Memento Amoris Two fossil flies, still mated, found in amber:Like Nature planted a poetic conceit;Both cloistered till Doom in their golden chamber,With one well-wrought bond, a nexus compleat. There long before that bee in amber tombSparked beamish Martial to imagine itInterred by Fate in its own honey-comb,Or in frozen tears of nymphs—et luxit! Afore Herrick […]
Category: Divertissement
I write for the girl who responds to her sweetheart,and the boy in love for the first time.I want every young man wounded like me by Cupid’s bowto recognize the symptoms of his feverand ask himself in amazement “How does this poet knowabout me and my personal problems?”—Ovid, Amores, II.i.5-10 (translated by Guy Lee) When […]
Denique FAMILIAREM dico, quae res tangit nostras aut circa nos, quaeque in assidua vita.[Finally I call “familiar” a letter which touches our affairs or the affairs of those around us, or whatever is unremitting in life.]—Justi Lipsi Epistolica Institutio(Principles of Letter-Writing by Justus Lipsius, 1591), c.V, pp. 20-21 I have written thrice to thee, and […]
; Sometimes a period provides too much pause between two sentences, but the comma doesn’t provide enough. Luckily, the period and the comma had a drunken one-night stand and produced this adorable little spawn they named the semicolon.—Jenny Baranick, Kiss My Asterisk: A Feisty Guide to Punctuation and Grammar (2014), p. 37 A semicolon symbolizes […]
(after John Donne’s “Good Friday, 1613: Riding Westward”) for Katie Adkison, UCSB English graduate student Let Man’s Life be a Beach, and then you die;Hence carryed Southward for Spring Break we fly.For in this, our senior year of college,Our future businesse we don’t acknowledge,But prep Body and Soule to hit the sandIn shades and bikinis: […]
By Michael Winkelman with apologies to John Donne To the religious Donne, the circle was the symbol of God. “O Eternall and most gracious God,” he wrote in a prayer in his Devotions, “who, considered in thy selfe, art a Circle, first and last, and altogether.” In the circles of his own world and in […]
(after W.B. Yeats) by Michael A. Winkelman, La Tuta Young, woke profs, by true love perplexed,With coiffed, hip, Photoshopped profiles,Interrogate the forlorn textsOf sad men, from Love’s realm exiles,Who lying alone with weary heartStitched their pains into lasting Art. All retweet there, all post online,All ‘Like’ the blogs their kind curate,All make space safe for […]
By Michael Winkelman with apologies to John Donne Log on with me and you’ll so love To shop online for lots of stuff: Trending E-books, or sparkly things Which Amazon’s drone swiftly brings. There will the pixels silvery shine On Ebay merch whispering “thine!” And there myriads can waste their hours To screens inclinèd, like […]
I really feel pretty OK Here dwelling in my Room— Though if you Text me to Hang Out I’ll ready be—Quite Soon! Like steelhead trout that in the sea And in a stream can swim— Against the Flow or with’s all right— I’ve Whole Pools of Joy within—