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It is normal for me to wake and find myself writing in the dark... or to be out of my tomb, caught in an unearthly world, alive with the images that haunt me.

quote by Kim Elizabeth
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Wake! Asia! Wake! (Part One)

Part One

It is night yet in the West
and the planes land between listlessly burning tarmac lamps
stealthy fingers scurrying through diadems of neons halogens and amber
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

The cowherds' bare blistered feet already trample yesterday's dust into mud
and cartwheels strain in crusted fissures where rains only once or twice fell
while dreams fester in cosy centrally-heated silken beds in luxury flats
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

Tomorrow is yesteryear's planned strikes
buses trains taxis office machines lie soundlessly asleep
and will not wake until the battle over psychic comfort comes to an end
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

For You there is no respite no pause
no tea-breaks with cheese biscuits or croissants
there's only the last container to crane over the dock in unpaid overtime
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

Your eyes will hurt in the twilight's hazy glimmer
no time to brush your teeth nor shave in hot and cold running water
nor the right to flush a toilet nor heedlessly course through in cosy tubes to work
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

The sirens rave through boulevards in broad night-light
rushing hypertensic cardiac cases from their delight-full beds
cholestrol and diabetic cane sugar within reach of every child in supermarkets
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

Let those who succeeded their former masters
sip their sweet sweatless porto before the hors-d'oeuvres
and flap their tabliers hiding their secret shame under cabalistic arms
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

Wake! there's little time left for your own bickering differences to fester
the dawn signals the tasks that lie ahead unfinished
and the carrion hunters trained in their old master's image club together
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

Wake! and see the extent to which you're still enslaved
enslaved by your own kind who hanker after conditioning platitudes
the clubby comfort of secretly oath-taking power cliques
Wake! O! Asia! Wake!

Remember! Remember Haidar Ali his son Tipu and Akbar
remember Sivaji and Chandra Bose and Kattapomman and Asoka
remember O! remember the one and only Mahatma

[...] Read more

poem by T. Wignesan
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I Want To Wake Up

I heard what you said, and I can tell you its true
I heard youve said that I am crazy about you
Turn in my sleep, the bad dream is over
Think of you and shall I ever recover?
Now, I want to wake up
How I want to wake up
I stood at the kitchen-sink, my radio played
Songs like tainted love and love is strange
As I listened and the words hit my ears
I cried sudden tears
Now, I want to wake up
How I want to wake up
Wake up
(wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up
Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up)
(its mad, its mad, its mad)
Its mad, to be in love with someone else
When youre in love with him, shes in love with me
But you know as well as I do
I can never think of anyone but you
(all my life,
All my life
I want to wake up)
Play with fire, play with guns
Its easy to impress someone
Turning in my sleep, you call me a fool
To fall in love, is it so uncool?
Now, I want to wake up
How I want to wake up
Now, I want to wake up
Wake up
(wake up, wake up
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Wake up, wake up - ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh
Ooh ooh ooh oh oh)
I, I want to wake up
(ooh ooh ooh oh oh, ooh ooh ooh oh oh, ooh ooh ooh oh oh, ooh ooh ooh oh oh)

[...] Read more

song performed by Pet Shop Boys
Added by Lucian Velea
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The City of Dreadful Night

Per me si va nella citta dolente.

--Dante

Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
Girando senza posa,
Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;
Uso alcuno, alcun frutto
Indovinar non so.

Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve
Ogni creata cosa,
In te, morte, si posa
Nostra ignuda natura;
Lieta no, ma sicura
Dell' antico dolor . . .
Pero ch' esser beato
Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.

--Leopardi

PROEM

Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."
Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?
Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,
And wail life's discords into careless ears?

Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles
To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles,
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth;
Because it gives some sense of power and passion
In helpless innocence to try to fashion
Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth.

Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of these I write, and none of these
Could read the writing if they deigned to try;

[...] Read more

poem by James Thomson
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Images

I think images are worth repeating
Images repeated from a painting
Images taken from a painting
From a photo worth re-seeing
I love images worth repeating
Project them upon the ceiling
Multiply them with silk screening
See them with a different feeling
Images, oh, images
Images, oh, images
Some say images have no feeling
I think theres a deeper meaning
Mechanical precision or so its seeming
Instigates a cooler feeling
I love multiplicity of screenings
Things born anew display new meanings
I think images are worth repeating
And repeating and repeating
Images, oh, images
Images, images
Im no urban idiot savant
Spewing paint without any order
Im no sphinx, no mystery enigma
What I paint is very ordinary
I dont think Im old or modern
I dont think I think Im thinking
It doesnt matter what Im thinking
Its the images that are worth repeating
And repeating, oh, images
Images
If youre looking for a deeper meaning
Im as deep as this high ceiling
If you think technique is meaning
You might find me very simple
You might think that images boring
Cars and cans and chairs and flowers
You might find me personally boring
Hammer, sickle, mao tse tong
Mao tse tong
Ooohhh, images, images
Images
I think that it bears repeating
The images upon the ceiling
I love images worth repeating
And repeating and repeating
Images, images
Oh, images, oh, images

song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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Wake Up & Live

One, two, three, four!
Wake up and live, yall,
Wake up and live!
Wake up and live now!
Wake up and live!
Life is one big road with lots of signs,
So when you riding through the ruts, dont you complicate your mind:
Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy!
Dont bury your thoughts; put your vision to reality, yeah!
All together now:
Wake up and live (wake up and live, yall),
Wake up and live (wake up and live),
Wake up and wake up and live, yeah! (wake up and live now),
Wake up and (wake up and live) - wake up and live!
Rise ye mighty people, ye-ah!
Theres work to be done,
So lets do it-a little by little:
Rise from your sleepless slumber! yes, yeah! yes, yeah!
Were more than sand on the seashore,
Were more than numbers.
All together now:
Wake up and live now, yall!
(wake up and live) wake up and live!
Wake up and live, yall!
(wake up and live) wake up and live now!
You see, one - one cocoa full a basket,
Whey they use you live big today: tomorrow you buried in-a casket.
One - one cocoa full a basket, yeah, yes!
Whey they use you live big today: tomorrow you bury in-a casket.
Wall together now:
(wake up and live now!) wake up and live! oh! yeah-eah!
(wake up and live!) uh!
(wake up and live now!) wake up and live!
(wake up and live) keep on playin!
(wake up and live, yall) uh! yeah! yeah!
(wake up and live!)
(wake up and live now!)
(wake up and live!) break it down!
---
/saxophone solo/
Come on, man!
How is it feelin over there?
(wake up and live now) all right!
(wake up and live!) yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Uh!
Come on, man!
You gotta wake up and live!
---
Life is one big road with lots of signs, yes!
So when you riding through the ruts, dont you complicate your mind:

[...] Read more

song performed by Bob Marley
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Whistling In The Dark

A woman came up to me and said
Id like to poison your mind
With wrong ideas that appeal to you
Though I am not unkind
She looked at me, I looked at something
Written across her scalp
And these are the words that it faintly said
As I tried to call for help:
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
A man came up to me and said
Id like to change your mind
By hitting it with a rock, he said,
Though I am not unkind.
We laughed at his little joke
And then I happily walked away
And hit my head on the wall of the jail
Where the two of us live today.
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,
Be what youre like,
Be like yourself,
And so Im having a wonderful time
But Id rather be whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
Theres only one thing that I know how to do well
And Ive often been told that you only can do
What you know how to do well
And thats be you,

[...] Read more

song performed by They Might Be Giants
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The Undying One- Canto III

'THERE is a sound the autumn wind doth make
Howling and moaning, listlessly and low:
Methinks that to a heart that ought to break
All the earth's voices seem to murmur so.
The visions that crost
Our path in light--
The things that we lost
In the dim dark night--
The faces for which we vainly yearn--
The voices whose tones will not return--
That low sad wailing breeze doth bring
Borne on its swift and rushing wing.
Have ye sat alone when that wind was loud,
And the moon shone dim from the wintry cloud?
When the fire was quench'd on your lonely hearth,
And the voices were still which spoke of mirth?

If such an evening, tho' but one,
It hath been yours to spend alone--
Never,--though years may roll along
Cheer'd by the merry dance and song;
Though you mark'd not that bleak wind's sound before,
When louder perchance it used to roar--
Never shall sound of that wintry gale
Be aught to you but a voice of wail!
So o'er the careless heart and eye
The storms of the world go sweeping by;
But oh! when once we have learn'd to weep,
Well doth sorrow his stern watch keep.
Let one of our airy joys decay--
Let one of our blossoms fade away--
And all the griefs that others share
Seem ours, as well as theirs, to bear:
And the sound of wail, like that rushing wind
Shall bring all our own deep woe to mind!

'I went through the world, but I paused not now
At the gladsome heart and the joyous brow:
I went through the world, and I stay'd to mark
Where the heart was sore, and the spirit dark:
And the grief of others, though sad to see,
Was fraught with a demon's joy to me!

'I saw the inconstant lover come to take
Farewell of her he loved in better days,
And, coldly careless, watch the heart-strings break--
Which beat so fondly at his words of praise.
She was a faded, painted, guilt-bow'd thing,
Seeking to mock the hues of early spring,
When misery and years had done their worst

[...] Read more

poem by Caroline Elizabeth Sarah Norton
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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)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Giaour

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blesséd isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to lonliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That waves and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant by rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;

Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande—that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,

[...] Read more

poem by Byron (1813)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Giaour: A Fragment Of A Turkish Tale

No breath of air to break the wave
That rolls below the Athenian's grave,
That tomb which, gleaming o'er the cliff
First greets the homeward-veering skiff
High o'er the land he saved in vain;
When shall such Hero live again?

Fair clime! where every season smiles
Benignant o'er those blesséd isles,
Which, seen from far Colonna's height,
Make glad the heart that hails the sight,
And lend to lonliness delight.
There mildly dimpling, Ocean's cheek
Reflects the tints of many a peak
Caught by the laughing tides that lave
These Edens of the Eastern wave:
And if at times a transient breeze
Break the blue crystal of the seas,
Or sweep one blossom from the trees,
How welcome is each gentle air
That waves and wafts the odours there!
For there the Rose, o'er crag or vale,
Sultana of the Nightingale,

The maid for whom his melody,
His thousand songs are heard on high,
Blooms blushing to her lover's tale:
His queen, the garden queen, his Rose,
Unbent by winds, unchilled by snows,
Far from winters of the west,
By every breeze and season blest,
Returns the sweets by Nature given
In soft incense back to Heaven;
And gratefu yields that smiling sky
Her fairest hue and fragrant sigh.
And many a summer flower is there,
And many a shade that Love might share,
And many a grotto, meant by rest,
That holds the pirate for a guest;
Whose bark in sheltering cove below
Lurks for the pasiing peaceful prow,
Till the gay mariner's guitar
Is heard, and seen the Evening Star;
Then stealing with the muffled oar,
Far shaded by the rocky shore,
Rush the night-prowlers on the prey,
And turns to groan his roudelay.
Strande-that where Nature loved to trace,
As if for Gods, a dwelling place,
And every charm and grace hath mixed

[...] Read more

poem by Byron
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Kahlo-Christ Conjunctions - Sacrificed Flesh, Broken Bread, Emmaus Vision

[The curious or, better, interested reader may view the images alluded to in this essay at this website: http: //falconwarren.blogspot.com/2011/01/kahlo-christ- conjunctions-sacrificed.html]

Kahlo Strophes

As with love, also the bellows.

Calavera*, the Future stands
hand to mouth, fingers to forehead
unfolding before still instatic shapes.
Hold desperately to frames before
these quaking perceptions.

She could not stop there,
had to flare out, dry paint,
and the dryer flesh peel down
to bone, a sexless esqueleto**,
skull no longer mustached,
a calavera, nothing more,
curved calcium reliant forever
upon canvas, what is congealed
there to fan and burn,
a 'cauda pavonis'***.

- the author, from the text below

*Skull
**Skeleton
***Peacock's Tail (an image in alchemy) .

'Poetry such as this attempts not just a new syntax of the word. Its revolution is aimed at the syntax of the mind itself. Its structuring of experience is purposive, not dreamlike. We are dealing with a self-induced, or naturally or mysteriously come by, creative state from which two of the most fundamental human activities diverge, the aesthetic and the mystic act. The creative matrix is the same in both, and it is that state of being that is most peculiarly and characteristically human, as the resulting aesthetic and mystic experience is the purist form of human act. There is a great deal of overlapping, today especially, when art is all the religion most people have and when they demand of it experiences that few people of the past demanded of religion....A visionary poem is not a vision. The religious experience is necessitated and ultimate.' - Kenneth Rexroth, World Outside the Window, the Selected Essays of Kenneth Rexroth, pg.255-256

Rexroth's words are pertinent to the images used in this essay, Kahlo's painting above is visionary, Grunewald's are religious, and several photos are both, and all are 'aimed at the syntax of the mind itself.. Its restructuring of experience is purposive, not dreamlike.' The images included in this essay, which is more a prose poem than regular prose, are meant to convey equally or more, at least as as much as, the words in their incantatory formations which may induce entrance into 'imaginal' spaces where word and image meet in a practical magic, inspire a felt understanding and perhaps gain a view or actual entrance into what ecstatic poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, calls 'the Greater Relation.'

I've decided to publish this piece-in-progress as it unwinds in spirals 'aimed at the syntax of the mind itself...its restructuring of experience' with the understanding that it may later appear in greatly altered form. In a real sense this writing writes itself; I try to heed, copy, then hone to the bone what might be wanting to be sung, for what is below, and often what I write, is more akin to music, a vocal/verbal lilt beyond a particular solid tilt of view of a world absolute, static logos.

Heraclitus noted thousands of years ago, 'All is flux.'

To this I would only add, and perhaps this is what all of my writing amounts to,

'All is reflux.'

Selah. WF

NYC,1/31/11

[...] Read more

poem by Warren Falcon
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Canto the Fourth

I.

I stood in Venice, on the Bridge of Sighs;
A palace and a prison on each hand:
I saw from out the wave her structures rise
As from the stroke of the enchanter’s wand:
A thousand years their cloudy wings expand
Around me, and a dying glory smiles
O’er the far times when many a subject land
Looked to the wingèd Lion’s marble piles,
Where Venice sate in state, throned on her hundred isles!

II.

She looks a sea Cybele, fresh from ocean,
Rising with her tiara of proud towers
At airy distance, with majestic motion,
A ruler of the waters and their powers:
And such she was; her daughters had their dowers
From spoils of nations, and the exhaustless East
Poured in her lap all gems in sparkling showers.
In purple was she robed, and of her feast
Monarchs partook, and deemed their dignity increased.

III.

In Venice, Tasso’s echoes are no more,
And silent rows the songless gondolier;
Her palaces are crumbling to the shore,
And music meets not always now the ear:
Those days are gone - but beauty still is here.
States fall, arts fade - but Nature doth not die,
Nor yet forget how Venice once was dear,
The pleasant place of all festivity,
The revel of the earth, the masque of Italy!

IV.

But unto us she hath a spell beyond
Her name in story, and her long array
Of mighty shadows, whose dim forms despond
Above the dogeless city’s vanished sway;
Ours is a trophy which will not decay
With the Rialto; Shylock and the Moor,
And Pierre, cannot be swept or worn away -
The keystones of the arch! though all were o’er,
For us repeopled were the solitary shore.

V.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage (1818)
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Three Women

My love is young, so young;
Young is her cheek, and her throat,
And life is a song to be sung
With love the word for each note.

Young is her cheek and her throat;
Her eyes have the smile o' May.
And love is the word for each note
In the song of my life to-day.

Her eyes have the smile o' May;
Her heart is the heart of a dove,
And the song of my life to-day
Is love, beautiful love.

Her heart is the heart of a dove,
Ah, would it but fly to my breast
Where love, beautiful love,
Has made it a downy nest.

Ah, would she but fly to my breast,
My love who is young, so young;
I have made her a downy nest
And life is a song to be sung.

1
I.
A dull little station, a man with the eye
Of a dreamer; a bevy of girls moving by;
A swift moving train and a hot Summer sun,
The curtain goes up, and our play is begun.
The drama of passion, of sorrow, of strife,
Which always is billed for the theatre Life.
It runs on forever, from year unto year,
With scarcely a change when new actors appear.
It is old as the world is-far older in truth,
For the world is a crude little planet of youth.
And back in the eras before it was formed,
The passions of hearts through the Universe stormed.

Maurice Somerville passed the cluster of girls
Who twisted their ribbons and fluttered their curls
In vain to attract him; his mind it was plain
Was wholly intent on the incoming train.
That great one eyed monster puffed out its black breath,
Shrieked, snorted and hissed, like a thing bent on death,

[...] Read more

poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox
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The Sidewinder Sleep Tonight

This here is the place I will be staying.
There isn't a number. You can call the pay phone.
Let it ring a long, long, long, long time.
If I don't pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more.
If I don't pick up, pick up... The sidewinder sleeps, sleeps, sleeps in a coil
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
There are scratches all around the coin slot
like a heartbeat, baby trying to wake up,
but this machine can only swallow money.
You can't lay a patch by computer design.
It's just a lot of stupid, stupid signs.
Tell her,
tell her she can kiss my ass, then laugh and say that you were only kidding.
That way she'll know that it's really, really, really, really me.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Baby, instant soup doesn't really grab me.
Today I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial.
A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some Nescafe and ice,
a candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of Doctor Seuss;
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
The cat in the hat came back, wrecked a lot of havoc on the way,
always had a smile and a reason to pretend.
But their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream.
The sidewinder sleeps on his back.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. Call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. Call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. Call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. Call me when you try to wake her.
We've got to moogie, moogie, move on this one

song performed by REM
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Sidewinder Sleeps Tonight

This here is the place I will be staying.
There isnt a number. you can call the pay phone.
Let it ring a long, long, long, long time.
If I dont pick up, hang up, call back, let it ring some more.
If I dont pick up, pick up... the sidewinder sleeps, sleeps, sleeps in a coil
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
There are scratches all around the coin slot
Like a heartbeat, baby trying to wake up,
But this machine can only swallow money.
You cant lay a patch by computer design.
Its just a lot of stupid, stupid signs.
Tell her,
Tell her she can kiss my ass, then laugh and say that you were only kidding.
That way shell know that its really, really, really, really me.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Baby, instant soup doesnt really grab me.
Today I need something more sub-sub-sub-substantial.
A can of beans or blackeyed peas, some nescafe and ice,
A candy bar, a falling star, or a reading of doctor seuss;
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
The cat in the hat came back, wrecked a lot of havoc on the way,
Always had a smile and a reason to pretend.
But their world has flat backgrounds and little need to sleep but to dream.
The sidewinder sleeps on his back.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. call me when you try to wake her.
Call me when you try to wake her up. call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. call me when you try to wake her.
I can always sleep standing up. call me when you try to wake her.
Weve got to moogie, moogie, move on this one.

song performed by REM
Added by Lucian Velea
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Alastor: or, the Spirit of Solitude

Earth, Ocean, Air, belovèd brotherhood!
If our great Mother has imbued my soul
With aught of natural piety to feel
Your love, and recompense the boon with mine;
If dewy morn, and odorous noon, and even,
With sunset and its gorgeous ministers,
And solemn midnight's tingling silentness;
If Autumn's hollow sighs in the sere wood,
And Winter robing with pure snow and crowns
Of starry ice the gray grass and bare boughs;
If Spring's voluptuous pantings when she breathes
Her first sweet kisses,--have been dear to me;
If no bright bird, insect, or gentle beast
I consciously have injured, but still loved
And cherished these my kindred; then forgive
This boast, belovèd brethren, and withdraw
No portion of your wonted favor now!

Mother of this unfathomable world!
Favor my solemn song, for I have loved
Thee ever, and thee only; I have watched
Thy shadow, and the darkness of thy steps,
And my heart ever gazes on the depth
Of thy deep mysteries. I have made my bed
In charnels and on coffins, where black death
Keeps record of the trophies won from thee,
Hoping to still these obstinate questionings
Of thee and thine, by forcing some lone ghost,
Thy messenger, to render up the tale
Of what we are. In lone and silent hours,
When night makes a weird sound of its own stillness,
Like an inspired and desperate alchemist
Staking his very life on some dark hope,
Have I mixed awful talk and asking looks
With my most innocent love, until strange tears,
Uniting with those breathless kisses, made
Such magic as compels the charmèd night
To render up thy charge; and, though ne'er yet
Thou hast unveiled thy inmost sanctuary,
Enough from incommunicable dream,
And twilight phantasms, and deep noonday thought,
Has shone within me, that serenely now
And moveless, as a long-forgotten lyre
Suspended in the solitary dome
Of some mysterious and deserted fane,
I wait thy breath, Great Parent, that my strain
May modulate with murmurs of the air,
And motions of the forests and the sea,
And voice of living beings, and woven hymns
Of night and day, and the deep heart of man.

[...] Read more

poem by Percy Bysshe Shelley
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

Answer you, Sirs? Do I understand aright?
Have patience! In this sudden smoke from hell,—
So things disguise themselves,—I cannot see
My own hand held thus broad before my face
And know it again. Answer you? Then that means
Tell over twice what I, the first time, told
Six months ago: 't was here, I do believe,
Fronting you same three in this very room,
I stood and told you: yet now no one laughs,
Who then … nay, dear my lords, but laugh you did,
As good as laugh, what in a judge we style
Laughter—no levity, nothing indecorous, lords!
Only,—I think I apprehend the mood:
There was the blameless shrug, permissible smirk,
The pen's pretence at play with the pursed mouth,
The titter stifled in the hollow palm
Which rubbed the eyebrow and caressed the nose,
When I first told my tale: they meant, you know,
"The sly one, all this we are bound believe!
"Well, he can say no other than what he says.
"We have been young, too,—come, there's greater guilt!
"Let him but decently disembroil himself,
"Scramble from out the scrape nor move the mud,—
"We solid ones may risk a finger-stretch!
And now you sit as grave, stare as aghast
As if I were a phantom: now 't is—"Friend,
"Collect yourself!"—no laughing matter more—
"Counsel the Court in this extremity,
"Tell us again!"—tell that, for telling which,
I got the jocular piece of punishment,
Was sent to lounge a little in the place
Whence now of a sudden here you summon me
To take the intelligence from just—your lips!
You, Judge Tommati, who then tittered most,—
That she I helped eight months since to escape
Her husband, was retaken by the same,
Three days ago, if I have seized your sense,—
(I being disallowed to interfere,
Meddle or make in a matter none of mine,
For you and law were guardians quite enough
O' the innocent, without a pert priest's help)—
And that he has butchered her accordingly,
As she foretold and as myself believed,—
And, so foretelling and believing so,
We were punished, both of us, the merry way:
Therefore, tell once again the tale! For what?
Pompilia is only dying while I speak!
Why does the mirth hang fire and miss the smile?
My masters, there's an old book, you should con
For strange adventures, applicable yet,

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

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

WHAT is there that the world hath not
Gathered in yon enchanted spot?
Where, pale, and with a languid eye,
The fair Sultana listlessly
Leans on her silken couch, and dreams
Of mountain airs, and mountain streams.
Sweet though the music float around,
It wants the old familiar sound;

And fragrant though the flowers are breathing,
From far and near together wreathing,
They are not those she used to wear,
Upon the midnight of her hair.—

She's very young, and childhood's days
With all their old remembered ways,
The empire of her heart contest
With love, that is so new a guest;
When blushing with her Murad near,
Half timid bliss, half sweetest fear,
E'en the beloved past is dim,
Past, present, future, merge in him.
But he, the warrior and the chief,
His hours of happiness are brief;
And he must leave Nadira's side
To woo and win a ruder bride;

Sought, sword in hand and spur on heel,
The fame, that weds with blood and steel.
And while from Delhi far away,
His youthful bride pines through the day,
Weary and sad: thus when again
He seeks to bind love's loosen'd chain;
He finds the tears are scarcely dry
Upon a cheek whose bloom is faded,
The very flush of victory
Is, like the brow he watches, shaded.
A thousand thoughts are at her heart,
His image paramount o'er all,
Yet not all his, the tears that start,
As mournful memories recall
Scenes of another home, which yet
That fond young heart can not forget.
She thinks upon that place of pride,
Which frowned upon the mountain's side;

While round it spread the ancient plain,
Her steps will never cross again.
And near those mighty temples stand,
The miracles of mortal hand,

[...] Read more

poem by Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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I'm Alive (That Was The Day My Dead Pet Returned To Save My Life)

I was just kicking down the street
And the sun was in my eyes
So I couldn't see the truck
That was sixty times my size
And just seconds off from splattering me
Let me tell you
I was so scared I couldn't move
Like my boots were full of glue
Then I felt a little tug
And I thought of good Old Blue
And he pulled me from that catastrophe
That was the day
My dead pet returned to save my life
I'm alive
He's alive
I'm alive
I was spitting in the canyon
Near the cliff up on the mountain
When an unexpected sneeze
Hung me in the breeze
At forty five degrees in the sky
Suddenly I felt something
Had me by the belt
And in between my praying
Swore I heard a stallion neighing
Was the ghost of my horse
And I cried, yes I cried
That was the day
My dead pet returned to save my life
That was the day
My dead pet returned to save my life
I'm alive
He's alive
Hey, I'm alive
Things were getting gory
Got caught on territory
Belonging to the Crutches
In an alley in their clutches
Looking kind of dismal that night
Well the leader's name was Fats
Swinging broken baseball bats
Things got really frantic
Starting jumping in their panic
That was the day
My dead pet returned to save my life
That was the day
My dead pet returned to save my life
I'm alive, I'm alive, real alive
That was the day my dead pet returned
That was the day my dead pet returned

[...] Read more

song performed by Alice Cooper
Added by Lucian Velea
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