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[rael-f-wae]

Poetry & lyrics finds at Old Book Shop in Morristown, NJ

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Two sets of Metrical Ballads at Old Book Shop in Morristown, NJ

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Huntsman, What Quarry? - Edna St. Vincent Millay - $15 at Old Book Shop in Morristown, NJ

inscription reads:

"A very tardy acknowledgment

of your gracious hospitality

Johnny"

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With the assistance of the Poetry on Tumblr community (in not banning me) I have written (in ten days) a 1246-line comic poem in 89 stanzas. Here is the beginning and here is the index.

TW: violence, meat, alcohol, attempted elder abuse, hunting (offscreen), misuse of deceased animals, sexual themes, underage drinking, profanity, sacrilege, lese-majeste, drug use, smoking, blood, racism, amputation, conspiracy

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Index

(by first line)

In King Priamis garden, long

"O Hector, my dice are more than fair:

Cassandra came, and frowned at both of them,

And morn it was, for they had gambled late.

"I'd be a fool to let you roll again,

"Come then, you rogue, you knave, you varlet mine,

So Hector worked - and Hector worked quite hard,

"Hector, Hector, good and loyal knave,

"The reason for my mercy, it is this:

"You will be old, for we will shave your hair

So they shaved him, so they bound him,

Hector hobbled several miles,

Arriving at a village square,

"Tell of war, old man, if you even can.

"O listen, future prince, if you can find me drink,

"Thirsty beggar, you're a liar.

"I dropped you down a rugged cliff,

"That's not my name, you stinky coot,

"Perhaps he lives yet in the woods.

"Hi-oh! Timo! Over here, you mouse --

So Hector waited, wondering in his head

Their village cup, he drained in half one gulp,

"Thula, he had come to take a wife,

"Thula's men were formed for battle's clash,

"Up there, they must burn peat to warm the very air,

"We are lesser men than you,

"Thula screamed, of course, again,

"O rascal, you will have your beer,

"You could be yet; I would know not.

Hector gulped that shepherd's sip,

"His brutes all fled, as they are wont to do

"So many crumbs and grains we lose

"Ahem, ahem," ahemmed the father,

"If you followed all my orders,

The prince's lip gave one brave quiver,

Telamon jumped down from off his friend,

"Tonight, we have him as our guest,

"But, though generous humble swains are we,

Come the morning, well, the noon,

Hector, too, they saw they'd missed,

"This morn, I did awake quite early,

"They had brought with them a net,

"Down the road, there is a hillock,

"Take ten coins, and do us better:

"Ah, hogs, their rushing is such joy,

Telamon in hunting thus engaged,

They made him tell the same great tales again,

At length, Hector grew hungry,

"Everyone, and Timo, lo,

"There is wine in heaven; lo,

As the boys were duly feasting,

"All was dark, and I was poked by imps --

They thought he simply disappeared;

"Halt, you knave, and ass, whichever of

"Condemn me not, for that I am unkempt;

A voice, sonorous and sweet,

"O, you prater, send him in;

"Tell of paine, O, ancient swaine,

"These things to tell, are pain to me,

"They say I am all pipes and dreams,

Telamon, meanwhile, had followed close behind,

"We wait upon our lady's pleasure,

"I am rolling far too high

All lost in thought, and drugged in comfort,

"I've heard a tale that's told upon the sea,

"A witch, indeed, is much like me,

"This prince she fixed upon was very brave,

"How this story ends in happiness,

"This witch, she was most beautiful to him,

"Your song, O swain, is very cruel:

"Proud sir, my orders are quite clear:

"Milady, sorry, but I must barge your barge,

"Whenas he was a ranksome swain,

"If such a man as you would take her off,

Hector, in his onward rambling,

"Tell me of all pastures greene,

"Will that old swain, who gave me birth,

"In oldest tongue, as bard and poet sung,

"I'm with the very leaves acquainted,

"All things that be, by circles go;

In the meantime, Telamon had lost;

With Hector, further down that ancient road,

"You rascal lout, give me that fleece;

"Impressive technicality,

The shepherd said, "I am in shock;

As Telamon returned from his ignoble mission,

"What will that serve you, when we are in the fire,

With nothing on him, but the fleece,

The boar said nothing, for he couldn't.

[rael-f-wae]

My partner can copy Vermeers, and presumably anything else she feels like...would you believe she tried to get rid of this when we moved? "That was just for practice," she says...

I asked her how much she'd charge to paint someone in this style, ruffs and all, holding a tool of their trade, or a pet, or whatever else they liked. She said she hadn't thought about it, but as it would be a few days' work, "$300, I guess?"

So there you have it. $300 to paint you or someone else in the style of any old master you choose -- a rather inimitable gift, I think. And Mothers'/Fathers' Day are both coming rather soon! Just saying!

Send a DM if you're interested -- I'll make an Etsy listing on my otherwise-unrelated store for the transaction & send you the link, so you have purchase protection.

She'd probably be willing to do larger sizes if you like, and we could also have it framed for you before shipping, but those would probably raise the price, so let me know & I can ask her. (As for why I'm posting this, and not her, she thinks no one cares that she can copy Vermeers...well, I do, at the very least!)

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Indeed, tangere is "to touch" -- I confused it with tenere, which is "to hold." Nice catch! I'll edit the original.

As for the translation of noli, though, I've done it as literally as possible here -- noli is a contracted form of non voli, where voli is the imperative "want!", as in, a command to someone to want something. Noli is therefore "don't want!", as in, a command to someone not to want something.

The meaning is essentially the same as "touch me not," but noli me tangere is subtly different from non tange, which would be literally "do not touch me" -- noli me tangere is "do not desire to touch me," or colloquially, "don't even think about touching me," which I think is somewhat greater in degree, if the same in practical meaning.

("intend not to touch me" also has the same number of syllables as noli me tangere, and the stresses are in the same place, or at least in the same places as we stress noli me tangere -- it's a departure from strict iambic meter as I've read it here, so they may have stressed the Latin differently at the time, or it may be intended to be metrically irregular, something not uncommon for Wyatt.)

I checked this out from the Jersey City library -- I had searched "Sir John Davies" on the catalog, and this includes him. (His complete works have been out of print since 1875.)

Sharp start from Sir Thomas Wyatt (1502-1543), who - fun fact - was imprisoned for a period by Henry VIII on suspicion of having an affair with Anne Boleyn.

My reading of Sonnet I:

Notes:

whoso: whoever.

list: want.

hind: deer.

helas: alas.

noli me tangere: "intend not to hold me."

[rael-f-wae]

I checked this out from the Jersey City library -- I had searched "Sir John Davies" on the catalog, and this includes him. (His complete works have been out of print since 1875.)

Sharp start from Sir Thomas Wyatt (1502-1543), who - fun fact - was imprisoned for a period by Henry VIII on suspicion of having an affair with Anne Boleyn.

My reading of Sonnet I:

Notes:

whoso: whoever.

list: want.

hind: deer.

helas: alas.

noli me tangere: "intend not to touch me."

[rael-f-wae]

The Book Trader in Clark, NJ. I like to check the poetry zone. There are also very large sections of fantasy, sci fi & romance paperbacks, and children's books. You can trade books in for store credit at a percent of the cover price, up to $2.85 for a $15.99+ book, and the books in stock are 60% of the listed cover price. This rule is followed strictly - so early paperbacks, which have cover prices as low as $0.95 not uncommonly, therefore cost about 57 cents here. It takes a little looking, but if you see a nice tanned spine, you can find some sharp deals. I've gotten a few very nice midcentury-ish paperback collections of older poetry over the past year - they had cover prices mostly around $4.95 - $7.95, so I paid about $3-5 per. Or I would have, if I hadn't brought some newer books with higher cover prices to trade in - most newer books have high enough cover prices to get you a dollar or two of credit. However, however much credit you get, you can only cover 80% of your purchase total with it, and the rest has to be paid in cash. I think it's an excellent system, although I'm not sure how the place makes any money.

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Obscurity knocked, and I didn't listen. It's the same in my mind, one of one, or one in a million.

Heart Hands

hardly waking reasons to go on 50 million reasons to be gone eyes like chocolate diamonds in the light watered plenty but nothing growing on the inside more than anything, you just want to be okay obscurity is calling and holding to the haze there’s only so much weight the mind can take so find your peace and feel the world rising as you ought to when you wake.

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The Future Senator from Tennessee

So I heard Taylor moved to Nashville. Nashville was congressionally gerrymandered in 2022 -- it used to have a Democratic congressperson, but it was split between three larger districts, which are now all Republican. The 5th has the smallest margin: 18%. That sounds like a lot, but a Democratic candidate would only have to take 6% of his voters and increase new-voter turnout by 6% to tie the race. I think Taylor could do it in '26.

She could also run against Bill Hagerty for Senate. Bill Hagerty is an experienced politician, and winning against him is not a sure thing. If Taylor takes over the election the way she's taken over the NFL, though, ascending to the Senate is very possible. I'm not joking about any of this, by the way -- if you think I'm joking, read Robert Frost's undelivered inaugural poem for JFK.

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I have been myself accused several times, of robot use, for being quite quick with my fingers, and better than most moderns at rhyme-slinging. Yet that that I do, is easy to disprove, for I use words which are to English new, or very old: everichon, eke thrissiled rois, and you can tell, that it's my voice, because I shift at will, and sometimes blow it. There is another way that you can know it: I say things like "pussy licked the milk up slowly" which is perfectly benign, of course, and yet, since someone might hear something worse, ChatGPT won't use those words that way -- isn't it a funny day? When someone swears, we know they're true, and if they're messy, that it is their doing, whereas, for something neat and nice, we cannot disprove that it was writ by all those mice that run on all those wheels, that power all those great machines of steel, which we use to cheat on homework, and make all other sorts of boners, which means, "mistakes," of course. So, simply have them do rhyming book reports -- ChatGPT poetry follows such a steady course that you know it at a glance. It's like watching a Big Dog dance. Mechanically neat, but stuck on repeat. Can't improvise -- not yet, anywise. Or have them write of darker books; of subjects that ChatGPT won't brook -- or have them argue things rhetorically that are forbidden categorically for breaching normal decency. I don't think this thing's a match for teachers, but what we need, are better leaders, who will let them use these tricks, and shield them from the stones and sticks that fly their way, as sure as day, whenever they try to make people work for that A.

nothing disturbs me more than the fact that ai is becoming more and more popular with the current generation of capable students. not only are you depriving yourself of an education but you’re also willfully contributing to global warming and the climate crisis. and it’s all packaged up like a homework pass.

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I dedicate this awfully long poem to that awful man Don Trump, who will yet again be president and still has not grown up. I put it at the end, this time, where like vapours, from slaked lime, come things past their hasty prime. From here, right now, it is my time, for those that rule us, are but slime, and like that man on that thin dime, I care not for precedent, or tyrants.

(And whether he from knives will bleed or someone shoots his head, I hereby will buy no weed while Trump is president.)

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I was born not to be young, but old: as water forms a solid, when grown cold, just so have I, as I have aged and gelled, become that which by nothing can be held. Come then, and let us sleep out here, out here where all of heaven is our sphere, under no roof, blind to not one star, as immured with the close, as with the far. The wildest swine have their pearls too, and while to us, they may seem rude, all lumpy, with divots and nodules bumpy, they must have them, or they'll be grumpy. I will leave you with no moral, except that gambling is bad, and sorely.

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The boar said nothing, for he couldn't. She surmised his quiet prudent. She hid him in her noble bedding, filled his mouth with finest pudding, and felt the face of her fine foundling, saying, "O swain, your teeth are handsome fierce, I see how they my very heart do pierce. Your nose is tough, your whiskers bristly; these must be keen for country whistling, and as at court, we do not admit the ruder sort, I see now why all our singers are the worst." Together they were very warm, though some might think it wrong. Telamon froze his pinky off, and shortened something long, and was forever thenceforth known as Telamon numb-dong.

index | (the end)

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With nothing on him, but the fleece, he was attired now, for great ignoble deeds. The crafty guard cared not a whit and bonked him on the head, and stripped him of his varmint vestment, and left him there for dead. Having stripped him of the stuff which, as said, did stink so awfully much, he sewed it neatly in the pigskin, as one fills a roast with stuffing. Later on on that dark night, they snuck the pig in by her side. She woke, and said, "O swain, you've come for me; Have you therefore slain my guards, or snuck in silently?"

index | next

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"What will that serve you, when we are in the fire, as we are like to be, when falls on us our lord's full ire?" "I've dab hands with an awl, but you will have to trust me, captain, I can't say my plan yet, sir, or I will start in laughing. When he comes, but ask of him some fee for letting him back in." When Telamon returned, he learned that he was being double-charged, and protested, for he was out of silvers. "Someone yet may tell our lord that we have let you at his daughter, so you must pay us for each chance upon this girl, and for our fee, I will then take that pearl which hangs around your throat."

index | next