Mark R.Slaughter
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work:
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work.
Oh free me please with gentle ease
From work, sleep, work, sleep, work!
This odium, pounding tedium
Of my work, sleep, work, sleep, work.
Just whisk me off to lands afar
From work, sleep, work, sleep, work—
That grinding train of rhythmic pain
Called ‘Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.’
Poor neural circuits fizzle and pop
In work, sleep, work, sleep, work,
In trying to make some sense of all this
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.
But Hark! I see a golden gleam—
A saving spirit of hope:
‘You’re fired! ’He screams.What news to bear,
This wondrous hangman’s rope!
So now I’m free, released from all this
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work—
Eternal peace and rest for me, no
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.
1.Please, share with your group members, your personal choice between an unchanged but stable life and an adventurous but unstable life.Tell why.
2.Try to translate the last but second stanza of the poem into Chinese.Pay special attention to the metrical form and rhyme scheme of the poem.
For Fun
Works to Read
1. Past and Present:It is a book byThomas Carlyle.It combinesmedievalhistory with criticism of 19th-century British society.Carlyle wrote it in seven weeks as a respite from the harassing labor of writingCromwell.He was inspired by the recently published Chronicles of the Abbey of Saint Edmund’s Bury, which had been written byJocelin of Brakelondat the close of the 12th century.
2. Songs of Innocence and of Experience: It is an illustrated collection of poems byWilliam Blake.It appeared in two phases.A few first copies were printed and illuminated by William Blake himself in 1789; five years later he bound these poems with a set of new poems in a volume titled Songs of Innocence and of Experience Showing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul.
Movies to See
1. Capitalism: A Love Story: It is an Americandocumentary film.The film centers on thelate-2000s financial crisisand therecovery stimulus, while putting forward an indictment of the current economic order in theUnited Statesandcapitalismin general.Topics covered include Wall Street’s “casino mentality”,for-profit prisons,Goldman Sachs’influence inWashington, D.C., thepoverty-level wages of many workers, the large wave ofhome foreclosures,corporate-owned life insurance, and the consequences of “runaway greed”.The film also features a religious component where Moore examines whether or not capitalism is asinand if Jesus would be a capitalist.
2. Ivan’s Childhood:The film tells the story of orphan boy Ivan and his experiences duringWorld War II. Ivan’s Childhood was one of several Soviet films of its period, such as The Cranes Are Flying and Ballad of a Soldier , that looked at the human cost of war and did not glorify the war experience as did films produced before theKhrushchev Thaw.
Song to Enjoy
Happiness
by BWO
I’ve reached the end
My life has been deranged
From tears to joy
My life’s about to change
I’m coming out
Now things will go my way
It’s gonna be a perfect day
I’ve earned my happiness forever
A change is gonna come
Happiness together
With love and wine and song
But when I seize the perfect moment
And life’s about to shine
Happiness salutes me everytime
I’m always last to grasp what’s going on
I’m on the right but always end up wrong
I break a leg with heartache still attached
What can I do to shape my act
I’ve earned my happiness forever
A change is gonna come
Happiness together
With love and wine and song
But when I seize the perfect moment
And life’s about to shine
Happiness salutes me everytime
I’ve reached the end
The point of no return
From here it’s only crash and burn
I’ve earned my happiness forever
A change is gonna come
Happiness together
With love and wine and song
But when I seize the perfect moment
And life’s about to shine
Happiness salutes me everytime
But when I seize the perfect moment
And life’s about to shine
Happiness salutes me everytime