Saturday, April 30, 2011

The Poems You Have Lost

Saturday is Poetry Day, and tonight’s selection is “Missing Dates”, by the 20th-century English poet and critic William Empson.

Empson is best known for Seven Types of Ambiguity, his acclaimed work on literary criticism which he published at the age of twenty-four. In his poetry he practiced what his criticism preached, adding layers of ambiguity to tease the reader with multiple possible meanings.

“Missing Dates” is a villanelle, in the traditional form with nineteen lines and the required double rhyme scheme. Empson extended the villanelle form and made it more interesting in “Aubade”, excerpts from which have been used as inscriptions in previous Gates of Vienna posts about Europe.

“Missing Dates” is an acquired taste, and definitely not for everyone. However, I’ve found that the older I get, the better I seem to understand it.


Missing Dates
by William Empson


Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
It is not the effort nor the failure tires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is not your system or clear sight that mills
Down small to the consequence a life requires;
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

They bled an old dog dry yet the exchange rills
Of young dog blood gave but a month's desires.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is the Chinese tombs and the slag hills
Usurp the soil, and not the soil retires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.

Not to have fire is to be a skin that shrills.
The complete fire is death. From partial fires
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

It is the poems you have lost, the ills
From missing dates, at which the heart expires.
Slowly the poison the whole blood stream fills.
The waste remains, the waste remains and kills.

3 comments:

Robert said...

The Saga of Shrunken-Head Church!
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
Copyright 4/27/11
Redacted from Victor Davis Hanson, Andrew Breitbart and Takuan Seiyo.


Have you noticed?

The world has abandoned wisdom of the West,
It also has abandoned its Higher Teachings best,
And also sees none wearing Christ-in-You vest.

Not surprisingly, shrunken heads,
In church: lurch!
Having slept in bad doctrine beds,
Brains cheap: sleep!
And see not Socialist-Marxist reds,
Frankfurt: hurt!

The world has enslaved itself: Socialist!
Almost all church is caught in this grist!
Shrunken-head leaders: unaware of mist!

Where are geniuses breathing life back into Christ’s sad bride?
Perhaps in a funk, drunk?
Are we, for generations, unworthy to: on giant shoulders ride?
Maybe possessed or self-obsessed?
Who, not pea-brained, has a mind in whom God can confide?
God’s road has rut, with people stuck?

Behold: In That Day Teachings’ Rosetta stone!
With which hungry minds: sharpen, souls: hone!
Indwelling, West’s Return and High Way home!

But church sheep, shepherds and most seers,
They see, hear, speak, think: not!
Their mental cogs missing teeth and gears,
They honor whom has honor not!
Will In That Day’s truth be ignored years?
As tribulation cooks this lot: hot!

Have you noticed? World is dumb, church dumber?
World will slowly correct itself. Church in slumber?
World rediscovers Natural Law. Church stays numb-er?

Church is conflicted as to what should be hated,
Love not Christ-in-You, but rather its delay?
Resistance is futile, you’ll be Socialist assimilated!
Love not the West’s heroic, sacrificial way?
Fight hidden slavery in church, you will be hated!
Love not liberty of In That Teachings’ Day?

Thus, “Drink Me!” said bad doxie cups of Satan’s scythe snath!
Whence, too many dumb preachers drank this abomination path!
Hence, shrunken-mind sheep and shepherds face requite’s wrath!

Have you noticed?

Robert said...

The Great, Gullible Mind-Balloon Festival
By Robert Winkler Burke
Of inthatdayteachings.com
Copyright 4/23/11

I went to a balloon festival,
To lift my spirits up!
Nothing like balloons with hot air,
To fill an empty cup!

I had been thinking that my country,
Forgot Natural Law and instituted slavery!
Slavery of mind in capitol,
In school, in media and wolf-church knavery!

All this crazy hidden slavery,
Working hand-in-glove with other!
Other enslavement chill-thought ops,
To wink, wink: and provide cover!

Up, up and beyond, and far away past the glowing, overflowing June moon!
Flies the goony, granfalloon narrative of leader buffoon,
But beware such a mind-capturing, pied piper, utopian brain-prune,
Hidden-slavery loony-tunes, can’t be stopped too soon!

The first balloon I saw was,
Urgent-Emergent-Nothingness!
And millions got on board,
Too heavy to fly!
None asked why!
Pictures of sky!
Got them by!
Something went then: bad amiss,
The balloon collapsed,
Millions went dark, yet, in bliss!

Next balloon I saw was,
Seeker-Surfer-Casual-with-All-Cool-Thought!
Each balloon rider had,
A spiffy, splendiferous sap-phone bought,
Grabbing neck of another to the right!
Other hand, sap-phone held high and tight!
Sap-phones downloaded with apps of light!
That would uplift believers high: quite!
But they never left the ground,
They felt ripped off when their sap-phones got hot!
Causing no flight at all,
They texted each other: OUR LOT, FLIES NOT!

Up, up and beyond, and far away past the glowing, overflowing June moon!
Flies the goony, granfalloon narrative of leader buffoon,
But beware such a mind-capturing, pied piper, utopian brain-prune,
Hidden-slavery loony-tunes, can’t be stopped too soon!

Next balloon I saw was,
Programmed-to-Disregard-Higher-Thinking!
Venders sold fine bottles,
Of platitude-pandering cheap-cost drinking,
Shallow sips of illogical-brain nap!
Suck-the-soul-out-of-you sweet sap!
Blind-to-self-serving-programs’ map!
Cheer ghoul-zombies eating us: Clap!
The people got so high,
They couldn’t see their brains dinking: and sinking!

The last balloon I saw was,
Criminalize-and-Catch-a-True-Pilot!
They gave badges and ray guns,
To those who promised to not ask: why not?
But fly high, so high in mind!
Hoping for reward: to find!
Pilot: And shoot his behind!
None fly: that don’t fall in line!
With this thinking they fell,
On themselves and with rays each got: brain shot!

Up, up and beyond, and far away past the glowing, overflowing June moon!
Flies the goony, granfalloon narrative of leader buffoon,
But beware such a mind-capturing, pied piper, utopian brain-prune,
Hidden-slavery loony-tunes, can’t be stopped too soon!

So, I got in my old jalopy wreck,
But then my car sprouted wings!
I rocketed to Mars and came back,
Funny, what a good mind brings!

Beware! My advice: the cheap-thought purveyors,
They decrease one’s overall mental acumen, not enlarge it!
They’ll sell, for a price, their sky-to-moon stairs,
Turning your brain into bitumen, if you let them charge it!

Zenster said...

Being the eternal iconoclast that I am; here, for your delectation is Peter Veale's delightful send-up of Edgar Allen Poe's immortal poem, "The Raven". I give you:

THE RAVEN'S REPLY

Swaggerin' home in raven fashion, feelin' rather bold and dashin',
Thought I'd do some poet-bashin'; saw this light above a door -
A sign that E.A. Poe was porin' o'er some problem bleak and borin',
Like how to rhyme with Ulalume, or find a maiden named Lenore.
And when I heard the morbid nutter mutter, 'Oh my lost Lenore!'


I tapped my beak against his door.
Presently the joyless mortal opened up his gloomy portal,
Eyed me with misgiving and inquired what was my visit for.
I said I was a poor old raven, tuckered out and seekin' haven;
Could I rest awhile upon the bust of Pallas o'er his door?
'The bust? Well, if you must,' he answered, clearly shaken to the core,


'But what news have you of Lenore?'
'By Jeez,' I mused, 'by flamin' golly, this man is clearly off his trolley;
I'll play upon his melancholy as I perch above his door.'
I said: 'Dear Brother Poe, I'm sorry I cannot really ease your worry
Except for some reward which you might bring from your provision store.
A piece of steak would do me nicely - even offal if you're poor.


Oh, then I might remember more.'
'Corrupt and greedy bird!' he chided. 'Is my sorrow thus derided?
One who's lost a love, as I did, on the Night's Plutonian shore,
Regards your attitude as callous, so please quit the bust of Pallas,
Where you seem quite disposed to stay for half the dreary night or more;
Then pray be good enough to clean the raven-droppings from the floor


Before you're banished from my door.'
I stared him out and wouldn't waver. (Clean up the floor? Do me a favour!)
So finally I got to savour some small offerings from his store.
He fed me, but I kept on stallin'; told him I was past recallin'
Anything of his fair maiden, anything of lost Lenore.
I broke the wretched fellow's spirit with my croaks of 'Nevermore',


And I'm immortalized for sure.