Poetry
Favourite Poems
Saturday, July 05, 2008
I have chosen Kiran Desai’s The Inheritance of Loss as my next novel and starting it today I was arrested by this wonderful passage quoted at the start. It is from one of my very favourite writers, Jorge Luis Borges.
Boast of Quietness
Writings of light assault in the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and my death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.
They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword, the willow grove’s visible prayer as evening falls.
Time is living me.
More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.
I walk slowly, like someone who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive.
* * * *
Previously on Bad Faery: you might also find this entry of interest You Learn
Sunday, June 22, 2008
‘Tis moonlight, summer moonlight,
All soft and still and fair;
The solemn hour of midnight
Breathes sweet thoughts everywhere...’
Emily Bronte
I am somewhat enamoured with the colour blue at the moment.
And moons. And narwhals. Oh, and this paint:
It’s called Galactic Blue. How delicious a name is that?!
Music: ‘Ára bátur’, Sigur Rós
Monday, March 17, 2008
It is far too lovely a day to go into town to watch the parade. I’d rather stay home and enjoy the sunshine. It’s been a rare commodity of late. So, in lieu of partying and the drowning of shamrocks, I thought I’d share one of my favourite Irish poems.
The Song of Wandering Aengus
I went out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.
When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire aflame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And some one called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.
Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lads and hilly lands.
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.
W.B.Yeats
The Song of Wandering Aengus was inspired by one of my favourite Celtic legends. Caer Ibormeith was the ‘glimmering girl’ who appeared to Aengus in the poem. He does eventually finds her only to learn that she and her maidens, 150 in all, must spend one year in swan form, the next in human. He turns into a swan too and he and Caer fly off together, singing such sweet music that all around them are lulled to sleep.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
I missed the lunar eclipse on Wednesday night. After experiencing several days of clear blue skies, the weather took a turn for the worse. Rain, strong winds and heavy cloud cover ended any chance of seeing it.
However tonight I did have a lunar encounter another variety. I watched the documentary In the Shadow of the Moon, an account of the Apollo moon missions in which the surviving crew members tell their story in their own words.
Watching them talk about their experiences, what it meant to them, so much more than beating the Soviets to the landing, the sheer human bravery of it all, I found myself thinking of this poem, written by a World War II fighter pilot who lost his life in a mid-air collision during the war. It has become a favourite amongst both pilots and astronauts:
High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never Lark, or even Eagle flew –
And while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
John Gillespie Magee
Tonight the clouds cleared just enough to allow me to see the moon, barely past full and I thought of those 12 men, still the only humans to set foot on another celestial body.
Thursday, February 14, 2008
After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.
And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.
After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.
So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.
And you learn that you really can endure…
That you really are strong
And you really do have worth…
And you learn and learn…
With every good-bye you learn.
Jorge Luis Borges
Translation by Veronica A. Shoffstall
Sunday, February 10, 2008
My new course is proving very time-demanding hence the lack of blogging. So far I’m enjoying the studying. Unit 1 looked at varieties of ‘Englishes’ (’English’ English, Scots English, Franglais, etc) and at the global influence of English both as a mother tongue and as a second and foreign language.
Unit 2, which is the one I’m currently working on, looks at the origins of the language, from its fifth century beginnings with the Anglo Saxon invasion of Britain, through to the Norman Conquest and the subsequent emergence of Middle English. And I’m loving the history side again just like in my last course. Read on...
Music: ‘The Tales That Really Matter’, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Complete Recordings
Monday, January 14, 2008
And if we
find ourselves inhabited by winter,
the mind’s blank sky branching nowhere,
snow the best the cold heart can hope for,
buried under time’s fraying comforter,
hand on naked back or thigh on thigh
can send us south into the middle of July.
Ron Wallace
Saturday, September 01, 2007
After posting that poem by Paul Durcan a couple of days ago I thought I’d follow it up with another favourite of mine, Margaret Atwood’s Variations on the Word Sleep
I would like to watch you sleeping...
Thursday, August 30, 2007
I first heard this poem on a BBC TV show called The Bookworm. Presented by Gryff Rhys Jones, it ran at tea time on Sunday afternoons on BBC1, from 1995 to 1997. This poem was featured on an edition filmed in Dublin. If memory serves, it was displayed on the electronic display at Dublin’s main train station much to the bemusement of the commuters. It remains a favourite.
Felicity in Turin
We met in the Valentino in Turin
And travelled down through Italy by train,
Sleeping together,
I do not mean having sex.
I mean sleeping together.
Of which sexuality is,
And is not, a part.
It is this sleeping together
That is sacred to me.
This yawning together.
You can have sex with anyone
But with whom can you sleep?
I hate you
Because having slept with me
You left me.
By Paul Durcan
From A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems
In other news...
Friday, June 08, 2007
I saw this painting:
and it reminded me of this poem
Read more...
Listening to: ‘Honeychain’ The Throwing Muses
