Auld Lang Syne -- Robert Burns

Guest poem sent in by Mark Penney

(Poem #1585) Auld Lang Syne Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And never brought to mind? Should auld acquaintance be forgot, And auld lang syne! Chorus.-For auld lang syne, my dear, For auld lang syne. We'll tak a cup o' kindness yet, For auld lang syne. And surely ye'll be your pint stowp! And surely I'll be mine! And we'll tak a cup o'kindness yet, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c. We twa hae run about the braes, And pou'd the gowans fine; But we've wander'd mony a weary fit, Sin' auld lang syne. For auld, &c. We twa hae paidl'd in the burn, Frae morning sun till dine; But seas between us braid hae roar'd Sin’ auld lang syne. For auld, &c. And there's a hand, my trusty fere! And gie's a hand o’ thine! And we'll tak a right gude-willie waught, For auld lang syne. For auld, &c. -- Robert Burns

     (to a traditional Scottish tune)

I was looking through the archives, and was surprised not to find this.  In
honor of the season, you too can sing the third verse while everyone else at
the party stares at you like the geek that you are!

Yes, it's by the poet Robert Burns (well sort of, maybe--see below), best
known for the one about the mouse.  There is a good selection of his other
work in the archives.

Authorship and text are both problematic.  As to authorship, Burns claimed
to his publisher that he was transcribing an old traditional Scottish song.
However, no documentation of this older song has ever been found.  (There
are, however, older but much-different songs that contain a few of the lines
above, which were probably known to Burns.)  At minimum, we're fairly
certain that Burns wrote the two stanzas that begin "We twa", since he later
acknowledged having written both of them.  Some but not all authorities
think he wrote most of the rest as well.

As to text, there’s no agreement whatever on the order of the stanzas (I've
found three different versions with three different orderings).  Moreover,
Burns submitted several manuscripts to his publisher with slight variations
in the words; older versions had "jo" in place of "dear" in the chorus, for
example.

The tune we know is a very old Scottish tune, which far predates Burns.

Seventy percent or so of the Scottish dialect in this poem is easy to figure
out if you simply recite in a very thick accent and listen to what you're
saying (it's phonetic, mostly).  About half the rest can be found in a
decent dictionary.  As for the remainder: a pint-stowp is a tankard, a gowan
is a daisy, "fit" here means "foot", and a gude-willie waught (lit.,
"good-will-y draft") is a friendly beer.

Final remark: I love the fact that everyone sings it with at least a few
apparently incorrect words.

--Mark

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Vegan Delight -- Benjamin Zephaniah

Guest poem sent in by Arvind Natarajan

(Poem #1584) Vegan Delight Ackees, chapatties Dumplins an nan, Channa an rotis Onion uttapam, Masala dosa Green callaloo Bhel an samosa Corn an aloo. Yam an cassava Pepperpot stew, Rotlo an guava Rice an tofu, Puri, paratha Sesame casserole, Brown eggless pasta An brown bread rolls. Soya milked muesli Soya bean curd, Soya sweet sweeties Soya's de word, Soya bean margarine Soya bean sauce What can mek medicine? Soya of course. Soya meks yoghurt Soya ice-cream, Or soya sorbet Soya reigns supreme, Soya sticks liquoriced Soya salads Try any soya dish Soya is bad. Plantain an tabouli Cornmeal pudding Onion bhajee Wid plenty cumin, Breadfruit an coconuts Molasses tea Dairy free omelettes Very chilli. Ginger bread, nut roast Sorrell, paw paw, Cocoa an rye toast I tek dem on tour, Drinking cool maubi Meks me feel sweet, What was dat question now? What do we eat? -- Benjamin Zephaniah

Found that Minstrels didn't list any Zephaniahs.  Watched the HARDtalk
program with this outspoken poet when he refused the offer of OBE (in Nov
2003), by publishing an article in 'The Guardian'.

Far from his political outcries, the above is a typical children's poem with
nice rhyming all along.  What interested me is how much the Indian food has
integrated into the British staple diet. (even onion uttappams! soon chutney
& sambar will accompany it) No wonder then that Chicken Tikka Masala ranks
as the No. 1 dish of England. [In particular, good *vegetarian* food is far
more likely than not to be Indian - martin]

And two paragraphs for soya - makes one wonder why is he is so obsessed with
it.

From 'The Guardian' article :

    Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that
    word "empire"; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years
    of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my
    forefathers brutalised.

The full article at :
[broken link] http://books.guardian.co.uk/poetry/features/0,12887,1094009,00.html

Arvind

[Links]

Zephaniah's home page: http://www.benjaminzephaniah.com/

Biography: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zephaniah

See also the similar "Bleezer's Ice Cream" [Poem #1055]

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Go and play in the middle -- John Hegley

Guest poem sent in by Steve Axbey

(Poem #1583) Go and play in the middle my Mum used to watch out of the window these boys who played football on the green in front of the bungalow she used to stand well back so she couldn't be seen and when the ball hit the wall of our garden she said to my Dad it's hit our wall again Bob go out and tell them and my Dad would go out and tell them maybe eight or nine times in a day to go and play in the middle and immediately he had told them my Mum would be on the watch for the next time he would need sending out and sometimes it was only a few moments after he had come back in -- John Hegley

In the bright and innocent days of 'alternative comedy' John Hegley was
known as an 'alternative poet' and for a while he was on TV quite regularly
here in the UK.  Rarely seen on the box now, he still tours the country
performing in his one-man shows and is a regular at the Edinburgh festival -
catch him if you can.

This poem is a very early one of his - not sure why I chose this particular
one amongst many others, for some reason it just made me laugh the most when
I was re-reading the book this evening.  But I don't think it's a bad choice
- it's pretty representative: his Dad, his Bungalow and his childhood in
Luton feature regularly in his poems - he's not just kept in touch with his
roots, he's positively milked them :-)

And I know he wouldn't mind me saying that - typical of Hegley, he's even
written an poem poking fun at the way he writes poems poking fun at his
roots. Here it is [assuming that Martin and Abraham don't notice me
smuggling, deftly, a second poem into my submission] [we've done it
ourselves! - martin]

LUTON
(a poem about the town of my upbringing and the conflict between my working
class origins and the middle class status conferred upon me by a university
education)

    I remember Luton
    as I'm swallowing my crout'n

[two poems eh? how on earth is Sitaram going to fit that into his index?]
[the index is large, it contains multitudes - martin]

To really appreciate his poems you have to hear John read them himself -
there's a brief sound bite on his website [broken link] http://www.johnhegley.co.uk ,
where there's a also a biog, merchandise etc. If you'd like to hear him he's
actually on tour in the UK at the moment (winter 2004), details on the site.

Enjoy
Stephen Axbey

[Links]

Reiterating the link to Hegley's site: [broken link] http://www.johnhegley.co.uk

And go reread Poem #1407 while you're at it :)

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The Photograph -- Constantine Cavafy

Guest poem sent in by Ian Shields

(Poem #1582) The Photograph In this obscene photograph secretly sold the policeman mustn't see) around the corner, in this whorish photograph, how did such a dream-like face make its way; How did you get in here? Who knows what a degrading, vulgar life you lead; how horrible the surroundings must have been when you posed to have the picture taken; what a cheap soul you must have. But in spite of all this, and even more, you remain for me the dream-like face, the figure shaped for and dedicated to Hellenic love— that's how you remain for me and how my poetry speaks of you. -- Constantine Cavafy

     (Konstantinos P. Kabaphes, 1863-1933)
     translated from Greek by Edmund Keeley and George Savidis

This is a distressing poem. Cavafy lived and died in the Hellenic community
of Alexandria, Egypt. His English translators note that in the original he
uses a subtle combination of classical and Demotic (vernacular) Greek that
has no equivalent in the English language. Despite this barrier, I find that
all of his various translators convey a deep, stark voice that is remarkably
powerful. His work is represented on your website (poems 217, 296, and 522)
and for further information and work by Cavafy, see
http://users.hol.gr/~barbanis/cavafy/

Cavafy wrote a number of erotic poems, all directed at men; thus, I assume
that individual portrayed in the photograph described in this poem is a boy
or young man. I am a psychologist who deals exclusively with incarcerated 16
and 17-year olds. Each of them is brought to me because he has done terrible
things. Some, in fact many of them, have also had terrible things done to
them; this sometimes explains (but never excuses) their behaviour. In the
course of my career I suppose hundreds of them have disclosed to me, in the
depths of therapy, that they have been sexually abused. Some have explained
that the evil men who did these things to them have "commemorated" the event
with photographs and videos that are being distributed on the internet. The
knowledge that similarly evil men continue to "enjoy" their abuse adds to
the horror.

Cavafy depicts a "similarly evil" man in his poem. His narrator describes
the "dream-like face" of the young man depicted in the photograph and
speculates on his "cheap soul". Yet it is the narrator's own cheap soul that
nauseates the reader.

Picasso once said that art is more than pretty pictures to put up on the
wall. Thus, art can be ugly. What is it that makes Cavafy's ugly words art?
For me, paradoxically, it is because his words are so distressing. To quote
another poet, (William Wordsworth in Elegiac Stanzas) "A deep distress hath
humanised my soul".

-Ian Shields

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Little Tree -- e e cummings

Guest poem sent in by Sasha Nyary

(Poem #1581) Little Tree little tree little silent Christmas tree you are so little you are more like a flower who found you in the green forest and were you very sorry to come away? see i will comfort you because you smell so sweetly i will kiss your cool bark and hug you safe and tight just as your mother would, only don't be afraid look the spangles that sleep all the year in a dark box dreaming of being taken out and allowed to shine, the balls the chains red and gold the fluffy threads, put up your little arms and i'll give them all to you to hold every finger shall have its ring and there won't a single place dark or unhappy then when you're quite dressed you'll stand in the window for everyone to see and how they'll stare! oh but you'll be very proud and my little sister and i will take hands and looking up at our beautiful tree we'll dance and sing "Noel Noel" -- e e cummings

I didn't see this in the archives and thought I'd suggest it in honor of the
season. I first read this poem in a lovely picture book that my six-year-old
daughter owns. I like the strong images and the personification of this
lonely, scared little tree that is adopted into the family and celebrated.
Of course what is unspoken is that it's going out in the trash on December 26!
But the tree doesn't have to know that.

Sasha Nyary

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A Ritual to Read to Each Other -- William Stafford

Guest poem sent in by Chip Adams

(Poem #1580) A Ritual to Read to Each Other If you don't know the kind of person I am and I don't know the kind of person you are a pattern that others made may prevail in the world and following the wrong god home we may miss our star. For there is many a small betrayal in the mind, a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood storming out to play through the broken dyke. And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail, but if one wanders the circus won't find the park, I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty to know what occurs but not recognize the fact. And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy, a remote important region in all who talk: though we could fool each other, we should consider-- lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark. For it is important that awake people be awake, or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep; the signals we give--yes, no, or maybe-- should be clear: the darkness around us is deep. -- William Stafford

This a poem that pretty clearly speaks for itself, at least in its plea that
we listen very carefully to each other and take the time to be clear in what
we communicate.  I find that as a schoolteacher my biggest task is simply to
listen to my students--to listen hard and long; they need this more than
almost anything.  (One student's observation: "Our lives have been molded by
neglect.") And as a husband, a father, and a citizen, I think that the
message is crucially important.

And the rhyme scheme of the poem is cool.

- Chip Adams

[Links]

About William Stafford:
http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stafford/about.htm
parent page: http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/s_z/stafford/stafford.htm

Biography: [broken link] http://www.unl.edu/plains/events/resource/staffordbio.html

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Heaven -- Rupert Brooke

Guest poem sent in by William Grey

(Poem #1579) Heaven Fish (fly-replete, in depth of June, Dawdling away their wat'ry noon) Ponder deep wisdom, dark or clear, Each secret fishy hope or fear. Fish say, they have their Stream and Pond; But is there anything Beyond? This life cannot be All, they swear, For how unpleasant, if it were! One may not doubt that, somehow, Good Shall come of Water and of Mud; And, sure, the reverent eye must see A Purpose in Liquidity. We darkly know, by Faith we cry, The future is not Wholly Dry. Mud unto mud! -- Death eddies near -- Not here the appointed End, not here! But somewhere, beyond Space and Time, Is wetter water, slimier slime! And there (they trust) there swimmeth One Who swam ere rivers were begun, Immense, of fishy form and mind, Squamous, omnipotent, and kind; And under that Almighty Fin, The littlest fish may enter in. Oh! never fly conceals a hook, Fish say, in the Eternal Brook, But more than mundane weeds are there, And mud, celestially fair; Fat caterpillars drift around, And Paradisal grubs are found; Unfading moths, immortal flies, And the worm that never dies. And in that Heaven of all their wish, There shall be no more land, say fish. -- Rupert Brooke

This poem by Rupert Brooke (1887-1915) is based on a simple idea, and not an
original one at that -- it is an idea that goes back at least to the ancient
Greek philosopher Xenophanes (c.570 - c.475 BC), who suggested that horses
(if they could draw) would draw the gods like horses, and cattle like
cattle...

It is however a wonderful articulation of the idea -- perhaps germinated in
idle summer reverie on a punt at Grantchester.

William Grey

[Martin adds]

Brooke is one of my favourite 'comfort poets' (by analogy with comfort food) -
I know that I can always pick up one of his poems and be guaranteed a
pleasurable experience. Today's poem is a great example.

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