The body lay in a mound of hay
That was all piled up by the forge,
He took one look at the butcher’s hook
And the sick rose up in his gorge,
He peered on down at the bloodied face
There was nothing that could be done,
But held his breath when he saw that death
Had taken the blacksmith’s son.

He looked around for a sign of life
But the shop and the forge were cold,
The blacksmith Kirk hadn’t come to work
Though he’d seen him, out in the fold,
And darling Kate would be calling in,
His fate whirled round in his head,
What would she think when she found him there
With the love of her life stone dead?

The villagers knew no love was lost,
They’d fought at the village fete,
All over the hand of the pretty one,
The hand of their darling Kate,
But George was on an apprenticeship
For his father had owned the forge,
While Faber was a farm labourer,
So Kate had gone off with George.

But now George lay in a pile of hay
And he wouldn’t be dating Kate,
So Faber thought that he shouldn’t stay
Though he’d left it a little late.
He didn’t know if they’d seen him come,
He couldn’t be seen to go,
They’d think that he was the only one
To deliver the killer blow.

He heard a rustle within the store
And the sweat broke out on his head,
He knew if somebody found him there
That he’d be better off dead.
He peered silently through the door
And into the corner gloom,
And Kate was sobbing, there on the floor
In the darkest part of the room.

Her bouffant hair was a tangled mess
Her dress was tattered and frayed,
It didn’t take but a single guess
To see the part that she’d played,
For blood was mingling with her tears
Her bodice was stained deep red,
‘He stole my innocence,’ she exclaimed,
‘I hit him just once,’ she said.

Now Faber sits in a darkened cell
To wait for the hangman’s rope,
The Judge had asked, but he wouldn’t tell
So now he’s bereft of hope.
He’d told the court that he’d stumbled in
On the blacksmith’s son, and ****,
And hit him once with a butcher’s hook
For the sake of the darling Kate.

But Kate was strolling with someone new
On the day that they pinned his hands,
And led him up to the gallows floor
To pay for the court’s demands,
She never gave him a thought that day
Though the blacksmith thought he knew,
And lay in wait with a butcher’s hook
As Kate was passing through.

David Lewis Paget

I’m indebted to the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, 4th Edition 1996

Ab Imo Pectore

Ab imo pectore,
Blandae mendacia linguae,
Cadit quaestio,
Desunt cetera.
Est modus in rebus.
Faber est quisque fortunae suae,
Gigni de nihilo nihilum, in nihilum nil posse reverti.
Hic finis fandi,
Interdum stultus bene loquitur?
Jacta interdum est alea,
Labuntur et imputantur.
Magni nominis umbra,
Nec scire fas est omnia,
Omne crede diem tibi diluxisse supremun,
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pauperum tabernas regumque turres;
Quid rides, mutato nominee de te fibula narrator,
Res ipsa loquitur.
Solvitur ambulando…
Tempora mutantur, nos et matamur in illis.
Urbi et orbi,
Vestigia nulla retrorsum.


From The Bottom Of The Heart

From the bottom of the heart,  the falsehoods of a smooth tongue,
The question drops, the rest is wanting.
There is a balance in all things, every man is the creator of his own fate.
From nothing, nothing can come, into nothing, nothing can return.
Let there be an end to talking, for who can tell when a fool speaks the truth?
The die is sometimes already cast,
A moment comes and goes, and is laid to our account.
From the smallest shadow to the mightiest name,
No one can claim to know all things,
I believe that every day that dawns may be my last,
Pale death knocks impartially at both poor and rich men’s houses;
Don’t laugh, change the name and the story is yours,
It’s so obvious, it speaks for itself.
As the concept of motion is proven by walking…
So in time all things change, as we must, in time, all change.
And to all the world,
There’s no turning back.

Ab Imo Pectore / From The Bottom Of The Heart

Ab imo pectore,
From the bottom of the heart,
Blandae mendacia linguae,  
The falsehoods of a smooth tongue,
Cadit quaestio,
The question drops,
Desunt cetera.
The rest is found wanting.
Est modus in rebus,
There is a balance in all things,
Faber est quisque fortunae suae.
Every man is the creator of his own fate.
Gigni de nihilo nihilum, in nihilum nil posse reverti.
From nothing, nothing can come, into nothing, nothing can return.  
Hic finis fandi,
Let there be an end to talking,
Interdum stultus bene loquitur?
For who can tell when a fool speaks the truth?
Jacta interdum est alea.
The die is sometimes already cast,
Labuntur et imputantur.
A moment comes and goes, and is laid to our account.
Magni nominis umbra,
From the smallest shadow to the mightiest name,
Nec scire fas est omnia,
No one can claim to know all things,
Omne crede diem tibi diluxisse supremun,
I believe that every day that dawns may be my last,
Pallida  mors aequo pulsat pauperum tabernas regumque turres;
Pale death knocks impartially at both poor man and rich men’s houses;
Quid rides, mutato nominee de te fibula narrator,
Don’t laugh, change the name and the story is yours,
Res ipsa loquitur.
It’s so obvious, that it speaks for itself.
Solvitur ambulando…
As the concept of motion is proven by walking…
Tempora mutantur, nos et matamur in illis.
So in time all things change, as we must, in time, all change.
Urbi et orbi,
And to all the world,
Vestigia nulla retrorsum.
There’s no turning back.


r10.1

I am usually an amnesiac
Which is why there is always
cheap stationery in my pockets

- "An inexpensive set from Faber-Castell"

I look to my scribbles when I'm lost
unless an unexpected shower
has been tasked to ruin them

- "Pages stuck together, smudged and stained"


Three monsoons have come and went
I don't carry an umbrella or run for cover anymore
I stand in the middle of the downpour, drenched
But I guess some inks are just too hard to wash away

Lawrence Hall
Mhall46184@aol.com
Dispatches for the Colonial Office

                     Did Civilians Write Poetry Back in the Day?

A medical professional, while taking my pulse
Asked me what I was reading
                                                 Poetry, I replied
Poetry of suffering in the Second World War
Most of it by civilians who were there

She asked:

Did civilians write poetry back in th’ day?

I changed the topic to my blood pressure



Second World War Poems
Ed. Hugh Haughton
London: Faber and Faber, 2004

This anthology is brilliant, with poems by soldiers, civilians, concentration camp prisoners, and prisoners of war from many nations. Several of the poems are anonymous, written on scraps of paper found on the bodies of the murdered. There is much fashionable babble about my voice / our voices / authentic voices / my people’s voices, and so on, but here is a fine collection by people whose voices were desperate to tell the truth, not indulge in self-pity, and find beauty among the horror

I choose paper ******, I am going cellulose.  
Even Cinderella knows the tone of Bellow's
Prose is bellicose.  Let's smoke some bath salts
Then eat that fella's nose.  What up!

To all my jellicles.  Looky looky
I got hooky.  Put on my robe and wizard
Hat.  Speak Wookie to Sookie.  If 2 cents
Equals three bucks, Skeletor has acid reflux.

Roll over based god.  Don't be hoven
From your umgebung.  Chew Ummagumma
To bubblegum.  Get slim in your jungle
Jim.  Calling all Mongolians.

Those alligators have razor bumps.  If they
Publish this bunkum Faber & Faber
Are chumps.  Plants have lovely lady lumps,
Trucks like sanitation dumps. Angler

Fish love lamp.  El Dorado love Ponyboy.
Caught a full house on the Rio Grande complete
With domovoi.  Know how I know you're poor?
The roaches on your toilet can sing Ode to Joy.

First, are you our sort of a person?
Do you wear
A glass eye, false teeth or a crutch,
A brace or a hook,
Rubber ******* or a rubber crotch,

Stitches to show something's missing? No, no? Then
How can we give you a thing?
Stop crying.
Open your hand.
Empty? Empty. Here is a hand

To fill it and willing
To bring teacups and roll away headaches
And do whatever you tell it.
Will you marry it?
It is guaranteed

To thumb shut your eyes at the end
And dissolve of sorrow.
We make new stock from the salt.
I notice you are stark naked.
How about this suit——

Black and stiff, but not a bad fit.
Will you marry it?
It is waterproof, shatterproof, proof
Against fire and bombs through the roof.
Believe me, they'll bury you in it.

Now your head, excuse me, is empty.
I have the ticket for that.
Come here, sweetie, out of the closet.
Well, what do you think of that?
Naked as paper to start

But in twenty-five years she'll be silver,
In fifty, gold.
A living doll, everywhere you look.
It can sew, it can cook,
It can talk, talk, talk.

It works, there is nothing wrong with it.
You have a hole, it's a poultice.
You have an eye, it's an image.
My boy, it's your last resort.
Will you marry it, marry it, marry it.

Sylvia Plath, "The Applicant" from The Collected Poems. Copyright © 2008 by Sylvia Plath.  Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
Source: The Collected Poems (Faber and Faber, 1989)
Related

On many journeys we have rushed.
Announced my presence in the forests,
and collected much road dust.

Thank you for your faithfulness ,
and your trustworthiness ,
for helping me all these few months.

Thank you for accompanying me
across all forests and reservoir reserves.
To the East like Ubin island, Changi, East coast; To North like the wet land and Sembawang beach;
To the West like Tuas, Jurong and West coast
To the Central like Bukit Timah, and Clementi
To the South like fort canning and Mount Faber

Your are worn and torn...
You have felt all the sensation
of these journey,
the sharp stones,
wet ground,
the dead snakes
and
the heat of the tar road .

You have accompanied me.
You have done what you can.

Time for you to rest now.
Now, my broken shoes,
Today I say goodbye.

My broken shoes,
Thank you for caring
the few weary months.

I will be the next William Blake. In two hundres years, someone
will enter Oliver Wendell Holmes Library of Phillips Academy
and happen upon my self-pulished book of poems. aphorisms, and
essays titled I WRITE WHEN THE RIVER'S DOWN, which four
years ago the Head of School had told the acquisitions librarian
to order from me, because I had sent him a copy of it several months
before. And that person will sit down and start reading my poems,
aphorisms, and essays and say to herself, "This guy is a genius! I
have to show this book to my English professor. She'll love it." And
word will spread until my somewhat belated genius reputation will
have spread worldwide. I, of course, will not be nominated for the
Nobel Prize in Literature, because if you're dead, you're out of luck.
But Faber and Faber of London will nevertheless publish I WRITE
WHEN THE RIVER'S DOWN and several of my poems eventually
will be studied by students at Andover, among other places.

Copyright 2020 Tod Howard Hawks

if i once loved you,
you are somewhere in the poems.
you were a word that belongs only to us.
you were lines with a rhythm as the tapping of your feet.
and if we trace back during one slow class,
you made it first on the last pages of my notebook,
as scribbles,
roughly resembling a sketch of the parallel creases
between you confused eyes as you check my paper,
while i stole you a few glances.
back then, i did not mind the low scores because it meant more time for us to review.
then, using a faber castell ballpoint ink, you penned your position in my life,
like the thick and abundant strokes of red annotations on my answer sheet.
the same red i inked on my skin,
deeply so you can construe within.
it is as if you are flowing ever so naturally in my bloodstream.
you never seem to have truly departed my faculties of thought,
because i have always felt the same.
and my tongue remains a native in languages, words that translate to your name.
you are alive, very much so,
when i think, when i speak, when i write, time and time again,
you come to life.
so, yes my dear,
i know just where to find you.
if i once loved you, you are here.

Eliot arranged for a formal separation
                 February 1933, and thereafter
                 shunned her entirely,                            hiding from her
                and instructing            his friends – including members of the Bloomsbury Group [Virginia Wolfe's &
  sometimes    Joyce's crowd]               and  the publisher Faber & Faber,
               where he was a director –             not to tell her where he was;
                 Her brother had her              committed to an asylum in 1938,
                                   after she was found
                     wandering                the streets of London
                       at five               |              in the morning,
                     asking whether Eliot had been beheaded:
                    Apart from one escape attempt
she remained there                      until she died nine years
later at 58;                  said to have suffered a heart attack,     there is suspicion of                 suicide                by deliberate drug overdose;
Eliot                  winning the Nobel                       Prize for Literature
                                                      ­                          the following year;

Carole        Seymour-Jones writes that it
was out of the turmoil & tumultuous ***        
                                        of the marriage
                  [in which Vivian would cry out in agony;
                        due to untreated cysts that caused  horrendously painful  cramps & unstoppable       bleeding];          
that Eliot   produced The Waste Land,
one                         of the 20th century's
         finest love poems to the horrors of the             Abyss [seen & read
         as
         personifying the whole of the 20th century];
        Eliot's sister-in-law, Theresa,
        said of the relationship:
        "Vivienne ruined Tom as a man,        but she made him a poet."