Chamber Music by James Joyce； 談傅譯、嚴譯Bid Adieu to Girlish Days

讀兩首James Joyce的詩

amethyst, antiphone, all but barren

 http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/j/joyce/james/chamber-music/

Chamber Music, by James Joyce - Project Gutenberg

www.gutenberg.org/files/2817/2817-h/2817-h.htm

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Chamber Music, by James Joyce This eBook is ....Begin thou softly to unzone Thy girlish bosom unto him And softly to undo the  ...

‎Contents with First Lines - ‎CHAMBER MUSIC - ‎I - ‎II

請欣賞"歌聲"：Bid Adieu to Girlish Days - James Joyce Music in Ulysses
柔情的告別青春之歌。

Translations 譯藝: 談傅譯、嚴譯Bid Adieu to Girlish Days (From Chamber Music by James Joyce)

HCTRANSLATIONS.BLOGSPOT.COM|由 HANCHING CHUNG 上傳

"Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

中國有雪萊全集
 Ode to the West Wind"
 Everyman's Library
"Ode to the West Wind" by Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) 可能有十來版本譯文。

I
O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn’s being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The wingèd seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the Spring shall blow
Her clarion o’er the dreaming earth, and fill
(Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, O hear!

II
Thou on whose stream, ‘mid the steep sky’s commotion,
Loose clouds like Earth’s decaying leaves are shed,
Shook from the tangled boughs of Heaven and Ocean,
Angels of rain and lightning: there are spread
On the blue surface of thine airy surge,
Like the bright hair uplifted from the head
Of some fierce Maenad, even from the dim verge
Of the horizon to the zenith’s height,
The locks of the approaching storm. Thou dirge
Of the dying year, to which this closing night
Will be the dome of a vast sepulchre
Vaulted with all thy congregated might
Of vapours, from whose solid atmosphere
Black rain, and fire, and hail will burst: O hear!

III
Thou who didst waken from his summer dreams
The blue Mediterranean, where he lay,
Lulled by the coil of his crystalline streams,
Beside a pumice isle in Baiae’s bay,
And saw in sleep old palaces and towers
Quivering within the wave’s intenser day,
All overgrown with azure moss and flowers
So sweet, the sense faints picturing them! Thou
For whose path the Atlantic’s level powers
Cleave themselves into chasms, while far below
The sea-blooms and the oozy woods which wear
The sapless foliage of the ocean, know
Thy voice, and suddenly grow grey with fear,
And tremble and despoil themselves: O hear!

IV
If I were a dead leaf thou mightest bear;
If I were a swift cloud to fly with thee;
A wave to pant beneath thy power, and share
The impulse of thy strength, only less free
Than thou, O Uncontrollable! If even
I were as in my boyhood, and could be
The comrade of thy wanderings over Heaven,
As then, when to outstrip thy skiey speed
Scarce seemed a vision; I would ne’er have striven
As thus with thee in prayer in my sore need.
Oh! lift me as a wave, a leaf, a cloud!
I fall upon the thorns of life! I bleed!
A heavy weight of hours has chained and bowed
One too like thee: tameless, and swift, and proud.

V
Make me thy lyre, even as the forest is:
What if my leaves are falling like its own!
The tumult of thy mighty harmonies
Will take from both a deep, autumnal tone,
Sweet though in sadness. Be thou, Spirit fierce,
My spirit! Be thou me, impetuous one!
Drive my dead thoughts over the universe
Like withered leaves to quicken a new birth!
And, by the incantation of this verse,
Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth
Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind!
Be through my lips to unawakened Earth
The trumpet of a prophecy! O Wind,
If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?
*
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) was perhaps the most intellectually adventurous of the great Romantic poets. A classicist, a headlong visionary, a social radical, and a poet of serene artistry with a lyric touch second to none, Shelley personified the richly various—and contradictory—energies of his time. This compact yet comprehensive collection showcases all the extraordinary facets of Shelley’s art. From his most famous lyrical poems (“Ozymandias,” “The Cloud”) to his political and philosophical works (”The Mask of Anarchy,” “Hymn to Intellectual Beauty”) to excerpts from his remarkable dramatic and narrative verses (“Alastor,” “Prometheus Unbound”), Shelley’s words gave voice to English romanticism's deepest aspirations.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen

The British Library


Wilfred Owen was born ‪#‎onthisday‬ in 1893. He wrote ‘Dulce et Decorum est’ in the trenches of the First World War sometime between 1917 and 1918. He lost his life in action on 4 November 1918. Tragically, the news of his death reached his parents on 11 November, Armistice Day. bit.ly/21GVgSl





"Dulce et Decorum est" is a poem written by Wilfred Owen during World War I, and published posthumously in 1920. The Latin title is taken from the Roman poet Horace and means "it is sweet and honorable...", followed by pro patria mori, which means "to die for one's country".

Dulce et Decorum est - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dulce_et_Decorum_est









Benjamin Britten's "War Requiem"/ Wilfred_Owen‎








Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War. His shocking, realistic war poetry on the horrors of trenches and gas warfare was heavily influenced by his friend Siegfried Sassoon and stood in stark contrast to both the public perception of war at the time, and to the confidently patriotic verse written by earlier war poets such as Rupert Brooke. Among his best-known works – most of which were published posthumously – are "Dulce et Decorum Est", "Insensibility", "Anthem for Doomed Youth", "Futility" and "Strange Meeting".


http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/1034/pg1034.txt

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Apologia Pro Poemate Meo" is a poem by Wilfred Owen. It deals with the atrocities of World War I. The title means "in defence of my poetry" and is often viewed as a rebuttal to a remark in Robert Graves' letter "for God's sake cheer up and write more optimistically - the war's not ended yet but a poet should have a spirit above wars."^[1]

Alternatively, the poem is seen as a possible response to "Apologia Pro Vita Sua".

The poem describes some of the horrors of war and how this leads to a lack of emotion and a desensitisation to death. However the key message of the poem is revealed in the final two stanzas criticizing "you" at home (contemporary readers) for using war propaganda and images as a form of entertainment "These men are worth/ Your tears. You are not worth their merriment".

The full poem is as follows:

I, too, saw God through mud -    

The mud that cracked on cheeks when wretches smiled.    

War brought more glory to their eyes than blood,    

And gave their laughs more glee than shakes a child.

Merry it was to laugh there -    

Where death becomes absurd and life absurder.    

For power was on us as we slashed bones bare    

Not to feel sickness or remorse of murder.

I, too, have dropped off fear -    

Behind the barrage, dead as my platoon,    

And sailed my spirit surging, light and clear    

Past the entanglement where hopes lay strewn;

And witnessed exultation -    

Faces that used to curse me, scowl for scowl,    

Shine and lift up with passion of oblation,    

Seraphic for an hour; though they were foul.

I have made fellowships -    

Untold of happy lovers in old song.    

For love is not the binding of fair lips    

With the soft silk of eyes that look and long,

By Joy, whose ribbon slips, -    

But wound with war's hard wire whose stakes are strong;    

Bound with the bandage of the arm that drips;

Knit in the welding of the rifle-thong.

I have perceived much beauty    

In the hoarse oaths that kept our courage straight;   

Heard music in the silentness of duty;    

Found peace where shell-storms spouted reddest spate.

Nevertheless, except you share    

With them in hell the sorrowful dark of hell,    

Whose world is but the trembling of a flare,    

And heaven but as the highway for a shell,

You shall not hear their mirth:   

You shall not come to think them well content    

By any jest of mine. These men are worth    

Your tears: You are not worth their merriment.

References[edit]

1. Jump up^ Wilfred Owen, Collected Letters, edited by Harold Owen and John Bell - London, 1967.

楊憲益翻譯過以下兩首

Anthem for Doomed Youth



     What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?
        Only the monstrous anger of the guns.
        Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
     Can patter out their hasty orisons.
     No mockeries for them; no prayers nor bells,
     Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,--
     The shrill, demented choirs of wailing shells;
     And bugles calling for them from sad shires.

     What candles may be held to speed them all?
        Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
     Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes.
        The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
     Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
     And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.

Exposure



         I

     Our brains ache, in the merciless iced east winds that knife us . . .
     Wearied we keep awake because the night is silent . . .
     Low drooping flares confuse our memory of the salient . . .
     Worried by silence, sentries whisper, curious, nervous,
             But nothing happens.

     Watching, we hear the mad gusts tugging on the wire.
     Like twitching agonies of men among its brambles.
     Northward incessantly, the flickering gunnery rumbles,
     Far off, like a dull rumour of some other war.
             What are we doing here?

     The poignant misery of dawn begins to grow . . .
     We only know war lasts, rain soaks, and clouds sag stormy.
     Dawn massing in the east her melancholy army
     Attacks once more in ranks on shivering ranks of gray,
             But nothing happens.

     Sudden successive flights of bullets streak the silence.
     Less deadly than the air that shudders black with snow,
     With sidelong flowing flakes that flock, pause and renew,
     We watch them wandering up and down the wind's nonchalance,
             But nothing happens.


         II

     Pale flakes with lingering stealth come feeling for our faces--
     We cringe in holes, back on forgotten dreams, and stare, snow-dazed,
     Deep into grassier ditches.  So we drowse, sun-dozed,
     Littered with blossoms trickling where the blackbird fusses.
             Is it that we are dying?

     Slowly our ghosts drag home:  glimpsing the sunk fires glozed
     With crusted dark-red jewels; crickets jingle there;
     For hours the innocent mice rejoice:  the house is theirs;
     Shutters and doors all closed:  on us the doors are closed--
             We turn back to our dying.

     Since we believe not otherwise can kind fires burn;
     Nor ever suns smile true on child, or field, or fruit.
     For God's invincible spring our love is made afraid;
     Therefore, not loath, we lie out here; therefore were born,
             For love of God seems dying.

     To-night, His frost will fasten on this mud and us,
     Shrivelling many hands and puckering foreheads crisp.
     The burying-party, picks and shovels in their shaking grasp,
     Pause over half-known faces.  All their eyes are ice,
             But nothing happens.

Wilfred Owen - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wilfred_Owen‎

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen MC (18 March 1893 – 4 November 1918) was an English poet and soldier, one of the leading poets of the First World War.

Requiescat BY MATTHEW ARNOLD 安魂辭

每個人都不同，故事也相差很多，詩不同於散文，文化與時空殊異。志峰的散文能夠表達與詩不同的情感和滋味。
Requiescat BY MATTHEW ARNOLD 安魂辭
施穎洲譯：安魂辭，收入【古典名詩選譯】台北：皇冠，1986第3版，pp.128-29
Requiescat
BY MATTHEW ARNOLD⋯⋯

更多

廖志峰

2 小時前 · udn 新聞 · 

一個秋天的故事，在冬天裡寫出，在春天的時候刊登出來，原本只想在臉書上寫，不料越寫越長，竟寫成了一篇長文，謝謝聯合副刊的採用.謝謝請我吃秋刀魚的朋友，在他們家神奇的餐桌上，我總遇見我以為不可能會認識的各路豪傑，這篇文章寫的，不是感傷的記憶，只是一種人生的滋味罷了。

廖志峰／秋刀魚的滋味 | 閱讀 | 聯合新聞網

秋天開始的時候，接到友人邀請共進晚餐的短訊，當然不只是晚餐，還有事商談。很難拒絕，因為邀請的內容很動人，短訊上寫著：今天老爺到菜市場買了秋刀魚，晚上來家裡吃秋刀魚吧。我想，很少人會拒絕這樣的邀請。

分享

HTTP://UDN.COM/NEWS/STORY/7048/1570834|由聯合新聞網上傳

施穎洲譯：安魂辭，收入【古典名詩選譯】台北：皇冠，1986第3版，pp.128-29

Requiescat

BY MATTHEW ARNOLD

Strew on her roses, roses,

       And never a spray of yew!

In quiet she reposes;

       Ah, would that I did too!

Her mirth the world required;

       She bathed it in smiles of glee.

But her heart was tired, tired,

       And now they let her be.

Her life was turning, turning,

       In mazes of heat and sound.

But for peace her soul was yearning,

       And now peace laps her round.

Her cabin'd, ample spirit,

       It flutter'd and fail'd for breath.

To-night it doth inherit

       The vasty hall of death.

requiescat - Wiktionary

https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/requiescat

First word of the Latin phrase requiēscat in pāce (“may he/she rest in peace”). The Latin word requiēscat means "he may rest"

When all the others were away at Mass by Seamus Heaney

When all the others were away at Mass by Seamus Heaney has been named Ireland’s best-loved poem from the past century. It was chosen from ballots cast by the public, and announced by Irish President Michael D. Higgins. The third of eight sonnets in “Clearances,” a series dedicated to the poet’s mother, Margaret Kathleen McCann, the poem is featured in the recently published Selected Poems 1966–1987, one of two new editions of Heaney’s work that were arranged by the Nobel laureate himself.

---

3

When all the others were away at Mass
I was all hers as we peeled potatoes.
They broke the silence, let fall one by one
Like solder weeping off the soldering iron:
Cold comforts set between us, things to share
Gleaming in a bucket of clean water.
And again let fall. Little pleasant splashes
From each other’s work would bring us to our senses.

So while the parish priest at her bedside
Went hammer and tongs at the prayers for the dying
And some were responding and some crying
I remembered her head bent towards my head,
Her breath in mine, our fluent dipping knives –
Never closer the whole rest of our lives.

Station Island by Seamus Heaney

Seamus Heaney《希尼詩文集》（北京：作家出版社，2001）
《斯特森島》（1984） 地鐵中/
契訶夫訪庫頁島
砂石紀念品/
老熨斗
來自德爾菲的石頭
給邁克爾和克里斯托弗的風箏
鐵軌上的孩子們/

斯特森島（選譯）

• St Patrick’s Purgatory  地方

Station Island (poetry)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Station Island

First Edition
Author	Seamus Heaney
Language	English
Publisher	Faber and Faber
Publication date	1984
Media type	Print
Pages	128 pp
ISBN	9780571133024
Preceded by	Field Work
Followed by	The Haw Lantern

Station Island is the sixth collection of original poetry written by the Northern Irish poet Seamus Heaney, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1995. It is dedicated to the Northern Irish playwright Brian Friel. The collection was first published in the UK and Ireland in 1984 by Faber & Faber and was then published in America by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in 1985. Seamus Heaney has been recorded reading this collection on the Seamus Heaney Collected Poems album.

Song ["When I am dead, my dearest"] |

YouTube有張艾嘉等人唱的歌......

Christina.G.Rossetti / 徐志摩 譯

當我逝去的時候，親愛
你別為我唱悲傷的歌
我墳上不必安插薔薇
也無需濃蔭的柏樹
讓蓋著我的青青的草
淋著雨也沾著露珠
假如你願意請記著我
要是你甘心忘了我

我再見不到地面的青蔭
覺不到雨露的甜蜜
我再聽不到夜鶯的歌喉
在黑夜裡傾吐悲啼
在幽久的墳墓中迷惘
陽光不升起也不消翳
我也許
也許我還記得你
我也許把你忘記.....

Christina Rossetti, 1830 - 1894. When I am dead,my dearest, Sing no sad songs for me; Plant thouno roses at my head, Nor shady cypress tree: Be the green grass above me With showers and dewdrops wet; And if thou wilt, remember, And if thou wilt, forget.
Song ["When I am dead, my dearest"] | Academy of ...
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/song-when-i-am-dead-my-dearest

When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.

THE STOLEN CHILD By W. B. YEATS

早期的詩集：Ballads and Lyics

THE STOLEN CHILD
  W. B. YEATS

Where dips the rocky highland
Of Sleuth Wood in the lake,
There lies a leafy island
Where flapping herons wake
The drowsy water rats;
There we’ve hid our faery vats,
Full of berrys
And of reddest stolen cherries.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping 

      than you can understand.

Where the wave of moonlight glosses
The dim gray sands with light,
Far off by furthest Rosses
We foot it all the night,
Weaving olden dances
Mingling hands and mingling glances
Till the moon has taken flight;
To and fro we leap
And chase the frothy bubbles,
While the world is full of troubles
And anxious in its sleep.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping 

       than you can understand

Where the wandering water gushes
From the hills above Glen-Car,
In pools among the rushes
That scarce could bathe a star,
We seek for slumbering trout
And whispering in their ears
Give them unquiet dreams;
Leaning softly out
From ferns that drop their tears
Over the young streams.
Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world's more full of weeping 

      than you can understand.

Away with us he's going,
The solemn-eyed:
He'll hear no more the lowing
Of the calves on the warm hillside
Or the kettle on the hob
Sing peace into his breast,
Or see the brown mice bob
Round and round the oatmeal chest
For he comes, the human child
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand
From a world more full of weeping 

       than he can understand

高塔先生有翻譯並指示YouTube連結：
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jg-oJKYIinQ

From “Spring Day,” “Flow Chart,” poems by John Ashbery

The Paris Review

9小時 · 

Spring Day
by John Ashbery

The immense hope, and forbearance
Trailing out of night, to sidewalks of the day 
Like air breathed into a paper city, exhaled
As night returns bringing doubts
That swarm around the sleeper’s head
But are fended off with clubs and knives, so that morning
Installs again in cold hope
The air that was yesterday, is what you are,
In so many phases the head slips form the hand.

翻譯年糕

“Spring Day,” a poem by John Ashbery

The Paris Review is a literary magazine featuring original writing, art, and in-depth interviews with famous writers.

THEPARISREVIEW.ORG

“and then it’s back to work again, more work, lots of it”

From “Flow Chart,” a poem by John Ashbery

The Paris Review is a literary magazine featuring original writing, art, and in-depth interviews with famous writers.

THEPARISREVIEW.ORG

Poem

from Flow Chart

John Ashbery

The madhouse statuary seemed to dispel the pre-life
      we gave it.
in sleep, to become the one bauble rescued from that
      hoard, whose shapes
no one now will know. It cannot be said they existed.
      Yet
surely there was life, once in those seams, life the
      daughters of the iron teeth
of time gave it, and swallows flew over it. One might
      say, casually,
that there was variation in it, that there was texture.
      More, though,
one still couldn’t say. Yet one day the sanitation
      department decreed
it was coming through, a nice day in May with the
      usual blossoms, though these
were only accessories, having no bearing on the tale or
its context, petal-like, in fact, like a cat’s nose, but the
      judge
happened by just then and told them to stop it. They
      went away and someone,
a bushy-haired man, came back and said it was OK,
      they could keep on doing it
if they wanted to, but not to say he said so, but that it
      was OK.
I long meanwhile for the confines of any other
      principality, but can’t abandon
working even if I wanted to, it’s like play to me
      though I get no pleasure from it
except pausing at odd moments to watch the rill for a
      few seconds,
and then it’s back to work again, more work, lots of
      it, and the pollution
attendant on it, like Hebe to the rainbow’s gauzy
      showers, or web, and I
can’t stand on tradition nor beside it. Here it suits
      me, boys, to turn
over a new leaf like a chunk of recalcitrant granite. I
      know no other gadfly
who berates me so much; I love it; the woman came
      back to say she was in the way
and would we go away please it was four o’clock. Not
      on your life thundered the
hangman, and so it became a kind of ritual, then a
      game, and every day
someone came to ask after the stone, and someone
      would stand up to say
it has gone away, go lose yourself in studies or the
      wilderness;
more none can say. He just came up that day,
had a look round, and left. We aren’t even sure
we saw him. It could have been wildflowers in the
      wallpaper
or stray ashes in the grate, no more. Then the bird
      came back and shat
on the stone, and that proved it was there for awhile,
      but somehow
that got forgotten and we were thrust out of doors to
      play in the rain
and sleet, and somebody got hold of the key, we
      entered, and presto, no one
was there, it was a different room, another empty one
too, and had
obviously been vacated pretty recently. A smell of
      kippers
hung in the front hall. OK, I said, we must press on to
      the last house
they were seen in in the next block. The green
      cement one. But my
companions whispered why, let’s ditch him at the first
      opportunity, no
let’s not even wait that long, which is why I came
      across the lawn bruised
and moist, and trembling with pity to be let in, and
      you came
and let me in. Nowhere did I have anything to say
      again, but that
was not noticed until yesterday, too late to have us do
      anything about it.
One source said it was the tulips, against the nice
      gesture to be led and fed
and have others shut up about it. But one said, you
      can’t have that
and not condone the listless others who don’t know
      yet they’re walking
in your tracks and will be sorry when they find out,
      but another man joined
the woman and said you could too talk about it, it was
      just a subject
and therefore forgotten, i.e. dead. And Joan she said
too it was like being dead only she didn’t care, she
      might as well be anyway, for all
she cared, and then someone came back with beef.
      And said here
put a rose on this, you’re not afraid, you do it, and
      someone said, O if the law
decree it he must do it. So the one went in and the
      others stayed out and waited.
And if you’re not going to do it, and if it’s none of
      your business, why are
you going to do it, the first one said, to which that
      one said: begone. You are my
business in any case and it behooves me not to be in
      the shadow of you
while I wait. And then one who came from a great
      distance said, why does it suit you
to be ornery, if others cannot join the general
      purgative exodus, to which that one inside
said, and so it becomes you, if it become you. And
      then in the shade they put their heads
together, and one comes back, the others being a little
      way off, and says, who
do you think taught you to disobey in the first place?
      And he says, my father.
And at that they were all struck dumb
And left that place falling all over each other
in their haste to get away, and it was all over for that
      day.
But another day came and the rice was still laying
on the ground, next to the dust ball. And one took it
      up, saying,
this is all that shall be till I get back from my trip.
And the others were amused because he had never
      mentioned a trip before,
but he spat at them, saying, you are too powerful now
      for my injunction to take hold,
but just wait till the others see you in my chamois
      costume, because if you think it’s too late
now what will you think when it has gotten really out
      of hand
like a vine that grows and grows and cannot stop
      growing, or a fire
deep in a coal mine that burns for centuries before
      anyone can do anything
about it. So he stepped down at last. And the others,
      charred
and unrecognizable, concurred that something
      extraordinary had taken place and that there
was nothing to be done about it. And so he went
      away.

Love that lasts a minute like a filter
on a faucet, love that is always like headlights in the
      glistening dark, heed
the pen’s screech. Do no read what is written. In
      time
it too shall become incoherent but for the time being
      it is good
just to tamper with it and be off, lest someone see
      you. And when this veil
of twisted creeper is parted, and the listing tundra is
      revealed
behind it, say why you had come to say it: the
      divorce. The no reason, as
the plane dives up into the sky and is lost. All that
      one had so carefully polished
and preserved, arranged in rows, boasted modestly to
      the neighbors about,
is going and there is nothing, repeat nothing, to take
      its place. Only should we
wander a bit and then return without expectations,
      does some faint impulse twitch at its
base before expiring, and a lesbian truth rise up for a
      post-mortem arrangement
until the rabble of the skies cries and all is assumed to
      be productive.
Get your ass out of here. But it is time
to work again, but a sad, a tragic time, a time of
      trifles
and vast snowbanks, and so
you put on your hat backwards and decipher it again
      dutifully; it’s the home stretch
but dare I say more before you think it’s time to go
      and they think so
but they say only, is no more time to stay here, in any
      case we would have gone
if we knew where to go, but we have a place to go,
      so we will go there. And behind
the barn it behooves us again to take up the principle,
      so like the art
of tragedy and so unlike, and so we let it rest
      carefully, and someone says
he would like to be off, and the others agree, it
      ignites a general stampede
before the clock closes down. In the old corners of
      why the situation
was ever allowed to come into existence in the first
      place, the nasal whining
is first heard, then perturbed groans and idle retreats
      into shuttered
middle distances and auxiliary alcoves. Aw, shucks,
      someone
seems to be repeating, we could stay here all night if
      we wanted to
but that couldn’t bring the child back into being, and
      I say, I suppose so.
One’s gone for some grants. Be back
when the coal trestle is finished, and idle
against the apricot lamé of the distance here. And
      boys I know
the distance between your empty bellies and the jobs
      that will not fill them,
but I still maintain you are better here, but better off
      far from here
where the choo-choo whistles and a deadly white
      wind stoops to take a few prisoners,
where we shall be pleasant once the future has had its
      way with us. And you know,
he said, sure, that’s the way to hell and its
      conundrums if that’s the way
you want to go, and they all said we know, we are
      going that way
cautiously approved of in the introduction, only it
      seems so full of asperities now.
And he said that’s they way it was, it was a tangle and
      will never be anything
more than a diagram pointing you in a senseless
      direction toward yourself.
Sure, they come with snacks you have foreseen,
but that doesn’t excuse you for having been caught in
      this place. And they all said
giddyap, let’s go on to the next
place on the side, for having won, and being here to
      count up our winnings, which are
surely all right with us. Watch it, he said.

So the initial exuberance departed. But that was all
      right, because surely
the beginning of a festival is a nice place to be, if it’s
      Asia, and more hogs
were brought down. But when he saw the hogs, the
      owner of the grain elevator was angry
and went out. Now, there were two others who were
      there. And they were
each determined to get what was coming to them.
      The master returning, said OK boys,
never let it be said you didn’t ask for it. And in that
       moment a fuzz of bloom
was on them. Each spring the desert comes alive with
      birds and flowers,
a breathtaking view at the foot of the framed
      Superstition Mountains,
reported home of the Lost Dutchman Mine with its
      still undiscovered caches of gold.
And all around it is fine too. The mineral springs I
      wanted so much to exploit—what
does any of it matter now, now that I have found my
      home in a narrow cleft
stained with Indian paintbrush and boar’s blood, from
      which an avenue eventually leads
to the flatter, more civilized places I have no quarrel
      with either. After all,
we have to go in once or twice a month to pick up
      supplies, the few
articles we don’t grow such as coffee, to which I’m
      still addicted by the way, and
records too from a local music shop, which are
      important to have—no man
needs to live by his own law in the wilderness after
      all, but even if he is going
to try it is best not to let the old world slip too
      casually. Rather it should come about
naturally, without too much fuss or horn tooting. And
      then, by and by, if he sees
he likes it, why then there is always time to make
      such decisions later on as regards
one’s insurance, and such, and peter out from
      there—trickle accurately
into the sand so that each drop is utilized to the max,
      and then we’ll see
how the desert is improving—only “improve” is a
      word I don’t want to use too much
either. For after all everything is good of its kind to
      start with. It’s all a
question only of finding out what the kind is and
      letting the thing ferment
in its own bile for a few decades. By then
it should become apparent to whomever has been
      watching how much the land owes us,
and how we re-distribute it wisely, if only we ever
      stop to think about it. Don’t
you agree? I mean, don’t you see the silhouetted
      foothills too? How bland and discordant,
yet after all how deeply satisfying in one’s rage—and
      then too the pods fall off
all at once eventually, and must rot
if the seeds are to get into the ground, providing they
      are still alive and haven’t rotted too.
So in all ways I think it’s a question of a man
      coming—he had
a chicken or something on his arm. And when he
      arrived, the expected salutation
rang out like a shot; people took cover. I don’t mean
I did, though, I stood up to him, just like a man, the
      man I was, or is, and he, he just
looked back at me, kind of funny and defiant-like, but
      he wuz saying nothing.
Too smart for that.