Poetry & Ideas & Personal Posted by spyder, 01 May 2007 03:16 pm
May 1st is my emotional holiday
by spyder
My own take on May the first in 2007.
The following represents the strands of ribbons to become entwined as we dance around the axis mundi in the commons of a forest meadow. Each a line of thinking of the royal screwing that this day represents, so fertile and fecund, so phallic and virile, dancing about the shaft that has been deeply inserted into the mother, into the consecrated Earth. Plunge that puppy right in there, and dance the night away.
The Rites of Spring
Beltaine was a time of fertility and unbridled merrymaking, when young and old would spend the night making love in the Greenwood. In the morning, they would return to the village bearing huge budding boughs of hawthorn (the may-tree) and other spring flowers with which to bedeck themselves, their families, and their houses. They would parade back to their homes, stopping at each house to leave flowers, and enjoy the best of food and drink that the home had to offer. In every village, the maypole—usually a birch or ash pole—was raised, and dancing and feasting began. Festivities were led by the May Queen and her consort, the King who was sometimes Jack-in-the-Green, or the Green Man, the old god of thewildwood . They were carried through the village in a cart naked save the covering of flowers and enthroned in a leafy arbor as the divine couple whose unity symbolized the sacred marriage of earth and sun.
To Celebrate Beltaine Today
Arise at dawn and wash in the morning dew: the woman who washes her face in it will be beautiful; the man who washes his hands will be skilled with knots and nets. If you live near water, make a garland or posy of spring flowers and cast it into stream, lake or river to bless the water spirits. Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill, then give it to one in need of caring, such as an elderly friend. Beltaine is one of the three “spirit-nights” of the year when the faeries can be seen. At dusk, twist a rowan sprig into a ring and look through it, and you may see them dancing about the fairy rings identified by the trail of perfect mushrooms. Make a May bowl —wine or punch in which the flowers of sweetwoodruff or other fragrant blossoms are soaked (yes and even those mushrooms from the fairy rings)—and drink with the one you love.
Acid Commercial
Hands up Charlie and-uh…
Now if you’re tired or a bit run down,
Can’t seem to getcha feet off the ground,
Maybe you oughta try a little bit of L.S.D.Only if you want to
Shake your head and rattle your brain,
Make you act just a bit insane,
Give you all the psychic energy you need —Eat flowers and kiss babies
L.S.D.
For you and me!
And if you go chasing rabbits
And you know you’re going to fall
Tell ‘em a hookah smoking caterpillar
Has given you the call.
Call Alice
When she was just small.
When the men on the chessboard
Get up and tell you where to go
And you’ve just had some kind of mushroom
And your mind is nowhere at all
Go ask Alice
I think she’ll know
When logic and proportion
Have fallen sloppy dead
And the White Knight is talking backwards
And the Red Queen says “off with you’re head”
Remember what the dormouse said:
Feed your head. Feed your head. Feed your head.
from a 9th century Irish ballad
May day! Delightful day!
Bright colours play the vale along.
Now wakes at morning’s slender ray
Wild and gay the blackbird’s song.
Loaded bees with puny power
Goodly flower-harvest win;
Cattle roam with muddy flanks;
Busy ants go out and in.
Men grow mighty in the May,
Proud and gay the maidens grow;
Fair is every wooded heights;
Fair and bright the plain below…
Robert Herrick 1591-1674:
So when or you or i are made
A fable, song, or fleeting shade;
All love, all liking, all delight
Aies drown’d with us in endless night.
Then while time serve, and we are but decaying;
Come, my Corinna, come, let’s all go a-Maying.
middle school low-brow May Day chant:
Hooray Hooray, the First of May
Outdoor fucking starts today!!
Yes, the Ruling Class War is on, folks - replete with Democrats who look middle-class economic disaster in the eye and demand more tax cuts for billionaires, Republicans who give company owners the middle finger, and Beltway reporters who toast it all to flutes of champagne provided by runway models. While our country is driven into the ground, it’s party time in Washington. And when the rest of us outside the Beltway look back, our kids will have just one question: What did we do to stop it?
and here is something i read from Haffner’s DENYING HITLER:
~~ Amid all the misery, despair, and poverty there was an atmosphere of light-headed youthfulness, licentiousness, and carnival. Now, for once, the young had money and the old did not. Moreover, its nature had changed. Its value lasted only a few hours. It was spent as never before or since; and not on the things old people spend their money on.
~~Bars and nightclubs opened in large numbers. Young couples whirled about the streets of the amusement quarters.~~…Everyone was hectically, feverishly searching for love and seizing it without a second thought. Indeed, even love had assumed an inflationary character.
And from Alexandra Richie’s FAUST’S METROPOLIS
of the twenty-two murders committed by the left, seventeen of the perpetrators were severely punished, ten with the death sentence; but of the 354 murders committed by the right between 1918 and 1922, only one was punished. Vigilante groups made up of unemployed ex-officers and criminals continued to occupy the streets, murdering at will, clubbing and beating people accused of ‘unpatriotic’ activities.
Juxapose this with the report that two University of Minnesota professors recently “compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats.” Interesting to note that among the GOP cases were those involving Abramoff, Cunningham, DeLay, et al.
And as the dream died, and the first of May became the fourth and fifth of Mays, Country Joe MacDonald crafted this lovely lament:
When dawn comes to touch my purple haze
And evening’s drowsiness to carry me away
I know once again that there is nothing we can save,
So I’ll pack up my things, I’ll be on my way.Yes, here I go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of days gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Thoughts of you and I.Swirls of giant colors swam madly through my head,
I looked around to find you, but I just found it instead.
It might have been a dream for all the things we said
But you promised me —
Darling you promised me —Yes, and here I go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of things gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could cry.Father’s gone to fight the war,
He left us here alone.
I shiver in the lonesome night
Beside the telephone
But time brings no word,
I guess he’s not coming home,
It feels like the end,
It feels like the end, my friend.Here we go again
Off down the road again
Thinking thoughts of things gone by.
Here I am again
Singing my songs again
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could
Thinking and dreaming
Oh I feel like I could die.
Oh, yeah!
from Robert Hunter’s Corrina sung to the ever-insistent accompaniment of a Huichol peyote rattle and the Iquitos shaman’s drum.
If, who, how and why
don’t mean that much to be
long as it don’t hurt too much
believe we’ll let it be
Outside major darkness
where the circle is complete
there is no fear that lovers born
will ever fail to meet
Corrina / wake it up baby
Corrina / Shake it down easy
Corrina / Shake it on up now
Corrina / Shake it back down
Corrina / Makin’ me crazy
Corrina / C’mon baby
Corrina / Shake it all day
Corrina / Tell me what’d I say
Corrina / Shake it up closer
Corrina / Shake it away
Corrina / Shake it in the shadow
Corrina / Shake it in the shade
Corrina / Shake it on the shakedown
Corrina / Shake it uptown
Corrina / Shake it in the short haul
Corrina / Shake it around
Corrina / Shake it at the window
Corrina / Shake it at the door
Corrina / Shake it on the stairwell
Corrina / Shake it on the floor
Corrina / Shake it in the mornin’
Corrina / Shake it in the dawn
Corrina / Shake it all night babe
Corrina / Shake it on down
Trackbacks
Responses to “May 1st is my emotional holiday”
-
on 02 May 2007 at 9:25 am 1. Seattle said …
I’m still trying to figure out if that post means you woke up on the right or wrong side of the bed yesterday….
Reminded me of this article from a few years back:
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/elvs25.shtml“In Iceland, spirits are in the material world
Many on island nation believe in other-worldly beingsSaturday, December 25, 1999
By COLIN NICKERSON
THE BOSTON GLOBEHAFNARFJORDUR, Iceland — This can be a tough country for blasting out a foundation or building a roadbed.
Never mind the boiling geysers, wind-blasted precipices or frozen barrens. It’s not the razor-sharp lava rock that daunts builders; it’s the hidden people lurking below.
“There are all sorts of beings beneath our stones,” said Brynjolfur Snorrason, a folklorist often asked to advise contractors on how best to avoid the lairs of Iceland’s elves and other seldom-seen creatures whose presence nonetheless still seems to permeate this far northern island nation.
Highway engineers in recent years have been forced to reroute roads around supposed elf dwellings. Similarly, builders of the country’s first shopping mall took care to lay electrical cables and other underground installations well away from suspected abodes of gnomes and fairies. Couples planning a new house will sometimes hire “elf-spotters” to ensure the lot is free of spirit folk.
In Iceland, such precautions are seen as simple prudence.
“It can be a strange country,” said Arni Bjornsson, head of ethnological studies at the National Museum of Iceland. “Even hard-headed engineers, who say they don’t hold with superstition, will build a road around a certain hill or boulder rather than take the risk of offending elves.”…
-
on 02 May 2007 at 12:25 pm 2. spyder said …
I’m still trying to figure out if that post means you woke up on the right or wrong side of the bed yesterday…
It shall be noted that i got up under the bed. The dust bunnies had me and were trying to restrain me until the boogeyman came, but i deftly got away. Those Icelanders must spend a lot of time in the runes.
-
on 02 May 2007 at 12:55 pm 3. Seattle said …
Ah, you have one of those anti-grav beds too then.
-
on 02 May 2007 at 2:48 pm 4. JP Stormcrow said …
To commemorate another May 1st event much covered in the blogs yesterday, a rendering into other media, 4 years too late:
A flight suit makes him feel larger
Yet his actions make him small
And the lies that Karl Rove has him tell us
Serve to terrorize us all
Watch out for George
When he’s feeling ten feet tallAnd if we go “fixing” countries
And we know we’re going to fail
When they misrepresent the intelligence
And to our allies spin a tale
Beware, cuz George
Thinks he is the alpha maleWhen men in the press corps
Act like he is our warrior-king
And when they’ve debased themselves on Hardball
And his praises they do sing
Watch out for George
Cuz he’ll do most anythingWhen logic and perspective
To bloodlust, have softly bowed
And Rumsfeld is talking nonsense
And Cheney’s out lying to the crowd
Remember what Condoleezza said:
Mushroom cloud!
Mushroom cloud!
Mushroom cloud! -
on 02 May 2007 at 4:05 pm 5. James Killus said …
In the dark of night
The haiku commandos came
To light our spirits. -
on 02 May 2007 at 4:52 pm 6. christian h. said …
Must - resist - being - swept - along - in - the - stream - of - consciousness.
JP and James: thank you for your poetic contributions. I think poetry is a particularly good form to describe the current state of the world, because it is a form that resists cynicism (at least, I can’t imagine a cynical poem. Sarcastic, yes - but not cynical.)
-
on 02 May 2007 at 5:13 pm 7. Oaktown Girl said …
James -
Thank you. Consider my spirits “lighted”!
(Image from Mythinglinks.org).
-
on 02 May 2007 at 6:34 pm 8. The Constructivist said …
Damn, why oh why did I save Hawthorne’s “The May-pole of Merry Mount” for next week?!
-
on 02 May 2007 at 10:26 pm 9. JP Stormcrow said …
…at least, I can’t imagine a cynical poem
Maybe not, but on rereading my attempt above there can certainly be a bad one. Note to self - just because the first line grabs you does not mean you are compelled to complete it …
Let me compensate with a song that has haunted me the past several days, Gary Jules’ sparse version of Mad World, also well known from the film Donnie Darko, where I first heard it. [And musical n00b that I am, I did not realize that it was a cover of a Tears for Fears song, though in this instance I think the cover pwns.]
-
on 03 May 2007 at 7:51 am 10. Oaktown Girl said …
JP - I think your poem/song rocks! I’m home now and can read it while I play the “White Rabbit” song in my head, and that makes all the difference in the world. I recommend everyone try it if they have not. And I like your YouTube song pick as well. This version is definitely preferable to the original.
I’m home because I finally lost my battle to fight off being sick. Thought I was pulling out of it for sure yesterday, but then last night around 9pm the mucous fairy came and set up a huge base camp in my system and invited all her friends: the fever and chills gnome, the soar throat siren, and the panic princess (”oh no, I can’t miss work, they’ll fire me for sure. They dont like me very much and are just looking for an excuse”.) Say what you will about the trouble with unions. I sure as hell wish I was in one.
I’m gonna go take my generic Nyquil (sp?) now and see if I can sleep, which I didn’t last night because I was too sick to remember I had any generic Nyquil I could have taken.
-
on 03 May 2007 at 8:18 am 11. spyder said …
Oaktown Girl, stay down and get well; and please know you will be receiving healing thoughts of chi whether or not science can prove they are efficacious.
Thanks for the poetic contributions, that is all i really was thinking of to help pass these days between. Yes, poetry is the form through which the ever downward-spiralling Carter malaise can best be viewed with even hints of beauty and wonder.
JP, we need to record that with appropriate visual graphix and make a WAAGNFNP viral propaganada vid. We need an anthem to counter McCain’s ba ba ba, bomb bomb some land.
And to wrap up my contributions to poetic expressions for May Day, with a nod for Patrick’s fine efforts to embolden our passions and defeat our despair through Oaktown Girl’s inspired hopes, i offer this choice 60’s tidbit for a folksy sing along:
Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’
Or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’.Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don’t stand in the doorway
Don’t block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There’s a battle outside
And it is ragin’.
It’ll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin’.Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don’t criticize
What you can’t understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin’.
Please get out of the new one
If you can’t lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin’.The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin’.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’. -
on 03 May 2007 at 9:15 am 12. JP Stormcrow said …
…
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’.Then everyone was run over by a truck.
I will only surrender my despair when you pry it from my cold, mashed fingers.Actually, the US Attorney thing certainly has a lot of the taste of a “third-rate burglary” , but I just don’t think we have sufficient strength in the institutions of the press or the courts to pull it off. (And it is also later in the election cycle.) Still I enjoy speculating - who would play the Gerald Ford, Rockefeller and Jimmy Carter roles?
For Carter it seems like Obama (maybe Edwards) best fits the bill - in fact Patrick’s piece reminded me a bit of a Hunter Thompson piece entitled IIRC Jimmy Carter and the Leap of Faith.
-
on 03 May 2007 at 10:06 am 13. The Constructivist said …
spyder, you might enjoy this from some german-sounding blog.
-
on 03 May 2007 at 12:25 pm 14. spyder said …
Thanks TC. It reminds me of a time a while back, when i was visiting a friend in SoCAL who is revered as one of the pickiest audiophiles in the world and as one of the true masters of analog sound reinforcement/reproduction systems (actually for his work in all aspects of analog systems engineering and design). We were working on his boat, when the phone rang (up on the dock pole). I was closest, so i answered it. The voice on the other end asked i my friend was available, and that it was a reverend pastor something or other. Turns out his mega-churches were interested in installing the very best sound systems for their multi-media spectacular sunday-services (Sunday Sunday Sunday); and would like to hire my buddy as a consultant for a very generous fee.
We spent the better part of the next two days discussing these options, he eventually choosing to turn it down. As a practicing member of the Native American Church for the last 40+ years, he felt that religious rituals didn’t need Walls of Sound but rather intimate human harmonies. Marketable Religion, seems to be how it is done these days though.
-
on 03 May 2007 at 12:33 pm 15. The Constructivist said …
Will direct my sound recording (and German and fellow dad of young girl) pal at my home institution to this comment, spyder. Thanks! This kind of dilemma seems like a good open topic starter for the weekend, btw.
-
on 03 May 2007 at 4:25 pm 16. christian h. said …
Oaktown Girl, get better soon!
