write a song of ithaca

“Write a song of Ithaca,
Write a song today!”
“What is there to write about?
How oft the skies are gray?”
“Write a song of Ithaca,
Write of the leaves that fall.”
“Walt won’t have written “Leaves of Grass”
If he had to sweep them all!”
“Write a song of Ithaca,
Write of the fallow deer!”
“Of fallow deer? My fellow men
Would laugh at me, [...]

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warning: not for diabetics, lactose-intolerants and persons allergic to nuts

Just some of the sweetest, cheesiest lyrics in our reading list. May contain traces of nuttiness! (and naughtiness, too!)
The premise of it all:

Life is a song, let’s sing it together.
Let’s take our hearts and dip them in rhyme.
Let’s learn the words, learn the music together,
Hoping the song lasts for a long, long time.
Why can’t I [...]

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autumn alliterated

-an ‘aiku
.

fall’s fallen feathers,
rust-red, rustling, readying
silent season’s seat.

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winter falls

Thursday, noon, the first flake falls;
A shift of wind, a change of clime;
Far and wide, the tower bell tolls,
“Parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme.”

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brown blues

Brown. How apt.
(I know this is already a few months after the incident, but I think most people should still be able to guess (no, not guess! positively know!) what incident I’m referring to…)
Beale Street Love
Langston Hughes

.
Love
Is a brown man’s fist
With hard knuckles
Crushing the lips,
Blackening the eyes, -
Hit me again,
Says Clorinda.
All it needs is a [...]

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prufrock blues

The result of my blues poem writing assignment:
(Based on The Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock by T.S. Eliot (the man born in St. Louis), and blues tune along the lines of Empty Bed Blues)

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Odysseus at Ithaca, before the Odyssey

At the brink of new endeavour, I stand.
Across the sea, beyond, lie distant lands:
They tempt with virgin landscapes, high adventure, great romance;
But will I return rewarded, or with empty hands,
and spirit spent?

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a reminder

Though you are in your shining days,
Voices among the crowd
And new friends busy with your praise,
Be not unkind or proud,
But think about old friends the most:
Time’s bitter flood will rise,
Your beauty perish and be lost
For all eyes but these eyes.
-W。B。 Yeats

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Armstrong’s song, Aldrin’s din

What the men on the moon might have sung, post Apollo 11:
(a.k.a. the dark side of the moon landing)
courtesy of Elton John, Harry Nilsson and (yes) Ernie! I think Ernie says it the best, and says much more, too

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some people

Some people talk and talk
and never say a thing;
Some people look at you
and birds start to sing.
Some people laugh and laugh,
and yet you want to cry;
Some people touch your hand
and music fills the sky.
-Charlotte Zolotow
When two people of the first kind meet, fog meets frost, and they dully pass their dreary existence on this bleak [...]

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