To say much using few words, and those few words having an elegance to it.
This is it.
It is one of the most eloquent descriptions of Jesus Christ’s first miracle of turning water into wine –
The conscious water saw its Master and blushed.
I’m not too sure who the original author is, it is at various time attributed to Alexander Pope or John Dryden.
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock by T. S. Eliot must be ‘attempted’ to be read at least once in one’s lifetime. If you can figure it out, that’s just as well too. The part I enjoyed most is the terrific imagery of the feline of the species, the regular cat, in the extract below –
The yellow fog that rubs its back upon the window-panes,
The yellow smoke that rubs its muzzle on the window-panes
Licked its tongue into the corners of the evening,
Lingered upon the pools that stand in drains,
Let fall upon its back the soot that falls from chimneys,
Slipped by the terrace, made a sudden leap,
And seeing that it was a soft October night,
Curled once about the house, and fell asleep.
And indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
In the room the women come and go
Talking of Michelangelo.
And indeed there will be time
To wonder, “Do I dare?” and, “Do I dare?”
Time to turn back and descend the stair,
With a bald spot in the middle of my hair—
(They will say: “How his hair is growing thin!”)
My morning coat, my collar mounting firmly to the chin,
My necktie rich and modest, but asserted by a simple pin—
(They will say: “But how his arms and legs are thin!”)
Do I dare
Disturb the universe?
In a minute there is time
For decisions and revisions which a minute will reverse.
While I don’t necessarily subscribe to the theology or even the ideology of the poem, it is an interesting poem no doubt of a stubborn ‘unconquerable soul’ 🙂
Invictus
Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the Pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll.
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.
Some poems have the ability to inspire & strengthen. If by Rudyard Kipling is one of those poems I have never tired of reading…
If
IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!
I love the poem Pied Beauty by Gerard Manley Hopkins. There is a lyrical quality about it which makes it beautiful – enjoy!
GLORY be to God for dappled things—
For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;
For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;
Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;
Landscape plotted and pieced—fold, fallow, and plough;
And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.
All things counter, original, spare, strange;
Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)
With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;
He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:
Praise Him.
O Jargon – how do I hate thee? Let me count the ways…
If I could leverage you out of my life per se, I would.
If I could optimise you to gain strategic realignment maybe I should.
If I could just throw you above the line –
Or have you grounded below the line,
And get you to remove your game plan which has no synergy with mine.
Your perspective doesn’t quite add up,
Especially when you articulate a meaningless framework.
Your vertical has a slant to it, like the Leaning Tower of Pisa.
So stop thinking outside the box –
Use it to collect low hanging fruit or catch a fox.
You are not superman so don’t bother trying to build the plane as you fly it.
Paradigm shifted a long time ago when you were not looking
&
The business model too.
Come on get intuitive about the bigger picture.
Ditch the elevator pitch.
Go on a deep dive to Maldives instead & let’s touch base when you are back.
Get off your high horse & start from ground reality.
You’ve been on the drawing board for way too long.
So ramp up, sync up & circle back,
So we can see the deliverable before the light.
It takes two to tango you see,
And at the end of the day…it’s night.
Global warming going on so please don’t boil the ocean single-handedly,
Try immersing yourself in it instead.
The bottom line is eroding & the scenario is changing, gotta gain traction.
Let’s put a hard stop to the dynamics & submit a plan of action.
The key takeaway is let the workstreams dry, but let the data points be.
It’s never too late to go to market & stay ahead of the curve you see.
P.S. If you didn’t understand…that’s great! 🙂
And as you can see, writing poetry is not one of my core competencies!
wingrish 