Discussion Topic |
|
This thread has been locked |
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
Let us sink then, you and I, when evening is spread out against the sky.--Jim Donini
Posted in March, 2010, by OUR LEADER.
Take me to your leader please
I'm kneeling on my kneeling knees
I need to have his blessing for
This little project, it's 5.4
May I place a big-ass bolt
No long fall, no sudden jolt
Just raise your hand, I'll do my best
Once I have been Donini blessed
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Aug 27, 2013 - 03:48am PT
|
SIERRA NEVADA FOOTHILLS
Old yip-yipping coyote is saying to me how happy he is to be here
The smelly old tar weed sends me a message telling me I am home
The cobble-rocks rolling under my feet are each surprised by my tread
They will cover my body, perfume my grave, and serenade me later
Much later, I hope
I’ve not done with these up and down cone-shaped wonders
They are unique to themselves in their shapes
While sharing the same angle of repose
I shall repose among them myself when the time comes
Pushing up tumbleweed
Queen Selene will be in the sky half the time
I won’t be able to see her nor delight in her light
But the coyote will let me know she is passing in review
And greeting her cousin cobble-rocks with her silvery kiss
As they cover my worm chamber
|
|
The Lisa
Trad climber
Da Bronx, NY
|
|
|
Aug 30, 2013 - 10:48am PT
|
It is a sad loss for Ireland, and the world of poetry.
I love his translation of Beowulf.
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
|
Aug 30, 2013 - 01:08pm PT
|
A glass to an old friend
"Everyone wants a piece of Ireland's first Nobel-winning poet since Yeats. When we arrive at our destination, an oyster bar overlooking St Stephen's Green, the ebb and flow of Irish pride in Seamus, as he is universally known, surges up in a succession of spontaneous greetings. Everyone recognises Heaney's professorial spectacles and silvery mop.
A frisson passes through the restaurant. This woman wants to tell him about her daughter, recovering from leukaemia, and to ask for an autograph. Two punters, checking the starting prices on a laptop, volunteer a tip about the 2.30 at Leopardstown. Another old chap wants to be remembered. And the maître d' is beside himself with getting the best table ready.
I wonder how Heaney can stand it.
No need to worry. The object of this attention seems to move in a serene bubble of modesty and unconcern: he likes the attention, and it does not really trouble him. He's had it, in different ways, all his life, and he knows that, for an Irish poet, it comes with the territory.
There are many ways to be a famous writer in Dublin. You can be mad and grand, like Yeats; or mysterious, like Beckett; or drunk, like Flann O'Brien; or absent, like Joyce; or what? A long time ago, Clive James nailed Heaney with "Seamus Famous", but that's a gag, at best half true, spun off Heaney's brilliant self-presentation. There is rather more to the poet than his fame, dazzling though that can be.
For someone who has been so remorselessly scrutinised, Heaney is still something of an enigma. He works hard to make "famous" seem normal. Unfailingly courteous and attentive, he can also be grave, remote and occasionally stern, always watching himself, like the king of a vulnerable monarchy.
In keeping with that vigilance, and a well-defended uncertainty, Heaney is always asking himself the essential questions articulated in Preoccupations, his collected essays. "How should a poet properly live and write? What is his relationship to be to his own voice, his own place, his literary heritage and his contemporary world?"
I've known Seamus Heaney for about half of his writing life. The key to our friendship was always a third party: the mischievous, antic figure of the folk-singer, broadcaster and lord of misrule, David Hammond, from Belfast. Last summer, after a long illness, Hammond died. I was in America at the time, and unable to go to the funeral.
As part of my farewell to "Davey", I knew I had to see Seamus, pay my respects to the dead, and share the recollection of old times. Quite apart from my deep affection for Hammond, I'm conscious that Heaney is keen on the proper obsequies (he loves funerals) and will be only too glad to raise a glass to our old friend."
A glass to Seamus Heaney!
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
Seamus Heaney: my travels with the great poet
Seamus Heaney was a great poet and friend, says Andrew O'Hagan, as he relives their travels in Scotland, Ireland and Wales – tucking into chowder and contemplating the afterlife"
"Memory was everything to Seamus. The memory of his father digging in the yard. The memory of peeling potatoes with his mother, or once noticing the glad eye of the coalman. He had a mind to Ireland's memory, the seasonal return of faith and possibility, the falling away and the coming back of things. He cared for this the way other people care about politics. He wanted to offer value to a notion of existence beyond the bounds of sense, and that is where his language led him, to the power of wonder and miracles in daily life. Great is the friend whose one small shove can put you on the upswing. Being with him, I always felt able to give everything its due. His was a steadiness that befriended the person you wanted to be."
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/sep/02/seamus-heaney-my-travels-with-poet
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
http://www.quale.com/MyUncle_GL.html
The above link addresses non-poetic prose and what to do with the bastard child, as I have in the past here-2/4.
As in
Sergeant Carter, I think ya oughter give us a cadence count. On account of three of four of us ain't up to speed yet.
Private Pyle, you better smile when you tell me that next time.
And try and make it rhyme!
Gimme twenny-nine! Hut!
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
http://carmensminiaturepainting.blogspot.com/2012/12/mouse-goes-to-work-couple-more-pages.html
Mice ‘n’ I
by eek-eek hummings-strollski
four years it’s been just me
now it’s me and mouse
mimicking mice
and playing the ice house blues
it is frozen in memory
the clear blue of the water flowing underground is not visible
underground there is no light
ask a blind mouse
there are three in this house
me mice and I
two of them and one of me
it’s not Mycenae
that’s history
but mice ‘n’ I
we will get by
all four one
and not one of them there
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
Spinoza
"Here in the twilight the translucent hands
Of the Jew polishing the crystal glass.
The dying afternoon is cold with bands
Of fear. Each day the afternoons pass
The same. The hands and space of hyacinth
Paling in the confines of the ghetto walls
barely exists for the quiet man who stalls
There, dreaming up a brilliant labyrinth.
Fame doesn't trouble him (that reflection of
Dreams in the dream of another mirror), nor love,
The timid love women. Gone the bars,
He's free, from metaphor and myth, to sit
Polishing a stubborn lens: the infinite
Map of the One who now is all His stars."
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Sep 10, 2013 - 10:08am PT
|
I predict the sun will rise today
In a spectacular blaze of glory.
It will pop up in the age old way
That’s all. It’s the end of this story.
--M.F. "It wouldn't be any better even if you paid me" Merced
"But he knows so little of Spinozan th-theory, nor th-those of Leibnitz, neither..."--the C-//County Watchdog N-News, 10/14/13 (another prediction)
Spinoza's Joke about the bell-ringer of Notre Dame goes into the books as one of the most brilliant of his funniest jokes. He and Leibnitz invented "patter" and zBown and myself are merely followers of their routine. That should be under "Obvious" in Funk and Wagnall's.
In that bell-ringer joke, the brother? When he comes to apply for the job in the second half of the joke? Now THAT'S just the cat's meow!
"He's a dead ringer for his brother!" Cheese! Yer slayin' me!
I'm just a simple Gemini, searching for a twin.
I might just find me one, if I looked within.
If I only had a brain.--song
Meanwhile, in the other (which one was I on just now?) side of my brain, I might like to go to Spain: It's the place from where they broadcast the game show, Sephardy! hosted by Miguel "the Cat" Gato y Gato.
Who is Benito? Is he a Flame, a county, or a fictional mission near an actual town?
Just ask the Baptist John. He'll set ya straight, won't put you on.
Then, "San Juan Bautista is sure to become one of your most favored excursions."--the San Benito Blurb-Blog
Drivel, dravel, druzzle, Drone. Time for Whitey to come home.
You are expecting a real poem.
THE CAVE o La Cava
This cave smells of earthy shepherds and animal-breath
and there is a lingering scent of meadow-flowers
from the hay where a baby is laid.
Large and low, an unusually bright star peers down
from an angle of the cave-mouth
where the camel-hair drape hangs loose and Listen!
There is inexplicable singing from the hilltops!
Time, the scientist tells us, is a device
confined within a certain cosmological radius
upon which to hang our brief lives tick by tick.
The mind can tilt time back to sketch in
the inconsequential details of Luke's account.-
Shepherds in their sheepskins,
animals snuffling the newness of the baby.
Joseph pitting his glimmering oil lamp against the liquid starlight
and Mary bending over the child
who opens briefly the pansy-dark eyes
of the newly-born to search her amazed young face.
And still down the dusky centuries you and I and half the world
savour the raw simplicity of this makeshift ménage
like salt on the morning tongue.
It is all here within the finger's touch,
and the small circle of the eye's reflection.
Yet it's significance lies well beyond the Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh
which will be received with exquisite courtesy,
far, far beyond the inexorable tick of our lives
and the immeasurable span of space.
This is a place to rest before we step once more into the time-held night.
--Patricia Bolton rsm
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Sep 10, 2013 - 10:51am PT
|
Stalking Poetry by Brad Yoder
Written June 2009
saw a girl on a train in a country I was leaving,
and she may have smiled at me, or that might be wishful thinking,
anyway, I won’t see her again,
and you can’t call a stranger a friend
on a street, in a town where I speak the language well enough to know
that I’m not home, and laugh at half the jokes, so I can tell
that I’ve lived here before,
but that country’s not here anymore..
I was trying to be free, trying to be kind,
I’m just trying to be me, so I hope that you don’t mind
if I sing here on your street, in a language you don’t speak,
I’m stalking poetry again, again..
and every gray apartment building’s just a giant concrete filing cabinet
for childhoods and family stories of people I don’t know at all,
and at any given moment surely someone must be feeling
every kind of human feeling somewhere in between those walls..
there’s a church on the square that they finally rebuilt
after the war, using stones that they sorted from the rubble,
now the old stone is black from the smoke,
while the new stone is yellow as gold,
underneath they’re both the same, pieced together, old and new,
in a town after the war everyone can see your wounds,
so I sing here on your street, in a language you don’t speak,
I’m stalking poetry again, again.. (repeat CH:1)
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Sep 10, 2013 - 11:08am PT
|
The Himalayan legend says there are beautiful white birds that live completely in flight.
They are born in the air, must learn to fly before falling and die also in their flying.
Maybe you have been born into such a life with the bottom dropping out.
from "In Flight" by Jennifer K. Sweeney
Away! away! for I will fly to thee,
Not charioted by Bacchus and his pards,
But on the viewless wings of Poesy,
Though the dull brain perplexes and retards:
Already with thee! tender is the night,
And haply the Queen-Moon is on her throne,
Cluster'd around by all her starry Fays;
But here there is no light,
Save what from heaven is with the breezes blown
Through verdurous glooms and winding mossy ways.
from "Ode to a Nightingale" by John Keats
Let us fly in the Cathedral of the Air, Mr. Lindy.--Mrs. Lindy
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2013 - 04:12pm PT
|
The Early Purges
"I was six when I first saw kittens drown.
Dan Taggart pitched them, 'the scraggy wee shits',
Into a bucket; a frail metal sound,
Soft paws scraping like mad. But their tiny din
Was soon soused. They were slung on the snout
Of the pump and the water pumped in.
'Sure, isn't it better for them now?' Dan said.
Like wet gloves they bobbed and shone till he sluiced
Them out on the dunghill, glossy and dead.
Suddenly frightened, for days I sadly hung
Round the yard, watching the three sogged remains
Turn mealy and crisp as old summer dung
Until I forgot them. But the fear came back
When Dan trapped big rats, snared rabbits, shot crows
Or, with a sickening tug, pulled old hens' necks.
Still, living displaces false sentiments
And now, when shrill pups are prodded to drown
I just shrug, 'Bloody pups'. It makes sense:
'Prevention of cruelty' talk cuts ice in town
Where they consider death unnatural
But on well-run farms pests have to be kept down."
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2013 - 04:29pm PT
|
Fastidious Drivel
You say no one's gonna like me
‘Cause I don't act like you
But I'm good at being myself
So what about you?
I got a fist full of dreams
And a pocket full of fists
Not gonna put up with your
Silly immature bull-sh*t
[Chorus]
I get dropped off face first
In front of the bus
While you fake your way
To the Top of the Pops
I would rather be alone
Than be your friend
Make your move but I'll stay true
To the bitter end
I get shot down ‘cause
I have my own opinion
Guess there's no room for difference
In this wireless nation
Told what I think is wrong
Well even if I end up last
I'll be wrong my whole life
While you have fun kissing a**
[Chorus]
Just because I don't hear
Doesn't mean I can't feel
And just because you have a voice
Doesn't mean you're real
You got far too much lash
And not enough eye
Hey!
--Christopher's Dead
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2013 - 04:37pm PT
|
"In the inky forest,
In its maziest,
Murkiest scribble
Of words
And wordless cries,
I went for a glimpse
Of the blossomlike
White erasure
Over a huge,
Furiously crossed-out something."
|
|
Marlow
Sport climber
OSLO
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2013 - 04:38pm PT
|
"Roads not yet glistening, rain slight,
Broken clouds darken after thinning away.
Where they drift, purple cliffs blacken.
And beyond -- white birds blaze in flight.
Sounds of cold-river rain grown familiar,
Autumn sun casts moist shadows. Below
Our brushwood gate, out to dry at the village
Mill: hulled rice, half-wet and fragrant"
|
|
Anastasia
climber
Home
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2013 - 05:56pm PT
|
The wind blew
The water pulled
claiming the earth, the rocks and you
as I poured your ashes into the sea
in the deafening roar of restless waves
this is where you use to fish as a kid
a place of memory
now forever in my mind
a part of me always with you
|
|
Ward Trotter
Trad climber
|
|
|
Sep 17, 2013 - 06:20pm PT
|
All along the bent and angling coast
seaweed strands in sunken coves
groping beached shadows
from wave to wave
I always chase after them
their darkened strewn and floating forms
rolling like dead bodies
from wave to wave
What seaweed does not hide
its own short story of unknown depths
submarine worlds where time itself
folds its broken shell
Under each rubbery leaf
striped in faint running bands
like the blue veins on my father's arm
long long ago
A strand marks the sea's closing line
in underwater straits where I now stand
feet in the shallow blackness
hand against the sandy bulb
A frothing strand marks all the seaweed
in roped and stringed patterns
their soft crests fall soundless
sharp against the gathering stone
w.t.
|
|
mouse from merced
Trad climber
The finger of fate, my friends, is fickle.
|
|
|
Sep 20, 2013 - 07:16am PT
|
The Crescent Arch March
--for Pat Ament
In a Dream of White Courage
I tried my best to discourage
A new trend that I saw.
Now I lay my chalk away
And to the Lord Belay I say:
Take this now and for all days.
This is what old Mousie says:
If with chalk you must play,
Just use plain old white or gray.
In a whirlwind of white dust
We climb the climbs we must.
Don't forget your quick-draw.
Mouse from Merced is a tard climber from Merced.
|
|
|
SuperTopo on the Web
|
Let us know!