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(A Foreign Secretary) is forever poised between the cliche and the indiscretion.

quote by Harold MacMillan
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Temporary Secretary

Mister Marks Can You Find For Me
Someone Strong And Sweet Fitting On My Knee
She Can Keep Her Job If She Gets It Wrong
Ah, But Mister Marks I Won't Need Her Long
All I Need Is Help For A Little While
We Can Take Dictation And Learn To Smile
And A Temporary Secretary Is What I Need For To Do The Job
I Need A
Temporary Secretary, Temporary Secretary
Temporary Secretary, Temporary Secretary
Mister Marks Could You Send Her Quick
'Cause My Regular Has Been Getting Sick
I Need A
Temporary Secretary, Temporary Secretary
Mister Marks I Can Pay Her Well
If She Comes Along And Can Stay A Spell
I Will Promise Now That I'll Treat Her Right
And Will Rarely Keep Her 'Til Late At Night
I Need A ..
She Can Be A Belly Dancer
I Don't Need A Need Romancer
She Can Be A Diplomat
But I Don't Need A Girl Like That
She Can Be A Neurosurgeon
If She's Doin' Nothing' Urgent
What I Need's A Temporary, Temporary Secretary
I Need A, I Need A
Temporary Secretary. Temporary Secretary
Temporary Secretary, Temporary Secretary
Temporary Secretary, Temporary Secretary
Now Mister Marks When I Send Her Back
Will You Please Make Sure She Stays On The Right Track
Spoken: Well I Know How Hard It Is For Young Girls These Days In The Face Of Everything To Stay On
The Right Track
What I Need's A Temporary, Temporary Secretary
Temporary Secretary I Need A
Temporary Secretary, Temporary Secretary,
Temporary Secretary I Need A
Temporary Secretary. Temporary Secretary,
Temporary Secretary.

song performed by Paul McCartney
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I Am A Cliche

I am a cliche I am a cliche
I am a cliche I am a cliche
I am a cliche you've seen before
I am a cliche that lives next door
I am a cliche you know what I mean
I am a cliche pink is obscene
Yama yama yama yama yama yama
Boredom boredom boring boredom
Yama yama yama yama yama yama
Boredom boredom boring boredom

song performed by X-Ray Spex
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I Am A Cliche

I am a cliche I am a cliche
I am a cliche I am a cliche
I am a cliche you've seen before
I am a cliche that lives next door
I am a cliche you know what I mean
I am a cliche pink is obscene
Yama yama yama yama yama yama
Boredom boredom boring boredom
Yama yama yama yama yama yama
Boredom boredom boring boredom

song performed by X-Ray Spex
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Foreign Lands

You may roam the wide seas over, follow, meet, and cross the sun,
Sail as far as ships can sail, and travel far as trains can run;
You may ride and tramp wherever range or plain or sea expands,
But the crowd has been before you, and you’ll not find ‘Foreign Lands;’
For the Early Days are over,
And no more the white-winged rover
Sinks the gale-worn coast of England bound for bays in Foreign Lands.
Foreign Lands are in the distance dim and dreamlike, faint and far,
Long ago, and over yonder, where our boyhood fancies are,
For the land is by the railway cramped as though with iron bands,
And the steamship and the cable did away with Foreign Lands.
Ah! the days of blue and gold!
When the news was six months old—
But the news was worth the telling in the days of Foreign Lands.

Here we slave the dull years hopeless for the sake of Wool and Wheat
Here the homes of ugly Commerce—niggard farm and haggard street;
Yet our mothers and our fathers won the life the heart demands—
Less than fifty years gone over, we were born in Foreign Lands.

When the gipsies stole the children still, in village tale and song,
And the world was wide to travel, and the roving spirit strong;
When they dreamed of South Sea Islands, summer seas and coral strands—
Then the bravest hearts of England sailed away to Foreign Lands,
‘Fitting foreign’—flood and field—
Half the world and orders sealed—
And the first and best of Europe went to fight in Foreign Lands.

Canvas towers on the ocean—homeward bound and outward bound—
Glint of topsails over islands—splash of anchors in the sound;
Then they landed in the forests, took their strong lives in their hands,
And they fought and toiled and conquered—making homes in Foreign Lands,
Through the cold and through the drought—
Further on and further out—
Winning half the world for England in the wilds of Foreign Lands.

Love and pride of life inspired them when the simple village hearts
Followed Master Will and Harry—gone abroad to ‘furrin parts’
By our townships and our cities, and across the desert sands
Are the graves of those who fought and died for us in Foreign Lands—
Gave their young lives for our sake
(Was it all a grand mistake?)
Sons of Master Will and Harry born abroad in Foreign Lands!

Ah, my girl, our lives are narrow, and in sordid days like these,
I can hate the things that banished ‘Foreign Lands across the seas,’
But with all the world before us, God above us—hearts and hands,
I can sail the seas in fancy far away to Foreign Lands.

poem by Henry Lawson
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The Assembly Of Ladies

In Septembre, at the falling of the leef,
The fressh sesoun was al-togider doon,
And of the corn was gadered in the sheef;
In a gardyn, about twayn after noon,
Ther were ladyes walking, as was her wone,
Foure in nombre, as to my mynd doth falle,
And I the fifte, the simplest of hem alle.

Of gentilwomen fayre ther were also,
Disporting hem, everiche after her gyse,
In crosse-aleys walking, by two and two,
And some alone, after her fantasyes.
Thus occupyed we were in dyvers wyse;
And yet, in trouthe, we were not al alone;
Ther were knightës and squyers many one.

'Wherof I served?' oon of hem asked me;
I sayde ayein, as it fel in my thought,
'To walke about the mase, in certayntè,
As a woman that [of] nothing rought.'
He asked me ayein—'whom that I sought,
And of my colour why I was so pale?'
'Forsothe,' quod I, 'and therby lyth a tale.'

'That must me wite,' quod he, 'and that anon;
Tel on, let see, and make no tarying.'
'Abyd,' quod I, 'ye been a hasty oon,
I let you wite it is no litel thing.
But, for bicause ye have a greet longing
In your desyr, this proces for to here,
I shal you tel the playn of this matere.—

It happed thus, that, in an after-noon,
My felawship and I, by oon assent,
Whan al our other besinesse was doon,
To passe our tyme, into this mase we went,
And toke our wayes, eche after our entent;
Some went inward, and wend they had gon out,
Some stode amid, and loked al about.

And, sooth to say, some were ful fer behind,
And right anon as ferforth as the best;
Other ther were, so mased in her mind,
Al wayes were good for hem, bothe eest and west.
Thus went they forth, and had but litel rest;

[...] Read more

poem by Anonymous Olde English
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We Can Create A Modern International Community

And I wonder when Congress will allow public nationwide schools...
in the United States to set aside time for children again to pray?
To pray for, or quietly reflect on behalf of, their once great Nation!

To pray for their nation during this proclaimed danger time...
of struggle against the forces of evil dark international terrorism!
But in the White House lurks a dark soul of 100% fetus murder!

Barack against murder international terrorism with Pro-Abortion Record!
Like Pharaoh in the time of the birth of Moses, like King Harold at the birth of Jesus, killing innocent children based on state law is ok in America today!

Why? How can this be? On 9th of March 2008 Barack proclaimed “We were once were, we are no longer a Christian nation, at least not just....”
No Ten Commandments, No God’s law displayed in government buildings!

15th April 2009 Barack proclaimed “We can create a modern international community that is respectful that is secure that is prosperous....
(in an aside to himself) and like Baal Worshippers we will support propagate

State Policies funding killing innocent children against the will of the majority of Americans and I Barack will use tax payer dollars to kill innocent unborn! We will fill White House high office with Pro Abortion all! Yes We Can!

Darth Vader will create a universal New World Order!

And in the on going baby killing sweepstakes infant killer Obama selects: -

Pro-Abortion Sen. Joe Biden as Obama’s vice-presidential running mate. Pro-Abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as Obama’s White House Chief of Staff.
Pro-Abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as Obama’s Health and Human Services Secretary.

Former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of Obama’s Department of Justice Review Team. Next appointed Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel.

Betta check Obama’s rap sheet Pro-Abortion Record, for the rest of his all star elite baby killing machine selections.

'President Barack Obama's Pro-Abortion Record: A Pro-Life Compilation

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) - The following is a compilation of bill signings, speeches, appointments and other actions that President Barack Obama has engaged in that have promoted abortion before and during his presidency. While Obama has promised to reduce abortions and some of his supporters believe that will happen, this long list proves his only agenda is promoting more abortions.

During the presidential election, Obama selected pro-abortion Sen. Joe Biden as his vice-presidential running mate.

Post-Election / Pre-Inauguration
November 5,2008 - Obama selects pro-abortion Rep. Rahm Emanuel as his White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has a 0% pro-life voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 19,2008 - Obama picks pro-abortion former Sen. Tom Daschle as his Health and Human Services Secretary. Daschle has a long pro-abortion voting record according to National Right to Life.

November 20,2008 - Obama chooses former NARAL legal director Dawn Johnsen to serve as a member of his Department of Justice Review Team. Later, he finalizes her appointment as the Assistant Attorney General for the Office of the Legal Counsel in the Obama administration.

November 24,2008 - Obama appoints Ellen Moran, the former director of the pro-abortion group Emily's List as his White House communications director. Emily's List only supports candidates who favored taxpayer funded abortions and opposed a partial-birth abortion ban.

November 24,2008 - Obama puts former Emily's List board member Melody Barnes in place as his director of the Domestic Policy Council.

November 30,2008 - Obama named pro-abortion Sen. Hillary Clinton as the Secretary of State. Clinton has an unblemished pro-abortion voting record and has supported making unlimited abortions an international right.

December 10,2008 - Obama selects pro-abortion former Clinton administration official Jeanne Lambrew to become the deputy director of the White House Office of Health Reform. Planned Parenthood is 'excited' about the selection.

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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The Aeneid of Virgil: Book 7

AND thou, O matron of immortal fame,
Here dying, to the shore hast left thy name;
Cajeta still the place is call’d from thee,
The nurse of great Æneas’ infancy.
Here rest thy bones in rich Hesperia’s plains; 5
Thy name (’t is all a ghost can have) remains.
Now, when the prince her fun’ral rites had paid,
He plow’d the Tyrrhene seas with sails display’d.
From land a gentle breeze arose by night,
Serenely shone the stars, the moon was bright, 10
And the sea trembled with her silver light.
Now near the shelves of Circe’s shores they run,
(Circe the rich, the daughter of the Sun,)
A dang’rous coast: the goddess wastes her days
In joyous songs; the rocks resound her lays: 15
In spinning, or the loom, she spends the night,
And cedar brands supply her father’s light.
From hence were heard, rebellowing to the main,
The roars of lions that refuse the chain,
The grunts of bristled boars, and groans of bears, 20
And herds of howling wolves that stun the sailors’ ears.
These from their caverns, at the close of night,
Fill the sad isle with horror and affright.
Darkling they mourn their fate, whom Circe’s pow’r,
(That watch’d the moon and planetary hour,) 25
With words and wicked herbs from humankind
Had alter’d, and in brutal shapes confin’d.
Which monsters lest the Trojans’ pious host
Should bear, or touch upon th’ inchanted coast,
Propitious Neptune steer’d their course by night 30
With rising gales that sped their happy flight.
Supplied with these, they skim the sounding shore,
And hear the swelling surges vainly roar.
Now, when the rosy morn began to rise,
And wav’d her saffron streamer thro’ the skies; 35
When Thetis blush’d in purple not her own,
And from her face the breathing winds were blown,
A sudden silence sate upon the sea,
And sweeping oars, with struggling, urge their way.
The Trojan, from the main, beheld a wood, 40
Which thick with shades and a brown horror stood:
Betwixt the trees the Tiber took his course,
With whirlpools dimpled; and with downward force,
That drove the sand along, he took his way,
And roll’d his yellow billows to the sea. 45
About him, and above, and round the wood,
The birds that haunt the borders of his flood,
That bath’d within, or basked upon his side,
To tuneful songs their narrow throats applied.
The captain gives command; the joyful train 50

[...] Read more

poem by Publius Vergilius Maro
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In A Foreign Land

It was a matter of fact that when I paid all my tax
I held my world in the palm of my hand
And all of my debts were causing me to defect
To a land of bananas and sand
So I ran, yes I ran, yes I ran to a foreign land
Here I am, here I am
Here I am in a foreign land
Im so glad we made it
I thought wed never land
I grabbed all my cash
And decided to dash far away
Far away, far away to a foreign land
Here I am, here I am, here I am in a foreign land
Goodbye to all of the rich mans daughters
Goodbye to my debts now Im way cross the water
Far away, far away in a foreign land
Here I am, here I am here I am in a foreign land
La la la la la la
La la la la la la
Please tell my mother and all my ex-lovers
That Ive finally made the grade
Please tell my debtors and the money collectors
That all of my bills will be paid some day
Im away, Im away, far away in a foreign land
Goodbye champagne and caviar set
I wanna slum and drink all the rum I can get
Im away, Im away in a foreign land
Here I am, here I am, here I am in a foreign land
But Im all out of my jack and I cant go back
Im away, far away, far away in a foreign land
La la la la la la
La la la la la la

song performed by Kinks
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Just Fit In, We're Going

here comes the sun, is a cliche.
i put a spell on you, is another cliche.
i think i love you, most abused cliche.
you complete me, movie cliche,
strawberry fields,
scents of magnolia, fresh and soothing,
vanilla ice cream,
chocolate Popsicle,
mint puffs,
and cotton candy, and black forest.

coca-cola and ice cubes,
inside a glass
against the summer sun

your lips sucking the straw
your face covered with my shadow.

i am no longer conscious about their
taboos

got mine, and i like it
when i am finally free.

i store more cliches and
lick them
like Popsicle on a hot
summer day.

no hard feelings. Just fit in.
we're going.

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Pharsalia - Book IX: Cato

Yet in those ashes on the Pharian shore,
In that small heap of dust, was not confined
So great a shade; but from the limbs half burnt
And narrow cell sprang forth and sought the sky
Where dwells the Thunderer. Black the space of air
Upreaching to the poles that bear on high
The constellations in their nightly round;
There 'twixt the orbit of the moon and earth
Abide those lofty spirits, half divine,
Who by their blameless lives and fire of soul
Are fit to tolerate the pure expanse
That bounds the lower ether: there shall dwell,
Where nor the monument encased in gold,
Nor richest incense, shall suffice to bring
The buried dead, in union with the spheres,
Pompeius' spirit. When with heavenly light
His soul was filled, first on the wandering stars
And fixed orbs he bent his wondering gaze;
Then saw what darkness veils our earthly day
And scorned the insults heaped upon his corse.
Next o'er Emathian plains he winged his flight,
And ruthless Caesar's standards, and the fleet
Tossed on the deep: in Brutus' blameless breast
Tarried awhile, and roused his angered soul
To reap the vengeance; last possessed the mind
Of haughty Cato.

He while yet the scales
Were poised and balanced, nor the war had given
The world its master, hating both the chiefs,
Had followed Magnus for the Senate's cause
And for his country: since Pharsalia's field
Ran red with carnage, now was all his heart
Bound to Pompeius. Rome in him received
Her guardian; a people's trembling limbs
He cherished with new hope and weapons gave
Back to the craven hands that cast them forth.
Nor yet for empire did he wage the war
Nor fearing slavery: nor in arms achieved
Aught for himself: freedom, since Magnus fell,
The aim of all his host. And lest the foe
In rapid course triumphant should collect
His scattered bands, he sought Corcyra's gulfs
Concealed, and thence in ships unnumbered bore
The fragments of the ruin wrought in Thrace.
Who in such mighty armament had thought
A routed army sailed upon the main
Thronging the sea with keels? Round Malea's cape
And Taenarus open to the shades below
And fair Cythera's isle, th' advancing fleet

[...] Read more

poem by Marcus Annaeus Lucanus
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Foreign Affair

Foreign affair
Take a trip in the air
To a tropical beach
An island to reach
A new territory
For an intimate story
Ali goum pa la mere
It's a foreign affair

Drifting and free
On a mystical sea
A wishful emotion
A drop in the ocean
A hush in the air
You can feel anywhere
In the cool twilight
On a tropical night

Floating on air
Foreign affair
A magical potion
A cool locomotion
A dream
A prayer
It's a foreign affair

Floating on air
Foreign affair
A magical potion
A cool locomotion
A dream
A prayer
It's a foreign affair

Repeat 1st verse (6 times)

Foreign

song performed by Mike Oldfield from Crises
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He is forever poised between a cliche and an indiscretion.

quote by Harold MacMillan
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Clichés I Have Loved

‘My life has been one long…
cliché! …’ she sobbed.

He put his sunburned
muscular forearm flecked
with golden hairs
around her shaking shoulders.

She lifted her tear-brimmed,
reddening eyes to meet
his steady gaze.

‘Oh my darling..’
she breathed.

And they fell into
a passionate
cliché..

I’ve said it before and
I’ll say it again.
One man’s cliché is
another woman’s love-byte.

John Ciardi said,
The craft of poetry
is not easy.
It is better than easy.
It is joyously difficult.

poem by Michael Shepherd
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Love In War

[Hook]
Let's kiss, not fight
Try to do whats right tonight
Make love, not war
What the hell are we living for? [repeat]
[Verse]
Tonight we'll make the prettiest song that no one will ever hear
No one will ever hear
No one will ever
These ain't the times to be alone cliche the end is near
Cliche the end is near
Cliche the end is
Quickly approaching while we carry on
No one is promised another day
Why can't the story end like fairytales often do
Before I let you leave I've got to say-ay-ay-ay
[Hook]
[Instrumental]
[Hook]

song performed by Outkast
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The Foreign Drunk

When you get tight in foreign lands
You never need go slinking,
No female neighbours lift their hands
And say “The brute!—he’s drinking!”
No mischief-maker runs with smiles
To give your wife a notion,
For she may be ten thousand miles
Across the bounding ocean.

Oh! I’ve been Scottish “fu” all night,
(O’er ills o’ life victorious),
And I’ve been Dutch and German tight,
And French and Dago glorious.
We saw no boa-constrictors then,
In every lady’s boa,
Though we got drunk with Antwerp men,
And woke up in Genoa!

When you get tight in foreign lands,
All foreigners are brothers—
You drink their drink and grasp their hands
And never wish for others.
Their foreign ways and foreign songs—
And girls—you take delight in:
The war-whoop that you raise belongs
To the country you get tight in.

When you get tight in a foreign port—
(Or rather bacchanalian),
You need no tongue for love or sport
Save your own good Australian.
(A girl in Naples kept me square—
Or helped me to recover—
For mortal knoweth everywhere
The language of the lover).

When you get tight in foreign parts,
With tongue and legs unstable,
They do their best, with all their hearts
And help you all they’re able.
Ah me! It was a happy year,
Though all the rest were “blanky,”
When I got drunk on lager beer,
And sobered up on “Swankey.”

poem by Henry Lawson
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Elegy XIV. Declining an Invitation To Visit Foreign Countries

DECLINING AN INVITATION TO VISIT FOREIGN COUNTRIES, HE TAKES OCCASION TO INTIMATE THE ADVANTAGES OF HIS OWN. TO LORD TEMPLE.

While others, lost to friendship, lost to love,
Waste their best minutes on a foreign strand,
Be mine, with British nymph or swain to rove,
And court the Genius of my native land.

Deluded Youth! that quits these verdant plains,
To catch the follies of an alien soil!
To win the vice his genuine soul disdains,
Return exultant, and import the spoil!

In vain he boasts of his detested prize;
No more it blooms, to British climes convey'd;
Cramp'd by the impulse of ungenial skies,
See its fresh vigour in a moment fade;

Th' exotic folly knows its native clime;
An awkward stranger, if we waft it o'er;
Why then these toils, this costly waste of time,
To spread soft poison on our happy shore?

I covet not the pride of foreign looms;
In search of foreign modes I scorn to rove;
Nor, for the worthless bird of brighter plumes,
Would change the meanest warbler of my grove.

No distant clime shall servile airs impart,
Or form these limbs with pliant ease to play;
Trembling I view the Gaul's illusive art,
That steals my loved rusticity away.

'Tis long since Freedom fled th' Hesperian clime,
Her citron groves, her flower-embroider'd shore;
She saw the British oak aspire sublime,
And soft Campania's olive charms no more.

Let partial suns mature the western mine,
To shed its lustre o'er th' Iberian maid;
Mien, beauty, shape, O native soil! are thine;
Thy peerless daughters ask no foreign aid.

Let Ceylon's envied plant perfume the seas,
Till torn to season the Batavian bowl;
Ours is the breast whose genuine ardours please,
Nor need a drug to meliorate the soul.

Let the proud Soldan wound th' Arcadian groves,
Or with rude lips th' Aonian fount profane;

[...] Read more

poem by William Shenstone
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Pony Street

She lives on pony street
And they should scatter flowers at her feet
But when they come calling I think its appalling
Theyre sober and theyre polite
Theyre deeply respectful when I would expect them
To keep her out all night
That little martinet
Will get her own way yet
If you need instruction in mindless destruction
Ill show you a thing or two
You used to adore me but now my life flashes before me
For you to view
Oh mother, oh mother, sometimes you are so mortifying
From the hole in your leopard skin tights I can tell youve been spying
But your generation confesses before it transgresses
Those super-8 movies of daddy in your disco dresses
If youre going out tonight
I wont wait up
Reading das kapital
Watching home shopping club
While youre flogging a dead horse
All the way down pony street
Where you live after a fashion
All the way down pony street
The life and the soul of every indiscretion
That lives on, that lives on, that lives on
Pony street
Daughter, oh daughter, you know I will love you forever
But spare me the white ankle socks with the lace and the leather
For you and your cartoon threat do no good to resist me
For I am the genuine thing but for you its just history
If youre going out tonight
How can you be sure
Where you lay your pretty head
Mother may have been before
So youre flogging a dead horse
All the way down pony street
Where you live after a fashion
All the way down pony street
The life and the soul of every indiscretion
That lives on [5x]
She lives on pony street [2x]
She lives on, she lives on [2x]

song performed by Elvis Costello
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The Remedy of Love

When Cupid read this title, straight he said,
'Wars, I perceive, against me will be made.'
But spare, oh Love! to tax thy poet so,
Who oft bath borne thy ensign 'gainst thy foe;
I am not he by whom thy mother bled,
When she to heaven on Mars his horses fled.
I oft, like other youths, thy flame did prove,
And if thou ask, what I do still? I love.
Nay, I have taught by art to keep Love's course,
And made that reason which before was force.
I seek not to betray thee, pretty boy,
Nor what I once have written to destroy.
If any love, and find his mistress kind,
Let him go on, and sail with his own wind;
But he that by his love is discontented,
To save his life my verses were invented.
Why should a lover kill himself? or why
Should any, with his own grief wounded, die?
Thou art a boy, to play becomes thee still,
Thy reign is soft; play then, and do not kill;
Or if thou'lt needs be vexing, then do this,
Make lovers meet by stealth, and steal a kiss
Make them to fear lest any overwatch them,
And tremble when they think some come to catch them;
And with those tears that lovers shed all night,
Be thou content, but do not kill outright.—
Love heard, and up his silver wings did heave,
And said, 'Write on; I freely give thee leave.'
Come then, all ye despised, that love endure,
I, that have felt the wounds, your love will cure;
But come at first, for if you make delay,
Your sickness will grow mortal by your stay:
The tree, which by delay is grown so big,
In the beginning was a tender twig;
That which at first was but a span in length,
Will, by delay, be rooted past men's strength.
Resist beginnings, medicines bring no curing
Where sickness is grown strong by long enduring.
When first thou seest a lass that likes thine eye,
Bend all thy present powers to descry
Whether her eye or carriage first would shew
If she be fit for love's delights or no:
Some will be easy, such an one elect;
But she that bears too grave and stern aspect,
Take heed of her, and make her not thy jewel,
Either she cannot love, or will be cruel.
If love assail thee there, betime take heed,
Those wounds are dangerous that inward bleed;
He that to-day cannot shake off love's sorrow,
Will certainly be more unapt to-morrow.

[...] Read more

poem by Francis Beaumont
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A Fable For Critics

Phoebus, sitting one day in a laurel-tree's shade,
Was reminded of Daphne, of whom it was made,
For the god being one day too warm in his wooing,
She took to the tree to escape his pursuing;
Be the cause what it might, from his offers she shrunk,
And, Ginevra-like, shut herself up in a trunk;
And, though 'twas a step into which he had driven her,
He somehow or other had never forgiven her;
Her memory he nursed as a kind of a tonic,
Something bitter to chew when he'd play the Byronic,
And I can't count the obstinate nymphs that he brought over
By a strange kind of smile he put on when he thought of her.
'My case is like Dido's,' he sometimes remarked;
'When I last saw my love, she was fairly embarked
In a laurel, as _she_ thought-but (ah, how Fate mocks!)
She has found it by this time a very bad box;
Let hunters from me take this saw when they need it,-
You're not always sure of your game when you've treed it.
Just conceive such a change taking place in one's mistress!
What romance would be left?-who can flatter or kiss trees?
And, for mercy's sake, how could one keep up a dialogue
With a dull wooden thing that will live and will die a log,-
Not to say that the thought would forever intrude
That you've less chance to win her the more she is wood?
Ah! it went to my heart, and the memory still grieves,
To see those loved graces all taking their leaves;
Those charms beyond speech, so enchanting but now,
As they left me forever, each making its bough!
If her tongue _had_ a tang sometimes more than was right,
Her new bark is worse than ten times her old bite.'

Now, Daphne-before she was happily treeified-
Over all other blossoms the lily had deified,
And when she expected the god on a visit
('Twas before he had made his intentions explicit),
Some buds she arranged with a vast deal of care,
To look as if artlessly twined in her hair,
Where they seemed, as he said, when he paid his addresses,
Like the day breaking through, the long night of her tresses;
So whenever he wished to be quite irresistible,
Like a man with eight trumps in his hand at a whist-table
(I feared me at first that the rhyme was untwistable,
Though I might have lugged in an allusion to Cristabel),-
He would take up a lily, and gloomily look in it,
As I shall at the--, when they cut up my book in it.

Well, here, after all the bad rhyme I've been spinning,
I've got back at last to my story's beginning:
Sitting there, as I say, in the shade of his mistress,
As dull as a volume of old Chester mysteries,

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poem by James Russell Lowell
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Above The Law

Too much trash
Too much pain
Too much hurt
Too much life

That's all it is to me, one negative instance after another
Good only wins in the movies
Evil triumphs in this world of ours
If it were not so, then these atrocities would not occur
Such a cacophonous symphony of death and suffering
Would not be the background for my very existence
I would say it's all meaningless
But the overwhelming sense of pain
The pang of loneliness
The strangle hold of isolation
The pessimism that fuels a consuming fire of depression
Like coals each trite observation engulfs me

Why do I feel this way you might ask?
Have you not seen this world?
Have you decided to ignore the bad?
How could you ignore these evils?
How could you overlook the injustice?
The light shines brightest in the darkness
But what do you do when the darkness overwhelms the light
In a black sea of hopelessness
Yet I'd rather be blind, because to see
That's to witness all of this first hand

So what do you call a heart twice broken
What do you call a mirror that's been broken
And then shattered
We don't have adjectives to describe such pain
We just ignore it and watch our lives wain
We just watch them drain away
We try to feel them with a pursuit
We console ourselves with achievement
But the hurt is still inside
You can cover it but there's no healing

Then I decided I'd look past the world for once
If nothing in this world can help what about something foreign
Foreign to earth itself
Foreign to humanity
Foreign to all the hate
Foreign to evil itself
Could such a force exist?
Can anything stand up to the darkness?
I looked up to the stars and I saw light

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poem by David Knox
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