Issa's Sunday Service, #18

This week's offering from Issa's Sunday Service comes from the album I would take to a desert island if only one is allowed: Van Morrison's It's Too Late To Stop Now. Ok, it's 2 discs, but you'll let me slide, right? Tomorrow is Mr. Morrison's birthday and, as a present, he becomes the first artist to appear on this weekly feature twice (and this will be, by no means, his last appearance). Not much of present, you ask? He has everything else.

As with so many of the performances on It's Too Late To Stop Now, this rendition of Wild Children is far superior to the studio original. The song itself sums up a generation, for better and worse, and, if I can mix my clichés, this would be the song I buried in a time capsule on that desert island for some far future alien culture to discover when they go on vacation.

As a bonus this week (and just to see if anybody is paying attention), I'll give a free 6 issue subscription to Lilliput Review to anyone who knows who is being quoted in the album's title? (Hint: it isn't because Morrison says what would become the title during the end of "Cyprus Avenue." In the BBC review, linked above, they even have Morrison saying it during "Into The Mystic." Fact-checker, please!)


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Here's a poem from issue #25, September 1991, by Michael Estabrook. It was on my short list to read this past weekend at the Six Gallery Press reading. Try reading this one aloud, softening the repeated words (and parts of words) as an echo would.

an echo

The grassy grassy grassy
--plain
reaches out across across the road
--the road
cutting man's lifeline line in two two
trying trying to reclaim for mother
--nature nature
what is by all rights
hers and hers and hers

Michael Estabrook

even wild roses
of a downtrodden land
reach enlightenment

Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue

best,
Don

Issa's Sunday Service

Welcome to Issa's Sunday Service, a little experiment from Issa's Untidy Hut in music and poetry.

Above, you will find one of my favorite songs, Van Morrison's Summertime in England from the album Common One. Hope you enjoy it. Though the album itself was not much of a success, it remains my favorite.

Along with a literary-themed piece of music on Sunday, there will also be a poem. Those of you who follow The Hut regularly know that for going on two years now I've been posting once a week, in countdown form, some sample poems from back issues of Lilliput Review. Recently I added another feature, a Monday through Friday posting of one poem from Lillie on Twitter. Poems there are limited to 140 characters, including spaces, so that service really highlights the short poem. Again, I started with the latest issues and am currently posting a poem a day in countdown form (right now I'm in the early 150's).

With these Sunday posts, I'm going to feature one poem from each issue of Lilliput Review, this time counting up from #1, which was a limited "test run" issue (initially 10 copies, later expanded out to 20) to see if the concept of a tiny mag was practical and doable for someone who'd never attempted it before. As such, it contained 7 short poems and the issue is from March 1989.

Future Sunday posts will simply feature a song and a poem, with little or no commentary. Since this was the first of a series, I thought some explanation was appropriate. From issue #1 of Lilliput Review:

When Religion Invents Man

trees shimmer, leaves curl
up, in, tiny balls into tight
buds, bud through branches,
into thick trunks, down &
down, the earth opening,
thin crust, unsplitting,
fine white threads, a
single hard kernal &
this new beginning.

best,
Don

Van Morrison: Sunday Go to Meeting Music

Courtesy of the ineffable ed markowski, it's heading to church time. Enjoy.

clang once more
mountain temple bell!
spring rain

Issa
translated by David Lanoue

best,
Don


PS - "Like a field of sunflowers, a poem should not have to be explained." Lawrence Ferlinghetti