Poetry
jlynch | January 18, 2008Epitaph
An old willow with hollow branches
slowly swayed his few high bright tendrils
and sang:
Love is a young green willow
shimmering at the bare wood’s edge.
William Carlos Williams
jlynch | January 10, 2008Continuing from Monday’s mustelid ...
River-MatesI’ll be an otter, and I’ll let you swim
A mate beside me; we will venture down
A deep, dark river, when the sky above
Is shut of the sun; spoilers are we,
Thick-coated; no dog’s tooth can bite at our veins,
With eyes and ears of poachers; deep-earthed ones
Turned hunters; let him slip past
The little vole; my teeth are on an edge
For the King-fish of the River!
I hold him up
The glittering salmon that smells of the sea;
I hold him high and whistle!
Now we go
Back to our earths; we will tear and eat
Sea-smelling salmon; you will tell the…
grrlscientist | January 9, 2008tags: Deroptyus accipitrinus, hawk-headed parrot, red-fan parrot, pets, birds, avian, parrots, behavior
Okay, my peeps, a regular reader was inspired by the earlier blog entry, Songs About Birds -- Can You Name Some? to write a poem about birds, Dirty Bird! Dirty Bird!, except this reader claims this is actually a song because there is a tune that goes with it .. I would like to challenge this reader, Digital Cuttlefish, to sing this song and post it as an mp3!
jlynch | January 4, 2008
Overtones
I heard a bird at break of daySing from the autumn treesA song so mystical and calm, So full of certainties, No man, I think, could listen long Except upon his knees. Yet this was but a simple bird, Alone, among dead trees.
William Alexander Percy
jlynch | December 14, 2007I Am The People, The Mob
I am the people-the mob-the crowd-the mass.
Do you know that all the great work of the world is done through me?
I am the workingman, the inventor, the maker of the world’s food and clothes.
I am the audience that witnesses history. The Napoleons come from me and the Lincolns. They die. And then I send forth more Napoleons and Lincolns.
I am the seed ground. I am a prairie that will stand for much plowing. Terrible storms pass over me. I forget. The best of me is sucked out and wasted. I forget. Everything but Death comes to me and makes me work and give up what I…
aardvarchaeology | December 10, 2007
An album I can really recommend is LA quartet OK Go's 2005 disc Oh No. It's catchy, glammy rock with swagger and brains and decadence, recorded in Sweden and beautifully produced by Tore Johansson and the mighty Lindgård/Mopeds brothers. In addition to them kicking ass musically, the band's lyrics (by Damian Kulash) are unusually poetic and literate. Dear Reader, I bring you the lyrics to the delicious "Oh Lately It's So Quiet", which are sung in a bedroom falsetto by the hugely talented Mr Kulash.
Oh Lately It's So Quiet
By Damian Kulash of OK Go
Oh, lately it's so quiet in this place
You'…
jlynch | December 7, 2007
Hawk Roosting
I sit in the top of the wood, my eyes closed.Inaction, no falsifying dreamBetween my hooked head and hooked feet:Or in sleep rehearse perfect kills and eat.
The convenience of the high trees!The air’s buoyancy and the sun’s rayAre of advantage to me;And the earth’s face upward for my inspection.
My feet are locked upon the rough bark.It took the whole of CreationTo produce my foot, my each feather:Now I hold Creation in my foot
Or fly up, and revolve it all slowly -I kill where I please because it is all mine.There is no sophistry in my body:My manners are tearing off heads -…
jlynch | November 23, 2007
10,000
Ten thousand flowers in spring, the moon in autumn,a cool breeze in summer, snow in winter.
If your mind isn’t clouded by unnecessary things,this is the best season of your life.
Wu Men
[Picture: "Autumn Moon," Ansel Adams, 1948]
aardvarchaeology | November 18, 2007Dear Reader, have you lately heard much merry folk rock with apocalyptic lyrics about the coming of the Antichrist over London?
My dear friend Asko is, among other things, a war gamer, a geocacher, an antiquarian amateur, a fiction writer and a musician. Hear him play the bass on releases by 90s stoner rock outfit Dear Mutant! (I have heard kickass stuff from the band's final unreleased album sessions...) Asko recently recommended me a track by Current 93, a band I'd never heard of. Turns out it's a huge body of recordings from the early 80s onward by occult Englishman David Tibet with…
jlynch | October 26, 2007
on the fire suicides of the buddhists "They only burn themselves to reach Paradise." Mme. Nhu original courage is good, motivation be damned, and if you say they are trained to feel no pain, are they guaranteed this? is is still not possible to die for somebody else?
you sophisticates who lay back and make statements of explanation I have seen the red rose burning and this means more.
Charles Bukowski.
Thanks to my student Devon for passing this one on to me.
jlynch | October 19, 2007Nobody heard him, the dead man,But still he lay moaning:I was much further out than you thoughtAnd not waving but drowning.
Poor chap, he always loved larkingAnd now he’s deadIt must have been too cold for him his heart gave way,They said.
Oh, no no no, it was too cold always(Still the dead one lay moaning)I was much too far out all my lifeAnd not waving but drowning.
Stevie Smith.
jlynch | October 12, 2007Put Out My Eyes
Put out my eyes, and I can see you still,Slam my ears to, and I can hear you yet;And without any feet can go to you;And tongueless, I can conjure you at will.Break off my arms, I shall take hold of youAnd grasp you with my heart as with a hand;Arrest my heart, my brain will beat as true;And if you set this brain of mine afire,Then on my blood-stream I yet will carry you.
Rainer Maria Rilke
aardvarchaeology | October 11, 2007
Peps Persson is both one of Sweden's heaviest blues men and the single most authoritative reggae artist the country's produced. The sleeve of his 1975 hit album Hög standard parodies the sleeve from a likewise excellent ABBA album released earlier the same year. Yet the music is intricate studio-built stuff, far from the lo-fi live aesthetic popular with Swedish lefties at the time (who hated ABBA as a matter of political principle).
The album is sung entirely in a broad Scanian dialect, including a charming cover of Bob Marley's "Stir It Up". That song's Scanian lyrics are cheerfully lewd…
jlynch | October 5, 2007Eternal Circle
I sang the song slowlyAs she stood in the shadowsShe stepped to the lightAs my silver strings spunShe called with her eyesTo the tune I’s a-playin’But the song it was longAnd I’d only begun
Through a bullet of lightHer face was reflectin’The fast fading wordsThat rolled from my tongueWith a long-distance lookHer eyes was on fireBut the song it was longAnd there was more to be sung.
My eyes danced a circleAcross her clear outlineWith her head tilted sidewaysShe called me againAs the tune drifted outShe breathed hard through the echoBut the song it was longAnd it was far to the…
jlynch | September 28, 2007
Dark Haired Miriam Ran Away
On Raglan Road on an autumn day I met her first and knew That her dark hair would weave a snare that I might one day rue; I saw the danger, yet I walked along the enchanted way, And I said, let grief be a fallen leaf at the dawning of the day.
On Grafton Street in November we tripped lightly along the ledge Of the deep ravine where can be seen the worth of passion’s pledge, The Queen of Hearts still making tarts and I not making hay - O I loved too much and by such and such is happiness thrown away.
I gave her gifts of the mind I gave her the secret sign that’s…
jlynch | September 21, 2007Another poem by Nizar Qabbani.
When I Love
When I loveI feel that I am the king of timeI possess the earth and everything on itand ride into the sun upon my horse.
When I loveI become liquid lightinvisible to the eyeand the poems in my notebooksbecome fields of mimosa and poppy.
When I lovethe water gushes from my fingersgrass grows on my tonguewhen I loveI become time outside all time.
When I love a womanall the treesrun barefoot toward me...
jlynch | September 14, 2007Yes, it has been a long time.
My Lover Asks Me
My lover asks me: "What is the difference between me and the sky?" The difference, my love, Is that when you laugh, I forget about the sky.
Nizar Qabbani
aardvarchaeology | September 5, 2007
Here are the lyrics to a really great of Montreal song off their heavily beatlesque 2001 album Coquelicot Asleep in the Poppies.
Penelope
By Kevin Barnes
Penelope, shoot the apple off my head
I need to go to the store to get some sleep.
Because I've run out of sleep.
The row boat came so David stopped arguing
with a mime and waved his arms like wheat.
But when he tried to speak the Prince of Plum fell through the
roof of his mouth and handed David an envelope
Inside was a letter that read 'Sir, you were given this
envelope by mistake please disregard it'
Nicolynn, shoot the candle off my…
aardvarchaeology | August 25, 2007One of the brightest stars of Swedish literature is Carl Michael Bellman (1740-1795). Much of his work is a kind of humorous beat poetry set to music, chronicling the lives of Stockholm drunkards and whores. Central themes are boozing, sex and death.
"You think the grave's too deep?
Well then, have a drink
Then have another two and another three
That way you'll die happier"
"A girl in the green grass and wine in green glasses
I feast on both, both gather me to their bosom
Let's have some more resin on the violin bow!"
But Bellman wasn't strictly speaking part of the underworld he wrote about…
aardvarchaeology | August 8, 2007
Dear Reader,
Would you like to read about werewolf communes?
The beasties live quietly in southern California
Doing dirty work for the drugs trade
Sharing pack mentality, each with a queen bitch
Riding their vans to the desert's edge, changing
Into quadruped form and running long nights
Through the sagebrush, panting and exhilarated
Would you like to read about werewolf communes?
Could you chew and digest, Dear Reader,
Could you stomach three hundred pages
Of free verse narrative?
So finely done that you will often forget
That this is no ordinary novel
Page-turner poetry
Fit for loud…