Well, thank you very much! You've made my day.

I meant to say last time that your conclusion recalls
what Northern (Protestant) Irishmen used to scrawl on
the doors of Catholics: "To Hell or Connaught." Never
did find out what was so bad about Connaught that made
it comparable to hell. (Anybody know?)

Candice



--- joe green <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Ok, ten out of ten stars,  It's wonderful and I want
> to read on and on.
> 
> MC Ward <[log in to unmask]> wrote: This is brilliant,
> especially when the alliteration
> goes over the top ("Demure in damp deerskin / Were
> wenching for wampum!"), as in the work of the Gawain
> Poet and Langland's _Piers Plowman_. I would love to
> read the whole thing and to see, particularly, what
> you do with "Remember the Alamo!," to which I allude
> in another poem as a warning to travelers: "remember
> the almanac!"
> 
> My only other foray into such recastings as you do
> is
> a poem that uses Leonard Cohen's life and music in
> conjunction with the language of international
> finance, which arose with the Bretton Woods Accords
> soon after WWII when the IMF and the World Bank were
> created.
> 
> Maybe you'll take some pleasure in it.
> 
> 
> Mise-en-tranche: A tribute song
> 
> _I haven't been this happy
> Since the end of World War II_
> (Leonard Cohen, "Waiting for the Miracle")
> 
> He loves the country but can't stand the trees
> on the same grounds--real yet not exactly
> _there_, like the World Bank--cypress sheer madness
> where the wind has no currency
> yet the sentimental willow goes on whining,
> meaner than mildew to sour his leisure,
> the pleasure of coming into his own
> silk lining. Such a stitch to be talking to
> his pockets at closing time. _Repent_, they said,
> but now he knows what everybody knows
> they meant: the Sermon's on _account_,
> 
> beyond the mind to credit, like fiat money.
> It's criminal, reversible as sonata or skin or
> this torn trenchcoat indebted to the blues,
> the rain a rhythm section tapping panic on
> his lids. Drum him in then at the Great Event
> along with that dove he bought and bought
> again. Stranger Music, those rivers going crazy
> over garbage in the harbor. He's a bodybag man
> that time will not okay, whose workers in song are
> still giving tongue just to get ahead of their
> class. 
> 
> So billet to the Left Bank when Manhattan's 
> given as Japan's taken; your man's been driven
> from _Seven Pillars_ to postmodernism. What a relief
> to lie down at last with all he's lost, to kiss off
> Berlin and its cheap violins now that he holds
> every note torn from the sheets he never worked
> alone, by the sweat of the moon or a dead magazine.
> Let the limousine wait in the street for last year's
> man to comfort any widowed goverment. He used to
> live
> on loan himself, where Malibu verges on absurdity.
> The
> bonds he bears now
> he wears as bracelets, like a refugee, entrenched
> in foreign issue. He's divested, optioned, rhapsodic
> with his treasury of merits, history's indulgence a
> dated unhappiness: Nancy's phone
> open since '61; Suzanne sold down the river
> in '67; Marianne so long gone now with
> the famous raincoat. Will he ever get clear of their
> .45s and razor blades, their dresses, their asses?
> Love coldly slips from hyacinth to barbiturate, like
> verses for faces lined and powdered by the same
> 
> bitter mirror: the river's answer, he guesses, to
> the cut of his coke and his times. If there's hell
> still to pay for all that croc DNA once the
> fiddler's
> stopped fundamentally, he says he can't
> complain. As beauty's his witness to the falling
> rate of prime, he's never been more postwar nor
> felt so good since his bird wired cash from
>     Bretton Woods.
> 
> From _The Moon Sees the One_ (Wild Honey Press), (c)
> Candice Ward, 2006.
> 
> 
> 
> --- joe green  wrote:
> 
> > The closest I get to that is my Adventures of Davy
> > Crockett in alliterative verse.
> > 
> > Here's a passage form the last part.
> > 
> >   Why I Went to Texas
> >  
> >  
> >  Mirthless was moi / Alone at the Alamo
> >  My legend looming/ Dire was my death….
> >  Many the Mexican/ Blazing the battlements!
> >  Yet I yahooed/ All life was lusterless
> >  For fled is the fire/ So pointless the poontang
> >  Tintinabulant titties / Tender to touch
> >  Touched them in Tennessee / Where many the maiden
> >  Demure in damp deerskin/ Were wenching for
> wampum!
> >  Bells they had on them/ Light was their laughter
> >  In fern or in forest/ Implored me to touch them
> >  Once I had paid/ Fetch me firewater
> >  Then did I call to them./ Oh merry maidens
> >  Unburden thy bodice/ Home is the hunter!
> >  
> >  Now fled is the fire/ And pointless the poontang
> >  Kicked out of Congress/ Unmanned by many.
> >  Ax of Age on me/ No more the maidens.!
> >  Grudge against God/ Goddamn mother fucker.
> >  What’s happened to me/ Pointless the poontang
> >  Turned then to Texas/ Desiring my doom.
> >   Hell or Texas they said. I chose Texas.
> >   
> > 
> > MC Ward  wrote: This is just
> > brilliant, Joe--I enjoyed it all and,
> > though not an epic poet myself, it resonated with
> my
> > beloved Beowulf's adventures. What would you say
> to
> > a
> > Beowulf composed from knock-knock jokes? It would
> > certainly be "in the tradition," as medievalists
> > say,
> > and you could have some fun with the formatting
> and
> > the language.
> > 
> > Just a thought,
> > Candice
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > --- joe green  wrote:
> > 
> > > I am currently working on the "Limerick Decline
> > and
> > > Fall of the Roman Empire in the West."
> > > 
> > > joe green  wrote:  Thankee.
> > > You can listen to the first four books of the
> > > Limerick Iliad here
> > > 
> > > http://thejeunessedoree.libsyn.com/
> > > 
> > > And I think it’s quite easy to see that the
> > sublime
> > > rhythm of the limerick is maintained throughout.
> > The
> > > problem with scansion you seem to have utterly
> > > baffles me. Here is a section starting close to
> > the
> > > verse you cite and it seems to me that the
> > limerick
> > > rhythm is intact -- as much as the rhythm of
> blank
> > > verse is intact in the Bard’s later plays, for
> > > example.
> > > 
> > > Of course, there are artful variations…have to
> > > be…otherwise the celestial music becomes an
> > > insistent thumping. For example, notice the drop
> > > here
> > > 
> > > When Mentor suggested he go to
> > > The deck.
> > > 
> > > The reader is forced to pause at the end -- and
> > this
> > > is what is well, funny -- and makes it possible
> to
> > > write limerick after limerick, tell a story, and
> > not
> > > be bored.
> > > 
> > > And, of course, the limerick form is not only
> > > defined by certain metrical requirements
> (however
> > > gracefully improved upon) but by what Eliot has
> > not
> > > called “The Matter of the Limerick.”
> > > 
> > > For example, a series of limericks in which
> > nothing
> > > is juvenile or scatological would be an
> > abomination.
> > > Generations of practitioners of the form must be
> > > listened to -- hence Nestor’s “weenie” and all
> of
> 
=== message truncated ===



       
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