Poetickle

[Shem the Penman]

So I'm hunting around poetry sites in search of an appropriate wedding reading, and I stumble across the following. Yeah, it's overwritten and convoluted (it's Dylan Thomas, what do you expect?) but still, some of the images seemed rather ... interesting.

Unfortunately, my fiancee says she'd die on the spot if I used this as my reading, so I'm going to have to go with something safer ...

"If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love," Dylan Thomas

If I were tickled by the rub of love,
A rooking girl who stole me for her side,
Broke through her straws, breaking my bandaged string,
If the red tickle as the cattle calve
Still set to scratch a laughter from my lung,
I would not fear the apple nor the flood
Nor the bad blood of spring.

Shall it be male or female? say the cells,
And drop the plum like fire from the flesh.
If I were tickled by the hatching hair,
The winging bone that sprouted in the heels,
The itch of man upon the baby’s thigh,
I would not fear the gallows nor the axe
Nor the crossed sticks of war.

Shall it be male or female? say the fingers
That chalk the walls with green girls and their men.
I would not fear the muscling-in of love
If I were tickled by the urchin hungers
Rehearsing heat upon a raw-edged nerve.
I would not fear the devil in the loin
Nor the outspoken grave.

If I were tickled by the lovers’ rub
That wipes away nor crow’s-foot nor the lock
Of sick old manhood on the fallen jaws,
Time and the crabs and the sweethearting crib
Would leave me cold as butter for the flies,
The sea of scums could drown me as it broke
Dead on the sweethearts’ toes.

This world is half the devil’s and my own,
Daft with the drug that’s smoking in a girl
And curling round the bud that forks her eye.
An old man’s shank one-marrowed with my bone,
And all the herrings smelling in the sea,
I sit and watch the worm beneath my nail
Wearing the quick away.

And that’s the rub, the only rub that tickles.
The knobbly ape that swings along his sex
From damp love-darkness and the nurse’s twist
Can ever raise the midnight of a chuckle,
Nor when he finds a beauty in the breast
Of lover, mother, lovers, or his six
Feet in the rubbing dust.

And what’s the rub? Death’s feather on the nerve?
Your mouth, my love, the thistle in the kiss?
My Jack of Christ, born thorny on the tree?
The words of death are dryer that his stiff,
My wordy wounds are printed with your hair.
I would be tickled by the rub that is:
Man be my metaphor.

 

[Boomtown13]

Good find, Shem. Bad poem, but good find.

I was a Creative Writing and Literature major in college, and I deliberately skipped the Dylan Thomas stuff.

Pablo Neruda wrote some beautiful love poems, if any of them seem to fit your scene.

Of course there are Shakespeare's sonnets, some of which are the greatest love poems ever.

Eliot's my favorite, but you won't find anything by him you can use for what you want, as you well know.

Now here's a poem to complement "If I Were Tickled by the Rub of Love." It's by another one of my favorites -- that Jim Morrison prototype William Blake. Sure, he's hippy-dippy; sure, he likes to rhyme "smile" with "beguile" in almost all of his poems; sure, his writing tends less to the clever and profound and more to the "aren't the birds pretty?" frame of mind, but I like him. That same part of me that enjoys listening to Donovan music enjoys Blake's poetry. Call me crunchy.

Anyway, this isn't his best, but it goes with "Tickle Rub" --


LAUGHING SONG

When the green woods laugh with the voice of joy,
And the dimpling stream runs laughing by,
When the air does laugh with our merry wit,
And the green hill laughs with the noise of it,

When the meadows laugh with lively green,
And the grasshopper laughs in the merry stream,
When Mary and Susan and Emily
With their sweet round mouths sing 'Ha, Ha, He!'

When the painted birds laugh in the shade
Where our table with cherries and nuts is spread,
Come live & be merry and join with me,
To sing the sweet chorus of 'Ha, Ha, He!'


So, what do you think? Is this the new anthem for tickle gatherings?

They call me mellow yellow,
Boomovan

PS - First, there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is.

 

[dig dug dog]

Shem and Boom,

I beg to differ on Dylan Thomas! I think "If I Were Tickled" as well as most of Thomas's stuff is great. Submited for your approval, one of his best...

ddd


And Death Shall Have No Dominion

And death shall have no dominion
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone,
They shall have stars at elbow and foot;
Though they go mad they shall be sane,
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again;
Though lovers be lost love shall not;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
Under the windings of the sea
They lying long shall not die windily;
Twisting on racks when sinews give way,
Strapped to a wheel, yet they shall not break;
Faith in their hands shall snap in two,
And the unicorn evils run them through;
Split all ends up they shan't crack;
And death shall have no dominion.

And death shall have no dominion.
No more may gulls cry at their ears
Or waves break loud at the seashores;
Where blew a flower may a flower no more
Lift it's head to the blows of the rain;
Though they be mad and dead as nails,
Heads of the characters hammer through daisies;
Break in the sun till the sun breaks down,
And death shall have no dominion.

 

[JoBelle]

This isn't a poem, but it is a beautiful snippet of a love letter that I saw today. Felt like it was worth sharing.

"I love you as the lioness loves her mate. I love you as a passionate woman, ready to yield up her life at your slightest gesture. I love you with the soul and intelligence God has lent his creatures to enable them to appreciate exceptional men like yourself. That is why, My glorious Victor, at one and the same moment, I can rage, weep, crawl, or stand erect. I bow my head and venerate you."

Jo