Jazzy D's Soul Notes

Lullaby

by W.H. Auden



Lay your sleeping head, my love,
Human on my faithless arm;
Time and fevers burn away
Individual beauty from
Thoughtful children, and the grave
Proves the child ephemeral:
But in my arms till break of day
Let the living creature lie,
Mortal, guilty, but to me
The entirely beautiful.

Soul and body have no bounds:
To lovers as they lie upon
Her tolerant enchanted slope
In their ordinary swoon,
Grave the vision Venus sends
Of supernatural sympathy,
Universal love and hope;
While an abstract insight wakes
Among the glaciers and the rocks
The hermit’s carnal ecstasy.

Certainty, fidelity
On the stroke of midnight pass
Like vibrations of a bell,
And fashionable madmen raise
Their pedantic boring cry:
Every farthing of the cost,
All the dreaded cards foretell,
Shall be paid, but from this night
Not a whisper, not a thought,
Not a kiss nor look be lost.

Beauty, midnight, vision dies:
Let the winds of dawn that blow
Softly round your dreaming head
Such a day of welcome show
Eye and knocking heart may bless,
Find the mortal world enough;
Noons of dryness find you fed
By the involuntary powers,
Nights of insult let you pass
Watched by every human love.

W. H. Auden, 1937

Pain

by Jazzy D





I think , perhaps I know,
I wrap myself in music
When the ice cold blows
To nullify the pain
That gnaws and grows
When all around is loss
Without varnish nor gloss

Because it is too much to bear
That spark snapped out
Too quick, to fear,
In these twilight years.

This was one of the poems that they wanted to ban in West Virginia.
ENJOY.



At LUNCHTIME (Also known as THE END OF THE WORLD)

by Roger McGough




When the bus stopped suddenly
to avoid damaging
a mother and child in the road,
the young lady in the green hat sitting opposite,
was thrown across me,
and not being one to miss an opportunity
I started to make love.

At first, she resisted,
saying that it was too early in the morning,
and too soon after breakfast,
and anyway, she found me repulsive.
But. when i explained
that this being a nuclear age
the world was going to end at lunchtime
she took off her green hat,
put her bus ticket into her pocket
and joined in the exercise.

The bus people
and there were many of them,
were shocked and surprised,
and amused and annoyed.
But when word got around
that the world was going to end at lunchtime
they put their pride in their pockets
with their bus tickets
and made love one with the other.
And even the bus conductor,
feeling left out,
climbed into the cab,
and struck up some sort of relationship with the driver.

That night, on the bus coming home,
we were all a little embarrassed.
Especially me and the young lady in the green hat.
And we all started to say
in different ways,
how hasty and foolish we had been.
But then, always having been a bit of a lad,
I stood up and said it was a pity
that the world didn’t nearly end every lunchtime
and that we could always pretend.
And then it happened…

Quick as a crash
we all changed partners,
and soon the bus was a quiver
with white, mothball bodies doing naughty things.

And the next day
And every day
In every bus
In every street
In every town
In every country
People pretended
That the world was coming to an end at lunchtime.
It still hasn’t
Although in a way it has.



A continuing and dangerous, totally devastating theme revived here from the young Roger McGough when maybe things were not quite as threatening as they are now. (YT -Noam Chomsky - Best Speech In 2018).

Now, how can I say this in rhyme,
So bare with me if you have the time.

Today was another wonderful warm sunshine day.
Believe me, with a certain hearty hale,
24C tipping upwards on the temp scale,
So in all good cheer and bounteous glee
I bussed down to New Romney
That is right next to Old Romney.
Then I stopped in quaint old Hythe,
Perused charity shops and other dives.
Then after my large haul of stuff,
Nothing brilliant and nothing duff,
I ended up in ye old town of Folkestone
Doing a covert shop for a new phone.
So, after all, that was done
I think I had loads of fun
And really did enjoy the sun.






On the way to Hythe on the coast road from Folkestone at Sandgate.

Another
     sunbaked desiccated day.
            No more in the land of grey,
                  Everything today at a leisurely pace
                            Visiting the cathedral city in grace.
                                         Selecting new stuff to keep
                                            To add to my growing heap.
                                                          We collectors that forage around
                                                              To get the next new vibrant sound
                                                                    Will always be beckoning and around
                                                                                         Simply we never stay still
                                                                                                 And not fixed to the ground.

That mercurial weather
Continues to stab misconceptions
In our guessing game of dice throws.
Not as strong as the latter day,
Incandescent in the warmth and glow
That still eludes my elan
And supine elusiveness,
I succumb to its equivocating glare
And follow its capricious turns.

'Tis a miserable wet cold day
In the land of pink and grey.
A wandering I will not stray
And thus dear reader, to allay
This situation, into the affray
With art and music, I doth say
And banish from my mind this grey.

As One Listens To The Rain

by Octavio Paz



Listen to me as one listens to the rain,
not attentive, not distracted,
light footsteps, thin drizzle,
water that is air, air that is time,
the day is still leaving,
the night has yet to arrive,
figurations of mist
at the turn of the corner,
figurations of time
at the bend in this pause,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
without listening, hear what I say
with eyes open inward, asleep
with all five senses awake,
it's raining, light footsteps, a murmur of syllables,
air and water, words with no weight:
what we are and are,
the days and years, this moment,
weightless time and heavy sorrow,
listen to me as one listens to the rain,
wet asphalt is shining,
steam rises and walks away,
night unfolds and looks at me,
you are you and your body of steam,
you and your face of night,
you and your hair, unhurried lightning,
you cross the street and enter my forehead,
footsteps of water across my eyes,
listen to me as one listens to the rain

((and in Spanish)
Óyeme como quien oye llover,
ni atenta ni distraída,
pasos leves, llovizna,
agua que es aire, aire que es tiempo,
el día no acaba de irse,
la noche no llega todavía,
figuraciones de la niebla
al doblar la esquina,
figuraciones del tiempo
en el recodo de esta pausa,
óyeme como quien oye llover,
sin oírme, oyendo lo que digo
con los ojos abiertos hacia dentro,
dormida con los cinco sentidos despiertos,
llueve, pasos leves, rumor de sílabas,
aire y agua, palabras que no pesan:
lo que fuimos y somos,
los días y los años, este instante,
tiempo sin peso, pesadumbre enorme,
óyeme como quien oye llover,
relumbra el asfalto húmedo,
el vaho se levanta y camina,
la noche se abre y me mira,
eres tú y tu talle de vaho,
tú y tu cara de noche,
tú y tu pelo, lento relámpago,
cruzas la calle y entras en mi frente,
pasos de agua sobre mis párpados,
óyeme como quien oye llover,
el asfalto relumbra, tú cruzas la calle,
es la niebla errante en la noche,
es la noche dormida en tu cama,
es el oleaje de tu respiración,
tus dedos de agua mojan mi frente,
tus dedos de llama queman mis ojos,
tus dedos de aire abren los párpados del tiempo,
manar de apariciones y resurrecciones,
óyeme como quien oye llover,
pasan los años, regresan los instantes,
¿oyes tus pasos en el cuarto vecino?
no aquí ni allá: los oyes
en otro tiempo que es ahora mismo,
oye los pasos del tiempo
inventor de lugares sin peso ni sitio,
oye la lluvia correr por la terraza,
la noche ya es más noche en la arboleda,
en los follajes ha anidado el rayo,
vago jardín a la deriva
—entra, tu sombra cubre esta página.)

Yes I am back
Long day, four visits did
Pissed and drunk so off to bed
I go
And damn these reports
And my insouciant id.

So this is the day of Brexit,
the day that, sadly , we exit
And now we face an uncertain future
That has caused a massive suture.
There have been divisions
And so we need some revisions
And so with some melancholy
I regret their shortsighted folly.