(no subject)

A book you own that no one on your friends list does:

A c. 1850 collection of ballads about Robin Hood, marbled boards with half-leather. Paid it off at the Used and Rare Booksellers with three boxes of cookbooks and assorted nonfiction hardcovers.

A CD you own that no one on your friends list does:

Pacific Suites by Dan Gibson. A selection of nature sounds over New Age music. Yeah, so sue me. Nobody on my flist will admit to having it, even if they should happen to.

A DVD/VHS tape you own that no one on your friends list does:

Crying Freeman. Now wait, some of you may have this. But I'll bet you don't have it on PAL. I bought it online misapprehending it to be a dvd, and I have a region-free dvd player. The VCR, not so much. I've never even seen the movie and I've had the tape two years. Any takers? Free to a good home.

A place you've been that no one on your friends list has been:

This is the hard one, you're a well-traveled bunch. How about the lakeside village of Konigsee at dawn on a frosty end-of-summer morning, to watch the cows come home from the upper alpine pastures for the winter?

(no subject)

A book you own that no one on your friends list does:

A c. 1850 collection of ballads about Robin Hood, marbled boards with half-leather. Paid it off at the Used and Rare Booksellers with three boxes of cookbooks and assorted nonfiction hardcovers.

A CD you own that no one on your friends list does:

Pacific Suites by Dan Gibson. A selection of nature sounds over New Age music. Yeah, so sue me. Nobody on my flist will admit to having it, even if they should happen to.

A DVD/VHS tape you own that no one on your friends list does:

Crying Freeman. Now wait, some of you may have this. But I'll bet you don't have it on PAL. I bought it online misapprehending it to be a dvd, and I have a region-free dvd player. The VCR, not so much. I've never even seen the movie and I've had the tape two years. Any takers? Free to a good home.

A place you've been that no one on your friends list has been:

This is the hard one, you're a well-traveled bunch. How about the lakeside village of Konigsee at dawn on a frosty end-of-summer morning, to watch the cows come home from the upper alpine pastures for the winter?

When you read this, post a poem in your LJ (from jonquil)

a fragment from Surprised by Joy, by Wm. Wordsworth

But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? -That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn,
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.



Sonnet XXIX, Wm. Shakespeare

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

When you read this, post a poem in your LJ (from jonquil)

a fragment from Surprised by Joy, by Wm. Wordsworth

But how could I forget thee? Through what power,
Even for the least division of an hour,
Have I been so beguiled as to be blind
To my most grievous loss? -That thought's return
Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore
Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,
Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;
That neither present time, nor years unborn,
Could to my sight that heavenly face restore.



Sonnet XXIX, Wm. Shakespeare

When in disgrace with fortune and men's eyes,
I all alone beweep my outcast state,
And trouble deaf Heaven with my bootless cries,
And look upon myself, and curse my fate,
Wishing me like to one more rich in hope,
Featur'd like him, like him with friends possess'd,
Desiring this man's art, and that man's scope,
With what I most enjoy contented least:
Yet in these thoughts myself almost despising,
Haply I think on thee,--and then my state
(Like to the lark at break of day arising
From sullen earth) sings hymns at heaven's gate;
For thy sweet love remember'd such wealth brings
That then I scorn to change my state with kings'.

Tooting my own horn...

Posting the 29th made me remember writing this. It was spawned by the word "bootless" and the fact that it does not, in fact, mean "without footwear." And by that one shoe on the side of the road.



That Which Runs The Night Roads

By morning’s light, where high roads cross
beneath the signpost standard,
a relic of fear and wonder lies
again, lost, strayed, abandoned.

The reluctant eye of each passerby
is drawn, they see and shudder,
then each as quickly looks away
lest that fate befall the observer.

What sort of creature can this be
that preys on hapless travelers?
What stealth, what swift and silent guile,
what strength, to seize such plunder

and take a man with no outcry,
no blot or stain as evidence,
leave only the mute, sad, single shoe
to prove the traveler’s existence?

Where bides the beast by light of day
never glimpsed, nor heard, nor scented?
What otherworld hides it from men’s eyes
while it waits for dark, unrepented?

Into what realm is the wayfarer snatched
unawares, in what dark abroad,
with naught but the clothes he stands in
bootless and half-shod?

Tooting my own horn...

Posting the 29th made me remember writing this. It was spawned by the word "bootless" and the fact that it does not, in fact, mean "without footwear." And by that one shoe on the side of the road.



That Which Runs The Night Roads

By morning’s light, where high roads cross
beneath the signpost standard,
a relic of fear and wonder lies
again, lost, strayed, abandoned.

The reluctant eye of each passerby
is drawn, they see and shudder,
then each as quickly looks away
lest that fate befall the observer.

What sort of creature can this be
that preys on hapless travelers?
What stealth, what swift and silent guile,
what strength, to seize such plunder

and take a man with no outcry,
no blot or stain as evidence,
leave only the mute, sad, single shoe
to prove the traveler’s existence?

Where bides the beast by light of day
never glimpsed, nor heard, nor scented?
What otherworld hides it from men’s eyes
while it waits for dark, unrepented?

Into what realm is the wayfarer snatched
unawares, in what dark abroad,
with naught but the clothes he stands in
bootless and half-shod?