You know how it is - don't you? You're sitting there watching TV, mindlessly - in this case, a Doris Day movie with Oscar Levant in it (he doesn't get the girl - but, notably, he was the one who coined the infamous quote, "I knew Doris Day before she was a virgin"), when suddenly.
Just these things came into my mind, these - things. One was, how old is Johnny Depp anyway? He fell off a horse while playing Tonto and could have been kicked to death, and now there are rumors going around that he really is dead.
There were worse things, as Doris sang "You smile and I hear violins, it's magic. . ." with Oscar (needing the money no doubt) playing florally on the piano. Then these words sprang into my head: Harald Hardrada and Tostig. Surfeit. Popocatapetl. Along with them, meaningless bits of phrases: a surfeit of peaches and honey. Somebody died of it. And you know you'll never boil a kettle/on Mount Popocatapetl.
I found out something about some of it. Google seldom lets me down. Harald Hardrada was some sort of English king or whatever, really boring stuff. I kept coming across the word thegn, which sounded like someone with a really bad headcold. I still have an old satire called 1066 and All That, and remember some obscure English show called The Norman Conquest, starring, I think, a comedian called Norman Wisdom.
Tostig, he sounds kind of Scandinavian or Norse or something, one of them Vikings maybe? But I thought they got lost in North America.
But Popocatapetl, now. That one I thought I recognized, from a jolly Aztec-colored, magenta-and-turquoise little poem we chanted in school. About how you can't boil a kettle /on Mount Popocatapetl, likely due to the altitude which makes people walk 2 feet off the ground.
But I couldn't find it. I only found some shred of a reference to it that led to nothing: the search terms gave what might be the first line, teasingly: "My friend if you should want to go and make your"- and when I googled it I got a whole long post about William the Conqueror. Well, at least it sort of matched up with my Tostig thing.
Yes, that could very well have been the first line. But I was quite blown away by some of the poems and song lyrics Popocatapetl inspired, such as:
ROMANCE
by: W.J. Turner
HEN I was but thirteen or so
- I went into a golden land,
- Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
- Took me by the hand.
- My father died, my brother too,
- They passed like fleeting dreams,
- I stood where Popocatapetl
- In the sunlight gleams.
- I dimly heard the master's voice
- And boys far-off at play,
- Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
- Had stolen me away.
- I walked in a great golden dream
- To and fro from school--
- Shining Popocatapetl
- The dusty streets did rule.
- I walked home with a gold dark boy,
- And never a word I'd say,
- Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
- Had taken my speech away:
- I gazed entranced upon his face
- Fairer than any flower--
- O shining Popocatapetl
- It was thy magic hour:
- The houses, people, traffic seemed
- Thin fading dreams by day,
- Chimborazo, Cotopaxi
- They had stolen my soul away!
- I would assume this poem alludes to homoerotic love, hidden behind a mountain where it has a chance of staying hidden. But it occurs to me that those Aztec-sounding names are wonderful when inserted into poetry, not to mention Popocatapetl, its six syllables rising and falling symmetrically like ocean waves.
- But soft - here's a lovely song lyric by a group I've never heard of, Krux:
- In the eye in the heart in the flesh
In my mind all the time
Silver fountains golden castles made of ashes
Crimson tide blood like wine
Earth mother birth goddess
I love you like no other
Within you around you
A stream of fire inside you
Earth mother birth goddess
I love you like no other
Within you around you
I can't exist without you
Dream forever prince of nowhere man of shade
I cast my fire where I go
Tears and treason in my prison night and day
You destroyer of my soul
Earth mother birth godess
I love you like no other
Within you around you
A stream of fire inside you
Earth mother birth goddess
I love you like no other
Within you around you
I can't exist without you- And here, this one more:
Mexico: Popocatepetl, the Mountain Popocatepetl William Haines Lytle (1826–1863) (Excerpt)
PALE peak, afarGilds thy white pinnacle a single star, While sharply on the deep blue sky thy snows In deathlike calm repose. The nightingale 5 Through Mira Flores bowers repeats her tale, And every rose its perfumed censer swings With vesper offerings. But not for thee, Diademed king, this love-born minstrelsy, 10 Nor yet the tropic gales that gently blow Through these blessed vales below.
* * * * *Deep in thy heart Burn on vast fires, struggling to rend apart Their prison walls, and then in wrath be hurled 15 Blazing upon the world. In vain conspire Against thy majesty tempests and fire; The elemental wars of madness born, Serene, thou laugh’st to scorn. 20 Calm art thou now As when the Aztec, on thine awful brow, Gazed on some eve like this from Chalco’s shore, Where lives his name no more. And thou hast seen 25 Glitter in dark defiles the ominous sheen Of lances, and hast heard the battle-cry Of Castile’s chivalry. And yet again Hast seen strange banners steering o’er the main, 30 When from his eyrie soared to conquest forth The eagle of the North. Yet at thy feet, While rolling on, the tides of empire beat, Thou art, O mountain, on thy world-piled throne, 35 Of all, unchanged alone. Type of a power Supreme, thy solemn silence at this hour Speaks to the nations of the Almighty Word Which at thy birth was stirred. 40 Prophet sublime! Wide on the morning’s wings will float the chime Of martial horns; yet mid the din thy spell Shall sway me still,—farewell -
