August 28th, 2005 Comments Off
The Wikipedia says W.H. Auden is widely regarded as one of the most influential and important writers of the 20th century.
Like a lot of people, I’d never heard of him until I saw the film Four Weddings and a Funeral back in 1994. In the film, actor John Hannah recited a segment from one of Auden’s poems. It was at the funeral of his screen lover and partner and was a very touching scene. When my wife and I got home we looked on the Internet and found the poem and some information about Mr Auden.
W.H. Auden Society | Link
Two Songs for Hedli Anderson
by W. H. Auden
Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public
doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.
Read the complete poem | Link
August 21st, 2005 Comments Off
Do not stand at my grave and weep. I am not there. I do not sleep…
Why do all the good guys die so young?
Mo Mowlam: Her personal charisma, reputation for plain speaking and successful fight against a brain tumour made her one of the most popular politicians in the UK during the late 1990s and early 2000s.
David Lange served as Prime Minister of New Zealand from 1984 to 1989. He headed one of the most reforming administrations in his country’s history and was renowned for his cutting wit and eloquence.
June 20th, 2005 Comments Off
This sort of stuff screws with my head. It seems this religious nutter thinks it’s okay to murder — sorry, to crucify another human-being because he thinks they are possessed by the devil. He then justifies it all, in the name of his God and celebrates at her funeral.
I really wonder how people like him live with stuff like this. Maybe he’s just been watching too many movies — I’m glad he’s not my parish priest though.
“God has performed a miracle for her, finally Irina is delivered from evil,” Father Daniel, 29, the superior of the Holy Trinity monastery in north-eastern Romania, told an AFP reporter before celebrating a short liturgy “for the soul of the deceased”, in the presence of 13 nuns who showed no visible emotion.
Yahoo News | Link
June 13th, 2005 Comments Off
Matsuo Basho left Kyoto for the last time in the summer of 1694. He died soon after of a stomach illness. This is his last haiku.
Traveling, sick
My dreams roam
On a withered moor.
Haiku by Matsuo Basho
