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The best project is one that asks a novel question.

quote by Walter Gilbert
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13 Question Method

(chuck berry)
Now, the thirteen question method is the one to use
Listen to me!
Thirteen question method is the one to use
Im saying that the thirteen question method is the one you gotta use
If you wanna have some fun
cause the thirteen question method is the one to use
Uhn!
Question number one: you wanna have fun, uh hun
Question number two: what to do ?
Lets see!
Question number three: wanna go out and eat burger with me ?
God almighty!
For the thirteen question method is the one to use
Now the question number five: dont give me no jive this morning
Question number six: dont try no tricks, this evening
Question number seven: Ill pick you up at a quarter to eleven, baby
And question number eight: its a date
Thats question number nine: where to dine, this evening ?
Question number ten: ah, can we get in ?
Question number eleven: gonna be just like heaven ?
God almighty!
Question number twelve: we get by ourselves ?
cause the thirteen question method is the one to use
The thirteen question method is the one to use
Now the thirteen question method is the one gotta use if you wanna...
The thirteen question method is the one to use
And she says ah...
She says...
The thirteen question method is the one to use
The thirteen question method is the one to use
Now the thirteen question method is the one gotta use if you wanna have some fun
cause the...

song performed by Ry Cooder
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Why Me?

When the hopes are hassled
And relationships are rattled
Naïveté asks, why me?
When wishes are whacked
And dreams are dashed
Naïveté asks, why me?
When fantasies are fettered
And blessings are battered
Naïveté asks, why me?
When desires are demolished
And ambitions are admonished
Naïveté asks, why me?
When temptations are traumatized
And passions are pulverized
Naïveté asks, why me?

Strangely,

Naïveté with influence
And naïveté with affluence
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with name
And naïveté with fame
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with health
And naïveté with wealth
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with fiefdom
And naïveté with wisdom
Never asks, why me?
Naïveté with beauty
And naïveté with booty
Never asks, why me?

poem by Hitesh Sheth
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Project Windows

Black hoods, cops n projects
Sewers flooded with foul blockage
The gutters wild and every child watches
Changin top locks with ripped off hinges
Doors kicked off, drunks stag off smirnoff, wipe your beard off
Crippled dope fiends in wheelchairs stare
Vision blurry, cus buried deep in they mind are hidden stories
Bet hes a mirror image of that 70s era
Finished for the rest of his life, till he fades out
The liquor store workers miss him but then it plays out
So many ways out the hood but no signs say out
Mental slavehouse where gats go off, I show off
Niggas up north, prison-ology talk, till they time cut off
You should chill if you short, prepare deep thought
To hit the street again, get it on, get this paper and breathe again
Plan to leave somethin behind
So your namell live on, no matter what the game lives on
(chorus)
Lookin out of my project window
Oh, I feel uninspired
Lookin out of my project window
Oh, it makes me feel, so tired
Yo, if this pianos the cake then my words are the candles
Light it up, make a wish, and them angels will grant you
Impatient once tried, but in those angels and bamboo
They lit it up, *puff* *puff*, hit it up, *puff*
Now they dismantled, think the whole world is crazy, got a 9
Watch where you walk, 2 dollar fine, sign of the times here in new york
Hi satan, united nations quietly taken, to own your soul
Take it or leave it, just my evaluation
Stack loot and guns, teach the girls karate, school your sons not to hate
But to stay awake, cus the scars a razor make is nothin in comparison
To the gas left on this whole mass, if we dont get it controlled fast
Might as well be, laughin with malcolm xs assassin as we die slow
Perishin, brain dead from a erickson
Words are the medicine, two teaspoons for goons
A cup of it for those thuggin it, yall sing the tune
Chorus
Another day, another dollar, my mother will holla
She said go and see the world for myself, and my brother shafala
Pops was smooth, from his top to his shoes
Sang the rules, guitar strings he played smokin his ?
? hat, picture this yo, seventies cat
He wrote his music in the back of the crib, I did my homework
At night the windows were speakers, pumpin life out
A fight, people screamin cus somebody pulled a knife out
So I look at this poem, Im hooked to this tune
Every night the same melody, hell sounded so heavenly
But jail was ahead of me, ? ? ? ? ?
Readings what I shouldve done, cus my imagination would run

[...] Read more

song performed by Nas
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The Novel....

this has something to do with the novel that
you have been writing
the one that you started many years back
about your hero
that you regret writing

now you want to change him
his vision and what he is going to do
in the next chapters
something that he cannot do too
because of what he is known already
to the other characters
they do not expect him to do that
the twist of his character is simply
too unexpected
and they are getting apprehensive
that this novel may not have
a happy ending after all

you think about it for days
you ask and even beg him to understand
that he must fall and be humiliated
and be condemned
but he definitely disagrees and warns you
that if that is the case then
he better be killed and simply be
ended in Chapter X of the novel

you feel pity for him
you think for more days
you give it time tonight
and you decide no to kill him

the novel will not be that good
to kill him or not
that is your eventual decision

at dawn you start typing the
next chapter
you keep him alive
but the novel shall be damned
the other characters of course
shall continue adoring him
till the last chapter.

there shall be no other sequel
on such a bland and usual novel
of that happy ending
that saddest ever-after.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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What Is This Between You And Me?

When dawn arrives, sun rises,
And daylight bristles awake,
Never asks; Who leaves an ache as keepsake? ,
Grateful for each day, that he didn’t forsake.

When it rains, the cuckoo sings,
The forest echoes with his cravings,
Never asks; Whose soul-wrenching greetings the rain brings?
Tying her mute existence with what heartstrings?

When the wind moans in sweet whispers,
In ripe orchards, where the fruit anchors,
Never asks; With what sweet nothings he casts his doubts? ,
But in deeper shades she flushes.

When the moon returns on the rung of stars,
The night in obeisance crawls, like hungry jaguars,
Never asks-questions about his whereabouts, all that in the darkness chars,
But steers to him on the shoulder's of the lodestar.

When the storm hurls thunder and rain,
Enduring the earth braces open and doesn’t complain,
Never asks; What havoc in this rage she sustains?
Content to know in her hands, lie the reins to his restrain.

When the butterfly flickers mingling colors,
The blossoms throw no tempers, till their contrast blurs,
Never asks; Who steals my colors and violates the sanctity of my lair?
With open arms to his designs she willing concurs.

When the clouds lie scattered & wander,
The hills try hard to delay their departure,
Never asks; Who rides off to what strange lands with my emotions?
She knows with her heavy on his heart he returns.

Now, you have the temerity to ask me;
What is this between you and me?

x-x-x
Seema.Joglekar
5th Dec-2009

poem by Seema joglekar
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Illahi Nama (Book of God)

In the Book of God (Ilahi-nama) 'Attar framed his mystical teachings in various stories that a caliph tells his six sons, who are kings themselves and seek worldly pleasures and power.
The first son is captivated by a virgin princess, and his father tells him the adventures of a beautiful and virtuous woman who attracts several men but miraculously survives their abuse and then forgives them. They acknowledge that carnal desire is necessary to propagate the race but also recognize that passionate love can lead to spiritual love, which can annihilate the soul in the beloved.
Other stories indicate the importance of respecting the lives of other creatures such as ants or dogs. One only thinks oneself better than a dog because of one's dog-like nature.

The second son tells his father that his heart craves magic; but his father warns him against the work of the Devil. A monk tells a shaikh that he has chosen the job of locking up a savage dog inside himself, and he advises the shaikh to lock up anger lest he be changed into a dog. The father suggests that this son ask for something more worthy and tells an anecdote in which Jesus teaches a man the greatest name of God. The man uses it to make bones come alive into a lion, which devours him, leaving his bones. Jesus then says that when a person asks for something unworthy, God does not grant it. Birds and beasts flee from people, because people eat them. God tells Moses to watch his heart when he is alone, to be kind and watch his tongue when he is with people, the road in front when he is walking, and his gullet when he is dining. A saint tells a shaikh that love is never denied to humans, for only the lover knows the true value of the beloved. Another saint warns that unless you pray for protection from negativity (the Devil), you shall not enter the court of God.

The third son of the caliph asks for a cup that could display the whole world. 'Attar concluded a story by saying that Sufism is to rest in patience and forsake all desire for the world, and trust in God means bridling one's tongue and wishing for better things for others than for oneself. This son asks why his father seems to disparage the love of honor and the love of wealth which all seem to possess. The caliph replies that in the crazy prison of the world one can achieve greatness only by devotion. Since one speaks to God through the heart and soul, it is difficult to speak with God of worldly things. The third son asks if he can be allowed to seek power in moderation; but the father still warns that this will place screens between him and God. Each screen created by seeking power will create more screens. One must see both the good and the bad inside and outside oneself to understand how they are connected together. Saints who reach their goal see nothingness in all things, making sugar seem like poison and a rose like thorns. Ayaz advises the conquering sultan Mahmud to leave his self behind since he is better being entirely We. In the last story for his third son, the father says that thousands of arts, mysteries, definitions, commands, prohibitions, orders, and injunctions are founded on the intellect. What cup could be more revealing than this?

The fourth son seeks the water of life, and his father warns him against desire. A wise man considers Alexander the Great the slave of his slave, because the Greek conqueror has submitted to greed and desire, which this wise man controls. If the son cannot have the water of life, he asks for the knowledge that will illuminate his heart. In one story 'Attar concluded that if you are not faithful in love, you are in love only with yourself. The fifth son asks for the ring of Solomon that enables one to communicate with birds and other animals. The Way is summarized as seeing the true road, traveling light, and doing no harm. The father tells this son that he has chosen an earthly kingdom, because he has not heard of the kingdom of the next world. He advises this king that since his sovereignty will not endure not to load the whole world on his shoulders. Why take on the burden of all creation? The caliph suggests that his son practice contentment, which is an eternal kingdom that overshadows even the Sun. When Joseph was thrown into a pit, the angel Gabriel counseled him that it is better to notice a single blemish in yourself than to see a hundred lights of the Unseen.

The sixth son desires to practice alchemy, but his father perceives that he is caught in the snare of greed. Gold is held more tightly by a miser than the rock grips the ore. The son observes that excessive poverty often leads to losing faith, and so he asks God for both the philosopher's stone and for gold; but his father replies that one cannot promote both faith and the world at the same time. In the epilog the poet commented that since he receives his daily bread from the Unseen, he does not have to be the slave of wretched men, and 'Attar concluded this work with the satisfaction that he has perfumed the name of God with his poetry.

poem by Farid ud-Din Attar Abu Hamid bin Abu Bakr Ibrahim
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Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.

quote by Martin Luther King
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Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
Expediency asks the question - is it political?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?

There comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, popular, or political; but because it is right.

quote by Martin Luther King
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Cadenus And Vanessa

THE shepherds and the nymphs were seen
Pleading before the Cyprian Queen.
The counsel for the fair began
Accusing the false creature, man.
The brief with weighty crimes was charged,
On which the pleader much enlarged:
That Cupid now has lost his art,
Or blunts the point of every dart;
His altar now no longer smokes;
His mother's aid no youth invokes—
This tempts free-thinkers to refine,
And bring in doubt their powers divine,
Now love is dwindled to intrigue,
And marriage grown a money-league.
Which crimes aforesaid (with her leave)
Were (as he humbly did conceive)
Against our Sovereign Lady's peace,
Against the statutes in that case,
Against her dignity and crown:
Then prayed an answer and sat down.

The nymphs with scorn beheld their foes:
When the defendant's counsel rose,
And, what no lawyer ever lacked,
With impudence owned all the fact.
But, what the gentlest heart would vex,
Laid all the fault on t'other sex.
That modern love is no such thing
As what those ancient poets sing;
A fire celestial, chaste, refined,
Conceived and kindled in the mind,
Which having found an equal flame,
Unites, and both become the same,
In different breasts together burn,
Together both to ashes turn.
But women now feel no such fire,
And only know the gross desire;
Their passions move in lower spheres,
Where'er caprice or folly steers.
A dog, a parrot, or an ape,
Or some worse brute in human shape
Engross the fancies of the fair,
The few soft moments they can spare
From visits to receive and pay,
From scandal, politics, and play,
From fans, and flounces, and brocades,
From equipage and park-parades,
From all the thousand female toys,
From every trifle that employs
The out or inside of their heads

[...] Read more

poem by Jonathan Swift
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Solving Mysteries

SOLVING MYSTERIES

Deep mysteries may be solved by analytic clarities,
but then dissolve as you dismantle their disparities,
their solution, if not leading to their dissolution,
depleting them of mystery which has suffered diminution.

Andrew Miller, whose latest novel Pure is about to be published, reviews Peter Carey's The Chemistry of Tears (NYTBR,5/27/10) :

In Peter Carey's 12th novel, much depends on two voices. The first belongs to Catherine Gehrig, an horologist working at the (fictional) Swinburne Museum in London. We join her — she begins to speak to us — at the very moment she learns of the sudden death of her lover, Matthew Tindall, Head Curator of Metals at the same institution. For 13 years, Catherine has been Tindall's mistress. He was older, married, a father, but the pair of them lived a blissful, secret life together. Now Tindall is gone — felled by a heart attack on the Underground — and gone with him, in Catherine's mind, is all good, all possibility of happiness….
Her boss gives her a project, which involves reading a pile of antique notebooks:
The notebooks introduce us to the novel's second voice, that of a wealthy mid-19th-century Englishman, Henry Brandling. As a voice, a narrator, Henry is not, at least at the start, much easier to be with than Catherine. He is fulsome, sentimental, the doting father of an ailing son, a boy whom Henry's wife, still mourning the death of another child, will neither nurse nor comfort. Henry seeks to keep the boy alive by continually exciting his interest in the world, but each success is temporary, and the next focus of interest, of enchantment, must always be more thrilling. So he decides to commission the building of an automaton, and not just any old automaton but a duck — he has seen a picture of it somewhere — that will eat grain, apparently digest it and then, with a whirring of springs, excrete the residue. To get it made he travels to Germany, to the Black Forest, and to the "mighty race of clockmakers" who live there. The notebooks are the journal of his travels, his search for a master technician.
Catherine, reading in the annex or (breaking all museum protocols) at home in her flat, calls Henry's narrative "intriguing, " but the diaries are often dense, awkward to read, somewhat dull. There is at first a type of comedy — the bumptious Englishman abroad, continually misunderstood by or misunderstanding his hosts. But then the tone darkens and takes on the feel of a fairy story by the Brothers Grimm, or something out of those monstrous cautionary tales in Hoffmann's "Straw Peter."
Henry finds his master clockmaker, a large, physically threatening man called Sumper, but Sumper isn't interested in a fecal duck. He has something much grander in mind for Henry and his son, and he teases Henry, torments him, hinting at mechanical wonders of an order the Englishman has not the wit to imagine. He recounts his adventures in Queen Victoria's England, where he worked as assistant to an inventor called Cruickshank, a character clearly modeled on the great Charles Babbage (whose prototype computer, the Difference Engine, has been reconstructed at the Science Museum in London) .
It is here, perhaps, in the watchmaker's hallucinogenic parable, that we come to what Carey is playing with in this novel: the illusory versus the actual, the mechanical versus the organic. The gap, if any, between that which, in its complexity, imitates life, and that which is living and may possess something else, something that isn't simply part of the works. A soul! Carey, of course, isn't going to come down on one side or the other of this venerable debate. Instead, he puts into the mouth of Catherine's boss the still persuasive Romantic plea for ambiguity, for the power and beauty of mysteries, for defending these from "analytical clarities." The closing scenes, in which Catherine and her young assistant finally recreate what Henry Brandling brought back from the forest, are among the best in the book, and the moment when it — the not-a-duck — is set in motion is thrilling.

5/28/12 #10340

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Burning Words

Every moment
the world wants something new.
Novel evenings
And novel dawns,
Raw days
And fresh nights
Pretentious abjures,
And blatant vows
Novel affinities,
And novel copulations
Novel inclinations,
And new appreciations
Yore myths,
And bygone tales
Isn't what they really admire
Or desire.
This constant grinding of phrases and words
Had me haggard and wearied out
So I wrapped them all so exquisitely
in a finest wrap I could find,
And then threw them all
In the fiery pits of my heart,
Screaming and crying
while burned into ashes
the words called out
from the dancing fires,
While ashes flew higher and higher
what would you do?
What would you do?
How will you express your desires?
Since you're left bare and blank
With only our ashes in hands.
Ashes Oh ashes,
Now fly away there's nothing left to say.
For I've clocked myself into my own
Narrative.

poem by Faeza gilani
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Somthing New

Every moment
the world wants something new.
Novel evenings
And novel dawns,
Raw days
And fresh nights
Pretentious abjures,
And blatant vows
Novel affinities,
And novel copulations
Novel inclinations,
And new appreciations
Yore myths,
And bygone tales
Isn't what they really admire
Or desire.
This constant grinding of phrases and words
Had me haggard and wearied out
So I wrapped them all so exquisitely
in a finest wrap I could find,
And then threw them all
In the fiery pits of my heart,
Screaming and crying
while burned into ashes
the words called out
from the dancing fires,
While ashes flew higher and higher.
what would you do?
What would you do?
How will you express your desires?
Since you're left bare and blank
With only our ashes in hands.
Ashes Oh ashes,
Now fly away;
There's nothing left to say.
For I've clocked myself into my own
Narrative.

poem by Faeza gilani
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An Old Man With His Hat

There Little Robbie found him in an old yellow album
A blurred picture of a half old man with his hat
Standing in front of the coffin
He smiles shy but wide with his teeth gone making a hole like Little Robbie when he lose his baby teeth
Little Robbie doesn’t recognize him and he wonder where he is now
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his big sister
But his sister doesn’t recognize him and she wonder who he is
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his mother
But his mother doesn’t recognize him and she wonder how he was there
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his father
But his father doesn’t recognize him and he wonder what he did there
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks to his uncle
But his uncle doesn’t recognize him and he wonder when the picture taken
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
So he asks hopelessly to his grandfather
His grandfather takes a deep look to that picture and wonders why Little Robbie asks
Little Robbie says, “I want to meet him! I want to know about him! I want to play with him! ”
Maybe he is one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
But his grandfather shakes his head, “No, he is not.”
He is not one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
He is just an old man with his hat
“He accompanied your great grandfather when he sick until his death. This picture is taken in a burial of your great grandfather.”
His grandfather stares at little Robbie
“Now, are you disappointed? ”
He is not one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
He is just an old man with his hat
Little Robbie shakes his head, “No, I am not.”
Though he is not one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families
Though he is just an old man with his hat
“But I still want to meet him, I want to know about him, and I want to play with him! ”
And then he could be one of his grandfathers, one of his great uncles, one of his old families

poem by Maria Sudibyo
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112

THIS IS A VERY LONG POEM AND I WANT IT PRUNED:

I used to like gardens, putting flowers on the row,
Tending the soil, cutting the grass,
Removing the weeds,
Pruning the lush greenery of trees
And making the flor-de-luna vines
Create a certain impression
Of a landscape,
A certain motif
A theme of gladness
Something to cherish

I take a good look around my
Little garden
And then I would sit under the shade of flowering champaca trees throwing fragrance
Sprinkling perfume
The neighbors say that the scent of ylang-ylang even reaches their houses
And the white sampaguitas so exuding
I used to dirty my hands putting soil on the flower pots
Designing landscapes of love
And patience, curves and hills,
And tend to all the colors mixing in space,

I used to

I am telling you I stopped
When I married,
My wife comes to my garden
And rearranges everything
She puts what she wants
And pulls what she
Thinks repels her
She cuts the flowers
Puts them on the vase
And uproots some species
That I love
And soon the garden has not become mine
Crowded, and strange
And what used to be my little garden
Green Bermuda grass and patterns
Red Anthuriums heart shaped
Pink Dahlias praying to the sun
Orange Gumamelas dancing in the wind
And yellow dancing ladies beaming with pride
Olive Palms waiving to passers by with all cheers
Violets so assuming
White lilies in pure dignities
Lotuses in meditation moods
Husky Cactuses confident with thorns

[...] Read more

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Pruning A Very Long Poem

THIS IS A VERY LONG POEM AND I WANT IT PRUNED:

I used to like gardens, putting flowers on the row,
Tending the soil, cutting the grass,
Removing the weeds,
Pruning the lush greenery of trees
And making the flor-de-luna vines
Create a certain impression
Of a landscape,
A certain motif
A theme of gladness
Something to cherish

I take a good look around my
Little garden
And then I would sit under the shade of flowering champaca trees throwing fragrance
Sprinkling perfume
The neighbors say that the scent of ylang-ylang even reaches their houses
And the white sampaguitas so exuding
I used to dirty my hands putting soil on the flower pots
Designing landscapes of love
And patience, curves and hills,
And tend to all the colors mixing in space,

I used to

I am telling you I stopped
When I married,
My wife comes to my garden
And rearranges everything
She puts what she wants
And pulls what she
Thinks repels her
She cuts the flowers
Puts them on the vase
And uproots some species
That I love
And soon the garden has not become mine
Crowded, and strange
And what used to be my little garden
Green Bermuda grass and patterns
Red Anthuriums heart shaped
Pink Dahlias praying to the sun
Orange Gumamelas dancing in the wind
And yellow dancing ladies beaming with pride
Olive Palms waiving to passers by with all cheers
Violets so assuming
White lilies in pure dignities
Lotuses in meditation moods
Husky Cactuses confident with thorns

[...] Read more

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

Υδραν φονεύσας, μυρίων τ᾽ ἄλλων πόνων
διῆλθον ἀγέλας . . .
τὸ λοίσθιον δὲ τόνδ᾽ ἔτλην τάλας πόνον,
. . . δῶμα θριγκῶσαι κακοῖς.

I slew the Hydra, and from labour pass'd
To labour — tribes of labours! Till, at last,
Attempting one more labour, in a trice,
Alack, with ills I crowned the edifice.

You have seen better days, dear? So have I —
And worse too, for they brought no such bud-mouth
As yours to lisp "You wish you knew me!" Well,
Wise men, 't is said, have sometimes wished the same,
And wished and had their trouble for their pains.
Suppose my Œdipus should lurk at last
Under a pork-pie hat and crinoline,
And, latish, pounce on Sphynx in Leicester Square?
Or likelier, what if Sphynx in wise old age,
Grown sick of snapping foolish people's heads,
And jealous for her riddle's proper rede, —
Jealous that the good trick which served the turn
Have justice rendered it, nor class one day
With friend Home's stilts and tongs and medium-ware,—
What if the once redoubted Sphynx, I say,
(Because night draws on, and the sands increase,
And desert-whispers grow a prophecy)
Tell all to Corinth of her own accord.
Bright Corinth, not dull Thebes, for Lais' sake,
Who finds me hardly grey, and likes my nose,
And thinks a man of sixty at the prime?
Good! It shall be! Revealment of myself!
But listen, for we must co-operate;
I don't drink tea: permit me the cigar!
First, how to make the matter plain, of course —
What was the law by which I lived. Let 's see:
Ay, we must take one instant of my life
Spent sitting by your side in this neat room:
Watch well the way I use it, and don't laugh!
Here's paper on the table, pen and ink:
Give me the soiled bit — not the pretty rose!
See! having sat an hour, I'm rested now,
Therefore want work: and spy no better work
For eye and hand and mind that guides them both,
During this instant, than to draw my pen
From blot One — thus — up, up to blot Two — thus —
Which I at last reach, thus, and here's my line
Five inches long and tolerably straight:

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
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The Corsair

'O'er the glad waters of the dark blue sea,
Our thoughts as boundless, and our soul's as free
Far as the breeze can bear, the billows foam,
Survey our empire, and behold our home!
These are our realms, no limits to their sway-
Our flag the sceptre all who meet obey.
Ours the wild life in tumult still to range
From toil to rest, and joy in every change.
Oh, who can tell? not thou, luxurious slave!
Whose soul would sicken o'er the heaving wave;
Not thou, vain lord of wantonness and ease!
whom slumber soothes not - pleasure cannot please -
Oh, who can tell, save he whose heart hath tried,
And danced in triumph o'er the waters wide,
The exulting sense - the pulse's maddening play,
That thrills the wanderer of that trackless way?
That for itself can woo the approaching fight,
And turn what some deem danger to delight;
That seeks what cravens shun with more than zeal,
And where the feebler faint can only feel -
Feel - to the rising bosom's inmost core,
Its hope awaken and Its spirit soar?
No dread of death if with us die our foes -
Save that it seems even duller than repose:
Come when it will - we snatch the life of life -
When lost - what recks it but disease or strife?
Let him who crawls enamour'd of decay,
Cling to his couch, and sicken years away:
Heave his thick breath, and shake his palsied head;
Ours - the fresh turf; and not the feverish bed.
While gasp by gasp he falters forth his soul,
Ours with one pang - one bound - escapes control.
His corse may boast its urn and narrow cave,
And they who loath'd his life may gild his grave:
Ours are the tears, though few, sincerely shed,
When Ocean shrouds and sepulchres our dead.
For us, even banquets fond regret supply
In the red cup that crowns our memory;
And the brief epitaph in danger's day,
When those who win at length divide the prey,
And cry, Remembrance saddening o'er each brow,
How had the brave who fell exulted now!'

II.
Such were the notes that from the Pirate's isle
Around the kindling watch-fire rang the while:
Such were the sounds that thrill'd the rocks along,
And unto ears as rugged seem'd a song!
In scatter'd groups upon the golden sand,
They game-carouse-converse-or whet the brand:

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poem by Byron
Added by Poetry Lover
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Telephone Conversation

Wednesday, January 23,2008
Week 10: Telephone Conversation by Wole Soyinka

Week 10 Dividing lines: Differences in Class, race, Gender and Ideology

Telephone Conversation
by Wole Soyinka

The price seemed reasonable, location
Indifferent. The landlady swore she lived
Off premises. Nothing remained
But self-confession. 'Madam, ' I warned,
'I hate a wasted journey—I am African.'
Silence. Silenced transmission of
Pressurized good-breeding. Voice, when it came,
Lipstick coated, long gold rolled
Cigarette-holder pipped. Caught I was foully.
'HOW DARK? '... I had not misheard... 'ARE YOU LIGHT
OR VERY DARK? ' Button B, Button A.* Stench
Of rancid breath of public hide-and-speak.
Red booth. Red pillar box. Red double-tiered
Omnibus squelching tar. It was real! Shamed
By ill-mannered silence, surrender
Pushed dumbfounded to beg simplification.
Considerate she was, varying the emphasis-
'ARE YOU DARK? OR VERY LIGHT? ' Revelation came.
'You mean-like plain or milk chocolate? '
Her assent was clinical, crushing in its light
Impersonality. Rapidly, wave-length adjusted,
I chose. 'West African sepia'-and as afterthought,
'Down in my passport.' Silence for spectroscopic
Flight of fancy, till truthfulness clanged her accent
Hard on the mouthpiece. 'WHAT'S THAT? ' conceding
'DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT IS.' 'Like brunette.'
'THAT'S DARK, ISN'T IT? ' 'Not altogether.
Facially, I am brunette, but, madam, you should see
The rest of me. Palm of my hand, soles of my feet
Are a peroxide blond. Friction, caused-

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poem by Tamilarasi Shalu
Added by Poetry Lover
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III. The Other Half-Rome

Another day that finds her living yet,
Little Pompilia, with the patient brow
And lamentable smile on those poor lips,
And, under the white hospital-array,
A flower-like body, to frighten at a bruise
You'd think, yet now, stabbed through and through again,
Alive i' the ruins. 'T is a miracle.
It seems that, when her husband struck her first,
She prayed Madonna just that she might live
So long as to confess and be absolved;
And whether it was that, all her sad life long
Never before successful in a prayer,
This prayer rose with authority too dread,—
Or whether, because earth was hell to her,
By compensation, when the blackness broke
She got one glimpse of quiet and the cool blue,
To show her for a moment such things were,—
Or else,—as the Augustinian Brother thinks,
The friar who took confession from her lip,—
When a probationary soul that moved
From nobleness to nobleness, as she,
Over the rough way of the world, succumbs,
Bloodies its last thorn with unflinching foot,
The angels love to do their work betimes,
Staunch some wounds here nor leave so much for God.
Who knows? However it be, confessed, absolved,
She lies, with overplus of life beside
To speak and right herself from first to last,
Right the friend also, lamb-pure, lion-brave,
Care for the boy's concerns, to save the son
From the sire, her two-weeks' infant orphaned thus,
And—with best smile of all reserved for him—
Pardon that sire and husband from the heart.
A miracle, so tell your Molinists!

There she lies in the long white lazar-house.
Rome has besieged, these two days, never doubt,
Saint Anna's where she waits her death, to hear
Though but the chink o' the bell, turn o' the hinge
When the reluctant wicket opes at last,
Lets in, on now this and now that pretence,
Too many by half,—complain the men of art,—
For a patient in such plight. The lawyers first
Paid the due visit—justice must be done;
They took her witness, why the murder was.
Then the priests followed properly,—a soul
To shrive; 't was Brother Celestine's own right,
The same who noises thus her gifts abroad.
But many more, who found they were old friends,
Pushed in to have their stare and take their talk

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Dubmobile

Talking about the reel the reel the reel....
(echo: talking about the reel the reel the reel.... in reverse!)
Dubmobile
Now Im the main man at the microphone stand
I chat two words just to make you understand
Im the main man at the microphone stand
I chat two words just to make you understand
I see a set of wheels and I like the touch an feel
Me love it even better when me sit behind the wheel
I got ambition an den me find ignition
Then the dealer ask me if I like electric transmission
The dealer asks if me like plenty of vision,
Yes me boss I want no collision
No collision
Now Im the main man at the microphone stand
I chat two words just to make you understand
Im the main man at the microphone stand
I chat two words just to make you understand
So I take a test drive and eat everything alive
When I clock the needle move, I couldnt believe me eyes
It touched 140 to my suprise
Then I stop an think this car is for me
When me come back him wan talk bout money
Me wan buy the car on h.p.
Long term credit and interest free, five year warranty, guarantee.
The dealer asks me like a power steering
Dealer asks me like overdrive thing. yes me boss but what is
That thing? that me boss a de turbo sintin
Oi me boss you have a deal and at long last I find my dubmobile.
Dubmobile.
Everywhere I go, just rockin and swing, just rockin and swing
Now Im the main man at the microphone stand
I chat two words just to make you understand
Im the main man at the microphone stand
I chat two words just to make you understand
Me put in cassette and equalizer
Anywhere me go me can listen reggae star
Now me just cruise to party and thing
Everywhere me go its just rockin and swing
Rockin and swing
Everywhere I go, just rockin and swing, just rockin and swing
Everywhere I go, just rockin and swing, just rockin and swing
The dealer asks me like power steering
Dealer asks me like overdrive thing. yes me boss but what is
That thing? that me boss a de turbo sintin
Oi me boss you have a deal and at long last I find my dubmobile
Me put in cassette and equalizer
Anywhere me go me can listen reggae star
Now me just cruise to party and thing
Everywhere me go its just rockin and swing

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song performed by Ub40
Added by Lucian Velea
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