Friends

Tarantella


Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
And the tedding and the spreading
Of the straw for a bedding,
And the fleas that tease in the High Pyrenees,
And the wine that tasted of tar?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
(Under the vine of the dark veranda)?
Do you remember an Inn, Miranda,
Do you remember an Inn?
And the cheers and the jeers of the young muleteers
Who hadn't got a penny,
And who weren't paying any,
And the hammer at the doors and the din?
And the hip! hop! hap!
Of the clap
Of the hands to the swirl and the twirl
Of the girl gone chancing,
Glancing,
Dancing,
Backing and advancing,
Snapping of the clapper to the spin
Out and in--
And the ting, tong, tang of the guitar!
Do you remember an Inn,
Miranda?
Do you remember an Inn?
Never more;
Miranda,
Never more.
Only the high peaks hoar;
And Aragon a torrent at the door.
No sound
In the walls of the halls where falls
The tread
Of the feet of the dead to the ground,
No sound:
But the boom
Of the far waterfall like doom.

Hilaire Belloc



For Annie by Edgar Allan Poe


Thank Heaven! the crisis-
The danger is past,
And the lingering illness
Is over at last-
And the fever called "Living"
Is conquered at last.
Sadly, I know
I am shorn of my strength,
And no muscle I move
As I lie at full length-
But no matter!-I feel
I am better at length.

And I rest so composedly,
Now, in my bed
That any beholder
Might fancy me dead-
Might start at beholding me,
Thinking me dead.

The moaning and groaning,
The sighing and sobbing,
Are quieted now,
With that horrible throbbing
At heart:- ah, that horrible,
Horrible throbbing!

The sickness- the nausea-
The pitiless pain-
Have ceased, with the fever
That maddened my brain-
With the fever called "Living"
That burned in my brain.

And oh! of all tortures
That torture the worst
Has abated- the terrible
Torture of thirst

For the naphthaline river
Of Passion accurst:-
I have drunk of a water
That quenches all thirst:-

Of a water that flows,
With a lullaby sound,
From a spring but a very few
Feet under ground-
From a cavern not very far
Down under ground.

And ah! let it never
Be foolishly said
That my room it is gloomy
And narrow my bed;
For man never slept
In a different bed-
And, to sleep, you must slumber
In just such a bed.

My tantalized spirit
Here blandly reposes,
Forgetting, or never
Regretting its roses-
Its old agitations
Of myrtles and roses:

For now, while so quietly
Lying, it fancies
A holier odor
About it, of pansies-
A rosemary odor,
Commingled with pansies-
With rue and the beautiful
Puritan pansies.

And so it lies happily,
Bathing in many
A dream of the truth
And the beauty of Annie-
Drowned in a bath
Of the tresses of Annie.

She tenderly kissed me,
She fondly caressed,
And then I fell gently
To sleep on her breast-
Deeply to sleep
From the heaven of her breast.

When the light was extinguished,
She covered me warm,
And she prayed to the angels
To keep me from harm-
To the queen of the angels
To shield me from harm.

And I lie so composedly,
Now, in my bed,
(Knowing her love)
That you fancy me dead-
And I rest so contentedly,
Now, in my bed,
(With her love at my breast)
That you fancy me dead-
That you shudder to look at me,
Thinking me dead.
But my heart it is brighter
Than all of the many
Stars in the sky,
For it sparkles with Annie-
It glows with the light
Of the love of my Annie-
With the thought of the light
Of the eyes of my Annie.

Ballad of the Morning After - what's your interpretation?

by Carol Rumens

Take back the festive midnight,
Take back the sad-eyed dawn:
Wind up that old work ethic.
Oh let me be unborn.
After a night of travelling,
How can it come to pass
That there’s the same tongue in my mouth
The same face in my glass,
Same light on the curtain,
Same thirst in the cup,
Same ridiculous notion
Of never getting up?
Cars stream above the city;
The subway throbs below,
Whirling a million faces
Like shapeless scraps of snow,
And all these melting faces
Flying below and above
Think they are loved especially
Think they especially love.
This is a free country.
The jails are for the bad:
The only British dissidents
Are either poor or mad.
I put my classless jeans on,
Open my lockless door;
I breathe the air of freedom
And know I’m mad and poor.
Love is the creed I grew by,
Love is the liberal’s drug –
Not Agape, but Eros
With his Utopian hug
And in the close, supportive,
Environment of the bed,
He is liberty, equality,
Fraternity and bread.
That is the supposition –
But I say love’s a joke,
A here-today-and-gone-tomorrow
Childish pinch-and-poke.
Perhaps I’ll believe in something
Like God or Politics;
I’d build those temples wider
But there are no more bricks.
Some women believe in sisterhood;
They’ve rowed the Master’s ship
Across the lustful silver sea
On his last ego-trip,
And some believe in Housework,
And a few believe in Man.
There’s only one man that I want,
And I want him again and again.
He sat down at my table.
He finished all the wine.
‘You’re nothing, dear, to me,’ he said,
But his body covered mine,
And stoked the fiery sickness
That’s done me to a turn –
The fool that chose to marry
And also chose to burn.
Burning burning burning
I came to self-abuse,
Hoping I’d go blind, but no,
It wasn’t any use.
I see a mother and her child
Both turn with starving face.
And that’s the story of our lives,
The whole damned human race.
My conscience is a hangover,
My sex life, chemistry;
My values are statistics,
My opinions, PMT.
Beside my rented window
I listen to the rain.
Yes, love’s a ball of iron,
And time, its short, sharp chain.
The middle-aged say life’s too brief.
The old and young say ‘wrong’.
I’ll tell you, if you don’t like life,
It’s every day too long.

Interesting writer. As I was reading it (and relating) I was admiring how she writes revealing herself in this way.
In the first lines I related in the way of waking from a night of hedonism and the headache or rather the lethargy with the day already moving about me. Sounds of people doing what they do every fay and I ought to be doing be feeling just too hungover.
Memories not yet engaging just the sense of it having been a heavy night. And that in itself being the reminder that there will be things to remember - oh God!

Kiss

 Edvard Munch



 Rodin





 Gustav Klimt

Roy Lichenstein

 Edvard Munch



 Alfred Eisenstaedt

 Egon Schiele

 Brancusi



 Rubi Kahn


 Henri de Toulous-Lautrec