• Cybermedia Global Homepage
  • Play Chess
  • Wine Enthusiast
  • Food
  • Refresh the Page

Cybermedia Global Blog

~ Read some poetry, read some stories, listen to some music, and relax.

Cybermedia Global Blog

Monthly Archives: September 2022

The Chemist To His Love

30 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by Anonymous

I love thee, Mary, and thou lovest me,
Our mutual flame is like th’ affinity
That doth exist between two simple bodies:
I am Potassium to thine Oxygen.
‘Tis little that the holy marriage vow
Shall shortly make us one. That unity
Is, after all, but metaphysical.
Oh, would that I, my Mary, were an acid,
A living acid; thou an alkali
Endow’d with human sense, that, brought together,
We both might coalesce into one salt,
One homogeneous crystal. Oh! that thou
Wert Carbon, and myself were Hydrogen;
We would unite to form olefiant gas,
Or common coal, or naphtha, would to Heaven
That I were Phosphorus, and thou wert Lime!
And we of Lime composed a Phosphuret.
I’d be content to be Sulphuric Acid,
So that thou might be Soda; In that case
We should be Glauber’s Salt. Wert thou Magnesium
Instead, we’d form the salt that’s named from Epsom.
Couldst thou Potassium be, I Aqua-fortis,
Our happy union should that compound form,
Nitrate of Potash otherwise Saltpetre.
And thus our several natures sweetly blent,
We’d live and love together, until death
Should decompose the fleshly tertium quid,
Leaving our souls to all eternity
   Amalgamated. Sweet, thy name is Briggs
    And mine is Johnson. Wherefore should not we
    Agree to form a Johnsonate of Briggs?

We will! The day, the happy day is nigh,

When Johnson shall with beauteous Briggs combine.

[Analysis of The Chemist To His Love]

Categorical Courtship

29 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by Anonymous

I sat one night beside a blue-eyed girl,
The fire was out, and so, too, was her mother;
A feeble flame around the lamp did curl,
Making faint shadows, blending in each other:
‘Twas nearly twelve o’clock, too, in November;
She had a shawl on, also, I remember.

Well, I had been to see her every night
For thirteen days, and had a sneaking notion
To pop the question, thinking all was right,
And once or twice had made an awkward motion
To take her hand, and stammer’d, cough’d, and stutter’d,
But, somehow, nothing to the point had utter’d.

I thought this chance too good now to be lost;
I hitched my chair up pretty close beside her,
Drew a longbreath, and then my legs I cross’d,
Bent over, sighed, and for five minutes eyed her:
She looked as if she knew what next was coming,
And with her feet upon the floor was drumming.

I didn’t know how to begin, or where,
I couldn’t speak, the words were always choking;
I scarce could move, I seem’d tied to the chair,
I hardly breathed, ’twas awfully provoking!
The perspiration from each pore came oozing,
My heart, and brain, and limbs their power seem’d losing.

At length I saw a brindle tabby cat
Walk purring up, inviting me to pat her;
An idea came, electric-like at that,
My doubts, like summer clouds, began to scatter,
I seized on tabby, though a scratch she gave me,
And said, “Come, Puss, ask Mary if she’ll have me.”

‘Twas done at once, the murder now was out;
The thing was all explain’d in half a minute.
She blush’d, and, turning pussy-cat about,
Said, “Pussy, tell him ‘yes'”; her foot was in it!
The cat had thus saved me my category,
And here’s the catastrophe of my story.

Beer

28 Wednesday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by Anonymous

A man to whom illness was chronic,
     When told that he needed a tonic,
        Said, “Oh, Doctor dear,
        Won’t you please make it beer?”
     “No, no,” said the Doc, “That’s Teutonic”.

Aeroplanes

27 Tuesday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by Anonymous

A genius who once did aspire
To invent an aerial flyer,
When asked, “Does it go?”
Replied, “I don’t know;
I’m awaiting some damphule to try ‘er.”

The Duel

26 Monday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by Eugene Field

The gingham dog and the calico cat
Side by side on the table sat;
‘T was half-past twelve, and (what do you think!)
Nor one nor t’ other had slept a wink!
The old Dutch clock and the Chinese plate
Appeared to know as sure as fate
There was going to be a terrible spat.
(I wasn’t there; I simply state
What was told to me by the Chinese plate!)

The gingham dog went “bow-wow-wow!”
And the calico cat replied “mee-ow!”
The air was littered, an hour or so,
With bits of gingham and calico,
While the old Dutch clock in the chimney place
Up with its hands before its face,
For it always dreaded a family row!
(Now mind: I’m only telling you
What the old Dutch clock declares is true!)

The Chinese plate looked very blue,
And wailed, “Oh, dear! what shall we do!”
But the gingham dog and the calico cat
Wallowed this way and tumbled that,
Employing every tooth and claw
In the awfullest way you ever saw –
And, oh! how the gingham and calico flew!
(Don’t fancy I exaggerate –
I got my news from the Chinese plate!)

Next morning, where the two had sat
They found no trace of dog or cat;
And some folks think unto this day
That burglars stole that pair away!
But the truth about the cat and pup
Is this: they ate each other up!
Now what do you really think of that!
(The old Dutch clock it told me so,
And that is how I came to know.)

[Analysis of The Duel]

The Duel, a reading:

Video

OTELLO, an opera in four acts by Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Arrigo Boito, based on Shakespeare’s play Othello. From the Arena di Verona.

25 Sunday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Music

≈ Leave a comment

Winter Rainbow

24 Saturday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by John Clare

Thou Winter, thou art keen, intensely keen;
Thy cutting frowns experience bids me know,
For in thy weather days and days I’ve been,
As grinning north-winds horribly did blow,
And pepper’d round my head their hail and snow:
Throughout thy reign ’tis mine each year to prove thee;
And, spite of every storm I’ve beetled in,
With all thy insults, Winter, I do love thee,
Thou half enchantress, like to pictur’d Sin!
Though many frowns thy sparing smiles deform,
Yet when thy sunbeam shrinketh from its shroud,
And thy bright rainbow gilds the purple storm,
I look entranced on thy painted cloud:
And what wild eye with nature’s beauties charm’d,
That hang enraptur’d o’er each ‘witching spell,
Can see thee, Winter, then, and not be warm’d
To breathe thy praise, and say, “I love thee well!”

[Analysis of Winter Rainbow]

Young Lambs

23 Friday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by John Clare

The spring is coming by a many signs;
The trays are up, the hedges broken down,
That fenced the haystack, and the remnant shines
Like some old antique fragment weathered brown.
And where suns peep, in every sheltered place,
The little early buttercups unfold
A glittering star or two–till many trace
The edges of the blackthorn clumps in gold.
And then a little lamb bolts up behind
The hill and wags his tail to meet the yoe,
And then another, sheltered from the wind,
Lies all his length as dead–and lets me go
Close bye and never stirs but baking lies,
With legs stretched out as though he could not rise.

[Analysis of Young Lambs]

The Secret

22 Thursday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by John Clare

I loved thee, though I told thee not,
Right earlily and long,
Thou wert my joy in every spot,
My theme in every song.
And when I saw a stranger face
Where beauty held the claim,
I gave it like a secret grace
The being of thy name.
And all the charms of face or voice
Which I in others see
Are but the recollected choice
Of what I felt for thee.

[Analysis of The Secret]

Video

Sound and Sense

21 Wednesday Sep 2022

Posted by Jim Brooks in Poetry

≈ Leave a comment

A Poem by Alexander Pope

True ease in writing comes from art, not chance,
As those move easiest who have learned to dance.
‘Tis not enough no harshness gives offense,
The sound must seem an echo to the sense:
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows,
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows;
But when loud surges lash the sounding shore,
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar;
When Ajax strives some rock’s vast weight to throw,
The line too labors, and the words move slow;
Not so, when swift Camilla scours the plain,
Flies o’er the unbending corn, and skims along the main.
Hear how Timotheus’ varied lays surprise,
And bid alternate passions fall and rise!

[Analysis of Sound and Sense]

“Sound and Sense from Essay on Criticism” by Alexander Pope (read by Tom O’Bedlam):

← Older posts

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • November 2022
  • October 2022
  • September 2022
  • August 2022
  • July 2022
  • June 2022
  • May 2022
  • April 2022
  • March 2022
  • February 2022
  • January 2022
  • December 2021
  • November 2021
  • October 2021
  • September 2021
  • August 2021
  • July 2021
  • June 2021
  • May 2021
  • April 2021
  • March 2021
  • February 2021
  • January 2021
  • December 2020
  • November 2020
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • August 2020
  • July 2020
  • June 2020
  • May 2020
  • April 2020
  • July 2019
  • November 2017
  • June 2016
  • April 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • June 2015

Categories

  • Cinema
  • Fiction
  • Horror Short Stories
  • Humorous Short Stories
  • Jim Brooks' Art
  • Jim's Notes
  • Music
  • Poetry
  • Quotes
  • Search Hints

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Blog at WordPress.com.

  • Follow Following
    • Cybermedia Global Blog
    • Join 102 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • Cybermedia Global Blog
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar