Saturday, March 31, 2007

Listen, I haven't wanted to go out or meet anybody

A fibonacci based on raag shri

I
was
on the
verge of shoe
pointing out the door,
but then retracted, discouraged


– Len B.

Note
Raag shri is actually meant for early evening in winter, and it is neither. But the light is so dim it feels like early evening, and the temperature is chilly enough to fake winter.

Friday, March 30, 2007

The coffee fib

O
for
a cup
of coffee
now! Acrid delight
olfactory and sensory.

– Leonard B.

Morning walk memory reassembled in fib

X-
leg-
ged, black-
haired woman
in bright red coat leaves
house, stalks up street in tapping rush

– Lenny Blumfeld (c’r’t 2007)

Note
All true, once again, as much as retrospect allows.

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Warmed-up fib

Al-
read-
y em-
broiled in it
all: life, digestion,
dark, light, movement, emotion, fate


– Leonard Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

Legal alert
It might be illegal to hyphenate a word to make the right number of syllables. But then again who's going to sue me?

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

History of the sigh pt. 2: precursors

I know that all (0) of you have been dieing for the 2nd part of the history of the sigh. I know. Sorry.

To continue, here's another pastoral elegy. It was written by Moschus (Greek poet, middle of 2nd century BC) and bemoans the death of the third idyllic Greek poet, Bion (the first one is Theocritus, the second Moschus himself).

Now why would anybody have poisoned an innocent heardsman like Bion? This question will probably never be answered unless somebody manages to take a close look at the Akasha chronicles.

For those of you who prefer a fast read, I recommend reading only the refrain (Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.). The fastest-paced part of the body is where it says [Here seven verses are lost.].

IDYL III - THE LAMENT FOR BION

Wail, let me hear you wail, ye woodland glades, and thou Dorian water; and weep ye rivers, for Bion, the well beloved! Now all ye green things mourn, and now ye groves lament him, ye flowers now in sad clusters breathe yourselves away. Now redden ye roses in your sorrow, and now wax red ye wind-flowers, now thou hyacinth, whisper the letters on thee graven, and add a deeper ai ai to thy petals; he is dead, the beautiful singer.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Ye nightingales that lament among the thick leaves of the trees, tell ye to the Sicilian waters of Arethusa the tidings that Bion the herdsman is dead, and that with Bion song too has died, and perished hath the Dorian minstrelsy.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Ye Strymonian swans, sadly wail ye by the waters, and chant with melancholy notes the dolorous song, even such a song as in his time with voice like yours he was wont to sing. And tell again to the Œagrian maidens, tell to all the Nymphs Bistonian, how that he hath perished, the Dorian Orpheus.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
No more to his herds he sings, that beloved herdsman, no more ‘neath the lonely oaks he sits and sings, nay, but by Pluteus’s side he chants a refrain of oblivion. The mountains too are voiceless: and the heifers that wander by the bulls lament and refuse their pasture.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Thy sudden doom, O Bion, Apollo himself lamented, and the Satyrs mourned thee, and the Priapi in sable raiment, and the Panes sorrow for thy song, and the fountain fairies in the wood made moan, and their tears turned to rivers of waters. And Echo in the rocks laments that thou art silent, and no more she mimics thy voice. And in sorrow for thy fall the trees cast down their fruit, and all the flowers have faded. From the ewes hath flowed no fair milk, nor honey from the hives, nay, it hath perished for mere sorrow in the wax, for now hath thy honey perished, and no more it behoves men to gather the honey of the bees.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Not so much did the dolphin mourn beside the sea-banks, nor ever sang so sweet the nightingale on the cliffs, nor so much lamented the swallow on the long ranges of the hills, nor shrilled so loud the halcyon o’er his sorrows;

(Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.)

Nor so much, by the grey sea-waves, did ever the sea-bird sing, nor so much in the dells of dawn did the bird of Memnon bewail the son of the Morning, fluttering around his tomb, as they lamented for Bion dead.

Nightingales, and all the swallows that once he was wont to delight, that he would teach to speak, they sat over against each other on the boughs and kept moaning, and the birds sang in answer, ‘Wail, ye wretched ones, even ye!’

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Who, ah who will ever make music on thy pipe, O thrice desired Bion, and who will put his mouth to the reeds of thine instrument? who is so bold?

For still thy lips and still thy breath survive, and Echo, among the reeds, doth still feed upon thy songs. To Pan shall I bear the pipe? Nay, perchance even he would fear to set his mouth to it, lest, after thee, he should win but the second prize.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Yea, and Galatea laments thy song, she whom once thou wouldst delight, as with thee she sat by the sea-banks. For not like the Cyclops didst thou sing - him fair Galatea ever fled, but on thee she still looked more kindly than on the salt water. And now hath she forgotten the wave, and sits on the lonely sands, but still she keeps thy kine.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
All the gifts of the Muses, herdsman, have died with thee, the delightful kisses of maidens, the lips of boys; and woful round thy tomb the loves are weeping. But Cypris loves thee far more than the kiss wherewith she kissed the dying Adonis.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
This, O most musical of rivers, is thy second sorrow, this, Meles, thy new woe. Of old didst thou lose Homer, that sweet mouth of Calliope, and men say thou didst bewail thy goodly son with streams of many tears, and didst fill all the salt sea with the voice of thy lamentation - now again another son thou weepest, and in a new sorrow art thou wasting away.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Both were beloved of the fountains, and one ever drank of the Pegasean fount, but the other would drain a draught of Arethusa. And the one sang the fair daughter of Tyndarus, and the mighty son of Thetis, and Menelaus Atreus’s son, but that other, - not of wars, not of tears, but of Pan, would he sing, and of herdsmen would he chant, and so singing, he tended the herds. And pipes he would fashion, and would milk the sweet heifer, and taught lads how to kiss, and Love he cherished in his bosom and woke the passion of Aphrodite.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Every famous city laments thee, Bion, and all the towns. Ascra laments thee far more than her Hesiod, and Pindar is less regretted by the forests of Boeotia. Nor so much did pleasant Lesbos mourn for Alcaeus, nor did the Teian town so greatly bewail her poet, while for thee more than for Archilochus doth Paros yearn, and not for Sappho, but still for thee doth Mytilene wail her musical lament;

[Here seven verses are lost.]
And in Syracuse Theocritus; but I sing thee the dirge of an Ausonian sorrow, I that am no stranger to the pastoral song, but heir of the Doric Muse which thou didst teach thy pupils. This was thy gift to me; to others didst thou leave thy wealth, to me thy minstrelsy.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Ah me, when the mallows wither in the garden, and the green parsley, and the curled tendrils of the anise, on a later day they live again, and spring in another year; but we men, we, the great and mighty, or wise, when once we have died, in hollow earth we sleep, gone down into silence; a right long, and endless, and unawakening sleep. And thou too, in the earth wilt be lapped in silence, but the nymphs have thought good that the frog should eternally sing. Nay, him I would not envy, for ‘tis no sweet song he singeth.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
Poison came, Bion, to thy mouth, thou didst know poison. To such lips as thine did it come, and was not sweetened? What mortal was so cruel that could mix poison for thee, or who could give thee the venom that heard thy voice? surely he had no music in his soul.

Begin, ye Sicilian Muses, begin the dirge.
But justice hath overtaken them all. Still for this sorrow I weep, and bewail thy ruin. But ah, if I might have gone down like Orpheus to Tartarus, or as once Odysseus, or Alcides of yore, I too would speedily have come to the house of Pluteus, that thee perchance I might behold, and if thou singest to Pluteus, that I might hear what is thy song. Nay, sing to the Maiden some strain of Sicily, sing some sweet pastoral lay.

And she too is Sicilian, and on the shores by Aetna she was wont to play, and she knew the Dorian strain. Not unrewarded will the singing be; and as once to Orpheus’s sweet minstrelsy she gave Eurydice to return with him, even so will she send thee too, Bion, to the hills. But if I, even I, and my piping had aught availed, before Pluteus I too would have sung.

(Translator: Andrew Lang)

What else?

You: Now that you've told me about your various unhappinesses.

I: Oh!

You: No need to pout.

I: Thank you, thank you. Well ...

You: Come on, don't feed me that slowpoke stuff you've acquired when traveling God knows where. This is a fast-clipped society here.

I: Sorry.

You: Get it out.

I: Yes'm. About to. If you let me get a word in edgewise – in my naturally slow way.

You: Don't you DARE BLOG FOR BLOGGING'S SAKE!

Elucidating notes
The beginning of an imagined dialog. [Could go on endlessly.]
However, I don't think she quite knows what she's talking about when she spits out that FOR BLOGGING'S SAKE!
Setting: workplace, sun pouring in, work won't go away by itself but is, neutrally put, not quite stimulating.
No other characters.

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

An early afternoon sigh

My computer's fan is softly whirring,
and my tinnitus sounds
like the static of an old tv
with just snow on

– Len B.

Green trill

A fibonacci to raag basant (anytime spring season)

Green
trill,
green trill
of leaves un-
folding. Listen up
close, sense the crackling of new life

– Leonard Blumfeld (copyright anytime spring season 2007)

We could be

... talking about the weather,
not meteorological facts,

the weather
as it affects us.

We could be sitting
inside,

enjoying the rays
of a sun

that is just a bit
too anemic

today
to sit outside.

– Weatherman Len the Pt.

Monday, March 26, 2007

What kind of image has appeared before my eyes?

(raag multani, afternoon)

What
kind
of I,
what I am
has appeared before
the eyes that did look into mine?

– Leonard Blumfeld

Sunday, March 25, 2007

Seeing your fair face pleases my heart

I
see
your fair
face in trans-
lucent memory –
we are four thousand miles apart



A fibonacci inspired by raag bhimpalasi (early afternoon)

– Lou Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

Interview with Lou
Raag Times: What does the very recent western poetic form of fibonacci have to do with Indian ragas?
Lou B.: Nothing originally. I established a link of sorts by taking the time of day, going to a nifty website called The Raga Guide, looking for an appropriate raag, listening to one and then writing. The fibonacci titled "Seeing your fair face pleases my heart" and written in the early afternoon was inspired by listening to a raag bhimpalasi sung by Shruti Sadolikar. The title is a direct quote from The Raga Guide that I liked very much and could associate with my own personal experience very well.
Raag Times: Thank you, Lou.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

Early evening fibonacci

(in raag bhupali)

Rose
dusk
falling,
eve ashes
seeping in, still hour
just before night encloses all


– Leon Blumfeld

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Where Rumor and Sigh originated

Another rumor

For more ample illustration of the recently invented form:

It could be said that
pineapple tastes delicious,
but you don't have to
take anybody's word for it.

– Lem Bloomfield

Another poetic form: the rumor

And here's an example:
It has been said
that Helen had beautiful red lips,
but we have to take
Homer's word for it.
– Leon Blumfeld (copyright 2007)

N.B.
Of course, everything's copyrighted here (for all eternity!), but I think I should remind of it once in a while.

History of the sigh pt. 1: precursors

Famous example of a pastoral elegy –

Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard (1751)

Full many a gem of purest ray serene
The dark unfathomed caves of ocean bear:
Full many a flower is born to blush unseen
And waste its sweetness on the desert air.

Some village-Hampden that with dauntless breast
The little tyrant of his fields withstood;
Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest,
Some Cromwell guiltless of his country's blood.

The applause of listening senates to command,
The threats of pain and ruin to despise,
To scatter plenty o'er a smiling land,
And read their history in a nation's eyes,

Their lot forbade: nor circumscribed alone
Their growing virtues, but their crimes confined;
Forbade to wade through slaughter to a throne,
And shut the gates of mercy on mankind,

The struggling pangs of conscious truth to hide,
To quench the blushes of ingenuous shame,
Or heap the shrine of Luxury and Pride
With incense kindled at the Muse's flame.

Thomas Gray (1716-1771)

Morning fib

Just
got
up, still
creaky. Will
need to get in first
gear now: drink, eat, make merry work


Así es, these are the good intentions of your humble servant, Lew Blumfeld

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Warm-up fib for today | a sigh

Got
up
early
to do work,
had coffee and lye
crescent, but now crave red fruit.

Your morning report from the working front.

Accompanied by this sigh*:

Oh to be carefree and, perhaps,
have the best espresso ever tasted –
in a tiny bar on Pisa's main street.


Yours faithfully, L.B.

* Sigh: A poetic form loosely related to the pastoral elegy.

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Time will not be cheated

Today, this Sunday, ended up being a BAD day.*
One of those where a universal remote control (URC)
for fast, fast forward would have come in very handy.
Including the autopilot function that gets all your work done
while you're sleeping. Yeah, right.

Except that, as we know from Click, the 2006 Adam Sandler comedy, Morty (aka Christopher Walken) will catch up with you if you press that button, and you will regret it – literally – for ever.


*Including an upchucking toilet, three hours of verbal abuse from an aging parent, fog from several planets, etc., etc.

I am surprised I have some sense of humor back.

Friday, March 16, 2007

Late night fibonacci

In
spä-
ter Nacht
treibt es auf
milchigem Mondlicht,
badet in blassem Gold, das Gedicht.


Submitted the English original to the bilingual Garden of Confusion by mistake, so the German goes here for a change.

Your moonstruck Lenny Blumfeld, author of this wind-down fibonacci (as opposed to the warm-ups I practiced a few times before).

Thursday, March 15, 2007

All work, no blog

Oh life
could be
so much
blog w/o
work


In this cyber day and age we have finally come to realize that we were meant to do one thing: blog.

How I pity those umpteen million years manwomankind had to suffer through without access to blogging. All they had back then was blabbing.

Your always pilosopically meandering L.B.

BTW: The weather angels have put on another smiling face.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Bout to go out for lunch

¡Nada más!

Haven't even decided where to go, Indian is topmost in my mind.

There's a great Sri Lankan/South Indian restaurant in the neighborhood, but some people I know are boycotting it because of an unfriendly "Chinese-looking" waiter. He could be Indian, from one of the Northeastern States bordering Myanmar, like Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram.

Bamboo forest in Mizoram

This is definitely blabla, but also close to nothingness apart from showing off my shining knowledge of some more obscure geographical areas.

Perdóname.

Su humilde servidor,

Leonardo Flores

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Chewin' n' bloggin'

I'll say!
Maximum efficiency, multitasking, whatnot!

Utterances of existence spat out, so to spit, on the run.

The roving, raging, ranting reporter.

So why's this so lame & tame?

I'll tell you, Lem, because it don't have nothin' to tell!

Said some critical alter ego with a firmly grounded eye.

By the way: the weather is laudable, even though a bit reticent with warmth.

Monday, March 12, 2007

You ain't no real Saint Francis

said the blackbird
I talked to
this morning,
dropped a turd
and flew on
to the next branch.

– Len Blumfeld

Note
All true! I did not make this up.

Sunday, March 11, 2007

Sunday morning coming down

Some pets seemed to love this sunny Sunday morning just as much as I did.

On my walk I counted at least eight cats lounging in windows, plus one dog, a pekinese stretched flat to look like a spotted rug.

Something irked him about me standing there and looking at him, and he wouldn't quit barking even after I'd left his field of vision.

As opposed to the various cats, who took my presence more philosophically, even though a bit quizzically, like this one.

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Blank

Blank can be safely
said to be less
than blabla

But blank is
not nothing
it is space

Friday, March 9, 2007

Shorty snuck in

He did, before I had to leave for work.

This be said, though, in all haste:
  • The weather angels put on shiny garb today. Hooray!
  • For those who don't care about weather: try a whole season with rain.
  • Heard about such a season today, which lasted from October till March 2005, from one who had to endure it close to the coast of Croatia.
  • Everything wet, no electricity because solar power can only last so long with rain.
  • Cooped up in a room.
  • Night falls at 5:30 p.m.
  • Lots of opportunity for involuntary candlelight dinners.
This is how one turns chance conversations into blogs, which then become ... what? Evanescent? Pubescent? Nascent?

Thursday, March 8, 2007

Lonely sheep on the blue planet


Company
Lonely sheep on the blue planet, wants to keep company with the Little Prince.

If you can't quote it, wryte it yourself


By the way:
Another poetic form was born from this dyp in the poetyc fountayn – the y-based minimalist quatrain (YBMQ). It is a dystant western relative of its eastern haykoo cousyn.

Up-to-the-second state of mind

What they call "zeitnah" in German, "close to time" – blogging on the razor edge of time.

  • The weather is doing its thing – rather on the gray, cloudy side – and isn't really dying for my input as far as I can tell
  • There, I've paid homage to the weather angels
  • I tried reading poetry to look for a quote which might lend itself to being blogged right now, on the razor edge of time and with some cohesive relevance, but nothing on the pages I skimmed stuck
  • I'm afraid this has more to do with my current burnt-out state than the state of poetry in general or in particular
  • Ramble, ramble
  • Did I manage to say anything useful, pertinent or essential that will go down in the annals of whatever?
  • I don't believe I did
  • Would I wish this onto many readers?
  • Frankly or unfrankly, I don't know
Your cheap neighborhood philosopher and hang-out artist Lem B.

Wednesday, March 7, 2007

Cavils

Cavil – lovely word. Nothing you're supposed to do, but so easy to give in to. So here are my cavils for this morning:

  1. The weather, even though not downright depressing, could definitely be better.
  2. My head could be better. The well-known tension from too much computer work is coming on.
  3. The world situation could be immensely better. Good people could be in power (unlike Junior Bush, Kim Jong-il, Pootin and a few other shining stars I could think of).
  4. I could receive more e-mails from people I haven't written to. Still, they could be thinking of me and drop a line.
  5. Ultimate success has failed me.
  6. My fiancée could write or call. It's been too long.
  7. I could be doing things I like to do.
  8. Why do I have to do what I do? I mostly hate it.
  9. Particularly right now.
  10. Money, the most prevalent current incarnation of the constrictions of this material world, is the root of much evil.
  11. If it weren't for a lack of money, I could publish so many books, stage so many plays with my love in them, and nobody would have to read respectively see them except if they absolutely wanted to!
Etc.

Gripes! Yikes! Enough!

Tuesday, March 6, 2007

Hits!

How many of us are out there, hoping to make it big, blogging away for
THE BIG BANG,
the stratospheric Harry Potter of blogs?

Google's AdSense providing the cash needed for that dream villa on some sunny beach, where we loll, blogging occasionally and languidly using our notebook computer or cell phone but mostly working on that tan and on our inebriation...

Ah cyberworld,
cyberspace,
cyberdreams,
blessèd be
thy cyberlure!

Monday, March 5, 2007

Starting the day with fibonacci

Oh
my!
Mud pie
thrown my way –
lethal lethe drunk
from purest river so early.


Self-congrats, L.B. You've done it again – gifted the world another fib still burning hot from the forn de pa poètic.

Extra strong copyright by Len Blumfeld 2007

Variations on nothingness no. 2

Even nothingness varies.
Your midwest hometown neighborhood philosopher Jerry Potter Blumfeld.

Thank you, weather

Weather is arguably man's and woman's most dependable companion. There's never a day without it. So here's to weather!

Perhaps the British have known about the importance of weather the longest, hence their famed weather conversation intros like "A bit nippy today, ay?"


An animal factor is added in Germany; here, the weather is made – or at least predicted – by frogs that climb ladders. Up is good, I believe.

I've been told that frogs in the wild are accurate to a tittle* in their predictions provided that they can find a ladder. Another problem is that they're hardly ever seen.

So the weather stations make do with ladder-equipped jarred frogs, which explains some of the inaccuracy of German forecasts.

* This expression dates back to at least 1607 (see World Wide Words). A simplified form is generally in use today, which will most likely be further simplified in the future.

Thursday, March 1, 2007

Good morning

It is morning again

The computer fans are whirring at different frequencies

There is an occasional bird chirp outside, also at different frequencies

~~~~~

Nice to see you, I say to noone in particular

Variations on nothingness













More than this - there is nothing
More than this - tell me one thing
More than this - there is nothing

– Brian Ferry (Roxy Music)

Brings up the question of what this is
beyond which there is nothing
and what that one thing is
that needs to be told.

Your true subscriber to somethingness,

Leon Blumfeld

On the subject of pearls before swine

The average swine still mistakes yesterday’s kitchen slops for pearls.

Wind, wind, wind

The weather angels today are swift movers that make stairwells howl and shutters rattle.