Name: Whitman and the Moth by Clive James (read by Tom OBedlam) @SpokenVerse
Uploaded: 2024-10-18T08:17:00-05:00
Duration: 8 min 17 s
Description: Whitman and the Moth by Clive James (read by Tom OBedlam)

Whitman and the Moth by Clive James (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2024-10-18 | Whitman and the Moth by Clive James (read by Tom OBedlam)

No Leaders Please by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-11-29 | invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
don't swim in the same slough.
invent yourself and then reinvent yourself
and
stay out of the clutches of mediocrity.

invent yourself and then reinvent yourself,
change your tone and shape so often that they can
never
categorize you.

reinvigorate yourself and
accept what is
but only on the terms that you have invented
and reinvented.

be self-taught.

and reinvent your life because you must;
it is your life and
its history
and the present
belong only to
you.

Song by Allen Ginsberg (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-11-28 | I downloaded some free software - VideoMeld - this is my first attempt with it.

The weight of the world
is love.
Under the burden
of solitude,
under the burden
of dissatisfaction

the weight,
the weight we carry
is love.

Who can deny?
In dreams
it touches
the body,
in thought
constructs
a miracle,
in imagination
anguishes
till born
in human--
looks out of the heart
burning with purity--
for the burden of life
is love,

but we carry the weight
wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love
at last,
must rest in the arms
of love.

No rest
without love,
no sleep
without dreams
of love--
be mad or chill
obsessed with angels
or machines,
the final wish
is love
--cannot be bitter,
cannot deny,
cannot withhold
if denied:

the weight is too heavy
--must give
for no return
as thought
is given
in solitude
in all the excellence
of its excess.

The warm bodies
shine together
in the darkness,
the hand moves
to the center
of the flesh,
the skin trembles
in happiness
and the soul comes
joyful to the eye--

yes, yes,
that's what
I wanted,
I always wanted,
I always wanted,
to return
to the body
where I was born.

Sentenced to Life by Clive James (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-05-11 | Clive James received a special award at the BAFTAs last night - here's his acceptance speech http://www.mirror.co.uk/tv/tv-news/bafta-tv-awards-clive-james-5675654 In every generation there are only a handful of poets whose work will survive. Clive has a shot at immortality. Sentenced to Life is the name of his latest collection of poetry. You can buy the book here from Amazon UK
http://tinyurl.com/SentencedToLife
Or in the US from Amazon.com:
http://tinyurl.com/SentencedCom

Readings of other poems by Clive James:
"Whitman and the Moth" youtu.be/G67MBQYUTdI
"My Father Before Me" youtu.be/r7_qXGQG5D8
"Oval Room, Wallace Collection" youtu.be/SvWfTFgty5Q
"Woman Resting" youtu.be/-b5Oz2GS90g

The Tin Drum Chapter 1 by Günter Grass (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-04-13 | Yesterday Günter Grass died in Lübeck at age 87. This is the opening of his most famous novel. There are a few fluffs - I'm sorry about that - all I can say is that they make no difference to the sense.. I hope it will encourage you to read the rest of the book. It is on Amazon in printed form and as an ebook.

Earlier in the day I had been thinking about reading this first chapter of The Tin Drum. Then, in what could be thought an act of providence, the news reported that Günter Grass had died. Then I thought that if I was going to read it, then I should read it that same day before I went to bed. All the same I believe in a random universe, but when there's an opportunity to make it appear less random then I'm willing to take it.

People don't read any more. They don't have the attention span. From what I've gathered, if you don't start reading books before puberty then it's unlikely that you ever will. I mean reading in the recreational and educational sense, not just cornflake packets or the instructions that came with your garden furniture which appear to be written in a pidgin english anyway.

Dinosauria, We (born like this) by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-04-11 | Here's Bukowski himself youtube.com/watch?v=hRc6mHS9PjE
It reminds me of Lord Byron's Darkness: youtube.com/watch?v=5uN5btgxsfI
There's interesting artwork here:http://www.bukowskigallery.com

born like this
into this
as the chalk faces smile
as Mrs. Death laughs
as the elevators break
as political landscapes dissolve
as the supermarket bag boy holds a college degree
as the oily fish spit out their oily prey
as the sun is masked

we are
born like this
into this
into these carefully mad wars
into the sight of broken factory windows of emptiness
into bars where people no longer speak to each other
into fist fights that end as shootings and knifings

born into this
into hospitals which are so expensive that it's cheaper to die
into lawyers who charge so much it's cheaper to plead guilty
into a country where the jails are full and the madhouses closed
into a place where the masses elevate fools into rich heroes

born into this
walking and living through this
dying because of this
muted because of this
castrated
debauched
disinherited
because of this
fooled by this
used by this
pissed on by this
made crazy and sick by this
made violent
made inhuman
by this

the heart is blackened
the fingers reach for the throat
the gun
the knife
the bomb
the fingers reach toward an unresponsive god
the fingers reach for the bottle
the pill
the powder
we are born into this sorrowful deadliness
we are born into a government 60 years in debt
that soon will be unable to even pay the interest on that debt

and the banks will burn
money will be useless
there will be open and unpunished murder in the streets
it will be guns and roving mobs
land will be useless
food will become a diminishing return
nuclear power will be taken over by the many
explosions will continually shake the earth
radiated robot men will stalk each other
the rich and the chosen will watch from space platforms
Dante's Inferno will be made to look like a children's playground
the sun will not be seen and it will always be night
trees will die
all vegetation will die
radiated men will eat the flesh of radiated men
the sea will be poisoned
the lakes and rivers will vanish
rain will be the new gold
the rotting bodies of men and animals will stink in the dark wind
and the space platforms will be destroyed by attrition
and the petering out of supplies
the natural effect of general decay
and there will be the most beautiful silence never heard
born out of that.

the sun still hidden there
awaiting the next chapter.

The Lovers Resolution by George Wither (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-04-03 | Resolution is used in the same sense as a New Year's resolution.

Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman’s fair?
Or my cheeks make pale with care
’Cause another’s rosy are?
Be she fairer than the day
Or the flowery meads in May—
If she be not so to me
What care I how fair she be?

Shall my foolish heart be pined
’Cause I see a woman kind;
Or a well disposèd nature
Joinèd with a lovely feature?
Be she meeker, kinder, than
Turtle-dove or pelican,
If she be not so to me
What care I how kind she be?

Shall a woman’s virtues move
Me to perish for her love?
Or her merits’ value known
Make me quite forget mine own?
Be she with that goodness blest
Which may gain her name of Best;
If she seem not such to me,
What care I how good she be?

’Cause her fortune seems too high,
Shall I play the fool and die?
Those that bear a noble mind
Where they want of riches find,
Think what with them they would do
Who without them dare to woo;
And unless that mind I see,
What care I how great she be?

Great or good, or kind or fair,
I will ne’er the more despair;
If she love me, this believe,
I will die ere she shall grieve;
If she slight me when I woo,
I can scorn and let her go;
For if she be not for me,
What care I for whom she be?

Writing by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2015-02-21 | To read my notes click SHOW MORE below.

See how little equipment and space you need to be a writer! The outlay is trivial. Some writers prefer to work in sparse surroundings with no distractions - often they prefer to treat it as a job and have a place of work, like a shed at the bottom the the garden. Other writers are the very opposite and have to be surrounded by familiar things, such as reference books and the literature they love.

If you become fully engaged in any pursuit that takes all your concentration, then it will switch off your emotions, even pain. This can be either a good thing or a bad thing. If you want to forget painful realities of life then it's a good thing. If you are in a loving relationship then it can make you distant and lacking in empathy which might be a bad thing.

It doesn't have to be writing: anything that engages you completely will have the same effect. It might be any artform or design process, or even a pastime like chess or making model airplanes. It's some consolation to the "writing widow" that while her man is devoting his energy to writing he's unlikely to be unfaithful.

There's an experiment where people are given puzzles to solve and then an accident is staged in plain view.. The puzzle-solvers don't react as promptly or sympathetically as they should.

I was at a critical stage in a complex design when my daughter arrived home from college and came into my office. It took me a couple of minutes to change modes - by which time she was offended because I hadn't leapt to my feet to greet her.

The pictures come from this site which has a list of famous writers and the typewriters they used:
http://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/typers.html

often it is the only
thing
between you and
impossibility.
no drink,
no woman’s love,
no wealth
can
match it.
nothing can save
you
except
writing.
it keeps the walls
from
failing.
the hordes from
closing in.
it blasts the
darkness.
writing is the
ultimate
psychiatrist,
the kindliest
god of all the
gods.
writing stalks
death.
it knows no
quit.
and writing
laughs
at itself,
at pain.
it is the last
expectation,
the last
explanation.
that’s
what it
is.

Sunlight on the Garden by Louis MacNeice (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-11-25 | Louis MacNeice was a northern Irish poet, a friend of WH Auden. He used a quotation from this poem "The Earth Compels" as the title of a poetry collection published in 1938. There are two readings here - the first I made today, the second I made three years ago, I just found it in my files.

He was about 28 when he wrote this poem. It is about mortality and the inevitable fate that awaits us all, which appears to be a topic that seems to bother intellectuals more than it bothers the rest of us: Shakespeare was obsessed with it. The poem is said to be addressed to his ex-wife, Mary Ezra, after their divorce, expressing his acceptance and gratitude for what their marriage had been. There's more here about the unusual rhyme scheme and the meaning:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sunlight_on_the_Garden

"I am dying, Egypt, dying.
Give me some wine and let me speak a little."
Ant says this to Cleo in Antony and Cleopatra.
Context http://nfs.sparknotes.com/antony-and-cleopatra/page_302.html

Rhotic speakers such as Scots and Northern Irish pronounce the 'r' in iron. Here it has to rhyme with 'siren' and I think there's an intentional allusion to 'irony'. Here's a discussion about David Cameron, the UK's Prime Minister, talking about a 'cast iron promise', pronouncing the 'r':
http://phonetic-blog.blogspot.co.uk/2009/11/iron-or.html

The paintings are by Anthony Yates RBA RBSA. I found them because one of them is actually called "Sunlight on the Garden". They appear to depict a marriage which is the theme of the poem. They are available here at The Fosse Gallery:
http://www.fossegallery.com/artistsdetails.php?name=Anthony+Yates

The sunlight on the garden
Hardens and grows cold,
We cannot cage the minute
Within its nets of gold,
When all is told
We cannot beg for pardon.

Our freedom as free lances
Advances towards its end;
The earth compels, upon it
Sonnets and birds descend;
And soon, my friend,
We shall have no time for dances.

The sky was good for flying
Defying the church bells
And every evil iron
Siren and what it tells:
The earth compels,
We are dying, Egypt, dying

And not expecting pardon,
Hardened in heart anew,
But glad to have sat under
Thunder and rain with you,
And grateful too
For sunlight on the garden.

The Crunch (first version) by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-11-24 | This is the original version of The Crunch. There were three versions in all. Here's a discussion about the changing text of The Crunch
http://bukowskiforum.com/threads/the-crunch-in-its-many-forms.1167
and all three versions side by side here:
http://bukowski.net/poems/crunches.php

It's offensive and it means to be offensive. I left out two lines that are too offensive for most people. Bukowski himself took them out of later versions - but for the sake of completeness:

"many old women rubbing rosaries
when they'd prefer to be rubbing cocks"

Here's Charles Bukowski reading it:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x20ijtr_the-crunch-by-charles-bukowski_creation

Here's Bono reading it:
youtube.com/watch?v=Ai_bGyLOspw

The stills for contemporary atmosphere are from two movies of the same year.
Taxi Driver with Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster.
Marathon Man with Dustin Hoffman and Laurence Olivier

Too much
too little
or not enough

too fat
too thin
or nobody

laughter or
tears
or immaculate
non-concern

haters
lovers

armies running through streets of blood
waving winebottles
bayoneting and fucking virgins

or an old guy in a cheap room
with a photograph of Marilyn Monroe

many old guys in cheap rooms without
any photographs at all

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it in the slow movements of
the hands of a clock

there is a loneliness in this world so great
that you can see it blinking in neon signs
in Vegas, in Baltimore, in Munich

there are people so tired
so strafed
so mutilated by love or no
love
that buying a bargain can of tuna
in a supermarket
is their greatest moment
their greatest victory

we don't need new governments
new revolutions
we don't need new men
new women
we don't need new ways
wife-swaps
waterbeds
good Columbian
coke

water pipes
dildoes
rubbers with corkscrew stems
watches that give you the date

people are not good to each other
one on one.
Marx be damned
the sin is not the totality of certain systems.
Christianity be damned
the sin is not the killing of a God.

people are just not good to each other.

we are afraid
we think that hatred means strength
we think that New York City is the greatest
city in America.

what we need is less brilliance
what we need is less instruction

what we need are less poets
what we need are less Bukowskies
what we need are less Billy Grahams

what we need is more
beer
a typist
more finches
more green-eyed whores who don't eat your heart
like a vitamin pill

we don't think about the terror of one person
aching in one place

alone
untouched
unspoken to
watering a plant
being without a telephone that will never
ring
because there isn't one.

more haters than lovers

slices of doom like taffeta

people are not good to each other

people are not good to each other

people are not good to each other

and the beads swing and the clouds cloud
and the dogs piss upon the roses
and the killer beheads the child like taking a bite

out of an ice cream cone

and the ocean comes in and out
in and out
under the direction of a senseless moon

and people are not good to each other.

Figs by D H Lawrence (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-11-16 | Lawrence is best known for Lady Chatterley's Lover, privately published in 1928 in Florence, Italy, by a local bookseller. It was banned in Britain but the ban was overturned in a celebrated court case in 1960. Lawrence never knew of the victory or how he opened the floodgates for pornography because he died in 1930.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Orioli

His portrayal of the sexuality of women in Lady Chatterley's Lover is, from the viewpoint of most women, either wrong, unhelpful or merely silly. That didn't matter because the majority of purchasers were men looking for excitement or enlightenment. . Not that there's anything particularly wrong with excitement or enlightenment.

At best, he reveals what men thought about women at a time when - because of censorship - there had been no reliable sources of information. At worst, he's a man writing about sex in the guise of a woman for reasons that he may not have been willing to admit to himself.

Its most famous predecessor in the pornography market was The Pearl, an unground Victorian magazine, and that didn't give a damn about how women felt. Similarly The Life and Loves of Frank Harris. Male pornography was about the 'art' of seduction.

Women had never been much inclined to talk about their sexuality and men have never been much inclined to pay attention anyway - or even notice signs of female approval or disapproval. In fact I don't know of any equivalent piece of literature written by a woman from a woman's viewpoint, not at that time, nor since then. Women are more interested in situations and feelings, they don't tend to care about the mechanical details or body parts. I'd guess that the sexiest writer for women is Jane Austen.

The problem of pushing a belief system is that it can do lasting harm. People will take up a set of concepts and adjust the world they "see" to fit the model. It's called 'confirmation bias'. It depends on the adoption of a set of beliefs and labels which have no real meaning outside the model. Morality is like that. So are many models of the human condition used by the medical profession. The labels have no referent - meaning they don't refer to anything but a conviction on the part of the user. Go back or forward fifty years and the concepts have changed and the labels mean something else.

Sure, this is a sexy poem but it's misogynistic too. It expresses both attraction and revulsion for the vagina, the woman's 'secret'. It criticises how women use their secret to gain advantage over men, saying that they're all whores. It ends with the notion that once a woman's secret is revealed it soon becomes overripe and passes its "use by" date. It would seem that this distaste is a projection of Lawrence's sexuality which was ambivalent and a source of inner conflict. It is certain that he did have homosexual feelings and experiences, he said so himself.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D._H._Lawrence

The idea that certain objects look vaguely similar to genitalia is only of interest to somebody who doesn't know what the real thing looks like - and wants to visualise it. There are no useful inferences to be drawn from this accidental resemblance.

Lady Chatterley's Lover - you can read some of it here:
http://www.amazon.com/Chatterleys-Lover-Vintage-Classics-Promo-ebook/dp/B004OEIDNY

"From Twigs to Figs" - a gardening guide
http://figs4fun.com/basics2.html

A well-written essay about figs "every fruit has its secret" well worth reading. It also has the text of the poem.
http://gerryco23.wordpress.com/2014/09/09/first-fig-every-fruit-has-its-secret

I Was a Bustle Maker Once, Girls by Patrick Barrington (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-11-04 | Fashion has always been inclined to distort and exaggerate the female form. In the Victorian era the was the hourglass figure and the wasp waist were in vogue. To achieve the effect women wore tightly-laced corsets and were padded above and below, though the notion that some had their lower ribs removed is probably just a rumour. They were covered from neck to toe and a glimpse of stocking was really shocking, as you've probably heard . William Blake said:
When a man has married a wife, he finds out whether
Her knees and elbows are only glued together.
http://trulyvictorian.com/history/1869.html

High Street, Kensington, was then presumably a focal point of the fashion industry. It's a small world: it happens I also worked in High St. Ken when I was a lad of twenty. I remember selling a Jaguar to a well-known magician.

When I was a lad of twenty and was working in High Street, Ken.,
I made quite a pile in a very little while - I was a bustle maker then.
Then there was work in plenty, and I was a thriving man
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade,
Since the bustle making trade began.

I built bustles with a will then, I made bustles with a wit,
I made bustles as a Yankee hustles, simply for the love of it.
I built bustles with a skill then, surpassed, they say, by none,
But those were the days when bustles were the craze,
And now those days are done.

I was a bustle maker once, girls, many many years ago,
I put my heart in the bustle maker's art and I don't mind saying so.
I may have had the brains of a dunce, girls,
I may have had the mind of a muff,
I may have been plain and deficient in the brain
But I did know a bustle maker's stuff.

I built bustles for the slender, I built bustles for the stout,
I built bustles for the girls with muscles, and bustles for the girls without.
I built bustles by the thousands, in the good old days of yore,
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade
And I don't build bustles any more.

Many were the models worn once; but mine were unique, tis said,
No rival design was so elegant as mine; I was a bustle maker bred.
I was a bustle maker born once, an artist through and through,
But things have decayed in the bustle making trade
And what can a bustle maker do?

I built bustles to enchant, girls, I built bustles to amaze,
I built bustles for the skirt that rustles, and bustles for the skirt that sways.
I built bustles for my aunt, girls, when other business fled,
But a bustle maker can't make bustles for his aunt
When a bustle maker's aunt is dead.

I was a bustle maker once, girls, once in the days gone by,
I lost my heart to the bustle maker's art, and that I don't deny.
I may have had the brains of a dunce, girls,
As many men appear to suppose,
I may have been obtuse and of little other use
But I could make a bustle when I chose.

I built bustles for the bulging, I built bustles for the lithe,
I built bustles for the girls in Brussels and bustles for the girls in Hythe.
I built bustles for all Europe once, but I've been badly hit,
Things have decayed in the bustle making trade
And that is the truth of it.

Before I Knocked by Dylan Thomas (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-10-28 | This poem was written when Dylan was a teenager. I always thought it referred to the human child that Mary might have had or to that part of Christ that was human and mortal.

Here's a famous reading by Richard Burton:
youtube.com/watch?v=P68b4FV5ojo

Translations into french, german, spanish and portuguese here:
http://worlds-poetry.com/dylan_thomas/before_i_knocked

Dylan's Portrait by Augustus John, about 1938.

La Nativité. 1728 by Noël-Nicolas Coypel (1690-1734)

Christ of St. John of the Cross, 1951, by Salvador Dali

Before I knocked and flesh let enter,
With liquid hands tapped on the womb,
I who was as shapeless as the water
That shaped the Jordan near my home
Was brother to Mnetha's daughter
And sister to the fathering worm.

I who was deaf to spring and summer,
Who knew not sun nor moon by name,
Felt thud beneath my flesh's armour,
As yet was in a molten form
The leaden stars, the rainy hammer
Swung by my father from his dome.

I knew the message of the winter,
The darted hail, the childish snow,
And the wind was my sister suitor;
Wind in me leaped, the hellborn dew;
My veins flowed with the Eastern weather;
Ungotten I knew night and day.

As yet ungotten, I did suffer;
The rack of dreams my lily bones
Did twist into a living cipher,
And flesh was snipped to cross the lines
Of gallow crosses on the liver
And brambles in the wringing brains.

My throat knew thirst before the structure
Of skin and vein around the well
Where words and water make a mixture
Unfailing till the blood runs foul;
My heart knew love, my belly hunger;
I smelt the maggot in my stool.

And time cast forth my mortal creature
To drift or drown upon the seas
Acquainted with the salt adventure
Of tides that never touch the shores.
I who was rich was made the richer
By sipping at the vine of days.

I, born of flesh and ghost, was neither
A ghost nor man, but mortal ghost.
And I was struck down by death's feather.
I was a mortal to the last
Long breath that carried to my father
The message of his dying christ.

You who bow down at cross and altar,
Remember me and pity Him
Who took my flesh and bone for armour
And doublecrossed my mother's womb.

Thank You for the Christmas Cake by Helen Maria Williams (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-10-26 | An elegant thank-you note. You might think that the traditional English Christmas plum cake would actually contain some plums. This was not so, although it did usually contain raisins, currants and a substantial amount of suet.

Christmas Cake followed on from an earlier tradition, Twelfth Night Cake "a large rich cake, often with a domed top, iced and decorated with ribbons, paper, tinsel and even sugar figures. A dried bean and a dried pea would be hidden in the cake and the man who found the bean would be the King; the woman who found the pea, Queen. If a woman found the bean, she got to choose the King. If a man found the pea, he got to choose the Queen. Servants were included in the division of the cake and if they got to be Kings or Queens even their masters had to obey. "
guildhalllibrarynewsletter.wordpress.com/2014/01/02/twelfth-night-cake
The illustrations are by Isaac Cruikshank made in 1794 and 1807 - the same era as this poem.

Helen was quite a character. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helen_Maria_Williams

In England the name Maria was pronounced mar-EYE-ah as, for instance, in "The Black Maria" the colloquial name of the police van in which apprehended criminals were taken to gaol.
http://www.behindthename.com/bb/fact/3052716

What crowding thoughts around me wake,
What marvels in a Christmas-cake!
Ah say, what strange enchantment dwells
Enclosed within its odorous cells?
Is there no small magician bound
Encrusted in its snowy round?
For magic surely lurks in this,
A cake that tells of vanished bliss;
A cake that conjures up to view
The early scenes, when life was new;
When memory knew no sorrows past,
And hope believed in joys that last! —
Mysterious cake, whose folds contain
Life’s calendar of bliss and pain;
That speaks of friends for ever fled,
And wakes the tears I love to shed.
Oft shall I breathe her cherished name
From whose fair hand the offering came:
For she recalls the artless smile
Of nymphs that deck my native isle;
Of beauty that we love to trace,
Allied with tender, modest grace;
Of those who, while abroad they roam,
Retain each charm that gladdens home,
And whose dear friendships can impart
A Christmas banquet for the heart!

The Masque of the Red Death by Edgar Allan Poe (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-10-06 | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_the_Red_Death

Haunted Houses by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-10-04 | At the beginning and end are pictures of the two houses Longfellow lived in. The other pictures are interiors of these houses. He lived for 35 years in the first house and the rest of his life in the second. It seems that the video ends with three different houses but actually they are same house at different times in history.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadsworth-Longfellow_House
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longfellow_House%E2%80%93Washington%27s_Headquarters_National_Historic_Site

The poem was written in 1858.

The verse that I find most interesting is this one:

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

Instinct is defined in the dictionary as "An inborn pattern of behavior" or "an innate capability or aptitude" or "motivation or impulse". So instinct is something we inherit, it is encoded in our DNA.

We are all a collection of inherited survival strategies. Motivations and behavior patterns are encoded in our DNA. If you have raised kids or kittens you will have seen ample proof of this, they are born knowing how to behave like children or cats. The survival purpose of some of the things we do is hard to fathom but if it is not uncommon then it will have a survival advantage, though not necessarily for the individual. We are capable of being altruist and self-sacrificing but so are other animals, even insects. The higher purpose is only the purpose of the gene pool, not "the influence of an unseen star". A computer could be programmed to make ethical decisions, it just has to follow the direction "maximise survival". The argument fails if you can come up with an exception to the rule.

All houses wherein men have lived and died
Are haunted houses. Through the open doors
The harmless phantoms on their errands glide,
With feet that make no sound upon the floors.

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair,
Along the passages they come and go,
Impalpable impressions on the air,
A sense of something moving to and fro.

There are more guests at table than the hosts
Invited; the illuminated hall
Is thronged with quiet, inoffensive ghosts,
As silent as the pictures on the wall.

The stranger at my fireside cannot see
The forms I see, nor hear the sounds I hear;
He but perceives what is; while unto me
All that has been is visible and clear.

We have no title-deeds to house or lands;
Owners and occupants of earlier dates
From graves forgotten stretch their dusty hands,
And hold in mortmain still their old estates.

The spirit-world around this world of sense
Floats like an atmosphere, and everywhere
Wafts through these earthly mists and vapours dense
A vital breath of more ethereal air.

Our little lives are kept in equipoise
By opposite attractions and desires;
The struggle of the instinct that enjoys,
And the more noble instinct that aspires.

These perturbations, this perpetual jar
Of earthly wants and aspirations high,
Come from the influence of an unseen star
An undiscovered planet in our sky.

And as the moon from some dark gate of cloud
Throws o’er the sea a floating bridge of light,
Across whose trembling planks our fancies crowd
Into the realm of mystery and night,—

So from the world of spirits there descends
A bridge of light, connecting it with this,
O’er whose unsteady floor, that sways and bends,
Wander our thoughts above the dark abyss.

Wild Oats by Philip Larkin (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-29 | Ruth Bowman was engaged to the Philip Larkin from 1948 until 1950. She received 400 letters from him. The snapshot of her was taken by Larkin.
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2013/jan/22/ruth-siverns

"Bosomy rose with fur gloves on" was Jane Exall. He complained to his friend Kingsley Amis that he spent three quid on her lunch and all he got for it was a kiss on his ear. Real fur was still worn in the 50's and it was expensive. The height of glamour for a girl was a mink coat, an extravagance that cost as much as an average house.

Larkin took many "snaps" of Jane but I can't find any of them online and there's probably good reason for this. In the 50's snapshots were black and white. I needed a picture for atmosphere at the end so I used one of a screen actress, Francis Doble, 1902-1969. http://philiplarkin.com/pdfs/essays/jane_exall_skamitani.pdf

There's some analysis here:
http://enorfaslitionachampain.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/wild-oats.html

In fact there's plenty of analysis of this poem and Larkin's affairs online. The private lives of poets get picked over like chicken guts in the hands of a haruspex. That's the chief reason I never tried to be a poet. Another reason is that the pay is lousy. Instead I sought immortality by not dying, which would be cuter if Woody Allen hadn't said it first.

I can't help thinking that Larkin would have been not so painfully self-conscious nor such a misanthrope if he'd never met Kingsley Amis. I admire Kingsley Amis because he's amusing and entertaining, he reflects the spirit of his time. However I never liked him: he was narcissistic and he harmed everybody who crossed his path, as narcissists tend to do. He suffered in his later years from an ailment sometimes called "serveyourightis", meaning that it was caused by his self-indulgence and selfishness: the nymphs had departed. Like Bukowski said in the last poem I read, he had to pay for all those profligate years. I'll bet that brings me a few brickbats.

About twenty years ago
Two girls came in where I worked—
A bosomy English rose
And her friend in specs I could talk to.
Faces in those days sparked
The whole shooting-match off, and I doubt
If ever one had like hers:
But it was the friend I took out,

And in seven years after that
Wrote over four hundred letters,
Gave a ten-guinea ring
I got back in the end, and met
At numerous cathedral cities
Unknown to the clergy. I believe
I met beautiful twice. She was trying
Both times (so I thought) not to laugh.

Parting, after about five
Rehearsals, was an agreement
That I was too selfish, withdrawn,
And easily bored to love.
Well, useful to get that learnt.
In my wallet are still two snaps
Of bosomy rose with fur gloves on.
Unlucky charms, perhaps.

Cold Summer by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-26 | The first line refers to John Fante(1909-1983), author of the classic L.A. novel Ask the Dust, whom Bukowski’s admired as a writer. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Fante. There are a few different versions of this poem, some leave out the first line and that loses the plot.

Here's Roberts Towns who wrote the script for Chinatown talking about John Fante, saying he was an authentic source of the way people talked in the thirties.
youtube.com/watch?v=jsO0VSYAqXo

not as bad as yours, Fante,
but bad enough: in and out
of the hospital, in and out of
the doctor’s office, swinging
by the thread: you’re in
remission… no, wait,
new cells here… and your
platelets are way down…
you been drinking?
we’ll probably have to take
another bone marrow…

the doctor is busy, the
waiting room in the cancer
ward is crowded: people
reading Time, people reading
People…

the nurses are pleasant, they
joke with me.
I think that’s nice, joking in the
shadows of death.

my wife is with me.
I am sorry for my wife, I am
sorry for everybody’s
wife.

then we are down in the parking lot.
I drive sometimes.
I drive then.

it's been a cold summer
“maybe you should take a
little swim”
suggests my wife.

it’s a warmer day than
usual. “sure,” I say
and pull out of the parking lot.

she’s a brave woman, she
acts like everything is
normal.

but I’ve got to pay for all
those profligate years;
there were so many of
them.
the bill has come due
and they’ll only accept
one final
payment.

might as well take a
swim.

On the Road by Jack Kerouac - continuing Chapter 1-3 (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-20 | Okay it's a bit rough and ready, as it comes, without much editing and no processing at all. There's a few minor reading mistakes but not too many, I think. It's easier to read the text if you expand to Cinema mode. It took me about two hours to make the video.

Here's the references:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road
Buy the book:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-film-tie-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140265007
Or download it free:
http://www.bevyshare.com/download.php?id=508935C51

On the Road by Jack Kerouac Chapter 1 (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-18 | Jack Kerouac's On the Road has been called the Bible of the Beat Generation. He invented the word "beat" - some think it means "beatific" or something similar, other think it means "beaten". This reading is an experiment to find out if I can just read aloud, with no serious editing or processing.

Usually if I let anything through that contains minor errors I get a lot of messages pointing out these errors which I'm well aware of anyway, but which make no real difference to understanding. The text is there - you can read too. Try reading it aloud - it's very difficult not to make the occasional fluff. If I can still attract an audience then it will be easier to read more stuff.

Teacher's synopsis and notes on the book:
http://www.penguinreaders.com/pdf/downloads/pr/teachers-notes/9781405879996.pdf
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Road
Buy the book here:
http://www.amazon.com/On-Road-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140283293
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Road-film-tie-Jack-Kerouac/dp/0140265007
Or download a free pdf of the whole book:
http://www.bevyshare.com/download.php?id=508935C51

The Hound of Heaven by Francis Thompson (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-17 | This is a very famous poem that has had much influence. There's a famous reading by Richard Burton here: http://youtu.be/gToj6SLWz8Q

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hound_of_Heaven

The painting is Light of the World by William Holman Hunt

I FLED Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
‘All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.’
I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside).
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to.
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat—
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.’

- and more - too much to print here

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman by Wallace Stevens (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-16 | He said "The poem must resist the intelligence, almost successfully". Much of what he wrote does successfully resist my intelligence but I think I detect an element of sly humour in it. Stevens was about 43 when he wrote it - the photograph shows him at about that age.

His upbringing was what some people call "religiose", meaning strictly religious, and that might have caused him to rebel. It's impossible to argue against people with strong beliefs, who are certain they are right, so it is tempting to tell them that poetry is in an alternate universe with its own rules and in that universe it is permissible to take an unholy delight in mocking people who have religious beliefs. Perhaps. Or perhaps he's resisting my intelligence again.

He was a complex character, a successful businessman, never truly happy it seems, sometimes belligerent and sometimes drunk. He turned Robert Frost into a bitter enemy and he punched Ernest Hemingway, breaking his own hand, but Hemingway easily defeated him.

Plenty has been written about the poem, the poet and his history.
"O let us never, never doubt what nobody is sure about" - that's from the Mikado, I think.

The Cambridge Companion to Wallace Stevens is in Google books. You can't read the whole thing, but you can read a substantial amount of it to give you some idea of what his life was like.
There is also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_High-Toned_Old_Christian_Woman
http://www.floridabookreview.com/id64.html
http://www.english.illinois.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stevens/christian.htm
http://www.wallacestevensbiography.com/photos-of-the-poet.htm

The pictures are of his mother Maragaretha Catharine Stevens and his wife Elsie who, even if they were not the HIgh Toned Old Christian Woman referred to in the poem, certainly contributed to the way he felt about such women.

Woman with cithern, 1677 by Pieter van Slingeland (ca. 1630-1691).

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.
Take the moral law and make a nave of it
And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,
The conscience is converted into palms,
Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.
We agree in principle. That's clear. But take
The opposing law and make a peristyle,
And from the peristyle project a masque
Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,
Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,
Is equally converted into palms,
Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,
Madame, we are where we began. Allow,
Therefore, that in the planetary scene
Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,
Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,
Proud of such novelties of the sublime,
Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,
May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves
A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.
This will make widows wince. But fictive things
Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

Safe Sex by Donald Hall (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-15 | Love is the main source of misery in life. The people you love will hurt you more than anything else possibly could. So it is wise to choose whom you love very carefully and, if they prove deceitful or unkind, to find the courage to cut them out of your life forever.

There's an old story of a man who had a little boy, who was very dear to him, and the little boy died. He is distraught with grief so he makes a journey to the oracle to ask for advice. The oracle tells him, "It is true, father. From what is dear comes hurt and misery, anguish and despair, which comes from what is dear."

The father is taken aback and he goes around asking other people what they think. They all tell him that what you love brings joy and happiness. He asks everybody he meets, and he gets the same answer, he even asks the layabouts who play dice in the marketplace. Then you realise that you are bored with the story. This is the real lesson: your grief is boring to everybody else.

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” ~Dalai Lama
When hunting for this quotation I came upon this article, which is readable and practical.
It is called "7 ways to manage a break-up and work through the pain."
http://tinybuddha.com/blog/7-ways-to-manage-a-break-up-and-work-through-the-pain

Paintings:
René Magritte – The Lovers 1928
Stills from the movie - Friends With Benefits.
'Solitaire' and 'Drowned' by Sam Wolfe Connelly
http://samwolfeconnelly.tumblr.com

If he and she do not know each other, and feel confident
they will not meet again; if he avoids affectionate words;
if she has grown insensible skin under skin; if they desire
only the tribute of another's cry; if they employ each other
as revenge on old lovers or families of entitlement and steel---

then there will be no betrayals, no letters returned unread,
no frenzy, no hurled words of permanent humiliation,
no trembling days, no vomit at midnight, no repeated

apparition of a body floating face-down at the pond's edge

Is Life Worth Living? by Alfred Austin (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-14 | He almost has you fooled. This was Victorian England and life was indeed very nice if you were a man of substance. The last picture shows what life was like if you were not. Alfred Austin has been called the worst Poet Laureate. He was highly critical of other poets of his day, such as Tennyson and Browning, and Browning called him "The Banjo Byron" in retaliation. Take note: to invent a devastating nickname for your enemy can inflict an injury that never heals.

In this poem he is at his best, describing flora and fauna. I left out the last verses because they throw a damper on the mood of the poem, which isn't at all bad. Actually it's very tricky to read, being full of tongue-twisters, open-vowels and sibilants.

This was Victorian England, a male-dominated society. A girl's best chance of a comfortable living was to find a wealthy patron who would treat her kindly. The men thought they were doing the girls a favour. In return the girls thought themselves lucky. The men took pride in their skills in seduction. There was very little else to do: no television, no telephones, no internet. It was the main topic in the gentlemen's clubs which never admitted women. Most dirty jokes come from this era e.g.
"When a maid of honour loses her honour, what must you do?"
"Why, you must get her honour back again ".
(it's a double-entendre, say it out loud and it sounds like "get her on her back again")
Here's the Pearl A Magazine of Facetiae and Voluptuous Reading 1879-1880
http://tinyurl.com/ThePealMagazine

You might have noticed the give-away phrases "makes springtime in the maiden 's blood", "and in the twilight maids grow kind" and "christian charity to leaven lowly lives". The streets and parks teemed with prostitutes. In contrast, life for the lower orders was grim.

It has been argued that men actually were more masculine in those days. Sperm counts have declined considerably since Victorian times. Some scientists say the change in society is partly due to the change of diet, some say it's due to the emancipation of women. Believe whatever suits you best.

Here's the last verses that I withheld. You will see why I didn't read them.

Not care to live while English homes
Nestle in English trees,
And England's Trident-Sceptre roams
Her territorial seas!

Not live while English songs are sung
Wherever blows the wind,
And England's laws and England's tongue
Enfranchise half mankind!

So long as in Pacific main,
Or on Atlantic strand,
Our kin transmit the parent strain,
And love the Mother-Land;

So long as in this ocean Realm,
Victoria and her Line
Retain the heritage of the helm,
By loyalty divine;

So long as flashes English steel,
And English trumpets shrill,
He is dead already who doth not feel
Life is worth living still.

Death Carol (from When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d) by Walt Whitman (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-08 | Contemplation of death is called thanatopsis. The portrait shows Walt Whitman when he was about 50 years old. When compared with guys of similar age these days he does look a lot older. He was only 72 when he died. Life was much harder then, I suppose.

It should be "Has none chanted for thee..." not "Have none..." because it means "Has no-one chanted for thee.." You should know better, Mr Whitman, you're not George Bush. .

The paintings are by Evelyn De Morgan (1855-1919), an English Pre-Raphaelite painter, they are Field of the Slain, 1916 and The Angel of Death, 1880

Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later delicate death.

Prais’d be the fathomless universe,
For life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious,
And for love, sweet love—but praise! praise! praise!
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding death.

Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet,
Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?
Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all,
I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.

Approach strong deliveress, when it is so,
when thou hast taken them I joyously sing the dead,
Lost in the loving floating ocean of thee,
Laved in the flood of thy bliss O death.

From me to thee glad serenades,
Dances for thee I propose saluting thee, adornments and feastings for thee,
And the sights of the open landscape and the high-spread sky are fitting,
And life and the fields, and the huge and thoughtful night.

The night in silence under many a star,
The ocean shore and the husky whispering wave whose voice I know,
And the soul turning to thee O vast and well-veil’d death,
And the body gratefully nestling close to thee.

Over the tree-tops I float thee a song,
Over the rising and sinking waves,
Over the myriad fields and the prairies wide,
Over the dense-pack’d cities all
And the teeming wharves and ways,
I float this carol with joy,
With joy to thee O death.

Dear, though the night is gone by W H Auden (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-04 | This poem was also called The Dream. Auden often had nightmares about his lover being unfaithful. Chester Kallman whom he met in 1939 caused him to suffer greatly from jealousy - but this poem was written a few years before that. There's an article by James Fenton here:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2000/apr/27/auden-at-home

And here's Clive James' article written on Auden;s death in 1973.
http://www.clivejames.com/books/pillars/auden3

The first picture is Christmas Morning by Andrew Wyeth, 1944. It's a well known painting. It was used to illustrate a story that you should read if you are troubled by a fear of dying.
http://reneetamara.wordpress.com/2012/10/14/my-atheist-dads-deathbed-visions

The Duchess of Westminster's Hospital for wounded British and their allies in the Casino at Le Touquet.
http://www.magnoliabox.com

Dear, though the night is gone,
Its dream still haunts today,
That brought us to a room
Cavernous, lofty as
A railway terminus,
And crowded in that gloom
Were beds, and we in one
In a far corner lay.

Our whisper woke no clocks,
We kissed and I was glad
At everything you did,
Indifferent to those
Who sat with hostile eyes
In pairs on every bed,
Arms round each other's neck,
Inert and vaguely sad.

O but what worm of guilt
Or what malignant doubt
Am I the victim of,
That you then, unabashed,
Did what I never wished,
Confessed another love;
And I, submissive, felt
Unwanted and went out?

(The version I printed above is without a question mark but the last sentence is clearly a question. I apologise, I didn't notice it.)

Hinterhof by James Fenton (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-09-04 | This poem is often read at weddings. It is from Yellow Tulips: Poems 1986-2011. © Faber & Faber, 2011. You can buy it here: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Yellow-Tulips-Poems-1968-2011/dp/0571273823

Hinterhof seems to mean backyard - but I don't know much German. In context I think it is a metaphor for "nearness". There are cosy little drinking clubs that call themselves Hinterhof. When my kids used to fall out with the neighbourhood kids the ultimate rejection was "Now you can't come and play round our back".

After recording it I found a reading by Garrison Keillor, no less, in the Writer's Almanac. He reads the poem at about 3.15 minutes into the transmission: http://bit.ly/N4RBo2

The girl reading is from a website about how to choose wedding readings: http://getbeautytoday.com/how-to-choose-wedding-readings-from-books-1104.html

Stay near to me and I'll stay near to you —
As near as you are dear to me will do,
Near as the rainbow to the rain,
The west wind to the windowpane,
As fire to the hearth, as dawn to dew.

Stay true to me and I'll stay true to you —
As true as you are new to me will do,
New as the rainbow in the spray,
Utterly new in every way,
New in the way that what you say is true.

Stay near to me, stay true to me. I'll stay
As near, as true to you as heart could pray.
Heart never hoped that one might be
Half of the things you are to me —
The dawn, the fire, the rainbow and the day

The Volunteer by Robert Service (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-08-07 | Robert Service actually was 41 when World War I broke out; he enlisted but was turned down for health reasons. He became a war correspondent but came close to being executed for espionage. Then he joined the Red Cross and drove an ambulance carrying men out of battlefields. His brother Albert was killed in action in France.

Robert Service received medals for his war service: the 1914–15 Star, the British War Medal and the Victory Medal.

The illustrations are posters used to manipulate men into volunteering, evoking guilt, shame and cowardice e.g. "Why are you stopping here when your pals are out there?"

H.G. Wells called them 'ridiculous placards and street corner insults'. George Orwell said: 'I have often laughed to think of that recruiting poster and all the men who must have been lured into the army...and afterwards despised by their children for not being conscientious objectors.'

This poem is from Rhymes of a Red Cross Man, 1916
http://ourstory.info/library/2-ww1/Service/rhymesTC.html

Sez I: My Country calls? Well, let it call.
I grins perlitely and declines wiv thanks.
Go, let 'em plaster every blighted wall,
'Ere's ONE they don't stampede into the ranks.
Them politicians with their greasy ways;
Them empire-grabbers -- fight for 'em? No fear!
I've seen this mess a-comin' from the days
Of Algyserious and Aggydear:
I've felt me passion rise and swell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?

Sez I: My Country? Mine? I likes their cheek.
Me mud-bespattered by the cars they drive,
Wot makes my measly thirty bob a week,
And sweats red blood to keep meself alive!
Fight for the right to slave that they may spend,
Them in their mansions, me 'ere in my slum?
No, let 'em fight wot's something to defend:
But me, I've nothin' -- let the Kaiser come.
And so I cusses 'ard and well,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?

Sez I: If they would do the decent thing,
And shield the missis and the little 'uns,
Why, even I might shout "God save the King",
And face the chances of them 'ungry guns.
But we've got three, another on the way;
It's that wot makes me snarl and set me jor:
The wife and nippers, wot of 'em, I say,
If I gets knocked out in this blasted war?
Gets proper busted by a shell,
But . . . wot the 'ell, Bill? Wot the 'ell?

Ay, wot the 'ell's the use of all this talk?
To-day some boys in blue was passin' me,
And some of 'em they 'ad no legs to walk,
And some of 'em they 'ad no eyes to see.
And -- well, I couldn't look 'em in the face,
And so I'm goin', goin' to declare
I'm under forty-one and take me place
To face the music with the bunch out there.
A fool, you say! Maybe you're right.
I'll 'ave no peace unless I fight.

I've ceased to think; I only know
I've gotta go, Bill, gotta go.

MCMXIV (Outbreak of the First World War) by Philip Larkin (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-08-04 | It's about men volunteering at the outbreak of the first World War. The poem is only one sentence and the punctuation is significant.

Those long uneven lines
Standing as patiently
As if they were stretched outside
The Oval or Villa Park,
The crowns of hats, the sun
On moustached archaic faces
Grinning as if it were all
An August Bank Holiday lark;

And the shut shops, the bleached
Established names on the sunblinds,
The farthings and sovereigns,
And dark-clothed children at play
Called after kings and queens,
The tin advertisements
For cocoa and twist, and the pubs
Wide open all day—

And the countryside not caring:
The place names all hazed over
With flowering grasses, and fields
Shadowing Domesday lines
Under wheat’s restless silence;
The differently-dressed servants
With tiny rooms in huge houses,
The dust behind limousines;

Never such innocence,
Never before or since,
As changed itself to past
Without a word – the men
Leaving the gardens tidy,
The thousands of marriages,
Lasting a little while longer:
Never such innocence again.

True Love by Robert Penn Warren (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-07-31 | This poem reminds me of this quotation from Citizen Kane. Mr. Bernstein says:
"A fellow will remember a lot of things you wouldn't think he'd remember. You take me. One day, back in 1896, I was crossing over to Jersey on the ferry, and as we pulled out, there was another ferry pulling in, and on it there was a girl waiting to get off. A white dress she had on. She was carrying a white parasol. I only saw her for one second. She didn't see me at all, but I'll bet a month hasn't gone by since that I haven't thought of that girl."

Is this really what true love means? I'd keep that label for a mutually rewarding long-term relationship. Isn't it more a memorable coming-of-age experience, a cathexis?

Robert Penn Warren, portrait by Conrad A. Albrizio,1935 Smithsonian Institution National Portrait Gallery.

In silence the heart raves. It utters words
Meaningless, that never had
A meaning. I was ten, skinny, red-headed,

Freckled. In a big black Buick,
Driven by a big grown boy, with a necktie, she sat
In front of the drugstore, sipping something

Through a straw. There is nothing like
Beauty. It stops your heart. It
Thickens your blood. It stops your breath. It

Makes you feel dirty. You need a hot bath.
I leaned against a telephone pole, and watched.
I thought I would die if she saw me.

How could I exist in the same world with that brightness?
Two years later she smiled at me. She
Named my name. I thought I would wake up dead.

Her grown brothers walked with the bent-knee
Swagger of horsemen. They were slick-faced.
Told jokes in the barbershop. Did no work.

Their father was what is called a drunkard.
Whatever he was he stayed on the third floor
Of the big white farmhouse under the maples for twenty-five years.

He never came down. They brought everything up to him.
I did not know what a mortgage was.
His wife was a good, Christian woman, and prayed.

When the daughter got married, the old man came down wearing
An old tail coat, the pleated shirt yellowing.
The sons propped him. I saw the wedding. There were

Engraved invitations, it was so fashionable. I thought
I would cry. I lay in bed that night
And wondered if she would cry when something was done to her.

The mortgage was foreclosed. That last word was whispered.
She never came back. The family
Sort of drifted off. Nobody wears shiny boots like that now.

But I know she is beautiful forever, and lives
In a beautiful house, far away.
She called my name once. I didn’t even know she knew it.

To His Lost Lover by Simon Armitage (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-07-22 | What follows isn't a criticism of the poem - it's just what I thought while reading it. The poem is in the third person, so it isn't necessarily autobiographical. It could be that the thoughts that occurred to me concerning why the relationship failed is what the poem is about.

This is a list of "unfinished business", things that never happened, which, presumably, are seen as important tokens in an intimate relationship. The only things that actually did happen were that he blushed when her name was mentioned, said things to her that he didn't mean, and never got around to saying the important things he should have said - and his heart hurts.

It seems to me that it makes no sense to call her his "lover", nor refer to her as "lost". On the face of it she never was his lover and there was never a relationship to lose. Also the list of wished-for intimacies bothers me: they might be things that would gratify a man but I can't see a woman attaching much value to them - except the one he never got around to which was to declare his true feelings.

Most women wouldn't particularly want to be soaped in the bath, go for a walk in a rainstorm, or care if you name a star after them or make love in way where the moves are planned in advance, such as the unbuttoning of her blouse etc. In my limited experience, women are more impressed by spontaneity: they prefer to think about love-making as something that "just happens" when the time is right.

People will profess to like "romantic" things such as soppy love-songs or walking in the rain. It's strange that on rainy evenings the streets aren't crowded with these romantics, mumbling love-lyrics. I suspect they're all at home watching romantic comedies on TV, consuming tidbits and imbibing favourite beverages. But I'm such a cynic.

Ultimately the strength of a relationship is the measure of how useful the parties are to one another.

Incidentally, he refers to the Bible, Song of Solomon 7:2
"Thy navel is like a round goblet, which wanteth not liquor"

There are two versions of the lines "Don't ask me how it is I like you. I just might do." The original version is "Don't ask me to say how it is I like you. I just might do."

The poem appeared originally in Simon Armitage's
1993 collection Book of Matches - there's a Kindle version too:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Book-Matches-Simon-Armitage/dp/0571169821

It also appears in an anthologies: The Poetry of Sex ed. Sophie Hannah, also Hand in Hand: An Anthology of Love Poems ed. Carol Ann Duffy.

There is an article about the poem called "About the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often" by Joanna Gavins and Peter Stockwell
http://www.academia.edu/1568975/About_the_heart_where_it_hurt_exactly_and_how_often

Here's an article about Simon Armitage's style particularly his use of everyday speech and cliches:
http://www.poetrymagazines.org.uk/magazine/record.asp?id=12255

The couple in silhouette is from an article on a Japanese company that offers paid "heartache leave" for staff who have suffered the painful breakup of a relationship.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/01/28/us-japan-leave-idUST8913820080128

Positions for sleeping together:
http://nurturing-relationships.blogspot.co.uk/2009/07/sleeping-together-watch-your-positions.html

Couple in the bath:
http://www.mommyedition.com/tips-for-increasing-your-libido-after-baby

Last picture of the man sitting on the stairs:
"Heartbreak is worse in the digital age because the history of the relationship lingers in photographs and messages posted on social networking websites..."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/10049422/Heartbreak-is-worse-in-the-digital-age.html

Now they are no longer
any trouble to each other
he can turn things over, get down to that list
of things that never happened, all of the lost
unfinishable business.
For instance... for instance,
how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush
through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush
at the fall of her name in close company.
How they never slept like buried cutlery --
two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,
or made the most of some heavy weather --
walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,
or did the gears while the other was driving.
How he never raised his fingertips
to stop the segments of her lips
from breaking the news,
or tasted the fruit
or picked for himself the pear of her heart,
or lifted her hand to where his own heart
was a small, dark, terrified bird
in her grip. Where it hurt.
Or said the right thing,
or put it in writing.
And never fled the black mile back to his house
before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,
then another,
or knew her
favourite colour,
her taste, her flavour,
and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,
or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair
into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive
of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved
etc..

The Dying Patriot by James Elroy Flecker (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-07-14 | James Elroy Flecker was a contemporary of Rupert Brook. He died in the same year, of tuberculosis, at the age of 30. There's an interesting essay here comparing the two poets:
http://essay.maureensie.info/the-georgian-poets-and-the-war-poets/.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Elroy_Flecker

The Green Bridge of Wales extends into the sea from the Pembrokeshire Coast Cliffs near Bosherston and Castle Martin.

Pleiades Star Cluster Merope Nebula:
http://www.skyimagelab.com/m45-gendler-pleiades-.html

Day breaks on England down the Kentish hills,
Singing in silence of the meadow-footing rills,
Day of my dreams, O day!
I saw them march from Dover, long ago,
With a silver cross before them, singing low,
Monks of Rome from their home where the blue seas break in foam,
Augustine with his feet of snow.

Noon strikes on England, noon on Oxford town,
- Beauty she was statue cold - there's blood upon her gown:
Noon of my dreams, O noon!
Proud and godly kings had built her, long ago,
With her towers and tombs and statues all arow,
With her fair and floral air and the love that lingers there,
And the streets where the great men go.

Evening on the olden, the golden sea of Wales,
When the first star shivers and the last wave pales:
O evening dreams!
There's a house that Britons walked in, long ago,
Where now the springs of ocean fall and flow,
And the dead robed in red and sea-lilies overhead
Sway when the long winds blow.

Sleep not, my country: though night is here, afar
Your children of the mo rning are clamorous for war:
Fire in the night, O dreams!
Though she send you as she sent you, long ago,
South to the desert, east to ocean, north to snow,
West of these out to seas colder than the Hebrides I must go
Where the fleet of stars is anchored, and the young star-captains glow.

No Second Troy by W B Yeats (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-07-12 | This poem about the love of Yeats' life, Maud Gonne. She was a formidable beauty, more than 6ft tall, an actress and an important figure of the Irish Revolution - though she was born in England.

She turned down several marriage proposals from Yeats and married John MacBride instead. The picture shows her speaking at one of MacBride's rallies. MacBride was executed in 1916.

She was the inspiration of many of Yeats' poems. He often compared her with historical beauties - such as Helen of Troy.

Helen of Troy had "the face that launched a thousand ships". This gives us a scientific unit for quantifying beauty. The MilliHelen, sometimes abbreviated to mh, is how much beauty it takes to launch just one ship.

Why should I blame her that she filled my days
With misery, or that she would of late
Have taught to ignorant men most violent ways,
Or hurled the little streets upon the great.
Had they but courage equal to desire?

What could have made her peaceful with a mind
That nobleness made simple as a fire,
With beauty like a tightened bow, a kind
That is not natural in an age like this,
Being high and solitary and most stern?

Why, what could she have done, being what she is?
Was there another Troy for her to burn?

Im Comic Sans, Asshole by Mike Lacher (monologue read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-07-05 | Warning - this contains foul language, naughty words and general obscenity.

Mike has a wonderful comic talent. I found the original by accident here, posted on 15th June 2010:
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/im-comic-sans-asshole
then I did a search and found many references to it on the web. Here's one in the Huffington Post:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/07/19/comic-sans-asshole_n_903392.html

Here's Mike's website which contains many other gems:
http://mikelacher.com

Mike's parody of Jack Kerouac's On The Road, called On the Bro'd - is available from Amazon:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mike-Lacher/e/B006WU2OLA

The Present by Michael Donaghy (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-07-04 | Life is a succession of 'nows'. I thought I'd invented that remark until I googled it and found it had occurred to a few other people, too. In The Tales of Dr. Woo by David Price Francis, he goes on, "we cannot go back into yesterday's 'now' and change anything, we cannot go forward into a future 'now' that may be granted to us and change that either. The only 'now' we have access to is this one..."

Consciousness implies self-consciousness. Damn, google disappointed me again: Aristotle, Descartes, Kant said that first - well, I'm in good company. It means that we're aware of our own self among other selves, and that what happens to others can happen to us - death, for instance. Awareness of our own death is the price we pay for consciousness and intelligence. Nothing is free in the evolutionary shop.

Consciousness also forces us to consider ourselves continuous in time. It seems that our self is subject to change: for instance it seems that in the past we were a child, and in the future we will become an old person and then die. These convictions could be fallacies. We may not be continuous in time at all, we could just live from 'now' to 'now'.

The child we used to be is only vaguely like the person we are, there is almost none of the constituents of the child's body left in us. We don't really identify or share many molecules with the old person that, if fortune smiles, we will gradually turn into one day.

It comes as a surprise when time goes by and we discover that being old is just a later stage in life than being young. We always were programmed to turn into the same sort of old person we used to despise.

There is a name for a particular kind of people who don't subscribe to the fallacy that they are continuous in time: they're called criminals. A criminal thinks this way: "I need cigarettes and money, so I'll break into this cigarette machine and then I'll have cigarettes and money: problem solved! The future doesn't exist and that's why I'm not even thinking about it." That's why they end up doing time - they don't believe there's any such thing as time.

It's a characteristic of psychopaths that they don't consider themselves continuous in time: they show "abnormal patterns of anticipation". The prospect of pain doesn't make them as scared as it makes other people. There's famous experiment by a Dr. Hare involving electric shocks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_D._Hare

If you want to know if you're a psychopath, take the online test. I scored an 8:
http://vistriai.com/psychopathtest

There's more about Michael Donaghy here, and his obituary in The Guardian:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Donaghy
http://www.theguardian.com/news/2004/sep/24/guardianobituaries.arts

The opening image is a downloadable wallpaper:
http://tinyurl.com/MoonWallpaper

moon's reflection in pond, Walker family farm, Oklahoma
http://www.pbase.com/image/90945193

Looking at the Stars is from a proposed documentary about a ballet school for the blind in São Paulo, Brazil. Intersting website:
http://lookingatthestarsmovie.tumblr.com

WALL-E and EVE holding hands is by Trish2 on Deviant Art
http://trish2.deviantart.com/art/Holding-Hands-91098516

For the present there is just one moon,
Though every level pond gives back another.
But the bright disc shining in the black lagoon,
Perceived by astrophysicist and lover,
Is milliseconds old. And even that light's
Seven minutes older than its source.
And the stars we think we see on moonless nights
Are long extinguished. And, of course,
This very moment, as you read this line,
Is literally gone before you know it.
Forget the here-and-now. We have no time
But this device of wantonness and wit.
Make me this present then: your hand in mine,
And we'll live out our lives in it.

Zewhyexary by Tom Disch (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-06-21 | Xmas is pronounced Christmas, please don't say it as it looks.

The poet is better known as Thomas M. Disch and he wrote some great Science Fiction. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_M._Disch

There's a sad, interesting article "Who Killed Thomas M. Disch?" in Strange Horizons: http://www.strangehorizons.com/2008/20080922/miller-a.shtml

Z is the Zenith from which we decline,
While Y is your Yelp as you're twisting your spine.
X is for Xmas; the alternative
Is an X-ray that gives you just one year to live.
So three cheers for Santa, and onward to W.
W's Worry, but don't let it trouble you:
W easily might have been Worse.
V, unavoidably, has to be Verse.

U is Uncertainty. T is a Trial
At which every objection is met with denial.
S is a Sentence of "Guilty as Charged."
R is a Russian whose nose is enlarged
By inveterate drinking, while Q is the Quiet
That falls on a neighborhood after a riot.
P is a Pauper with nary a hope
Of lining his pockets or learning to cope.

O is an Organ transplanted in vain,
While N is the Number of 'Enemies Slain':
Three thousand three hundred and seventy-three.
If no one else wants it, could M be for Me?
No, M is reserved for a mad Millionaire,
And L is his Likewise, and goes to his heir.
K is a Kick in the seat of your pants,
And J is the Jury whose gross ignorance
Guaranteed the debacle referred to above.

I's the Inevitability of
Continued inflation and runaway crime,
So draw out your savings and have a good time.
H is your Heart at the moment it breaks,
And G is the Guile it initially takes
To pretend to believe that it someday will heal.

F is the strange Fascination we feel
For whatever's Evil - Yes, Evil is E -
And D is our Dread at the sight of a C,
Which is Corpse, as you've surely foreseen. B is Bone.
A could be anything. A is unknown.

Death and Burial of Poor Cock Robin (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-06-18 | Here's something cheerful for a change.

Pictures from various places on the Internet:
The National Nursery Book
http://www.gutenberg.org/files/24778/24778-h/24778-h.htm#COCK_ROBIN

http://book-graphics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/death-and-burial-of-poor-cock-robin.html

http://dailyglean.salebooks.com/2011/12/who-killed-cock-robin-part-2.html

Gwen Burns:
http://www.gwenburns.co.uk/blog

http://www.liveinternet.ru/users/olga_chudo/post194956577/

"Who killed Cock Robin?" "I," said the Sparrow,
"With my bow and arrow, I killed Cock Robin."

"Who saw him die?" "I," said the Fly,
"With my little eye, I saw him die."

"Who caught his blood?" "I," said the Fish,
"With my little dish, I caught his blood."

"Who'll make the shroud?" "I," said the Beetle,
"With my thread and needle, I'll make the shroud."

"Who'll dig his grave?" "I," said the Owl,
"With my pick and shovel, I'll dig his grave."

"Who'll be the parson?" "I," said the Rook,
"With my little book, I'll be the parson."

"Who'll be the clerk?" "I," said the Lark,
"If it's not in the dark, I'll be the clerk."

"Who'll carry the link?" "I," said the Linnet,
"I'll fetch it in a minute, I'll carry the link."

"Who'll be chief mourner?" "I," said the Dove,
"I mourn for my love, I'll be chief mourner."

"Who'll carry the coffin?" "I," said the Kite,
"If it's not through the night, I'll carry the coffin."

"Who'll bear the pall? "We," said the Wren,
"Both the cock and the hen, we'll bear the pall."

"Who'll sing a psalm?" "I," said the Thrush,
"As she sat on a bush, I'll sing a psalm."

"Who'll toll the bell?" "I," said the bull,
"Because I can pull, I'll toll the bell."

All the birds of the air fell a-sighing and a-sobbing,
When they heard the bell toll for poor Cock Robin

Poem For People That Are Understandably Too Busy To Read Poetry by Stephen Dunn

SpokenVerse 2014-06-04 | The movie stills are from Lost in Translation with Bill Murray and Scarlett Johansson. The theme of the poem reminded me of the movie.

Relax. This won't last long.
Or if it does, or if the lines
make you sleepy or bored,
give in to sleep, turn on
the T.V., deal the cards.
This poem is built to withstand
such things. Its feelings
cannot be hurt. They exist
somewhere in the poet,
and I am far away.
Pick it up anytime. Start it
in the middle if you wish.
It is as approachable as melodrama,
and can offer you violence
if it is violence you like. Look,
there's a man on a sidewalk;
the way his leg is quivering
he'll never be the same again.
This is your poem
and I know you're busy at the office
or the kids are into your last nerve.
Maybe it's sex you've always wanted.
Well, they lie together
like the party's unbuttoned coats,
slumped on the bed
waiting for drunken arms to move them.
I don't think you want me to go on;
everyone has his expectations, but this
is a poem for the entire family.
Right now, Budweiser
is dripping from a waterfall,
deodorants are hissing into armpits
of people you resemble,
and the two lovers are dressing now,
saying farewell.
I don't know what music this poem
can come up with, but clearly
it's needed.
For it's apparent
they will never see each other again
and we need music for this
because there was never music when he or she
left you standing on the corner.
You see, I want this poem to be nicer
than life. I want you to look at it
when anxiety zigzags your stomach
and the last tranquilizer is gone
and you need someone to tell you
I'll be here when you want me
like the sound inside a shell.
This poem is saying that to you now.
But don't give anything for this poem.
It doesn't expect much. It will never say more
than listening can explain.
Just keep it in your attache case
or in your house. And if you're not asleep
by now, or bored beyond sense,
this poem wants you to laugh. Laugh at
yourself, laugh at this poem, at all poetry.

Come on:
Good.
Now here's what poetry can do.
Imagine yourself a caterpillar.
There's an awful shrug and, suddenly,
You're beautiful for as long as you live.

Alone With Everybody by Charles Bukowski (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-06-03 | Bukowski always typed his stuff mostly using an Underwood or an Olympia. I didn't type it but used a font called Loveletter Typewriter - it's a free to download. There's a timeline of his life and work here: http://bukowski.net/timeline

The picture of the couple kissing is from the movie 'Blue Valentine' starring Ryan Gosling & Michelle Williams. The movie came into my mind as I was reading the poem.

I found the graveyard picture here:
http://www.deviantart.com/art/Jewish-Graveyard-I-23795013

the flesh covers the bone
and they put a mind
in there and
sometimes a soul,

and the women break
vases against the walls

and the men drink too
much

and nobody finds the
one

but keep
looking
crawling in and out
of beds.
flesh covers
the bone and the
flesh searches
for more than
flesh.

there's no chance
at all:
we are all trapped
by a singular
fate.

nobody ever finds
the one.

the city dumps fill
the junkyards fill
the madhouses fill
the hospitals fill
the graveyards fill

nothing else
fills.

Hap by Thomas Hardy (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-30 | The language is archaic. Here it is in colloquial form.

Hap means luck or fortune.

"If some god told me that he caused my misfortunes for his own amusement, then that would bring me some relief. At least I'd know that I'd done nothing to deserve my misery. But I know this isn't true. It just happens that my pleasure has led to pain and my hopes were unfulfilled. It's a matter of lucky and I was unlucky. I might have had a life of happiness instead."

In Hardy's day the church was an important part of social life. Hardy didn't have conventional religious views. He believed that events were controlled by the will of the universe which he hoped was sympathetic: a kind of fatalism. Philip Larkin was interested in Thomas Hardy and his views - you can read more here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy

In Greek mythology, the way that the gods are responsible for all the joys and sorrows of mankind is described in the tale of Prometheus and Pandora. The subtitle of Frankenstein is "A Modern Prometheus". Byron, Shelly and his wife all decided to write a modern version of the myth of Prometheus.
http://www.theoi.com/Titan/TitanPrometheus.html

It's too easy to offload responsibility, to blame it all on fate or the will of the gods. It's partly luck but mostly the consequence of the choices you make. Here's a few ideas.

A major source of our misfortune comes from interaction with other people. Learn to recognise people who are harmful by nature and cut them out of your life - or, if that's not possible, limit your interaction with them. Rule 1: Have nothing to do with bastards.

There are certain activities that are exciting at the time but could prejudice future happiness, such as getting drunk, smoking or jumping off trains before they've stopped. Even though you may have consummate skill and the risk is only small, be aware that taking a large number of small risks will add up to total disaster. Look before you leap or, better still, don't leap. Rule 2: Don't take unnecessary risks.

Before you embark on any venture or project that will change the rest of your life, be sure that the life you will get is the life you really want. When kids are asked what they want to be when they grow up, the most popular answer was "famous". Being famous can be sheer hell. You can get caught in a perpetual bind, answering the same questions, doing the same things over again. You're constantly asked to do things you don't want to do. You're constantly criticised for doing things you do want to do. Every word you speak in public is taken down in writing and may be held against you. You're one ill-considered remark away from being treated like vermin for the rest of your life. Rule 3: When making choices, consider the consequences.

The picture of Prometheus came from here:
http://www.xenites.fr/wordpress/1055/promethee-et-pandore/

The other pictures are from paintings by MichaelAngelo.

If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: "Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,
That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!"

Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,
Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;
Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I
Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.

But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,
And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?
—Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,
And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan. . . .

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown
Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.

When Stretchd On Ones Bed by Jane Austen (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-30 | Painting Sick Girl by Michael Ancher (1849-1927)

When stretch'd on one's bed
With a fierce-throbbing head,
Which precludes alike thought or repose,
How little one cares
For the grandest affairs
That may busy the world as it goes!

How little one feels
For the waltzes and reels
Of our Dance-loving friends at a Ball!
How slight one's concern
To conjecture or learn
What their flounces or hearts may befall.

How little one minds
If a company dines
On the best that the Season affords!
How short is one's muse
O'er the Sauces and Stews,
Or the Guests, be they Beggars or Lords.

How little the Bells,
Ring they Peels, toll they Knells,
Can attract our attention or Ears!
The Bride may be married,
The Corse may be carried
And touch not our hopes nor our fears.

Our own bodily pains
Ev'ry faculty chains;
We can feel on no subject besides.
Tis in health and in ease
We the power must seize
For our friends and our souls to provide.

Spider Sonnet by John Whitworth (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-25 | The headline has a two possible interpretations, a phenomenon known as a double entendre. When it's intentional it's a joke - usually a dirty joke. When it's unintentional it can be funny too. This isn't what the newspaper meant to say. Here's an interview with John Whitworth: http://wearekin.org/author/jwhitworth/interview_with_walter_ancarrow
And a link some of his stuff:
http://www.ablemuse.com/v7/bio/john-whitworth

The girl with the spiders on her bosom comes from Malcolm Armstrong's excellent site for students of the visual arts - making movies and videos. The original gif is even scarier:
http://malcolm-armstrong.com/mmc1540notes.html

The last picture is from a site which explains how Tarantulas are a popular snack in Cambodia. I recently watched a documentary about children whose lives depended on catching and eating tarantulas. There was no other food available. They looked well.
http://www.lunch.com/Reviews/d/Tarantula-lists-1740898.html

The solution to pollution is to stop ingesting spiders,
Just say no to the arachnida that copulate inside us,
How they pullulate and ovulate, the octopod articulate,
Auriculate, testiculate and oft times unguiculate,
The narrative of nightmare and the stuff of holy terror,
They're the creatures that convince you all your life has been an error.
So you're sicker than a parrot and you wish that you were dead?
Just you wait till they migrate and drill themselves into your head.
Creepy-crawly, creepy-crawly with a subtle sideways motion,
Some detestable detritus from the bottom of the ocean,
Something feral, fanged and furry with a flush of nasty habits,
Now they're ferreting like ferrets, now they're rabbitting like rabbits,
Now they're occupying occiputs and populating dreams...
Eating spiders isn't nearly as attractive as it seems.

Looney Tunes by Sam Gwynn (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-20 | This poem is from Sam Gwynn's latest poetry collection, called Dogwatch. There are some good reviews here: http://www.amazon.com/Dogwatch-R-S-Gwynn/dp/1939574072

Here's an article by Sam called How Pleasant to Know Mr. Whitworth
http://www.the-chimaera.com/Sept2008/Spotlight/SamGwynnHowPleasanttoKnow.html

Poem And if it snowed... by Simon Armitage (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-18 | Simon Armitage is from Huddersfield in Yorkshire. The poem is about everyday events related in the everyday speech of the working-class of this northern town, which gives it a gritty realism. I'm trying to give the impression of a Yorkshire accent.

The phrases look like cliches but they're not - their familiarity punches the message home. People do good things and bad things.

The good things he did were long term and planned. The bad things he did were brief, impulsive lapses from his usual high standards. This is just an observation, I'm not condoning what he did nor apologising for him.

The Joker
http://www.fanpop.com/clubs/batman/images/19905461/title/joker-fanart

And if it snowed and snow covered the drive
he took a spade and tossed it to one side.

And always tucked his daughter up at night
And slippered her the one time that she lied.

And every week he tipped up half his wage.
And what he didn't spend each week he saved.

And praised his wife for every meal she made.
And once, for laughing, punched her in the face.

And for his mum he hired a private nurse.
And every Sunday taxied her to church.

And he blubbed when she went from bad to worse.
And twice he lifted ten quid from her purse.

Here's how they rated him when they looked back:
Sometimes he did this, sometimes he did that.

A Red Red Rose by Robert Burns (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-14 | You can hear Prince Charles read it here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/arts/robertburns/works/my_luve_is_like_a_red_red_rose

Written in 1794.

O my Luve's like a red, red rose,
That's newly sprung in June:
O my Luve's like the melodie,
That's sweetly play'd in tune.

As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a' the seas gang dry.

Till a' the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi' the sun;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
While the sands o' life shall run.

And fare-thee-weel, my only Luve!
And fare-thee-weel, a while!
And I will come again, my Luve,
Tho' 'twere ten thousand mile!

Ballade of Suicide by G K Chesterton (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-12 | Chesterton was vehemently opposed to suicide, he considered it an insult to all creation.

An Envoi added at the end of a poem is an ancient device, originally a few lines addressed to the poet's patron. Now it's usually a comic addition addressing oneself, as it is here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Envoi

Germinal was a month in the calendar of the French Revolution, and in Germinal George Danton and his followers were executed. They were called the Indulgents because they advocated leniency. Tumbrils were carts used to convey the condemned to the guillotine. In this Envoi Chesterton tells himself that the tumbrils are already rolling, death is inevitable and there is really no need to commit suicide.

He says that your reason for living need only be slight, such as a new way to cook mushrooms, a book that you always meant to read or appreciation of the beauties of nature.

When John Steinbeck was dying he made a farewell tour of America in a camper van (RV) together with a poodle, which he recorded as, "Travels with Charley". He stocked his camper with all the books he had always meant to read. It was a sad day when he realised that these were books that he would never get around to reading.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Travels_with_Charley

Whatever you are, you are not insignificant. The odds against you being here at all are astronomical. One man produces more individual sperm in his lifetime than there are human beings on earth. You already won the sperm race: don't stop wriggling now. At least, pay attention to your surroundings. You can change them, you know. Let the hangman guess your weight or the executioner sharpen his chopper: they have to live even if you don't. And if you really must die then choose a good cause - but, better still, wait for a natural one.

Gallows picture:
http://lastchancewar.blogspot.co.uk/2013/01/the-gallows.html

The gallows in my garden, people say,
Is new and neat and adequately tall;
I tie the noose on in a knowing way
As one that knots his necktie for a ball;
But just as all the neighbours—on the wall—
Are drawing a long breath to shout "Hurray!"
The strangest whim has seized me. . . . After all
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

To-morrow is the time I get my pay—
My uncle's sword is hanging in the hall—
I see a little cloud all pink and grey—
Perhaps the rector's mother will not call—
I fancy that I heard from Mr. Gall
That mushrooms could be cooked another way—
I never read the works of Juvenal—
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

The world will have another washing-day;
The decadents decay; the pedants pall;
And H.G. Wells has found that children play,
And Bernard Shaw discovered that they squall,
Rationalists are growing rational—
And through thick woods one finds a stream astray
So secret that the very sky seems small—
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

ENVOI
Prince, I can hear the trumpet of Germinal,
The tumbrils toiling up the terrible way;
Even to-day your royal head may fall,
I think I will not hang myself to-day.

Freedom and Love by Thomas Campbell (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-05-03 | Ruing means regretting. Not many people would agree with "Love's a fire that needs renewal of fresh beauty for its fuel..." What keeps love alive is intimacy and mutual benefit, meaning how much use the lovers are to one another. There's an Arabic proverb that says "if love isn't increasing, then it's decreasing". It means that a loving relationship is never static.

First Kiss and other pictures are downloadable desktop wallpapers:
http://1ms.net/first-kiss-306311.html

There's a charming article about The Art Of Kissing, an instruction manual written in 1936, here in BrainPickings.org
http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2013/02/14/the-art-of-kissing-hugh-morris

How delicious is the winning
Of a kiss at Love's beginning,
When two mutual hearts are sighing
For the knot there's no untying!

Yet remember, 'midst your wooing,
Love has bliss, but Love has ruing;
Other smiles may make you fickle,
Tears for other charms may trickle.

Love he comes, and Love he tarries,
Just as fate or fancy carries;
Longest stays when sorest chidden,
Laughs and flies when press'd and bidden.

Bind the sea to slumber stilly,
Bind its odour to the lily,
Bind the aspen ne'er to quiver,
Then bind Love to last for ever.

Love's a fire that needs renewal
Of fresh beauty for its fuel;
Love's wing moults when caged and captured,
Only free he soars enraptured.

Can you keep the bee from ranging,
Or the ringdove's neck from changing?
No! nor fetter'd Love from dying
In the knot there's no untying.

Vers de Société by Philip Larkin (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-04-27 | "Vers de Société" means witty verse about social foibles and fashions.
Which? is a magazine which compares household appliances and consumer products.

Hosts would have been delighted to have such a notable poet at one of their parties. Larkin got more than his fair share of social obligations. He didn't like these gatherings, with their small talk and affected mechanical cheerfulness. On the other hand he didn't like his own company either, sinking easily into a well of anxiety about his health and mortality.

Here's Larkin himself reading it:
youtube.com/watch?v=chJN8Zcrudo

Artwork:

The Cocktail Party by Thomas Hart:
http://www.thomashartteague.com

The Cocktail Party by Teresa Bingham
http://peterskeltonnlpcoach.com/great-conversationalist-knows-say-know-say/the-cocktail-party-teresa-bingham

The Cocktail Party by Alex Katz
http://aestheticrealism.org/outreach/art-talks

Drinks Party:
http://www.simonsgallery.com

My wife and I have asked a crowd of craps
To come and waste their time and ours; perhaps
You'd care to join us? In a pig's arse, friend.
Day comes to an end.
The gas fire breathes, the trees are darkly swayed.
And so Dear Warlock-Williams: I'm afraid—

Funny how hard it is to be alone.
I could spend half my evenings, if I wanted,
Holding a glass of washing sherry, canted
Over to catch the drivel of some bitch
Who's read nothing but Which;
Just think of all the spare time that has flown

Straight into nothingness by being filled
With forks and faces, rather than repaid
Under a lamp, hearing the noise of wind,
And looking out to see the moon thinned
To an air-sharpened blade.
A life, and yet how sternly it's instilled

All solitude is selfish. No one now
Believes the hermit with his gown and dish
Talking to God (who's gone too); the big wish
Is to have people nice to you, which means
Doing it back somehow.
Virtue is social. Are, then, these routines

Playing at goodness, like going to church?
Something that bores us, something we don't do well
(Asking that ass about his fool research)
But try to feel, because, however crudely,
It shows us what should be?
Too subtle, that. Too decent, too. Oh hell,

Only the young can be alone freely.
The time is shorter now for company,
And sitting by a lamp more often brings
Not peace, but other things.
Beyond the light stand failure and remorse
Whispering Dear Warlock-Williams: Why, of course—

Loves Philosophy by Percy Bysshe Shelley (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-04-26 | Most girls would reply, "Nice try. Make me a better offer".

Sometimes this poem is used in connection with marriage but it's actually about Free Love. Free Love is to Marriage what Anarchy is to Government. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_love

Shelley was a great believer and practitioner of Free Love: his wife Mary, it seems, believed in theory but never practised it herself. Mary was a feminist like her mother Mary Wollstonecraft who wrote a treatise called A Vindication of the Rights of Woman - in it she said "I do not wish women to have power over men; but over themselves."

Percy and Mary together wrote a play called Proserpine, which was about the abduction and rape by Pluto, God of the underworld, of the daughter of Ceres, Goddess of the Earth. In the end they struck a deal where she spent half the year above ground with her mother and the other half underground with Pluto - and that's why we have summer and winter.
http://tinyurl.com/n8qxxva

Mary Shelley is better known for her novel Frankenstein which is about plastic surgery, electric shock treatment and resucitation, making the point that when taken to extremes these procedures can make people look pretty scary.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Shelley

Portraits of Mary Shelley.

The final picture is the Rape of Persephone by Simone Pignoni (c. 1650)

THE fountains mingle with the river
And the rivers with the ocean,
The winds of heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single,
All things by a law divine
In one another's being mingle—
Why not I with thine?

See the mountains kiss high heaven,
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdain'd its brother;
And the sunlight clasps the earth,
And the moonbeams kiss the sea—
What are all these kissings worth,
If thou kiss not me?

Requiem by John Updike (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-04-20 | There's a new biography of John Updike due to be released in the next few days. It's by Adam Begley. John Updike died, aged 76, in 2009. Here's some links to reviews of the biography.
http://article.wn.com/view/2014/04/12/Updike_by_Adam_Begley

http://seattletimes.com/html/books/2023337067_begleyjohnupdikexml.html

I discovered this by accident when I became curious about a book I have on the go, Updike's "A Month of Sundays". I wondered where it figured in his bibliography. The text gave me the impression that it was written by a young writer who had "arrived" - in the sense that publishers were obliged to print anything he wrote. When this happens there's a period of mischief - it's hard to resist the impulse to astound people. The text ran on unrestrainedly, like it was whatever he chose to write that day. The literary allusions came so thick and fast that I was gratified when I managed to catch any them - but at the same time aware of how many I must be missing.

What I found out was that the book was printed in '75. I also discovered that at about the same time he made a chapbook of poetry called, uncompromisingly, "Cunts". This seemed to confirm my suspicions. You'd like to read it? Here's a link:
http://english1022.tripod.com/id15.html

It came to me the other day:
Were I to die, no one would say,
"Oh, what a shame! So young, so full
Of promise — depths unplumbable!"

Instead, a shrug and tearless eyes
Will greet my overdue demise;
The wide response will be, I know,
"I thought he died a while ago."

For life's a shabby subterfuge,
And death is real, and dark, and huge.
The shock of it will register
Nowhere but where it will occur.

Kind Valentine by David Schubert (read by Tom OBedlam)

SpokenVerse 2014-04-19 | Kind Valentine appeared in Poetry magazine in July 1936. The best analysis I could find is here:
http://ronsilliman.blogspot.co.uk/2005/10/because-he-is-most-gracious-of-poets.html

David Schubert was a favourite poet of John Ashbury's, who said "To sit down for a little while and reread some of Schubert's rare and poignant verse is like opening a window in a room that had become stuffy without one's realizing it."
http://tinyurl.com/AshberySchubert

Counting buttons as "doctor, red chief, lady's man" is similar to counting cherry stones to divine the occupation of a future husband "tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief".

Here's some information about Shubert's short and tragic life:
http://www.press.umich.edu/pdf/9780472069170-ch4.pdf

And more of Schubert's poetry
http://www.thethepoetry.com/2010/04/some-david-schubert-poems-you-may-not-know
http://www.geegaw.com/stories/prospect_park_and_another_poet_named_david.shtml

She hugs a white rose to her heart--
The petals flare--in her breath, blown;
She'll catch the fruit on her death day--
The flower rooted in the bone.
The face at evening comes for love;
Reeds in the river meet below.
She sleeps, small child, her face a tear;
The dream comes in with stars to go
Into the window, feigning snow.

This is the book that no one knows.
This papered wall holds mythic oaks,
Behind the oaks a castle grows.
Over the door, and over her
(She dies! She wakes!) the steeds gallop.
The child stirs, hits the dumb air, weeps,
Afraid of night's long loving-cup.

Into yourself, live, live, Joanne!
And count the buttons—how they run
To doctor, red chief, lady's man!
Most softly pass, on the stairs down,
The stranger in your evening gown.
Hearing white, inside your grief,
An insane laughter up the roof.
O little wind, come in with dawn—
It is your shadows on the lawn.

Break the pot! and let carnations—
Smell them! they're the very first.
Break the sky, and let come magic
Rain! Let earth come pseudo-tragic
Roses--blossom, unrehearsed.
Head, break! is broken. Dream, so small,
Come in to her. O little child,
Dance on squills where the winds run wild.

The candles rise in the warm night
Back and forth, the tide is bright.
Slowly, slowly, the waves retreat
Under her wish and under feet.
And over tight breath, tighter eyes,
The mirror ebbs, it ebbs and flows.
And the intern, the driver, speed
To gangrene! But--who knows--suppose

He was beside her! Please, star-bright,
First I see, while in the night
A soft-voice like a tear, guitar--
It calls a palm coast from afar.
And oh, so far the stars were there
For him to hang upon her hair
Like the white rose he gave, white hot,
While the low sobbing band--it wept
Violets and forget-me-nots.