tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post3558608318085705689..comments2024-01-28T03:56:39.351-08:00Comments on TOM CLARK: A Basket of SnakesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-27297315516234012392012-03-28T19:40:19.974-07:002012-03-28T19:40:19.974-07:00Despondency and madness ... no wonder I'm so b...Despondency and madness ... no wonder I'm so busy doing nothing.Robbhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12312524900784740898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-36712366977544466902012-03-26T05:31:07.535-07:002012-03-26T05:31:07.535-07:00Stanza VII of Wordsworth's poem Resolution and...Stanza VII of Wordsworth's poem Resolution and Independence goes like this:<br /><br />I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous Boy,<br />The sleepless Soul that perished in his pride;<br />Of Him who walked in glory and in joy<br />Following his plough, along the mountain-side:<br />By our own spirits are we deified:<br />We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;<br />But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.<br /><br />The "marvellous Boy" was dead at 17; the ploughman is Robert Burns, dead at 37.<br /><br />I don't know how much Joy and Gladness WW himself would go on to experience in old age. Comfort, yes. A post office sinecure, nice. But one suspects the despondent moments crept in every now and again, the morose brown studies.<br /><br />But now, Nin's mother -- better than joy and gladness or despondency and madness is good old tough laconic wit.<br /><br />Popcorn!TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-55357037131856546382012-03-25T10:43:00.849-07:002012-03-25T10:43:00.849-07:00TC:
I wonder at the Wordsworth ... it seems, for ...TC:<br /><br />I wonder at the Wordsworth ... it seems, for himself at least, he got it backwards ...<br /><br />DonIssa's Untidy Huthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07352841590717991698noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-68815975860833404182012-03-25T09:22:04.429-07:002012-03-25T09:22:04.429-07:00Yes, I suppose madness comes to us.
And about sn...Yes, I suppose madness comes to us. <br />And about snakes, my sister used to catch snakes, copperheads included. She and my mother were always chiding me for not being willing to give it a try.<br />Then one year my sister got a pet boa, and its dinner-mouse ate it. Ugh. <br />Sounds like someone's eating popcorn in here, my mother commented.Nin Andrewshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12643167108589844026noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-4529894279778688902012-03-24T22:58:02.976-07:002012-03-24T22:58:02.976-07:00Methinks that madness
hath no constraint—
Let th...<i>Methinks that madness <br />hath no constraint—<br /><br />Let that thought loose <br />lest the mind feel pain.</i><br /><br />--Saffilis Zaengmacvazambam (Vassilis Zambaras)https://www.blogger.com/profile/14515165428574974933noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-2557214251664873602012-03-24T18:16:57.892-07:002012-03-24T18:16:57.892-07:00Well it mentions a snake and is one of my more cr...Well it mentions a snake and is one of my more crazy pieces of scribble??? Segues with "let it go" too?<br /><br /><br /><br />Everything goes<br /><br />The story has been revived several times – a farce with stars<br />filmed more than once<br /><br />illustrates a talent for assuming various disguises<br />Banished you say to a time and a place where popular taste<br /><br />and lack of imagination are the same thing And not<br />how in the hell are we going to end the first act? How here<br /><br />and how to get moving the dead weight of it all at all?<br />Fallen in love you mistakenly leave behind a quartet<br /><br />of sailors Now there will always be a waiting shore for them<br />If we are to discuss an impending marriage there is also<br /><br />a machine-gun in tow Hope heard it Moon admits it<br />and we get to make a new costume out of an assortment of stuff<br /><br />the details of which are quite amusing but would be a dead giveaway<br />to mention It’s an awkward business and a merger seems as unlikely as<br /><br />that bluebird in your wood stove a few years back<br />If I try to invent some decent explanation I may be asked to lead<br /><br />a revival in the ship’s lounge therefore snake eyes<br />and send both factions to the brig or pen instead some Chinese<br /><br />characters with a fake beard made of dog’s hair the particulars<br />of which have been widely circulated elsewhere<br /><br />Even should I glimpse the mysterious girl she will be no doubt<br />in the company of her mother and idiot fiancé makes me seasick<br /><br />and eager to confess some true identity to any Wall Street broker<br />whose indecencies exposed is still idiot enough to listenAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-39556074128346548022012-03-24T17:59:23.618-07:002012-03-24T17:59:23.618-07:00T misquote Mr. Empson:-
I'm no' mad yetT misquote Mr. Empson:-<br /><br />I'm no' mad yetAnonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-84743148274439968902012-03-24T17:39:10.854-07:002012-03-24T17:39:10.854-07:00I really like Empson's 'Legal Fiction'...I really like Empson's 'Legal Fiction'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-17131433194268017552012-03-24T17:37:41.439-07:002012-03-24T17:37:41.439-07:00I have no answer to Mr Lamb's Questions but I...I have no answer to Mr Lamb's Questions but I do take away the word 'oppugned'Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42664695563156920142012-03-24T08:33:11.260-07:002012-03-24T08:33:11.260-07:00But was Sam able to do that when Charles Lamb (kno...But was Sam able to do that when Charles Lamb (knowing his penchant for the supernatural) asked him <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-lamb-to-samuel-taylor-coleridge.html" rel="nofollow">Whether the higher order of Seraphim Illuminati ever sneer</a>?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-26572912405950017002012-03-24T06:44:00.021-07:002012-03-24T06:44:00.021-07:00In the end what else can we say but Let It Go?In the end what else can we say but <a href="http://tomclarkblog.blogspot.com/2010/02/william-empson-let-it-go.html" rel="nofollow">Let It Go</a>?TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-42966266995810385942012-03-24T05:40:38.803-07:002012-03-24T05:40:38.803-07:00The pendulum handed me
arcs wildly in a distant...The pendulum handed me<br /><br />arcs wildly in a distant<br /> though not disembodied way ‒<br /> my friend once more flailing between<br /> disappointment and belief<br /><br /> *<br /><br />Ghosts I never saw still<br /> the hairs rose at the nape . . .<br /><br /> Grandmother <br />conversing with her (long) dead husband . . .<br /><br /> seems now so ordinary<br /><br /> no hypnosis necessary<br /><br /> Terror a walking commonplace<br /><br />An explanation for everywhere<br /><br /> (Those years few after all)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4445844569294316288.post-51982100067757287962012-03-24T02:19:50.950-07:002012-03-24T02:19:50.950-07:00The obvious locus classicus for this small dismal ...The obvious locus classicus for this small dismal thoughtlet (admittedly sea-changed somewhat in the serpentine channels of Time):<br /><br />We Poets in our youth begin in gladness;<br />But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.<br /><br />Wordsworth, Resolution and Independence (writ 1802)TChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05915822857461178942noreply@blogger.com