Scrupuli
blunt essays with sharp points
Cataclysm
by ScrvpvlvsFeb 14, 2019 5:36 PM–
Labels: Amok Time, astronomy, City On The Edge Of Forever, love, poem, Saint Valentine's Day
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Rondeau
by ScrvpvlvsFeb 14, 2014 8:00 AM–
My lover, if my poems should be lacking all art, do not leave me oblivious. Instead, be blunt. Lest I continue, please confront me with the facts. Let them be free, thy private thoughts. Thy willow-tree curtains pull back so that I see your heart. I will no more affront My lover. My always wish is to please thee. More than move heaven, or earth, or sea I wish to move myself – to hunt the selfish out – turn best to front and give what makes thy life lovely, My lover. (If my poems should be lacking all art, do not leave me.)
Labels: love, poem, rondeau, Saint Valentine's Day
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I Noticed
by ScrvpvlvsMay 10, 2012 9:17 PM–
I noticed you are a bigot. Somehow I overlooked the fact. Before now, you were only joking. That must be what distracted me: the punchlines. The jokes were about blacks, wives, gays but you were funny. ⁂ This morning you were not joking. You suffered. You could not stomach your nigger president praising fag marriage. You grumbled all day. And you said, “It’s a free country. I’ve a right to my opinions.” ⁂ Animals of many specie have gay sex. Man is not special. (Though we are unusually creative.) But only humans are repulsed When they think of it. Does that make us the world’s perverts?
Labels: bigot, black, freedom, gay marriage, obama, perverts, poem, woman
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To my beloved
by ScrvpvlvsFeb 14, 2012 12:00 AM–
Suddenly, I am embraced awake, draw breath through my fine toes, bathe thirſty limbs in warm, urgent ſeep.
What are the oppoſite of eyes ? Theſe out-preſſed fans of ruſt and emerald lees. Theſe diſtillers of fragrant tears.
I know the wobble of wind, the pitileſs gripe of ſmall feet and teeth, the inſiſtent ſwell of rain-ſoaked earth : this touch is new.
How is perfect tenderneſs ? This eaſy inweaving of fingers. This dance of flowers petal to petal.
Layer on layer, year after year, againſt the ruthleſs heaven we knit our thick, gnarled coats. Scars cover ſcars.
Where is compassion ? Our bodies preſs, entwining, together. Our skins thin between, we lean and weep on one another.
In the ſpring, a caſual viſitor may ſtop to wonder at a ſingular tree blooming red on one ſide, on the other, white.
Labels: poem
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As SLow aS Possible
by ScrvpvlvsDec 24, 2011 10:00 PM–
On that “Fatal Day”, “Fatal Day in Halberſtadt”¹ (Thirteen ſixty-one, February twenty-third), Nicholas Faber’s archetypal manual with five raiſed rear keys gathered ſemitones to form one twelve-part octave, equal tempered ; into which ſtrait jacket of ſtems we then bound all our music. Music ſlipped its ſtraps at laſt, bled acroſs the lines. Cowell, Carlos, Cage freed it with noiſe and ſilence. Now Gerald Woehl’s Cage Organ keens in Halberſtadt, its ſix hundred thirty-nine year ſentence : to play Cage “As SLow aS Poſsible”.² This work to be read for ever or five minutes, whichever comes firſt.
—Edward K. McGuire, December 24, 2011
1. Partch, Harry. “Geneſis Of A Muſic, An Account Of A Creative Work, Its Roots And Its Fulfillments”. 1979.
2. Cage, John. “Organ²/ASLSP (As SLow aS Poſsible)”. 1987.
Labels: Cage, Carlos, Cowell, equal temperament, Halberstadt, music, octave, organ, poem, Woehl
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Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Tomorrow is a new day; begin it well and serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense. —Ralph Waldo Emerson
Sometimes they fool you by walking upright.
What part of “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wgah’nagl fhtagn” don’t you understand?
Build a man a fire, and he’ll be warm for a day. Set a man on fire, and he’ll be warm for the rest of his life. —Terry Pratchett
Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig. —Robert Heinlein
Do not ask why the past was better than the present, for this is not a question prompted by wisdom. —Ecclesiastes 7:10
Power lines abruptly stopped causing cancer in 1997 after the U.S. National Cancer Institute conducted a better study. —Robert Parks
Встретимся под столом! (Vstretimsja pod stolom: To meeting you under the table!)
The more you cry, the less you’ll pee.
Relish the love of a good woman.
It’ll never get better if you keep picking at it. —advice from Judge “Maximum” Bob Gibbs