Sunday, November 14, 2010

Sometimes someone else just says it better


However vast the ‘outer space’ may be, yet with all its side real distances it hardly bears comparison with the dimensions, with the depth dimensions of our inner being, which does not even need the spaciousness of the universe to be within itself almost unfathomable, Thus if the dead if those who are to come, need an abode, what refuge could be more agreeable and appointed for them than this imaginary space?

Raymond Pettibon



What moves me is the irregular form – the flawed words and stubborn sounds....that affect us whenever we try and say something that is important to us.

John Ashbery



The mower stalled twice: kneeling, I found
A Hedgehog jammed up against the blades, Killed.
It had been in the long grass.
I had seen it before, and even fed it once.
Now I had mauled its unobtrusive world unmendably.
Burial was no help.
Next morning I got up and it did not.
The first day after a death, the new absence is always the same:
We should be careful of each other, we should be kind while there is still time.

Philip Larkin



My mother never forgave my father
for killing himself,
especially at such an awkward time
and in a public park,
that spring
when I was waiting to be born.
She locked his name
in her deepest cabinet
and would not let him out,
though I could hear him thumping.
When I came down from the attic
with the pastel portrait in my hand
of a long-lipped stranger
with a brave moustache
and deep brown level eyes,
she ripped it into shreds
without a single word
and slapped me hard.
In my sixty-fourth year
I can feel my cheek
still burning

Stanley Kunitz



I wander’d lonely as a cloud
That floats on high over vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd
A host of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.
Continuous as the stars that shine and twinkle on the milky way,
They stretch’d in never-ending line along the margin of the bay;
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.
The waves beside them danced; but they out-did the sparkling waves in glee,
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company.
I gazed...and gazed...but little thought what wealth the show to me had brought.
For often, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude,
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

William Wordsworth



Go deeper than love, for the soul has greater depths.
Love is like the grass, but the heart is deep wild rock, molten, yet dense and permanent.
Go down to your deep old heart, and lose sight of yourself.   And lose sight of me whom you turbulently loved.
Let us lose sight of ourselves and break the mirrors.
For the fierce curve of our lives is moving again to the depths, out of sight, in the deep living heart.

D H Lawrence



The gunfire around us makes it hard to hear.   But the human voice is different from other sounds.    It can be heard over noises that bury everything else.    
Even when it’s not shouting.    Even if it’s just a whisper.    Even the lowest whisper can be heard over armies....when it’s telling the truth.

The Interpreter (2005).     Universal Pictures.   



You got a fast car
I want a ticket to anywhere
Maybe we make a deal
Maybe together we can get somewhere
Anyplace is better
Starting from zero got nothing to lose
Maybe we’ll make something
But me myself I got nothing to prove
You got a fast car
And I got a plan to get us out of here
I been working at the convenience store
Managed to save just a little bit of money
We won’t have to drive too far
Just ‘cross the border and into the city
You and I can both get jobs
And finally see what it means to be living

You see my old man’s got a problem
He live with the bottle that’s the way it is
He says his body’s too old for working
I say his body’s too young to look like this
My mamma went off and left him
She wanted more from life than he could give
I said somebody’s got to take care of him
So I quit school and that’s what I did

You got a fast car
But is it fast enough so we can fly away
We gotta make a decision
We leave tonight or live and die this way

I remember we were driving driving in your car
The speed so fast I felt like I was drunk
City lights lay out before us
And your arm felt nice wrapped ‘round my shoulder
And I had a feeling that I belonged
And I had a feeling I could be someone, be someone, be someone....


Tracy Chapman