great idea

great idea

• zanna 17 years ago
  THIS IS A GREAT AND FUN IDEA,thanks for starting it.:)
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• greekgirrrl 17 years ago said:
  
  1. The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock
  
  
  S’io credesse che mia risposta fosse
  A persona che mai tornasse al mondo,
  Questa fiamma staria senza piu scosse.
  Ma perciocche giammai di questo fondo
  Non torno vivo alcun, s’i’odo il vero,
  Senza tema d’infamia ti rispondo.
  
  
  LET us go then, you and I,
  When the evening is spread out against the sky
  Like a patient etherised upon a table;
  Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
  The muttering retreats 5
  Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
  And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:
  Streets that follow like a tedious argument
  Of insidious intent
  To lead you to an overwhelming question … 10
  Oh, do not ask, “What is it?”
  Let us go and make our visit.
  
  In the room the women come and go
  Talking of Michelangelo.
  
  The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes, 15
  The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
  Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
  Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
  Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
  Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap, 20
  And seeing that it was a soft October night,
  Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
  
  And indeed there will be time
  For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
  Rubbing its back upon the window-panes; 25
  There will be time, there will be time
  To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
  There will be time to murder and create,
  And time for all the works and days of hands
  That lift and drop a question on your plate; 30
  Time for you and time for me,
  And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
  And for a hundred visions and revisions,
  Before the taking of a toast and tea.
  
  In the room the women come and go 35
  Talking of Michelangelo.
  
  And indeed there will be time
  To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
  Time to turn back and descend the stair,
  With a bald spot in the middle of my hair— 40
  [They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”]
  My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
  My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
  [They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”]
  Do I dare 45
  Disturb the universe?
  In a minute there is time
  For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
  
  For I have known them all already, known them all:—
  Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, 50
  I have measured out my life with coffee spoons;
  I know the voices dying with a dying fall
  Beneath the music from a farther room.
  So how should I presume?
  
  And I have known the eyes already, known them all— 55
  The eyes that fix you in a formulated phrase,
  And when I am formulated, sprawling on a pin,
  When I am pinned and wriggling on the wall,
  Then how should I begin
  To spit out all the butt-ends of my days and ways? 60
  And how should I presume?
  
  And I have known the arms already, known them all—
  Arms that are braceleted and white and bare
  [But in the lamplight, downed with light brown hair!]
  It is perfume from a dress 65
  That makes me so digress?
  Arms that lie along a table, or wrap about a shawl.
  And should I then presume?
  And how should I begin?
  . . . . .
  Shall I say, I have gone at dusk through narrow streets 70
  And watched the smoke that rises from the pipes
  Of lonely men in shirt-sleeves, leaning out of windows?…
  
  I should have been a pair of ragged claws
  Scuttling across the floors of silent seas.
  . . . . .
  And the afternoon, the evening, sleeps so peacefully! 75
  Smoothed by long fingers,
  Asleep … tired … or it malingers,
  Stretched on the floor, here beside you and me.
  Should I, after tea and cakes and ices,
  Have the strength to force the moment to its crisis? 80
  But though I have wept and fasted, wept and prayed,
  Though I have seen my head [grown slightly bald] brought in upon a platter,
  I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
  I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker,
  And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker, 85
  And in short, I was afraid.
  
  And would it have been worth it, after all,
  After the cups, the marmalade, the tea,
  Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me,
  Would it have been worth while, 90
  To have bitten off the matter with a smile,
  To have squeezed the universe into a ball
  To roll it toward some overwhelming question,
  To say: “I am Lazarus, come from the dead,
  Come back to tell you all, I shall tell you all”— 95
  If one, settling a pillow by her head,
  Should say: “That is not what I meant at all.
  That is not it, at all.”
  
  And would it have been worth it, after all,
  Would it have been worth while, 100
  After the sunsets and the dooryards and the sprinkled streets,
  After the novels, after the teacups, after the skirts that trail along the floor—
  And this, and so much more?—
  It is impossible to say just what I mean!
  But as if a magic lantern threw the nerves in patterns on a screen: 105
  Would it have been worth while
  If one, settling a pillow or throwing off a shawl,
  And turning toward the window, should say:
  “That is not it at all,
  That is not what I meant, at all.”
  . . . . . 110
  No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;
  Am an attendant lord, one that will do
  To swell a progress, start a scene or two,
  Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,
  Deferential, glad to be of use, 115
  Politic, cautious, and meticulous;
  Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;
  At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—
  Almost, at times, the Fool.
  
  I grow old … I grow old … 120
  I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled.
  
  Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
  I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
  I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
  
  I do not think that they will sing to me. 125
  
  I have seen them riding seaward on the waves
  Combing the white hair of the waves blown back
  When the wind blows the water white and black.
  
  We have lingered in the chambers of the sea
  By sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown 130
  Till human voices wake us, and we drown.
  
  
  
  
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• greekgirrrl 17 years ago said:
  
  After Making Love We Hear Footsteps
  
  
  For I can snore like a bullhorn
  or play loud music
  or sit up talking with any reasonably sober Irishman
  and Fergus will only sink deeper
  into his dreamless sleep, which goes by all in one flash,
  but let there be that heavy breathing
  or a stifled come-cry anywhere in the house
  and he will wrench himself awake
  and make for it on the run - as now, we lie together,
  after making love, quiet, touching along the length of our bodies,
  familiar touch of the long-married,
  and he appears - in his baseball pajamas, it happens,
  the neck opening so small
  he has to screw them on, which one day may make him wonder
  about the mental capacity of baseball players -
  and flops down between us and hugs us and snuggles himself to sleep,
  his face gleaming with satisfaction at being this very child.
  
  In the half darkness we look at each other
  and smile
  and touch arms across his little, startling muscled body -
  this one whom habit of memory propels to the ground of his making,
  sleeper only the mortal sounds can sing awake,
  this blessing love gives again into our arms.
  
  
  
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• greekgirrrl 17 years ago said:
  
  The Clean Plater
  
  
  Some singers sing of ladies' eyes,
  And some of ladies lips,
  Refined ones praise their ladylike ways,
  And course ones hymn their hips.
  The Oxford Book of English Verse
  Is lush with lyrics tender;
  A poet, I guess, is more or less
  Preoccupied with gender.
  Yet I, though custom call me crude,
  Prefer to sing in praise of food.
  Food,
  Yes, food,
  Just any old kind of food.
  Pheasant is pleasant, of course,
  And terrapin, too, is tasty,
  Lobster I freely endorse,
  In pate or patty or pasty.
  But there's nothing the matter with butter,
  And nothing the matter with jam,
  And the warmest greetings I utter
  To the ham and the yam and the clam.
  For they're food,
  All food,
  And I think very fondly of food.
  Through I'm broody at times
  When bothered by rhymes,
  I brood
  On food.
  Some painters paint the sapphire sea,
  And some the gathering storm.
  Others portray young lambs at play,
  But most, the female form.
  “Twas trite in that primeval dawn
  When painting got its start,
  That a lady with her garments on
  Is Life, but is she Art?
  By undraped nymphs
  I am not wooed;
  I'd rather painters painted food.
  Food,
  Just food,
  Just any old kind of food.
  Go purloin a sirloin, my pet,
  If you'd win a devotion incredible;
  And asparagus tips vinaigrette,
  Or anything else that is edible.
  Bring salad or sausage or scrapple,
  A berry or even a beet.
  Bring an oyster, an egg, or an apple,
  As long as it's something to eat.
  If it's food,
  It's food;
  Never mind what kind of food.
  When I ponder my mind
  I consistently find
  It is glued
  On food.
  
  
  
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