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Post by tannis on Mar 19, 2008 1:31:24 GMT
Joanna Newsom: Beautiful lyrics & wonderful performance! ... Thank you...
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Mar 19, 2008 1:33:15 GMT
I'm glad you enjoyed it.
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Mar 24, 2008 2:23:40 GMT
www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Xa3Hw0nhsgwww.youtube.com/watch?v=XAdIbqZZpFg&feature=relatedSince the last Joanna Newsom song seemed well recieved, I thought I'd post the lyrics to this one. They really are poetry. Worth the time taken to read and listen... Only Skin
and there was a booming above you that night, black airplanes flew over the sea and they were lowing and shifting like beached whales shelled snails as you strained and you squinted to see the retreat of their hairless and blind cavalry
you froze in your sand shoal prayed for your poor soul sky was a bread roll, soaking in a milk-bowl and when the bread broke, fell in bricks of wet smoke my sleeping heart woke, and my waking heart spoke
then there was a silence you took to mean something: mean, run, sing for alive you will evermore be and the plague of the greasy black engines a-skulkin' has gone east while you're left to explain them to me released from their hairless and blind cavalry
with your hands in your pockets, stubbily running to where I'm unfresh, undressed and yawning well, what is this craziness? this crazy talking? you caught some small death when you were sleepwalking
it was a dark dream, darlin', it's over the firebreather is beneath the clover beneath his breathing there is cold clay, forever a toothless hound-dog choking on a feather
but I took my fishingpole (fearing your fever) down to the swimminghole, where there grows bitter herb that blooms but one day a year by the riverside - I'd bring it here: apply it gently to the love you've lent me
while the river was twisting and braiding, the bait bobbed and the string sobbed, as it cut through the hustling breeze and I watched how the water was kneading so neatly gone treacly nearly slowed to a stop in this heat - frenzy coiling flush along the muscles beneath
press on me: we are restless things webs of seaweed are swaddling you call upon the dusk of the musk of a squid shot full of ink, until you sink into your crib
rowing along, among the reeds, among the rushes I heard your song, before my heart had time to hush it! smell of a stone fruit being cut and being opened smell of a low and of a lazy cinder smoking
and when the fire moves away fire moves away, son why would you say I was the last one?
scrape your knee; it is only skin makes the sound of violins when you cut my hair, and leave the birds the trimmings I am the happiest woman among all women
and the shallow water stretches as far as I can see knee-deep, trudging along a seagull weeps; "so long"
I'm humming a threshing song until the night is over hold on! hold on! hold your horses back from the fickle dawn
I have got some business out at the edge of town candy weighing both of my pockets down 'til I can hardly stay afloat, from the weight of them (and knowing how the common-folk condemn what it is I do, to you, to keep you warm being a woman, being a woman)
but always up the mountainside you're clambering groping blindly, hungry for anything: picking through your pocket linings - well, what is this? scrap of sassafras, eh Sisyphus?
I see the blossoms broke and wet after the rain little sister, he will be back again I have washed a thousand spiders down the drain spiders ghosts hang soaked and dangelin' silently from all the blooming cherry trees in tiny nooses, safe from everyone - nothing but a nuisance; gone now, dead and done be a woman, be a woman!
though we felt the spray of the waves we decided to stay till the tide rose too far we weren't afraid, cause we know what you are and you know that we know what you are
awful atoll - o, incalculable indiscreetness and sorrow! bawl, bellow: Sibyl sea-cow, all done up in a bow
toddle and roll; teeth an impalpable bit of leather while yarrow, heather and hollyhock awkwardly molt along the shore
are you mine? my heart? mine anymore?
stay with me for awhile that's an awfully real gun I know life will lay you down as the lightning has lately done
failing this, failing this, follow me, my sweetest friend to see what you anointed in pointing your gun there
lay it down! nice and slow! there is nowhere to go, save up up where the light, undiluted, is weaving in a drunk dream at the sight of my baby, out back: back on the patio watching the bats bring night in - while, elsewhere, estuaries of wax-white wend, endlessly, towards seashores unmapped
last week our picture window produced a half-word heavy and hollow, hit by a brown bird we stood and watched her gape like a rattlesnake and pant and labour over every intake
I said a sort of prayer for some sort of rare grace then thought I ought to take her to a higher place said: "dog nor vulture nor cat shall toy with you and though you die, bird, you will have a fine view"
then in my hot hand she slumped her sick weight we tramped through the poison oak heartbroke and inchoate
the dogs were snapping so you cuffed their collars while I climbed the tree-house then how I hollered! cause she'd lain, as still as a stone, in my palm, for a lifetime or two
then, saw the treetops, cocked her head and up and flew (while, back in the world that moves, often according to the hoarding of these clues dogs still run roughly around little tufts of finch-down)
the cities we passed were a flickering wasteland but his hand in my hand made them hale and harmless while down in the lowlands the crops are all coming; we have everything life is thundering blissful towards death in a stampede of his fumbling green gentleness
you stopped by, I was all alive in my doorway, we shucked and jived and when you wept, I was gone: see, I got gone when I got wise but I can't with certainty say we survived
then down, and down and down, and down and down, and deeper stoke without sound the blameless flames you endless sleeper
through fire below, and fire above, and fire within sleeped through the things that couldn't have been if you hadn't have been
and when the fire moves away fire moves away, son why would you say I was the last one?
all my bones they are gone, gone, gone take my bones, I don't need none cold, cold cupboard, Lord, nothing to chew on! suck all day on a cherry stone
dig a little hole, not three inches round spit your pit in the hole in the ground weep upon the spot for the starving of me! till up grow a fine young cherry tree
well when the bough breaks, what'll you make for me? a little willow cabin to rest on your knee what'll I do with a trinket such as this? think of your woman, who's gone to the west
but I'm starving and freezing in my measly old bed! then I'll crawl across the salt flats to stroke your sweet head come across the desert with no shoes on! I love you truly, or I love no-one
fire
moves
away
fire moves away, son why would you say I was the last one?
clear the room! there's a fire, a fire, a fire get going, and I'm going to be right behind you and if the love of a woman or two, dear, couldn't move you to such heights, then all I can do is do, my darling, right by you
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Post by tannis on Mar 29, 2008 20:00:31 GMT
Tulips by Sylvia Plath, 1965The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here. Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in. I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands. I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions. I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons. They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut. Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in. The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble, They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps, Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another, So it is impossible to tell how many there are. My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently. They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep. Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage ---- My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox, My husband and child smiling out of the family photo; Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks. I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address. They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations. Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head. I am a nun now, I have never been so pure. I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty. How free it is, you have no idea how free ---- The peacefulness is so big it dazes you, And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets. It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet. The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me. Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby. Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds. They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their color, A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck. Nobody watched me before, now I am watched. The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins, And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips, And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself The vivid tulips eat my oxygen. Before they came the air was calm enough, Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss. Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise. Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine. They concentrate my attention, that was happy Playing and resting without committing itself. The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves. The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat, And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me. The water I taste is warm and salt, like the sea, And comes from a country far away as health. see more: TULIPS: Poetry Analysis/ Discussionwww.sylviaplathforum.com/tulips.html
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Mar 29, 2008 20:37:18 GMT
Thank you for the poem... it does indeed seem similar to Sprout And Bean. The line "The vivid tulips eat my oxygen." really struck me, and I enjoyed the whole thing very much.
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Post by Al Truest on Mar 29, 2008 21:38:21 GMT
Thank you for the poem... it does indeed seem similar to Sprout And Bean. The line "The vivid tulips eat my oxygen." really struck me, and I enjoyed the whole thing very much. Vivid Tulips literally do eat my oxygen. This line jumped out at me as well. Also, I had not heard the Sprout and Bean analogy (to the umbilical chord and zygote) It is an effective comparison. The bean and fetus similarities are both visually and creatively analogous.
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Mar 29, 2008 21:38:46 GMT
Tea
When the elephants-ear in the park Shrivelled in frost, And the leaves on the paths Ran like rats, Your lamplight fell On shining pillows Of sea-shades and sky-shades, Like umbrellas in Java.
(Wallace Stevens)
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Mar 29, 2008 21:41:45 GMT
Vivid Tulips literally do eat my oxygen. This line jumped out at me as well. Also, I had not heard the Sprout and Bean analogy (to the umbilical chord and zygote) It is an effective comparison. The bean and fetus similarities are both visually and creatively analogous. It's a wonderful line, isn't it? And Tannis made a very good connection with the song.
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Post by Al Truest on Mar 29, 2008 21:43:12 GMT
Tannis, You seem draw from several inspirations that crop up on a regular basis in your posts. I'd be interested to hear why.
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Post by tannis on Mar 30, 2008 2:04:24 GMT
To be honest, Al, I haven't read a wide range of poets. Hence the returns... 'The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.' is a wonderful line, isn't it! ... as are The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals; They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat...Indeed I wonder if KB is referring to tulips in Big Stripey Lie... ? Oh my God it's a jungle in here You've got wild animals loose in here...I post CUT because of its reference to Babushka, which like 'Babooshka' is also symbolic of Cold Warring parties! ... Cut For Susan O'Neill RoeWhat a thrill ---- My thumb instead of an onion. The top quite gone Except for a sort of a hinge Of skin, A flap like a hat, Dead white. Then that red plush. Little pilgrim, The Indian's axed your scalp. Your turkey wattle Carpet rolls Straight from the heart. I step on it, Clutching my bottle Of pink fizz. A celebration, this is. Out of a gap A million soldiers run, Redcoats, every one. Whose side are they on? O my Homunculus, I am ill. I have taken a pill to kill The thin Papery feeling. Saboteur, Kamikaze man ---- The stain on your Gauze Ku Klux Klan Babushka Darkens and tarnishes and when The balled Pulp of your heart Confronts its small Mill of silence How you jump---- Trepanned veteran, Dirty girl, Thumb stump. Sylvia Plath, 24.10.62see more: CUT - Poetry Analysis/ Discussionwww.sylviaplathforum.com/thread2.html"Plath dedicates "Cut" to her brand new au pair, Susan O'Neill Roe, in what seems a sort of "welcome to the family" gesture. One can only imagine Roe's reaction to this bloody love gift, and marvel at Plath's complexity. Welcoming aboard what amounts to an Extra Pair of Hands (and perhaps an unconsciously threatening surrogate mum for the children), Plath presents her new helpmeet with her own severed thumb!"
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Mar 30, 2008 15:07:39 GMT
To be honest, Al, I haven't read a wide range of poets. Hence the returns... It's interesting... For me, as I find new ideas and new intellectual and creative influences, it's so often that I find them connecting with Kate, at least in my mind. She addresses such a wide range of subjects and such profound ones that it's possible to weave her ideas together with the ideas of many poets, philosophers, or other thinkers... I just think it's lovely that she really 'opens the windows' in our minds.
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Post by Barry SR Gowing on Apr 3, 2008 4:39:32 GMT
I always imagine TS Eliot reading this before writing The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock:
"Ode To A Nightingale" - John Keats
My heart aches, and a drowsy numbness pains My sense, as though of hemlock I had drunk, Or emptied some dull opiate to the drains One minute past, and Lethe-wards had sunk: ’Tis not through envy of thy happy lot, But being too happy in thine happiness,— That thou, light-winged Dryad of the trees, In some melodious plot Of beechen green, and shadows numberless, Singest of summer in full-throated ease.
and later in the poem:[/i]
Thou wast not born for death, immortal Bird! No hungry generations tread thee down; The voice I hear this passing night was heard In ancient days by emperor and clown: Perhaps the self-same song that found a path Through the sad heart of Ruth, when, sick for home, She stood in tears amid the alien corn; The same that oft-times hath Charm’d magic casements, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn. [/color]
--Paul--
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Apr 3, 2008 17:18:34 GMT
^Thank you for posting the poems. I enjoyed them.
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Post by Barry SR Gowing on Apr 4, 2008 1:44:47 GMT
You're welcome, Rosa.
The TS Eliot poem I was referring to is, of course, this one:
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse A persona che mai tornasse al mondo, Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse. Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero, Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo. Let us go then, you and I, When the evening is spread out against the sky Like a patient etherised upon a table; Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets, The muttering retreats Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: Streets that follow like a tedious argument Of insidious intent To lead you to an overwhelming question … Oh, do not ask, “What is it?” Let us go and make our visit. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening, Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains, Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys, Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, And seeing that it was a soft October night, Curled once about the house, and fell asleep. And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; There will be time, there will be time To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet; There will be time to murder and create, And time for all the works and days of hands That lift and drop a question on your plate; Time for you and time for me, And time yet for a hundred indecisions, And for a hundred visions and revisions, Before the taking of a toast and tea. In the room the women come and go Talking of Michelangelo. And indeed there will be time To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?” Time to turn back and descend the stair, With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”] My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin, My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin— [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”] Do I dare Disturb the universe? In a minute there is time For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse. For I have known them all already, known them all:— Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; I know the voices dying with a dying fall Beneath the music from a farther room. So how should I presume? And I have known the eyes already, known them all— The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase, And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin, When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall, Then how should I begin To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? And how should I presume? And I have known the arms already, known them all— Arms that are braceleted and white and bare [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!] It is perfume from a dress That makes me so digress? Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl. And should I then presume? And how should I begin? . . . . . Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?… I should have been a pair of ragged claws Scuttling across the floors of silent seas. . . . . . And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! Smoothed by long fingers, Asleep … tired … or it malingers, Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me. Should I, after tea and cakes and ices, Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed, Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter, I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter; I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker, And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, And in short, I was afraid. And would it have been worth it, after all, After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, Would it have been worth while, To have bitten off the matter with a smile, To have squeezed the universe into a ball To roll it toward some overwhelming question, To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead, Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— If one, settling a pillow by her head, Should say: “That is not what I meant at all. That is not it, at all.” And would it have been worth it, after all, Would it have been worth while, After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets, After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor— And this, and so much more?— It is impossible to say just what I mean! But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: Would it have been worth while If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl, And turning toward the window, should say: “That is not it at all, That is not what I meant, at all.” . . . . . No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be; Am an attendant lord, one that will do To swell a progress, start a scene or two, Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool, Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous; Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse; At times, indeed, almost ridiculous— Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach? I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach. I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the waves Combing the white hair of the waves blown back When the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the sea By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown [/color] ----------------------
The last few lines very much remind of Kate (or I should say, the other way around - since it was written in 1911). It is certainly one of the most extraordinary pieces of writing I have ever encountered.
The opening lines in Italian mean this, approximately:
"If I thought that that I was replying to someone who would ever return to the world, this flame would cease to flicker. But since no one ever returns from these depths alive, if what I've heard is true, I will answer you without fear of infamy."
--Paul--
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Post by rosabelbelieve on Apr 4, 2008 2:00:14 GMT
Yes, a really wonderful poem. Thank you for posting it- I hadn't read it in a while. And thanks for the translation of the Italian lines... I'd always wondered what they meant in English.
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