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The news media are, for the most part, the bringers of bad news... and it's not entirely the media's fault, bad news gets higher ratings and sells more papers than good news.

quote by Peter McWilliams
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Wanna Take You Higher Again

Beat is getting stronger, feel it getting stronger
Sound is getting longer, too
Music is a thought to me
I want to, I want to..
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby, light my fire (light my fire)
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
Whoo!
Beat is nitty gritty, feel it nitty gritty
Sound is in your city, too
Musics been a thought to me
Dont you, dont you, dont, dont
Dont you wanna get higher (take you higher)
Dont you wanna get higher (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby, light my fire (light my fire)
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
Boom shaka-laka-laka! boom shaka-laka-laka!
Boom shaka-laka-laka!
(beat is nitty gritty...)
(I m gonna take you high...)
Beat is there, Im with you
Beating there to lose you
Sound is there to help you groove
Musics been a thought to me
Everybody, take your places
Im gonna take you higher (take you higher)
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby, light my fire (light my fire)
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
Higher, higher, higher, hhmmm -
I wanna take you (take you higher)
I wanna take you higher (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby, light my fire (light my fire)
Im gonna take you higher (take you higher)
Dont you wanna get higher (take you higher)
(take you higher)
Im gonna take you high (higher)
Im gonna take you high (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby - baby, baby, baby (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby, light my fire (take you higher)
Higher (take you higher)
(take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby - baby, baby, baby (take you higher)
Baby, baby, baby, light my fire (take you higher)
Higher (take you higher)
(take you higher)
Im gonna take you (take you higher)
Im gonna take you (take you higher)
Im gonna take, gonna take, gonna take you higher (light my fire)

[...] Read more

song performed by Duran Duran
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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Monday Papers

I dont want to go out any more
I read the news, I cant believe my eyes
I push the table against the door
You know Ive had it with the world outside
If you want to know about the murderers and junkies
If you want to know about the lower east side
Now they got a map shows you where to get your monkey
You can read it in the monday papers, monday papers
Some people like a little gore
Some people always at the scenes of crimes
Now they can watch the tv more
Now they can get it in the sunday times
If you find it hard to handle what you see on page one
You can pull the funnies out and have some laughs
Take a drink and maybe you can laugh at ronald reagan
You can read it in the monday papers, read it in the monday papers
Monday papers dont ask no questions
Monday papers dont get no lies
Monday papers dont raise objection
Monday papers dont got no eyes
Brothers heading that way now I guess
He just read something made his face turn blue
Well I got nothing against the press
They wouldnt print it if it wasnt true
If you want to know about the gay politician
If you want to know how to be a star
Ladies - if you want to know about the new sex position
You can read it in the monday papers, read it in the monday papers
Monday papers dont ask no questions
Monday papers dont get no lies
Monday papers dont raise objection
Monday papers dont got no eyes
Monday papers dont ask no questions
Monday papers dont get no lies
Monday papers dont raise objection
Monday papers dont got no eyes
Read all about it, monday papers

song performed by Joe Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sunday Papers

Mother doesnt go out any more
Just sits at home and rolls her spastic eyes
But every weekend through the door
Come words of wisdom from the world outside
If you want to know about the bishop and the actress
If you want to know how to be a star
If you want to know about the stains on the mattress
You can read it in the sunday papers, sunday papers
Mothers wheelchair stays out in the hall
Why should she go out when the tvs on
Whatever moves beyond these walls
Shell know the facts when sunday comes along
If you want to know about the man gone bonkers
If you want to know how to play guitar
If you want to know about the other suckers
You can read it in the sunday papers, read it in the sunday papers
Sunday papers dont ask no questions
Sunday papers dont get no lies
Sunday papers dont raise objection
Sunday papers dont got no eyes
Brothers heading that way now I guess
He just read something made his face turn blue
Well I got nothing against the press
They wouldnt print it if it wasnt true
If you want to know about the gay politician
If you want to know how to drive your car
If you want to know about the new sex position
You can read it in the sunday papers, read it in the sunday papers
Sunday papers dont ask no questions
Sunday papers dont get no lies
Sunday papers dont raise objection
Sunday papers dont got no eyes
Sunday papers dont ask no questions
Sunday papers dont get no lies
Sunday papers dont raise objection
Sunday papers dont got no eyes
Read all about it, sunday papers

song performed by Joe Jackson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society

Epigraph

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

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning (1871)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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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Nobodys Fault But Mine

Nina simone
Ah, nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Ah, have a Bible in my home
Have a Bible in my home
Tryin to raise my soul to light
.. taught me how to read
.. taught me how to read
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Nobodys fault but mine.
Oh lord, nobodys fault but mine
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Ah have a Bible in my home
Have a Bible in my home
Tryin to raise my soul to light
Oh, buddy she taught me how to read
Buddy she taught me how to read
Tryin to raise my soul to light.
Ah, lord, lord, nobodys fault but mine
Bible and my soul tonight
And sister she taught me how to read
Sister she taught me how to read
Bible and my soul tonight.
Ah, no, no, nobodys fault but mine.
Bible and my soul tonight.
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Tryin to raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine
Got a Bible in my home
Got a Bible in my home
Tryin to raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine - yeah!
Sister she taught me to roll
My sister she taught me to roll
I roll along the line
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Ill raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine
Take it on, take it on
I got a monkey on my back
I gotta monkey on my back, back, back
Ill raise my soul to the light
Nobodys fault but mine - yeah
Nobodys fault but mine
Nobodys fault but mine
Ill raise my soul to the light

[...] Read more

song performed by Nina Simone
Added by Lucian Velea
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Beginning of destruction

pride it’s all your fault
Pride it’s all your fault we in this mess
Pride it’s all your fault we are suffering
Pride it’s all your fault people are shedding blood
Pride it’s all your fault families are destroyed
Pride it’s all your fault people are so greedy and selfish
Pride it’s all your fault people have no love
Pride it’s all your fault are so jealous of each other
Pride it’s all your fault people are so lost
Pride it’s all your fault dying from this horrible diseases
Pride it’s all your fault we have so many orphans
Pride it’s all your fault people are betraying each other
Pride it’s all your fault are dying of hunger
Pride it’s all your fault fathers are sleeping with their children
Pride it’s all your fault people are so heartless
Pride it’s all your fault there is no peace, unity and harmony in this world
Pride it’s all your fault we have all this sorrow
Pride it’s all your fault God has rejected us
Pride it’s all your fault people are so evil
And they have decided to be in love with evil rather than good
You have ruined this world
You are to blame for all this misery
If lucifer did not have pride in his heart we wouldn’t be in this mess
Pride it all your fault! ! !

Vangile Mtyali

poem by Vangile Mtyali
Added by Poetry Lover
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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I Want To Take You Higher

(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Beat is gettin' stronger
Beat is gettin' longer too...
Music's soundin' good to me
But I wanna, said I wanna
I wanna take you higher
Yeah, let me take you higher
Baby, baby, let me light your fire
Ooo yeah, little bit higher
Boom shacka lacka lacka
Boom shacka la boonka boo
(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Beat is nitty-gritty
Music's in your city too...
Music's gettin' good to me
But now don't ya, I said don't ya
Don't ya wanna get higher
Yeah, don't ya wanna get higher
Baby, baby, let me light your fire
Ooo ha, little bit higher
Boom shacka lacka lacka
Boom shacka la boonka boo
(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Come on baby (Higher!)
Don't ya wanna get high (Higher!)
Ooh, yeah! (Higher!)
Light your fire (Fire!)
Come on daddy (Higher!)
A little bit higher (Higher!)
I wanna (Higher!)
Said I wanna light your fire (Fire!)
Boom shacka lacka lacka
Boom shacka la boonka boo
(Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!)
Beat is here to make you move...
Music's here to help ya groove...
Music's soundin' good to me
But take your places
I'm gonna take you higher (Higher!)
Yeah, baby (Higher!)
Gonna take ya higher (Higher!)
Ooh, yeah (Higher!)
Little bit higher (Higher!)
C'mon daddy (Higher!)
A little bit (Higher!)
(Higher!)(To fade out)

song performed by Tina Turner
Added by Lucian Velea
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Take Me Higher

(narada michael walden/s.j.dakota/germaine)
Take me to that place
Higher
Go, hold on
Go
(take me higher)
(take me higher)
In my mind I see the possibilities
When it comes to love there are no boundaries
Do you think that you and I can work it out
Thats what true loves about
Baby we can find an answer if we look inside our hearts
Love will be there waiting for us
Baby we can rise above it if we leave our doubts behind us
We can learn to fly high above us
Theres a place up in the sky
Where the sun is shining
Take me higher
(take me higher)
Theres a place I long to be
Where the birds are flying
Take me higher
(take me higher)
See it on the news, theres trouble eveywhere
Gotta reach out show somebody that you care
It aint good to let the bad news get us down
Lets spread some love around
Even if you want to go there
To a place above the clouds
Got to feel the power of love (power of love)
Baby we can rise above it if we leave our doubts behind
We can learn to fly high above us
Theres a place up in the sky
Where the sun is shining
Take me higher
(take me higher)
Theres a place I long to be
Where the birds are flying
Take me higher
(take me higher)
(repeat)
You gotta reach out
Feel the power of love
Show somebody you care
Take me...
Oh baby
Higher
Take me higher
Theres a place up in the sky
Where the sun is shining

[...] Read more

song performed by Diana Ross
Added by Lucian Velea
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VII. Pompilia

I am just seventeen years and five months old,
And, if I lived one day more, three full weeks;
'T is writ so in the church's register,
Lorenzo in Lucina, all my names
At length, so many names for one poor child,
—Francesca Camilla Vittoria Angela
Pompilia Comparini,—laughable!
Also 't is writ that I was married there
Four years ago: and they will add, I hope,
When they insert my death, a word or two,—
Omitting all about the mode of death,—
This, in its place, this which one cares to know,
That I had been a mother of a son
Exactly two weeks. It will be through grace
O' the Curate, not through any claim I have;
Because the boy was born at, so baptized
Close to, the Villa, in the proper church:
A pretty church, I say no word against,
Yet stranger-like,—while this Lorenzo seems
My own particular place, I always say.
I used to wonder, when I stood scarce high
As the bed here, what the marble lion meant,
With half his body rushing from the wall,
Eating the figure of a prostrate man—
(To the right, it is, of entry by the door)
An ominous sign to one baptized like me,
Married, and to be buried there, I hope.
And they should add, to have my life complete,
He is a boy and Gaetan by name—
Gaetano, for a reason,—if the friar
Don Celestine will ask this grace for me
Of Curate Ottoboni: he it was
Baptized me: he remembers my whole life
As I do his grey hair.

All these few things
I know are true,—will you remember them?
Because time flies. The surgeon cared for me,
To count my wounds,—twenty-two dagger-wounds,
Five deadly, but I do not suffer much—
Or too much pain,—and am to die to-night.

Oh how good God is that my babe was born,
—Better than born, baptized and hid away
Before this happened, safe from being hurt!
That had been sin God could not well forgive:
He was too young to smile and save himself.
When they took two days after he was born,
My babe away from me to be baptized
And hidden awhile, for fear his foe should find,—

[...] Read more

poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Hallelujah, Here She Comes

I see youre dressed to kill
I know I cant wait until
Hallelujah...here she comes
I see youre dressed in black
I guess Im not coming back
Hallelujah...here she comes
Born and raised
On the wrong side of town
You get so high
That you cant come down
(yeah)
I see the road is rough
You know Im not giving up
Hallelujah...here she comes
I know where the lady goes
I know she got a ring on her toes
Hallelujah...here she comes
Born and raised
On the wrong side of town
You get so high
That you cant come down
Im going higher, higher, higher
Higher, higher, higher
Higher, higher, higher
Higher, higher, higher
Im gonna be there
When that lights gonna shine
Im gonna be there
When her heart kindles next to mine
Im gonna be...
Here she comes
Yeah here she comes
I see youre dressed to kill
I know I cant wait until
Hallelujah...here she comes
I see youre dressed in black
I guess Im not coming back
Hallelujah...here she comes
Born and raised
In the wrong side of town
You get so high
You cant come down
Im gonna be there
Higher, higher, higher
Gonna get higher, higher, higher
Gonna get higher, higher, higher
Higher, higher, higher...
Im gonna be there
When that lights gonna shine
Im gonna be there

[...] Read more

song performed by U2
Added by Lucian Velea
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What Part Of Life Are You Living

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
Added by Poetry Lover
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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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

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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Esp

Dark is the night
High is the fire
Touches the sky
Love with no shape or form
I am in your minds eye
Just let your dreams run wild
Somewhere, out across the nation
Someone, waiting in the shadows
Listen, I dont wanna hear
Return to, sender
Calling, I can see the future
Someday, signal with a single motion
Show me you believe in someone, somewhere
Oh baby you, you give, me
You give me the runaround
Just another night, with, you
Youre on my mind
And we got love
And lovell take you higher and higher and higher
Higher and higher
(chorus)
E.s.p
I communicate with you
Tell me what it means to feel
What am I supposed to do
E.s.p
Nothing any words can say
Nothing that we know is real
But itll take your breath away
Your breath away
Danger, suddenly an early warning
Suddenly the soul is burning
But I still believe in someone, somewhere
Baby you, give, me
You give me the runaround
Just another night with you
Im in your mind
And we got love
And lovell take you higher and higher and higher
Higher and higher
E.s.p
I communicate with you
Tell me what it means to feel
What am I supposed to do
E.s.p
And lovell take you higher and higher and higher
Higher and higher
Be prepared to make your sacrifice, tonight
Far beyond the point of no return, oh no
And we got love

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song performed by Bee Gees
Added by Lucian Velea
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Good News

Something to begin with
That's easy said than done
You'll see me rolling home
But I don't understand why
Still there's nothing at all
Time is on my side
But we mustn't let our disappointment show
But I will, and you will go on
All I need is some good news (some good news)
All I need is some good news (just some good news)
To put me on my feet (to put me on my feet)
To put me at my ease (at my ease)
All I need is some good news (all I need is some good news)
All I need is some good news (some good news)
To put me at my ease (to put me at my ease)
All I need is some good news
All I need is some good news (just gimme me some good news)
All I need is some good news (some good news)
To put me at my ease (to put me at my ease)
To put me on my feet (on my feet, on my feet)
All I need is some good news (all I need is some good news)
All I need is some good news (all I need is some good news)
All I need is some good news
All I need is some good news (all I need is good news)
To put me on my ease (to put me at my ease)
To put me on my feet (on my feet, on my feet)
All I need is some good news (good news)
All I need is some good news (some good news)
All I need is some good news (good news)
All I need is some good news
[Repeat to fade

song performed by 10 Cc
Added by Lucian Velea
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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
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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