luka

Well-known member
he was a bit inconcistent as regards taoism. he was avowedly confucian but then also when asked what he beleived, (by ts eliot) replied, i beleive in the process. and again here the essence is motion.

love is like a magic penny
hold it tight
and you wont have any
lend it, spend it
and youll have so many
theyll roll all over the
FLOOR!
 
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luka

Well-known member
Canto XVI (pt.1)

And before hell mouth; dry plain
and two mountains;
On the one mountain, a running form,
and another
In the turn of the hill; in hard steel
The road like a slow screw’s thread,
The angle almost imperceptible,
so that the circuit seemed hardly to rise;
And the running form, naked, Blake,
Shouting, whirling his arms, the swift limbs,
Howling against the evil,
his eyes rolling,
Whirling like flaming cart-wheels,
and his head held backward to gaze on the evil
As he ran from it,
to be hid by the steel mountain,
And when he showed again from the north side;
his eyes blazing toward hell mouth,
His neck forward,
and like him Peire Cardinal.
And in the west mountain, Il Fiorentino,
Seeing hell in his mirror,
and lo Sordels
Looking on it in his shield;
And Augustine, gazing toward the invisible.

And past them, the criminal
lying in the blue lakes of acid,
The road between the two hills, upward
slowly,
The flames patterned in lacquer, crimen est actio,
The limbo of chopped ice and saw-dust,
And I bathed myself with acid to free myself
of the hell ticks,
Scales, fallen louse eggs.
Palux Laerna,
the lake of bodies, aqua morta,
of limbs fluid, and mingled, like fish heaped in a bin,
and here an arm upward, clutching a fragment of marble,
And the embryos, in flux,
new inflow, submerging,
Here an arm upward, trout, submerged by the eels;
and from the bank, the stiff herbage
the dry nobbled path, saw many known, and unknown,
for an instant;
submerging,
The face gone, generation.

Then light, air, under saplings,
the blue banded lake under æther,
an oasis, the stones, the calm field,
the grass quiet,
and passing the tree of the bough
The grey stone posts,
and the stair of gray stone,
the passage clean-squared in granite:
descending,
and I through this, and into the earth,
patet terra,
entered the quiet air
the new sky,
the light as after a sun-set,
and by their fountains, the heroes,
Sigismundo, and Malatesta Novello,
and founders, gazing at the mounts of their cities.

The plain, distance, and in fount-pools
the nymphs of that water
rising, spreading their garlands,
weaving their water reeds with the boughs,
In the quiet,
and now one man rose from his fountain
and went off into the plain.

Prone in that grass, in sleep;
et j’entendis des voix:…
wall . . . Strasbourg
Galliffet led that triple charge. . . Prussians
and he said [Plarr’s narration]
it was for the honour of the army.
And they called him a swashbuckler.
I didn’t know what it was
But I thought: This is pretty bloody damn fine.
And my old nurse, he was a man nurse, and
He killed a Prussian and he lay in the street
there in front of our house for three days
And he stank. . . . . . .
Brother Percy,
And our Brother Percy…
old Admiral
He was a middy in those days,
And they came into Ragusa
. . . . . . place those men went for the Silk War. . . . .
And they saw a procession coming down through
A cut in the hills, carrying something
The six chaps in front carrying a long thing
on their shoulders,
And they thought it was a funeral,
but the thing was wrapped up in scarlet,
And he put off in the cutter,
he was a middy in those days,
To see what the natives were doing,
And they got up to the six fellows in livery,
And they looked at it, and I can still hear the old admiral,
“Was it? it was
Lord Byron
Dead drunk, with the face of an A y n. . . . . . . .
He pulled it out long, like that:
the face of an a y n . . . . . . . . gel.”

And because that son of a bitch,
Franz Josef of Austria. . . . . .
And because that son of a bitch Napoléon Barbiche…
They put Aldington on Hill 70, in a trench
dug through corpses
With a lot of kids of sixteen,
Howling and crying for their mamas,
And he sent a chit back to his major:
I can hold out for ten minutes
With my sergeant and a machine-gun.
And they rebuked him for levity.
And Henri Gaudier went to it,
and they killed him,
And killed a good deal of sculpture,
And ole T.E.H. he went to it,
With a lot of books from the library,
London Library, and a shell buried ‘em in a dug-out,
And the Library expressed its annoyance.
And a bullet hit him on the elbow
…gone through the fellow in front of him,
And he read Kant in the Hospital, in Wimbledon,
in the original,
And the hospital staff didn’t like it.

And Wyndham Lewis went to it,
With a heavy bit of artillery,
and the airmen came by with a mitrailleuse,
And cleaned out most of his company,
and a shell lit on his tin hut,
While he was out in the privy,
and he was all there was left of that outfit.

Windeler went to it,
and he was out in the Ægæan,
And down in the hold of his ship
pumping gas into a sausage,
And the boatswain looked over the rail,
down into amidships, and he said:
Gees! look a’ the Kept’n,
The Kept’n’s a-gettin’ ‘er up.

And Ole Captain Baker went to it,
with his legs full of rheumatics,
So much so he couldn’t run,
so he was six months in hospital,
Observing the mentality of the patients.

And Fletcher was 19 when he went to it,
And his major went mad in the control pit,
about midnight, and started throwing the ‘phone about
And he had to keep him quiet
till abut six in the morning,
And direct that bunch of artillery.

And Ernie Hemingway went to it,
too much in a hurry,
And they buried him for four days.
 

luka

Well-known member
(pt. 2)

Et ma foi, vous savez,
tous les nerveux. Non,
Y a une limite; les bêtes, les bêtes ne sont
Pas faites pour ça, c’est peu de chose un cheval.
Les hommes de 34 ans à quatre pattes
qui criaient “maman.” Mais les costauds,
La fin, là à Verdun, n’y avait que ces gros bonshommes
Et y voyaient extrêmement clair.
Qu’est-ce que ça vaut, les généraux, le lieutenant,
on les pèse à un centigramme,
n’y a rien que du bois,
Notr’ capitaine, tout, tout ce qu’il y a de plus renfermé
de vieux polytechnicien, mais solide,
La tête solide. Là, vous savez,
Tout, tout fonctionne, et les voleurs, tous les vices,
Mais les rapaces,
y avait trois dans notre compagnie, tous tués.
Y sortaient fouiller un cadavre, pour rien,
y n’serainet sortis pour rien que ça.
Et les boches, tout ce que vous voulez,
militarisme, et cætera, et cætera.
Tout ça, mais, MAIS,
l’français, i s’bat quand y a mangé.
Mais ces pauvres types
A la fin y s’attaquaient pour manger,
Sans orders, les bêtes sauvages, on y fait
Prisonniers; ceux qui parlaient français disaient:
“Poo quah? Ma foi on attaquait pour manger.”

C’est le corr-ggras, le corps gras,
leurs trains marchaient trois kilomètres à l’heure,
Et ça criait, ça grincait, on l’entendait à cinq kilomètres.
(Ça qui finit la guerre.)

Liste officielle des morts 5,000,000.

I vous dit, bè, voui, tout sentait le pétrole.
Mais, Non! je l’ai engueulé.
Je lui ai dit: T’es un con! T’a raté la guerre.

O voui! tous les homes de goût, y conviens,
Tout ça en arrière.
Mais un mec comme toi!
C’t homme, un type comme ça!
Ce qu’il aurait pu encaisser!
Il était dans une fabrique.
What, burying squad, terrassiers, avec leur tête
en arrière, qui regardaient comme ça,
On risquait la vie pour un coup de pelle,
Faut que ça soit bein carré, exact…

Dey vus a bolcheviki dere, und dey dease him:
Looka vat youah Trotzsk is done, e iss
madeh deh zhamefull beace!!
“He iss madeh de zhamefull beace, iss he?
“He is madeh de zhamevull beace?
“A Brest-Litovsk, yess? Aint yuh herd?
“He vinneh de vore.
“De droobs iss released vrom de eastern vront, yess?
“Un venn dey getts to deh vestern vront, iss it
“How many getts dere?
“And dose doat getts dere iss so full off revolutions
“Venn deh vrench is come dhru, yess,
“Dey say, “Vot?” Un de posch say:
“Aint yeh heard? Say, ve got a rheffolution.”

That’s the trick with a crowd,
Get ‘em into the street and get ‘em moving.
And all the time, there were people going
Down there, over the river.

There was a man there talking,
To a thousand, just a short speech, and
Then move ‘em on. And he said:
Yes, these people, they are all right, they
Can do everything, everything except act;
And go an’ hear ‘em but when they are through
Come to the bolsheviki…

And when it broke, there was the crowd there,
And the cossacks, just as always before,
But one thing, the cossacks said:
“Pojalouista.”
And that got round in the crowd,
And then a lieutenant of infantry
Ordered ‘em to fire into the crowd,
in the square at the end of the Nevsky,
In front of the Moscow station,
And they wouldn’t,
And he pulled his sword on a student for laughing,
And killed him,
And a cossack rode out of his squad
On the other side of the square
And cut down the lieutenant of infantry
And there was the revolution…
as soon as they named it.

And you can’t make ‘em,
Nobody knew it was coming. They were all ready, the old gang,
Guns on the top of the post-office and the palace,
But none of the leaders knew it was coming.

And there were some killed at the barracks,
But that was between the troops.

So we used to hear it at the opera
That they wouldn’t be under Haig;
and that the advance was beginning;
That it was going to begin in a week.
 

jenks

thread death
I have always loved LXXI



What thou lovest well remains,
the rest is dross
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee
What thou lov’st well is thy true heritage
Whose world, or mine or theirs
or is it of none?
First came the seen, then thus the palpable
Elysium, though it were in the halls of hell,
What thou lovest well is thy true heritage
What thou lov’st well shall not be reft from thee

The ant’s a centaur in his dragon world.
Pull down thy vanity, it is not man
Made courage, or made order, or made grace,
Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down.
Learn of the green world what can be thy place
In scaled invention or true artistry,
Pull down thy vanity,
Paquin pull down!
The green casque has outdone your elegance.

“Master thyself, then others shall thee beare”

Pull down thy vanity
Thou art a beaten dog beneath the hail,
A swollen magpie in a fitful sun,
Half black half white
Nor knowst’ou wing from tail
Pull down thy vanity
How mean thy hates
Fostered in falsity,
Pull down thy vanity,
Rathe to destroy, niggard in charity,
Pull down thy vanity,
I say pull down.

But to have done instead of not doing
this is not vanity
To have, with decency, knocked
That a Blunt should open
To have gathered from the air a live tradition
or from a fine old eye the unconquered flame
This is not vanity.
Here error is all in the not done,
all in the diffidence that faltered . . .
 

Corpsey

bandz ahoy
My favourite is Canto XXXVIIX

'Love that Hitler
He is swell
The modern world
Is filth
And can go to [Greek word for Hell]
[Chinese symbol for trollface]
 

version

Well-known member
from Canto CXV

The scientists are in terror
and the European mind stops
Wyndham Lewis chose blindness
rather than have his mind stop.
Night under wind mid garofani,
the petals are almost still
Mozart, Linnaeus, Sulmona,
When one’s friends hate each other
how can there be peace in the world?
Their asperities diverted me in my green time.
A blown husk that is finished
but the light sings eternal
a pale flare over marshes
where the salt hay whispers to tide’s change
Time, space,
neither life nor death is the answer.
And of man seeking good,
doing evil.
In meiner Heimat
where the dead walked
and the living were made of cardboard.
 

version

Well-known member
Canto IV

Palace in smoky light,
Troy but a heap of smouldering boundary stones,
ANAXIFORMINGES! Aurunculeia!
Hear me. Cadmus of Golden Prows!
The silver mirrors catch the bright stones and flare,
Dawn, to our waking, drifts in the green cool light;
Dew-haze blurs, in the grass, pale ankles moving.
Beat, beat, whirr, thud, in the soft turf
under the apple trees,
Choros nympharum, goat-foot, with the pale foot alternate;
Crescent of blue-shot waters, green-gold in the shallows,
A black cock crows in the sea-foam;

And by the curved, carved foot of the couch,
claw-foot and lion head, an old man seated
Speaking in the low drone…:
Ityn!
Et ter flebiliter, Ityn, Ityn!
And she went toward the window and cast her down,
“All the while, the while, swallows crying:
Ityn!
“It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish.”
“It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish?”
“No other taste shall change this.”
And she went toward the window,
the slim white stone bar
Making a double arch;
Firm even fingers held to the firm pale stone;
Swung for a moment,
and the wind out of Rhodez
Caught in the full of her sleeve.
. . . the swallows crying:
‘Tis. ‘Tis. ‘Ytis!
Actæon…
and a valley,
The valley is thick with leaves, with leaves, the trees,
The sunlight glitters, glitters a-top,
Like a fish-scale roof,
Like the church roof in Poictiers
If it were gold.
Beneath it, beneath it
Not a ray, not a slivver, not a spare disc of sunlight
Flaking the black, soft water;
Bathing the body of nymphs, of nymphs, and Diana,
Nymphs, white-gathered about her, and the air, air,
Shaking, air alight with the goddess
fanning their hair in the dark,
Lifting, lifting and waffing:
Ivory dipping in silver,
Shadow’d, o’ershadow’d
Ivory dipping in silver,
Not a splotch, not a lost shatter of sunlight.
Then Actæon: Vidal,
Vidal. It is old Vidal speaking,
stumbling along in the wood,
Not a patch, not a lost shimmer of sunlight,
the pale hair of the goddess.

The dogs leap on Actæon,
“Hither, hither, Actæon,”
Spotted stag of the wood;
Gold, gold, a sheaf of hair,
Thick like a wheat swath,
Blaze, blaze in the sun,
The dogs leap on Actæon.
Stumbling, stumbling along in the wood,
Muttering, muttering Ovid:
“Pergusa… pool… pool… Gargaphia,
“Pool… pool of Salmacis.”
The empty armour shakes as the cygnet moves.

Thus the light rains, thus pours, e lo soleills plovil
The liquid and rushing crystal
beneath the knees of the gods.
Ply over ply, thin glitter of water;
Brook film bearing white petals.
The pine at Takasago
grows with the pine of Isé!
The water whirls up the bright pale sand in the spring’s mouth
“Behold the Tree of the Visages!”
Forked branch-tips, flaming as if with lotus.
Ply over ply
The shallow eddying fluid,
beneath the knees of the gods.

Torches melt in the glare
set flame of the corner cook-stall,
Blue agate casing the sky (as at Gourdon that time)
the sputter of resin,
Saffron sandal so petals the narrow foot: Hymenæus Io!
Hymen, Io Hymenæe! Aurunculeia!
One scarlet flower is cast on the blanch-white stone.

And So-Gyoku, saying:
“This wind, sire, is the king’s wind,
This wind is wind of the palace,
Shaking imperial water-jets.”
And Hsiang, opening his collar:
“This wind roars in the earth’s bag,
it lays the water with rushes.”
No wind is the king’s wind.
Let every cow keep her calf.
“This wind is held in gauze curtains…”
No wind is the king’s…

The camel drivers sit in the turn of the stairs,
Look down on Ecbatan of plotted streets,
“Danaë! Danaë!
What wind is the king’s?”
Smoke hangs on the stream,
The peach-trees shed bright leaves in the water,
Sound drifts in the evening haze,
The bark scrapes at the ford,
Gilt rafters above black water,
Three steps in an open field,
Gray stone-posts leading…

Père Henri Jacques would speak with the Sennin, on Rokku,
Mount Rokku between the rock and the cedars,
Polhonac,
As Gyges on Thracian platter set the feast,
Cabestan, Tereus,
It is Cabestan’s heart in the dish,
Vidal, or Ecbatan, upon the gilded tower in Ecbatan
Lay the god’s bride, lay ever, waiting the golden rain.
By Garonne. “Saave!”
The Garonne is thick like paint,
Procession,—“Et sa’ave, sa’ave, sa’ave Regina!”—
Moves like a worm, in the crowd.
Adige, thin film of images,
Across the Adige, by Stefano, Madonna in hortulo,
As Cavalcanti had seen her.
The Centaur’s heel plants in the earth loam.
And we sit here…
there in the arena…
 

version

Well-known member
I haven't read all of it, but yeah. I've just been reading bits and pieces as I find them online.
 

luka

Well-known member
I'll take a photograph of my guide to the cantos in a little bit. You know, for the relevant page sort of thing.
 

version

Well-known member
I like that he explicitly mentions European scientists in the other one too. Something that really made an impression on me from that Prynne interview with The Paris Review was his locking onto the book on molecules. I like it when artists etc. engage and play around with that sort of thing -- Pynchon talking about the benzene ring, Joyce detailing the acceleration of gravity, D&G hijacking scientific terms. It shouldn't just be the playground of the Michael Crichtons and Asimovs.
 

version

Well-known member
That clip of him reading on the previous page is awful. Some people know how to bring their work to life, some don't. He definitely didn't.
 
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