Hommage

Poems by friends and others that I admire

Consume

Rom:  …Then love-devouring death do what he dare;
It is enough I may but call her mine.
Friar:            These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which, as they kiss, consume. The sweetest honey
Is loathsome in his own deliciousness
And in the taste confounds the appetite.
Therefore love moderately; long love doth so;
Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

– W.S. R & J 2,vii 

i flipped on Baz’ version of R&J
and half paid attention
treating it more like background radio
not having a radio here

these words leapt out
for some fairly obvious reasons

and reminded me of every old love
(and one or two)
(particular painful)
(in particular 

fire and powder
as they kiss
consume

The second line of final couplet
strikes me as forced

(but i’m probably just resistant)
(to restraint)

Meditation on the Plums II

She is thinking of the tart, thumb-sized plums
they ate together, and of one in particular.
Unremarkable, except it was the last he gave her.
Of what it was, to stand in the small stone
kitchen, tasting the bittersweet strings
of fruit clinigng to wood. The intimacy
in those ruins. Saying plum and not yet
meaning heartache. Letting the ordinary become the last.

 — Sarah Holland-Batt, Aria p56

La Infinita

Ves estas manos? Han medido
la tierra, han separado
los minerales y los cereales,
han hecho la paz y la guerra,
han derribado las distancias
de todos los mares y ríos,
y sin embargo
cuando te recorren
a ti, pequeña,
grano de trigo, alondra,
no alcanzan a abarcarte,
se cansan alcanzando
las palomas gemelas
que reposan o vuelan en tu pecho,
recorren las distancias de tus piernas,
se enrollan en la luz de tu cintura.
Para mí eres tesoro más cargado
de inmensidad que el mar y sus racimos
y eres blanca y azul y extensa como
la tierra en la vendimia.
En ese territorio,
de tus pies a tu frente,
andando, andando, andando,
me pasaré la vida.

–Pablo Neruda

c.f. this 

Clouded

I think it’s the combination
of the sentiments contained within
A Place to Stay and Patience Darling
that make me wonder…when…

When you’ll decide I’m not on your boat
Or wearing the right uniform
That I’m not one of the good ones
Because once I was there, then wasn’t.

I’m hoping that that doesn’t happen
But there really are no guarantees
You might invent any number of reasons
To fulfill your beliefs as you please

So all I can do is my best
Which really doesn’t feel much
But I’ll love you the only way I know
And hope that it’s always enough.

xo.

– Natasha Agafonoff
theclouddiaries.wordpress.com

Wind and Window Flower

Lovers, forget your love, 
And listen to the love of these, 
She a window flower, 
And he a winter breeze.

When the frosty window veil
Was melted down at noon,
And the caged yellow bird
Hung over her in tune,
He marked her through the pane,
He could not help but mark,
And only passed her by
To come again at dark.

He was a winter wind,
Concerned with ice and snow,
Dead weeds and unmated birds,
And little of love could know.

But he sighed upon the sill,
He gave the sash a shake,
As witness all within
Who lay that night awake.
Per chance he half prevailed
To win her for the flight
From the firelit looking-glass
And warm stove-window light.

But the flower leaned aside
And thought of naught to say,
And morning found the breeze
A hundred miles away.

– Robert Frost

Aside

P.N. 

Let the wretches who today
      include your name
   in their books--the Damasos,
      the Gerardos, the sons
   of bitches, silent accomplices of
      the executioner-know
   that your martyrdom
      won't be expunged, that your
      death
   will fall on their entire moon of
      cowards.
   And to those who denied you in
      their rotten laurel....
-Pablo Neruda

Substitution – Silversun Pickups

There’s a vulture perching right off screen
And it’s bitter and whispers chaotic things
And it reached in quick ain’t it worrying
it’s so easy to see, everyone can
agree, stop listening

I know you’ve heard it before
But then it wasn’t enough
You don’t wanna be held back from the substitution
I know you’ve seen this before
And now enough is too much
You don’t wanna be set back when
the substitution comes I’m sorry

You’re a marionette in the center of
All the twisting strings coming from above
It may seem too deep to recover from
it’s so easy to see, everyone can
agree, just let it go

I know you’ve heard it before
But then it wasn’t enough
You don’t wanna be held back from the substitution
I know you’ve seen this before
And now enough is too much
You don’t wanna be set back when
the substitution comes I’m sorry I’m sorry

When the voices start spinning just be aware
I have brought enough stones for us to share
That one’s grinning that one’s
burning, aim for the throat
Let him choke on the stones that we are to throw

It’s the great downfall
Not the overthrow
If you shoot them down
It’ll make you soar

When reactions turn into hurricanes
And the middle course seems a little tame
Whether full or empty it’s all the same
it’s so easy to see, everyone can
agree, you’re not to blame

I know you’ve heard it before
But then it wasn’t enough
You don’t wanna be held back from the substitution
I know you’ve seen this before
but now enough is too much
You don’t wanna be set back when
the substitution comes I’m sorry

Silversun Pickups – Substitution

The Imperfectionistic Advices of Kid Sigma

The Breakup; the Makeup.

All for one, one for all? The Makeup; The Breakup? A gift I gave to a Great Lover? I Memory I took from a Bad one? -- Pair IV, John Stezacker

<snip!>

break-ups are awesome. my friend said that all relationships are different, but all break-ups are the same. I’m pretty sure I believe the opposite; after all, Tolstoy said, “all happy families are alike, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” her break-up with her boyfriend, Kyall, is vastly different to mine with Rob. we are different people, all of us, & Rob & I were dating for months, then long-distance for a year, then living together, & we continued to live together after we had those series of all-out door-slamming, name-calling arguments where we couldn’t stand to communicate with each other or even be in the same room together. but we still love each other now, & we always will. if I cannot be with him, I’m honestly not sure what I will do. write, I suppose, like always, & be successful, & live my life of boats & cats. I will rent a houseboat on the Hamsterdam canals for a week just to taste heaven.

please, just follow your mind & your heart, not your dick or your stomach. wait two years. love waits. tattoos wait. newcastle waits. the rest of the world does not. never ask someone to do for you what you can do for yourself, don’t fucking get anyone fucking pregnant for a good ten years, & try to avoid joining the circus for any real length of time. good men go with good men; good women, too. education is the key to better living! poetry can save the world! Obama For President of the Universe! never! say! die! & so on & so forth. be good, is what I’m saying, & always do your best. trust & respect yourself & others & I’m pretty sure you get like good karma & whatever.

<snip!>

-Σ

Aside

If—

If—

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,
And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dream – and not make dreams your master;
If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
‘ Or walk with Kings – nor lose the common touch,
if neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And – which is more – you’ll be a Man, my son!

– Rudyard Kipling, 1895

… A glorious night …

An alarm sounds in the distant air
alerting me to something that hangs in the air.
Be not afraid says the gentleman before me
then like post traumatic shock, I cannot remember.
A space? no, not. A well sealed up spot?
Something I care not to remember.
I have not a clue where doth this rise forth
From some distant bygone o’er yonder
Click clack on the track, such an elegant chap
why such response, know not I, yet I wonder

Nicole. C. Singer-songwriter
Magic Mountain Resort
Miami, Queensland, Australia
19 October 2011 just after dawn

Aside

William Burroughs on Love

a la   J*** C**k via fb: These are the last words of William Burroughs— written the day he died

Thinking is not enough.
Nothing is.
There is no final enough of wisdom, experience —
any fucking thing.
No Holy Grail, no Final Satori,
no final solution.
Just conflict.
Only thing can resolve conflict is love,
like I felt for Fletch and Ruski, Spooner and Calico.
Pure love.
What I feel for my cats present and past.
Love?
What is It?
The Most natural painkiller that there is.
LOVE.