30 Aug: "Do It Anyway" by Mother Teresa
Do It Anyway
by Mother Teresa
People are often unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest anyway.
What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
by Mother Teresa
People are often unreasonable,
illogical and self-centered;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind,
people may accuse you of selfish ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful,
you will win some false friends and true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank,
people may cheat you;
Be honest anyway.
What you spend years building,
someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness,
they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today,
people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have,
and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis,
it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.
29 Aug: "Auguries of Innocence" by William Blake
To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour
A Robin Red breast in a Cage
Puts all Heaven in a Rage
A Dove house filld with Doves & Pigeons
Shudders Hell thr' all its regions
A dog starvd at his Masters Gate
Predicts the ruin of the State
A Horse misusd upon the Road
Calls to Heaven for Human blood
Each outcry of the hunted Hare
A fibre from the Brain does tear
A Skylark wounded in the wing
A Cherubim does cease to sing
The Game Cock clipd & armd for fight
Does the Rising Sun affright
Every Wolfs & Lions howl
Raises from Hell a Human Soul
The wild deer, wandring here & there
Keeps the Human Soul from Care
The Lamb misusd breeds Public Strife
And yet forgives the Butchers knife
The Bat that flits at close of Eve
Has left the Brain that wont Believe
The Owl that calls upon the Night
Speaks the Unbelievers fright
He who shall hurt the little Wren
Shall never be belovd by Men
He who the Ox to wrath has movd
Shall never be by Woman lovd
The wanton Boy that kills the Fly
Shall feel the Spiders enmity
He who torments the Chafers Sprite
Weaves a Bower in endless Night
The Catterpiller on the Leaf
Repeats to thee thy Mothers grief
Kill not the Moth nor Butterfly
For the Last Judgment draweth nigh
He who shall train the Horse to War
Shall never pass the Polar Bar
The Beggars Dog & Widows Cat
Feed them & thou wilt grow fat
The Gnat that sings his Summers Song
Poison gets from Slanders tongue
The poison of the Snake & Newt
Is the sweat of Envys Foot
The poison of the Honey Bee
Is the Artists Jealousy
The Princes Robes & Beggars Rags
Are Toadstools on the Misers Bags
A Truth thats told with bad intent
Beats all the Lies you can invent
It is right it should be so
Man was made for Joy & Woe
And when this we rightly know
Thro the World we safely go
Joy & Woe are woven fine
A Clothing for the soul divine
Under every grief & pine
Runs a joy with silken twine
The Babe is more than swadling Bands
Throughout all these Human Lands
Tools were made & Born were hands
Every Farmer Understands
Every Tear from Every Eye
Becomes a Babe in Eternity
This is caught by Females bright
And returnd to its own delight
The Bleat the Bark Bellow & Roar
Are Waves that Beat on Heavens Shore
The Babe that weeps the Rod beneath
Writes Revenge in realms of Death
The Beggars Rags fluttering in Air
Does to Rags the Heavens tear
The Soldier armd with Sword & Gun
Palsied strikes the Summers Sun
The poor Mans Farthing is worth more
Than all the Gold on Africs Shore
One Mite wrung from the Labrers hands
Shall buy & sell the Misers Lands
Or if protected from on high
Does that whole Nation sell & buy
He who mocks the Infants Faith
Shall be mockd in Age & Death
He who shall teach the Child to Doubt
The rotting Grave shall neer get out
He who respects the Infants faith
Triumphs over Hell & Death
The Childs Toys & the Old Mans Reasons
Are the Fruits of the Two seasons
The Questioner who sits so sly
Shall never know how to Reply
He who replies to words of Doubt
Doth put the Light of Knowledge out
The Strongest Poison ever known
Came from Caesars Laurel Crown
Nought can Deform the Human Race
Like to the Armours iron brace
When Gold & Gems adorn the Plow
To peaceful Arts shall Envy Bow
A Riddle or the Crickets Cry
Is to Doubt a fit Reply
The Emmets Inch & Eagles Mile
Make Lame Philosophy to smile
He who Doubts from what he sees
Will neer Believe do what you Please
If the Sun & Moon should Doubt
Theyd immediately Go out
To be in a Passion you Good may Do
But no Good if a Passion is in you
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate
The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse
Dance before dead Englands Hearse
Every Night & every Morn
Some to Misery are Born
Every Morn and every Night
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to sweet delight
Some are Born to Endless Night
We are led to Believe a Lie
When we see not Thro the Eye
Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night
When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light
God Appears & God is Light
To those poor Souls who dwell in Night
But does a Human Form Display
To those who Dwell in Realms of day
28 Aug: "Sonnet" by Franz Kappus
Through my life there trembles without plaint,
without a sigh a deep dark melancholy.
the pure and snowy blossoming of my dreams
is the consecration of my stillest days.
But oftentimes the great question crosses
my path. I become small and go
coldly past as though along some lake
whose flood I have not hardihood to measure.
And then a sorrow sinks upon me, dusky
as the gray of lusterless summer nights
through which a star glimmers - now and then - :
My hands then gropingly reach out for love,
because I want so much to pray sounds
that my hot mouth cannot find.
-Franz Kappus from Letters to a Young Poet
without a sigh a deep dark melancholy.
the pure and snowy blossoming of my dreams
is the consecration of my stillest days.
But oftentimes the great question crosses
my path. I become small and go
coldly past as though along some lake
whose flood I have not hardihood to measure.
And then a sorrow sinks upon me, dusky
as the gray of lusterless summer nights
through which a star glimmers - now and then - :
My hands then gropingly reach out for love,
because I want so much to pray sounds
that my hot mouth cannot find.
-Franz Kappus from Letters to a Young Poet
27 Aug: "Nature is what we see" by Emily Dickinson
Nature, is what we see,
The Hill, the Afternoon-
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay- Nature is Heaven.
Nature is what we hear,
The Bobolink, the Sea-
Thunder, the Cricket-
Nay,- Nature is Harmony.
Nature is what we know
But have no art to say,
So impotent our wisdom is
To Her simplicity.
-Emily Dickinson
The Hill, the Afternoon-
Squirrel, Eclipse, the Bumble-bee,
Nay- Nature is Heaven.
Nature is what we hear,
The Bobolink, the Sea-
Thunder, the Cricket-
Nay,- Nature is Harmony.
Nature is what we know
But have no art to say,
So impotent our wisdom is
To Her simplicity.
-Emily Dickinson
26 Aug: "The Soul selects her own Society-" by Emily Dickinson
The Soul selects her own Society — Then — shuts the Door — To her divine Majority — Present no more — Unmoved — she notes the Chariots — pausing — At her low Gate — Unmoved — an Emperor be kneeling Upon her Mat — I’ve known her — from an ample nation — Choose One — Then — close the Valves of her attention — Like Stone — -Emily Dickinson
25 Aug: "Echoes" by Emma Lazarus
Late-born and woman-souled I dare not hope,
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave
O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.
The freshness of the elder lays, the might
Of manly, modern passion shall alight
Upon my Muse's lips, nor may I cope
(Who veiled and screened by womanhood must grope)
With the world's strong-armed warriors and recite
The dangers, wounds, and triumphs of the fight;
Twanging the full-stringed lyre through all its scope.
But if thou ever in some lake-floored cave
O'erbrowed by rocks, a wild voice wooed and heard,
Answering at once from heaven and earth and wave,
Lending elf-music to thy harshest word,
Misprize thou not these echoes that belong
To one in love with solitude and song.
24 Aug 2018: The apostle (extract) by Sándor Petőfi
(English translation by Victor Clement)
The town is dark, night lies upon it,
the moon roams over other regions
and the stars have closed
their golden eyes.
The world is black
as bought-off conscience.
One single, tiny light
glimmers above
faintly, faltering
like the eye of a languid dreamer,
like a last hope.
It is the pale light of a garret.
Who keeps vigil by the light of the lamp?
Who keeps vigil there above?
Two sisters: virtue and misery.
Great, great is the misery there,
it hardly has room in the tiny chamber.
The garret is small, like a swallow’s nest,
and not more ornate than the nest of swallows.
Dreary and bare are the four walls,
or they would be bare
had not mould painted on them flowers,
had not rain,
trickling down through the roof,
striped them moodily …
The heavy rain streak
reaches down
like a bell-rope
in a mansion of the rich.
The air is dense
with sighs and the smell of mould.
The hounds of the mighty lords,
bred in better quarters,
would waste away in such surroundings.
Pine bedstead, pine table,
which would not sell at a rag-fair,
a sack of straw at the foot of the bed,
a few straw chairs by the table,
a worm-eaten chest at the head of the bed,
these are the room’s furnishings.
Who are the dwellers here?
Shadow and light struggle
in the tired blinking of the lamp …
the figures, like dream images, are faded,
and loom vaguely in the dimness.
Does the feeble light deceive the eye?
Or, are the dwellers here
all really so pale,
such ghostly apparitions?
Near the bedstead, on the chest,
the mother sits with her child.
With hoarse moans the infant sucks, sucks
at its mother’s shrivelled breast,
and it sucks in vain.
The woman sits brooding,
and her thoughts must be sorrowful
for, like snow melting from the eaves,
her tears cascade down
upon the cheeks of the little one …
Or, perhaps, unwittingly,
merely out of habit,
the tears gush from her eyes,
like a brook from the rocks?
Her older child,
thank God, sleeps quietly.
Or does he only seem to be sleeping?
He lies on his bed near the wall,
covered by a coarse blanket;
the straw shows from under it.
Sleep, little man, sleep,
dream bread into your wasted hand,
and your dream will be kingly.
A young man, the father,
sits darkly brooding at the table …
Is it the gloom oozing from his brow,
that saturates the garret?
‘Tis a heavy tome, this brow,
the woes of the world, all are inscribed upon it:
this brow is an engraving,
the hunger and torment of a million lives
are etched into it.
But below the sombre brow,
two smouldering eyes flicker
like two vagrant comets
which fear no one
but are feared by all.
His gaze
soars always farther, always higher,
until it is lost up there in the infinite,
like an eagle among the clouds.
23 Aug 2018: "Boy" by Nina Belen Robins
Boy
Somewhere there is a man
who bought
the VERY first ever issue of
Fantastic Four
from the awkward kid
up the street
for a nickel.
An awkward kid who didn’t have
Joe DiMaggio
baseball cards,
or signed baseballs
or Saturday afternoons
playing catch with his dad
like the guy he sold it to.
Just a bedroom
where he got to hang out
with Superman and
The Flash.
His mom and dad
downstairs
wondering,
what’s wrong with this boy
that he doesn’t have friends?
It must be the comics.
Better make them leave.
They didn’t see the belt
tied to the back of a chair
and around his neck
those three afternoons,
the crab apples
being thrown across
the yard at school.
Super heroes swooping down
To catch him.
Just a bookshelf
filled with comic books
emptied
in one afternoon.
Superman kicked out
of the bedroom,
The Flash sold
to the kid next door,
Fantastic Four
spread out on another table.
A boy clinging to a cliff.
A window.
Flashing a batman
light.
Fifty nickels in his pockets
dragging him down
toward the waves.
22 Aug 2018: "Rise Up, Magyar" by Sandor Petofi
Rise up, Magyar, the country calls!
It's 'now or never' what fate befalls...
Shall we live as slaves or free men?
That's the question - choose your `Amen'!
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
For up till now we lived like slaves,
Damned lie our forefathers in their graves -
They who lived and died in freedom
Cannot rest in dusts of thraldom.
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
A coward and a lowly bastard
Is he, who dares not raise the standard -
He, whose wretched life is dearer
Than the country's sacred honor.
God of Hungarians
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
Sabers outshine chains and fetters,
It's the sword that one's arm betters.
Yet we wear grim chains and shackles.
Swords, slash through the damned manacles!
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
Magyars' name will tell the story
Worthy of our erstwhile glory:
We must scrub off - fiercely cleansing
Centuries of shame condensing.
God of Hungarians
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee that slaves we shall
no longer be!
Where our grave-mounds bulge in grey earth
Grandsons kneel and say their prayers,
While in blessing words they mention
All our sainted names' ascension.
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
It's 'now or never' what fate befalls...
Shall we live as slaves or free men?
That's the question - choose your `Amen'!
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
For up till now we lived like slaves,
Damned lie our forefathers in their graves -
They who lived and died in freedom
Cannot rest in dusts of thraldom.
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
A coward and a lowly bastard
Is he, who dares not raise the standard -
He, whose wretched life is dearer
Than the country's sacred honor.
God of Hungarians
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
Sabers outshine chains and fetters,
It's the sword that one's arm betters.
Yet we wear grim chains and shackles.
Swords, slash through the damned manacles!
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
Magyars' name will tell the story
Worthy of our erstwhile glory:
We must scrub off - fiercely cleansing
Centuries of shame condensing.
God of Hungarians
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee that slaves we shall
no longer be!
Where our grave-mounds bulge in grey earth
Grandsons kneel and say their prayers,
While in blessing words they mention
All our sainted names' ascension.
God of Hungarians,
we swear unto Thee,
We swear unto Thee - that slaves we shall
no longer be!
21 Aug 2018: "I'll Be a Tree" by Sandor Petofi
I'll be a tree, if you are its flower,
Or a flower, if you are the dew-
I'll be the dew, if you are the sunbeam,
Only to be united with you.
My lovely girl, if you are the Heaven,
I shall be a star above on high;
My darling, if you are hell-fire,
To unite us, damned I shall die.
20 Aug 2018: "Liberty and Love" by Sándor Petőfi
Liberty and love
These two I must have.
For my love I’ll sacrifice
My life.
For liberty I’ll sacrifice
My love.
These two I must have.
For my love I’ll sacrifice
My life.
For liberty I’ll sacrifice
My love.
19 Aug: "Your World" by Georgia Douglas Johnson
Your world is as big as you make it.
I know, for I used to abide
In the narrowest nest in a corner,
My wings pressing close to my side.
But I sighted the distant horizon
Where the skyline encircled the sea
And I throbbed with a burning desire
To travel this immensity.
I battered the cordons around me
And cradled my wings on the breeze,
Then soared to the uttermost reaches
With rapture, with power, with ease!
18 Aug: "Echo" by Christina Rossetti
Echo
Come to me in the silence of the night;
Come in the speaking silence of a dream;
Come with soft rounded cheeks and eyes as bright
As sunlight on a stream;
Come back in tears,
O memory, hope, love of finished years.
Oh dream how sweet, too sweet, too bitter sweet,
Whose wakening should have been in Paradise,
Where souls brimfull of love abide and meet;
Where thirsting longing eyes
Watch the slow door
That opening, letting in, lets out no more.
Yet come to me in dreams, that I may live
My very life again tho’ cold in death:
Come back to me in dreams, that I may give
Pulse for pulse, breath for breath:
Speak low, lean low,
As long ago, my love, how long ago.
17 Aug: "'Faith' is a fine invention..." by Emily Dickinson
“Faith” is fine invention (202)
“Faith” is a fine invention
For Gentlemen who see!
But Microscopes are prudent
In an Emergency!
16 Aug: "Among School Children" by William Butler Yeats
Among School Children
I
I walk through the long schoolroom questioning;
A kind old nun in a white hood replies;
The children learn to cipher and to sing,
To study reading-books and history,
To cut and sew, be neat in everything
In the best modern way—the children's eyes
In momentary wonder stare upon
A sixty-year-old smiling public man.
II
I dream of a Ledaean body, bent
Above a sinking fire, a tale that she
Told of a harsh reproof, or trivial event
That changed some childish day to tragedy—
Told, and it seemed that our two natures blent
Into a sphere from youthful sympathy,
Or else, to alter Plato's parable,
Into the yolk and white of the one shell.
III
And thinking of that fit of grief or rage
I look upon one child or t'other there
And wonder if she stood so at that age—
For even daughters of the swan can share
Something of every paddler's heritage—
And had that colour upon cheek or hair,
And thereupon my heart is driven wild:
She stands before me as a living child.
IV
Her present image floats into the mind—
Did Quattrocento finger fashion it
Hollow of cheek as though it drank the wind
And took a mess of shadows for its meat?
And I though never of Ledaean kind
Had pretty plumage once—enough of that,
Better to smile on all that smile, and show
There is a comfortable kind of old scarecrow.
V
What youthful mother, a shape upon her lap
Honey of generation had betrayed,
And that must sleep, shriek, struggle to escape
As recollection or the drug decide,
Would think her son, did she but see that shape
With sixty or more winters on its head,
A compensation for the pang of his birth,
Or the uncertainty of his setting forth?
VI
Plato thought nature but a spume that plays
Upon a ghostly paradigm of things;
Solider Aristotle played the taws
Upon the bottom of a king of kings;
World-famous golden-thighed Pythagoras
Fingered upon a fiddle-stick or strings
What a star sang and careless Muses heard:
Old clothes upon old sticks to scare a bird.
VII
Both nuns and mothers worship images,
But those the candles light are not as those
That animate a mother's reveries,
But keep a marble or a bronze repose.
And yet they too break hearts—O Presences
That passion, piety or affection knows,
And that all heavenly glory symbolise—
O self-born mockers of man's enterprise;
VIII
Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul,
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut tree, great rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?
15 Aug: "Dismantling" by Merrill Leffler
Dismantling
Be willing to dismantle for the purpose
of rebuilding on more solid structure.
—Horoscope
First you must lift the idea
(be careful it may be heavy)
and haul it out to the dumpster.
Next locate the meaning—it may not
come easily, though if you have
the right tools and they are good tools
you should have no difficulty. Now
it is the sentences' turn: take each one
strip it of grammar (you may need
abrasives here) and hang them all
on a line. When thoroughly dried,
lay each one down on the grass or
if you live in the city, the sidewalk will do.
The point is, make sure you put them
in harm's way, wherever you are.
Don't try to protect them. It may be
they will go to war, or wander the desert
or haunt the streets like beggars
or run from the police or suffer
loneliness and despair. Remember:
they must make their own way. The best
you can do is to stay out of theirs
and take them back in if they return.
Be willing to dismantle for the purpose
of rebuilding on more solid structure.
—Horoscope
of rebuilding on more solid structure.
—Horoscope
First you must lift the idea
(be careful it may be heavy)
and haul it out to the dumpster.
Next locate the meaning—it may not
come easily, though if you have
the right tools and they are good tools
you should have no difficulty. Now
it is the sentences' turn: take each one
strip it of grammar (you may need
abrasives here) and hang them all
on a line. When thoroughly dried,
lay each one down on the grass or
if you live in the city, the sidewalk will do.
The point is, make sure you put them
in harm's way, wherever you are.
Don't try to protect them. It may be
they will go to war, or wander the desert
or haunt the streets like beggars
or run from the police or suffer
loneliness and despair. Remember:
they must make their own way. The best
you can do is to stay out of theirs
and take them back in if they return.
14 Aug: "Glistening" by Linda Gregg
Glistening
As I pull the bucket from the crude well,
the water changes from dark to a light
more silver than the sun. When I pour it
over my body that is standing in the dust
by the oleander bush, it sparkles easily
in the sunlight with an earnestness like
the spirit close up. The water magnifies
the sun all along the length of it.
Love is not less because of the spirit.
Delight does not make the heart childish.
We thought the blood thinned, our weight
lessened, that our substance was reduced
by simple happiness. The oleander is thick
with leaves and flowers because of spilled
water. Let the spirit marry the heart.
When I return naked to the stone porch,
there is no one to see me glistening.
But I look at the almond tree with its husks
cracking open int he heat. I look down
the whole mountain to the sea. Goats bleating
faintly and sometimes bells. I stand there
a long time with the sun and the quiet,
the earth moving slowly as I dry in the light.
the water changes from dark to a light
more silver than the sun. When I pour it
over my body that is standing in the dust
by the oleander bush, it sparkles easily
in the sunlight with an earnestness like
the spirit close up. The water magnifies
the sun all along the length of it.
Love is not less because of the spirit.
Delight does not make the heart childish.
We thought the blood thinned, our weight
lessened, that our substance was reduced
by simple happiness. The oleander is thick
with leaves and flowers because of spilled
water. Let the spirit marry the heart.
When I return naked to the stone porch,
there is no one to see me glistening.
But I look at the almond tree with its husks
cracking open int he heat. I look down
the whole mountain to the sea. Goats bleating
faintly and sometimes bells. I stand there
a long time with the sun and the quiet,
the earth moving slowly as I dry in the light.
by Linda Gregg
13 Aug: "Loveliest of Trees" by A.E. Housman
Loveliest of Trees
Loveliest of trees, the cherry now Is hung with bloom along the bough, And stands about the woodland ride Wearing white for Eastertide. Now, of my threescore years and ten, Twenty will not come again, And take from seventy springs a score, It only leaves me fifty more. And since to look at things in bloom Fifty springs are little room, About the woodlands I will go To see the cherry hung with snow.
12 Aug: "American Names" by Stephen Vincent Benet
American Names
I have fallen in love with American names,
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.
Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy's horn,
But I will remember where I was born.
I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy's Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.
I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.
Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman's Oast,
It is a magic ghost you guard
But I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.
Henry and John were never so
And Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
Did they never watch for Nantucket Light?
I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
The sharp names that never get fat,
The snakeskin-titles of mining-claims,
The plumed war-bonnet of Medicine Hat,
Tucson and Deadwood and Lost Mule Flat.
Seine and Piave are silver spoons,
But the spoonbowl-metal is thin and worn,
There are English counties like hunting-tunes
Played on the keys of a postboy's horn,
But I will remember where I was born.
I will remember Carquinez Straits,
Little French Lick and Lundy's Lane,
The Yankee ships and the Yankee dates
And the bullet-towns of Calamity Jane.
I will remember Skunktown Plain.
I will fall in love with a Salem tree
And a rawhide quirt from Santa Cruz,
I will get me a bottle of Boston sea
And a blue-gum nigger to sing me blues.
I am tired of loving a foreign muse.
Rue des Martyrs and Bleeding-Heart-Yard,
Senlis, Pisa, and Blindman's Oast,
It is a magic ghost you guard
But I am sick for a newer ghost,
Harrisburg, Spartanburg, Painted Post.
Henry and John were never so
And Henry and John were always right?
Granted, but when it was time to go
And the tea and the laurels had stood all night,
Did they never watch for Nantucket Light?
I shall not rest quiet in Montparnasse.
I shall not lie easy at Winchelsea.
You may bury my body in Sussex grass,
You may bury my tongue at Champmedy.
I shall not be there. I shall rise and pass.
Bury my heart at Wounded Knee.
11 Aug: "A Position at the University" by Lydia Davis
A Position at the University
By Lydia Davis
I think I know what sort of person I am. But then I think, But this stranger will imagine me quite otherwise when he or she hears this or that to my credit, for instance that I have a position at the university: the fact that I have a position at the university will appear to mean that I must be the sort of person who has a position at the university. But then I have to admit, with surprise, that, after all, it is true that I have a position at the university. And if it is true, then perhaps I really am the sort of person you imagine when you hear that a person has a position at the university. But, on the other hand, I know I am not the sort of person I imagine when I hear that a person has a position at the university. Then I see what the problem is: when others describe me this way, they appear to describe me completely, whereas in fact they do not describe me completely, and a complete description of me would include truths that seem quite incompatible with the fact that I have a position at the university.
10 Aug: "August Morning" by Albert Garcia
August Morning
It’s ripe, the melon
by our sink. Yellow,
bee-bitten, soft, it perfumes
the house too sweetly.
At five I wake, the air
mournful in its quiet.
My wife’s eyes swim calmly
under their lids, her mouth and jaw
relaxed, different.
What is happening in the silence
of this house? Curtains
hang heavily from their rods.
Ficus leaves tremble
at my footsteps. Yet
the colors outside are perfect--
orange geranium, blue lobelia.
I wander from room to room
like a man in a museum:
wife, children, books, flowers,
melon. Such still air. Soon
the mid-morning breeze will float in
like tepid water, then hot.
How do I start this day,
I who am unsure
of how my life has happened
or how to proceed
amid this warm and steady sweetness?
9 Aug: "The Bachelor Watches 'The Bachelor'" by Jacob Saenz
The Bachelor Watches “The Bachelor”
By Jacob Saenz
I sit on the couch & witness my life
projected on a screen — I am white
w/a chiseled, dimpled chin & no lips.
I’m a farmer who lives alone in a loft
& not a lowly office worker who lives
w/a roommate in an apartment where
dust balls decorate the floors & walls
& the ceiling rings w/children’s feet
running back & forth like baby bulls.
I am crazy enough to be a contestant
on a show where I’m contractually obligated
to propose to a woman who believes
in a heteronormative, patriarchal
idea of what a family should be.
At the end of every episode, I offer
roses to those I wish to make out w/more
& take out on prepackaged romantic dates
I could never afford on my bachelor budget.
For example: a date in a castle, a glass
slipper prop, a clock winding its way
down to midnight. My date & I sip
champagne, chat & eat, then we dance
to a live orchestra led by a maestro
who wishes he were dead. A giant screen appears
& plays a clip of a live-action Cinderella movie
w/Prince Charming played by an actor
I’ve seen slaughter & behead a soldier
like clipping the head off a rose.
In real life, my dates consist of dinner
at Burger King where we dine on chicken
fries & don paper crowns for a royal feel.
On another show date, I take two women into South
Dakota where we fly over the heads of white
slave owners carved into a sacred Native mountain.
At the end of the date, I offer no roses to either
woman & abandon them on a canopied bed
in the middle of the Badlands & take off
in a helicopter to provide the cameras
an aerial view of wilderness & despair.
At the end of the show, I find myself proposing
to a fertility nurse in a barn made to look
like a chapel & not the place where I raised
my first horse, fucked my first goat. Here,
I will milk the cows for our future offspring
to drink straight from the teat like I did as a kid.
The show ends & I rise from the couch
& walk into the kitchen. On bended knee,
I reach for a bottle of beer deep
in the back of the fridge, pop the top
like a question & take a swig, cold
& crisp once it hits my full lips.
8 Aug: "Sweet palms swaying..." by Allie Jo Dreadfulwater
Sweet palms swaying,
playing in the naked wind;
Fractal of sound.
By Allie Jo Dreadfulwater
July 10, 2018
7 Aug: "Sex, Night" by Alejandra Pizarnik
Sex, Night
Once again, someone falls in their first falling–fall of two bodies, of two eyes, of four green eyes or eight green eyes if we count those born in the mirror (at midnight, in the purest fear, in the loss), you haven’t been able to recognize the voice of your dull silence, to see the earthly messages scrawled in the middle of one mad state, when the body is a glass and from ourselves and from the other we drink some kind of impossible water.
Desire needlessly spills on me a cursed liqueur. For my thirsty thirst, what can the promise of eyes do? I speak of something not in this world. I speak of someone whose purpose is elsewhere.
And I was naked in memory of the white night. Drunk and I made love all night, just like a sick dog.
Sometimes we suffer too much reality in the space of a single night. We get undressed, we’re horrified. We’re aware the mirror sounds like a watch, the mirror from which your cry will pour out, your laceration.
Night opens itself only once. It’s enough. You see. You’ve seen. Fear of being two in the mirror, and suddenly we’re four. We cry, we moan, my fear, my joy more horrible than my fear, my visceral words, my words are keys that lock me into a mirror, with you, but ever alone. And I am well aware what night is made of. We’ve fallen so completely into jaws that didn’t expect this sacrifice, this condemnation of my eyes which have seen. I speak of a discovery: felt the I in sex, sex in the I. I speak of burying everyday fear to secure the fear of an instant. The purest loss. But who’ll say: you don’t cry anymore at night? Because madness is also a lie. Like night. Like death.
Desire needlessly spills on me a cursed liqueur. For my thirsty thirst, what can the promise of eyes do? I speak of something not in this world. I speak of someone whose purpose is elsewhere.
And I was naked in memory of the white night. Drunk and I made love all night, just like a sick dog.
Sometimes we suffer too much reality in the space of a single night. We get undressed, we’re horrified. We’re aware the mirror sounds like a watch, the mirror from which your cry will pour out, your laceration.
Night opens itself only once. It’s enough. You see. You’ve seen. Fear of being two in the mirror, and suddenly we’re four. We cry, we moan, my fear, my joy more horrible than my fear, my visceral words, my words are keys that lock me into a mirror, with you, but ever alone. And I am well aware what night is made of. We’ve fallen so completely into jaws that didn’t expect this sacrifice, this condemnation of my eyes which have seen. I speak of a discovery: felt the I in sex, sex in the I. I speak of burying everyday fear to secure the fear of an instant. The purest loss. But who’ll say: you don’t cry anymore at night? Because madness is also a lie. Like night. Like death.
6 Aug: "Walking Around" by Pablo Neruda
Walking Around
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don’t want so much misery.
I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.
That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.
Pablo Neruda, 1904 - 1973
And it happens that I walk into tailorshops and movie houses
dried up, waterproof, like a swan made of felt
steering my way in a water of wombs and ashes.
The smell of barbershops makes me break into hoarse sobs.
The only thing I want is to lie still like stones or wool.
The only thing I want is to see no more stores, no gardens,
no more goods, no spectacles, no elevators.
It so happens I am sick of my feet and my nails
and my hair and my shadow.
It so happens I am sick of being a man.
Still it would be marvelous
to terrify a law clerk with a cut lily,
or kill a nun with a blow on the ear.
It would be great
to go through the streets with a green knife
letting out yells until I died of the cold.
I don’t want to go on being a root in the dark,
insecure, stretched out, shivering with sleep,
going on down, into the moist guts of the earth,
taking in and thinking, eating every day.
I don’t want so much misery.
I don’t want to go on as a root and a tomb,
alone under the ground, a warehouse with corpses,
half frozen, dying of grief.
That’s why Monday, when it sees me coming
with my convict face, blazes up like gasoline,
and it howls on its way like a wounded wheel,
and leaves tracks full of warm blood leading toward the night.
And it pushes me into certain corners, into some moist houses,
into hospitals where the bones fly out the window,
into shoeshops that smell like vinegar,
and certain streets hideous as cracks in the skin.
There are sulphur-colored birds, and hideous intestines
hanging over the doors of houses that I hate,
and there are false teeth forgotten in a coffeepot,
there are mirrors
that ought to have wept from shame and terror,
there are umbrellas everywhere, and venoms, and umbilical cords.
I stroll along serenely, with my eyes, my shoes,
my rage, forgetting everything,
I walk by, going through office buildings and orthopedic shops,
and courtyards with washing hanging from the line:
underwear, towels and shirts from which slow
dirty tears are falling.
Pablo Neruda, 1904 - 1973
5 Aug: "The Sorting Hat Song" by J.K. Rowling
The Sorting Hat SongOh, you may not think I'm pretty,But don't judge on what you see,
I'll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat then me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.
There's nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can't see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry,
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin,
Where you'll meet your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends.
So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For a Thinking Cap.
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
I'll eat myself if you can find
A smarter hat then me.
You can keep your bowlers black,
Your top hats sleek and tall,
For I'm the Hogwarts Sorting Hat
And I can cap them all.
There's nothing hidden in your head
The Sorting Hat can't see,
So try me on and I will tell you
Where you ought to be.
You might belong in Gryffindor,
Where dwell the brave at heart,
Their daring, nerve and chivalry,
Set Gryffindors apart;
You might belong in Hufflepuff
Where they are just and loyal,
Those patient Hufflepuffs are true,
And unafraid of toil;
Or yet in wise old Ravenclaw,
If you've a ready mind,
Where those of wit and learning,
Will always find their kind;
Or perhaps in Slytherin,
Where you'll meet your real friends,
Those cunning folk use any means,
To achieve their ends.
So put me on! Don't be afraid!
And don't get in a flap!
You're in safe hands (though I have none)
For a Thinking Cap.
-J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
4 Aug: "Let him kiss me with the kisses..." by King Solomon, Song of Songs 1:2-17
She[a]
2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth—
for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the young women love you!
4 Take me away with you—let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.
for your love is more delightful than wine.
3 Pleasing is the fragrance of your perfumes;
your name is like perfume poured out.
No wonder the young women love you!
4 Take me away with you—let us hurry!
Let the king bring me into his chambers.
Friends
She
How right they are to adore you!
5 Dark am I, yet lovely,
daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.[c]
6 Do not stare at me because I am dark,
because I am darkened by the sun.
My mother’s sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I had to neglect.
7 Tell me, you whom I love,
where you graze your flock
and where you rest your sheep at midday.
Why should I be like a veiled woman
beside the flocks of your friends?
daughters of Jerusalem,
dark like the tents of Kedar,
like the tent curtains of Solomon.[c]
6 Do not stare at me because I am dark,
because I am darkened by the sun.
My mother’s sons were angry with me
and made me take care of the vineyards;
my own vineyard I had to neglect.
7 Tell me, you whom I love,
where you graze your flock
and where you rest your sheep at midday.
Why should I be like a veiled woman
beside the flocks of your friends?
Friends
8 If you do not know, most beautiful of women,
follow the tracks of the sheep
and graze your young goats
by the tents of the shepherds.
follow the tracks of the sheep
and graze your young goats
by the tents of the shepherds.
He
9 I liken you, my darling, to a mare
among Pharaoh’s chariot horses.
10 Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,
your neck with strings of jewels.
11 We will make you earrings of gold,
studded with silver.
among Pharaoh’s chariot horses.
10 Your cheeks are beautiful with earrings,
your neck with strings of jewels.
11 We will make you earrings of gold,
studded with silver.
She
12 While the king was at his table,
my perfume spread its fragrance.
13 My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh
resting between my breasts.
14 My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En Gedi.
my perfume spread its fragrance.
13 My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh
resting between my breasts.
14 My beloved is to me a cluster of henna blossoms
from the vineyards of En Gedi.
He
15 How beautiful you are, my darling!
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes are doves.
Oh, how beautiful!
Your eyes are doves.
She
16 How handsome you are, my beloved!
Oh, how charming!
And our bed is verdant.
Oh, how charming!
And our bed is verdant.
He
17 The beams of our house are cedars;
our rafters are firs.
our rafters are firs.
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