6 degrees Celsius
-6 degrees Celsius.
from my balcony,
yes, the atlas
of my balcony,
with the music
of the masters
pouring forth
from within,
I follow the stars
direction Norway
and Sweden
while around the corner
one looks towards Iceland
and 'those islands'.
Kleve is just across the way
and Paris and Brussels
down the road.
this is my mainland!
poem by John O'connell
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Related quotes
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
[...] Read more
song performed by 10 Cc
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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Road Block
Yeah!, all right!
Oh, ain't no problem
Carry no heavy load
Lord, no!
Why can't i love you, baby ?
You try to block my road.
You try to block my road. hey!
Oh, better off to hand you
Everything i own, ha ha ha ha!
Strange to see you waiting for me,
You try to block my road, yeah yeah,
Try to block my road
Hey, hey, hey, hey.
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block daddy daddy daddy
Road block
Road block
Alright on the road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Yeah! road block
Road block, alright, alright, alright!
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Whoa road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Road block
Yeah!
Try to block my road, daddy daddy daddy
I said now every time i turn around
[...] Read more
song performed by Janis Joplin
Added by Lucian Velea
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The House Of Dust: Complete
I.
The sun goes down in a cold pale flare of light.
The trees grow dark: the shadows lean to the east:
And lights wink out through the windows, one by one.
A clamor of frosty sirens mourns at the night.
Pale slate-grey clouds whirl up from the sunken sun.
And the wandering one, the inquisitive dreamer of dreams,
The eternal asker of answers, stands in the street,
And lifts his palms for the first cold ghost of rain.
The purple lights leap down the hill before him.
The gorgeous night has begun again.
'I will ask them all, I will ask them all their dreams,
I will hold my light above them and seek their faces.
I will hear them whisper, invisible in their veins . . .'
The eternal asker of answers becomes as the darkness,
Or as a wind blown over a myriad forest,
Or as the numberless voices of long-drawn rains.
We hear him and take him among us, like a wind of music,
Like the ghost of a music we have somewhere heard;
We crowd through the streets in a dazzle of pallid lamplight,
We pour in a sinister wave, ascend a stair,
With laughter and cry, and word upon murmured word;
We flow, we descend, we turn . . . and the eternal dreamer
Moves among us like light, like evening air . . .
Good-night! Good-night! Good-night! We go our ways,
The rain runs over the pavement before our feet,
The cold rain falls, the rain sings.
We walk, we run, we ride. We turn our faces
To what the eternal evening brings.
Our hands are hot and raw with the stones we have laid,
We have built a tower of stone high into the sky,
We have built a city of towers.
Our hands are light, they are singing with emptiness.
Our souls are light; they have shaken a burden of hours . . .
What did we build it for? Was it all a dream? . . .
Ghostly above us in lamplight the towers gleam . . .
And after a while they will fall to dust and rain;
Or else we will tear them down with impatient hands;
And hew rock out of the earth, and build them again.
II.
[...] Read more
poem by Conrad Potter Aiken
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My Little World
1 2 3 4.
1 2 3 4.
Little boy up in (? )...
Thats left behind to sin.
Moving like a camera I can watch you on my screen.
Fall into a shadow world inside of me.
Hidden like a treasure.
Secrets in my scene.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow me.
You can follow me.
Ah, you can follow me.
Scream inside.
Whisper.
Picture in a dream.
You can talk to me and we can talk forever.
I could take you to the doorway and I can give you the way, the key.
No one here can see you, no one here but me.
Fall into our shadow, theres another world in me.
And youre invited.
And youre invited.
In the little world I make with all the little things I take...
A million ways to pass the time, in this little world of mine.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow me.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow you can follow you can follow follow follow follow follow.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow me.
Secrets in this world.
Picture in a dream.
No one here can see you, no one here but me.
And you can follow me.
Oh, you can follow me.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow me.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow me.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow.
In the little world I make with all the little things I take...
A million ways to pass the time, in this little world of mine.
You can follow me, follow me.
You can follow me.
Oh, you can follow.
You can follow me. follow me.
You can follow me. follow me.
You can follow me.
You can follow me.
You can follow me.
[...] Read more
song performed by Blondie
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
[...] Read more
poem by Elizabeth Barrett Browning from Aurora Leigh (1856)
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Let It All Be Music
Music is a mirror
Near around my soul
Music is the spirit
Come on let it roll
Music is my nature
People have you heard
Music is my future
Music is the world
Let it all be music
People sing a song
Let it all be music
Let us sing it on and on and on and on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on and on and on
Music isnt somewhere
Music turns you right
Music is a fever
Leads you day and night
Music is like heaven
Where you wanna be
Music is religion
Music sets you free
Let it all be music
People sing a song
Let it all be music
Let us sing it on and on and on and on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on
Lets play the music
My kind of music
Lets play the music
Play it on and on and on
Music is tomorrow
Music is today
Music is forever
Music is the way
Music is for women
Music is for men
Music is for children
Sing it all again
Let it all be music
People sing a song
[...] Read more
song performed by Boney M.
Added by Lucian Velea
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Norway, norway
Norway, Norway,
Rising in blue from the sea's gray and green,
Islands around like fledglings tender,
Fjord-tongues with slender,
Tapering tips in the silence seen.
Rivers, valleys,
Mate among mountains, wood-ridge and slope
Wandering follow. Where the wastes lighten,
Lake and plain brighten
Hallow a temple of peace and hope.
Norway, Norway,
Houses and huts, not castles grand,
Gentle or hard,
Thee we guard, thee we guard,
Thee, our future's fair land.
Norway, Norway,
Glistening heights where skis swiftly go,
Harbors with fishermen, salts, and craftsmen,
Rivers and raftsmen,
Herdsmen and horns and the glacier-glow.
Moors and meadows,
Runes in the woodlands, and wide-mown swaths,
Cities like flowers, streams that run dashing
Out to the flashing
White of the sea, where the fish-school froths.
Norway, Norway,
Houses and huts, not castles grand,
Gentle or hard,
Thee we guard, thee we guard,
Thee, our future's fair land.
poem by Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson
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I Will Follow
Yonder mountain so high
I cant make it all on my own, no
Rolling river why so wide?
To sweep me up and to bear me on
Up against the sky so bright
That I cant even close my eyes
I know I will follow (follow love)
Yes, yes, I will follow (follow love)
I will follow (follow love)
Follow love
Growing slowly like a tree
Someday soon, darling I love you
I love you
Soft and gentle, full summer moon
Set my soul free
Thank you, baby
Drifting like a cloud in the sky
I can see myself from high above
I know I must follow (follow love)
Somehow I will follow (follow love)
I must follow (follow love)
Follow love
Oh, half the future and half the past
Theyre waiting inside your eyes
Yes, and after all of this
To last and last
Till at last its your time to rise, rise
True believer that I am
I am blind, lead me on (lead me on)
Blessed receiver of your love
I own my own time
And Ive been holding on (holding on)
Leave the word unspoken
And the spell will not be broken
And Im bound to follow, now (follow love)
I know I must go (follow love)
I must follow (follow love)
Yes, I must follow (follow love)
Someone to hold my hand (follow love)
Somebody to lead me on(follow love)
Somebody to walk beside me (follow love)
Someone to follow me now (follow love)
I must follow love (follow love)
I will fall in love
I will follow love (follow love)
Anywhere it leads me
I will follow love (follow love)
Follow love
song performed by James Taylor
Added by Lucian Velea
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Mammary Tunes
Under heavy haze I cast an ear…
Was that a distant hymn?
To view, to peer ahead,
I span thro’ sharpened eyes,
Connecting brain. Surprise
Awards emotion to the show –
A fine refrain.
I think I know the source:
Without recourse my keen and
Eager shoes propel my whole.
And she regales me as I close –
The drifting notes propose I place
An ear to verge upon the emanation.
Choice of left or right
Invites and overwhelms;
A brief respite, and then
I poise an aural organ,
Seeking out the balance
In the tone from rhythmic flesh.
O Holy Grail, the sweet spot!
Honed in stereophony and
Mastered out of euphony:
Her music –
Diaphragms of luscious areolae
Give the tune
Atop a vibrant bass –
Quivers in the
Belly of her breast.
And presently
I fall beneath a spell of heady music
As her reproductive cushions do the rest.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2011
[...] Read more
poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Feel The Music
What is music and why is it here?
Music is made for the ear.
To be made and played for many of decades.
To be embraced by different cultures and race,
Music
the heart of man
Only it seems now only a few understand
Music.
The upbeat the down beat the chords the rhythm it plays.
Exchanging and changing forever.
Music.
Not one man can take the responsibility for making the music the music made us.
You have to trust in the
Music
Classical Jazz, Swing, Country everything it brings.
Music.
Although music has a lot of names it will always remain the same
Music will always change.
The dramatic character of a story.
It will always end with the final glory.
Because of its graceful authority
[...] Read more
poem by Tiffany Burton
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The Road
Sitting alone on my hotel
Looking in the mirror wondering, well,
After all this time you never thought youd still be out on the road?
Like a gypsy I was born to roam
Like a wanderer with no fixed abode
I think about the friends Ive left behind on the road
Well, the roads been rocky along the way
Its been a long, hard haul on the motorway
But if it gets too smooth its time to call it a day
(on the road)
The bed and breakfasts and the greasy spoons
(the road)
The loser bars and the noisy rooms
(the road)
The casualties who did too many lines
(the road)
Wasted talent on women and wine
I think of all the friends Ive left behind
Whenever its time to get back out on the road
Started playing blues in a coffee bar
I took a trip down charing cross road
With my imitation gretsch guitar
And my head full of songs and my eyes full of stars
I saw a band called the rolling stones
I thought, thats it, Ill get a band,
Im leaving home, Im out on the road.
The motorways all over this land
(the road)
Far away places like wigan and birmingham
(the road)
Didnt have no name, didnt have any fans
(the road)
Didnt have no money so we slept in the van
All those early gigs we ever played
Sometimes we were lucky if we even got paid
On the road
Pete played on the bass guitar
Liked to get around, mixing with all the stars
But mrs. avorys child was all fingers and thumbs
But solid as a rock, setting time on the drums
While dave the rave hit the rock n roll riffs
Yours truly strummed away with a slightly limp wrist
On the road
Everyday is when I cant get used to it
Everyday is when I cant get away
Another day, another freeway to face
Thats the road
Well, life is a road, its a motorway
And the road gets rocky along the way
But if it gets too smooth its time to call it a day
[...] Read more
song performed by Kinks
Added by Lucian Velea
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Follow Me
Follow Me"
What we gon' do now (oh lord, try some if u like it)
Is slow it down on tha flo (you know you like that)
(try some if you like that)
Uh oh
Uh oh, yeah
When you look from outside
All you see is videos and shows (yeah)
But there's more to my life than people could ever know (uh huh)
Sometimes I gotta smile (smile)
When I don't feel like smiling
Sit back and ride (ride)
When I feel like driving
Nobody understands but you girl (fo sho)
I can always be myself with you girl
That's why I'm singing
[Chorus]
Ooooh I can't believe it
You came just in time with what I needed
And you're not like the other girls I meet everyday
You stay down like them girls from around the way
Uh oh
That's why I had to say
Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me
Thats why I had to say
Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me (uh oh)
Thats why I had to say
Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me now
Right now
Since you been in my life
When I'm away from you I hurry home, aww yeah (aww yeah, I hurry home)
You live in my mind so I never feel like I'm alone, yeah (alone)
Sometimes I gotta go (go)
Where I don't feel like going
And when it gets too fast (fast)
And I feel like slowing down (slowing down)
No one understands but you
That's why I only see myself with you
[Chorus x2]
Ooooh I can't believe it
You came just in time with what I needed
And you're not like the other girls I meet everyday
You stay down like them girls from around the way
Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me (come now)
Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me (girl come follow me now)
Come follow me, come follow me, come follow me now (oooh)
Right now (right now)
You've been there for me and i'll (so i'll)
I'll be there for you girl
[Chorus x 3]
[...] Read more
song performed by Usher
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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You can kiss me; only If
You can kiss me on my voluptuously rubicund cheeks
all right; but only if your kiss had the power to
wonderfully transcend over every other conceivable
kiss drifting ominously towards my direction; for
times beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my seductively tantalizing nape all
right; but only if your kiss had the tenacity to
miraculously overpower every other conceivable kiss
drifting atrociously towards my direction; for times
beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my rhapsodically vivacious hair all
right; but only if your kiss had the temerity to
supremely outshadow every other conceivable kiss
drifting egregiously towards my direction; for times
beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my enthrallingly ebullient lips all
right; but only if your kiss had the charisma to
irrefutably nullify every other conceivable kiss
drifting vindictively towards my direction; for times
beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my bountifully emollient palms all
right; but only if your kiss had the superiority to
timelessly conquer every other conceivable kiss
drifting baselessly towards my direction; for times
beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my surreally royal forehead all
right; but only if your kiss had the magic to
unbelievably decimate every other conceivable kiss
drifting truculently towards my direction; for times
beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my daintily embellished feet all
right; but only if your kiss had the magnetism to
insuperably supercede every other conceivable kiss
drifting salaciously towards my direction; for times
beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my robustly titillating belly all
right; but only if your kiss had the caress to
astronomically triumph over every other conceivable
kiss drifting parasitically towards my direction; for
times beyond an infinite more lifetimes,
You can kiss me on my uncontrollably trembling skin
all right; but only if your kiss had the color to
[...] Read more
poem by Nikhil Parekh
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The King of the Vasse
A LEGEND OF THE BUSH.
MY tale which I have brought is of a time
Ere that fair Southern land was stained with crime,
Brought thitherward in reeking ships and cast
Like blight upon the coast, or like a blast
From angry levin on a fair young tree,
That stands thenceforth a piteous sight to see.
So lives this land to-day beneath the sun,—
A weltering plague-spot, where the hot tears run,
And hearts to ashes turn, and souls are dried
Like empty kilns where hopes have parched and died.
Woe's cloak is round her,—she the fairest shore
In all the Southern Ocean o'er and o'er.
Poor Cinderella! she must bide her woe,
Because an elder sister wills it so.
Ah! could that sister see the future day
When her own wealth and strength are shorn away,
A.nd she, lone mother then, puts forth her hand
To rest on kindred blood in that far land;
Could she but see that kin deny her claim
Because of nothing owing her but shame,—
Then might she learn 'tis building but to fall,
If carted rubble be the basement-wall.
But this my tale, if tale it be, begins
Before the young land saw the old land's sins
Sail up the orient ocean, like a cloud
Far-blown, and widening as it neared,—a shroud
Fate-sent to wrap the bier of all things pure,
And mark the leper-land while stains endure.
In the far days, the few who sought the West
Were men all guileless, in adventurous quest
Of lands to feed their flocks and raise their grain,
And help them live their lives with less of pain
Than crowded Europe lets her children know.
From their old homesteads did they seaward go,
As if in Nature's order men must flee
As flow the streams,—from inlands to the sea.
In that far time, from out a Northern land,
With home-ties severed, went a numerous band
Of men and wives and children, white-haired folk:
Whose humble hope of rest at home had broke,
As year was piled on year, and still their toil
Had wrung poor fee from -Sweden's rugged soil.
One day there gathered from the neighboring steads,
In Jacob Eibsen's, five strong household heads,—
Five men large-limbed and sinewed, Jacob's sons,
[...] Read more
poem by John Boyle O'Reilly
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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
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poem by Robert Browning from The Ring and the Book
Added by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The Piano Lurched
Contact was sharp…
I jolted from immediacy of senses torn from mind:
Such was I at unawares with you –
To strike with Master’s single chord that pounced and caught me blind –
Piano, how you lurched and rent me through!
Delightful music welcomed me to drift in quasi-syncope:
Soft tranquillo sought to rest my bones –
I glided reaching largo; sang with sweet cantabile, and
Forte let me in to louder tones.
I cried with lacrimoso; squirmed when agitato flared;
My hearing rang when fingers danced the trill.
And so it was, this maestro grand was genius declared –
Acting out in music for the thrill.
Translating pen to piano, this player takes me back thro’ time…
In the chamber, fine composers charm:
I watch the manic hands of Liszt abound with tunes sublime;
Mozart teased my mood with stark alarm.
Then entered Bach to demonstrate his mathematic flare,
Calculating notes supreme of form.
And I – the minion audience – sat wanting in my chair,
Having heard my idols all perform.
Did Darwin’s theory tell at all why Man evolved this way?
Why would music help him to survive?
But scientific muse had veered my thoughts from this display, and
Music called: ‘Just listen - you’re alive! ’
The maestro draws conclusion; lets the piano die a death
To stand as wood, inert just as before –
A pollished casket lined with keys, at calm from naught of breath,
Bade me scream: ‘Bravo! ’ and ‘Hail! Encore! ’
He wakes the box to dance again with noble works of art:
Resurrected; fully primed with zest.
Now even I was back to life with reason in my heart –
Heightened from the pounding in my chest.
Copyright © Mark R Slaughter 2009
All rights reserved
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poem by Mark R Slaughter
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Tales Of A Wayside Inn : Part 1. The Musician's Tale; The Saga of King Olaf IX. -- Thangbrand The Priest
Short of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
'Look!' they said,
With nodding head,
'There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.'
All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome,
A learned clerk,
A man of mark,
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,
Everywhere
Would drink and swear,
Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest
In his house this malcontent
Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent
To convert the heathen there,
And away
One summer day
Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
There in Iceland, o'er their books
Pored the people day and night,
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.
'All this rhyme
Is waste of time!'
Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
To the alehouse, where he sat
Came the Scalds and Saga-men;
Is it to be wondered at,
That they quarrelled now and then,
When o'er his beer
Began to leer
Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?
All the folk in Altafiord
Boasted of their island grand;
[...] Read more
poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Thangbrand the Priest
Short of stature, large of limb,
Burly face and russet beard,
All the women stared at him,
When in Iceland he appeared.
"Look!" they said,
With nodding head,
"There goes Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest."
All the prayers he knew by rote,
He could preach like Chrysostome,
From the Fathers he could quote,
He had even been at Rome.
A learned clerk,
A man of mark,
Was this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
He was quarrelsome and loud,
And impatient of control,
Boisterous in the market crowd,
Boisterous at the wassail-bowl,
Everywhere
Would drink and swear,
Swaggering Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
In his house this malcontent
Could the King no longer bear,
So to Iceland he was sent
To convert the heathen there,
And away
One summer day
Sailed this Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
There in Iceland, o'er their books
Pored the people day and night,
But he did not like their looks,
Nor the songs they used to write.
All this rhyme
Is waste of time! "
Grumbled Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest.
To the alehouse, where he sat,
Came the Scalds and Saga men;
Is it to be wondered at,
That they quarrelled now and then,
When o'er his beer
Began to leer
Drunken Thangbrand, Olaf's Priest?
All the folk in Altafiord
Boasted of their island grand;
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poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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