Monday, October 13, 2008

A Long, Long Time Ago (Monday Love)

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A long, long time ago...
I can still remember
How Kaltica v. TomWest used to make me smile.
And I thought if I knew my Poe
That I could make those people know
And they'd be enlightened for awhile.

But T.S. Eliot made me shiver
With every paper he'd deliver.
Griswold on the doorstep;
I couldn't take one more step.

I can't remember if I cried
When I read how Greeley's Tribune lied,
But something touched me deep inside,
The day the music died.

So bye-bye, Poets.Org,
Sang my song to Kaltica,
He's just a cyborg,
All the mods were thinkin' it's Houlihan's pie,
Singin' Christopher, you have to die!
Christopher, you have to die.

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Borg Queen's First Appearance



senilesovereign

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Did you write the book on Poe,
And do you have faith in God below,
If the Raven tells you so?
Do you believe New Critical
Can save your reading soul,
And can you teach me how to read real slow?

Well, I know that you're in love with Poe
'cause I saw you rhymin' at the Go-Go.
You both read his prose as well
All was fine until he fell.

I was a lonely teenage broncin' buck
With a notebook of poems and a pickup truck,
But I knew I was out of luck
The day the music died.

I startin' singin',
Bye-bye Shelley's music and Poe,
The Raven was the maven
Now it's college and Crowe,
Ezra Pound made it new,
But the new it won't go,
And the Fugitive boys are sadly unable
To say why so much depends on a patient etherized upon a table.

Now for a hundred years we're on our own,
And moss grows fat on university stone,
But that's not how it used to be,
When the critic sang honestly
Without Oxford and Harvard's ivy
In a voice that came from you and me.

Oh and while scholars were looking down,
An -Ism stole poetry's radiant crown.
Movements, cliques and schools
Proved at last that all are fools,
And while Eliot scanned the French,
Pound thought on a London bench
To pursue Yeats' used-up wench
The day the music died.




We were singing,
Bye-bye, Shelley's music and Poe,
Hello William Carlos Williams
And the stench of Rimbaud,
Art was once a noble calling,
And now it's all show,
This is the day that we die,
This is the day that we die.

Helter skelter in mid-century swelter,
Pound flew off to an Axis shelter,
Obscenity wins a Bolingen.
Then the troops return to college
Finding the Moderns in charge of knowledge:
John Crowe Ransom's professors win.

But now the Beats and Ginsberg loom,
Festive-counter to New Critic's gloom,
Whitman and Williams take the field,
Modern poets refuse to yield,
Do you recall what was revealed
The day the music died?

We were singing,
Bye-bye, poetry that is good,
Every animal's a poet in the Sacred Wood,
Society sucks so your sucking is good,
Singin' whatever is me is OK,
Whatever is me is OK.

Oh there was The Waste Land in one place,
e.e. cummings taking up space
As Emerson's Dial started up again.
So come on Pound be nimble, Pound be quick!
Butler Yeats sat on a candlestick
And William James is Emerson's dearest friend.

Oh, and as I watched the Modern stage
Consolidate its little rage,
No poet born in hell
Could break that Harvard spell,
And as the critics made it right,
The moderns won without a fight,
And Emerson was laughing with delight,
The day the music died.

He was singing,
Bye-bye Mr. Jingle Man,
England's my ruler and New England's my land,
There's a Golden Dawn coming that you don't understand,
My disciples call the shots, and I'll tell you why:
They made sure that you died,
They made sure that you died.

The 20th century sang the blues
While Eliot talked against the Jews
And Hugh Kenner knocked Millay.
I went down to the ancient store
Where I'd heard the music years before
But Vendler said the music wouldn't play.

Then all prayed to the Cred Machine,
The platitudes grew and the poets schemed,
Only blurbs were spoken,
Great poetry was broken.
And the three men I admire most:
Shakespeare, Pope, and Plato's Ghost,
They caught the last train for the coast
The day the music died.

And they were singin',
Bye-bye to Genius and Poe,
Brought Shelley to my teacher
But he wanted Rimbaud,
Warren, Tate, and Ransom
Crashed the Chevy below,
Singin' this is how we'll all go,
This is how we'll all go.

I started singin'
Bye-bye, Shelley's music and Poe,
The Raven was the Maven,
Now it's Workshop and Crowe,
Ezra Pound made it new
But the new it won't go,
Singin', "this'll be the way that we go,
this'll be the way that we go."



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More Borg Queen



CoyoteFitzy says,

Borg Queen, lonely at the top? The song is "Stop Coming to My House," by Mogwai. STAR TREK and all related images/media are owned by Paramount.
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