The Tax Poem

Tax his land, tax his wage,

Tax his bed in which he lays.

Tax his tractor, tax his mule,

Teach him taxes is the rule.

 

Tax his cow, tax his goat,

Tax his pants, tax his coat.

Tax his ties, tax his shirts,

Tax his work, tax his dirt.

 

Tax his chew, tax his smoke,

Teach him taxes are no joke.

Tax his car, tax his grass,

Tax the roads he must pass.

 

Tax his food, tax his drink,

Tax him if he tries to think.

Tax his sodas, tax his beers,

If he cries, tax his tears.

 

Tax his bills, tax his gas,

Tax his notes, tax his cash.

Tax him good and let him know

That after taxes, he has no dough.

 

If he hollers, tax him more,

Tax him until he’s good and sore.

Tax his coffin, tax his grave,

Tax the sod in which he lays.

 

Put these words upon his tomb,

“Taxes drove me to my doom!”

And when he’s gone, we won’t relax,

We’ll still be after the inheritance tax.

Uninspirational Quotes

By Brian Bilston: 

Uninspirational Quotes 

"No matter how big the problem,
it's never too late to run away." 

"Every morning is another chance
to have an even more awful day." 

"Remember, no task is too immense —
the word itself says "I'm mense". 

"Regard Life not as a competition,
more as a sequence of non-events." 

"Inside every opportunity is
a disappointment waiting to happen." 

"Never be overawed by your ordinariness.
Make it your passion." 

"It's not about the winning or losing,
it's the falling apart that counts." 

"Let adversity be your trampoline —
one that's broken and won't make you bounce." 

"It takes seventeen muscles to smile
but fewer than that to frown." 

"An inspirational quote is like a parachute —
it can really get you down."

Wendy Cope: ‘The Orange’

At lunchtime I bought a huge orange —
The size of it made us all laugh.
I peeled it and shared it with Robert and Dave —
They got quarters and I had a half.

And that orange, it made me so happy,
As ordinary things often do
Just lately. The shopping. A walk in the park.
This is peace and contentment. It’s new.

The rest of the day was quite easy.
I did all the jobs on my list
And enjoyed them and had some time over.
I love you. I’m glad I exist.

A Big Pile of Bak Chor Mee

A Big Pile of Bak Chor Mee by Tse Hao Guang

I will arise and go now, and eat my bak chor mee,
And a big chili crab meal, all served with extra buns:
Nine chwee kuehs will I have there, with space for my bubble tea;
And live alone on my ghee-soaked naan.

And I’ll slurp xiao long bao there, its zhup comes dripping slow,
Dripping from the folds of the dumpling to where my gullet gapes;
There otak dares to travel, and laksa loves to flow,
And ayam penyet cannot escape.

I will arise and go now, for I am sibei suay,
I hear old hawkers shouting their orders at my door;
While I stare at this chow mein, this fortune cookie tray,
I hear them in the fresh bak chor.

Cultural Appropriation - A Poem

A poem by the incomparable Titania McGrath, spiritual successor to the late Godrey Elfwick:

Cultural Appropriation

Thief of culture.
You slither hamstyle with dreadlocked hands,
Clenching in a calypso chokehold of bindi banditry,
Tongued by an ego semi-fried in foreign oils,
Withdrawing into striptease fissures of night.
You will never be Aswad.

Plunderbeast of history.
My ancestors scream in your hollow wigwam,
Ghostrolling in the ectoplasm of your hate.
I staunch the flow of simpering tribal sauce,
A digital sombrero clings deafblind
To a face falsely smeared in a coalish hue.

Filcher of rice.
Parades at promtime in a fraudulent frock,
A gurning juggernaut of stunted envy,
Appropriating my soul, my gaylord shoes.
The death-minstrel who leaps backwards onwardly
Rinsing away the past with your piss of lies.

La gastronomie

Faites que vos amis, pleinement satisfaits,
En sortant de chez vous ; ne se plaignent jamais.
De leurs goûts différents apercevez la trace :
L’un préfère la cuisse, un autre la carcasse.
Offrez en général les ailes du poulet,
Le ventre de la carpe et le dos du brochet.
Observez dans vos dons une exacte justice.
Ne favorisez point par orgueil ou caprice,
Tel homme plus puissant ou plus considéré.
Qui voudrait jouir seul d’un morceau préféré.
Ah ! si l’égalité doit régner dans le monde,
C’est autour d’une table abondante et féconde ;
Les enfants de Cornus, sujets aux mêmes lois,
N’ont rien qui les distingue et sont égaux en droits.

--- La gastronomie / J. Berchoux

I Dreamed I Saw Old Socrates

I Dreamed I Saw Old Socrates | Darkness of His Dreams

I dreamed I saw old Socrates
Walking Athens after dark.
No people to harass, no questions to ask,
No great debates on which to embark.

His face it looked so serene,
As he contemplated truth.
Is this the man they put to death
For corruption of the youth?

The men in charge, to keep their jobs,
Don’t want us thinking for ourselves.
Its sheep they need, easier to lead,
Not the depth to which wisdom delves.

Question every single authority,
Be certain only of what you do not know.
These men of Athens knew right then
This gadfly had to go.

I dreamed I saw old Socrates
Teaching with his last breath.
I stood among his crowd of friends
As he bravely met his death.

I awoke in tears of anger
At the injustice that had been done.
But I could not define what “justice” was,
And I knew that old Socrates had won.

The Deeper Meaning of Li Bai

Q： 解释李白这首诗的意义井分析作者的心理：

床前明月光，疑是地上霜。
举头望明月，低头思故乡。

A： 答： 一个叫明月的姑娘在李白面前脱了个精光，她的皮肤就像地上的雪一样白，李白抬头看着明月姑娘，低头却又想起了远在故乡的老婆，这首诗充分的表现诗人李白在他乡嫖妓时的矛盾心理

*

Q: Explain the meaning of this poem of Li Bai's and analyse well the thoughts of the author

A: Answer： A maiden called Ming Yue stripped naked in front of Li Bai, her skin was as fair as the snow which lay on the ground, Li Bai lifted his head to gaze upon the maiden Ming Yue, but lowered his head and thought of his faraway wife back home, this poem amply expresses the poet Li Bai's conflicted feelings when visiting a prostitute in a faraway land.

The Latest Decalogue

The Latest Decalogue

Thou shalt have one God only; who
Would tax himself to worship two?
God's image nowhere shalt thou see,
Save haply in the currency:
Swear not at all; since for thy curse
Thine enemy is not the worse:
At church on Sunday to attend
Will help to keep the world thy friend:
Honor thy parents; that is, all
From whom promotion may befall:
Thou shalt not kill; but needst not strive
Officiously to keep alive:
Adultery it is not fit
Or safe, for women, to commit:
Thou shalt not steal; an empty feat,
When 'tis so lucrative to cheat:
False witness not to bear be strict;
And cautious, ere you contradict.
Thou shalt not covet; but tradition
Sanctions the keenest competition.

Arthur Hugh Clough

Sweet love poem

"You have a face sweeter than boiled grape juice. It looks as if a snail had walked across it, it shines so much. And prettier than a turnip and teeth as white as parsnips, so much so that you could entice the Pope. And eyes the color of a medicinal brew and hair whiter and blonder than a leek so that I'll die if you give me no relief."

- Love Poem by Michelangelo Buonarroti

Confusing Literary Truth with Real Truth: the Horrors of the First World War

Morality of Remembrance - Moral Maze, 06/11/2013

"I was interested in Michael Montperlego (sp?) saying, you know, go to the words of the people who were there. I've actually done quite a bit of this at the Imperial War Museum, going through people's diaries and so on. The Owen-Sassoon view of the war - powerful, amazingly powerful though their poetry - Owen's particularly was, was exceptional, actually. Because if you read most of the diaries, there's a much more upbeat, robust, patriotic - an entirely different mindset than what we impose on them..."

"Over the years, it does begin in the 1930s, when people can see there's going to be a Second World War, which makes the First World War appear more futile than it did before. But then very much in the 60s, with What Lovely War and so on... there has been, you know, a revision of the way that war is seen. That is to say it is seen differently from the way it was seen by most people at the time. And therefore I entirely agree with Hugh Straughn (sp?) that the next 5 years is an opportunity to get some balance into the way that we look at the war"

"I think it is true as well that a lot of children - I love Wilfred Owen, and I know, English teacher I've done the First World War poetry lessons like everyone else and had them crying in the aisles as they say. And it's beautiful. And poignant, and you feel it does make young people understand something about the things that we can do to each other. But, I've also got to say that there wasn't many mutinies in the British Army, I have to admit. I do feel uncomfortable. But it's almost like the only version. And although I am an anti-Imperialist, I would've opposed the war. I don't want us to have a kind of soft soaped, one-dimensional view of it"

"And I suppose we ought to remember that the most popular war poet until about 1930 was Rupert Brooke"

***


If I should die, think only this of me;
That there's some corner of a foreign field
That is for ever England. There shall be
In that rich earth a richer dust concealed;
A dust whom England bore, shaped, made aware,
Gave, once, her flowers to love, her ways to roam,
A body of England's, breathing English air,
Washed by the rivers, blest by suns of home.

And think, this heart, all evil shed away,
A pulse in the eternal mind, no less
Gives somewhere back the thoughts by England given;
Her sights and sounds; dreams happy as her day;
And laughter, learnt of friends; and gentleness,
In hearts at peace, under an English heaven.

--- The Soldier / Rupert Brooke (1914)

Two Cunts in Paris

Although stone nudes are commonplace-some crammed
two to a column, supple caryatids,
and others mooning in the Tuileries-
the part that makes them women is the last
revelation allowed to art; the male
equipment, less concealable, is seen
since ancient times: a triune thingumbob.

Courbet's oil, L'Origine du monde, was owned
by Madame Jacques Lacan and through some tax
shenanigans became the Musée d'Orsay's.
Go see it there. Beneath the pubic bush—
A matted Rorschach blot—beneath blanched thighs
of a fat and bridal docility,
a curved and rosy closure says, "Ici!"

We sense a voyeur's boast. The Ding an sich,
the thing as such, a centimeter long
as sculpted, en terre cuite, in fine detail
of labia and perineum, exists
in La Musée des Arts Décoratifs,
by Clodion, dit Claude Michel. A girl
quite young and naked, with perfected limbs

and bundled, banded hair, uplifts her legs
to hold upon her ankles a tousled dog
yapping in an excitement never calmed:
the sculptor caught in sauvely molded clay
this canine agitation and the girl's,
the dark slits of her smile and half-shut eyes
one with the eyelike slit she lets us view.

Called La Gimblette,
this piece of the eternal feminine,
a doll of femaleness whose vulval facts
are set in place with a watchmaker's care,
provides a measure of how art falls
of a Creator's providence, which gives
His Creatures, all, the homely means to spawn.

--- Two Cunts in Paris / John Updike

The Shame of Righteousness

"It is a shame for anyone
to be well-known for righteousness.
It is a great disgrace to feel
distress at the injustice of
the turning of the wheels of fate.
To get drunk on the nose of a
fine vintage born of luscious grapes
is better than to be renowned
to be a self-denying prude."

--- ">Rubaiyat / Omar Khayyam (Translated by Juan Cole)


Original translation:

"'Tis well in reputation to abide,
'Tis shameful against heaven to rail and chide;
Still, head had better ache with over-drink,
Than be puffed up with Pharisaic pride!"

Something does get lost in the shorter translation...

A poem on Free Will

"Life is a long lesson in humility." - James M. Barrie

***

At the Fair
---Christmas, 1984

At this summer's fair,
I asked an attendant if,
being at the head of the line at last,
I might ride the next train
of his roller coaster.

Was I sure I wanted to? he asked,
as this ride was known for high
acceleration, breathtaking plunges,
and being impossible to control
once underway.

Having survived lesser rides,
I assured him I was ready.

Then he laughed and told me
I had been for some time in the last car
of the already departed train,
having no choice anyway.

The rest of his words were lost
in exhilaration as I was
ripped out into the starlight.

--- Gary Cruse

Blaga Dimitrova vs Nietzsche

To be a woman - this is pain.
To become a girl is to ache.
To become a lover is to ache.
To become a mother is to ache.

But the most unbearable pain on earth
Is the pain of being a woman
who has not felt all these aches
to the very last.

--- To Be A Woman / Blaga Dimitrova (Bulgarian Poet)



"Everything about woman is a riddle, and everything about woman has a single solution: that is, pregnancy."

--- Thus Spake Zarathustra / Friedrich Nietzsche

甲辰生日 (蓦山溪)

小窗開宴，草草杯盤具。歡喜走兒童，慶生朝、一年一度。
風光好處，恰是小春時，香泛泛，酒醺醺，一曲歌金縷。
吾今已醉，解作醒時語。千里念重親，望家山、雲天盡處。
深深發願，只願早休官，居顏巷，戲萊衣，歲歲長歡聚。

From Leonard Cohen's Book of Longing

I don't remember
lighting this cigarette
and I don't remember
if I'm here alone
or waiting for someone.

The Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism?

''Whatever happened to poetry that required rhyme and meter, to songs that required lyrics and tunes, to clothing ads that stressed the costume rather than the barely clothed females and slovenly dressed, slack-jawed, unshaven men?''

Occasional Wisdom

"I dote on his very absence." - William Shakespeare

***

"At first a wife is a goddess wreathed in smiles
and her husband never tires of gazing at her face.
She soon becomes a fiend with corpse-like eyes ;
if he casts a reproach at her she gives two in return ;
if he takes her by the hair she has him by the leg ;
if he strikes her with a stick she beats him with a ladle.
In the end she becomes a toothless old hag
and her fiendish look of anger prays upon the mind.
I have renounced such a devilish scold
and I do not want a maiden bride."

--- Songs of Milarepa / Milarepa

("A Buddhist holy man whose songs have been sung and studied since the 12th century, Milarepa exchanged a life of sin and maliciousness for one of contemplation and love, eventually reaching — according to his disciples — the ultimate state of enlightenment. This volume features the religious leader's best and most highly esteemed songs of love and compassion.")

Vers Improvisés Sur Un Album

"I believe in getting into hot water; it keeps you clean." - G. K. Chesterton

***

Le livre de la vie est le livre suprême
Qu'on ne peut ni fermer, ni rouvrir à son choix;
Le passage attachant ne s'y lit pas deux fois,
Mais le feuillet fatal se tourne de lui-même;
On voudrait revenir à la page où l'on aime,
Et la page où l'on meurt est déjà sous vos doigts