Things I cannot change...

The shot-down angel

2007-05-07T15:58:00.000-07:00

I SAW A SHOT-DOWN ANGEL

I saw a shot-down angel in the park

His marble blood sluicing the dyke of death,

A sailing tree firing its brown sea-mark

Where he now wintered for his wounded breath.

I hear the bird-noise of his splintered wings

Sawing the steep sierra of the sky,

On his fixed brow the jewel of the Kings

Reeked the red morning with a starving eye.

I stretched my hand to hold him from the heat,

I fetched a cloth to bind him where he bled,

I brought a bowl to wash his golden feet,

I shone my shield to save him from the dead.

My angel spat my solace in my face

And fired my fingers with his burning shawl,

Crawling in blood and silver to a place

Where he could turn his torture to the wall.

Alone I wandered in the sneaking snow

The signature of murder on my day,

And from the gallow-tree, a careful crow,

Hitched its appalling wings and flew away.

Charles Causley

The Pier-Glass

2007-03-04T07:12:00.000-08:00

THE PIER-GLASS

Lost manor where I walk continually
A ghost, though yet in woman's flesh and blood.
Up your broad stairs mounting with outspread fingers
And gliding steadfast down your corridors
I come nightly custom to this room,
And even on sultry afternoons I come
Drawn by a thread of time-sunk memory.

Empty, unless for a huge bed of state
Shrouded with rusty curtains drooped awry
(A puppet theatre where malignant fancy
Peoples the wings with fear). At my right hand
A ravelled bell-pull hangs in readiness
To summon me from attic glooms above
Service of elder ghosts; here, at my left,
A sullen pier-glass, cracked from side to side,
Scorns to present the face (as do new mirrors)
With a lying flush, but shows it melancholy
And pale, as faces grow that look in mirrors.

Is there no life, nothing but the thin shadow
And blank foreboding, never a wainscot rat
Rasping a crust? Or at the window-pane
No fly, no bluebottle, no starveling spider?
The window frame a prospect of cold skies
Half-merged with sea, as the first creation -
Abstract, confusing welter. Face about,
Peer rather in the glass once more, take note
Of self, the grey lips and long hair dishevelled,
Sleep-staring eyes. Ah, mirror, for Christ's love
Give me one token that there still abides
Remote - beyond this island mystery.
So be it only this side Hope, somewhere,
In streams, on sun-warm mountain pasturage -
True life, natural breath, not this phantasma.

Robert Graves

I first read this poem when I was 17, did I understand it more then than I do now? The idea of a mysterious pier-glass is one that appeals... perhaps I should write about it. Apparently, this poem was dedicated to T.E.lawrence.

2006-11-28T14:33:00.000-08:00

Where is this? And when? And why? Too topical for comfort... its just I've been teaching a unit on this artist.... so I guess the next question is who painted it?

I feel as if I could meet them any day on any street...

2006-11-07T11:46:00.000-08:00

Do you know who these two fine fellows with such contemporary faces are? And do you know where they are?

2006-11-02T10:39:00.000-08:00

It will be Rememberance Day soon, 11th November. More poignant than ever as people lose their lives for their country. Edmund Blunden, a poet of WW! is not as well known as others such as Owen and Sassoon, but he writes some lovely verse, very poignant.

The Zonnebeke Road

Morning, if this late withered light can claim
Some kindred with that merry flame
Which the young day was wont to fling through space!
Agony stares from each grey face.
And yet the day is come; stand down! stand down!
Your hands unclasp from rifles while you can;
The frost has pierced them to the bended bone?
Why see old Stevens there, that iron man,
Melting the ice to shave his grotesque chin!
Go ask him,, shall we win?
I never likes this bay, some foolish fear
Caught me the first time that I came here;
That dugout fallen in awakes, perhaps
Some formless haunting of some corpse's chaps.
True, and wherever we have held the line,
There were such corners, seeming-saturnine
For no good cause.

Now where the Haymarket starts,
There is no place for soldiers with weak hearts;
The minenwerfers have it to the inch.
Look, how the snow-dust whisks along the road
Piteous and silly; the stones themselves must flinch
In this east wind; the low sky like a load
Hangs over, a dead-weight. But what a pain
Must gnaw where its clay cheek
Crushes the shell-chopped trees that fang the plain –
The ice-bound throat gulps out a gargoyle shriek.
That wretched wire before the village line
Rattles like rusty brambles on dead bine,
And there the daylight oozes into dun;
Black pillars, those are trees where roadways run
Even Ypres now would warm our souls; fond fool,
Our tour's but one night old, seven more to cool!
O screaming dumbness, o dull clashing death,
Shreds of dead grass and willows, homes and men,
Watch as you will, men clench their chattering teeth
And freeze you back with that one hope, disdain.

2006-10-31T15:04:00.000-08:00

Another of many highlights is the Chapel of Christ in Gethsemane. This is approached by following the aisle from the Baptistery window towards the altar which is at the north end. (Another break with church convention - the altar is traditionally at the eastern end.) It is a serenely beautiful little chapel, seen through a crown of thorns made from iron. It is when you approach this chapel that you become aware just how overwhelmingly enormous the tapestry above you really is. To put this in perspective, the figure of a man shown between Christ's feet is actually six feet high!

The content of the tapestry has also courted controversy over the years. With reference to Basil Spence's own book; "Phoenix at Coventry", the various figures are explained by passages from Revelation as follows:
"....And in the midst of the throne, and round the throne, were four beasts....And the first beast was like a lion,and the second beast like a calfand the third beast had a face as a manand the fourth beast was like a flying eagle."This paragraph of course, referred to the four main figures which flank the figure of Christ.
Beneath His feet can be seen a chalice which contains a dragon. This is a reference to the following passage:"Then another sign became visible in the sky and I saw that it was a huge red dragon....Now they have conquered him through the blood of the lamb." On the right between the eagle and the lion is a representation of St. Michael hurling down the devil. This has its foundation in the next paragraph:"Then war broke out in Heaven. Michael and his angels battled with the dragon...So the huge dragon, the serpent of ancient times, who is called the devil and satan,the deceiver of the whole world, was hurled down upon the earth...."

I copied the information from a page on the cathedral! Not my own words... obviously!

Serenity

2006-10-28T10:25:00.000-07:00

This is a tiny image of a huge huge huge tapestry hanging in a cathedral in the centre of England. You're so clever I don't think I'm going to give any more clues...

If you ever visit England you must try to visit this cathedral, it is a modern wonder of the world.

... no more clues? oh alright...

the cathedral was badly damaged during the war and was rebuilt among the ruins...

the stained glass is magnificent, breath-taking...

Lady Godiva rode naked through the streets of the city....

2006-10-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

So here it is, a wonderful study in light and shade and a record of the development of scientific study and research in 1776. Joseph Wright was 30 when he painted this....

2006-10-21T15:23:00.000-07:00

This is for my friend in St Louis - can you guess where this comes from?

He's not a very famous artist but a couple of his paintings are very well known including this one. He was English, from the midlands, chronicled the Industrial Revolution, travelled to Europe and was taken with the chiara oscuro techniques he saw there.

Coca-Cola and Coco Frío

2006-10-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Coca-Cola and Coco Frío

On his first visit to Puerto Rico,
island of family folklore,
the fat boy wandered
from table to table
with his mouth open.
At every table, some great-aunt
would steer him with cool spotted hands
to a glass of Coca-Cola.
One even sang to him, in all the English
she could remember, a Coca-Cola jingle
from the forties. He drank obediently, though
he was bored with this potion, familiar
from soda fountains in Brooklyn.

Then, at a roadside stand off the beach, the fat boy
opened his mouth to coco frío, a coconut
chilled, then scalped by a machete
so that a straw could inhale the clear milk.
The boy tilted the green shell overhead
and drooled coconut milk down his chin;
suddenly, Puerto Rico was not Coca-Cola
or Brooklyn, and neither was he.

For years afterward, the boy marveled at an island
where the people drank Coca-Cola
and sang jingles from World War II
in a language they did not speak,
while so many coconuts in the trees
sagged heavy with milk, swollen
and unsuckled.

Another marvellous poem by Martin Espada looking back to childhood. He tells so much in a simple tale, the images are unforgettable.

2006-10-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

This has to be one of the sweetest poems ever written:

1
They fle from me, that sometyme did me seke
With naked fote, stalking in my chambr.
I have sene theim gentill, tame, and meke,
That now are wyld, and do not remembr
That sometyme they put theimself in daunger
To take bred at my hand ; and nowe they raunge
Besely seking with a continuell chaunge.

2
Thancked be fortune it hath ben othrewise
Twenty tymes better ; but ons in speciall,
In thyn arraye, after a pleasaunt gyse,
When her lose gowne from her shoulders did fall,
And she me caught in her armes long and small,
Therewith all swetely did me kysse
And softely saide : "Dere hert howe like you this?"

3
It was no dreme : I lay brode waking
But all is torned, thorough my gentilnes,
Into a straunge fasshion of forsaking ;
And I have leve to go of her goodenes :
And she also to use new fangilnes ;
But syns that I so kyndely am served,
I wold fain knowe what she hath deserved

its by Thomas Wyatt

Sonnet 73

2006-10-04T11:19:00.000-07:00

That time of year thou mayst in me behold,
When yellow leaves, or none, or few do hang
Upon those boughs which shake against the cold,
Bare ruined choirs, where late the sweet birds sang.
In me thou seest the twilight of such day,
As after sunset fadeth in the west,
Which by and by black night doth take away,
Death's second self that seals up all in rest.
In me thou seest the glowing of such fire,
That on the ashes of his youth doth lie,
As the death-bed, whereon it must expire,
Consumed with that which it was nourished by.
This thou perceiv'st, which makes thy love more strong,
To love that well, which thou must leave ere long.

by Shakespeare of course!

2006-09-30T01:36:00.000-07:00

Dream - a song by Rudi

Was it a dream, it cannot be true
Did you make love to me and me to you?
Did we lie in the dunes, holding eachother tight,
Did we kiss and caress as day said goodbye to night?

I cannot believe it, it cannot be true,
That you made love to me and I to you.
Did I imagine the touch of your hand?
Was it an illusion our love in the sand?
Was it a fantasy, me foolin again
Or did your lips touch me like sweet summer’s rain?
And I must be mistaken to think that you sighed
You wanted me, needed me to hold you tight.

I’ll wake up soon and know it was only my desire
Which set my mind racing and my senses on fire,
And created from dream something seeming so real
Its truly impossible that you really could feel
That you wanted my love and wanted me too
Or could it impossibly be not dream but true?

Demented with beauty, a rapture of wild words

2006-09-26T12:43:00.000-07:00

This is the most gorgeous poem by Patrick MacDonogh, 1902-1961. He was born in Dublin and worked as a teacher and commercial artist before working for Arthur Guinness, becoming a senior executive.

She Walked Unaware

Oh, she walked unaware of her own increasing beauty
That was holding men's thoughts from market or plough,
As she passed by intent on her womanly duties
And without leisure to be wayward or proud;
Or if she had pride then it was not in her thinking
But thoughtless in her body like a flowere of good breeding.
The first time I saw her spreading coloured linen
Beyond the green willow she gave me gentle greeting
With no more intention than the leaning willow tree.

Though she smiled without intention yet from that day forward
her beauty filled like water the four corners of my being,
And she rested in my heart like a hare in the form
That is shaped to herself. And I that would be singing
or whistling at all times went silently then,
Till I drew her aside among straight stems of beeches
When the blackbird was sleeping and she promised that never
The fields would be ripe but I'd gather all sweetness,
A red moon of August would rise on our wedding.

October is spreading bright flame along stripped willows,
Low fires of the dogwood burn down to grey water -
God pity me now and all desolate sinners
Demented with beauty! I have blackened my thought
In drouths of bad longing, and all brightness goes shrouded
Since he came with his rapture of wild words that mirrored
Her beauty and made her ungentle and proud.
Tonight she will spread her brown hair on his pillow,
But I shall be hearing the harsh cries of wild fowl.

A cockroach and a flea...

2006-09-26T02:56:00.000-07:00

"My Cockroach Lover"

The summer I slept
on JC's couch,
there were roaches
between the bristles
of my toothbrush,
roaches pouring
from the speakers
of the stereo.
A light flipped on
in the kitchen at night
revealed a Republicannational Convention
of roaches,
an Indianapolis 500of roaches.

One night I dreameda giant roach
leaned over me,
brushing my facewith kind antennae
and whispering,
"I love you."
I awoke slapping myself
and watched the darkness
for hours, because I realized
this was a dream
and so that meant
the cockroachdid not really love me.

This is a poem by my favourite poet, the wonderful Martin Espada. Compare it to the metaphysical poet, John Donne's, famous poem:

The Flea
Mark but this flea, and mark in this,
How little that which thou deniest me is ;
It suck'd me first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled be.
Thou know'st that this cannot be said
A sin, nor shame, nor loss of maidenhead ;
Yet this enjoys before it woo,
And pamper'd swells with one blood made of two ;
And this, alas ! is more than we would do.

O stay, three lives in one flea spare,
Where we almost, yea, more than married are.
This flea is you and I, and this
Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is.
Though parents grudge, and you, we're met,
And cloister'd in these living walls of jet.
Though use make you apt to kill me,
Let not to that self-murder added be,
And sacrilege, three sins in killing three.

Cruel and sudden, hast thou since
Purpled thy nail in blood of innocence?
Wherein could this flea guilty be,
Except in that drop which it suck'd from thee?
Yet thou triumph'st, and say'st that thou
Find'st not thyself nor me the weaker now.
'Tis true ; then learn how false fears be ;
Just so much honour, when thou yield'st to me,
Will waste, as this flea's death took life from thee.

Smoke will rise...

2006-09-23T11:01:00.000-07:00

... and the fire always burns,
Sands will drift and tides will turn
And I can't wrestle with the sea
Rearrange the sky or fight against the wind...

Lines from a favourite song by the Mavericks, sadly now no more