Gone Fishing -- Chris Rea

Guest poem sent in by G. Balakrishnan

(Poem #1415) Gone Fishing I'm going fishing I got me a line Nothing I do is gonna make a difference So I'm taking my time And you ain't never gonna be happy Anyhow, anyway So, I'm going fishing And I'm going today I'm going fishing Sounds crazy I know I know nothing about fishing But just watch me go And when my time has come I will look back and see Peace on the shoreline That could have been me You can waste a whole lifetime Trying to be What you think is expected of you But you'll never be free May as well go fishing -- Chris Rea

Chris Rea, unfortunately is not too popular, at least in the circles I have
moved around in.  However I really feel that he is one incredible song writer.

'Gone Fishing' somehow for me conveys a sense of total freedom. It's a
different sort of feeling when you just let yourself go at something especially
if you have never done it before and know nothing about it. In addition the
song also has this subtle carefree attitude towards a lot of mundane things we
end up doing day in and day out without really ever stopping and looking at
them objectively.

Govind

Chris Rea website:
  [broken link] http://www.helsinki.fi/~wikgren/chrisrea.html

The Old Issue -- Rudyard Kipling

(Poem #1414) The Old Issue "Here is nothing new nor aught unproven," say the Trumpets, "Many feet have worn it and the road is old indeed. "It is the King -— the King we schooled aforetime!" (Trumpets in the marshes —- in the eyot at Runnymede!) "Here is neither haste, nor hate, nor anger," peal the Trumpets, "Pardon for his penitence or pity for his fall. "It is the King!" —- inexorable Trumpets -— (Trumpets round the scaffold at the dawning by Whitehall!) . . . . . "He hath veiled the Crown and hid the Sceptre," warn the Trumpets, "He hath changed the fashion of the lies that cloak his will. "Hard die the Kings —- ah hard —- dooms hard!" declare the Trumpets, Trumpets at the gang-plank where the brawling troop-decks fill! Ancient and Unteachable, abide —- abide the Trumpets! Once again the Trumpets, for the shuddering ground-swell brings Clamour over ocean of the harsh, pursuing Trumpets -— Trumpets of the Vanguard that have sworn no truce with Kings! All we have of freedom, all we use or know -— This our fathers bought for us long and long ago. Ancient Right unnoticed as the breath we draw -— Leave to live by no man’s leave, underneath the Law. Lance and torch and tumult, steel and grey-goose wing Wrenched it, inch and ell and all, slowly from the King. Till our fathers 'stablished, after bloody years, How our King is one with us, first among his peers. So they bought us freedom —- not at little cost Wherefore must we watch the King, lest our gain be lost, Over all things certain, this is sure indeed, Suffer not the old King: for we know the breed. Give no ear to bondsmen bidding us endure. Whining "He is weak and far"; crying "Time shall cure.", (Time himself is witness, till the battle joins, Deeper strikes the rottenness in the people’s loins.) Give no heed to bondsmen masking war with peace. Suffer not the old King here or overseas. They that beg us barter —- wait his yielding mood -— Pledge the years we hold in trust -— pawn our brother's blood -— Howso' great their clamour, whatsoe'er their claim, Suffer not the old King under any name! Here is naught unproven —- here is naught to learn. It is written what shall fall if the King return. He shall mark our goings, question whence we came, Set his guards about us, as in Freedom's name. He shall take a tribute, toll of all our ware; He shall change our gold for arms —- arms we may not bear. He shall break his judges if they cross his word; He shall rule above the Law calling on the Lord. He shall peep and mutter; and the night shall bring Watchers 'neath our window, lest we mock the King -— Hate and all division; hosts of hurrying spies; Money poured in secret, carrion breeding flies. Strangers of his counsel, hirelings of his pay, These shall deal our Justice: sell -— deny -— delay. We shall drink dishonour, we shall eat abuse For the Land we look to —- for the Tongue we use. We shall take our station, dirt beneath his feet, While his hired captains jeer us in the street. Cruel in the shadow, crafty in the sun, Far beyond his borders shall his teachings run. Sloven, sullen, savage, secret, uncontrolled, Laying on a new land evil of the old -— Long-forgotten bondage, dwarfing heart and brain -— All our fathers died to loose he shall bind again. Here is naught at venture, random nor untrue -— Swings the wheel full-circle, brims the cup anew. Here is naught unproven, here is nothing hid: Step for step and word for word —- so the old Kings did! Step by step, and word by word: who is ruled may read. Suffer not the old Kings: for we know the breed -— All the right they promise -— all the wrong they bring. Stewards of the Judgment, suffer not this King! -- Rudyard Kipling

           October 9, 1899 (Outbreak of Boer War)

Note: Original italics here:
[broken link] http://whitewolf.newcastle.edu.au/words/authors/K/KiplingRudyard/verse/p1/oldissue.html

This morning, a friend pointed me to an interesting news story[1] about
the latest manoeuvrings surrounding the US Patriot Act. And as I read it,
Kipling's poem sprang irresistibly to mind; so much so, in fact, that I had
to open another browser window and read it before finishing the article.

What struck me most forcibly (the madness of King George aside) was
Kipling's unerring ability to highlight universals - the words are as
stirring, as compelling today as they were over a hundred years ago. And
they say things I didn't even realise I wanted to.

This is, indeed, the mark of any really great poet - their works go beyond
mere entertainment, beyond even the communication of the poet's ideas and
feelings, and provide a voice for the things we feel but cannot quite say.
The pleasure and the satisfaction of having just the right line of poetry
come to mind at just the right time is hard to describe, and it is one of
the reasons I'm saddened by the fact that memorising poems seems to have
fallen out of vogue.

And in a final ironic twist, when someone wondered audibly if it was,
perhaps, unfair to accuse the authorities of jumping at shadows - they
could, after all, know things the public doesn't - I heard Kipling speak up
in harmony

   Yes, making mock o' uniforms that guard you while you sleep
   Is cheaper than them uniforms, an' they're starvation cheap

and was reminded once again of what was perhaps the most unusual facet of
his genius - the ability to speak, with genuine empathy, for those on every
side of an issue. People complain that Kipling's attitudes are dated, and that
his work wears badly - and there is indeed some justice in that - but long
after
his paeans to Empire have faded, gems like today's poem will remain as his
enduring legacy.

martin

[1] [broken link] http://www.sacurrent.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=10705756&BRD=2318&PAG=461

Christmas Oratio -- W H Auden

Guest poem submitted by Carlynn Houghton, an excerpt from

(Poem #1413) Christmas Oratio Well, so that is that. Now we must dismantle the tree, Putting the decorations back into their cardboard boxes -- Some have got broken -- and carrying them up to the attic. The holly and the mistletoe must be taken down and burnt, And the children got ready for school. There are enough Left-overs to do, warmed-up, for the rest of the week -- Not that we have much appetite, having drunk such a lot, Stayed up so late, attempted -- quite unsuccessfully -- To love all of our relatives, and in general Grossly overestimated our powers. Once again As in previous years we have seen the actual Vision and failed To do more than entertain it as an agreeable Possibility, once again we have sent Him away, Begging though to remain His disobedient servant, The promising child who cannot keep His word for long. The Christmas Feast is already a fading memory, And already the mind begins to be vaguely aware Of an unpleasant whiff of apprehension at the thought Of Lent and Good Friday which cannot, after all, now Be very far off. But, for the time being, here we all are, Back in the moderate Aristotelian city Of darning and the Eight-Fifteen, where Euclid's geometry And Newton's mechanics would account for our experience, And the kitchen table exists because I scrub it. It seems to have shrunk during the holidays. The streets Are much narrower than we remembered; we had forgotten The office was as depressing as this. To those who have seen The Child, however dimly, however incredulously, The Time Being is, in a sense, the most trying time of all. For the innocent children who whispered so excitedly Outside the locked door where they knew the presents to be Grew up when it opened. Now, recollecting that moment We can repress the joy, but the guilt remains conscious; Remembering the stable where for once in our lives Everything became a You and nothing was an It. And craving the sensation but ignoring the cause, We look round for something, no matter what, to inhibit Our self-reflection, and the obvious thing for that purpose Would be some great suffering. So, once we have met the Son, We are tempted ever after to pray to the Father; "Lead us into temptation and evil for our sake." They will come, all right, don't worry; probably in a form That we do not expect, and certainly with a force More dreadful than we can imagine. In the meantime There are bills to be paid, machines to keep in repair, Irregular verbs to learn, the Time Being to redeem From insignificance. The happy morning is over, The night of agony still to come; the time is noon: When the Spirit must practice his scales of rejoicing Without even a hostile audience, and the Soul endure A silence that is neither for nor against her faith That God's Will will be done, That, in spite of her prayers, God will cheat no one, not even the world of its triumph. -- W H Auden

This  excerpt from Auden's "Christmas Oratio" captures the
post-Christmas letdown with fabulous humor and accuracy, and ties it so
beautifully to the human condition, to the ways we try to make sense of
the world.  Without undermining (indeed, the poem ends by affirming) our
rational thought processes, Auden illustrates the concurrent human need
for intimacy with the very world we objectify in order to understand.
"Remembering the stable where for once in our lives / Everything became
a You and nothing was an It" -- this poem was written during World War
II, and in our time, as in Auden's, objectification (they, them, their)
often seems like the cruellest of human hobbies, enabling individuals to
commit horrific and unnecessary acts of violence, and resulting also in
tragic failures to act due to indifference.  Sorry to go on -- actually,
I think the poem speaks well for itself.  Auden is nothing if not
didactic, except eloquent.

Carlynn.

The Colour of His Hair -- A E Houseman

Guest poem sent in by Frank O'Shea

The troubles in the Anglican (Episcopalian) church in America about the
consecration of a gay bishop brings the following poem to mind.

(Poem #1412) The Colour of His Hair Oh who is that young sinner with the handcuffs on his wrists? And what has he been after, that they groan and shake their fists? And wherefore is he wearing such a conscience-stricken air? Oh they’re taking him to prison for the colour of his hair. 'Tis a shame to human nature, such a head of hair as his; In the good old time 'twas hanging for the colour that it is; Though hanging isn't bad enough and flaying would be fair For the nameless and abominable colour of his hair. Oh a deal of pains he's taken and a pretty price he's paid To hide his poll or dye it of a mentionable shade; But they've pulled the beggar's hat off for the world to see and stare, And they’re taking him to justice for the colour of his hair. Now 'tis oakum for his fingers and the treadmill for his feet, And the quarry-gang on portland in the cold and in the heat, And between his spells of labour in the time he has to spare He can curse the god that made him for the colour of his hair. -- A E Houseman

Written by Houseman in 1894-5 at the time of trial of Oscar Wilde, but
(wisely) not published until after his death. Himself a homosexual, but much
more discreet than the flamboyant Irishman and not burdened by a petulant
young lover, he was affected by the troubles visited on Wilde and sent him a
copy of A Shropshire Lad after he was released from prison. He was said to
be touched by the fact that Robbie Ross used to memorise some of his verses
and recite them to Wilde in prison.

I love the metre - is there another poem without exactly the correct number
of feet in each line? What is the metre called, by the way? [Don't think
it's anything more specific than 'iambic heptameter' (with considerable
tension towards a trochaic reading in places, and several three-syllable
feet; as Frank says, it's a delightfully irregular metre) -martin]

Frank O'Shea

[Martin adds]

Another brilliant poem about Wilde's persecution by the authorities is
Betjeman's "The Arrest of Oscar Wilde at The Cadogan Hotel", with its
savagely ironic
    Mr Woilde, we'ave come for tew take yew
    Where felons and criminals dwell.
    We must ask yew tew leave with us quoietly
    For this is The Cadogan Hotel.

Full poem here: http://www.kategreen.org.uk/Oscar.htm

Pentecost -- Derek Walcott

Guest poem sent in by Sashidhar Dandamudi

(Poem #1411) Pentecost Better a jungle in the head than rootless concrete. Better to stand bewildered by the fireflies' crooked street; winter lamps do not show where the sidewalk is lost, nor can these tongues of snow speak for the Holy Ghost; the self-increasing silence of words dropped from a roof points along iron railings, direction, in not proof. But best is this night surf with slow scriptures of sand, that sends, not quite a seraph, but a late cormorant, whose fading cry propels through phosphorescent shoal what, in my childhood gospels, used to be called the Soul. -- Derek Walcott

While Pentecost doesn't map to the current "Ho Ho Ho" season in the United
States, on reading this poem from "Arkansas Testament" a few nights ago,
it occured to me that minus the title, this poem (a call for the tropics
in a tropical "soul"), voices an yearning (and for me personally
more apt) which shines, all the more wonderfuly when contrasted to all
that "White Christmas" noise on the radio.

Of course we have to hand it to Walcott for his perfect "finishes"!

Happy Holidays!
- Sashi

[Martin adds]

The (indeed perfect) finish reminded me of Poem #1197, with its refrain of
"some call it ..., others call it God". The tone is different, though -
today's poem is more nostalgic, and, as Sashi says, more yearning for a
religion that is increasingly missing in the narrator's life. "Childhood" is
a double-edged word, and there is definitely a suggestion that the "childhood
gospels" were in some sense naive, but overall, I think, the poem's burden is
that something of value has been, and is being lost.