Louis MacNeice, "Coda"

FinsburyParkCarrots

Louis MacNeice was a poet, playwright, journalist and broadcaster.




Maybe we knew each other better
When the night was young and unrepeated
And the moon stood still over Jericho.

So much for the past; in the present
There are moments caught between heart-beats
When maybe we know each other better.

But what is that clinking in the darkness?
Maybe we shall know each other better
When the tunnels meet beneath the mountain.

Kwyjibo

That woman set herself on fire--
They said it on the radio.
They said she lit off the skies of palestine.
I could not stand to hear them say so.

I saw the stars come out.
I saw the oranges on the trees.
Later on they played some Carribean song--
Man, they sure know how to pick 'em.

The rich voice burning like a fuse--
The syncopated rhythms.

I saw the stars come out.
I saw the oranges cracking open.
I saw you standing there--
Orange blossom in your hair.
Going to palestine,
Going to palestine.

lovin kind

the same place we go
and find no way to see the light
is the same faithful place of change
when flying high covers up the night

i wish that i could express myself
and leave my descriptions to someone else
and i know that one day my biggest fears
will scare me into the hands of god

ISN

Fins, I just saw this while I was looking for one of Groover's old posts......this affected me so much when I lived in London - I took it so personally, that I read a book of his poetry.....

I am not yet born; O hear me.
Let not the bloodsucking bat or the rat or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul come near me.

I am not yet born, console me.
I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me.

I am not yet born; provide me
With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light in the back of my mind to guide me.

I am not yet born; forgive me
For the sins that in me the world shall commit, my words when they speak me, my thoughts when they think me, my treason engendered by traitors beyond me, my life when they murder by means of my hands, my death when they live me.

I am not yet born; rehearse me
In the parts I must play and the cues I must take when old men lecture me, bureaucrats hector me, mountains frown at me, lovers laugh at me, the white waves call me to folly and the desert calls me to doom and the beggar refuses my gift and my children curse me.

I am not yet born; O hear me,
Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God come near me.

I am not yet born; O fill me
With strength against those who would freeze my humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton, would make me a cog in a machine, a thing with one face, a thing, and against all those who would dissipate my entirety, would blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me.

Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me.
Otherwise kill me.

I really felt like they had done this to me.....and that they had spillt me

(I thought that he had prophesied about me.....I remember reading about people on the tube praying for this and that......let's have an Auden thread)

FinsburyParkCarrots

Yes, I think MacNeice was a phenomenal poet. Here's a piece he wrote about my Dad's part of the world:

The Strand


White Tintoretto clouds beneath my naked feet,
This mirror of wet sand imputes a lasting mood
To island truancies; my steps repeat

Someone’s who now has left such strands for good
Carrying his boots and paddling like a child,
A square black figure whom the horizon understood -

My father. Who for all his responsibly compiled
Account books of a devout, precise routine
Kept something in him solitary and wild,

So loved the Western sea and no tree’s green
Fulfilled him like these contours of Slievemore
Menaun and Croghaun and the bogs between.

Sixty-odd years behind him and twelve before,
Eyeing the flange of steel in the turning belt of brine
It was sixteen years ago he walked this shore

And the mirror caught his shape which catches mine
But then as now the floor-mop of the foam
Blotted the bright reflections - and no sign

Remains of face or feet when visitors have gone home.

FinsburyParkCarrots

An Auden thread sounds like a great idea. Maybe he was the greatest poet of the last century, maybe not. He's certainly great enough for people to read and discover.

ISN

the place names of Ireland confuse my brain....I know the way we speak, I feel my native land in my heart......but I'm an emigrant.......and I can't go back......forever......that was a beautiful poem.....I might read a bit more of his......I'm not in the same state I was in in London, so they shouldn't be so scary anymore.......

Ali

Thanks finns,once again.(For new introductions to new ideas)......