Higgledy Piggledy

[rayheinrich]

Higgledy Piggledy

And no, this is NOT the Higgledy Piggledy verse form thread
(though Higgledy Piggledy's are certainly invited); it is
an actual real-life higgledy piggledy thread.

Off-topicness is the median unless you don't feel like it
(though conventional replies adhering to some form of archaic
linear narrative style will be tolerated).

http://tinyurl.com/Helter-Au-Skelter

[grannyjill]

You mean to say they let cat's have a rifle?
God that is awful, man that is dreadful.
Surely some poor dog's gonna get hurt
to lie there prone, face down in the dirt.
I hope those responsible are brought to book
And hung till they're dead from the nearest hook.
Fancy letting a loose kitten have a gun
That's a poor idea of how to have fun.
Buy it some slippers, let it sleep by your feet
And when it goes hunting use its claws and its teeth.

......am I far enough away from a linear narrative style for you?

Edit - how come you posted at 12.16 am to-day and I posted at 10.53 to-day - have we entered a time warp?

[rayheinrich]

You mean to say they let cat's have a rifle?
God that is awful, man that is dreadful.
Surely some poor dog's gonna get hurt
to lie there prone, face down in the dirt.
I hope those responsible are brought to book
And hung till they're dead from the nearest hook.
Fancy letting a loose kitten have a gun
That's a poor idea of how to have fun.
Buy it some slippers, let it sleep by your feet
And when it goes hunting use its claws and its teeth.

......am I far enough away from a linear narrative style for you?

Edit - how come you posted at 12.16 am to-day and I posted at 10.53 to-day - have we entered a time warp?

(see previously future perfect post which will have been posted tomorrow)

http://tinyurl.com/cat-au-gun

[grannyjill]

Crikey Moses, it's not a one-off I see
There's hundreds of moggies out on a spree
Kalashnikovs, handguns - you name it
they're there,
Though how they pull the trigger
without opposable thumbs, I declare
is a mystery to me - but -
(shall I let you into a secret?)
I don't really care! So there!


ps Edit - If it wasn't Tuesday I bet you wouldn't care either.
pps Edit - I must stop playing and go and do my daughter's ironing (she pays well)

[rayheinrich]

Crikey Moses, it's not a one-off I see
There's hundreds of moggies out on a spree
Kalashnikovs, handguns - you name it
they're there,
Though how they pull the trigger
without opposable thumbs, I declare
is a mystery to me - but -
(shall I let you into a secret?)
I don't really care! So there!

ps Edit - If it wasn't Tuesday I bet you wouldn't care either.
pps Edit - I must stop playing and go and do my daughter's ironing (she pays well)

Had to pay visit to friend google for "moggy":
http://www.moggies.co.uk/html/crossbred.html
The things you never learn in Tejas...

Tejas is SO big that it's always Tuesday somewhere
(irregardless of sun's position BTW).

I HAVE a mog with opposable thumbs.
Well, technically, he's polydactyl:
http://www.thecatgallery.com/polydactyl_cats.html

          < just another cat day >

              there's a cat on my keyboard
              typing in cat language
              telling my computer it isn't needed
              (and don't come back)
              its screen
              turning black
              turning her head to me
              nose to nose
              (Eskimos)
              eyes
              ears
              whiskers
              yawn
              a pink tongue and
              saber teeth!!!
              then
              it's just whiskers again
              as her head turns
              her eyes up
              eyeing the bookshelf
              the top
              (seven feet at least)
              a moment
              a long moment
              calculating the jump...
              (no, Rocky!, that's way too high!)

              jump
              scratch
              scrabble
              the books lurch...

              a new perch

                          . . .

[billy]

whats a higgledy piggledy ?

i do like the thread and the last cat poem is roaring in parts

[rayheinrich]

whats a higgledy piggledy ?

The term:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/higgledy-piggledy
The verse form:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double_dactyl

[grannyjill]

Great cat poem....and those cat photos are scary....next paw-step -conquest of the world.

[rayheinrich]

< 10 second poem >

i have 10 seconds
to write this

you have 10 seconds
to read this

now what do you plan to do
with your spare time?

- - -

[billy]

right, i get it now, even the styles title is double dactyl...i feel such a putz.
will play around later as one of the grandkids wants the pc
they're laptops in the house but i hate the keyboards.

[grannyjill]

Spare time! Spare time!
What the dickens is that?
I'm a person
Not a cat.

[rayheinrich]

Spare time! Spare time!
What the dickens is that?
I'm a person
Not a cat.

Ha! Brings to mind one of my favorite cat poems:


Cat's Dream
- Pablo Neruda - translated by Alastair Reid

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

. . .

[rayheinrich]

Cummings used (sometimes) all this weird spacing.
Didn't used to like it much, but have changed my mind.


    Buffalo Bill's
        - E.E. Cummings


    Buffalo  Bill's
    
    defunct
    
            who  used  to
    
            ride  a  watersmooth-silver
    
                                      stallion
    
    and  break  onetwothreefourfive  pigeonsjustlikethat
    
                                                     Jesus
    
    
    
    he  was  a  handsome  man
    
                          and  what  i  want  to  know  is
    
    how  do  you  like  your  blueeyed  boy
    
    Mister  Death

[grannyjill]

Well, I dont know about this as a new life-style choice, but I definitely like this particular verse. I didn't know this poem before, so I can't say whether I would have reacted just as positively if it had been traditionally laid out, though.

I am very impressed with what you did with my Etheree - it made it very eye-catching...I bet some-one seeing this in a book of poetry (fat chance!) would have felt intriqued enough to read it. Thank you

---

Spare time! Spare time!
What the dickens is that?
I'm a person
Not a cat.

Ha! Brings to mind one of my favorite cat poems:


Cat's Dream
- Pablo Neruda - translated by Alastair Reid

How neatly a cat sleeps,
sleeps with its paws and its posture,
sleeps with its wicked claws,
and with its unfeeling blood,
sleeps with all the rings--
a series of burnt circles--
which have formed the odd geology
of its sand-colored tail.

I should like to sleep like a cat,
with all the fur of time,
with a tongue rough as flint,
with the dry sex of fire;
and after speaking to no one,
stretch myself over the world,
over roofs and landscapes,
with a passionate desire
to hunt the rats in my dreams.

I have seen how the cat asleep
would undulate, how the night
flowed through it like dark water;
and at times, it was going to fall
or possibly plunge into
the bare deserted snowdrifts.
Sometimes it grew so much in sleep
like a tiger's great-grandfather,
and would leap in the darkness over
rooftops, clouds and volcanoes.

Sleep, sleep cat of the night,
with episcopal ceremony
and your stone-carved moustache.
Take care of all our dreams;
control the obscurity
of our slumbering prowess
with your relentless heart
and the great ruff of your tail.

. . .

O this is glorious - I love it. I didn't know Pablo Neruda wrote poems like this. I've only ever read his love poems before. Thank you for this.

[rayheinrich]

O this is glorious - I love it. I didn't know Pablo Neruda wrote poems like this. I've only ever read his love poems before. Thank you for this.

Yessiree Bob! The guy most assuredly rocketh.

Was going to say this one wasn't a love poem, but I changed my mind:


   Ode to a Large Tuna in the Market
                                - Pablo Neruda, Translated by ?

Among the market greens,
a bullet
from the ocean
depths,
a swimming
projectile,
I saw you,
dead.

All around you
were lettuces,
sea foam
of the earth,
carrots,
grapes,
but
of the ocean
truth,
of the unknown,
of the
unfathomable
shadow, the
depths
of the sea,
the abyss,
only you had survived,
a pitch-black, varnished
witness
to deepest night.

Only you, well-aimed
dark bullet
from the abyss,
mangled
at one tip,
but constantly
reborn,
at anchor in the current,
winged fins
windmilling
in the swift
flight
of
the
marine
shadow,
a mourning arrow,
dart of the sea,
olive, oily fish.
I saw you dead,
a deceased king
of my own ocean,
green
assault, silver
submarine fir,
seed
of seaquakes,
now
only dead remains,
yet
in all the market
yours
was the only
purposeful form
amid
the bewildering rout
of nature;
amid the fragile greens
you were
a solitary ship,
armed
among the vegetables
fin and prow black and oiled,
as if you were still
the vessel of the wind,
the one and only
pure
ocean
machine:
unflawed, navigating
the waters of death.
. . .

[grannyjill]

I didn't like this quite so much...but that means it is damn good.

My daughter has bought me a book called Odes to Opposites for Christmas..she's let me have a sneaky look..it contains the original Spanish against the translated poem (my Spanish accent is probably terrible - but I did enjoy the experiment of reading one of the poems in the original)..I'm looking forward to Christmas.

[rayheinrich]

I didn't like this quite so much...but that means it is damn good.

My daughter has bought me a book called Odes to Opposites for Christmas..she's let me have a sneaky look..it contains the original Spanish against the translated poem (my Spanish accent is probably terrible - but I did enjoy the experiment of reading one of the poems in the original)..I'm looking forward to Christmas.

[font=Courier New]
Spanish, cool! Much envy from here.

I've actually translated a few of his poems from Spanish even though my
abilities there are a half brick above illiterate. I do this by making tenuous
assumptions and stealing other people's translations. (Fun.)
Will find and post one someday.

[grannyjill]

When I was learning Urdu (it's a long story) I learned a poem/prayer which I still can recite to-day (even though I have forgotten most of what it means..something to do with God being bigger than me, and making everything) There is something to be said for reciting something for sound alone.

Merae ghuda, Merae ghuda
Tu hai bara, sabh se bara
Tu hai mujhe paida kiya
Tu hai mujhe sabh kutch dia
chota hoo main, tu hai bara...
ho shuker ? paida kia edit (ho shuker pir kaisae ada) - I think!
Merae ghuda, Merae ghuda...etc.

(actually, I've discovered that I don't remember as much of it as I thought!!)

[rayheinrich]

خدا عظیم ہے

[grannyjill]

God is...looks like 'ahzaim' (I don't understand the middle word)

But, my excuse is I can't read arabic as well as I can read Urdu (poorly!)