Saturday, September 24, 2005

   "The Battle of Blenheim

    1

It was a summer evening,
   Old Kaspar's work was done,
And he before his cottage door
   Was sitting in the sun,
And by him sported on the green
His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

    2

She saw her brother Peterkin
   Roll something large and round,
Which he beside the rivulet
   In playing there had found;
He came to ask what he had found
That was so large, and smooth, and round.

    3

Old Kaspar took it from the boy,
   Who stood expectant by;
And then the old man shook his head,
   And, with a natural sigh,
' 'Tis some poor fellow's skull,' said he,
'Who fell in the great victory.

    4

'I find them in the garden,
   For there's many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
   The ploughshare turns them out!
For many thousand men,' said he,
'Were slain in that great victory.'

    5

'Now tell us what 'twas all about,'
   Young Peterkin, he cries;
And little Wilhelmine looks up
   With wonder-waiting eyes;
'Now tell us all about the war,
And what they fought each other for.'

    6

'It was the English,' Kaspar cried,
   'Who put the French to rout;
But what they fought each other for,
   I could not well make out;
But every body said,' quoth he,
'That 'twas a famous victory.

    7

'My father lived at Blenheim then,
   Yon little stream hard by;
They burnt his dwelling to the ground,
   And he was forced to fly;
So with his wife and child he fled,
Nor had he where to rest his head.

    8

'With fire and sword the country round
   Was wasted far and wide,
And many a childing mother then,
   And new-born baby died;
But things like that, you know, must be
At every famous victory.

    9

'They say it was a shocking sight
   After the field was won;
For many thousand bodies here
   Lay rotting in the sun;
But things like that, you know, must be
After a famous victory.

    10

'Great praise the Duke of Marlbro' won,
   And our good Prince Eugene.'
'Why 'twas a very wicked thing!'
   Said little Wilhelmine.
'Nay...nay...my little girl,' quoth he,
'It was a famous victory.'

    11

'And every body praised the Duke
   Who this great fight did win.'
'But what good came of it at last?'
   Quoth little Peterkin.
'Why that I cannot tell,' said he,
'But 'twas a famous victory.' "

--Rob*rt South*y, 1798



Plund*rphonics.



ing · ma · air · zy · imp



B*atallica.


Buy Cobalt. (via T*xfil*s)


Friday, September 23, 2005

alas
Cubi XVII (via msjc dot 3du slash art slash djohnson)



   "IN AUTUMN

The extinct animals are still looking for home
Their eyes full of cotton

Now they will
Never arrive

The stars are like that

Moving on without memory
Without having been near turning elsewhere climbing
Nothing the wall

The hours their shadows

The lights are going on in the leaves nothing to do with evening

Those are cities
Where I had hoped to live"

--W S M*rwin



"Unfortunately, this Hello Kitty was too big to bring back on the plane."


"To believe that "a sysop cannot possibly be a vandal" creates the Sysop Vandal point of view..."



Martian G*n*sis.


Thursday, September 22, 2005

alas
(via usa-japan dot com)


"...the centerpiece of a Tochigi Prefecture theme park about the settling of the American West is a 215-meter-high, fiber-reinforced plastic replica of Mount Rushmore."



   fall stars across chill
again changing goad tsar storm
   as it madly adds

dimna furious smirk fang
schismatic stomp bungalow

   rally all flaring
ryotwar Ishtar shaping
   royal sport apart

find any aground abort
gulf slilu swarming fatwa

   crisply akimbo
osmium skirl gumbo flalu
   all us bright folk back

among oblong fragrant silk
usurps skiff · fallow asthma


   Lojban words

nilca (Loglan)- contrary of on top of; tcidu- city; manku- dark; crino- viridian; sidbo- thought form; skari- color; frica- dissimilar; dimna- Wyrd; slilu- go back and forth; flalu- law




"Certainty and uncertainty
Two sides of the same flame."

--Garcia Villa



Praying To Th* Ali*ns.


"Everyone who now has power will lose it. Soon. You have been kissing up to the wrong people."


Granit* Shadow.


Wednesday, September 21, 2005

King in Y*llow actually. (via Blindh*it)



   spasmodic clasp · moist
song lost in bringing it back
   lost all that tumult

drug cupboard in which fluoric
acid lay in a wax tomb

   pray for no pardon
cyborg laughing thick damp grass
   orphan octopus

calmly about to drown talk
can play back now from victims

   filch tchukor stars silt
amok tsantsa · affords nil blurb
   scratch ghost stadium

actually shopping · bulwark
skulls roam brisk as stilb fathoms

   crino is asking
sidbo flimsy Atlantis
   laughs smog cough skari

starry Osiris calx snag
starts as a bag of offal

   sorrowing brumous
addiction isthmus and rill
   glamour abolish

blood lungfish frica abrupt
Iscariot ichor wraith



"What would compel a successful scholar of 18th-century English literature at a state university to give up academia and become - gasp! - a professional musician?"


Th* Long 3m*rg*ncy.


Tuesday, September 20, 2005

Making of an Icon.



   a lost acronym
adorns cardboard and within
   i would stow dark plans

am i misty for this flow
piloting an iron rhino

   closing lids on stars
unmindful of scorpions
   in transit · ago

grinding sound and carbon tip
toward its last point spiralling

   glimpsing from a coign
prior to our gravity
   our acts laid out plain

into a swamp of robots
sifts mild algorithm

   frigid dusty world
with rusty sands · winds stirring
   around a solid

all this art about making
a god of dissolution

   tcidu now manku
only two hours · not from
   bomb plot · from stupid

first of last bards shiny book
about · not oft so bright such



Balikbayan box. (via Th* Chat*lain*)


"...we need a new definition of "evil"..."


Monday, September 19, 2005

A long wait for translation: Tungst*n; La D*rni*r* Mod*.


   for an instant words
bob up in a music flow
   vacuous · twinkling

and dull gray noon is burning
i pass my turn and go back

   salmon-apricot
sky this morning as prior
   and will blossom again

nilca and gnomic salmon
kodak turncoat apricot

   a tiny lizard
gold porchlight · lotophagoi
   dog collar tinkling

in a dark livingroom
mix two kinds of granola

   sunny and dark clouds
and words fail · furious shift
   sands · a body floating

crimson glow on a building
turns cobalt as i slog back

   its windows as bright
as that day of wild watching
   folk running from dust

my own past has but scant sign
of tracks · contrails gold against



"The only books in Santayana's cell were his own--and a set or Toynbee's recently published history, which he was reading characteristically; that is, he first broke (or foxed) the spine of the book and undid the sections; then, as he finished reading each section, he would throw it in the wastebasket."


Sunday, September 18, 2005

    "Poems for an Unhumble One I.

But the leaves and you are proud--
so no.
    It is summer now and did they
have you.
        So then
        when
        and if you can.
And a rose was bought:
it was as never and as still.
            The doves
came: they too were proud.
    The cherries and the bees: but these
were meek.
      I asked forgiveness
until lost."

--Garcia Villa



Fictional P*ssoa.