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This is unusual for me. I have given readings and not lectures. I have told people who ask for lectures that I have no lecture to give. And that is true.

quote by V.S. Naipaul
Added by Lucian Velea
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Give The Po Man A Break

Give po man a break
Give po man a break
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song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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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,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

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

I
I want a hero: an uncommon want,
When every year and month sends forth a new one,
Till, after cloying the gazettes with cant,
The age discovers he is not the true one;
Of such as these I should not care to vaunt,
I'll therefore take our ancient friend Don Juan—
We all have seen him, in the pantomime,
Sent to the devil somewhat ere his time.

II
Vernon, the butcher Cumberland, Wolfe, Hawke,
Prince Ferdinand, Granby, Burgoyne, Keppel, Howe,
Evil and good, have had their tithe of talk,
And fill'd their sign posts then, like Wellesley now;
Each in their turn like Banquo's monarchs stalk,
Followers of fame, "nine farrow" of that sow:
France, too, had Buonaparté and Dumourier
Recorded in the Moniteur and Courier.

III
Barnave, Brissot, Condorcet, Mirabeau,
Petion, Clootz, Danton, Marat, La Fayette,
Were French, and famous people, as we know:
And there were others, scarce forgotten yet,
Joubert, Hoche, Marceau, Lannes, Desaix, Moreau,
With many of the military set,
Exceedingly remarkable at times,
But not at all adapted to my rhymes.

IV
Nelson was once Britannia's god of war,
And still should be so, but the tide is turn'd;
There's no more to be said of Trafalgar,
'T is with our hero quietly inurn'd;
Because the army's grown more popular,
At which the naval people are concern'd;
Besides, the prince is all for the land-service,
Forgetting Duncan, Nelson, Howe, and Jervis.

V
Brave men were living before Agamemnon
And since, exceeding valorous and sage,
A good deal like him too, though quite the same none;
But then they shone not on the poet's page,
And so have been forgotten:—I condemn none,
But can't find any in the present age
Fit for my poem (that is, for my new one);
So, as I said, I'll take my friend Don Juan.

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poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Not So Usual

This is the most unusual story, of a most unusual girl
she's the paint in my picture, of a most unusual world
she can crawl out the frame while shes hanging on the wall
and shes calling my name
shes not so usual, wo
shes most unusual
shes not so usual
shes so unusual
shes mostly a ghost, the way she watches over me
she complains when I smoke, but then you do the same to me
shes controlling my brain activity, knowing when i go to sleep
she'll catch you when I'm falling hard
shes so unusual
shes not so usual
shes not so usual
shes so unusual
shes not so hooked on the drugs like I thought that she was
and never sucking on the lime, and hardly sipping on the wine
and dispite of her bipolar rollercoastering
I think I can trust, she'll keep me singing differently
and its fine cause shes with me now, most all of the time
trying to saving my life, thinking none of her own
and always kissing me goodnight when i just need to be alone
shes so sweet, so discrete, shes exactly what I need
not even make believe
shes not so usual
so unusual
shes not so usual
so unusual
not so usual, and not to practical either
but shes not so mystical, but not to magical either
but shes not so outta control, and not so used to the flow
shes not so usual
nah, shes a natural
ohhh, shes not so usual
shes most unusual
shes so unusual
shes so unusual
shes gonna use me ohhh
shes not so u...
shes not so u...
not so u...
not so....

song performed by Jason Mraz
Added by Lucian Velea
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So Unusual (Live @ Java Joes - 06.27.02)

This is the most unusual story, of a most unusual girl
she stood painting my picture, of a most unusual world
she can crawl out of frame while shes hanging on the wall
and shes calling my name
shes not so usual
shes most unusual
shes not so usual
shes so unusual
shes mostly a ghost, the way she watches over me
she complains when i smoke, but then you do the same to me
shes controlling my brain activity, knowing when i go to sleep
she'll catch you when I'm falling hard
shes so unusual
shes not so usual
shes not so usual
shes so unusual
shes not so hooked on the drugs like i thought she was
and never sucking on the lime, and hardly sipping on the wine
and dispite of her biopolar rollercoastering
i think i can try, she'll keep me singing differently
and its fine cause shes with me now, most all of the time
trying to saving the light, thinking not of her own
and always kissing me goodnight when i just need to be alone
shes so sweet, so discrete, shes exactly what i need
not even make believe
shes not so usual
so unusual
shes not so usual
so unusual
not so usual, and not to practical either
but shes not so mystical, but not to magical either
but shes not so outta control, and not so used to the flow
shes not so usual
nah, shes a natural
ohhh, shes not so usual
shes most unusual
shes so unusual
shes so unusual
shes gonna use me ohhh
shes not so u...
shes not so u...
not so u...
not so....

song performed by Jason Mraz
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I'll Do My Best To Deliver

Ask me for what you want.
Just ask me,
Ask me.
And make it anything,
You need...
From me.

Ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.

Ask me for what you want.
Just ask me.
Ask me.
Ask me for anything,
And I will fullfill...
That need.

Ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.

Oh ask me for what you want.
Ask me for what you need,
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I will do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I'll do my best to deliver.
Ask me.
Just ask me.
And I will do my best to deliver.

Just ask me for what you want.
Just ask me for what you need,
And I will do my best to deliver.

Come thunderstorms, rain or shine...
That pressure you have will be taken right off your mind.
I will do my best to deliver.
Just ask me...

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poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Dialogue: Time tested knowledge -Globilization is the ladder

Time –Ladder

My words of inspiration
Will always begin by time
They say time is money
I am thinking of time sitting with my best friend
Then I came to recognize that time is friend who is caring
He is sharing me with his past experiences about life
Hear is the beginning:
My friend: Do you see that we are now failing to do the things in the way that our past forefathers were doing
Me: Yes but why
My friend: This is because we are failing to use the time in a more sunssict manner
Me: what do you mean?
My friend: Have you noticed how naughty the pupils are during the class.
Me: yes
My friend: That is because they tend to take all of things that are being said by the lectures fro granted.
Me: Why is that happening
My: That is not only because the students do not looked to attend the lectures, but that is because they think they will be able to catch up the notes either on the book or on the internet.
Me: Oh yes, But not all of us who are having the similar abilities to grasp exactly what the lectures are saying, doesn’t that cause others to fail.

My friend: That affect everybody.

Me: How

My friend: Do you know what? Time is very important. Most of students – tends to blame the lectures when they have failed. The University is another level of education. There is no one who will push as in the high schools. You need to go and search the information for them.
Me: Besides that my friend: Most of lectures have experience. They have devoted their times in doing their studies. Besides that, most of lectures are very old. For us as the students it is very difficult to develop knowledge about something we have never seen. Do you ever red Ferranti – the sociolology book part about Industrial Revolutions?

Me: Do you mean that Industries evolutes in Europe that any other world?

My friend: That is good but can you think of how the Industrial Revolution tests our time-knowledge?

Me: I think of the time when the animals were being domesticated. I red that book from Diamond Larry. Those animals were then used as transport for goods. Two or three Horse carriages followed on one another. But they may have seen how heavy the goods are. They developed the wheels so that the weight is reduced. That was fine. However the roads were built because of too much bumps on the lands. They have therefore conquered the knowledge of making the trains. Note that the trains mimic the movement of horse carriages. Thereafter, everything followed. That includes cars, aero planes and even telegrams. What we are talking about today is time-distance friction – which means that our world is totally shrinking. That is literally because it does not refer to the actual shrinking of world. It refers to the time that we are now using to travel from one place to another. So you can see that what ever that is happening is traced from the past experience.
My friend: Wow my friend you have killed it? (We shack the hands)

Me: So we cannot only talk about the lectures but we can make our new statement of change.

My friend: Yes my friend you are clever, because you see that this world is changing. It is also said that in our modern societies some societies are failing to change because they are still stick to the superstitions of the past. In terms of culture do you think how can we change culture in the way that will be time- tested?

Me: I like when you say time –tested knowledge. Do you know what? If we can just switch off the knowledge and hysterical notes of writings about anything, including math, science and even culture there is no point to disagree that we shall not have developed in the way that the modern world development is taking place. I don’t like your term change and I suggest that you will use transform in the future. As you have had of how the industrial development was developed and then transformed. We need to study the ways in which the things were being done in the past in other to be able to transfer our modern word in a very smoothest way.

My friend: those words are now clear. You make me remember something. During the case of the ANC president Jackop Zuma. Well you know the rape case and -

Me: Can guess what you want to say. You are talking about the groups of women’s protection, who claimed that the girl did not cry or screamed because she was extremely terrified.

My friend: Yes and the judge said “that is not acceptable. A lady might otherwise have raped dead. No matter how terrifying the thing is, when we see something that terrifies us we tend to scream or be in the state of death. The statement that the women’s protection is trying raise has therefore no interaction in the universe”

Me: The judges are professionally trained; they are the people who are saying things based on the laws that were invented by based on the past experience. It does happen that Law is changed.But again I do not like to use the word change I will prefer to use the word transform. The transformations of laws are usually caused by the transformations of the modern societies. We are highly globalized and we have no point to oppose that. So in other to make the smooth transformation of our laws we need to see what was it cause and aims and what makes it fail to fit with the modern societies.

My friend: Yes you are speaking like lawyer now.

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poem by Mthokozisi Ntokozo Maphumulo
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Give Up

(bernard edwards/nile rodgers)
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
You better listen well
When I tell you
To be on the look out
You cant call for help
cause I know you inside out
Despite all your hideouts
Im no great pretender
Ill make you surrender
So come along quietly
Heres a thought to remember
I have not met a man yet
To escape from my drag-net
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Ill give you just the facts man
And you can draw all your own conclusions
Ill keep your mind surrounded
With chains of love so strong
You cant break through them
My arsenal is stocked
With all kinds of seductive weapons
Although your hearts locked up
My love will assist me
So that you cant resist me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
No, no, no
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me
Give up, give up
Give up youre love to me

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song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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Christmas-Eve

I.
OUT of the little chapel I burst
Into the fresh night air again.
I had waited a good five minutes first
In the doorway, to escape the rain
That drove in gusts down the common’s centre,
At the edge of which the chapel stands,
Before I plucked up heart to enter:
Heaven knows how many sorts of hands
Reached past me, groping for the latch
Of the inner door that hung on catch,
More obstinate the more they fumbled,
Till, giving way at last with a scold
Of the crazy hinge, in squeezed or tumbled
One sheep more to the rest in fold,
And left me irresolute, standing sentry
In the sheepfold’s lath-and-plaster entry,
Four feet long by two feet wide,
Partitioned off from the vast inside—
I blocked up half of it at least.
No remedy; the rain kept driving:
They eyed me much as some wild beast,
The congregation, still arriving,
Some of them by the mainroad, white
A long way past me into the night,
Skirting the common, then diverging;
Not a few suddenly emerging
From the common’s self thro’ the paling-gaps,—
—They house in the gravel-pits perhaps,
Where the road stops short with its safeguard border
Of lamps, as tired of such disorder;—
But the most turned in yet more abruptly
From a certain squalid knot of alleys,
Where the town’s bad blood once slept corruptly,
Which now the little chapel rallies
And leads into day again,—its priestliness
Lending itself to hide their beastliness
So cleverly (thanks in part to the mason),
And putting so cheery a whitewashed face on
Those neophytes too much in lack of it,
That, where you cross the common as I did,
And meet the party thus presided,
“Mount Zion,” with Love-lane at the back of it,
They front you as little disconcerted,
As, bound for the hills, her fate averted
And her wicked people made to mind him,
Lot might have marched with Gomorrah behind him.

II.
Well, from the road, the lanes or the common,

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poem by Robert Browning
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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:

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Victories Of Love. Book II

I
From Jane To Her Mother

Thank Heaven, the burthens on the heart
Are not half known till they depart!
Although I long'd, for many a year,
To love with love that casts out fear,
My Frederick's kindness frighten'd me,
And heaven seem'd less far off than he;
And in my fancy I would trace
A lady with an angel's face,
That made devotion simply debt,
Till sick with envy and regret,
And wicked grief that God should e'er
Make women, and not make them fair.
That he might love me more because
Another in his memory was,
And that my indigence might be
To him what Baby's was to me,
The chief of charms, who could have thought?
But God's wise way is to give nought
Till we with asking it are tired;
And when, indeed, the change desired
Comes, lest we give ourselves the praise,
It comes by Providence, not Grace;
And mostly our thanks for granted pray'rs
Are groans at unexpected cares.
First Baby went to heaven, you know,
And, five weeks after, Grace went, too.
Then he became more talkative,
And, stooping to my heart, would give
Signs of his love, which pleased me more
Than all the proofs he gave before;
And, in that time of our great grief,
We talk'd religion for relief;
For, though we very seldom name
Religion, we now think the same!
Oh, what a bar is thus removed
To loving and to being loved!
For no agreement really is
In anything when none's in this.
Why, Mother, once, if Frederick press'd
His wife against his hearty breast,
The interior difference seem'd to tear
My own, until I could not bear
The trouble. 'Twas a dreadful strife,
And show'd, indeed, that faith is life.
He never felt this. If he did,
I'm sure it could not have been hid;
For wives, I need not say to you,

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poem by Coventry Patmore
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V. Count Guido Franceschini

Thanks, Sir, but, should it please the reverend Court,
I feel I can stand somehow, half sit down
Without help, make shift to even speak, you see,
Fortified by the sip of … why, 't is wine,
Velletri,—and not vinegar and gall,
So changed and good the times grow! Thanks, kind Sir!
Oh, but one sip's enough! I want my head
To save my neck, there's work awaits me still.
How cautious and considerate … aie, aie, aie,
Nor your fault, sweet Sir! Come, you take to heart
An ordinary matter. Law is law.
Noblemen were exempt, the vulgar thought,
From racking; but, since law thinks otherwise,
I have been put to the rack: all's over now,
And neither wrist—what men style, out of joint:
If any harm be, 't is the shoulder-blade,
The left one, that seems wrong i' the socket,—Sirs,
Much could not happen, I was quick to faint,
Being past my prime of life, and out of health.
In short, I thank you,—yes, and mean the word.
Needs must the Court be slow to understand
How this quite novel form of taking pain,
This getting tortured merely in the flesh,
Amounts to almost an agreeable change
In my case, me fastidious, plied too much
With opposite treatment, used (forgive the joke)
To the rasp-tooth toying with this brain of mine,
And, in and out my heart, the play o' the probe.
Four years have I been operated on
I' the soul, do you see—its tense or tremulous part—
My self-respect, my care for a good name,
Pride in an old one, love of kindred—just
A mother, brothers, sisters, and the like,
That looked up to my face when days were dim,
And fancied they found light there—no one spot,
Foppishly sensitive, but has paid its pang.
That, and not this you now oblige me with,
That was the Vigil-torment, if you please!
The poor old noble House that drew the rags
O' the Franceschini's once superb array
Close round her, hoped to slink unchallenged by,—
Pluck off these! Turn the drapery inside out
And teach the tittering town how scarlet wears!
Show men the lucklessness, the improvidence
Of the easy-natured Count before this Count,
The father I have some slight feeling for,
Who let the world slide, nor foresaw that friends
Then proud to cap and kiss their patron's shoe,
Would, when the purse he left held spider-webs,
Properly push his child to wall one day!

[...] Read more

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

My mind tells me, what will be, shall be
Not a thing I can do about it
cause in my heart I cant do without it
Its so cold out here, like minus ten degrees
And Im trying to get through to you
Ive got my heart on ice, and its about to freeze
Only you, can pull me through
cause I want some of your unusual heat
I need more and more, unusual heat
My body tells me, hold on, I gotta hold on
But Im so cold and hungry
All stretched out like a month of sundays
Ive been out of my head, from that very first day
Searching for somebody like you
Ive been stumblin around, every step of the way
And only you can pull me through
cause I want some of your unusual heat
And I need more and more, unusual heat
I need it every way, every minute of the day
Baby Im yours,Ill do anything you say
If you just give me some of your warm unusual heat
Its so cold out here, Im about to freeze
And Im still trying to get through to you
Ive got my heart on ice, oh baby please, please, please
Only you, can pull me through
Cause I want some of your unusual heat
And I need more and more, unusual heat
I need it every way, every minute of the day
Baby Im yours,Ill do anything you say
If you just give me some of your warm
Baby wont you keep me warm, with your unusual heat...

song performed by Foreigner
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Virginia's Story

Elizabeth Gates-Wooten is my Grand mom.

She was born in Canada with her father and brothers.
They owned a Barber Shoppe.
I don't remember exactly where in Canada.
I believe it was right over the border like Windsor or Toronto.
I never knew exactly where it was.

When she was old enough she got married.

First, she married a man by the name of Frank Gates.
He was from Madagascar.
He fathered my mom and her brother and sister.
The boy's name was Frank Gates, Jr.
Two girls name were Anna and Agnes.

Agnes was my mother.

Frank Gates went crazy after the war
He drank a lot and died
Then grandma Elizabeth married a man by the name of Mr. Wooten.
He had a German name, but I don't think he was German.
She took his last name after they got married.

Then they moved to West Virginia in the United States.

Their son, Frank Gates Jr. Became a delegate in the democratic party.
He use to get into a lot of trouble because he liked to fight.
He was a delegate from the 1940's to 1970's.
He died of gout in the 1970's.

Anna was a maid and cook.

She baked cakes and stuff for people as a side line.
She had a hump on her back (scoliosis) .
She had to walk with a cane.
She could cook good though.
She did this kind of work all of her life, just like her mom, Elizabeth

They were both good cooks

They had a lot of money because they had these skills
Especially when people had parties.
Because they would make all of this food and then they would have left-overs.
We got to eat a lot of stuff we normally wouldn't get because of that.
When they cooked, they didn't use no measuring stuff, they would just use there hand.

My moms name was Agnes Barrie Gates.

She married James Wright and moved to Cleveland.

[...] Read more

poem by Talile Ali
Added by Poetry Lover
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Its Not Unusual

Its not unusual to be love by anyone
Its not unusual to have fun with anyone
When I see you hanging about with anyone
Its not unusual to see me cry
I wanna die
Its not unusual to go out at anytime
When I see you out and about its such a crime
If you should ever want to be love by anyone
Its not unusual it happens every day
No matter what you say
Youll find its happens all the time
Love will never do whatcha you want it to
Why cant this crazy love be mine
Its not unusual to be mad at anyone
Its not unusual to be sad with anyone
But if I ever find that you have changed at anytime
Its not unusual to find out Im in love with you

song performed by Cher
Added by Lucian Velea
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Its Not Unusual

Its not unusual to be loved by anyone
Its not unusual to have fun with anyone
But when I see you hanging about with anyone
Its not unusual to see me cry,
Oh I wanna die
Its not unusual to go out at any time
But when I see you out and about its such a crime
If you should ever want to be loved by anyone,
Its not unusual it happens every day no matter what you say
You find it happens all the time
Love will never do what you want it to
Why cant this crazy love be mine
Its not unusual, to be mad with anyone
Its not unusual, to be sad with anyone
But if I ever find that youve changed at anytime
Its not unusual to find out that Im in love with you
Whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh

song performed by Tom Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
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It's Not Unsual

It's not unusual to be loved by anyone
It's not unusual to have fun with anyone
but when I see you hanging about with anyone
It's not unusual to see me cry, oh I wanna' die
It's not unusual to go out at any time
but when I see you out and about it's such a crime
if you should ever want to be loved by anyone, It's not unusual
it happens every day no matter what you say
you find it happens all the time
love will never do what you want it to
why can't this crazy love be mine
It's not unusual, to be mad with anyone
It's not unusual, to be sad with anyone
but if I ever find that you've changed at anytime
it's not unusual
to find out that I'm in love with you
whoa-oh-oh-oh-oh

song performed by Tom Jones
Added by Lucian Velea
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