I’m sure I was in part inspired into poetic action by the deliciously sticky caramel-apple tart that accompanied the tea. If my muse requires such sweetmeats, who am I, poor mortal, to refuse her them? The sacrifices I’m prepared to make for my art!
Sticky tart
Is good for my art,
If not my heart.
But I’m grateful
My muse
Doesn’t choose
Booze.
I must get some cleverer readers
To replace my large group of bottom-feeders
Though their intentions are good’uns
Their language is wooden
And their alpha-obsessions get tejus.
Hmm. A bit of a stretch, those “rhymes”. And perhaps unfair to my readers. But I couldn’t resist making the effort.
Dear Berenike, you’ve no idea (or if you had, you’ve forgotten) how few tea-leaves some of those “Nelly Ho.” girls put in one’s pot!
But as Dr Johnson said concerning women preaching and dogs walking on their “hinder legs” so I say about contemporary Edinburgh caffs making real pots of leaf tea: it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all.
And anyway, the Castle’s five-o-clock-unshadow made up for that - even if my latest effort didn’t quite do the spectacle justice.
A few years back I was briefly in Scotland for some reason, I can’t remember which visit it was, and had an extra day in Embra cos of plane ticket mix-up - nbut this meant that mama and i were in Edinburgh for an overlapping day. We went to the Caff Formerly Known as the Laich - most inmpressed. Waiting for our tea to brew. Mine seems very weak, so I wait. try again. Barely a gleamn of coulour. I wait some more.No better.
Embra. Maybe I will GO THERE in July. Hmm. Smile. There are always spots of light in any darkness.
P.S.: I have the odd feeling that the English language is much more suited for making up things that rhyme than German is. Just my English is too bad for me to profit from that should ever an unhappy muse alight on me.
Alas, ladies, the only German I know is from the lieder I learnt and still love listening to: An Die Ferne Geliebte, Die Schöne Müllerin, and (ah!) Dichterliebe…
Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,
Als alle Knospen sprangen,
Da ist in meinem Herzen
Die Liebe aufgegangen.
Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,
Als alle Vögel sangen,
Da hab’ ich ihr gestanden
Mein Sehnen und Verlangen.
I did not say there were no beautiful poems in German! Very much the opposite! Only for someone unskilled dabbeling in rhyming it seems easier to find things that rhyme and a correct meter with English than with German.
Indeed, Notburga, I am certainly proof that any old duffer can turn out roughly rhyming and scanning verse in English. I bet the greater challenge in German leads to better quality poetasters in that tongue though!
I feared you would take it that way - which was absolutely not what I intended! O, you get an awful lot of extremely bad poems when people try to make up things for friends’ birthdays, weddings, and so on. Rhymes soo awfully embarrassing that I cringe only thinking of them.
May 14, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I like it!
May 14, 2008 at 4:36 pm
Thank you!
I’m sure I was in part inspired into poetic action by the deliciously sticky caramel-apple tart that accompanied the tea. If my muse requires such sweetmeats, who am I, poor mortal, to refuse her them? The sacrifices I’m prepared to make for my art!
Sticky tart
Is good for my art,
If not my heart.
But I’m grateful
My muse
Doesn’t choose
Booze.
Bª
May 14, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I must get some cleverer readers
To replace my large group of bottom-feeders
Though their intentions are good’uns
Their language is wooden
And their alpha-obsessions get tejus.
Hmm. A bit of a stretch, those “rhymes”. And perhaps unfair to my readers. But I couldn’t resist making the effort.
May 14, 2008 at 5:58 pm
And I’m so glad you did, Clio - welcome!
May 14, 2008 at 5:59 pm
Aside to Clio’s “mortal”: my muse tells me her name is Blogo. I haven’t the heart to tell her I think it an ugly name.
May 14, 2008 at 9:25 pm
mmmm. Nice, especially for Embra-light deprived exiles.
But one of the weaker ones so far (like your tea, by the sound of it - golden lapsang?)
May 14, 2008 at 10:32 pm
Dear Berenike, you’ve no idea (or if you had, you’ve forgotten) how few tea-leaves some of those “Nelly Ho.” girls put in one’s pot!
But as Dr Johnson said concerning women preaching and dogs walking on their “hinder legs” so I say about contemporary Edinburgh caffs making real pots of leaf tea: it is not done well, but one is surprised to find it done at all.
And anyway, the Castle’s five-o-clock-unshadow made up for that - even if my latest effort didn’t quite do the spectacle justice.
May 15, 2008 at 11:34 am
Hah!
A few years back I was briefly in Scotland for some reason, I can’t remember which visit it was, and had an extra day in Embra cos of plane ticket mix-up - nbut this meant that mama and i were in Edinburgh for an overlapping day. We went to the Caff Formerly Known as the Laich - most inmpressed. Waiting for our tea to brew. Mine seems very weak, so I wait. try again. Barely a gleamn of coulour. I wait some more.No better.
I look inside.
The lassie had forgotten tae put any leaves in.
May 15, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Embra. Maybe I will GO THERE in July. Hmm. Smile. There are always spots of light in any darkness.
P.S.: I have the odd feeling that the English language is much more suited for making up things that rhyme than German is. Just my English is too bad for me to profit from that should ever an unhappy muse alight on me.
May 15, 2008 at 1:52 pm
(She gasps in horror.) Notburga! Rilke! “Aus Einer Kindheit”! “Herbsttag”! Aaah!
May 15, 2008 at 6:01 pm
Alas, ladies, the only German I know is from the lieder I learnt and still love listening to: An Die Ferne Geliebte, Die Schöne Müllerin, and (ah!) Dichterliebe…
Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,
Als alle Knospen sprangen,
Da ist in meinem Herzen
Die Liebe aufgegangen.
Im wunderschönen Monat Mai,
Als alle Vögel sangen,
Da hab’ ich ihr gestanden
Mein Sehnen und Verlangen.
May 15, 2008 at 10:46 pm
“Blogo” is a very ugly name. Poor you.
May 16, 2008 at 1:25 am
Better than Blotto, though.
May 16, 2008 at 9:44 am
True, true, ladies!
May 16, 2008 at 2:58 pm
I did not say there were no beautiful poems in German! Very much the opposite! Only for someone unskilled dabbeling in rhyming it seems easier to find things that rhyme and a correct meter with English than with German.
May 16, 2008 at 7:34 pm
Indeed, Notburga, I am certainly proof that any old duffer can turn out roughly rhyming and scanning verse in English. I bet the greater challenge in German leads to better quality poetasters in that tongue though!
B(ungling) A(mateur)
May 17, 2008 at 10:30 am
I feared you would take it that way - which was absolutely not what I intended! O, you get an awful lot of extremely bad poems when people try to make up things for friends’ birthdays, weddings, and so on. Rhymes soo awfully embarrassing that I cringe only thinking of them.
May 17, 2008 at 11:56 am
Och, I’m just pulling yer leg, Notburga - I know what you meant!
Bª