Friday, September 25, 2009

In dreams I walk with you


A candy-colored clown they call the sandman
Tiptoes to my room every night
Just to sprinkle stardust and to whisper
'Go to sleep, everything is all right'

I close my eyes, then I drift away
Into the magic night. I softly say
A silent prayer, like dreamers do
Then I fall asleep to dream my dreams of you.

In dreams I walk with you, in dreams I talk to you
In dreams you're mine all of the time, we're together
In dreams, in dreams ...



~ Roy Orbison

Thursday, September 24, 2009

catcher in the rye






"You know that song 'If a body catch a body comin' through the rye'? I'd like—"


"It's 'If a body meet a body coming through the rye'!" old Phoebe said.
 "It's a poem. By Robert Burns."


"I know it's a poem by Robert Burns."


She was right, though. It is "If a body meet a body coming through the rye."
 I didn't know it then, though.


"I thought it was 'If a body catch a body,'" I said.
 "Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game 
in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody's around—
 nobody big, I mean— except me. And I'm standing on the edge of some crazy cliff.
 What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff—
 I mean if they're running and they don't look where they're going
 I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. 
That's all I'd do all day. I'd just be the catcher in the rye 
and all. I know it's crazy, but that's the only thing
 I'd really like to be. I know it's crazy." 





~ JD Salinger
.
 
 

... or you must not reason at all

...
When she had said goodbye to her husband and her children and there was only a minute left before the third bell, I ran into her compartment to put a basket, which she had almost forgotten, on the rack, and I had to say goodbye. When our eyes met in the compartment our spiritual fortitude deserted us both; I took her in my arms, she pressed her face to my breast, and tears flowed from her eyes. Kissing her face, her shoulders, her hands wet with tears -- oh, how unhappy we were! -- I confessed my love for her, and with a burning pain in my heart I realised how unnecessary, how petty, and how deceptive all that had hindered us from loving was. I understood that when you love you must either, in your reasonings about that love, start from what is highest, from what is more important than happiness or unhappiness, sin or virtue in their accepted meaning, or you must not reason at all.

...

~ Anton Chekhov

.

I used to be shy

...
I used to be shy.
You made me sing.
...
I used to refuse things at table.
Now I shout for more wine.
...
In somber dignity, I used to sit
on my mat and pray.
...
Now children run through
and make faces at me.
...
~ Rumi


.

The night knows nothing of the chants of night

.
The night knows nothing of the chants of night.

It is what it is as I am what I am:
And in perceiving this I best perceive myself
.
And you. Only we two may interchange
Each in the other what each has to give.
Only we two are one, not you and night,
.
Nor night and I, but you and I, alone,
So much alone, so deeply by ourselves,
So far beyond the casual solitudes,
.
That night is only the background of our selves,
Supremely true each to its separate self,
In the pale light that each upon the other throws.
.
~ Wallace Stevens
.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

I am for you, and you are for me

.

I draw you close to me, you woman
I cannot let you go, I would do you good,
I am for you, and you are for me, not only for our own sake,
but for others' sakes,
Envelop'd in you sleep greater heroes and bards,
They refuse to awake at the touch of any man but me.


~ Walt Whitman

.

as is the sea marvelous



as is the sea marvelous
from god's
hands which sent her forth
to sleep upon the world
...
and the earth withers
the moon crumbles
one by one
stars flutter into dust
...
but the sea
does not change
and she goes forth out of hands and
she returns into hands
...
and is with sleep ...
.
love,
the breaking
.
of your
soul
upon
my lips
...


~ e.e.cummings



Time to ignore sensible advice,
to untie the knots our culture
 
ties us with. Cut to the quick
Put cotton in both sentimental
 
ears.  Go back to the reedbed.
Let the cane sugar rise again in you.
 
No rules or daily duties.  Those
do not bring the peace of silence.

~ Rumi

Poetry is just the evidence of life.
If your life is burning well,
poetry is just the ash.

...

~ Leonard Cohen

.
...
I've given up on my brain.
I've torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
...
If you're not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you, and sleep.
...

~ Rumi

.

I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose

...
I do not love you as if you were the salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.
...

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.
...

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way
...

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.
...

~ Pablo Neruda

.

in gratitude



We kneel in gratitude
as the movements in love
disperse our sweet intentions
across the fictions
of Companionship-
two of the creatures
which You named Me

~ Leonard Cohen

She is standing on my eyelids

...
She is standing on my eyelids
And her hair is wound in mine,
She has the form of my hands,
She has the colour of my eyes,
She is swallowed by my shadow
Like a stone against the sky.
...
Her eyes are always open
And will not let me sleep.
Her dreams in broad daylight
Make the suns evaporate
Make me laugh, cry and laugh,
Speak with nothing to say.
...
~ Paul Eluard


.

my soul was drenched

When the Day came --
The Day I had lived and died for --
The Day that is not in any calendar --
Clouds heavy with love
Showered me with wild abundance.
Inside me, my soul was drenched.
Around me, even the desert grew green.



~ Kabir

Monday, September 21, 2009

He had waited so long

...
He had waited so long: his latter years had been no more than a stand-to. Oppressed with countless little daily cares, he had waited: of course he had run after girls all that time, he had travelled, and naturally he had had to earn his living. But through all that, his sole care had been to hold himself in readiness. For an act. A free, considered act; that should pledge his whole life, and stand at the beginning of a new existence. He had never been able to engage himself completely in any love-affair, or any pleasure, he had never been really unhappy: he always felt as though he were somewhere else, that he was not yet wholly born. He waited. And during all that time, gently, stealthily, the years had come, they had grasped him from behind ...

...

~ Jean-Paul Sartre
 
.