Elegy For Whatever Had A Pattern In It
Now that the Summer of Love has become the moss of tunnels
And the shadowy mouths of tunnels & all the tunnels lead into the city,
I'm going to put the one largely forgotten, swaying figure of Ediesto Huerta
Right in front of you so you can watch him swamp fruit
Out of an orchard in the heat of an August afternoon, I'm going to let you
Keep your eyes on him as he lifts & swings fifty-pound boxes of late
Elberta peaches up to me where I'm standing on a flatbed trailer & breathing in
Tractor exhaust so thick it bends the air, bends things seen through it
So that they seem to swim through the air.
It is a lousy job, & no one has to do it, & we do it.
We do it so that I can show you even what isn't there,
What's hidden. And signed by Time itself. And set spinning,
And is only a spider, after all, with its net waiting for what falls,
For what flies into it, & ages, & turns gray in a matter of minutes. The web
Is nothing's blueprint, bleached by the sun & whitened by it, it's what's left
After we've vanished, after we become what falls apart when anyone
Touches it, eyelash & collarbone dissolving into air, & time touching
The boxes we are wrapped in like gifts & splintering them
Into wood again, at the edge of a wood.
2
Black Widow is a name no one ever tinkered with or tried to change.
If you turn her on her back you can see the blood red hourglass figure
She carries on her belly,
Small as the design of a pirate I saw once on a tab of blotter acid
Before I took half of it, & a friend took the other, & then the two of us
Walked down to the empty post office beside the lake to look,
For some reason, at the wanted posters. We liked a little drama
In the ordinary then. Now a spider's enough.
And this one, in the legend she inhabits, is famous, & the male dies.
She eats its head after the eggs are fertilized.
It's the hourglass on her belly I remember, & the way the figure of it,
Figure eight of Time & Infinity, looked like something designed,
Etched or embossed upon the slick undershell, & the way there was,
The first time I saw it, a stillness in the pattern that was not
The stillness of the leaves or the stillness of the sky over the leaves.
After the male dies she goes off & the eggs
Live in the fraying sail
Of an abandoned web strung up in the corner of a picking box or beneath
Some slowly yellowing grape leaf among hundreds of other
Leaves, in autumn, the eggs smaller than the o in this typescript
Or a handwritten apostrophe in ink.
What do they represent but emptiness, some gold camp settlement
In the Sierras swept clean by smallpox, & wind?
Canal school with its three rooms, its bell & the rope you rang it with
And no one there in the empty sunlight, ring & after ring & echo.
It magnifies & I can't explain it.
Piedra, Conejo, Parlier. Stars & towns, blown fire & wind.
Deneb & Altair, invisible kindling, nothing above nothing.
It magnifies & I can't explain it.
3
Expressionless spinster, carrying Time's signature preserved & signed
In blood & hidden beneath you, you move two steps
To the right & hold still, then one step to the left,
And hold still again, motionless as the web you wait in.
Motionless as the story you wait in & inhabit but did not spin
And did not repeat. You wait in the beehive hairdo of the girl
Sitting across from me in class, wait in your eggs,
4
Wait in the hair the girl teases & sprays once more at recess.
Lipstick, heels, tight sweater, leather anklet.
The story has no point but stillness itself, absence in a school desk,
The hacked and scratched names visible in the varnished wood,
No one there, the bell with its ring & after ring & echo.
In class, I remember, she would look back at me with a gaze deeper
Than calm, blanker than a pond's scummed & motionless surface,
Beneath which there was nothing, nothing taking the shape of someone
Who had already drowned but could not die, & so sat in class
Because she had to, because that was the law.
Mrs. Avery went on & on at the blackboard so we could know
Who Magellan & Vizcaino had been, or sometimes she would make
The boy who spoke only Spanish read from a book,
Watch him as he used his forefinger to point at each syllable
He would read, read & mispronounce, & stumble over, & go on.
§
And this isn't much of a story either, but it's one I know:
One afternoon in August, two black widow spiders bit Ediesto Huerta.
He killed them both & went on working,
Went on swinging the boxes up to me. In a few minutes the sweat
Bathed his face until it glistened, & still he went on working;
And when I asked him to stop he would not & instead
Seemed to begin to dance slowly in the rhythms of the work,
Swing & heft & turning back for another box, then
Swing, heft, & turning back again. And within a half hour or so,
Without him resting once but merely swinging box after box
Of peaches up to me in the heat, the fever broke.
5
In the middle of turning away again, he stopped dancing,
He stopped working. He seemed to be listening to something, & then
He passed out & fell flat on his back. It looked as if he had gone to sleep
For a moment. I let the idling tractor sputter & die, & by the time
I reached him, he had awakened, &, in the next moment, his face
Began twitching, his arms & legs danced to something without music
And then stiffened, his jaws clenched & his eyes fluttered open
And turned a pure white. I made a stick from a peach limb & tore
The leaves & shoots off it & stuck it between his teeth
As I heard one was supposed to, &, in this way, almost
Killed him by suffocation, & so took the stick out & threw it away.
And later lifted him by the one arm he extended to me & pulled him up onto
The bed of the trailer. He dangled his legs off the rear of it.
We sat there, saying nothing.
It was so quiet we could hear the birds around us in the trees.
And then he turned to me, &, addressing me in a name as old as childhood,
Said, 'Hey Cowboy, you wanna cigarette?'
§
In the story, no one can remember whether it was car theft or burglary,
But in fact, Ediesto Huerta was tried & convicted of something, & so, afterward,
Became motionless & silent in the web spun around him by misfortune.
In the penitentiary the lights stay on forever,
Cell after cell after cell, they call their names out, caught in time.
Ring, & after ring, & echo.
In the story, the girl always dies of spider bites,
When in fact she disappeared by breaking into the jagged pieces of glass
Littering the roadsides & glinting in the empty light that shines there. 6
All we are is representation, what we appear to be & are, & are not,
And representation is all we remember,
Something hesitating & looking back & caught for a moment.
God in the design on a spider's belly, standing for time & infinity,
Looks back, looks back just once, then never again.
We go without a trace, I am thinking. We go & there's no one there,
No one to meet us on the long drive lined with orange trees,
Cypresses, the bleaching fronds of palm trees,
And though the town is still there when I return to it, when I'm gone
The track is empty beside the station, & the station is boarded up,
Boarded over, the town is overgrown with leaves, with weeds
Tall as windowsills, window glass out & dark inside the shops.
The classrooms & school are gone & the bell, & the rope
To ring it with, & the boy reading form the book, forefinger
On a syllable he can't pronounce & stumbles over again & again.
§
All we are is representation, what we are & are not,
Clear & then going dark again, all we are
Is the design or insignia that misrepresents what we are, & stays
Behind, & looks back at us without expression, empty road in sunlight.
I once drove in a '48 Jimmy truck with three tons of fruit
On it & the flooring beneath the clutch so worn away I could see
The road go past beneath me, the oil flecked light & shadow
Picking up speed. Angel & Johnny Dominguez, Ediesto Huerta,
Jaime Vaca & Coronado Solares, Querido Flacco
7
And the one called Dead Rat & the one called Camelias;
We go without a trace, I am thinking.
§
Today you were lying in bed, drinking tea, reading the newspaper,
A look of concentration on your face, of absorption in some
Story or other.
It looked so peaceful, you reading, the bed, the sunlight over everything.
There is a blueprint of something never finished, something I'll never
Find my way out of, some web where the light rocks, back & forth,
Holding me in a time that's gone, bee at the windowsill & the cold
Coming back as it has to, tapping at the glass.
The figure in the hourglass & the body swinging in the rhythm of its work.
The body reclining in bed, forgetting what it is, & who.
While the night goes on with its work, the stars & the shapes they make,
Cold vein in the leaf & in the wind,
What are we but what we offer up?
Gifts we give, things for oblivion to look at, & puzzle over, & set aside.
Oblivion resting his cheek against a child's striped rubber ball
In the photograph I have of him, head on the table & resting his cheek
Against the cool surface of the ball, the one that is finished spinning, the one
He won't give back.
Oblivion who has my face in the photograph, my cheek resting
Against a child's striped ball.
Oblivion with his blown fires, & empty towns...
Oblivion who would be nothing without us, I am thinking,
8
As if we're put on the earth to forget the ending, & wander.
And walk alone. And walk in the midst of great crowds,
And never come back.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Related quotes
Turn Around
Jimmy saw the sun chase away the night
It was a quarter past seven
His body warm like the morning light
Had to be in school by eleven
He told himself what they had done to him
That's why Jimmy never felt real sad
If only someone could have lent a hand
Things would have never turned out so bad
Who knows why black flies just live for one day
Who knows why
Hey turn around
It's time to wake up and go back to tell the story
Hey turn around
It's time to wake up and go back to tell the story now
Always sat alone in the back of the class
Because no one would take him
Today he stood in front of the rest
His hands were shaking
Who could have known what Jimmy thought
Never had a chance to speak his words out loud
The flies were burning in his head till
Jimmy let them all out
Who knows why black flies just live for one day
Who knows why
Hey turn around
It's time to wake up and go back to tell the story
Hey turn around
It's time to wake up and go back to tell the story now
It didn't pay to make fun of him
Too late to say
song performed by by Green Lizard from Identity
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Tuesday In Amsterdam (Adam Solo)
A picture of Amsterdam
Bare trees under glass
Framed in the grey and white afternoon light
Of a winter long passed
When I was a riser
To Dublin I'd roam
She was a bareback rider
Some miles from home
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
Shes a carnival diver
Hung in the sky
Cutting through time like a memory
Strung on a wire
Now the color of anything
Fades in the air
She is the film of a book
Of the story of the smell of her hair
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
When everythings over
And everythings clear
When everyones older
And no one is here
I try to remember
A girl on a wire
Tumbling and diving above Stevens Green
Like a kite in the air
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
Oh come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me yeah
Come back to me
Come back to me
Come back to me
song performed by by Counting Crows
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The House In The Woods
At the back of the houses there is the wood.
While there is a leaf of summer left, the wood
Makes sounds I can put somewhere in my song,
Has paths I can walk, when I wake, to good
Or evil: to the cage, to the oven, to the House
In the Wood. It is a part of life, or of the story
We make of life. But after the last leaf,
The last light--for each year is leafless,
Each day lightless, at the last--the wood begins
Its serious existence: it has no path,
No house, no story; it resists comparison...
One clear, repeated, lapping gurgle, like a spoon
Or a glass breathing, is the brook,
The wood's fouled midnight water. If I walk into the wood
As far as I can walk, I come to my own door,
The door of the House in the Wood. It opens silently:
On the bed is something covered, something humped
Asleep there, awake there--but what? I do not know.
I look, I lie there, and yet I do not know.
How far out my great echoing clumsy limbs
Stretch, surrounded only by space! For time has struck,
All the clocks are stuck now, for how many lives,
On the same second. Numbed, wooden, motionless,
We are far under the surface of the night.
Nothing comes down so deep but sound: a car, freight cars,
A high soft droning, drawn out like a wire
Forever and ever--is this the sound that Bunyan heard
So that he thought his bowels would burst within him?--
Drift on, on, into nothing. Then someone screams
A scream like an old knife sharpened into nothing.
It is only a nightmare. No one wakes up, nothing happens,
Except there is gooseflesh over my whole body--
And that too, after a little while, is gone.
I lie here like a cut-off limb, the stump the limb has left...
Here at the bottom of the world, what was before the world
And will be after, holds me to its back
Breasts and rocks me: the oven is cold, the cage is empty,
In the House in the Wood, the witch and her child sleep.
poem by Randall Jarrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Full Of You
Cardboard boxes on the floor
They contain memories and so much more
Black and white photographs
Faded now but I remember how we laughed
Theres nothing left for me to do
Ive an empty house, full of you
Pour myself a glass of wine
Let it breathe but I dont give it too much time
Take another and set it down
I kid myself theres nobody else around
Theres nothing left for me to do
Ive an empty glass, full of you
But let me tell you baby
I cant fight the feeling
I never stopped believing
You were coming back to me
I hear footsteps by the door
Could it be theres nothing else that I want more
There you stand in front of me
I see your face my heart has wings you set me free
Theres nothing left for me to do
Now my empty heart, is full of you
But let me tell you baby
I cant fight the feeling
I never stopped believing
You were coming back to me
Let me tell you darling
Never did I doubt you
I cant live without you
Its so good youre back with me
song performed by by Rick Astley
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Urn....
He finally pulled in the drive.
Another endless night at work.
Exhausted, he turned off the car,
and stumbled for the back door.
The neighborhood cat rubbed
against his legs as he fumbled
for the key.
As he opened the door, he noticed
that the light over the sink was on.
Shaking his head, he shrugged, and set
down his lunchbox.
He reached in the cupboard for the
bottle and a glass. He poured a small
shot, and hesitated for a moment.
He could hear the night just outside
the window. Something inside of
him let down. He kicked back the shot,
and headed for the bathroom.
A quick shower, and he found his way
to the bedroom. Lying naked on the
bed, he lit a smoke, trying not to think.
He could hear the ticking of the clock in
the hallway. He put out the cigarette, and
dozed.
He awakened to the scent of her perfume.
He heard her voice, whispering, 'be still'.
He felt the presence of her body in the bed.
Her long hair draped across his face. He
felt her on top of him, her heat and her desire.
He raised his face to kiss her....
And then she was gone! Startled, he groped
at the bed, clutching air. He sat up and flipped
on the lamp.
The room was empty. A few crumpled dirty
clothes in the floor. The book he'd been reading
on the nightstand. But no sign of her!
His hands shaking, he lit a smoke, and blinked.
He looked around the room again.
Every nook, every cranny, every crack in the paint.
Finally, his eyes fixed on her dresser.
A picture of her on their wedding day. A half empty
bottle of her favorite perfume. And the urn.... the
urn, with her wedding ring lying on the base.
He flipped off the lamp, and wept.
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Crazy Me
Another day just like all the rest
Time marches in place at this address
I can't bring myself to change a single thing
Every photograph still haunts me from its frame
I still can't believe I lost your love
Half empty closets should be proof enough
Tho' you made it clear, there would be no turning back
This flame burns in the face of cold hard facts.
Crazy Me, there's a light on in the window
Crazy Me, waits for the phone to ring
Faithfully, when I should be letting go
Holding on like late November leaves
Crazy Me.
I guess that I should get on with my life
Soon as my heart learns the meaning of goodbye
Take the pieces up and put them in their place
If reality was something I could face
Your memory is something I just can't erase.
Crazy Me, there's a light on in the window
Crazy Me, waits for the phone to ring
Faithfully, when I should be letting go
Holding on like late November leaves
Crazy Me...
song performed by by Kenny Rogers
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Relating To Robinson
Somewhere in Chelsea, early summer;
And, walking in the twilight toward the docks,
I thought I made out Robinson ahead of me.
From an uncurtained second-story room, a radio
Was playing There’s a Small Hotel; a kite
Twisted above dark rooftops and slow drifting birds.
We were alone there, he and I,
Inhabiting the empty street.
Under a sign for Natural Bloom Cigars,
While lights clicked softly in the dusk from red to green,
He stopped and gazed into a window
Where a plaster Venus, modeling a truss,
Looked out at Eastbound traffic. (But Robinson,
I knew, was out of town: he summers at a place in Maine,
Sometimes on Fire Island, sometimes the Cape,
Leaves town in June and comes back after Labor Day.)
And yet, I almost called out, “Robinson!”
There was no chance. Just as I passed,
Turning my head to search his face,
His own head turned with mine
And fixed me with dilated, terrifying eyes
That stopped my blood. His voice
Came at me like an echo in the dark.
“I thought I saw the whirlpool opening.
Kicked all night at a bolted door.
You must have followed me from Astor Place.
An empty paper floats down at the last.
And then a day as huge as yesterday in pairs
Unrolled its horror on my face
Until it blocked—” Running in sweat
To reach the docks, I turned back
For a second glance. I had no certainty,
There in the dark, that it was Robinson
Or someone else.
The block was bare. The Venus,
Bathed in blue fluorescent light,
Stared toward the river. As I hurried West,
The lights across the bay were coming on.
The boats moved silently and the low whistles blew.
poem by Weldon Kees
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Get Him Back
One man, he'd disappoint me
He'd give me the gouge and he take my glee
Now every other man I see
Remind me of the
One man who disappointed me
Wait 'til I get him back
He won't have a back to scratch
Yeah, keep turning that chin
And you will see my face
As I figure how to kill what I cannot catch
So I say "and on I go"
To another one who disappoint me so, oh oh
The next one up
A contemptible snob
He lived to put things in their place
He did a commendable job
He put himself so low
He can hardly even look me in the face
Wait 'til I get him back
He won't have a back to scratch
Yeah, keep turning that chin
And you will see my face
As I figure how to kill what I cannot catch
Oh, he made my blood just burn
I flipped so far
I thought that I would not return
But the last one I had
Who was getting my hopes up
I might have been a little fast to dismiss
I think he let me down when he didn't disappoint me
He didn't always guess right but he usually got my gist
So wait til I get him back
I'm gonna bring him home
And I'll watch him unpack
He keep turning that chin
And you will see my face
Is fixed on the one
I'm gonna get back
I'm gonna get him back
I am
I'm gonna get him back
I really am
song performed by by Fiona Apple
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Elegy With A Bridle In Its Hand
One was a bay cowhorse from Piedra & the other was a washed out palomino
And both stood at the rail of the corral & both went on aging
In each effortless tail swish, the flies rising, then congregating again
Around their eyes & muzzles & withers.
Their front teeth were by now as yellow as antique piano keys & slanted to the angle
Of shingles on the maze of sheds & barn around them; their puckered
Chins were round & black as frostbitten oranges hanging unpicked from the limbs
Of trees all through winter like a comment of winter itself on everything
That led to it & found gradually the way out again.
In the slowness of time. Black time to white, & rind to blossom.
Deity is in the details & we are details among other details & we long to be
Teased out of ourselves. And become all of them.
The bay had worms once & had acquired the habit of drinking orange soda
From an uptilted bottle & nibbling cookies from the flat of a hand, & like to do
Nothing else now, & the palomino liked to do nothing but gaze off
At traffic going past on the road beyond vineyards & it would follow each car
With a slight turning of its neck, back & forth, as if it were a thing
Of great interest to him.
If I rode them, the palomino would stumble & wheeze when it broke
Into a trot & would relapse into a walk after a second or two & then stop
Completely & without cause; the bay would keep going though it creaked
Underneath me like a rocking chair of dry, frail wood, & when I knew it could no longer
Continue but did so anyway, or when the palomino would stop & then take
Only a step or two when I nudged it forward again, I would slip off either one of them,
Riding bareback, & walk them slowly back, letting them pause when they wanted to.
At dawn in winter sometimes there would be a pane of black ice covering
The surface of the water trough & they would nudge it with their noses or muzzles,
And stare at it as if they were capable of wonder or bewilderment.
They were worthless. They were the motionless dusk & the motionless
Moonlight, & in the moonlight they were other worlds. Worlds uninhabited
And without visitors. Worlds that would cock an ear a moment
When the migrant workers come back at night to the sheds they were housed in
And turn a radio on, but only for a moment before going back to whatever
Wordless & tuneless preoccupation involved them.
The palomino was called Misfit & the bay was named Querido Flacco,
And the names of some of the other shapes had been Rockabye
And Ojo Pendejo & Cue Ball & Back Door Peter & Frenchfry & Sandman
And Rolling Ghost & Anastasia.
Death would come for both of them with its bridle of clear water in hand
And they would not look up from grazing on some patch of dry grass or even
Acknowledge it much; & for a while I began to think that the world
Rested on a limitless ossuary of horses where their bones & skulls stretched
And fused until only the skeleton of one enormous horse underlay
The smoke of cities & the cold branches of trees & the distant
Whine of traffic on the interstate.
If I & by implication therefore anyone looked at them long enough at dusk
Or in moonlight he would know the idea of heaven & of life everlasting
Was so much blown straw or momentary confetti
At the unhappy wedding of a sister.
Heaven was neither the light nor was it the air, & if it took a physical form
It was splintered lumber no one could build anything with.
Heaven was a weight behind the eyes & one would have to stare right through it
Until he saw the air itself, just air, the clarity that took the shackles from his eyes
And the taste of the bit from his mouth & knocked the rider off his back
So he could walk for once in his life.
Or just stand there for a moment before he became something else, some
Flyspeck on the wall of a passing & uninteruptible history whose sounds claimed
To be a cheering from bleachers but were actually no more than the noise
Of cars entering the mouths of a tunnel.
And in the years that followed he would watch them in the backstretch or the far turn
At Santa Anita or Del Mar. Watch the way they made it all seem effortless,
Watch the way they were explosive & untiring.
And then watch the sun fail him again & slip from the world, & watch
The stands slowly empty. As if all moments came back to this one, inexplicably
To this one out of all he might have chosen-Heaven with ashes in its hair
And filling what were once its eyes-this one with its torn tickets
Littering the aisles & the soft racket the wind made. This one. Which was his.
And if the voice of a broken king were to come in the dusk & whisper
To the world, that grandstand with its thousands of empty seats,
Who among the numberless you have become desires this moment
Which comprehends nothing more than loss & fragility & the fleeing of flesh?
He would have to look up at the quickening dark & say: Me. I do. It's mine.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Eyes Of Mr D (Part 4)
Entering the flat
the Constable found no one there.
He searched every room,
nothing, only the fired gun on a note
left on the table.
He had noticed the back window
was left slightly ajar.
He picked up the note
and quickly read it through,
then put it in his pocket
along with the gun.
He smiled to the neighbour
as he left the flat.
He told her to lock it;
Mr D would be coming back.
At the car he got in
saying that,
they had to go back
to the station.
He sat on a bench
near the waters edge.
The white walking stick
resting between his legs.
He could not look at his watch,
as that would give the game away.
A blind man is not supposed to see,
so he had no idea of the time.
All he could tell
that day was turning into night.
He stood up;
he had to stretch his legs.
He moved along to
the bench by the bridge.
The dark waters of the lake,
lapped against the shore.
Then he heard the footsteps
walking across the wooden bridge.
He knew by the sound
they were of a woman’s shoe.
He did not look up
to see who it was,
just listened, as they got closer,
until they were in front of him.
He could now see her face,
under the light of the moon.
Her hair was dark,
and danced on her shoulders.
He wanted to say something,
but though he better not.
The killer could be lurking,
in the bushes somewhere,
waiting for his chance,
when he thought
the coast was clear.
She stopped and stood,
near the waters edge;
she watched the moon’s silver finger
dance on the breeze-ruffled waves.
He sat unnoticed except
for his white walking stick.
The blind could see nothing
at least that is what he hoped
anyone passing would think.
Then from the darkness, he emerged.
A mask of death he wore.
He moved quietly up behind the woman,
extended his hands out to her neck.
To be concluded……
poem by David Harris
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Once Upon A Time
The hours late and the lights are low
Im walking home just kicking stones
I waited at the deopt you never showed
You missed the last bus hours ago
I remember the first time
I saw you on the street
You looked so pretty my heart skipped a beat
I cant wait any longer but I still feel the heat
Im down but Im still on my feet
I walked on down the old fairground
Up from the docks blew a lonely sound
I sat for a while on the cold hard ground
Watched the stars slowly turn as the earth spun around
As the past falls behind up ahead theres a crack
Of light shining bright through the night so black
Like a runaway train rolling down the track
From here theres no turning back
Listen to me baby
Once upon a time
My heart was an ocean
You swam against the tide
The time is past for grieving
My tears have all run dry
Ill leave you with my love
And now I say goodbye
The bottles broke the glasses are cracked
The cards are all dealt and the chips have been stacked
The lamp shades busted and the curtains are torn
The door keeps knocking but theres nobody home
I stood by the road brushed a tear from my eye
Cursed the cars and the rain and the rolling grey sky
I turned around turned my back on that town
And I never looked back again
song performed by by Pogues
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Shell Have You Back
(track 3 - time 3:25)
(deryl dodd/blake a. chancey)
Once upon a lonely time
She swore shed never let you down
You held her tight without a care in mind
While she did her runnin round
At first you wouldnt face the truth
You loved her too much to let go
And though the story had to end
You wanna be her fool again
Friend theres something you should know
Shell have you back
Back to drinkin in no time
Back to walkin on your knees
Boy open up your eyes and see the light
Some things just arent meant to be
I understand how she can get to you
cause shes made more than one man blind
So try and face the cold hard fact
She would gladly have you back
Back to drinkin in no time
It just dont make no sense to me
To play a game youll never win
You asked me here for my advice
You say she wouldnt break you twice
Friend youd better think again
Shell have you back
Back to drinkin in no time
Back to walkin on your knees
Boy open up your eyes and see the light
Some things just arent meant to be
I understand how she can get to you
cause shes made more than one man blind
So try and face the cold hard fact
She would gladly have you back
Back to drinkin in no time
So try and face the cold hard fact
She would gladly have you back
Back to drinkin in no time
song performed by by Tim McGraw
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Sun C/79
Sun is the reason
And the world it will bloom
Cause sun lights the sky
And the sun lights the moon
Sun is the reason
All the happy trees are green
Then who can explain
The light in your dream
Sit you down
Sit you down young gentleman
Theres something I want you to know
You keep on asking me
You keep on asking me why
Why are we here?
It started a long time ago
Me and your mum on the night
Yeh yeh yeh ..we met
I was on the road again
She was in c79
Ill never never forget
Ill never forget that night no..
We met in a back road
Behind the stage
She had the best figure by far
Huh a thousand hours Ive looked at her eyes but i
Still dont know what color they are
Me & your mum on the night
Oh lord. we met
I was on the road again
She was in c79
She was a junkie then
And I was having a good time
Back on the road again
Oh momma I was on the road again
Back in suite 79
Ill never never forget
Ill never forget that time
Back on the road again
Oh Im travelling that line
I was a pop star then
Im still having a good time
song performed by by Cat Stevens
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Small Glimpses Of Holiness
i can remember being a kid,
and going to church on Sunday....
can remember the way the sunlight
danced through the stained glass
windows, the smell of the old
hymnals, the way the hard bench
hurt my back....
can remember singing the old hymns...
(sometimes they come to me
in my sleep....)
but i cant remember any particular sermon!
it's funny what we equate with God,
and holiness... and what we dont!
just as easy i can remember being alone
in the woods, watching sunlight pour
through the pines, listening to the gurgling
of the creek.... and the way the earth felt
beneath my bare feet.....
or the first time i ever made love
to a girl... in the front seat of an
old Rambler.... moonlight sifting through
the trees... and the barking of a dog.
or sleeping in a cave, on the run, and the
damp darkness like a womb enveloping
me... with only the sound of a nearby
waterfall piercing the stillness....
or standing by my mother's grave...
watching a part of myself go back
to the dust...
or the sound of my children's voices
when they just needed assurance....
small glimpses of holiness drifting
through an old man's mind... on the way
back home.
poem by Eric Cockrell
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Rubber Ring
A sad fact widely known
The most impassionate song
To a lonely soul
Is so easily outgrown
But dont forget the songs
That made you smile
And the songs that made you cry
When you lay in awe
On the bedroom floor
And said : oh, oh, smother me mother...
No ...
Rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring
La ...
The passing of time
And all of its crimes
Is making me sad again
The passing of time
And all of its sickening crimes
Is making me sad again
But dont forget the songs
That made you cry
And the songs that saved your life
Yes, youre older now
And youre a clever swine
But they were the only ones who ever stood by you
The passing of time leaves empty lives
Waiting to be filled (the passing ...)
The passing of time
Leaves empty lives
Waiting to be filled
Im here with the cause
Im holding the torch
In the corner of your room
Can you hear me ?
And when youre dancing and laughing
And finally living
Hear my voice in your head
And think of me kindly
No ...
Rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring
La ...
No ...
Rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring
Do you
Love me like you used to ?
Oh ...
Rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring, rubber ring
La ...
Youre clever
Everybodys clever nowadays
Youre clever
Everybodys clever nowadays
You are sleeping
You do not want to believe
You are sleeping
You do not want to believe
You are sleeping
You do not want to believe
You are sleeping
song performed by by Smiths
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Its All Coming Back To Me Now
There were nights when the wind was so cold
That my body froze in bed
If I just listened to it
Right outside the window
There were days when the sun was so cruel
That all the tears turned to dust
And I just knew my eyes were
Drying up forever
I finished crying in the instant that you left
And I cant remember where or when or how
And I banished every memory you and I had ever made
But when you touch me like this
And you hold me like that
I just have to admit
That its all coming back to me
When I touch you like this
And I hold you like that
Its so hard to believe but
Its all coming back to me
(its all coming back, its all coming back to me now)
There were moments of gold
And there were flashes of light
There were things Id never do again
But then theyd always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than any laws allow
Baby baby
If I kiss you like this
And if you whisper like that
It was lost long ago
But its all coming back to me
If you want me like this
And if you need me like that
It was dead long ago
But its all coming back to me
Its so hard to resist
And its all coming back to me
I can barely recall
But its all coming back to me now
But its all coming back
There were those empty threats and hollow lies
And whenever you tried to hurt me
I just hurt you even worse
And so much deeper
There were hours that just went on for days
When alone at last wed count up all the chances
That were lost to us forever
But you were history with the slamming of the door
And I made myself so strong again somehow
And I never wasted any of my time on you since then
But if I touch you like this
And if you kiss me like that
It was so long ago
But its all coming back to me
If you touch me like this
And if I kiss you like that
It was gone with the wind
But its all coming back to me
(its all coming back, its all coming back to me now)
There were moments of gold
And there were flashes of light
There were things wed never do again
But then theyd always seemed right
There were nights of endless pleasure
It was more than all your laws allow
Baby, baby, baby
When you touch me like this
And when you hold me like that
It was gone with the wind
But its all coming back to me
When you see me like this
And when I see you like that
Then we see what we want to see
All coming back to me
The flesh and the fantasies
All coming back to me
I can barely recall
But its all coming back to me now
If you forgive me all this
If I forgive you all that
We forgive and forget
And its all coming back to me
When you see me like this
And when I see you like that
We see just what we want to see
Al coming back to me
The flesh and the fantasies
All coming back to me
I can barely recall but its all coming back to me now
(its all coming back to me now)
And when you kiss me like this
(its all coming back to me now)
And when I touch you like that
(its all coming back to me now)
If you do it like this
(its all coming back to me now)
And if we...
song performed by by Celine Dion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Childhood Ideogram
I lay my head sideways on the desk,
My fingers interlocked under my cheekbones,
My eyes closed. It was a three-room schoolhouse,
White, with a small bell tower, an oak tree.
From where I sat, on still days, I'd watch
The oak, the prisoner of that sky, or read
The desk carved with adults' names: Marietta
Martin, Truman Finnell, Marjorie Elm;
The wood hacked or lovingly hollowed, the flies
Settling on the obsolete & built-in inkwells.
I remember, tonight, only details, how
Mrs. Avery, now gone, was standing then
In her beige dress, its quiet, gazelle print
Still dark with lines of perspiration from
The day before; how Gracie Chin had just
Shown me how to draw, with chalk, a Chinese
Ideogram. Where did she go, white thigh
With one still freckle, lost in silk?
No one would say for sure, so that I'd know,
So that all shapes, for days after, seemed
Brushstrokes in Chinese: countries on maps
That shifted, changed colors, or disappeared:
Lithuania, Prussia, Bessarabia;
The numbers four & seven; the question mark.
That year, I ate almost nothing.
I thought my parents weren't my real parents,
I thought there'd been some terrible mistake.
At recess I would sit alone, seeing
In the print of each leaf shadow, an ideogram—
Still, indecipherable, beneath the green sound
The bell still made, even after it had faded,
When the dust-covered leaves of the oak tree
Quivered, slightly, if I looked up in time.
And my father, so distant in those days,
Where did he go, that autumn, when he chose
The chaste, faint ideogram of ash, & I had
To leave him there, white bones in a puzzle
By a plum tree, the sun rising over
The Sierras? It is not Chinese, but English—
When the past tense, when you first learn to use it
As a child, throws all the verbs in the language
Into the long, flat shade of houses you
Ride past, & into town. Your father's driving.
On winter evenings, the lights would come on earlier.
People would be shopping for Christmas. Each hand,
With the one whorl of its fingerprints, with twenty
Delicate bones inside it, reaching up
To touch some bolt of cloth, or choose a gift,
A little different from any other hand.
You know how the past tense turns a sentence dark,
But leaves names, lovers, places showing through:
Gracie Chin, my father, Lithuania;
A beige dress where dark gazelles hold still?
Outside, it's snowing, cold, & a New Year.
The trees & streets are turning white.
I always thought he would come back like this.
I always thought he wouldn't dare be seen.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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Fade to Black
Do you think of me
or am I just a forgotten memory
like the others before
when you look back
do I cross your mind
this love you made so blind
or does it just fade to black
Should I still feel this way
like it was only yesterday
I watched you walk away
As I travel down
this empty highway
I fade to black
Tell me was he hard to find
or did it just come so easy
the first time he made you smile
Do you look at him
to see me standing there
do you just not care anymore
as you watch another day
fade to black
As I drive another lonely mile
farther from you on this dusty road
do you ever miss me at all
baby, just for a little while
while you watch the night fall
in that big open sky
do you ever cry
or just fade to black
So many nights pass us by
still my arms are empty
while he's holding you tight
loving you til the morning light
my love rolls down a one way track
yeah, I look back
you're nowhere to be found
I try to turn around
I fade to black
Do you think of me
girl, how you lost your best friend
or do you try to pretend
I was just a beginning to an end
as you fade to black
(spiritwind-2006)
poem by Spiritwind Wood
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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The Widening Spell of the Leaves
--The Carpathian Frontier, October, 1968
--for my brother
Once, in a foreign country, I was suddenly ill.
I was driving south toward a large city famous
For so little it had a replica, in concrete,
In two-thirds scale, of the Arc de Triomphe stuck
In the midst of traffic, & obstructing it.
But the city was hours away, beyond the hills
Shaped like the bodies of sleeping women.
Often I had to slow down for herds of goats
Or cattle milling on those narrow roads, & for
The narrower, lost, stone streets of villages
I passed through. The pains in my stomach had grown
Gradually sharper & more frequent as the day
Wore on, & now a fever had set up house.
In the villages there wasn't much point in asking
Anyone for help. In those places, where tanks
Were bivouacked in shade on their way back
From some routine exercise along
The Danube, even food was scarce that year.
And the languages shifted for no clear reason
From two hard quarries of Slavic into German,
Then to a shred of Latin spliced with oohs
And hisses. Even when I tried the simplest phrases,
The peasants passing over those uneven stones
Paused just long enough to look up once,
Uncomprehendingly. Then they turned
Quickly away, vanishing quietly into that
Moment, like bark chips whirled downriver.
It was autumn. Beyond each village the wind
Threw gusts of yellowing leaves across the road.
The goats I passed were thin, gray; their hind legs,
Caked with dried shit, seesawed along--
Not even mild contempt in their expressionless,
Pale eyes, & their brays like the scraping of metal.
Except for one village that had a kind
Of museum where I stopped to rest, & saw
A dead Scythian soldier under glass,
Turning to dust while holding a small sword
At attention forever, there wasn't much to look at.
Wind, leaves, goats, the higher passes
Locked in stone, the peasants with their fate
Embroidering a stillness into them,
And a spell over all things in that landscape,
Like . . .
That was the trouble; it couldn't be
Compared to anything else, not even the sleep
Of some asylum at a wood's edge with the sound
Of a pond's spillway beside it. But as each cramp
Grew worse & lasted longer than the one before,
It was hard to keep myself aloof from the threadbare
World walking on that road. After all,
Even as they moved, the peasants, the herds of goats
And cattle, the spiralling leaves, at least were part
Of that spell, that stillness.
After a while,
The villages grew even poorer, then thinned out,
Then vanished entirely. An hour later,
There were no longer even the goats, only wind,
Then more & more leaves blown over the road, sometimes
Covering it completely for a second.
And yet, except for a random oak or some brush
Writhing out of the ravine I drove beside,
The trees had thinned into rock, into large,
Tough blonde rosettes of fading pasture grass.
Then that gave out in a bare plateau. . . . And then,
Easing the Dacia down a winding grade
In second gear, rounding a long, funneled curve--
In a complete stillness of yellow leaves filling
A wide field--like something thoughtlessly,
Mistakenly erased, the road simply ended.
I stopped the car. There was no wind now.
I expected that, & though I was sick & lost,
I wasn't afraid. I should have been afraid.
To this day I don't know why I wasn't.
I could hear time cease, the field quietly widen.
I could feel the spreading stillness of the place
Moving like something I'd witnessed as a child,
Like the ancient, armored leisure of some reptile
Gliding, gray-yellow, into the slightly tepid,
Unidentical gray-brown stillness of the water--
Something blank & unresponsive in its tough,
Pimpled skin--seen only a moment, then unseen
As it submerged to rest on mud, or glided just
Beneath the lustreless, calm yellow leaves
That clustered along a log, or floated there
In broken ringlets, held by a gray froth
On the opaque, unbroken surface of the pond,
Which reflected nothing, no one.
And then I remembered.
When I was a child, our neighbors would disappear.
And there wasn't a pond of crocodiles at all.
And they hadn't moved. They couldn't move. They
Lived in the small, fenced-off backwater
Of a canal. I'd never seen them alive. They
Were in still photographs taken on the Ivory Coast.
I saw them only once in a studio when
I was a child in a city I once loved.
I was afraid until our neighbor, a photographer,
Explained it all to me, explained how far
Away they were, how harmless; how they were praised
In rituals as "powers." But they had no "powers,"
He said. The next week he vanished. I thought
Someone had cast a spell & that the crocodiles
Swam out of the pictures on the wall & grew
Silently & multiplied & then turned into
Shadows resting on the banks of lakes & streams
Or took the shapes of fallen logs in campgrounds
In the mountains. They ate our neighbor, Mr. Hirata.
They ate his whole family. That is what I believed,
Then. . .that someone had cast a spell. I did not
Know childhood was a spell, or that then there
Had been another spell, too quiet to hear,
Entering my city, entering the dust we ate. . . .
No one knew it then. No one could see it,
Though it spread through lawnless miles of housing tracts,
And the new, bare, treeless streets; it slipped
Into the vacant rows of warehouses & picked
The padlocked doors of working-class bars
And union halls & shuttered, empty diners.
And how it clung! (forever, if one had noticed)
To the brothel with the pastel tassels on the shade
Of an unlit table lamp. Farther in, it feasted
On the decaying light of failing shopping centers;
It spilled into the older, tree-lined neighborhoods,
Into warm houses, sealing itself into books
Of bedtime stories read each night by fathers--
The books lying open to the flat, neglected
Light of dawn; & it settled like dust on windowsills
Downtown, filling the smug cafés, schools,
Banks, offices, taverns, gymnasiums, hotels,
Newsstands, courtrooms, opium parlors, Basque
Restaurants, Armenian steam baths,
French bakeries, & two of the florists' shops--
Their plate glass windows smashed forever.
Finally it tried to infiltrate the exact
Center of my city, a small square bordered
With palm trees, olives, cypresses, a square
Where no one gathered, not even thieves or lovers.
It was a place which no longer had any purpose,
But held itself aloof, I thought, the way
A deaf aunt might, from opinions, styles, gossip.
I liked it there. It was completely lifeless,
Sad & clear in what seemed always a perfect,
Windless noon. I saw it first as a child,
Looking down at it from that as yet
Unvandalized, makeshift studio.
I remember leaning my right cheek against
A striped beach ball so that Mr. Hirata--
Who was Japanese, who would be sent the next week
To a place called Manzanar, a detention camp
Hidden in stunted pines almost above
The Sierra timberline--could take my picture.
I remember the way he lovingly relished
Each camera angle, the unwobbling tripod,
The way he checked each aperture against
The light meter, in love with all things
That were not accidental, & I remember
The care he took when focusing; how
He tried two different lens filters before
He found the one appropriate for that
Sensual, late, slow blush of afternoon
Falling through the one broad bay window.
I remember holding still & looking down
Into the square because he asked me to;
Because my mother & father had asked me please
To obey & be patient & allow the man--
Whose business was failing anyway by then--
To work as long as he wished to without any
Irritations or annoyances before
He would have to spend these years, my father said,
Far away, in snow, & without his cameras.
But Mr. Hirata did not work. He played.
His toys gleamed there. That much was clear to me . . . .
That was the day I decided I would never work.
It felt like a conversion. Play was sacred.
My father waited behind us on a sofa made
From car seats. One spring kept nosing through.
I remember the camera opening into the light . . . .
And I remember the dark after, the studio closed,
The cameras stolen, slivers of glass from the smashed
Bay window littering the unsanded floors,
And the square below it bathed in sunlight . . . . All this
Before Mr. Hirata died, months later,
From complications following pneumonia.
His death, a letter from a camp official said,
Was purely accidental. I didn't believe it.
Diseases were wise. Diseases, like the polio
My sister had endured, floating paralyzed
And strapped into her wheelchair all through
That war, seemed too precise. Like photographs . . .
Except disease left nothing. Disease was like
And equation that drank up light & never ended,
Not even in summer. Before my fever broke,
And the pains lessened, I could actually see
Myself, in the exact center of that square.
How still it had become in my absence, & how
Immaculate, windless, sunlit. I could see
The outline of every leaf on the nearest tree,
See it more clearly than ever, more clearly than
I had seen anything before in my whole life:
Against the modest, dark gray, solemn trunk,
The leaves were becoming only what they had to be--
Calm, yellow, things in themselves & nothing
More--& frankly they were nothing in themselves,
Nothing except their little reassurance
Of persisting for a few more days, or returning
The year after, & the year after that, & every
Year following--estranged from us by now--& clear,
So clear not one in a thousand trembled; hushed
And always coming back--steadfast, orderly,
Taciturn, oblivious--until the end of Time.
poem by Larry Levis
Submitted by Poetry Lover
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I Cant Hold Back
Theres a story in my eyes
Turn the pages of desire
Now its time to trade those dreams
For the rush of passions fire
I can feel you tremble when we touch
And I feel the hand of fate
Reaching out to both of us
Ive been holding back the night
Ive been searching for a clue from you
Im gonna try with all my might
To make this story line come true
Can ya feel me tremble when we touch
Can ya feel the hand of fate
Reaching out to both of us
This love affair cant wait
*i cant hold back, Im on the edge
(I cant hold back)
You voice explodes inside my head
I cant hold back, I wont back down
Girl its too late to turn back now*
Another shooting star goes by
And in the night the silence speaks to you and i
And now the time has come at last
Dont let the moment run too fast
I can feel you tremble when we touch
And I feel the hand of fate reaching out to both of us
Theres a story in my eyes, turn the pages of desire
Now its time to trade those dreams
For the rush of passions fire
( * repeat)
song performed by by Survivor
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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