Monday Morning Poetry Jam

Hey kiddos!

I have to say, it feels good to be back. Listen up, grab yourself some coffee or tea and some sort of breakfast pastry because we're gonna have ourselves a good time reading some of my favorite poetry.

Have your coffee and danish? Good, let's do this shit. To start, press the play button that I'm embedding immediately below this paragraph, it has some rocking mood setting music (kind of not really but I like the song so hush). Once the music is up and running, feel free to commence your tour of four selected poems and one original.



i sing of Olaf glad and big
e.e. cummings

XXX

i sing of Olaf glad and big
whose warmest heart recoiled at war:
a conscientious object-or

his wellbelovéd colonel(trig
westpointer most succinctly bred)
took erring Olaf soon in hand;
but--though an host of overjoyed
noncoms(first knocking on the head
him)do through icy waters roll
that helplessness which others stroke
with brushes recently employed
anent this muddy toiletbowl,
while kindred intellects evoke
allegiance per blunt instruments--
Olaf(being to all intents
a corpse and wanting any rag
upon what God unto him gave)
responds,without getting annoyed
"I will not kiss your fucking flag"

straightway the silver bird looked grave
(departing hurriedly to shave)

but--though all kinds of officers
(a yearning nation's blueeyed pride)
their passive prey did kick and curse
until for wear their clarion
voices and boots were much the worse,
and egged the firstclassprivates on
his rectum wickedly to tease
by means of skilfully applied
bayonets roasted hot with heat--
Olaf(upon what were once knees)
does almost ceaselessly repeat
"there is some shit I will not eat"

our president,being of which
assertions duly notified
threw the yellowsonofabitch
into a dungeon,where he died

Christ(of His mercy infinite)
i pray to see;and Olaf,too

preponderatingly because
unless statistics lie he was
more brave than me:more blond than you.


Annabel Lee
Edgar Allen Poe

It was many and many a year ago,
In a kingdom by the sea,
That a maiden there lived whom you may know
By the name of ANNABEL LEE;
And this maiden she lived with no other thought
Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,
In this kingdom by the sea;
But we loved with a love that was more than love-
I and my Annabel Lee;
With a love that the winged seraphs of heaven
Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,
In this kingdom by the sea,
A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling
My beautiful Annabel Lee;
So that her highborn kinsman came
And bore her away from me,
To shut her up in a sepulchre
In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in heaven,
Went envying her and me-
Yes!- that was the reason (as all men know,
In this kingdom by the sea)
That the wind came out of the cloud by night,
Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love
Of those who were older than we-
Of many far wiser than we-
And neither the angels in heaven above,
Nor the demons down under the sea,
Can ever dissever my soul from the soul
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee.

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And the stars never rise but I feel the bright eyes
Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;
And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side
Of my darling- my darling- my life and my bride,
In the sepulchre there by the sea,
In her tomb by the sounding sea.



To Good Guys Dead
Ernest Hemingway

They sucked us in;
King and country,
Christ Almighty
And the rest.
Patriotism,
Democracy,
Honor--
Words and phrases,
They either bitched us or killed us.


i carry your heart with me
e.e. 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 the 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)


Wander
Joe Battle

Deep in the heart I wander
and wonder where my love has gone.

Manic depressant and delusional
Flipping like a coin (pray for me)
Pray that I land on my side
Somewhere in the middle,
Lobotomized.

Deep down my heart, it wanders
and I wonder where you've gone.

I remember that blood, o blood on my hands
You apologized and I didn't care
He's inside you now (pray for me)
I can feel it ripping again,
I'm hateful, angry.

I feel helpless as I wander.

Early warnings in the morning. (Crows play chicken.)

.

Hayling Island for breakfast. 

Ok, the theme for this one is 'Be prepared'. 

There's the usual check list, of course,what with the early start:

1) Faculties.
2) Wallet.
3) Selection of goggles/shades.
4) Phone.
5) Some idea of the route.
6) Another idea for a route.
7) Reasonably empty bladder.

Most of the above can be pre-prepared the night before, the bladder perhaps dealt with just before departure.(Some still consider this as a punctuation mid blat, or perhaps the equivalent of a urinary ad break, who knows.)

'Faculties' though, definitely can only be assessed and calibrated on the day. The variables of the success of a night's sleep are not pre defined and the battlefield of indigestion, crying babies, urban Saturday night background revelry and police helicopter attendance to anything that allows them to get their hours up, can lay to waste the hope of finding a clear and stable platform from which to deliver an accurate set of driving skills come the hour.

Speaking skills are often a challenge at 5.30 am, let alone driving skills.Which is one reason why we've been meeting at 6.00 am (or later)! Ablutions and clothing choices are difficult enough, the hoped for aid of a forced caffeine intake so early, adds only to a scalp twitching bolus of thought processes log-jammed behind the eyes. Little actually happens, other than a flurry of indecisive attempts to gather things, dress, look for stuff, find stuff and look for stuff already found.

So often this is illustrated when finally reaching for the ignition start only to find an empty tumbler! Huh??

(Adds to above list:)

8) Car keys.

It's only meant to be for fun, but the stamina, skill and sheer level of thought required to accomplish a timely arrival at the RV and deliver the first 15 mins of a blat, needs a staggering bandwidth of processing capacity. A 'near level' infra red scan analysis of the freshly gathered Sunrise 7 formation at 6 am would show the hot spots not to be exhaust headers or heater outlets (for those that have), but the grey matter hidden beneath beanie hats and crash helmets!

Some would point to this being an age related issue, like an early morning onset Alzheimers or something? The younger members might place it as a beer related matter from the night before, 'cos they can still do that... to a man, we put it down to just not enough hours in the night. Nothing to do with having to get up too early, no, that couldn't be it.

The thing is, within moments of the start of the blat proper, we're straight in the pocket of this driving thing: cold tyres, an R300 Duratech to catch and a K-Series to 'cock a snoot at' (WTF?) fired with caffeine fuelled intent. It's a scary mix in the wrong hands. A bit of mental 'prep' helps to judge the movements of others around you, predict their lines through the roundabout and take in the road ahead.

  

The absence of cars in the night always leaves plenty of stuff in the road come dawn, things that were feeding are now food, carrion crows (and lately, jays) pecking at gristle without a knife or fork hop from their feast away from the hoovering 7 nose cones in a last moment game of chicken... (irony and broken parts of a joke could be assembled from this somehow.)

The low sun, whenever we venture eastwards, which is often, throws out shapes, shadows and deep contrasts. The feeble wink of brake lights up stand little chance of alerting the barrelling pursuant in the event of an unpredicted hazard ahead.

Bike engine Q  plate (for Qwick Qwaig!)

Awareness of likelihoods and possible outcomes, warning signs and prepared alternatives, countermeasures and contingencies... luckily this is all instinctual, whatever processing power that heats up the beanie hat goes on unnoticed from behind the wheel in the slipstream mayhem of 'getting on it'.

How apt then, that the silhouette of a key south coast early warning defence facility should appear at the cool down stage at the end of stage 1 of the blat. (Not that apt really, just a way of tieing in a picture with some words.. I liked the unsympathetic military spikey skyline that it presents across the entire city below. No planning permission refusals here along the top of the downs then! Message to Whitehall : 'Couldn't you blend this array into the background as a copse of trees or a facsimile of a working iron age farm perhaps? Or... or disguised to look like some seagulls, quite a few, feeding or flocking maybe? Message back to Portsmouth Planning office , 'Get flocked'. HM Forces)

A big breakfast, at what was Delia's Cafe on Hayling Island, did it's restorative thing with a chance to re-tune the processor for another session of filtering out road spam to achieve that hi bit rate efficiency for the return leg.

Another wee before departure, all part of the planning and the process you see...and then another, for some ;-)

Which is just as well, for mid stage 2 of the return would have seen a 7 seat in need of valeting to remove the salt stains! After leap frogging our way through a pack of racing cyclists (?) (I think a 'mental' of racing cyclists would suit), two then chose to manoeuvre at the last moment offering this wheel locking moment for one of the blattists:

Now, one 7 is noisy, well generally you can here it coming...and two are really going to be pretty distinguishable from the background noises of a Sussex countryside going about it's Sunday morning, so why, oh why, pull out into a 'pair abreast' formation just when two 7's, reasonably 'on the noise', are about to overtake???!! The smell of rubber passes, the drip of relief is tangible but contained , the sense of anger persists for a long time.

Ok then, senses and observation skills are re-heightened accordingly.... and promptly we complete a 'spirited' set of angles exiting a roundabout to a white'n'striped audience that we hadn't invited !!

Help, we need some of Her Maj's early warning defence gear to help us out of this one, our self preservation instinct and previously relied upon 6th sense has deserted us! The run for Farnham, our usual dispersal point, would take on a 'get home under the radar' objective from this point on. Chameleon eyed, we'd watch the front and back, left and right. No assumptions as to any situations from here on in... well, not for some of us anyway... negotiating an 'outside lane hogging Alfa' would prove to be an adversary not so easily trumped in the high stakes of this day's blat:

The blue flashing grill lights bannished the lone 7 to the layby. I say 'lone 7', 'cos the debrief notes record that the 2 leading wingmen at the time were not to be seen for dust as the sacrificial tail end Charlie was left to his fate. 'All for none and none for one' in this case. 'Thanks for leaving me to the Rozzers you bastards', was the plaintive text.

So, the theme: 'Be prepared', and I'd add 'always' to that, has run throughout the morning and, if nothing else, has given a thread to this post! We'll take heed for a bit and then hope the luck of the 'Risers returns , poor 'Charlie', though...

Breakfast by the sea.

Post script: The 'officer' who pulled Charlie didn't in fact stop...apparently, this is highly irregular according to procedural practice. We suspect that his plodness had lunch to eat or more secretive matters to attend! Luck returns. Although the behaviour of  the other two blatmen in their hurried escape, which too is highly irregular, has still yet to be presented to the stewards for enquiry!!

777(7)

That Was Easy

I was going along at a pretty good pace there for a while and let me tell you, it's very fucking easy to just stumble off track and end up not posting for two months. Starting Monday I'm restarting my weekly rotation, it's summer, I have no excuse. Sorry guys, but hey, I'm back now and we'll have three months of guaranteed posts. That's like 60+ postings! Yeah... I know...

Let's see what am I going to throw at you this upcoming week? I dunno but it will surely be a celebration of my fantastic return to blogging.

How about dual posts on Monday, a nice poem for the morning and a celebration of upcoming summer in the evening. Hopefully our DJ friend Norman West will grace the page for Tuesday. Wednesday, I'm posting in the morning and in the evening Anthony Morocco WILL have his podcast up. Thursday seems aweful blank but I might fill it up with something from an outside source. Friday, I'll be posting again and I'll convince Jeffrey Horn to put something together for Saturday.

Well that's that.
I'll see you again on Monday morning for some poetry eh? Let's say... 8am? Sounds good.

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel clinches Turkish Grand Prix

Sebastian Vettel dominated the Turkish Grand Prix to seal a third win of 2011 as a fierce fight unfolded behind him.

Mark Webber passed Fernando Alonso with five laps to go to secure a Red Bull one-two but Alonso hung on to the last podium spot for improving Ferrari.

The McLarens of Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button engaged in a fascinating battle but Hamilton's decision to make one more stop paid off with fourth.

Nico Rosberg relegated Button, whose tyres faded late on, to sixth.

While the battles down the field lit up the track behind him, Vettel made smooth progress, building a lead of almost six seconds before his first stop on lap 10.

The world champion made sure he was not caught out during a final flurry of stops and came in for a fresh set of hard tyres to ensure there would be no repeat of China, when he was denied victory by Hamilton with four laps to go.

This time Vettel crossed the line eight seconds clear of his team-mate Webber and just 10 seconds beyond Alonso's Ferrari.

"He is flawless at the moment," said BBC F1 analyst David Coulthard. "He is setting the standards in qualifying and how to win a grand prix."

After a difficult start to the season, Ferrari leave Turkey as Red Bull's closest rivals.

Formula 1's leading teams had arrived for the first European race intent on closing the gap on their rivals with a raft of technical updates.

Ferrari were no exceptions and added several new components - including new front and rear wings - in an attempt to close down Red Bull and McLaren.

Alonso had spoken confidently before the race about seeing "the light at the end of the tunnel" and his faith was restored by his first podium place of the season.

The Spaniard got away cleanly to pass Hamilton off the line and was able to match the pace of his rivals throughout the race.

The proof of Ferrari's step forward came when Alonso, with the help the moveable rear wing, flew past Webber for second place before his third pit stop.

"Alonso is relentless. He just won't give up and I admire him for that," said BBC F1 commentator Martin Brundle.

full report at bbc sport

Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel on pole for Turkish GP

Sebastian Vettel was uncatchable in Turkey as the world champion captured his fourth pole of 2011 for Red Bull.

Vettel set his fastest lap of one minute 25.079 seconds and sat in the garage to watch his rivals fail to match him.

Mark Webber joined his team-mate on the front row, 0.405secs behind, with Nico Rosberg third for Mercedes.

McLaren's Lewis Hamilton was fourth ahead of Fernando Alonso's Ferrari and his team-mate Jenson Button.

Vettel has looked unstoppable in qualifying all year but this time he knew it as he and Webber opted not to do second runs in qualifying, leaving their rivals to try and fail to better the Red Bull's times.

The world champion had already proved how unshakeable he is as he immediately got up to speed on Saturday after sitting out practice on Friday afternoon because of a heavy crash.

"We were there from the beginning and I am very happy. I like the track, which helps and it was nice to see that after not many laps I was able to find the rhythm," he said.

"Both Mark and myself decided to skip the second run, and it is a strange feeling because the others are on track and there is nothing you can do."

full story at bbc sport

Gran Premio de Turquia

Streaming live video provided by The Fast Castor

Would if we could get to Goodwood.

.

Sunrise at the RV

Well it was a bit slippery this time , 7am , a dry night we thought , but not once we got down Alton way.
Supercar Sunday or something was going on ...the journey not the destination and all that , so irrespective, it was a three 7's early push down to Goodwood via some of the choice, well known roads. They take on a bit of a different dimension after a shower an hour or so earlier, the road now a little less well known and slightly less 'choice'.

Going ...

                                               Still going...

                                                Not quite gone...

                                                                                                                                                    Phew!

And even time to despatch a more modern cousin ...

                                                                        ...simple pleasures.

Goodwood had the expected selection of Supercars (and not so). Very expensive brightly coloured sweets served on the contrasting grey of asphalt. Those with the spending power of a penny chew left only to imagine how it all could have been...'yeah, but are they happy?' is the repeated mantra. 

The man with that £300grand fast Lexus offered me a sit in his white kid leather cockpit... my gearbox oil stained trousers and a shrug of X-flow engined explanation didn't get me that seat in the kind man's supercar (what would I say to such a grown up anyway!?), but we did talk of X-flows in his Mk1 Escort way back before all this modern equipment, some common ground amongst the £pounds. The fussing TV crew lost interest in the oily man and the discussion of ford engines... Lexus guy appeared happy for a moment. Soon I left him to the penny chews.

Some nice sweets:

Graphics, US style:

We touched some good stuff, and wondered at others. But then the bacon sandwich queue was too long, so a meaningful search was on for some breakfast and appropriate clothing was chosen for the return run:

                                                              Just don't touch my face! 

--------------777-------------