just because I love silence so much . . .
( I thought you might like to read this one )
.

She talked
Sam Walter Foss ( 1858 - 1911)

She talked of Cosmos and of Cause,
And wove green elephants in gauze,
And while she frescoed eathen jugs,
Her tongue would never pause,
On sages wise and esoteric,
And bards from Wendell Holmes to Herrick,
Thro'time's proud Pantheon she walked,
And talked, and talked, and talked and talked !

And while she talked she would crochet,
And make all kinds of macrame,
Or paint green bobolinks upon
Her mother's earthen tray,
She'd decorate a smelling bottle
While she conversed on Aristotle,
While fame's proud favorites round her flocked,
She talked, and talked, and talked and talked !

She talked and made embroidered rugs ,
She talked and painted 'lasses jugs,
And worked five sea-green turtle doves
On papa's shaving mugs,
While Emerson or Epictetus,
Plato or Kant, she used to greet us,
She talked until we all were shocked,
And talked and talked and talked and talked !

She had a lover, and he told
The story that is never old,
While she her father's bootjack worked
A lovely gren and gold.
She switched off on Theocritus,
And talked about Democritus,
And his most ardent passion balked,
And talked and talked and talked and talked.

He begged her to become his own,
She talked of ether and ozones,
And painted yellow poodles on
Her brother's razor hone,
Then talked of Noah and Neb'chaddnezzar,
And Timon and Tiglath-pileser -
While he at her heart portals knocked,
She talked and talked and talked and talked !

He bent in love's tempestuous gale,
She talked of strata and of shale,
And worked margenta poppies on
Her mother's water pail,
And while he talked of passion's power,
She amplified on Schopenhauer -
A pistol flashed : he's dead ! Unshocked,
She talked and talked and talked and talked !

Thanks for sharing this Ilza. A real zinger in the last paragraph! A great read.

Les

Lovely!

Gift

You tell me that silence
is nearer to peace than poems
but if for my gift
I brought you silence
(for I know silence)
you would say
"This is not silence
this is another poem"
and you would hand it back to me.

-- Leonard Cohen

pam

Since silence is the mode:

Carl Sandburg - Aprons of Silence

MANY things I might have said today.
And I kept my mouth shut.
So many times I was asked
To come and say the same things
Everybody was saying, no end
To the yes-yes, yes-yes, me-too, me-too.

The aprons of silence covered me.
A wire and hatch held my tongue.
I spit nails into an abyss and listened.
I shut off the gabble of Jones, Johnson, Smith.
All whose names take pages in the city directory.

I fixed up a padded cell and lugged it around.
I locked myself in and nobody knew it.
Only the keeper and the kept in the hoosegow
Knew it—on the streets, in the postoffice,
On the cars, into the railroad station
Where the caller was calling, “All a-board,
All a-board for .. Blaa-blaa .. Blaa-blaa,
Blaa-blaa .. and all points northwest .. all a-board.”
Here I took along my own hoosegow
And did business with my own thoughts.
Do you see? It must be the aprons of silence.

Les

Just because I like Foss so much:


The Ideal Husband to His Wife

We’ve lived for forty years, dear wife,
And walked together side by side,
And you to-day are just as dear
As when you were my bride.
I’ve tried to make life glad for you,
One long, sweet honeymoon of joy,
A dream of marital content,
Without the least alloy.
I’ve smoothed all boulders from our path,
That we in peace might toil along,
By always hastening to admit
That I was right and you were wrong.

No mad diversity of creed
Has ever sundered me from thee;
For I permit you evermore
To borrow your ideas of me.
And thus it is, through weal or woe,
Our love forevermore endures;
For I permit that you should take
My views and creeds and make them yours.
And thus I let you have my way,
And thus in peace we toil along,
For I am willing to admit
That I am right and you are wrong.

And when our matrimonial skiff
Strikes snags in love’s meandering stream,
I lift our shallop from the rocks,
And float as in a placid dream.
And well I know our marriage bliss
While life shall last will never cease;
For I shall always let thee do,
In generous love, just what I please.
Peace comes, and discord flies away,
Love’s bright day follows hatred’s night;
For I am ready to admit
That you are wrong and I am right.

And on that note-

Our great Mikado, Pish-Tush's aria from The Mikado

Our great Mikado, virtuous man,
when he to rule our land began,
resolved to try a plan whereby young men might best be steadied.
So he decreed, in words succinct,
that all who flirted, leered, or winked
(unless connubially linked), should forthwith be beheaded.

And I expect you'll all agree that he was right to so decree.
And I am right, and you are right, and all is right as right can be!

This stern decree, you'll understand,
caused great dismay throughout the land;
For young and old and shy and bold were equally affected.
The youth who winked a roving eye,
or breathed a nonconnubial sigh,
was thereupon condemned to die--he usually objected.

And you'll allow, as I expect, that he was right to so object.
And I am right, and you are right, and everything is quite correct.

And so we straight let out on bail
a convict from the county jail,
whose head was next, on some pretext, comdemned to be mown off,
And made him headsman, for we said,
"Whose next to be decapited
cannot cut off another's head until he's cut his own off."

And we are right, I think you'll say, to argue in this kind of way.
And I am right, and you are right, and all is right, too-loo-ral-lay!

pam

So, she talked him to death?

Peter


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ok, it's not peanut butter