We Don't Need No Stinking Messiah's In the Peng Challenge Thread

[Moraine Sedai]

Well...looks like there's a Happy Belated Birthday due for Speedy - though the rest of us may bemoan his continued existence.

And a Happy Anniversary for Noba...along with condolences to his wife that she hasn't managed to off him yet and, therefore, still has some years to put up with him.

Congrats, gentlemen!

[Noba]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Noba:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Guys who get married are slow on the uptake.

Michael

Today is my 32nd weding anniversary...

Thankyou.

Noba. </font>

[Noba]

Originally posted by Moraine Sedai:

Well...looks like there's a Happy Belated Birthday due for Speedy - though the rest of us may bemoan his continued existence.

And a Happy Anniversary for Noba...along with condolences to his wife that she hasn't managed to off him yet and, therefore, still has some years to put up with him.

Congrats, gentlemen!

Why thankee, M'Lady. May I say that you are so much more pleasant than that skanky JoeBob.

My dear wife tells me, often, that I have many redeeming qualities. Unfortunately that implies that I have many that arn't so redeeming...

When she finds some of the first, no doubt I shall be told.

Noba.

[Michael Emrys]

Emma said:

At the end of the day it's a ring, and no matter how gorgeous or expensive it may be it isn't going to keep you warm at night....

But I would. I'm a regular heater.

[waggles eyebrows]

Michael

[Boo Radley]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

[waggles eyebrows]

Don't do that. I think I can safely speak for everyone here when I say it just makes us all feel icky.

[Hiram Sedai]

Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Emma said:

At the end of the day it's a ring, and no matter how gorgeous or expensive it may be it isn't going to keep you warm at night....

But I would. I'm a regular heater.

[waggles eyebrows]

Michael </font>

[Michael Emrys]

Originally posted by Boo Radley:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Michael Emrys:

[waggles eyebrows]

Don't do that. I think I can safely speak for everyone here when I say it just makes us all feel icky. </font>

[stikkypixie]

I swear I'll RIP them off EMRYS, RIP them off your face I will!!!

[Guest konrad]

[Boo Radley]

Originally posted by lenakonrad:

If Adolph Hitler had become a film director as his mother wanted, the "Our Gang" comedies might have had a slightly different flavor...

[OGSF]

Ats guid tae see ye agin, Lenakonrad! Wailcome back!

[BFCElvis]

Wankers.

[**YK2**]

Originally posted by lenakonrad:

Ohhhhhh hello Konrad ...

*Waggles eyebrows*

[Moraine Sedai]

*refrains from giving lenakonrad a big hug as it would be unseemly in my new position*

Welcome back. Still bringing the same depth of conversation to the 'Pool, I see.

Carry on.

heh

[Moraine Sedai]

Time for one of the "classics":

JABBERWOCKY

Lewis Carroll

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

"Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!"

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought --

So rested he by the Tumtum tree,

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

"And, has thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"

He chortled in his joy.

`Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

[Nidan1]

What's it like there outside

With the living, with the living

Here I've found a place I can hide

From the living, from the living

Because I don't care to stay with the living

Oh, the bottle has been to me

My closest friend, my worst enemy

For a flavor I walked a fine life

Squandered it all and wasted my time

And I don't stand a chance among the living

For the lovers I've gambled and lost

Count my mistakes whatever the cost

I'll go off, I'll make myself scarce

Oh, come tomorrow

You won't find me here

Because I don't care to stay with the living

I don't think I'll remain with the living

And I don't care to stay with the living

No, I don't care to stay

[**YK2**]

T. S. Eliot: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock (1919)

Let us go then, you and I,

When the evening is spread out against the sky

Like a patient etherized upon a table;

Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,

The muttering retreats

Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels

And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Streets that follow like a tedious argument

Of insidious intent

To lead you to an overwhelming question . . .

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?"

Let us go and make our visit.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,

The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes

Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,

Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,

Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,

Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,

And seeing that it was a soft October night,

Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.

And indeed there will be time

For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,

Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;

There will be time, there will be time

To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;

There will be time to murder and create,

And time for all the works and days of hands

That lift and drop a question on your plate;

Time for you and time for me,

And time yet for a hundred indecisions,

And for a hundred visions and revisions,

Before the taking of a toast and tea.

In the room the women come and go

Talking of Michelangelo.

And indeed there will be time

To wonder, "Do I dare?" and, "Do I dare?"

Time to turn back and descend the stair,

With a bald spot in the middle of my hair--

[They will say: "How his hair is growing thin!"]

My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,

My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin--

[They will say: "But how his arms and legs are thin!"]

Do I dare

Disturb the universe?

In a minute there is time

For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.

For I have known them all already, known them all:--

Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons,

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;

I know the voices dying with a dying fall

Beneath the music from a farther room.

So how should I presume?

And I have known the eyes already, known them all--

The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,

And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,

When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,

Then how should I begin

To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways?

And how should I presume?

And I have known the arms already, known them all--

Arms that are braceleted and white and bare

[but in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]

Is it perfume from a dress

That makes me so digress?

Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.

And should I then presume?

And how should I begin?

. . . . .

Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets

And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes

Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows? . . .

I should have been a pair of ragged claws

Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.

. . . . .

And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully!

Smoothed by long fingers,

Asleep . . . tired . . . or it malingers,

Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.

Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,

Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis?

But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,

Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,

I am no prophet--and here's no great matter;

I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,

And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,

And in short, I was afraid.

And would it have been worth it, after all,

After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,

Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,

Would it have been worth while,

To have bitten off the matter with a smile,

To have squeezed the universe into a ball

To roll it toward some overwhelming question,

To say: "I am Lazarus, come from the dead

Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all"--

If one, settling a pillow by her head,

Should say: "That is not what I meant at all.

That is not it, at all."

And would it have been worth it, after all,

Would it have been worth while,

After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,

After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the

floor--

And this, and so much more?--

It is impossible to say just what I mean!

But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen:

Would it have been worth while

If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,

And turning toward the window, should say:

"That is not it at all,

That is not what I meant, at all."

. . . . .

No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;

Am an attendant lord, one that will do

To swell a progress, start a scene or two,

Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,

Deferential, glad to be of use,

Politic, cautious, and meticulous;

Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse

At times, indeed, almost ridiculous--

Almost, at times, the Fool.

I grow old . . .I grow old . . .

I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.

Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?

I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.

I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.

I do not think that they will sing to me.

I have seen them riding seaward on the waves

Combing the white hair of the waves blown back

When the wind blows the water white and black.

We have lingered in the chambers of the sea

By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown

Till human voices wake us, and we drown.

Yes it would be worth it ... after all.....

[Moraine Sedai]

Nidan dear - nice, but a tad morose. Who's work is that?

Emma, dahlink, that was haunting. And because, especially, of the ending, it got me thinking of Kelpies...are kelpies a Scottish or an Irish mythical being? I can't remember...

...Now where'd I put my Kubla Khan? *rummages*

Kubla Khan

Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1798

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan

A stately pleasure-dome decree:

Where Alph, the sacred river, ran

Through caverns measureless to man

Down to a sunless sea.

So twice five miles of fertile ground

With walls and towers were girdled round:

And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree;

And here were forests ancient as the hills,

Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

But oh! that deep romantic chasm which slanted

Down the green hill athwart a cedarn cover!

A savage place! as holy and enchanted

As e'er beneath a waning moon was haunted

By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

And from this chasm, with ceaseless turmoil seething,

As if this earth in fast thick pants were breathing,

A mighty fountain momently was forced;

Amid whose swift half-intermitted burst

Huge fragments vaulted like rebounding hail,

Or chaffy grain beneath the thresher's flail:

And 'mid these dancing rocks at once and ever

It flung up momently the sacred river.

Five miles meandering with a mazy motion

Through wood and dale the sacred river ran,

Then reached the caverns measureless to man,

And sank in tumult to a lifeless ocean:

And 'mid this tumult Kubla heard from far

Ancestral voices prophesying war!

The shadow of the dome of pleasure

Floated midway on the waves:

Where was heard the mingled measure

From the fountain and the caves.

It was a miracle of rare device,

A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice!

A damsel with a dulcimer

In a vision once I saw:

It was an Abyssinian maid,

And on her dulcimer she played,

Singing of Mount Abora.

Could I revive within me

Her symphony and song,

To such a deep delight 't would win me

That with music loud and long,

I would build that dome in air,

That sunny dome! those caves of ice!

And all who heard should see them there,

And all should cry, Beware! Beware!

His flashing eyes, his floating hair!

Weave a circle round him thrice,

And close your eyes with holy dread,

For he on honey-dew hath fed,

And drunk the milk of Paradise.

[Nidan1]

Lady Moraine , its a song by Natalie Merchant...here's another...equally if not more melancholy....I'm in that kinda mood tonight.

Take a look at my body

Look at my hands

There's so much here that I don't understand

Your face-saving promises

Whispered like prayers

I don't need them

'cause I've been treated so wrong,

I've been treated so long

As if I'm becoming untouchable well,

contempt loves the silence, it thrives in the dark

The fine-winding tendrils that strangle the heart

They say that promises sweeten the blow

but I don't need them, no I don't need them

I've been treated so wrong,

I've been treated so long

As if I'm becoming untouchable

I'm a slow-dying flower

In the frost-killing hour

Sweet turning sour and untouchable

I need the darkness, the sweetness, the sadness, the weakness

Oh I need this

I need a lullaby, a kiss goodnight, angel, sweet love of my life

Oh I need this

I'm a slow-dying flower

Frost-killing hour

The sweet turning sour and untouchable

Do you remember the way that you touched me before

All the trembling sweetness I loved and adored

Your face-saving promises

Whispered liked prayers

I don't need them

I need the darkness, the sweetness, the sadness, the weakness

Oh, I need this

I need a lullaby, a kiss goodnight, angel, sweet love of my life

Oh, I need this

Well is it dark enough

Can you see me

Do you want me

Can you reach me

Oh, I'm leaving

Better shut your mouth, and hold your breath

You kiss me now, you catch your death

Oh, I mean this

Oh, I mean this

[Boo Radley]

You darkness, that I come from,

I love you more than all the fires

that fence in the world,

for the fire makes

a circle of light for everyone,

and then no one outside learns of you.

But the darkness pulls in everything:

shapes and fires, animals and myself,

how easily it gathers them--

powers and people--

and it is possible a great energy

is moving near me.

I have faith in nights.

Rainer Maria Rilke

[OGSF]

Och mousey, di ye ken?

Ah ploughed ye wee housey oop agin,

Ah'm sorry tae ye, boot ye sae simple lived,

An' build ye wee house agin

An' Ah fergot tha worrrds,

Mah leef as sae complicated, wi' plans an' demands,

Boot wee mousey ye housey as trashed an'

All ye kin di as build at agin.

- (after) Rabbie Burns

[Seanachai]

Och, where's me wee happy bunny? Ah'm feelin' affectionate!

And here's a wee poem:

Song of the Broken Giraffe

I have heard the song of the broken giraffe, and sung it...

The frozen sun has browned me to a rumor and slanted my navel.

I have consorted with vulgar crocodiles on banks of lewd rivers.

Yes, it is true, God has become mad, from centuries of frustration.

When I think of all the girls I never made love to, I am shocked.

Every time they elect me President, I hide in the bathroom.

When you come, bring me a tourniquet for our wounded moon.

In an emergency, I can rearrange your beautiful wreckage

With broken giraffe demolitions and lovely colorless explosions.

Come, you sexy Ferris wheel, ignore my illustrated bathing suit.

Don't laugh at my ignorance, I may be a great bullfighter, òle!

I wanted to compose a great mass, but I couldn't kneel properly.

Yes, they did tempt me with airplanes, but I wouldn't bite, no sir-ee.

Unable to avoid hospitals, I still refused to become a doctor.

They continued to throw reason, but I failed in the clutch again.

It's true, I no longer use my family as a frame of reference.

The clothing they gave me was smart but no good for train wrecks.

I continued to love despite all the traffic-light difficulties.

In most cases, a sane hermit will beat a good big man.

We waited in vain for the forest fire, but the bus was late.

All night we baked the government into a big mud pie.

Not one century passed without Shakespeare calling us dirty names.

With all those syllables, we couldn't write a cheerful death notice.

The man said we could have a birthday party if we surrendered.

Their soldiers refused o wear evening gowns on guard duty.

Those men in the basement are former breakfast-food salesmen.

We had a choice of fantasies, but naturally we were greedy.

If they leave me alone, I will become a fallen-leaf tycoon.

Maybe Peter Rabbit will forgive us our trespasses; one never knows.

At the moment of truth we were dancing a minuet and missed out.

After the nuns went home, the Pope threw a big masquerade ball.

When the hemlock turned rancid, I returned the cup at once, yes sir-ee.

Hurry, the barometer's falling; bring a storm before it's too late.

We shall reserve evenings for murder or television, whichever is convenient.

Yes, beyond a shadow of a doubt, Rumpelstiltskin was emotionally disturbed.

-Bob Kaufman

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by Nidan1:

Lady Moraine , its a song by Natalie Merchant...

You know, for a moment I mis-read the stream of gibberish, and I thought your reply was in regards to Emma's posting of 'The Lovesong of J. Alfred Prufrock'.

And I thought: Oh, Nidan is so going to Hell.

But then I realized that you were responding about an earlier post of your own, where you did, in fact, post the lyrics of a song by Natalie Merchant.

And then I shrugged.

You're still going to Hell. Best place for you, if you listen to Natalie Merchant.

[dalem]

Natalie Merchant is that teeny chickie who sounds like she has a mouth full of marbles and is always leaning to one side.

Bleah.

[Seanachai]

Originally posted by dalem:

Natalie Merchant is that teeny chickie who sounds like she has a mouth full of marbles and is always leaning to one side.

Bleah.

No, that's Condoleeza Rice.