Charlie K

Thank you! I am 43. Talk about a number with no significance! "He was in his early 40s." That's all!

Have always loved those.

Dog's Death

by John Updike

She must have been kicked unseen or brushed by a car.

Too young to know much, she was beginning to learn

To use the newspapers spread on the kitchen floor

And to win, wetting there, the words, "Good dog! Good dog!"

We thought her shy malaise was a shot reaction.

The autopsy disclosed a rupture in her liver.

As we teased her with play, blood was filling her skin

And her heart was learning to lie down forever.

Monday morning, as the children were noisily fed

And sent to school, she crawled beneath the youngest's bed.

We found her twisted and limp but still alive.

In the car to the vet's, on my lap, she tried

To bite my hand and died. I stroked her warm fur

And my wife called in a voice imperious with tears.

Though surrounded by love that would have upheld her,

Nevertheless she sank and, stiffening, disappeared.

Back home, we found that in the night her frame,

Drawing near to dissolution, had endured the shame

Of diarrhoea and had dragged across the floor

To a newspaper carelessly left there. Good dog.

Dammit, how much is a kg? I can't metric.

Great news!!

In re: gym selfies, I love how dudes (and it's always dudes) act like they need their phone for music, but then you catch them flexing their biceps and taking pics.

Please get out of the squat rack, asshole.

I'll try to find something a bit more obscure, Charlie. There's no point me posting poems people are going to know: that isn't what this thread is about.

Oh, I dunno, man! Is poetry so ubiquitous these days that the well known are recognizable? Seems to me we all need help just keeping up with poetry, even basic, canonical poetry. Let fly, I say!

Is it worth having an exercise thread so everyone else doesn't have it clogging up this one?

 

Or are we overwhelmingly slack?

 

I know some members are into various active things.

Yes, please.

Just got done with my first boxing class. Holy shit that was exhausting, I had to do 50 sit ups, 50 push ups, 100 jumping jacks and nearly felt like I was going to die. Also my lower back is killing me from the rope skipping. I do plan to go back next month after I've gotten myself into a bit better shape by doing the basic workout at home. (They had also just moved to a new location so they didn't have everything set up at the place and it was a little hard trying not to sweat to death)

Hell, yeah, man, one of the best work outs of all time.

Shit, late again! Happy birfday, pooks!

^Classics.

How about Gil Scott Heron.

Is coffee expensive in the UK?

Hmmm, wonder how we get Nordic coffee. Maybe just add more beans, and make it slower and darker?

I admire your British tea traditions. Too bad I don't much care for tea aside from green tea. But I do admire that you will drop what you're doing to have tea, and that the solution to most problems is, hang on, let's have a cuppa tea and sort this out.

Nice job, 7Circle!!

We were only watching The Whip & the Flesh last night, too.

He was amazing. Pooks, what movie was this? What a title!

I'll try the milk thing but for some reason I feel like it's cream or nothing.

I have fallen into a habit. I have been drinking coffee for 25 years. But, I have cut back to 2-3 cups per day. I drink it in the morning, then I switch to green tea, and drink it all day. I try also to consumer several glasses of water. And then, a little booze most evenings. (Sometimes a lotta booze.)

But back to hot beverages. I've become something of a green tea expert. And, as with most foods, I prefer middle of the road quality, not high quality. But, I do buy from Asian markets. And here's what I do: I brew it by the pot. I sip out of small Asian cups. And, I use the leaves repeatedly. This is how I get away with drinking it all day. Loose leaf, just thrown into the pot; the pot's built in filter keeps most of the leaves out. I've actually become a comical figure at work, walking from my cube to the kitchen with a tray of tea pot and little Chinese cups. When people swing by my area (or I used to have an office) they help themselves to a cup of tea. For the record, I like green, gunpowder, oolong, jasmine. Not crazy about the Korean corn tea.

One more strange note. I've been drinking my coffee black all my life, but the other day I sipped my wife's, which had cream in it, and I'll be damned if I didn't quite like it. So, I'm drinking more coffee with cream - had two cups today. But, I don't think I like it with milk or anything else. Gotta be cream.

So... how do you take your coffee? Or tea?

Congrats Dave!

 

Hi Charlie!

Yo, buddy! Where you at these days! Sorry I've been away. Work, mostly.

What does that mean, "The game is more than the player of the game/And the ship is more than the crew?" God is on our side?

I always liked this one, "A Song in Storm," by Kipling, but I've been struggling with its meaning for years.

Be well assured that on our side

The abiding oceans fight,

Though headlong wind and heaping tide

Make us their sport to-night.

By force of weather, not of war,

In jeopardy we steer.

Then welcome Fate's discourtesy

Whereby it shall appear

How in all time of our distress,

And our deliverance too,

The game is more than the player of the game,

And the ship is more than the crew!

Out of the mist into the mirk

The glimmering combers roll.

Almost these mindless waters work

As though they had a soul --

Almost as though they leagued to whelm

Our flag beneath their green:

Then welcome Fate's discourtesy

Whereby it shall be seen, etc.

Be well assured, though wave and wind

Have mightier blows in store,

That we who keep the watch assigned

Must stand to it the more;

And as our streaming bows rebuke

Each billow's baulked career,

Sing, welcome Fate's discourtesy

Whereby it is made clear, etc.

No matter though our decks be swept

And mast and timber crack --

We can make good all loss except

The loss of turning back.

So, 'twixt these Devils and our deep

Let courteous trumpets sound,

To welcome Fate's discourtesy

Whereby it will be found, etc.

Be well assured, though in our power

Is nothing left to give

But chance and place to meet the hour,

And leave to strive to live.

Till these dissolve our Order holds,

Our Service binds us here.

Then welcome Fate's discourtesy

Whereby it is made clear

How in all time of our distress,

As in our triumph too,

The game is more than the player of the game

And the ship is more than the crew!

Fucking fantastic, Dave!

What a great poem! But I was really expecting it at some point to lapse into phonetic cockney.

Oh when my love, my darling,

You've left me here alone,

I'll walk the streets of London

Which once seemed all our own.

'ere, why you trowed me over?

You nasty little git.

Now I'm a bloomin' rover

'oose nose is in a snit...

Or something.

I thought they were tomato sauce.

lmao. The Great Rock n Roll Swindle continues!

Yeah, this is some serious shit! But I love the relationship between the human and the robot.

Until the robot turns on him, that is...

I might be getting into Catullus (Roman, first century BC). Lou, here's a fitting one:

Driven across many nations, across many oceans,

I am here, my brother, for this final parting,

to offer at last those gifts which the dead are given

and to speak in vain to your unspeaking ashes,

since bitter fortune forbids you to hear me or answer,

O my wretched brother, so abruptly taken!

But now I must celebrate grief with funeral tributes

offered the dead in the ancient way of the fathers;

accept these presents, wet with my brotherly tears, and

now & forever, my brother, hail & farewell.

That sucks, Lou, I'm sorry to hear it. Name is familiar but I have to search my memory for the face.

Christian, nice one. Love me some Gary Snyder.

btw Vagabond, is that a poem or a song (not that it matters!)?