TATI’s AND TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // A Crazed Girl by William Butler Yeats

That crazed girl improvising her music.
Her poetry, dancing upon the shore,

Her soul in division from itself
Climbing, falling She knew not where,
Hiding amid the cargo of a steamship,
Her knee-cap broken, that girl I declare
A beautiful lofty thing, or a thing
Heroically lost, heroically found.

No matter what disaster occurred
She stood in desperate music wound,
Wound, wound, and she made in her triumph
Where the bales and the baskets lay
No common intelligible sound
But sang, “O sea-starved, hungry sea.’

by WILLIAM BUTLER YEATS (1865-1939)
Public Domain Poetry

TATI’s & TONY’s DEAD POET TOUR // The Musical Ass by Tomas de Iriarte y Oropesa

The fable which I now present,
Occurred to me by accident:
And whether bad or excellent,
Is merely so by accident.

A stupid ass this morning went
Into a field by accident:
And cropped his food, and was content,
Until he spied by accident
A flute, which some oblivious gent
Had left behind by accident;
When, sniffling it with eager scent,
He breathed on it by accident,
And made the hollow instrument
Emit a sound by accident.
“Hurrah, hurrah!” exclaimed the brute,
“How cleverly I play the flute!”

A fool, in spite of nature’s bent,
May shine for once, by accident.

by TOMAS DE IRIARTE Y OROPESA (1750-1791)
Public Domain Poetry

beyond song

destiny is not only the future
it’s the promise of elsewhere
a network beyond the face of time
are you ready to raise the visor
are you ready to smile at the eons
to kiss goodbye the bones of time
or maybe break the bones with a trumpet
destiny is the future’s music
strumming at the edges of time
sing like there’s a yestermorrow
buzz them all with a found falsetto
nail the meta to the ghost of time
destiny is not the only future
there’s also the promise of elsewhere

by TETIANA ALEKSINA & TONY SINGLE
© All rights reserved 2023

GUEST POST // Greatest Song Ever Written by Tony Brown

suppose you stop snickering
and get shut of the need
to scorn those folks over there
fingering slipcovers
in the discount aisle
talking only to each other
when they speak of
perfection and how well
these would go with
the drapes in the front room

and suppose
you quit sneering at those
who proclaim their love
for the Beatles as you cannot
distinguish between
an emotional bond to their
soundtrack of a lifetime
and your own decidedly
up-to-the-minute
lasting-maybe-a-minute
enthusiasm for whatever minute
you find yourself in
(unless
of course
it hits you
RIGHT THERE
like a never-ending
cryogenic block
on your future)

and suppose
you get your head
out of whatever fragrant
arrogant nook
you keep it in
and see yourself
years from now
dressed fifteen years
too early for retro fashion
choosing from cheap mirrors
in a bargain aisle
while humming
yesterday’s
greatest song ever written

by TONY BROWN
© All rights reserved 2022

GUEST POST // The cat who loved ABBA by Graeme Sandford

ABBA, the cat, who loved,
never knew about punctuation,
or the proper use of colons and commas;
but, she didn’t have to,
it wasn’t important in the scheme of things –
unlike tummy rubs
and wriggling strings.

by GRAEME SANDFORD
© All rights reserved 2021