“slowly lurching toward your favorite city / pierced through the heart but never killed”
Jun. 30th, 2025 03:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
larryhammerFor Poetry Monday, after an influencer of Pound, Pound himself—at least in part:
The Sole Survivor, Rai San’yō, tr. Ezra Pound
A force cut off
Fighting hard,
Shut around.
I burst the bonds,
I alone,
I returned,
Fleeing by night
Through the crags of the border.
My sword is broken,
My horse fallen.
The hero drags his corpse to his native mountains.
Rai (1780-1832) was an Edo-period historian and poet. In November 1915, Pound attended a London performance of sword dances by Itō Michio (1892-1961), some of which were accompanied by songs sung by Uchiyama Masami (I can’t find good dates on this guy), one of them being this. This translation (made with Uchiyama’s assistance, credited as “from notes by”) was first published in the Dec 1916 issue of Future without naming the author. The original title was “Kogun Funto,” which more literally means “exhausted warrior,” and the original form was a single four-line stanza.
—L.
Subject quote from Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift.
The Sole Survivor, Rai San’yō, tr. Ezra Pound
A force cut off
Fighting hard,
Shut around.
I burst the bonds,
I alone,
I returned,
Fleeing by night
Through the crags of the border.
My sword is broken,
My horse fallen.
The hero drags his corpse to his native mountains.
Rai (1780-1832) was an Edo-period historian and poet. In November 1915, Pound attended a London performance of sword dances by Itō Michio (1892-1961), some of which were accompanied by songs sung by Uchiyama Masami (I can’t find good dates on this guy), one of them being this. This translation (made with Uchiyama’s assistance, credited as “from notes by”) was first published in the Dec 1916 issue of Future without naming the author. The original title was “Kogun Funto,” which more literally means “exhausted warrior,” and the original form was a single four-line stanza.
—L.
Subject quote from Anti-Hero, Taylor Swift.
aha!
Jun. 26th, 2025 01:30 amtwistedchickI have been watching 'Elementary' the past week or so, especially during the heat dome of the last few days, and throughout the first three seasons Holmes' father is mentioned a few times but never shows up.
He finally does show up early in season 4, and from the first moment I saw him I kept thinking, 'where do I know this actor from'? His face, older and lined, was like many other actors, but that voice was singular.
So I looked him up.
He played Denethor in LOTR, the bad father who tried to burn his younger son to death and immolate himself on the fire as well -- the worst of the fathers in LOTR.
Tone down the madness, make him a high-level businessman with a finger in every government, and you have Sherlock's father. Pretty good casting.
He finally does show up early in season 4, and from the first moment I saw him I kept thinking, 'where do I know this actor from'? His face, older and lined, was like many other actors, but that voice was singular.
So I looked him up.
He played Denethor in LOTR, the bad father who tried to burn his younger son to death and immolate himself on the fire as well -- the worst of the fathers in LOTR.
Tone down the madness, make him a high-level businessman with a finger in every government, and you have Sherlock's father. Pretty good casting.
larryhammerFor Poetry Monday:
Kyoto, Yone Noguchi
Mist-born Kyoto, the city of scent and prayer,
Like a dream half-fading, she lingers on:
The oldest song of a forgotten pagoda bell
Is the Kamo river’s twilight song.
The girls, half whisper and half love,
As old as a straying moon beam,
Flutter on the streets gods built,
Lightly carrying Spring and passion.
“Stop a while with me,” I said.
They turned their powdered necks. How delicious!
“No, thank you, some other time,” they replied.
Oh, such a smile like the breath of a rose!
Noguchi Yonejirō, who wrote in English as Yone Noguchi, was a Japanese writer in both English and Japanese, and his poetry and essays from, especially, the first two decades of the 20th century were influential on both Ezra Pound and W.B. Yeats. This poem was published in 1908, shortly after he returned to Japan after living in the United States for over a decade.
---L.
Subject quote from Creep, Radiohead. (bonus PMJ cover)
Kyoto, Yone Noguchi
Mist-born Kyoto, the city of scent and prayer,
Like a dream half-fading, she lingers on:
The oldest song of a forgotten pagoda bell
Is the Kamo river’s twilight song.
The girls, half whisper and half love,
As old as a straying moon beam,
Flutter on the streets gods built,
Lightly carrying Spring and passion.
“Stop a while with me,” I said.
They turned their powdered necks. How delicious!
“No, thank you, some other time,” they replied.
Oh, such a smile like the breath of a rose!
Noguchi Yonejirō, who wrote in English as Yone Noguchi, was a Japanese writer in both English and Japanese, and his poetry and essays from, especially, the first two decades of the 20th century were influential on both Ezra Pound and W.B. Yeats. This poem was published in 1908, shortly after he returned to Japan after living in the United States for over a decade.
---L.
Subject quote from Creep, Radiohead. (bonus PMJ cover)