The comment section!  

Honorable mention, with a musical interlude midway through the sonorous reading of the citation, goes to the belovèd TW and his learnèd reference to tumblr's #whatshouldwecallpoets.

But she who takes the cake is Mary and a rant that you can tell will never be totally excised from her system.  My assumption -- go ahead, buffoons, and snicker! -- is that Mary's reaction was born, not of Odysseus and Merwin, but of  Anaphylaxis, Ulysses, and Tennyson, for Mary is of the Isles, and therefore inopportunely allergic to pretense. 

Should she be reading THIS post, she's likely absented herself briefly for a go at a cuppa tea, despite her disabling stiff upper lip, as she waits, as patient as Penelope, for her emergency epinephrine injection to work...

Hoping Mary will again join us, and repeating the promise of a freshly-made-up guest suite here at Marlinspike Hall, decorated in her obvious preference for Victorian shabby chic!  (I learned that on my final whirl around the internet, at Pinterest!)

emmaroydsSeptember 15, 2012 at 3:05 AM

I love poetry, although I must admit my taste is not as classical as yours. I like the English poets, Wordsworth's "Daffodils" Betjeman's "A Subaltern's Love Song" are 2 of my favourites, mostly because they are about places I know very well. The children had to learn a poem over the weekend when they were 8, which pi**ed me off considerably as I worked full time. I had more than enough to do in my free time than teach little children in my down time. So each child recited to the school on the Monday morning, Spike Milligan's (do you know him, a British legend) poem here copied in full.
They don't have any stones,
they don't have any pips,
they don't have any bones and that's why I like chips.

Regards,
Mary

And so now, today, a whole six days in advance of the anniversary of the post, and seven days before Mary's own comment (the account may settle if we take heed of the time differential), here are Betjeman's "A Subaltern's Love Song," and Wordsworth's "Daffodils," neither used with Anyone's Permission.

 A Subaltern's Love Song

 Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn,
 Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun,
 What strenuous singles we played after tea,
 We in the tournament - you against me!

 Love-thirty, love-forty, oh! weakness of joy,
 The speed of a swallow, the grace of a boy,
 With carefullest carelessness, gaily you won,
 I am weak from your loveliness, Joan Hunter Dunn.

 Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
 How mad I am, sad I am, glad that you won,
 The warm-handled racket is back in its press,
 But my shock-headed victor, she loves me no less.

 Her father's euonymus shines as we walk,
 And swing past the summer-house, buried in talk,
 And cool the verandah that welcomes us in
 To the six-o'clock news and a lime-juice and gin.

 The scent of the conifers, sound of the bath,
 The view from my bedroom of moss-dappled path,
 As I struggle with double-end evening tie,
 For we dance at the Golf Club, my victor and I.

 On the floor of her bedroom lie blazer and shorts,
 And the cream-coloured walls are be-trophied with sports,
 And westering, questioning settles the sun,
 On your low-leaded window, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

 The Hillman is waiting, the light's in the hall,
 The pictures of Egypt are bright on the wall,
 My sweet, I am standing beside the oak stair
 And there on the landing's the light on your hair.

 By roads "not adopted", by woodlanded ways,
 She drove to the club in the late summer haze,
 Into nine-o'clock Camberley, heavy with bells
 And mushroomy, pine-woody, evergreen smells.

 Miss Joan Hunter Dunn, Miss Joan Hunter Dunn,
 I can hear from the car park the dance has begun,
 Oh! Surrey twilight! importunate band!
 Oh! strongly adorable tennis-girl's hand!

 Around us are Rovers and Austins afar,
 Above us the intimate roof of the car,
 And here on my right is the girl of my choice,
 With the tilt of her nose and the chime of her voice.

 And the scent of her wrap, and the words never said,
 And the ominous, ominous dancing ahead.
 We sat in the car park till twenty to one
 And now I'm engaged to Miss Joan Hunter Dunn.

-- John Betjeman

******************************************************************

DAFFODILS 

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils. 

--William Wordsworth


And, to honor the Honorable Mentioner, a choice at true random from Tumblr's #whatshouldwecallpoets:

How I feel when readings insist on live music in the middle

* a tip o'the hat to all of y'all (my mixed medium contribution to today's art)!


© 2013 L. Ryan

Merwinism

Thanks
by W. S. Merwin


Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
smiling by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
our lost feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is

"Always the setting forth was the same..."

What a beautiful morning. We had a rosy-fingered dawn that followed on the heels of a refreshing shower. Never mind that in a few hours, oppressive humid heat will descend on all of Tête de Hergé, and will force the inhabitants of Marlinspike Hall to seek the cool darkness of our various cellars.

The Odyssey is home to "the rosy-fingered dawn," when Nector "left his couch," and Menelaus "bound his sandals to his comely feet."

When the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn, looses its tight fist, it is time to light the fire, milk the goats and ewes. It is precious reading; It is Homer's trope:

"[T]he child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn..."

I would prefer to sleep than to witness every sunrise, with its finely tapered digits and gleaming buffed nails that pinch and grab, coerce.

Yes, I would like to rest right through the cusp, there where "the child of morning, rosy-fingered Dawn made love to Orion..."

When all is said and done, and Ulysses is home, and Penelope's patience rewarded, Minerva both holds back the night and hinders the morning; She plunges Dawn deep down in Oceanus until the couple has had time to trace the outlines of their stories and prepare to part again.

[Do you know W. S. Merwin's poem Odysseus? Lovely.]

It's been hours now. The bones hurt, various appendages swell. The headache won't quit. No fever yet, though, and there is ice cream for breakfast -- sugar and fat free.

Uncle Kitty Big Balls rules the roost, as I predicted he would. He's a gentle tyrant but easily the most obstinate creature I've ever encountered. His world view is fairly simple: he wants what he wants when he wants it.

He has a propensity for Left Shoulder Flops with Triple Twists O'er the Mouth -- getting high points for Degree of Difficulty. That is, he won't stay off of my left wing -- and he loves to cover one's face with a big old mouthful of ragged sheared fur.

We are hoping he will start to gain weight now that his acute ills have mended. He is happy and strong, but still so thin and bony that he is at risk for falling over with a simple butt tap. Roughhousing is however he defines it...

But what a gentle soul! We continue to marvel at his good nature after all this time on the street.

There was a brief and ineffective uprising against him two days ago -- hissing and scratching. The result? Tufts of hair all over the living room and one weeping eye on Marmy.

And world peace.

[Stan Fields: What is the one most important thing our society needs?

Gracie Hart: That would be... harsher punishment for parole violators, Stan.

Gracie Hart: And world peace!]

Ach. I have to give in to the discomfort for a bit. Maybe grab a few minutes of sleep. Rest.

"Alas," he cried to himself in his dismay, "what ever will become of
me, and how is it all to end? If I stay here upon the river bed through
the long watches of the night, I am so exhausted that the bitter cold
and damp may make an end of me- for towards sunrise there will be
a keen wind blowing from off the river. If, on the other hand, I climb
the hill side, find shelter in the woods, and sleep in some thicket, I
may escape the cold and have a good night's rest, but some savage
beast may take advantage of me and devour me."

In the end he deemed it best to take to the woods, and he found one
upon some high ground not far from the water. There he crept beneath
two shoots of olive that grew from a single stock- the one an
ungrafted sucker, while the other had been grafted. No wind, however
squally, could break through the cover they afforded, nor could
the sun's rays pierce them, nor the rain get through them, so closely
did they grow into one another. Ulysses crept under these and began
to make himself a bed to lie on, for there was a great litter of dead
leaves lying about- enough to make a covering for two or three men
even in hard winter weather. He was glad enough to see this, so he
laid himself down and heaped the leaves all round him. Then, as one
who lives alone in the country, far from any neighbor, hides a brand
as fire-seed in the ashes to save himself from having to get a light
elsewhere, even so did Ulysses cover himself up with leaves; and
Minerva shed a sweet sleep upon his eyes, closed his eyelids, and
made him lose all memories of his sorrows.

Unraveling Patience::Persistence Is On My Mind

Odysseus
W. S. Merwin (1927- )
For George Kirstein

Always the setting forth was the same,
Same sea, same dangers waiting for him
As though he had got nowhere but older.
Behind him on the receding shore

The identical reproaches and somewhere
Out before him, the unraveling patience

He was wedded to. There were the islands
Each with its woman and twining welcome
To be navigated, and one to call "home."
The knowledge of all that he betrayed
Grew till it was the same whether he stayed
Or went. Therefore he went. And what wonder
If sometimes he could not remember
Which was the one who wished on his departure
Perils that he could never sail through,
And which, improbable, remote, and true,
Was the one he kept sailing home to?