A shit of fools -just popped into my mind (fools don't relate to present
company hastens to add nor shit niffer!!
P
-----Original Message-----
From: Poetryetc: poetry and poetics [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Douglas Barbour
Sent: 28 November 2012 18:16
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: couple sitting
Oh, not offended, Lawrence, & I can see that I took it too severely maybe. I
meant the Swift of some poems, bewailing the meat etc.
So I took it to be inviting something of an 'ugh' but obviously got it
wrong.
And I do get all that, about the aging body & all....
Guess, I'm still not sure how to take that last word...
So lots of ambiguities in the poem...?
But, I'm sorry to have offended you on this matter...
Doug
On 2012-11-28, at 10:48 AM, Lawrence Upton <[log in to unmask]>
wrote:
>
>
> Well that may have to be, Doug, that poem and that judgment, because
> that's what I am able to write, one of a set that have begun to
> appear.
>
> & I don't think it is Swiftian.
>
> This poem started with a friend telling me, in some distress, of
> having to deal with the growing incontinence of his terminally sick
> lover, which recalled for me a similar experience I had some years ago
> with a friend. Neither of us then much welcomed that less than
> pleasant intimacy but it needed doing and I did it and she accepted
> the help.
>
> More recently, I think it's relevant, and we're grown up here, I had
> an infection which required I do not go far from the toilet. I fasted
> for three days rather than taking the antibiotic route and its
> destruction of most of my microbial fellow travellers, and remember
> marvelling at my body's capacity for manufacturing noxious output.
> Which dwindled and my illness passed. Nurses face that all the time.
>
> It is possible nowadays almost to isolate ourselves from the faecal
> quite as much as we have from the facts of death. Even the country is
> largely free of the faecal as the beasts we keep in captivity know
> four walls. But it's there under the dust of artificial fertiliser
>
> The poem started in its mechanics from the phrase "full of shit"
> which brought in the above and added a further dimension which I
> imagine works in Canadian English.
>
> Both, incontinence and people who are full of shit, tend to isolate
> those concerned from others, as my illness did, temporarily; as does
> inability to express themselves clearly, leaving them meaning to mean.
> Others recoil; but there are plenty who can state their meaning well;
> and we are all full of shit mechanically
>
> I could point to the difference between the depicted behaviour here
> and that of the Houyhnhnms in Swift. Nor do I think I indicate any
> revulsion such as that expressed by Lemuel Gulliver.
>
> Far from lustful unclean apes in my fellows, I tried to describe
> something rather monumental, almost Moore-like maybe though a bit
> closed in as things are at this time of year - fog and smelly cattle
> sheds. Try the early morning train for a cleaned up version.
>
> I'm sitting in a cafe with wifi. Looking around I'd say there's a
lot
> of the dairy herd going on. Chewing the cud, you know. Awareness not
> quite I and thou. I'm trying to look at it clearly.
>
> Anyway, sorry to have offended.
>
> L
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Poetryetc: poetry and poetics"
> To:
> Cc:
> Sent:Wed, 28 Nov 2012 09:53:34 -0700
> Subject:Re: couple sitting
>
> My 'ugh,' seems demanded here, Lawrence. A somewhat Swiftian vision at
> work...
>
> Doug
> On 2012-11-28, at 3:57 AM, Lawrence Upton wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> two bags, proud with shit,
>>
>> left near to each other,
>>
>> holding themselves in;
>>
>>
>>
>> neither says much, though
>>
>> they speak, both; lowly,
>>
>> silence imposing its damp
>>
>>
>>
>> within each self,
>>
>> whispering; releasing them
>>
>> from meaning to mean ,signifying
>>
>>
>>
>> their own tightness; lowing
>>
>>
>>
>
> Douglas Barbour
> [log in to unmask]
>
> http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
> http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
>
> Latest books:
> Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
> http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
> Wednesdays'
> http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-pres
> s_10.html
>
> Swept snow, Li Po,
> by dawn's 40-watt moon
> to the road that hies to office
> away from home.
>
> Lorine Niedecker
>
>
>
Douglas Barbour
[log in to unmask]
http://www.ualberta.ca/~dbarbour/
http://eclecticruckus.wordpress.com/
Latest books:
Continuations & Continuations 2 (with Sheila E Murphy)
http://www.uap.ualberta.ca/UAP.asp?LID=41&bookID=962
Wednesdays'
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.h
tml
Swept snow, Li Po,
by dawn's 40-watt moon
to the road that hies to office
away from home.
Lorine Niedecker
|