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?