ysth's livejournal

In the children's hospital

'Does it matter? Losing your legs?' Siegfried Sassoon

Now let the legless boy show the great lady
How well he can manage his crutches.
It doesn't matter though the Sister objects,
'He's not used to them yet', when such is
The will of the Princess. Come, Tommy,
Try a few desperate steps through the ward.
Then the hand of Royalty will pat your head
And life suddenly cease to be hard.
For a couple of legs are surely no miss
When the loss leads to such an honour as this!
One knows, when one sees how jealous the rest
Of the children are, it's been all for the best! —
But would the sound of your sticks on the floor
Thundered in her skull for evermore!

by Hugh MacDiarmid

We name servers after types of animals. I see the following a lot, but for some reason this evening, I really registered it and it made me laugh:

ysth@cat:~$ logout
Connection to elephant closed.

I wanted to register tonight, if I could, to save time tomorrow; arrived about 7:45pm (just after the Tuesday Evening Extravaganza started). Big signs saying registration outside exhibit hall D.

Went there; big sign saying "Attendee & Press Self Check-In START HERE". Next to the sign, a row of ~15 laptops closed.

I open the nearest; it says enter your confirmation code; I do so; it says my badge is being printed - proceed to materials pickup #1.

I go to the materials pickup #1 sign across the room. This guy gives me a puzzled look and says "can I help you"? Turns out the laptops being closed was supposed to indicate registration wasn't open. (He was busy fiddling with the printer cables, but very friendly.)

I suggested they take the "start here" sign down. But they didn't. (He did print my badge and give me swag anyway).

(A friend comments: "That's good at least. I imagine if they have enough people like you they will fix their signage")

If they'd had regular monitors, turned off, I never would have dreamed of turning one on. But for a laptop to be closed seems to me a natural state, not necessarily indicative of being out of use.

I've always been enchanted by the interaction between time and people. I get all excited when, as the result of long term trends:



in an extremely chaotic system, we all get to make seemingly arbitrary changes to our clocks. Such a change is coming at the end of this year.

Leap seconds occur on average every 2-3 years, due to the long-term slowing of the earth's rotation and the canonical second being based on astronomical observations that calculated an extremely accurate value - for the late 19th century "second". Oops. The presence or absence of a leap second is announced toward the beginning of January or July for the end of the following June or December, though provisions are made to allow "emergency" leap seconds being introduced at the end of March or September. They are decided by the International Earth Rotation Service (recently renamed the International Earth Rotation and Reference Systems Service, but still known as the IERS.)

Normally haiku
Has one more line than this does

view poem in new window...

Reality

In love, nothing exists between heart and heart.
Speech is born out of longing,
True description from the real taste.
The one who tastes, knows;
the one who explains, lies.
How can you describe the true form of Something
In whose presence you are blotted out?
And in whose being you still exist?
And who lives as a sign for your journey?

by Rabi'a al Basri, from various sources, translator unknown

view poem in new window...

The Grateful Debtor

In want (and what's a greater curse?)
He was indebted to my purse.
I made a man of him anew,
And yet have not received a sou.
And though his all to me he owes,
His meat, his drink, his very clothes;
He can with ease my presence bear,
Can at me, without blushing, stare:
Was ever gratitude so rare?

by Nicholas Boileau, translated by Richard McLaughlin and Howard E. Slack
taken from Music of the Mind: 1000 Years of European Poetry, edited by Richard McLaughlin and Howard E. Slack

Dog-gerel

I sat beside a lady fair,
  A lady grave and sweet;
Withal so wise, that well I might
  Have sat me at her feet.
She stooped to pat the puppy dog
  That gambolled at her knee;
And when she spoke, 't was in a tongue
  Was wholly strange to me.

“A wizzy wizzy woggums, then!
  A ditty dotty doggums, then!
And diddy wanty dumpy up?
  A pitty witty pessums pup!”

I spoke to her of foreign climes,
  Of politics and popes;
Of Bishop Bylow's pious rhymes,
  And General Jingo's hopes.
She answered well and wittily,
  Then turned her eyes aside,
And tenderly she whispered to
  The creature by her side.

“A pupsy wupsy keeter, then!
  Was never nossin sweeter, then!
A teenty tawnty tiny tot,
  A lovely dovely darling dot!”

I rose at length and strolled away,
  Not wishing to intrude;
Yet thought perhaps she'd bid me stay,
  And rather hoped she would.
But no! she never raised her head.
  I turned the corner near,
And as I went, her silver tones
  Still floated to my ear.

“A toodle toodle toodle, then!
  A wisky wasky woodle, then!
A 'toopid manny gone, my joy,
  My diddy doddy dorglums boy!”

from Tirra Lirra: Rhymes Old and New, by Laura E. Richards

An address

Not to posterity
that would be senseless
they might all be monsters
the high commission
gives clear warning
the powers rulers military staffs
that monsters will follow
with no brains

therefore not to posterity
but to those who
at this very moment
multiply with their eyes shut

not to posterity
I address these words
I speak to politicians
who won't read me
to bishops
who won't read me
to generals
who won't read me
I speak to the so-called ‘ordinary people’
who won't read me

I shall speak to all
who do not read me
nor hear nor know
nor need me

They do not need me
but I need them

by Tadeusz Różewicz, translated by Jan Darowski
from The Penguin Book of Socialist Verse, edited by Alan Bold

A poem that caught my fancy today, perhaps first in a series.

End of Daylight-Saving

When I was rich in April
They robbed me of an hour,
But, having many, many,
It was plucking one flower,
Or stealing one penny.

Brooks poured fast,
Flowers pushed thickly,
Hours slid past,—
All too quickly.

But brooks drain thin,
Flowers dry seedy,
Light draws in,
Now I'm needy.

The thief must have learned it
And, giving no warning,
Mysteriously returned it
One crisp morning.

When I was rich in April
Before the early leaves,
Long before this ditty,
I never thought of thieves,
Or that thieves felt pity.

From Snow Toward Evening, by Melville Cane
(probably included in an earlier volume and earlier collections, as well)

Blogging is interesting in concept, but too much of a pain to actually get around to doing, so don't expect to find much here.

If I do post something, it'll probably be about something incomplete that I hope to guilt-trip myself into finishing by making it public.  And it won't work.