h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello. As I can't send you a card or anything, I thought I'd pass on some poetry instead. I had intended to write you a birthday verse myself, but I've had no inspiration these past few days. I hope the ones I found appeal to you.

SWALLOW THE SKY, by Mervyn Peake.


Swallow the sky: chew up the stars
And munch the wind,

For it's on fire with indigestible glory.
The wild pips of the globe bring, in the end
Nothing but torture, but gorge on, my friend,
Swallow the moon, that hump-backed thing,
Your story...

Your story and the story of the world
The dread of the cold Universe itself
Sings in the heart-bone high:
Gulp the wild globe and spit it out again
Breaking apart the image of your pain
Swallow the sky!

From ART AS A WAY, by Frederick Franck.


Born innocent, one
--that's I--
strives hard to become
an adult, no longer childish,
worldly-wise
in one's art, one's love,
one's life...

Then discovers:
that no one ever
becomes an adult,
becomes either
delightfully childlike
or pitifully juvenile...

Discovers:
one's art to be outside the art game
one's faith to be outside the religious game
one's love to be outside the sex game.

Discovers:
one's own little song
and dares to sing it
in all variations,
unsuited as it may be
for mass communication...

For perhaps
here and there
someone will hear it
and listen
and know
and say

Ah!
Yes!

Oh, yes--I nearly forgot:



Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday, deeeaar Nyyyyxkiiind,
Happy birthday to you!

I know that wishing you a happy birthday is unlikely to cut the mustard with you today, but know that my thoughts are with you and I hope that your day goes as well as such a day can.

Happily out of tune...



Milla

Thank you, both.


Mervyn Peake's poem - I think - reflects some my own sentiments on life, the universe and everything, to coin a phrase...
And I don't know if just the CDs I've been listening to recently but I can imagine it perform all dark and angressive and sinister by the like of Coal Chamber...

Well another year, another blink of the eye.

Yes, I think Mervyn Peake is a very Coal Chamberish kind of guy. Or should that be the other way round...?

Ah, that would be an ecumenical question.

Feck.

A*se!

Um... girls?

Indeed.

Perhaps it's most simply they Coal Chamber are of a similar vein as Peake.

You've completely lost me, but I'm used to being lost. Hoping to be found one of these days.

Milla

We were quoting a character in Father Ted, a British sitcom about three useless Irish Catholic priests who live together on a remote little island.

And Coal Chamber are a band of metal.

You can continue quoting now!

Milla

Go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on, go on.

It's a great sitcom. Hope you get to see it someday.

Now dougal, these are small. but the ones out there are faaaar away.

[with regard to some cows]

I think that was my favourite line.

I wonder if it's too late for me to drop birthday-related hints about Father Ted DVD's....

Probably.