I've taken my fun where I've found it;
I've rogued an' I've ranged in my time;
I've 'ad my pickin' o' sweet'earts,
An' four o' the lot was prime.
One was an 'arf-caste widow,
One was a woman at Prome,
One was the wife of a ~jemadar-sais~,
An' one is a girl at 'ome.

Now I aren't no 'and with the ladies,
For, takin' 'em all along,
You never can say till you've tried 'em,
An' then you are like to be wrong.
There's times when you'll think that you mightn't,
There's times when you'll know that you might;
But the things you will learn from the Yellow an' Brown,
They'll 'elp you a lot with the White!

I was a young un at 'Oogli,
Shy as a girl to begin;
Aggie de Castrer she made me,
An' Aggie was clever as sin;
Older than me, but my first un --
More like a mother she were --
Showed me the way to promotion an' pay,
An' I learned about women from 'er!

Then I was ordered to Burma,
Actin' in charge o' Bazar,
An' I got me a tiddy live 'eathen
Through buyin' supplies off 'er pa.
Funny an' yellow an' faithful --
Doll in a teacup she were,
But we lived on the square, like a true-married pair,
An' I learned about women from 'er!

Then we was shifted to Neemuch
(Or I might ha' been keepin' 'er now),
An' I took with a shiny she-devil,
The wife of a nigger at Mhow;
'Taught me the gipsy-folks' ~bolee~;
Kind o' volcano she were,
For she knifed me one night 'cause I wished she was white,
And I learned about women from 'er!

Then I come 'ome in the trooper,
'Long of a kid o' sixteen --
Girl from a convent at Meerut,
The straightest I ever 'ave seen.
Love at first sight was 'er trouble,
~She~ didn't know what it were;
An' I wouldn't do such, 'cause I liked 'er too much,
But -- I learned about women from 'er!

I've taken my fun where I've found it,
An' now I must pay for my fun,
For the more you 'ave known o' the others
The less will you settle to one;
An' the end of it's sittin' and thinkin',
An' dreamin' Hell-fires to see;
So be warned by my lot (which I know you will not),
An' learn about women from me!

What did the Colonel's Lady think?
Nobody never knew.
Somebody asked the Sergeant's wife,
~An'~ she told 'em true!
When you get to a man in the case,
They're like as a row of pins --
For the Colonel's Lady an' Judy O'Grady
Are sisters under their skins!

A Warning To Navigators

Who do you hope to fool
with this talk
of destinations?

Now that the earth's
an orange;
not a bed, or table,
where things might be prepared
begun
or ended,

paths that looked straight enough
on charts
prove circular.

The skin shows signs
of rottenness inside.
Armies of ants
converge around the rind.

Travellers chase their tails
at the ocean's wheel.
We see the lights too late,
and feel again
the shudder of stranded hulls
beneath our keel.

-- Patricia Glensor

Sarsvati: om mani padme hum

Hear me say
Better things will surely come our way

Oh, Natalie.


on a quiet night

I saw the moonlight before my couch,
And wondered if it were not frost on the ground.

I raised my head and looked out on the bright moon;

I bowed my head and thought of my far-off home.

-- Li Po

what is this LARP?

ADandD geeks will be pleased to learn what really goes on during Cabinet meetings.

...

"Jamais vu is the contrary of déjà vu. In jamais vu, an experience feels like it's the first time, even though the experience is a familiar one. Jamais vu occurs in certain types of amnesia and epilepsy."

jamais vu n. The illusion or impression of never having experienced something that has actually been experienced many times before (cf. déjà vu).

There's a condition in epilepsy called jamais vu which means, literally, "never seen." It's the opposite of déjà vu; what happens here is that, when the sufferer comes round after a seizure, the whole world is new. He or she has, or so it seems, never seen any of it before.

— Lucretia Stewart, "The Reunion," The Independent, October 30, 1999

Words and Music

Audiences come early to Porter first nights to see the entrance of the Porters and party, who arrive courteously on time and sweep, in a wave of chatter, perfume, and furs, to their seats in the second row. Porter always buys seats for his own first nights and pays for them at the box office, and—unlike many authors and composers who spend such gruelling evenings downstairs in the men’s washroom with a bottle of bromide tablets—he enjoys the opening performance enormously, beaming and applauding without restraint. One time, strolling up the aisle at intermission and waving and stopping to chat with friends in the audience, he was heard to say repeatedly, in a tone of honest admiration, "“Good, isn’t it?"

-- Margaret Case Herriman in the New Yorker

My Country II
by Dan Bern


I don’t drive a Mercedes Benz, and I
Don’t desire to own one
I’d sooner watch a flower grow than the latest from
Sylvester Stallone
I don’t have me a country club membership
I ride the greyhound bus
I don’t have a cabin two hours north of here
I don’t celebrate Christmas

But it’s my country too
Sometimes I gotta remind myself
It’s my country too
I pay my taxes
Vote on election day
I stop at stop signs
Just like you

I have never burned an American flag
If I did it was an accident
I have never dropped a bomb or defaced the
Washington monument
But you won’t find a flag on my doorstep
On the fourth of July
Too many criminals try to wrap themselves inside of it
It stands for too many lies

But it’s my country too
Sometimes I gotta remind myself
It’s my country too
I pay my taxes
Vote on election day
I stop at stop signs
Just like you

My country ‘tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
My country ‘tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty
My country ‘tis of thee
Sweet land of liberty

If I say it enough times
Maybe I’ll remember what it means
If I say it enough times
Maybe I’ll remember what it means

Don’t try to tell me
This time listen to me
Don’t try to tell me
This time listen to me

‘Cause it’s my country too
Sometimes I gotta remind myself
It’s my country too
I pay my taxes
Vote on election day
I stop at stop signs
Just like you