Conference quark::mennotes-v1

   (Untitled, by Antonio Machado, translated by Robert Bly)

The wind, one brilliant day, called to me
  With the odor of jasmine.  

The wind said, "In return for my jasmine odor, 
  I'd like all the odor of your roses."

I said, "I have no roses.  There are no flowers
  left now in my garden.  All are dead."

The wind said, "Then I'll take the waters of your fountains,
  and the yellow leaves and the dried up petals."

And the wind left...  I wept...  I said to my soul,
  "What have you done with the garden entrusted to you?"

  (Prose poem by Nikos Kazantzakis, from his book
    "The Last Temptation of Christ," in which he is
      describing the coming of Spring to Judea, and the
        sprouting of the grape vines.)

    Protruding, crab-like eyes appeared on the vines.
    In each rose-green bud, the unripe clusters, the
    mature grapes and the new wine gathered momentum
    to burst forth.  And deeper, in the heart of the bud,
    were the songs of men.

                   Second half of SELF AND SOUL
                       By Wm. Butler Yeats
    
    A living man is blind, and drinks his draught
    What matter if the ditches are impure
    What matter if I live them all once more
    
    Endure the toil of growing up,
    The ignominy of Boyhood
    The distress of boyhood changing into man
    The unfinished man in his pain
    Brought face to face with his own clumsiness
    
    The finished man amongst his enemies
    How in the name of heaven,
    Can he escape that defiling and disfigured shape
    
    The mirror of malicious eyes casts itself upon his face,
    Until he thinks at last that that shape must be his shape
    And what's the good of an escape,
    If honor find him in the wintery blasts
    
    I am content to live it all again and yet again if it be life
    To cast into the frog-pond of a blind man's ditch;
    A blind man battering blind men,
    Or into that most fecund ditch of all,
    That folly that a man does or must suffer
    If he woos a proud woman not kindred of his soul
    
    I am content to follow to its source every event,
    In action or in thought,
    Measure the lot, forgive myself the lot.
    
    And when such as I cast out remorse,
    So great a sweetness fills the breast,
    That we must laugh and we must sing,
    For we are blest by everything,
    And every thing we look upon is blest.
    
    -Paul

   Here's my favorite Yeats poem, not a pretty one but powerful:

	Turning and turning in the widening gyre
	The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
	Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
	Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
	The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 
	The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
	The best lack all conviction, while the worst
	Are full of passionate intensity.

	Surely some revelation is at hand;
	Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
	The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
	When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
	Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
	A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
	A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
	Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
	Reel shadows of the indignant dessert birds.
	The darkness drops again; but now I know
	That twenty centuries of stony sleep
	Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
	And what rough beast, its hour come round at last
	Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

		-- William Butler Yeats

   Here's another Yeats poem I like:

	When have I last looked on
	The round green eyes and the long wavering bodies
	Of the dark leopards of the moon?
	All the wild witches, those most noble ladies,
	For all their broom-sticks and their tears,
	Their angry tears, are gone.
	The holy centaurs of the hills are vanished;
	I have nothing but the embittered sun;
	Banished heroic mother moon and vanished,
	And now that I have come to fifty years
	I must endure the timid sun.

		-- William Butler Yeats

(A prose poem by Robert Bly from "The Man in the Black Coat Turns".)

       The Ship's Captain Looking Over the Rail
       ----------------------------------------

When a man steps out at dawn, it seems to him that he has lived his whole
life to create something dark.  What he has created is the wine in the
hold of the ship.  The casks roll about when the ship rolls, and no one
knows what is in them but the captain.  The captain stands looking out 
over the taffrail in the dark, drawn by what follows in shoals behind him.
Behind him, shoals of fins sail with intense forward strokes.  The ship 
is going to a harbor the captain has chosen, and the casks are rolling.  
That is all we know.

The ship remained so long tied to the dock, rubbing, as the captain lay 
ill on his pallet in the seaman's home, imagining the covers were a Medusa 
with his mother's face.  And one day as he woke, he was already on board.  
It must be that he hired the seamen, and bought the supplies, while still 
asleep. Now the ship is moving and what does he know about those men he has 
hired? What are the islands like, where they were born; whom do they kneel
to at night, fanning a fire of pencil shavings?  Or was it a farmhouse in
Montana?  Did the seamen then pass into prison, and through it, as the
earthworm passes through thoughtless soil?

The ship is moving, and the wine sways in the hold.  But how long has gone
by already!  How many men, before the captain was bron, labored to produce it!  
First the grapes had to be brought from Europe and a climate found, calm and 
protective; then ground scouted out where the grapes could be at home, 
difficult to discover with the unknown acids and mineral traces... And it 
takes so long for the vines to mature.  And when at last the vines are grown, 
tough, twisted, resembling intense dwarf houses, then the owner has to wake 
at three in the morning to protect them from frost, and light smudge fires.  
The stalk of the vine slowly widens.

But the assurances others give us:  "You're a good father"; "You're a good 
captain" ... what do they amount to?  They do nothing, however gladly we hear 
them, because we are not the captain.  The captatin is still alone on the ship, 
alone among the ocean-flying terns, the great hooded mergansers flopping at 
early dusk light over the sparse waves they have never been introduced to... 
Mist suddenly appears at mid-ocean... No assurances in the ocean.  When a man 
steps out at dawn, and breathes in the air, it seems to him he has lived his 
whole life to create something dark!

    From whence did all this fury come?
    From empty tomb or virgin womb?
    St. Joseph thought the world would melt
    But liked the way his finger smelt.
    

    To live on charm, one must be courteous.
    To live on others' love, one must be lovable.
    Some get away with murder being beautiful.
    
    Girls love a sick child or a healthy animal.
    A man who's both itches them like an incubus,
    but I, for one, have had a bellyful
    
    of giving reassurances and obvious
    advice with scrambled eggs and cereal;
    then bad debts, broken dates, and lecherous
    
    onanistic dreams of estival
    nights when some high-strung, well-hung, penurious
    boy, not knowing what he'd get, could be more generous.
    
    
      - Marilyn Hacker
    

                   III

   Those masterful images because complete
   Grew in pure mind but out of what began?
   A mound of refuse or the sweepings of a street,
   Old kettles, old bottles, and a broken can,
   Old iron, old bones, old rags, that raving slut
   Who keeps the till.  Now that my ladders's gone
   I must lie down where all the ladders start
   In the foul rag and bone shop of the heart.

    The nation is full of slime.
    The language is lively but
    the economics corrupt.
    Recently I've been listening to
    elevator music and
    smoking cigarettes.
    Let the fruit of her issue
    be the limits of her
    spread hand.
    I hate the greed it turns out
    I'm lousy at it.
    Everyone else is better
    and
    they're nicer too.
    And they f*** better.
    Otherwise the nation is
    awash in drugs which
    is a help.
    Sometimes I think
    there are no women in New York,
    sometimes I just wish.
    Sometimes I think I mutter it on the street.
    It's not true of course.
    We have been everything to each other,
    the women of New York and I.
    
      - Sal Salasin
    
    (asterisks not in original)

    Batt he gets children, not for love to reare 'em;
    But out of hope his wife might die to beare 'em.
    
      - Robert Herrick
    

    He was the son of a misused, poverty-stricken sailor
    (from an island in the Aegean Sea).
    He worked for an ironmonger: his clothes shabby,
    his workshoes miserably torn,
    his hands filthy with rust and oil.
    
    In the evenings, after the shop closed,
    if there was something he longed for especially,
    a more or less expensive tie,
    a tie for Sunday,
    or if he saw and coveted
    a beautiful blue shirt in some store window,
    he'd sell his body for a half-crown or two.
    
    I ask myself if the great Alexandria
    of ancient times could boast of a boy
    more exquisite, more perfect -- thoroughly neglected though he was:
    that is, we don't have a statue or painting of him;
    thrust into that poor ironmonger's shop,
    overworked, harassed, given to cheap debauchery,
    he was soon used up.
    
      - C. P. Cavafy, translated by Edmund Keeley & Philip Sherrard
    

    I remember a fight
    In a snow fall.
    I never saw it,
    But I remember.
    
    Ed told me, angry with me
    For something else.
    
    You and some little bastard
    Caught you drunk,
    Nagged you outside,
    And cut you up with his fists.
    
    Down, and down, and down, in the seven
    Corners of snow.
    
    Ed explained to me
    That the little son of bitches
    (He has several mothers, though few)
    Cut you down.
    
    Ed knew.
    If you'd lost the fight
    You'd have wakened
    Next morning dead.
    So he didn't step in.
    
    You rose, out of the snow,
    Burly, you rose,
    Knowing.
    
    You beat him out of lament and snow blindness.
    
    There is a little sort of
    Man who drifts obscenely
    Soberly into the seven corners
    Of Hell, 14, Minnesota:
    He selects the big good drunk man,
    And cuts him down.
    
    The giant killer is
    A dirty little bastard.
    
    I, drunk then, awake now, remember
    The angel crying, as one winged sufferer to another,
    Hafiz, what in hell
    Are you doing in this gutter?
    Where have you fallen from?  With your warm voice?
    And Hafiz answering the angel out of his gutter
    And the north gone blind:
    
    Watch your step, oh beloved and beyond beautiful
    Bearer of the cup.
    The sickle moon has torn a star from my arms.
    In this wheat field, watch your step, don't whirl down
    So fast.  Don't walk on that ant.  For she too
    Loves her life.  Let go, Larry.
    Let go.
    Let go.
    
    
      - James Wright

    Beyond a doubt, the finest poem Wilmot ever wrote specifically about
    the male condition was "The Imperfect Enjoyment", with "Timon" a close
    second.  But these are both too long, and the first too impossible to
    censor (even with asterisks), to include here.  This is a compromise
    selection...  - Ray
    
    
    
        The Disabled Debauchee


As some brave admiral, in former war
    Deprived of force, but pressed with courage still,
Two rival fleets appearing from afar,
    Crawls to the top of an adjacent hill;

From whence, with thought full of concern, he views
    The wise and daring conduct of the fight,
Whilst each bold action to his mind renews
    His present glory and his past delight;

From his fierce eyes flashes of fire he throws,
    As from black clouds when lightning breaks away;
Transported, thinks himself admidst the foes,
    And absent, yet enjoys the bloody day;

So, when my days of impotence approach,
    And I'm by pox and wine's unlucky chance
Forced from the pleasing billows of debauch
    On the dull shore of lazy temperance,

My pains at least some respite shall afford
    While I behold the battles you maintain
When fleets of glasses sail about the board,
    From whose broadsides volleys of wit shall rain.

Nor let the sight of honorable scars,
    Which my too forward valor did procure,
Frighten new-listed soldiers from the wars:
    Past joys have more than paid what I endure.

Should any youth (worth being drunk) prove nice,
    And from his fair inviter meanly shrink,
'Twill please the ghost of my departed vice
    If, at my counsel, he repent and drink.

Or should some cold-complexioned sot forbid,
    With his dull morals, our bold night-alarms,
I'll fire his blood by telling what I did
    When I was strong and able to bear arms.

I'll tell of whores attacked, their lords at home;
    Bawds' quarters beaten up, and fortress won;
Windows demolished, watches overcome;
    And handsome ills by my contrivance done.

Nor shall our love-fits, Chloris, be forgot,
    When each the well-looked linkboy strove t'enjoy,
And the best kiss was the deciding lot
    Whether the boy f***ed you or I the boy.

With tales like these I will such thoughts inspire
    As to important mischief shall incline:
I'll make him long some ancient church to fire,
    And fear no lewdness he's called to by wine.

Thus, statesmanlike, I'll saucily impose,
    And safe from action, valiantly advise;
Sheltered in impotence, urge you to blows,
    And being good for nothing else, be wise.
    
    
      - John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
    
    
    
    
    (Oh, what the heck, here's a bit of dessert.  Please remember that
    selection of a poem does not necessarily imply endorsement of its
    sentiments.  - Ray)
    
    
    
    	Song
    
    
    Love a woman?  You're an ass!
      'Tis a most insipid passion
    To choose out for your happiness
      The silliest part of God's creation.
    
    Let the porter and the groom,
      Things designed for dirty slaves,
    Drudge in fair Aurelia's womb
      To get supplies for age and graves.
    
    Farewell, woman!  I intend
      Henceforth every night to sit
    With my lewd, well-natured friend
      Drinking to engender wit.
    
    Then give me health, wealth, mirth, and wine,
      And if busy love entrenches,
    There's a sweet soft page of mine
      Does the trick worth forty wenches.
    
    
      - John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester
    

                            CALL MY BY MY NAME
    
                                  C. FREE
    
    
    Call me by my name, DONT call me nigger!
      For I am one man, as I am all men, 
      and if YOU are who you say you are, then we are a part of eachother.
    
    The only Difference, I am Black and you are White
    and my road is a little narrower than yours, rougher than yours,
    But not enough that I wont succeed, cant succeed, I SHALL SUCCED!
    
      so look at me beside you, not below you, then shall you seem
    to be tripping over your own feet...when in fact, you will be
     tripping over ME.
    
     Because no matter how much you try to fool YOURSELF, I will ALWAYS
     be there.
    
                     for I am PROUD
                     for I am STRONG
                     I am ONEIL ANTHONY MCDANNA
    
             call ME by my name.
      
                                                    

    
    
    Someone dancing inside us
      Learned only a few steps;
    The "Do Your Work" in 4/4 time,
      The "What Do You Expect?" waltz.
    
    He hasn't noticed yet the woman
      Standing away from the lamp,
    The one with black eyes,
      Who knows the rhumba,
    And strange steps in jumpy rhythms,
      From the mountains in Bulgaria.
    
    If they dance together
      Something unexpected will happen;
    If they don't, the next world
      Will be a lot like this one.

             Dancing Men
    
    I may be but a speck of sand
     but I have memories of oceans
      and of men dancing on the shore
       to the beat of the drum;
    Of mermaids crowding in secret
     on nearby rocks to catch the 
      sights, sounds and longings of the men.
    
    I may be but a speck of sand
     but I have memories of Neptune,
      Himself, rousing from his sleep
       in the deep; rising into the moonlight.
    
    Breaking from the surface of
     the ocean, He greets the dancing
      men, the strong and the weak,
       and beckons them all to a 
        feast in the deep.
    
                Walter Bacigalupo

                  Sleeping Faces
    
    Tonight the first fall rain washes away my sly distance.
    I have decided to blame no one for my life.
    This water falls like a great privacy.
    
    Letters soak into the desk,
    the desk sinks away, leaving an intelligence
    slowly learning to talk of its own suffering.
    
    The muttering of thunder is a gift
    that reverberates in the roof of the mouth.
    Another gift is a child's face in a dark room
    I see as I check the house during the storm.
    
    My life is a blessing, a triumph, 
     a car racing through the rain.

           Mr. Simmons
    
    He didn't belong to my father's generation,
    but my grandfather's ---
    but though he was retired 
    and played bridge with the old people,
    he didn't belong to them either.
    I would see him mornings 
    doing some chore on his patio
    in Bermuda shorts and sleeveless t-shirt,
    his body lean,
    his calves carved
    above his moccasins,
    forearms rippled with veins.
    His steel-gray hair
    was combed straight back,
    and his voice was gravelly 
    and friendly.
    And he drove a motorcycle --
    took it up after his wife died,
    when he was over sixty --
    a big, cherry-red bike
    with a chrome Indian head
    adorning the front fender.
    He was stately
    as he cruised slowly
    down the dirt road
    out of camp.
    And he shot bow and arrow.
    He had a target 
    on a tall pile of bales
    in a hollow in the woods.
    When I heard the arrows 
    whacking through the canvas
    I would go down and stand
    a little way off
    and watch him --
    his crinkled eye, his veined arms --
    and drink the sound of his arrows
    hissing among the trees
    and thudding perfectly --
    thook, thook, thook --
    deep into the hay.
          

    
    Whenever Richard Corey went downtown
    We people on the pavement looked at him
    He was a gentleman from sole to crown
    Clean favored and imperially slim
    
    And he was always quietly arrayed
    And he was human when he talked
    But still he fluttered pulses when he said "Good morning"
    And he glittered when he walked
    
    And he was rich - yes, richer than a king
    And admirably schooled in every grace
    In fine, we thought that he was everything
    To make us wish we were in his place
    
    So on we worked and waited for the light
    And went without the meat and cursed the bread
    And Richard Corey, one calm summer night
    Went home and put a bullet through his head.
    
    

Christine Lavin's "Sensitive New-Age Guys"

[spoken]

OK, everybody, it's time for a sing-along, but just for you GUYS out there, 
allright? This is called "Sensitive New-Age Guys" and wherever you are 
right now, riding in your car or lying on the beach with your Walkman on, 
please sing along on this song. It will help you with your male-bonding 
kind of thing. And to help you, I've rounded up every sensitive guy I could 
find in New York City tonight. So you just sing along with them. Please, 
don't be shy.

[sung, the chorus ("Sensitive, new-age guys") by the guys]

Who like to talk about their feelings?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who's into crystals, into healing?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who like to dress like Richard Simmons?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who are hard to tell from women?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.

Who like to cry at weddings? 
Who think Rambo is upsetting?
Who tapes Thirty-Something on their VCRs?
Who has child-on-board stickers on their cars?

Who's last names are hyphenated?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who love Three Men and a Baby, a movie I hated?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who's consciousness is constantly raising?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Yet who's tax-free income is amazing?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.

Who thinks that red meat is disgusting?
Who is into UFOs, channeling, and dusting?
Who believes us when we say we've got premenstrual syndrome?
Who doesn't know who plays in the Seattle Kingdome?

[spoken]

Lots of guys don't know who plays in the Seattle Kingdome, guys not into 
brutal, violent sports. Let's ask these guys right here! Hey, guys, do you 
know who plays in the Seattle Kingdom?

[males muttering, confused, finally one says "Andreas Vollenveider" (sp?)]

Christine laughs. "Good answer, good answer"

[sung]

Who likes music that's repetitious?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who likes music that's repetitious?
    Sensitive, new-age guys.
Who concerned about your orgasm?
    [silence]

[spoken]

Hey, wait a minute, wait a minute, you guys said you'd help me out on this 
song. What's going on?

[a male]         Well, we're sensitive, Christine, but...
[all the males]  NOT THAT SENSITIVE.

[sung]

Well, I guess it's more important, that they have 'em.
    Sensitive, new-age guys.

Who carries the baby on his back?
Who thinks Shirley McLain is on the inside track?
Who always sings on sing-alongs even when they can't stand sing-along songs?

[spoken]

Yeah, well I could tell a lot of you guys out there really hated this song. 
Not all of you sang, but a lot of you did, because you didn't want to hurt 
my feelings. Because you know what that's like. Because you've had your 
feeling hurt SO many times, because YOU'RE SO SENSITIVE! Yes, you're 
sensitive.

[male]         Christine, I think I've found my r-spot!
[another male] Thanks for sharing, dude.

    The Electric Train
               by Masao Nakagiri
    
    A person hanging onto a strap!
    A person sitting upon a seat!
    A person swaying in time to the sway!
    Under the gloomy electric lights,
    who you are nobody knows
    getting off at your station.
    There are times of riding beyond the station and coming
       back again.
    Who you are even you do not know.
    
    Your exhausted necktie -
    inside of its knot
    something you do not realize is hiding.
    Broken-down shoes unpolished for how-many days -
    inside the worn-out leather heels
    something that irritates you is hiding.
    If you think it over well
    you will come to realize what it is.
    
    It is hiding inside the flame of a single match
    burning your dead body.
    
    
    (translated from Japanese by Edith Marcombe Shiffert & Yuki Sawa)
    

    
    IN THE POND I SAW A FROG
    AS I WALKED BY WITH MY DOG,
    
    GO FETCH THAT STICK 
    GO FETCH IT QUICK,
    
    SHE BROUGHT BACK THE STICK,
    AND I LIKED IT.
    
    I HATED THAT FROG
    SO I SWIPED IT!
    
    GOODBYE TO THE FROG
    IT'S JUST ME AND MY DOG.
    
    
    

This is a prose poem by Louis Jenkins, who has a book 
of prose poems called, "An Almost Human Gesture."
This is taken from Inroads #5, a twice-yearly journal of
the Male Soul.

FISH OUT OF WATER

When he finally landed the fish it seemed so strange, 
so unlike other fishes he'd caught, so much bigger, 
more silvery, more important, that he half expected it
to talk, to grant his wishes if he returned it to the
water.  But the fish said nothing, made no pleas, gave
no promises.  His fishing partner said, "Nice fish, you
ought to have it mounted."  Other people who saw it said 
the same thing, "Nice fish, ..."  So he took it to the
taxidermy shop but when it came back it didn't look
quite the same.  Still, it was an impressive trophy.
Mounted on a big board, the way it was, it was too big
to fit in the car.  In those days he could fit everything
he owned into the back of his Volkswagen but the fish
changed all that.  After he married, a year or so later,
nothing would fit in the car.  He got a bigger car.
Then a new job, children...   The fish moved with them
from house to house, state to state.  All that moving 
around took its toll on the fish, it began to look worn,
a fin was broken off.  It went into the attic of the new
house.  Just before the divorce became final, when he
was moving to an apartment, his wife said, "Take your
goddamn fish."  He hung the fish on the wall before he'd
unpacked anything else.  The fish seemed huge, too big
for his little apartment.  Boy, it was big.  He couldn't
imagine he'd ever caught a fish that big.

 

          *********OH TO BE A DAFFODIL********

 	Oh to be a Daffodil on a sunny day
	in the breeze i would gently sway.

	Oh if a daffodil i could be
	would you come and pick me?

	Oh i wish i were a daffodil in full bloom,
        in a vase in your living room.

	Oh to be a daffodil it would be nice
	i would grow again so you could pick me twice.

                
     By Katrina. 10/2/91

Losing My Religion            By Stipe, Mills, Buck, Berry
==================

Oh, life is bigger,
It's bigger than you,
And you are not me.
The lengths that I will go to;
The distance in your eyes.

Oh, no, I've said too much.
I set it up.

That's me in the corner.
That's me in the spot...light,
Losing my religion,
Trying to keep a view,
And I don't know if I can do it.

Oh, no, I've said too much.
(I haven't said enough.)

I thought that I heard you laughing.
I thought that I heard you sing.
I think I thought I heard you try.

Every whisper,
Every waking hour,
I'm changing my confessions,
Trying to keep an eye on you.
Like a hurt lost and blind and bored.
Fool!

Oh, no, I've said too much.
I set it up.

Consider this.
Consider this!
[...]
Consider this...slip.
It brought me to my knees...pale.
What if all these fantasies come flailing around?
Now I've said...too much.

I thought that I heard you laughing.
I thought that I heard you sing.
I think I thought I heard you try.

But that was just a dream.
But that was just a dream!

That's me in the corner.
That's me in the spot...light,
Losing my religion,
Trying to keep a view,
And I don't know if I can do it.

Oh, no, I've said too much.
(I haven't said enough.)

But that was just a dream.
Try
Cry 
Why?
Try
That was just a dream
Just a dream
Just a dream
Dream...

(THE SETTING IS THE CABIN OF MR. SNAVELY IN THE YUKON.  IT'S NOT A FIT
NIGHT OUT FOR MAN NOR BEAST, AND OFFICER POODLEWHISTLE OF THE CANADIAN
MOUNTIES HAS SHOWN UP TO PASS THE TIME.  HE REQUESTS A SONG.  MR. SNAVELY 
BRUSHES THE SNOW OFF HIS DULCIMER AND PROCEEDS:)

SNAVELY: You won't mind if I play with my mittens on, will you?

POODLEWHISTLE: Not at all, Mr. Snavely.  Not at all.

SNAVELY SINGS:	There was once a young boy, and he left his country home
		And he came to the city to look for work.
		He promised his ma and pa he would lead a sinless life
		And always shun the fatal curse of drink.

(POODLEWHISTLE GIVES A REASSURING SMILE AND NOD.)

		Once in the city, he got a situation in a quarry
		And there made the acquaintance of some college... students.
		He little thought that they were demons, for they wore the
		  best of clothes
		But the clothes do not always make the... gentleman.

(POODLEWHISTLE SHAKES HIS HEAD RUEFULLY.)

		Oh they tempted him to drink and they said he was a coward
		Until at last he took the fatal glass of beer.
		When he found what he had done, he dashed the glass upon
		  the floor
		And he staggered through the door with delerium tremens.

(POODLEWHISTLE BRUSHES ASIDE A TEAR.)

		Once upon the sidewalk, he met a Salvation Army girl
		And wickedly he broke her tambourine.
		"Oh," she said, "Heaven --"
(SNAVELY PAUSES TO RAISE HIS RIGHT HAND IN A SACRED OATH)
    			       "-- Heaven bless you," then placed 
		   a mark upon his brow
		With a kick she'd learned before she had been saved.

(POODLEWHISTLE COLLAPSES IN SOBS.)

		Now as a moral to youngsters who come down into the city
		Don't go breaking people's tambourines.

POODLEWHISTLE: That *sob* certainly is *sob* a sad song! *Sob*!

SNAVELY:  Don't cry, constable.  It IS a sad song.  (PAUSE.)
	  My Uncle Ichabod said, speaking of the city:  "It ain't no place 
	  for women, gal... but pretty men go thar."  (PAUSE.)  Colorful 
	  old gentleman he was.

-- W. C. Fields, ~1930

          *********OH TO BE A DAFFODIL********

 	Oh to be a Daffodil on a sunny day
	in the breeze i would gently sway.

	Oh if a daffodil i could be
	would you come and pick me?

	Oh i wish i were a daffodil in full bloom
        in a vase in your living room.

	Oh to be a daffodil it would be nice
	i would grow again so you could pick me twice.

                     By Katrina. 10/2/91

	Text of Britten's War Requiem

		By Wilfred Owen

	What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
	Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
	Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
	Can patter out their hasty orisons.
	No mockeries for them from prayers or bells,
	The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
	And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

	What candles may be held to speed them all?
	Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
	Shall shine the holy glimmers of good-byes.
	The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
	Their flowers the tenderness of silent minds.
	And each  slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

	...

	Bugles sang, saddening the evening air,
	And bugles answered, sorrowful to hear.

	Voices of boys were by the river-side.
	Sleep mothered them; and left the twilight sad.
	The shadow of the morrow weighed on men.

	Voices of old despondency resigned,
	Bowed by the shadow of the morrow, slept.

	...

	Out there we've walked quite friendly up to Death;
	Sat down and eaten with him, cool and bland,
	Pardoned his spilling mess-tins in our hand.
	We've sniffed the green thick odour of his breath,
	Our eyes wept, but our courage didn't writhe.
	He's spat at us with bullets and he's coughed
	Shrapnel.  We chorussed when he sang aloft;
	We whistled while he shaved us with his scythe.

	Oh, Death was never enemy of ours!
	We laughed at him, we leagued with him, old chum.
	No soldier's paid to kick against his powers.
	We laughed, knowing that better men would come,
	And greater wars; when each proud fighter brags
	He was on Death--for Life; not men--for flags.

	...

	Be slowly lifted up, thou long black arm.
	Great gun towering toward Heaven, about to curse;

	Reach at that arrogance which needs thy harm,
	And beat it down before its sins grow worse;

	But when thy spell be cast complete and whole,
	May God curse thee, and cut thee from our soul!

	...

	Move him into the sun--
	Gently its touch awoke him once,
	At home, whispering of fields unsown.
	Always it woke him, even in France,
	Until this morning and this snow.
	If anything might rose him now
	The kind old sun will know.

	Think how it wakes the seeds,--
	Woke, once, the clays of a cold star.
	Are limbs, so dear achieved, are sides,
	Full-nerved--still warm--too hard to stir?
	Was it for this the clay grew tall?
	--O what made fatuous sunbeams toil
	To break earth's sleep at all?

	...

	So Abram arose, and clave the wood, and went,
	And took the fire with him, and a knife.
	And as they sojourned both of them together,
	Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
	Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
	but where the lamb for this burnt offering?
	Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
	And builded parapets and trenches there,
	And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.
	When lo! an angel called him out of heaven,
	Saying, Lay not thy hand upon the lad,
	Neither do anything to him.  Behold, 
	A ram, caught in a thicket by its horns;
	Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.
	but the old man would not so, but slew his son, --
	and half the seed of Europe, one by one.

	...

	After the blast of lightning from the East,
	The flourish of loud clouds, the Chariot Throne;
	After the drums of Time have rolled and ceased,
	And by the bronze west long retreat is blown,
	
	Shall life renew these bodies?  Of a truth
	All death will He annul, all tears assuage?
	Fill the void veins of Life again with youth,
	And wash, with an immortal water, Age?

	When I do ask white Age he saith not so:
	"My head hangs weighed with snow."
	And when I hearken to the Earth, she saith:
	"My fiery heart shrinks, aching.  It is death.
	Mine ancient scars shall not be glorified,
	Nor my titanic tears, the sea, be dried."

	...

	One ever hangs where shelled roads part.
	In this war He too lost a limb,
	but His disciples hide apart;
	And now the Soldiers bear with Him.

	...

	Near Golgotha strolls many a priest,
	And in their faces there is pride
	That they were flesh-marked by the Beast
	by whom the gentle Christ's denied.

	...

	The scribes on all the people shove
	And bawl allegiance to the state,
	But they who love the greater love
	Lay down their life; they do not hate.

	...

	It seemed that out of battle I escaped
	Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
	Through granites which titanic wars had groined.
	Yet also there encumbered sleepers groaned,
	Too fast in thought or death to be bestirred.
	then, as I probed them, one sprang up, and stared
	With piteous recognition in fixed eyes,
	Lifting distressful hands as if to bless.
	
	And no guns thumped, or down the flues made moan,
	"Strange friend," I said, "here is no cause to mourn."

	...

	"None," said the other, "save the undone years,
	The hopelessness.  Whatever hope is yours,
	Was my life also; I went hunting wild
	After the wildest beauty in the world.

	"For by my glee might many men have laughed,
	And of my weeping something had been left,
	Which must die now.  I mean the truth untold,
	the Pity of war, the pity war distilled.
	"Now men will go content with what we spoiled.
	Or, discontent, boil bloody, and be spilled.
	They will be swift with swiftness of the tigress,
	None will break ranks, though nations trek from progress.
	Miss we the march of this retreating world
	Into vain citadels that are not walled.
	Then, when much blood had clogged their chariot-wheels
	I would go up and wash them from sweet wells,
	Even from wells we sunk too deep for war,
	Even the sweetest wells that ever were.

	"I am the enemy you killed, my friend.
	I knew you in this dark; for so you frowned
	yesterday through me as you jabbed and killed.
	I parried; but my hands were loathe and cold."

	...

	"Let us sleep now..."

	The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock

	S'io credessi 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 etherized 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!)
	Is it 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.


					T. S. Eliot
	

    
    Dashing and daring, courageous and caring.
    Faithful and friendly with stories to share.
    All through the forest, they sing out in chorus.
    Marching along as their song fills the air.
    Gummi Bears!
    Bouncing here and there and everywhere.
    High adventure thats beyond compare.
    They are the Gummi Bears!
    Gummi Bears!
    When a friend's in danger, they'll be there.
    Lives and legends that we all can share.
    They are the Gummi Bears, they are the Gummi Bears!
    
    
    
    (Swiped from another conference without permission, but I don't think
    it matters since I'm just gathering the fruit of another's
    transcription labors.... Ray)