And the bird descended.
On a bread white hill over the cupped farm
And the lakes and the floating fields and the river wended
Vales where he prayed to come to the last harm
And the home of prayers and fires, the tale ended.
The dancing perishes
On the white, no longer growing green, and, minstrel dead,
The singing breaks in the snow shoed villages of wishes
That once cut the figures of birds on the deep bread
And over the glazed lakes skated the shapes of fishes
Flying. The rite is shorn
Of nightingale and centaur dead horse. The springs wither
Back. Lines of age sleep on the stones till trumpeting dawn.
Exultation lies down. Time buries the spring weather
That belled and bounded with the fossil and the dew reborn.
For the bird lay bedded
In a choir of wings, as though she slept or died,
And the wings glided wide and he was hymned and wedded,
And through the thighs of the engulfing bride,
The woman breasted and the heaven headed
Bird, he was brought low,
Burning in the bride bed of love, in the whirl-
Pool at the wanting centre, in the folds
Of paradise, in the spun bud of the world.
And she rose with him flowering in her melting snow.
Dylan Thomas A Winter's Tale
The chant was loud: "Hit me with your handbag, hit me with your handbag." All around him there were a hundred or so kids, all keeping up the chant, all whooping and jeering. There wasn't a teacher in sight. The school yard had never seemed more desolate, or more frightening. He was on the ground. His principal antagonist, an astonishingly handsome boy called Mark, kept hitting and punching him as hard as he could. He had curled into a defensive ball, and the blows rained down upon him as the wild, distorted crowd kept up their jeering.
It was his worst day at school. It cemented his place as the weird little kid who couldn't fight and was probably a poofter. The blows rained down and he retreated even further into that place he was building deep inside himself, where no one could get to. The lunch hour had begun ordinarily enough. They spilled out of their demountable class rooms on to the flat sandy soil reclaimed from the surrounding swamps. Pittwater High, it was called, and they all called it Ditchwater. It was a soulless, spiritless, appalling place where even the teachers seemed to be dying from lack of enthusiasm.
The kids swirled and their bodies grew and every single day was a nightmare to be endured. He felt wrong in his school uniform and wrong in his body and most certainly wrong in this terrible place; waiting for life to happen, waiting for his opportunity to escape. He argued with everybody. He didn't want a second rate education, but that was exactly what he was getting. And the chant went up: "Hit me with your hand bag, hit me with your hand bag." He had exited the last class before lunch, and moved to hang with his other nerdy mates, Malcolm, Nick Minchin, who was later to become a leading light in the Liberal Party and a Finance Minister in the Howard government.
But back then they were just the odd kids who, worst of all, did well in class and didn't like football. But it started almost as soon as he exited the demountable. Mark and his gang moved cut him out of the crowd, and as he moved into the larger playground kept up their taunts, "Hey poofter, hit me with your handbag." His books, he was always carrying books, fell to the ground as he tried to escape Mark's first attack, as he came in and punched him heavily in the face.
He was flabbergasted. He had no particular beef with this guy. They had played tip footie on the same or opposing sides for years. But here it was, full on, as he came in swinging, pounding away at his body, his head. "Fight you little c..., fight poofter," he shouted. And his gang kept up the chorus: "Hit me with your handbag, hit me with your handbag". He wasn't a fighter, he had never fought in his life. He wasn't a surfie, hanging down the beach and getting the girls, unlike his tormentor. And the blows rained down and the chant kept going and a hundred kids from the playground rushed to watch the drama.
It was so unexpected, so fearsome, so lacking in logic, and the blows rained down and the punches and kicks just kept on coming. At first he tried to defend himself, appalled and embarrassed by what was happening. His so-called friends, suddenly, were nowhere to be seen. This was one he had to fight on his own. Then there were two, three, four of them, all punching him and kicking him and the blows rained down as if it would last forever.
Finally, how long was it, a teacher intervened and the crowd scattered reluctantly, and he stood to his feet, tearful, bruised, bleeding in parts. This was his worst day, his greatest ignominy. Even with a teacher they flung their final taunts; "Hit me with your handbag" as they scattered. But there was little help and little sympathy for the weird kid, the one with all the books who kept topping the class. On his own, he tried to clean himself up in the toilets, frightened they would find him and it would all start again.
It was years later that he discovered that Mark was being picked up by the same man he was after school, and that was how he had discovered that he might not have been 100% straight. The man, John Hay his name was, long dead now, later told him how he would pick up the handsomest boy in the school, Mark, and how he would suck him off while he looked at pornography. That was their little game. But why did he have to tell Mark he wasn't the only one? Why did he have to tell him that he wasn't the only one going for rides in John's big car? They met years later, he and Mark, and he accepted the apology that was stutteringly given. But the damage was done. He had already been brutalised and embarrassed beyond measure. He had already retreated, deep inside where no one could get to him, where no one could hurt him.
THE BIGGER STORY:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/fragile-peace-as-russia-calls-the-shots/2008/08/13/1218307007011.html
A FRENCH-BROKERED peace plan for Georgia and Russia struggled to take hold as the concept of having both sides retreat to their original positions ran into the stark reality of Russian dominance on the battlefield.
In Tbilisi the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, accused Russian forces of violating the ceasefire. The head of Georgia's national security council, Alexander Lomaia, said 50 Russian tanks had entered the strategic city of Gori about 9.45am, eight hours after Georgia had accepted the ceasefire.
Independent confirmation of Mr Lomaia's claim was not immediately possible, but an APTN television crew in Gori saw Russian armoured vehicles near a military base there and smoke in the air. A Russian Government official denied the report.
Gori sits on Georgia's only significant east-west road, about 25 kilometres south of the South Ossetian border.
The ceasefire agreement calls for both sides to retreat to the positions they held before fighting erupted over the separatist region of South Ossetia. But the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, indicated a tough stance. "Upon the withdrawal of Georgian troops to their barracks, Russian troops will return to the territory of the Russian Federation," he said in Moscow.
http://www.daysvolumetwo.blogspot.com/
US swimmer Michael Phelps broke the record for Olympic gold medals won by taking his 10th and 11th in a double victory on Wednesday.
Phelps, 23, won his fourth gold of the Beijing Olympics and 10th of all time with victory in the 200m butterfly.
And he claimed yet another gold as part of the US 4x200m freestyle team.
Phelps has now surpassed the nine golds won by Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Larysa Latynina to cement his place in Olympic history.
He is also bidding to beat Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympic games and has moved to within three of that achievement.
The US star came a step closer to gold number six when he eased through to the semi-finals of the 200m individual medley, winning his heat in a time of one minute 58.65secs
He has the 100m butterfly and the 4x100m medley relay later in the week.
"There is still something left in the tank," he said. "I've got three races left, so there had better be something left in the tank."
Phelps began proceedings in the Water Cube on Wednesday in typical fashion, beating Hungary's Laszlo Cseh and Japan's Takeshi Matsuda in a world record time of 1:52.03 to claim 200m butterfly gold.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/blame-the-libs-for-stalled-laws-says-rudd/2008/08/13/1218307006740.html
THE Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, has ignored threats of obstruction from the minor parties in the Senate and insisted any failure to pass Labor's legislation should be blamed on the Coalition.
With Parliament to resume in a fortnight and a heavy legislative agenda ahead of it, the new independent senator Nick Xenophon fired the first shot on Tuesday by stating he would not be supporting the FuelWatch scheme. He was backed by Family First's Steve Fielding while the Greens are inclined to oppose it as well.
Without Coalition support, the Government needs the backing of senators Xenophon and Fielding, and the five Greens, to pass a bill.
Mr Rudd said the minor parties were only in play because the Liberals had "decided to side with big oil companies against consumers" and oppose FuelWatch. Mr Rudd was in Western Australia where FuelWatch has been operating successfully for many years.
Senator Xenophon is understood to have been seeking a FuelWatch briefing from the Government for weeks. A meeting has been scheduled next week and the Assistant Treasurer, Chris Bowen, said he was prepared to negotiate. "We're more than happy to talk about any sensible suggestions that Senator Xenophon and any other senator has to make," he said.
FuelWatch would require service stations to publish petrol prices daily and adhere to those prices for 24 hours. Senator Xenophon objects to the 24-hour condition as independent retailers who set prices too high could not reduce prices during that period.
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