... really captures the hopes and uncertainties we face at the end of each year, when we try to embrace the world afresh, praying for the encourage to wear those rose-tinted glasses once again ... Yet, "a shining star" mentioned in the song was personified two thousands years ago, at "O little town of Bethlehem", in which "in thy dark streets shineth / The everlasting Light / The hopes and fears of all the years / Are met in thee tonight" ...
"Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Let your heart be light
From now on our troubles will be out of sight
Have yourself a merry little Christmas
Make the Yuletide gay
From now on our troubles will be miles away
Here we are as in olden days
Happy golden days of Yore
Faithful friends who are dear to us
Gather near to us once more
Through the years we all will be together
If the Lord allows
Hang a shining star upon the highest bough
And have yourself a merry little Christmas now"
21 December 2009
12 December 2009
Anna Karenin ...
... by Leo Tolstoy was one of my favourite books ten years ago, and its resonance still resounds today ... Karenin's letter to Anna may not be beautifully written, but the sentiment expressed is something which I aspire to, but can never attain ... To love someone who no longer loves you is at best difficult, and at times impossible ...
"I can see that my presence is disagreeable to you. Painful as it is for me to recognise this, I see that it is so and cannot be otherwise. I do not reproach you, and God is my witness that when I saw you at the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget all that had come between us and begin life anew. I do not regret, and shall never regret, what I did; my only desire was for your welfare, the welfare of your soul, and now I see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what would give you true happiness and peace of mind. I put myself entirely in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what is right."
"I can see that my presence is disagreeable to you. Painful as it is for me to recognise this, I see that it is so and cannot be otherwise. I do not reproach you, and God is my witness that when I saw you at the time of your illness I resolved with my whole heart to forget all that had come between us and begin life anew. I do not regret, and shall never regret, what I did; my only desire was for your welfare, the welfare of your soul, and now I see I have not attained that. Tell me yourself what would give you true happiness and peace of mind. I put myself entirely in your hands, and trust to your feeling of what is right."
11 November 2009
Bright star ...
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art--
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
~ by John Keats ...
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature's patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth's human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors--
No--yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow'd upon my fair love's ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever--or else swoon to death.
~ by John Keats ...
02 November 2009
Leisure ...
... by W. H. Davies reminds me a little of what I have nearly lost in the past few months ... September and October have passed by in a blur, as I float from one mini-crisis to another ... People around me have been more than lovely, but somehow, the locus of control appears to remain in outer space, rather than internally, within my reach. Yet, this poem reminds me that life is very simple; one just needs to stop, pause, breath, "stand and stare" at God's creation upon our doorstep ...
What is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
No time to stand beneath the boughs
And stare as long as sheep or cows.
No time to see, when woods we pass,
Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night.
No time to turn at Beauty's glance,
And watch her feet, how they can dance.
No time to wait till her mouth can
Enrich that smile her eyes began.
A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.
The Good Soldier ...
... by Ford Madox Ford is an interesting book, and the following passage describes the hopelessness of our situation on this earth ...
"I have come to be very much of a cynic in these matters; I mean that it is impossible to believe in the permanence of man's or woman's love. Or, at any rate, it is impossible to believe in the permanence of any early passion. As I see it, at least, with regard to men, a love affair, a love for any definite woman - is something in the nature of a widening of the experience. With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like an acquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture - all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love - all these things are like so many objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walk beyond the horizon, to explore. He wants to get, as it were, behind those eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he desired to see the world with the eyes that they overshadow. He wants to hear that voice applying itself to every possible proposition, to every possible topic; he wants to see those characteristic gestures against every possible background. Of the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do not think that it counts for very much in a really great passion. It can be aroused by such nothings - by an untied shoelace, by a glance of the eye in passing - that I think it might be left out of the calculation. I don't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire for consummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore a matter needing no comment at all. It is a thing, with all its accidents, that must be taken for granted, as, in a novel, or a biography, you take it for granted that the characters have their meals with some regularity. But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the craving for identity with the woman he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever, maybe said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.
So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.
And yet I do not believe that for every man there comes at last a woman - or no, that is the wrong way of formulating it. For every man there comes at last a time of life when the woman who then sets her seal upon his imagination has set her seal for good. He will travel over no more horizon; he will never again set the knapsack over his shoulders; he will retire from those scenes. He will have gone out of the business."
"I have come to be very much of a cynic in these matters; I mean that it is impossible to believe in the permanence of man's or woman's love. Or, at any rate, it is impossible to believe in the permanence of any early passion. As I see it, at least, with regard to men, a love affair, a love for any definite woman - is something in the nature of a widening of the experience. With each new woman that a man is attracted to there appears to come a broadening of the outlook, or, if you like an acquiring of new territory. A turn of the eyebrow, a tone of the voice, a queer characteristic gesture - all these things, and it is these things that cause to arise the passion of love - all these things are like so many objects on the horizon of the landscape that tempt a man to walk beyond the horizon, to explore. He wants to get, as it were, behind those eyebrows with the peculiar turn, as if he desired to see the world with the eyes that they overshadow. He wants to hear that voice applying itself to every possible proposition, to every possible topic; he wants to see those characteristic gestures against every possible background. Of the question of the sex-instinct I know very little and I do not think that it counts for very much in a really great passion. It can be aroused by such nothings - by an untied shoelace, by a glance of the eye in passing - that I think it might be left out of the calculation. I don't mean to say that any great passion can exist without a desire for consummation. That seems to me to be a commonplace and to be therefore a matter needing no comment at all. It is a thing, with all its accidents, that must be taken for granted, as, in a novel, or a biography, you take it for granted that the characters have their meals with some regularity. But the real fierceness of desire, the real heat of a passion long continued and withering up the soul of a man is the craving for identity with the woman he loves. He desires to see with the same eyes, to lose his identity, to be enveloped, to be supported. For, whatever, maybe said of the relation of the sexes, there is no man who loves a woman that does not desire to come to her for the renewal of his courage, for the cutting asunder of his difficulties. And that will be the mainspring of his desire for her. We are all so afraid, we are all so alone, we all so need from the outside the assurance of our own worthiness to exist.
So, for a time, if such a passion come to fruition, the man will get what he wants. He will get the moral support, the encouragement, the relief from the sense of loneliness, the assurance of his own worth. But these things pass away; inevitably they pass away as the shadows pass across sundials. It is sad, but it is so. The pages of the book will become familiar; the beautiful corner of the road will have been turned too many times. Well, this is the saddest story.
And yet I do not believe that for every man there comes at last a woman - or no, that is the wrong way of formulating it. For every man there comes at last a time of life when the woman who then sets her seal upon his imagination has set her seal for good. He will travel over no more horizon; he will never again set the knapsack over his shoulders; he will retire from those scenes. He will have gone out of the business."
16 October 2009
The Reader ...
... by Bernhard Schlink is a book about Holocaust, individual responsibility, justice, collective guilt, forgiveness, the irreversibility of time, the extent of reality in memory ... The last topic fascinates me, and is discussed in depth in "The Secret Scripture" by Sebastian Barry.
"At first I wanted to write our story in order to be free of it. But the memories wouldn't come back for that. Then I realized our story was slipping away from me and I wanted to recapture it by writing, but that didn't coax up the memories either. For the last few years I've left our story alone. I've made peace with it. And it came back, detail by detail and in such a fully rounded fashion, with its own direction and its own sense of completion, that it no longer makes me sad. What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus, the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.
At any rate, that's what I think when I just happen to think about it. But if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel guilty, the feeling of guilt return; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then. The geological layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nevertheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear. Maybe I did write our story to be free of it, even if I never can be."
The protagonist, Michael, wrote a poem in the book which reminds me of another poem ... the ambivalence, the uncertainity despite the togetherness ...
"When we open ourselves
you yourself to me and I myself to you,
when we submerge
you into me and I into you
when we vanish
you into me, and I into you
Then
am I me
and you are you"
"At first I wanted to write our story in order to be free of it. But the memories wouldn't come back for that. Then I realized our story was slipping away from me and I wanted to recapture it by writing, but that didn't coax up the memories either. For the last few years I've left our story alone. I've made peace with it. And it came back, detail by detail and in such a fully rounded fashion, with its own direction and its own sense of completion, that it no longer makes me sad. What a sad story, I thought for so long. Not that I now think it was happy. But I think it is true, and thus, the question of whether it is sad or happy has no meaning whatever.
At any rate, that's what I think when I just happen to think about it. But if something hurts me, the hurts I suffered back then come back to me, and when I feel guilty, the feeling of guilt return; if I yearn for something today, or feel homesick, I feel the yearnings and homesickness from back then. The geological layers of our lives rest so tightly one on top of the other that we always come up against earlier events in later ones, not as matter that has been fully formed and pushed aside, but absolutely present and alive. I understand this. Nevertheless, I sometimes find it hard to bear. Maybe I did write our story to be free of it, even if I never can be."
The protagonist, Michael, wrote a poem in the book which reminds me of another poem ... the ambivalence, the uncertainity despite the togetherness ...
"When we open ourselves
you yourself to me and I myself to you,
when we submerge
you into me and I into you
when we vanish
you into me, and I into you
Then
am I me
and you are you"
12 October 2009
This morning ...
... by Raymond Carver definitely sums up how I felt when I was swinging among the autumn leaves at Heinwehfluh ... the fleeting moment of tranquility ...
This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk -- determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts
began to wander. I had to will
myself to see what I was seeing
and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what
mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,
for a minute or two!) For a minute or two
it crowded out the usual musings on
what was right, and what was wrong -- duty,
tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat
with my former wife. All the things
I hoped would go away this morning.
The stuff I live with every day. What
I've trampled on in order to stay alive.
But for a minute or two I did forget
myself and everything else. I know I did.
For when I turned back i didn't know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.
This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk -- determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts
began to wander. I had to will
myself to see what I was seeing
and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what
mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,
for a minute or two!) For a minute or two
it crowded out the usual musings on
what was right, and what was wrong -- duty,
tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat
with my former wife. All the things
I hoped would go away this morning.
The stuff I live with every day. What
I've trampled on in order to stay alive.
But for a minute or two I did forget
myself and everything else. I know I did.
For when I turned back i didn't know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.
10 October 2009
A Lovely Song For Jackson ...
... by V.R. Lang for a lovely couple, whose wedding is by a magical lake ...
If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea,
I'd find you, you'd find me.
Fishes would see us and shake their heads
Approvingly from their submarine beds.
Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry,
And sea anemone smile us by.
Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.
If I were an angel and lost in the sun,
You would be there, and you would be one.
Birds that flew high enough would find us and sing
Gladder to find us than for anything,
And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere
Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair.
Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile,
And all over heaven we'd laugh for a while.
Only the fishes would search and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.
If I were a seaweed at the bottom of the sea,
I'd find you, you'd find me.
Fishes would see us and shake their heads
Approvingly from their submarine beds.
Crabs and sea horses would bid us glad cry,
And sea anemone smile us by.
Sea gulls alone would wing and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.
If I were an angel and lost in the sun,
You would be there, and you would be one.
Birds that flew high enough would find us and sing
Gladder to find us than for anything,
And clouds would be proud of us, light everywhere
Would clothe us gold gaily, for dear and for fair.
Trees stretching skyward would see us and smile,
And all over heaven we'd laugh for a while.
Only the fishes would search and make moan,
Wondering, wondering, where we had gone.
09 October 2009
Late Fragment ...
... will be amazing lines on one's tombstone ...
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
~ Raymond Carver
Better not ...
by Erich Fried ... its ambivalence is just beautiful ...
Life
would perhaps
be easier
if I had
never met you
Less sadness
each time
when we must part
less fear
of the next parting
and the next after that
And not so much either
of the powerless longing
when you're not there
which wants only the
impossible
and that right away
next minute
and then
when that can't be
is hurt
and finds breathing difficult
Life
would perhaps be
simpler
if I hadn't met you
only it wouldn't be
my life
Life
would perhaps
be easier
if I had
never met you
Less sadness
each time
when we must part
less fear
of the next parting
and the next after that
And not so much either
of the powerless longing
when you're not there
which wants only the
impossible
and that right away
next minute
and then
when that can't be
is hurt
and finds breathing difficult
Life
would perhaps be
simpler
if I hadn't met you
only it wouldn't be
my life
30 September 2009
Elie Wiesel ...
... wrote about his conflicts with God, especially during and after the Holocaust, in the triology "Night", "Dawn" and "Day" ...
One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains - one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel ... All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him ... The three victims mounted together onto the chains.
The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
"Long live liberty!" cried the two adults.
But the child was silent.
"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked.
At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over ...
Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive ...
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"Where is God now?"
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
"Where is He? Here He is - He is hanging here on the gallows ..."
We all have moments of questioning, of doubting, of uncertainty, even if the pain we face paled in comparison to those described by Elie Wiesel ... yet, it is how darkness turns into light which is fascinating about humans and God ...
Maybe sometimes, we just need to believe ...
"I believe in the sun, even when it doesn't shine.
I believe in love, even when I don't feel it.
I believe in God, even when He is silent."
~ an inscription on the wall of a cellar in Cologne (where some Jews remained hidden for the entire duration of the war)
One day when we came back from work, we saw three gallows rearing up in the assembly place, three black crows. Roll call. SS all around us, machine guns trained: the traditional ceremony. Three victims in chains - one of them, the little servant, the sad-eyed angel ... All eyes were on the child. He was lividly pale, almost calm, biting his lips. The gallows threw its shadow over him ... The three victims mounted together onto the chains.
The three necks were placed at the same moment within the nooses.
"Long live liberty!" cried the two adults.
But the child was silent.
"Where is God? Where is He?" someone behind me asked.
At a sign from the head of the camp, the three chairs tipped over ...
Then the march past began. The two adults were no longer alive. Their tongues hung swollen, blue-tinged. But the third rope was still moving; being so light, the child was still alive ...
For more than half an hour he stayed there, struggling between life and death, dying in slow agony under our eyes. And we had to look him full in the face. He was still alive when I passed in front of him. His tongue was still red, his eyes were not yet glazed.
Behind me, I heard the same man asking:
"Where is God now?"
And I heard a voice within me answer him:
"Where is He? Here He is - He is hanging here on the gallows ..."
We all have moments of questioning, of doubting, of uncertainty, even if the pain we face paled in comparison to those described by Elie Wiesel ... yet, it is how darkness turns into light which is fascinating about humans and God ...
Maybe sometimes, we just need to believe ...
"I believe in the sun, even when it doesn't shine.
I believe in love, even when I don't feel it.
I believe in God, even when He is silent."
~ an inscription on the wall of a cellar in Cologne (where some Jews remained hidden for the entire duration of the war)
27 September 2009
Aubade ...
... by Larkin is beautiful ... the forces described by Freud; Eros (life) and Thantos (death) exist in all of us, battling all day long, but the "uncaring intricate rented world" continues to evolve, marching forward, as the dawn of the morning draws ...
I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
I work all day, and get half drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not used, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never:
But at the total emptiness forever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.
This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says no rational being
Can fear a thing it cannot feel, not seeing
that this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anaesthetic from which none come round.
And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no-one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.
Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.
22 September 2009
If ...
If time can hold
all the soundless tears in my dark eyes
all the inaudible longing in my shattered heart
all the unspoken words in my callous hands,
Then maybe, one day,
the tears will fall
the longings will cease
and the words will grow
Into a distant echo,
no longer to be seen, felt, or heard
but allowed us, the mortals,
to reflect on the irreversibility of time.
all the soundless tears in my dark eyes
all the inaudible longing in my shattered heart
all the unspoken words in my callous hands,
Then maybe, one day,
the tears will fall
the longings will cease
and the words will grow
Into a distant echo,
no longer to be seen, felt, or heard
but allowed us, the mortals,
to reflect on the irreversibility of time.
You and I both ...
... is a song by Jason Mraz which I have been listening to a lot recently and I think I am nearly there ... running out of words ...
Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me?
All things are gonna happen naturally
Oh, taking your advice and I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing.
Oh, but at often times those words get tangled up in a lines
And the bright light turns to night
Oh, until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me
See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words;
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words.
More words than I had ever heard, and I feel so alive.
And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy
And it's okay if you had to go away
Oh, just remember that telephones
Well, they work out of both ways
But if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I'll think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that's okay
Cause I'll remember everything you sang
Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of (of,)
And others just read of
and if you could see me now
Well, then I'm almost finally out of
I'm finally out of
Finally deedeedeedeedeede
Well I'm almost finally, finally
Out of words
Was it you who spoke the words that things would happen but not to me?
All things are gonna happen naturally
Oh, taking your advice and I'm looking on the bright side
And balancing the whole thing.
Oh, but at often times those words get tangled up in a lines
And the bright light turns to night
Oh, until the dawn it brings
Another day to sing about the magic that was you and me
See I'm all about them words
Over numbers, unencumbered numbered words;
Hundreds of pages, pages, pages for words.
More words than I had ever heard, and I feel so alive.
And with this silence brings a moral story
More importantly evolving is the glory of a boy
And it's okay if you had to go away
Oh, just remember that telephones
Well, they work out of both ways
But if I never ever hear them ring
If nothing else I'll think the bells inside
Have finally found you someone else and that's okay
Cause I'll remember everything you sang
Cause you and I both loved
What you and I spoke of (of,)
And others just read of
and if you could see me now
Well, then I'm almost finally out of
I'm finally out of
Finally deedeedeedeedeede
Well I'm almost finally, finally
Out of words
08 September 2009
It's gonna be alright ...
... is a song by Priscilla Ahn ... the lyrics are so simple, yet beautiful ... It reminds me of the bubbles I saw at London Eye last night ... I hardly ever walked down that side of South Bank, as blue light is one of my favourite places in London, but we took a left turn at Waterloo and I saw this artist making the biggest bubbles ever ... maybe Changes need to happen for us to experience more beauty and to be singing "It's gonna be alright" ...
Just walk away.
I don't wanna be that girl again.
That says goodbye to another broken hearted boyfriend.
But I'll let this slide.
cause you're different from all of them.
Yeah...
I need to learn when I've had enough.
I know it's hard when the going gets tough.
But I don't want to stop this.
So promise me,
it's gonna be alright.
Someday you'll see, the hell is wrong with me.
Sometimes my mind is floating in another foreign galaxy.
I'll leave behind all the tarot cards of an unknown prophecy.
I need to learn when I've had enough.
I know it's hard when the going gets tough.
But I don't want to stop this.
So promise me,
it's gonna be alright.
So feel the waters and tell me,
what you wanna do to make it.
Cause i've got a piece of my mind,
saying its alright.
It's gonna be alright.
I'm going to try to stay as sane as i could possibly.
Big girls still cry so please be patient with me.
You and i were a match made at a birthday party
Just walk away.
I don't wanna be that girl again.
That says goodbye to another broken hearted boyfriend.
But I'll let this slide.
cause you're different from all of them.
Yeah...
I need to learn when I've had enough.
I know it's hard when the going gets tough.
But I don't want to stop this.
So promise me,
it's gonna be alright.
Someday you'll see, the hell is wrong with me.
Sometimes my mind is floating in another foreign galaxy.
I'll leave behind all the tarot cards of an unknown prophecy.
I need to learn when I've had enough.
I know it's hard when the going gets tough.
But I don't want to stop this.
So promise me,
it's gonna be alright.
So feel the waters and tell me,
what you wanna do to make it.
Cause i've got a piece of my mind,
saying its alright.
It's gonna be alright.
I'm going to try to stay as sane as i could possibly.
Big girls still cry so please be patient with me.
You and i were a match made at a birthday party
28 August 2009
Dana Gioia ...
The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.
And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.
Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.
The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
--
So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.
And one word transforms it into something less or other--
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.
Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper--
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.
The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always--
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.
--
So much of what we live goes on inside–
The diaries of grief, the tongue-tied aches
Of unacknowledged love are no less real
For having passed unsaid. What we conceal
Is always more than what we dare confide.
Think of the letters that we write our dead.
26 August 2009
I am ...
... by John Clare
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
I am: yet what I am none cares or knows,
My friends forsake me like a memory lost;
I am the self-consumer of my woes,
They rise and vanish in oblivious host,
Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;
And yet I am! and live with shadows tost
Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,
Into the living sea of waking dreams,
Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,
But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;
And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--
Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.
I long for scenes where man has never trod;
A place where woman never smil'd or wept;
There to abide with my creator, God,
And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:
Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;
The grass below--above the vaulted sky.
23 August 2009
If you forget me ...
... by Pablo Neruda ...
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
I want you to know
one thing.
You know how this is:
if I look
at the crystal moon, at the red branch
of the slow autumn at my window,
if I touch
near the fire
the impalpable ash
or the wrinkled body of the log,
everything carries me to you,
as if everything that exists,
aromas, light, metals,
were little boats
that sail
toward those isles of yours that wait for me.
Well, now,
if little by little you stop loving me
I shall stop loving you little by little.
If suddenly
you forget me
do not look for me,
for I shall already have forgotten you.
If you think it long and mad,
the wind of banners
that passes through my life,
and you decide
to leave me at the shore
of the heart where I have roots,
remember
that on that day,
at that hour,
I shall lift my arms
and my roots will set off
to seek another land.
But
if each day,
each hour,
you feel that you are destined for me
with implacable sweetness,
if each day a flower
climbs up to your lips to seek me,
ah my love, ah my own,
in me all that fire is repeated,
in me nothing is extinguished or forgotten,
my love feeds on your love, beloved,
and as long as you live it will be in your arms
without leaving mine.
19 August 2009
Do not expect ...
... by Dana Gioia is absolutely stunning ... there are always "impenetrable things" in this chaotic world, but to be able to touch its surface briefly is like having a glimpse of heaven, where your soul longs to be ...
Do not expect that if your book falls open
to a certain page, that any phrase
you read will make a difference today,
or that the voices you might overhear
when the wind moves through the yellow-green
and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.
Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the
dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon
your shadow walks beside you on the wall,
and the days stay long and heavy underneath
the distant rumor of the harvest. One
more summer gone,
and one way or another you survive,
dull or regretful, never learning that
nothing is hidden in the obvious
changes of the world, that even the dim
reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass
is more than you will ever understand.
And only briefly then
you touch, you see, you press against
the surface of impenetrable things.
Do not expect that if your book falls open
to a certain page, that any phrase
you read will make a difference today,
or that the voices you might overhear
when the wind moves through the yellow-green
and golden tent of autumn, speak to you.
Things ripen or go dry. Light plays on the
dark surface of the lake. Each afternoon
your shadow walks beside you on the wall,
and the days stay long and heavy underneath
the distant rumor of the harvest. One
more summer gone,
and one way or another you survive,
dull or regretful, never learning that
nothing is hidden in the obvious
changes of the world, that even the dim
reflection of the sun on tall, dry grass
is more than you will ever understand.
And only briefly then
you touch, you see, you press against
the surface of impenetrable things.
17 August 2009
If you close your eyes ...
... and take a deep breath,
to pause
and listen,
the endearing silence
is the sounds of whites
in the midst of tears.
to pause
and listen,
the endearing silence
is the sounds of whites
in the midst of tears.
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