Poem-a-Thon

[jthserra]

How about a little

one of my favorites: Patti Smith with your Springstein...


Because The Night - Patti Smith & Bruce Springstein

take me now baby here as I am
pull me close, try and understand
desire is hunger is the fire I breathe
love is a banquet on which we feed

come on now try and understand
the way I feel when I'm in your hands
take my hand come undercover
they can't hurt you now,
can't hurt you now, can't hurt you now
because the night belongs to lovers
because the night belongs to lust
because the night belongs to lovers
because the night belongs to us

have I doubt when I'm alone
love is a ring, the telephone
love is an angel disguised as lust
here in our bed until the morning comes
come on now try and understand
the way I feel under your command
take my hand as the sun descends
they can't touch you now,
can't touch you now, can't touch you now
because the night belongs to lovers ...

with love we sleep
with doubt the vicious circle
turn and burns
without you I cannot live
forgive, the yearning burning
I believe it's time, too real to feel
so touch me now, touch me now, touch me now
because the night belongs to lovers ...

because tonight there are two lovers
if we believe in the night we trust
because tonight there are two lovers ...


(I couldn't find the words to Horses by Patti Smith)

jim

 

[eagleyez]

Warning

Charles Bukowski

upon your darkened red mouth wild birds scream
and howls of fish swim their jungles
a China morning, a withered noon of axes and witches,
you desire a man-plagued sun and strands of fiber
calling my name.
beware im not your silly husband
I am your silly lover
and of all your silly lovers,
the last one here.

 

[eagleyez]

Tim Fagan

Native Song

When dejected find that private volume:
Withdraw from worry
And open to your native poem.

And then breathe deeply
Of near forgotten lands.
All the holdings of exotic youth.

Retrieve that old sharp startle,
The child's daily awe
That made you see the magic of an hour.

Respect the terms of early passion
That you knew mattered,
Struggled long to keep your own.

Praise on these moments of honest song,
Ring their beauty!
Send them across the mountains of our world.

And forever let them wash you gently,
Cleanse the wanderer,
All the miles from that hidden home.

 

[Angeline]

You made me do it

with all your Bruce talk--and that posting of Because the Night.

Jim, I saw Patti read poetry years ago at St. Marks in the Bowery in NYC (used to go to their New Year's Eve poetry readings when I was a coed Angeline). She was amazing--had no notes and roamed through the audience poemifying (new word?) apparently off the top of her head. I think there are recordings of some of her readings at that ubu site I mentioned the other day.

But Bruce. Ah yes. Bruce can write a lyric. Here's one I like a lot. A whole lot. lol.

FOR YOU
Bruce Springsteen

Princess cards she sends me with her regards
barroom eyes shine vacancy, to see her you gotta look hard
Wounded deep in battle, I stand stuffed like some soldier undaunted
To her Cheshire smile. I'll stand on file, she's all I ever wanted.
But you let your blue walls get in the way of these facts
honey, get your carpetbaggers off my back
you wouldn't even give me time to cover my tracks.
You said, "Here's your mirror and your ball and jacks".
But they're not what I came for, and I'm sure you see that too
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
and your cloud line urges me, and my electric surges free

Crawl into my ambulance, your pulse is getting weak
reveal yourself all now to me girl while you've got the strength to speak
Cause they're waiting for you at Bellevue with their oxygen masks
But I could give it all to you now if only you could ask.
And don't call for your surgeon even he says it's too late
It's not your lungs this time, it's your heart that holds your fate
Don't give me money, honey, I don't want it back
you and your pony face and your union jack
well take your local joker and teach him how to act
I swear I was never that way even when I really cracked
Didn't you think I knew that you were born with the power of a locomotive
able to leap tall buildings in a single bound?
And your Chelsea suicide with no apparent motive
you could laugh and cry in a single sound.

And your strength is devastating in the face of all these odds
Remember how I kept you waiting when it was my turn to be the god?

You were not quite half so proud when I found you broken on the beach
Remember how I poured salt on your tongue and hung just out of reach
And the band they played the homecoming theme as I caressed your cheek
That ragged, jagged melody she still clings to me like a leech.
But that medal you wore on your chest always got in the way
like a little girl with a trophy so soft to buy her way

We were both hitchhikers but you had your ear tuned to the roar
of some metal-tempered engine on an alien, distant shore
So you, left to find a better reason than the one we were living for
and it's not that nursery mouth I came back for
It's not the way you're stretched out on the floor
cause I've broken all your windows and I've rammed through all your doors
And who am I to ask you to lick my sores?
And you should know that's true...
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but you did not need my urgency
I came for you, for you, I came for you, but your life was one long emergency
and your cloud line urges me, and my electric surges free

_________________

Phew. That's a damn lyric.

edited to add--

aha. and here's a recording of Patti Smith reading--few years before the one I saw, but I listened to this and it's similarly wonderful.

 

[eagleyez]

well seems songs are fair game, and thats plenty ok by me

here's one that always tanatalizes me poetically.

VISIONS OF jOHANNNA

Dylan

Ain't it just like the night to play tricks when you're tryin' to be so quiet?
We sit here stranded, though we're all doin' our best to deny it
And Louise holds a handful of rain, temptin' you to defy it
Lights flicker from the opposite loft
In this room the heat pipes just cough
The country music station plays soft
But there's nothing, really nothing to turn off
Just Louise and her lover so entwined
And these visions of Johanna that conquer my mind
In the empty lot where the ladies play blindman's bluff with the key chain
And the all-night girls they whisper of escapades out on the "D" train
We can hear the night watchman click his flashlight
Ask himself if it's him or them that's really insane
Louise, she's all right, she's just near
She's delicate and seems like the mirror
But she just makes it all too concise and too clear
That Johanna's not here
The ghost of 'lectricity howls in the bones of her face
Where these visions of Johanna have now taken my place

Now, little boy lost, he takes himself so seriously
He brags of his misery, he likes to live dangerously
And when bringing her name up
He speaks of a farewell kiss to me
He's sure got a lotta gall to be so useless and all
Muttering small talk at the wall while I'm in the hall
How can I explain?
Oh, it's so hard to get on
And these visions of Johanna, they kept me up past the dawn

Inside the museums, Infinity goes up on trial
Voices echo this is what salvation must be like after a while
But Mona Lisa musta had the highway blues
You can tell by the way she smiles
See the primitive wallflower freeze
When the jelly-faced women all sneeze
Hear the one with the mustache say, "Jeeze
I can't find my knees"
Oh, jewels and binoculars hang from the head of the mule
But these visions of Johanna, they make it all seem so cruel

The peddler now speaks to the countess who's pretending to care for him
Sayin', "Name me someone that's not a parasite and I'll go out and say a prayer for him"
But like Louise always says
"Ya can't look at much, can ya man?"
As she, herself, prepares for him
And Madonna, she still has not showed
We see this empty cage now corrode
Where her cape of the stage once had flowed
The fiddler, he now steps to the road
He writes ev'rything's been returned which was owed
On the back of the fish truck that loads
While my conscience explodes
The harmonicas play the skeleton keys and the rain
And these visions of Johanna are now all that remain

 

[jthserra]

Another from Joni Mitchell

Which I never really appreciated until the recent cover by Diana Krall:


A case of you

Just before our love got lost you said
I am as constant as a northern star
And I said, constant in the darkness
Where’s that at?
If you want me I’ll be in the bar

On the back of a cartoon coaster
In the blue tv screen light
I drew a map of canada
Oh canada
And your face sketched on it twice

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
And I would still be on my feet
Oh I’d still be on my feet

Oh I am a lonely painter
I live in a box of paints
I’m frightened by the devil
And I’m drawn to those ones that ain’t afraid
I remember that time that you told me, you said
Love is touching souls
Surely you touched mine
Cause part of you pours out of me
In these lines from time to time

Oh you are in my blood like holy wine
And you taste so bitter but you taste so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you
I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
And still be on my feet

I met a woman
She had a mouth like yours
She knew your life
She knew your devils and your deeds
And she said
Color go to him, stay with him if you can
Oh but be prepared to bleed
Oh but you are in my blood you’re my holy wine
Oh and you taste so bitter, bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you darling
Still I’d be on my feet
I’d still be on my feet

 

[Angeline]

well seems songs are fair game, and thats plenty ok by me

here's one that always tanatalizes me poetically.

VISIONS OF jOHANNNA

Dylan

ok you did that on purpose cause you know it's my favorite. cmon now, lol, admit it.

 

[eagleyez]

ok you did that on purpose cause you know it's my favorite. cmon now, lol, admit it.

why I had no idea. I listened to it this morning as i housecleaned.

Honest

 

[eagleyez]

ok, now i know this a fav of yours- Bob off Planet Waves...

specially since i fumbled thru it the other night (i need a page turner)



Twilight on the frozen lake
North wind about to break
On footprints in the snow
Silence down below.

You're beautiful beyond words
You're beautiful to me
You can make me cry
Never say goodbye.

Time is all I have to give
You can have it if you choose
With me you can live
Never say goodbye.

My dreams are made of iron and steel
With a big bouquet
Of roses hanging down
From the heavens to the ground.

The crashing waves roll over me
As I stand upon the sand
Wait for you to come
And grab hold of my hand.

Oh, baby, baby, baby blue
You'll change your last name, too
You've turned your hair to brown
Love to see it hangin' down.



[

 

[Angeline]

Re: Another from Joni Mitchell

Which I never really appreciated until the recent cover by Diana Krall:


A case of you

That is an amazing lyric, Jim, that has been covered many times--I love Joni's original, as well as Jane Monheit's version. And every song the the album Blue is gorgeous buth musically and poetically, imo. Here's my favorite.

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Traveling, traveling, traveling
Looking for something, what can it be
Oh I hate you some, I hate you some
I love you some
Oh I love you when I forget about me
I want to be strong I want to laugh along
I want to belong to the living
Alive, alive, I want to get up and jive
I want to wreck my stockings in some juke box dive
Do you want - do you want - do you want
To dance with me baby
Do you want to take a chance
On maybe finding some sweet romance with me baby
Well, come on

All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you too
All I really really want our love to do
Is to bring out the best in me and in you
I want to talk to you, I want to shampoo you
I want to renew you again and again
Applause, applause - life is our cause
When I think of your kisses
My mind see-saws
Do you see - do you see - do you see
How you hurt me baby
So I hurt you too
Then we both get so blue

I am on a lonely road and I am traveling
Looking for the key to set me free
Oh the jealousy, the greed is the unraveling
It’s the unraveling
And it undoes all the joy that could be
I want to have fun, I want to shine like the sun
I want to be the one that you want to see
I want to knit you a sweater
Want to write you a love letter
I want to make you feel better
I want to make you feel free
Hmm, hmm, hmm, hmm,
Want to make you feel free
I want to make you feel free

 

[eagleyez]

good morning music

the coffees hot Ange

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonely organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now all my fathers, they've gone down,
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I ...
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

 

[Angeline]

Re: good morning music

the coffees hot Ange

The guilty undertaker sighs,
The lonely organ grinder cries,
The silver saxophones say I should refuse you.
The cracked bells and washed-out horns
Blow into my face with scorn,
But it's not that way,
I wasn't born to lose you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

The drunken politician leaps
Upon the street where mothers weep
And the saviors who are fast asleep,
They wait for you.
And I wait for them to interrupt
Me drinkin' from my broken cup
And ask me to
Open up the gate for you.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now all my fathers, they've gone down,
True love they've been without it.
But all their daughters put me down
'Cause I don't think about it.

Well, I return to the Queen of Spades
And talk with my chambermaid.
She knows that I'm not afraid
To look at her.
She is good to me
And there's nothing she doesn't see.
She knows where I'd like to be
But it doesn't matter.
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Now your dancing child with his Chinese suit,
He spoke to me, I took his flute.
No, I wasn't very cute to him,
Was I?
But I did it, though, because he lied
Because he took you for a ride
And because time was on his side
And because I ...
I want you, I want you,
I want you so bad,
Honey, I want you.

Well, ok.
You can have me.
Repeatedly.

Now gimme some coffee, please.

 

[Angeline]

For eagleyez

here's one from my favorite unknown poet.



Conquest Of The Garden
Forugh Farrokhzad

That crow which flew over our heads
and descended into the disturbed thought
of a vagabond cloud
and the sound of which traversed
the breadth of the horizon
like a short spear
will carry the news of us to the city.

Everyone knows,
everyone knows
that you and I have seen the garden
from that cold sullen window
and that we have plucked the apple
from that playful, hard-to-reach branch.

Everyone is afraid
everyone is afraid, but you and I
joined with the lamp
and water and mirror and we were not afraid.

I am not talking about the flimsy linking
of two names
and embracing in the old pages of a ledger.

I'm talking about my fortunate tresses
with the burnt anemone of your kiss
and the intimacy of our bodies,
and the glow of our nakedness
like fish scales in the water.
I am talking about the silvery life of a song
which a small fountain sings at dawn.
we asked wild rabbits one night
in that green flowing forest
and shells full of pearls
in that turbulent cold blooded sea
and the young eagles
on that strange overwhelming mountain
what should be done.

Everyone knows,
everyone knows
we have found our way
Into the cold, quiet dream of phoenixes:
we found truth in the garden
In the embarrassed look of a nameless flower,
and we found permanence
In an endless moment
when two suns stared at each other.

I am not talking about timorous whispering
In the dark.
I am talking about daytime and open windows
and fresh air and a stove in which useless things burn
and land which is fertile
with a different planting
and birth and evolution and pride.
I am talking about our loving hands
which have built across nights a bridge
of the message of perfume
and light and breeze.
come to the meadow
to the grand meadow
and call me, from behind the breaths
of silk-tasseled acacias
just like the deer calls its mate.

The curtains are full of hidden anger
and innocent doves
look to the ground
from their towering white height.

 

[Angeline]

More by Forugh

...the poem that changed my life--made me want to give up everything and write poetry------



Window
Forugh Farrokhzad

One window is sufficient
One window for beholding
One window for hearing
One window
resembling a well's ring
reaching the earth at the finiteness of its heart
and opening towards the expanse of this repetitive blue kindness
one window filing the small hands of loneliness
with nocturnal benevolence
of the fragrance of wondrous stars
and thereof,
one can summon the sun
to the alienation of geraniums.

One window will suffice me.

I come from the homeland of dolls
from beneath the shades of paper-trees
in the garden of a picture book
from the dry seasons of impotent experiences in friendship and love
in the soil-covered alleys of innocence
from the years of growing pale alphabet letters
behind the desks of the tuberculous school
from the minute that children could write "stone"
on the blackboard
and the frenzied starlings would fly away
from the ancient tree.

I come from the midst of carnivorous plant roots
and my brain is still overflowed
by a butterfly's terrifying shriek
crucified with pins
onto a notebook.

When my trust was suspended from the fragile thread of justice
and in the whole city
they were chopping up my heart's lanterns
when they would blindfold me
with the dark handkerchief of Law
and from my anxious temples of desire
fountains of blood would squirt out
when my life had become nothing
nothing
but the tick-tock of a clock,
I discovered
I must
must
must love,
insanely.

One window will suffice me
one window to the moment of awareness
observance
and silence.
now,
the walnut sapling
has grown so tall that it can interpret the wall
by its youthful leaves.

Ask the mirror
the redeemer's name.
Isn't the shivering earth beneath your feet lonelier than you?
the prophets brought the mission of destruction to our century
aren't these consecutive explosions
and poisonous clouds
the reverberation of the sacred verses?
You,
comrad,
brother,
confidant,
when your reach the moon
write the history of flower massacres.

Dreams always plunge down from their naive height
and die.
I smell the four-petal clover
which has grown on the tomb of archaic meanings.

Wasn't the woman
buried in the shroud of anticipation and innocence,
my youth?

Will I step up the stairs of curiosity
to greet the good God who strolls on the rooftop?

I feel that "time" has passed
I feel that "moment" is my share of history's pages
I feel that "desk" is a feigned distance
between my tresses
and the hands of this sad stranger.

Talk to me
What else would the one offering the kindness of a live flesh want from
you?
but the understanding of the sensation of existence.

Talk to me
I am in the window's refuge
I have a relationship with the Sun.

 

[denis hale]

Here's one

you might like Ange!

Best bass player poem I ever read.


COPACETIC MINGUS by Jusef Komunyakaa

Heartstring. Blessed wood
& every moment the thing's made of:
ball of fatback
licked by fingers of fire.
Hard love, it's hard love.
Running big hands down
the upright's wide hips,
rocking his moon-eyed mistress
with gold in her teeth.
Art and life bleed
into each other as he works the bow.
But tonight we're both a long ways
from the Mile High City,
1973. Here in New Orleans
years below sea level,
I listen to Pithecanthropus Erectus
Up and down, under and over,
every which way--thump, thump, dada--
ah yes.
Wood heavy with tenderness,
Mingus fingers the loom
gone on Segovia,
dogging the raw strings
unwaxed with rosin.
Hyperbolic bass line. Oh, no!
Hard love, it's hard love.

 

[Angeline]

Oh well my dear

Yusef baby is my man (and he teaches at Princeton U's Creative Writing Program--alas no course auditing allowed, but a mere hop, skip and jump from me). He's also on the editorial board of Brilliant Corners, the only jazz poetry journal in the USA. I know, I'm full of factoids, lol, but I'd love to get into that journal.

Read this and tell me if it doesn't capture the essence of blues.

Blue Light Lounge Sutra for the Performance Poets at Harold Park Hotel
Yusef Komunyakaa

the need gotta be
so deep words can't
answer simple questions
all night long notes
stumble off the tongue
& color the air indigo
so deep fragments of gut
& flesh cling to the song
you gotta get into it
so deep salt crystalizes on eyelashes
the need gotta be
so deep you can vomit up ghosts
& not feel broken
till you are no more
than a half ounce of gold
in painful brightness
you gotta get into it
blow that saxophone
so deep all the sex & dope in this world
can't erase your need
to howl against the sky
the need gotta be
so deep you can't
just wiggle your hips
& rise up out of it
chaos in the cosmos
modern man in the pepperpot
you gotta get hooked
into every hungry groove
so deep the bomb locked
in rust opens like a fist
into it into it so deep
rhythm is pre-memory
the need gotta be basic
animal need to see
& know the terror
we are made of honey
cause if you wanna dance
this boogie be ready
to let the devil use your head
for a drum

 

[echoes_s]

Robert Finch

Last Visit

This place we could never enter hides away still
While the sea below keeps watch through the pines on the hill,
But the once forbidding gate hangs by a hinge
And the winding road to the house has a weedy fringe.
No one goes up any more now the house has gone.
Not a single stone is left on another stone.
Where siren windows gave you the sea in their glasses
The wind smooths out a coverlet of grasses
And yellow daisies dance a flaming wreath
Remembering those that crowned the absent hearth.
Instead of a poem alive with joy and sorrow
The day is always a day with no tomorrow
Yet look to the sea as when yesterday was there
And nothing has changed except what brought us here.

 

[echoes_s]

A.J.M. Smith

This Lonely Land

Cedar and jagged fir
uplift sharp barbs
against the gray
and cloud-piled sky.
and in the bay
blown spume and windrift
and thin, bitter spray
snap
at the whirling sky;
and the pine trees
lean one way.

A wild duck calls
to her mate,
and the ragged
and passionate tones
stagger and fall,
and recover,
and stagger and fall,
on these stones-
are lost
in the lapping water
on smooth, flat stones.
This is a beauty
of dissonance.
this resonance
of stony strand,
this smoky cry
curled over a black pine
like a broken
and wind-battered branch
when the wind
bends the tops of the pines
and curdles the sky
from the north.

This is the beauty
of strength
broken by strength
and still strong.

 

[Angeline]

In the Naked Bed, in Plato's Cave

Delmore Schwartz

In the naked bed, in Plato's cave,
Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,
Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,
Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,
A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,
Their freights covered, as usual.
The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram
Slid slowly forth.
Hearing the milkman's clop,
his striving up the stair, the bottle's chink,
I rose from bed, lit a cigarette,
And walked to the window. The stony street
Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,
The street-lamp's vigil and the horse's patience.
The winter sky's pure capital
Turned me back to bed with exhausted eyes.

Strangeness grew in the motionless air. The loose
Film grayed. Shaking wagons, hooves' waterfalls,
Sounded far off, increasing, louder and nearer.
A car coughed, starting. Morning softly
Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair
From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,
Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.
The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,
Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet
With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,
O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail
Of early morning, the mystery of the beginning
Again and again,
while history is unforgiven.
,
Reflected headlights slowly slid the wall,
Carpenters hammered under the shaded window,
Wind troubled the window curtains all night long,
A fleet of trucks strained uphill, grinding,
Their freights covered, as usual.
The ceiling lightened again, the slanting diagram
Slid slowly forth.
Hearing the milkman's clop,
his striving up the stair, the bottle's chink,
I rose from bed, lit a cigarette,
And walked to the window. The stony street
Displayed the stillness in which buildings stand,
The street-lamp's vigil and the horse's patience.
The winter sky's pure capital
Turned me back to bed with exhausted eyes.

Strangeness grew in the motionless air. The loose
Film grayed. Shaking wagons, hooves' waterfalls,
Sounded far off, increasing, louder and nearer.
A car coughed, starting. Morning softly
Melting the air, lifted the half-covered chair
From underseas, kindled the looking-glass,
Distinguished the dresser and the white wall.
The bird called tentatively, whistled, called,
Bubbled and whistled, so! Perplexed, still wet
With sleep, affectionate, hungry and cold. So, so,
O son of man, the ignorant night, the travail
Of early morning, the mystery of the beginning
Again and again,
while history is unforgiven.

 

[eagleyez]

curious

i was re-reading Humboldts Gift by Saul Bellow

recently

great characterization of Delmore

tragic poet

 

[denis hale]

***

THE SECRET OF POETRY by Jon Andersen

When I was lonely, I thought of death.
When I thought of death, I was lonely.

I suppose this error will continue.
I shall enter each grey morning

Delighted by frost, which is death,
& the trees that stand alone in mist.

When I met my wife I was lonely.
Our child in her body is lonely.

I suppose this error will go on and on.
Mornings I kiss my wife's cold lips,
Nights, her body, dripping with mist.

This is the error that fascinates.

I suppose you are secretly lonely,
Thinking of death, thinking of love.

I'd like, please, to leave on your sill
Just one cold flower, whose beauty
Would leave you inconsolable all day.

The secret of poetry is cruelty.

 

[alwaysawake]

This isn't profound, but came from one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote the lyrics to an old Ambrosia song called, Nice, Nice, Very Nice. To me, it explains in a simple way that we are diverse, yet find still a way to co-exist.

Oh, a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park,
Or the lion hunter in the jungle dark.

Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen,
They all fit together in the same machine.

Nice, nice, very nice,
Nice, nice, very nice,
So many people in the same device.

Oh a whirling dervish and a dancing bear,
Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire.

Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France,
Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance.

Nice, nice, very nice,
Nice, nice, very nice,
So many people in the same device.

I wanted all things to make sense,
So we'd be happy instead of tense.

Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park,
Or the lion hunter in the jungle dark.

Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen,
They all fit together in the same machine.

Nice, nice, very nice,
Nice, nice, very nice,
So many people in the same device,
So many people in the same device...

 

[Angeline]

This isn't profound, but came from one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut. He wrote the lyrics to an old Ambrosia song called, Nice, Nice, Very Nice. To me, it explains in a simple way that we are diverse, yet find still a way to co-exist.

Oh, a sleeping drunkard Up in Central Park,
Or the lion hunter in the jungle dark.

Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen,
They all fit together in the same machine.

Nice, nice, very nice,
Nice, nice, very nice,
So many people in the same device.

Oh a whirling dervish and a dancing bear,
Or a Ginger Rogers and a Fred Astaire.

Or a teenage rocker or the girls in France,
Yes, we all are partners in this cosmic dance.

Nice, nice, very nice,
Nice, nice, very nice,
So many people in the same device.

I wanted all things to make sense,
So we'd be happy instead of tense.

Oh a sleeping drunkard up in Central Park,
Or the lion hunter in the jungle dark.

Or the Chinese dentist or the British Queen,
They all fit together in the same machine.

Nice, nice, very nice,
Nice, nice, very nice,
So many people in the same device,
So many people in the same device...

AA! Hiya sweetie! LTNS, you lurker. I've always loved that poem--since I first saw it in Vonnegut's Cat's Cradle, which is one of the most wickedly funny novels of all time, imo.

And that AV is hysterical.

 

[Rybka]

Billy Collins

Thanks to thenry I have been looking at Billy recently. Here is one that has always intrigued me.

Nostalgia


Remember the 1340's? We were doing a dance called the Catapult.
You always wore brown, the color craze of the decade,
and I was draped in one of those capes that were popular,
the ones with unicorns and pomegranates in needlework.
Everyone would pause for beer and onions in the afternoon,
and at night we would play a game called "Find the Cow."
Everything was hand-lettered then, not like today.

Where has the summer of 1572 gone? Brocade sonnet
marathons were the rage. We used to dress up in the flags
of rival baronies and conquer one another in cold rooms of stone.
Out on the dance floor we were all doing the Struggle
while your sister practiced the Daphne all alone in her room.
We borrowed the jargon of farriers for our slang.
These days language seems transparent a badly broken code.

The 1790's will never come again. Childhood was big.
People would take walks to the very tops of hills
and write down what they saw in their journals without speaking.
Our collars were high and our hats were extremely soft.
We would surprise each other with alphabets made of twigs.
It was a wonderful time to be alive, or even dead.

I am very fond of the period between 1815 and 1821.
Europe trembled while we sat still for our portraits.
And I would love to return to 1901 if only for a moment,
time enough to wind up a music box and do a few dance steps,
or shoot me back to 1922 or 1941, or at least let me
recapture the serenity of last month when we picked
berries and glided through afternoons in a canoe.

Even this morning would be an improvement over the present.
I was in the garden then, surrounded by the hum of bees
and the Latin names of flowers, watching the early light
flash off the slanted windows of the greenhouse
and silver the limbs on the rows of dark hemlocks.

As usual, I was thinking about the moments of the past,
letting my memory rush over them like water
rushing over the stones on the bottom of a stream.
I was even thinking a little about the future, that place
where people are doing a dance we cannot imagine,
a dance whose name we can only guess.

--Billy Collins

 

[Angeline]

More Billy

Rybka, I love Billy Collins. His writing is deceptively simple, imo. He's so warm and funny that a reader just slips into the world of his poem. He's so accessible, and yet he almost always manages to say something profound. I really like that.

This is one of my favorites. Of course I dig the jazz references, but what's so wonderful is realizing--if you've ever walked down a busy street listening to a walkman--how true it rings.

Man Listening to Disc

This is not bad --
ambling along 44th Street
with Sonny Rollins for company,
his music flowing through the soft calipers
of these earphones,

as if he were right beside me
on this clear day in March,
the pavement sparkling with sunlight,
pigeons fluttering off the curb,
nodding over a profusion of bread crumbs.

In fact, I would say
my delight at being suffused
with phrases from his saxophone --
some like honey, some like vinegar --
is surpassed only by my gratitude

to Tommy Potter for taking the time
to join us on this breezy afternoon
with his most unwieldy bass
and to the esteemed Arthur Taylor
who is somehow managing to navigate

this crowd with his cumbersome drums.
And I bow deeply to Thelonious Monk
for figuring out a way
to motorize -- or whatever -- his huge piano
so he could be with us today.

This music is loud yet so confidential.
I cannot help feeling even more
like the center of the universe
than usual as I walk along to a rapid
little version of "The Way You Look Tonight,"

and all I can say to my fellow pedestrians,
to the woman in the white sweater,
the man in the tan raincoat and the heavy glasses,
who mistake themselves for the center of the universe --
all I can say is watch your step,

because the five of us, instruments and all,
are about to angle over
to the south side of the street
and then, in our own tightly knit way,
turn the corner at Sixth Avenue.

And if any of you are curious
about where this aggregation,
this whole battery-powered crew,
is headed, let us just say
that the real center of the universe,

the only true point of view,
is full of hope that he,
the hub of the cosmos
with his hair blown sideways,
will eventually make it all the way downtown.