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If a man has his throat cut in Paris, it's a murder. If 50,000 people are murdered in the east, it is a question.

quote by Victor Hugo
Added by Lucian Velea
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VIII. Dominus Hyacinthus de Archangelis, Pauperum Procurator

Ah, my Giacinto, he's no ruddy rogue,
Is not Cinone? What, to-day we're eight?
Seven and one's eight, I hope, old curly-pate!
—Branches me out his verb-tree on the slate,
Amo-as-avi-atum-are-ans,
Up to -aturus, person, tense, and mood,
Quies me cum subjunctivo (I could cry)
And chews Corderius with his morning crust!
Look eight years onward, and he's perched, he's perched
Dapper and deft on stool beside this chair,
Cinozzo, Cinoncello, who but he?
—Trying his milk-teeth on some crusty case
Like this, papa shall triturate full soon
To smooth Papinianian pulp!

It trots
Already through my head, though noon be now,
Does supper-time and what belongs to eve.
Dispose, O Don, o' the day, first work then play!
—The proverb bids. And "then" means, won't we hold
Our little yearly lovesome frolic feast,
Cinuolo's birth-night, Cinicello's own,
That makes gruff January grin perforce!
For too contagious grows the mirth, the warmth
Escaping from so many hearts at once—
When the good wife, buxom and bonny yet,
Jokes the hale grandsire,—such are just the sort
To go off suddenly,—he who hides the key
O' the box beneath his pillow every night,—
Which box may hold a parchment (someone thinks)
Will show a scribbled something like a name
"Cinino, Ciniccino," near the end,
"To whom I give and I bequeath my lands,
"Estates, tenements, hereditaments,
"When I decease as honest grandsire ought."
Wherefore—yet this one time again perhaps—
Shan't my Orvieto fuddle his old nose!
Then, uncles, one or the other, well i' the world,
May—drop in, merely?—trudge through rain and wind,
Rather! The smell-feasts rouse them at the hint
There's cookery in a certain dwelling-place!
Gossips, too, each with keepsake in his poke,
Will pick the way, thrid lane by lantern-light,
And so find door, put galligaskin off
At entry of a decent domicile
Cornered in snug Condotti,—all for love,
All to crush cup with Cinucciatolo!

Well,
Let others climb the heights o' the court, the camp!

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Une Nuit A Paris

Part one: one night in paris
Bonjour monsieur
Paris really welcomes you
Its the best room in the house
Its forty francs a night, alright.
Its crazy, it isnt worth a centime
Ill take it!
Merci monsieur
Rouged lips in the gaslight
A great view of the hall
Thats the way the croissant crumbles after all
Paris is only one step away
Les girls are out on bail
Tres bien theres love for sale
Oh my cheri, wish you were mine
And Ill show you a wonderful time
For the price of a cheap champagne
Ill show it you once again
One night in paris
Is like a year in any other place
One night in paris
Will wipe the smile off your pretty face
One girl in paris
Is like loving every woman
One night in paris
One night in paris
One night in paris
May be your last!!!
Part two: the same night in paris
Is he gonna buy?
You wanna little culture?
Is he gonna pay?
Maybe monsieur is into photographs, non?
Or is he gonna fall in love
The all american way?
I got a watch wiz a beautiful swiss movement
Is he gonna buy?
Forget the watch, Ill show you a good time!'
Is he gonna pay?
Le connoisseur, want something different?
Or is he gonna fall in love
The all american way?
Oh you know you aint no casanova
You cant even do the bossa nova
Or the tango or the samba!
Though you are so very charming
No you aint no casanova
Is he gonna buy?
Is he gonna pay?
Or is he gonna fall in love

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song performed by 10 Cc
Added by Lucian Velea
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XI. Guido

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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22,000 Days

Even tho I know its only
Me and my dreams
That drive me so let me go please
Let me go onto tomorrow
One day at a time
Now I know the only foe is time
22,000 days, 22,000 days its not alot,
Its all you got 22,000 days
22,000 nights, 22,000 nights, its all you know
So start the show and this time
Feel the flow and get it right
Now the time when I first saw you is over and gone
Then I knew my life with you would go on
Knowing you so much longer
Ive change in mind change for you
You have changed to mine
22,000 days, 22,000 days its not alot,
Its all you got 22,000 days
22,000 nights, 22,000 nights, its all you know
So start the show and this time
Feel the flow and get it right
Everybody knows, it always shows
Wasting times an aggravation
Got no time for confrontation
You want to take a lot
By love by law or stealth
Times the only real wealth you have got
Even tho I know its only me and my dreams
That drive me so let me go please
Let me go onto tomorrow
One day at a time
Now I know the only foe is time
22,000 days, 22,000 days its not alot,
Its all you got 22,000 days
22,000 nights, 22,000 nights, its all you know
So start the show 22,000 days
22,000 days, 22,000 days its not alot,
Its all you got 22,000 days
22,000 nights, 22,000 nights, its all you know
So start the show 22,000 ways

song performed by Moody Blues
Added by Lucian Velea
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Go Cut Creator Go

[LL Cool J]
1, 2, 3 'o' clock 4 'o' clock ROCK
5, 6, 7 'o' clock 8 'o' clock ROCK
9, 10, 11 'o' clock 12 'o' clock ROCK
Gonna ROCK (What?) ROCK, ROCK around the clock
Three years ago in St. Albans, Queens
I was rockin at a park called one eighteen
Little kids stood and watched as I rocked the spot
Didn't know that years later I'll be standin on top
Livin near Farmers Boulevard I was born and base-shaw
Stopped the rich and shaked hands with the poor
And this is a story about a brother I know
Cut Creator on the fader no watch him go
[Chorus]
Go, go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go, go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
[LL Cool J]
When back in the days before I clocked some dough
I used to go to the show and sit in the front row
Hopin and prayin one day I'll get on the road
So I had a feeler and a summer and I meet when I'm stoned
Not fearin a thought, got stung like a horse
Don't make fun of my posse, cause each man is a boss
When his only damn way to pull a jam out the crate
One time for your mind
Check out the guitar break
[Chorus]
Go, go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go, go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
Go Cut Creator Go
[LL Cool J]
This jam just wasn't enough for Jimmy Hendrix to see
He could do lessons of mixin take you under his wing
Straight from the heart cause it ain't the money that we came here for
Ain't no thoughts in the room ain't breakin no roles
And in the Rock 'n' Roll land, a big strivin plan
Just my posse learn the vocals what little they had
It's all about us three: Eve, Phil & Jay
He heard Cut Creator cut now check it out to play

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song performed by LL Cool J
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Premeditation

Oh blade you'll warm tonight!
Awash in crimson-purple flows,
Your sheen will dull with aching flesh:
Palpating anatomic mounds
Caressing, dancing, writhing round
Your metal form-
Whetted ‘gainst a lonely bone,
Then to probe the pounding, begging heart.

And all the while the prey will howl
Before they crumple; greet the mud-
A taut and unbelieving jowl
Will open out for giving blood-
A vent from down below,
Once a brutal show
Of metal in the man.

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Knife

Slit and
Slither knife
Penetrate in phallic push
To perforate the pulse of tissues in the flesh
Slice a vein to drain the unsuspecting victim
E’er they bleed and plea
Their scream
Of death

Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2010

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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

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

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

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

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poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Fire & Earth

Cave men! [You better hush!] Cave women! [Hush!] And the... [Hush!]
Troglodytes! [Gun shot.]
[Somebody's calling my name....]
[Brother J]
Ah, yeah! Ah, come on, come on, come on!
[Professor X] To the East, my brother, to the East!
[Brother J] Uh, to the East, my brother, to the East! Come on!
[X] To the East, my brother, to the East!
[J] To the East, my brother, to the East, yeah!
[X] To the East, my brother, to the East!
[J] To the East, my brother, to the East, my brother, to the East, my
brother, to the East, my brother, to the East, my brother, to the East!
[Professor X]
Yes! I'm that kind of nigga
The one you fear, be scared you can't figger
The one that has the finger on the trigger, boom!
In the cut of zoom
In the darkness, the halo, the moon!
Stepping ta' ya' real soon
Ah! Check the blackness!
Me before those enter the lightness!
Masturbating!
Masquerading!
And you call your self righteous?
Follow me!
A peripheral, missionary, and ark commit-ness
Having intercourse with the nation of darkness!
Books with worms!
Jherri suited with last names like perms!
niggas, get your hands of your cracks, come to terms with yourself
If you don't get any bigger
Pink Caddy driving, black boot stomping
Yes! I'm that kind of nigga
Brother J, whatcha' say?
Brother J, Brother J, whatcha' say?
Brother J, whatcha' say? Brother J, whatcha' say?
[Brother J]
Yeah!
I'm just a pro-Black nigga, and I'm doing this
And yet you watch me, clock me, to see if I continue this
In the ways of the Caddy I survive like a pimp
No jherri curls, waves, perms, or crimps
The ever-nappy crew setting the mood
I raise my fuel for my firm attitude
Walking through the streets with my war cry spear
Certain folks know it means doom when they hear
My firm, black boots with no spurs attached
Now let me take a second, cause I might detach
My black boots if you confuse
I lose my peoples in the words you choose

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song performed by X-Clan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Fire & Earth

Cave men! [You better hush!] Cave women! [Hush!] And the... [Hush!]
Troglodytes! [Gun shot.]
[Somebody's calling my name....]
[Brother J]
Ah, yeah! Ah, come on, come on, come on!
[Professor X] To the East, my brother, to the East!
[Brother J] Uh, to the East, my brother, to the East! Come on!
[X] To the East, my brother, to the East!
[J] To the East, my brother, to the East, yeah!
[X] To the East, my brother, to the East!
[J] To the East, my brother, to the East, my brother, to the East, my
brother, to the East, my brother, to the East, my brother, to the East!
[Professor X]
Yes! I'm that kind of nigga
The one you fear, be scared you can't figger
The one that has the finger on the trigger, boom!
In the cut of zoom
In the darkness, the halo, the moon!
Stepping ta' ya' real soon
Ah! Check the blackness!
Me before those enter the lightness!
Masturbating!
Masquerading!
And you call your self righteous?
Follow me!
A peripheral, missionary, and ark commit-ness
Having intercourse with the nation of darkness!
Books with worms!
Jherri suited with last names like perms!
niggas, get your hands of your cracks, come to terms with yourself
If you don't get any bigger
Pink Caddy driving, black boot stomping
Yes! I'm that kind of nigga
Brother J, whatcha' say?
Brother J, Brother J, whatcha' say?
Brother J, whatcha' say? Brother J, whatcha' say?
[Brother J]
Yeah!
I'm just a pro-Black nigga, and I'm doing this
And yet you watch me, clock me, to see if I continue this
In the ways of the Caddy I survive like a pimp
No jherri curls, waves, perms, or crimps
The ever-nappy crew setting the mood
I raise my fuel for my firm attitude
Walking through the streets with my war cry spear
Certain folks know it means doom when they hear
My firm, black boots with no spurs attached
Now let me take a second, cause I might detach
My black boots if you confuse
I lose my peoples in the words you choose

[...] Read more

song performed by X-Clan
Added by Lucian Velea
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Gioconda And Si-Ya-U

to the memory of my friend SI-YA-U,
whose head was cut off in Shanghai

A CLAIM

Renowned Leonardo's
world-famous
"La Gioconda"
has disappeared.
And in the space
vacated by the fugitive
a copy has been placed.

The poet inscribing
the present treatise
knows more than a little
about the fate
of the real Gioconda.
She fell in love
with a seductive
graceful youth:
a honey-tongued
almond-eyed Chinese
named SI-YA-U.
Gioconda ran off
after her lover;
Gioconda was burned
in a Chinese city.

I, Nazim Hikmet,
authority
on this matter,
thumbing my nose at friend and foe
five times a day,
undaunted,
claim
I can prove it;
if I can't,
I'll be ruined and banished
forever from the realm of poesy.

1928

Part One
Excerpts from Gioconda's Diary

15 March 1924: Paris, Louvre Museum

At last I am bored with the Louvre Museum.

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poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Murdered By Their Tongues

Threatened by a mentalness,
That spreading gossip did.
And murdered by their tongues.

Whatever between them did exist,
That ruined their happiness...
And long loving relationships,
Has been murdered by their tongues.

Murdered by their tongues,
Abandoned good deeds are left undone.
In big numbers.

Murdered by their tongues,
Some people had to run...
To find their comfort.

Murdered by their tongues,
Some choose to begin to run...
To find their comfort,
And unencumbered by the numbers.

They've been murdered by their tongues.
Stubborn these people,
Who've been murdered by their tongues.
Unconscious people,
Who are murdered by their tongues.
These fools are equal,
Who will murder anyone with their wicked tongues.

Murdered by their tongues,
Some people had to run...
To find their comfort.

Threatened by a mentalness,
That spreading gossip did.
And murdered by their tongues.

Whatever between them did exist,
That ruined their happiness...
And long loving relationships,
Has been murdered by their tongues.

They've been murdered by their tongues.
Stubborn these people,
Who've been murdered by their tongues.
Unconscious people,
Who are murdered by their tongues.
These fools are equal,
Who will murder anyone with their wicked tongues.

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Give The Po Man A Break

Give po man a break
Give po man a break
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a
Give po man a

[...] Read more

song performed by Fatboy Slim
Added by Lucian Velea
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I. The Ring and the Book

Do you see this Ring?
'T is Rome-work, made to match
(By Castellani's imitative craft)
Etrurian circlets found, some happy morn,
After a dropping April; found alive
Spark-like 'mid unearthed slope-side figtree-roots
That roof old tombs at Chiusi: soft, you see,
Yet crisp as jewel-cutting. There's one trick,
(Craftsmen instruct me) one approved device
And but one, fits such slivers of pure gold
As this was,—such mere oozings from the mine,
Virgin as oval tawny pendent tear
At beehive-edge when ripened combs o'erflow,—
To bear the file's tooth and the hammer's tap:
Since hammer needs must widen out the round,
And file emboss it fine with lily-flowers,
Ere the stuff grow a ring-thing right to wear.
That trick is, the artificer melts up wax
With honey, so to speak; he mingles gold
With gold's alloy, and, duly tempering both,
Effects a manageable mass, then works:
But his work ended, once the thing a ring,
Oh, there's repristination! Just a spirt
O' the proper fiery acid o'er its face,
And forth the alloy unfastened flies in fume;
While, self-sufficient now, the shape remains,
The rondure brave, the lilied loveliness,
Gold as it was, is, shall be evermore:
Prime nature with an added artistry—
No carat lost, and you have gained a ring.
What of it? 'T is a figure, a symbol, say;
A thing's sign: now for the thing signified.

Do you see this square old yellow Book, I toss
I' the air, and catch again, and twirl about
By the crumpled vellum covers,—pure crude fact
Secreted from man's life when hearts beat hard,
And brains, high-blooded, ticked two centuries since?
Examine it yourselves! I found this book,
Gave a lira for it, eightpence English just,
(Mark the predestination!) when a Hand,
Always above my shoulder, pushed me once,
One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm,
Across a Square in Florence, crammed with booths,
Buzzing and blaze, noontide and market-time,
Toward Baccio's marble,—ay, the basement-ledge
O' the pedestal where sits and menaces
John of the Black Bands with the upright spear,
'Twixt palace and church,—Riccardi where they lived,
His race, and San Lorenzo where they lie.

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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II. Half-Rome

What, you, Sir, come too? (Just the man I'd meet.)
Be ruled by me and have a care o' the crowd:
This way, while fresh folk go and get their gaze:
I'll tell you like a book and save your shins.
Fie, what a roaring day we've had! Whose fault?
Lorenzo in Lucina,—here's a church
To hold a crowd at need, accommodate
All comers from the Corso! If this crush
Make not its priests ashamed of what they show
For temple-room, don't prick them to draw purse
And down with bricks and mortar, eke us out
The beggarly transept with its bit of apse
Into a decent space for Christian ease,
Why, to-day's lucky pearl is cast to swine.
Listen and estimate the luck they've had!
(The right man, and I hold him.)

Sir, do you see,
They laid both bodies in the church, this morn
The first thing, on the chancel two steps up,
Behind the little marble balustrade;
Disposed them, Pietro the old murdered fool
To the right of the altar, and his wretched wife
On the other side. In trying to count stabs,
People supposed Violante showed the most,
Till somebody explained us that mistake;
His wounds had been dealt out indifferent where,
But she took all her stabbings in the face,
Since punished thus solely for honour's sake,
Honoris causâ, that's the proper term.
A delicacy there is, our gallants hold,
When you avenge your honour and only then,
That you disfigure the subject, fray the face,
Not just take life and end, in clownish guise.
It was Violante gave the first offence,
Got therefore the conspicuous punishment:
While Pietro, who helped merely, his mere death
Answered the purpose, so his face went free.
We fancied even, free as you please, that face
Showed itself still intolerably wronged;
Was wrinkled over with resentment yet,
Nor calm at all, as murdered faces use,
Once the worst ended: an indignant air
O' the head there was—'t is said the body turned
Round and away, rolled from Violante's side
Where they had laid it loving-husband-like.
If so, if corpses can be sensitive,
Why did not he roll right down altar-step,
Roll on through nave, roll fairly out of church,
Deprive Lorenzo of the spectacle,

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
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10. 000 Lightyears

10.000 lightyears somewhere out in space
They practice love and they know what it takes
No competition and no jealousy
Living in freedom and humanity
10.000 lightyears away, lightyears away far from pain
Came to a place full of grace and of peace
10.000 lightyears away from our fear
Suddenly its ringing in my ears
Why is it now I dont wanna be here
I feel like flow in that clock at the wall
God, how I wish that this dream would go on
10.000 lightyears away, lightyears away far from pain
Came to a place full of grace and of peace
10.000 lightyears away from our fear
10.000 lightyears somewhere out in space (10.000 lightyears)
10.000 lightyears somewhere out in space (10.000 lightyears)
10.000 lightyears somewhere out in space (10.000 lightyears)
10.000 lightyears somewhere out in space (10.000 lightyears)
3rd verse - on promo-lp 206 318-000 only!!!
Reality comes knocking at my door
I face the same obligations once more
Dreams took me 10.000 lightyears away
Id give all I got if thats where I could stay

song performed by Boney M.
Added by Lucian Velea
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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

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poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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.

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
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Cut You Down To Size

Dont you know theyre gonna cut you down to size
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
Youre gonna find out when you see it right in their eyes
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
How does it feel when you see through your disguise
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
And they cut you down, yeah they cut you down
They cut you down to size
How does it feel
Whatd you do with this fire inside
Where do you turn now that you realize
Where you go when you run out of alibis
Tell me
Dont you know theyre gonna cut you down to size
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
Youre gonna find out when you see it right in their eyes
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
How does it feel when you see through your disguise
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
And they cut you down to, they cut you down to
They cut you down to size
How does it feel
How does it feel
Youve been living with your own suspicion
Now youve got to believe
I know youve heard it said that only the strong survive
Dont you know theyre gonna cut you down to size
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
Youre gonna find out when you see it right in their eyes
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
How does it feel when you see through your disguise
(they cut you down yeah theyll cut you down)
And they cut you down to size
Dont you know theyre gonna
How does it feel when you see through your disguise
And they cut you down to, cut you down to
Cut you down to size
Get up stand up, come back for another round
And they cut you down to size
Cut you down to size

song performed by Starship
Added by Lucian Velea
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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,

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poem by Robinson Jeffers
Added by Poetry Lover
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