Romeo and Juliet (1968)

                                  

                 Romeo and Juliet  (1968)

Like others’ positive comments about this film in which I concur with completely; it made me feel like a teenager once again. Though I missed it watching in school, I personally watched it at home to curiously experience the movie. And so I was most taken by the superficial aspects of this almost overblown production: the beauty of both actors playing the title roles, whose many photos soon adorned my monitor; the rich costumes; and the resounding music; but of course I was caught up as well by the lines of Shakespeare, the ancient setting, and the high levels of action and emotion. Now, four decades of life have passed, and I have thought that their world is so different from us of 1968. To compare our Filipino Films with this film, the movie captured the visual and audio clarity that we seldom see in our very old films. And I did feel a little defensive about the elements of the film that now seemed dated, or overdone. Yet soon, I was caught up in the eternal story of doomed lovers, played by authentically young actors, and then to the end there was silence. And I was utterly moved, beyond anything I remember feeling at 14; the waste of two young happy lives seemed even harder to bear now, much more tragic than when I was their age. Then I came to realization that adolescents truly do feel immortal, and that therefore this story did not seem as real to me then as it does now. Obviously a classic, this is a film that becomes even richer with time; it should be seen by today's youth.

MALICE by: Danielle Steel (Book trailer)

I've made a book trailer about a very interesting book. I hope through this book trailer, I could encourage you to read a good story which is one of the collections of Danielle Steel "Malice".
The book cover looks dull and pretty boring and from the title itself, you could readily say that its a love story, but I was shocked while I was reading it, coz there's more to that!
I enjoyed the thrills, the heart warming scenes and the DRAMA!

This book will really crush your heart, even your soul :)))

Enjoy!

14TH CENTURY "THE MEDIEVAL"

Ever wonder what's life in the past? in Italy specifically.

Ever wonder what kind of trend do they follow and what makes ancient people's lives go round?

Ever wonder what romantic stuffs occur in their time?

Today, we talk about the past as we explore again the happenings in the 14th century.

Let me take you to their interesting and different world of Medieval, where you can imagine the unexpected.

Let your thoughts fly back on the wings of their time.

So whenever you're ready...... Scroll down and Learn :)

The Medieval

DAILY LIFE Contrary to popular legend, medieval man loved baths. People probably bathed more than they did in the 19th century. Some castles had a special room beside the kitchen where the ladies might bathe sociably in parties. Hot water, sometimes with perfume or rose leaves, was brought to the lord in the bedchamber and poured into a tub shaped like a half-barrel and containing a stool, so that the occupant could sit and soak long. In the cities there were public baths, or "stews" for the populace. Bath and board; Tristan, Paris, 1494-95. Soap was probably invented in the Orient and brought to the West early in the Middle Ages. This was a soft soap without much detergent power. Generally it was made in the manorial workshops, of accumulated mutton fat, wood ash or potash, and natural soda. Laundresses might also use a solution of lye and fuller's earth or white clay. They worked usually by streamside, rhythmically beating the material with wooden paddles. After the winter's freeze they had a great spring washing of the accumulations. It was on such an occasion in the Merry Wives of Windsor that Falstaff hid in the laundry basket. Hard soaps appeared in the 12th century. Shaving was difficult, painful, and infrequent, since the soap was inefficient and razors, which looked like carving knives and perhaps substituted for them at need, were likely to be old and dull. Even haircutting was disagreeable. Scissors were of the one-piece squeeze type, similar to grass trimming shears; they must have pulled mightily. Although by the thirteenth century a few aristocrats had tooth brushes, the toilet of the teeth was generally accomplished by rubbing with a green hazel twig and wiping with a woolen cloth.  Food and Drink

        `   

In the castle kitchen the cook and his staff turned the meat - pork, beef, mutton, poultry, game - on a spit and prepared stews and soups ingreat iron cauldrons hung over the fire on a hook and chain that could be raised and lowered to regulate the temperature. Boiled meat was lifted out of the pot with an iron meat hook, a long fork with a wooden handle and prongs attached to the side. Soup was stirred with a long-handled slotted spoon.

This illustration from The Lutrell Psalter shows both a meat hook and a slotted spoon.

Meat preservation was by salting or smoking, or, most commonly and simply, by keeping the meat alive till needed. Salting was done by two methods. Dry-salting meant burying the meat in a bed of salt pounded to a powder with mortar and pestle. Brine-curing consisted of immersing the meat in a strong salt solution. Before cooking, the salted meat had to be soaked and rinsed.

In addition to roasting and stewing, meat might be pounded to a paste, mixed with other ingredients, and served as a kind of custard. A dish of this kind was blankmanger, consisting of a paste of chicken blended with rice boiled in almond milk, seasoned with sugar, cooked until very thick, and garnished with fried almonds and anise. Another was mortrews, of fish or meat that was pounded, mixed with bread crumbs, stock, and eggs, and poached, producing a kind of quenelle, or dumpling. Both meat and fish were also made into pies, pasties, and fritters.

Sauces were made from herbs from the castle garden that were ground to a paste, mixed with wine, verjuice (the juice of unripe grapes), vinegar, onions, ginger, pepper, saffron, cloves, and cinnamon. Mustard, a favorite ingredient, was used by the gallon.

In Lent or on fast days fish was served fresh from the castle's own pond, from a nearby river, or from the sea, nearly always with a highly seasoned sauce. Salt or smoked herring was a staple, as were salted or dried cod or stockfish. Fresh herring, flavored with ginger, pepper, and cinnamon, might be made into a pie. Other popular fish included mullet, shad, sole, flounder, plaice, ray, mackeral, salmon, and trout. Sturgeon, whale, and porpoise were rare seafood delicacies, the first two "royal fish," fit for kings and queens. Pike, crab, crayfish, oysters, and eels were also favorites.

The most common vegetables, besides onions and garlic, were peas and beans. Staples of the diet of the poor, for the rich they might be served with onions and saffron. Honey, commonly used for sweetening, came from castle or manor beas; fruit from the castle orchard - apples, pears, plums, and peaches - was supplemented by wild fruits and nuts from the lord's wood. In addition to these local products, there were imported luxuries such as sugar (including a special kind made with roses and violets), rice, almonds, figs, dates, raisins, oranges, and pomegranates, purchased in town or at the fairs. Ordinary sugar was bought by the loaf and had to be pounded; powdered white sugar was more expensive.

At mealtimes, servants set up the trestle tables and spread the cloths, setting steel knives, silver spoons, dishes for salt, silver cups, and mazers - shallow silver-rimmed wooden bowls. At each place was a trencher or manchet, a thick slice of day-old bread serving as a plate for the roast meat. Meals were announced by a horn blown to signal time for washing hands. Servants with ewers, basins, and towels attended the guests.

At the table, seating followed status: The most important guests were at the high table, with the loftiest place reserved for an ecclesiastical dignitary, the second for the ranking layman. After grace, the procession of servants bearing food began.

The solid parts of soups and stews were eaten with a spoon, the broth sipped. Meat was cut up with the knife and eaten with the fingers. Two persons shared a dish, the lesser helping the more important, the younger the older, the man the woman. The former in each case broke the bread, cut the meat, and passed the cup.

Etiquette books admonished diners not to leave the spoon in the dish or put elbows on the table, not to belch, not to drink or eat with their mouths full, not to stuff their mouths or take overly large helpings. Not surprisingly,in light of the finger-eating and dish-sharing, stress was laid on keeping hands and nails scrupulously clean, wiping spoon and knife after use, wiping the mouth before drinking, and not dipping meat in the salt dish.

An everyday dinner, served between 10:00 A.M. and noon, comprised two or three courses, each of several separate dishes, all repeating the same kinds of food except the last course, which consisted of fruits, nuts, cheese, wafers, and spiced wine.

Pleasure and Pastime

 

Inns appeared in England in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, and were apparently fairly common, especially in towns, by the fifteenth century. While inns provided lodgings for travelers, taverns were drinking houses seeking to cater for the more prosperous levels of society. A tavern of the later Medieval period might be imagined as a fairly substantial building of several rooms and a generous cellar. Taverns had signs to advertise their presence to potential customers, and branches and leaves would be hung over the door to give notice that wine could be purchased. Some taverns sold wine as their only beverage, and a customer could also purchase food brought in from a convenient cook-shop. Taverns seldom offered lodgings or very elaborate feasting, such as would be expected at inns. Pastimes like gambling, singing, and seeking prostitutes were a more common part of the tavern scene.

The favorite adult recreation of the villagers was undoubtedly drinking. Both men and women gathered in the "tavern," usually meaning the house of a neighbor who had recently brewed a batch of ale, cheap at the established price of three gallons for a penny. There they passed the evening like modern villagers visiting the local pub. Accidents, quarrels, and acts of violence sometimes followed a session of drinking, in the thirteenth century as well as subsequent ones. Some misadventures may be deduced from the terse manorial court records.

Miracles Many medieval miracles centered around the belief in the power of the Virgin Mary, who favored those who paid devotion to her. When famine struck a monastery dedicated to the Virgin, the abbot bade the monks to pray to Her all night. The next morning the barns were filled to overflowing, and this miracle occurred several years running. A popular medieval story concerned a Flemish monk who was painting a picture of heaven and hell on the portals of his abbey. He was engaged in portraying the devil as hideously as possible when His Satanic Majesty, appearing in person, begged the monk to paint him as a young and handsome man. The monk refused and the angry Devil pulled away the scaffold on which the artist was working. But as the monk fell, a statue of the Virgin, in a niche below the portal, stretched out her arms and held him in safety until help arrived. A version of the miracle described above is illustrated in the 13th century manuscript of the Cántigas of Alfonso X: "How a painter painted a very beautiful image of St. Mary and an ugly one of the devil. How the devil appeared to the painter and threatened him for painting him ugly."

"How the painter painted an image of St. Mary on top of the vault. How the devil destroyed the scaffold, but the painter remained suspended on the painting."

"How the people came and saw the painter suspended and the devil fleeing. How all the people gave thanks to St. Mary for the miracle she had done."

Medieval Romance

Medieval times often evoke images of knights battling on muddy fields, dank and dreary castles, hunger, plagues-in general, a lot of rather depressing scenes…
…but these Dark Ages also witnessed the birth of a romantic movement.

Women in the Middle Ages were usually treated as property. While medieval country marriages were often the result of love, marriage among the noble class was more a business transaction than the culmination of ardent feelings. But knights returning from the crusades had learned a few things from their adversaries, who revered their women. Passion was considered sinful to 11th and 12th century moralists, but these ideals were slowly being worn away with the rituals of courtly love.

Secret rituals of Romance developed where women-long the loser in a double standard of adultery condoned among men-found champions who would fight in their honor. Courtly love became the subject of some of the most famous medieval poems, and where we get today's word, "Courtesy." 

Medieval Clothing

From the 11th through the 13th centuries, medieval clothing varied according to the social standing of the people. The clothing worn by nobility and upper classes was clearly different than that of the lower class.

The clothing of peasants during the Middle Ages was very simple, while the clothing of nobility was fitted with a distinct emphasis on the sleeves of the garments. Knights adorned themselves with sleeveless "surcoats" covered with a coat of arms. Barbarian nomads wore clothing made of fur, wool, and leather. They wore long trousers, some of which had attached feet. Fine leather shoes were also worn. Imports such as turbans and silks from the East were common for the more fortunate of society.

 

As with today, clothing styles of medieval men changed periodically. At the end of the 13th century, the once loose and flowing tunics became tighter fitting. Besides tunics, the men also wore undershirts and briefs covered by a sleeveless jacket and an additional tunic. Stockings completed the ensemble. Men's medieval clothing also consisted of cloaks with a round opening that was slipped over the man's head. Such cloaks were worn over other clothing as a type of "jacket".

                              

Early medieval women's clothing consisted of "kirtles", which were tunics worn to their ankles. These tunics were often worn over a shirt. When the women were in public, they often topped the tunics with an even shorter "kirtle." Of course the more affluent women wore more luxurious clothing than those of the less affluent lifestyle. Women, especially those who were married, wore tight-fitting caps and nets over their hair, which was wound in a "bun" on their heads. Other women wore veils over their hair, which was left either hanging loosely, or braided tightly.

Medieval Education

Medieval education was often conducted under the auspices of the Church. During the 800s, French ruler Charlemagne realized his empire needed educated people if it was to survive, and he turned to the Catholic Church as the source of such education. His decree commanded that every cathedral and monastery was to establish a school to provide a free education to every boy who had the intelligence and the perseverance to follow a demanding course of study.

                   

Grammar, rhetoric, logic, Latin, astronomy, philosophy and mathematics formed the core of most curriculums. During the Dark Ages, the only natural science learned came from popular encyclopedias based on ancient writings of Pliny and other Roman sources. The medieval student might learn that hyenas can change their sex at will and that an elephant's only fear is of dragons. Students learned more when they ventured out into the countryside to talk with trappers, hunters, furriers and poachers, who spent their time observing wildlife.

 

Medieval students often sat together on the floor, scrawling notes from lessons using a bone or ivory stylus on wooden tablets coated with green or black wax. Knights were also educated and looked down upon if they could not read and write. Girls were virtually ignored when it came to education. Only daughters of the very rich and powerful were allowed to attend select courses.

 At 14 or 15, some scholars would continue education at a university. These were a creation of the Middle Ages and could be found in larger European cities. Wars and invasions often halted studies, but these universities would reemerge during the later Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The cap and gown that college graduates wear today have their roots in medieval academic garments.

Edward Field - "My current favorite poet"

Edward Field

Born: 1932

Residence: Marietta, Georgia

Ideology: White supremacy, anti-Semitism, anti-Communism

Publication: The Truth At Last (formerly The Thunderbolt)

Affiliations: National Alliance (since 2003), Council of Conservative Citizens. Previously affiliated with: The Columbians; The Anti-Jewish Party; National States Rights Party; New Order; Knights of the KKK; America First Party

Influences: Julius Streicher, Eugene Talmadge (segregationist Georgia governor), J.B. Stoner

Works: Jews Behind Race Mixing (pamphlet); The Jew Comes to America (introduction); Was There Really a Holocaust? (pamphlet); What World Famous Men Said about the Jews (pamphlet); The Jewish Origins of Communism(booklet)

Notable for: Impressive networking among extreme right and racist organizations

On June 7, 1924, Edward Field was born in Brooklyn, New York. He grew up on Long Island, where he played cello in the Field Family Trio over radio station WGBB. During World War II, he flew twenty-five missions over Europe. After a short time at New York University, where he first met Alfred Chester. He travelled to Europe in 1946 and focused seriously on his writing; he returned to the United States in 1948.

In 1956, after brief stints working in a warehouse, in art production, as a machinist, and as a clerk-typist, Field began studying acting with Russian émigré Vera Soloviova of the Moscow Art Theatre. He applied the techniques he learned to reading poetry in public, and was able to support himself in this way throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

Field has taught workshops at the Poetry Center of the YMHA, Sarah Lawrence, and other colleges. His books of poetry include After The Fall: Poems Old and New (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2007); Magic Words: Poems (Harcourt, 1997); Counting Myself Lucky: Selected Poems 1963-1992 (1992); New and Selected Poems from the Book of My Life (1987); A Full Heart (1977), nominated for the Lenore Marshall Prize; and Stand Up, Friend, with Me(1963), which was the 1962 Lamont Poetry Selection of The Academy of American Poets.

Field has edited anthologies of poetry, translated Eskimo songs and stories, and written the narration for the documentary film To Be Alive, which won an Academy Award for best documentary short subject in 1965. He is the editor of The Alfred Chester Newsletter and has prepared several volumes of Chester's work for Black Sparrow Press. Field has also collaborated on several popular novels with Neil Derrick, under the joint pseudonym of Bruce Elliot. Although Field makes regular trips to Europe, his permanent residence is in New York City.

Other Relevant Information about Field

Edward Field recounts his life in his poetry. He portrays himself as an aging New York Jewish gay poet who likes plants, traveling, and popular culture and never got enough sex and companionship though he now gets more of the latter. The short version of his life is told in "Bio" (Counting Myself Lucky, 1992); the long version is the sum of all of his poems. 

The critical discussion of Field centers on two issues, his diction and the confessional nature of his poetry. Field's diction is straightforward and "unpoetic." He does not seem to force the language into producing special effects, nor does he require his readers to have arcane knowledge. 

He was asked to do a children's book of translations of Eskimo poetry (Eskimo Songs and Stories, 1973) because, he explains in "Bio," "I was the only poet they could find, they said / whose poetry was understandable by ten-year-olds." Some readers find that this plainness produces immediacy and honesty, whereas others find it bland and clichéd. 

As for his honesty, Field seems to have no inhibitions regarding what he tells his readers. Some critics find this openness brave and engaging, an indication that Field regards his readers as friends. Others wish that Field were more reticent. 

Field's development as a gay poet can be traced throughout his volumes. Apart from a sexually explicit version of the Ruth and Naomi story, which has not appeared in either of his collections of selected poems, and "Ode to Fidel Castro," there are few explicit references to homosexuality in his first book Stand Up Friend With Me (1963), which won the Lamont Poetry Selection for 1962. 

There are, however, two types of poems in this book in which homosexuality forms the obvious subtext. One is Field's animal poems. In "Donkeys," for example, the animals: 

do not own their bodies;

And if they had their own way, I am sure

That they would sit in a field of flowers

Kissing each other, and maybe

They would even invite us to join them. 

The other homoerotic poems are about Sonny Hugg, a boyhood friend of Field. In these poems ("Sonny Hugg Rides Again," "Sonny Hugg and the Porcupine," and "The Sleeper"), Field looks up to Sonny the athletic, aggressive boy who inexplicably likes Field. Sonny also has his vulnerable, sensitive side. 

In Variety Photoplays (1967), Field uses popular culture, primarily films but also comics and other forms, as one of his principal sources of inspiration. In "Sweet Gwendolyn and the Countess" and "Nancy," there is lesbian material. The only explicitly gay male poem is "Graffiti," a story about a glory hole. 

But homoeroticism informs the wonderful "Giant Pacific Octopus," in which an octopus seen in a pet store becomes in Field's imagination a "boychik" with "the body of a greek god" who "will stay, one night or a lifetime, / for as long as god will let you have him." 

In A Full Heart (1977), Field came out fully as a gay poet in genial poems that are of a piece with his other work. Field's gay manifesto is "The Two Orders of Love." In this poem, he sees homosexuality as natural as heterosexuality and as necessary: 

Nature needs both to do its work

and humankind, confusing two separate orders of love

makes rules allowing only one kind

and defies the universe. 

In "David's Dream," Field gives a typical self-deprecating portrait of himself as one who is "no fun. / I talk liberation / but my actions show otherwise." In "Street Instructions: At the Crotch," he portrays the sexually unrepressed person he would like to be. 

New and Selected Poems (1987) contains fewer explicitly gay poems than the preceding volume, but by this time Field has established his persona as a gay man well enough that all of his poems read as meditations on life from a gay standpoint. 

Counting Myself Lucky (1992) also contains selections from his previous books as well as new poems. In this volume, growing older as a gay man becomes a primary concern. 

Field's gay poems tend to fall into a few categories. The poems about sex are often wry and resigned, but sometimes playful and sexy, as, for example, "The Moving Man" in Winston Leyland's anthology Angels of the Lyre (1975). 

In addition, there are poems in praise of relationships and poems of regret about the suppression of his homosexuality when he was young, the cost of which still is coming home to him as he grows older, as is clear in "World Traveler." 

There are also a few political poems such as "Two Orders of Love" and "Oh, the Gingkos." In the latter, John Lindsay is described as a mayor no one liked, but who not only had trees planted in New York City, he also "stopped the police from raiding gay bars." 

Field's poetry is a pleasurable and valuable account of coming to terms with homosexuality in the literary world of New York in the second half of the twentieth century.

-Biography by: Terrence Johnson

Some Poems by Edward Field

The Farewell

They say the ice will hold

so there I go,
forced to believe them by my act of trusting people,
stepping out on it,

and naturally it gaps open
and I, forced to carry on coolly
by my act of being imperturbable,
slide erectly into the water wearing my captain's helmet,
waving to the shore with a sad smile,
"Goodbye my darlings, goodbye dear one,"
as the ice meets again over my head with a click.

Frankenstein

The monster has escaped from the dungeon
where he was kept by the Baron,
who made him with knobs sticking out from each side of his neck
where the head was attached to the body
and stitching all over
where parts of cadavers were sewed together.

He is pursued by the ignorant villagers,
who think he is evil and dangerous because he is ugly
and makes ugly noises.
They wave firebrands at him and cudgels and rakes,
but he escapes and comes to the thatched cottage
of an old blind man playing on the violin Mendelssohn's "Spring Song."

Hearing him approach, the blind man welcomes him:
"Come in, my friend," and takes him by the arm.
"You must be weary," and sits him down inside the house.
For the blind man has long dreamed of having a friend
to share his lonely life.

The monster has never known kindness ‹ the Baron was cruel --
but somehow he is able to accept it now,
and he really has no instincts to harm the old man,
for in spite of his awful looks he has a tender heart:
Who knows what cadaver that part of him came from?

The old man seats him at table, offers him bread,
and says, "Eat, my friend." The monster
rears back roaring in terror.
"No, my friend, it is good. Eat -- gooood"
and the old man shows him how to eat,
and reassured, the monster eats
and says, "Eat -- gooood,"
trying out the words and finding them good too.

The old man offers him a glass of wine,
"Drink, my friend. Drink -- gooood."
The monster drinks, slurping horribly, and says,
"Drink -- gooood," in his deep nutty voice
and smiles maybe for the first time in his life.

Then the blind man puts a cigar in the monster's mouth
and lights a large wooden match that flares up in his face.
The monster, remembering the torches of the villagers,
recoils, grunting in terror.
"No, my friend, smoke -- gooood,"
and the old man demonstrates with his own cigar.
The monster takes a tentative puff
and smiles hugely, saying, "Smoke -- gooood,"
and sits back like a banker, grunting and puffing.

Now the old man plays Mendelssohn's "Spring Song" on the violin
while tears come into our dear monster s eyes
as he thinks of the stones of the mob the pleasures of meal-time,
the magic new words he has learned
and above all of the friend he has found.

It is just as well that he is unaware --
being simple enough to believe only in the present --
that the mob will find him and pursue him
for the rest of his short unnatural life,
until trapped at the whirlpool's edge
he plunges to his death.

The Bride of Frankenstein

The Baron has decided to mate the monster,
to breed him perhaps,
in the interests of pure science, his only god.

So he goes up into his laboratory
which he has built in the tower of the castle
to be as near the interplanetary forces as possible,
and puts together the prettiest monster-woman you ever saw
with a body like a pin-up girl
and hardly any stitching at all
where he sewed on the head of a raped and murdered beauty queen.

He sets his liquids burping, and coils blinking and buzzing,
and waits for an electric storm to send through the equipment
the spark vital for life.
The storm breaks over the castle
and the equipment really goes crazy
like a kitchen full of modern appliances
as the lightning juice starts oozing right into that pretty corpse.

He goes to get the monster
so he will be right there when she opens her eyes,
for she might fall in love with the first thing she sees as ducklings do.
That monster is already straining at his chains and slurping,
ready to go right to it:
He has been well prepared for coupling
by his pinching leering keeper who's been saying for weeks,
"Ya gonna get a little nookie, kid,"
or "How do you go for some poontang, baby?"
All the evil in him is focused on this one thing now
as he is led into her very presence.

She awakens slowly,
she bats her eyes,
she gets up out of the equipment,
and finally she stands in all her seamed glory,
a monster princess with a hairdo like a fright wig,
lightning flashing in the background
like a halo and a wedding veil,
like a photographer snapping pictures of great moments.

She stands and stares with her electric eyes,
beginning to understand that in this life too
she was just another body to be raped.

The monster is ready to go:
He roars with joy at the sight of her,
so they let him loose and he goes right for those knockers.
And she starts screaming to break your heart
and you realize that she was just born:
In spite of her big tits she was just a baby.

But her instincts are right --
rather death than that green slobber:
She jumps off the parapet.
And then the monster's sex drive goes wild.
Thwarted, it turns to violence, demonstrating sublimation crudely;
and he wrecks the lab, those burping acids and buzzing coils,
overturning the control panel so the equipment goes off like a bomb,
and the stone castle crumbles and crashes in the storm
destroying them all . . . perhaps.

Perhaps somehow the Baron got out of that wreckage of his dreams
with his evil intact, if not his good looks,
and more wicked than ever went on with his thrilling career.
And perhaps even the monster lived
to roam the earth, his desire still ungratified;
and lovers out walking in shadowy and deserted places
will see his shape loom up over them, their doom --
and children sleeping in their beds
will wake up in the dark night screaming
as his hideous body grabs them.

The Return of Frankenstein

He didn't die in the whirlpool by the mill
where he had fallen in after a wild chase
by all the people of the town.

Somehow he clung to an overhanging rock
until the villagers went away.

And when he came out, he was changed forever,
that soft heart of his had hardened
and he really was a monster now.

He was out to pay them back,
to throw the lie of brotherly love
in their white Christian teeth.

Wasn't his flesh human flesh
even made from the bodies of criminals,
the worst the Baron could find?

But love is not necessarily implicit in human flesh:
Their hatred was now his hatred,

so he set out on his new career
his previous one being the victim,
the good man who suffers.

Now no longer the hunted but the hunter
he was in charge of his destiny
and knew how to be cold and clever,

preserving barely a spark of memory
for the old blind musician
who once took him in and offered brotherhood.

His idea -- if his career now had an idea --
was to kill them all,
keep them in terror anyway,
let them feel hunted.
Then perhaps they would look at others
with a little pity and love.

Only a suffering people have any virtue.










Unwanted



The poster with my picture on it
Is hanging on the bulletin board in the Post Office.

I stand by it hoping to be recognized
Posing first full face and then profile

But everybody passes by and I have to admit
The photograph was taken some years ago.

I was unwanted then and I'm unwanted now
Ah guess ah'll go up echo mountain and crah.

I wish someone would find my fingerprints somewhere
Maybe on a corpse and say, You're it.

Description: Male, or reasonably so
White, but not lily-white and usually deep-red

Thirty-fivish, and looks it lately
Five-feet-nine and one-hundred-thirty pounds: no physique

Black hair going gray, hairline receding fast
What used to be curly, now fuzzy

Brown eyes starey under beetling brow
Mole on chin, probably will become a wen

It is perfectly obvious that he was not popular at school
No good at baseball, and wet his bed.

His aliases tell his history: Dumbell, Good-for-nothing,
Jewboy, Fieldinsky, Skinny, Fierce Face, Greaseball, Sissy.

Warning: This man is not dangerous, answers to any name
Responds to love, don't call him or he will come. 







Curse of the Cat Woman

It sometimes happens
that the woman you meet and fall in love with
is of that strange Transylvanian people
with an affinity for cats.

You take her to a restuarant, say, or a show,
on an ordinary date, being attracted
by the glitter in her slitty eyes and her catlike walk,
and afterwards of course you take her in your arms
and she turns into a black panther
and bites you to death.

Or perhaps you are saved in the nick of time
and she is tormented by the knowledge of her tendency:
That she daren't hug a man
unless she wants to risk clawing him up.

This puts you both in a difficult position--
panting lovers who are prevented from touching
not by bars but by circumstance:
You have terrible fights and say cruel things
for having the hots does not give you a sweet temper.

One night you are walking down a dark street
And hear the pad-pad of a panther following you,
but when you turn around there are only shadows,
or perhaps one shadow too many.

You approach, calling, "Who's there?"
and it leaps on you.
Luckily you have brought along your sword
and you stab it to death.

And before your eyes it turns into the woman you love,
her breast impaled on your sword,
her mouth dribbling blood saying she loved you
but couldn't help her tendency.

So death released her from the curse at last,
and you knew from the angelic smile on her dead face
that in spite of a life the devil owned,
love had won, and heaven pardoned her. 




















Edward Field sums up his life as seen through photos of himself from infancy to age.