In Which As If Something Not Life Necessarily

We got such a reaction to some of Beckett's poems a couple of weeks ago that we decided to include a few more for your perusal. What do you think?

the title is a yiddish expression meaning "put your money on the table"

Ooftish

by Samuel Beckett

offer it up plank it down
Golgotha was only the potegg
cancer angina it is all one to us
cough up your T.B. don't be stingy
no trifle is too trifling not even a thrombus
anything venereal is especially welcome
that old toga in the mothballs
don't be sentimental you won't be wanting it again
send it along we'll put it in the pot with the rest
with your love requited and unrequited
the things taken too late the things taken too soon
the spirit aching bullock's scrotum
you won't cure it you won't endure it
it is you it equals you any fool has to pity you
so parcel up the whole issue and send it along
the whole misery diagnosed undiagnosed misdiagnosed
get your friends to do the same we'll make use of it
we'll make sense of it we'll put it in the pot with the rest
it all boils down to blood of lamb

I would like my love to die
and the rain to be raining on the graveyard
and on me walking the streets
mourning her who thought she loved me

Something There

by Samuel Beckett

something there
where
out there
out where
outside
what
the head what else
something there somewhere outside
the head

at the faint sound so brief
it is gone and the whole globe
not yet bare
the eye
opens wide
wide
till in the end
nothing more
shutters it again

so the odd time
out there
somewhere out there
like as if
as if
something
not life
necessarily

Roundelay

by Samuel Beckett

on all that strand
at end of day
steps sole sound
long sole sound
until unbidden stay
then no sound
on all that strand
long no sound
until unbidden go
steps sole sound
long sole sound
on all that strand
at end of day

Thither

by Samuel Beckett

thither
a far cry
for one
so little
fair daffodils
march then

then there
then there

then thence
daffodils
again
march then
again
a far cry
again
for one
so little

away dream all away

But is it true love, in the rectum? That’s what bothers me sometimes. - Molloy

EXPERIENCE BENOIT PIOULARD: IT FEELS SO GOOD TO BE LO-FI

Enge is an EP by Benoit Pioulard, released in 2005 by Moodgadget. It was pressed on clear 7" vinyl, and limited to only 300 copies. Download it here.

couple tracks from his new one:

"Dtrusions Trout" - Benoît Pioulard (mp3)

"Ioupe" - Benoît Pioulard (mp3)

Précis is the debut full-length album by Benoit Pioulard, released by Kranky on October 16, 2006. Download it here.

MORE BECKETT LINKS TO SATIATE YOUR CURIOSITY

Beckett: An Outsider in His Own Life

Beckett, Still Stirring

I have always been amazed at my contemporaries’ lack of finesse, I whose soul writhed from morning to night, in the mere quest of itself.

Directing Samuel Beckett’s Film by Alan Schneider

Beckett at wikiquote

Beckett’s first postwar novel

Game Without End: Fintan O’Toole on SB

Beckett beyond biography

Bid us sigh on from day to day,
And wish and wish the soul away,
Till youth and genial years are flown,
And all the life of life is gone.

Colm Toibin on Beckett’s Irish actors

Stephen Spender on The Unnameable

When asked by an interviewer if he was English, Samuel Beckett is supposed to have replied, “Au contraire.”

Beckett at 100

Beckett film and video at UbuWeb

Leslie Fiedler on Murphy

Or I might be able to catch one, a little girl for example, and half strangle her, three quarters, until she promises to give me my stick, give me soup, empty my pots, kiss me, fondle me, smile to me, give me my hat, stay with me, follow the hearse weeping into her handkerchief, that would be nice. I am such a good man, at bottom, such a good man, how is it that nobody ever noticed it?

- Malone Dies

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOLLY

Molly liked Sunshine, why?

Resurrecting the dead on Planet Jupiter.

Do you find this funny?

Comments

[Molly Lambert]

happy birthday to YOU!

[willhubbard]

happy birthday to both of YOUS! Do you think you guys' parents did it on the same day? Why do I think Molly was a preemie and Alex late?