Writes And Having Writ

[hope]

"The Moving Finger Writes and having writ
Moves on; nor all your piety nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all your tears blot out a word of it,"

By Omar Khayyam

Picture by Escher

[Redbeck]

Writes and having writ, on that immensely satisfying poetic theme Hope, to me it evidences that we are free to use language in so many ways, even to circumvent the rules that now govern that fast fading phenomenon we once called free speech.

Allow me to introduce the one and only, the wonderful Weldon Kees (February 24, 1914 – July 18, 1955), colossus of the poetic form known as the villanelle.

Harry Weldon Kees was an American, Nebraska-born, poet, painter, literary critic, novelist, playwright, jazz pianist, short story writer, and filmmaker.

The crack is moving down the wall by Weldon Keys

The crack is moving down the wall.
Defective plaster isn't all the cause.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

It's mildly cheering to recall
That every building has its little flaws.
The crack is moving down the wall.

Here in the kitchen, drinking gin,
We can accept the damndest laws.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

And though there's no one here at all,
One searches every room because
The crack is moving down the wall.

Repairs? But how can one begin?
The lease has warnings buried in each clause.
We must remain until the roof falls in.

These nights one hears a creaking in the hall,
The sort of thing that gives one pause.
The crack is moving down the wall.
We must remain until the roof falls in.



A protoype model for the late great Freddy Mercury of the band Queen (Wouldn't you say?). I urge you to investigate his work further, you will not be disappointed.