Cyril's Gleans

Bob likes Stallings (a Georgia girl) - 2xpoems

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._E._Stallings

Today's poem is copyright © 2010 by A. E. Stallings. Used with permission of the author.

Sea Girls
by A. E. Stallings

for Jason

"Not gulls, girls." You frown, and you insist—
Between two languages, you work at words
(R's and L's, it's hard to get them right.)
We watch the heavens' flotsam: garbage-white
Above the island dump (just out of sight),
Dirty, common, greedy—only birds.
OK, I acquiesce, too tired to banter.

Somehow they're not the same, though. See, they rise
As though we glimpsed them through a torn disguise—
Spellbound maidens, wild in flight, forsaken—
Some metamorphosis that Ovid missed,
With their pale breasts, their almost human cries.
So maybe it is I who am mistaken;
But you have changed them. You are the enchanter.

Triolet on a Line Apocryphally Attributed to Martin Luther
by A.E. Stallings

Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
The booze and the neon and Saturday night,
The swaying in darkness, the lovers like spoons?
Why should the Devil get all the good tunes?
Does he hum them to while away sad afternoons
And the long, lonesome Sundays? Or sing them for spite?
Why should the Devil get all the good tunes,
The booze and the neon and Saturday night?

Decadence

LoonieBobs,

I am tired of hearing that the "First Crusade of the Third Millennium" is the cause of the growth of Islam hatred of the West. The FCofTM is reactive. Islam started it all.

Islam started it pretty much for the same reason that is propelling the Tea Party: the decadence of Western culture. Actually, it is the symptoms, not the decadence itself.

What are the symptoms? (in pretty much descending order):

- the West's loss of its basic principle: "Do unto others as you would be done unto".

- its emphasis on the individual and loss of the importance of the family and community (caused primarily by the population explosion, science, and technology)

- its love for violence, bizarre sex, and conspicuous consumption

BoboftheBush attributed the fall of the Soviet Union to TV. He now attributes Islam's hatred of the West to TV. I have not heard him say so, but my guess is that he attributes the rise of the Tea Party to TV.

TVLessBob