Interlude
O, the fun, the fun and frolic
That The Wind that Shakes the Barley
Scatters through a penny-whistle
Tickled with artistic fingers!
Kate the scrubber (forty summers,
Stout but sportive) treads a measure,
Grinning, in herself a ballet,
Fixed as fate upon her audience.
Stumps are shaking, crutch-supported;
Splinted fingers tap the rhythm;
And a head all helmed with plasters
Wags a measured approbation.
Of their mattress-life oblivious,
All the patients, brisk and cheerful,
Are encouraging the dancer,
And applauding the musician.
Dim the gas-lights in the output
Of so many ardent smokers,
Full of shadow lurch the corners,
And the doctor peeps and passes.
There are, maybe, some suspicions
Of an alcoholic presence . . .
'Tak' a sup of this, my wumman!' . . .
New Year comes but once a twelvemonth.
poem by William Ernest Henley
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Related quotes
The Wind that Shakes the Barley
There's music in my heart all day,
I hear it late and early,
It comes from fields are far away,
The wind that shakes the barley.
Above the uplands drenched with dew
The sky hangs soft and pearly,
An emerald world is listening to
The wind that shakes the barley.
Above the bluest mountain crest
The lark is singing rarely,
It rocks the singer into rest,
The wind that shakes the barley.
Oh, still through summers and through springs
It calls me late and early.
Come home, come home, come home, it sings,
The wind that shakes the barley.
poem by Katharine Tynan
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Frenzied Fingers Run Amuck
When I get you into my arms
I can't control the things that I do.
Fingers grab the hair on your head.
Fingers caress the small of your back.
Fingers travel down your spine
and back up again.
Fingers reach to all corners of your being,
quietly unnoticed at first,
but more frenzied with passing time.
Wild fingers travel your soul
with frenzied action that is hard to stop.
Uncontrollable fingers run wild
until you beg them to stop.
But even then, there's no counting on it.
These fingers like to run wild.
Whenever I place my fingers on you,
frenzied fingers run amuck.
Shadow Dancer
I am back in the circus
oh hustling days
I look at the world
in a rose coloured haze
Cramp tight bodies
jive and girate
Bump and grind to the rhythm of fate
And we spun in the sunlight
Of our long summers day
We kissed the heavens now
It's still a beautiful day
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
My hammer headed friends
and the puppet girls call
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
The dance is coming back,
back in my world
Married a model
from old Hong Kong
Came to England
just a singing my song
This love in a letter
sure didn't last
Stamped her passport
never saw her arse
And we spun in the sunlight
Of our long summers day
We kissed the heavens now
It's still a beautiful day
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
My hammer headed friends
and the puppet girls call
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
The dance is coming back,
back in my world
Solo
Unlucky in life,
unlucky in love
No special blessing from above
Fools and horses
come to my door
I am the stranger
who sleeps on the floor
we spun in the sunlight
Of our long summers day
We kissed the heavens now
It's still a beautiful day
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
My hammer headed friends
and the puppet girls call
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
The dance is coming back,
back in my world
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
My hammer headed friends
and the puppet girls call
Back on my wall
shadow dancer
The dance is coming back,
back in my world
song performed by by Ufo
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Child, Baby and Doughnut
A penny please,
Slim shaking cold fingers
Stretched through the window
In my face
Oh! Just another one
Me thought, ’a penny here’
‘God bless’ said she
Lying beneath a lamp light
A baby wrapped in an old blanket.
Cold, coughing, trembling,
She, Five to Seven. Age,
Picking and pecking I see
Away our bus is pulling
Lights, colorful lights and souls dancing
In halls, partying.
I see the child eating doughnut
The baby strapped in her back
Our bus, out of city
Back, I see colorful lights
Sick child, baby and doughnut. I think.
poem by Charles Jagongo Ogola
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Javanese Dancers
Twitched strings, the clang of metal, beaten drums,
Dull, shrill, continuous, disquieting:
And now the stealthy dancer comes
Undulantly with cat-like steps that cling;
Smiling between her painted lids a smile,
Motionless, unintelligible, she twines
Her fingers into mazy lines,
The scarves across her fingers twine the while.
One, two, three, four glide forth, and, to and fro,
Delicately and imperceptibly,
Now swaying gently in a row,
Now interthreading slow and rhythmically,
Still, with fixed eyes, monotonously still,
Mysteriously, with smiles inanimate,
With lingering feet that undulate,
With sinuous fingers, spectral hands that thrill
In measure while the gnats of music whirr,
The little amber-coloured dancers move,
Like painted idols seen to stir
By the idolators in a magic grove.
poem by Arthur Symons
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The Old Women
They pass upon their old, tremulous feet,
Creeping with little satchels down the street,
And they remember, many years ago,
Passing that way in silks. They wander, slow
And solitary, through the city ways,
And they alone remember those old days
Men have forgotten. In their shaking heads
A dancer of old carnivals yet treads
The measure of past waltzes, and they see
The candles lit again, the patchouli
Sweeten the air, and the warm cloud of musk
Enchant the passing of the passionate dusk.
Then you will see a light begin to creep
Under the earthen eyelids, dimmed with sleep,
And a new tremor, happy and uncouth,
Jerking about the corners of the mouth.
Then the old head drops down again, and shakes,
Muttering.
Sometimes, when the swift gaslight wakes
The dreams and fever of the sleepless town,
A shaking huddled thing in a black gown
Will steal at midnight, carrying with her
Violet bags of lavender,
Into the taproom full of noisy light;
Or, at the crowded earlier hour of night,
Sidle, with matches, up to some who stand
About a stage-door, and, with furtive hand,
Appealing: "I too was a dancer, when
Your fathers would have been young gentlemen!"
And sometimes, out of some lean ancient throat,
A broken voice, with here and there a note
Of unspoiled crystal, suddenly will arise
Into the night, while a cracked fiddle cries
Pantingly after; and you know she sings
The passing of light, famous, passing things.
And sometimes, in the hours past midnight, reels
Out of an alley upon staggering heels,
Or into the dark keeping of the stones
About a doorway, a vague thing of bones
And draggled hair.
And all these have been loved.
And not one ruinous body has not moved
The heart of man's desire, nor has not seemed
Immortal in the eyes of one who dreamed
The dream that men call love. This is the end
Of much fair flesh; it is for this you tend
Your delicate bodies many careful years,
To be this thing of laughter and of tears,
To be this living judgment of the dead,
An old gray woman with a shaking head.
poem by Arthur Symons
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Green fingers
Whatever she plants it grows rapidly.
Her soft magical fingers devote for a green house.
He was mesmerized to her sing-song while she was in the fields.
Though he passes several times on her premises
He is not so lucky to touch her transparent fingers.
Already a young vegetarian has joined her green revolution.
But once in a way he peeps to buy fresh vegetables.
Then he touches her finger tips.
He lived in his illusion half of the journey.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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Fickle Fingers Of Fate
The fickle fingers of fate befalls us
everyday of our lives.
Sometimes it brings us happiness,
other times it brings us misery.
Sometimes it brings us love,
other times it breaks our heart.
The fickle fingers of fate befalls us
in everything we do.
Our actions are governed
by its fickle fingers
day and night
in what we do and say.
Its waywardness leads us
down roads we should not go
or to mountains too high to climb.
It can lead us to valleys
where tranquillity lay
and to lives peaceful.
The fickle fingers of fate
will lead us as it may,
making up decisions right or wrong.
We are its puppet on a string
as the fickle fingers of fate controls
our destiny come what may.
30 August 2009
poem by David Harris
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Sola Sistim
Come get some orange juice, it's great.
[repeated throughout the song, each time in different speaker]
My eyes burn naked,
my black cold numbers,
my insecurities,
my devious nature,
make it go away.
My rest between rubber,
my spider shadow,
my shattered dancer.
Beautiful, broken,
my crystal fingers,
beautiful, broken,
my crystal fingers.
My glass like rain,
my illumination,
my cracks are sliding,
shaker, feather,
rubber, duster,
cold, cool,
your fingers, broken,
beautiful, wonderful,
paper flaps,
how you love,
love to love,
love and stitch,
shaker, rubber, striper.
Beautiful, broken,
my crystal fingers,
beautiful, broken,
my crystal fingers.
song performed by by Underworld
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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I See You in Your Fingers
I see your fingers
I see you in your fingers
I see your history from your fingers
I feel your touch from your fingers
They don't tell a lie to me
They don't give me a fake smile
Or promising kiss
But they give me a warm hold
and tickling touch
I see you from your fingers
I see the truth from your fingers
I see you in your fingers
poem by Maria Sudibyo
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In The Comfort Of Logic
so you live in the comforts
of logic
you see what you get
you only know what you can measure
believe only in what you can see
and touch
and conceive in your mind
on the specifications of width
length and breadth
it is indeed comfortable
everything is fixed and certain
there is always a sum
an amount
and one can always predict
with accuracy what happens next
but my friend
not every object
every man
every shaking experience
every mysterious circumstance
around you is embraced by logic
sometimes
we must admit that when we love
we love without measure
sometimes when we fear
and surrender
we miss something
and we cannot explain
some things are at the tips of
out tongues
some events merely slip from
our fingers like
sand & water
and air
there are 'x' factors out there
and when we fall and bleed
and hurt and die
the numbers do not work
for us anymore
they have become some kind
of miracles outlived
their magic gone
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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The Girl with the Croissant.
You watch the way the girl
Pulls apart the croissant with
Her slim fingers and licks each
Finger in turn sucking on each
With the passion of one making
Love and yet as she pulls it apart
There is that slowness oh that
Deliberate tearing open as if she
Were now opening herself for her
Latest lover as her fingers pull and
Her eyes gaze and her tongue licks
The corners of her soft mouth to
Catch escaping crumbs as if they
Were the juices of her lover’s sperm
Then she turns her head and sees
Your stare and you just wishing you
Was the croissant in her fingers there.
poem by Terry Collett
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The Measure Of Men
what is the measure of one man
is it the measure of one's strength
I think not
is it the measure of one's stature such as height
I don't think so
is it how wealthy one is
not even close
or is it how much power one possesses over another
not impressive
can a measure of a man be measured with a yardstick
well it can but that park doesn't show he's a man
the tolerance of a man for another man hitting him
can be measured with a ruler
the tolerance of a man for another man attacking his country
can be measured with a grain of salt
the tolerance of a man for another man hitting the one's he loves
now that can only be measured within a whisper
you can only measure a individual man or woman
with how big their heart is and
what qualities lie within that heart
such as dignity for what he works for
such as a stable household for his famly
compassion for people in need
the understanding of what's right and what's wrong
the pride of not what he has done but what
his wife and child has done
the sweat
the blood
and the tears he spars
to keep his marriage from falling apart
once you find a way to measure those things then
and only then will you be able to say
that is
because that is certainly
the real measure of all men
poem by Mrs. Cynosure
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A Grain Of Sand
Life is like a grain of sand;
it can slip through your fingers
at any time and be lost forever.
We must enjoy every minute
while we have it
in case that too
slips through our fingers.
Love is a fleeting thing
that passes all too quickly through our lives
unless we grasp it tightly
never letting it go.
Our lives are like a grain of sand
and will slip through our fingers
before we get to enjoy it thoroughly.
20 November 2008
poem by David Harris
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The life of a dancer is tragically short. What is remarkable about the New York City Ballet is that it makes us forget that. Because it keeps the ballet alive.
quote by John Guare
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Under Apple Trees
She lay beside you
under the apple trees
the bees and butterflies overhead
the glimmer of sunlight
through the branches
and she said
I can smell the apples
from here
and if I close my eyes
I feel I'm in a foreign field
lying in some overseas orchard
and happy beneath the sun
and you turned your head
and said
Am I with you
lying in that orchard
beneath a foreign sun?
and you studied her profile
the shadows dancing
across her cheek
a butterfly just above her head
Sure
she said
As if I'd dream of anywhere
without you by my side
and she reached out a hand
and touched your fingers
with hers and it seemed
a pulse danced
between the fingers
as if love momentarily
could be felt
could be sensed
in the space
between fingers
and riding
in the hearts
and heads
and she turned
to face you
her eyes reflecting
a different sun
and your hand sliding
along her thigh
and she shaking
her head slightly
eased out
a soft sigh.
poem by Terry Collett
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Play On
(eric carmen/scott mccarl)
It a hard life but you play it for laughs
Its a cold-hearted business keep away from the draft
And your fingers and your throat get sore
But theyre out there callin for some more
So play on
(while the lights shine around your head)
Play on
(every night in a different bed)
And the nights go on and on
Get a break and find a place you can hide
cause tonight youve got to be a star personified
Youre rushing round to get your plane
And its back in the bubble again
So play on
(while the lights shine around your head)
Play on
(every night in a different bed)
And the nights go on and on
Critics comin cause youre number one (number one)
Play all your hits and all the girls will come
(play on), play on, (play on), play on
Yeah, so play on
(while the lights shine around your head)
Play on
(every night in a different bed)
And the nights go on and on
It a hard life but you play it for laughs
Its a cold-hearted business keep away from the trap
And your fingers on your throat get sore
But theyre out there beggin for some more
So play on
(while the lights shine around your head)
Play on
(every night in a different bed)
And the nights go on and on
The nights go on and on
song performed by by Eric Carmen
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Peter Gunn's Gun
by Michael Leonard, Bobby Weinstein & Jon Stroll
Throw a penny from the window, watch an old man play a song
On a twenty-dollar violin he bought before the war,
Though he screeches and he scratches and the notes are always wrong,
But he plays like he's in concert on the street outside my door.
Tunes to suit your fancy,
Are there any requests?
I'll play them for a penny,
(Play them penny music, play them for a penny)
And not a penny less.
He's the local virtuoso, it's his only way of life,
Plays ninety-seven overtures and goes home to his wife,
In the quiet of the evening while his frozen fingers bleed,
He counts pennies on a blanket to supply his meager need.
Tunes to suit your fancy,
Are there any requests?
I'll play them for a penny,
(Play them penny music, play them for a penny)
And not a penny less.
When there's frost upon the pumpkin in the weakness of the sun,
People stand there in the cold until his symphony is done,
In the early gray of morning, he's sure to come around,
You can hear him through the window when the pennies hit the ground.
Tunes to suit your fancy,
Are there any requests?
I'll play them for a penny,
(Play them penny music, play them for a penny)
And not a penny less.
They're playing penny music,
Playing penny music,
They're playing penny music,
Playing penny music,
Playing penny music.
fade out...
song performed by by Monkees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Nation’s Man
The nationality of a man reigns supreme over present dangers,
A matron has admitted herself into the establishment.
One says significance beyond record, the doctor of heaven,
Dangerous surgery is the passive and the active.
The men who do drugs are the real doctors,
One rule suggests activity so blinding to patients.
One natural year passes, with the effect of death
Followed by life of a variety to be found in heaven.
poem by Naveed Akram
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Little Miss Rhythm & Blues
Version 1 recorded by trevor gordon
Verse 1)
Well, I got a little girl and she shakes all over town
You know nothin can beat her when she shakes all over town
No one can do it any better than we
Cos when we get out on the floor , you see
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
Chorus:
Dance with me , dance with me
Dance with me , dance with me
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
(break)
2)
Put on your high heel sneakers
Everybody is a-waitin for you now
You always find yourself an audience
Theres nothin you cant do
I got youre lovin
Everythings all right
We gonna dance right through the night
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
Chorus:
Dance with me , dance with me
Dance with me , dance with me
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
(break)
Chorus:
Dance with me , dance with me
Dance with me , dance with me
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
Little miss rhythm and blues
Version 2 recorded by steve and the board
1)
Ive got a gal and she shakes all over town
The way she moves when she shakes all over town
Id like to catch her but that girl is too fast
I wonder just how long this can last
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
Ive got a gal and she shakes all over the floor
The way she moves when she shakes all over the floor
Id love to catch her but that girl is too fast
I wonder just how long this can last
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
Dance with me , dance with me
Dance with me , dance with me
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
(break)
Ive got a gal and she shakes all over town
The way she moves when she shakes all over town
Id like to catch her but that girl is too fast
I wonder just how long this can last
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues ,now
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues , now
You got nothin to lose
Little miss rhythm and blues
song performed by by Bee Gees
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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