Poem for Bloomsday

From Ulysses
By James Joyce

Bronze by gold heard the hoofirons, steelyringing.
Imperthnthn thnthnthn.
Chips, picking chips off rocky thumbnail, chips.
Horrid! And gold flushed more.
A husky fifenote blew.
Blew. Blue bloom is on the.
Goldpinnacled hair.
A jumping rose on satiny breast of satin, rose of Castile.
Trilling, trilling: Idolores.
Peep! Who's in the .... peepofgold?
Tink cried to bronze in pity.
And a call, pure, long and throbbing. Longindying call.
Decoy. Soft word. But look: the bright stars fade. Notes chirruping answer.
O rose! Castile. The morn is breaking.
Jingle jingle jaunted jingling.
Coin rang. Clock clacked.
Avowal. Sonnez. I could. Rebound of garter. Not leave thee. Smack. La
cloche! Thigh smack. Avowal. Warm. Sweetheart, goodbye!
Jingle. Bloo.
Boomed crashing chords. When love absorbs. War! War! The tympanum.
A sail! A veil awave upon the waves.
Lost. Throstle fluted. All is lost now.
Horn. Hawhorn.
When first he saw. Alas!
Full tup. Full throb.
Warbling. Ah, lure! Alluring.
Martha! Come!
Clapclap. Clipclap. Clappyclap.
Goodgod henev erheard inall.
Deaf bald Pat brought pad knife took up.
A moonlit nightcall: far, far.
I feel so sad. P. S. So lonely blooming.
Listen!
The spiked and winding cold seahorn. Have you the? Each, and for other,
plash and silent roar.

--------

This is the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday -- June 16th, on which the events of James Joyce's Ulysses occur. There are tributes all over the internet to Joyce and his writing. I would like briefly to pay tribute to three women -- Harriet Shaw Weaver in England, Sylvia Beach in Paris, and Margaret C. Anderson in New York -- who risked scandal, harrassment and prison to publish Ulysses at a time when describing sex even in veiled metaphor could lead to prosecution.

My own personal web site is named after Anderson's Little Review, which was more than once confiscated by the post office and burned for printing material by Wyndham Lewis and Joyce that was deemed obscene. Please, please let's get rid of people like John Ashcroft in our current government who believe in "protecting" us from literature based on their own personal standards of decency.

The kids have no school, and no camp for two weeks! *scream of panic* Both my parents are sick, so perhaps we shall go over there and attempt to entertain them. Of course, they will probably end up with headaches...

Tonight I am going with and our spouses to see De-Lovely, the Kevin Kline gay Cole Porter biopic, to which I picked up free passes in the used bookstore where I did not buy the Wyeth biography because I knew it would be cheaper on eBay. This makes me feel frugal and gleeful. Because the seats are first come, first served, we will undoubtedly get there early and then take turns wandering from the line to the bookstore, so I must hope for strength from temptation, and passes to other movies. *g*