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To The Virgins

my mistake was
shattering
virgins who did not make
use of their time
until i was
shattered myself
guilt laden
in sleep

poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Glass

shattering fast, i'm glass, i'm glass
i'm shattering fast, i'm glass, i'm glass
i'm shattering, shattering, glass, glass, glass
i'm shattering fast, i'm glass, i'm glass
got a lot of tears
in a blood-stained jar
been a real long time
since i walk the fine line
you set up the walls
you set up the walls
hold all my calls
i'll be by the pool
won't you please
talk to me
won't you love
what i love
all alone
in my soul
i betrayed
my rock and roll
my rock and roll
my rock and roll
my rock and roll
my rock and roll
Shattering fast, i'm glass, i'm glass
I'm shattering, shattering, glass, glass, glass
you set up the walls
hold all my calls
i'll be by the pool
playing with my guns
and there's nowhere to run
i'm the one you love now
staying after school
breaking all the rules
shattering fast
shattering fast
i'm shattering glass
shattering fast, oh

song performed by Smashing Pumpkins
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Glass Theme (live 10-04-99)

shattering fast
i'm glass, i'm glass
i'm shattering fast
i'm glass, i'm glass
i'm shattering, shattering
glass, glass, glass
i'm shattering fast
i'm glass, i'm glass
i've got a lot of tears
in a blood-stained jar
it's been a real long time
since i walked the fine line
you put up the walls
you put up the walls
hold all my calls
i'll be by the pool
won't you please
worship me
won't you love
what i adore
all alone
in my soul
i betrayed
rock and roll
rock and roll
rock and roll
rock and roll
rock and roll
everybody knows i'm last, i'm last
and everybody knows i'm fast, i'm fast
i'm shattering, shattering
glass, glass, glass
i'm shattering fast
i'm glass, i'm glass
you put up the walls
hold all my calls
'cause i'll be by the pool
playing with my guns
'cause there's nowhere to run
'cause i'm the one you love now
staying after school
breaking all your rules
shattering fast
shattering glass
shattering glass
i'm shattering glass

song performed by Smashing Pumpkins
Added by Lucian Velea
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Hero And Leander. The Fifth Sestiad

Now was bright Hero weary of the day,
Thought an Olympiad in Leander's stay.
Sol and the soft-foot Hours hung on his arms,
And would not let him swim, foreseeing his harms:
That day Aurora double grace obtain'd
Of her love Phoebus; she his horses reign'd,
Set on his golden knee, and, as she list,
She pull'd him back; and as she pull'd she kiss'd,
To have him turn to bed: he lov'd her more,
To see the love Leander Hero bore:
Examples profit much; ten times in one,
In persons full of note, good deeds are done.
Day was so long, men walking fell asleep;
The heavy humours that their eyes did steep
Made them fear mischiefs. The hard streets were beds
For covetous churls and for ambitious heads,
That, spite of Nature, would their business ply:
All thought they had the falling epilepsy,
Men grovell'd so upon the smother'd ground;
And pity did the heart of Heaven confound.
The Gods, the Graces, and the Muses came
Down to the Destinies, to stay the frame
Of the true lovers' deaths, and all world's tears:
But Death before had stopp'd their cruel ears.
All the celestials parted mourning then,
Pierc'd with our human miseries more than men:
Ah, nothing doth the world with mischief fill,
But want of feeling one another's ill!
With their descent the day grew something fair,
And cast a brighter robe upon the air.
Hero, to shorten time with merriment,
For young Alcmane and bright Mya sent,
Two lovers that had long crav'd marriage-dues
At Hero's hands: but she did still refuse;
For lovely Mya was her consort vow'd
In her maid state, and therefore not allow'd
To amorous nuptials: yet fair Hero now
Intended to dispense with her cold vow,
Since hers was broken, and to marry her:
The rites would pleasing matter minister
To her conceits, and shorten tedious day.
They came; sweet Music usher'd th' odorous way,
And wanton Air in twenty sweet forms danced
After her fingers; Beauty and Love advanced
Their ensigns in the downless rosy faces
Of youths and maids led after by the Graces.
For all these Hero made a friendly feast,
Welcom'd them kindly, did much love protest,
Winning their hearts with all the means she might.
That, when her fault should chance t' abide the light

[...] Read more

poem by George Chapman
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Cold Summers Day

(a. bell / v. clarke)
(woah, woah)
Dont know what youve got til its gone.
A hint of the scents, then its gone.
Look at the state of you,
Youre all fingers & thumbs. (youre all fingers & thumbs)
So whos your latest flame?
Driving em wild in the fast lane.
Wont say I told you so,
But the boy has no shame. (shame, no shame)
And Im putting the brave face on.
Makes me look totally kind,
The higher the head, the closer you are to heaven.
Gone and blown it all.
How can you say: it doesnt matter much to me.?
A dumb mistake, to much to pay.
A shattered heart in loves debris.
Gone and blown it all.
How can you say: it doesnt matter much to me.?
A dumb mistake, to much to pay.
A shattered heart in loves debris.
Dont know what youve got til its gone.
The thrill of the chase, then its gone.
Only the hurt to prove that it ever went on.
And life is wonderful thing,
When youre humming the words to a love song.
Do what you wanna do, live without the within. (without)
When Im in your arms Im strong.
And were travelling at light speed,
We shine for liberty, life,
And the pursuit of pleasure.
Gone and blown it all.
How can you say: it doesnt matter much to me.?
A dumb mistake, to much to pay.
A shattered heart in loves debris.
Gone and blown it all.
How can you say: it doesnt matter much to me.?
A dumb mistake, to much to pay.
A shattered heart in loves debris.
(woah, woah, ooh...)
(woah, woah, ooh...)
Here I do walk,
Fast from angst of loss.
On a cold summers day. (summers day...woah)
On a cold summers day. (summers day...ooh)
Fast from angst of loss.
On a cold summers day. (woah, woah, ooh...)
I never said thanks...(woah)
I never said thanks...(woah)
It wouldnt work out...(woah)

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song performed by Erasure
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Middle Eastern Plan To Hijack Commercial Aircraft

Oil Date 1998 and 2000
George H.W. Bush a former President purchases
'The Best Enemies Money Can Buy' skip travels
to Saudi Arabia on behalf of the privately owned
Carlyle Group who are elite 11th largest defense
US contractor but who does Bush meet Bush meet...

In Saudi Arabia George H.W. Bush meets privately
with the Saudi royal family and bin Laden family?

Oil Date January 2001
Bush Administration orders FBI plus intelligence
agencies to 'back off' investigations involving
can't touch that Bush protected bin Laden family
including two of wanted Osama bin Laden's relatives
Abdullah and Omar living in Falls Church next to...

CIA headquarters previous orders protecting bin
Laden family dating back to 1996 frustrating efforts
to investigate al-Qaeda suspects in bin Laden family?

Oil Date Feb 13,2001
Richard Sale UPI Terrorism Correspondent
on trial of bin Laden's al-Qaeda followers
reports infamous National Security Agency
broke bin Laden's encrypted communications
are reading all Osama bin Laden's terror plans...

How does this mesh with wield fact US government
insists that 9/11 attacks had been planned for years
yet Bush keeps ordering zero bin Laden monitoring?

Oil Date May 2001
How bizarre Colin Powell Secretary of State gives
$43 million in aid to Taliban regime reportedly
to assist poor hungry Afghani farmers now starving
since destruction of their opium crop in January
on orders of Taliban regime drug intolerance policy …

Drugs war war on drugs covert money making policy?

Oil Date May 2001 (Smoking Guns)
Richard Armitage Deputy Secretary of State
a former Navy Seal a career covert operative
travels to India on a publicized known tour
meanwhile George Tenet CIA Director quiet
visits Pakistan meets Pakistani leader General...

Pervez Musharraf but but put the pieces together
Richard Armitage possesses Pakistani intelligence

[...] Read more

poem by Terence George Craddock
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IX. Juris Doctor Johannes-Baptista Bottinius, Fisci et Rev. Cam. Apostol. Advocatus

Had I God's leave, how I would alter things!
If I might read instead of print my speech,—
Ay, and enliven speech with many a flower
Refuses obstinate to blow in print,
As wildings planted in a prim parterre,—
This scurvy room were turned an immense hall;
Opposite, fifty judges in a row;
This side and that of me, for audience—Rome:
And, where yon window is, the Pope should hide—
Watch, curtained, but peep visibly enough.
A buzz of expectation! Through the crowd,
Jingling his chain and stumping with his staff,
Up comes an usher, louts him low, "The Court
"Requires the allocution of the Fisc!"
I rise, I bend, I look about me, pause
O'er the hushed multitude: I count—One, two—

Have ye seen, Judges, have ye, lights of law,—
When it may hap some painter, much in vogue
Throughout our city nutritive of arts,
Ye summon to a task shall test his worth,
And manufacture, as he knows and can,
A work may decorate a palace-wall,
Afford my lords their Holy Family,—
Hath it escaped the acumen of the Court
How such a painter sets himself to paint?
Suppose that Joseph, Mary and her Babe
A-journeying to Egypt, prove the piece:
Why, first he sedulously practiseth,
This painter,—girding loin and lighting lamp,—
On what may nourish eye, make facile hand;
Getteth him studies (styled by draughtsmen so)
From some assistant corpse of Jew or Turk
Or, haply, Molinist, he cuts and carves,—
This Luca or this Carlo or the like.
To him the bones their inmost secret yield,
Each notch and nodule signify their use:
On him the muscles turn, in triple tier,
And pleasantly entreat the entrusted man
"Familiarize thee with our play that lifts
"Thus, and thus lowers again, leg, arm and foot!"
—Ensuring due correctness in the nude.
Which done, is all done? Not a whit, ye know!
He,—to art's surface rising from her depth,—
If some flax-polled soft-bearded sire be found,
May simulate a Joseph, (happy chance!)—
Limneth exact each wrinkle of the brow,
Loseth no involution, cheek or chap,
Till lo, in black and white, the senior lives!
Is it a young and comely peasant-nurse

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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Big Mistake

Keeps them all waiting
Theyre standing in line
He never has to worry about being alone
Hes taking his own sweet time
The mans mighty hot
Believe it or not
Every womans after what the big boys got
They know its all a lie but theyre taking their shot
He is such a smooth-talking man
They never want to let him go
Hell be gone when the morning comes
Then theyll be the first to know
Its just a big mistake
Such a big mistake
Well, it wont be the first
It definitely wont be the last one you make
Just a big mistake
Sooner or later theyre gonna find out
He never cares about the hearts hes breaking tonight
Hes letting it all hang out
The mans mighty tough
Better leave before it starts to get too rough
He such a smooth-talking man
They never want to let him go
Hell be gone when the morning comes
Then theyll be the first to know
Its a big mistake
Such a big mistake
Well, it wont be the first
It definitely wont be the last one you make
Such a big mistake
Just a big mistake
Such a big mistake
Such a big mistake
You might think you oughta call him mr. right
Baby you might get a big surprise tonight
You might think you oughta call him mr. right
Baby you might get a big surprise tonight
In the morning when you find him gone
Its a big mistake
You know youve been lied to
In the morning when you know youre wrong
Such a big mistake
Theres no one to cry to
In the morning when you find him gone
Its a big mistake
You know youve been lied to
In the morning when youre so alone
Such a big mistake
When youre so alone

[...] Read more

song performed by Peter Cetera
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If You Ever Make a Mistake

If you make a mistake,
Admit it.
And get it right out of your way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape.
Believing what is done is okay!

If you ever make a mistake,
Just admit it!
And get it out of the way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape...
That mistake someday you'll repay!

There's no need for moaning or groaning,
Over what's been done.
No one lives a perfect life,
Under the Sun!

Alibis are like houseflies.
They begin to annoy.
And habits are like pests when invited...
They are hard to destroy.

Even if you hit 'em with a bat...
They come right back!

If you make a mistake,
Admit it.
And get it right out of your way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape.
Believing what is done is okay!

If you ever make a mistake,
Just admit it!
And get it out of the way.
Don't you ever fake it to escape...
That mistake someday you'll repay!

Strap in that saddle and take that ride.
Admit that mistake made,
And push it aside!

'Okay, okay, okay!
So I made a mistake.
So what's the big deal? '

~Getting you to admit it! ~

If you make a mistake,
Admit it.
And get it right out of your way.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Its A Mistake

Jump down the shelters to get away
The boys are cockin up their guns
Tell us general, is it party time?
If it is can we all come
Dont think that we dont know
Dont think that were not trying
Dont think we move too slow
Its no use after crying
Saying
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Its a mistake, its a mistake
After the laughter as died away
And all the boys have had their fun
No surface noise now, not much to say
Theyve got the bad guys on the run
Dont try to say youre sorry
Dont say he drew his gun
Theyve gone and grabbed old ronnie
Hes not the only one saying
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Tell us commander, what do you think?
cos we know that you love all that power
Is it on then, are we on the brink?
We wish youd all throw in the towel
Well not fade out too soon
Not in this finest hour
Whistle your favourite tune
Well send a card and flower
Saying
Its a mistake, its a mistake
Its a mistake, its a mistake

song performed by Men At Work
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
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Work, Sleep, Work, Sleep, Work

Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work:

Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work, sleep, work, sleep,
Work.

Oh free me please with gentle ease
From work, sleep, work, sleep, work!
This odium, pounding tedium
Of my work, sleep, work, sleep, work.

Just whisk me off to lands afar
From work, sleep, work, sleep, work -
That grinding train of rhythmic pain
Called ‘Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.’

Poor neural circuits fizzle and pop
In work, sleep, work, sleep, work,
In trying to make some sense of all this
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.

But Hark! I see a golden gleam -
A saving spirit of hope:
‘You’re fired! ’ He screams. What news to bear,
This wondrous hangman’s rope!

So now I’m free, released from all this
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work -
Eternal peace and rest for me, no
Work, sleep, work, sleep, work.

poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Just Make It Stop

Just make it stop.
The stillness in the air.
The shattered mirror just sitting their.

The hate.
The anger.
Just make it all stop.
I can't take it no more.
The constant ringing upon my ears.
The blood curdling screams I continuously hear.

Just make it stop.
The stillness in the air.
The shattered mirror just sitting their.

The hate.
The anger.
Just make it all stop.
I can't take it no more.
The constant ringing upon my ears.
The blood curdling screams I continuously hear.

Fist flying.
Object Throwing.
Door Slamming.
Here's my pause button.
Cranking up the music and start jamming.
For its my only way out.

Just make it stop.
The stillness in the air.
The shattered mirror just sitting their.

The hate.
The anger
Just make it all stop.
I can't take it no more.
The constant ringing upon my ears.
The blood curdling screams I continuously hear.

Just make it stop.
The stillness in the air.
The shattered mirror just sitting their.

The hate.
The anger.
Just make it all stop.
I can't take it no more.
The constant ringing upon my ears.
The blood curdling screams I continuously hear.

[...] Read more

poem by Ace Of Black Hearts
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IV. Tertium Quid

True, Excellency—as his Highness says,
Though she's not dead yet, she's as good as stretched
Symmetrical beside the other two;
Though he's not judged yet, he's the same as judged,
So do the facts abound and superabound:
And nothing hinders that we lift the case
Out of the shade into the shine, allow
Qualified persons to pronounce at last,
Nay, edge in an authoritative word
Between this rabble's-brabble of dolts and fools
Who make up reasonless unreasoning Rome.
"Now for the Trial!" they roar: "the Trial to test
"The truth, weigh husband and weigh wife alike
"I' the scales of law, make one scale kick the beam!"
Law's a machine from which, to please the mob,
Truth the divinity must needs descend
And clear things at the play's fifth act—aha!
Hammer into their noddles who was who
And what was what. I tell the simpletons
"Could law be competent to such a feat
"'T were done already: what begins next week
"Is end o' the Trial, last link of a chain
"Whereof the first was forged three years ago
"When law addressed herself to set wrong right,
"And proved so slow in taking the first step
"That ever some new grievance,—tort, retort,
"On one or the other side,—o'ertook i' the game,
"Retarded sentence, till this deed of death
"Is thrown in, as it were, last bale to boat
"Crammed to the edge with cargo—or passengers?
"'Trecentos inseris: ohe, jam satis est!
"'Huc appelle!'—passengers, the word must be."
Long since, the boat was loaded to my eyes.
To hear the rabble and brabble, you'd call the case
Fused and confused past human finding out.
One calls the square round, t' other the round square—
And pardonably in that first surprise
O' the blood that fell and splashed the diagram:
But now we've used our eyes to the violent hue
Can't we look through the crimson and trace lines?
It makes a man despair of history,
Eusebius and the established fact—fig's end!
Oh, give the fools their Trial, rattle away
With the leash of lawyers, two on either side—
One barks, one bites,—Masters Arcangeli
And Spreti,—that's the husband's ultimate hope
Against the Fisc and the other kind of Fisc,
Bound to do barking for the wife: bow—wow!
Why, Excellency, we and his Highness here
Would settle the matter as sufficiently

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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[9] O, Moon, My Sweet-heart!

O, Moon, My Sweet-heart!
[LOVE POEMS]

POET: MAHENDRA BHATNAGAR

POEMS

1 Passion And Compassion / 1
2 Affection
3 Willing To Live
4 Passion And Compassion / 2
5 Boon
6 Remembrance
7 Pretext
8 To A Distant Person
9 Perception
10 Conclusion
10 You (1)
11 Symbol
12 You (2)
13 In Vain
14 One Night
15 Suddenly
16 Meeting
17 Touch
18 Face To Face
19 Co-Traveller
20 Once And Once only
21 Touchstone
22 In Chorus
23 Good Omens
24 Even Then
25 An Evening At ‘Tighiraa’ (1)
26 An Evening At ‘Tighiraa’ (2)
27 Life Aspirant
28 To The Condemned Woman
29 A Submission
30 At Midday
31 I Accept
32 Who Are You?
33 Solicitation
34 Accept Me
35 Again After Ages …
36 Day-Dreaming
37 Who Are You?
38 You Embellished In Song

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poem by Mahendra Bhatnagar
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VI. Giuseppe Caponsacchi

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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The House Of Dust: Complete

I.

The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.

And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.

'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.

We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .

Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.

Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.

Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.

II.

[...] Read more

poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
Added by Poetry Lover
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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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Fingers & Thumbs

Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
A hint of the scent then it's gone
Look at the state of you, you're all fingers & thumbs
So who's your latest flame
Drivin' em wild in the fast lane
Won't say i told you so, but the boy has no shame
Once when my hands were full
We were double or quits then some
Nothin' at all to show for a love so precious
Gone & blown it all, how can you say
"it doesn't matter much to me?"
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in love's debris
Gone & blow it all & then you say
"this can't be happening to me"
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in love's debris
Don't know what you've got 'til it's gone
The thrill of the chase then it's gone
Only the hurt to prove that it ever went on
And life is a wonderful thing
When you're humming the words to a love song
Do what you wanna do be who you want to be
When i'm in your arms i'm strong
There's nowhere i'd rather be
We shine for liberty, life & the pursuit of pleasure
Gone & blown it all, how can you say
"it doesn't matter much to me?"
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in love's debris
Gone & blown it all & then you say
"this isn't happening to me"
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in love's debris
And how the days have flown too few & fast
They said it wasn't meant to last
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in love's debris

song performed by Erasure
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fingers Thumbs

Dont know what youve got til its gone
A hint of the scent then its gone
Look at the state of you, youre all fingers & thumbs
So whos your latest flame
Drivin em wild in the fast lane
Wont say I told you so, but the boy has no shame
Once when my hands were full
We were double or quits then some
Nothin at all to show for a love so precious
Gone & blown it all, how can you say
It doesnt matter much to me?
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in loves debris
Gone & blow it all & then you say
This cant be happening to me
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in loves debris
Dont know what youve got til its gone
The thrill of the chase then its gone
Only the hurt to prove that it ever went on
And life is a wonderful thing
When youre humming the words to a love song
Do what you wanna do be who you want to be
When Im in your arms Im strong
Theres nowhere Id rather be
We shine for liberty, life & the pursuit of pleasure
Gone & blown it all, how can you say
It doesnt matter much to me?
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in loves debris
Gone & blown it all & then you say
This isnt happening to me
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in loves debris
And how the days have flown too few & fast
They said it wasnt meant to last
A dumb mistake too much to pay
A shattered heart in loves debris

song performed by Erasure
Added by Lucian Velea
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Outside331’sSleep

Don’t open your eyes yet not until I explain last night I went to bed with Sleep last night I fell for Sleep last night Sleep unclothed me left me naked in a room painted black I couldn’t see Sleep because Sleep was dark too and the room was black and the foreground blended in with the background I couldn’t tell what was far and what was close I became frustrated because Sleep was either hiding inside the room or the room was hiding behind Sleep neither were being fair to my eyes who wanted to play hide and go Sleep I hide inside the room and Sleep seeks I said where are you Sleep I can’t see you my eyes can’t find you Sleep I said I wanted to fall inside you brought me into this black room and I am trying to wrap myself around you won’t you come inside of me you won’t stage scenes in my eyes created with color everything is black one long stretch Sleep are you moving and I can’t see you or are you standing still and I can’t feel you are here Sleep you are silent Sleep I feel alone Sleep I want you to be inside me if you take me to a black room and make me go to bed are your eyes open I can’t see you did you leave is Sleep here Sleep am I inside you explain Sleep explain did you open your eyes Sleep are my eyes open Sleep are you outside me Sleep you took me to bed and left me Sleep I can’t open my eyes until you are back inside me I can’t see Sleep when you’re not inside me open your eyes Sleep do you see me inside you explain last night am I still inside Sleep?

(12-13-07)

poem by Chelsea Trescott
Added by Poetry Lover
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