AdamSmith Posted August 9, 2007 Share Posted August 9, 2007 Here in New England, at least, summer hardly gets underway before it surprises you how far spent it is. Like the hour, evening, week with a beautiful other; like so much else. Heaving on through middle age, I get more and more solace, of a sort, from what follows. Perhaps it could also stand as elegy for escorts we knew who left the world too soon. If this is too little, too much, or out of place here, pass over it. Credences of Summer Wallace Stevens I Now in midsummer come and all fools slaughtered And spring’s infuriations over and a long way To the first autumnal inhalations, young broods Are in the grass, the roses are heavy with a weight Of fragrance and the mind lays by its trouble. Now the mind lays by its trouble and considers. The fidgets of remembrance come to this. This is the last day of a certain year Beyond which there is nothing left of time. It comes to this and the imagination’s life. There is nothing more inscribed nor thought nor felt And this must comfort the heart’s core against Its false disasters—these fathers standing round, These mothers touching, speaking, being near, These lovers waiting in the soft dry grass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 10, 2007 Author Share Posted August 10, 2007 II Postpone the anatomy of summer, as The physical pine, the metaphysical pine. Let’s see the very thing and nothing else. Let’s see it with the hottest fire of sight. Burn everything not part of it to ash. Trace the gold sun about the whitened sky Without evasion by a single metaphor. Look at it in its essential barrenness And say this, this is the centre that I seek. Fix it in an eternal foliage And fill the foliage with arrested peace, Joy of such permanence, right ignorance Of change still possible. Exile desire For what is not. This is the barrenness Of the fertile thing that can attain no more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest StuCotts Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Adam, those verses breathe elegiac melancholy. The AIDS epidemic obliged me to live through too many elegiac moments in agitation. I have no yen to recall them in tranquility. Having been much too serious a young man, I will be a dedicatedly frivolous old one. I have fully embraced escapism. To illustrate: What do I think about men? Men are dreamy. Men are sweet. They simply knock me off my feet. They're so enchanting, so much fun. And I just can't wait until I marry one. That's what I think about men. What do I think about men? Men are only naughty boys. And we to them are merely toys. They're always up to some new prank. And I know of one that Mama'd love to spank. That's what I think about men. What do I think about men? Men are just a pair of pants. They're always after fresh romance. In search of fun they run about, And they don't come home until they're all run out. That's what I think about men. We are absolutely certain as to what we think of men. But when night doth draw her curtain and the hour approacheth ten, When the moon is o'er the mountain and there's mischief in the glen, No matter what we think about men, we think about men. Men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men, men. We think about men! Anybody who can identify that, keep it quiet or risk dating yourself seriously. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest StuCotts Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Adam, if I didn't make it clear before, I will now: none of the above is intended to trivialize anything but my own attitudes, or to offend in any way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 10, 2007 Author Share Posted August 10, 2007 Adam, if I didn't make it clear before, I will now: none of the above is intended to trivialize anything but my own attitudes, or to offend in any way. Stu, dinna worry. No offense taken. Except that I date myself by recognizing what you posted! Here, drink this. You'll feel better... There is something about a Martini, A tingle remarkably pleasant, A yellow, a mellow Martini -- I wish that I had one at present. There is something about a Martini, Ere the dining and dancing begin, And to tell you the truth, It is not the vermouth-- I think that perhaps it's the gin. Ogden Nash Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 10, 2007 Author Share Posted August 10, 2007 III It is the natural tower of all the world, The point of survey, green’s green apogee, But a tower more precious than the view beyond, A point of survey squatting like a throne, Axis of everything, green’s apogee And happiest folk-land, mostly marriage-hymns. It is the mountain on which the tower stands, It is the final mountain. Here the sun, Sleepless, inhales his proper air, and rests. This is the refuge that the end creates. It is the old man standing on the tower, Who needs no book. His ruddy ancientness Absorbs the ruddy summer and is appeased, By an understanding that fulfils his age, By a feeling capable of nothing more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 10, 2007 Author Share Posted August 10, 2007 IV One of the limits of reality Presents itself in Oley when the hay, Baked through long days, is piled in mows. It is A land too ripe for enigmas, too serene. There the distant fails the clairvoyant eye And the secondary senses of the ear Swarm, not with secondary sounds, but choirs, Not evocations but last choirs, last sounds With nothing else compounded, carried full, Pure rhetoric of a language without words. Things stop in that direction and since they stop The direction stops and we accept what is As good. The utmost must be good and is And is our fortune and honey hived in the trees And mingling of colors at a festival. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest StuCotts Posted August 10, 2007 Share Posted August 10, 2007 Stu, dinna worry. No offense taken. Except that I date myself by recognizing what you posted!Here, drink this. You'll feel better... There is something about a Martini, A tingle remarkably pleasant, A yellow, a mellow Martini -- I wish that I had one at present. There is something about a Martini, Ere the dining and dancing begin, And to tell you the truth, It is not the vermouth-- I think that perhaps it's the gin. Ogden Nash Why am I not surprised that you'd recognize it? Anyway, thanks for the Nash. Always bracing. P.S. I'll nae worry. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 10, 2007 Author Share Posted August 10, 2007 P.S. I'll nae worry. Comfort ye. I promise no posting from Bonnie Bobbie Burns. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 10, 2007 Author Share Posted August 10, 2007 V One day enriches a year. One woman makes The rest look down. One man becomes a race, Lofty like him, like him perpetual. Or do the other days enrich the one? And is the queen humble as she seems to be, The charitable majesty of her whole kin? The bristling soldier, weather-foxed, who looms In the sunshine is a filial form and one Of the land’s children, easily born, its flesh, Not fustian. The more than casual blue Contains the year and other years and hymns And people, without souvenir. The day Enriches the year, not as embellishment. Stripped of remembrance, it displays its strength— The youth, the vital son, the heroic power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest SouthernMan Posted August 11, 2007 Share Posted August 11, 2007 As a New Englander, how could you forget Emily Dickinson????? I just love her! Such an emotionally deprived person, longing to come out of her closet, but living in the wrong era! But, she sure did write some of the most beautiful poetry EVER!!!! SUMMER SHOWER. A drop fell on the apple tree, Another on the roof; A half a dozen kissed the eaves, And made the gables laugh. A few went out to help the brook, That went to help the sea. Myself conjectured, Were they pearls, What necklaces could be! The dust replaced in hoisted roads, The birds jocoser sung; The sunshine threw his hat away, The orchards spangles hung. The breezes brought dejected lutes, And bathed them in the glee; The East put out a single flag, And signed the fete away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 As a New Englander, how could you forget Emily Dickinson????? I just love her! Whoops. My sin. No question divine Emily is the best America has produced. To say the least. Nice selection. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 VI The rock cannot be broken. It is the truth. It rises from land and sea and covers them. It is a mountain half way green and then, The other immeasurable half, such rock As placid air becomes. But it is not A hermit’s truth nor symbol in hermitage. It is the visible rock, the audible, The brilliant mercy of a sure repose, On this present ground, the vividest repose, Things sustaining us in certainty. It is the rock of summer, the extreme, A mountain luminous half way in bloom And then half way in the extremest light Of sapphires flashing from the central sky, As if twelve princes sat before a king. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 VII Far in the woods they sang their unreal songs, Secure. It was difficult to sing in face Of the object. The singers had to avert themselves Or else avert the object. Deep in the woods They sang of summer in the common fields. They sang desiring an object that was near, In face of which desire no longer moved, Nor made of itself that which it could not find. . . Three times the concentred self takes hold, three times The thrice concentred self, having possessed The object, grips it in savage scrutiny, Once to make captive, once to subjugate Or yield to subjugation, once to proclaim The meaning of the capture, this hard prize, Fully made, fully apparent, fully found. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest StuCotts Posted August 11, 2007 Share Posted August 11, 2007 Comfort ye. I promise no posting from Bonnie Bobbie Burns. Any posting from Burns will be fine with me, even if it has to be in the de'il's tongue because the original would leave me at sea. Anybody who can write a poem to a haggis and actually make it work has my attention. Do I see the beginnings of a poetry corner? More power! I'll have to view it from the standpoint of an envious outsider. Poetry is not really my thing. I incline more toward prose. Any hint at how prosaic that makes my thinking will be very ill received. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members TampaYankee Posted August 11, 2007 Members Share Posted August 11, 2007 You guys keep this poetry shit up and somebody's gonna call you gay!! MsGuy 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 Any posting from Burns will be fine with me, even if it has to be in the de'il's tongue because the original would leave me at sea. Anybody who can write a poem to a haggis and actually make it work has my attention. Let me work on it. Do I see the beginnings of a poetry corner? More power! I'll have to view it from the standpoint of an envious outsider. Poetry is not really my thing. I incline more toward prose. Any hint at how prosaic that makes my thinking will be very ill received. OK, prose. Start a thread! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 You guys keep this poetry shit up and somebody's gonna call you gay!! Let 'em try. http://www.clantongang.com/oldwest/trade.htm Hmm -- on t'other hand, maybe you have a point. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 VIII The trumpet of morning blows in the clouds and through The sky. It is the visible announced, It is the more than visible, the more Than sharp, illustrious scene. The trumpet cries This is the successor of the invisible. This is its substitute in stratagems Of the spirit. This, in sight and memory, Must take its place, as what is possible Replaces what is not. The resounding cry Is like ten thousand tumblers tumbling down To share the day. The trumpet supposes that A mind exists, aware of division, aware Of its cry as clarion, its diction’s way As that of a personage in a multitude: Man’s mind grown venerable in the unreal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 IX Fly low, cock bright, and stop on a bean pole. Let Your brown breast redden, while you wait for warmth. With one eye watch the willow, motionless. The gardener’s cat is dead, the gardener gone And last year’s garden grows salacious weeds. A complex of emotions falls apart In an abandoned spot. Soft, civil bird, The decay that you regard: of the arranged And of the spirit of the arranged, douceurs, Tristesses, the fund of life and death, suave bush And polished beast, this complex falls apart. And on your bean pole, it may be, you detect Another complex of other emotions, not So soft, so civil, and you make a sound, Which is not part of the listener’s own sense. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 X The personae of summer play the characters Of an inhuman author, who meditates With the gold bugs, in blue meadows, late at night. He does not hear his characters talk. He sees Them mottled, in the moodiest costumes, Of blue and yellow, sky and sun, belted And knotted, sashed and seamed, half pales of red, Half pales of green, appropriate habit for The huge decorum, the manner of the time, Part of the mottled mood of summer’s whole, In which the characters speak because they want To speak, the fat, the roseate characters, Free, for a moment, from malice and sudden cry, Complete in a completed scene, speaking Their parts as in a youthful happiness. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 11, 2007 Author Share Posted August 11, 2007 The end. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members marcanthony Posted August 12, 2007 Members Share Posted August 12, 2007 LOL! "There once was a man from Nantucket...." hehe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AdamSmith Posted August 12, 2007 Author Share Posted August 12, 2007 "There once was a man from Nantucket...." ...Who stuffed his ass With broken glass And circumcised the vicar! Or less permanently... From a niche in the church of St. Giles Came a scream that resounded for miles. "Oh, my goodness gracious!" Cried Father Ignatius. "How was I to know the bishop had piles?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members marcanthony Posted August 12, 2007 Members Share Posted August 12, 2007 I love a versatile poet! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...