Mark 10:25 – “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.”
Some things don’t need to be said
And a jet plane can mess with your head
Oxygen deprivation
While preaching salvation
Makes camels appear to be thread.
Old Jules
Posted in 2018, Christians, limericks, Poetry, religion, Spirituality, YouTube
Tagged camels, Christians, jet planes, Kenneth Copeland, limerick, limericks, Mark 10:25, needle, Preachers, preaching
Will Faulkner, Will Faulkner,
You are to blame my friend
Telling of a maiden
Brought to no good end,
Raped but with a corn-cob,
Raped but with a lie:
They’ve learned to rape the country
With a corn-cob and a lie.
They’ve learned to rape the country
Though rape is past their power,
They’ve learned to have her virtue
Though feeble to deflower:
To soil her lovely thinking,
The freedom of her mind —
They’ve learned to do it winking
With a corn-cob from behind.
Will Faulkner, Will Faulkner,
They’ve learned those lying arts:
They’ve had her in her freedom
And Oh, it breaks our hearts!
The impotent that could not —
That leered with letching eye,
They’ve learned to rape the country
With a corn-cob and a lie.
[For five years MacLeish was Librarian of Congress, a post he accepted at the urging of President Franklin D. Roosevelt.[2] From 1949 to 1962, MacLeish was Boylston Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Harvard University. MacLeish was awarded three Pulitzer Prizes for his work.]
As nearly as I can find, this poem has never found its way to the Internet. So, since I’m an admirer of MacLeish poetry, and since I’ve posted a number of his other [better] poems here, I add this to the mix.
Posted in 1960's, Adventure, Poetry
Tagged A corn-cob and a lie, Archibald MacLeish, poetry
This is Stormy. Her reputation was ruined when the president broke their non-disclosure agreement and gabbed to all his evangelist buddies. Now her phone rings day and night and she can’t get a moment of quiet rest.
The porn-star named Stormy was nice
And of course everything has its price
Including discretion
And public confession:
The ethics aren’t all that precise.
Old Jules
Locomotive Rock located on the Laguna Rez a few miles north of Acoma.
Stopping a train just ain’t easy
The methods are bloody and sleazy
But changing direction
Requires a correction
More solid than whiney and breezy.
Old Jules
Posted in 2012, 2018, Human Behavior, humor, limericks, Poetry
Tagged limerick, philosophy, poetry, train
Made his money the hard way, inherited.
Went to Yale where he struggled and merited
Every cent that he earned
With his MBA; spurned
Do-nothings with slogans he parroted.
Old Jules – July 31, 2012 blog entry
Posted in 2012, 2018, America, Education, Human Behavior, Poetry
Tagged limerick, MBA, philosophy, poetry
A couple of distant relatives of mine, Cole and James.
Sky Pieces by Carl Sandburg
Proudly the fedoras march on the heads of the somewhat careless men.
Proudly the slouches march on the heads of the still more careless men.
Proudly the panamas perch on the noggins of dapper debonair men.
Comically somber the derbies gloom on the earnest solemn noodles.
And the sombrero, most proud, most careless, most dapper and debonair of all, somberly the sombrero marches on the heads of important men who know what they want.
Hats are sky pieces; hats have a destiny; wish your hat slowly; your hat is you.
There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since Dorothy Parker wrote that poem. And there’s been a lot even since I posted it on this blog the first time. But that just goes to prove Parker captured a universal truth. And was never recognized, acknowledged or acclaimed. Never canonized as a saint of the literati.
All this feral swine talk reminded me of one of the most succinct, philosophical, psychological, sociological, sexy and romantic poems I’ve ever read. Dorothy Parker authored it sometime back in the ’50s, I think:
Hogamus higamus men are polygamous.
Higamus hogamus, women monogamous.
Inspiring, thought-provoking and titillating. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Old Jules
Posted in 1950's, Human Behavior, Poetry
Tagged Dorothy Parker, higamus, hogimus, men are polygamous, poetry, women monogamous
Lee, one of the lesser lost souls who lives in the house next door to this one, brought to mind a little Shakespeare I was surprised I could still quote to myself the other day.
Lee is a closet alcoholic, a heroin addict, as heavy a smoker as he can beg, or afford after he’s taken care of his other addictions, and not a bad guy if you can put up with him. He’ll try not to steal from you if he can help it, manipulate you and play on your sympathy to trick you into giving him rides to feed the drug, booze or cigarette hungers, and ignore you, or scowl at you when he doesn’t need anything.
Because deep down, Lee is a white hater. If there were black robes and hoods and a black KKK he’d be out burning crosses in the front lawns where white folks live. But he can be fairly personable most of the time if he’s thinking he might cadge a ‘loan’ or a ride somewhere.
Anyway, the first few months I moved here, being one of the lucky few who own cars, I hauled Lee to the food pantries a few times, let him con me into taking him down to KC because ‘there was a guy down there who was going to pay him some money owed him’. And one day I was dropping some of my better history library off in grocery bags on the porch of James, [another history buff the next house down] when he braced me.
“What you leaving groceries on James’s porch for? I need groceries!”
Well, I wasn’t about to loan nor give any money to Lee, but I went to the grocery store and picked up $20 worth of food for him I knew he couldn’t resell. Basics.
But I digressed.
The other day I was playing chess with a couple of buddies in a waiting room up at the hospital. We meet over there because they’re smokers and they can’t smoke in that waiting room.
Coming down after a few games I ran into Lee in the hallway. We gossiped about how cold it was and I thought he was coming to my car with me for a ride home. But his other lost-soul-mate was parked next to my car. So he got in a moment, then came back out and leaned over conspiratorial and cagy.
“Hey man! Do you have a few bucks you can give me?”
“No.”
“Well,” he muttered. “Next time you need someone to run around with you, find someone else.”
I was dumbfounded. The only time Lee and I have ever done anything together we were taking him somewhere. Between times he barely speaks to me unless he’s begging money and I’m refusing.
Which somehow brought to mind who? William Shakespeare. Who else?
Heigh Ho, The Holly
Blow, blow, thou winter wind,
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the green holly;
most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh ho, sing heigh ho, unto the green holly:
most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
William Shakespeare
Sounds as though old Lee’s not going to give me the benefit of his company as a consequence of me not giving him some money. If you want good friends it’s going to cost you.
Best offer I’ve had all year.
Old Jules
Posted in 2018, America, Current Issues, Human Behavior, Poetry, Senior Citizens, VA campus, Veterans
Tagged addiction, alcoholic, Heigh ho the holly, heroin, Leavenworth, manipulation, shakespeare, VA, veterans
Hi readers. Thanks for coming by for a read.
Back in the 1960s browsing around book stores a person used to find 33 1/3 LP records of poets reading their own poetry. I bought several and always enjoyed listening to Robert Frost, TS Eliot, Archibald MacLeish and several others. Those poor old LPs were awfully scratchy and beat up by the time cassette tapes came along and I converted those I could.
But toward the end of LP-days along came Rod McKuen and I suppose made everyone a bit shy about admitting they listened to poetry. I’m telling you now I listened to part of a Rod McKuen LP once, so shoot me for a dumbass.
Anyway somewhere back there my tapes ran away with a fancy machine designed to play them and it’s been a long time since I’ve heard Frost, MacLeish, Penn Warren, or TS Eliot, among others. Missed it considerable.
But here in my dotage in Olathe, KS, there’s a lady who works at the County Library who was once an English Major. She takes delight in getting me whatever the library has on almost anything. I’ve consumed books on low sodium cooking, for instance, and am currently reading some new Terry Pratchett.
So lately when I got hankering to find some MP3 recordings converted from those mentioned naturally she was my database. The bad news is a lot of it is still in libraries somewhere on vinyl, never converted even to tape. You can find my favorite MacLeish on Amazon on LP for $4.77 used, but nothing even on tape. Or you can get it Interlibrary loan from NY Public Library on LP.
Anyway I got Frost converted from CD to MP3, along with an assortment of other CD anthologies and spang sent them back to the library, ordering more. And today I’ve got another stack she brought home last night. TS Eliot and The Spoken Arts Treasury Volume 1 [6 CD] of a large variety of poets reading their own poetry if they were still alive when recording devices were invented.
I also have a 2 CD set of the Mills Brothers, 1931-1968 I’ll be converting to MP3. Truly looking forward to hearing it.
But the technology is moving so fast by the time I get them on MP3 probably something will come along assuring they’ll be lost to history some other way. Heck, there aren’t enough people interested in Archibald MacLeish, Carl Sandburg, to justify someone commercially to preserve them. Not anyone after cassette tapes came along.
Ezra Pound spent the years of his life after WWII in confined exile because he got so enthusiastic about Italian fascism, entirely because Il Duce supported the arts.
If poor old Ezry had recorded all those endless cantos he penned from 1945 until he died I suppose it would be one hell of a treasury to convert to MP3. I’m probably the only person on the planet who wouldn’t listen to it.
Old Jules
Tagged Archibald MacLeish, Ezra, MP3, poetry, poets, Pound, recordings, robert frost, technology, TS Eliot
Sun dried jerky of your past
Lies heavy on the stomach-heart
Grumbles, protests, lingers
Long, long after cactus
Arid faith
Uprooted by a desert mountain
Cloudburst flood
Has withered, blunted tines
No longer barbed
While jerky past still grumbles
Lies heavy on the stomach heart.
Lie still and watch
Lantern sun swings overhead
This banner day
Sliver moon salutes from darkened sky
Take heart. Take heart. Take heart.
Move the grumble upward to a song
To tines’ decay
Take heart take heart take heart
While dormant hidden succulents
Await return of desert mountain
Cloud burst flood
And full moon rises.
Jack Purcell, From Poems of the New Old West, copyright 2003, NineLives Press
Posted in Poetry, Uncategorized
Tagged environment, Human Behavior, Life, lifestyle, literature, poem, poetry, psychology, writing
74 years old, a resident of Leavenworth, KS, in an apartment located on the VA campus. Partnered with a black shorthaired cat named Mister Midnight. (1943-2020)
Since April, 2020, this blog is maintained by Jeanne Kasten (See "About" page for further information).
https://sofarfromheaven.com/2020/04/21/au-revoir-old-jules-jack-purcell/
So Far From Heaven 