Xix xix xix

[Donner]

Hi, Dunc,

"At the Finish" - The nurse comes and goes, the surgery is scheduled, almost out of habit, but won't likely happen and the family gathers. A common summation of a life; death is no respecter of person.

"Optional Compulsory Cat Poem" - HA! One dare not turn one's back for a second when there's food involved.

"At a Premium" - Safety seen from the insurer's point of view - not how many lives will it save, but how many would be lost.

Donna

[Featherless Biped]

Loved all your sequel titles in “A Better Sequel,” including/especially the punchline. It’s like one of those expandable internet games (“ruin a band name by changing one letter!”)

“Loose Cogs” makes me look again at the world around me (currently the train whose many parts are going to miraculously convey my body safely to the airport, where the plane will miraculously take me home). It also reminds me a little bit of Bo Burnham’s “ThatFunny Feeling”.

The ending of “The Last Pair” was a surprise; I didn’t see at all where the joke was going until it arrived. Bravo!

“At the Finish” keeps me grim company in my grim feelings; spare and unsparing.

Your cat limerick knocks the glass of water off my table and looks smug about it. Very fitting.

“At a Premium” displays your usual self-assured wit (don’t you ever get bored of being so interesting and funny all the time?), but also drives home how often in 2024 America the accounting is set up differently. Financial motivation to save lives might not be heroic, but I’ll take it over no financial motivation!

[Dunc]

Karin ─ Rhyme? Moi?

Donna ─ No, no respecter of persons. Meanwhile I have great respect for your feline expertise, the insider's view as it were.

Ray ─ Glad you liked the sequels. I enjoyed putting them together! And thank you for the kind words about the others.

You are greatly appreciated, dear visitors.

Regards / Dunc

[Dunc]

  


2024 April 14



From The Somonyng of Everyman
A version.


Everyman:
Death? What the hell brings you here?
Do me a favour, mate, just leave things as they are.
Let me throw in some cartons of beer
some thousands of bucks, a new car,
and just back off for a few years.

Death:
Nope, Everyman, that's not how it steers.
Beer and bucks and bling don't cut it with me,
even were you PM, President, prince or peer.
Think about it: if gold turned the key
I'd already own the whole sphere.
But that's not how it'll be
so stop this mucking around and come with me.

Everyman:
Aw mate, don't be a prick.
You didn't even tell me you were coming.
No really, I feel sick –
I may have to use the plumbing.
Look, come back in a dozen years. I'm gonna
get the whole show audited smooth and steady,
scout’s honour!
Death, old mate, please pretty please
just a decade or two and I'll be good and ready.

Death:
Human ethics are so bloody shoddy!
We’re outa here, on yer bike!
Leave a note for your buddies, if you like
Tell ‘em I don’t wait for anybody.
This is no lie –
They’re ALL gonna die

<sub>Everyman.
O Dethe, thou comest whan I had the leest in mynde !
In thy power it lyeth me to save ;
Yet of my good wyl I gyve the, yf thou wyl be kynde,
Ye, a thousande pounde shalte thou have,
And dyfferre this mater tyll another daye.

Dethe.
Everyman, it may not be by no waye;
I set not by golde, sylver, nor rychesse,
Ne by pope, emperour, kynge, duke, ne prynces
For, and I wolde receyve gyftes grete,
All the worlde I myght gete ;
But my custome is clene contrary.
I gyve the no respyte ; come hens and not tary.

Everyman.
Alas ! shall I have no lenger respyte ?
I may say, Dethe gyveth no warnynge.
To thynke on the it maketh my herte seke,
For all unredy is my boke of rekenynge.
But, xii yere and I myght have abydynge,
My countynge boke I wolde make so clere,
That my rekenynge I sholde not nede to fere.
Wherfore, Dethe, I praye the, for Goddes mercy,
Spare me tyll I be provyded of remedy.

Dethe.
The avayleth not to crye, wepe, and praye,
But hast the lyghtly that thou were gone this journaye,
And preve thy frendes, yf thou can ;
For, wete thou well, the tyde abydeth no man,
And in the worlde eche lyvynge creature
For Adams synne must dye of nature.</sub>

  

[SP Singer]

Thanks for the earthy reminder of the Everyman. I love the part where he calls death an old mate...and a prick. How you enjoy yourself Dunc, it always sparkles so. SP

[Dunc]

SP ─ Like all translators, I'm working the material in the original ... though admittedly it's not always written in words. Thanks for dropping by!

Regards

Dunc

[Dunc]

  



Traditional Poem for the Half-Way Point 2024

Ah, now we’re between
fifteen and fifteen,
the heart of the matter of April,
and you’re naturally keen
to perfect the whole scene
with another fifteen of this ape drill.

So stay on your rocker,
no mere whining mocker,
the sort that the Wisdom God starves –
we think it no shocker
in Union or soccer
when things are accomplished by halves.



  

[Sorella]

And now, Dunc, at the halfway mark, you think of the reckoning already! And duly translate from a Middle English play!
Wonderful in colloquial Australian too, and possibly slightly more irreverent, but that is the way of Australians, I would think.
Superb modernisation.

Back soon, but I have my own reckoning to do, my tax return no less. Nearly caught up on the poetry (2 behind, but who's counting? God is!)

Sorella

Edit: Oh, our posts crossed and the r e a l halfway poem appeared! Will be reading and back for that ceremony!

[Scrow]

Ha! Dunc, I come to your thread at last and there’s a rugby metaphor and the phrase ‘ape drill’ and I am laughing so much already that my keyboard is at risk of having tea spilt on it. I love it when you rock the meter.

I’m going to put your translation of ‘The Summoning of Everyman’ on the staffroom wall if you are okay with that, and also send it to my daughter who has just finished her MA in English and Mediaeval Studies (hurrah, she will be poor/rich too, like me).

‘At a Premium’ is, of course, not funny, working precisely as it should. For the rhyme I love S2 the best.

All the best cats are ‘cat’s cats’ not human’s cats, and so of course they are all thieves, and I love L4 of this.

I like the move from ‘eyes’ to ‘tongues’ to ‘lungs’ to the idea of life trailing, to the knot of family in ‘At the’.

The close of ‘The Last Pair’ makes me laugh out loud again. For the sense and for the strained rhyme. Brava!

‘Loose cogs’ remind me of the moments of sheer, inexplicable joy I sometimes experience. These have no root in context at all, just a sudden moment of inexplicable joy. Although for me thankfully these begin and end in feeling and don’t include me seeing the mechanics of the universe!

Ha! To ‘A Better Sequel’. I particularly love ‘Minus, whose touch turned all to brass’, and the ‘Left of Spring’. This one is great in all the ways.

I love how you put Pierrot - the image of Pierrot, into Ophelia II. The poem reminds me of Harald Sohlberg’s beautiful images.

‘The Lost Words’ made me laugh again, as did the idea of Wagner’s laundry lists and ‘hodgepodgic’ in ‘The Higher’, although I also love the idea of ‘logic mixed with learned wit’.

And now ‘Blackberries’ is warring for my favourite so far this month, as these types of ruins are so extraordinary and so poignant - and ‘forsaken farm’ is perfect, and S4 also perfect to describe, and S5 also the perfect summation, which also plays catspaw with metaphysical/physical.

Oh, it has been so, so lovely to spend time with your poems. Thank you!

Sarah

[romac1]

Hi Dunc, I really enjoyed your Everyman version. And I appreciated today's Halfway poem too. This period from about the 13th-18th always feels like the hardest time in NaPoWriMo. 'Homer' made me laugh - nice one!

[prokopton]

  



2024 April 12



Optional Compulsory Cat Poem


The Romans said felês, not cattus,
(which they later used, not that it mattus)
     and felês, in brief,
     was their word for a thief,
neither kindly nor factory-satis.



  

Okay, now we're talking,
Thank you Dunc for an excellent limerick.
I appreciate the effort and the result, splendid work!
Very clever.

Geffo

[Louisa Lander]

Hello Dunc
Thank you for this entertaining and thought provoking collection. Some highlights for me:

Homer ...meets Hollywood. Troy Story 11 ......I laughed.

Blackberries My favourite I think. "rinds of old paint" is nice. One feels the ghosts in those falling-down, deserted houses out in the country.

Scandinavian Ode A Kangaroo on their flag? I should think so.

The Higher Mathematick. Xenomathematicians and hodgepodgic sound like very esoteric words. Do numbers work for us, or we for them. I think about this all the time. (I know. I should get out more.)

The Lost Words Hilarious in the best tradition of M. Python. I'm going to be singing this all day now.... at the top of my lungs.

Ophelie Lovely translation. Full of Pre-Raphaelite images and decadent fetish.

A Better Sequel Delightful. Whimsical. My favourite: Coldilocks and the Three Beers.

Loose Cogs Thought provoking, isn't it. The nature of boundaries. Kind of links in with "The Higher Mathematick"

The Last Pair Visual and entertaining.

Cat Poem What clever and learned wit. A very factory-satis read!

Somomygng of Everyman. Thank you for this lovely down to earth translation. So enjoyable.

Traditional Poem for the Half Way Point. "this ape-drill" hahahaha

Lou.

[Sorella]

Dunc, Catching up, to find the Sequel is fun, Loose Cogs is a keeper, stunning and I believe true, in which case I believe you: we are made up of parts, large or small or both. You are amazinger than ever when you get on to science!
And the Old Testament: fun fun fun with the Ark (awk?) I love that lark can be lawk and the note on interchangeables! Quark is no match for you, your rhyming possibilities are legion and legendary.

Not everything is fun. The sombre breaks through, and done so well.
At the Finish is straightforward and deeply respectful of us all and death.

Then the true but saddening Premium, history and perspective.

Finally, your view of NaPo: a soccer match, or rather Rugby, where they get the man not the ball (if it can be called a ball, not even round!): we seem to fluff the person as much as the poems!
Because we are all superstars! 'Specially you.

Sorella

[Dunc]

Karin! ─ Delighted to see you here! I'm glad you enjoyed my thread more than you enjoyed doing your tax return ─ or anyway, I hope that's right.

Sarah ─ And you too! Thanks for the responses, they're the fuel of NaPo.

Rob ─ Ahoy! Yes, we're in mid-ocean far from our ponit of departure but not near our point of arrival. I appreciate your kind words>

eoGff! ─ Glad you enjoyed your cat poem.

Very kind of you to call, dear people!

Regards / Dunc

[Dunc]

2024 April 16



Anyone for Tennyson?


The Reverend George Tennyson was an alcoholic clergyman
whose fortunes were writ by some nasty angelic dramaturgyman.

He and his wife Elizabeth begat a dozen
none of whom you’d choose for your cousin –

you look at the pack and it hits you with a thud
why the biographers used to say “black blood”.

One was George, who fame might have been sung
but we’ll never know because he died young.

Two was Fred, epileptic
and savagely dyspeptic.

Three was Charles, a clergyman like his dad
but he was addicted to opium. Too bad.

Four was Alf, depressive and given to trances,
but a hero of Empire and a fine poet if we skip those Arthuromances

(and I mention while we’re in the mood for forgiving
that Charles and Alf were the only two who ever earnt their own living.)

Five was Mary, who obsessed about religion regardless of whom she was among
and Six was Emily who became a spiritualist who talked and talked and talked and talked and never held her tongue.

Seven was Edward, who at twenty tended to self-harm
so they sent him to an asylum in distant York to get him calm;

and there he died aged seventy-seven. It’s not so good, is it,
that no record suggests any member of the family ever paid him a visit.

Eighth was Arthur, inept but apt to frolic,
and he was another lifelong alcoholic.

Ninth was Septimus, depressive and scarcely cognizable,
who drifted in and out but really, the air was rather more visible.

Tenth, Matilda, was ‘not attractive’ and ‘not normal’, but, not to be too subtle,
the latter was attributed to her infant self falling head first into a coal scuttle.

Eleven, Cecilia married well, but was given to trances and depression.
(Alf was the same, of course, if that’s any concession.)

And twelve was Horatio, whose particular way of self-harming
was to blow his inheritance in Australia trying farming.


Every family is weird in its own way, I’ve heard,
but really, this is absurd.