Pooh Bear and Hindu Philosophy
It was a fine early Spring morning, and in the Forest the Animals were busy Being Themselves, and doing all the things that Being Oneself involves.
Pooh had had a Being Myself morning, sorting out the hunny jars and wondering if two half-full jars were really quite the same as one full jar, or really quite different; and why a half-full jar looked quite different from a half-empty jar..
But now this afternoon the Boy and his Bear are walking down the path towards the Poohsticks bridge, and the path is feeling Springy too, with its dry leaves and twigs and beech mast like the bouncy mattress in CR’s nursery, as if they were saying ‘yes, we are here too! ’
‘CR..’ said Pooh, holding CR’s hand rather tight as he did when a Big Thought was hovering like a bee who hasn’t quite make its mind up whether to land here or move on somewhere else, ‘what’s Ah-Dwy-Ter? ’
‘Well Pooh..’ said CR slowly, wanting to answer but not wanting to confuse a Bear of Very Little Brain who was also Beloved Bear…
‘There’s Dwy-ter and Ah-dwy-ter… Dwy-ter means sort of Two to Indians, and Ah-dwy-ter means Not Two…’
There was a long pause, while Spring went on springing, and the bee in Pooh’s brain did another circle because it sensed that there was more hunny somewhere in this flowerbed than had yet called attention to itself.
‘So it’s like, when it’s a stormy day and we shan’t see each other, and I feel saddish and Not One… and then at lunchtime the clouds clear and you come along and I’m happy to see you…and I feel that you and I are really Not Two when we’re together…? ’
‘Something like that, Pooh’ said CR. ‘Because, if someone were coming up this path towards us right now, they might say ‘Oh look, there’s the two of them…’ But we should know it’s not really like that…’
And a warm happy feeling spread from Pooh’s feet walking on the bouncy Spring path, up to the tip of his nose and the edges of his ears that CR liked to stroke when he ran out of words.
Now Pooh knew another Very Important Word which wasn’t as big close up as it was in the distance, and knew exackly the difference between One and Not Two and how, to those who really understand these things, one and one can make a Not Two sort of One...
Pooh squeezed CR’s hand like people do who are Not Two, and CR looked down affectionately at Beloved Bear as they walked down the Springy path in the sunshine, and the sky seemed glad to have rained, but happy not to be raining now:
‘Silly old Pooh…’
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Related quotes
Hoostay Moonookay Pooh Pooh
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay...
Me say lemonade.
(hoostay moonookay,
pooh pooh)
Is okay.
(hoostay moonookay,
pooh pooh)
To sip in Summer.
(hoostay moonookay,
pooh pooh)
As I drift under tree shade!
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay...
And I may...
(hoostay moonookay,
pooh pooh)
Lay all day.
(hoostay moonookay,
pooh pooh)
Free of drama.
(hoostay moonookay,
pooh pooh)
And being lazy that way!
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay moonookay,
Pooh pooh.
Hoostay...
And I may...
Reach for peaches.
Getting tanned...
On the beach.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Pooh Bear learns about Enjambment
Pooh liked Autumn. Autumn means walking with a scarf round your neck and sometimes seeing your breath in the air like a silent conversation, and wet leaves underfoot and twigs going crackle or sometimes crack! which can be scary if you aren't holding CR's hand.
So here they are, walking together paw-in-hand down the path in Hundred-Acre Wood, and Pooh is humming a happy hum with words looking for it, rather like inquisitive flies that don't quite land on you, wondering if they should stay or not, and how the other flies feel if two of them land together...
'CR..' said Pooh, 'What's en-jamb-ment? ' It sounded like what happens when a wasp gets stuck in a honey jar, or perhaps a marmalade jar.
'That's a long word, Pooh...' said CR, wondering how to explain to a Bear Of Little Brain Yet Poetically Gifted, in the easiest way, when you're not too sure yourself...
'Well...' said CR at last, 'you don't really need it, Pooh, because your Hums all finish each line with a rhyme - so everyone knows just where they are....but suppose you get to the end of a line, and the line looks around like Eeyore does after a big mouthful of juicy autumn grass, and it can't see another line that wants to pair with it in a friendly rhyme.... then if you let it just go on being by itself - like Eeyore - and it's happy to be that way, if occasionally grumbly about it - that's called 'free verse'.
'So then you can just go on and on without thinking about when to stop... but then if you write it down so that other people can read it without getting out of breath, what 'free verse poets' do is like turning over the page of a book and wondering what's coming - like, is there a scary illustration on the next page, or a Surprise, or only a few lines and THE END - what these poets do, is to treat the lines the same way as pages, so that at the end of each line, you wonder a little bit more than usual, what's coming in the next line... instead of yawning and wondering if it's time for A Little Something...'
'I see..' said Pooh, in the way you do when you're a Very Polite Bear but don't really see, not yet anyway...
Then he remembered that poem by Rupert Somebody that CR had told him was an Extended Metaphor, which had that memorable line which the Poetic Bear could have written himself: '...and is there hunny still for tea? ...' though of course Pooh was always careful, himself, to have a line of hunnypots up there where you could see that the future was golden and hunny-coloured...
'CR...' said Pooh in that happy feeling when the brain seems to sorting things out for you, '...so if you wrote carefully in a book, '... and is there hunny still for tea? ...' you could write it with the first line
...and is there...
and people would wonder what you were going to ask them... or
...and is there hunny...
and they'd wonder, what you were asking about hunny; or
... and is there hunny still...
and they might be suddenly worried that the hunny had run out; or just
...and is there hunny still for tea?
which tells them exactly what you're thinking without making them think too much? '
'Exactly! ' said CR (though it sounded more 'exackly' because he was happy and excited) ' You really are a Poetic Bear, Pooh! '
And he squeezed Pooh's paw in a Specially Friendly fashion, and a hunny-coloured glow filled Pooh, as one more Useful Thing about Poetry was put into place...
And as they returned home for a Little Something, Pooh was humming a hum with words flying curiously around it, which would be his first Free Verse Hum With Enjambment which grown-up poets would read with that little extra interest, as they came to the end of each line, and know that it was written by W.Edward Bear Esquire, Poet...
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Metaphors, Similes and stuff - Pooh Bear Explains
Christopher Robin and Pooh walked slowly down the path in the woods, treading on the occasional crackly twig.
'CR...' said Pooh, 'What's a Poeh Tree? Is it the same as a Poem, or a hum? '
'Well, Pooh, the very very best Poeh Tree in the world is your own:
'Isn't it funny
how bears like hunny?
It's what I call rum-ti-tum-itry. Everyone likes rum-ti-tum-itry. Even grown-ups. Rum-ti-tum-itry is friendly. Rum-ti-tum-itry is like two friends walking together. Like you and me, Pooh. Which makes you the very best rum-ti-tum-iter in the world...'
'That's tum as in...? ' asked the Very Stout Bear, cautiously.
'As in a Hum' said Christopher Robin. 'But then there's other things in Poetry such as Truth, and Other People Reading It And Nodding. And Similes. And Metaphors. There's a lot in Poetry.'
'What's a Simile, CR? ' asked Pooh. It sounded like what bees said just before they landed on something, like a hunny jar, or Pooh's nose.
'It's when you say something is like something else, to help people imagine it.' said CR.
Pooh had a Think. A Pondery sort of Think.
'Like perhaps - 'happiness is like hunny'? ' asked Pooh tentatively. He suddenly felt very five-to-four-ish at this Thought.
'That's exactly it, Pooh' said Christopher Robin happily. 'Or even sometimes the other way around! '
Pooh felt warm inside - almost like after eating honey - knowing now that a Simile wasn't a threat any more. 'What's a Metaphor, CR? '
'That's rather more difficult, Pooh. It's when you say something is something else, and people know what you mean somehow, and say 'Aha! ' and nod their heads...
Pooh had a longer, Pondery sort of Think.
'Like... teatime means honey? ' he offered hesitantly. Though he knew this was Truth and Other People Nodding, anyway.
'Something like that' said Christopher Robin. 'And then...' he said carefully, in case it was a bit too much for Beloved Bear for one day, but wanting to tell him all the same, 'there's the Extended Metaphor - which I think you might like, Pooh...' (he said hastily In Case) - 'like in a poem by Rupert Brooke, where he says 'Is there hunny still for tea? ' but what he really means is, he's a long way from home and can't get back in time for tea, and feels rather sorry about it...'
'I see...' said Pooh, thoughtfully - like people do who Don't Quite, but like to be polite...
Pooh decided there and then that the Poeh Tree was worth finding, now that he knew three things about it or was it four? It called for an Expedishun.
'Can you talk Poeh Tree, CR? Is it like what we are talking now?
'I think that's called a Prose Poem, Pooh' said Christopher Robin.
*
It was getting near to what Metaphoric Poets like Edward Bear call Time for a Little Something. Christopher Robin and Pooh turned and walked back slowly, the silence broken now and then by a crackly twig just waiting to be trodden on.
Pooh held Christopher's hand tight, as he was doing a lot of Poetic Thinking. He was wondering how anyone could be so far away from home that they couldn't get back home for tea. And worse, not knowing whether there was hunny in the cupboard or not...
But then he had a little five-to-fourish Hum, when he remembered that there was indeed hunny still for tea...
[...] Read more
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Us Two
Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
Whatever I do, he wants to do,
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well, that's very odd 'cos I was too.
Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh.
"What's twice eleven?" I said to Pooh.
("Twice what?" said Pooh to Me.)
"I think it ought to be twenty-two."
"Just what I think myself," said Pooh.
"It wasn't an easy sum to do,
But that's what it is," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what it is," said Pooh.
"Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh.
"Yes, let's," said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few-
"Yes, those are dragons all right," said Pooh.
"As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
That's what they are," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what they are," said Pooh.
"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh.
"That's right," said Pooh to Me.
"I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh,
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!"- and off they flew.
"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh, said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."
So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said: "True,
It isn't much fun for One, but Two,
Can stick together, says Pooh, says he. "That's how it is," says Pooh.
poem by Alan Alexander Milne
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Sumthin' Othuh Than Yo' Nah-Stay
Gimme sumthin' othuh than yo' nah-stay.
'Cause yo' pooh-pooh sicks a doo-doo,
And yo' doo-doo reeks a pooh-pooh.
Gimme sumthin' othuh than yo' nah-stay.
'Cause yo' pooh-pooh sicks a doo-doo,
And yo' doo-doo reeks a pooh-pooh.
I want something lifting to a higher degree.
'Cause yo' pooh-pooh sicks a doo-doo,
And yo' doo-doo reeks a pooh-pooh.
I want something lifting to a higher degree.
'Cause yo' pooh-pooh sicks a doo-doo,
And yo' doo-doo reeks a pooh-pooh.
Gimme sumthin' othuh than yo' nah-stay.
'Cause yo' pooh-pooh sicks a doo-doo,
And yo' doo-doo reeks a pooh-pooh.
I want something lifting to a higher degree.
Gimme sumthin' othuh than yo' nah-stay.
I've gotta reach a peak to please a 'bon appétit-ah'.
Gimme sumthin' othuh than yo' nah-stay!
'Cause yo' pooh-pooh sicks a doo-doo,
And yo' doo-doo reeks a pooh-pooh.
Gimme sumthin' othuh than yo' nah-stay!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Expect That Snoop To Pooh Pooh You
Leaking info from a hunch.
Heard when you are passing people.
Only proves you are nosy...
Just like the people you pooh pooh.
Then you get your knickers bunched.
When you are thought to be a gossip.
But what you do to the people,
Expect that to be done right back to you.
When you snoop and pooh pooh people...
Expect that snoop to pooh pooh you.
When you snoop and pooh pooh people...
That pooh pooh that you're doing aint cool.
Leaking info from a hunch.
Heard when you are passing people.
Only proves you are nosy
Just like the people you pooh pooh.
When you snoop and pooh pooh people...
That pooh pooh that you're doing aint cool.
Expect that snoop to pooh pooh you.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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A Country Path in Late Spring
The path of mossy ground nestled
In between maternal hedgerows,
That overgrew atop, dimming down
The brilliance of the day.
Embosomed, a calm-cool vision –
Abstract takes of nature, in
Leaf-spattered green shades;
Stem-speckled brown hues;
Shards of sunlight percolating
Through the random flaws to
Up glittering sprites upon the leaves.
And avian chatter bounced along the burrow,
Smattered by the crosstalk
Of busybody insects;
But outside the green comfort zone,
Other worlds of other sounds of other life
Otherwise gave a hint of
Other dozy goings on.
Hawthorn filled the air,
Filled the nose,
Filled the head –
Pungency had overpowered all –
Gave the late-spring-early-summer haze.
Here and there a break of colour:
Odd bluebells – escapees from nearby woods –
Blue-blushing bell faces glancing down,
Aware of their erectness in the stem;
The flaming wing of red admirals
Broke through a hedge hole to
Break up the calm backdrop,
While flitting blue tits gave
To greater-bodied animation.
Nature’s warm narration –
The undertones of life.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010
[...] Read more
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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The Georgics
GEORGIC I
What makes the cornfield smile; beneath what star
Maecenas, it is meet to turn the sod
Or marry elm with vine; how tend the steer;
What pains for cattle-keeping, or what proof
Of patient trial serves for thrifty bees;-
Such are my themes.
O universal lights
Most glorious! ye that lead the gliding year
Along the sky, Liber and Ceres mild,
If by your bounty holpen earth once changed
Chaonian acorn for the plump wheat-ear,
And mingled with the grape, your new-found gift,
The draughts of Achelous; and ye Fauns
To rustics ever kind, come foot it, Fauns
And Dryad-maids together; your gifts I sing.
And thou, for whose delight the war-horse first
Sprang from earth's womb at thy great trident's stroke,
Neptune; and haunter of the groves, for whom
Three hundred snow-white heifers browse the brakes,
The fertile brakes of Ceos; and clothed in power,
Thy native forest and Lycean lawns,
Pan, shepherd-god, forsaking, as the love
Of thine own Maenalus constrains thee, hear
And help, O lord of Tegea! And thou, too,
Minerva, from whose hand the olive sprung;
And boy-discoverer of the curved plough;
And, bearing a young cypress root-uptorn,
Silvanus, and Gods all and Goddesses,
Who make the fields your care, both ye who nurse
The tender unsown increase, and from heaven
Shed on man's sowing the riches of your rain:
And thou, even thou, of whom we know not yet
What mansion of the skies shall hold thee soon,
Whether to watch o'er cities be thy will,
Great Caesar, and to take the earth in charge,
That so the mighty world may welcome thee
Lord of her increase, master of her times,
Binding thy mother's myrtle round thy brow,
Or as the boundless ocean's God thou come,
Sole dread of seamen, till far Thule bow
Before thee, and Tethys win thee to her son
With all her waves for dower; or as a star
Lend thy fresh beams our lagging months to cheer,
Where 'twixt the Maid and those pursuing Claws
A space is opening; see! red Scorpio's self
His arms draws in, yea, and hath left thee more
Than thy full meed of heaven: be what thou wilt-
For neither Tartarus hopes to call thee king,
[...] Read more
VII. Pompilia
I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.
All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.
Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—
[...] Read more
poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Samba Loco
Bah-pooh-bah-pooh, bop...
Bah-doodo.
Bah-pooh-bah-pooh, bop...
Bah-doodo.
Bah-pooh-bah-pooh, bop...
Bah-doodo.
Aaaaahhhh...
Aaaaahhhh,
Samba loco, baby.
I'm a samba dancing nut!
I love that Latin beat so much...
And the strutting done when I do my stuff.
Samba loco, baby.
I'm a samba dancing nut!
I love that Latin beat so much...
And the strutting done when I do my stuff.
I've got to groove my middle.
Swivel hips and tease.
I've got to be that swift foot hero,
With a rhythm felt that heats...
Everything that sways the beat.
Samba loco, baby.
Bah-dada.
I want to feverize the streets.
With a rhumba samba shown,
Grooving easily.
Bah-pooh-bah-pooh, bop...
Bah-doodo.
Bah-pooh-bah-pooh, bop...
Bah-doodo.
Bah-pooh-bah-pooh, bop...
Bah-doodo.
Aaaaahhhh...
Aaaaahhhh,
Samba loco, baby.
I'm a samba dancing nut!
I love that Latin beat so much...
And the strutting done when I do my stuff.
Samba loco, baby.
Bah-dada.
Feverize-the-streets.
Ba h-dada
With a rum-ba number samba shown.
And a groove that's easily to reach.
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Pooh Bear and CR Discuss Truth
Wol’s nephew had found a piece of torn paper in the Wood, which said ‘Truth is…’ and took it back, rather wet and smudgy, to Wol.
Word got around that Wol’s nephew, who was learning to read, had asked Wol what came next… However, most of the Animals were not very interested, as they went about their busy lives.
But Pooh Bear, who’d heard CR use the word about A Certain Incident, was walking paw in hand with CR through the wood one crispy day, and because there weren’t any other Big Thoughts floating around saying ‘Look at me! ’, said ‘CR, what is truth? ’
Christopher Robin looked down lovingly at Beloved Bear, like you do when you admire someone for asking a Big Question, but aren’t sure quite what to say next…
‘Well, Pooh, ’ he said at last, ‘there’s truth with a small t – like when somehow a plate has jumped out of your hands onto the floor and broken itself, and grown-ups don’t quite believe this, and say, tell me the truth…’
Pooh recognised this. Hunny jars did the same thing sometimes, when you reach for them on the shelf and wonder why they wanted to fall like that…
‘And there’s Truth with a capital T, that grown-ups put on their best clothes and sit around, with a cup or glass of something, and talk about... but without dropping their cup or glass or anything…’
Pooh had never sat around when this happened. That was the time for being with CR upstairs.
‘It’s difficult to follow what they say, so I watch their faces, Pooh..
‘There’s Nodding Their Heads Truth. There’s Smiling But Only a Bit and Not for Long Truth. There’s Eyes Open Wide Truth. There’s Being Very Still For a Time Truth. And there’s Nodding And Smiling With the Eyes Too And Remembering, Truth…There seem to be diff’rent kinds of Truth, Pooh…’
Pooh suddenly felt very five-to-fourish after so much about grown-ups and their complicated lives, so he and CR turned and walked back in silence.
Later after a Little Something, Pooh stood in front of the big mirror in CR’s nursery, and tried on all these Faces of Truth.. feeling, well maybe, and yes possibly, and wait until tomorrow, by turns.. and then, he felt really quite tired…
Christopher Robin picked him up; saying fondly, 'Silly old Bear...'
poem by Michael Shepherd
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Lament for Ignacio Sánchez Mejías
1. Cogida and death
At five in the afternoon.
It was exactly five in the afternoon.
A boy brought the white sheet
at five in the afternoon.
A frail of lime ready prepared
at five in the afternoon.
The rest was death, and death alone.
The wind carried away the cottonwool
at five in the afternoon.
And the oxide scattered crystal and nickel
at five in the afternoon.
Now the dove and the leopard wrestle
at five in the afternoon.
And a thigh with a desolated horn
at five in the afternoon.
The bass-string struck up
at five in the afternoon.
Arsenic bells and smoke
at five in the afternoon.
Groups of silence in the corners
at five in the afternoon.
And the bull alone with a high heart!
At five in the afternoon.
When the sweat of snow was coming
at five in the afternoon,
when the bull ring was covered with iodine
at five in the afternoon.
Death laid eggs in the wound
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
At five o'clock in the afternoon.
A coffin on wheels is his bed
at five in the afternoon.
Bones and flutes resound in his ears
at five in the afternoon.
Now the bull was bellowing through his forehead
at five in the afternoon.
The room was iridiscent with agony
at five in the afternoon.
In the distance the gangrene now comes
at five in the afternoon.
Horn of the lily through green groins
at five in the afternoon.
The wounds were burning like suns
at five in the afternoon.
At five in the afternoon.
[...] Read more
poem by Federico García Lorca
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Carrolling II-Parody Lewis CARROLL–The Mad Gardener’s Song
Carolling II
He Thought He Saw
He thought he saw new Internet
exchanging peer to peer,
he looked again and found it was
a mirage for each year
sees more control, “what rôle, ” he said,
“for values once held dear?
Some track to trace attack and get
convictions based on fear.'
He dreamt he saw spam disappear,
all consultations free,
he looked again and found it was
a spybot lottery.
“Is net neutrality”, he said,
“from rash risks viral clear? ”
He dreamt that Microsoft would steer
all trash deleted fast,
then woke to find world insincere
where independence past
was sacrificed throughout the year
to biometrics ghast.
He thought he saw a friend’s hello,
with an attachment piece,
he looked again and found it was
the porno scanning police.
“Politically correct”, he said,
“can’t guarantee release.”
He opened it, discovered though,
a trojan horse to fleece –
he looked again as data flow
declined, - mind not at peace -
and whispered with voice hoarse and low:
'when will our worries cease? ”
He thought he saw a hierophant,
who’d deal successful life,
he looked again and found it was
subpoena from ex-wife
demanding child support, he said,
“cards are cut by Time’s knife.”
He looked once more with rage and rant
and swore like a fishwife
[...] Read more
poem by Jonathan Robin
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The Four Seasons : Spring
Come, gentle Spring! ethereal Mildness! come,
And from the bosom of yon dropping cloud,
While music wakes around, veil'd in a shower
Of shadowing roses, on our plains descend.
O Hertford, fitted or to shine in courts
With unaffected grace, or walk the plain
With innocence and meditation join'd
In soft assemblage, listen to my song,
Which thy own Season paints; when Nature all
Is blooming and benevolent, like thee.
And see where surly Winter passes off,
Far to the north, and calls his ruffian blasts:
His blasts obey, and quit the howling hill,
The shatter'd forest, and the ravaged vale;
While softer gales succeed, at whose kind touch,
Dissolving snows in livid torrents lost,
The mountains lift their green heads to the sky.
As yet the trembling year is unconfirm'd,
And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze,
Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets
Deform the day delightless: so that scarce
The bittern knows his time, with bill ingulf'd,
To shake the sounding marsh; or from the shore
The plovers when to scatter o'er the heath,
And sing their wild notes to the listening waste
At last from Aries rolls the bounteous sun,
And the bright Bull receives him. Then no more
The expansive atmosphere is cramp'd with cold
But, full of life and vivifying soul,
Lifts the light clouds sublime, and spreads then thin,
Fleecy, and white, o'er all-surrounding heaven.
Forth fly the tepid airs: and unconfined,
Unbinding earth, the moving softness strays.
Joyous, the impatient husbandman perceives
Relenting Nature, and his lusty steers
Drives from their stalls, to where the well used plough
Lies in the furrow, loosen'd from the frost.
There, unrefusing, to the harness'd yoke
They lend their shoulder, and begin their toil,
Cheer'd by the simple song and soaring lark.
Meanwhile incumbent o'er the shining share
The master leans, removes the obstructing clay,
Winds the whole work, and sidelong lays the glebe
While through the neighbouring fields the sowe stalks,
With measured step, and liberal throws the grain
Into the faithful bosom of the ground;
The harrow follows harsh, and shuts the scene.
Be gracious, Heaven! for now laborious Man
Has done his part. Ye fostering breezes, blow!
Ye softening dews, ye tender showers, descend!
[...] Read more
poem by James Thomson
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I Can Boot A Droop
I can move from a mood that I've been brooding.
But I don't know why,
I can't give it up!
No...
I can move from a mood that I've been brooding.
And I will defy...
I'm in a rut and stuck up.
I can boot a droop.
And pooh pooh who I choose to leave.
I can fly from any coop.
And still enjoy my own company.
Hey...
I'm in no rut or stuck up,
Since I've got with me a rudder.
And...
I can boot a droop.
And choose to pooh pooh who I leave.
Hey...
I'm in no rut or stuck up,
Since I've got with me a rudder.
And...
I can boot a droop.
And choose to pooh pooh who I leave.
I said...I said...I said and able,
I can boot a droop...
And choose to pooh pooh who I leave.
I can move from a mood that I've been brooding.
But I don't know why,
I can't give it up!
But I can boot a droop and choose to pooh pooh,
Whom I please.
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Give Your Heart To The Hawks
1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,
That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass
Under the old trees with rosy fruit.
In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a
basket,
The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.
Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.
Fayne snatched for it and missed;
Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small
Finely cut features in a dance of delight;
Fayne with one sweep flung at his face
All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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Tannhauser
The Landgrave Hermann held a gathering
Of minstrels, minnesingers, troubadours,
At Wartburg in his palace, and the knight,
Sir Tannhauser of France, the greatest bard,
Inspired with heavenly visions, and endowed
With apprehension and rare utterance
Of noble music, fared in thoughtful wise
Across the Horsel meadows. Full of light,
And large repose, the peaceful valley lay,
In the late splendor of the afternoon,
And level sunbeams lit the serious face
Of the young knight, who journeyed to the west,
Towards the precipitous and rugged cliffs,
Scarred, grim, and torn with savage rifts and chasms,
That in the distance loomed as soft and fair
And purple as their shadows on the grass.
The tinkling chimes ran out athwart the air,
Proclaiming sunset, ushering evening in,
Although the sky yet glowed with yellow light.
The ploughboy, ere he led his cattle home,
In the near meadow, reverently knelt,
And doffed his cap, and duly crossed his breast,
Whispering his 'Ave Mary,' as he heard
The pealing vesper-bell. But still the knight,
Unmindful of the sacred hour announced,
Disdainful or unconscious, held his course.
'Would that I also, like yon stupid wight,
Could kneel and hail the Virgin and believe!'
He murmured bitterly beneath his breath.
'Were I a pagan, riding to contend
For the Olympic wreath, O with what zeal,
What fire of inspiration, would I sing
The praises of the gods! How may my lyre
Glorify these whose very life I doubt?
The world is governed by one cruel God,
Who brings a sword, not peace. A pallid Christ,
Unnatural, perfect, and a virgin cold,
They give us for a heaven of living gods,
Beautiful, loving, whose mere names were song;
A creed of suffering and despair, walled in
On every side by brazen boundaries,
That limit the soul's vision and her hope
To a red hell or and unpeopled heaven.
Yea, I am lost already,-even now
Am doomed to flaming torture for my thoughts.
O gods! O gods! where shall my soul find peace?'
He raised his wan face to the faded skies,
Now shadowing into twilight; no response
Came from their sunless heights; no miracle,
As in the ancient days of answering gods.
[...] Read more
poem by Emma Lazarus
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0011 Synaesthesia..
Sounds nasty, maybe
life-threatening:
‘I’m sorry, boys,
Michael can’t come out today
and play – he’s suffering from
synaesthesia..’
Oho, no – synaesthesia
is Poet Central: it’s the description
of what one sense perceives
in terms of another.. like when
Emily Dickinson,
she of the golden pen –
writes ‘To the bugle,
every color is red’…
So here we have the soldiers
Changing the Guard
at Buckingham Palace
(Christopher Robin
went down with Alice…) :
the scarlet tunics are loud as trumpets,
the bugles are painting the town scarlet red;
and watching them are Gertrude Stein,
e e cummings, and Emily herself…
In the Odyssey (we’re talking
top-drawer Lit, you’ll note)
the Sirens sang with honeyed voices:
‘Pooh Bear was just going out of the door
when he heard a whisper like a bee
busy in a flower; then a louder sound
like a happy bee taking a rest on Pooh’s ear
on the way from one flower to another..
then he realised – it was the hunny jar
at the end of the line of hunny jars,
asking to be noticed...
Pooh sighed an obedient sigh,
took off his scarf, took a spoon
from the drawer, and the smiling hunny jar
from the shelf…’
This was the song the Sirens sang…
And there’s one whole song about it:
You’re the tops!
you’re the Tower of Pisa;
you’re the smile
on the Mona Lisa…
you’re the metaphor
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poem by Michael Shepherd
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Thurso’s Landing
I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.
II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,
[...] Read more
poem by Robinson Jeffers
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The Other One Needs
She's nothing but a bad boy,
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
She's nothing but a bad boy,
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
And he prefers that over others.
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
She's nothing but a bad boy,
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
She's nothing but a bad boy,
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
He's nothing but a whatever he wants to be.
He lives,
And breathes...
From a different,
Reality.
She's nothing but a bad boy,
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
And he prefers that over others.
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
She's nothing but a bad boy,
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
And he prefers that over others.
Oh boy.
Oh boy!
Oh boy...
[...] Read more
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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