Monthly Archives: March 2011

Poems from You… So far… please join…

Home, Poems 31/03/2011 1 Comment
The Love song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T.S. Eliot
S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats 5
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
Streets that follow like a tedious argument
Of insidious intent
To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
Let us go and make our visit.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go 35
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
[They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
[They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
Do I dare 45
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
For I have known them all already, known them all:—
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
I know the voices dying with a dying fall
Beneath the music from a farther room.
So how should I presume?
And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
Then how should I begin
To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
And how should I presume?
And I have known the arms already, known them all—
Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
[But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
It is perfume from a dress 65
That makes me so digress?
Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
And should I then presume?
And how should I begin?
.      .      .      .      .
Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
I should have been a pair of ragged claws
Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
.      .      .      .      .
And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
Smoothed by long fingers,
Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
And in short, I was afraid.
And would it have been worth it, after all,
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
Would it have been worth while, 90
To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
To have squeezed the universe into a ball
To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
If one, settling a pillow by her head,
Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
That is not it, at all.”
And would it have been worth it, after all,
Would it have been worth while, 100
After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
And this, and so much more?—
It is impossible to say just what I mean!
But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
Would it have been worth while
If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
And turning toward the window, should say:
“That is not it at all,
That is not what I meant, at all.”
.      .      .      .      .		 110
No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
Am an attendant lord, one that will do
To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
Almost, at times, the Fool.
I grow old … I grow old … 120
I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me. 125
I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
When the wind blows the water white and black.
We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
TOUCHED BY AN ANGEL
By Maya Angelou 

We, unaccustomed to courage
exiles from delight
live coiled in shells of loneliness
until love leaves its high holy temple
and comes into our sight
to liberate us into life.

Love arrives
and in its train come ecstasies
old memories of pleasure
ancient histories of pain.
Yet if we are bold,
love strikes away the chains of fear
from our souls.

We are weaned from our timidity
In the flush of love’s light
we dare be brave
And suddenly we see
that love costs all we are
and will ever be.
Yet it is only love
which sets us free.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest  began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 – March, 1918

Seascape by W. H. Auden

Look, stranger, at 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 the 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 the gull lodges
A moment on its sheer side.

Far off like floating seeds the ships
Diverge on urgent voluntary errands;
And the 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.

The Leaden Echo and the Golden Echo by Gerard Manley Hopkins

THE LEADEN ECHO

HOW to kéep—is there ány any, is there none such, nowhere known some, bow or brooch or braid or brace, láce, latch or catch or key to keep
Back beauty, keep it, beauty, beauty, beauty, … from vanishing away?
Ó is there no frowning of these wrinkles, rankéd wrinkles deep,
Dówn? no waving off of these most mournful messengers, still messengers, sad and stealing messengers of grey?
No there ’s none, there ’s none, O no there ’s none, 5
Nor can you long be, what you now are, called fair,
Do what you may do, what, do what you may,
And wisdom is early to despair:
Be beginning; since, no, nothing can be done
To keep at bay 10
Age and age’s evils, hoar hair,
Ruck and wrinkle, drooping, dying, death’s worst, winding sheets, tombs and worms and tumbling to decay;
So be beginning, be beginning to despair.
O there ’s none; no no no there ’s none:
Be beginning to despair, to despair, 15
Despair, despair, despair, despair. 

 
THE GOLDEN ECHO

Spare!
There ís one, yes I have one (Hush there!);
Only not within seeing of the sun,
Not within the singeing of the strong sun, 20
Tall sun’s tingeing, or treacherous the tainting of the earth’s air,
Somewhere elsewhere there is ah well where! one,
Oné. Yes I can tell such a key, I do know such a place,
Where whatever’s prized and passes of us, everything that ’s fresh and fast flying of us, seems to us sweet of us and swiftly away with, done away with, undone,
Undone, done with, soon done with, and yet dearly and dangerously sweet 25
Of us, the wimpled-water-dimpled, not-by-morning-matchèd face,
The flower of beauty, fleece of beauty, too too apt to, ah! to fleet,
Never fleets móre, fastened with the tenderest truth
To its own best being and its loveliness of youth: it is an everlastingness of, O it is an all youth!
Come then, your ways and airs and looks, locks, maiden gear, gallantry and gaiety and grace, 30
Winning ways, airs innocent, maiden manners, sweet looks, loose locks, long locks, lovelocks, gaygear, going gallant, girlgrace—
Resign them, sign them, seal them, send them, motion them with breath,
And with sighs soaring, soaring síghs deliver
Them; beauty-in-the-ghost, deliver it, early now, long before death
Give beauty back, beauty, beauty, beauty, back to God, beauty’s self and beauty’s giver. 35
See; not a hair is, not an eyelash, not the least lash lost; every hair
Is, hair of the head, numbered.
Nay, what we had lighthanded left in surly the mere mould
Will have waked and have waxed and have walked with the wind what while we slept,
This side, that side hurling a heavyheaded hundredfold 40
What while we, while we slumbered.
O then, weary then why
When the thing we freely fórfeit is kept with fonder a care,
Fonder a care kept than we could have kept it, kept
Far with fonder a care (and we, we should have lost it) finer, fonder 45
A care kept.—Where kept? Do but tell us where kept, where.—
Yonder.—What high as that! We follow, now we follow.—Yonder, yes yonder, yonder,
Yonder.

29th March 2011

Home 29/03/2011 Comments: 17

Ok… so… I would like to do a survey… and I would like all you hundred or so bloggers who read me every day, whoever you are, to partake… Please???

The Orange Prize for Fiction is doing this:

http://newsroom.orange.co.uk/2011/01/21/orange-partners-with-vintage-classics-to-create-orange-inheritance-collection/

Which novel would you pass on to the next generation?

My choice… ( I will probably change mine many times as I’m a flighty madam…) is:

Anne Patchett- Bel Canto

There you go…

I look forward to your suggestions.

Maybe we should do another for pomes… Yes… very good idea.

Ooh I’ll need to think about that one!

Ok… my pome choice-

T.S. Eliot- The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock

PS Can anyone translate the Italian- (I Think it’s Italian…) And I don’t mean Bel Canto- I mean the Italian Stanza (no- not the Italian Stallion!) at the beginning of the pome… :)

28th March 2011

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Jesca Hoop- City Bird

Chris Tye- Electric Tracks

Went along to Jesca Hoop at the Birmingham Glee Club last night. Antonia drove so I consumed vast quantities of pinot grigio… well, it would have been rude not to!

I enjoyed it very much. The support was pretty good too- Chris Tye. Check them out. I’ll let their music speak for itself. Besides I’m bloody knackered, have had a migraine style head on me all day and this morning underwent (and paid for… ) three hours of emotional turmoil at the hands of my life coach…

My new mantra-

[I deserve it... I do not need to ask for permission... what other people think of me is none of my business....]

Apparently if I say it often enough I’ll start to believe it. So…
If you see me walking down the street [and I start to cry, each time we meet,] and I’m talking to myself, worry not, just walk on by, I’ll be mumbling my way through my mantra :)

Last of Performance Poetry this evening. It’s been a really good course and I’ve written a lot of stuff because of it. I still have several more half finished Po’s (or are they em’s) hanging around my notebook… Watch this space.

A Certainty.

Poems 28/03/2011 Comments: 4

The last of the performance poetry…

When life becomes chaos, a jangle
of rushing and noise, I take myself there
back to the square, you and me, a certainty.
 

I wait for you, know you will come,
watch the painted sky, lilac brush,
vermillion wash, luminance above.
 

I wait for you, know you will come,
hear the swoosh and twitter of swifts, 
an accordian, the chink of ice on glass.
 

I wait for you, know you will come,
smell oregano, oven fresh focaccia,
your citrus cologne as you lean in.
 

I wait for you, know you will come,
taste pungent olives, chillies burn my tongue,
desire the cool solace of your mouth.
 

I wait for you, know you will come,
feel dusk settle on my shoulders, a warm cloak,
wait for you to move from my nape through my hair.
 

Now you are gone, but then you came,
knowing has grown to hope over time.
Perhaps one day I will again know a certainty.

Did She?

Poems 28/03/2011 1 Comment

Another inspired by one of Jean Binta Breeze’s classes…

 

Did she spend years as an art school student

working her arse off in bars for peanuts

just to be called an overhead?

Part of a process with a price on her forehead,

a cost to be slashed, a dream to be thwarted,

reduced to nothing but a figure in a column

of a cashflow forecast?

 

Did she spend years learning her trade

working her arse off for the company’s gain

just to be called an overhead?

Trawling through markets in down at heel countries,

staring at faces in sweat shop factories,

ending up the wrong side of value added

in a consultants report?

 

Did she spend years as an overtime scivvy

working her arse off forgetting life’s for living

just to be called an overhead?

Neglecting relationships lost for conversation,

forgetting birthdays, warning sign oblivion,

no more than a statistic in the new divorce figures

down the registry office?

 

Did she spend years sacrificing home life

working her arse off to repay the mortgage

just to be called an overhead?

Missing nativities and sports day contests,

good night kisses and family breakfasts

to end up a name on the redundancy list

in the minutes of the AGM?

 

27th March 2011

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Rutland Water... bench with wilted flowers... rather poignant

Thank Goodness for iPod’s having a brain I say… Clocks going forward is always a dastardly thing to remember but clever phone did it by itself so we didn’t sleep in… Hoorah!

I had to take Jules and Ferg back to Oakham this morning for an all-day sponsored football tournament to raise money for their house charity, so took the opportunity to walk the dogs at Rutland water. I parked up in Hambleton village and we had a delightful two hour stroll. It was a fresh, misty, moisty  morning and the water was as calm as a sheet of beaten steel, geese, swans and ducks causing the only ripples on it’s otherwise mirror perfect surface.

I heard last week I was to receive an unexpected and not insubstantial refund from the water board from our old house so I decided to use the money to buy something lovely rather than just allow it to be absorbed into the general living fund… I went to an exhibition in Oakham yesterday and found two lovely pieces of art. One is a nude by Scott Bridgwood and the other a ceramic sculpture by Jan Burridge. I’m very excited by them both and they are now both happily ensconced in my house. They are very happy in their new surroundings… I can tell.

This is what I bought:

Urban Nude

http://www.scottbridgwood.daportfolio.com

Scotts paintings have a gorgeous sensuousness about them and his sense of colour and tone is wonderful. I particularly love the way the background isn’t- the figure and the ground work together as one and become unified through colour, texture, light. She is firmly rooted in her surroundings and they work together in harmony. I also love the colour echoes both on the figure and in the ground. The spectrum opposite aqua and tangerine contrasting but never jarring. Lovely, lovely. Happy Lindsay.

 

Holding the Baby

http://www.janburridge.co.uk

Jan Burridge’s ceramic sculptures are inspired by Staffordshire Figures and English Pew Groups and have a gorgeous naive, folkloric quality about them. They are individually hand-built using stoneware clay and fired in oxidation to 1200 degrees centigrade then hand burnished. They have a sense of humour too, I think, and are very charming. There were two that I liked most, this one and another called ‘It’s a family affair’ of a mother, a father and a baby. Yesterday, after lengthy discussions with Jan and her husband over which I preffered I chose The Family- this being the dream, the single mum ‘Holding the Baby’ the reality. Last night I realised I didn’t want the dream, I wanted the reality so today when I went to collect it I asked if I could swap. Jan obliged and I am now very happy with my choice. Plus I really like the small seagull sitting on mothers head. It signifies to me a bird brain which seems quite apt…

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