May Day

ah, may! lerner's and loewe's "lusty" month...

while othello says of his desdemona, "i had been happy if the general camp,/ pioneers and all, had tasted her sweet body,/ so i had nothing known," arthur does him one better when malory records the king lamenting, "for queens I might have enow, but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company (malory's spelling normalized due to insufficient resources)." while arthur may not be totally cool with his best knight diddling jenny behind his back, he recognizes a greater good being served by feigning ignorance. the real irony here lies in desdemona's purity despite othello's suspicions, whereas guinevere was false as hell... repeatedly... and sometimes right after lunch (tramp.)... but arthur accepted it to preserve the unity and accord of his kingdom. of course, i recognize that i comprise a rather small minority that condemns the inconstant queen for her actions. whatever. for those of you for whom marital infidelity elicits a giggle, check out the saga of the mantle; it's hilarious (and one of my favourite of the ancient arthurian tales). for the english majors playing at home, i did in fact use the past tense in reference to jenny's faithlessness--i defend the choice on the basis that if one claps and wishes hard enough, tinkerbell gets better, which means that if i wish hard enough (clapping is just silly), arthur really did exist and will one day come again. this, obviously, necessarily forces him into the temporal constraints of our linear perception of time, and where goes arthur goes also lancelot (sorry, that's horrible, i know), and therefore, too, the treacherous queen.

i digress...

how is the above related to the titular below (yes, i simply wanted to use the word titular in this already sexually charged post)? what better month for a celebration of poetry than the lusty one?! this is, of course, notwithstanding the fact the april is designated as national poetry month--the problem is that april was halfway passed when i realized that i had completely forgotten to acknowledge it... doh! so, rather than be utterly halfway assed and address the issue then, i figured it was a far better idea to simply let go and be entirely assed in dubbing may "belated national poetry month"--much in the same way that for me 2008 will be 2007.

so, each week i will post seven of my favourite poems, sans commentary, for your enjoyment... cheers! oh... and, yes, i am counting jethro tull lyrics as poetry. spin the aqualung lp: i defy you to tell me it's not poetry.

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Odi et amo. Quare id faciam, fortasse requiris?
Nescio, sed fieri sentio, et excrucior.

I hate and I love. Why do I do it, you may perhaps ask?
I know not, but I feel it happening to me, and it is torturous.

(Catullus, 1st C BC)

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Close

I wish I were close
To you as the wet skirt of
A salt girl to her body;
I think of you always.

(translation of a haiku by Yamabe No Akahito, 8th C AD)

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Sonnet 116

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

(William Shakespeare, 17th C AD)

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La Belle Dame Sans Merci

'O WHAT can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
  Alone and palely loitering?
The sedge is wither'd from the lake,
   And no birds sing.

'O what can ail thee, knight-at-arms,
  So haggard and so woe-begone?
The squirrel's granary is full,
   And the harvest 's done.

'I see a lily on thy brow
  With anguish moist and fever dew;
And on thy cheeks a fading rose
   Fast withereth too.'

'I met a lady in the meads,
  Full beautiful—a faery's child,
Her hair was long, her foot was light,
   And her eyes were wild.

'I made a garland for her head,
  And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look'd at me as she did love,
   And made sweet moan.

'I set her on my pacing steed
  And nothing else saw all day long,
For sideways would she lean, and sing
   A faery's song.

'She found me roots of relish sweet,
  And honey wild and manna dew,
And sure in language strange she said,
   "I love thee true!"

'She took me to her elfin grot,
  And there she wept and sigh'd fill sore;
And there I shut her wild, wild eyes
   With kisses four.

'And there she lullèd me asleep,
  And there I dream'd—Ah! woe betide!
The latest dream I ever dream'd
   On the cold hill's side.

'I saw pale kings and princes too,
  Pale warriors, death-pale were they all;
They cried—"La belle Dame sans Merci
   Hath thee in thrall!"

'I saw their starved lips in the gloam
  With horrid warning gapèd wide,
And I awoke and found me here,
   On the cold hill's side.

'And this is why I sojourn here
  Alone and palely loitering,
Though the sedge is wither'd from the lake,
   And no birds sing.'

(John Keats, 19th C AD)

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VII (from SONNETS--ACTUALLITIES)

i like my body when it is with your
body.    It is so quite new a thing.
Muscles better and nerves more.
i like your body.    i like what it does,
i like its hows.    i like to feel the spine
of your body and its bones,and the trembling
-firm-smooth ness and which i will
again and again and again
kiss,     i like kissing this and that of you,
i like,slowly stroking the,shocking fuzz
of your electric fur,and what-is-it comes
over parting flesh....And eyes big love-crumbs,

and possibly i like the thrill

of under me you so quite new

(E. E. Cummings, 20th C AD)

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Reflections on Ice-Breaking

Candy
Is Dandy
But liquor
Is quicker.

(Ogden Nash, 20th C AD)

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Wond'ring Aloud

Wond'ring aloud
how we feel today--
Last night sipped the sunset
my hands in her hair--
We are our own saviours
as we start both our hearts beating life
into each other.

Wond'ring aloud
will the years treat us well?
As she floats in the kitchen,
I'm tasting the smell
of toast as the butter runs...
Then she comes, spilling crumbs on the bed
and I shake my head.

And it's only the giving
that makes you what you are.

(Jethro Tull, Aqualung, 20th C)