Poetic earworms (...eyeworms? ...brainworms?)

Another recent one:

This living hand!
Now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping

(not sure of line breaks)

Aaaaargh!


My father was always (mis)quoting good poetry, or quoting reams of bad.


My head rings with fractured Shakespeare, (which I also have to correct, so it rings again) and awful Tennyson (I come from haunts of coot and hern) and such.



Other than that, there is too much to put down!


My brain is always ultra busy, and somewhere in the background, or often right in the foreground, there is heaps of quoting and literary and poetic allusions going on.


But I like it, (except most of my father's stuff) so I guess they aren't poetic parasites!


My joy is to find someone I can make tiny allusions to in conversation, and they GET it, and run with it.


Of course, one needs a shared culture to do that with.

I read to drown out the voices in my head....

Now you've done it!!!

It's a song, but I will pretend it is a poem:

mister whisper
from ON MY WAY TO WHERE
by Dory Previn

when i am going
'round the bend
i got a wild
imaginary friend
when i am driven
up the wall
my old friend
he comes to call

mister whisper's
here again
mister whisper's
here again
he's back
in his apartment
in my head
he's back
in his apartment
like i said

just when life
can't get much worse
he tells me
reassuring things
says i'm the
center of the universe
says i'm as good as
presidents and kings

mister whisper's
here again
mister whisper's
here again
i think
i can control him
but instead
mister whisper
takes control
guides my heart
and rides my soul
the minute that
he steps
inside my head

just when i am
sure he'll stay
they shoot me
with a bolt or two
they try to drive
my mister friend
away
and damn it all
they nearly always do

mister whisper
don't go 'way
mister whisper
won't you stay
it get so lonely
wish
that i were dead
listen whisper
please don't go
listen whisper
don't you know
i'd rather
madness
than this sadness
in my head

the thought
he'll leave
bitterly burns
and my despondence
grows
as soon as lonely
lonely sanity
returns
and old mister
old mister whisper
goes.

I usually like it, parasite or no.

Anyone recognize the first one? I may have misquoted, can't find it via Google. Dickinson or one of those prim but fiery lady poets, I think.

This is the second one:

This living hand, now warm and capable Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold And in the icy silence of the tomb, So haunt thy days and chill thy dreaming nights That thou wouldst wish thine own heart dry of blood So in my veins red life might stream again, And thou be conscience-calmed?-see here it is?- I hold it towards you.

(I don't know what's up with the exclamation point in "my" version. That's how it "sounds.")

Ah, it was so fun being an English major. I love utterly immersing myself in text, analyzing every corner of it. I still read, but...

"Mister whisper", nice one!

Oy, indeed....



One still reads, but still.....

You mean this doesn't happen to everyone?

What about the unholy linkage when your mind goes with the beat instead of the sense and you can't finish one quote properly--or start the other properly either.

here's an earworm shocker of mine, that I made up years ago when people said "Aren't you going to get married and have chilkdren?" once too often.

It haunts me now, when my evil friends remind me of it, given my job:

I hate little children, they give me the shits!
They crap in their nappies, they chomp on your tits!
They've dirt on their fingers, and slime in their nose,
DON'T make me hold it! I don't WANT one of those!

I hate little children, my spirits they vex...
Just THINK where they came from! The effluent of sex...

Did you write that, dlowan, or were you forced my Mr. Whisper?

Magnificent.

(Not you, Gus.)

IF I had a whisper, 'twould be a Ms.

'Twas all me own crafting.

It's a shocker, isn't it?

It's not bad.

For an Aussie.

Author, author !

I like this thread.

The ones that get stuck in my head are the anthologized ones. You know, like the Second Coming.

But the first few lines of this one gets in my head, too. I'll type the whole thing, because it's short. It's by Charles Simic, from an amazing little book called "The World Doesn't End." All of the poems are brief snapshots, like the following:

I knew a night owl who dreamed of being a
star of country music. O cruel fate! O vale of tears!
We drank whiskey in coffee cups in late-hour dives
while the juke box spinned her favorites. She fed me forked pieces of steak while my hand strayed under the table. The choirboy counterman's big ears turned crimson. She, with eyes veiled, head thrown back, so that my next bite hung in midair. I had to stretch my neck all the way to take a nibble.
What was I to do? The madness of it was so appealing, and the night so cold.

Break, break, break: At the foot of thy crags, O Sea!


(oh, shut up...)

Gargamel--



Wonderful line--wish I could count on being able to remember it.


Osso--

You and I have been molded by the Victorians and the Transcendentalists.
--although I have a lot of days completely lacking in "tender grace".

I remember it as 'over thy crags, o sea'; that shows the creeping obfuscation of memory..

Osso--

We're entitled to a bit of mental sculpture from wind and weather sandblasting.

Sculpture is not erosion--sculpture is enhancement.