Arminius wasnt dumbed down and wasnt too bad. Time Team before
it was good to. I have never voted Conservative, but I wanted
to see who Iain Duncan Smith was last night. I forgot to say
that I went to see 'Shrek' yesterday before it finished and
thought it great. Next week I have to go to 'Planet of the Apes'
whose scriptwriters were destroyed today both in my local paper
and the TLS. But it looks good. Pity they didnt think of spending
any money on the writers.
And you now get barcodes with ISBNs? Not when I was doing my books.
It puts me off doing anything else.
Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
On Thu, 23 Aug 2001, Douglas Clark wrote:
> Exhausted from 36 hours of reading Lorna Sage and George Walden, listening
> to The Bob Dylan Story and watching the Conservative Leadership Debate on TV,
> I spent the day watching the Australians bat, apart from a visit from my CPN.
> The sickening thud when Caddick's ball hit Langer's helmet was quite
> frightening but it didnt slow down the massacre. Then I read Trueblood's
> Machado again. I am getting too familiar with it and the words dont penetrate
> me as they did a couple of days ago. I hope I am fresh tomorrow morning
> then I will give it one last read and file it. I need my sleep tonight
> but intend to watch Varus and Arminius on TV in a hour in one of those
> history programmes dumbed down so it can be sold to the Americans.
> But first a little quote I like from Machado. Anathema to our postmoderns.
>
> 'Poetry is song and telling.
> A live story is sung
> when the melody is told.'
>
> It is better in the Spanish. Machado's last major poem was his poem
> for Lorca. I cant type it out so I will append my own. Written after
> a visit to Granada in 1988. I hope my brain is sharp tomorrow morning.
>
>
> The Moor's Sigh
>
> (for the Granada of Federico Garcia Lorca)
>
>
> Clear fountain, pure fountain,
> Fountain of the Cypress and the Oleander,
> The voices of the children rise to you.
> Elegant court, arcaded court,
> Court of the Myrtles and the Lions,
> The romance of the gypsies plays for you.
> We weep like women for what we couldn't save as men,
> City of the Almoravids and the Nasrids,
> City of Sacromonte and the Sierra Nevada.
> The Alhambra was heart of your kingdom,
> The red house on the road from Fuentevaqueros,
> Serenaded in your verdant greenery.
> For friendship --- I listen to these drums and these guitars,
> It is a long way from the concrete tinderbox of New York,
> A long way from Harlem and wizened Walt Whitman.
> It is the memory of the deep song of the South,
> Forever rumbling round the skirts of the Mediterranean,
> Waiting for its poets to throw off their airs and graces.
> Scrabble in the dust for your death Federico,
> When the lyric is done with then comes the tragedy,
> You were spared old age but not the silence.
> But you had not finished, you were done too soon,
> The Civil Guards took your life on the road from Granada,
> Ignorant envious men hate that which is different, special.
> Clear fountain, pure fountain,
> Fountain of the Cypress and the Oleander,
> The voices of the children rise to you.
> Good poet, honest poet,
> Poet of the light heart and the dark gloom,
> You are immortal in the songs of the gypsies.
> We weep like women for what we couldn't save as men...
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Douglas Clark, Bath, England mailto: [log in to unmask]
> Lynx: Poetry from Bath .......... http://www.bath.ac.uk/~exxdgdc/lynx.html
>
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