American Names

Loved it Debacle!

Thank you for that post, Monsewer deB.

Thanks for that one debacle....got any more?

Where the hell IS Debacle these days anyhow?

He's gone and left us, and taken his Mark Twain avatar with him.

Sadly.

Sad indeed, Rog. Indiana is the richer, we the poorer. Basically, I just wanted to revive this wonderful thread. That's on hell of a Benet poem.

Bastard always did post great poetry.

and where is jjorge? Yes, I miss debacle as well, 'cause he liked Hank Williams. <smile>

Jjorge visits every once in a while - he drops out when he gets busy. Haven't seen Debacle in a long time, grrrr, he is one of my favorite posters.

Well now, friends, I must beg pardon for my tardiness. And I sure do appreciate your patience. Although I note there's been a bit of grumbling and gnashing of teeth, we'll say no more of that. Or, shall we? No, I think not.

Legion are the less patient souls who long ago would have glanced around, shrugged their shoulders, pissed on the fire and called in the dogs. But you, my gentle friends, are not such defatigable sods. Indeed you have the patience claimed for Job.

The fact is, I've been on a pilgrimage. Not by choice, but ... let's see, it must've been ten, twenty year ago, I reckon. No, it couldn't have been. That was Van Winkle. I remember it was in mushroom season and I'd gone forth to hunt morels. And I got lost bigger'n hell. You see...

Two roads diverged in that yellow wood,
(please note, I'm telling this with a sigh
sometime ages and ages hence)
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -
I took the one covered by frost
Which made no sense and got me lost.

The next thing I knew, or thought I knew, I was sailing to Byzantium, or to Zanadu where it was rumored that Kubla Khan had decreed a stately pleasure dome be erected. But I soon realized I was at sea with

Quinquireme of Ninevah, from some burg Ophir,
who was rowing home to haven in Palestine
With a cargo of ivory,
And apes and peacocks,
Sandalwood,cedarwood, and sweet white wine.

In Palestine I went aboard a

Stately Spanish galleon coming from the Isthmus,
Dipping through the Tropics by the palm-green shores,
With a cargo of diamonds,
Emeralds, amethysts,
Topazes, and cinnamon and gold moidores.

Somewhere near Boulogne-sur-Mer, I jumped ship. Beachcombing, I eventually found what appeared to be an abandoned dinghy. Abandoned or not, I made free with it and set a westerly course. After bobbing about like a cork for two days, I was taken aboard a

Dirty British coaster with a salt-cracked smoke stack
Butting through the Channel in the mad March days,
With a cargo of Tyne coal,
Road-rail, pig-lead,
Firewood, iron-ware, and cheap tin trays.

I was set ashore in England, on Dover Beach it was, where I seemed to come face to face with reality. And now I want to say:

Ah, loves, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various,so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

What an incredible journey through the woods. I've sworn off mushrooms.