dave:

Look, you Brummie illiterate, this is a spin on Empson's "Just a Smack At
Auden".

Stop trying to upstage us echt academics.

Not everyone from Glasgow is +that+ illiterate  ...

> +A Little Empsonite for the Air+

Or,  'The waste remains, the waist remains and kills."

(Or, give me a Currie, I'm a hungry man ...

> The gap exists, the gap maintains and stays.

The waste remains, the waist remains and stills ...

'Lor, dave, do you +really+ want to take it on over Empson's villanelles?

Kinda sorta like my territory.

But if you and me want to rack this silly idiocy way back, we're into Dana
Gioia territory.

Oof, honeylove, but I'm not sure who other than thou and I could get that
this is Empson, not Auden.

> Although we love, the hidden things remain.
> The hole it is, it rides within our souls.

Well, for all of me, I've got this total thing about a deleted supreme god
in the BM.

> The gap, I say, it hides behind all days.
> The whole of it, that speaks the tones of pain.
> Though that we love, our words twist other poles.
>
> The sole it is, that lies within our brains.

I hate villanelles.

I particularly hate Empson's villanelles.

I particularly hate villanelles ripped from Empson via Hellaire Belloc.

Robin

(Hamitlon).

[The subtext of this email is dave sadly remarking, "How could you do this
to me, Robin?

An' an even deeper level is that if Mz Burcumshaw wants to play Empson/Auden
games, pick a softer target.]

{An' an aside to dave --

Joke.  Right?

The mails finally hit the list.

When you said what was a hanging chad was an Auden pome, really didn't
expect this.

Rather neat, mate.

Cool.

But wot about Jon Cro Ransum?

}

... look, peepul, this is a late night juke.  Really, when it comes down to
it, one of the several reasons dave and I remain in frail communication is
that we almost understan' each uther.  Jus.  Butt.

> (just a little experiment this, I'd be particularly interested in any
> comments on the caesuras)

Sod that and the horse you rode in on.

        MEETING WITH THE BLUE GIRL

Strange to meet the blue girl, so suddenly, incredibly there,
Perched on the corner of the stair, a fine disturbance of the way
She drew two lines with a pencil on the palm of her hand
Parallels, crosses, image of nothing happening.

We ran along the tramways of our fear, no possible
Mingling of gauges on those tracks, the grooves of change
Which fix us.  Destinations were events to encounter, pain
The abstraction of a smile, bird fallen from a nest of moments.
Born into the countries of our time, each living our
Difficult lies: tragedy, we may say, is a certain colour
Seen sometimes from the corner of the eye, in the air

Brightness falls from it: from her, scattering from the blue girl,
She there in her green time, I here in my grey,
Waiting, both, at different corners of the stair.

Nuff said.

R2.