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Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum.

quote by Robert Smithson
Added by Lucian Velea
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Turning Japanese

Ive got your picture
Of me and you
You wrote, I love you.
I love you, too
I sit there staring when theres nothing else to do
Oh, its in color
Your hair is brown
Your eyes are hazel
And soft as clouds
I often kiss you when theres no one else around
Ive got your picture, got your picture
Id like a million of em over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Ive got your picture, Ive got your picture
Id like a million of them over myself
I want a doctor to take your picture
So I can look at you from inside as well
Youve got me turning up, Im turning down, Im turning in, and Im turning round
Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder its dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a cyclone ranger
Everyone
Thats why Im turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so)
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
Turning japanese, I think Im turning japanese, I really think so
(think so, think so, think so...)

song performed by Liz Phair
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Witch of Hebron

A Rabbinical Legend

Part I.
From morn until the setting of the sun
The rabbi Joseph on his knees had prayed,
And, as he rose with spirit meek and strong,
An Indian page his presence sought, and bowed
Before him, saying that a lady lay
Sick unto death, tormented grievously,
Who begged the comfort of his holy prayers.
The rabbi, ever to the call of grief
Open as day, arose; and girding straight
His robe about him, with the page went forth;
Who swiftly led him deep into the woods
That hung, heap over heap, like broken clouds
On Hebron’s southern terraces; when lo!
Across a glade a stately pile he saw,
With gleaming front, and many-pillared porch
Fretted with sculptured vinage, flowers and fruit,
And carven figures wrought with wondrous art
As by some Phidian hand.

But interposed
For a wide space in front, and belting all
The splendid structure with a finer grace,
A glowing garden smiled; its breezes bore
Airs as from paradise, so rich the scent
That breathed from shrubs and flowers; and fair the growths
Of higher verdure, gemm’d with silver blooms,
Which glassed themselves in fountains gleaming light
Each like a shield of pearl.

Within the halls
Strange splendour met the rabbi’s careless eyes,
Halls wonderful in their magnificance,
With pictured walls, and columns gleaming white
Like Carmel’s snow, or blue-veined as with life;
Through corridors he passed with tissues hung
Inwrought with threaded gold by Sidon’s art,
Or rich as sunset clouds with Tyrian dye;
Past lofty chambers, where the gorgeous gleam
Of jewels, and the stainèd radiance

Of golden lamps, showed many a treasure rare
Of Indian and Armenian workmanship
Which might have seemed a wonder of the world:
And trains of servitors of every clime,
Greeks, Persians, Indians, Ethiopians,
In richest raiment thronged the spacious halls.

[...] Read more

poem by Charles Harpur
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Murrow Turning Over In His Grave

All the sainted sinners
They pay handsomely
And eventually?
They make the weapons
And they run the prisons
And they sell the justice
Cause being guilty is
Just good business
And well be standing on
The borderline
Aint no one there gonna
Stop it now
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna turn wild
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna run wild
Half-closed eyes
And the countrys deadly
Do you feel the ooze as your brain drains out
From your pneumatic drills and sharpening knives
Blood in the sky
Are you dead or alive?
All the restless people and the bitter green
Well it fakes this gold, makes the spirit mean
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna turn wild
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Murrow turning over in his grave
Better watch out
Murrow turning over in his grave
Hes gonna run wild

song performed by Fleetwood Mac
Added by Lucian Velea
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Right

Taking it all the right way
Keeping it in the back
Taking it all the right way
Never no turning back
Never need, no
Never no turning back
Flying just a sweet place
Coming inside and safe
Flying just a sweet place
Never been known to fail
Never been, no
Never been known to fail
Wishing you, wishing that sometimes (sometimes)
Doing it, doing it right, till, ahh time, (one time)
Gets you when youre down
(nobody, nobody, do it again, get off)
Ahhh, sometimes, (doing)
Wishing sometimes (give it back)
Up there, up there (giving it)
Oh, my darling
(no) ah, my darling, (giving it) ah (up there) why?
(gimme, gimme) up there, (yeah) gimme, (doing)
Taking with me (sometimes)
Loving it, doing it (right) till (take it) one time
Gimme (doing it)
Giving it (giving it back)
Taking it all the right way (taking it)
Keeping it in the back (hey hey)
Taking it all the right way
Never no turning back (never never never never)
Never no turning back
Taking it all the right way
Keeping it in the back
Taking it all the right way
Never no turning back
Never need, no
Never no turning back
(taking it)
Taking it all the right way (yeah)
Keeping it in the back (taking it)
Taking it all the right way
Never no turning back (never never never never)
Never no turning back
Flying just a sweet place
Coming inside and safe
Flying just a sweet place
Never been known to fail
Never been, no
Never been known to fail
(taking it all the right way)

[...] Read more

song performed by David Bowie
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.

[...] Read more

poem by Nazim Hikmet
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Big Wheels

Ive been thinking it over
So many times they say
You got it made
They never understand
The answer lies within your soul
cos no one know which side
The coin will fall.
Big wheels turning
Baby I know
Big wheels turning
Baby I know
Big wheels turning, turning...
Save it for a rainy day
For when the cold wind blows
Just to see how they run
I thought theyd know
I tried my best, all I could do
But somehow it was not enough for you.
Big wheels turning
Baby I know
Big wheels turning
Baby I know
Big wheels turning, turning,
Turning, turning...
Chorus:
I remember the dead of night
A lonely light that shines upon the window
I see it all so clear
The tenderness, the silent tears
Out here in the pouring rain
Through cold dark waiting days
I see you standing there
I see the big wheels turning
Never ending, on and on they go.
I think Im going home
I think Im gonna have to start again
Its rather sad
Because Ive looked around, cant seem to find
Whatevers always rolling through my mind
Big wheels turning
Baby I know
Big wheels turning
Baby I know
Big wheels turning, turning
Turning, turning...
Repeat chorus

song performed by Electric Light Orchestra
Added by Lucian Velea
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Turning Time Around

She says, what do you call love
Well I call it harry
Oh, please Im being serious
What do you call love
Well I dont call it family and I dont call it lust
And as we all know marriage isnt a must
And I suppose in the end, its a matter of trust
If I had to Id call love time
She says, what do you call love
Cant you be more specific
What do you call love
Is it more than the hearts hieroglyphic
Well for me time has no meaning, no future, no past
And when youre in love, you dont have to ask
Theres never enough time to hold love in your grasp
Turning time around
Turning time around
That is what love is
Turning time around
Yes, that is what love is
My time is your time when youre in love
And time is what you never have enough of
You cant see or hold it, its exactly like love
Turning time around
Turning time around
Turning time around
Turning time around
Turning time around
Well I gotta have it
I gotta-gotta-gotta have it
Turning, turning time around
Gotta have it, turning time around
Turning, turning time around
Turning time around

song performed by Lou Reed
Added by Lucian Velea
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Gold-tipped Boots, Black Jacket & Tie

Im banered and bruised. I got lines I cant use.
My head wont deliver. well, Im sold down the river.
But Im turning again.
Yes, 'n Im turning again.
Well, Im turning again.
And Im turning again.
Wearing gold-tipped boots, black jacket and tie.
Well, Ive been second to none:
This horse was ready to run.
Now Im has-been and used:
Disarmed and de-fused
But Im turning again.
And Im turning again.
Yes, 'n Im turning again.
Im turning again.
Wearing gold-tipped boots, black jacket and tie.
Im egg over-easy
And Im washing-up squeezy.
Appliance for sale:
Fat wind in my sail
And Im turning again.
Yes, 'n Im turning again.
Well, Im turning again.
Yes, 'n Im turning again.
Wearing gold-tipped boots, black jacket and tie.
Well, Im turning again.

song performed by Jethro Tull
Added by Lucian Velea
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Sneaky With the Looks

Sneaky with the looks that they give.

I perceive myself alone.
I feel a curiosity directed.
At first I am not sure,
If the curiosity is directed towards me.
And I look around.
Nothing is there to block my steps.
And I begin to whistle in nervousness.
To then talk to myself...
In a calming peacefulness.
I admit is beginning to get a bit restless.

Sneaky with the looks that they give.

I am among the trees.
Alone in fresh Spring breezes.

Sneaky with the looks that they give.

I begin to hear the chirping of birds.
Conversing to break the silence,
With a charm that does not disturb.
And they fly high between the trees.
Trying to hide within the leaves.

Sneaky with the looks that they give.

I follow a path made clear of obstacles.
I stop.
So does the chirping.
I pick up a small rock,
To toss as I also pick up a twig.
There is a wind.
And I continue my journey.

Wings flap as if there is clapping.
I adjust my cap.
And two squirrels chase...
Across my path!
To play tag and hide and seek.
I stop to watch.

Sneaky with the looks that they give.

I look up!
And there they all sit.
As if in conference on a branch.
Together...
Laughing!

[...] Read more

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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The Museum of Nothing

Although the museum had nothing on exhibit...
The people not believing this,
Would still come in droves to visit.

They would stand in line to wait.
And pay their fee to gain entry.
And inquire, once inside...
Why was nothing there,
To sustain them with pride.

And from room to vacant room,
They walked behind the tour guide!

So the board of directors,
Decided to please them all.
And changed the name of the museum!
The museum was renamed,
The Museum of Nothing.
And people came in the Winter,
Spring, Summer and Fall.

And 'nothing' it was affectionately called.

Although the museum had nothing on exhibit...
The people not believing this,
Would still come in droves to visit.

They would stand in line to wait.
And pay their fee to gain entry.
Some adjusting to the nothingness.
While others stood for hours,
Just to stare as if in disbelief.

Addicted to anything said to them.
And clearly easy to deceive.

poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar
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Lying From You

When I pretend, everything is what I want it be,
I looked exactly like what you always wanted to see
When I pretend, I cant forget about the criminal I am
Stealing second after second just cause I know I can, but
I cant pretend that this is they way it will stay, Im just
(lying to defend the truth)
I cant pretend of who you want me to be so
(Im lying my way from)
You
(nah, no turning back now)
I wanna be close beside so let me go
(nah, no turning back now)
Let me take me back my life
Id rather be all alone
(no turning back now)
And anywhere on my own, cause I can see
(nah, no turning back now)
cause everyones lying from you
With me
I remember what they taught to me,
Remember condescending took for what I ought to be
Remember fussing and all of that and this again
So I could turned it up to the person who was feeling it
And now you think this person really is me and i
(trying to defend the truth )
Yo, the more I push Im pulling away cause im
(lying my way from)
You
(nah, no turning back now)
I wanna be close beside so let me go
(nah, no turning back now)
Let me take me back my life
Id rather be all alone
(no turning back now)
And anywhere on my own, cause I can see
(nah, no turning back now)
cause everyones lying from you
With me
This isnt what I wanted to be, I never thought what I said would have you running from me
Like this!
This isnt what I wanted to be, I never thought what I said would have you running from me
Like this!
This isnt what I wanted to be, I never thought what I said would have you running from me
Like this!
This isnt what I wanted to be, I never thought what I said would have you running from me
Like this!
You
(nah, no turning back now)
I wanna be close beside so let me go
(nah, no turning back now)

[...] Read more

song performed by Linkin Park
Added by Lucian Velea
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The Tide Is Turning

I used to think the world was flat
Rarely threw my hat into the crowd
I felt I had used up my quota of yearning
Used to look in on the children at night
In the glow of their donald duck light
And I frighten myself with the thought of my little ones burning
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
Satellites buzzing through the endless night
Exclusive to moonshots and world title fights
Jesus christ, imagine what it must be earning
Who is the strongest
Who is the best
Who holds the aces
The east
Or the west
This is the crap our children are learning
And oh, oh, the tide is turning
Oh, oh, the tide is turning
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
Oh, oh, oh, the tide is turning
Now the satellites confused
cos on saturday night
The airwaves were full of compassion and light
And his silicon heart warmed
To the sight of a billion candles burning
But, Im not saying that the battle is won
But on saturday night all those kids in the sun
Wrested technologys sword from the hand of the war lords
Oh, the tide is turning
Oh, the tide is turning
Oh, the tide is turning
Oh, the tide is turning
(repeated)

song performed by Cyndi Lauper
Added by Lucian Velea
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Cool Tombs

When Abraham Lincoln was shoveled into the tombs he forgot
the copperheads and the assassin . . . in the dust, in the
cool tombs.

And Ulysses Grant lost all thought of con men and Wall Street,
cash and collateral turned ashes . . . in the dust, in the
cool tombs.

Pocahontas' body, lovely as a poplar, sweet as a red haw in
November or a pawpaw in May, did she wonder? does she
remember? . . . in the dust, in the cool tombs?

Take any streetful of people buying clothes and groceries,
cheering a hero or throwing confetti and blowing tin
horns . . . tell me if the lovers are losers . . . tell me if any
get more than the lovers . . . in the dust . . . in the cool
tombs.

poem by Carl Sandburg
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More Amazing Than The Crucifixion

More amazing that the crucifixion
was, of course, the holocaust.
That’s why some believe it’s fiction,
view Jew-haters have endorsed.
Sad fact is that truly it
occurred––six million crucified,
and not just one. Though Holy Writ
does not include them by his side,
Chagall has done this. From the cross
the Christ looks sadly down, an SS-man
observing bloody feet, a boss
who’ll claim he was a minor yes-man
to that atrocity we see
on Golgotha has taken place;
he never will confess that he
deserves great blame. The Jewish race
survived this SS-man’s attack
whose evil has been called banal,
confusing merely white and black!
confusion not one Marc Chagall
made showing cruelty to Christ
who’s cringing on the cross. Some think
they know why he was sacrificed.
I from such explanations shrink,
confronted by the genocide
of all the millions who were killed
with gas used like a pesticide
by people more than Romans skilled
in culture and humanity,
some God-believers, even, whose
world-views saw no profanity
in crucifixion of the Jews.

Inspired by an article by Randy Kennedy in the NYT on January 2,2010, describing the purchase of a Chagall gouache depicting the crucifixion by the London:

The London Jewish Museum of Art is a scrappy young institution, created in 2001 and camped in rented space in St. John’s Wood, off the beaten track of London’s art world. But over the last nine years the museum has been diligently trying to forge a reputation for itself, adding more than 100 works to an already substantial collection that grew out of that of the Ben Uri Gallery, a Jewish artists’ society founded in London in 1915. So when David Glasser, one of the museum’s chairmen, was perusing a Paris auction catalog a few months ago, he found it hard to believe what he saw: a previously unknown 1945 gouache by Marc Chagall. It was one of a small group of images Chagall made in direct response to the Holocaust, after he and his wife had fled France in 1941, after the German occupation and after he had begun to learn the details of the Nazi atrocities. The gouache on heavy paper, which Chagall signed and titled himself lightly with a pencil in Russian — “Apocalypse in Lilac, Capriccio” — employs one of his familiar motifs, an image of a crucified Jesus, which he used as a metaphor for persecuted Jewry. But this crucifixion, painted in New York, where Chagall settled for several years, is one of the most brutal and disturbing ever created by an artist primarily known for his brightly colored folkloric visions. “Apocalypse” shows a naked Christ screaming at a Nazi storm trooper below the cross, who has a backwards swastika on his arm, a Hitler-like mustache and a serpentine tail. Another small figure can be seen crucified and a second being hanged, and a man appears to be poised to stab a child. A damaged, upside-down clock falls from the sky. The darkness and directness of the work may have been a response not only to the war but also to the death of Chagall’s wife, Bella, a year earlier from a viral infection that might have been treated if not for wartime medicine shortages….
And beginning on Thursday, it will go on public display for the first time, at the Osborne Samuel gallery in Mayfair, before moving into the museum’s permanent collection at the end of the month. In going on view, it will become another of the notable publicly exhibited examples of Chagall’s wartime imagery, like the “Yellow Crucifixion” from 1943, at the Georges Pompidou Center, and the “White Crucifixion” from 1938 at the Art Institute of Chicago. “Although in many of his works Chagall had reacted to events in Germany, he usually did not depict them but used symbols — such as the crucifixion, a Jew holding a Torah, a mother protecting her child or a falling angel — to suggest what was happening there, ” writes Ziva Amishai-Maisels, a Chagall scholar and professor emeritus at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, in a catalog to accompany the exhibition of the painting. “Although he still used some of these symbols in ‘Apocalypse, ’ he combined them with the reality of the Holocaust in a manner that was very rare in his work. This and the way he depicted the conflict between the Nazi and the naked Christ make this a unique work.” Ms. Baron, of the Art Fund, agreed. “I think it is really a tremendous coup, ” she said, “to get it for this collection and for the country.”

1/2/10

poem by Gershon Hepner
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Torquing Torus

It very rare for Richard Serra
man of steel, to sculpt in error.
The shapes that he creates evoke
dunes, canyons and ravines. Baroque
the influence of all these curves.
Perhaps Borromini deserves
some credit for the inspiration
for their expressive undulation,
although, ingratiating, lavish,
his expertise inclines to ravish
as, torquing torus with inversion,
with parasexual perversion
it transforms alchemistically steel
into raw spaces where you feel
the presence of a dying numen
within the crevasse of the lumen
where people walk and need not climb
to sense a terror that’s sublime.

Michael Kimmelman reviews a retrospective exhibition of Richard Serra of sculptures at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, “Man of Steel, ” NYT, June 1,2007) :
That second floor at the Modern, by the way, is the show’s tour de force. A high, huge and like so much of this museum, totally unlovable space, it was conceived for housing Mr. Serra’s sculptures. Kirk Varnedoe, the Modern curator, came up with this idea, and the museum saw his plan through after his death. The resulting space is antiseptic, unfortunately, and too much of a barn for showing anything else, but it looks fantastic now. At one end is “Band, ” a 70-foot-long steel undulation, absent an inside or outside, forming four cavities. On the other end is “Sequence, ” which links two immense spirals. In between is “Torqued Torus Inversion, ” a pair of mirrored enclosures whose forms Mr. Serra has said may partly relate to his fondness for curvy Chinese bronzes…
These shapes and experiences are new. That’s about the best, and the rarest, compliment you can give to any artist. Mr. Serra’s “Torqued Ellipses” and “Torqued Toruses” and other recent works like “Band” and “Sequence” have their origins in work he did 40 years ago in rubber and lead, as this retrospective handsomely affirms, but these are nonetheless unprecedented variations on the theme of dumbfounding spirals and loops. The public’s perception of Mr. Serra’s work has also obviously changed from the bad days of “Tilted Arc, ” a quarter-century or so ago. That same vocabulary of curved, giant metal walls, once vilified as art-world arrogance, is now better understood and broadly admired. This is how radical art operates. In Mr. Serra’s case you can also call it democratic art because it sticks to pure form that requires no previous expertise to grasp. There’s no coy narrative, no insider joke or historical allusion or meta-art theme. There’s none of what Mr. Serra disdainfully calls, in the show’s catalog, “post-Pop Surrealism, ” by which he lumps together all contemporary art that leans for a crutch on language and Duchamp. In that catalog interview he was talking with Kynaston McShine, one of the show’s two curators. (The other is Lynne Cooke.) Mr. Serra famously looked at Borromini churches in Rome before he started torquing steel, but his work is not “about” Baroque architecture any more than it’s about Jackson Pollock or Barnett Newman or Donald Judd, whom he also looked at and learned from early on. The art is about the basic stuff of sculpture, isolated and recast: mass, weight, volume, material. What matters in the end are your own reactions while moving through the sculptures, at a given moment, the works being Rorschachs of indeterminate meaning….
A filmmaker I met in Bilbao, Spain, wandering through Mr. Serra’s sculptures there, likened the experience to movies. He thought the paths Mr. Serra devised within the works, between curving walls of steel, which suddenly jog, then arrive, unexpectedly, at cavities or enclosures, were like plot twists with surprise endings. Except there are no beginnings or endings in the sculptures. A novelist who has written about the Holocaust said the high, curving steel walls leaned over him threateningly, leading him until he became disoriented and lost, into what he felt were penned-in spaces, bringing to mind a concentration camp. The art scared him, he said, but he also loved it. Kant called this feeling “the terrifying sublime, ” which is “accompanied by a certain dread or melancholy.” Awe and fear mingle with pleasure. The concept was applied to mountain climbing, and Mr. Serra’s new works on the museum’s second floor, perhaps not coincidentally, evoke canyons, dunes, crevasses and ravines. The industrial steel walls, in uncalculated rusty orange and velvety brown, evoke natural terrains; the spaces through which the sculptures move people are akin to spaces in nature.

6/1/07

poem by Gershon Hepner
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The City of Dreadful Night

Per me si va nella citta dolente.

--Dante

Poi di tanto adoprar, di tanti moti
D'ogni celeste, ogni terrena cosa,
Girando senza posa,
Per tornar sempre la donde son mosse;
Uso alcuno, alcun frutto
Indovinar non so.

Sola nel mondo eterna, a cui si volve
Ogni creata cosa,
In te, morte, si posa
Nostra ignuda natura;
Lieta no, ma sicura
Dell' antico dolor . . .
Pero ch' esser beato
Nega ai mortali e nega a' morti il fato.

--Leopardi

PROEM

Lo, thus, as prostrate, "In the dust I write
My heart's deep languor and my soul's sad tears."
Yet why evoke the spectres of black night
To blot the sunshine of exultant years?
Why disinter dead faith from mouldering hidden?
Why break the seals of mute despair unbidden,
And wail life's discords into careless ears?

Because a cold rage seizes one at whiles
To show the bitter old and wrinkled truth
Stripped naked of all vesture that beguiles,
False dreams, false hopes, false masks and modes of youth;
Because it gives some sense of power and passion
In helpless innocence to try to fashion
Our woe in living words howe'er uncouth.

Surely I write not for the hopeful young,
Or those who deem their happiness of worth,
Or such as pasture and grow fat among
The shows of life and feel nor doubt nor dearth,
Or pious spirits with a God above them
To sanctify and glorify and love them,
Or sages who foresee a heaven on earth.

For none of these I write, and none of these
Could read the writing if they deigned to try;

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poem by James Thomson
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It Looks Like Rain

I stand at the window
Looking out, looking out at the grey
After getting up and reading the paper today
Sometimes I just want to crawl back in bed
Pull the covers over my eyes
This world is so full of trouble
All the war planes in the sky
Chorus:
And it looks like rain
Cant you hear the thunder
And it looks like rain
Dont it make you wonder
Killers make the front page
Good deeds go unnoticed
Seems like, like theres no change
No matter what the vote is
It used to be we were
All looking out for everybody else
But now it seems the only law is
Every man for himself
(chorus)
And it looks like rain
Cant you hear the thunder
It looks like rain
Dont it make you
And it looks like rain
Falling down my eyes
It looks like rain
Dont you wonder why
I hear, hear it pounding
In the courtrooms and halls
I hear, hear it sounding
Through these paper-thin walls
I can hear people lying under oath
Lovers breaking their vows
I dont want to give up hope
Is it too late now
Chorus:
And it looks like rain
Cant you hear the thunder
It looks like rain
Dont it make you
And it looks like rain
Falling down my eyes
It looks like rain
Dont you wonder why
And it looks like rain
Cant you hear the thunder
It looks like rain
Dont it make you

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song performed by Toto
Added by Lucian Velea
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I Saw It Myself (Short Verse Drama)

Dramatis Personae: Adrian, his wife Ester, his sisters Rebecca and Johanna, his mother Elizabeth, the high priest Chiapas, the disciple Simon Peter, the disciple John, Mary Magdalene, worshipers, priests, two angels and Jesus Christ.

Act I

Scene I.- Adrian’s house in Jerusalem. Adrian has just returned home after a business journey in Galilee, in time to attend the Passover feast. He sits at the table with his wife Ester and his sisters, Rebecca and Johanna. It’s just before sunset on the Friday afternoon.

Adrian. (Somewhat puzzled) Strange things are happening,
some say demons dwell upon the earth,
others angelic beings, miracles take place
and all of this when they had put a man to death,
had crucified a criminal. Everybody knows
the cross is used for degenerates only!

Rebecca. (With a pleasant voice) Such harsh words used,
for a good, a great man brother?
They say that without charge
he healed the sick, brought back sight,
cured leprosy, even made some more food,
from a few fishes and loafs of bread…

Adrian. (Somewhat harsh) They say many things!
That he rode into Jerusalem
to be crowned as the new king,
was a rebel against the state,
even claimed to be
the very Son of God,
now that is blasphemy
if there is no truth to it!

Johanna. I met him once.
He’s not the man
that you make him, brother.
There was a strange tranquilly to Him.
Some would say a divine presence,
while He spoke of love that is selfless,
visited the sick, the poor
and even the destitute, even harlots.

Adrian. (Looks up) There you have it!
Harlots! Tax collecting thieves!
A man is know by his friends,
or so they say and probably
there is some truth to it.

Ester. Husband, do not be so quick to judge.
I have seen Him myself, have seen
Roman soldiers marching Him to the hill
to take His life, with a angry crowd
following and mocking Him.

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poem by Gert Strydom
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Poem (‘It Doesn’t Look Like A Finger...’)

It doesn’t look like a finger it looks like a feather of broken glass
It doesn’t look like something to eat it looks like something eaten
It doesn’t look like an empty chair it looks like an old woman
searching in a heap of stones
It doesn’t look like a heap of stones it looks like an estuary where
the drifting filth is swept to and fro on the tide
It doesn’t look like a finger it looks like a feather with broken teeth
The spaces between the stones are made of stone
It doesn’t look like a revolver it looks like a convolvulus
It doesn’t look like a living convolvulus it looks like a dead one
KEEP YOUR FILTHY HANDS OFF MY FRIENDS USE THEM ON
YOUR BITCHES OR
YOURSELVES BUT KEEP THEM OFF MY FRIENDS
The faces between the stones are made of bone
It doesn’t look like an eye it looks like a bowl of rotten fruit
It doesn’t look like my mother in the garden it looks like my father
when he came up from the sea covered in shells and tangle
It doesn’t look like a feather it looks like a finger with broken wings
It doesn’t look like the old woman’s mouth it looks like a handful
of broken feathers or a revolver buried in cinders
The faces beneath the stones are made of stone
It doesn’t look like a broken cup it looks like a cut lip
It doesn’t look like yours it looks like mine
BUT IT IS YOURS NOW
SOON IT WILL LOOK LIKE YOURS
AND ANYTHING YOU SEE WILL BE USED AGAINST YOU

London Bulletin, No. 2 (May 1938), 7.

poem by Hugh Sykes Davies
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Endless Poem

In a modern museum
In an old synagogue
In the synagogue
I
Within me
My heart
Within my heart
A museum
Within a museum
A synagogue
Within it
I
Within me
My heart
Within my heart
A museum

poem by Yehuda Amichai
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