“Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet.”
― Plato
Phix's Curiosity: what sparks my interest
Watch this space to see what's sparked my interest this week. A random grab bag of delights!
And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So
ByWENDY XU
Today there has been so much talk of things exploding
into other things, so much that we all become curious, that we
all run outside into the hot streets
and hug. Romance is a grotto of eager stones
anticipating light, or a girl whose teeth
you can always see. With more sparkle and pop
is the only way to live. Your confetti tongue explodes
into acid jazz. Small typewriters
that other people keep in their eyes
click away at all our farewell parties. It is hard
to pack for the rest of your life. Someone is always
eating cold cucumber noodles. Someone will drop by later
to help dismantle some furniture. A lot can go wrong
if you sleep or think, but the trees go on waving
their broken little hands.
Wendy Xu, "And Then It Was Less Bleak Because We Said So" from You Are Not Dead. Copyright © 2013 by Wendy Xu.
Source: You Are Not Dead (Cleveland State University Press Poetry Center, 2013)
Medusa's Garden
When you need every one and everything around you to just stop.
Medusa
Frieda Hughes, 1960
She is the gypsy
Whose young have rooted
In the very flesh of her scalp.
Her eyes are drill-holes where
Your senses spin, and you are stone
Even as you stand before her.
She opens her lips to speak,
And have you believe.
She has more tongues to deceive
Than you can deafen your ears to.
If you could look away, the voices
From the heads of her vipers
Would be hard to argue.
If you could look away,
The pedestals of your feet might move.
If you could look away,
The song from the cathedral of her mouth
Would fall to the floor like a lie.
From Waxworks by Frieda Hughes. Copyright © 2003 by Frieda Hughes.
Ariadne's Yarn: playing with threads
What I'm up to with fiber and possibly how mythology and stories all tie together.
Excerpt from Catullus, Poem 64
The Wedding of Peleus and Thetis
Translation copyright 1997 by Thomas Banks.
Then came swooping from somewhere Bacchus in his prime
with his cult of Satyrs, with his mountain-born Sileni,
seeking you, Ariadne, aflame with love for you.
Then too came raving, quick and everywhere, molten of mind,
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with a "Bacchus!" the Bacchantes, with a "Bacchus!" convulsing
their heads. Some brandished ivy spears with leafy points.
Some tossed pieces of a ripped-apart bullock.
Some wreathed themselves with coiled snakes.
Some with deep baskets were celebrating mysterious rites,
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rites that the uninitiate desire in vain to hear.
Others were striking drums, their palms raised high
or were stirring shrill chimes with polished brass cymbals.
Horns were blowing hoarse blasts from many mouths
and primitive flutes squealed a bristling tune.
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The cloth, decorated richly with images like these,
embraced the wedding couch, veiled it like a garment.
Mythic Librarian: the art of arranging a life
Thoughts on ontology and ways to organize a life.
The Fascination of What’s Difficult
BY WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS
The fascination of what's difficult
Has dried the sap out of my veins, and rent
Spontaneous joy and natural content
Out of my heart. There's something ails our colt
That must, as if it had not holy blood
Nor on Olympus leaped from cloud to cloud,
Shiver under the lash, strain, sweat and jolt
As though it dragged road metal. My curse on plays
That have to be set up in fifty ways,
On the day's war with every knave and dolt,
Theatre business, management of men.
I swear before the dawn comes round again
I'll find the stable and pull out the bolt.
Source: The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats (1989)