Quote: Hubert H. Humphrey

In real life, unlike in Shakespeare, the sweetness of the rose depends upon the name it bears. Things are not only what they are. They are, in very important respects, what they seem to be.

- Hubert H. Humphrey

D.H. Lawrence: The Enkindled Spring

I am trying an experiment with another type of blog at:

http://thornblossom.stripgenerator.com/

I experimented with a DH Lawrence poem. I enjoyed trying to figure out what images to use.

I think this would be wonderful with Haiku.


I had to remove the embeded images because they did not scale well with this blog. Here are the links to each one of them:


Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

THE ENKINDLED SPRING


This spring as it comes bursts up in bonfires green,
Wild puffing of emerald trees, and flame-filled bushes,
Thorn-blossom lifting in wreaths of smoke between
Where the wood fumes up and the watery, flickering rushes.

I am amazed at this spring, this conflagration
Of green fires lit on the soil of the earth, this blaze
Of growing, and sparks that puff in wild gyration,
Faces of people streaming across my gaze.


And I, what fountain of fire am I among
This leaping combustion of spring? My spirit is tossed
About like a shadow buffeted in the throng
Of flames, a shadow that’s gone astray, and is lost.


D.H. Lawrence (1916)

Ogden Nash: Listen...

Listen...


There is a knocking in the skull,
An endless silent shout
Of something beating on a wall,
And crying, “Let me out!”

That solitary prisoner
Will never hear reply.
No comrade in eternity
Can hear the frantic cry.

No heart can share the terror
That haunts his monstrous dark.
The light that filters through the chinks
No other eye can mark.

When flesh is linked with eager flesh,
And words run warm and full,
I think that he is loneliest then,
The captive in the skull.

Caught in a mesh of living veins,
In cell of padded bone,
He loneliest is when he pretends
That he is not alone.

We’d free the incarcerate race of man
That such a doom endures
Could only you unlock my skull,
Or I creep into yours.

Rod McKuen: Autumn As It Is...

Autumn as a season

and autumn as a life
are different
than I first expected.
The first, an abstract;
the second, a subtract.


The leaves turn crimson,
the hair turns white.
The leaves fall down,
as do testicles
and the firmest breast.


The dream goes on
for trees and man.
The difference is
the tree survives
the harshest winter,
but man may get
a simple cough
and raw will be
the days that follow.


It is as it is. It was as it was.
Nothing changes
but the scenes and seasons.
Worry not. It is only life
and that is all we have.
It often isn’t much
but nearly always quite enough.


R.I.P. Ron



I changed the poem because too many people didn't understand the first poem I put here. Chris understood, but I got tired of the email and phone call questions about why I chose the first poem.


First I was going to quote Rod McKuen, "I say again the poem is me. I lived, or am living it. I accept no advice on how it could or should be lived." But, this isn't about me and my choices, but rather about a man's death.


Hopefully this poem will be better received.

Stephen Schwartz: No Time At All (From Pippin)

In honor of naming my new cat, here is my favorite song from Pippin...

When you are as old as I, my dear
And I hope that you never are
You will woefully wonder why, my dear
Through your cataracts and catarrh
You could squander away or sequester
A drop of a precious year
For when your best days are yester
The rest'er twice as dear....

What good is a field on a fine summer night
When you sit all alone with the weeds?
Or a succulent pear if with each juicy bite
You spit out your teeth with the seeds?
Before it's too late stop trying to wait
For fortune and fame you're secure of
For there's one thing to be sure of, mate:
There's nothing to be sure of!

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

I've never wondered if I was afraid
When there was a challenge to take
I never thought about how much I weighed
When there was still one piece of cake
Maybe it's meant the hours I've spent
Feeling broken and bent and unwell
But there's still no cure more heaven-sent
As the chance to raise some hell

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

Now when the drearies do attack
And a siege of the sads begins
I just throw these noble shoulders back
And lift these noble chins
Give me a man who is handsome and strong
Someone who's stalwart and steady
Give me a night that's romantic and long
And give me a month to get ready
Now I could waylay some aging roue
And persuade him to play in some cranny
But it's hard to believe I'm being led astray
By a man who calls me granny

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

Oh, it's time to start livin'
Time to take a little from this world we're given
Time to take time, cause spring will turn to fall
In just no time at all....

Sages tweet that age is sweet
Good deeds and good work earns you laurels
But what could make you feel more obsolete
Than being noted for your morals?

Here is a secret I never have told
Maybe you'll understand why
I believe if I refuse to grow old
I can stay young till I die
Now, I've known the fears of sixty-six years
I've had troubles and tears by the score
But the only thing I'd trade them for
Is sixty-seven more....

Oh, it's time to keep livin'
Time to keep takin' from this world we're given
You are my time, so I'll throw off my shawl
And watching your flings be flung all over
Makes me feel young all over

In just no time at all....

Emily Dickinson: After great pain, a formal feeling comes

After great pain, a formal feeling comes --
The Nerves sit ceremonious, like Tombs --
The stiff Heart questions was it He, that bore,
And Yesterday, or Centuries before?


The Feet, mechanical, go round --
Of Ground, or Air, or Ought --
A Wooden way
Regardless grown,
A Quartz contentment, like a stone --


This is the Hour of Lead --
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow --
First -- Chill -- then Stupor -- then the letting go --

Mark 10:1-12

10He left that place and went to the region of Judea and beyond the Jordan. And crowds again gathered around him; and, as was his custom, he again taught them.


2 Some Pharisees came, and to test him they asked, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife?’
3 He answered them, ‘What did Moses command you?’
4 They said, ‘Moses allowed a man to write a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her.’
5 But Jesus said to them, ‘Because of your hardness of heart he wrote this commandment for you.
6 But from the beginning of creation, “God made them male and female.”
7 “For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8 and the two shall become one flesh.” So they are no longer two, but one flesh.
9 Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate.’

10 Then in the house the disciples asked him again about this matter.
11 He said to them, ‘Whoever divorces his wife and marries another commits adultery against her; 12 and if she divorces her husband and marries another, she commits adultery.’