It is New Year's

Eve. 2005 started off for me so well and really improved as the year wore on. However in November disaster struck, someone malicious said something about me which is untrue and my life has been plunged into a nightmare as a result. I'm hoping that in the next few weeks truth will prevail and the lies that have been told will be exposed for what they are.

It is at times such as these that friends really prove their worth and I'm lucky to have so many who have stood by me.

As ever I can also turn to the written word for solace. So here's a little more from Under Milk Wood. The wonder of this long poem is that every bit works and any piece from it can stand as an example of how joyous words can be.

At random then...

First Voice.

And in Willy Nilly the Postman's dark and sizzling
damp tea-coated misty pygmy kitchen where the
spittingcat kettles throb and hop on the range, Mrs
Willy Nilly steams open Mr Mog Edwards' letter to
Miss Myfanwy Price and reads it aloud to Willy
Nilly by the squint of the Spring Sun through the one
sealed window running with tears, while the drugged,
bedraggled hens at the back door whimper and snivel
for the lickerish bog-black tea.


Under Milk Wood is best read aloud if you want to experience the heady mix of words and sounds. The BBC have a brilliant production with Richard Burton narrating and if there is such a thing as literary heaven on this earth then it is to be found here. This poem cheers me up, it restores my faith.

Here's a bit of Billy Blake...

to get me back into blog mode.

The following poem was first published by William Blake in 1794 as part of his Songs of Experience collection. Its subject is the terrible majesty of industrialisation and of nature and of people bowed under change. It is of little surprise that the Songs of Experience was published only five years after the French Revolution of 1789 and during a decade of repression in Britain that arose from fear amongst the rich and powerful of revolution here. So astonishing is this poem that it can be applied 300 years on to what is happening in China as we speak, can still be applied to heartless capitalism everywhere.

The Tyger.

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,
In the forests of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies,
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? What the chain,
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp,
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears
And water'd heaven with their tears:
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,
In the forest of the night;
What immortal hand or eye,
Dare frame they fearful symmetry?