shakh your bootie

.. And to amuse myself, reading poetry online. One of my favorites, by |Constantine Cavafy:

Ithaca

When you set out on your journey to Ithaca,
pray that the road is long,
full of adventure, full of knowledge.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the angry Poseidon -- do not fear them:
You will never find such as these on your path,
if your thoughts remain lofty, if a fine
emotion touches your spirit and your body.
The Lestrygonians and the Cyclops,
the fierce Poseidon you will never encounter,
if you do not carry them within your soul,
if your soul does not set them up before you.

Pray that the road is long.
That the summer mornings are many, when,
with such pleasure, with such joy
you will enter ports seen for the first time;
stop at Phoenician markets,
and purchase fine merchandise,
mother-of-pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
and sensual perfumes of all kinds,
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
visit many Egyptian cities,
to learn and learn from scholars.

Always keep Ithaca in your mind.
To arrive there is your ultimate goal.
But do not hurry the voyage at all.
It is better to let it last for many years;
and to anchor at the island when you are old,
rich with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting that Ithaca will offer you riches.

Ithaca has given you the beautiful voyage.
Without her you would have never set out on the road.
She has nothing more to give you.

And if you find her poor, Ithaca has not deceived you.
Wise as you have become, with so much experience,
you must already have understood what Ithacas mean.

Ahh.... Beautiful...

shakh your bootie

Self gartuitous, here is another. Pablo Nureda:

Naked
Naked, you are simple as a hand,
smooth, earthy, small. . . transparent, round.
You have moon lines and apple paths;
Naked, you are slender as the wheat.

Naked, Cuban blue midnight is your color,
Naked, I trace the stars and vines in your hair;
Naked, you are spacious and yellow
As a summer's wholeness in a golden church.

Naked, you are tiny as your fingernail;
Subtle and curved in the rose-colored dawn
And you withdraw to the underground world

As if down a long tunnel of clothing and of chores:
your clear light dims, gets dressed, drops its leaves,
And becomes a naked hand again.

shakh your bootie

The Song of Songs, King James Version, parts one ant two. Awwww... breathtaking...

1 The Song of songs, which is Solomon's. 1 Kgs. 4.32
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth:
for thy love is better than wine. 3 Because of the savor of thy good ointments
thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee. 4 Draw me, we will run after thee:
the King hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee. 5 I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem,
as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon. 6 Look not upon me, because I am black,
because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept. 7 Tell me, O thou whom my soul loveth, where thou feedest,
where thou makest thy flock to rest at noon: for why should I be as one that turneth aside by the flocks of thy companions? 8 If thou know not, O thou fairest among women,
go thy way forth by the footsteps of the flock, and feed thy kids beside the shepherds' tents.
The Bride and the Bridegroom 9 I have compared thee, O my love,
to a company of horses in Pharaoh's chariots. 10 Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels,
thy neck with chains of gold. 11 We will make thee borders of gold
with studs of silver. 12 While the King sitteth at his table,
my spikenard sendeth forth the smell thereof. 13 A bundle of myrrh is my well-beloved unto me;
he shall lie all night betwixt my breasts. 14 My beloved is unto me as a cluster of camphire
in the vineyards of Enge'di. 15 Behold, thou art fair, my love;
behold, thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes. 16 Behold, thou art fair, my beloved, yea, pleasant:
also our bed is green. 17 The beams of our house are cedar,
and our rafters of fir.

shakh your bootie

here, a snowy one:

all ignorance toboggans into know
and trudges up to ignorance again:
but winter's not forever,even snow
melts;and if spring should spoil the game,what then?

all history's a winter sport or three:
but were it five,i'd still insist that all
history is too small for even me;
for me and you,exceedingly too small.

Swoop(shrill collective myth)into thy grave
merely to toil the scale to shrillerness
per every madge and mabel dick and dave
—tomorrow is our permanent address

and there they'll scarcely find us(if they do,
we'll move away still further:into now

shakh your bootie

Possibly the most compassionate verse of all times - ty, mr cummings...

i carry your heart with me(i carry it in
my heart)i am never without it(anywhere
i go you go,my dear;and whatever is done
by only me is your doing,my darling)
i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)i want
no world(for beautiful you are my world,my true)
and it's you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart(i carry it in my heart)

shakh your bootie

To the East now, an old timey Eastern poem from Rumi. Eartley love as an echo of a relation to the love of man to the sublime...

shakh your bootie

but wait - let us not grow too dewy eyed over human nature. Here to remind us of how utterly shit man's inhumanity to man truly is, we have Msr Rimbaud... Merry ****ing X-mas...

Once, if my memory serves me well, my life was a banquet where every heart revealed itself, where every wine flowed.
One evening I took Beauty in my arms - and I thought her bitter - and I insulted her.
I steeled myself against justice.
I fled. O witches, O misery, O hate, my treasure was left in your care!
I have withered within me all human hope. With the silent leap of a sullen beast, I have downed and strangled every joy.
I have called for executioners; I want to perish chewing on their gun butts. I have called for plagues, to suffocate in sand and blood. Unhappiness has been my god. I have lain down in the mud, and dried myself off in the crime-infested air. I have played the fool to the point of madness.
And springtime brought me the frightful laugh of an idiot.
Now recently, when I found myself ready to croak! I thought to seek the key to the banquet of old, where I might find an appetite again.
That key is Charity. - This idea proves I was dreaming!
"You will stay a hyena, etc...," shouts the demon who once crowned me with such pretty poppies. "Seek death with all your desires, and all selfishness, and all the Seven Deadly Sins."
Ah! I've taken too much of that: - still, dear Satan, don't look so annoyed, I beg you! And while waiting for a few belated cowardices, since you value in a writer all lack of descriptive or didactic flair, I pass you these few foul pages from the diary of a Damned Soul.

shakh your bootie

Never one to leave you on a bum note, and being quite drunk enough to sleep through this snowy eve, let me leave with a happy note from that crazy mystic Will Blake...

Laughing Song

(if this fails to amuse, whistle with me the theme tune from "Always look on the bright side of life")

shakh your bootie

{HEHEHHE, Syb reflects that all his old sand-in-their cracks old pals in the UAE are ****ing glad it don't snow too often back in Limey land. Otherwise there'd be wayyyyy too much poetry to wade through)

The Dean

And the "Most Self-Indulgent Thread" award goes to...............

kittycat1

Get outside and build a snowman, snow angels, sledging, roll around naked like the Swedish- loads of things to do in the snow! I'd like two days on snow please- xmas day and boxing day - if someone could arrange that for me please?

The Dean

It's 4.15am here - he's asleep............

Unlike me.

kittycat1

Why are you awake Dean?

Macca67

From Une saison en enfer. Very nice.

I'm a huge fan of the boy genius and to think this masterpiece lay hidden for 28 years and was almost lost to the world.

Best thread I've seen for a while.

Confucius

SYB, I would be relieved only if you tell me that you posted all this while you were touching yourself...