Poetry

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Yes - his work needs (and repays) "a lot of time", and takes the attentive listener's attention and intelligence (and patience) for granted. He says what needs to be said, in the way he needs to say it - the rest is up to us. Genuine Art. I'd not encountered his work before, 'djog - and I'm much obliged.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Last Words

Splendidly, Shakespeare's heroes,
Shakespeare's heroines, once the spotlight's on,
enact every night, with such grace, their verbose deaths.
Then great plush curtains, then smiling resurrection
to applause - and never their good looks gone.


The last recorded words, too
of real kings, real queens, all the famous dead,
are but pithy pretences, quotable fictions
composed by anonymous men decades later,
never with ready notebooks at the bed.

Most do not know who they are
when they die or where they are, country or town,
nor which hand on their brow. Some clapped-out actor may
imagine distant applause, but no real queen
will sigh, "Give me my robe, put on my crown."

Death scenes, not life-enhancing,
death scenes not beautiful, nor with breeding;
yet bravo Sidney Carton, bravo Duc de Chavost
who, euphoric beside the guillotine, turned down
the corner of the page he was reading.

And how would I wish to go?
Not as in opera - that would offend -
nor like a blue-eyed cowboy, shot and short of words,
but finger-tapping still our private morse,
" ... love ... you"
before the last flowers and flies descend.

Dannie ABSE

[hedgehog]

"who, euphoric beside the guillotine, turned down
the corner of the page he was reading."

Brings a smile to the sad news of Abse's passing.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-29404215

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I love the three tones that Abse effortlessly evokes in this poem: the contrast of dramatic artifice with the grim reality that as a doctor he saw more regularly most of us; the humour (especially the pun on "clapped-out actor"); and the defiant power of love - sentimentality completely avoided, sentiment overflowing - and that final, vinegar-y line. Superb balance of tones, use of language and "afterglow".

RIP

[johncorrigan]

Thanks for that - back to death...and again this from the Poet Laureate from Saturday's Guardian. I seem to find her either unreadable or fascinating and this is one of the latter - written on the death of her father - wonderful images.

Pathway

I saw my father walking in my garden
and where he walked,
the garden lengthened


to a changing mile
which held all seasons of the year.
He did not see me, staring from my window,
a child's star face, hurt light from stricken time,
and he had treaded spring and summer
grasses before I thought to stir, follow him.


Autumn's cathedral, open to the weather, rose
high above, flawed amber, gorgeous ruin; his shadow
stretched before me, cappa magna,
my own, obedient, trailed like a nun.
He did not turn. I heard the rosaries of birds.
The trees, huge doors, swung open and I knelt.


He stepped into a silver room of cold;
a narrow bed of ice stood glittering,
and though my father wept, he could not leave,
but had to strip, then shiver in his shroud,


till winter palmed his eyes for frozen bulbs,
or sliced his tongue, a silencing of worms.


The moon a simple headstone without words.

Carol Ann Duffy

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I seem to find her either unreadable or fascinating

I agree entirely - she has written about a dozen poems that I find astonishing, and many, many others that just stick sulking on the page.

and this is one of the latter

It certainly is - aching with loss and regrets: one of the "astonishing" ones. Like so many poems "about" death, it simultaneously celebrates life. Many thanks for this, John; I'd never seen it before.

[johncorrigan]

It certainly is - aching with loss and regrets: one of the "astonishing" ones. Like so many poems "about" death, it simultaneously celebrates life.

...and leading to a wonderful final line I thought, ferney.

[johncorrigan]

I enjoyed Ian McMillan's exploration of Auden's landscape depicted in 'In Praise of Limestone' over on Radio 4 today.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04k9mzl

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I enjoyed Ian McMillan's exploration of Auden's landscape depicted in 'In Praise of Limestone' over on Radio 4 today.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04k9mzl

In Praise Of Limestone (May 1948)

If it form the one landscape that we, the inconstant ones,
Are consistently homesick for, this is chiefly
Because it dissolves in water. Mark these rounded slopes
With their surface fragrance of thyme and, beneath,
A secret system of caves and conduits; hear the springs
That spurt out everywhere with a chuckle,
Each filling a private pool for its fish and carving
Its own little ravine whose cliffs entertain
The butterfly and the lizard; examine this region
Of short distances and definite places:
What could be more like Mother or a fitter background
For her son, the flirtatious male who lounges
Against a rock in the sunlight, never doubting
That for all his faults he is loved; whose works are but
Extensions of his power to charm? From weathered outcrop
To hill-top temple, from appearing waters to
Conspicuous fountains, from a wild to a formal vineyard,
Are ingenious but short steps that a child's wish
To receive more attention than his brothers, whether
By pleasing or teasing, can easily take.



Watch, then, the band of rivals as they climb up and down
Their steep stone gennels in twos and threes, at times
Arm in arm, but never, thank God, in step; or engaged
On the shady side of a square at midday in
Voluble discourse, knowing each other too well to think
There are any important secrets, unable
To conceive a god whose temper-tantrums are moral
And not to be pacified by a clever line
Or a good lay: for accustomed to a stone that responds,
They have never had to veil their faces in awe
Of a crater whose blazing fury could not be fixed;
Adjusted to the local needs of valleys
Where everything can be touched or reached by walking,
Their eyes have never looked into infinite space
Through the lattice-work of a nomad's comb; born lucky,
Their legs have never encountered the fungi
And insects of the jungle, the monstrous forms and lives
With which we have nothing, we like to hope, in common.
So, when one of them goes to the bad, the way his mind works
Remains comprehensible: to become a pimp
Or deal in fake jewellery or ruin a fine tenor voice
For effects that bring down the house, could happen to all
But the best and the worst of us...
That is why, I suppose,
The best and worst never stayed here long but sought
Immoderate soils where the beauty was not so external,
The light less public and the meaning of life
Something more than a mad camp. `Come!' cried the granite wastes,
`How evasive is your humour, how accidental
Your kindest kiss, how permanent is death.' (Saints-to-be
Slipped away sighing.) `Come!' purred the clays and gravels,
`On our plains there is room for armies to drill; rivers
Wait to be tamed and slaves to construct you a tomb
In the grand manner: soft as the earth is mankind and both
Need to be altered.' (Intendant Caesars rose and
Left, slamming the door.) But the really reckless were fetched
By an older colder voice, the oceanic whisper:
`I am the solitude that asks and promises nothing;
That is how I shall set you free. There is no love;
There are only the various envies, all of them sad.'



They were right, my dear, all those voices were right
And still are; this land is not the sweet home that it looks,
Nor its peace the historical calm of a site
Where something was settled once and for all: A back ward
And dilapidated province, connected
To the big busy world by a tunnel, with a certain
Seedy appeal, is that all it is now? Not quite:
It has a worldy duty which in spite of itself
It does not neglect, but calls into question
All the Great Powers assume; it disturbs our rights. The poet,
Admired for his earnest habit of calling
The sun the sun, his mind Puzzle, is made uneasy
By these marble statues which so obviously doubt
His antimythological myth; and these gamins,
Pursuing the scientist down the tiled colonnade
With such lively offers, rebuke his concern for Nature's
Remotest aspects: I, too, am reproached, for what
And how much you know. Not to lose time, not to get caught,
Not to be left behind, not, please! to resemble
The beasts who repeat themselves, or a thing like water
Or stone whose conduct can be predicted, these
Are our common prayer, whose greatest comfort is music
Which can be made anywhere, is invisible,
And does not smell. In so far as we have to look forward
To death as a fact, no doubt we are right: But if
Sins can be forgiven, if bodies rise from the dead,
These modifications of matter into
Innocent athletes and gesticulating fountains,
Made solely for pleasure, make a further point:
The blessed will not care what angle they are regarded from,
Having nothing to hide. Dear, I know nothing of
Either, but when I try to imagine a faultless love
Or the life to come, what I hear is the murmur
Of underground streams, what I see is a limestone landscape.

[vinteuil]

... yes, I like Auden's Limestone.

I rate even more highly his "Voltaire at Ferney" -

Perfectly happy now, he looked at his estate.
An exile making watches glanced up as he passed
And went on working; where a hospital was rising fast,
A joiner touched his cap; an agent came to tell
Some of the trees he'd planted were progressing well.
The white alps glittered. It was summer. He was very great.
Far off in Paris where his enemies
Whsipered that he was wicked, in an upright chair
A blind old woman longed for death and letters. He would write,
"Nothing is better than life." But was it? Yes, the fight
Against the false and the unfair
Was always worth it. So was gardening. Civilize.

Cajoling, scolding, screaming, cleverest of them all,
He'd had the other children in a holy war
Against the infamous grown-ups; and, like a child, been sly
And humble, when there was occassion for
The two-faced answer or the plain protective lie,
But, patient like a peasant, waited for their fall.

And never doubted, like D'Alembert, he would win:
Only Pascal was a great enemy, the rest
Were rats already poisoned; there was much, though, to be done,
And only himself to count upon.
Dear Diderot was dull but did his best;
Rousseau, he'd always known, would blubber and give in.

Night fell and made him think of women: Lust
Was one of the great teachers; Pascal was a fool.
How Emilie had loved astronomy and bed;
Pimpette had loved him too, like scandal; he was glad.
He'd done his share of weeping for Jerusalem: As a rule,
It was the pleasure-haters who became unjust.

Yet, like a sentinel, he could not sleep. The night was full of wrong,
Earthquakes and executions: soon he would be dead,
And still all over Europe stood the horrible nurses
Itching to boil their children. Only his verses
Perhaps could stop them: He must go on working: Overhead,
The uncomplaining stars composed their lucid song.

[Nick Armstrong]

I've been an huge Auden devotee since my teens. Inexhaustibly great....

Those two are wonderful. Some of the simpler, song-lyric style poems are unforgettable too.


From

"I Walked Out One Evening"

....

But all the clocks in the city
Began to whirr and chime:
‘O let not Time deceive you,
You cannot conquer Time.

‘In the burrows of the Nightmare
Where Justice naked is,
Time watches from the shadow
And coughs when you would kiss.

‘In headaches and in worry
Vaguely life leaks away,
And Time will have his fancy
To-morrow or to-day.

...

‘The glacier knocks in the cupboard,
The desert sighs in the bed,
And the crack in the tea-cup opens
A lane to the land of the dead.

...

‘O look, look in the mirror,
O look in your distress:
Life remains a blessing
Although you cannot bless.

‘O stand, stand at the window
As the tears scald and start;
You shall love your crooked neighbour
With your crooked heart.'

It was late, late in the evening,
The lovers they were gone;
The clocks had ceased their chiming,
And the deep river ran on.

[gamba]

The Tryst

William Soutar ( 1898 - 1943 )


O luely, luely cam she in
And luely she lay doun;
I kent her be her caller lips
And her breists sae sma' and roun'.

A' thru the nicht we spak nae word
Nor sinder'd bane frae bane;
A' thru the nicht I herd her hert
Gang soundin' wi' my ain.

It was about the waukrife hour,
When cocks begin to craw
That she smool'd saftly thru the mirk
Afore the day wud daw.

Sae luely, luely cam she in
Sae luely was she gaen
And wi' her a' my simmer days
Like they had never been.



luely ; quietly, softly.
caller; fresh
sinder'd; sundered
waukrife; wakening, wakeful.
smool'd; slipped

[johncorrigan]

I liked that Gamba - I haven't read much of Soutar though his house is in Perth. Does 'Bane' mean 'Fair' in this context do you know?

[gamba]

Hello John,

I can only presume 'bane' means bone, but I may also be making a wild guess.

Anyway, a perfect gem & to be treasured

[alycidon]

Yonder see the morning blink
The sun is up, and up must I
To wash and dress, and eat and drink,
To look at things, and talk and think
And work, and God knows why.

Oh! Often have I washed and dressed
And what's to show for all my pain
Let me lie abed and rest
Ten thousand times I've done my best
And all's to do again.

A E Houseman