Uncle Wesli's Daily Epitaph for today, Tuesday, August 4, 2009

“The Writer’s Almanac with Garrison Keillor” for Tuesday, August 4^th, 2009, says these things on-line:

“The deans got a hold of the pamphlet,” and, “the 19-year-old Shelley eloped to Scotland with a 16-year-old girl, the daughter of a English pub owner.”

    Herewith, an epitaph for Shelley by his admirer Wesli Court, (all epitaphs copyrighted 2009, all rights reserved):

R.I.P. PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY

August 4, 1792-July 8, 1822

 

He said to the skylark, “bird thou never wert,”

A line for which no poet would give his shirt,

Nor even a pair of socks that were worn and smelly.

Nevertheless, we honor Percy Shelley. 

    An epitaph for August 5th:

R.I.P. CONRAD AIKEN

August 5, 1889-August 17, 1973

 

He found his parents’ murder-suicide

When he was but a child. Although he tried

His hand at death himself he was not taken

Till age took pity on old Conrad Aiken.

 On Thursday, August 6^th, in his piece on Tennyson’s birthday, Mr. Keillor wrote,

“They had traveled together through out Europe, and some scholars speculate that their relationship was more than platonic. Eventually, Hallam had become engaged to his Tennyson's sister.”

Keillor provides such fine examples of composition in the English language for the writers of America to emulate.

Here is an epitaph for Tennyson :

R.I.P. ALFRED TENNYSON

August 6, 1809-October 6, 1892

 

The purest poet of his time,

He did nothing else but rhyme,

So Fate bestowed the benison

Of fame and wealth on Tennyson.

On Friday, August 7, 2009, in his “Writer’s Almanac” Garrison Keillor quoted Leonard Nathan’s poem “Not to Trouble You” to this effect:

“Not to trouble you with love, I mean
/ those adolescent dreams of great, of greater,
/ or of greatest loving, let alone / the crumbly personal kind—“

One wonders in what way the personal kind of love is “crumbly”? Is it the same sort of thing as finding while putting on one’s shoes in the morning that “half a loafer is better than none”? Or that down south things aren’t what they’re crackered up to be? No, it’s probably more like working in a bleu cheese factory and finding that it’s a crumbly job after all.

         Keillor also reported that, “On this day in 1934, the U.S. Court of Appeals ruled in favor of the novel Ulysses, by James Joyce.”

One had no idea that an inanimate object like a novel could bring suit in a U. S. Court of Appeals! Gosh, one can learn so many things by reading “The Writer’s Almanac” on-line every morning.

On Sunday, August the 8, 2009, Garrison Keillor’s once again taught’s us something we didn’t know’s about English; he’s wrote,  “Izaak Walton's wrote mostly biographies,” and I’s wrote this in emulation of him’s wonderful way’s with word’s.

     Keillor also reminded us that today is Dryden's birthday and that “Nearly all of his writing he composed in heroic couplets,” so here’s another epitaph by Wesli Court:

 

R.I.P. JOHN DRYDEN

August 9, 1631-13 May 1700

 

When once he learned to write in pairs

Of lines he gave himself no airs

And never after tried to widen

The field of vision of John Dryden.

And here's one for Jack Foley:

R.I.P. JACK FOLEY

August 9, 1940

 

Here lies Jack Foley

Decomposing slowly.

When he composed faster

It was a disaster.

REPLY

Here lies the Turk

Who wrote with a smirk,

Decried by all men

When he wrote with a pen.

 

Jack Foley

 

 

But on a computer

None were acuter.

 

Happy 69 to you, though, Jack,

 

Wesli

 

From Neeli Cherkovski:

JACK FOLEY AT 69

 

holding one end of time

at the end of the day

holding one end of the sun

here in the beginning

holding time, hovering

thinking, making a dream

remain so that the land

inside of it might be revealed

as the passage widens

 

holding a dream inside

of time, telling the moon

I love you everywhere

I am 69, the world is

nearly as old as I am

there in the beginning

of days as the light

of the sun and moon spar

against the distant

longing to be for

ever who I am

From Jake Berry:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!



 

69 sure looks fine on you


and I don't mean to imply


any sexual act


Besides, using the Clinton definition,


the 69 position


is not actually sex in fact



 

What is it then?



 

It's pleasure, it's poetry,


it's a tap dance or foxtrot


depending on the music you've got


And what could be more amusing


than a life with the muses


whether you abuse it or not?



 

Take the extremes


the path of excess


wisdom rolls in like the tide.


69 is joy
f

or every girl and boy


willing to take the ride.



 

And the ride has just begun


there's so much left to be done,


so many songs to write and sing.


So pick up your lyre


and Dionysian fire


and mount the horse with wings!



 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY


to one hell of a poet


My hat, and most of my hair,


is off to you.

From Ivan Arguelles:

 

holy jumping bejeezus


if this monument hasn't


put on its quid of years!


silently heaped up time


has joined its holy 69
t

o the one you left over


last but leaping higher


still one hand in heaven


and t'other groping


for the Light!

 

From Mary-Marcia Casoly:

For Jack Foley 9669/MM

 

(Happy Birthday) Selamat Ulang Tahu*

don’t be afraid of the big barong

dance with the monkey

6 &9 ying/yang 

realize how much you are loved by so many

numerical acrobats 6 & 9 tumble

continue to bloom protectors

wise child throughout life

appear as twins standing for each other

which is which, give your reasons...

 the brightest star of Leo 

morning and night 6 & 9 sun moon

a myriad of subtle ways will tell 

being 69 light years from the earth... 

starbeam of Leo

 

*Indonesian for according to Google translator

 

From Katherine Hastings:

TWELVE LINES STOLEN ALMOST RANDOMLY BEFORE MIDNIGHT 

for Jack on his 69th Birthday

 

Ecstatic heights in thought and rhyme

The song of waiting and the shock of time

You must look up at the sky and act as if

 

The dream now beats more quickly than blood

This is the secret lamp burning under our gestures

In the air that consumes and strengthens

 

Burning red, jumbled and quivering

Each summer time to life.  Lo!  This is he,

And there could I marvel (his) birthday,

 

Pools and pasture shade

With bannerets and censors, with wimples and magic veils

The Birth of a Nation*

 

*How Jack signed his email tonight.

Jack's commentary:

Selamat Ulang Tahu

To me on my 6 plus 9

John Dryden should also rate a wahoo

His birth date’s the same as mine

As I scribble on scraps which I write between naps

In this mighty disorder called my den

’Twould be fine were I known as only the clone

Of that wonderful poet John Dryden

         Now here’s an epitaph for Monday, August 10^th 2009, and a homage (yes, a homage, unless you’re Cockney) to the Spectrist poets:

 

R.I.P. WITTER BYNNER

August 10, 1881-June 1, 1968

 

He helped to pull the Spectrist Hoax

With friends — their literary jokes

Were served like Knishes in a diner

By Arthur Ficke and Witter Bynner.

 

 

A SPECTRAL LAMENT

With Spectrist apologies to Emanuel Morgan.

 

I wish that I were crazy,

I wish that I were mad —

Alas!  I am but, Maizie,

A normal, noxious lad.

I would that I were otherwise

So I might make your tender eyes

Light up like thunder in the skies!

     If I were only dafter

     I might be making hymns

     To the liquor of your laughter

     And the lacquer of your limbs.

 

I'd take an artist's palette

And paint you, if I could,

The colors of a salad

All green and red and good.

I'd turn those cheeks so pale and saddish

The blushred of a summer radish;

I'd stop for aye my aubade-kaddish

     If I were only dafter

     I might be making hymns

     To the liquor of your laughter

     And the lacquer of your limbs.

 

I love the way you simper

When you've had one or two:

It makes me want to whimper

And drink a toast of dew

Or coat you overall with varnish

To keep away Time's bitter tarnish —

Lord knows I don't want you to vanish!

     If I were only dafter

     I might be making hymns

     To the liquor of your laughter

     And the lacquer of your limbs.

 

I'm just a small town slacker;

I'm not much, that I know.

Some greasy city slicker

No doubt will be your beau,

But I would run a country mile,

My Maizie dear, to see you smile

As you come slewing down the aisle

Grinning at me all the while,

Your yellow teeth all neat in file,

Your boring eyes as bright as oil;

     If I were only dafter

     I might be making hymns

     To the liquor of your laughter

     And the lacquer of your limbs.

 

“A Spectral Lament” is from The Collected Lyrics of Lewis Turco / Wesli Court 1953-2004, Scottsdale, AZ: Star Cloud Press, © 2004 by Lewis Turco, all rights reserved. 

 

    

Here is an epitaph for Tuesday, August 11th, 2009:

R.I.P. LOUISE BOGAN

August 11, 1897-February 4, 1970

 

Her mother flaunted each affair

Which taught the young Louise to fear

Uncertainty, and thus began

The formal structures of Bogan.

    Here is an epitaph for Wedesday, August, 12, 2009:

BLUES FOR DONALD JUSTICE

12 August 1925-6 August 2004

 

Well, Don, I guess we knew you’d have to leave;

We hoped not, but we saw you had to leave,

And now we see it’s time for us to grieve.

 

We knew you young, we knew you when we all

Were young — you included, when we all

Were wrapped in language, held in hypnotic thrall

 

By sound and metre, couplet, quatrain, thrime,

By rhythm in the line, caesura, rhyme,

And it was you who showed us how to chime.

 

You read our work with care, closely, with care.

You read us with intelligence and care.

You let your annoyance show, but you were fair

 

When we were lax or earless, when we were mules.

Thank you for giving us the poet’s tools. 

Copyright 2009 by Lewis Turco. All rights reserved.

Garrison Keillor wrote of William Maxwell in “The Writer’s Almanac” for Sunday, August 16, “His last book, a collection of stories and fables called All the Days and Nights, he first started to work on, he said, ‘because my wife like to have me tell her stories when we were in bed in the dark before falling asleep.’ “

Me like that she like that, like, what not to like?

Here is a Wesli Court epitaph for today:

 

 

R.I.P. ANDREW MARVELL

31 March 1621 – 16 August 1678)

 

He had not world enough, nor time,

For coyness, but enough for rime

To spin its web and develop larval

Verse forms to make Andrew Marvell.

Here is an epitaph for Monday, August 17, 2009:

 

 

R.I.P. TED HUGHES

August 17, 1930 – October 28, 1998

 

“He often put himself into a trance before he writing,

and he tried to take the point of view of animals.”

— Garrison Keillor.

“He often put himself into a trance

Before he writing,” and before he dance.

He always asking animals for views,

And now he make believe he dead Ted Hughes.

         Today, Tuesday, August 18, 2009, Garrison Keillor published a poem titled “This Longing” by Martin Steingesser. I don’t know whether the errors to be found in the poem are by Steingesser or Keillor, but at one point the poem says, “…this / is what I wanted, to lie with you in the dark / listening how rain sounds….” One assumes one of the two knew that there ought to be a “to” between “listening: and “how”: “…listening [to] how rain sounds….”

         Later on Steingesser says, “and maybe
/ it will be still, as now, the longing / that carries us
/ into each other's arms

/ asleep, neither speaking
/ least it all too soon turn to morning….”

         Good grief. The word underlined should be lest, not “least.” This “poem” is from an actually published book, from “Deerbrook Edition, 2002.” Even that is a typographical error because, according to their web page, the publisher is “Deerbrook Editions," plural, not singular. Apparently nobody, not Steingesser, not the editors of Deerbrook, and not Garrison Keillor, either, cares enough about the presentation of the English language to catch these things before they are set up in print or put up for viewing on the Web.

         Later on in the posting, quoting sci-fi writer Brian Aldiss, Keillor writes, “’Science fiction is no more written for scientists that ghost stories are written for ghosts.’” That is obviously Keillor’s typo. “The Writer’s Almanac” continues to be our foremost purveyor of typographical and grammatical errors on the Internet.

         Here is a Wesli Court epitaph for today, August 19, 2009, the birthday of Ogden Nash, one of the greatest epigrammatists of all time, and the inventor of rhymed prose poems:

 

R.I.P. OGDEN NASH

August 19, 1902 – May 19, 1971)

 

The poet lives ‘twixt prose and verse

Than which no fix can be much worse,

But then along came Ogden Nash

Who turned the whole thing into cash.

REMARKS

Loved it!

Thanks for sharing,

-S.

Ogden was a Nashional treasure.

Rhina

  

Let me tell you, THAT made me Nash my teeth. Nashurally, that's what you intended.

Lew

Hi, Lew,

I was just mentioning Ogden Nash to someone a couple of days ago and lamenting the fact that he seems mostly forgotten. I still enjoy his artful humor on occasion. I think your "Epitaph" is a fitting tribute: it captures his "essence" perfectly.

Best to Jean and you,

Jack

Dear 'Wesli," thanks for the Nashigram — can you offer a sample or two of his rhymed prose poems?

 Best to you,

 Dan[iel]Ger[ard Hoff]man

 

 Dear DanGerMan,

 I don’t suppose that in good conscience I can

provide you with an honest-to-god sample of an

Ogden Nash poem made of prose

Without violating copyright, but maybe I can give you a little bit of an imitative example — who knows?

I can certainly give it a try,

but I’m a bit puzzled as to the reason you’d want me to, and wondering why

you’d want an example of a Nasher anyway when you’ve been reading his work all your life long

and all you need to do is Google his name to find some silly song

he’s written or a paragraph or two of prose gone wrong or maybe even correctly

in some weird way or other and not only alonely but interconnectly.

 Will this do? If so, see you,

 

Lew

 P. S. In the course of this conversation I discovered that I'd already written an epitaph for Ogden Nash:

 

R.I.P. OGDEN NASH

August 19, 1902-May 19, 1971

 

A son of Rye but nephew of the word,

He courted everything that was absurd

And caught it sometimes with élan, panache,

And often with the bite of Ogden Nash.

 

Maybe we could run a contest to see who likes which one better.

My favorite Nash-ism:

"Great Caesar's ghost is on the shelf...and I don't feel so good myself!"

John Kares Smith

 

 

Thanks! 

I like the "son of Rye" one best, I think. Though both are deft and a pleasure to read, the lines "nephew of the word" and the absurd rhyme are satisfying.  So there's my vote.

Best,

Ruth E. Harrison

 

And thank you, Ruth. Your vote is the first.

Lew

 

Nice!

Pres. Stephen L. Weber

SDSU

 

You have my vote for all three. . .

Dan Hoffman

Lew,

Now...stop playing with your words. You'll go blind.

George

 

I haven't gone blind yet. What do you play with these days?

Lew

 

What do I play with these daya? Whatever I can get my hands on. My guitar. The remote control. But mostly an old wrinkly friend with one eye who needs help getting up.

Yours,

George

 

Pretty good, George. Glad to see you’re still doing stand-up comedy.

Lew

Here is an epitaph for today, August 20, 2009:

R.I.P. EDGAR GUEST

August 20, 1881-August 5, 1959

 

He wrote, “It takes a heap o’ livin’ to make a house a home,”

And found it took a lot less work to make a rhyming tome,

So rather than become a sort of versifying pest,

He thought he’d move right in and stay an Edgar-present Guest.

Lew,

Thanks for sharing and always making my day more interesting.

I have a young friend who just received a master's in chemistry but who only wants to write! I hope you don't mind if I share your work with him. We are, of course, trying to think of "jobs" where he could use his writing abilities inasmuch as he just graduated and is now looking for a job. I feel so fortunate that I was able to publish Poet magazine for those years because that fed my

creativity. When the angel of death comes to me and says, "What was the best time of your life?" I will reply, "Poet magazine." hahaha

Hope all is well with you,

Peggy Cooper

 

Peggy,

Why would I mind? Miller Williams was a high school math teacher when he decided to be a full-time poet. He taught at the University of Arkansas for decades and was the director of their Press. I wrote one of his first job recommendations when I was a parvenu teacher myself at Fenn College, which is now Cleveland State University.

I’m okay this week, thanks.

Lew