Poems from your favorite poets
Chip McFlennigan
Posts: 1,162
Go ahead & post 'em.
Be sure to give credit.
Kansas, of
sand plums & muddy rivers
from where I come
where,
once all roads led out, east, west,
into high
ways & winding sea roads,
where Zukofsky
up from Willow, Brooklyn Heights,
the streets of Gloucester out to Olson, Fort Point,
Ruggles at the Cut-Leaf Maples
Motel, Vermont,
& Ives under Danbury's
Maples,
are now ways homeward.
-Ronald Johnson
Be sure to give credit.
Kansas, of
sand plums & muddy rivers
from where I come
where,
once all roads led out, east, west,
into high
ways & winding sea roads,
where Zukofsky
up from Willow, Brooklyn Heights,
the streets of Gloucester out to Olson, Fort Point,
Ruggles at the Cut-Leaf Maples
Motel, Vermont,
& Ives under Danbury's
Maples,
are now ways homeward.
-Ronald Johnson
I knew it all along, see?
Post edited by Unknown User on
0
Comments
No, I don’t want anything.
I already said I don’t want anything.
Don’t come to me with conclusions!
Death is the only conclusion.
Don’t offer me aesthetics!
Don’t talk to me of morals!
Take metaphysics away from here!
Don’t try to sell me complete systems, don’t bore me
with the breakthroughsOf science (of science, my God, of science!)—
Of science, of the arts, of modern civilization!
What harm did I ever do to the gods?
If you’ve got the truth, you can keep it!
I’m a technician, but my technique is limited to the technical sphere,
Apart from which I’m crazy, and with every right to be so.
With every right to be so, do you hear?
Leave me alone, for God’s sake!
You want me to be married, futile, predictable and taxable?
You want me to be the opposite of this, the opposite of anything?
If I were someone else, I’d go along with you all.
But since I’m what I am, lay off!
Go to hell without me,
Or let me go there by myself!
Why do we have to go together?
Don’t grab me by the arm!
I don’t like my arm being grabbed. I want to be alone,
I already told you that I can only be alone!
I’m sick of you wanting me to be sociable!
O blue sky—the same one I knew as a child—
Perfect and empty eternal truth!
O gentle, silent, ancestral Tagus,
Tiny truth in which the sky is mirrored!
O sorrow revisited, Lisbon of bygone days today!
You give me nothing, you take nothing from me, you’re
nothing I feel is me.
Leave me in peace!
I won’t stay long, for I never stay long...
And as long as Silence and the Abyss hold off,
I want to be alone!
-Fernando Pessoa (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Pessoa)
(Not my translation but I found it pretty accurate.)
If you hate something, don't you do it too...~
REVEILLE
Wake: the silver dusk returning
Up the beach of darkness brims,
And the ship of sunrise burning
Strands upon the eastern rims.
Wake: the vaulted shadow shatters,
Trampled to the floor it spanned,
And the tent of night in tatters
Straws the sky-pavilioned land.
Up, lad, up, 'tis late for lying:
Hear the drums of morning play;
Hark, the empty highways crying
"Who'll beyond the hills away?"
Towns and countries woo together,
Forelands beacon, belfries call;
Never lad that trod on leather
Lived to feast his heart with all.
Up, lad: thews that lie and cumber
Sunlit pallets never thrive;
Morns abed and daylight slumber
Were not meant for man alive.
Clay lies still, but blood's a rover;
Breath's a ware that will not keep.
Up, lad: when the journey's over
There'll be time enough to sleep.
Manchester Aug 17th 2009
Hyde Park June 25th 2010
Manchester June 20th & 21st 2012
Leeds July 14th 2014
I have a gun, get in the van.
- Anonymous
Tres Mts. Gramercy Theatre 3/26/11
*formerly manutd3581
Nothing But Death by Pablo Neruda
There are cemeteries that are lonely,
graves full of bones that do not make a sound,
the heart moving through a tunnel,
in it darkness, darkness, darkness,
like a shipwreck we die going into ourselves,
as though we were drowning inside our hearts,
as though we lived falling out of the skin into the soul.
And there are corpses,
feet made of cold and sticky clay,
death is inside the bones,
like a barking where there are no dogs,
coming out from bells somewhere, from graves somewhere,
growing in the damp air like tears of rain.
Sometimes I see alone
coffins under sail,
embarking with the pale dead, with women that have dead hair,
with bakers who are as white as angels,
and pensive young girls married to notary publics,
caskets sailing up the vertical river of the dead,
the river of dark purple,
moving upstream with sails filled out by the sound of death,
filled by the sound of death which is silence.
Death arrives among all that sound
like a shoe with no foot in it, like a suit with no man in it,
comes and knocks, using a ring with no stone in it, with no
finger in it,
comes and shouts with no mouth, with no tongue, with no
throat.
Nevertheless its steps can be heard
and its clothing makes a hushed sound, like a tree.
I'm not sure, I understand only a little, I can hardly see,
but it seems to me that its singing has the color of damp violets,
of violets that are at home in the earth,
because the face of death is green,
and the look death gives is green,
with the penetrating dampness of a violet leaf
and the somber color of embittered winter.
But death also goes through the world dressed as a broom,
lapping the floor, looking for dead bodies,
death is inside the broom,
the broom is the tongue of death looking for corpses,
it is the needle of death looking for thread.
Death is inside the folding cots:
it spends its life sleeping on the slow mattresses,
in the black blankets, and suddenly breathes out:
it blows out a mournful sound that swells the sheets,
and the beds go sailing toward a port
where death is waiting, dressed like an admiral.
"I breathed my soul back into me"
each time I read I am brand new
Fulbright Scholars
Where was it, in the Strand? A display
Of news items, in photographs.
For some reason I noticed it.
A picture of that year's intake
Of Fulbright Scholars. Just arriving -
Or arrived. Or some of them.
Were you among them? I studied it.
Not too minutely, wondering
Which of them I might meet.
I remember that thought. Not
Your face. No doubt I scanned particularly
The girls. Maybe I noticed you.
Maybe I weighed you up, feeling unlikely.
Noted your long hair, loose waves -
Your Veronica Lake bang. Not what it hid.
It would appear blond. And your grin.
Your exaggerated American
Grin for the cameras, the judges, the strangers, the frighteners.
Then I forgot. Yet I remember
The picture : the Fulbright Scholars.
With their luggage? It seems unlikely.
Could they have come as a team? That's as I remember.
From a stall near Charing Cross Station.
It was the first fresh peach I had ever tasted.
I could hardly believe how delicious.
At twenty-five I was dumbfounded afresh
By my ignorance of the simplest things.
-Ted Hughes
Send my credentials to the house of detention
Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehen der Stäbe
so müd geworden, daß er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.
Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.
Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannter Stille -
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.
I’ve dreamed so much of you that you’ve lost substance.
Is there still time to reach your living body
and kiss your mouth, the origin
of the voice most dear to me?
I’ve dreamed so much of you that my arms, accustomed
to crossing on my own chest when I clutch at your shadow,
might no longer fold around the contours of your body.
Faced with the embodiment of that which haunts me
and has ruled me for days and years,
I would, no doubt, become a shadow.
Our feelings balance.
I’ve dreamed so much of you that it’s past time,
Without doubt, that I wake.
I sleep standing up, my body bared
To all the incarnations of life, of love,
Of you—the only who counts for me today.
I could less easily touch your brow
and your lips than the lips and brow
of the next passerby.
I’ve dreamed so much of you, walked, talked,
slept with your ghost,
that perhaps there’s nothing left for me now
but to be a ghost among ghosts,
a hundred times fainter than the shadow that walks
and will walk, joyous,
on the sundial of your life.
—Julia Fine
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too:
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or, being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise;
If you can dream---and not make dreams your master;
If you can think---and not make thoughts your aim,
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same:.
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build'em up with worn-out tools;
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kings---nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much:
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And---which is more---you'll be a Man, my son!
Rudyard Kipling
If you had the time
to look inside my mind
could you hold the piece's of me
that run thru thought's and hide.
The foot prints of your life
are followed by the dreams
you've left behind
and the smiles that you take
from the faces that you make
are etched into the eyes of the sun.
When I close my eyes I see the traces
of a dream you have left behind
on the shores of changing tides
and all I can do is run to chase
the faces that you make.
The smiles that you take
and the dreams you've left behind
leave me running thru thoughts to hide
in the burning eyes of the sun.
The crazy smile of silense winks
as the foot steps we make
walk further from the dreams we leave behind.
by Godfather
by John Donne
WHERE, like a pillow on a bed,
A pregnant bank swell'd up, to rest
The violet's reclining head,
Sat we two, one another's best.
Our hands were firmly cemented
By a fast balm, which thence did spring ;
Our eye-beams twisted, and did thread
Our eyes upon one double string.
So to engraft our hands, as yet
Was all the means to make us one ;
And pictures in our eyes to get
Was all our propagation.
As, 'twixt two equal armies, Fate
Suspends uncertain victory,
Our souls—which to advance their state,
Were gone out—hung 'twixt her and me.
And whilst our souls negotiate there,
We like sepulchral statues lay ;
All day, the same our postures were,
And we said nothing, all the day.
If any, so by love refined,
That he soul's language understood,
And by good love were grown all mind,
Within convenient distance stood,
He—though he knew not which soul spake,
Because both meant, both spake the same—
Might thence a new concoction take,
And part far purer than he came.
This ecstasy doth unperplex
(We said) and tell us what we love ;
We see by this, it was not sex ;
We see, we saw not, what did move :
But as all several souls contain
Mixture of things they know not what,
Love these mix'd souls doth mix again,
And makes both one, each this, and that.
A single violet transplant,
The strength, the colour, and the size—
All which before was poor and scant—
Redoubles still, and multiplies.
When love with one another so
Interanimates two souls,
That abler soul, which thence doth flow,
Defects of loneliness controls.
We then, who are this new soul, know,
Of what we are composed, and made,
For th' atomies of which we grow
Are souls, whom no change can invade.
But, O alas ! so long, so far,
Our bodies why do we forbear?
They are ours, though not we ; we are
Th' intelligences, they the spheres.
We owe them thanks, because they thus
Did us, to us, at first convey,
Yielded their senses' force to us,
Nor are dross to us, but allay.
On man heaven's influence works not so,
But that it first imprints the air ;
For soul into the soul may flow,
Though it to body first repair.
As our blood labours to beget
Spirits, as like souls as it can ;
Because such fingers need to knit
That subtle knot, which makes us man ;
So must pure lovers' souls descend
To affections, and to faculties,
Which sense may reach and apprehend,
Else a great prince in prison lies.
To our bodies turn we then, that so
Weak men on love reveal'd may look ;
Love's mysteries in souls do grow,
But yet the body is his book.
And if some lover, such as we,
Have heard this dialogue of one,
Let him still mark us, he shall see
Small change when we're to bodies gone.
In every cloud, in every tree—filling the air at night, and caught by glimpses in every object by day—I am surrounded with her image! The most ordinary faces of men and women—my own features—mock me with a resemblance. The entire world is a dreadful collection of memoranda that she did exist, and that I have lost her!—Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte
your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.
I like this one!
No, no, no, I know I was not important as I moved
Through the colourful country, I was but a single
Item in the picture, the namer, not the beloved.
O tedious man with whom no gods commingle.
Beauty, who has described beauty? Once upon a time
I had a myth that was a lie but it served:
Trees walking across the crest of hills and my rhyme
Cavorting on mile-high stilts and the unnerved
Crowds looking up with terror in their rational faces.
O dance with Kitty Stobling I outrageously
Cried out-of-sense to them, while their timorous paces
Stumbled behind Jove's page boy paging me.
I had a very pleasant journey, thank you sincerely
For giving me my madness back, or nearly.
-Patrick Kavanagh
Copyright © Estate of Katherine Kavanagh
Then you might like this too:
Tom Waits reads Bukowski's poem 'The Laughing Heart':
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhM-Dm2PHHo
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QlVQhl8GxkI
The dog trots freely in the street
and sees reality
and the things he sees
are bigger than himself
and the things he sees
are his reality
Drunks in doorways
Moons on trees
The dog trots freely thru the street
and the things he sees
are smaller than himself
Fish on newsprint
Ants in holes
Chickens in Chinatown windows
their heads a block away
The dog trots freely in the street
and the things he smells
smell something like himself
The dog trots freely in the street
past puddles and babies
cats and cigars
poolrooms and policemen
He doesn't hate cops
He merely has no use for them
and he goes past them
and past the dead cows hung up whole
in front of the San Francisco Meat Market
He would rather eat a tender cow
than a tough policeman
though either might do
And he goes past the Romeo Ravioli Factory
and past Coit's Tower
and past Congressman Doyle of the Unamerican Committee
He's afraid of Coit's Tower
but he's not afraid of Congressman Doyle
although what he hears is very discouraging
very depressing
very absurd
to a sad young dog like himself
to a serious dog like himself
But he has his own free world to live in
His own fleas to eat
He will not be muzzled
Congressman Doyle is just another
fire hydrant
to him
The dog trots freely in the street
and has his own dog's life to live
and to think about
and to reflect upon
touching and tasting and testing everything
investigating everything
without benefit of perjury
a real realist
with a real tale to tell
and a real tail to tell it with
a real live
barking
democratic dog
engaged in real
free enterprise
with something to say
about ontology
something to say
about reality
and how to see it
and how to hear it
with his head cocked sideways
at streetcorners
as if he is just about to have
his picture taken
for Victor Records
listening for
His Master's Voice
and looking
like a living questionmark
into the
great gramophone
of puzzling existence
with its wondrous hollow horn
which always seems
just about to spout forth
some Victorious answer
to everything
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13NWp3cuvr0
I am waiting for my case to come up
and I am waiting
for a rebirth of wonder
and I am waiting
for someone to really discover America
and wail
and I am waiting
for the discovery
of a new symbolic western frontier
and I am waiting
for the American Eagle
to really spread its wings
and straighten up and fly right
and I am waiting
for the Age of Anxiety
to drop dead
and I am waiting
for the war to be fought
which will make the world safe
for anarchy
and I am waiting
for the final withering away
of all governments
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Second Coming
and I am waiting
for a religious revival
to sweep through the state of Arizona
and I am waiting
for the Grapes of Wrath to be stored
and I am waiting
for them to prove
that God is really American
and I am waiting
to see God on television
piped’ onto church altars
if only they can find
the right channel
to tune in on
and I am waiting
for the Last Supper to be served again
with a strange new appetizer
and I am perpetually awaiting
a rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for my number to be called
and I am waiting
for the Salvation Army to take over
and I am waiting
for the meek to be blessed
and inherit the earth
without taxes and I am waiting
for forests and animals
to reclaim the earth as theirs
and I am waiting
for a way to be devised
to destroy all nationalisms
without killing anybody
and I am waiting
for linnets and planets to fall like rain
and I am waiting for lovers and weepers
to lie down together again
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the Great Divide to ‘be crossed
and I am anxiously waiting
for the secret of eternal life to be discovered
by an obscure general practitioner
and I am waiting
for the storms of life
to be over
and I am waiting
to set sail for happiness
and I am waiting
for a reconstructed Mayflower
to reach America
with its picture story and tv rights
sold in advance to the natives
and I am waiting
for the lost music to sound again
in the Lost Continent
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting for the day
that maketh all things clear
and I am awaiting retribution
for what America did
to Tom Sawyer
and I am waiting
for the American Boy
to take off Beauty’s clothes
and get on top of her
and I am waiting
for Alice in Wonderland
to retransmit to me
her total dream of innocence
and I am waiting
for Childe Roland to come
to the final darkest tower
and I am waiting
for Aphrodite
to grow live arms
at a final disarmament conference
in a new rebirth of wonder
I am waiting
to get some intimations
of immortality
by recollecting my early childhood
and I am waiting
for the green mornings to come again
youth’s dumb green fields come back again
and I am waiting
for some strains of unpremeditated art
to shake my typewriter
and I am waiting to write
the great indelible poem
and I am waiting
for the last long careless rapture
and I am perpetually waiting
for the fleeing lovers on the Grecian Urn
to catch each other up at last
and embrace
and I am waiting
perpetually and forever
a renaissance of wonder
I saw myself
a ring of bone
in the clear stream
of all of it
and vowed
always to be open to it
that all of it
might flow through
and then heard
"ring of bone" where
ring is what a
bell does
You ask me why I dwell in the green mountains;
I smile and look away
As the peach-blossoms flow down stream into the unknown,
I inhabit a world apart from men.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RfciuHL53Q
I would take to the road with my hands in my torn coat pockets;
my overcoat too was becoming an ideal;
I walked beneath the sky, Oh Muse!
I was your devotee;
What splendid loves I dreamed of then!
My only pair of trousers
had a big hole in them. --
Dreamy Tom Thumb,
I sowed rhymes along the way.
My tavern was at the Sign of the Great Bear.
In the sky my stars made a gentle rustling.
And I listened to them, sitting on the road-sides
on those clear September evenings
I felt drops of dew on my forehead
like vigorous wine
and there, making poems amid fantastical shadows,
I would stretch out and pluck like lyre strings,
the laces of my tattered boots,
one foot up close to my heart!
Songs from the SouthWest
SONG OF THE RACE
Many people have gathered together,
I am ready to start in the race,
And the Swallow with beating wings
Cools me in readiness for the word.
Far in the west stands the Black mountain
Around which our racers ran at noon.
Who is this man runnig with me,
The shadow of whose hands I see?
SONG OF STRANGENESS
Singing to the gods in supplication;
Singing to the gods in supplication,
Thus my magic power is uplifted.
My power is uplifted as I sing,
Harlots hither running come;
Harlots hither running come,
Holding blue flowers as they run.
Talking in whispers they file along.
Along the crooked trail going west.
To the land of rainbows I'm going,
Swinging my arms as I journey on.
NAME SONG
The ceremonial reeds are lifted;
The ceremonial reeds are lifted.
Ma-akahi has killed an Apache,
And we meet together here in war paint
To collect hair trophies with their power.
Hivayomi has taken a captive,
And the magic of his bow dies with him.
PUBERTY SONG
Come, hurry forth, hurry forth
Already the echoing sounds
Of darkness are heard around.
The Virgin is not sleepy,
She is wakeful through the night.
The Saguaro lies there broken;
And my fallen feathers rise
O'er the top of Table Mountain.
The boy stirred the rumbling stones;
The woman heard and could not sleep.
And my toe nails are broken.
The branches of darkness fell,
Cutting my feathers as I passed.
SONG OF THE MAGIC OF DAWN
On the top of Mohatuk
There are many clouds standing
On the top of Mohatuk
Many fog clouds are rising.
The bitter wind blows on us;
The bitter wind blows on us.
As we sing with many bows.
Though I am a Navitco,
I hear you talk about me.
I thrust my head through the sky
And with it I run away.
Cut sticks, cut sticks, cut sticks straight.
FETISH SONG
We commence the fetish song;
We commence the fetish song.
It is difficult but I try;
The night grows very noisy.
The fetish song arises;
The fetish song arises.
To it the crazed women run;
To it the crazed women run.
Pity me! Oh, pity me!
And strip away my disease;
Now strip away my disease;
Clear it away by singing.
I'm going to the singing;
It is leading to the mountain,
Running to Sievat mountain.
LIGHTNING SONG
See the destructive lightning
Going to kill the distant tree.
It is going, my younger brother,
To split the distant tree.
Around the mountain I carry
My poor younger brother;
Carry him around the mountain
And then stand before it.
The lightning like reddish snakes
Tries to lash and shiver the trees.
The lightning tries to strike them,
But it fails and they still stand.
Through the roaring darkness I run,
Carrying my poor younger brother;
From the top of the sky the lightning
Shoots, and strikes nearby.
FROM AMERICAN INDIAN POETRY
As I sing this song here with you I can not help shedding tears. I have never sung it before except as I stood looking upon the little child and praying for it in my heart. There is no little child here, but you are writing all these things down that they may not be lost and that our children may know what their fathers believed and practiced in this ceremony. So, as I sing, I am calling to Tirawa atius to send down his breath upon you, to give you strength and long life. I am praying for you with all my spirit.
TAHIRUSSAWICHI
Native Keeper of Sacred Rites
Sometimes when everything seems at
Its worst
When all conspires
And gnaws
And the hours, days, weeks
Years
Seem wasted –
Stretched there upon my bed
In the dark
Looking up at the ceiling
I get what many will consider an
Obnoxious thought :
It’s still nice to be Bukowski
I know you
You were too short
You had bad skin
You couldn't talk to them very well
Words didn't seem to work
They lied when they came out of your mouth
You tried so hard to understand them
You wanted to be part of what was happening
You saw them having fun
And it seemed like such a mystery
Almost magic
Made you think that there was something wrong with you
You'd look in the mirror and try to find it
You thought that you were ugly
And that everyone was looking at you
So you learned to be invisible
To look down
To avoid conversation
The hours, days, weekends
Ah, the weekend nights alone
Where were you?
In the basement?
In the attic?
In your room?
Working some job - just to have something to do.
Just to have a place to put yourself
Just to have a way to get away from them
A chance to get away from the ones that made you feel
so strange and ill at ease inside yourself
Did you ever get invited to one of their parties?
You sat and wondered if you would go or not
For hours you imagined the scenarios that might transpire
They would laugh at you
If you would know what to do
If you'd have the right things on
If they would notice that you came from a different planet
Did you get all brave in your thoughts?
Like you going to be able to go in there and deal with it
and have a great time.
Did you think that you might be the life of the party?
That all these people were gonna talk to you and you
would find out that you were wrong?
That you had a lot of friends and you weren't so
strange after all?
Did you end up going?
Did they mess with you?
Did they single you out?
Did you find out that you were invited because they
thought you were so weird?
Yeah, I think I know you
You spent a lot of time full of hate
A hate that was pure sunshine
A hate that saw for miles
A hate that kept you up at night
A hate that filled your every waking moment
A hate that carried you for a long time
Yes, I think I know you
You couldn't figure out what they saw in the way they lived
Home was not home
Your room was home
A corner was home
The place they weren't, that was home
I know you
You're sensitive and you hide it because you fear
getting stepped on one more time
It seems that when you show a part of yourself that is
the least bit vulnerable someone takes advantage of you
One of them steps on you
They mistake kindliness for weakness
But you know the difference
You've been the brunt of their weakness for years
And strength is something you know a bit about because
you had to be strong to keep yourself alive
You know yourself very well now
And you don't trust people
You know them too well
You try to find that special person
Someone you can be with
Someone you can touch
Someone you can talk to
Someone you don't feel so strange around
And you find that they don't really exist
You feel closer to people on movie screens
Yeah, I think I know you
You spend a lot of time daydreaming
And people have made comment to that effect
Telling you that you're self involved, and self centred
But they don't know, do they?
About the long night shifts alone
About the years of keeping yourself company
All the nights you wrapped your arms around yourself
so you could imagine someone holding you
The hours of indecision, self doubt
The intense depression
The blinding hate
The rage that made you stagger
The devastation of rejection
Well, maybe they do know
But if they do, they sure do a good job of hiding it
It astounds you how they can be so smooth
How they seem to pass through life as if life itself
was some divine gift
And it infuriates you to watch yourself with your
apparent skill at finding every way possible to screw it up
For you life is a long trip
Terrifying and wonderful
Birds sing to you at night
The rain and the sun the changing seasons are true friends
Solitude is a hard won ally, faithful and patient
Yeah, I think I know you
take a good look
this could be the day
hold my hand
lie beside me
i just need to say
when the change came and you had a chance to see through me
though the other side is just the same
you can tell my dream is real
because i love you . . .
though we rush ahead to save our time
we are only what we feel
and i love you . . ."
Neil Young
On The Way Home
"what a long, strange trip it's been"
love.e. it
he's my favorite too
A week of walking had torn my boots to shreds.
I finally got to Charleroi and came
to The Green Inn.
I ordered bread,
and butter, and a piece of half-cold ham.
I felt good, stretched out my legs under
the table and looked at the silly tapestries
hanging on the wall. And what a wonder,
When a girl with huge tits and shining eyes
- Hell, a kiss would never scare her off! -
entered the room.
She laughed as she brought me the bread and butter
And a fancy platter of ham, pink and white,
with a little garlic, and filled my mug with beer,
which a ray of fading sunlight turned to gold.
(October 1870)
I picked up a old 50's poetry book with hand carved linoleum block prints in it @ a resale shop called "A Walk With Me" by Gwen Frostic:
here is just an excerpt:
Follow the path of a stone ...
that rolls long the beach
Follow the flight of and eagle
as he soars above ...
Follow the trail of wind ...
that blows through the top of the trees
Follow the song of a thrush ....
when evening comes to earth
Follow God's moon in the heavens ...
till it sinks below the lake
... and your heart will be filled with wonder .....
and your years will be ever inspired ....
Here is another by Ursula K Le Guin
The Elders at the Falls
I heard this story.
They stood all day with their backs turned.
They stood there just above the river
all the long day with their backs turned
to what was happening.
Like the chorus in ancient tragedies,
not the heroes but the old people
who do not see the battle,
the sacrifice, the murder,
they stood and listened to the messenger,
the voice that tells the story.
The voice they listened to
that had spoken all their lives
and all the lives before them
telling its story, their story, that great voice
Celilo
grew smaller, became less,
became quieter,
all day, until
at twilight
it was silent.
They turned around then.
They turned and looked at the flat lake of silence.
A story about a pilot navigating through the fog without any instruments who is going home for Christmas.
Hilariously i switched the channel accidentally during the reading and rudolph the red nose reindeer came on. Anyway read the story for a bit of inspiration about getting through the fog put the analogy to work for your own life.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2_bLEqmBi0