Word

[charlie]

Because people have a tendency to keep me out late I sometimes rely on mark Knopfler to make some sense out of it.....

last time I was sober, man I felt bad
worst hangover that I ever had
it took six hamburgers and scotch all night
nicotine for breakfast just to put me right
'cos if you wanna run cool
if you wanna run cool
if you wanna run cool, you got to run
on heavy, heavy fuel

my life makes perfect sense
lust and food and violence
sex and money are my major kicks
get me in a fight I like dirty tricks
'cos if you wanna run cool
yes if you wanna run cool, you got to run
on heavy, heavy fuel

my chick loves a man who's strong
the things she'll do to turn me on
I love the babes, don't get me wrong
hey, that's why I wrote this song

I don't care if my liver is hanging by a thread
don't care if my doctor says I ought to be dead
when my ugly big car won't climb this hill
I'll write a suicide note on a hundred dollar bill
'cos if you wanna run cool
if you wanna run cool
yes if you wanna run cool, you got to run
on heavy, heavy fuel

[ynot]

Dire straits have lots of good tunes. They are the shiznickity.

[Paul3eb]

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.
Look how white everything is, how quiet, how snowed-in
I am learning peacefulness, lying by myself quietly
As the light lies on these white walls, this bed, these hands.
I am nobody; I have nothing to do with explosions.
I have given my name and my day-clothes up to the nurses
And my history to the anaesthetist and my body to surgeons.

They have propped my head between the pillow and the sheet-cuff
Like an eye between two white lids that will not shut.
Stupid pupil, it has to take everything in.
The nurses pass and pass, they are no trouble,
They pass the way gulls pass inland in their white caps,
Doing things with their hands, one just the same as another,
So it is impossible to tell how many there are.

My body is a pebble to them, they tend it as water
Tends to the pebbles it must run over, smoothing them gently.
They bring me numbness in their bright needles, they bring me sleep.
Now I have lost myself I am sick of baggage ——
My patent leather overnight case like a black pillbox,
My husband and child smiling out of the family photo;
Their smiles catch onto my skin, little smiling hooks.

I have let things slip, a thirty-year-old cargo boat
Stubbornly hanging on to my name and address.
They have swabbed me clear of my loving associations.
Scared and bare on the green plastic-pillowed trolley
I watched my teaset, my bureaus of linen, my books
Sink out of sight, and the water went over my head.
I am a nun now, I have never been so pure.

I didn't want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.
How free it is, you have no idea how free ——
The peacefulness is so big it dazes you,
And it asks nothing, a name tag, a few trinkets.
It is what the dead close on, finally; I imagine them
Shutting their mouths on it, like a Communion tablet.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.
Even through the gift paper I could hear them breathe
Lightly, through their white swaddlings, like an awful baby.
Their redness talks to my wound, it corresponds.
They are subtle: they seem to float, though they weigh me down,
Upsetting me with their sudden tongues and their colour,
A dozen red lead sinkers round my neck.

Nobody watched me before, now I am watched.
The tulips turn to me, and the window behind me
Where once a day the light slowly widens and slowly thins,
And I see myself, flat, ridiculous, a cut-paper shadow
Between the eye of the sun and the eyes of the tulips,
And I have no face, I have wanted to efface myself.
The vivid tulips eat my oxygen.

Before they came the air was calm enough,
Coming and going, breath by breath, without any fuss.
Then the tulips filled it up like a loud noise.
Now the air snags and eddies round them the way a river
Snags and eddies round a sunken rust-red engine.
They concentrate my attention, that was happy
Playing and resting without committing itself.

The walls, also, seem to be warming themselves.
The tulips should be behind bars like dangerous animals;
They are opening like the mouth of some great African cat,
And I am aware of my heart: it opens and closes
Its bowl of red blooms out of sheer love of me.
The water I taste is warm and salty, like the sea,
And comes from a country far away as health.

[Paul3eb]

anyone whose goal is "something higher" must expect some day to suffer vertigo. what is vertigo? fear of falling? then why do we feel it even when the observation tower comes equipped with a sturdy handrail? no, vertigo is something other than the fear of falling. it is the voice of the emptiness below us which temps and lures us, it is the desire to fall, against which, terrified, we defend ourselves.

[heidiramma]

Silent gratitude isn't much use to anyone. - G.B. Stern

Thanks mom, thanks dad.

[Paul3eb]

"I see you're looking at my feet," he said to her when the car was in motion.

"I beg your pardon?" said the woman.

"I said I see you're looking at my feet."

"I beg your pardon. I happened to be looking at the floor," said the woman, and faced the doors of the car.

"If you want to look at my feet, say so," said the young man. "But don't be a God-damned sneak about it."

"Let me out here, please," the woman said quickly to the girl operating the car.

The car doors opened and the woman got out without looking back.

"I have two normal feet and I can't see the slightest God-damned reason why anybody should stare at them," said the young man. "Five, please." He took his room key out of his robe pocket.

[Paul3eb]

She put her hands and wrists farther forward on the table, and I remember wanting to do something about that enormous-faced wristwatch she was wearing--perhaps suggest that she try wearing it around her waist.

"Usually, I'm not terribly gregarious," she said, and looked over at me to see if I knew the meaning of the word. I didn't give her a sign, though, one way or the other. "I purely came over because I thought you looked extremely lonely. You have an extremely sensitive face."

I said she was right, that I had been feeling lonely, and that I was very glad she'd come over...


later in the same story..


Esme was standing with crossed ankles again. "You're quite sure you won't forget to write that story for me?" she asked. "It doesn't have to be exclusively for me. It can--"

I said there was absolutely no chance that I'd forget. I told her that I'd never written a story for anybody, but that it seemed like exactly the right time to get down to it.

She nodded. "Make it extremely squalid and moving," she suggested. "Are you at all acquainted with squalor?"

I said not exactly but that I was getting better acquainted with it, in one form or another, all the time, and that I'd do my best to come up to her specifications. We shook hands.

"Isn't it a pity that we didn't meet under less extenuating circumstances?"

I said it was, I said it certainly was.

"Goodbye," Esme said. "I hope you return from the war with all your faculties intact."

I thanked her, and said a few other words, and then watched her leave the tearoom. She left it slowly, reflectively, testing the ends of her hair for dryness.

[gulliver]

And much as Wine has play'd the Infidel,
And robb'd me of my Robe of Honour--
Well,
I often wonder what the Vintners buy
One-half so precious as the ware they sell.

Omar Khayyam by way of Edward Fitzgerald


My favorite drinking poem.
but how exactly did an Engishman translate an 11th century Persian poet into rhyming verse?

[Wes]

Be who you are, nothing more, nothing less, and let the beauty that you love be the very best
Sing praises to the highest with your feet on the ground, and reach to your brother with the words that you sound,

don’t let mistakes be so monumental,
and don’t let your love be so confidential,
don’t let your mind be so darn judgmental,
and please let your heart be more influential

Be thankful for all that the spirit provides, and be thankful for all you see without eyes, and be thankful for the music that keeps us alive, and give thanks to all DJs worldwide

[Paul3eb]

i recently was given the "reveal" album by a friend.. but it had no cd (long story) so it was just the book with the lyrics. and, having not heard the songs and just reading the lyrics, i thought these seemed more like poetry than song.. so here go a few:

have you seen?
have not will travel
have i missed the big reveal?
do my eyes,
do my eyes seem empty?
i've forgotten how this feels.

i've been high
i've climbed so high
but life sometimes
it washes over me.

have you been?
have done will travel
i fell down on me knees

was i wrong?
i don't know
don't answer.
i just needed to believe.

i've been high
i've climbed so high
but life sometimes
it washes over me.

so
i dive into a pool so cool and deep that if i sink i sink,
and when i swim i fly so high.

what i want
all i really wanted
just to live my life on high.

and i know
i know you want the same
i can see it in your eyes.

i've been high
i've climbed so high
but life sometimes
it washes over me.

washes over me
i close my eyes
so i can see
make my make-believe believe
in me.