"Don't Fear the Reaper": Issa's Sunday Service, #115

Buck Dharma ,created by G. Lorbes

I don't think we've had too many real blockbuster songs on the Sunday Service, but "Don't Fear the Reaper" definitely fits the bill. It's literary connections with Stephen King are well documented. So iconic is it that, until I heard it again recently (it tends to pop up on summer rock radio), I'd forgotten about the "Romeo and Juliet" allusion, which is what puts it square in the sights of the this ongoing series.

A song essentially about how love conquers death and written by Blue Oyster Cult's lead guitarist, Buck Dharma (Donald Roeser), the opening 5 lines should be of interest to those familiar with Eastern verse:

All our times have come
Here but now they're gone
Seasons don't fear the reaper
Nor do the wind, the sun or the rain
We can be like they are

That's a sentiment that even the classic haiku masters wouldn't argue with and the chord struck here might be universal enough to explain the song's initial success and persistent staying power. "Romeo and Juliet," it turns out not surprisingly, is one of the most persistent allusion in rock: this is the 4th song in the list that refers to it (& there are more to come, I'm sure - suggest one and get the two current issues of Lilliput Review free) - here and here and here are the previous three.

So as not to give short shrift to the original, here is a fine excerpt of one of the best, most popular versions of the play ever produced. The intensity of Zefferilli's two young actors captures it all:







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This week's selection from the Lilliput archive #76, way back in the land of January 1996. Alan Catlin is something of a master poet, here singing of another master of art.

Poem Inspired by Hokusai

Hokusai
sketches the whole
of the earth
emerging from the sky.

Alan Catlin

mountain's red leaves
the setting sun returns
to the sky

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

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"As I Went Out One Morning" - Issa's Sunday Service, #76

Tuesday is Election Day and they'll be no comment here, except to say this week's selection for Issa's Sunday Service is "As I Went Out One Morning" by Bob Dylan.  The album from which it comes, John Wesley Harding, has been a long time favorite of mine for many reasons, not the least of which is the drumming of Kenny Buttrey.  Aside from the solo albums, it is one the most stripped down, certainly the cleanest of all productions, over the entire span of Dylan's career.  Beside Buttrey and Dylan, there was Charlie McCoy on bass and Pete Drake on pedal steel guitar.  That's it and it's truly amazing.

The lyrics are transcendent, the songs sublime.  It echoes through the years with a timelessness that not very many albums have.  If I had to compare it to anything, I'd compare it not to another album but a book.  A once-in-a-lifetime, much loved book.

I'll leave it there.

Think Tom Paine.

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Here are two poems from the archive that shared the same page in an issue, #113, from way back in November 2000.

The Symbolism of Breath

Everything
turns to steam
in October
and the fog
pours thick
off
of your skin.

C. C. Russell

Death has
my father's eyes,
pale blue and crisp
as autumn mornings.

Albert Huffstickler

even to these old eyes--
cherry blossoms!
cherry blossoms!

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

PS  Get 2 free issues     Get 2 more free issues     Lillie poem archive

Go to the LitRock web site for a list of all 74 songs
Hear all 74 at once on the the LitRock Jukebox

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Ray Charles: The Fifth Haiku Master

Lots doing as the next two weeks will be somewhat chaotic at my job, so I'll just be skimming the surface here with a couple of highlights, a new feature, a reminder and some old fashioned getting-down. I'm so steeped in Basho that haiku seem to be falling from me like leaves from the plane tree across the way. This morning, in a pre-waking hypnagogic state, a perfect haiku came full blown from nowhere, I'm still stunned. I believe I'll continue steeping as long as I'm able. I'm making progress in both volumes (the Reichhold and Landis Barnhill translations), having read over 500 haiku in each. In the Reichhold volume that is only halfway, well past three-quarters in the Landis Barnhill. I hope to be highlighting selected haiku from both in a future post.

Which segues to a reminder that there is one week left to the deadline for the Basho Haiku Challenge, so if you've been thinking about sending some along, now's the time to pull the trigger. There are well over a hundred haiku already and more would be just the ticket.


While touching on ongoing projects, the Near Perfect Books of Poetry list is approaching the milestone number of 150 (been stuck on 148 for a couple of weeks). So if you have any suggestions, the original offer of the current 2 issues of Lillie free (or two issues added to your subscription) stands.

Since the Near Perfect list has been reader generated, I thought it might be a good idea to feature work from the books on the list when possible. First on the list is Anna Akhmatova's Selected Poems. Here is a typically powerful poem, in a translation by D. M. Thomas:

Why is our century worse than any other?
Is it that in the stupor of fear and grief
It has plunged its fingers into the blackest ulcer
Yet cannot bring relief?

Westward the sun is dropping,
And the roofs of towns are shining in its light.
Already death is chalking doors with crosses
And calling the ravens and the ravens are in flight.

If you have a chance, don't miss the most recent post over at trout fishing in minnesota. Jim has much to say about the qualities of wood, traveling guts, and the voices of a wide variety of trees. Jim's ruinations segued synchronistically with the first bit of fiction I've read in nearly two months (its been strictly poetry with all the program preparation I've been doing). Here is the opening paragraph to Thomas Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree, which I read about a week ago like a parched traveller at a fresh spring:

To dwellers in a wood almost every species of tree has its voice as well as its feature. At the passing of the breeze the fir-trees sob and moan no less distinctly than they rock; the holly whistles as it battles with itself; the ash hisses amid its quiverings; the beech rustles while its flat boughs rise and fall. And winter, which modifies the note of such trees as shed their leaves, does not destroy their individuality.

This weeks featured back issue of Lilliput Review is #76, from January 1996.




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The Marriage Vow
Here and now, we will compose
our own fairy tales,
beginning each fable
with an empty room, an open window.

Hilary Lyon

Wish I Weren't Here
the roots of the nerves of my pain are cut
i am alone on a riverbank
northeast of death and southwest of remorse
i cannot sing. there are no tears.

Shelley Stoker

Empathy
String your feet to mine
I want to walk you through
this century like you were
an easy weight on my back,
or a thousand rose petals
or a building full of wind.

Ali Kress

Within Bounds
Dog-eared history,
reams of yellow second-sheets,
folks gathering round, the waters, parted,
try to understand, you debtors,
try to understand.

Errol Miller

membrane
the false world falls away
where have you been --we ask

Lisa Helgesen

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Since the original Ed Coletti suggested video of Ray Charles, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis has disappeared into the cosmic ether, here is a reasonable substitute: enjoy.



 

best,
Don