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Well, there's our Francis. I wondered where you were.

Well, my friend, here's a version by Roy Clark:




Yesterday when I was young
the taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue.
I teased at life as if it were a foolish g ame,
the way the evening breeze may tease a candle fl ame.
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built alas on weak and shifting sand.
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of the day
and only now I see how the years ran away.

Yesterday when I was young
so many drinking songs were waiting to be sung,
so many wayward pleasures lay in store for me
and so much pain my dazzled eyes refused to see.
I ran so fast that time and youth at last ran out,
I never stopped to think what life was all about
and every conversation I can now recall
concerned itself with me and nothing else at all.






Yesterday the moon was blue
and every crazy day brought something new to do.
I used my magic age as if itwere a wand
and never saw the waste and emptiness beyond.
The g ame of love I played with arrogance and pride
and every flame I lit too quickly quickly died.
The friedns I made all seemed somehow to drift away
and only I am left on stage to end the play.
There are so many songs in me that won't be sung,
I feel the bitter taste of tears upon my tongue.
The time has come for me to pay for yesterday when I was young.

Francis' song also reminded me of a Robert Browning poem. Can you guess what it is?

Thanks Francis.

Letty, look at his face, the new Dorian Grey.

Oh the picture might disappear, I'm not sure if I'm giving the credit correctly.

Letty I just noticed that you posted the same song I posted in the previous post to the Michael Jackson post. "Yesterday when I was young"

I almost did the same thing with Stormy Weather.

Hmmmm. I have that face memorized, Angel, but I understand your reference to Oscar Wilde, not quite certain of your last remark, however.

Okay, Brits. If you don't know Robert--there is something wrong. <smile>

It's one of those things, Angel. We all seem to be synchronizing and sometimes even deja vuing.

Hier Encore

Charles Aznavour

Hier encore
J'avais vingt ans
Je caressais le temps
Et jouais de la vie
Comme on joue de l'amour
Et je vivais la nuit
Sans compter sur mes jours
Qui fuyaient dans le temps

J'ai fait tant de projets
Qui sont restés en l'air
J'ai fondé tant d'espoirs
Qui se sont envolés
Que je reste perdu
Ne sachant où aller
Les yeux cherchant le ciel
Mais le coeur mis en terre

Hier encore
J'avais vingt ans
Je gaspillais le temps
En croyant l'arrêter
Et pour le retenir
Même le devancer
Je n'ai fait que courir
Et me suis essoufflé

Ignorant le passé
Conjuguant au futur
Je précédais de moi
Toute conversation
Et donnais mon avis
Que je voulais le bon
Pour critiquer le monde
Avec désinvolture

Hier encore
J'avais vingt ans
Mais j'ai perdu mon temps
A faire des folies
Qui ne me laissent au fond
Rien de vraiment précis
Que quelques rides au front
Et la peur de l'ennui

Car mes amours sont mortes
Avant que d'exister
Mes amis sont partis
Et ne reviendront pas
Par ma faute j'ai fait
Le vide autour de moi
Et j'ai gâché ma vie
Et mes jeunes années

Du meilleur et du pire
En jetant le meilleur
J'ai figé mes sourires
Et j'ai glacé mes pleurs
Où sont-ils à présent
A présent mes vingt ans?

"Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope." - Edith Wharton

Fancy that, listeners. Here's Boston speaking French. This time, I could translate it because I already knew the American version. <smile>

A hint about Browning:

"........the best is yet to be...." and no, it ain't "to be or not to be"

Hey, dys. Thanks for the citation from Edith. Make mine eider down, however,

so my dear lettybetty you prefer comfortably numb to the dignity of risk? Don't you think life is to be experienced rather than observed? So take off your shoes, sit in a tree, wear red more often and burn out at the end rather than fade away.

Well, my goodness, dys, old Letty's never die they just fade away.

Sorry, honey, this lady does NOT take risks 'cause it's risky business.

Now you go and play with Suzanne and drink some tea from China.

Speaking of which, listeners, I have to get some food. Just call me Miss dad.

Back later, folks, with more exchanges and items of interest.

Hmmm. Tightrope or featherbed. Tightrope or featherbed..........

Move over, Letty, I'm climbing in there with you.

I'll bring some buttered popcorn, and we can watch Dys do his tightrope dance.

Ah, a pajama party, folks. Been a while. That sounds warm and cozy, Eva, besides if I can't ice skate or roller skate I'm certainly not going to cross Niagra on a tight rope without an umbrella.

Here's how stange the power of suggestion can be. After reading dys' message, I actually began to get a radiating pain down my arm.

Here's a poem for all you lost folks out there, and especially to Francis, cause they hung out in his neck of the woods:


The Garden

En robe de parade.
Samain

Like a skien of loose silk blown against a wall
She walks by the railing of a path in Kensington Gardens,
And she is dying piece-meal
of a sort of emotional anaemia.

And round about there is a rabble
Of the filthy, sturdy, unkillable infants of the very poor.
They shall inherit the earth.

In her is the end of breeding.
Her boredom is exquisite and excessive.
She would like some one to speak to her,
And is almost afraid that I
will commit that indiscretion.

Ezra Pound

and for our Ray:

When I Have Fears


When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean'd my teeming brain,
Before high-piled books, in charactery,
Hold like rich garners the full ripen'd grain;
When I behold, upon the night's starr'd face,
Huge cloudy symbols of a high romance,
And think that I may never live to trace
Their shadows, with the magic hand of chance;
And when I feel, fair creature of an hour,
That I shall never look upon thee more,
Never have relish in the faery power
Of unreflecting love;--then on the shore
Of the wide world I stand alone, and think
Till love and fame to nothingness do sink.

Keats

and for Walter:

Rilke sings of Orpheus and his mission.

Praising, that's it! Praise was his mission,
and he came the way ore comes, from silent
rock. His heart, a wine press that couldn't last
made us an endless supply of wine.

Even in the dust his voice won't fail him
once the godhead has him in its grip.
All things turn vineyard, all things turn grape,
in the ripening South of his feelings.

Nothing can contradict his praise,
not mold in the royal burial vault
nor the fact that a shadow will fall from the gods.

He's the messenger who stays,
who carries his bowls of praiseworthy fruit
across the thresholds of the dead.

Rilke

I've already done one for the Brits, and they haven't guessed it yet.

Now one for me:

Get the hell outta the control room, Letty.

I just created a new sonnet called.."sneer of cold command". In other words, a one liner.

Angelique Kidjo
Songs from the cd of Angelique Kidjo called "Aye".

Angelique Kidjo is from Benin Africa. In this cd the songs are written by her, and are religious in nature inspired by the Yoruba religion.

The incredible thing about her music and its presentation is that even thou her songs are serious and religious; the music makes you want to get up and dance, move your middle, and it's very modern. Here are two of her songs:

Ayé

In the country of Fons, legend says that at life's beginning (Ayé)
The snake Dan and his wife came down to earth to create the world.
After 41 days of toil the couple returned to the heavenly tenderly entwined
in the form of a rainbow (Aïdo Houedo).
Ever since, anyone upon whom Dan the snake wishes to bestow his favours
is irresistibly drawn to the spot where the rainbow touches the ground.
Here there is a deep cave filled with treasures, gold and precious stones...


Au pays des Fons la légende veut qu'à l'origine de la vie (Ayé),
Dan le serpent, accompagné de so? épouse, soit descendu sur terre
pour donner à notre monde son apparence.
Au terme de 41 jours de création, le couple entrelacé s'élève au firmament,
en empruntant la forme d'un arc-en-ciel (Aïdo Houedo).
Depuis, toute personne que Dan le serpent veut favoriser, se voit soudain
attiré par une force irrésistible vers l'are-en-ciel, à l'endroit même où ce
dernier est censé toucher terre, Là, se découvre une grotte pronfonde qui
renferme des trésors, de l'or et des perles...


Yemandja

Be careful, Don't cause me grief
Be careful, Don't cause me grief
I need the cool rain
to quench my rage

There is a song coming,
it's the song of Yemandja
Goddess of water
We need to invoke her
to quench the destructive fire
or our rage


Attention, ne me cherchez pas d'histoire.
Attention, ne me cherchez pas d'histoire.
Il faut que la fraîcheur de la pluie,
Apaise ma colère.

Mais voilà une chanson.
Celle de Yemandja - la déesse de l'eau
Il faut l'invoquer
Afin qu'elle éteigne,
de toutes nos colères,
Le feu destructeur.

Beautiful poem Letty! Keats always speak in such a touching way.

WA2K Birthdays
I read the WA2K thread faithfully but don't post often. I noticed on another thread (Poll: How Old Are A2Kers, or something like that) that cicerone impostor mentioned that he will turn 70 on July 2nd. I thought you might could make mention of that. He has had, if you read his posts regularly, a fascinating life, including internment as a child during WW2 because of his being Japanese.

Angel, that song and the background of it, is quite haunting. So many parables of creation. I managed to decipher many of the lyrics. I'm learning as well.

Ray, yes, Keats and his buddies knew how to turn a pretty verse, but they all died so young. Poets and musicians have a terrible time; but it was fate in many ways, and behavior in others.

Speaking of Pajama Party: Wasn't there once a game, listeners?



Hey there, you with the stars in your eyes
Love never made a fool of you
You used to be too wise

Hey there, you on that high flying cloud
Though she won't throw a crumb to you
You think some day she'll come to you

Better forget her
Her with her nose in the air
She has you dancing on a string
Break it and she won't care

Won't you take this advice
I hand you like a brother
Or are you not seeing things too clear
Are you too much in love to hear

Is it all going in one ear
And out the other.

My word, folks, I do believe Homer and Jethro did a parody on that one.

Well, hello, John of Virginia. I'm glad you can still read.

C.I. is magic, no doubt about it.

Well, listeners, we must salute our Japanese American friend. How shall we do it? A haiku, perhaps? An origami bird? I have one here in my hope chest.