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I've waited all year from midwinter through till May
Happy May Day, all.
What is the sea for the man who has loved and left her? She is fire-water, whisky, rum, a roric flame. She is a green-eyed witch; she speaks in tongues. Her coral rings are forged of skeletons; her white shoulders glisten with the dust of powdered bones.
She is memory, the number of numbers, the eye of the world, the mirror of the sea. What is the ocean for the sailor who has loved and left her? The one lover who dissolves the night. A bottomless glass of moonshine.
And sailors? All sea-talkers. The sons of mermen.
—Rikki Ducornet, The Fountains of Neptune (1989)
What is the sea for the man who has loved and left her? She is fire-water, whisky, rum, a roric flame. She is a green-eyed witch; she speaks in tongues. Her coral rings are forged of skeletons; her white shoulders glisten with the dust of powdered bones.
She is memory, the number of numbers, the eye of the world, the mirror of the sea. What is the ocean for the sailor who has loved and left her? The one lover who dissolves the night. A bottomless glass of moonshine.
And sailors? All sea-talkers. The sons of mermen.
—Rikki Ducornet, The Fountains of Neptune (1989)
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Nine
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I found where to find it! It's in print; I should have a copy soon.
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Also, happy May day!
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I picked it up because of the title; because of those lines, I knew I needed it.
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Poem?
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Happy May Day to you, also.
That's a lovely quotation there.
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I now have my Master's in Classics from Yale. Thank you!
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Brilliant! Congratulations!
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What does "The Devil's Own" sound like?
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I can't put the song up here, because it's one of the few iTunes-purchased mp3s I own, but it has keyboards and stray sound effects and what sounds like a clarinet to me; it's slow and spare and slightly jazzy, but mostly it's three o'clock sleepless.
The night is dark and cold
The strong winds and the rain
Crack the branches upon my window
The devil beats his drum
Casting out his spell
Dragging all his own down into hell
The ticking of the clock
Inexorably goes on
The howling of the stray souls of heaven
The treasures of the cove
Where traders stored their gold
Echo voices still dead to the world
Underneath the vine
Shaded by the leaves
I still hold you close to me
Beneath the open stars
Beneath the pillows and the sheets
I still hold you dear to me
The ticking of the clock
Surely sunrise won't be long
When darkness hides inside its own shadow
The devil beats his drum
Casting out his name
Dragging all his own down into shame
The last three lines of the first verse are quoted by Tanith Lee in "The Nightmare's Tale" (The Book of the Dead), which is how I discovered it. The only other piece of music I have by him is a cold and haunted soundscape with Holger Czukay, "Plight (The Spiralling of Winter Ghosts)," which I like very much.
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These lyrics are wonderful; I like the first three lines, actually, as well as the last three (which are also the final three, I see). I'm going to listen to iTunes' 30 seconds and see about getting it. And the cold and haunted soundscape also sounds like quite a piece.
!! Just got your e-mail!!
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And Happy May all around!
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My mother knew her in college, is the strangest part!