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Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein.

quote by H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Added by Lucian Velea
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You're All The Same

Really, I know, inside my heart,
Where to stop and when to start,
Sometimes our decisions cause so much pain,
Mostly, our decisions are made in vein,
To benefit 'me, myself and I',
On our lips, intentions cry,
In friendship, I'll shake your hand,
I'll lie to you, with no reprimand,
Success is deciet and deciet is lies,
So many attempts and so mant tries,
To get to where you want in the end,
All the rules you'll have to bend,
Success is greed and grees is fame,
All of you, you're all the same.

poem by Autum Foster
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if you are on the same boat with me. Come.

as you read these lines
(let me tell you, there is nothing
significant, and i may advise you
to quit and may even ask
that you write your own
instead
it may be good for you
than continue to read
on the next line...

why not write
something about yourself and the
full moon and the lonely tree
that needs badly a
good company to pass the dark
night away)

why not just be
on your own,
solitude and self-introspection?
the secret journey to your heart
looking for
the place that is only for you

happiness, right?
eternal bliss, how about it?

you are curious about my boredom
the ennui of the century
perhaps you like to know how i deal
with the numbness of my being

every night every day
when slowly i die and feel so excited
about ending this ordeal and

how i cope with it

yes, the it.
this it. my it. this self....

attempting on
writing lines

whatever lines that come into my mind
words that try to please my senses
symbols that give me hope
figures of gods who may be able to say
something wise and
inspiring,
images. lots of images...

the image of the wind
on the wings of the seagulls

the colors changing on the horizon
like a swab of orange and red and black
or blood

or pastel green on the shadows of the hills
or the brightness of the sun when i stare at it and hurt my eyes
and then i close them
and see this world as all red
bursting red
like a sunset coming
and then fading away like a song
of a flute faraway

i wish i could stop writing
i wish that i could get a nice sleep
a restive mind
a peaceful state
a harmony of all my sense
up and down

but nothing seems to work right for me
i tried to sing the songs of love
but my ears say

liar! you do not have love in your heart
you do not know the feeling anymore

i tried drawing my thoughts and putting bright colors
on the images of green fields and blues skies
and stars and even seven moons of the other planets
but always they end up so displeasing

i am looking for the meaning of my life and if you are
on the same boat with me
then come and take the ride
on the stormy sea
no lamplight
no island to land
no north star to guide us

i ask you to quit reading but you are just like me
hardheaded human being insisting that there is meaning to all these
and the inability to stop
and be a quitter

quieter, i mean.
hopefully.

in the silence of the cat's feet
cautiously catching another prey
let me stop now. quit me.

Look at the sky. Do you see stars?

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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You Weren't The Same.......

Now I dont know
Why you changed so much,
We used to exchange
Our secret love,
I feel forlorn, you aren't
The same as before,
I pray always you to return
To your way as before,
I long for your hand
In my hand and a muse
On our lips
Which we enjoyed a long time,
Come on, baby,
Change back where you were
When we can be together
And be happy as afore,
Change baby change,
And be my love again,
And be pleasure of my heart.

Ravikiran Arakkal

poem by Ravikiran Arakkal
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You Dont Feel The Same

(carly simon)
Honey, I dont want you to see me this way
So out of control
So carried away
cause you dont feel the same
And I remember times when I was your storm
I blew hot and cold
And you were so warm
But, now you dont feel the same
I remember when you were looking up at me
Like I was the only one
That youd ever wanna see
Honey, how can I ask you to stay
When youre already gone
Theres no one to blame
Its just that you dont feel the same
I touch you
Your eyes look away
Your hands are cold
The balance has changed
And darling, you dont feel
Honey, you dont feel
No, you dont feel the same

song performed by Carly Simon
Added by Lucian Velea
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What Say You (feat. John Mellencamp)

Artist : Travis Tritt & John "Cougar" Mellencamp
Title : What Say You
Album : My Honky Tonk History
Genre : Country
I believe that there's a right & I believe that there's a wrong
That north and south, black & white
Can somehow get along
What say you, What say you
I believe there's a basic good in the heart of every man
And I'm not gonna criticize what I can't understand
What say you
What say you
I'm not afraid to say what's on my mind, To take a stand, to draw the line
To speak my heart & bare my soul,
I don't like lies, I'd rather know the truth
Hey, what say you, What say you
But I'm not ashamed of where I come from,
With this blue collar on my shirt
And I don't look for handouts,
Cause I'm not afraid of work
What say you,
Yeah, what say you
Man, I don't talk no religion & I ain't gonna wave that flag
But I love God & America & I'd fight for what I have
What say you
Yeah, what say you
I know I'm not always right
I don't think I'm better than you
I don't have all the answers
But I'll share my point of view
What say you
I'm not afraid to say what's on my mind
Take a stand & draw that line
To speak my heart & bare my soul
I don't like lies, I'd rather know the truth
So what say you
What say you
What say you and you and you and you ...
What say you

song performed by Travis Tritt
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sigmund Freuds Impersonation Of Albert Einstein In America

The world of science is my game
And albert einstein is my name
I was born in germany
And Im happy yo be
Here in the land of the brave and the free
In the year of nineteen five
Merely trying to survive
Took my knapsack in my hand
Caught a train for switzerland
America, america
God shed his grace on thee
You have whipped the philipino
Now you rule the western sea
Americans dream of gypsies, I have found
Gypsy knives and gypsy thighs
That pound and pound and pound and pound
And african appendages that almost reach the ground
And little boys playing baseball in the rain
America, america
Step out into the light
Youre the best dream man has ever dreamed
And may all your christmases be white

song performed by Randy Newman
Added by Lucian Velea
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And Should It Come Time To Speak Of The Sadness

And should it come time to speak of the sadness
that reaches fruition in the medicine bag of the heart,
don't bring a teacher that can't heal by singing and dancing
to the wounded discipline of a lost art that's gone
into the sacred solitude of the secret suffering
that upholds the integrity of the silence in your eyes.
This is a seeing that has nothing to do with truth or lies
or the innovative causality of pain. Don't speak
of its release as enlightenment or liberation,
as if you were uncaging doves from the ashes of your voice.
Don't seek what has eluded you when you're cloaked
in an eyeless night like the screening myth of a lonely alibi.

And should it come time to speak of the sadness
don't humble the message at the expense of the medium you choose
to weep in when the hidden urges you into the open
like a dragonfly emerging from the hovel of a chrysalis
into a palace of air with the wingspan of your diaphanous windows
beaded in tears like the afterbirth of the rain
in the post-natal mirrors of your indefinable awareness of life
as the sweetest agony of sorrow transformed into bliss
you ever had to endure like the darkest night
of a sea change in the unforeseeable nature
of your inconceivable soul trying to emulate
the unknown likeness you shapeshift to accommodate
the arrival and departure of everything you've ever had to let go of
like summer stars, and waterbirds, and legendary ordeals of love
when the full moon so often filled the empty silos of your longing
with the unsuccessful harvests of hungry ghosts
that competed with the sparrows and the scarecrows
for the seeds of a garden the wind neglected to sow.

And should it come time to speak of the sadness
that saturates all human affairs in an aura of mourning
that hangs in the air like a mingling of swords and bells,
don't pretend your life was a nuclear winter of unrelieved misery
when everyone knows if it weren't for trying to cling to joy
or even the longing for it, you might have smiled your way
through everything like the cold stone of the moon.
Remember those thoughts that used to come
like snakeoil salesmen that greased their sinusoidal way
into your heart like coiled serpent fire that mesmerized you
like the blue bird of happiness on your own projections
until the promise wore thin, and all your ploys at joy
turned out to be nothing but the hucksterism of tapeworms?
And, then, as it sometimes happened more often in autumn
than spring, your heart soared like a guitar with a broken string
taking wing like a waterbird off your tears
until you burned out like a comet with an uplifting message
in a niche that was meant for candles with slower wicks?
That kept you hanging onto life like a burning box kite didn't it?

And should it come time to speak of the sadness
like a sin of omission that overpowers us all eventually
because the best things we promised ourselves
were never unattainable and the joy we sought and fought
and laboured for, and did not find, was barely explainable
even to us who became experts in grinding mirages into lenses
to reveal where it might be hiding somewhere in the universe
right under our noses. Up close and as intimate as our eyes.

poem by Patrick White
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Have You Ever Seen The Rain

Someone told me long ago
They were gone before the storm
I know, its been coming for sometime
Be it so, and so I say
Little rain and sun by day
I know, shining down like water
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
Coming down, down this day
Coming down, down this day
Yes for days and days before
Sun is rain and cold is hot
I know, in this place got all my found
Thru the circles fast and slow
There for every moment goes
I know, I cant stop, I wonder
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
Coming down, down this day
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
I wanna know, have you ever seen the rain
Coming down, down this day
I wanna know

song performed by Boney M.
Added by Lucian Velea
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You Remind Me

When I first saw you I couldn't believe
The way you smiled took the breath out of me
And maybe I'm seeing things
But if it's true don't wake me up from this dream

You remind me
Of a love I knew
Feels so real it must be deja vu
You remind me
But I ain't got a clue
Boy I'm so glad i found you

I never thought I could love again
Then you came and changed something within (I'm so confused)
I'm so confused 'case you're not the same
But there's something special that reminds me

It's the way you walk and
the way you talk and
You really got style
It's the way you move and
The way you groove and
i love your smile (I love your smile)

You remind me
Of a love I knew
Feels so real it must be deja vu
You remind me
But I ain't got a clue
Boy I'm so glad I found you

[Bridge:]
I

song performed by Mandy Moore from Mandy Moore
Added by Lucian Velea
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Come Along And Say You Will

Come along and say you will,
Be the one to change the meaning
Of the writing on the wall
The lonely politician
is lying in the hall.
Come along and say you can,
Be the one to take this feeling,
I'll never understand,
Why walk around the center
With a nail through your hand?
It's another way to run,
It's a lonely weekend
And what have you done?
You know you got
a reason to run, babe
You know you got
a reason to hide, babe
Come along and say you will,
Be the one to change the meaning
Of the writing on the wall
The lonely politician
is lying in the hall.
It's another way to run,
It's a lonely weekend
And what have you done?
You know you got
a reason to run, babe
You know you got
a reason to hide, babe.
Come along and say you can,
Be the one to take this feeling,
I'll never understand,
Why walk around the center
With a nail through your hand?

song performed by Neil Young
Added by Lucian Velea
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Does The Eye Of The Rain

Does the eye of the rain know it's a tear?
Does that ray of light know
that even at night
it's a revolutionary among flowers?
Between the giver and the given
between a human and his god
between a human and her void
the gift of a gift of a gift.
And the gifts aren't hidden
even when you cover your eyes.
I saw a baglady the other day
who hadn't given it all away yet
who was positively beatific
in an atmosphere
that only she could breathe
but the shining under her rags
told me she lived on light.
She was a waterlily in a swamp.
And I wondered if she knew it.
What I don't know I intuit
so even if she did
how could that add
one dropp of bliss
to an abyss that was already full?
Experience makes a gift of a school.
The blossom grants the apple its absence.
The wind is Johnny Appleseed.
Or the mad old farmer at the end of his life
that was seen hanging on to the tail
of a black bull
in the backwoods of Westport
sowing the groves with grain.
So the birches had bread
he gave away his brain.
So the dead know
we haven't departed
we leave them our pain
in the company of flowers.
Things don't have origins.
They have givers.
Even in math
giving is an axiomatic fact.
Does the sumac know it's a phoenix in the fall?
The lifework of a universe
in every eyelash
in every bud on the locust tree
in every branch of coral on the moon.
If the all were not whole in the least of us
all things would cease to exist.
Life wouldn't be possible
if it ever short-changed itself,
watered a gram,
diluted the whiskey
thinned our blood like a mosquito.
Life would be an also-ran
that didn't quite make it to the moon.
Does the stone
that forged it out of fire and iron
know it's giving Excalibur
back to the water?
Or the magician his wand?
The diviner his witching rod?
The poet his computer?
Giving isn't a moral vow
you make to the universe.
It's the way we survive.
Say one word truly in any language
and you've endowed the gift of speech
on inanimate things that were mute
about all the things they had to tell you
in your own voice.
This is not mysticism.
This is not science.
This is not the Uncertainty Principle
of some random atomic spiritual life.
I'm not drinking my reflection
from the wellspring of a mirror.
It's as clear as a chandelier.
You can't keep
what you won't give away.
And it isn't the giver.
It isn't the given.
It's the giving that's crucial.
The Buddha gave Ananda a rose.
I don't know what kind of flower it was for sure
but let's suppose.
It isn't the rose that's famous
it's the giving that has come down to us
through the years
thorns and all
heart to heart
hand to hand
human to human
rose petals on the mindstream.
The enlightened dreams
of an unattainable man.
If you're cosmic ice,
absolute Kelvin,
dispassionate as entropy,
profound as blue glass
to an ancient Roman
you're still not sublime
until you learn to give it all away.
Empty the urns of the fireflies
like the ghosts of earthbound insights
and scatter their ashes on the wind
and they'll tell you how
to light the night up
and play like water
that doesn't know how to live any other way.
Giving took water for a body
as soon as it saw how beautiful
the wild iris and blue narcissus were.
Wisdom is water.
Compassion is water.
And there's no end of the modes of it.
Water is the light's favourite mirror.
And the most fun.
And what are we
if not clouds
if not wombs
cut off from the sea like kites,
if not sacks of water,
fruit that leaks like a crucified pear
hoping if we've got to be poured out of ourselves
like pitchers
it's over a garden.
Chandeliers of rain when we cry,
even the windows have learned
to weep along with us,
glaciers and glass,
slow inexorable tears
that like to linger on the past
as if their futures weren't the past
just gone on ahead of them
to greet them when they come.
Like a garden in the fall
that gives what it's got left to the birds,
However you think
you've emptied the cup of the moon,
such is the generosity of water
there's always one last
unfathomable watershed of a dropp left
to give back to the water-giver.
And when you do
pour it away from you
like Dogen Zenji
or someone who has drunk their fill
in a single gulp of the bowl of their skull
as a sign of respect for the river.

poem by Patrick White
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Sonnet; Every Labour's Dignified

No work's below one's dignity to do;
No job appears of lesser importance;
Life's hierarchy needs to be maintained too;
Nothing exists of less significance.

All don't have brains the same and act similar;
All can't be literate to same extent;
Some things are best kept cool in the cellar;
It need not be construed as 'mal- intent'.

'Tis best, one does the things he can do best;
There is no need to vie with your brother;
And each one has a variable work and rest,
We need not of the other much bother.

God knows each creature's soul, its pros and cons;
A dress of sanity, unmatched, He dons.

poem by John Celes
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Are You Growing?

Are you growing in The Lord, or does His teaching go ignored?
Has He in you made a change, or do you simply live the same?
Has His Word within your heart, sincerely given change a start?
Or does the change you begin, get hampered by your daily sin?

Just like a baby my dear friend, are all men who are born again,
And just like a baby at the start, we have for God a tender heart.
We need to trust and follow Him, as God leads us away from sin.
And like a baby we need to grow, so our fruit for Christ can show.

Can believers help other men, when they don’t grow my friend?
Will men believe what God can do, if they see no growth in you?
Do you build upon God’s Truth, making your life His living proof,
That He truly changes lives, through the Power of Jesus Christ?

True change begins in The Spirit, and The Word as men hear it,
And as you then apply The Word, growth in your heart is stirred.
And our life becomes a testament, to the One that God had sent,
Then like His Son Jesus Christ, men need to become a sacrifice.

How can you not grow for Christ, when God gave to you His life?
How can you help others to see, if you remain a baby spiritually?
Let The Spirit, who lives inside, to help you grow and be a guide,
So you can be all that you can be, leading others to life eternally.

poem by Bob Gotti
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The Re-Enactment

Between the folding sea-downs,
In the gloom
Of a wailful wintry nightfall,
When the boom
Of the ocean, like a hammering in a hollow tomb,

Throbbed up the copse-clothed valley
From the shore
To the chamber where I darkled,
Sunk and sore
With gray ponderings why my Loved one had not come before

To salute me in the dwelling
That of late
I had hired to waste a while in -
Vague of date,
Quaint, and remote - wherein I now expectant sate;

On the solitude, unsignalled,
Broke a man
Who, in air as if at home there,
Seemed to scan
Every fire-flecked nook of the apartment span by span.

A stranger's and no lover's
Eyes were these,
Eyes of a man who measures
What he sees
But vaguely, as if wrapt in filmy phantasies.

Yea, his bearing was so absent
As he stood, It bespoke a chord so plaintive
In his mood, That soon I judged he would not wrong my quietude.

'Ah - the supper is just ready,'
Then he said,
'And the years' - long binned Madeira
Flashes red!'
(There was no wine, no food, no supper-table spread.)

'You will forgive my coming,
Lady fair?
I see you as at that time
Rising there,
The self-same curious querying in your eyes and hair.

'Yet no. How so? You wear not
The same gown,
Your locks show woful difference,
Are not brown:
What, is it not as when I hither came from town?

'And the place…. But you seem other -
Can it be?
What's this that Time is doing
Unto me?
You dwell here, unknown woman?… Whereabouts, then, is she?

'And the house-things are much shifted. -
Put them where
They stood on this nights fellow;
Shift her chair:
Here was the couch: and the piano should be there.'

I indulged him, verily nerve-strained
Being alone,
And I moved the things as bidden.
One by one,
And feigned to push the old piano where he had shown.

'Aha - now I can see her!
Stand aside:
Don't thrust her from the table
Where, meek-eyed,
She makes attempt with matron-manners to preside.

'She serves me: now she rises,
Goes to play….
But you obstruct her, fill her
With dismay,
And embarrassed, scared, she vanishes away!'

And, as 'twere useless longer
To persist,
He sighed, and sought the entry
Ere I wist,
And retreated, disappearing soundless in the mist.

That here some mighty passion
Once had burned,
Which still the walls enghosted,
I discerned,
And that by its strong spell mine might be overturned.

I sat depressed; till, later,
My Love came;
But something in the chamber
Dimmed our flame, -
An emanation, making our due words fall tame,

As if the intenser drama
Shown me there
Of what the walls had witnessed
Filled the air,
And left no room for later passion anywhere.

So came it that our fervours
Did quite fail
Of future consummation -
Being made quail
By the weird witchery of the parlour's hidden tale,

Which I, as years passed, faintly
Learnt to trace, -
One of sad love, born full-winged
In that place
Where the predestined sorrowers first stood face to face.

And as that month of winter
Circles round,
And the evening of the date-day
Grows embrowned,
I am conscious of those presences, and sit spellbound.

There, often - lone, forsaken -
Queries breed
Within me; whether a phantom
Had my heed
On that strange night, or was it some wrecked heart indeed?

poem by Thomas Hardy
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When You Look At A Star

When you look at a star
can you see
how the night leaves
the intimate doors
of intuitive eventuality ajar?
I'm all future with a prophetic past.
Aviomantic signs of liberated doves.
So many lifespans in a single moment.
How many light-years to the nearest star?
And how many shadows back?
Trying to say the inexpressible in words is like
to trying to thaw a snowstorm
on the tip of your tongue
flake by flake syllabically
or trying to explain bubbles to a glacier
in a momentary suspension of disbelief.
When you look at a star
do you see
that's it's you
that's shining up that far
and it's you down here
receiving your own light back like a ball
you made of your childhood
and threw up in the air
like a celestial sphere
when you had
all the time in the world
to come back and catch it later?
And as I grew older
not waiting for it to come back down
I learned to play vertical pool with the stars
to move things around
that were once considered fixed.
When you look at a star
if you want to clear the table
if you want to make the longshot
if you want to change the birthmark of misfortune
into an upturned elephant trunk of good luck
you have to chalk the cue with your skull.
But I ask you earnestly
if no one's ever failed their death
is it probable
anyone's ever failed their life
despite what their tears and fears have told them
about where they've ended up?
But a good beginning doesn't lead to a good end
because a good beginning never stops.
A good beginning is without conclusion.
It doesn't need to look beyond itself
because nothing's missing from the very start.
When you look at a star
do you see the ancient wisdom
in a child's heart
do you feel the depth
of all the eyes that have looked at it before
with longing wonder and sorrow
asking you to give them some direction
by adding yourself like another dimension to the past?
Is there a firefly of human suffering
mingled in the shining?
A window makes a better starmap
than a ten inch mirror
in a Schmidt-Cassegrain reflecting telescope
on an equatorial mount with clock drive
following them around like paparazzi
but when the stars want to know
where they're at
it's your eyes they parallax
at both ends
of the wingspan of your orbit.
It's your seeing that gives them a fix.
The same eye by which I see God
is the eye by which God sees me.
It's the same with everything
from fireflies to supernovas.
The donkey looks into the well.
The well looks back at the donkey.
Tat tvam asi.
You are that.
The lampshade and the blue parrot.
The donkey and the carrot.
When you look at a star
do you dress your destiny up
in hand-me-down constellations
like clothes you'll grow into one day
or do you wear them like patchs on myths
you're trying to give up
about how rough it's been
to be chosen beauty queen
and bear the diamond tiara of the Pleiades
like the Northern Crown?
When you look at a star
is it the chip of a broken mirror
the plinth of a shattered chandelier
the Holy Ghost of fireflies
a fire-womb of immaculate fusions
that bear the transgender features
of their ancestral elements
like Abrahamic hydrogen?
A burning bush
in the valley of Tuwa
that eventually talks itself out like a candle
when the conversation begins to harden
like an auditory hallucination
into a puddle
of earwax shadows and wicks?
Or do you discern something more
you can't quite put your finger on
or point to
not a presence
but there
an absence
but everywhere
and you standing there
like this tiny insight
with the precipitous extremeties
of a human being
trying to discover your own nature
in the inexplicability of all that shining
wondering if the rumours of awareness
the universe has been spreading about you
are true or not?
When you look at a star
have you ever thought
if mass is energy
maybe matter is mind
and thinking of one
as something that has to get over the other
is like expecting a wave to transcend water?
Light and lamp.
Body and mind.
Not one of two
but two in one
and even that's one too much.
The flower opens
in the light of the sun
like a kiss on the eyelid
and the sun blooms
as if it had a crush on the flower.
When you look at a star
can you feel how the light
touchs your eyes as gently as a butterfly
as if all the eyelashs you've lost in a lifetime
like the ribbing of broken kites
or the spokes of a bike
or the straws of overworked brooms
had come back to you
as a living thing
with antennae legs and wings?
Have you ever looked at a star
and wondered how far away it would be
if you were to measure the distance in thought-years?
And such a small thing the mind
a child's hand
and yet within its grasp
all that mass black matter energy light space time?
How could you fit
all those cosmic immensities
and the abyss that contains them
into such a small place
if they weren't your own ideas?
When you look at a star
do you ever get the feeling
you're swimming through your own gene-pool
your own meme pool
the Pierian spring
where it meets the sea
at the bottom of your mountain mindstream?
When you look at a star
do you ever turn the light around
and look into yourself
through its eyes
and realize
you've been communing with your own reflection
inconceivably
for billions of years
and that little insight
is the cosmic light of awareness
that fills the night with everything that is
when is is not the opposite of is not
and there's no separation in the first atom
between thought life light mind matter and form
and the lion lies down with the lamb
and the old woman says she is not old
and the sparrow lays her egg in the serpent's coil
and the old man who has seen everything says
my eyes are as young now
as you were back then
and your beauty is today?
When I was a boy
growing up in a garbage can
like a diamond in the rough
everyone wanted to cut
and buff the edges off
to polish me like a lens
so everybody could see how focused I was
when I looked up at the stars
from the bottom of a spent wishing well
where you could see them even during the day.
Though I was taught
they were responsible for my fate
and I should blame them for what I am
and not the black dwarfs of hate
who perverted the space around me
like slumlords
until even the buds of the flowers
were white as the knuckles of clenched fists
I never thought for a moment
that anything that clean and beautiful
that far away
from the scene of the crime at the time
could ever do anything here
that needed an alibi.
When I looked at the stars
I was enraptured by their mystery.
I was exalted by their unattainability
and the age of the silence
that surrounded their fires
knowing they've burned longer
than the light has lived
and seen more
than their eyes can forgive
of human life on the planet.
And the greatest agony of my childhood
from seven till ten
such that I would weep
my bitterness to sleep every night
like a child abandoned to a hospital
was that I was born way too early
to get to Aldebaran.
When I looked at a star
I didn't gape like a telescope
into the depths of its utter solitude
but looked upon it like a far intimacy
I could draw near
until I could feel it breathing like silver
all over the mirror
that was as clear
as any dark spear
that ever wounded a mystic with bliss.
Strange whisperings of exiled sages
pouring stories of home
into a young boy's ear
like my mother used to talk about
her childhood in Queensland
as if she were in the Garden of Eden.
When I looked at a star
and listened to its picture-music
I was so deeply moved
by the beauty and sadness of the song
like inspiration in utter solitude
I went into exile with it here
and it was my blossom
no wind could blow away
and it was my root
in the starmud
nothing could pull up
and throw away.
When I looked at a star
I was enthralled
by the dispassionate attachment
and creative dynamic
that burned me like a sacrificial heretic
in the ice of inspiration.
I could forget the small orbit
of house arrest
that a circumstantial planet
had affixed like an electronic anklet around my leg
for being born unforgivably poor.
When I looked at a star
it was as if the flightfeather
of a bluewhite fire bird
landed on the windowsill of my cell
to take pity on me
and share its freedom
with someone living in a cage.
When I looked at a star
it was the synteretic spark
I sent out like a dove from the ark
with two of every mind
in the zodiac aboard
after forty days of flood
to look for Atlantis
like the next best thing
to Mt. Ararat or Cathay.
It was the angel that always looked back
with the same mystic fury in its eyes
that were in mine
when I looked up.
When I looked at a star
I could prognosticate the future
like the distant memory
of someone returning to their origins
waking up from exile
to discover it wasn't a dream.
You can tell by the way a star
flashs like a panicked chameleon
on the event horizon of a blackhole
things are what they seem
when you're peering through atmospheres
with tears in your eyes.
I used to make telescopes when I was young.
I would grind their pyrex eyes
with ever finer grades of carborundum
until they could see just right.
I shaped their fibre-glass bodies
until they were as smooth as a woman's skin.
And I took them out into the open fields naked
far beyond the intrusions of the city lights
and exposed them to the stars
who revered them like clear-eyed mirrors
and adorned one with leaves
and the other with sidereal veils
and said like the elders
and old midwives of an Ojibway tribe
when they name the newborn.
This one shall be called Eve.
And this one Isis.
And to celebrate their birth
opened a third eye
and said
as it is on earth
it shall not be in the sky.

poem by Patrick White
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I remember, I remember - Past and Present after Thomas Hood and William Wordsworth - Lucy

I remember, I remember
the house where I was born
before foreclosure took away
the homestead I had sworn
in good faith, all attest 'tis true,
to leave grandchildren three: -
times change, leave little rest, I rue
that difference to me!

It seems so very long ago
the liberating Yanks
found welcome everywhere they'd go -
though some were pita swanks,
but since the Shah announced 'I ran'
our bearings all at sea
became - time reeled again would ban
all difference for me!

I remember, I remember
the sun porch, now in pawn,
proud flag a flying red, white, blue,
which now hangs so forlorn
Sun, moon spun round each priceless day,
or so I seemed to see,
four bucks a gallon gas I pay -
what difference to me!

My mind thought then nostalgic ease
eternally could last,
all my desires, priorities
seemed sated very fast,
The fever on my brow shoots higher
now Sheiks of Araby,
up ante for crude imports, tire -
what difference to me!

I remember, I remember
before Alaskan oil
had spilled upon once pristine shore,
polluting fauna, soil.
With climate change I'm feeling sore,
note each commodity
continues rising more and more -
what difference to me!

Back then I'd travel aimlessly,
cared not I ran Iraq,
from dawn till dark, from sea to sea
could, rising with the lark,
ignore the cost of gasoline
in land of liberty:
my budget now seems far more lean,
what difference to me!

I remember, I remember
before FEMA's disgrace,
I never thought dark terrorists
I might meet face to face,
Days fifty two times seven cheap,
no need to spare expense,
I'm farther now from Heaven's keep:
Oh boy! What difference!

(c) Jonathan Robin - Parody written 4 June 2008

Variations on a theme - I remember Thomas Hood - Enjoy!

Past and Present

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born,
The little window where the sun
Came peeping in at morn;
He never came a wink too soon
Nor bought too long a day;
But now, I often wish the night
Had borne my breath away.

I remember, I remember
The roses, red and white,
The violets, and the lily-cups-
Those flowers made of light!
The lilacs where the robin built,
And where my brother set
The laburnum on his birthday, -
The tree is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Where I was used to swing,
And throught the air must rush as fresh
To swallows on the wing;
My spirit flew in feathers then
That is so heavy now,
And summer pools could hardly cool
The fever on my brow.

I remember, I remember
The fir frees dark and high;
I used to think their slender tops
Were close against the sky:
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from Heaven
Than when I was a boy.
Thomas Hood 1799_1845

HOOD Thomas 1799_1845 hood1_0007_hood1_0000 PXX_JZX Past and Present_I remember, I remember

I Remember

I remember, I remember
The house where I was born;
The rent was thirty-two a month,
Which made my father mourn.
He said he could remember when
His father paid the rent;
And when a man's expenses did
Not take his every cent.

I remember, I remember-
My mother telling my cousin
That eggs had gone to twenty-six
Or seven cents a dozen;
And how she told my father that
She didn't like to speak
Of things like that, but Bridget now
Demanded four a week.

I remember, I remember-
And with a mirthless laugh-
My weekly board at college took
A jump to three and a half.
I bought an eighteen-dollar suit,
And father told me, 'Sonny,
I'll pay the bill this time, but, Oh,
I am not made out of money! '

I remember, I remember,
When I was young and brave
And I declared, 'Well, Birdie, we
Shall now begin to save.'
It was a childish ignorance,
But now 'tis little joy
To know I'm farther off from wealth
Than when I was a boy.

Franklin Pierce ADAMS 1881_1960 Parody Thomas HOOD 1799_1845 - I Remember

I Remember

I remember, I remember,
When I discovered porn.
The little book that gave a boy -
Or so I heard – the horn:
It never meant a wank to me,
Nor did it drive me mad.
But in a funny kind of way
I often wish it had.

I remember, I remember,
The tweeny walking by,
I used to think her stocking-tops
Were close against her thigh:
It was a childish innocence.
But now ‘tis little joy
To know my thoughts are just as pure
As when I was a boy.

Naomi MARKS
Parody Thomas HOOD 1799_1845 I Remember – Past and Present

I Remember

I remember, I remember,
The house where I was wed,
And the little room from which, that night,
My smiling bride was led;
She didn’t come a wink too soon,
Nor make too long a stay;
But now I often wish her folks
Had kept the girl away!

I remember, I remember,
Her dresses, red and white,
Her bonnets and her caps and cloaks, -
The cost an awful sight!
The “corner lot” on which I built,
And where my brother met
At first my wife, one washing-day, -
That man is single yet!

I remember, I remember,
Where I was used to court,
And thought that all of married life*
Was just such pleasant sport:
My spirit flew in feathers then,
No care was on my brow;
I scarce could wait to shut the gate, -
I’m not so anxious now!

I remember, I remember,
My dear one’s smile and sigh;
I used to think her tender heart
Was close against the sky;
It was a childish ignorance,
But now it soothes me not
To know I’m farther off from heaven
Then when she wasn’t got!

Phoebe CARY
Parody Thomas HOOD 1799_1845 I Remember – Past and Present

I Remember

I remember, I remember,
(I wish I’d ne’er been born)
The little widow and her son
Came creeping in forlorn;
She never gave a wink too soon
Till he had gone to play;
But now, I oft regret that larks
Had borne that boy away.

I remember, I remember
The presents dear and cheap,
The letters and the valentines –
And othr things a heap!
The cottage which the masons built,
And where her youngster set
The pin pin upon the big arm chair –
That boy is living yet!

I remember, I remember
Her neck Itried to wring,
And saw the boy run out Pall Mall
Two peelers quick to bring;
My hair it flew in masses then,
I got a heavy blow,
The cold dark cell could hardly cool
The swelling on my brow.

I remember, I remember
A fair man, broad and hig;
I used to think his slender hair
Did match his clothes and tie;
It showed a childish ignorance,
But now ‘tis little joy
To know she ran away with him,
And left that awful boy.

Archibald STODART-WALKER 1869_1934
Parody Thomas HOOD 1799_1845 I Remember – Past and Present

“I remember, I remember,
The day that I was born,
When first I saw this breathing world,
All naked and forlorn,
They wrapped me in a linen cloth,
And then in one of frieze;
And tho’ I could not speak just then,
I still contrived to sneeze.”

“I remember, I remember,
Old ladies came from far;
Some said I was like mother dear,
But others thought like Pa;
Yet all agreed I had a head,
And most expressive eyes;
The latter were about as large
As plums in Christmas pies.”

Notes and Queries UNEDA pseudonym Philadelphia 10 June 1871
Parody Thomas HOOD 1799_1845 I Remember – Past and Present

I remember, I remember,
The cell, which now I scorn,
The little window where no sun
Could cheer the dreary morn.
Policeman X, no wink too son,
Brought in my musty fare,
And, growling as he went away,
Locked me in safely there!

I remember, I remember,
We’d been out late at night,
Twain herons who, o’er sundry cups,
Wound up by “getting tight; ”
And then although no blood was spilt,
That fiend in blue we met;
“Run in” upon my natal day –
Oh, would I could forget.

I remember, I remember,
No sofa would he bring,
He said the air seem’d rather fresh
For night birds on the wing!
The spirits needed feathers then,
And rest my fevered brow;
He only said, “The place is cool, ”
And, “Mind! don’t make a row! ”

Author Unknown - The Figaro 7 March 1874
Parody Thomas HOOD 1799_1845 I Remember – Past and Present

Lucy

She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove
A maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love.

A violet by a mossy stone
Half-hidden from the eye;
Fair as a star when only one
Is shining in the sky.

She lived unknown, and few could know
When Lucy ceased to be;
But she is in her grave, and, oh,
The difference to me!

William WORDSWORTH 1770_1850

see also numerous parodies on the above including

Lucy's Cousin

He lived amidst th’untrodden ways
To Rydal lake that lead;
A bard whom there were none to praise,
And very few to read.

Behind a cloud his mystic sense,
Deep hidden, who can spy?
Bright as the night when not a star
Is shining in the sky.

Unread his works – his “Milk White Doe”
With dust is dark and dim;
It’s still in Longman’s shop, and oh!
The difference to him!

Hartley COLERIDGE 1796_1849
Parody William WORDSWORTH - Lucy

A Song of the Cambridge Streets

We dwelt where youthful brains grow ripe,
A town not drain’d too well,
With here and there a choky pipe,
And here and there a smell.

They tore up streets, they dug below,
They made a deal of fuss,
Now sick’ning manholes reek, and oh!
The difference to us!

Walter William SKEAT – 1835_1912
Parody William Wordsworth Lucy and Alfred Tennyson The Brook

The Amateur Botanist

A primrose by a river's brim
‘Primula vulgaris’ was to him,
And it was nothing more;
A pansy, delicately reared,
‘Viola tricolor’ appeared
In true botanic lore.

That which a pink the layman deems
‘Dianthus caryophyllus’ seems
To any flower-fan; or
A sunflower, in that talk of his,
‘Annuus helianthus’ is,
And it is nothing more.

Toboganning on Parnassus
Franklin Pierce ADAMS Parody William WORDSWORTH Lucy

_____________

poem by Jonathan Robin
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In the Bay

I
Beyond the hollow sunset, ere a star
Take heart in heaven from eastward, while the west,
Fulfilled of watery resonance and rest,
Is as a port with clouds for harbour bar
To fold the fleet in of the winds from far
That stir no plume now of the bland sea's breast:II
Above the soft sweep of the breathless bay
Southwestward, far past flight of night and day,
Lower than the sunken sunset sinks, and higher
Than dawn can freak the front of heaven with fire,
My thought with eyes and wings made wide makes way
To find the place of souls that I desire.III

If any place for any soul there be,
Disrobed and disentrammelled; if the might
The fire and force that filled with ardent light
The souls whose shadow is half the light we see,
Survive and be suppressed not of the night;
This hour should show what all day hid from me.IV

Night knows not, neither is it shown to day,
By sunlight nor by starlight is it shown,
Nor to the full moon's eye nor footfall known,
Their world's untrodden and unkindled way.
Nor is the breath nor music of it blown
With sounds of winter or with winds of May.V

But here, where light and darkness reconciled
Held earth between them as a weanling child
Between the balanced hands of death and birth,
Even as they held the new-born shape of earth
When first life trembled in her limbs and smiled,
Here hope might think to find what hope were worth.VI

Past Hades, past Elysium, past the long
Slow smooth strong lapse of Lethe--past the toil
Wherein all souls are taken as a spoil,
The Stygian web of waters--if your song
Be quenched not, O our brethren, but be strong
As ere ye too shook off our temporal coil;VII

If yet these twain survive your worldly breath,
Joy trampling sorrow, life devouring death,
If perfect life possess your life all through
And like your words your souls be deathless too,
To-night, of all whom night encompasseth,
My soul would commune with one soul of you.VIII

Above the sunset might I see thine eyes
That were above the sundawn in our skies,
Son of the songs of morning,--thine that were
First lights to lighten that rekindling air
Wherethrough men saw the front of England rise
And heard thine loudest of the lyre-notes there--IX

If yet thy fire have not one spark the less,
O Titan, born of her a Titaness,
Across the sunrise and the sunset's mark
Send of thy lyre one sound, thy fire one spark,
To change this face of our unworthiness,
Across this hour dividing light from dark.X

To change this face of our chill time, that hears
No song like thine of all that crowd its ears,
Of all its lights that lighten all day long
Sees none like thy most fleet and fiery sphere's
Outlightening Sirius--in its twilight throng
No thunder and no sunrise like thy song. XI

Hath not the sea-wind swept the sea-line bare
To pave with stainless fire through stainless air
A passage for thine heavenlier feet to tread
Ungrieved of earthly floor-work? hath it spread
No covering splendid as the sun-god's hair
To veil or to reveal thy lordlier head?XII

Hath not the sunset shown across the sea
A way majestical enough for thee?
What hour save this should be thine hour--and mine,
If thou have care of any less divine
Than thine own soul; if thou take thought of me,
Marlowe, as all my soul takes thought of thine?XIII

Before the morn's face as before the sun
The morning star and evening star are one
For all men's lands as England. O, if night
Hang hard upon us,--ere our day take flight,
Shed thou some comfort from thy day long done
On us pale children of the latter light!XIV

For surely, brother and master and lord and king,
Where'er thy footfall and thy face make spring
In all souls' eyes that meet thee wheresoe'er,
And have thy soul for sunshine and sweet air--
Some late love of thine old live land should cling,
Some living love of England, round thee there.XV

Here from her shore across her sunniest sea
My soul makes question of the sun for thee,
And waves and beams make answer. When thy feet
Made her ways flowerier and their flowers more sweet
With childlike passage of a god to be,
Like spray these waves cast off her foemen's fleet.XVI

Like foam they flung it from her, and like weed
Its wrecks were washed from scornful shoal to shoal,
From rock to rock reverberate; and the whole
Sea laughed and lightened with a deathless deed
That sowed our enemies in her field for seed
And made her shores fit harbourage for thy soul.XVII

Then in her green south fields, a poor man's child,
Thou hadst thy short sweet fill of half-blown joy,
That ripens all of us for time to cloy
With full-blown pain and passion; ere the wild
World caught thee by the fiery heart, and smiled
To make so swift end of the godlike boy.XVIII

For thou, if ever godlike foot there trod
These fields of ours, wert surely like a god.
Who knows what splendour of strange dreams was shed
With sacred shadow and glimmer of gold and red
From hallowed windows, over stone and sod,
On thine unbowed bright insubmissive head?XIX

The shadow stayed not, but the splendour stays,
Our brother, till the last of English days.
No day nor night on English earth shall be
For ever, spring nor summer, Junes nor Mays,
But somewhat as a sound or gleam of thee
Shall come on us like morning from the sea.XX

Like sunrise never wholly risen, nor yet
Quenched; or like sunset never wholly set,
A light to lighten as from living eyes
The cold unlit close lids of one that lies
Dead, or a ray returned from death's far skies
To fire us living lest our lives forget.XXI

For in that heaven what light of lights may be,
What splendour of what stars, what spheres of flame
Sounding, that none may number nor may name,
We know not, even thy brethren; yea, not we
Whose eyes desire the light that lightened thee,
Whose ways and thine are one way and the same.XXII

But if the riddles that in sleep we read,
And trust them not, be flattering truth indeed,
As he that rose our mightiest called them,--he,
Much higher than thou as thou much higher than we--
There, might we say, all flower of all our seed,
All singing souls are as one sounding sea.XXXIII

All those that here were of thy kind and kin,
Beside thee and below thee, full of love,
Full-souled for song,--and one alone above
Whose only light folds all your glories in--
With all birds' notes from nightingale to dove
Fill the world whither we too fain would win.XXIV

The world that sees in heaven the sovereign light
Of sunlike Shakespeare, and the fiery night
Whose stars were watched of Webster; and beneath,
The twin-souled brethren of the single wreath,
Grown in kings' gardens, plucked from pastoral heath,
Wrought with all flowers for all men's heart's delight.XXV

And that fixed fervour, iron-red like Mars,
In the mid moving tide of tenderer stars,
That burned on loves and deeds the darkest done,
Athwart the incestuous prisoner's bride-house bars;
And thine, most highest of all their fires but one,
Our morning star, sole risen before the sun.XXVI

And one light risen since theirs to run such race
Thou hast seen, O Phosphor, from thy pride of place.
Thou hast seen Shelley, him that was to thee
As light to fire or dawn to lightning; me,
Me likewise, O our brother, shalt thou see,
And I behold thee, face to glorious face?XXVII

You twain the same swift year of manhood swept
Down the steep darkness, and our father wept.
And from the gleam of Apollonian tears
A holier aureole rounds your memories, kept
Most fervent-fresh of all the singing spheres,
And April-coloured through all months and years.XXVIII

You twain fate spared not half your fiery span;
The longer date fulfils the lesser man.
Ye from beyond the dark dividing date
Stand smiling, crowned as gods with foot on fate.
For stronger was your blessing than his ban,
And earliest whom he struck, he struck too late.XXIX

Yet love and loathing, faith and unfaith yet
Bind less to greater souls in unison,
And one desire that makes three spirits as one
Takes great and small as in one spiritual net
Woven out of hope toward what shall yet be done
Ere hate or love remember or forget.XXX

Woven out of faith and hope and love too great
To bear the bonds of life and death and fate:
Woven out of love and hope and faith too dear
To take the print of doubt and change and fear:
And interwoven with lines of wrath and hate
Blood-red with soils of many a sanguine year.XXXI

Who cannot hate, can love not; if he grieve,
His tears are barren as the unfruitful rain
That rears no harvest from the green sea's plain,
And as thorns crackling this man's laugh is vain.
Nor can belief touch, kindle, smite, reprieve
His heart who has not heart to disbelieve.XXXII

But you, most perfect in your hate and love,
Our great twin-spirited brethren; you that stand
Head by head glittering, hand made fast in hand,
And underfoot the fang-drawn worm that strove
To wound you living; from so far above,
Look love, not scorn, on ours that was your land.XXXIII

For love we lack, and help and heat and light
To clothe us and to comfort us with might.
What help is ours to take or give? but ye--
O, more than sunrise to the blind cold sea,
That wailed aloud with all her waves all night,
Much more, being much more glorious, should you be.XXXIV

As fire to frost, as ease to toil, as dew
To flowerless fields, as sleep to slackening pain,
As hope to souls long weaned from hope again
Returning, or as blood revived anew
To dry-drawn limbs and every pulseless vein,
Even so toward us should no man be but you.XXXV

One rose before the sunrise was, and one
Before the sunset, lovelier than the sun.
And now the heaven is dark and bright and loud
With wind and starry drift and moon and cloud,
And night's cry rings in straining sheet and shroud,
What help is ours if hope like yours be none?XXXVI

O well-beloved, our brethren, if ye be,
Then are we not forsaken. This kind earth
Made fragrant once for all time with your birth,
And bright for all men with your love, and worth
The clasp and kiss and wedlock of the sea,
Were not your mother if not your brethren we.XXXVII

Because the days were dark with gods and kings
And in time's hand the old hours of time as rods,
When force and fear set hope and faith at odds,
Ye failed not nor abased your plume-plucked wings;
And we that front not more disastrous things,
How should we fail in face of kings and gods?XXXVIII

For now the deep dense plumes of night are thinned
Surely with winnowing of the glimmering wind
Whose feet we fledged with morning; and the breath
Begins in heaven that sings the dark to death.
And all the night wherein men groaned and sinned
Sickens at heart to hear what sundawn saith.XXXIX

O first-born sons of hope and fairest, ye
Whose prows first clove the thought-unsounded sea
Whence all the dark dead centuries rose to bar
The spirit of man lest truth should make him free,
The sunrise and the sunset, seeing one star,
Take heart as we to know you that ye are.XL

Ye rise not and ye set not; we that say
Ye rise and set like hopes that set and rise
Look yet but seaward from a land-locked bay;
But where at last the sea's line is the sky's
And truth and hope one sunlight in your eyes,
No sunrise and no sunset marks their day.

poem by Algernon Charles Swinburne
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Obviously, our children, who have been playing with their computers since the age of five or six, don't have quite the same brain as those who were brought up on wooden or metal toys, whose brains are certainly atrophied by comparison.

quote by Claude Vorilhon
Added by Lucian Velea
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All of us can think of a book... that we hope none of our children have taken off the shelf. But if I have the right to remove that book from the shelf -that work I abhor- then you also have exactly the same right and so does everyone else. And then we have no books left on the shelf for any of us.

quote by Katherine Paterson
Added by Lucian Velea
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You Showed Me The Way

Ella fitzgerald / teddy mcrae / chick webb / green
You showed me the way
When I was someone in distress
A heart in search of happiness
You showed me the way
My sky was so gray
I never knew Id feel a thrill
I couldnt dream a dream until
You showed me the way
The moment you found me
The shadows around me
Just disappeard from view
The world became rosy
Each corner so cozy
Darling, all because of you
You showed me the way
And if Ive learned that love can be a paradise
For you and me
Heres all I can say
You showed me the way

song performed by Billie Holiday
Added by Lucian Velea
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