Shine on Brightly: Issa's Sunday Service, #77

 



It's three wise kings from the East that bring us this week's selection for the Sunday Service: "Shine On Brightly," by Procol Harum, who are becoming something of a house band.   Perhaps a tad early for Christmas, but it seems their quest was long and nearly endless; our doomed narrator, however, receives the gifts in stead (ahem), presumably giving the Prussian blue electric clock an extra wack for some additional rest for that poor befuddled brain.

Keith Reid rules.

Shine on Brightly   
 My Prussian-blue electric clock's
 alarm bell rings, it will not stop
 and I can see no end in sight
 and search in vain by candlelight
 for some long road that goes nowhere
 for some signpost that is not there
 And even my befuddled brain
 is shining brightly, quite insane

 The chandelier is in full swing
 as gifts for me the three kings bring
 of myrrh and frankincense, I'm told,
 and fat old Buddhas carved in gold
 And though it seems they smile with glee
 I know in truth they envy me
 and watch as my befuddled brain
 shines on brightly quite insane

 Above all else confusion reigns
 And though I ask no-one explains
 My eunuch friend has been and gone
 He said that I must soldier on
 And though the Ferris wheel spins round
 my tongue it seems has run aground
 and croaks as my befuddled brain
 shines on brightly, quite insane

Though often scoffed at for their art rock sensibility, this live performance puts the lie to any such thought. In particular note one of rock's great, underrated drummers, B. J. Wilson can be seen and heard at his finest.  His performance on the second tune, "In the Wee Small Hours of Sixpence," will no doubt remind many of the late, great Keith Moon, in style, flair, and competence.

************

This week's features the opening 4 poems of issue #115, from March, 2001.  In fact, let me include the cover, by the late poet/artist Harland Ristau, since the sequence seems to start with that.

THIS IS THE FIRST PART
OF A LONG ESSAY ON RELATIVITY
AND QUANTUM MECHANICS FROM
THE STANDPOINT OF KANT
AND SOME GERMAN IDEALISTS WHO
SHALL BE NAMED LATER IN
THE DISCUSSION WHICH WILL BE
ALL ABOUT EPISTEMOLOGY
AND PROCEDURE AND REFERENCE-FRAMES
AND PARADOX AND THE ENTANGLEMENT
OF SPACE AND TIME AS SEEN
FROM GREAT DISTANCES PLUS A LOT
OF OTHER STUFF TOO

(... to be continued)

Wayne Hogan

through
              the birds
                              a history of stars

Marcia Arrieta

Etude
  Eighty-eight keys,
  each a telescope trained
  upon a single constellation.

  Stephen Power

Belief
  Those who
  Believe
  The universe
  Ends
  Stop at
  the edge of it.

Edward Supranowicz

looking pretty
in a hole in the paper door…
Heaven’s River

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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