Be Nice ...

[Rosie Gray]

Pip, would it be alright to repost any of these poems? I don't want to contravene anyone's copyright, but I'd like to share some of them!

[Pip Torok]

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HAPPY BLOOMSDAY, EVERYONE ....
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On this sixteenth day of June, 2012 ....

"...I was a Flower of the mountain yes when I put the rose in my hair like the Andalusian girls used or shall I wear a red yes and how he kissed me under the Moorish wall and I thought well as well him as another and then I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes. "

"Ulysses" ... final words.

Pip Torok

[Pip Torok]

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LUTE MUSIC
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The Earth will be going on a long time
Before it finally freezes;
Men will be on it; they will take names,
Give their deeds reasons.
We will be here only
As chemical constituents—
A small franchise indeed.
Right now we have lives,
Corpuscles, Ambitions, Caresses,
Like everybody had once—

Here at the year's end, at the feast
Of birth, let us bring to each other
The gifts brought once west through deserts—
The precious metal of our mingled hair,
The frankincense of enraptured arms and legs,
The myrrh of desperate, invincible kisses—
Let us celebrate the daily
Recurrent nativity of love,
The endless epiphany of our fluent selves,
While the earth rolls away under us
Into unknown snows and summers,
Into untraveled spaces of the stars.

~ Kenneth Rexroth ("Sacramental Acts")

Brought to mind by a recent debate upon the continued existence of C.D.S.

For those who never knew him, Kenneth Rexroth was one of those poets, scholars, thinkers and funnymen that the United States had the luck to bring-forth ... their nearest North-American equivalent to Pablo Neruda.

Pip Torok

[Rosie Gray]

A tear and a thought to Blake Edwards, who recently died ....

Who's Blake Edwards? Well, without him, we wouldn't have had breakfast at Tiffanie's with the Pink Panther, or ....

blue river ...
wider than a mile ...
we're crossing you in style,
one day ....

dream-maker
you heart-breaker!
wherever you're going, we're going
your way ....

moon drifter
off to see the world ...
there's an awful lot of world
to see ...

we're after the same
rainbow's end,
my Huckleberry friend ...
blue river ...
and me ...

Pip Torok

It's impossible for me to read those words and not sing them to myself. Thanks for that Pip.

[Pip Torok]

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LOVE SONG from THE IRON PASTORAL
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John Frederick Nims
1913-1999

My clumsiest dear, whose hands shipwreck vases,
At whose quick touch all glasses chip and ring,
Whose palms are bulls in china, burs in linen,
And have no cunning with any soft thing

Except all ill-at-ease fidgeting people:
The refugee uncertain at the door
You make at home; deftly you steady
The drunk clambering on his undulant floor.

Unpredictable dear, the taxi drivers' terror,
Shrinking from far headlights pale as a dime
Yet leaping before red apoplectic streetcars ---
Misfit in any space. And never on time.

A wrench in clocks and the solar system. Only
With words and people and love you move at ease.
In traffic of wit expertly manoeuvre
And keep us, all devotion, at your knees.

Forgetting your coffee spreading on our flannel,
Your lipstick grinning on our coat,
So gaily in love's unbreakable heaven
Our souls on glory of spilt Bourbon float.

Be with me darling early and late. Smash glasses ---
I will study wry music for your sake.
For should your hands drop white and empty
All the toys of the world would break.

--oOo--

A wish that everyone who seeks their Valentine on this day will find it on this day ....

Pip Torok

[Pip Torok]

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From the Balcony of Our Schloss
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SECOND LIFE has not anything to show more fair:
. Dull would you be of soul who could pass by
. A sight so touching in its majesty:
This Schloss does now, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
. Ramparts, Towers, Rathaus, Bridge, and Kirche lie
. Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
. In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
. The pathways glide at their own sweet will:
Dear God! the very marble seems asleep;
. And all this mighty heart is lying still!
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-- Pip Torok (with a little help from Wordsworth)
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Pip Torok

[Sudane Erato]

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From the Balcony of Our Schloss
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SECOND LIFE has not anything to show more fair:
. Dull would you be of soul who could pass by
. A sight so touching in its majesty:
This Schloss does now, like a garment, wear
The beauty of the morning; silent, bare,
. Ramparts, Towers, Rathaus, Bridge, and Kirche lie
. Open unto the fields, and to the sky;
All bright and glittering in the smokeless air.
Never did sun more beautifully steep
. In his first splendour valley, rock, or hill;
Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep!
. The pathways glide at their own sweet will:
Dear God! the very marble seems asleep;
. And all this mighty heart is lying still!
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-- Pip Torok (with a little help from Wordsworth)

Pip, you and Mr Wordsworth have created a wonderful reflection, not just of our new building, but of our community as a whole. Perhaps the sims of the CDS from the balcony of the Schloss are on a bit smaller scale than London from the railing of Westminister Bridge, but both places have both the beauty and the beating heart of years of creativity and conflict. I too love the morning before things awake, and your poem puts into words that spiritual feeling. We'll surely place the text nearby for all to appreciate.

Thank you!

Sudane.........................

[Pip Torok]

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THE BRITISH
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Benjamin Zephania

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.

Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.

Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.

Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.

Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians,
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.

Leave the ingredients to simmer.

As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.

Allow time to be cool.

Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.

Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better than another will leave a bitter unpleasant taste.

Warning: An unequal spread of justice will damage the people and cause pain. Give justice and equality to all.

--oOo--

With a plea that our combatants realise this : that their perception of others' intolerance may in fact be illusory ...

Pip Torok

[Pip Torok]

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I CAN'T WAIT FOR A MOON
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Pip Torok

I can't wait for a moon to say it's alright,
Not with the feelings I'm having tonight.
How can I do that when it's love on my mind,
And my heart is so full all the time?

They say that a moon can drive people mad,
Crazy for loving that's filled with desire,
But I say it's life, and that life is a fire
That burns while a moon is nowhere in sight.

Now what can it matter if tides are low,
When the banks of your being do overflow?
I can't wait for a moon to say it's alright ...
Not with the feelings I'm having tonight.

I walk in the dark with a rainbow inside,
That changes with colours not seen with an eye,
But I feel them as sure as the ground at my feet,
And I marvel at movements and silence they keep.

And I wonder at those who may look at a star,
And who feel its vibrations from right where they are,
But it makes me so sad that still others can't see ...
Must they wait for a moon for this feeling to be?

I can't wait for a moon to say it's alright,
Not with the feelings I'm having tonight ...

--oOo--

Pip Torok

[Delia Lake]

Thank you, Pip, for the poetry.

[Rosie Gray]

Wonderful poem Pip, thank you.

[Pip Torok]

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HYDE AND SEEK
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Fran Landesman
1927-2011

Let me see your Hyde side
The side you hide from me
Up till now you've only shown me
Just how charming you can be

Dr Jekyll, I adore you
I have no complaint
But just how long can you continue
Acting like a saint?

Underneath your sunny surface
Darkness must exist
Or you wouldn't be quite human
The plot would have no twist

You won't lose me, Dr Jekyll
If you'd but let me peek
We could come a little closer
Playing Hyde and seek ...

We can never stick together
And stay starry-eyed
I'm in love with Dr Jekyll
Now show me Mrs Hyde

--oOo--

(later reworked as Hyde Side Blues)

http://uk.search.yahoo.com/search?n=10& ... ues%22&vs=

Dedicated to all the victims, past present and future, of individuals who
have something to hide from the rest of us, we who sometimes do not see it ...
until it is too late.

Pip Torok

[Pip Torok]

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HUMAN FAMILY
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Maya Angelou
(1928 -- )

I note the obvious differences
in the human family.
Some of us are serious,
some thrive on comedy.

Some declare their lives are lived
as true profundity,
and others claim they really live
the real reality.

The variety of our skin tones
can confuse, bemuse, delight,
brown and pink and beige and purple,
tan and blue and white.

I've sailed upon the seven seas
and stopped in every land,
I've seen the wonders of the world
not yet one common man.

I know ten thousand women
called Jane and Mary Jane,
but I've not seen any two
who really were the same.

Mirror twins are different
although their features jibe,
and lovers think quite different thoughts
while lying side by side.

We love and lose in China,
we weep on England's moors,
and laugh and moan in Guinea,
and thrive on Spanish shores.

We seek success in Finland,
are born and die in Maine.
In minor ways we differ,
in major we're the same.

I note the obvious differences
between each sort and type,
but we are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

We are more alike, my friends,
than we are unalike.

--oOo--

'People will forget what you said
People will forget what you did
But people will never forget how you made them feel.'

(Maya Angelou ... As quoted in 'Worth Repeating': More Than 5,000 Classic and Contemporary Quotes (2003) by Bob Kelly, p. 263)

A Plea against both hatred and the causes of hatred ...

Pip Torok

[Delia Lake]

Thank you for posting this, Pip. I love many of Maya Angelou's poems, and this is one of my favorites.

[Pip Torok]

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. A NEW LEAF ....
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. Rabindranath Tagore
.(tr Ketaki Kushari Dyson)
from "Shesh Saptak", 1935 (#46).

I was then seven years of age.
. Through the dawn window I would spy
. the upper lid of darkness lifting.
. a soft light streaming out
. like a newly opened kantalichampa flower...

Leaving my bed, I would rush into the garden
. before the crow's first cry,
. lest I deprive myself
. of the rising sun's preliminary rites
. among the trembling coconut branches.

Each day then was independent, was new.
. The morning that came from the east's golden ghat,
. bathed in light,
. a dot of red sandal on its forehead,
. came to my life as a new guest,
. smiled to me.
Not a trace of yesterday would there be on its body's wrap.

. Then I grew older
. and work weighed me down.
. The days jostled against one another,
. losing the dignity that was unique to each.
. One day's thinking stretched itself to the next day.
. One day's job spread its mat on the next day to sit down.
. Time, thus compacted, only expands,
. never renews itself.
. Age just increases without pause,
. doesn't return
. from time to time to its eternal refrain,
. thus to rediscover itself.

Today it's time for me to make the old new.
. I've sent for the medicine-man: he'll rid me of the ghost.
. For the wizard's letter
. every day I shall sit in this garden.
. A new letter each day
. at my window when I awake.
. Morning will arrive
. to get introduced to me;
. will open its eyes, unblinking, in the sky
. and ask me,
. "What's _your_ name?"
. What's my name today
. won't be valid tomorrow.

. The commander sees his army,
. not the soldier;
. sees his own needs,
. not the truth;
. doesn't see each person's
. unique, creator-shaped form.
Thus have I seen the creation so far --
. like an army of prisoners
. bound in one chain of need.
. And in that same chain
. I have also bound myself.

. Today I shall free myself.
. Beyond the sea
. I can see the new shore before me.
. I won't tangle it with
. baggage brought from this shore.
. On this boat I'll take no luggage at all.
. Alone I'll go,
. made new again, to the new.

. --oOo--

ghat : steps giving access to a river, or well.

kantalichampa : a small shrub with very fragrant yellow flowers

Shesh Saptak : The Last Octave (Saptak = a seven-note scale)

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THE FLOOD
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(try the one above for the words, the one below for the theatricality ... )

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These two, both "A New Leaf" and "The Flood", are my reply to bad-mannered busy-bodies who wish to impose their religion upon me ...

Pip Torok