Citatepedia^®.com

Truck Stop Blues

A truck stop in kansas with nowhere to to many days without
Any shows 5 cups of coffee as I just sit and mold its 4 am as
I sip from my cup its 5 am the suns coming up my body has
Shifted to the touring mode trying to sleep in the van on the road
I gotta find a place to call home Ive got the truck stop blues
Taking care of myself paying my dues living life day by day ive
Got the truck stop blues dont think Id have it any other way

song performed by NOFX
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Twin State

university of chicago summer basketball
university of chicago summer camp
university of cincinati baseball camp
university of cincinnati basketball camp
university of cincinnati football camp
university of cincinnati lacrosse camp
university of cincinnati soccer camp
university of cincinnati youth basketbal
university of cinncinati football camp
university of colorado basketball camp
university of colorado basketball camps
university of colorado cross country cam
university of colorado football camp
university of colorado soccer camp
university of colorado soccer camps
university of colorado sports camps
university of colorado summer camp
university of colorado summer camps
university of colorado team lacrosse cam
university of connecticut basketball cam
university of connecticut football camp
university of connecticut girls volleyba
university of connecticut soccer camp
university of connecticut volleyball sum
university of ct summer volleyball camp
university of dallas cross country camps
university of dayton and goalkeeper camp
university of dayton baseball camp
university of dayton basketball camp
university of dayton camps
university of dayton ohio atheletic camp
university of dayton socccer camp
university of dayton soccer camp
university of dayton summer soccer camp
university of dayton volleyball camp
university of delaware 4h camp
university of delaware 4h camp applicati
university of delaware baseball camp
university of delaware camps
university of delaware field hockey camp
university of delaware football camps
university of delaware girls lacrosse ca
university of delaware lacrosse camp
university of delaware soccer camp
university of delaware tiina martin camp
university of delaware volleyball camp
university of delaware youth camps
university of delware soccer camp
university of denver and lacrosse camp
university of denver swimming summer cam

[...] Read more

poem by Caasder Fronds
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Eternal Kansas City

Chorus (choir singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city? )
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city? (do you know the way to kansas city)?
(van singing)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Train down to st. louis
Get me there alright
Over to the city there, you know that one
Where the farmers daughter digs the farmers son
Dig your charlie parker
Basie and young
Witherspoon and jay mcshann
They will come
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Excuse me do you know the way to kansas city?
Lady liberty in waiting
You know she lights the way
Her name is billie, shes a holiday
And the city is eternal -- hey, cant you see?
Its inside of you and its inside of me
Oooowoooowoooo
Chorus (van and choir in background)
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city?
You know, you know the way to kansas city ?
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city
Wild thing
You know the way to kansas city (choir only)
Thank you man (van)
You know the way to kansas city
Sing it (van)
You know the way to kansas city (van and choir)
Hit it (van)
You know...the way to kansas city
You know...the way to kansas city

[...] Read more

song performed by Van Morrison
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Java Blues

Rick danko
I walked into a diner
And the blonde behind the counter
She asked if she could help in any way
Hell, I knew by her smile
Her number I could dial
If I was in the need of company
But as I bought some java
Instead she brought me a cup of chicory
I got those java blues
Coffees got me
Java blues
Oh coffee, coffee, coffee
Java blues
Coffees got me
Java blues
Oh coffee
You know that Ill stay high
Ill drink coffee till I die
Dont pour me water just fill up my cup
You know it takes a lot just to keep me up
Cost may be more than you care to pay
What good is money compared to fightin pain
Dont try to cheat
Its impossible to beat
The only pick me up thats here to stay
I got those java blues
Coffees got me
Java blues
Oh coffee, coffee, coffee
Java blues
Oh coffee, oh coffee
Java blues
Coffees got me
You know that Ill stay high
Ill drink coffee till I die
The taste of java is like a cocaine rush
Nobodys gonna stop me from drinkin too much
Down in bolivia the people are insane
They want as much for coffee as they do for cocaine
Dont try to cheat
Its impossible to beat
The only pick me up thats here to stay
I got those java blues
Coffees got me
Java blues
Oh coffee, coffee, coffee
Java blues
The coffees got me now..
Java blues

[...] Read more

song performed by Nazareth
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Afrikaans: Sterregordels, Stilsonjare, Tydsbroekspypdinge, Haarsliert

Sterregordels

Cosmology in Afrikaans is an ode to joy, the
terms form sing-song strings with delightful
sounds “ewigbewegende elektron”
continuously spinning electron

“elektron in die hart van die atoomkorrel”
electron in the centre of the atom particle
- what a song!

“Triljoene Melkwegstelsels waaromheen ons
Melkweg elke tweehonderdmiljoenjaar
wentel – ‘n mallemeule van sterregordels…”

“Dobberende patrone, mesone en elektrone,
'n konfigurasie van konvekse novae”…

- these terms are singing to me!

A merry-go-round of star systems

Quotes from Adriaan Snyman “Die Messias Kode” (The Messiah Code) pp.9,10

Bombardement Van Frekwensies (English Explanation)

Waarmee sal ek hierdie leë oomblikke,
ankerloos, betekenisloos; aan die ewigheid
vasmaak - die gevoelsruimte in my hart

Is leeg, alle gevoel en denke het gesamentlik
in die donker duisternis van my brein ingeval
‘n laserbrein wat die hologramwêreld

Self moet konsituteer uit ‘n bombardement
van betekenislose frekwensies – maar
vandag is die ligstraalfokus uit

My pendulumgedagtes swaai ongefokus rond
die opgerolde, ingevoude ses-en-twintig of
meer dimensies van die virtuele werklikheid

Wil nie vir my oopgaan nie…

All thought and feeling fell into the black hole in my brain and the twenty-six or more rolled-up frequencies of reality does not want to open for me today…

Geloof In Liefde - Faith In Love

[...] Read more

poem by Margaret Alice
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

John Sinclair

It aint fair, john sinclair
In the stir for breathing air
Wont you care for john sinclair?
In the stir for breathing air
Let him be, set him free
Let him be like you and me
They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
If hed been a soldier man
Shooting gooks in vietnam
If he was the cia
Selling dope and making hay
Hed be free, theyd let him be
Breathing air, like you and me
They gave him ten for two
What else can the judges do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
They gave him ten for two
They got ali otis too.
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta set him free
Was he jailed for what he done?
Or representing everyone
Free john now, if we can
From the clutches of the man
Let him be, lift the lid
Bring him to his wife and kids
They gave him ten for two
What else can the bastards do?
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta, gotta,
Gotta, gotta, gotta set him free

song performed by Lennon John
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Lubie

I said I, I left my wife and child (Lubie come back home),
I said i, i left my wife and child (lubie come back home),
And lord my conscience is about to drive me wild (Lubie come back home),
And lord my conscience is about to drive me wild (lubie come back home),
A little voice inside my head goes on and on (Lubie come back home),
A little voice inside my head goes on and on (lubie come back home),
Said Lubie Lubie you better go back home.
Said lubie lubie you better go back home.
I said I, I thought I'd make it by myself (Lubie come back home),
I said i, i thought i'd make it by myself (lubie come back home),
And now my baby she got my heart dropped on a shelf (Lubie come back home),
And now my baby she got my heart dropped on a shelf (lubie come back home),
I said I, I still you're my baby now (Lubie come back home),
I said i, i still you're my baby now (lubie come back home),
Said Lubie Lubie you better go back home.
Said lubie lubie you better go back home.
You better go on home (Lubie come back home),
You better go on home (lubie come back home),
I said yeah Lubie go on home (Lubie come back home),
I said yeah lubie go on home (lubie come back home),
I said you better go home girl,
I said you better go home girl,
Ah yeah you go home.
Ah yeah you go home.
Go on home home home home home home,
Go on home home home home home home,
Yeah Lubie go on home home home home home home,
Yeah lubie go on home home home home home home,
Yeah Lubie go on home home home home home home,
Yeah lubie go on home home home home home home,
Little bit soft, everybody go soft,
Little bit soft, everybody go soft,
Go on home to see my baby,
Go on home to see my baby,
Yeah you know that she loves you daddy like crazy.
Yeah you know that she loves you daddy like crazy.
I say my misses I'm gonna stay what I'm gonna do,
I say my misses i'm gonna stay what i'm gonna do,
Gonna buy you a monkey and a new dog too yeah,
Gonna buy you a monkey and a new dog too yeah,
The guys have got yeah to get 'em to see my baby,
The guys have got yeah to get 'em to see my baby,
A little bit louder, everybody go on go louder, yeah yeah yeah yeah.
A little bit louder, everybody go on go louder, yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Now Lubie where you been,
Now lubie where you been,
I said I, I left my wife and child (Lubie come back home),
I said i, i left my wife and child (lubie come back home),
And lord my conscience is about to drive me wild (Lubie come back home),
And lord my conscience is about to drive me wild (lubie come back home),

[...] Read more

song performed by Who
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

XI. Guido

You are the Cardinal Acciaiuoli, and you,
Abate Panciatichi—two good Tuscan names:
Acciaiuoli—ah, your ancestor it was
Built the huge battlemented convent-block
Over the little forky flashing Greve
That takes the quick turn at the foot o' the hill
Just as one first sees Florence: oh those days!
'T is Ema, though, the other rivulet,
The one-arched brown brick bridge yawns over,—yes,
Gallop and go five minutes, and you gain
The Roman Gate from where the Ema's bridged:
Kingfishers fly there: how I see the bend
O'erturreted by Certosa which he built,
That Senescal (we styled him) of your House!
I do adjure you, help me, Sirs! My blood
Comes from as far a source: ought it to end
This way, by leakage through their scaffold-planks
Into Rome's sink where her red refuse runs?
Sirs, I beseech you by blood-sympathy,
If there be any vile experiment
In the air,—if this your visit simply prove,
When all's done, just a well-intentioned trick,
That tries for truth truer than truth itself,
By startling up a man, ere break of day,
To tell him he must die at sunset,—pshaw!
That man's a Franceschini; feel his pulse,
Laugh at your folly, and let's all go sleep!
You have my last word,—innocent am I
As Innocent my Pope and murderer,
Innocent as a babe, as Mary's own,
As Mary's self,—I said, say and repeat,—
And why, then, should I die twelve hours hence? I—
Whom, not twelve hours ago, the gaoler bade
Turn to my straw-truss, settle and sleep sound
That I might wake the sooner, promptlier pay
His due of meat-and-drink-indulgence, cross
His palm with fee of the good-hand, beside,
As gallants use who go at large again!
For why? All honest Rome approved my part;
Whoever owned wife, sister, daughter,—nay,
Mistress,—had any shadow of any right
That looks like right, and, all the more resolved,
Held it with tooth and nail,—these manly men
Approved! I being for Rome, Rome was for me.
Then, there's the point reserved, the subterfuge
My lawyers held by, kept for last resource,
Firm should all else,—the impossible fancy!—fail,
And sneaking burgess-spirit win the day.
The knaves! One plea at least would hold,—they laughed,—
One grappling-iron scratch the bottom-rock

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Coffee

Sometimes life is merely a matter of coffee and whatever intimacy a cup of coffee
affords. I once read something about coffee. The thing said that coffee is good for you;
it stimulates all the organs.
I thought at first this was a strange way to put it, and not altogether pleasant, but
as time goes by I have found out that it makes sense in its own limited way. I'll tell you
what I mean.
Yesterday morning I went over to see a girl. I like her. Whatever we had going for us
is gone now. She does not care for me. I blew it and wish I hadn't.
I rang the door bell and waited on the stairs. I could hear her moving around upstairs.
The way she moved I could tell that she was getting up. I had awakened her.
Then she came down the stairs. I could feel her approach in my stomach. Every step she
took stirred my feelings and lead indirectly to her opening the door. She saw me and it
did not please her.
Once upon a time it pleased her very much, last week. I wonder where it went,
pretending to be naive.
"I feel strange now," she said. "I don't want to talk."
"I want a cup of coffee," I said, because it was the last thing in the world
that I wanted. I said it in such a way that it sounded as if I were reading her a telegram
from somebody else, a person who really wanted a cup of coffee, who cared about nothing
else.
"All right," she said.
I followed her up the stairs. It was ridiculous. She had just put some clothes on. They
had not quite adjusted themselves to her body. I could tell you about her ass. We went
into the kitchen.
She took a jar of instant coffee off the shelf and put it on the table. She placed a
cup next to it, and a spoon. I looked at them. She put a pan full of water on the stove
and turned the gas on under it.
All this time she did not say a word. Her clothes adjusted themselves to her body. I
won't. She left the kitchen.
Then she went down the stairs and outside to see if she had any mail. I didn't remember
seeing any. She came back up the stairs and went into another room. She closed the door
after her. I looked at the pan full of water on the stove.
I knew that it would take a year before the water started to boil. It was now October
and there was too much water in the pan. That was the problem. I threw half of the water
into the sink.
The water would boil faster now. It would take only six months. The house was quiet.
I looked out the back porch. There were sacks of garbage there. I stared at the garbage
and tried to figure out what she had been eating lately by studying the containers and
peelings and stuff. I couldn't tell a thing.
It was now March. The water started to boil. I was pleased by this.
I looked at the table. There was the jar of instant coffee, the empty cup and the spoon
all laid out like a funeral service. These are the things that you need to make a cup of
coffee.
When I left the house ten minutes later, the cup of coffee safely inside me like a
grave, I said, "Thank you for the cup of coffee."
"You're welcome," she said. Her voice came from behind a closed door. Her
voice sounded like another telegram. It was really time for me to leave.
I spent the rest of the day not making coffee. It was a comfort. And evening came, I
had dinner in a restaurant and went to a bar. I had some drinks and talked to some people.
We were bar people and said bar things. None of them remembered, and the bar closed. It

[...] Read more

poem by Richard Brautigan from Revenge of the Lawn (1971)
Added by Dan Costinaş
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

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
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Ort Jan van Hunks

Many years back an old pirate
Ort Jan van Hunks lived in Cape Town
and he had gathered enough loot
to live an honest life.

Just above the company gardens
he bought some land
and he thought that trustful slaves
would do the work for him
while he would watch his vineyards grow
and it would be possible
to give attention to his weaknesses.

The loneliness caught up with van Hunks
and he got himself a wife
but in Cape Town
at that time the choices was slim
and he was married to a huge woman
that was so broad
that she could not enter a door
without turning sideways
but he thought that in the cold winter evenings
she would keep him warm.

The trouble with his wife
was that she was a strict person
who drove their slave girls
to polish everything,
she had driven him away
from his own fireplace
with a hard hitting elbow,
as she was scared
that the ash from his pipe
would fall on the beautiful yellow-wood floor.

At the trees high up against the saddle
where Devil's peak joins Table Mountain,
van Hunks found a big rock
that was flat like a settee
and there nobody would bother him
as the Citizens thought
that only a lunatic
would climb the peaks of Table Mountain.

With a barrel of rum and a heap of tobacco
that he had carried along secretary
van Hunks was dreaming
with his pipe in his mouth
while he saw the shadow
of the mountain

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Thurso’s Landing

I
The coast-road was being straightened and repaired again,
A group of men labored at the steep curve
Where it falls from the north to Mill Creek. They scattered and hid
Behind cut banks, except one blond young man
Who stooped over the rock and strolled away smiling
As if he shared a secret joke with the dynamite;
It waited until he had passed back of a boulder,
Then split its rock cage; a yellowish torrent
Of fragments rose up the air and the echoes bumped
From mountain to mountain. The men returned slowly
And took up their dropped tools, while a banner of dust
Waved over the gorge on the northwest wind, very high
Above the heads of the forest.
Some distance west of the road,
On the promontory above the triangle
Of glittering ocean that fills the gorge-mouth,
A woman and a lame man from the farm below
Had been watching, and turned to go down the hill. The young
woman looked back,
Widening her violet eyes under the shade of her hand. 'I think
they'll blast again in a minute.'
And the man: 'I wish they'd let the poor old road be. I don't
like improvements.' 'Why not?' 'They bring in the world;
We're well without it.' His lameness gave him some look of age
but he was young too; tall and thin-faced,
With a high wavering nose. 'Isn't he amusing,' she said, 'that
boy Rick Armstrong, the dynamite man,
How slowly he walks away after he lights the fuse. He loves to
show off. Reave likes him, too,'
She added; and they clambered down the path in the rock-face,
little dark specks
Between the great headland rock and the bright blue sea.

II
The road-workers had made their camp
North of this headland, where the sea-cliff was broken down and
sloped to a cove. The violet-eyed woman's husband,
Reave Thurso, rode down the slope to the camp in the gorgeous
autumn sundown, his hired man Johnny Luna
Riding behind him. The road-men had just quit work and four
or five were bathing in the purple surf-edge,
The others talked by the tents; blue smoke fragrant with food
and oak-wood drifted from the cabin stove-pipe
And slowly went fainting up the vast hill.
Thurso drew rein by
a group of men at a tent door
And frowned at them without speaking, square-shouldered and
heavy-jawed, too heavy with strength for so young a man,
He chose one of the men with his eyes. 'You're Danny Woodruff,

[...] Read more

poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Tower Beyond Tragedy

I
You'd never have thought the Queen was Helen's sister- Troy's
burning-flower from Sparta, the beautiful sea-flower
Cut in clear stone, crowned with the fragrant golden mane, she
the ageless, the uncontaminable-
This Clytemnestra was her sister, low-statured, fierce-lipped, not
dark nor blonde, greenish-gray-eyed,
Sinewed with strength, you saw, under the purple folds of the
queen-cloak, but craftier than queenly,
Standing between the gilded wooden porch-pillars, great steps of
stone above the steep street,
Awaiting the King.
Most of his men were quartered on the town;
he, clanking bronze, with fifty
And certain captives, came to the stair. The Queen's men were
a hundred in the street and a hundred
Lining the ramp, eighty on the great flags of the porch; she
raising her white arms the spear-butts
Thundered on the stone, and the shields clashed; eight shining
clarions
Let fly from the wide window over the entrance the wildbirds of
their metal throats, air-cleaving
Over the King come home. He raised his thick burnt-colored
beard and smiled; then Clytemnestra,
Gathering the robe, setting the golden-sandaled feet carefully,
stone by stone, descended
One half the stair. But one of the captives marred the comeliness
of that embrace with a cry
Gull-shrill, blade-sharp, cutting between the purple cloak and
the bronze plates, then Clytemnestra:
Who was it? The King answered: A piece of our goods out of
the snatch of Asia, a daughter of the king,
So treat her kindly and she may come into her wits again. Eh,
you keep state here my queen.
You've not been the poorer for me.- In heart, in the widowed
chamber, dear, she pale replied, though the slaves
Toiled, the spearmen were faithful. What's her name, the slavegirl's?
AGAMEMNON Come up the stair. They tell me my kinsman's
Lodged himself on you.
CLYTEMNESTRA Your cousin Aegisthus? He was out of refuge,
flits between here and Tiryns.
Dear: the girl's name?
AGAMEMNON Cassandra. We've a hundred or so other
captives; besides two hundred
Rotted in the hulls, they tell odd stories about you and your
guest: eh? no matter: the ships
Ooze pitch and the August road smokes dirt, I smell like an
old shepherd's goatskin, you'll have bath-water?
CLYTEMNESTRA
They're making it hot. Come, my lord. My hands will pour it.

[...] Read more

poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Kansas City

PAUL McCARTNEY - KANSAS CITY
Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
Got some pretty little women there, I'm gonna get me one.
Standing on the corner, crawl straight in my hand
With my Kansas City Baby, now by the Kansas City world.
Well the water in the city, well, taste like Georgia Pie
Going to Kansas City where it tastes like sugar, oh I know it.
Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
Got some pretty little women there, I'm gonna get me one.
Kansas City, here every night you gave me none
Kansas City, surely looked like they were done
You know they turned it around now Baby, gonna scratch it, gonna run.
And rock with my Baby, rock with my Baby, one more time
Rock with my Baby, Kansas City Baby, one more time
Went to the city for, for this souvenir in my hand.
Well I might take a plane, might take a train
If I have to walk you won't grind in the same.
Oh, Kansas City, Kansas City here I come.
Got some crazy little women there, I'm gonna get me one.

song performed by Paul McCartney
Added by Lucian Velea
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Give Your Heart To The Hawks

1 he apples hung until a wind at the equinox,

That heaped the beach with black weed, filled the dry grass

Under the old trees with rosy fruit.

In the morning Fayne Fraser gathered the sound ones into a

basket,

The bruised ones into a pan. One place they lay so thickly
She knelt to reach them.

Her husband's brother passing
Along the broken fence of the stubble-field,
His quick brown eyes took in one moving glance
A little gopher-snake at his feet flowing through the stubble
To gain the fence, and Fayne crouched after apples
With her mop of red hair like a glowing coal
Against the shadow in the garden. The small shapely reptile
Flowed into a thicket of dead thistle-stalks
Around a fence-post, but its tail was not hidden.
The young man drew it all out, and as the coil
Whipped over his wrist, smiled at it; he stepped carefully
Across the sag of the wire. When Fayne looked up
His hand was hidden; she looked over her shoulder
And twitched her sunburnt lips from small white teeth
To answer the spark of malice in his eyes, but turned
To the apples, intent again. Michael looked down
At her white neck, rarely touched by the sun,
But now the cinnabar-colored hair fell off from it;
And her shoulders in the light-blue shirt, and long legs like a boy's
Bare-ankled in blue-jean trousers, the country wear;
He stooped quietly and slipped the small cool snake
Up the blue-denim leg. Fayne screamed and writhed,
Clutching her thigh. 'Michael, you beast.' She stood up
And stroked her leg, with little sharp cries, the slender invader
Fell down her ankle.

Fayne snatched for it and missed;

Michael stood by rejoicing, his rather small

Finely cut features in a dance of delight;

Fayne with one sweep flung at his face

All the bruised and half-spoiled apples in the pan,

[...] Read more

poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Sixth Book

THE English have a scornful insular way
Of calling the French light. The levity
Is in the judgment only, which yet stands;
For say a foolish thing but oft enough,
(And here's the secret of a hundred creeds,–
Men get opinions as boys learn to spell,
By re-iteration chiefly) the same thing
Shall pass at least for absolutely wise,
And not with fools exclusively. And so,
We say the French are light, as if we said
The cat mews, or the milch-cow gives us milk:
Say rather, cats are milked, and milch cows mew,
For what is lightness but inconsequence,
Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause,
Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light,
That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye
Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself
To a wafer on the white speck on a wall
A hundred paces off? Even so direct,
So sternly undivertible of aim,
Is this French people.
All idealists
Too absolute and earnest, with them all
The idea of a knife cuts real flesh;
And still, devouring the safe interval
Which Nature placed between the thought and act,
They threaten conflagration to the world
And rush with most unscrupulous logic on
Impossible practice. Set your orators
To blow upon them with loud windy mouths
Through watchword phrases, jest or sentiment,
Which drive our burley brutal English mobs
Like so much chaff, whichever way they blow,–
This light French people will not thus be driven.
They turn indeed; but then they turn upon
Some central pivot of their thought and choice,
And veer out by the force of holding fast.
–That's hard to understand, for Englishmen
Unused to abstract questions, and untrained
To trace the involutions, valve by valve,
In each orbed bulb-root of a general truth,
And mark what subtly fine integument
Divides opposed compartments. Freedom's self
Comes concrete to us, to be understood,
Fixed in a feudal form incarnately
To suit our ways of thought and reverence,
The special form, with us, being still the thing.
With us, I say, though I'm of Italy
My mother's birth and grave, by father's grave
And memory; let it be,–a poet's heart

[...] Read more

poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Through the eyes of a Field Coronet (Epic)

Introduction

In the kaki coloured tent in Umbilo he writes
his life’s story while women, children and babies are dying,
slowly but surely are obliterated, he see how his nation is suffering
while the events are notched into his mind.

Lying even heavier on him is the treason
of some other Afrikaners who for own gain
have delivered him, to imprisonment in this place of hatred
and thoughts go through him to write a book.

Prologue

The Afrikaner nation sprouted
from Dutchmen,
who fought decades without defeat
against the super power Spain

mixed with French Huguenots
who left their homes and belongings,
with the revocation of the Edict of Nantes.
Associate this then with the fact

that these people fought formidable
for seven generations
against every onslaught that they got
from savages en wild animals

becoming marksmen, riding
and taming wild horses
with one bullet per day
to hunt a wild antelope,

who migrated right across the country
over hills in mass protest
and then you have
the most formidable adversary
and then let them fight

in a natural wilderness
where the hunter,
the sniper and horseman excels
and any enemy is at a lost.

Let them then also be patriotic
into their souls,
believe in and read
out of the word of God

[...] Read more

poem by Gert Strydom
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

Book III - Part 03 - The Soul is Mortal

Now come: that thou mayst able be to know
That minds and the light souls of all that live
Have mortal birth and death, I will go on
Verses to build meet for thy rule of life,
Sought after long, discovered with sweet toil.
But under one name I'd have thee yoke them both;
And when, for instance, I shall speak of soul,
Teaching the same to be but mortal, think
Thereby I'm speaking also of the mind-
Since both are one, a substance interjoined.

First, then, since I have taught how soul exists
A subtle fabric, of particles minute,
Made up from atoms smaller much than those
Of water's liquid damp, or fog, or smoke,
So in mobility it far excels,
More prone to move, though strook by lighter cause
Even moved by images of smoke or fog-
As where we view, when in our sleeps we're lulled,
The altars exhaling steam and smoke aloft-
For, beyond doubt, these apparitions come
To us from outward. Now, then, since thou seest,
Their liquids depart, their waters flow away,
When jars are shivered, and since fog and smoke
Depart into the winds away, believe
The soul no less is shed abroad and dies
More quickly far, more quickly is dissolved
Back to its primal bodies, when withdrawn
From out man's members it has gone away.
For, sure, if body (container of the same
Like as a jar), when shivered from some cause,
And rarefied by loss of blood from veins,
Cannot for longer hold the soul, how then
Thinkst thou it can be held by any air-
A stuff much rarer than our bodies be?

Besides we feel that mind to being comes
Along with body, with body grows and ages.
For just as children totter round about
With frames infirm and tender, so there follows
A weakling wisdom in their minds; and then,
Where years have ripened into robust powers,
Counsel is also greater, more increased
The power of mind; thereafter, where already
The body's shattered by master-powers of eld,
And fallen the frame with its enfeebled powers,
Thought hobbles, tongue wanders, and the mind gives way;
All fails, all's lacking at the selfsame time.
Therefore it suits that even the soul's dissolved,
Like smoke, into the lofty winds of air;

[...] Read more

poem by Lucretius
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!

The Iliad: Book 24

The assembly now broke up and the people went their ways each to his
own ship. There they made ready their supper, and then bethought
them of the blessed boon of sleep; but Achilles still wept for
thinking of his dear comrade, and sleep, before whom all things bow,
could take no hold upon him. This way and that did he turn as he
yearned after the might and manfulness of Patroclus; he thought of all
they had done together, and all they had gone through both on the
field of battle and on the waves of the weary sea. As he dwelt on
these things he wept bitterly and lay now on his side, now on his
back, and now face downwards, till at last he rose and went out as one
distraught to wander upon the seashore. Then, when he saw dawn
breaking over beach and sea, he yoked his horses to his chariot, and
bound the body of Hector behind it that he might drag it about. Thrice
did he drag it round the tomb of the son of Menoetius, and then went
back into his tent, leaving the body on the ground full length and
with its face downwards. But Apollo would not suffer it to be
disfigured, for he pitied the man, dead though he now was; therefore
he shielded him with his golden aegis continually, that he might
take no hurt while Achilles was dragging him.
Thus shamefully did Achilles in his fury dishonour Hector; but the
blessed gods looked down in pity from heaven, and urged Mercury,
slayer of Argus, to steal the body. All were of this mind save only
Juno, Neptune, and Jove's grey-eyed daughter, who persisted in the
hate which they had ever borne towards Ilius with Priam and his
people; for they forgave not the wrong done them by Alexandrus in
disdaining the goddesses who came to him when he was in his
sheepyards, and preferring her who had offered him a wanton to his
ruin.
When, therefore, the morning of the twelfth day had now come,
Phoebus Apollo spoke among the immortals saying, "You gods ought to be
ashamed of yourselves; you are cruel and hard-hearted. Did not
Hector burn you thigh-bones of heifers and of unblemished goats? And
now dare you not rescue even his dead body, for his wife to look upon,
with his mother and child, his father Priam, and his people, who would
forthwith commit him to the flames, and give him his due funeral
rites? So, then, you would all be on the side of mad Achilles, who
knows neither right nor ruth? He is like some savage lion that in
the pride of his great strength and daring springs upon men's flocks
and gorges on them. Even so has Achilles flung aside all pity, and all
that conscience which at once so greatly banes yet greatly boons him
that will heed it. man may lose one far dearer than Achilles has lost-
a son, it may be, or a brother born from his own mother's womb; yet
when he has mourned him and wept over him he will let him bide, for it
takes much sorrow to kill a man; whereas Achilles, now that he has
slain noble Hector, drags him behind his chariot round the tomb of his
comrade. It were better of him, and for him, that he should not do so,
for brave though he be we gods may take it ill that he should vent his
fury upon dead clay."
Juno spoke up in a rage. "This were well," she cried, "O lord of the
silver bow, if you would give like honour to Hector and to Achilles;

[...] Read more

poem by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
Added by Poetry Lover
Comment! | Vote! | Copy!