Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)

Subject: Paradise Almost Lost - Biff Rose
From:
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 10:27 PM

I've never heard it sung. I know it as a poem, but it's been played on folksy programs.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost - Biff Rose
From: DonMeixner
Date: 17 Aug 00 - 11:15 PM

Go to the Lycos search engine and search Biff Rose. You'll amazed at what you'll find there.

....Worms and Germs and rocks and sod

were ready at the slightest nod,

For quite an inexperienced God to go ito a peeble....

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost - Biff Rose
From: DonMeixner
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 12:39 AM

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost - Biff Rose
From: GUEST,Hutzul
Date: 18 Aug 00 - 02:50 AM

Just ask your Sister. She knows everything.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost - Biff Rose
From: GUEST
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 08:06 PM

The poem can be heard on YOUTUBE.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost - Biff Rose
From: GUEST,Don Meixner
Date: 23 Dec 09 - 10:25 PM

Written by Joseph Simon Newman, Uncle to Paul.

I recite it but I am a lousy typist. I can't find the poem in my files just now but I will post them. A great poem.

Don


PS

My earlier posting has a great mondegrin in it. That is Upheaval not A peeble.

Subject: Lyr Add: PARADISE ALMOST LOST (J S Newman)
From: GUEST,DonMeixner
Date: 24 Dec 09 - 12:31 AM

Paradise Almost Lost
by
Joseph Simon Newman


I'll tell about those ancient days
ere history penetrates the haze,
ere human eyes were there to gaze,
when earth was all primeval:
worms and germs and rocks and sod
were ready at the slightest nod
of quite an inexperienced God
to go into upheaval.

Not even Adam had appeared.
sin was nothing to be feared:
this was before all men were queered
by apple-eating ladies.
In fact, in those days, don't forget,
the Lord had made no devils yet,
and up 'til then had never met
a fit recruit for Hades.

There was no mammoth, fish, or seal,
Fatimas, Pepsodent, or veal,
no radio or movie reel,
no Buick, bean, or Bendix,
no pterodactyl, fudge, or Lux,
no Sal Hepatica or ducks,
no Nazis, Communists, or Klux,
no Man...and no appendix.

Well, in that very distant day,
in June, July, or August, say,
two living specks of matter lay
in Egypt or Samoa.
Two earless, eyeless, chinless specks,
with neither craniums nor necks,
nor any sign of soul or sex --
in short, two protozoa.

Now organisms of this kind
are rather flimsily designed,
with neither skin nor bones to bind
the parts to one another,
so when the larger of these two
went rolling into pastures new,
she knocked her plasm all askew --
enveloping her brother.

Well never mollusk, worm, nor slug,
nor animalculus, nor bug
had hitherto enjoyed a hug.
God wasn't sentimental!
He planned no species to reveal
the slightest hint of sex appeal!
And yet this...hug...appeared too real
to call it accidental.

Approaching closer to observe
God thought he saw a certain verve,
a quickening of plasmic nerve
unquestionably striking;
the sky, the sun, the sea, the land
were things the Lord could understand,
but here was something quite unplanned,
and scarcely to his liking.

Judicially he held his ire,
deciding he would first inquire
what set those little cells afire
in ways uncontemplated.
But neither had a mouth nor beak,
and therefore neither one could speak,
all language was the same as Greek --
thus Greek originated.

Alas! I forgot to state:
God early had invented Fate!
It now was definitely late
to check the spreading virus.
Though both were silent, well, he knew
his worst suspicions had come true:
it was evident that two
were mutually desirous.

To be explicit and exact,
from that day on the cards were stacked:
the germ of love became a fact
embedded in their plasm.
With lightning flash and thunder roll
an angry God demanded toll,
and so he dug a hellish hole
and thrust them in the chasm.

The spawn of life spread far and wide,
the species grew and multiplied,
for hundreds lived, though thousands died,
God wept within his portals,
came alligators, birds, and dogs,
and elephants, and flies, and frogs,
and beetles, barnacles, and hogs,
and anthropoids, and mortals.

And ever since that fateful day
when protozoa found a way
to multiply our earthly clay,
they've handed us erebus:
for though we have discarded gills
for Carter's Little Liver Pills,
we're far more surfeited with ills
than when we were amoebas.

Just think of what we might have been
without surrealists and gin,
and broccoli, and other sin
that hurt beyond all measure.
But still, I take a certain pride
in that ancestral groom and bride,
who in some ways, I'm satisfied,
made hell on earth a pleasure.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)
From: GUEST,gray
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 03:35 PM

Thanks for posting that poem. I had memorized it decades ago but forgot some of the lists of words. It's good to have them again.   Just one comment. The 13th line from the bottom should read, "... they've handed us a rebus." A rebus is a puzzle.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)
From: PoppaGator
Date: 13 Apr 10 - 04:08 PM

Biff Rose (like me) plays a monthly one-hour set at the Neutral Ground Coffeehouse in New Orleans. He hasn't been doing it forever ~ years ago, he had a paying gig on Bourbon St. ~ but it's probably been at least a year since he's become a Neutral Ground regular. This month, he'll appear at 10pm on Thursday the 29th (the night before Jazz Fest begins).

I really need to check out his act and introduce myself. His cousin Billy Rose was my housemate for one year at college ('68/69), and a friend for several years, so I've known about him for a LONG time.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)
From: GUEST,Guest from Sanity
Date: 14 Apr 10 - 01:43 AM

PoppaGator, We LOVE Biff Rose!!!!! If you see him, ask him if he remembers a girl named Carol, who he was with, when he lived in Venice, California.

Biff is an incredibly gifted and understated, under recognized talent!!!!!

I'd Love to yak with him!

GfS

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)
From: GUEST,Nick Pitt
Date: 01 Mar 13 - 04:01 PM

Thanks for posting the text of the poem.

Some corrections:

"ere history penetrates the haze"; those "eres" should be "e'ers" -- a contraction of "ever'.


"it was evident that two" should be "it was evident the two".


The end of the line "God wept within his portals" should be a full top.


"they've handed us erebus" should be "they handed us a rebus". (A rebus is a kind of puzzle.)

And the penultimate line: "who in some ways, I'm satisfied," should be "who, in some ways unsatisfied,".

Otherwise, nice job.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)
From: GUEST
Date: 19 Oct 14 - 11:05 AM

Nick Pitt,

You said ""ere history penetrates the haze"; those "eres" should be "e'ers" -- a contraction of "ever'.

I think not. I don't have a published, printed version of the poem in front of me, but 'ere as a contraction of "before" makes more sense than e're as a contraction of "ever". Before history penetrates the haze. Before human eyes were there to gaze.

I, too, always thought it was "a rebus". But rebus is a puzzle made of pictures. I just don't see how a picture puzzle fits in to the store. Erebus, however, is the son of the ancient god Chaos.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Paradise Almost Lost (from Biff Rose)
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 20 Oct 14 - 07:16 PM

"Ere" is not a contraction for "before"; it is a synonym of "before"; that is, it is not a contraction of anything; it is a perfectly good and complete word all by itself. As such, it does not require an apostrophe.

"E'er" requires an apostrophe because it is a contraction of "ever".