Category Archives: Poems, prose & song

“Days of the Week” by Flo

A new poem by Flo.

http://tuftsobserver.org/2011/12/days-of-the-week/

Days of the Week

Flo Wen

 

If ever I could walk away
And leave her on her own,
I’d plan the perfect leaving day –
But one that I’d postpone.

For Monday’s when we lie in bed
Before the week’s restart –
Between us: those three words unsaid –
And dread our days apart.

On Tuesday nights we’re reading things,
The weekend left behind.
Our supper’s what delivery brings,
The place she ‘doesn’t mind’.

By Wednesday we have mastered roles
Of boring parts to play.
She pours the milk, I lay the bowls,
And breakfast starts the day.

And Thursday’s time for restlessness
That manifests itself:
Complaints and faults we can’t suppress
Or keeping to ourselves.

But restless turns to passion when
We see the light ahead;
Friday brings her smile again
And those three words are said.

They linger through to Saturday,
When going out’s a ‘must’.
It’s fine by me; content she’ll stay
And passion turns to lust.

Yet Sunday’s been our stay-in night,
Her tired eyes don’t shine:
Their Easter-blue and yellow white,
The opposite of mine.

You see, there’s really not a chance,
Amidst all that, to go.
I’d miss what people call romance;
The pattern’s all I know.

 

When insults had class…

These glorious and eloquent insults are from the good old days when our armory of linguistic weapons extended beyond 4-letter expletives, frowny faces made out of punctuation marks, and screaming caps … And, what’s more, they’re eminently stealable, since most of their authors are long gone.


 

  • A member of Parliament to Disraeli: “Sir, you will either die on the gallows or of some unspeakable disease.”

“That depends, Sir,” said Disraeli, “whether I embrace your policies or your mistress.”

 

  • “He had delusions of adequacy.” – Walter Kerr

 

  • “He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire.” – Winston Churchill

 

  • “I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure.”  Clarence Darrow

 

  • “He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary.” – William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway).

 

  • “Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I’ll waste no time reading it.” – Moses Hadas

 

  • “I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain

 

  • “He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends.” – Oscar Wilde

 

  • “I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play; bring a friend, if you have one.” – George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill

“Cannot possibly attend first night. Will attend second … if there is one.” –  Winston Churchill, in response.

 

  • “I feel so miserable without you; it’s almost like having you here.” – Stephen Bishop

 

  • “He is a self-made man and worships his creator.” – John Bright

 

  • “I’ve just learned about his illness. Let’s hope it’s nothing trivial.” – Irvin S. Cobb

 

  • “He is not only dull himself; he is the cause of dullness in others.” – Samuel Johnson

 

  • “He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up.” – Paul Keating

 

  • “In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily.” – Charles, Count Talleyrand

 

  • “He loves nature in spite of what it did to him.” – Forrest Tucker

 

  • “Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?” – Mark Twain

 

  • “His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork.” – Mae West

 

  • “Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go.” – Oscar Wilde

 

  • “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts… for support rather than illumination.” – Andrew Lang (1844-1912)

 

  • “He has Van Gogh’s ear for music.” – Billy Wilder

 

  • “I’ve had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn’t it.” – Groucho Marx

 

 

Kate and Pippa in the words of the poets

My father writes about some of the Kates and Pippas of literary renown …

http://www.barder.com/3200

Pippa and Kate in the words of the poets

April 30th, 2011

Oh, no, not that wedding again? Calm down, dear, it’s only a footnote.  According to the tabloids and the internet, Pippa Middleton, sister of the new Princess William formerly known as Kate, stole the show yesterday for many viewers, not only more than rivalling her sister’s good looks but prompting excited comments about a particular aspect of her figure.  A Daily Mirror headline, for example, screams:

Pippa Middleton bridesmaid dress sparks Facebook fan page for her bottom

and sure enough, there’s the facebook page in question, already marked as ‘liked’ by more than 44,000 connoisseurs of the anatomical feature in question.  But on a more elevated level, the catapulting to national celebrity status of the lovely Pippa must have sent at least some of us to our collected poetry of the now much neglected Robert Browning:

from Pippa Passes

The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in His heaven—
All’s right with the world!

– of which the last couplet at least has achieved immortality, if the rest of the long narrative poem hasn’t.

SRD GIRL. [To PIPPA who approaches.] Oh, you may come closer: we shall not eat you! Why, you seem the very person that the great rich handsome Englishman has fallen so violently in love with! I’ll tell you all about it.

Here Browning evidently foresees the impression that some observers claim to have got from the proceedings yesterday that Prince Harry, brother of the groom, sharing responsibility for the young bridesmaids and page boys with Pippa, the sister of the bride, appeared somewhat smitten by her, being overheard (or lip-read) to whisper to her a gallant tribute to her beauty, although whether Browning’s description of young Harry as “the great rich handsome Englishman” fits the bill is for others to judge.  Anyway, I doubt if Harry’s long-time girlfriend Chelsy Davy has anything to worry about.

Cole Porter also obviously had a premonition, putting words into the mouth of the groom on the red-quilted palace balcony (only confusing the prince’s nickname with his Dad’s):

FRED:

So, kiss me, Kate, thou lovely loon,
‘Ere we start on our honeymoon.
So kiss me, Kate, darling devil divine,
For now thou shall ever be mine.

But let Shakespeare have the last word, even if he also gets a little confused over who would be speaking — William, obviously, not Harry, still on the balcony:

Kate, I cannot look greenly nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging. If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sun-burning, that never looks in his glass for love of any thing he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook. I speak to thee plain soldier: If thou canst love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the Lord, no; yet I love thee too…

Now, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all,
That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen.

Well, his queen-to-be, anyway.

 

 

 

Death is the mother of beauty*

A poem written by my 17-year-old daughter, Florence, about her relationship with her sister.

 

“Death is the mother of beauty” *

 

‘It’s just a phase of every life’,

The adults like to say.

When offspring of a common pair

Begin to disobey.

 

They’ll row, they’ll feud, they’ll interfere,

By Cain and Abel’s lead.

For children – much less those of kin –

Are hardly all agreed.

 

Yet as the farmers grow to men

And shepherdesses age,

Their shared blood boilings turn to cold

And quarrels are upstaged.

 

For all begin to realize

Their own misguided ways:

Their twin or kin the enemy,

Instead of numbered days.

 

And though our mothers cannot make

The youthful battles cease,

The disciplines of beauty’s mother

Cause the sweet release.

 

*Wallace Stevens, “Sunday Morning”, 1915