... embodies the spirit of San Francisco for me ... He took a Buddhist vow of silence in 1963 after learning of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. The silence was broken on the day the Vietnam War ended, in 1973, as he walked into a coffee shop and recited the poem below ...
All those ships that never sailed
The ones with their seacocks open
That were scuttled in their stalls…
Today I bring them back
Huge and intransitory
And let them sail
Forever.
All those flowers that you never grew-
that you wanted to grow
The ones that were plowed under
ground in the mud-
Today I bring them back
And let you grow them
Forever.
All those wars and truces
Dancing down these years-
All in three flag swept days
Rejected meaning of God-
My body once covered with beauty
Is now a museum of betrayal.
This part remembered because of that one's touch
This part remembered for that one's kiss-
Today I bring it back
And let you live forever.
I breath a breathless I love you
And move you
Forever.
Remove the snake from Moses' arm...
And someday the Jewish queen will dance
Down the street with the dogs
And make every Jew
Her lover.
28 June 2010
19 June 2010
Rabbit, run ...
... by John Updike ... describes the journey of a young man lost in 50s America and his own needs ...
"Afraid, really afraid, he remembers what once consoled him by seeming to make a hole where he looked through into underlying brightness, and lifts his eyes to the church window. It is, because of church poverty or the late summer nights or just carelessness, unlit, a dark circle in a limestone facade.
There is light, though, in the streetlights; muffled by trees their mingling cones retreat to the unseen end of Summer Street. Nearby, to his left, directly under one, the rough asphalt looks like dimpled snow. He decides to walk around the block, to clear his head and pick his path. Funny, how what makes you moves so simple and the field you must move in is so crowded. His legs take strength from the distinction, scissor among evenly. Goodness lies inside, there is nothing outside, those things he was trying to balance have no weight. He feels his inside as very real suddenly, a pure blank space in the middle of a dense net. I don't know, he kept telling Ruth; he doesn't know, what to do, where to go, what will happen, the thought that he doesn't know seems to make him infinitely small and impossible to capture. Its smallness fills him like a vastness. It's like when they heard you were great and put two men on you and no matter which way you turned you bumped into one of them and the only thing to do was pass. So you passed and the ball belonged to the others and your hands were empty and the men on you looked foolish because in effect there was nobody there.
Rabbit comes to the curb but instead of going to his right and around the block he steps down, with as big a feeling as if this little sidestreet is a wide river, and crosses. He wants to travel to the next patch of snow. Although this block of brick three-stories is just like the one he left, something in it makes him happy; the steps and windowsills seem to twitch and shift in the corner of his eye, alive. This illusion trips him. His hands lift of their own and he feels the wind on his ears even before, his heels hitting heavily on the pavement at first but with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing lighter and quicker and quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Runs.'
"Afraid, really afraid, he remembers what once consoled him by seeming to make a hole where he looked through into underlying brightness, and lifts his eyes to the church window. It is, because of church poverty or the late summer nights or just carelessness, unlit, a dark circle in a limestone facade.
There is light, though, in the streetlights; muffled by trees their mingling cones retreat to the unseen end of Summer Street. Nearby, to his left, directly under one, the rough asphalt looks like dimpled snow. He decides to walk around the block, to clear his head and pick his path. Funny, how what makes you moves so simple and the field you must move in is so crowded. His legs take strength from the distinction, scissor among evenly. Goodness lies inside, there is nothing outside, those things he was trying to balance have no weight. He feels his inside as very real suddenly, a pure blank space in the middle of a dense net. I don't know, he kept telling Ruth; he doesn't know, what to do, where to go, what will happen, the thought that he doesn't know seems to make him infinitely small and impossible to capture. Its smallness fills him like a vastness. It's like when they heard you were great and put two men on you and no matter which way you turned you bumped into one of them and the only thing to do was pass. So you passed and the ball belonged to the others and your hands were empty and the men on you looked foolish because in effect there was nobody there.
Rabbit comes to the curb but instead of going to his right and around the block he steps down, with as big a feeling as if this little sidestreet is a wide river, and crosses. He wants to travel to the next patch of snow. Although this block of brick three-stories is just like the one he left, something in it makes him happy; the steps and windowsills seem to twitch and shift in the corner of his eye, alive. This illusion trips him. His hands lift of their own and he feels the wind on his ears even before, his heels hitting heavily on the pavement at first but with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing lighter and quicker and quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Runs.'
08 June 2010
Butterfly ...
... by Weezer with Allison Allport on the harps, is just a beautiful song, and has accompanied many hours of my revision for MRCPscyh this week ..
Yesterday I went outside
With my mama's mason jar,
Caught a lovely butterfly
When I woke up today
Looked in on my fairy pet
She had withered all away
No more sighing in the breast
I'm sorry for what I did
I did what my body told me to
I didn't mean to do you harm
Everytime I pin down what I think I want it slips away
The goal slips away
Smell you on my hands for days
I can't wash away your scent
If I'm a dog then you're a bitch [pause]
I guess you're as real as me
Maybe I can live with that
Maybe I need fantasy
Life of chasing butterfly
I'm sorry for what I did
I did what my body told me to
I didn't mean to do you harm
Everytime I pin down what I think I want it slips away
The goal slips away
I told you I would return
When the robin makes his nest
But I ain't never coming back
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
Yesterday I went outside
With my mama's mason jar,
Caught a lovely butterfly
When I woke up today
Looked in on my fairy pet
She had withered all away
No more sighing in the breast
I'm sorry for what I did
I did what my body told me to
I didn't mean to do you harm
Everytime I pin down what I think I want it slips away
The goal slips away
Smell you on my hands for days
I can't wash away your scent
If I'm a dog then you're a bitch [pause]
I guess you're as real as me
Maybe I can live with that
Maybe I need fantasy
Life of chasing butterfly
I'm sorry for what I did
I did what my body told me to
I didn't mean to do you harm
Everytime I pin down what I think I want it slips away
The goal slips away
I told you I would return
When the robin makes his nest
But I ain't never coming back
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
I'm sorry
03 June 2010
Sunflower ...
... is the title of a book by Gyula Krudy ... and its ending is a beautiful little exchange between Eveline and Almos-Dreamer ...
"And what about me, couldn't I understand you?"
"Let's wait for winter. The first, the second, the third winter ... Let's wait for the monotonous evenings of this place, the courses of the moon, the howling-wolf nights. We'll just have to make sure to wind the clocks each day, bury our memories, sit in tranquillity by the warm fireside, play enough tric-trac, and never, never write letters without each others' knowledge, no matter how overcast the twilight."
"I'll be waiting for you."
"Let crazy life rush headlong on the highway for others; we shall contemplate the sunflowers, watch them sprout, blossom, fade away. Yesterday, they were still giants, but now, in autumn, they are thatch on the roof."
"And what about me, couldn't I understand you?"
"Let's wait for winter. The first, the second, the third winter ... Let's wait for the monotonous evenings of this place, the courses of the moon, the howling-wolf nights. We'll just have to make sure to wind the clocks each day, bury our memories, sit in tranquillity by the warm fireside, play enough tric-trac, and never, never write letters without each others' knowledge, no matter how overcast the twilight."
"I'll be waiting for you."
"Let crazy life rush headlong on the highway for others; we shall contemplate the sunflowers, watch them sprout, blossom, fade away. Yesterday, they were still giants, but now, in autumn, they are thatch on the roof."
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)