Jack Kerouac (1922-1969)

Bowery Blues

The story of man
Makes me sick
Inside, outside,
I don't know why
Something so conditional
And all talk
Should hurt me so.

I am hurt
I am scared
I want to live
I want to die
I don't know
Where to turn
In the Void
And when
To cut
Out

For no Church told me
No Guru holds me
No advice
Just stone
Of New York
And on the cafeteria
We hear
The saxophone
O dead Ruby
Died of Shot
In Thirty Two,
Sounding like old times
And de bombed
Empty decapitated
Murder by the clock.

And I see Shadows
Dancing into Doom
In love, holding
TIght the lovely asses
Of the little girls
In love with sex
Showing themselves
In white undergarments
At elevated windows
Hoping for the Worst.

I can't take it
Anymore
If I can't hold
My little behind
To me in my room

Then it's goodbye
Sangsara
For me
Besides
Girls aren't as good
As they look
And Samadhi
Is better
Than you think
When it starts in
Hitting your head
In with Buzz
Of glittergold
Heaven's Angels
Wailing

Saying

We've been waiting for you
Since Morning, Jack
Why were you so long
Dallying in the sooty room?
This transcendental Brilliance
Is the better part
(of Nothingness
I sing)

Okay.
Quit.
Mad.
Stop.

 

Jack Kerouac :

Julia de Burgos (1914-1953)

Farewell from Welfare Island

It has to come from here,
right this instance,
my cry into the world.

The past is only a shadow emerging from
nowhere.

Life was somewhere forgotten
and sought refuge in depths of tears
and sorrows;
over this vast empire of solitude and darkness.
Where is the voice of freedom,
freedom to laugh,
to move
without the heavy phantom of despair?
Where is the form of beauty
unshaken in its veil, simple and pure?
Where is the warmth of heaven
pouring its dreams of love in broken
spirits?

It has to be from here,
right this instance,
my cry into the world.
My cry that is no more mine,
but hers and his forever,
the comrades of my silence,
the phantoms of my grave.

It has to be from here,
forgotten but unshaken,
among comrades of silence
deep into Welfare Island
my farewell to the world.

Lauren Tivey

Passing through Galveston by Lauren Tivey

June 19, 2011 by Scot

Memories of highways,
truckstops and trailer parks,
when I kept you moving, moving,
in those wide-eyed delicate years,
with your trusting blond head,
your bag of dolls, fatherless.
What chance did you ever have?
Misfortune of a teenage mother, me
full of juvenile incompetence,
one shitty boyfriend after another,
food stamps, social workers.  I tried,
kid, I tried, while you deserved
swingsets, playdates, dance classes;
you know, decent foundations.
What have I ever given you, except
the skill of packing a bag, the art
of running?  Economy of subsisting
on a pack of fettucine noodles for a week?
I keep going back to that Texan café,
during our last cross-country escape,
us two in a cracked vinyl booth,
surrounded by truckers in worn jeans,
as I taught you how to blow bubbles
in your milk glass—the happy puff
of your face over the straw, how the sun
lit up your hair.  If only I could pass back
through Galveston, beyond that day,
to rewire your youth, to fix California,
Colorado, our days on the road:  no excuse,
that I was just a kid myself.  Now I watch you
with your daughters, with your stable life,
your kind and firm ways, natural mothering.
Planted in one spot, flourishing like a flower
in a sunny window, like all my wishes come true.
Beautiful girl, I wonder, how you ever beat my odds.

Wislawa Zymborska (1923-2012)

Hunger Camp At Jaslo

Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow. How much grass
for each one?" Write: I don't know.
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
an ABC never read,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in the line.

We stand in the meadow where it became flesh,
and the meadow is silent as a false witness.
Sunny. Green. Nearby, a forest
with wood for chewing and water under the bark-
every day a full ration of the view
until you go blind. Overhead, a bird-
the shadow of its life-giving wings
brushed their lips. Their jaws opened.
Teeth clacked against teeth.
At night, the sickle moon shone in the sky
and reaped wheat for their bread.
Hands came floating from blackened icons,
empty cups in their fingers.
On a spit of barbed wire,
a man was turning.
They sang with their mouths full of earth.
"A lovely song of how war strikes straight
at the heart." Write: how silent.
"Yes."

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

A High-Toned Old Christian Woman    

By Wallace Stevens

Poetry is the supreme fiction, madame.

Take the moral law and make a nave of it

And from the nave build haunted heaven. Thus,

The conscience is converted into palms,

Like windy citherns hankering for hymns.

We agree in principle. That's clear. But take

The opposing law and make a peristyle,

And from the peristyle project a masque

Beyond the planets. Thus, our bawdiness,

Unpurged by epitaph, indulged at last,

Is equally converted into palms,

Squiggling like saxophones. And palm for palm,

Madame, we are where we began. Allow,

Therefore, that in the planetary scene

Your disaffected flagellants, well-stuffed,

Smacking their muzzy bellies in parade,

Proud of such novelties of the sublime,

Such tink and tank and tunk-a-tunk-tunk,

May, merely may, madame, whip from themselves

A jovial hullabaloo among the spheres.

This will make widows wince. But fictive things

Wink as they will. Wink most when widows wince.

Erin CoughlinHollowell

A uniform hieroglyphic
Time isn’t thinking of her sitting
beside this man she doesn’t know
even though she has slept to the cadence
of his breath for more than seventy years.
Every Sunday her children call
down a long hallway like the braying
of beasts that sounds only slightly
familiar. When she looks in the mirror,
Time has scrawled his mark
over the face she composed. All
those stories piled up as a shield
against people who have shifted, villains
become benign, and then shadows.
Only the small room is left, curtains
drawn, gracious darkness sifting into
every corner, and the world
a uniform hieroglyphic beyond the door.

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Ode to Hope

Oceanic dawn
at the center
of my life,
waves like grapes,
the sky's solitude,
you fill me
and flood
the complete sea,
the undiminished sky,
tempo
and space,
sea foam's white
battalions,
the orange earth,
the sun's
fiery waist
in agony,
so many
gifts and talents,
birds soaring into their dreams,
and the sea, the sea,
suspended
aroma,
chorus of rich, resonant salt,
and meanwhile,
we men,
touch the water,
struggling,
and hoping,
we touch the sea,
hoping.


And the waves tell the firm coast:
'Everything will be fulfilled.'

 

Pablo Neruda :

Leonard Cohen - Famous Blue Raincoat

Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

Famous Blue Raincoat"

It's four in the morning, the end of December
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better
New York is cold, but I like where I'm living
There's music on Clinton Street all through the evening.
I hear that you're building your little house deep in the desert
You're living for nothing now, I hope you're keeping some kind of record.

Yes, and Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear
Did you ever go clear?

Ah, the last time we saw you you looked so much older
Your famous blue raincoat was torn at the shoulder
You'd been to the station to meet every train
And you came home without Lili Marlene

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life
And when she came back she was nobody's wife.

Well I see you there with the rose in your teeth
One more thin gypsy thief
Well I see Jane's awake --

She sends her regards.

And what can I tell you my brother, my killer
What can I possibly say?
I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you
I'm glad you stood in my way.

If you ever come by here, for Jane or for me
Your enemy is sleeping, and his woman is free.

Yes, and thanks, for the trouble you took from her eyes
I thought it was there for good so I never tried.

And Jane came by with a lock of your hair
She said that you gave it to her
That night that you planned to go clear --

Sincerely, L. Cohen

Marina Tsvetaeva (1892-1941

x x x

The street awakens. She looks, exhausted With the mute windows' sullen eyes, On sleepy faces, red from the cold, That with thoughts chase the stubborn sleep away. The blackened trees with rime are covered - With trace mysterious of the night's fun, In gleaming brocade sad ones are standing, Just like the dead the alive among. The gray coat mingles, trampled upon, The forage-cup with a wreathe, a bored look, And the red arms, pressed to the ears, And the black apron with the tied books. The street awakens. She looks, unpleasant With mute windows' sullen eyes, it would seem. To sleep, in a happy thought be forgotten, What life seems to us, this is a dream!

A.S.Kline - Poetry In Translation

A Wing, a Flower

A dry, pale winged transient, over water
a day, then a day, this fifty million
times goes back to the start, more than we are,
though not even the first age.
Tiny, winged, pallid darts over
wrinkled grey water. See, in the small,
the minute, the idea, that uniqueness conceals,
the inferred, the wrong
generalisation. Time to begin
again. New, yellow flowers like stars,
tiny in oceans of grass, tormentil’s yellow.
You can’t play games with the Void,
only bow with the mind.
The wing lifts, the flower
creeps, waits, shines.

Janeen Parigrin Rastall

Kyrie
With beads I pray, whisper to
Vincenzo Grossi, Maria Romero,
all the novice saints. I beg
for fear to fall away – the clatter
of unlocked shackles
 
like the child lost
in a crowd pressing
toward a subway door,
who reaches up to grasp
any stranger’s empty hand.

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1192-1822)

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley :

Sharon Olds (b1942)

Japanese-American Farmhouse, California, 1942

Everything has been taken that anyone
thought worth taking. The stairs are tilted,
scattered with sycamore leaves curled
like ammonites in inland rock.
Wood shows through the paint on the frame
and the door is open--an empty room,
sunlight on the floor. All that is left
on the porch is the hollow cylinder
of an Albert's Quick Oats cardboard box
and a sewing machine. Its extraterrestrial
head is bowed, its scrolled neck
glistens. I was born, that day, near there,
in wartime, of ignorant people.

 

Sharon Olds :

Jane Kenyon (1947-1995)

The Blue Bowl

Like primitives we buried the cat
with his bowl. Bare-handed
we scraped sand and gravel
back into the hole.
They fell with a hiss
and thud on his side,
on his long red fur, the white feathers
between his toes, and his
long, not to say aquiline, nose.

We stood and brushed each other off.
There are sorrows keener than these.

Silent the rest of the day, we worked,
ate, stared, and slept. It stormed
all night; now it clears, and a robin
burbles from a dripping bush
like the neighbor who means well
but always says the wrong thing.

 

Jane Kenyon :

Leonard Cohen - You Want It Darker (Audio)

Leonard Cohen (1934-2016)

You Want It Darker"

If you are the dealer, I'm out of the game
If you are the healer, it means I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory then mine must be the shame
You want it darker
We kill the flame

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the help that never came
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord

There's a lover in the story
But the story's still the same
There's a lullaby for suffering
And a paradox to blame
But it's written in the scriptures
And it's not some idle claim
You want it darker
We kill the flame

They're lining up the prisoners
And the guards are taking aim
I struggled with some demons
They were middle class and tame
I didn't know I had permission to murder and to maim
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord

Magnified, sanctified, be thy holy name
Vilified, crucified, in the human frame
A million candles burning for the love that never came
You want it darker
We kill the flame

If you are the dealer, let me out of the game
If you are the healer, I'm broken and lame
If thine is the glory, mine must be the shame
You want it darker

Hineni, hineni
Hineni, hineni
I'm ready, my lord

Hineni
Hineni, hineni
Hineni

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

To The Men Of England

Men of England, wherefore plough
For the lords who lay ye low?
Wherefore weave with toil and care
The rich robes your tyrants wear?

Wherefore feed and clothe and save,
From the cradle to the grave,
Those ungrateful drones who would
Drain your sweat -- nay, drink your blood?

Wherefore, Bees of England, forge
Many a weapon, chain, and scourge,
That these stingless drones may spoil
The forced produce of your toil?

Have ye leisure, comfort, calm,
Shelter, food, love's gentle balm?
Or what is it ye buy so dear
With your pain and with your fear?

The seed ye sow another reaps;
The wealth ye find another keeps;
The robes ye weave another wears;
The arms ye forge another bears.

Sow seed, -- but let no tyrant reap;
Find wealth, -- let no imposter heap;
Weave robes, -- let not the idle wear;
Forge arms, in your defence to bear.

Shrink to your cellars, holes, and cells;
In halls ye deck another dwells.
Why shake the chains ye wrought? Ye see
The steel ye tempered glance on ye.

With plough and spade and hoe and loom,
Trace your grave, and build your tomb,
And weave your winding-sheet, till fair
England be your sepulchre!

Percy Bysshe Shelley :

Anna Akhmatova (1889-1966)

Reading 'Hamlet'

1

The lot by the graves was a dusty hot land;
The river behind -- blue and cool.
You told me, 'Well, go to a convent,
Or go marry a fool...'
Princes always say that, being placid or fierce,
But I cherish this speech, short and poor --
Let it flow and shine through a thousand years,
Like from shoulders do mantles of fur.

2

And, as if in wrong occasion,
I said, 'Thou,' else...
And an easy smile of pleasure
Lit up dear face.

From such lapses, told or mental,
Every cheek would blaze.
I love you as forty gentle
Sisters love and bless.

Anna Akhmatova :

An Qi

Selected Poems

Parting Before Daybreak

• by An Qi


• First the day,
• then daybreak,
• and finally the time for parting.
• Local time in Beijing is 7 o’clock according to the TV.


• As a child, I liked to lie in bed
• and wait for daybreak,
• my silver broach stayed in its soft dormant curve.
• I counted my fingers,
• exactly ten.


• Almost daybreak,
• but no light in the sky.
• At daybreak you come. Daylight is gone when you go.
• Days with light, days without light, days come, days go.
• You come, you go, coming and going, walking to me, and away from me.


• Now a grown-up, I still daydream,
• waiting for daybreak like waiting for an archaeologist
• to excavate, patting me with a spade
• and expose me to daylight.
• Oh, oh, just as I feel the thrill, I see your hand leaving.
  

Robert Service (1874-1958)

Dreams Are Best

(Fragment)

I just think that dreams are best,
   Just to sit and fancy things;
   Give your gold no acid test,
Try not how your silver rings;
Fancy women pure and good,
   Fancy men upright and true:
   Fortressed in your solitude,
Let Life be a dream to you.

For I think that Truth is all,
   Truth’s a minion of the mind;
   Love’s ideal comes at call;
As ye seek so shall ye find.
But ye must not seek too far;
   Things are never what they seem:
   Let a star be just a star,
And a woman – just a dream.

O you Dreamers proud and pure,
   You have gleaned the sweet of life!
   Golden truth that shall endure
Over pain and doubt and strife.
   I would rather be a fool
      Living in my Paradise,
      Than a leader of a school,
Sadly sane and weary wise.

Yes, I’ll smoke my cigarette,
   Vestured in my garb of dreams,
   And I’ll borrow no regret;
All is gold that golden gleams.
So I’ll charm my solitude
   With the faith that Life is blest,
   Brave and noble, bright and good....
   Oh, I think that dreams are best!

Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806-1861)

Sonnet Xvii

My poet, thou canst touch on all the notes
God set between his After and Before,
And strike up and strike off the general roar
Of the rushing worlds a melody that floats
In a serene air purely. Antidotes
Of medicated music, answering for
Mankind's forlornest uses, thou canst pour
From thence into their ears. God's will devotes
Thine to such ends, and mine to wait on thine.
How, Dearest, wilt thou have me for most use ?
A hope, to sing by gladly ? or a fine
Sad memory, with thy songs to interfuse ?
A shade, in which to sing--of palm or pine ?
A grave, on which to rest from singing ? Choose.

 

Elizabeth Barrett Browning :

Peter Gabriel - Red Rain (HD)

Peter Gabriel

"Red Rain"

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me

I am standing up at the water's edge in my dream
I cannot make a single sound as you scream
it can't be that cold, the ground is still warm to touch
this place is so quiet, sensing that storm

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me

well I've seen them buried in a sheltered place in this town
they tell you that this rain can sting, and look down
there is no blood around see no sign of pain
hay ay ay no pain
seeing no red at all, see no rain

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me

red rain
putting the pressure on much harder now
to return again and again
just let the red rain splash you
let the rain fall on your skin
I come to you defences down
with the trust of a child

red rain is coming down
red rain
red rain is pouring down
pouring down all over me
and I can't watch any more
no more denial
it's so hard to lay down in all of this
red rain is coming down
red rain is pouring down
red rain is coming down all over me
I see it
red rain is coming down
red rain is pouring down
red rain is coming down all over me
I'm bathing in it
red rain coming down
red rain is coming down
red rain is coming down all over me
I'm begging you
red rain coming down
red rain coming down
red rain coming down
red rain coming down
over me in the red red sea
over me
over me
red rain

Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

THE GIANTESS
by: Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867)

should have loved—erewhile when Heaven conceived

Each day, some child abnormal and obscene,

Beside a maiden giantess to have lived,

Like a luxurious cat at the feet of a queen;




To see her body flowering with her soul,

And grow, unchained, in awe-inspiring art,

Within the mists across her eyes that stole

To divine the fires entombed within her heart.




And oft to scramble o'er her mighty limbs,

And climb the slopes of her enormous knees,

Or in summer when the scorching sunlight streams




Across the country, to recline at ease,

And slumber in the shadow of her breast

Like an hamlet 'neath the mountain-crest.

Octavio Paz (1914-1998)

The Bridge

Between now and now,
between I am and you are,
the word bridge.

Entering it
you enter yourself:
the world connects
and closes like a ring.

From one bank to another,
there is always
a body stretched:
a rainbow.
I'll sleep beneath its arches.

 

Octavio Paz :

Xavier Lillavrrutia (1903-1950)

Prisoner Nocturne

Prisoner of my head
dream desires to escape
and outside of me to prove
to all that it is innocent.
I hear its impatient voice,
I see its gesture and its condition
menacing and furious.
It is not known that I am the dream
of another: if I were its master
I would already have set it free.  

Leonard Cohen

"Bird On The Wire"

Like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.
Like a worm on a hook,
like a knight from some old fashioned book
I have saved all my ribbons for thee.
If I, if I have been unkind,
I hope that you can just let it go by.
If I, if I have been untrue
I hope you know it was never to you.
Like a baby, stillborn,
like a beast with his horn
I have torn everyone who reached out for me.
But I swear by this song
and by all that I have done wrong
I will make it all up to thee.
I saw a beggar leaning on his wooden crutch,
he said to me, "You must not ask for so much."
And a pretty woman leaning in her darkened door,
she cried to me, "Hey, why not ask for more?"

Oh like a bird on the wire,
like a drunk in a midnight choir
I have tried in my way to be free.

The Neville Brothers - Bird On A Wire

Cat Stevens

"Morning Has Broken"

Morning has broken, like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken, like the first bird
Praise for the singing, praise for the morning
Praise for the springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rain's new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall, on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass

Mine is the sunlight, mine is the morning
Born of the one light, Eden saw play
Praise with elation, praise every morning
God's re-creation of the new day

Tom Waits (Austin 1978) [02]. Summertime / Burma Shave

Tom Waits

"Burma Shave"

licorice tattoo turned a gun metal blue scrawled across the shoulders
of a dying town the one eyed jacks across the railroad tracks
and the scar on its belly pulled a stranger passing through
he was a juvenile delinquent never learned how to behave
but the cops would never think to look in
burma shave

and the road was like a ribbon and the moon was like a bone
he didn't seem to be like any guy she'd ever known
he kinda looked like farley granger with his hair slicked back
she says i'm a sucker for a fella in a cowboy hat
how far are you going he said depends on what you mean
he says i'm going thataway just as long as it's paved
i guess you'd say i'm on my way to
burma shave

and her knees up on the glove compartment
took out her barrettes and her hair spilled out like rootbeer
and she popped her gum and arched her back
hell marysville ain't nothing but a wide spot in the road
some night my heart pounds just like thunder
i don't know why it don't explode
cause everyone in this stinking town has got one foot in the grave
and i'd rather take my chances out in
burma shave

presley's what i go by why don't you change the station
count the grain elevators in the rearview mirror
mister anywhere you point this thing
has got to beat the hell out of the sting
of going to bed with every dream that dies here every mornin
and so drill me a hole with a barber pole
i'm jumping my parole just like a fugitive tonight
why don't you have another swig
and pass that car if you're so brave
i wanna get there before the sun comes up in
burma shave

and the spider web crack and the mustang screamed
smoke from the tires and the twisted machine
just a nickel's worth of dreams and every wishbone that they saved
lie swindled from them on the way to
burma shave

and the sun hit the derrick and cast a bat wing shadow
up against the car door on the shot gun side
and when they pulled her from the wreck you know she
still had on her shades
they say that dreams are growing wild just this side of
burma shave

Free Money - Patti Smith (Live At Montreux 2005)

Patti Smith

"Free Money"

Every night before I go to sleep
Find a ticket, win a lottery,
Scoop the pearls up from the sea
Cash them in and buy you all the things you need.

Every night before I rest my head
See those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed.
I know they're stolen, but I don't feel bad.
I take that money, buy you things you never had.

Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me,
Oh, baby, to buy you all the things you need for free.
I'll buy you a jet plane, baby,
Get you on a higher plane to a jet stream
And take you through the stratosphere
And check out the planets there and then take you down
Deep where it's hot, hot in Arabia, babia, then cool, cold fields of snow
And we'll roll, dream, roll, dream, roll, roll, dream, dream.
When we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it,
We'll dream it, dream it for free, free money,
Free money, free money, free money, free money, free money, free money.

Every night before I go to sleep
Find a ticket, win a lottery.
Every night before I rest my head
See those dollar bills go swirling 'round my bed.

Oh, baby, it would mean so much to me,
Baby, I know our troubles will be gone.
Oh, I know our troubles will be gone, goin' gone
If we dream, dream, dream for free.
And when we dream it, when we dream it, when we dream it,
Let's dream it, we'll dream it for free, free money,
Free money, free money, free money, [X7]
Free money, free money, free money, free.

Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Down By the River (Live at Farm Aid 1994)

Neil Young

"Down By The River"

Be on my side,
I'll be on your side,
baby
There is no reason
for you to hide
It's so hard for me
staying here all alone
When you could be
taking me for a ride.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

You take my hand,
I'll take your hand
Together we may get away
This much madness
is too much sorrow
It's impossible
to make it today.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Be on my side,
I'll be on your side,
baby
There is no reason
for you to hide
It's so hard for me
staying here all alone
When you could be
taking me for a ride.

Yeah, she could drag me
over the rainbow,
send me away
Down by the river
I shot my baby
Down by the river,
Dead, oh, shot her dead.

Strawberry Fields Forever - Restored HD Video

Lennon/ McArtney

"Strawberry Fields Forever"

Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Living is easy with eyes closed
Misunderstanding all you see
It's getting hard to be someone but it all works out
It doesn't matter much to me
Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

No one I think is in my tree
I mean it must be high or low
That is you can't you know tune in but it's all right
That is I think it's not too bad
Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever

Always, no sometimes, think it's me
But you know I know when it's a dream
I think I know I mean a "Yes" but it's all wrong
That is I think I disagree

Let me take you down, cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever
Strawberry Fields forever

Sarah McLachlan - Building A Mystery [Official Music Video]

Sarah Mclachlan

"Building A Mystery"

you come out at night
that's when the energy comes
and the dark side's light
and the vampires roam
you strut your rasta wear
and your suicide poem
and a cross from a faith
that died before Jesus came
you're building a mystery

you live in a church
where you sleep with voodoo dolls
and you won't give up the search
for the ghosts in the halls
you wear sandals in the snow
and a smile that won't wash away
can you look out the window
without your shadow getting in the way
oh you're so beautiful
with an edge and a charm
but so careful
when I'm in your arms

[chorus]
'cause you're working
building a mystery
holding on and holding it in
yeah you're working
building a mystery
and choosing so carefully

you woke up screaming aloud
a prayer from your secret god
you feed off our fears
and hold back your tears

give us a tantrum
and a know it all grin
just when we need one
when the evening's thin

oh you're a beautiful
a beautiful fucked up man
you're setting up your
razor wire shrine

[chorus]

[repeat chorus]

Bob Marley & The Wailers - Get Up Stand Up BBC 1973

Bob Marley (1945-1981)

"Get Up, Stand Up"

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Preacherman, don't tell me,
Heaven is under the earth.
I know you don't know
What life is really worth.
It's not all that glitters is gold;
'Alf the story has never been told:
So now you see the light, eh!
Stand up for your rights. Come on!

Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!
Get up, stand up: stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up: don't give up the fight!

Most people think,
Great God will come from the skies,
Take away everything
And make everybody feel high.
But if you know what life is worth,
You will look for yours on earth:
And now you see the light,
You stand up for your rights. Jah!

Get up, stand up! (Jah, Jah!)
Stand up for your rights! (Oh-hoo!)
Get up, stand up! (Get up, stand up!)
Don't give up the fight! (Life is your right!)
Get up, stand up! (So we can't give up the fight!)
Stand up for your rights! (Lord, Lord!)
Get up, stand up! (Keep on struggling on!)
Don't give up the fight! (Yeah!)

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game -
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, Lord.
We know when we understand:
Almighty God is a living man.
You can fool some people sometimes,
But you can't fool all the people all the time.
So now we see the light (What you gonna do?),
We gonna stand up for our rights! (Yeah, yeah, yeah!)

So you better:
Get up, stand up! (In the morning! Git it up!)
Stand up for your rights! (Stand up for our rights!)
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! (Don't give it up, don't give it up!)
Get up, stand up! (Get up, stand up!)
Stand up for your rights! (Get up, stand up!)
Get up, stand up! ( ... )
Don't give up the fight! (Get up, stand up!)
Get up, stand up! ( ... )
Stand up for your rights!
Get up, stand up!
Don't give up the fight! [fadeout]

Jokerman -Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

"Jokerman"

Standing on the water, casting your bread
While the eyes of the idol with the iron head are glowing
Distant ships sailing into the mist
You were born with a snake in both of your fists while a hurricane was blowing
Freedom just around the corner for you
But with truth so far off, what good will it do.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

So swiftly the sun sets in the sky
You rise up and say goodbye to no one
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread
Both of their futures, so full of dread, you don't show one
Shedding off one more layer of skin
Keeping one step ahead of the persecutor within.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

You're a man of the mountains, you can walk on the clouds
Manipulator of crowds, you're a dream twister
You're going to Sodom and Gomorrah
But what do you care ? Ain't nobody there would want marry your sister
Friend to the martyr, a friend to the woman of shame
You look into the fiery furnace, see the rich man without any name.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Well, the Book of Leviticus and Deuteronomy
The law of the jungle and the sea are your only teachers
In the smoke of the twilight on a milk-white steed
Michelangelo indeed could've carved out your features
Resting in the fields, far from the turbulent space
Half asleep near the stars with a small dog licking your face.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Well, the rifleman's stalking the sick and the lame
Preacherman seeks the same, who'll get there first is uncertain
Nightsticks and water cannons, tear gas, padlocks
Molotov cocktails and rocks behind every curtain
False-hearted judges dying in the webs that they spin
Only a matter of time 'til the night comes stepping in.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

It's a shadowy world, skies are slippery gray
A woman just gave birth to a prince today and dressed him in scarlet
He'll put the priest in his pocket, put the blade to the heat
Take the motherless children off the street
And place them at the feet of a harlot
Oh, Jokerman, you know what he wants
Oh, Jokerman, you don't show any response.

Jokerman dance to the nightingale tune
Bird fly high by the light of the moon
Oh, oh, oh, Jokerman.

Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957)

Anniversary

And we go on and on,

Neither sleeping nor awake,

Towards the meeting, unaware

That we are already there.

That the silence is perfect,

And that the flesh is gone.

The call still is not heard

Nor does the Caller reveal his face.

..

But perhaps this might be

Oh, my love, the gift

Of the eternal Face without gestures

And of the kingdom without form!

- Gabriela Mistral

From: Gabriela Mistral – The Poet and Her Work  P.83

By: Margot Arce de Vazquez
Translated by: Helene Masslo Anderson
New York University Press

Czeslaw Milosz (1011-2004)

Earth Again

They are incomprehensible, the things of this earth.
The lure of waters. The lure of fruits.
Lure of two breasts and the long hair of a maiden.
In rouge, in vermillion, in that color of ponds
Found only in the Green Lakes near Wilno.
An ungraspable multitudes swarm, come together
In the crinkles of tree bark, in the telescope's eye,
For an endless wedding,
For the kindling of eyes, for a sweet dance
In the elements of air, sea, earth, and subterranean caves,
So that for a short moment there is no death
And time does not unreel like a skein of yarn
Thrown into an abyss.

 

Czeslaw Milosz :

Czeslaw Milosz (1911-2004)

Dedication

You whom I could not save
Listen to me.
Try to understand this simple speech as I would be ashamed of another.
I swear, there is in me no wizardry of words.
I speak to you with silence like a cloud or a tree.

What strengthened me, for you was lethal.
You mixed up farewell to an epoch with the beginning of a new one,
Inspiration of hatred with lyrical beauty,
Blind force with accomplished shape.

Here is the valley of shallow Polish rivers. And an immense bridge
Going into white fog. Here is a broken city,
And the wind throws the screams of gulls on your grave
When I am talking with you.

What is poetry which does not save
Nations or people?
A connivance with official lies,
A song of drunkards whose throats will be cut in a moment,
Readings for sophomore girls.
That I wanted good poetry without knowing it,
That I discovered, late, its salutary aim,
In this and only this I find salvation.

They used to pour millet on graves or poppy seeds
To feed the dead who would come disguised as birds.
I put this book here for you, who once lived
So that you should visit us no more.

 

Czeslaw Milosz :

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822)

Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: `Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear --
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.'

 

Percy Bysshe Shelley :

Pablo Neruda (1904-1973)

Sonnet Xvii

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

 

Pablo Neruda :

Denise Levertov (1923-1997)

To Live in the Mercy of God

To lie back under the tallest
oldest trees. How far the stems
rise, rise
before ribs of shelter
open!

To live in the mercy of God. The complete
sentence too adequate, has no give.
Awe, not comfort. Stone, elbows of
stony wood beneath lenient
moss bed.

And awe suddenly
passing beyond itself. Becomes
a form of comfort.
Becomes the steady
air you glide on, arms
stretched like the wings of flying foxes.
To hear the multiple silence
of trees, the rainy
forest depths of their listening.

To float, upheld,
as salt water
would hold you,
once you dared.

.

To live in the mercy of God.

To feel vibrate the enraptured

waterfall flinging itself
unabating down and down
to clenched fists of rock.
Swiftness of plunge,
hour after year after century,
O or Ah
uninterrupted, voice
many-stranded.
To breathe
spray. The smoke of it.
Arcs
of steelwhite foam, glissades
of fugitive jade barely perceptible. Such passion—
rage or joy?
Thus, not mild, not temperate,
God's love for the world. Vast
flood of mercy
flung on resistance.

 

Denise Levertov :

Al Purdy (1918-2000)

The Last Picture in the World

Al Purdy
From:   Beyond Remembering - The collected poems of Al Purdy. 2000.

A hunched grey shape
framed by leaves
with lake water behind
standing on our
little point of land
like a small monk
in a green monastery
meditating

                almost sculpture
except that it's alive
brooding immobile permanent
for half an hour
a blue heron
and it occurs to me
that if I were to die at this moment
that picture would accompany me
wherever I am going
for part of the way

Anna Mioduchowska

Small Island

Anna Mioduchowska
From:   In-Between Seasons. Rowan Books, 1998.

According to the inhabitants of the Trobriand Islands "a remarkable thing happens to the spirit immediately after its exodus from the body. ...the baloma (which is the main form of the dead man's spirit) goes to Tuma, a small island..."
      from Bronislaw Malinowski's Magic, Science and Religion


I hope my turn to leave comes in July
and there=s someone willing to launch the scuffed canoe
loon barking in alarm at the sudden shadow
cast over its territory, annoyed ducks
nattering

let it be at the moment
the lake's precisely balanced — the sun holding it
by one end the moon by the other, water thick, shiny
crepuscular cream insects slurp
with a terrible greed

for incense, juniper will do
sweetened with fermenting leaves, an aroma
that follows from the shore, lingers on the skin
like old memories, fades with each stroke
of the paddle

the island — a black pincushion
cormorant and heron nests up and down dried up spruce trees
reclining fledglings, sleek Buddhist monks
in calm contemplation of sticks they've plucked
from the floor, the wall

until the next fish is flown in
and then the jostling, the squawking, the island lifting
quivering, cries of triumph and self-pity such perfect
cacophony against the deepening
silence —

let it be that island
let it be an old spruce trunk, even a clump
of reeds nearby, I could do worse than spend eternity
in the company of birds

Wallace Stevens (1879-1955)

Sunday Morning

Related Poem Content Details

By Wallace Stevens

      I

Complacencies of the peignoir, and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair,

And the green freedom of a cockatoo

Upon a rug mingle to dissipate

The holy hush of ancient sacrifice.

She dreams a little, and she feels the dark

Encroachment of that old catastrophe,

As a calm darkens among water-lights.

The pungent oranges and bright, green wings

Seem things in some procession of the dead,

Winding across wide water, without sound.

The day is like wide water, without sound,

Stilled for the passing of her dreaming feet

Over the seas, to silent Palestine,

Dominion of the blood and sepulchre.

       II

Why should she give her bounty to the dead?

What is divinity if it can come

Only in silent shadows and in dreams?

Shall she not find in comforts of the sun,

In pungent fruit and bright, green wings, or else

In any balm or beauty of the earth,

Things to be cherished like the thought of heaven?

Divinity must live within herself:

Passions of rain, or moods in falling snow;

Grievings in loneliness, or unsubdued

Elations when the forest blooms; gusty

Emotions on wet roads on autumn nights;

All pleasures and all pains, remembering

The bough of summer and the winter branch.

These are the measures destined for her soul.

       III

Jove in the clouds had his inhuman birth.

No mother suckled him, no sweet land gave

Large-mannered motions to his mythy mind.

He moved among us, as a muttering king,

Magnificent, would move among his hinds,

Until our blood, commingling, virginal,

With heaven, brought such requital to desire

The very hinds discerned it, in a star.

Shall our blood fail? Or shall it come to be

The blood of paradise? And shall the earth

Seem all of paradise that we shall know?

The sky will be much friendlier then than now,

A part of labor and a part of pain,

And next in glory to enduring love,

Not this dividing and indifferent blue.

       IV

She says, “I am content when wakened birds,

Before they fly, test the reality

Of misty fields, by their sweet questionings;

But when the birds are gone, and their warm fields

Return no more, where, then, is paradise?”

There is not any haunt of prophecy,

Nor any old chimera of the grave,

Neither the golden underground, nor isle

Melodious, where spirits gat them home,

Nor visionary south, nor cloudy palm

Remote on heaven’s hill, that has endured

As April’s green endures; or will endure

Like her remembrance of awakened birds,

Or her desire for June and evening, tipped

By the consummation of the swallow’s wings.

       V

She says, “But in contentment I still feel

The need of some imperishable bliss.”

Death is the mother of beauty; hence from her,

Alone, shall come fulfilment to our dreams

And our desires. Although she strews the leaves

Of sure obliteration on our paths,

The path sick sorrow took, the many paths

Where triumph rang its brassy phrase, or love

Whispered a little out of tenderness,

She makes the willow shiver in the sun

For maidens who were wont to sit and gaze

Upon the grass, relinquished to their feet.

She causes boys to pile new plums and pears

On disregarded plate. The maidens taste

And stray impassioned in the littering leaves.

       VI

Is there no change of death in paradise?

Does ripe fruit never fall? Or do the boughs

Hang always heavy in that perfect sky,

Unchanging, yet so like our perishing earth,

With rivers like our own that seek for seas

They never find, the same receding shores

That never touch with inarticulate pang?

Why set the pear upon those river-banks

Or spice the shores with odors of the plum?

Alas, that they should wear our colors there,

The silken weavings of our afternoons,

And pick the strings of our insipid lutes!

Death is the mother of beauty, mystical,

Within whose burning bosom we devise

Our earthly mothers waiting, sleeplessly.

       VII

Supple and turbulent, a ring of men

Shall chant in orgy on a summer morn

Their boisterous devotion to the sun,

Not as a god, but as a god might be,

Naked among them, like a savage source.

Their chant shall be a chant of paradise,

Out of their blood, returning to the sky;

And in their chant shall enter, voice by voice,

The windy lake wherein their lord delights,

The trees, like serafin, and echoing hills,

That choir among themselves long afterward.

They shall know well the heavenly fellowship

Of men that perish and of summer morn.

And whence they came and whither they shall go

The dew upon their feet shall manifest.

       VIII

She hears, upon that water without sound,

A voice that cries, “The tomb in Palestine

Is not the porch of spirits lingering.

It is the grave of Jesus, where he lay.”

We live in an old chaos of the sun,

Or old dependency of day and night,

Or island solitude, unsponsored, free,

Of that wide water, inescapable.

Deer walk upon our mountains, and the quail

Whistle about us their spontaneous cries;

Sweet berries ripen in the wilderness;

And, in the isolation of the sky,

At evening, casual flocks of pigeons make

Ambiguous undulations as they sink,

Downward to darkness, on extended wings.