I started studying what the nature of a monument is and what a monument should be. And for the World War III memorial I designed a futile, almost terrifying passage that ends nowhere.
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Natural Beauty
On the roller coaster ride
That my emotions have to take me on
I heard a newborn baby cry
Through the night.
I heard a perfect echo die
Into an anonymous wall of digital sound
Somewhere deep inside
Of my soul.
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature
Dont judge yourself too harsh, my love
Or someday you might find your soul endangered
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.
Amazon
You had so much and now so much is gone
What are you gonna do
With your life?
What a lucky man.
To see the earth before it touched his hand
What an angry fool
To condemn.
One more night to go
One more sleep upon your burning banks
A greedy man never knows
What hes done.
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature
Dont start yourself too short, my love
Or someday you might find your soul endangered
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.
Went to the rodeo today
I saw the cowgirls lined up on the fence
A brand new chevrolet
A brand new pair of seamless pants.
We watched the moment of defeat
Played back over on the video screen
Somewhere deep inside
Of my soul.
A natural beauty should be preserved like a monument to nature.
song performed by by Neil Young
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Fever Monument
I walked across the park to the fever monument.
It was in the center of a glass square surrounded
by red flowers and fountains. The monument
was in the shape of a sea horse and the plaque read
We got hot and died.
poem by Richard Brautigan
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Ballade Of Cleopatra's Needle
Ye giant shades of RA and TUM,
Ye ghosts of gods Egyptian,
If murmurs of our planet come
To exiles in the precincts wan
Where, fetish or Olympian,
To help or harm no more ye list,
Look down, if look ye may, and scan
This monument in London mist!
Behold, the hieroglyphs are dumb
That once were read of him that ran
When seistron, cymbal, trump, and drum
Wild music of the Bull began;
When through the chanting priestly clan
Walk'd Ramses, and the high sun kiss'd
This stone, with blessing scored and ban -
This monument in London mist.
The stone endures though gods be numb;
Though human effort, plot, and plan
Be sifted, drifted, like the sum
Of sands in wastes Arabian.
What king may deem him more than man,
What priest says Faith can Time resist
While THIS endures to mark their span -
This monument in London mist?
ENVOY.
Prince, the stone's shade on your divan
Falls; it is longer than ye wist:
It preaches, as Time's gnomon can,
This monument in London mist!
poem by Andrew Lang
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To My Bones
In my sleep it rips through
my meagre skin
throws off the red bandage of the flesh
and goes strolling through the room
my monument a little incomplete
one can be prodigal
with tears and blood
what will endure here the longest
must be thoughtfully provided for
better (than with a priest's dry finger
to the rains which drip from a cloud of sand)
to give one's monument to the academey
they will prop it up in a glass display case
and in Latin they will pray before
the little altar made from an os frontalis
they will reckon the bones and surfaces
they will not forget not overlook
happily I will give my color of eyes
pattern of nails and curve of eyelids
I the perfectly objective
made from white crystals of anatomy
can for thoughts
heart cage
bony pile
and two shins
you my little monument not quite complete
poem by Zbigniew Herbert
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Op ‘n koppie buite die stad
On a hillock outside the city
a monument build from marble and stone
guards forevermore,
catching the sun’s
rays one new day dutifully.
It tells true stories
of a nation’s struggle to survive and be free
from oppression and a great trek
across the veldt and over high mountains,
of vicious wild men
and the belief
in the creator God
who came to aid
to save from total annihilation
when they called on Him.
[Reference: Voortrekker monument just outside Pretoria.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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On a hillock outside the city
On a hillock outside the city
a monument build from marble and stone
guards forevermore,
catching the sun’s
rays one new day dutifully.
It tells true stories
of a nation’s struggle to survive and be free
from oppression and a great trek
across the veldt and over high mountains,
of vicious wild men
and the belief
in the creator God
who came to aid
to save from total annihilation
when they called on Him.
[Reference: Voortrekker monument just outside Pretoria.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Monuments
In our lands are monuments
for the dear and departed.
Some are for some daring deeds;
others are put in someone’s favourite place,
hoping someone else will enjoy
all the beauty that they gazed upon.
Some monuments serve as a warning,
erected about some evil deed
to remember all that perished.
So the next time you pass a monument
read the inscription there,
learn a little of its presentation.
Become a little wiser to its stature
and the one it is dedicated to,
for you never know in the future
someone may erect a monument to honour you.
24 September 2008
poem by David Harris
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Futile
assimilate the night
they cut into your brain
they crack apart the skull
and stick the wires in
the computer releationship
a flame into the flesh
a cut into the brain
a cut runs in your face
you can't believe your head
you can't believe your eyes
nobody can escape
the futile assesment
the futile assesment
oh, futile
we're futile
futile
you're futile
futile religion
futile expression
your futile aggression
a futile obsession
oh, futile assasination
you'll faulter
your generation
your immoral futile assimilation
expressionation
annihilation
song performed by by Velvet Acid Christ
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Herman Altman
Did I follow Truth wherever she led,
And stand against the whole world for a cause,
And uphold the weak against the strong?
If I did I would be remembered among men
As I was known in life among the people,
And as I was hated and loved on earth,
Therefore, build no monument to me,
And carve no bust for me,
Lest, though I become not a demi-god,
The reality of my soul be lost,
So that thieves and liars,
Who were my enemies and destroyed me,
And the children of thieves and liars,
May claim me and affirm before my bust
That they stood with me in the days of my defeat.
Build me no monument
Lest my memory be perverted to the uses
Of lying and oppression.
My lovers and their children must not be dispossessed of me;
I would be the untarnished possession forever
Of those for whom I lived.
poem by Edgar Lee Masters
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Naturally Superior
An ancient Cypress tree still stands
Beside a ruined monument.
Outlasts the works of human hands.
Nothing man made is permanent.
The tree is self sufficient.
It needs no other maintenance.
Apart from the nourishment.
The soil provides and rains enhance.
The builders of the monument.
Erected by them to impress
Are long since dead that's evident.
Outlasted by this grand Cypress.
The ancient tree's content to be.
Just what it is a simple tree.
Saturday,03 March 2012
poem by Ivor Or Ivor.e Hogg
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Disturbance At The Heron House
theyre going wild, the call came in
At early morning pre-dawn, then
the followers of chaos out of control
Theyre numbering the monkeys
The monkeys and the monkeys,
The followers of chaos out of control
theyre meeting at the monument,
The call came in the monument
To liberty and honor under the honor roll
theyve gathered up the cages the cages and courageous,
The followers of chaos out of control
The call came in to party central
meeting of the green and simple,
Try to tell us something we dont know
disturbance at the heron house
A stampede at the monument
To liberty and honor under the honor roll
The gathering of grunts and greens
Cogs and grunts and hirelings
A meeting of a mean idea to hold
when feeding time has come and gone
Theyll lose the heart and head for home
Try to tell us something we dont know
Everyone allowed, everyone allowed
song performed by by REM
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Hardly a name in profane history is more august than his. Hardly another character in the world's record has made so little of its opportunities. His discovery was a blunder; his blunder was a new world; the New World is his monument.
quote by Justin Winsor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Just incase of success
If i become a priest make me a member of the past centuries.
A monument make a propotion of scheduled art.
If i become a sangoma history must be revealed once medicine worked
if i become a poet or an artist you should know i was inpired by something, someone somewhere
just incase of me being rich just remember i was out of existance before being poor and then became average wealth
if i become a social worker or an administrator nor a doctor. An entrepreneur just know that the history behind it is homework studying and hardwork with pation and goals
dreams pushed me
if i inspire you then dont wish to be me but better than me
poem by Ernest Makuakua
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Sunday afternoon at the monument (parody)
(with apology to Koos A. Kombuis)
My love and song is totally wrong
not like something out of Afrikaner blood,
my love and song is for everyone
who undress for me, who eat with me
and fold open at a picnic
in the shades of the language monument rock
to my thanks my love and song proclaims me as the boss
it is refused in this country
with smells on the wind
and by laymen on sidewalks
with their prayers
my love and song is for everyone whom I like
but without a church or a law;
just where I am going, without suspicion and totally immoral
– casual and with ceremony -
my love and song is fragrant, like cheese you can smell it from far
and my fingers dance
on my small cellular phone.
[Sondagmiddag by die monument by Koos A. Kombuis.]
poem by Gert Strydom
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Edmund Hillary's ascent of Mount Everest was a testament to human achievement, my climb of Mount Everest in my shorts will be a monument to the frivolous, decadent nature of modern society.
quote by Wim Hof (2007)
Submitted by Dan Costinaş
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Dinosaur
Long ago and far away in a different age
When I was a dumb young guy
Fossilized photos of my life then
Illustrate what an easy prey I must have been
Standing in the sun, idiot savant
Something like a monument
Im a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
Ignorance has alway been something I excel in
Followed by naivete and pride
Doesnt take a scientist to see how
Any clever predator could have a piece of me
Standing in the sun, idiot savant
Something like a monument
Im a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
When I look back on the past
Its a wonder Im not yet extinct
All the mistakes and bad judgements I made
Nearly pushed me to the brink
It doesnt pay to be too nice
Its the one thing I have learned
Still, I made my fossil bed
Now I toss and turn
Im a dinosaur, somebody is digging my bones
song performed by by King Crimson
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Statue of Liberty is not that monument's name. It is Liberty Enlightening the World.
quote by Deane Jordan
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Monument
Now can you see the monument? It is of wood
built somewhat like a box. No. Built
like several boxes in descending sizes
one above the other.
Each is turned half-way round so that
its corners point toward the sides
of the one below and the angles alternate.
Then on the topmost cube is set
a sort of fleur-de-lys of weathered wood,
long petals of board, pierced with odd holes,
four-sided, stiff, ecclesiastical.
From it four thin, warped poles spring out,
(slanted like fishing-poles or flag-poles)
and from them jig-saw work hangs down,
four lines of vaguely whittled ornament
over the edges of the boxes
to the ground.
The monument is one-third set against
a sea; two-thirds against a sky.
The view is geared
(that is, the view's perspective)
so low there is no "far away,"
and we are far away within the view.
A sea of narrow, horizontal boards
lies out behind our lonely monument,
its long grains alternating right and left
like floor-boards--spotted, swarming-still,
and motionless. A sky runs parallel,
and it is palings, coarser than the sea's:
splintery sunlight and long-fibred clouds.
"Why does the strange sea make no sound?
Is it because we're far away?
Where are we? Are we in Asia Minor,
or in Mongolia?"
An ancient promontory,
an ancient principality whose artist-prince
might have wanted to build a monument
to mark a tomb or boundary, or make
a melancholy or romantic scene of it...
"But that queer sea looks made of wood,
half-shining, like a driftwood, sea.
And the sky looks wooden, grained with cloud.
It's like a stage-set; it is all so flat!
Those clouds are full of glistening splinters!
What is that?"
It is the monument.
"It's piled-up boxes,
outlined with shoddy fret-work, half-fallen off,
cracked and unpainted. It looks old."
--The strong sunlight, the wind from the sea,
all the conditions of its existence,
may have flaked off the paint, if ever it was painted,
and made it homelier than it was.
"Why did you bring me here to see it?
A temple of crates in cramped and crated scenery,
what can it prove?
I am tired of breathing this eroded air,
this dryness in which the monument is cracking."
It is an artifact
of wood. Wood holds together better
than sea or cloud or and could by itself,
much better than real sea or sand or cloud.
It chose that way to grow and not to move.
The monument's an object, yet those decorations,
carelessly nailed, looking like nothing at all,
give it away as having life, and wishing;
wanting to be a monument, to cherish something.
The crudest scroll-work says "commemorate,"
while once each day the light goes around it
like a prowling animal,
or the rain falls on it, or the wind blows into it.
It may be solid, may be hollow.
The bones of the artist-prince may be inside
or far away on even drier soil.
But roughly but adequately it can shelter
what is within (which after all
cannot have been intended to be seen).
It is the beginning of a painting,
a piece of sculpture, or poem, or monument,
and all of wood. Watch it closely.
poem by Elizabeth Bishop
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After I'm dead I'd rather have people ask why I have no monument than why I have one.
This monument is going to be built as a symbol.
quote by Bill Russell
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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