Thursday 22 November 2007

The raptors are coming ...


In a lighter satirical moment, Splintered Sunrise has had fun with Mark Anthony's funeral speech from Julius Caesar.

I've done it before but I'm having another crack at Yeats's Second Coming:

Burning and burning in the widening gyre
The raptor cannot hear his conscience;
Principles fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of comradeship is drowned;
The best lack all conviction while the worst are full of passionate intensity and get to appear on Question Time.
Although the very worst stamp their little hobnails when they don't.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of
Socialist Worker
Troubles my sight: somewhere in the sands of the desert
A shape with ferret body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Westminster to be born?

9 comments:

splinteredsunrise said...

Oh, stop! I'll rupture something!

Would it be worth revisiting the Wicker Man?

Phil said...

Reading stuff like this really rams home what a cultural ignoramus I am, lol.

Madam Miaow said...

Wicker Man good.

It would prove an interesting cultural experiment if all the bloggers had a go.

An icepick to the winner. The sheriff to decide.

Louisefeminista said...

I keep having Wuthering Heights popping up into my head, for some obscure reason)...Bronte and Kate Bush...

Out on the wiley, windy moors
We'd roll and fall in green.
You had a temper like my jealousy:
Too hot, too greedy.
How could you leave me,
When I needed to possess you?
I hated you. I loved you, too.

Bad dreams in the night.
They told me I was going to lose the fight,

Georgie, it's me--Johnny.
Come home. I'm so cold!
Let me in-a-your window.

Georgie, it's me--Johnny.
Come home. I'm so cold!
Let me in-a-your window.



Maybe not............

Unknown said...

Oh you literary ladies! I thought the SSP row might have inspired a hybrid between Shakespear's Macbeth and of course Sheridan "A School for Scandal".

But anything involving Georgeous George must be hard to satirise. I mean if you did not know he existed you'd say the character was OTT.

I think I'll have to risk revealing my limited cultural resources by suggesting an episode or East Enders or perhaps a spin-off series, though when it comes to Galloway and Rees there's the problem of finding actots as unbelievable as the characters they play.

Louisefeminista said...

"and of course Sheridan "A School for Scandal".

Sorry..lowering the tone here and being prosaic but was thinking more The Oldest Swinger in Town to describe Tommy lad.

Madam Miaow said...

Love Wuthering Heights, Louise. It fits!

Let's give it a week or two and I'll feature all in a blog.

Karl-Marx-Straße said...

You're using Shakespeare and Milton, I've used the crystal ball that is the internet to analyse the Respect split. Result: Lindsey German out campaigning on a unicycle in New York cemetery, slaying God; Galloway and friends, hmm... dancing, with Ken Loach maybe dressed up as a fish.

You can't get more scientific than that. No wonder the SWP wanted to ban the internet.
http://karlmarxstrasse.blogsport.de/2007/11/26/respect-the-final-neutral-verdict-ismeet-my-pets/

Madam Miaow said...

A unicycle, fish and vampires. Sounds about right, Karl Marx St.

Yet another bizarre and surreal waste of time and energy by The Party. Now on to the Next Big Thang ...

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