tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73150982024-03-14T05:58:00.016+09:00Dubliner in JapanOpinion pieces, travel articles, places and people; lots of poetry; commentary on current events and history and whatever else shows up on the radar. Articles have been numbered (since Sept. 2004). Go n-eiri an t-adh leat.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger498125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-40270482253748326562015-06-21T20:27:00.000+09:002015-06-21T20:37:12.614+09:00504. Swimming in SE Asia<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">I love to bound around<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the countries of Southeast Asia,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">which are so perfectly,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">weirdly, historically designed<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">for chase and concealment.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Maugham gets it exactly right</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt; mso-fareast-language: JA;">by </span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">following one of his colonial types<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">from harbour to harbour along the coast<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">in the knowledge there is no escape,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">not then, not now, not ever<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span><o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<br /></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">as when you sit in a Chinese restaurant,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">on the ground floor, open to the weather;<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">the cook shambles in over the poured concrete<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">in his stained white T-shirt and baggy shorts,<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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</style> <![endif]--> <!--StartFragment--> <span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: 13pt;">bringing your beer in a glass with ice.</span><!--EndFragment--> Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-24067380592159019552014-10-05T14:32:00.000+09:002015-06-21T20:04:26.446+09:00503. Old Sins Cast Long ShadowsI hear stonebreakers in my mind,<br />
their hammers pounding,<br />
rhymithic, ceaseless,<br />
loudly sounding.<br />
<br />
<i>Dead children do not give us dreams,</i><br />
<i>they give us nightmares.</i><br />
<br />
After 20,000 – 25,000 days<br />
I am sitting in a pub in Dublin<br />
when the Squeaker walks in, grins enormously,<br />
then seats himself beside me.<br />
I’d buy you a pint, says I,<br />
if I had the money. Feck that, says he,<br />
ye won’t be leaving here sober!<br />
<br />
And of new light then was a crack,<br />
with the young men struggling at the door,<br />
the old men holding it back.<br />
<br />
<i>After Chamberlain’s Munich fiasco</i><br />
<i>(J’aime Berlin hissed the colluding French)</i><br />
<i>young Jimmy upped stakes, headed for the UK</i><br />
<i>where the idiot joined the RAF,</i><br />
<i>explaining, in his irritating, slow and reasonable way,</i><br />
<i>that Ireland didn’t possess an air force,</i><br />
<i>and should Britain fall we’d be next.</i><br />
<i>Nobody at the time believed him.</i><br />
<br />
Ah, the lemons of Lebanon,<br />
the drowned bodies of Cyprus:<br />
<i>where are the jewels that were his eyes?</i><br />
<br />
With friends, I joined the army in 1914<br />
at the behest of Sir John Redmond,<br />
who told us the defence of Belgium<br />
would lead to the freedom of Ireland.<br />
<br />
I remember the boat to Boulogne<br />
with sick all over the decks,<br />
and the sergeant-major laughing,<br />
handing around pints.<br />
<br />
The shells came falling over the Front,<br />
puffed and puling, rising up in layers,<br />
and in that early and insane six months, a year,<br />
all loyal soldiers were promised exemption, a redemption,<br />
with death the only answer to our thoughts and prayers.<br />
<br />
Fuck the British Army, thought the Irish lads,<br />
(employing the language of the time),<br />
What the hell have we got ourselves into?<br />
<br />
My younger brother was shot in 1916<br />
in Dublin, while I was still in France,<br />
and on July 1st came the Somme<br />
and so I heaved myself up and walked over,<br />
with 70-80 lbs. of ridiculous equipment<br />
and I thought, now, now, ye fuckin Huns,<br />
just finish me off. They finished off 20,000 of us<br />
on that first day alone, but they missed me.<br />
<br />
I’ll never, I think, forgive them for that, because I had to<br />
go back to Dublin and face my parents,<br />
absorb the cold looks of school and childhood friends<br />
in my stained and dusty khaki uniform,<br />
the uniform of the alien, the enemy of Ireland.<br />
<br />
The war ended.<br />
They all end and then the next one begins.<br />
I found myself doing bits for Ireland<br />
under a man called Michael Collins.<br />
To hell, so, with little Belgium.<br />
<br />
The Depression next came down upon us<br />
unfolding like a load of smothering blankets,<br />
made worse by an incompetent government.<br />
I had a job by then with the gas company<br />
who were paying me less and less,<br />
when I met young Eileen O’Connor,<br />
and she put the lift back into my walk<br />
and the original twinkle back in my eye.<br />
Ah, it was grand and glorious!<br />
I’d never been the same since the goddam feckin war<br />
but now I was coming back to life.<br />
<br />
<i>Young Jimmy shot down three German bombers</i><br />
<i>and so they gave him one of the medals</i><br />
<i>they occasionally sling over to the Irish: NINA was</i><br />
<i>one of the signs of the times – No Irish Need Apply -</i><br />
<i>all over jobs and rooming houses, but not the RAF.</i><br />
<i>In time Jimmy got quite good, causing havoc among the enemy,</i><br />
<i>and so he got the real medals and a promotion.</i><br />
<i>He also found a shy but lovely English girlfriend.</i><br />
<br />
My Daddy was doing poorly, and since I was the eldest,<br />
I was told to ake care of Aunt Gertrude, his elder sister.<br />
Gertude had been a political disaster since 1893,<br />
joining Hyde’s Gaelic League and then Sinn Fein,<br />
so now I was faced with a bing- bang –bong<br />
of threat and apparition, then the rapid<br />
appearance of private and public disaster.<br />
<br />
Even in Dublin, this was simply not on.<br />
Not just then, but even today.<br />
I thought of strangling her in her bed,<br />
but she died before plans were complete.<br />
Still, I could tell you stories …<br />
<br />
She was a friend of Maud Gonne,<br />
and of that interesting feminist vegetarian bloke,<br />
Francis Sheehy-Skeffington,<br />
who got shot by Bowen-Coulter in 1916,<br />
later adjuged insane<br />
(the shooter not the shootee)<br />
and she was an outspoken bosom companion<br />
of all the peculiar people of the period,<br />
<br />
but I perceive I lack the time,<br />
and I know I lack the money:<br />
since I am lately bereft of wife and family,<br />
even any form of human sympathy,<br />
I shall regress to the underground tunnels<br />
of aggressive feral youth.<br />
<br />
A happy man has no past, I think,<br />
an unhappy man has nothing else.<br />
<br />
Hello, Johnny, how are you?<br />
Ten dollars now<br />
or I’ll smash your face.<br />
The tens move up into hundreds,<br />
thousands even. It’s really quite simple.<br />
<br />
Eileen and the kids had died in a fire:<br />
only Jimmy, the eldest, survived.<br />
<br />
All history grows silent, literature dumb, science crippled,<br />
all thought and speculation comes to a standstill.<br />
<br />
You live on, so you do,<br />
nobody knows where the years go.<br />
<br />
<i>On a silent autumn day,</i><br />
<i>high above the Channel and the fields of Kent,</i><br />
<i>a random single round hits home,</i><br />
<i>and from the heights comes a plume of smoke</i><br />
<i>and the sudden rush of a falling plane,</i><br />
<i>no parachute, only a descending spiral,</i><br />
<i>homing, inevitably, towards the sea,</i><br />
<i>and then comes a great splash</i><br />
<i>and a sudden white plume of waves.</i><br />
<i>O Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy.</i>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-31785324710146861102013-11-02T18:12:00.000+09:002013-11-02T18:12:09.505+09:00502. Sideterms<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; width: 100%px;"><tbody>
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</td></tr>
<tr><td colspan="2"><span class="postbody" style="font-size: 12px;">Nothing is over, not a thing,<br />until time actually ceases.<br />And as you stand below, waiting down in the street<br />looking up, open-mouthed,<br />wondering, speculating,<br />nothing at all happens.<br />nothing for 20, 30, 40 seconds,<br /><br />and when such silent moments exist<br />in this flickering world<br />there will be no further kisses, grunts, or gunshots.<br />And so<br />turn away, young Damian,<br />turn aside from life and love<br /><br />for love is a heavy thing to carry<br />with its sagging burden of lust,<br />its well-fed writhing bodies,<br />its financial speculations.<br />Many unheard voices, crying out.<br />mouth the hope, I hope I hope<br />never to do/see this again<br /><br />and since the world is round<br />those fat Chinese make it heavy<br />living, as they do on the edge,<br />sucking up noodleas, failing to emigrate,<br />and so they drag us down, the bastards,<br />causing climate change.<br /><br />I write letters to world leaders<br />about this, about other serious things,<br />and they respond, ever so<br />brittle but quite polite, advising me<br />to fuck off and go away. In Newcastle<br />the girls are the real problem on weekends<br />but not as bad as in Dublin. There you need<br />strong arms & unfailing waves of charm<br />to herd the howling hags homeward.<br /><br />Disco, disco, Saturday night!<br />Palumbino,<br />palumbina,<br />and so legless are<br />the lazy lanes of pleasure<br />that I measure<br />essence in grams, not ounces.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-39788079974693370422013-08-30T16:34:00.002+09:002013-08-30T16:35:48.147+09:00501. Recollections<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v5mS8BLlPdU/UiBK8qjObrI/AAAAAAAAJas/cV1lu6FnIOw/s1600/Limbourg1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-v5mS8BLlPdU/UiBK8qjObrI/AAAAAAAAJas/cV1lu6FnIOw/s320/Limbourg1.jpg" width="272" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">We were snoozing happily in our hammocks</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">when, with a surfeit of roaring soaring sound,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">the invasion arrived around teatime</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">and from waters, rushing in a writhing ring,</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">a feeble hand arose from the waves</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">absent Excalibur.</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;"><br /><br />The smothered fish lay along the shore,<br />and the mountains sank into the sea.<br /><br />This is not good, I remember thinking,<br />as I raced to the palace of the Queen,<br />the heady heave and clash of arms behind me,<br />but her bloated face was a bawdy green<br />and a cloud of flies were buzzing around:<br />‘ I perceive, milady, the realm is sinking’.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-61358571819921094652013-08-25T16:54:00.001+09:002013-08-26T09:38:47.436+09:00500. En Famille<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b0wexqbI7p0/Uhm4GJsmqDI/AAAAAAAAJaY/civPusBMb7g/s1600/photo(6).JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-b0wexqbI7p0/Uhm4GJsmqDI/AAAAAAAAJaY/civPusBMb7g/s320/photo(6).JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-68590866287747597772013-08-17T20:30:00.001+09:002013-08-28T14:24:15.644+09:00496. Wild Geese<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">On the rain-sodden field at Fontenoy</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">there is nothing to be seen or remembered</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">but a misty view of Belgium, formerly France,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">just outside the town of Tournai.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And here are no ghosts,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">no galloping horses,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">no spirits moaning in the air.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">I return to the waiting car,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">settle into its lingering warmth,</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and turn my mind to the evening:</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">back to Brussels or on to Paris?</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black; font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">There, there are many ghosts,</span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">perhaps no galloping horses,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">but lighter spirits in the air.</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">That year of Bonnie Prince Charlie</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">when the butcher Duke of Cumberland,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">who won the slaughter at Culloden,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">was soundly defeated here,</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">is rarely recalled. So many</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">wretched, reeling years</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">have sadly intervened.</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And it was my young clansman Liam,</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">sweet Liam Óg Ó Laighin,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">a harpist of darling promise,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">who, following his father and grandfather,</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">grew to military age in France</span></span></div>
</div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and happily joined the regiment</span></span></div>
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<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">whose flag you see below.</span></span></div>
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mSgLAfa4cFw/Ug9d-OLVggI/AAAAAAAAJaA/FKhmWEud_Ro/s1600/41360015.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-mSgLAfa4cFw/Ug9d-OLVggI/AAAAAAAAJaA/FKhmWEud_Ro/s320/41360015.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
1745: Banner of the Irish Brigade</div>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
(Invalides Military Museum, Paris)</div>
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<div style="text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div style="background-color: white; color: #282828; font-family: helvetica, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14.399999618530273px; line-height: 17.600000381469727px; padding: 0px; text-align: start;">
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">Young Liam, Liam, ochóne,</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">you did not survive the battering day</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">although the hard-fought field was won.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">And you were carried to your father’s home</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">by six young sorrowful comrades,</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">and sadly laid to rest. The weathered stone</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: black;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica Neue, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">lies broken under a grove of elms.</span></span></div>
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Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-15340721449766207442013-08-10T14:25:00.001+09:002013-08-12T18:09:29.159+09:00495. Souvenir<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FjaoLVBM0Qs/UgXOh1eJ2II/AAAAAAAAJZs/dZLcfQes0co/s1600/Turkey-bosporus-ferry-007.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FjaoLVBM0Qs/UgXOh1eJ2II/AAAAAAAAJZs/dZLcfQes0co/s320/Turkey-bosporus-ferry-007.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">In a mist-filled snow </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">cast in grey shadows </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">sat an old green bench </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">with flaking paint; </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">it had a beady-eyed crow at its end </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">who crossly flew away </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">when we approached. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I don’t really know, you said, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">what I’ll do; and I said, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I know, darling, but I’m sure </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">it will be all right. And then </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I brushed the snowflakes </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">away from your eyes </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">and kissed you. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic;">That was in Istanbul<br />where old green steamers went lurching across the Horn<br />softly, silently puffing …</span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; font-style: italic;">. </span><span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I have grown old </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">and resent each bedridden day </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">spent thinking; I particularly </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">despise the night, each </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">sleepless night and deep </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">where ancient memories </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">softly creep.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-76969658592185438822013-08-10T14:08:00.001+09:002013-08-10T14:08:43.884+09:00494. Emigration<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xR1s5xbiE8I/UgXKMXJgoDI/AAAAAAAAJZc/TQgjVqhgpHc/s1600/Titanic-at-Southampton-large-size.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-xR1s5xbiE8I/UgXKMXJgoDI/AAAAAAAAJZc/TQgjVqhgpHc/s320/Titanic-at-Southampton-large-size.jpg" width="314" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I’ll be going down to New York town </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">to meet my love, my sweet young man, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">who has worked so hard to make our home </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">away across the broad Atlantic. I must </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">take a step away from friends, from relations, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">from my weeping mother, who will never </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">see me again. My father spits silently in the fire </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">and I know how he feels. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I am sorry (I am not sorry) for I wish to get away </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">and live a life away from Ireland, for Ireland </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">beautiful and grand as it is, truly, crushes </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">the hearts of its downtrodden women. And I am not </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">and never will be a downtrodden woman. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I read books, some of which I understand, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">and some of which I don’t, but never mind, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I am a proud and nervous nationalist. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Ireland looms out of the darkness. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">It sits there, balefully, in the wide Atlantic Sea. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Aviators say, thanks, Christ God, land at last, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">a place we can crash or land upon. As did </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Alcock and Brown in Clifden in 1919 </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">long before Lucky Lindbergh. It’s there. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Land at last, the farmhouses and the fields, </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">waiting to welcome or kill you. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">Ireland is a place we all want to leave </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">or stay in forever. </span><br />
<br style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;" />
<span style="background-color: #efefef; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px;">I will take this ship called Titanic.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-19371350347481496952013-08-08T14:33:00.001+09:002013-08-08T14:33:18.516+09:00Dubliner in Japan: Hiroshima and Nagasaki (again)<a href="http://dublinerinjapan.blogspot.jp/2005/08/hiroshima-and-nagasaki-again.html#links">Dubliner in Japan: Hiroshima and Nagasaki (again)</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-78981318750530880082013-07-09T17:31:00.000+09:002013-07-09T17:31:22.958+09:00493. Overnight at the governor's mansion7-character, regular verse:<br />
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清秋幕府井梧寒, 獨宿江城蠟炬殘。<br />
永夜角聲悲自語, 中天月色好誰看?<br />
風塵荏苒音書絕, 關塞蕭條行陸難。<br />
已忍伶俜十年事, 強移棲息一枝安。<br />
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Clear and cold is this autumn night with parasol trees in the courtyard.<br />
Alone in this river town, I watch the flame of a guttering candle.<br />
From the dark outside comes the plaintive note of a bugle,<br />
and though the moon is in mid-heaven, is there no-one to share with me?<br />
My messengers are scattered amid clouds of rain and sand<br />
and the city gates are closed to the traveller: high mountains are walls in my way.<br />
I, who have borne the last ten years of pitiable existence,<br />
find here a perch, a little branch, I feel safe for the night.<br />
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(a non-precise rather cavalier translation which needs an extra line co contain the limpid Chinese, but the essence is there.)<br />
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Du Fu, 712-770Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-77458947949008783382013-01-11T17:32:00.003+09:002013-01-11T17:32:30.373+09:00492. Light as Lilac, Heavy as Falling Stone<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PNhl5hvV4Fo/UO_N2ubgQtI/AAAAAAAAJUg/UpXrTB-tTD0/s1600/coffeehouse2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-PNhl5hvV4Fo/UO_N2ubgQtI/AAAAAAAAJUg/UpXrTB-tTD0/s320/coffeehouse2.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
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A country river, an old willow tree,</div>
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there I first met my love and she met me,</div>
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how my heart misbehaved! She gave</div>
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me a ribbon still warm from her breast,</div>
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a pink ribbon, I think, which I caressed</div>
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and from that time I was enslaved ...</div>
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to love only her and her alone,</div>
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and so on. But this actually happened,</div>
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and as I decipher these spidery scrawls,</div>
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the discovered diaries of 18th century Uncle John,</div>
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I think what a sentimental fool he was, to be sure,</div>
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but a dangerous man with the rapier,</div>
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a deadly shot with those early pistols!</div>
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Well, you had to be impressive, really,</div>
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with ancient pretensions to aristo birth</div>
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and no bloody money to speak of.</div>
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Fend off the rivals and carry off the girl!</div>
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Naturallement! You’d be looking at</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
ten thousand (pounds) if you were lucky.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
He continues:</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
The zephrys blow upon the trees</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
as I gaze upon wild raging moors.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
My heart contracts to an aching please</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
to open up those shuttered doors!</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
This is pretty slick, almost modern.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
Johnny is getting into his groove here.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
The girl replies (we think), since nearly</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
all girls reply to love letters in some way</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
if even to say don’t send them any more.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
Her replies are sadly lost to history.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
The girl’s family were blithely unaware,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
blissfully blinded to this mutual passion,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
and so carefully set up an arranged marriage</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
for Georgiana (for that is her name, poor girl)</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
to a somewhat equal male companion.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
John goes berserk!</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
He wants to challenge the guy to a duel!</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
Of course he will kill him, slash or boom,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
so Georgiana exerts feminine perspicacity</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
and takes to her bed for three weeks.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
The prospective suitor backs off rather quickly</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
for who wants a sickly wife, when your plan</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
is to have, say, six to maybe 14 children?</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
John, not surprisingly, moves in:</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
He writes to the parents …</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
My dear Lord and Lady R ------ ham</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
It is with the greatest regret that I have been informed</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
of the severe illness of your beloved daughter</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
whom I have been given to understand is a person</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
of the greatest refinement, and a credit to her sex,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
which she is not getting a lot of, thanks to you,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
and which I am damn sure I can do something about!</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
The latter part of the letter, I believe,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
was not included.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
He writes (by messenger) to Georgiana:</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
I don’t want your money.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
I want your cunny.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
The Oxford English Dictionary (OED)</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
somewhat mischievously cites this</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
as the first appearance of the slang term,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
but this is untrue, academically unsound.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
<br /></div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
So … what happened, then?</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
Did Georgiana and John get married?</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
Ho, yes, indeed! Had a load of kids.</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
And were they happy forever after? Don’t </div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
ask silly questions. Romance, my dears,</div>
<div style="color: #222222; font-family: 'Helvetica Neue', Arial, Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: 14px;">
burns out, burns out in every marriage.</div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-61680566151069820992012-11-27T00:42:00.001+09:002013-01-07T23:11:49.104+09:00491. Samurai<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z_x9Zgso5KU/ULORCfMyVpI/AAAAAAAAJSw/AFXf8yieFiY/s1600/fuji04!.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-z_x9Zgso5KU/ULORCfMyVpI/AAAAAAAAJSw/AFXf8yieFiY/s320/fuji04!.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
<span class="postbody">Slowly, slowly
<br />
the little snail
<br />
climbs Mount Fuji -<br />
<br />
sends a message to his wife:
<br />
pretty good day today!
<br />
Snails have their systems.
<br />
<br />
Well, dear, I made – oh - 2.5?
<br />
He’d be talking about metres:
<br />
Fuji has 3776 of those things
<br />
<br />
going up into the snowline
<br />
getting gradually colder, so
<br />
pure, apart from the sweltering
<br />
<br />
skin-itching, sleep-depriving
<br />
bugfucked Japanese summers
<br />the people endure below.
<br />
<br />
Even snails in their shell
<br />
have been known to complain
<br />
among the raucous cicadas
<br />
<br />
in their dusty pines
<br />
down on the plain.
<br />
Don’t take a chill my honey
<br />
<br />
says Mrs. Snail. I want you
<br />
back here safe and sound.
<br />
It’s all right my darling.
<br />
<br />
I know my way along the ground.
<br />
I do not share the human hell
<br />
of doing things for money.
<br />
<br />
I do what I must do
<br />
for the snails of Japan, for the Emperor,
<br />
but most of all for you!</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-25108423732474122222012-11-23T14:00:00.003+09:002012-11-23T14:16:12.005+09:00490. Eyeless in Gaza: An Exchange of Views<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MeN3G4xWVfQ/UK8CTEe5v7I/AAAAAAAAJRo/qINR8At1dgs/s1600/574585_10200170167005710_341425533_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="235" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MeN3G4xWVfQ/UK8CTEe5v7I/AAAAAAAAJRo/qINR8At1dgs/s320/574585_10200170167005710_341425533_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">AMIT: What truth is that exactly? What I see is the face of a
person who doesn't know what he is talking about. Do you really think that
Israel is in it for the purpose of killing Palestinians? If that was the case
there would have been thousands dead. Israel is going out of its way NOT to
kill innocents! Sadly, it is not always possible, especially when the enemy is
"bravely" hiding behind civilians. The who shoot indiscriminately
into civilian population are Hamas. The only reason there aren't many, many more
casualties on our side is that their weapons are crap and our defense system
are better and for that, we don't need to apologize. If Hamas had the ability,
every one of their missiles would have hit a school. So please, Facts first,
then talk!</span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">BRENDAN: Everyone has a right to live in peace and dignity. After
Shoah many countries supported the creation of the State of Israel. Israeli
treatment of the Palestinians who lived on the same land before them has been
very brutal. This is the main problem. The right of the State of Israel to
exist is accepted but within what borders - 1948 or 1967? You say you cannot
make a settlement with the Palestinians because they are terrorists. Israeli
settlements and military occupation have created these "terrorists" just
as British stupidity in Northern Ireland created the IRA. In fact, you had to
fight against the British yourselves with Haganah and Irgun in the post-WWII
period when they still maintained the Palestinian Mandate. Now you are taking
on the attitudes and policies of your former occupiers with regard to the
Palestinians because you are the people with the real power, and, among other
things, "their weapons are crap". This is not a military war, in the
final analysis, it is a political conflict. So far America supports you no
matter what you do. This will not last forever. Your support in Western Europe
is already fading. You cannot simply lash out at people who don't support you
and label them "anti-Semitic". The war in Europe and the Holocaust
has been over for 77 years. People around the world tend to judge your
government by its present actions. In spite of these sharp differences of
opinion, I hope we can remain friends in the more-or-less "neutral"
surroundings of Hamamatsu!</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">BRENDAN: Oops! 2012-1945 = 67. Another mathematical bloop. No
wonder I can't understand the family finances, never mind Wall Street ....</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">AMIT: Brendan, on the point that Israel and the Palestinians
should exist as 2 states side by side I couldn't agree more. But whose fault is
it that it's not the case? What happened in 48 a day after the UN declared the
Jewish and Palestinian states? A DAY AFTER! 1 DAY! That's what it took the Arab
world to decide that Israel doesn't have the right to exist and to attack the
day old country. Hamas shares that point of view to this day. How do you
negotiate with someone who does not recognize your right to exist? Answer me
that because I really want to know. The fact that Israel should have withdrawn
from all the conquered land after 67 (another win or die war) will not be
argued by me. But why did the Arab world, who is so "concerned" with
the well being of their Palestinian "brothers", (namely Egypt) did
not demand to get the Gaza strip back in 79? They demanded, and got every last
inch of Sinai. Why did Jordan didn't demand the West Bank in 95? I'll tell why.
Because the Palestinians are a thorn in Israels ass and the Arabs like them to
stay that way. Why Does the Arab world, namely Iran, instead of sending
doctors, civil engineers, building schools and infrastructure, why instead of
that do they send weapons and weapon expert? See the reason above. You are
talking about 67 borders. Why after the war of 48 didn't Jordan and Egypt
establish a Palestinian state and instead kept those areas as their own? You
are talking about the people who lived there before us. How far back do you
want to look? Jewish people lived in that land and were kicked out. There was
never in all of history a Palestinian state except for 1 day after the
deceleration in 48 and that state died as a sad side effect to the failed
attempt to destroy Israel. It's very easy to blame "big, bad" Israel
in all the shit that is going on (and you will never hear me say that Israel is
totally blameless) but again, I suggest knowing the facts, all the facts not
only those that fit you worldview, before doing that.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">AMIT: By the way, you craftily managed to dodge my more urgent
concern that if Hamas could, each and every one of their missiles would have
hit a school. Or perhaps you disagree on that too?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">BRENDAN: I am not going to get further involved in this
discussion, Amit, not because I don't stand by the opinions previously stated,
but owing to the fact that this is an endless argumentative swamp with heated
emotions going back and forth for the last half-century and more. This is one
of the so-called "intractable" problems, with the Indo-Pakistani conflict over
Kashmir running a close second. The Northern Ireland business was up there as
well for about thirty years but wonder of wonders (!) we managed to hammer out
an Agreement in 1998 which left the area under UK sovereignty for the
forseeable future but brought Nationalists into a power-sharing political
settlement in NI for the first time since the partition of the island in 1922.
If we can hammer out our differences, which actually go back far longer to the
early 1600s when the Crown repopulated confiscated lands with Protestant
settlers brought over from the British mainland (maybe that sounds a little
familiar), then there is some hope that Israelis and Palestinians might one day
do the same.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">AMIT: I know you too well, Brendan, to know that you won't change
you mind and I too, have no intention to get any further into it. I was
actually debating long and hard before I wrote my first reply but decided it's
important to give my point of view because there are too many people out there
who like you (at least judging by your words), think that Israel is 100% in the
wrong while the Palestinians are 100% in the right. In my experience people who
see the world in black and white are, in most cases, wrong. That's actually
what bothers me the most Brendan, that I never once heard you indicate that you
feel any other way. That's the reason I kind of insisted on getting an answer
to my question about Hamas' intentions. But I guess answering it will force you
to admit that maybe, just maybe, the Palestinians are not always the "good
guy" in this ongoing tragedy. About the possibility of ever seeing this
conflict resolved. I remember clearly when I read the newspaper about Rabin and
Arafat's meeting (ironically I was a soldier in the West Bank at the time..).
I'm not exaggerating when I'm saying that I was shivering with excitement at
the thought that this senseless war (is there any other kind) is finally about
to be over. I was actually imagining myself getting in a car, driving up north
through Lebanon, Syria, and into Europe. 20 years later I'm much less of an
optimist and much more of a realist and I do not believe that I will see peace
in my lifetime. And that's all I'm going to say.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">----------------------------------------------------</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">POSTSCRIPT: Dear Amit – I believe the Palestinian people are the
victims in the ongoing situation but I do NOT think they are 100% correct. In
fact, they have been pawns of a corrupt local political leadership – Arafat and
the PLO for many years – not to mention the manipulation of their condition by
other Arab states and Iran as a way of striking at Israel. The situation is
extremely complicated and it is certainly not black-and-white. Hamas can be
seen as a reaction against the PLO and these two groups hate each other
intensely. In any case Hamas won the last election in Gaza and they were duly
punished for it by both the USA and the EU through withdrawal of aid funds:
they were not supposed to win. As I said in my first post the problem needs a
political, not a military, solution. The best chance came at Camp David in 2000
when Barak met Arafat and the Clinton government were trying hard to reach a
settlement. Clinton was also very active in the Northern Ireland settlement
which was also very difficult but managed to reach a compromise agreement. By
and large, this agreement continues to work in spite of occasional violence by
hardline idiots such as the Real IRA (the Omagh bombing) and ongoing distrust
between Protestants and Catholics. After all, the problem goes back 400 years,
but all sides finally came to the conclusion that violence was not the answer.
The two situations are historically quite different, I know, but the need for a
political settlement is the parallel that draws them together. In order for
that to happen both sides need a credible political leadership with
overwhelming support from its electorate and a bit of help from the outside,
preferably the USA. This happened to come about in 1997-1998 after Tony Blair
replaced John Major as the British prime minister, after Sinn Féin under Gerry
Adams and Martin McGuinness had convinced the membership of the IRA to accept
their political lead, and both sides had their leadership confirmed by very
strong electoral support. And of course Clinton was there and ready to help.
Unfortunately this combination didn’t work two years later at Camp David.
Barak, like Rabin before him, was entirely credible to the Israeli electorate,
not least because of his military record. Arafat, fearful of his own position,
was the one who faltered. Then, of course, we had Ariel Sharon and his provocative march to
the Temple Mount and the Second Intifada. Now we have Netanyahu, and I’m not
even sure who we have on the Palestinian side. Bush simply didn’t want to get
involved and Obama has a load of other problems on his mind. So I agree with
you … it doesn’t look good. Nevertheless, the only possible settlement will be
political when the factors I have outlined above (hopefully) come together
again.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">I had no info on Hamas declaring they intended to hit schools with
their rockets, and doubt they could have done so anyway. This was the only
point in our public exchange when the tone became a little personal … “craftily
…”?</span></div>
<br />
<span style="font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">O</span><span style="color: black; font-family: "Lucida Grande"; font-size: small;">ur public
exchange of views is officially over, by mutual agreement, and I want you to
know that I do not hold a completely black-and-white view of the situation. Hope
to see you soon and exchange a couple of beers! </span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-3660901412373593482012-11-14T23:31:00.000+09:002012-11-14T23:32:36.071+09:00489. Prince CharlesBirthday Boy. Same year.<br />
I am five days older than this idiot.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K8YrdMGzF6c/UKOqSPGoImI/AAAAAAAAJQE/pksICL50TB0/s1600/dumb-ass-prince-charles.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-K8YrdMGzF6c/UKOqSPGoImI/AAAAAAAAJQE/pksICL50TB0/s400/dumb-ass-prince-charles.jpg" width="345" /></a></div>
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Desire<br />
like fire<br />
lights up the world.<br />
<br />
Banners unfurled<br />
and toes upcurled<br />
we walk the wire<br />
<br />
with equanimity.<br />
An infinity<br />
of glowing light<br />
<br />
underlies the night<br />
and we know<br />
from long ago<br />
<br />
the fire of desire<br />
can turn. And burn<br />
us into anonymity.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-83076883580408236832012-11-08T22:46:00.001+09:002012-11-08T22:46:19.704+09:00488. Prague Concerto<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<br />
<br />
<span class="postbody">Snow in the wind, my thoughts
<br />
slide over to the Winter Queen, so easily
<br />
brought to mind in this unbombed
<br />
Central European city: War, having
<br />
taken its pound of flesh from the people
<br />
spared its buildings.
<br />
<br />
The Munich betrayal. Heydrich.
<br />
No wonder they feel the way they do.
<br />
Chamberlain.<span style="font-style: italic;"> J’aime Berlin.</span>
<br />
<br />
I visited you before and after.
<br />
In the summer of 1989, the border
<br />
was a nest of guns and barbed wire
<br />
with apologetic young recruits
<br />
going through your bags. In 1991,
<br />
when I came again with my family,
<br />
all of that stuff had gone.
<br />
<br />
The river, the Charles Bridge, the palace,
<br />
all of that stuff was still there.
<br />
<br />
The West betrayed you, England and France,
<br />
and condemned you to a half-century
<br />
of misery: fascists followed by communists,
<br />
and if I were Czech, I’d be angry.
<br />
<br />
Surprisingly, you are not angry. Rueful,
<br />
I think is the tone. You sure as hell
<br />
got rid of the Sudeten Germans, every
<br />
last single one of the Nazi bastards,
<br />
which in its way is a pity, when you think
<br />
<br />
Of Kafka, for example, no Sudeten farmer,
<br />
just a person who thought and wrote in German,
<br />
and most of that has been lost. Also Slovakia,
<br />
who were not much help to you during the war.
<br />
Pity the countries with no seas as shelter!
<br />
<br />
Land borders in Europe pay no attention
<br />
to the people who happen to live within them
<br />
and never really have. The Versailles Conference,
<br />
post-Great War, was supposed to change all that
<br />
and didn’t. They simply carved up Europe
<br />
and set the seeds for the next great war.
<br />
<br />
And they carved up the Arab world as well,
<br />
drawing straight lines with rulers on maps,
<br />
setting up "mandates" for France and Britain,
<br />
promising everything to everyone, including,
<br />
of course, the Jews. Which is why, Ladies & Gentleman,
<br />
we get 9/11, the problems that continue today.
<br />
<br />
No, I haven’t forgotten about Prague. The food
<br />
improves (MacDonald’s was a step up, if you can imagine!)
<br />
and the beer has always been good. It is a quaint
<br />
and lovely city with its old clock towers and cobblestones,
<br />
with its trace of the nostalgic Old World “Mitteleuropa”,
<br />
which hasn’t been seen since the 1930s. America
<br />
<br />
has a great deal going for it, or had at one stage,
<br />
but it will never never replace, with its Disney dreams,
<br />
the real and honest thing.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-4633244443665420662012-11-08T22:30:00.001+09:002012-11-08T22:30:06.481+09:00487. Elvis: "Last Train to Memphis"<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XHw15gqP1C4/UJuzMAFzhyI/AAAAAAAAJPQ/VyfJ1qv9g0U/s1600/elvispresley_2310855b.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="199" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-XHw15gqP1C4/UJuzMAFzhyI/AAAAAAAAJPQ/VyfJ1qv9g0U/s320/elvispresley_2310855b.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
I was a small Irish kid in Germany in 1958 (my Dad worked in the AFEX system as an accountant) when Elvis came over as an army draftee. A family friend got his autograph for me which I lost soon after (damn & double-damn!) and this is the point where this book - the first of a two-part biography - closes. The first part of this biography takes us back from the arrival in Germany to Elvis' birth in Tupelo, to his family's move to Memphis, his geeky high school days, the $12 guitar his father bought for him, and his burning desire to cut a record. This brought him to Sam Phillips and Sun Records. This early recording took off thanks to radio play throughout the South and a series of live gigs followed, getting ever bigger and bigger. Soon things became so big they nearly got out of control. From some peculiar mixture of gospel, hillbilly, and Negro blues Elvis had hit on a new sound that caught the imagination of teenage America. By the age of 21 (1956) he was pulling in huge audiences and the music moguls were taking an interest. The predatory ex-Carnie barker "Colonel" Tom Parker moved in to guide this boy along and in his manipulatory and conniving ways made Elvis a national phenomenon.<br />
<br />
What makes this story so fascinating is the way it is told. The author, an early fan of the music, spent 11 years tracking down all the surviving friends and associates of Elvis and tells the story as if he were looking through a keyhole, recording conversations and first impressions and opinions from such a wide number of people that you begin to feel you are there yourself. The way this book was put together is extremely impressive: by no means is it your "standard" biography. Whether you like the music or not (I did even then, I still do!) you cannot help but get caught up in the story. After such a meteoric rise you just know that a fall is bound to come: hubris, as we know from the wise old Greeks, is followed by nemesis.<br />
<br />
A second volume of the biography entitled "Careless Love" charts the course of Elvis' career from the time he was released from the army to his early death at the age of 42. That will require another review.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-25092085689741151142012-10-04T14:39:00.000+09:002012-10-04T14:39:11.729+09:00486. In Reply to a Letter from an English FriendWe don't hate the Brits, Ben. We used to, that's true, but we don't any more. They seem to get along pretty well with us,
too, much better than, say, with the modern-day Scots! The divorce -
politically speaking - has been decisive and complete, apart from the
dispute over the kids in Norn Iron and even that has been levelled down
thanks to the IRA campaign, although nobody will admit that was the real reason.
Terrorists!! Local boys (and girls) if you want to know the truth. The
Queen could finally come over after a hundred years, and she was very
welcome. On the personal level the old antagonisms just don't exist any
more. We still have the old songs, of course. They're great old songs,
so no reason to throw them out! And we still have the Gaelic tradition -
the poetry and sagas and what one might describe as our 'national' character - going back to the early centuries, both BC and AD. This will never never die out and our very strong sense of place and all the multiple layers of our long and colourful history can still inspire the rising
generations ... and people like me!<br />
<br />
We have the national or more precisely, tribal, failing of falling in love with Ireland, the landscape, the people, the whole surrounding atmosphere, and although this is touching, I suppose, it is more than a little weird! Nobody who leaves Ireland can ever stop talking about it. <br />
<br />
The most important thing is that
we are a free country again, the only sensible and natural way in which the Irish can exist
and openly deal with the world, and we are a relatively 'elderly' free country at that,
in the sense that younger generations have no interest in how we broke the chains of oppression and simply take their freedom for granted. Overall, I think this
is a good thing. Our people grow up this way and they think it is a human right
and they can't understand why other countries don't have the same
privileges. So a lot of our nurses and activists go over to Palestine to
get shot at by Israelis .... because the Palestinians are the same as
the Irish, man, 150-200 years ago!
<br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><span style="color: mediumturquoise;"><span style="font-size: 8px;"></span></span></span><br />
<div class="bbc_center">
<br /></div>
Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-15152371177990344362012-09-23T14:01:00.001+09:002012-09-23T14:11:26.986+09:00485. Jumpers<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<br />
<br />
We live in a world of make-believe<br />
day after day after day after day.<br />
<br />
I raise a tired fist and feebly say <br />
Hello, hello. It seems that things<br />
are getting out of hand. Herodotus said<br />
<br />
a number of interesting things, he pings<br />
on the Ancient World, the BC bit,<br />
long before the AD slice we live in,<br />
<br />
being a dangerous man for opinions<br />
altogether. So-o-o-o hard to decide whether<br />
he’d be telling the truth. In a booth<br />
<br />
not far from Birmingham I met a man<br />
living in a world of make-believe<br />
who told me something I still remember:<br />
<br />
Listen to Herodotus, ya prick, <br />
So I, being young and thick<br />
<br />
listened to the man coming over the airwaves,<br />
fading in and out from 350 BC.<br />
<br />
It didn’t help or relieve, just sought to heave<br />
the same old problems around, to shunt the cunts<br />
as it were: was Melpomene your suffering mother?<br />
<br />
She was young, you know, in the early Nazi days<br />
and thought it was all very fine. Berlin in the sunlight.<br />
Her summer frock. Bathing on the Wannsee with SS boys,<br />
No notion the Fuehrer was out of his mind.<br />
<br />
<i>I wish you would go away,</i><br />
<i>no longer linger no longer stay:</i><br />
<i>your language is offensive!</i><br />
<br />
Listen to Herodotus.<br />
<br />
The defensive part is not the art<br />
that wins a War: <i>toujours, toujours l’audace</i><br />
lands you dead or else a cripple.<br />
<br />
Yes, I enjoy a little tipple<br />
now and again with friends, it makes amends<br />
for the other crap I end up doing.<br />
<br />
I have had my fill of war.<br />
You don’t know what you’re fighting for<br />
after the first year runs into the second.<br />
<br />
A fecund lady has always been my dream,<br />
broad hips, big tits, something to grab hold of,<br />
but I always end up with slight little girls,<br />
<br />
little waifs who slit their wrists, have problems,<br />
who arouse my protective instincts, and who,<br />
if you get that far, are not a very good fuck.<br />
<br />
I need a blonde beaming girl who doesn’t read books,<br />
who doesn’t speak in connected sentences,<br />
who understands money .... !<br />
<br />
Girlfriends are one thing, wives are another!<br />
I was told that by my mother: she said, may God<br />
direct you to the Right Woman, young idiot, etc.<br />
<br />
My little Chinese girl has left me. Of course she has.<br />
She was so cute and young and smart and elegant:<br />
no doddering chav is allowed these things …<br />
<br />
if but only for a while<br />
<br />
and so my creaking heart still sings. Dangerously.<br />
I smile. A sunny smile. I know, I know it is all a game<br />
and other sweet girls will flutter along<br />
<br />
like moths to murder in the flame. They want<br />
a certain something. And so, dear God, do I. <br />
Herodotus was saying, before you interrupted<br />
<br />
that different people behave in different ways<br />
and he was fascinated by this: he writes, whenever<br />
the Persians had something seriously to decide <br />
they went about it twice. Initially, they were quite<br />
sober and rational, questioning, very very open to advice,<br />
but then they went off and got totally drunk or stoned<br />
and listened to no-one, to see if feelings would coincide.<br />
As I stare, as I glare at my iPhone 5 today<br />
this still makes sense in every way.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-65256637169480724142012-09-12T10:01:00.004+09:002012-09-12T10:01:59.280+09:00484. Some Random Thoughts on the English Language<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<br />
When you think, I think,
<br />
you don’t want to think too hard:
<br />
step lightly over the earth, skip over it,
<br />
because there are quicksands and tarpits
<br />
and yawning manholes, never mind the landmines,
<br />
scattered here and there and everywhere
<br />
going by names we have learned to trust,
<br />
such as love and loyalty, honour and family,
<br />
a collection of abstract, uncountable nouns.
<br />
<br />
For those who speak only one language,
<br />
a sense of false confidence conceals the danger
<br />
inherent in the missing abyss of comparison;
<br />
why do you go to “the” store instead of “a” store?
<br />
What difference does that make? Only the same
<br />
as when you love “the” woman instead of “a” woman,
<br />
or when you look to “the” future instead of “a” future.
<br />
These are such small little things, inconsequential,
<br />
unless you start to think about them. But never
<br />
<br />
think too hard, it wears out the brain, makes you weary,
<br />
takes away the jolt and taste of your morning coffee.
<br />
(Now where the hell did that word ‘coffee’ come from?)
<br />
Paddling your canoe in your khaki shorts past a bamboo grove
<br />
you are using four words borrowed from other languages.
<br />
But the nouns, oh the nouns, are not the real problem!
<br />
It’s the verbs. Those goddam verbs! Descriptions of time
<br />
must exist in all languages, and are either smooth or clunky:
<br />
if I had but known what he had been thinking of proposing
<br />
<br />
I should quite possibly not have been quite so willing as I was.
<br />
This is the beauty of pidgin, crossover languages, border talk:
<br />
He talk smooth-smooth. I say OK. Later I say fuck you.
<br />
You can’t argue with the meaning, although it’s not Jane Austen,
<br />
nor Dickens or Trollope or Thackeray. Also, it’s not the brutal
<br />
vernacular most of us would choose to speak in. Yet it works.
<br />
This is the thing about language all around this globe we live in.
<br />
It’s no use raising your voice and bellowing at foreigners.
<br />
It really really doesn’t act as an aid to understanding. It don’t.
<br />
<br />
Ain’t that a shame? Please God, finally, let everyone speak English
<br />
so we don’t have to bother with learning all their foreign tongues,
<br />
and the world will all be One. If you actually believe that, pal,
<br />
you are living in La-la Land. Never happen. Everyone changes it.
<br />
When the Irish had to learn English or starve they fuckin hated it,
<br />
what a stupid thick-arsed language, they thought, and immediately
<br />
set out to improve it, adding rhythms and colours and tone to this …
<br />
this black-and-white atrocity. All over the world, in Jamaica, in Singapore,
<br />
in Kenya, in India and Pakistan, Fiji and Samoa, people do the same!Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-53204317839230089172012-08-28T19:47:00.003+09:002012-08-28T19:47:47.664+09:00483. The Uncertain Knight<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<br />
<span class="postbody">Night falls, the mountains fade,
<br />
and the lamps are lit in the east.
<br />
After the feast I know you must retire
<br />
with the other women. I cast a sigh
<br />
for I have caught your roving eye
<br />
as I shuffle closer to the fire.
<br />
<br />
Night falls, the fountains hiss
<br />
and sing in the garden, a splash
<br />
of water on stone. I feel so alone
<br />
no matter what I try. My father
<br />
is a beast within me, a clash,
<br />
an abyss of water and burning fire.
<br />
<br />
Night falls, and I clutch my sword,
<br />
in which I place no trust, the blade
<br />
is sharp, keen steel, it has no rust
<br />
and it mocks me. How can any girl
<br />
really love me? I place you above me
<br />
in this, in all, in whatever’s made.</span>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-15744394879249569772012-08-28T19:01:00.000+09:002012-08-28T19:01:02.704+09:00482. Irish-Americans<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-scWazcg4LZw/UDyWebgPrdI/AAAAAAAAHjI/7VYEllAVNFw/s1600/Irish1346.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-scWazcg4LZw/UDyWebgPrdI/AAAAAAAAHjI/7VYEllAVNFw/s320/Irish1346.gif" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: x-small;">Americans of Irish Ancestry</span><br />
<br />
Nothing means nothing at all<br />
until historians knock, come in to call<br />
and place their markers here and there.<br />
Never knew what was happening, I swear,<br />
until I read your best-selling book,<br />
Mister or Missus or Mizz.<br />
<br />
I was living through historic times<br />
with no sense of a change, the range<br />
of the stones we threw was paramount,<br />
and as a revolution this would not amount<br />
to much, but it did in Palestine. I am amazed<br />
how the rebel Irish set the tone, dazed<br />
<br />
by the way everyone else gets shot down<br />
or clubbed or imprisoned, in India,<br />
South Africa, Syria, you fuckin name it,<br />
and I know we are the the guys to blame<br />
for telling people to get off their knees<br />
and stand up. Cousin Martin back in the day<br />
<br />
was living in Amerikay, minding his own<br />
bizness, getting along so easily as the Irish do,<br />
when they fucked him into the military, sent<br />
him off to Vietnam. I don’t like this, says Martin,<br />
gazing on the departing body bags. I think this<br />
could soon be me: no return to Éireann mo chroí!<br />
<br />
It was a very bad war to send in the Irish,<br />
because like the Mexican War a century before<br />
they felt a certain sympathy for the other side.<br />
Who’s beating the fuck out of whom and why?<br />
Racism kicked in, and also loyalty to friends,<br />
but it was a wrong war against the wrong people<br />
<br />
with a need to make amends. I don’t know<br />
if we can ever do so. Every single bloody war<br />
America starts, and by God they start a lot of them,<br />
the Irish are right there by their side. They say<br />
they are Americans now. I believe that, how<br />
<br />
could you not believe them? It’s in your face, it’s true,<br />
but for God’s sake stop being stupid, stop being dense,<br />
stop pushing, and have a little bit of sense! Our belief<br />
is still with that Shining City Upon the Hill, and the will<br />
to be a free people living in a free country.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-36290139600309973322012-08-16T14:18:00.001+09:002012-08-29T10:59:25.490+09:00481. Dutch Cicadas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<br />
<br />
Cicadas march on to their shift at daybreak, since<br />
you'll never hear the buggers at night. They have<br />
their factory horn: drop your cocks and grab your socks!<br />
It’s reveille, a revelry of summer sounds. A summer morn<br />
as long as these rockers are around, a pervading blight<br />
which can either drive you nuts, or make you reach<br />
for Pina Coladas on the beach, your sunglasses just so,<br />
waiting for that heiress from Indiana. Juliana was still<br />
<br />
Queen of the Netherlands when my father fucked off<br />
for New York and didn’t like it. New Amsterdam was a joke<br />
with nothing left but misspelt names: Harlem, the Bronx,<br />
Roosevelt. He lit off with another bloke for Miami Beach<br />
on Trailways Buses through the Deep South, his mouth<br />
opened wide, a constant O of wonder. A lynching in Georgia,<br />
a bottom pinching of a Charleston Beauty. But that was a fat <br />
old white man, member of the Klan, so he was all right.<br />
<br />
Travelling on by day and night, the sun a constant trial,<br />
for the Hollanders of his generation did not grow tanned<br />
but proceeded from pink to red to scarlet to near imminent<br />
self-explosion: a phial (bah!) even a gallon of sun lotion<br />
came as little relief. Stubborn, pig-headed, Dutch beyond belief,<br />
he headed for salvation, immolation, between the sea and sand!<br />
Of course he made it. Not only that he met my stunning mother,<br />
stole her off some New York hood. She liked his peeling nose<br />
<br />
and reckoned things might turn out good with an honest man.<br />
She was right about that. Pretty girls know men will chase them<br />
for a certain while: be bad, if you like, but make your pile<br />
before the party's over. My Mommy wasn't a hard case, not really,<br />
she wanted out soon. She married my Daddy, Dirk Van Roon,<br />
and lived happily ever after. My sister and I grew up in style,<br />
amid songs and love and laughter. But they are sadly dead now,<br />
as so many people we love are dead. The lines have been read.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-89654208506637578742012-08-15T09:01:00.002+09:002012-08-15T09:04:53.588+09:00480. Consolation<span style="font-size: 85%; line-height: 116%;">“Love don't make things nice - it ruins everything. <br />It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. <br />We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and to love the wrong people and die.” </span> <br />- Moonstruck<br /><br />You know the way you just<br />run into people, as if by accident?<br />Strangers, I mean; this is<br />definitely the main theme<br />in all our lives. I've often heard<br />children can’t choose their parents.<br />So what? I say parents can’t choose<br />their kids. You take what you get,<br />but when it comes to chance encounters,<br />you never know what will happen.<br /><br />This is a poem about you, by the way.<br />OK, I may not know your name, sorry,<br />but I know you very well. This same stuff<br />has also happened to you, don’t even<br />begin to deny it. How did you meet<br />the first boy or girl you ever slept with?<br />How did you meet the person you married?<br />When did you start thinking, Omigod,<br />I wish, I wish I’d waited. Never at all?<br /><br />Liar. But that’s all right, because we all<br />tell lies to ourselves. We have to prop up<br />the façade of who we think we are, who<br />we think we want to be. Hey, it’s normal.<br />Otherwise you go quietly insane, take pills,<br />jump off some fuckin bridge, steer the car<br />in the oncoming lane. Reality is not good for people.<br />We need all those little ways of avoiding it,<br />so if we don’t fall down the stairs, don't get shot,<br />don't board the wrong plane, we make it to old age.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-36087286861701201092012-08-07T07:31:00.002+09:002012-08-07T07:33:10.805+09:00479. Afghanistan<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IP7cnyIdws4/UCBFyc3Mj8I/AAAAAAAAHic/j2aYDPgTvlU/s1600/Taliban-surrender-in-Kunar.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="210" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-IP7cnyIdws4/UCBFyc3Mj8I/AAAAAAAAHic/j2aYDPgTvlU/s320/Taliban-surrender-in-Kunar.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
There is an Afghan strain in me, loud and ebullient,<br />
as I wear helmets with colourful fluttering streamers<br />
that match my marvellous pantaloons. I tease<br />
my hair into ringlets, put dark kohl under my eyes,<br />
and look sexy, decadent and dangerous.<br />
<br />
This pleases me exceedingly.<br />
<br />
I know dancing boys with bums like peaches,<br />
alas, alas, on the other side of the river!<br />
<br />
When the British came the first time<br />
we murdered Sekundar Burnes, assassinated<br />
their commissar McNaughten, and simply waited.<br />
Elphinstone was an old man, a weak commander,<br />
he decided to retreat to British India.<br />
<br />
Hoo, hoo, hoo, what a fool!<br />
We cut them to pieces, murdered them all<br />
in the snowy passes from Gandamak to Jalalabad.<br />
What a wonderful killing time that was,<br />
and the old grandfathers made songs and poems.<br />
<br />
Now we have the Feringhi again, not Russians,<br />
but Amerikhani, Anghrezi, some others.<br />
Why do they keep returning? One wonders,<br />
since the result is ever and always the same.<br />
They die, we die, and in the end they leave.<br />
<br />
It has always been so.<br />
---------------------------------------------------<br />
historical reference: <a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Anglo-Afghan_War</a>Unknownnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7315098.post-58504261161892878092012-07-29T10:53:00.001+09:002012-07-29T10:53:28.294+09:00478. Dietramszell<img alt="Image" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4107/5064766975_0b98442576.jpg" /><br /><br />Hindenburg in his declining years<br />came often, old Prussian as he was,<br />to soften the hardness, tamp down<br />his fears. He was so old, near death.<br /><br />Each gasping breath brought pain:<br />He, first to know his time was over,<br />knew that the War had been long ago <br />but that the politics would remain.<br /><br />I imagine him in this Bavarian setting,<br />the low green slopes and distant mountains,<br />cap-doffings in the street, “Gruess Gott!”<br />The greetings of God, Herr Feldmarschall!<br /><br />His steps would have taken him to the church<br />which stands still now at the bottom of a hill,<br />and he would have gone in, the Old Junker,<br />sweeping aside sectarian differences.<br /><br />Bavarians were well known for being Catholic, <br />soft and fond of beer. It took Prussian steel<br />to instill real fear of God! Pause in the annex:<br />Fallen for Germany, 241 names, this small town.<br /><br />Slightly abashed, the Field Marshall proceeds.<br />The main door is opened and glory explodes:<br />there is no other word, all is white and gold<br />and decorative and completely unrestrained!<br /><br />This is the 18th century brought to life again:<br />baroque, rococo, architecture possibly designed<br />by pastry chefs, inedible incredible swirls of plaster.<br />The Field Marshall blinks once, twice. He smiles.Unknownnoreply@blogger.com