Born this day

As the crickets’ soft autumn hum 
is to us 
so are we to the trees
as are they 
to the rocks and the hills. 

Fear by Raymond Carver

Fear of seeing a police car pull into the drive.
Fear of falling asleep at night.
Fear of not falling asleep.
Fear of the past rising up.
Fear of the present taking flight.
Fear of the telephone that rings in the dead of night.
Fear of electrical storms.
Fear of the cleaning woman who has a spot on her cheek!
Fear of dogs I've been told won't bite.
Fear of anxiety!
Fear of having to identify the body of a dead friend.
Fear of running out of money.
Fear of having too much, though people will not believe this.
Fear of psychological profiles.
Fear of being late and fear of arriving before anyone else.
Fear of my children's handwriting on envelopes.
Fear they'll die before I do, and I'll feel guilty.
Fear of having to live with my mother in her old age, and mine.
Fear of confusion.
Fear this day will end on an unhappy note.
Fear of waking up to find you gone.
Fear of not loving and fear of not loving enough.
Fear that what I love will prove lethal to those I love.
Fear of death.
Fear of living too long.
Fear of death.

I've said that.

Buffalo Bill 's by e e cummings

Buffalo Bill's

defunct

        who used to

        ride a watersmooth-silver

                                  stallion

and break onetwothreefourfive pigeonsjustlikethat

                                                  Jesus



he was a handsome man

                      and what i want to know is

how do you like your blueeyed boy

Mister Death

Born this day

Nothing Gold Can Stay by Robert Frost

Nature's first green is gold, 
Her hardest hue to hold. 
Her early leaf's a flower; 
But only so an hour. 
Then leaf subsides to leaf. 
So Eden sank to grief, 
So dawn goes down to day. 
Nothing gold can stay. 

Died this day

Roll the Dice by Bukowski

if you’re going to try, go all the way.
otherwise, don’t even start.

if you’re going to try, go all the
way. this could mean losing girlfriends,
wives, relatives, jobs and
maybe your mind.

go all the way.
it could mean not eating for 3 or 4 days.
it could mean freezing on a park bench.
it could mean jail,
it could mean derision,
mockery,
isolation.
isolation is the gift,
all the others are a test of your endurance, of
how much you really want to do it.
and you’ll do it
despite rejection and the
worst odds
and it will be better than
anything else
you can imagine.

if you’re going to try,
go all the way.
there is no other feeling like that.
you will be alone with the gods
and the nights will flame with fire.

do it, do it, do it.
do it.

all the way
all the way.
you will ride life straight to
perfect laughter,
it’s the only good fight
there is.

15% by Richard Brautigan

she tries to get things
out of men
that she can't get
because she's not
15% prettier 

Devotions upon Emergent Occasions (Meditation XVII) by John Donne

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee. 

Mad Girl's Love Song by Sylvia Plath

I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead; 
I lift my lids and all is born again. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

The stars go waltzing out in blue and red, 
And arbitrary blackness gallops in: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I dreamed that you bewitched me into bed 
And sung me moon-struck, kissed me quite insane. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

God topples from the sky, hell's fires fade: 
Exit seraphim and Satan's men: 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 

I fancied you'd return the way you said, 
But I grow old and I forget your name. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.) 

I should have loved a thunderbird instead; 
At least when spring comes they roar back again. 
I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead. 
(I think I made you up inside my head.)

Lost Elation by Adelle Stripe

Heavy feet ran through cornfields, black
racing through winds, ears flicking chins
in the middle the circle lay flat, face down
optic fibre stars glistened from sky

racing through winds, ears upon chin
20/20 kisses, bruised on the neck
optic fibre stars shook from sky
chasing black dogs through cemetery gates

20/20 orange, bruised on the neck
crushing flower beds on york city walls
black dogs chased through cemetery gates
microdot heaven, sweet fucking sixteen

flower beds crushed on york city walls
gallons of piss, last bus home
microdot hell, sweet fucking sixteen
as lost boys dreamed of dj luigi

gallons of piss, last bus to leeds
imaginary fights with imaginary men
lost boys danced to huggy in the gallery
6AM return, eyes became pinned

imaginary fights with imaginary men
man mountain scaum, 6 breakfasts a day
6AM start, grey sweat, eyes pinned
live for the weekend, the northern cliché

man mountain scaum, 30 pints a day
dragon chased out of acid house wake
live for the weekend, the old man’s cliché
william hill got richer by the week

dragon chased fast through car park spotlights
william hill’s wallet, overstuffed, overweight
in the middle the circle lay flat, face down
as heavy feet ran through cornfields, black

london calls – i’m never coming back

Strange Fruit by Abel Meeropol 

Southern trees bear a strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolia sweet and fresh,
And the sudden smell of burning flesh!
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

why must itself up every of a park by e.e. cummings

why must itself up every of a park
anus stick some quote statue unquote to
prove that a hero equals any jerk
who was afraid to dare to answer "no"?
quote citizens unquote might otherwise
forget(to err is human;to forgive
divine)that if the quote state unquote says
"kill" killing is an act of christian love.
"Nothing" in 1944 AD
"can stand against the argument of mil
itary necessity"(generalissimo e)
and echo answers "there is no appeal
from reason"(freud)--you pays your money and
you doesn't take your choice.  Ain't freedom grand

And the days are not full enough by Ezra Pound

And the days are not full enough
And the nights are not full enough
And life slips by like a field mouse
      Not shaking the grass 

There Is Pleasure In The Pathless Woods (from Childe Harold) by Lord Byron

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods, 
There is a rapture on the lonely shore, 
There is society, where none intrudes, 
By the deep sea, and music in its roar: 
I love not man the less, but Nature more, 
From these our interviews, in which I steal 
From all I may be, or have been before, 
To mingle with the Universe, and feel 
What I can ne'er express, yet cannot all conceal.

The Curse by John Berryman

Cedars and the westward sun.
The darkening sky. A man alone
Watches beside the fallen wall
The evening multitudes of sin
Crowd in upon us all.
For when the light fails they begin
Nocturnal sabotage among
The outcast and the loose of tongue,
The lax in walk, the murderers:
Our twilight universal curse.

Children are faultless in the wood,
Untouched. If they are later made
Scandal and index to their time,
It is that twilight brings for bread
The faculty of crime.
Only the idiot and the dead
Stand by, while who were young before
Wage insolent and guilty war
By night within that ancient house,
Immense, black, damned, anonymous.

 
    Dulce et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

    Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
    Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
    Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
    And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
    Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
    But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
    Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
    Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.

    Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
    Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
    But someone still was yelling out and stumbling.
    And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
    Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
    As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

    In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
    He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

    If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
    Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
    And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
    His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
    If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
    Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
    Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
    Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, –
    My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
    To children ardent for some desperate glory,
    The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
    Pro patria mori.

 

In the Service of Blood by Michel Houellebecq

I no longer go on trips, really,
Because I know the place
And I know my rights,
And I’ve lived through rage.

In the service of humanity,
In the middle of the estate,
I know my bedroom well
And feel the night descend.

Angels take flight
In the glory of heaven
They will find God;
And the women have fun.

Tied to the table,
Sat in the estate,
The slow intensity
Of the relentless night.

At night in the estate
The slow immensity,
The cruel vision
Torn off from the sky
Of a shape that moves
Pulsating and red.

In the service of blood
The sleepy disgust,
The cruel ends of love
The blown-up bits of the real;
And all that for what?
The idea of a vision
The end of a song
Men losing hope

Waiting for rage
For exploding bodies,
Squatting, wounded,
Hoping for carnage.

I bring the ingredient
Of the final hatred,
My teeth are grinding,
Evil seeps in.

I know the tricks
Of a crushed flesh
I overdo it, I’m told
But I feel exonerated

By human suffering,
By hopes dissatisfied
By the dense crushing
Of superfluous days.

I am not serene
But I am at home,
Angels are holding my hand
I can feel the night falling.

Happiness and Beauty by John Tottenham

Beauty depresses me,
Knowing that it’s temporary.
Positivity requires too much energy.
And even if I were happy,
I wouldn’t admit it,
For that would be insulting
To those who are not ,
And those who pretend to be.

Happiness by Carl Sandburg

I asked the professors who teach the meaning of life to tell
    me what is happiness.
And I went to famous executives who boss the work of
    thousands of men.
They all shook their heads and gave me a smile as though
    I was trying to fool with them
And then one Sunday afternoon I wandered out along
    the Desplaines river
And I saw a crowd of Hungarians under the trees with
    their women and children and a keg of beer and an
    accordion.

O Captain! my Captain! by Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells;
Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills;
For you bouquets and ribboned wreaths—for you the shores a-crowding;
For you they call, the swaying mass, their eager faces turning;
Here Captain! dear father!
This arm beneath your head;
It is some dream that on the deck,
You've fallen cold and dead.

My Captain does not answer, his lips are pale and still;
My father does not feel my arm, he has no pulse nor will;
The ship is anchored safe and sound, its voyage closed and done;
From fearful trip, the victor ship, comes in with object won;
Exult, O shores, and ring, O bells!
But I, with mournful tread,
Walk the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.