Marsh King's Daughter

Come on come on, lets take a chance now, we could fall in love!
Come on come on, lets take a chance now, we could fall in love!
Stealing to your window, again. Now I say "We could fall in love"
Sighing in exasperation, "No." you say again "This simply is not love"

And I just know that we could work out
Even though your royalty and I am not
But there's a chance that you are wrong
And I am right this time

Come on come on lets take a chance now, we could fall in love
Come on come on lets take a chance now, we could fall in love
Thrashing through the fen and dew, I thought what I wouldn't do for you
Stealing hearts of Marsh King's daughters, well this is something new

And I just know that we could work out
Even though your royalty and I am not
But there's a chance that you are wrong
And I am right this time and you are out of line

Come on darling run with me, we'll take the bog on foot
We'll be not lost you see, though dark the bog shall be
When we arrive there on our feet you just stay close to me

Come on come on lets take a chance now, we could fall in love
Bring the rain and the bring the mire because we've always been okay
There was this time not too long ago that you listened to me say
Come on come on lets take a chance now, we could fall in love.

-Eisley

.Nothing Original.

Lately

I haven't written anything good.

Or anything of worth or meaning that I feel comfortable expressing right now.

Funny how we can pretend to be so free with our thoughts and poetic in our musing and yet when it's all stripped of the brave facades we're all very silly people writing on very silly things and I'd rather shut the book on these silly blushing words before they reveal all our silly gnawing flaws.

Crystal Ball

If only we knew. . .


the next
step


It can't be healthy
just gazing your life away
Yet how do we tear our eyes
from those lurid flashing depths

To execute our own uncharted destiny

Flogging Molly

I want to believe in myself once again
So I dream of a man whose hopes never end
To kiss with a girl who's as lovely as you
I'd give you my heart, if you gave me the truth

And for every tear that is lost from an eye
I'd dig me a well where no man could destroy
I want to believe in a freedom that's bold
But all I remember is the freedom of old

This mess in my head is a mess getting out
Ya drink too much coffee, I drink too much stout
But after a while, when my mouth's not so dry
I'll dance up a storm, sure life's looking fine
But as darkness falls, I return to my bed
Don't ask me more questions, don't fuck with my head

I've been down in this world, down and almost broken
Like thousands of people, left standing in their shoe
I've been down in this world, down and almost broken
As thousands they grieve, as the Black Friday rule


'Cause every dog has its day
Like every woman, she gets her own way
And if there's a ship that sails tonight I'll captain that too,
just to be there with you

Shine On. . .

Are they calling for our last dance?
I see it in your eyes. Same old moves for a new romance.
I could use the same old lies, but I'll sing

Shine on! Just shine on!
Close your eyes and they'll all be gone.
They can scream and shout that they've been sold out,
But it paid for the cloud that we're dancing on.
So shine on. Just shine on!
With your smile just as bright as the sun.
'Cause they're all just slaves to the gods they made
But you and I just shone.

And when silence greets my last goodbye,
The words I need are in your eyes, and I'll sing.

Shine on! Just shine on!
Close your eyes and they'll all be gone.
They can scream and shout that they've been sold out,
But it paid for the cloud that we're dancing on.
So shine on. Just shine on!
With your smile just as bright as the sun.
'Cause they're all just slaves to the gods they made,
But you and I just shone.
Just shone.

Here, I swear, forever is just a minute to me.
I'll take everything in this life.
I'll join everyone when I die.
'Cause all men die, 'cause all men die. . .

Just shine on.

-James Blunt

Better Together

There's no combination of words I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing but I can try for your heart
Our dreams, and they are made out of real things
Like a shoebox of photographs with sepiatone loving
Love is the answer, at least for most of the questions in my heart
Like why are we here? And where do we go?And how come it's so hard?
It's not always easy and sometimes life can be deceiving
I'll tell you one thing it's always better when we're together

Mmmh it's always better when we're together
Yeah, we'll look at the stars when we're together
Well, it's always better when we're together
Yeah, it's always better when we're together

And all of these moments just might find their way into my dreams tonight
But I know that they'll be gone when the morning light sings and brings new things
For tomorrow night you see that they'll be gone too
Too many things I have to do
But if all of these dreams might find their way into my day to day scene
I'd be under the impression I was somewhere in between
With only two - Just me and you
Not so many things we got to do or places we got to be
We'll sit beneath the mango tree now

But there is not enough time,
And there is no, no song I could sing
And there is no, combination of words I could say
But I will still tell you one thing
We're better together.

-Jack Johnson

Continue

Please place me unimaginably beyond

Doubts
[Flames to dust]
Consumed one moment
Abandoned the next
Left corroded
In the half-engine still churning
Make that step
Irretraceable
Take a faltering leap
Into a more than controllable
Future
Grasp the reigns as they slip
Demand more than satisfaction
More than meekly jolting along
AS IT WAS WRITTEN
There is no wrong answer
Only wrong motives
There is no wrong decision
Only wrong paths
Irretraceable

Midsummer

How happy some o'er other some can be!
Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.
But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so;
He will not know what all but he do know.
And as he errs, doting on Hermia's eyes,
So I, admiring of his qualities.
Things base and vile, holding no quantity,
Love can transpose to form and dignity.
Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.
Nor hath Love's mind of any judgment taste;
Wings, and no eyes, figure unheedy haste.
And therefore is Love said to be a child,
Because in choice he is so oft beguiled.
As waggish boys in game themselves forswear,
So the boy Love is perjured everywhere.
For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia's eyne,
He hailed down oaths that he was only mine;
And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,
So he dissolved, and show'rs of oaths did melt.
I will go tell him of fair Hermia's flight.
Then to the wood will he to-morrow night
Pursue her; and for this intelligence
If I have thanks, it is a dear expense.
But herein mean I to enrich my pain,
To have his sight thither and back again.

Word Vomit (v)

po·et·ry (n)
1. The art or work of a poet.

2. Poems regarded as forming a division of literature.

3. A piece of literature written in meter; verse.

4. Prose that resembles a poem in some respect, as in form or sound.

5. The essence or characteristic quality of a poem.

6. A quality that suggests poetry, as in grace, beauty, or harmony

Expression of the inexpressible the helpless feeling of involuntary words uncontrollable violated movement in meter then leap into a rank spewing of emotion unknown unacknowledged before beating on hollow shields to destory the regions of consciousness that form and society construct blast threw with the torrent -

Escape.

XXXVIII

First time he kissed me, he but only kissed
The fingers of this hand wherewith I write;
And ever since, it grew more clean and white.
Slow to world-greetings, quick with its "O, list,"
When the angels speak. A ring of amethyst
I could not wear here, plainer to my sight,
Than that first kiss. The second passed in height
The first, and sought the forehead, and half missed,
Half falling on the hair. O beyond meed!
That was the chrism of love, which love's own crown,
With sanctifying sweetness, did precede
The third upon my lips was folded down
In perfect, purple state; since when, indeed,
I have been proud and said, "My love, my own."

-Elizabeth Browning

Bones

Come with me. We took a back road. We're gonna look at the stars.
We took a backroad in my car. Down to the ocean, it’s only water and sand
And in the ocean we'll hold hands.
But I don't really like you, apologetically dressed in the best, but on a heartbeat glide.
Without an answer, the thunder speaks for the sky, and on the cold, wet dirt I cry.
Don’t you wanna come with me? Don’t you wanna feel my bones on your bones?
It's only natural.
A cinematic vision ensued like the holiest dream. It's someone's calling?
An angel whispers my name, but the message relayed is the same:
“Wait till tomorrow,you'll be fine." But it's gone to the dogs in my mind.
I always hear them the dead of nightcomes calling to save me from this fight.
But they can never wrong this right.
Don't you wanna come with me? Don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones?
It's only natural.
Don’t you wanna swim with me? Don’t you wanna feel my skin on your skin?
It's only natural.
I never had a lover. I never had soul.
And I never had a good time.
I never got gold. Don't you wanna come with me?
Don't you wanna feel my bones on your bones?
It's only natural. Don't you wanna swim with me?
Don't you wanna feel my skin on your skin?
It's only natural.

-Killers

Canceled Crayola Colors: an exercise in humour.

Hemoglobin

Frostbite Blue

Soap Scum

Springtime Pollen for the Severely Allergic

Gingivitus

Emo Black

Duodenum Purple

Diaper Green

Cut-Me-Crimson

Dark Alley

Orangelo

Mucushiny

Dandruff White

Hairball

Red-light District

Transvestite Mauve

Smog

Oil Slick

Cubic Zirconium

Putrid Flesh

Pepto-Bismol Pink

Mildew Montage

Not-Quite-Virgin Cream for the Honest Girl

Iron Fist

Mullet

Gandalf Grey

Bile

Farmer's Tan

Monkey Poo

Seaweed Stew

Corpuscule Yellow

Clear

-mostly Anna Crabtree and Kait Rich

About the Man Who Began Flying After Meeting Her

When he met her and they liked each other a great deal, he heard things better, and in his eyes the lines of the physical world were sharper than before. He was smarter, he was more aware, and he thought of new things to do with his days. He considered activities which before had been vaguely intriguing but which now seemed urgent, and which must, he thought, be done with his new companion. He wanted to fly in lightweight contraptions with her. He had always been intrigued by gliders, parachutes, ultralights and hang-gliders, and now he felt that this would be a facet of their new life: that they would be a couple that flew around on weekends and on vacations, in small aircraft. They would learn the terminology; they would join clubs. They would have a trailer of some kind, or a large van, in which to hold their new machines and supple wings folded, and they would drive to new places to see from above. The kind of flying that interested him was close to the ground - less than a thousand feet above earth. He wanted to see things moving quickly below him, wanted to be able to wave to people below, to see wildebeest run and to count dolphins streaming away from shore. He hoped this was the kind of flying she'd want to do, too. He became so attached to the idea of this person and this flying and this life entwined that he was not sure what he would do if it did not become actual. He didn't want to do this flying alone; he would rather not do it than do it without her. But if he asked her to fly with him, and she expressed reservations, or was not inspired, would he stay with her? Could he? He decides that he would not. If she does not drive in the van with the wings carefully folded, he will have to leave, smile and leave, and then he will look again. But when and if he finds another companion, he knows his plan will not be for flying. It will be another plan with another person, because if he goes flying close to the earth it will be with her.

-Dave Eggers

Collins, times three

Vade Mecum

I want the scissors to be sharp
and the table perfectly level
when you cut me out of my life

and paste me into that book you always carry.

---------------

Man in Space

All you have to do is listen to the way a man
sometimes talks to his wife at a table of people
and notice how intent he is on making his point
even though her lower lip is beginning to quiver,

and you will know why the women in science
fiction movies who inhabit a planet of their own
are not pictured making a salad or reading a magazine
when the men from earth arrive in their rocket,

why they are always standing in a semicircle,
with their arms folded, their bare legs set apart,
their breasts protected by hard metal discs.

----------------

Aristotle

This is the beginning.

Almost anything can happen.

This is where you find

the creation of light, a fish wriggling onto land,

the first word of Paradise Lost on an empty page.

Think of an egg, the letter A,

a woman ironing on a bare stage

as the heavy curtain rises.

This is the very beginning.

The first-person narrator introduces hirnself,

tells us about his lineage.

The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.

Here the climbers are studying a map

or pulling on their long woolen socks.

This is early on, years before the Ark, dawn.

The profile of an animal is being smeared

on the wall of a cave,

and you have not yet learned to crawl.

This is the opening, the gambit,

a pawn moving forward an inch.

This is your first night with her,

your first night without her.

This is the first part

where the wheels begin to turn,

where the elevator begins its ascent,

before the doors lurch apart.

This is the middle.

Things have had time to get complicated,

messy, really. Nothing is simple anymore.

Cities have sprouted up along the rivers

teeming with people at cross-purposes—

a million schemes, a million wild looks.

Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack

here and pitches his ragged tent.

This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,

where the action suddenly reverses

or swerves off in an outrageous direction.

Here the narrator devotes a long paragraph

to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.

Someone hides a letter under a pillow.

Here the aria rises to a pitch,

a song of betrayal, salted with revenge.

And the climbing party is stuck on a ledge

halfway up the mountain.

This is the bridge, the painful modulation.

This is the thick of things.

So much is crowded into the middle—

the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,

Russian uniforms, noisy parties,

lakeside kisses, arguments heard through a wall—

too much to name, too much to think about.

And this is the end,

the car running out of road,

the river losing its name in an ocean,

the long nose of the photographed horse

touching the white electronic line.

This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,

the empty wheelchair,

and pigeons floating down in the evening.

Here the stage is littered with bodies,

the narrator leads the characters to their cells,

and the climbers are in their graves.

It is me hitting the period

and you closing the book.

It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen

and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.

This is the final bit

thinning away to nothing.

This is the end, according to Aristotle,

what we have all been waiting for,

what everything comes down to,

the destination we cannot help imagining,

a streak of light in the sky,

a hat on a peg, and outside the cabin, falling leaves.

--------------

-Billy Collins

Trite

How can I convey
what is nothing new under the sun

reprint

of what they've all said before (cycle, cycle, recycle)

and it being a four-letter word
I don't wish to be vulgar
when I say it for myself don't be scared or disgusted
buck up - write - squeeze it out-
breathe.

Love.

(Merely a gentle twist of heart to release that high-strung emotion
convulsing to the sky like a slender wounded dragon
a flash of red
and death.)

To the Poets

I read you all closely
feverishly turning the pages
breathing in line after line
like an intoxication
words I refuse to pen
words I forbid to say
a meaning too intricate
dont' say I'm shallow
it would break my heart
the terror of admission is too severe
while savagely repressed
I read you all closely
you allow my feelings to
explore emotions my will does disguise
the indulgence of your sonnets
free some inner chord
yet I recoil and snap
- how can you say that with such fervor?
word love is too fragile to toss around pin down
and you say love dead on
how can you be so intense?
I am frightened to write such words
I might regret
later laugh at my foolishness
yet you all continue to say the
words I refuse to pen
words I forbid to say
with such addictive force my barriers weaken
you demand: does the mellowing of love
discount the reality of its present experience
I reply: never
you demand: if feelings later change should
you scoof upon the words penned in the
present earnest sincerety
I reply: never
word love is too fragile to remain caged
don't say I'm shallow
it would break my heart
just take and guide my hand oh poets
let my pen experience unrestraint
and show me how to be
unashamed and love

[10/2/06]

Eros

The sense of the world is short,
Long and various the report,
To love and be beloved;
Men and gods have not outlearned it,
And how oft soe'er they've turned it,
'Tis not to be improved.

- Emerson

Insomiac

The night is only a sort of carbon paper,
Blueblack, with the much-poked periods of stars
Letting in the light, peephole after peephole . . .
A bonewhite light, like death, behind all things.
Under the eyes of the stars and the moon's rictus
He suffers his desert pillow, sleeplessness
Stretching its fine, irritating sand in all directions.

Over and over the old, granular movie
Exposes embarrassments--the mizzling days
Of childhood and adolescence, sticky with dreams,
Parental faces on tall stalks, alternately stern and tearful,
A garden of buggy rose that made him cry.
His forehead is bumpy as a sack of rocks.
Memories jostle each other for face-room like obsolete film stars.

He is immune to pills: red, purple, blue . . .
How they lit the tedium of the protracted evening!
Those sugary planets whose influence won for him
A life baptized in no-life for a while,
And the sweet, drugged waking of a forgetful baby.
Now the pills are worn-out and silly, like classical gods.
Their poppy-sleepy colors do him no good.

His head is a little interior of grey mirrors.
Each gesture flees immediately down an alley
Of diminishing perspectives, and its significance
Drains like water out the hole at the far end.
He lives without privacy in a lidless room,
The bald slots of his eyes stiffened wide-open
On the incessant heat-lightning flicker of situations.

Nightlong, in the granite yard, invisible cats
Have been howling like women, or damaged instruments.
Already he can feel daylight, his white disease,
Creeping up with her hatful of trivial repetitions.
The city is a map of cheerful twitters now,
And everywhere people, eyes mica-silver and blank,
Are riding to work in rows, as if recently brainwashed.

-Sylvia Plath

Exercise: A New World

30 minutes
Alone
Public place
Observe

Lonely Soul

A turning tide, lovers at a great divide
Why d'you laugh when I know that you hurt inside?

And why'd you say
It's just another day, nothing in my way
I don't wanna go, I don't wanna stay
So there's nothing left to say?
And why'd you lie, when you wanna die, when you hurt inside
Don't know what you lie for anyway
Now there's nothing left to say.

A tell tale sign
You don't know where to draw the line.

Well for a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, you're having such a nice time
For a lonely soul, it seems to me that you're having such a nice time
You're having such a nice time.

-Keane

Miniature Disaster

I don't want to be second best
Don't want to stand in line
Don't want to fall behind
Don't want to get caught out
Don't want to do without.

And the lesson I must learn is that I've got to wait my turn
Looks like I got to be hot and cold - I got to be taught and told
Got to be good as gold
But perfectly honest - I think it would be good for me
Coz it's a hindrance to my health and I'm a stranger to myself.

Miniature disasters and minor catastrophoes
Bring me to my knees.
Well I must be my own master or a miniature disaster will be
It will be the death of me.

I don't have to raise my voice
Don't have to be underhand - just got to understand
That it's gonna be up and down - it's gonna be lost and found
And I can't take to the sky before I like it on the ground.

And I need to be patient and I need to be brave
Need to discover how I need to behave
And I'll find out the answers when I know what to ask
But I speak a different language and everybody's speaking too fast .

Miniature disasters and minor catastrophoes
Bring me to my knees.
Well I must be my own master - I've got to run a little faster
I need to know I'll last.
If a little miniature disaster hits me it could be the death of me.

-K T Tunstall

Love Has Reasons . . .

The smoothness of my soul brushing yours is faint and golden
Can this be understood?
I want to throw my messy, incoherant love at your feet
But against all inclinations - refrain
for your sake, for my sake.
I am too young and you are not ready.
This could be a peddling infatuation
and this affection only as genuine as the moment allows.
I'm terrified
for your sake
for my sake
Ripping dissappointment and lacets of regret
might be all that remains with one false move.
I prize you higher than myself and never want to make you bleed
-so refrain
for your sake/mine.
These are my reasons which love does not understand.