A S J Tessimond part 2

Following on from my first blog today, here is another of my favourites from A S J Tessimond (1902-1962)

Day Dream


One day people will touch and talk perhaps
easily,
And loving be natural as breathing and warm as
sunlight,
And people will untie themselves, as string is unknotted,
Unfold and yawn and stretch and spread their fingers,
Unfurl, uncurl like seaweed returned to the sea,
And work will be simple and swift
as a seagull flying,
And play will be casual and quiet
as a seagull settling,
And the clocks will stop, and no one will wonder
or care or notice,
And people will smile without reason,
Even in winter, even in the rain.


as Submitted by Stephen Fryer to poemhunter

and the photos? Nun's Valley Chestnut Festival November 2008 Madeira - and I stayed cheerful throughout - as I watched a community determined to enjoy itself in spite of the relentless rain!

Tessimond the poet

I have discovered a new poet - new for me that is - and I rather like what I have found. Read this for example - about the ad man who cynically exploits our woundedness:

Attack On The Ad-Man:


This trumpeter of nothingness, employed
To keep our reason dull and null and void.
This man of wind and froth and flux will sell
The wares of any who reward him well.
Praising whatever he is paid to praise,
He hunts for ever-newer, smarter ways
To make the gilt seen gold; the shoddy, silk;
To cheat us legally; to bluff and bilk
By methods which no jury can prevent
Because the law's not broken, only bent.

This mind for hire, this mental prostitute
Can tell the half-lie hardest to refute;
Knows how to hide an inconvenient fact
And when to leave a doubtful claim unbacked;
Manipulates the truth but not too much,
And if his patter needs the Human Touch,
Skillfully artless, artlessly naive,
Wears his convenient heart upon his sleeve.

He uses words that once were strong and fine,
Primal as sun and moon and bread and wine,
True, honourable, honoured, clear and keen,
And leaves them shabby, worn, diminished, mean.
He takes ideas and trains them to engage
In the long little wars big combines wage...
He keeps his logic loose, his feelings flimsy;
Turns eloquence to cant and wit to whimsy;
Trims language till it fits his clients, pattern
And style's a glossy tart or limping slattern.

He studies our defences, finds the cracks
And where the wall is weak or worn, attacks.
lie finds the fear that's deep, the wound that's tender,
And mastered, outmanouevered, we surrender.
We who have tried to choose accept his choice
And tired succumb to his untiring voice.
The dripping tap makes even granite soften
We trust the brand-name we have heard so often
And join the queue of sheep that flock to buy;
We fools who know our folly, you and I.

This and many more submitted by Stephen Fryer to be found here.

From Wikipedia: Arthur Seymour John Tessimond (Birkenhead, July 19, 1902 - Chelsea, London May 13, 1962) was an English poet.

He went to Charterhouse School, but ran away at age 16[1]. After studying at Liverpool University, he moved to London where he worked in bookshops, and also as a copywriter[2]. He later moved to France.

After avoiding military service in World War II, he later discovered he was unfit for service.

An eccentric and an Imagist, Tessimond wrote astute, elegant, urban poetry. He suffered from bipolar disorder, and received electro-convulsive therapy.

He died in 1962 from a brain haemorrhage.


The link to the photo at the top? What are cruises if not sometimes about trying to live some kind of dream sold by the slick ad man? This was actually a cruise liner arriving in Funchal in November 2008

Christmas

Well here I am having "survived" Christmas. Don't misunderstand me. I love Christmas. At least I love all the church services, the celebration of our Lord's Birth. This starts with the children's nativity services when we help them build up the crib through readings and songs as they process around the churhc with all the individual characters and place them in the crib itself. We then have the Midnight Mass when the church is always full to bursting. I am then up early for serving duties again at the early morning and family Eucharists.
I love all of that. It is a great privilege and joy to me to be one or other of servers/acolyte/crucifer/verger/thurifer duty ( I wear many hats!!) at all these services.
No I love all of that. But what I absolutely loath is the commercialism of the Festival. The spending-mad masses who shop to drop as if they will starve if the supermarket closes for one day!! I loathe the politically correct street decorations, the way the media dumbs down the Christian elements of the celebrations as if these do not exist when they certainly do!
Just before Christmas I retreated to Madeira for a week - an island where they profess their faith more openly, and where the taxi driver did not think it strange to take his fare to the Anglican church in Funchal on the Sunday - he would be going to his own church later that day. The photo was of a nativity display in a shop window - a shop seemingly devoted to Christian artefacts in Funchal.
Hey Ho. Happy New Year and a Happy Epiphany.