on the lonely shore
where none intrudes, by the sea
music in its roar
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society, where none intrudes,
By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
I love not man the less, but nature more.
Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage (1812–18) canto 4, st. 178 by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824
and if I laugh at
any mortal thing, it is
that I may not weep
The actual line from the poem Don Juan by George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron FRS (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824) is:
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
‘Tis that I may not weep.
(Don Juan (1819–24) canto 4, st. 4 – btw FRS means Fellow of the Royal Society)
I had to change ’tis to ‘it is’ to fit what I call Haiku.
My blog my rules.
You can read the “What is …” section for further discussion on this point.
It is said that Abraham Lincoln read a lot of Byron.
Mr. Lincoln read a lot of Byron and then used it as inspiration but with an understanding of his audience.
Where Lord Byron writes:
And if I laugh at any mortal thing,
‘Tis that I may not weep.
Mr. Lincoln said that he felt … “Somewhat like the boy in Kentucky who stubbed his toe while running to see his sweetheart. The boy said he was too big to cry, and far too badly hurt to laugh.“
whatever word phrase
comes in your head, write it down
don’t worry about
From the article, In these troubled times we all get the ‘bothers’ but I have a surefire cure: write them down by Michael Rosen in the Guardian, (9/15/2023).
Mr. Rosen takes the point that writing is great for dealing with bothers.
I first thought he said brothers and I have 7 of them so this caught my eye.
Mr. Rosen writes:
Whatever word or phrase comes into your head, write it down. Don’t worry about whether it fills the whole line (part of the tyranny of the sentence!). Don’t worry if it sounds unfinished.
Now wait.
Whatever next thought comes into your mind, write it down underneath that previous line. I call this “unfolding”. Now repeat this unfolding for as short or as long a time as you want. Remember that you can nick anything you.
Now, a moment to think about what you’ve done. You’ve taken something out of your mind – a feeling, a thought, an idea – found some words for it, and put it outside yourself. You can now look at it, as if it is separate from you, even though it is connected to you. Now what? You can consider whether you’ve “got it right”. Have you been true to yourself, to that feeling? If not, you can change it. You can reflect on it in any way you like: is that really where I’m at?
I might have to give this a try.
Find those bothers in my day and go and write down something that’s bothering me.
we still check the mail
everyday and there are times
the mail is for us
They call it the sloooow country.
Everything seems to run at a different pace down here.
Even the mail.
You can tell we are old.
We walk to our mail box and check it every day.
But if we mail something to one of our kids, we have learned to give them a heads up to ‘check their mailbox’, because if we didn’t, they wouldn’t.
We often get mail.
I should say we often get mail in our mail box.
I remember the times when mail came everyday and there was a lot of it.
Even in college we got a lot of mail.
One of my roommates subscribed to Sports Illustrated.
We all looked forward to the day it got delivered though I have to say, with that time honored tradition, my roommate wanted to be the one who read it first.
When the magazine was nice and fresh and unread.
Something I could relate to and really understood.
Especially on those odd days I was home and got the mail and got to read it first.
We all knew that the edition of Sports Illustrated that came out AFTER the Super Bowl edition would be the famous swimsuit edition.
My roommate was determined to be the first one to read it that magazine so when he left for the day that day, he took the mailbox key with him.
I noticed the mail box key was missing from its hook that morning and as we all knew what day Sports Illustrated was delivered, I put it all together.
My first thought was that it had been well played and I silent applauded my roommate’s aforethought.
Then I accepted the challenge.
I would be the first one to read that magazine.
I knew that from the window in my room I could see up the street.
I got my books and parked on the window seat and after a bit I caught sight of our mail person working his way towards our apartment building.
Timing it just right I got down the steps with a another key in my fist and got to the mailbox at just as the mail person unlocked the boxes.
“Anything for 811?,” I asked, all innocence, just being helpful.
The guy looks at his cart, grabs a pile of envelopes and Sports Illustrated and handed it over without a question.
The look on my roommate’s face when he came in to see the magazine open on the coffee table was worth the price of tuition that semester.
With the magic of the low country, sometimes that mail in our mail box is for us.
More often than not, if there is more than one piece of mail in the mailbox, one of those pieces of mail will be for someone else in the complex, the neighborhood or at least, the same state.
I once ordered something from Amazon and got a text message that it had been delivered.
The email I got said, ‘Package left in mail box.’
There was no package in our mail box and I knew what happened.
Someone else got my package.
I wanted to post a note at the mailbox box that said, WHO EVER GOT MY MAIL, PLEASE GIVE IT BACK and sign it with my name and address.
I have to say that in an age when you can count on everyone owning a gun, my desire to leave such a note, with my name and address on it, takes more courage than I got right now.
I just got mad.
But it turned out that someone didn’t take my package.
They just put it back in the outbox.
It did arrive.
And it only took three months.
We still check the mail everyday.
And there are times, the mail is for us.
timeless nostalgic
at the same time be a bit
sad to see them go
What else might any one be talking about but the, Generations in the making, the new, sleeker receptacles will soon replace the iconic green mesh bins, trash cans in New York City.
According to the article, Behold: New York City’s Trash Can of the Future, by Dodai Stewart, “The wire litter baskets are iconic, but they are well past their useful life in New York City,” said Jessica Tisch, the city’s sanitation commissioner. “They are vestiges of a different time.”
There are 22,000 litter baskets on the streets of New York City and the plan is, over time, to replace all of them with what Ms. Tisch calls “this new, more modern litter basket of the future.”
And there are those who will miss the iconic green mesh bins.
“I will be a bit sad to see them go,” Micah Belamarich, 38, the co-founder and creative director of OnlyNY, wrote in an email. The company, an independent clothing brand offering New York City-inspired apparel, sells a tiny version of the green mesh litter basket that can be used as a pen holder. It is one of the company’s top-selling products.
Mr. Belamarich, who was born and raised in Morningside Heights, added that the mesh basket’s design “feels timeless and nostalgic at the same time.
You know what the man said?
Politicians, public buildings and prostitutes all gain respectability with age.
Timeless, nostalgic!
Guess you can include iconic green mesh bins.
Recently the maintenance AND office staff at my apartment complex walked off the job.
At the same time the trash compacter broke.
Well, not totally broke but you have to have lived here long enough to know that you can use this long pole by the compacter to reach out press the button and turn the thing on.
I train someone as often as I can but it is a losing battle and the trash is piling up.
It is kind of scary down here in South Carolina to approach a pile of trash in the dark as I guess it is anywhere.
Still the last time a raccoon jumped out at me, I was thinking ‘alligator’ and I said see you later without sticking around too long.
The trash is piling up and all the strategically placed green canisters that are set out for the convenience of dog owners are filled to overflowing.
Seems that some how dogs and dog stuff was handled without being gift wrapped back when I was a kid but I read recently that dog ownership (and the population) is at an all time high.
I also read recently that if meat-eaters were a nation, American pets would be the 5th largest country on earth, just behind Germany.
I believe it and I bet the Germans don’t bag up their German stuff and leave it outside.
Did I mention it is still in the 90’s down here?
Let’s go to the thesaurus.
Start with just plain on smelly.
I could also also say that the air down here is foul-smelling, evil-smelling, stinking, stinking to high heaven, reeking, fetid, malodorous, pungent, acrid, rank, putrid, noxious, off, gamy, high, musty, fusty, frowsty, fresh, stinky, reeky, niffing, niffy, pongy, whiffy, humming, funky, noisome, mephitic, olid, miasmic, miasmal.
I like frowsty the best.
When we go out for a walk later tonight I will work it into our conversation.
“It just seems so frowsty out here tonight. You know, the atmosphere is so stale, warm, and stuffy.“
That spell check is tossing out frowsty is frosting on the cake!
Timeless!
Nostalgic!
No Haiku For You 