Conference quark::human_relations-v1

    Skip,
    
    that is a lovely poem!
    
    Lynne

    Lynne,
    
    Thank you!
    
    Skip

    re .1,
    
My mother used to say
"If you don't have nice things to say
Don't you dare to say nay."
But on this hot sultry night of May
I drank some rum to drum some bad rhyme by the bay
To say "I disagree with thee, by the way."

Eugene

    Beautiful sentiment, Skip...
    
    
                                                                  M...
    
    

    You have a wonderufl way of putting feelings into words, Skip!
    
    Tammi (who can relate...)

    Skip:
    
    Thank-you for sharing something that I wish more would share...their
    feelings!!
    
    K

    
    Skip!
    
    Good to see you in here.....
    
    And I liked the poem too. On first reading it just hit the spot
    - wish I could have written it. :-)
    
    'gail
    

    
    How about
    
    Love is patient and kind.  Never jealous or boastful or rude
    ....
    
    I don't remember the rest but it can be found in I Corinthians 12, I
    believe. 
    
    When I was little, I asked my mother what love is and she showed me
    those verses in the Bible.  I think those are great too!
    
    Skip : your entry was really nice.  I'm going to post is somewhere.
    (I haven't thought of where yet.)
    (frig maybe?)
    
    Rachael Barlow
    

    I'm touched by all the comments... I didn't expect it to go over
    that well!  In reply to several requests for extracting and using
    the poem... please do.  If I hadn't wanted to share it with others
    I wouldn't have posted it here.
                             
    And Again.. I am overwhelmed by the response.
    
    Skip

    Ok folks, the following is a humorous parody/critique (well supposed to be
    at least).  And my sincere apology to those whom I might have offended
    with this.  
    But as we say, read at your own risk...
    Eugene



















	What is love?
	Sure it means sharing.
	Say she brings her tooth brush
	And you your false teeth.
	That way, even if you break up
	You still share the bad breath
	And the gum diseases.
	
	What is love?
	Sure it means caring.
	And caring or fighting for toilet seat thou shall not be.
	Unless, of course, 
	Thou hemorrhoid is boiling hot--
	Deep down in the pit, the flames from hell
	Burning down the bathroom door.

	...

	And on and on you plead--
	"I love thee! I love thee!"
	Oh how much you love she?
	Let me count the pennies, 
	One and two and three.
	Full of cliche ten cents a piece.
	Even the Hallmark card in Walgreen
	Costs a buck at least.
	And now if you don't believe me,
	I will empty my penny jar and prove to thee indeed.
	But alas don't get mad at me, oh please.
	This is just a harmless humorous critique.
    

    hehehehehe
    
    Skip

    I can't resist (no matter how cynical I can be my romanticism carries
    me away). If we are to discuss love let's see how it can be said.
    Yes, I know, this is not the love we are supposed to discuss here, this
    is not the steady comfort of companions. But give me passion any day.
    I'll wash the burns with my tears. liesl
    

    Here's a snippet from a piece by ee cummings and a few others

    losing through you what seemed myself, i find
    selves unimaginably mine; beyond
    sorrow's own joys and hoping's very fears

    yours is the light by which my spirit's born:
    yours is the darkness of my soul's return
    -you are my sun, my moon, and all of my stars


    Or Edna St. Vincent Millay

    Sweet love, sweet thorn, when lightly to my heart
    I took your thrust, whereby I since am slain,
    And lie disheveled in the grass apart,
    A sodden thing bedrenched by tears and rain.

    Or Baudelaire

    Like a wave swelled by the melting
	Of a groaning glacier,
    When your saliva rises
	To the edges of your teeth,

    I feel I drink some Bohemian wine,
	Bitter, victor,
    A liquid sky that scatters
	Stars in my heart!


    Or Dickinson

    That I did always love,
    I bring thee proof:
    That till I loved
    I did not love enough.

    That I shall love alway,
    I offer thee
    That love is life,
    And life hath immortality.

                                    To Celia


	Drink to me only with thine eyes,
	And I will pledge with mine;
	Or leave a kiss but in the cup
	And I'll not look for wine.

	The thirst that from the soul doth rise
	Doth ask a drink divine;
	But might I of Jove's nectar sup,
	I would not change for thine.

	I sent thee late a rosy wreath,
	Not so much honoring thee
	As giving it a hope that there
	It could not withered be;

	But thou thereon didst only breathe
	And sent'st it back to me;
	Since when it grows, and smells, I swear,
	Not of itself but thee! 










                                                              Ben Johnson

    I don't know the author, but my wife wears a gold charm I gave her more
    than 30 years ago with the inscription:
    
    		"CHANCE CANNOT CHANGE MY LOVE,
    		 NOR TIME IMPAIR"
    
    Anyone know the author?

    My love is like  to ice, and I to fire:
    How comes it then that this her cold so great
    Is not dissolved through my so hot desire,
    But harder grows the more I her entreat?
    Or how comes it that my exceeding heat  
    Is not allayed by her heart-frozen cold,
    But that I burn much more in boiling sweat,
    And feel my flames augmented manifold?
    What more miraculous thing may be told, 
    That fire, which all things melts, should harden ice,
    And ice, which is congealed with senseless cold,
    Should kindle fire by wonderful device?
    Such is the power of love in gentle mind,
    That it can alter all the course of kind.
                            
                        Edmund Spenser
    

    One day I wrote her name upon the strand,
    But came the waves and washed it away:
    Again I wrote it with a second hand,
    But came the tide and made my pains his prey.
    "Vain man," sad she, "that dost in vain essay
    A mortal thing so to immortalize;
    For I myself shall like  to this decay,
    And eke my name be wiped out likewise."
    "Not so," quoth I; "let baser things devise
    To die in dust, but you shall live by fame;
    My verse your virutes rare shall eternize,
    And in the heavens write your glorious name:
    Where, whenas Death shall all the world subdue,
    Our love shall live, and later life renew."
                    
                         Edmund Spenser
    			 (1552 - 1599)
    

    From Song of Soloman, Chapter 4:1-15
    
    How beautiful you are, my darling!
    Oh, how beautiful!
    Your eyes behind your veil are doves.
    Your hair is like a flock of goats
    descending from Mount Gilead.
    Your teeth ar like a flock of sheep just shorn,
    coming up from the washing.
    Each has its twin;
    not one of them is alone.
    Your lips are like a scarlet ribbon;
    your mouth is lovely.
    Your temples behind your veil
    are like the halves of a pomegranate.
    Your neck is like the tower of David,
    built with elegance;
    on it hang a thousand shields,
    all of them shields of warriors.
    Your two breasts are like two fawns,
    like twin fawns of a gazelle
    that browse among the lilies.
    Until the day breaks and the shadows flee,
    I will go to the mountain of myrrh
    and to the hill of incense.
    All beautiful you are, my darling;
    there is no flaw in you.
    
    Come with me from Lebanon, my bride,
    come with me from Lebanon.
    Descend from the crest of Amana,
    from the top of Senir, the summit of Hermon,
    from the lions' dens
    and from the mountain haunts of the leopards.
    You have stolen my heart, my sister, my bride;
    you have stolen my heart with one galnce of your eyes,
    with one jewel of your necklace.
    How delightful is your love, my sister, my bride!
    How much more pleasing is your love than wine,
    and the fragrance of your perfume than any spice!
    Your lifps drop sweetness as the honeycomb, my bride;
    milk and honey are under your tongue.
    The fragrance of your garments is like that of Lebanon.
    You are a garden locked up, my sister, my bride;
    you are a spring enclosed, a sealed fountain.
    Your plants are an orchard of pomegranates
    with choice fruits,
    with henna and nard,
    nard and saffron,
    calamus and cinnamon,
    and every kind of incense tree,
    with myrrh and aloes
    and all the finest spices.
    You are a garden fountain,
    a well of flowing water
    streaming down from Lebanon.
    ----------------------
    
    WOW!!  Solomon was TRUELY in *LOVE* with this woman!
    
    Kay
    

    Not be be critical but I think (personal opinion) Soloman went a
    little bit overboard.
    
    Not only that but if she REALLY looks like the discriptions and
    metophores he used.... that is one UGLY looking girl he's talking
    about.  
    
    Hair like a flock of goats????
    Neck like the tower of David???
    
    Yuck!
    
    I have to apologize for this comment,  The poem is really very
    beautiful with it's metophores and such.  But I couldn't resist
    pointing out the differences of what was thought of as beautiful
    back then as compared to what is considered beautiful today.
    
    Realistically... would you like to be told your hair reminds someone
    of a herd of goats??? 
    
    :-)
    Skip

    Maybe this is due to culture differences, but as a Chinese, I rarely
    find any Western love poem (especially the Shakespearean sonnets and
    the poems in that class) not vulnerable to parody.  To me, they all 
    seem to overly exaggerate the feeling to the point of sentimentality. 
    I am sure most people here would disagree with me...  Any way, for a 
    taste of the Chinese love poems, I present _River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter_
    from the eighth century China (by Li Po and translated by Ezra Pound).  
    Let me just add that the tone and mood of the original poem is even 
    milder and simpler than Pound's translation (such line as "Forever and 
    forever and forever" was due to the creative translation of Pound to
    suite the taste of the Western audience) but more poignant, and also in 
    perfect rhyme.
    
    Eugene
    
    -------------------------------------------------------------------------
    
    The River-Merchant's Wife: A Letter
    
    While my hair was still cut straight across my forehead
    I played about the front gate, pulling flowers.
    You came by on bamboo stilts, playing horse,
    You walked about my seat, playing with blue plums.
    And we went on living in the village of Chokan:  
    Two small people, without dislike or suspicion.
    
    At fourteen I married My Lord you.
    I never laughed, being bashful.
    Lowering my head, I looked at the wall.
    Called to, a thousand times, I never looked back.
    
    At fifteen I stopped scowling,
    I desired my dust to be mingled with yours
    Forever and forever and forever.
    Why should I climb the lookout?
    
    At sixteen you departed,
    You went into far Ku-to-en, by the river of swirling eddies,
    And you have been gone five months.
    The monkeys make sorrowful noise overhead.
    
    You dragged your feet when you went out.
    By the gate now, the moss is grown, the different mosses,
    Too deep to clear them away!
    The leaves fall early this autumn, in wind.
    The paired butterfies are already yellow with August
    Over the grass in the West garden;
    they hurt me. I grow older.
    If you are coming down through the narrows of the river Kiang,
    Please let me know before hand,
    And I will come out to meet you
    	As far as Cho-fu-sa.
                            

    re .19
    
    A wonderful poem...beautiful, understated.
    
    But not, I'm sure, incapable of being parodied ;-)

    It's ripe for parody... but I won't... I won't, I didn't start this
    note for that purpose.  I will warn you though Eugene, Although
    you feel some need to "poke fun" at western culture and it's outlook
    at love, and you have parodied here and in other notes files the
    works of varied poets and writers of prose, there is nothing sacred
    when it comes to parody.  It's just a matter of who wants to take
    the time and make the effort to do it.  
    
    As to the poem itself, I personally didn't care for it... too lacking
    in emotional content... but then I've found that true in many of
    the chinese poems I've read translations of.  Maybe it's because
    somethng is lost in the transtlation or maybe it's because the 
    Eastern mind works differently then then the western mind does...
    The poem spoke... but did not show.  Also in your remarks about
    Shakesperian sonnets and such.  Although many people are not aware
    of it, in many cases William was poking fun at the way his culture
    at the time reacted to the selfsame emotion by overstating words...
    Such as the balcony scene in Romeo and Juliett.  Wherein... 
    
    Romeo speaks of love with all the foolish words of a true romantic,
    And although Juliett feels the same for Romeo is also logical and
    warns him off several times and tends to understate the very words
    he uses on him... in several places pointing out just how ridiculous
    his words are.
    
    But then, that is the English way and not necessarily the American
    way of how something is stated and delt with (no offense meant to
    the English... as I am referring to the OLD English not the modern
    day.) 
    
    I once read an article by an Eastern docter that asked why the 
    Western cultures tend to put so much mystiqe into something that
    is nothing more then the result of a biological need/drive.  
    
    The question he posed and the answers he supplied were so cold and
    clinical that it not only angered me but the readers of the article
    as well.  
    
    Maybe the Western culture does wrap a bit of gossamer and candy
    about the emotions involved with love but then again, in my own
    real opinion I feel that the feelings and communications, the 
    instincts and even the biological needs that are all a part of it
    are mysterious and will never be truly defined.  I guess that is
    one of the reasons I consider myself a romantic and not only admit
    to it, but take pride in it.  Oh I have my feet planted in reality,
    but to coat the feelings in gossamer and candy makes life more
    enjoyable then to cut them with a surgeons knives and analysis them
    clinically.
    
    IMHO of course.
    
    Skip

re the last two,

I agree that, to a great poet, almost everything is open to parody.
However, there are parodies and then there are parodies.  T.S. Eloit's
_Waste Land_ has got a few parodies, but they all look foolish against
the original work; almost like comic dogs barking at Rodans' _Thinker_.
But you are welcome to parody Li Po and Pound, and if I think it is any
good, I will even buy you a beer or a cookie.

By the way, Skip, this is the only note I ever entered a parody of any
sort.
    
As to the poem, let's just say that, to each his or her own.  I can say
one thing though.  I am familiar with both languages, and have studied both
literary tradition, and I come to like the minimalism of the East and the 
architectural approach of the West.  Most of the great Chinese paintings 
are done with a few strokes in a few minutes or hours, and the subject 
is almost always nature with people reduced to a few specs spread across 
the landscape.  The Chinese artists put great emphasis on expressing ideas 
and moods and tend to ignore details when suite them (that is how they 
can do things so quickly).  The Western culture I learn is almost entirely 
human centered with all the statues carved with so much care to details that 
they almost come alive.  Even God is expressed in the form of a 
human-being (as opposed to some mysterious thing of the Zen).  The West 
takes great care at the detail and believe that the world operates on a 
few fundamental laws, and I think that is partially responsible for the rise 
of the modern science whereas in the East, everything is gobbled up in a 
fuzzy mystic picture.  Of course, this is a somewhat simplistic picture...

I found Li Po's poem, in its simplicity, is filled with intense emotion.
It is just not expressed in the "I love you forever.  I love you to death.
Oh, sweet heart.  Honey." way.  Kinda like British humor, you know.  
Of course, I am being a bit facetious here.  I do like Shakespear's work 
(yes even the sonnets), and who can beat Juliet's

My bounty is as boundless as the sea, 
My love as deep; the more I give to thee
The more I have, for both are infinite.

Yes, Shakespear wrote a lot of satire (things like "My mistress' eye is 
nothing like the sun,), but I don't think Shakespear is poking fun in 
Romeo and Juliet though.  It just wouldn't work with the genre.

	*	*	*

I hardly think one Eastern doctor's view (especially a doctor's
view) is representative of the entire Eastern culture.  Sorta like 
asking Dr. Ruth on what the whole thing is about.  So did the 
"Eastern doctor" become graphic in his/her description?

Finally, I think the difficulty in doing a parody on Li Po's poem
is that the emotional intensity of the poem is conveyed with a voice 
of innocence (especially in the original Chinese version).  Yes, 
I tried parody on this one too (you wouldn't think I would post this 
poem here without attacking it first, would you? :-)).  However, all 
of my attempts failed.  Some of them are funny when read alone, but 
when read together with the original (either the Chinese version 
or Pound's translation), they either look foolish or mean spirited.  
Of course, this doesn't mean the poem is not susceptible to parody.

Eugene