send in the clowns

CLOWNS: speakers of the truth; trickster -- creator of the world; defenders against the evil spirits.

i've looked at clowns from both sides now
from fools to frights and still somehow
it's clowns illusions i recall --
i really don't know clowns at all.

What kind of fool am I
Who never fell in love
It seems that I'm the only one
that I have been thinking of

What kind of man is this?
An empty shell--
A lonely cell in which
an empty heart must dwell

What kind of lips are these
That lied with every kiss
That whispered empty words of love
that left me alone like this

Why can't I fall in love
Like any other man
And maybe then I'll know
what kind of fool I am.

What kind of clown am I?
What do I know of life?
Why can't I cast away the mask of play
and live my life?

Why can't I fall in love
Till I don't give a damn
And maybe then
I'll know what kind of fool I am

Anthony Newley •

Stop the World, I Want to Get Off

the wave, part IV

AT POPHAM BEACH

Haze of wave spume
towards Small Point,
Seguin Island Light like
a whale's spout--
maybe life washes itself here,
cools off.
It never comes clean.
See all the sails up
and full in the windy parade of skin
and sand and brine.
Soon the rocks will pluck
each wave's feathers.
Soon the beach
like the moon, waning,
will be 1/8th its size.
somewhere else --
maybe Ireland -- the tide
will bottom out then.

For now the sun
blesses the bodies at home in theirs,
and those less so,
to ruin and ruin's aftermath --
whatever that is --
and the waves rolling in,
little snowplows,
nimbus in miniature; how
the beach fishhooks east,
one child -- is that mine,
or some spirit I was one more
usher of? -- face up, arms and legs
scraping a temporary angel in the sand.

© 2008 Thorpe Moeckel

PRELUDE

I know only the bare
rocks of today.
In these lies my brown sea-weed,—
green quartz veins bent through the wet shale;
in these lie my pools left by the tide—
quiet, forgetting waves;
on these stiffen white star fish
on these I slip barefooted!

Whispers of the fishy air touch my body;
Sisters, I say to them.

© 2008 William Carlos Williams

PROJECTOR

Light takes new attribute

and yet his old
glory
enchants;

he shows his splendour
in a little room;
he says to us,
be glad

and laugh, be gay;

waves sparkle and delight
the weary eyes
that never saw the sun fall in the sea
nor the bright

Pleiads rise.

© 2008 H.D.

BLANDULA, TENULLA, VAGULA

What hast thou, O my soul, with paradise?
Will we not rather, when our freedom's won,

Get us to some clear place wherein the sun
Lets drift in on us through the olive leaves
A liquid glory? If at Sirmio,
My soul, I meet thee,
when this life's outrun,
Will we not find some
headland consecrated
By aery apostles of
terrene delight,

Will not our cult be founded
on the waves,

Clear sapphire, cobalt, cyanine,

On triune azures,
the impalpable
Mirrors unstill of the eternal change?

Soul, if She meet us there,
will any rumour
Of havens more high
and courts desirable
Lure us beyond
the cloudy peak of Riva?

© 2008 Ezra Pound

(not the first time the wave has shown up here -- check it out -- this time inspired by quiche's fascination with it.)