Don't Worry. Be Happy.

Bjork and her fierce self. You go girrrrrll

Thom York's Harrowdown Hill

Don’t walk the plank like I did
You will be dispensed with
when you’ve become inconvenient

Up on Harrowdown Hill
The way you used to go to school
That’s where I am
That’s where I'm lying down

Did I fall or was I pushed?
did I fall or was I pushed?
And where’s the blood?
And where’s the blood?

But I'm coming home
I’m coming home
To make it alright,
so dry your eyes

We think the same things at the same time
We just can’t do anything about it

We think the same things at the same time
We just can’t do anything about it

So don’t ask me, ask the ministry
Don’t ask me, ask the ministry

We think the same things at the same time
There are so many of us
So you can’t count

We think the same things at the same time
There are so many of us
So you can’t count...

Can you see me when I am running?
Can you see me when I am running?
Away from there...
Away from there...

I can’t take the pressure
No one cares if you live or die
They just want me gone
They want me gone

And I'm coming home
I'm coming home
To make it all right
so dry your eyes
We think the same things at the same time
We just can’t do anything about it

We think the same things at the same time
There are too many of us so you can’t
There are too many of us so you can’t count...

It was me walking to the back of Harrowdown Hill
It was me walking to the back of Harrowdown Hill

It was a slippery, slippery, slippery slope
It was a slippery, slippery, slippery slope
I felt me slipping in and out of consciousness
I felt me slipping in and out of consciousness

I feel me...


Sums it up for me...hmmm...what's on my mind...think I'll take the acting gig I was just offered...no great canonical poem to be mined in these stunned cells and obese dendrites, at present. The play is a connection of sorts, and that's enough for this doorway dweller. No one's been keen for friendship; no one I can let it all hang out with anyway.

I'm listening, Universe: it's time for me to pull my compass from my vest pocket. Thrilling - my own life without banana peels and jeers -

"Did I slip or did you grease my heels?" What a great line, in context, as it was.

Litany

You are the bread and the knife
the crystal goblet and the wine...
-Jacques Crickillon

You are the bread and the knife,
the crystal goblet and the wine.
You are the dew on the morning grass
and the burning wheel of the sun.
You are the white apron of the baker,
and the marsh birds suddenly in flight.

However, you are not the wind in the orchard,
the plums on the counter,
or the house of cards.
And you are certainly not the pine-scented air.

It is possible that you are the fish under the bridge,
maybe even the pigeon on the general's head,
but you are not even close
to being the field of cornflowers at dusk.

And a quick look in the mirror will show
that you are neither the boots in the corner,
nor the boat asleep in its boathouse.

It might interest you to know,
speaking of the plentiful imagery of the world,
that I am the sound of rain on the roof.

I also happen to be the shooting star,
the evening paper blowing down an alley
and the basket of chestnuts on the kitchen table.

I am also the moon in the trees
and the blind woman's teacup.
But, don't worry, I'm not the bread and the knife.
You are still the bread and the knife.
You will always be the bread and the knife,
not to mention the crystal goblet and--somehow--the wine.

Billy Collins

"A Fable" by Richard Wilbur

Securely sunning in a forest glade,

A mild, well-meaning snake

Approved the adaptations he had made

For safety's sake.

He liked the skin he had--

Its mottled camouflage, its look of mail,

And was content that he had thought to add

A rattling tail.

The tail was not for drumming up a fight;

No, nothing of the sort.

And he would only use his poisoned bite

As last resort.

A peasant now drew near,

Collecting wood; the snake, observing this,

Expressed concern by uttering a clear 

But civil hiss.

The simple churl, his nerves at once unstrung,

Mistook the other's tone

And dashed his brains out with a deftly-flung

Preemptive stone.

Moral

Security, alas, can give

A threatening impression;

Too much defense-initiative

Can prompt aggression.

Poem by William Stafford

Ask Me

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.



This poem is so well-crafted, so seemingly simple, yet really very tricky with its word play. It holds secrets the way Plath's poetry holds secrets. You have to dig. It is an action of thought process' that requires me to pull the reigns back, twitch, circle back, move forward, pull the reigns back...  

My week with Marilyn - That old black magic.wmv

Muggy night in the borough. Went for a stroll at 10 pm. Down the middle of Water and Omega and School, I walked twirling my arms and singing. trying not to run into people, I ducked down alleys laughing. I am at the beginning of a creative manic spell. Writing well for the first time in a while.




Enjoy some of the sensuality I felt tonight.




That Old Black Magic




Just read an article on The Chronicle of Higher Education by David Yaffe titled "Some Artists Really Are Too Cool for School." Yaffe quotes Leonard Cohen: Leonard Cohen not only has a literature degree from McGill but even went to grad school at Columbia. (He described his year there as "passion without flesh, love without climax.")




Reading this, doesn't the period come after the parentheses, even though it's a quote?? I can't find any rules on this in my searches. Doesn't a period overrule a parentheses at the end of a sentence? Yaffe orders his grammar as above in two sentences in the above article.




Anyway, the way Cohen describes grad school is the way I would describe my state of being at present. Well, actually, over the last 13 years.




Alarming - I am noticing whole words missing from my posts once I post them, and I have read them through and made sure each sentence is complete. My mouse jumps from paragraph to paragraph frequently. I'll be typing and then next thing I know, whole sections are erased, or I am suddenly typing in a paragraph other than where I started.

A Deafening Lecture

If you are among the "lucky" few who can still focus and concentrate in this I wanted it immediately before I became aware of its existence instant-gratification, terminally diseased culture, then take a listen to Alain de Botton's lecture about we slow-to-evolve Pavlovian miscreants. It's actually very validating (yeah, I used that word) and soothing. Mr. de Botton is someone I could be friends with. In real life, not on Facebook, well, there too, but across from one another would be better.