Cheryl (of 'Ooooh Baby,Ooooh Baby' fame in the Austen conference), you expressed an interest in the poems of Robert Herrick so I will leave this one as a little gift. You must, dear friend, let me know if it rates one or more 'oooh babys'!! The Vine I dreamed this mortal part of mine Was metamorphosed to a vine, Which, crawling one and every way, Enthralled my dainty Lucia. Methought, her long small legs and thighs I with my tendrils did surprise: Her belley, buttocks, and her waist By my soft nervelets were embraced About her head I writhing hung And with rich clusters (hid among The leaves) her temples I behung, So that my Lucia seemed to me Young Bacchus ravished by his tree. My curls about her neck did crawl, And arms and hands they did enthrall, So that she could not freely stir (All parts there made one prisoner). But when I crept with leaves to hide Those parts which maids keep unespied, Such fleeting pleasures there I took That with the fancy I awoke, And found (ah me!)this flesh of mine More like a stock than like a vine.

LOL Grace! Boy those Renaissance poets were a lusty lot! I rate this one three Ooh baby's! ;-)

I have a really sad computer so I can't split the lines where they should; I'll just slash away. BETWEEN ANGELS Between angels, on this earth/absurdly between angels, I/try to navigate//in the bluesy middle ground/of desire and withdrawal,/in the industrial air,/among the bittersweet//efforts of people to connect,/make sense, endure./The angels out there,/what are they?//Old helpers, half-believed,/or dazzling better selves,/imagined./that I turn away from/as if I preferred/all the ordinary, dispirit ng/tasks at hand?//I shop in the cold/neon aisles/thinking of pleasure,/I kiss my paycheck//a mournful kiss goodbye/thinking of pleasure,/in the evening replenish//my drink, make a choice/to read or love or watch,/and increasingly I watch./I do not/ mind living//like this. I cannot bear/living like this./Oh, everything's true/at different times//in the capacious day,/just as I don't forget/and always forget//half the people in the world/are dispossesd./Here chestnut oaks/and tenements//make their unequal claims./Someone thinks of betrayal./A child spills her milk./I'm on my knees cleaning it up-//sponge, squeeze, I change nothing,/just move it around./The inconsequential floor /is beginning to shine.

That was a lot longer than it looks on my page! It's by Stephen Dunn. I know angels have been done to death (!) but I just connect with the old helpers half-believed or dazzling better selves imagined---see Wings of Desire. I'll pick shorter poems and a better computer in future.

Cool.

You know, terry, you are an enigmatic little fellow...one never knows whether cool refers to the fine if stilted poetry splashed about, or the idea of picking shorter poems. Keep up the fine obfuscation!

And your response MUST be: "fine"

OK. Fine.

louise gluck federico garcia lorca rafael jimenez adolfo becquer robert desnos

reading tennyson today (and wordsworth last night... i MUST be getting musty, 'cause i couldn't stand these guys not so very long ago)... anyway, this is tennyson's "crossing the bar", which i find unutterably beautiful (so i shant, uh, utter more about it): Sunset and evening star, and one clear call for me. And may there be no moaning of the bar, when I put out to sea, but such tide as moving seems asleep, too full for sound and foam, when that which drew from out the boundless deep turns home again. Twilight and evening bell, and after that the dark. And may there be no sadness of farewell, when I embark; for though from out our bourne of Time and Place the tide may bear me far, I hope to see my Pilot face to face when I have crossed the bar.

wordsworth... "a slumber did my spirit seal; i had no human fears: she seemed a thing that could not feel the touch of earthly years. no motion has she now, no force; she neither hears nor sees; wrapped 'round in earth's diurnal course, with rocks, and stones, and trees..."

speaking of reading poetry-where did you post that bit yesterday?

what? (the tennyson?)

yes, yes....where did you put it?

uhhhh... yer sitting on it (here...resp.#10, i think...)

*blush*

ahh, yes.

yup