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Monday 21 December 2009

The Mutabilitie of the Englishe Lyrick

.

File:And now for something completely different - A Scotsman being hit by a pie.png





Alexander Pope (1688 - 1744)


Couplet

Is there no bright reversion in the sky
For those who prefer cake, but accept pie?





File:CakeGaga3Serbia.jpg





William Wordsworth (1770 - 1850)


Thoughts in Repression


It is as if, as toward the silent tomb we go,
We feel that we are greater than we know we know.





File:CakeGaga1Serbia.jpg





Walter Savage Landor (1775 - 1864)


The Porcupine

Ah, what avails the sceptred race,
Ah, what the form divine,
What every virtue, every grace,
Compared to the porcupine?






File:Coendou prehensilis 2 - Buffalo Zoo.jpg





A Scotsman being hit by a pie: Adam Cuerden, 2006
Cakes, Serbia: photos by Ctpyjajoe, 2009
Brazilian porcupine (Coendou prehensilis)
: photo by Dave Pape, 2007


27 comments:

Tom Raworth said...

mutatis mutandis...

Have a good Christmas and a New Year out of the rain.

love, Tom and Val

STEPHEN RATCLIFFE said...

Ah, mutability! -- today is the Solstice, and the lyric lives! Thanks for finding these, two more couplets here - - - -

12.21

grey whiteness of cloud against invisible
ridge, red-tailed hawk calling on branch
in foreground, sound of wave in channel

apparent system, multiplied
by negative of that

point, is possible, example
in which “light” is

sunlit cloud in pale blue sky on horizon,
tree-lined green of ridge across channel

aditya said...

Incroyable, all of them.

Have a happy festive season !!

Tom Raworth said...

mutatis mutandis...

Have a good Christmas and a New Year out of the rain.

love, Tom and Val

Tom Raworth said...

I echo that

. said...

Enjoyed these!

Have a lovely Christmas Tom.

Bob Arnold / Longhouse said...

Hi Tom,

I'm with Preston Sturges = gives us Christmas, but also give us Christmas in July!

Merry Merry to each Sweetheart

TC said...

Thank you all for the lovely remarks.

And I repeat that.

By the way, out of respect to those surely innocent (?) parties, the English poets, perhaps it should be noted that, as the title suggests, these are mutant versions of the Lyrick (that is, the originals have been tampered with, just a a bit).

Anonymous said...

Are you familiar with the poetic form; the "Pieku"?

eg:

Fish may be serene
like they have all the answers.
But they can't eat pie.

or,

Rain falls steadily.
Where did the cicadas go?
Cherry pie beckons.

or,

Autumn leaves are sad.
Pie enters tummy.
Yummy!

or,

Search deeply The Endless
Do you have room in your life
for pie?


This form was invented by John Bridges, artist and former manager of my former bakery's former cafe. Many of these piekus are in my possesion, some were written by John, some by myself, some by other staffers of the now defunct Blue Wolff Desserts.
Eat!Fress!Mange!

~otto~ said...

There once was a man from Nantucket...wait, that's not a "lyrick"

TC said...

There once was a man from Nantucket
who kept all his pie in a bucket
until...

Bob Arnold / Longhouse said...

(pie fight)

So, Tom,

which one do you think is the poet here —

the lion-hunter, or Curly?

Something tells me either one.

Anonymous said...

nyuk nyuk nyuk
oh
comedian!

Mariana Soffer said...

Great post, really creative I think. If you want me to talk about how language changes I could talk non stop about it, but I guess this goes beyond science, this is art indeed.
Bye TC

TC said...

And some things are impossible to explain... pie-dodging... poetry... and what and how the Three Stooges were like....

billymills said...

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as Sweetpea.

billymills said...

Seasonal whatsits to one and all.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/dec/17/poster-poems-christmas-poetry

Pinkerbell said...

Yes - Merry Christmas to you Tom and all your visitors here.

I've loved coming to visit here and to see what wonderful pictures you've written such thought-provoking words to accompany.

You've helped me in my writing as well, to see the importance of trying to make my words match my personality. I think this is the way forwards in learning the craft, or at least in making sure that I write what I truly feel.

Anyway, I waffle, seasons greetings and all that...

:-)

Anonymous said...

Couplet

There is no appetite for, barely hope
In those preferring Blake, are served up Pope!

A Scotsman

Cj said...

What happens when the porcupine plays the piano cake?

There must be a couplet there somewhere, eh?

TC said...

Ay Caramba! a brace of bards, a charming waffler, a swimming pianist, and yet another Japanese sex spammer (sigh! now deleted), in a pear tree...

This feels like about the sixth day of Christmas already and it's only... what is it? Time once again to dust off the cheerful little nihilist ditties... The Nocturnall Upon St Lucy's Day (Being the Shortest Day)?

So Carol, speaking of a song in our hearts, thanks for coming. In this festive season your very name is thematic. When the porcupine plays the piano cake it licks its quills afterward, duh. Neat piano cake eh? Imagine the sweet possibilities for quill licking after a delicious arpeggio.

What! Would you slap the Porcupine?
Unhappy child — desist!
Alas! That any friend of mine
Should turn Tupto-philist.

(Hilaire Belloc)

Not quite couplets I guess... but to make up for it here's a naked guy in the snows of the Alaskan tundra with red streaks in his hair and only his porcupine to keep him warm

__

There is no hope, barely appetite

To slake, within a Scot, for Pope

Who would in any case a mite

Of Blake prefer, oh never mind...

__

Pinkerbell, my dear, let me simply offer you good cheer

And say it's been a pleasure waffling forward with you this year.

__



And then went down to water's edge, Billy Mills and me,
Set keel to breakers, forth on the Little Swee'Pea
And bore Sweetpeas aboard her...

Rachel Loden said...

Fun to see how you tweaked these (or cracked them open like Christmas walnuts)! Mutabilitie indeed. Thanks, Tom, for so many pleasures this year.

TC said...

Hi Rachel,

Thanks for coming by, raises the tone of the joint.

Plenty of nuts around here for sure.

Take care, mi casa su casa

billymills said...

Yest Tom, I was remembering both SPs.

Elmo St. Rose said...

merry christmas.....a wonderful
group of people on this blog

now back to basics

Hearts-Ease


There is a flower I wish to wear
But not until first worne by you...
Heart's ease...of all of Earth's
flowers most rare;
Bring it;and bring enough for two.

Walter Savage Landor

TC said...

Billy, Elmo,

With such steady/heady company, even when mucking about in the blind drifts one was never going to stray very far off course from base camp...

And digging back out from under the forever mutable tundra, warmest season's greetings to world poet Tom and genius of all loci Val, amiable faces twinkling in from up top of the smokehole -- an especially happy Christmas to the two of you...

And not forgetting Anne V generous if perhaps inadvertent begetter of the most intriguing of poet pseudonymous monikers...

And Stephen, abiding monitor of the lights of the ridge and channel...

And Aditya, timekeeper of the nano-turnings of melancholy/cosmic himalayan clocks...

And painter poet Leigh, adroit medium of the several congruent media...

And Mariana, who teaches science to have a soul...

And Bob big-armed woodstacker bard of the snows...

And Zev, pieku laureate...

And Otto, who KNOWS.

TC said...

... Oh, and CM, CJ, Pinkerbell and Rachel,

If you thought you'd duck

To avoid being caught under my mistletoe, sorry

-- Smooch! -- you're quite out of luck.