Thursday, 11 January, 2007

The prompt for this week's Poetry Thursday: This week’s idea is to think about clichés, specifically clichés that are phrases or expressions. Write some down. Then think about what they actually mean, where they came from, and their original meaning. Then let the meaning of the cliché (or clichés) be the stimulus for a poem.

I chose the cliché, "The more things change the more they stay the same." While I could find supposition, there seems to be no definitive origin for this phrase, proverb, or cliché as the case may be. A concensus seems to point to it being originally a French saying relating to circumstances arising just after the French Revolution. If any one has a more concrete idea of the origin, please share.

From Google phrase finder: A proverb of french origin. A semi-proverbial phrase expressing the fundemental immutability of human nature, institution, etc. First cited 1859 ?

I chose this cliché Sunday the 7th when Liz Elayne posted it. This mornig at 0300 I awoke with the following words flowing through my head. I immediately got up and in a foggy state of awakeness scribbled them down as fast as I could write. Here they are; first darft, uneditied.

le plus ça change le plus c'est la même chose.

"twas a lark he said
Or, the manly thing to do.
For God and Country
And a president...
To keep our country free
From communism
Was the cry.
Nineteen he was and
Not quite ripe_
Six feet tall and
Bullet proof___
I'll make my mark,
Help win this war.
Be a hero in the end.

She was twenty-three
this daughter mine.
Of war she too
Was free to choose.
For a president
Who said:
To topple tyrants,
Keep the world safe
And free of terrorists.
Young woman on the line
For foppish pols
To make their mark
For a cause they said
was true.

For every age
A war is waged
for reasons
Most disguised....

Le plus ça change
le plus c'est la
même chose