Harlequin
(brooker / reid)
Harlequin has lost his crown
Look they say a broken clown
Yesterday he ruled the world
Now hes crying to be heard
Yesterday he called the tune
Now hes howling at the moon
Harlequin has broken down
Harlequin, harlequin has lost his crown
Harlequin has broken loose
Slipped the knot and skipped the noose
Can those bloodhounds find his trail
Will they send him back to jail
Can those bloodhounds find his scent
Will they find out where he went
Harlequin cannot be found
Harlequin, harlequin has gone to ground
Break
Harlequin is back on top
Now his fame will never stop
See him shown from coast to coast
Hes the one they love the most
See them slap him on the back
How they love his every crack
Harlequin we knew youd do it
Harlequin, harlequin
Harlequin, harlequin
Harlequin, harlequin
Harlequin, harlequin
Harlequin, harlequin
song performed by by Hollies
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Related quotes
The Mirror
Wash your face before your faded make-up makes a mark
The mirror will watch over you
Pierrot never comes so pack your face and chase the dark
The mirrors hung up on you
Dont be last, your friends and your reflection
Its all so direction now
Poor harlequin, youre quite an exception
Fay troubadour, on a downer
Gay harlequin, doesnt believe in you
Doesnt believe its true, such a downer.
song performed by by David Bowie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Who's Riding Old Harlequin Now?
They are mustering cattle on Brigalow Vale
Where the stock-horses whinny and stamp,
And where long Andy Ferguson, you may go bail,
Is yet boss on a cutting-out camp.
Half the duffers I met would not know a fat steer
From a blessed old Alderney cow.
Whilst they're mustering there I am wondering here -
Who is riding brown Harlequin now?
Are the pikers as wild and the scrubs just as dense
In the brigalow country as when
There was never a homestead and never a fence
Between Brigalow Vale and The Glen?
Do they yard the big micks 'neath the light of the moon?
Do the yard-wings re-echo the row
Of stockwhips and hoof-beats? And what sort of coon
Is there riding old Harlequin now?
There was buckjumping blood in the brown gelding's veins,
But, lean-headed, with iron-like pins,
Of Pyrrhus and Panic he'd plentiful strains,
All their virtues, and some of their sins.
'Twas the pity, some said, that so shapely a colt
Fate should with such temper endow;
He would kick and would strike, he would buck and would bolt -
Ah! who's riding brown Harlequin now?
A demon to handle! a devil to ride!
Small wonder the surcingle burst;
You'd have thought that he'd buck himself out of his hide
On the morning we saddled him first.
I can mind how he cow-kicked the spur on my boot,
And though that's long ago, still I vow
If they're wheeling a piker no new-chum galoot
Is a-riding old Harlequin now!
I remember the boss - how he chuckled and laughed
When they yarded the brown colt for me:
"He'll be steady enough when we finish the graft
And have cleaned up the scrubs of Glen Leigh!'
I am wondering today if the brown horse yet live,
For the fellow who broke him, I trow,
A long lease of soul-ease would willingly give
To be riding brown Harlequin now!
'Do you think you can hold him?' old Ferguson said -
He was mounted on Homet, the grey;
I think Harlequin heard him - he shook his lean head,
And he needed no holding that day.
Not a prick from a spur, nor a sting from a whip
As he raced among deadwood and bough
While I sat fairly quiet and just let him rip -
But who's riding old Harlequin now?
I could hear 'em a-crashing the gidgee in front
As the Bryan colt streaked to the lead
Whilst the boss and the niggers were out of the hunt.
For their horses lacked Harlequin's speed;
The pikers were yarded and skies growing dim
When old Fergie was fain to allow:
'The colt's track through the scrub was a knocker' to him -
But who's riding brown Harlequin now?
From starlight to starlight - all day in between
The foam-flakes might fly from his bit,
But whatever the pace of the day's work had been,
The brown gelding was eager and fit.
On the packhorse's back they are fixing a load
Where the path climbs the hill's gloomy brow;
They are mustering bullocks to send on the road,
But - who's riding old Harlequin now?
poem by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant
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Harlequin
Came the night a mist dissolved the trees
And in the broken light colours fly, fading by.
Pale and cold as figures fill the glade
Grey is the web they spin, on and on, and on and on.
Through the flame still summer lingers on
Though her pictures soon shatter.
All, always the same.
But there appears in the shades of dawning,
Though your eyes are dim,
All of the pieces in the sky.
There was once a harvest in this land.
Reap from the turquoise sky, harlequin, harlequin,
Dancing round, three children fill the glade,
Theirs was the laughter in the winding stream, and in between.
Close your door, the picture fades again
From the flames in the firelight.
All, always the same,
But there appears in the shades of dawning,
Though your eyes are dim,
All of the pieces in the sky.
All, all is not lost,
And light appears in the shades of dawning
When your eyes can see
Order the pieces, put them back, put them back.
song performed by by Genesis
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Emerald Lies
(fish / marillion)
To be the prince of possession in the gallery of contempt
Suffering your indiscrete discretions and you ask me to relent
As you accumulate flirtations with the calculated calmness of the whore
Of the whore
I am the harlequin - diamonded costume dripping shades of green
I am the harlequin - sense strangers violate my sanctuary
Prowl my dreams
My dreams, and theyre my dreams, theyre my dreams
Plundering your diaries, Ill steal your thoughts innocence
Ravaging your letters, unearth your plots innocence
What a surprise
Innocence, what a surprise
Innocence
To don the robes of torquemada, res
song performed by by Marillion
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Twilight
Brushed by the shadows of the dead
On the grass where day expires
Columbine strips bare admires
her body in the pond instead
A charlatan of twilight formed
Boasts of the tricks to be performed
The sky without a stain unmarred
Is studded with the milk-white stars
From the boards pale Harlequin
First salutes the spectators
Sorcerers from Bohemia
Fairies sundry enchanters
Having unhooked a star
He proffers it with outstretched hand
While with his feet a hanging man
Sounds the cymbals bar by bar
The blind man rocks a pretty child
The doe with all her fauns slips by
The dwarf observes with saddened pose
How Harlequin magically grows
poem by Guillaume Apollinaire
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The Phantom In The Glass
I cannot explain what I heard
in the moan of the suffering
I do not claim to know
why the night covered the day
as if forever
and without hope.
I am without a reason
to explain the aches of history
I simply let it pass
I let mirrors hide my identity
and look deep within to find
the phantom in the glass.
poem by Harlequin Rose
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Of A Memory
Love is too young
to know what a conscience is
for, as sure as you told me you loved me
you turned me away
rememberance of a memory
her tears
soft to the touch
I fear now I understand eternity
why wasn't memory enough?
poem by Harlequin Rose
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The Stage
Insidious, harlequin jewel.
the melodrama waits among it's peers,
listening for it's entrance onto the stage.
But alas,
a thin mustached buffoon spit's out
in deep exaltation
'not all the world hides behind a mask! '
poem by Josh Hathcock
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The Nights at Rocky Bar
Trapping brumbies in the moonlight! those were nights of reckless fun,
'Way back on Campbell's country - on the Goory-bibil run,
When saddled up and ready qur impatient nags would stand
While we squatted in the gunyah with their bridle-reins in hand.
And presently the hoof-beats of the brumbies' trot would sound
As they rattled o'er the ridges of the mulga-timbered ground;
They'd be thirsty, for that stretching trot had brought them from afar,
And the only water for them was the hole at Rocky Bar.
We would hear the stallions whinny, and then the water splash -
That latter was our signal-through the deadwood with a crash
We were at them-you on joker, I on Harlequin, and Mick
Would be with us, just as eager as his jumper, Elsternwick.
Our stockwhips in the stilly night like rifle-shots would ring
When we beat them on the Bilbee Flat and slewed 'em to the wing;
And when we had 'em yarded, oh, the clatter and the din!
How they kicked and squealed and snorted when they found themselves barr'd in!
The nights the brumbies tried to break straight back the way they came
Proved Harlequin as nimble as we knew him to he game;
In those rushing, frantic scrambles 'twas his cleverness I thank
That I didn't get a smasher down that rotten basalt bank.
One old 'Merino' came out, and some boundary rider's moke
He was riding - it was his fault that the chestnut stallion broke -
He sung out: 'Never mind him; let the beggar go away!'
But you didn't stop to listen, jack, to what he had to say.
And ere you brought the big horse back you had a roughish ride,
The Lord knows how you,rnanaged, mate, that night to save your hide!
Though bar a stake of sandalwood you weren't a great deal hurt,
Though the gidya ripped your moleskins, and the mulga rent your shirt.
That big timber took some dodging, but our hacks were tried and true,
And while their heads were left alone would mostly get us through;
But never a horse, save Harlequin', at night, 'twas my belief
Could race among those Bilbee holes and yet not come to grief.
And then we'd jog away to camp two miles below the Bar,
Where we'd find a pipe of Nailrod and a nobbler in the jar.
Ah! though our lines of life since then have lain in diverse ways,
We don't forget those gallops of the brumby-running days.
poem by Harry 'Breaker' Harbord Morant
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Columbine
Columbine my frail design
I see you see me standing on my own
Is it you that Im walking through
Should I retrace my point of view
Im left in clouded dreams of finding who
Not columbine
Just incase youre my disguise
I found yourself to my surprise
Im on the ground
And its harlequin who fix me up
Who catches you
Who wanishes me
From finding who
You are
song performed by by David Bowie
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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The Harlequin
In the clout of a shotgun world
Of feral catwalk alleys
And dog-strut hungers
Subsistence is a farce comedy
Rummaging in the ripples
Of one's convictions
And the furor wrought
By such idiotic bliss;
Of obstreperous finagling
In the batting eyelashes
Of make believing,
Is the swansong
Of the ethereal, non-carnal,
Point blank demise.
Ball a smoldering spit
Inside the brawls of one's feet
And you may find the streak
Of unflawed erudite alibis
For these chortles,
And the pantomimic silence
That I spill in a platter
Of another slapstick charade
Of a feigned harlequinade—
Raveling a thread
Of luridly tangled fences
Made of yarn and lattices
Of tethering promises
A make-up in lieu of mendaciloquence.
Will you comb the tresses
Of this woebegone capitulate
Within the pillars of the self?
Deceiving the perpetual churning
Of the crippling bones
And all its lovely yearning
To be one with guffawing
Without the inflection of pestering
Yet, the manacles I woven
Cannot be shorn by the secretion
Of a perfectly maneuvered
Soliloquy and isolation.
Palm this intoxication
With the treacle of your blood.
Guzzled by a mask
D'you think the harlequin
Breaks the twitching with
Veritable effervescence?
Roll those marbled vision
And undrape the visage
Of saccharine pride;
A harlequin is poignant in all places
With black teeth and disembogued eyes,
It is you who laugh
With every esoteric motion
Be it flight or fall
What are you looking at?
What are you wishing for?
poem by Norman Santos
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Ideographs of the future
There are those who stand at the crossroads
Like raw emoticons cruelty imaged
There are those who stand around Harlequin
Flirting with insanity
As they never really got mad
And there are those who stand just nowhere
Lots of them dialogued as well
And many many more
The whole gallery
Half interpretable
Ideographs of the future
©Miroslava Odalovic
poem by Miroslava Odalovic
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Moon Eater
At night I writhe
Over the despondent grass;
The moon impoverished,
Its entirety guzzled into a
Harlequin crescent
And I see her past one
Of the night's curtains,
Freezing, devouring
Half of the moon
But this I do not know of
For she is in the expanse.
As I lay on my bed
Corrupted and soliloquized,
Gazing at the crescent moon
Far-flung in the downtrodden azure
Thinking,
Where hath gone
The half of the moon?
poem by Windsor Guadalupe Jr
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Set It Free
I can see the rain,
Come into my room again.
Broken window pane,
Now reminds me Im alive.
Could it be right,
Givin up, my darlin?
Ill wait for you now,
To remind me why Ive gone.
How I love to write,
Songs that have no answers.
Oh, theres nothin on my mind,
That I want to let go of.
Letting it go on pretendin,
Everything has its way of endin.
And Im a loner,
The way I should be.
Set it free,
Let it free my love to fly,
Set it free.
Set it free,
Let it free my love to be,
Can I be free?
(instrumental)
Still its gotta rain,
Wonder when Ill see a change in weather.
Somethins gettin tangled up again,
And I cant find an end.
Cant let it go on returnin,
Ive given everything that the harlequin boy can find.
And Im tired of trying,
Id rather leave than tell lies.
Set it free,
Let it free my love to fly,
Set it free.
Set it free,
Let it free my love to be,
Youll be free.
Youll be free my love to fly,
Free to be what I cant face.
In love again,
Set it free.
Free,
Set it free,
Set it free my love.
Free,
Set it free,
Set it free my love.
(repeat to fade)
song performed by by Kenny Loggins
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Prayer To Sappho
Aphrodite is yours
to soak thru with passionate words
the drift of ancient continents
pulls your presence into my world
rogue valiance is consistent with death
so please take note of the cliffs ahead
is it your voice or your victory
that becomes the passion
between my legs
is it the lyric or the longing
that makes you real to me
the day is past the midpoint
the summer solstice makes pulses weak
exchange our mysteries for metaphors
and lay your songs upon my cheek.
poem by Harlequin Rose
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Birth of the Lion Man
And he was a man with revealing sylvan eyes.
Sad, wandering, eager-eyes swathed with sagacity.
Coy he was, like an eagle in the wild; aversive but suspicious.
He is not a child, but he is less than a man.
A critique and a wonderer loathing his own skin
At the top of his head, he watched people
He watched them flash harlequin smiles at each other
Smiles that harmed his eyes like polarized lights
And he remained aloof, preserved to his flightless dignity.
His nest a bare warren of pride and fear
Every leaf of the book he turned with dismal eloquence
Disgusted with the filth of the forged layer
He desires to strip them, undress them
To crack the cynic Monalisa smile and the soul submerged beneath.
A spin-off awaits to swivel as he walked the cobbled streets
Unmasked, but masked with forced vulnerability.
Strutting the town like the lazy-pacing clouds,
Invading skies like searing rays of light
Her lucid radiance in the kind afternoon
Ruptured like pyrotechnics shooting with sparks
She's a mirror, bursting with luminescence.
In a town confined within tedious time
Her presence invoked a prism of hope.
Whipping and lashing everything in a subtle vigor,
Bending the sealed harlequin smiles to transparency
An enigma superior than the moon, magnetizing
She walked the core of the earth with eyes of a periscope.
Her light caught his bronze frame and he almost burned
A light so flustering, it revealed his concealed omnipotence
She is a drug; a ladder to the vertex
To the grounds of liberation,
The freedom of the Lion.
poem by Norman Santos
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Esther, A Sonnet Sequence: III
A little honey! Ay, a little sweet,
A little pleasure when the years were young,
A joyous measure trod by dancing feet,
A tale of folly told by a loved tongue.
These are the things by which our hearts are wrung
More than by tears. Oh, I would rather laugh,
So I had not to choose such tales among
Which was most laughable. Man's nobler half
Resents mere sorrow. I would rather sit
With just the common crowd that watch the play
And mock at harlequin and the clown's wit,
And call it tragedy and go my way.
I should not err, because the tragic part
Lay not in these, but sealed in my own heart.
poem by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
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A Pauper's dreamlike journey
When he kept his burdensome head on the velvet pillow
He felt very comfortable,
And the springy mattress shot him to the Heaven.
He walked here and there like a balloon.
When angels played with a singsong
He danced like a harlequin
And the sequins of angels' costumes punctured the balloon.
He fell down and broke his crown
And found the stone pillow by the roadside pavement.
He heard the distant horse car where the king heads for his secret harem in the midnight.
* Lord; remind me how brief my time on earth will be.Remind me that my days are numbered, and that my life is fleeing away.
Psalm 39: 4 (NLT)
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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I Am Not Mine
If you lost your travails
And vexed by your pace
When pendulums delude you
And the moon found her place
In the southern harlequin nest,
Crawl back into my quagmire
And find your footsteps
Heavily, desperately,
Engraved.
I have reserved a lofty place
A lubricious empiric charade;
A malignant kingdom with
Long aisles, hallooing verve,
And surfeit rooms in sated
Enigma of your preference
But defaced of grandeurs
For that is vandalized
By your very place.
Austerely numb by utopia
In the blackest of words
And farcical taste of the sea
Guttering these dark lids,
And iron singeing in my lips
And serrated grinding teeth,
I will wait here, futilely,
Until I am owned
Unwarranted.
poem by Norman Santos
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The Circus
People amaze of their acrobats
and a joker rides a cycle on a wire horizontally.
Mimicry of Charlie.Chaplin
a baggy trouser harlequin.
Lion in a cage and the ferocious man opens the door.
Polar bear dances to the on going music.
A Chimpanzee walks like an African Diplomat,
Hand-in-hand with a beautiful girl..
A checker goes round for counterfoils.
Gradually lights dim for striptease
and the pickpockets jump the queue.
poem by Nimal Dunuhinga
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