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Apathy is a sort of living oblivion.

quote by Horace Greeley
Added by Lucian Velea
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Apathy 83

(ian hunter)
Standin on the edge of vesuvius - my mouth is runnin dry
Drunk on wine & wisdom - giving it all away
Old enough to hate tomorrow - young enough not to know where to run
Oh there aint no rockn roll no more - just the music of the young
Apathy for the devil apathy for the devil
Apathy for the devil ,n apathy for the son.
The moon shines brightly on some summer lawn -
And envy caught like a leaf
Comes floating down upon this frozen desert sand -
Spitting bullets through the night
The siren wails on the ambulance - compassion touches my head n it bleeds
There aint no rockn roll no more just the sickly sound of greed.
And its apathy for the devil and its apathy for the devil
And its apathy for the devil n apathy for the creed
No more gardens for the gardenless - no more - havens for the havenless
No more helpers for the helplessness - no more - somethings for a less
For the law is now the lawless
n the flaw is now the flawless
n the crime is now accepted
n the criminal respected
n now evil gets elected
n now sinful get selected
Heed a president proven rotten now officially forgotten
Was it your general sheridan who once said the only good, good man is a dead good man.
It was not me babe
I just said keep your head n your bread well down under them floorboards
n you - you look like you gone with the wind
Running naked through the streets
Wired out - tired out - transcendental mental - only laughing in your sleep
Nostalgia is starting to focus too late, imagination is starting to itch
There aint no rockn roll no more just the music of the rich
n its apathy for the devil n its apathy for the devil
n its apathy for the devil apathys at fever pitch

song performed by Ian Hunter
Added by Lucian Velea
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Old Spookses' Pass

I.
WE'D camped that night on Yaller Bull Flat,--
Thar was Possum Billy, an' Tom, an' me.
Right smart at throwin' a lariat
Was them two fellers, as ever I see;
An' for ridin' a broncho, or argyin' squar
With the devil roll'd up in the hide of a mule,
Them two fellers that camp'd with me thar
Would hev made an' or'nary feller a fool.
II.
Fur argyfyin' in any way,
Thet hed to be argy'd with sinew an' bone,
I never see'd fellers could argy like them;
But just right har I will hev to own
Thet whar brains come in in the game of life,
They held the poorest keerds in the lot;
An' when hands was shown, some other chap
Rak'd in the hull of the blamed old pot!
III.
We was short of hands, the herd was large,
An' watch an' watch we divided the night;
We could hear the coyotes howl an' whine,
But the darned critters kept out of sight
Of the camp-fire blazin'; an' now an' then
Thar cum a rustle an' sort of rush--
A rattle a-sneakin' away from the blaze,
Thro' the rattlin', cracklin' grey sage bush.
IV.
We'd chanc'd that night on a pootyish lot,
With a tol'ble show of tall, sweet grass--
We was takin' Speredo's drove across
The Rockies, by way of "Old Spookses' Pass"--
An' a mite of a creek went crinklin' down,
Like a "pocket" bust in the rocks overhead,
Consid'able shrunk, by the summer drought,
To a silver streak in its gravelly bed.
V.
'Twas a fairish spot fur to camp a' night;
An' chipper I felt, tho' sort of skeer'd
That them two cowboys with only me,
Couldn't boss three thousand head of a herd.
I took the fust of the watch myself;
An' as the red sun down the mountains sprang,
I roll'd a fresh quid, an' got on the back
Of my peart leetle chunk of a tough mustang.
VI.
An' Possum Billy was sleepin' sound
Es only a cowboy knows how to sleep;
An' Tommy's snores would hev made a old
Buffalo bull feel kind o' cheap.

[...] Read more

poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Bad Dream

Im living in a bad dream.
Theyre supposed to be here by now.
What the hell is taking them so long?
I parked the car just like they said.
Now, Im sitting, waiting for a bullet in my head.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
Im supposed to be feeling better by now.
What the hell is taking me so long?
I hit the hay just like they said.
Now, Im sitting, waiting for a bell in my head.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
On a curve, lost control.
On a cliff, lost control.
This is not happening to me.
I say so.
Im supposed to be a better person by now.
What the hell is taking me so long?
Dying saviors off sum cross.
Now, Im hoping and Im praying that theyll nullify my losses.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream gone bad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Im living in a bad dream
Im living in a bad dream thats sad.
Im living in a bad dream.
Gordon gano: vocals, guitar
Brian ritchie: acoustic bass guitar, vocals, autoharp
Guy hoffman: drums, vocals
David vartanian: electric piano
Produced by brian ritchie and gordon gano
Recorded and mixed by david vartanian at dvs perversion room, milwaukee, wi
gorno music reprinted with permission

song performed by Violent Femmes
Added by Lucian Velea
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Old Spense

You've seen his place, I reckon, friend?
'Twas rather kind ov tryin'.
The way he made the dollars fly,
Such gimcrack things a-buyin'--
He spent a big share ov a fortin'
On pesky things that went a snortin'

And hollerin' over all the fields,
And ploughin' ev'ry furrow;
We sort ov felt discouraged, for
Spense wusn't one to borrow;
An' wus--the old chap wouldn't lend
A cent's wuth to his dearest friend!

Good land! the neighbours seed to wunst
Them snortin', screamin' notions
Wus jest enough tew drown the yearth
In wrath, like roarin' oceans,
'An' guess'd the Lord would give old Spense
Blue fits for fightin' Pruvidence!'

Spense wus thet harden'd; when the yearth
Wus like a bak'd pertater;
Instead ov prayin' hard fur rain,
He fetched an irrigator.
'The wicked flourish like green bays!'
Sed folks for comfort in them days.

I will allow his place was grand
With not a stump upon it,
The loam wus jest as rich an' black
Es school ma'am's velvet bunnit;
But tho' he flourish'd, folks all know'd
What spiritooal ear-marks he show'd.

Spense had a notion in his mind,
Ef some poor human grapples
With pesky worms thet eat his vines,
An' spile his summer apples,
It don't seem enny kind ov sense
Tew call that 'cheekin' Pruvidence!'

An' ef a chap on Sabbath sees
A thunder cloud a-strayin'
Above his fresh cut clover an'
Gets down tew steddy prayin',
An' tries tew shew the Lord's mistake,
Instead ov tacklin' tew his rake,

He ain't got enny kind ov show

[...] Read more

poem by Isabella Valancy Crawford
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

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

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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My Needs Not Met

I'm manifesting something brittle.
Something needing special company.
I fiddle-faddled in the middle.
And weakened both batteries.

I'm manifesting something brittle.
And I'm seeking from you empathy...
Cause my baby has had it with me.
And now I find myself...
Walking up and down the streets.

I'm manifesting something brittle.
Something needing special company.
I fiddle-faddled in the middle.
And weakened both batteries.

I'm manifesting something brittle.
And I'm seeking from you empathy...
Cause my baby has had it with me.
And now I find myself...
Walking up and down the streets.

Never thought I'd be the one.
Living on the streets.
Disbelieving...
And living on the streets.
And seeing...
Living on the streets,
My needs not met!
Living on the streets.
And regretting.
Living on the streets.

Never thought I'd be the one.
Living on the streets.
Disbelieving...
And living on the streets.
And seeing...
Living on the streets,
My needs not met!
Living on the streets.
And regretting.
Living on the streets.

Never thought I'd be the one.
Living on the streets.
And seeing...
Living on the streets,
My needs...
Living on the streets,

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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What Are We Really Living For?

What are we really living for?
If we don't seek love.
What are we living for?
If inside we can't be happy.

We're living for,
The pursuit of it...
And some people think,
It is a ship coming in.
And all they have to do is sit and giggle and grin.

What are we really living for?
Does it get to show.
What are we really living for?
Who on Earth knows.
What are we really living for?
Is it for upheavel.
What are we really living for?
Or a treated evil.
What are we really living for?
Deceit and disbelief.
What are we really living for?
Or for other people.
What are we really living for?
To meet and greet.

What are we really living for?
Does it get to show.
What are we really living for?
Who on Earth knows.
What are we really living for?
Is it for upheavel.
What are we really living for?
Or a treated evil.
What are we really living for?
Or, are we too blind...
What are we really living for?

To see we're here...
And are together on the right scene.
We just don't want to know what it means...
To Let go, Let God, and let happiness,
Be released!

What are we really living for?
If we don't seek love.
What are we really living for?
If inside,
We can't-be-happy.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Ship of Death

I

Now it is autumn and the falling fruit
and the long journey towards oblivion.

The apples falling like great drops of dew
to bruise themselves an exit from themselves.

And it is time to go, to bid farewell
to one's own self, and find an exit
from the fallen self.

II

Have you built your ship of death, O have you?
O build your ship of death, for you will need it.

The grim frost is at hand, when the apples will fall
thick, almost thundrous, on the hardened earth.

And death is on the air like a smell of ashes!
Ah! can't you smell it?
And in the bruised body, the frightened soul
finds itself shrinking, wincing from the cold
that blows upon it through the orifices.

III

And can a man his own quietus make
with a bare bodkin?

With daggers, bodkins, bullets, man can make
a bruise or break of exit for his life;
but is that a quietus, O tell me, is it quietus?

Surely not so! for how could murder, even self-murder
ever a quietus make?

IV

O let us talk of quiet that we know,
that we can know, the deep and lovely quiet
of a strong heart at peace!

How can we this, our own quietus, make?

V

Build then the ship of death, for you must take
the longest journey, to oblivion.

[...] Read more

poem by David Herbert Lawrence
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What Part Of Life Are You Living

What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.

And what part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.

What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.

And what part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.

What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you willing to live.

What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you willing to live.

What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you giving to live.
What part of life are you giving.
What part of life are you living.

What part of life is a drive by.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life are you living to give?
What part of life are you willing to live.
What part of life is a downslide.
What part of life is a drive by.
And...
What part of life are you living.
What part of life are you living to give?

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Waiting To Die

Look at the madness
It's out of control
It's feeding your sadness
And eating you soul
You're feeling so lonely
You're not very strong
You wait for the curtain
It's taking too long
You find you go nowhere
You're very confused
Swearing you're happy
It's just self abuse
You can think of 20 zillion places
you could be
If you could go
You cannot escape because
the world is watching you
And the know!!!
Hell is not anywhere
It's all in your mind
Dragging you thru time
Living in misery
No better company
Why should I try
Fetal oblivion
Riding around the sun
Waiting to die
Your drowning in sadness
You pray it's a dreams
Impossibly tragic
You silently scream
You might want the world to be as
miserable as you
That would be cruel
But lies and self-fulfilling prophecies
are all you have
You're just a fool
Hell is not anywhere
It's all in your mind
Dragging you thru time
Living in misery
No better company
Why should I try
Fetal oblivion
Riding around the sun
Waiting to die
Living in misery
No better company
Why should I try
Fetal oblivion

[...] Read more

song performed by Zebra
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sala

A quaint sepia photograph reckons
Of my deceased old grandparents
In their cordial nuptial palpably soaked
And cloaked in God's veil and covenant
It perishes amongst the ghastly cobwebs
And the dusts in the wailing lifelessness
Of the immodest and muted living room

And in my somnolent and castrated vision
It had painted another mawkish picture,
A concrete memoire of the absence
Of love, of death, and of love in death
So I refocused on the sala instead
With the scraped pastel wallpapers
Toppling on the cold floor parquet
A catastrophic finagling that reveals
The abused skin of my genuine home:
The arms of acquiesced oblivion
Sprawling on the threadbare divan
And watching the midnight sitcoms
With my levity, and purging the ecstasy
Of my the escape in late night episodes;
Cradling my aversion and diversion
To dance with the perfidious moonlight;
Or read the hideous diffidence in my poetries
To the overwhelming nonchalance of the sparrows

Oblivion is here, in this juncture of the sala,
Furnished with such ludicrous fantasies
Almost accenting my brusque reality
That I sew upon my lifelong starvation
For love, for death, for love in death
For romance, for heaven, for that which will never
And the conservative chandelier was dimmed
From the stark brightness of the glacial fire
Burning in the patios of my forlorn mire
Fluttering with the barricading shades
Of these heavy carnation pink curtains
Like a colossal shadow in the dark
A surreptitious phantom lurking
And scheming on its feet, to devour
My harried refuge in this sala

Oblivion, it could be too arresting
That the lampshades thawed in fragments
Oblivion could be bountiful in fragments
But then again, it could probably be not,
Oblivion could be harsh; it could be very harsh,
When your oblivion is a puncturing memory
That only ensued in the insipidness of the sala

[...] Read more

poem by Norman Santos
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Dead beyond description

Dead beyond description are those living eyes; which
tirelessly harbor the swords of indiscriminately
terrorizing hatred and satanic prejudice,

Dead beyond description are those living ears; which
rapaciously yearn to hear the brutally asphyxiated
cries of the pricelessly innocent; every unfurling
minute of the day as well as in the ingredients of
blackened night,

Dead beyond description are those living lips; which
remain as frozen as heartlessly white ice; even as
enchantingly golden rays of the blazing Sun;
compassionately embraced every organism on earth;
handsomely alike,

Dead beyond description are those living feet; which
ludicrously rot in the corpses of cowardice; even as
the earth on which they tread was being unsparingly
molested by hedonistically torturous traitors of
mankind,

Dead beyond description are those living fingers;
which mercilessly strangulate the divinely silhouette
of newborn life; in order to reign spuriously supreme
for an infinite more non-existent lifetimes,

Dead beyond description are those living teeth; which
barbarously pulverize wonderfully evolving life of the
womb; on the sadistic pretext of it not belonging to
their vindictively castigating religion,

Dead beyond description are those living veins; which
salaciously betray even the most perpetually bonding
of relationships; for just an infinitesimally tawdry
bundle of feckless currency notes,

Dead beyond description are those living shoulders;
which listlessly while away every blessed moment of
their existence; carrying the coffins of unsurpassably
massacring lies,

Dead beyond description are those living eyelids;
which bat down in due obeisance to the world of
anarchically decrepit corruption and the mortuary of
wickedly wastrel politics,

Dead beyond description are those living shadows;
which devilishly pretend as parasitically delinquent
ghosts; scurrilously scaring holistically breathing

[...] Read more

poem by Nikhil Parekh
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No Name #3

We arrived too late
Our mouths were opening
I turned off the light
So come on night
You're a witness you
You've seen me interrupt
A good old fashioned fight
So come on night
Everyone is gone
Home to oblivion
Home to oblivion
Home to oblivion
Watched the dying day
Blushing in the sky
Everyone is uptight
So come on night
Everyone is gone
Home to oblivion
Home to oblivion
Home to oblivion
I know we're not
Illegitimate
In our hearing
So come on
So come on night

song performed by Elliott Smith
Added by Lucian Velea
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Neuromancer

Age of destruction
Age of oblivion
Age of destruction
Age of oblivion
Discovered love,
In the rancid days of ruin
My bodys sweatin toxins,
Of my own demise
Only from space, can you see
How much earth is burning
Smokin out the innocense inside
The child
Its the age of destruction
In a world of corruption
Its the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
Neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer--and Im trancing
Man wallows in his insatiable greed
More in the answer that sweats
From desparate palms
Turn on the lies, the secrets,
Of our desolation,
Or be smothered, by the red hot core
Its the age of destruction,
In a world of corruption
Its the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
The neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer--Im trancing
Trancing
Trancing
And Im trancing
Denied love in the age of ruin
Suicide toxins of my own demise
In cyberspace, you know how much
The earth aint learning
Smoking out the man, inside the child--yeah
Its the age of destruction
In a world of corruption
Its the age of destruction
And they hand us oblivion
The neuromancer and Im trancing
Im the neuromancer and Im trancing
Neuromancer--trancing
Neuromancer--trancing
Neuromancer--trancing
Neuromancer
Age of destruction

[...] Read more

song performed by Billy Idol
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sullen Girl

Days like this, I dont know what to do with myself.
All day - and all night.
I wander the halls along the walls and under my breath.
I say to myself.
I need fuel - to take flight -
And theres too much going on.
But its calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion.
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion.
Is that why they call me a sullen girl - sullen girl.
The dont know I used to sail the deep and tranquil sea.
But he washed me shore and he took my pearl -
And left an empty shell of me.
And theres too much going on.
But its calm under the waves, in the blue of my oblivion.
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion.
Under the waves in the blue of my oblivion.
Its calm under the waves in the blue of my oblivion.

song performed by Fiona Apple
Added by Lucian Velea
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A Man Of Oblivion

Oblivion is my refuge and
It`s worth a life`s deductions.
From the day my life sprang up
From the mercy of the Creator
My oblivion has been my pal beloved.

Oblivion is my strength and
It`s nothing less than a grace.
Transferring my pains and woes
Into its inner chambers my entity triumphs
And my ego surges forward.

My oblivion has two phases-
One is of my life haunted by myself,
The other is of my life ravaged by time.
As the lilies fade out the former does and
As the islands in the Pacific submerge does the latter.

What is an oblivion of your kind?
Do you ever make such deductions?
As a new stream of new pathos rushes
To run along the abode of your oblivion,
Do you know the bliss you scale down?

poem by M.d Dinesh Nair
Added by Poetry Lover
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Canto the Second

I
Oh ye! who teach the ingenuous youth of nations,
Holland, France, England, Germany, or Spain,
I pray ye flog them upon all occasions,
It mends their morals, never mind the pain:
The best of mothers and of educations
In Juan's case were but employ'd in vain,
Since, in a way that's rather of the oddest, he
Became divested of his native modesty.

II
Had he but been placed at a public school,
In the third form, or even in the fourth,
His daily task had kept his fancy cool,
At least, had he been nurtured in the north;
Spain may prove an exception to the rule,
But then exceptions always prove its worth -—
A lad of sixteen causing a divorce
Puzzled his tutors very much, of course.

III
I can't say that it puzzles me at all,
If all things be consider'd: first, there was
His lady-mother, mathematical,
A—never mind; his tutor, an old ass;
A pretty woman (that's quite natural,
Or else the thing had hardly come to pass);
A husband rather old, not much in unity
With his young wife—a time, and opportunity.

IV
Well—well, the world must turn upon its axis,
And all mankind turn with it, heads or tails,
And live and die, make love and pay our taxes,
And as the veering wind shifts, shift our sails;
The king commands us, and the doctor quacks us,
The priest instructs, and so our life exhales,
A little breath, love, wine, ambition, fame,
Fighting, devotion, dust,—perhaps a name.

V
I said that Juan had been sent to Cadiz -—
A pretty town, I recollect it well -—
'T is there the mart of the colonial trade is
(Or was, before Peru learn'd to rebel),
And such sweet girls—I mean, such graceful ladies,
Their very walk would make your bosom swell;
I can't describe it, though so much it strike,
Nor liken it—I never saw the like:

[...] Read more

poem by Byron from Don Juan (1824)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Avon's Harvest

Fear, like a living fire that only death
Might one day cool, had now in Avon’s eyes
Been witness for so long of an invasion
That made of a gay friend whom we had known
Almost a memory, wore no other name
As yet for us than fear. Another man
Than Avon might have given to us at least
A futile opportunity for words
We might regret. But Avon, since it happened,
Fed with his unrevealing reticence
The fire of death we saw that horribly
Consumed him while he crumbled and said nothing.

So many a time had I been on the edge,
And off again, of a foremeasured fall
Into the darkness and discomfiture
Of his oblique rebuff, that finally
My silence honored his, holding itself
Away from a gratuitous intrusion
That likely would have widened a new distance
Already wide enough, if not so new.
But there are seeming parallels in space
That may converge in time; and so it was
I walked with Avon, fought and pondered with him,
While he made out a case for So-and-so,
Or slaughtered What’s-his-name in his old way,
With a new difference. Nothing in Avon lately
Was, or was ever again to be for us,
Like him that we remembered; and all the while
We saw that fire at work within his eyes
And had no glimpse of what was burning there.

So for a year it went; and so it went
For half another year—when, all at once,
At someone’s tinkling afternoon at home
I saw that in the eyes of Avon’s wife
The fire that I had met the day before
In his had found another living fuel.
To look at her and then to think of him,
And thereupon to contemplate the fall
Of a dim curtain over the dark end
Of a dark play, required of me no more
Clairvoyance than a man who cannot swim
Will exercise in seeing that his friend
Off shore will drown except he save himself.
To her I could say nothing, and to him
No more than tallied with a long belief
That I should only have it back again
For my chagrin to ruminate upon,
Ingloriously, for the still time it starved;

[...] Read more

poem by Edwin Arlington Robinson
Added by Poetry Lover
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Push Me

Album: No Excuses
Ever since the world's been turning
It turned away from me
I've been pushed across the planet
To find my destiny
I've been running away from something
Thats deep inside myself
I've been running till that someday
When I reached the border's edge
Refrain:
Push me I'm living on the edge
Push me I'm sick of living like that
Push me living on the edge
The weak play the strong out of fear of what's wrong yeah
Push me I'm living on the edge
Push me I'm sick of living like that
Push me living on the edge
Im sick to death and learned the lesson
I'm still running yet I don't got
Ground beneath my feet - something is tracking me something is wrecking me
I'm still running and I don't have
Time to fall into deep
Refrain:
Push me I'm living on the edge
Push me I'm sick of living like this
Push me living on the edge
Im sick to death and learned the lesson
Push me I'm living on the edge
Push me I'm sick of living like that
Push me living on the edge
Im sick to death and learned the lesson
Push me I'm living on the edge
Push me I'm sick of living like this
Push me living on the edge
The weak play the strong out of fear of what's wrong yeah
Push me I'm living on the edge
Push me I'm sick of living like that
Push me living on the edge
Im sick to death and learned the lesson

song performed by H-BlockX
Added by Lucian Velea
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