| Can I get a goddamn tympani roll? |
[Mar. 2nd, 2009|11:05 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  In a good way! | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Wet and Rusting by Menomena | ] |
Does anyone still use this thing?
Hunger Camp at Jaslo
Write it. Write. In ordinary ink
on ordinary paper: they were given no food,
they all died of hunger. "All. How many?
It's a big meadow. How much grass
for each one?" Write: I don't know.
History counts its skeletons in round numbers.
A thousand and one remains a thousand,
as though the one had never existed:
an imaginary embryo, an empty cradle,
an ABC never read,
air that laughs, cries, grows,
emptiness running down steps toward the garden,
nobody's place in the line.
We stand in the meadow where it became flesh,
and the meadow is silent as a false witness.
Sunny. Green. Nearby, a forest
with wood for chewing and water under the bark-
every day a full ration of the view
until you go blind. Overhead, a bird-
the shadow of its life-giving wings
brushed their lips. Their jaws opened.
Teeth clacked against teeth.
At night, the sickle moon shone in the sky
and reaped wheat for their bread.
Hands came floating from blackened icons,
empty cups in their fingers.
On a spit of barbed wire,
a man was turning.
They sang with their mouths full of earth.
"A lovely song of how war strikes straight
at the heart." Write: how silent.
"Yes."
--Wislawa Szymborska
Translated by Grazyna Drabik and Austin Flint |
|
|
| Orchids |
[Feb. 13th, 2008|06:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  confused | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Holland, 1945 - Neutral Milk Hotel | ] |
My mother grows orchids.
She’s good at it, good at growing plants.
Even the ones that aren’t supposed to live,
Not in this climate, not indoors, do.
They’re everywhere in the house, in pots,
Wound around the magazine rack.
She’s good at it. She’s patient.
She waters them just enough, and waters
Them faithfully. Turns them, so they
Don’t lean too much to one side.
Every year for my birthday,
She tries to give me one.
This year, it was a Hawaiian Sunset.
Usually I end up leaving them
At her house. They don’t survive
Car trips very well.
The ones that do make it home with me
Die in a few months.
I forget to water them, or water them
Entirely too much.
I don’t know why she still
Offers them to me.
I think maybe she is trying to teach
Me patience, persistence.
But probably, she just wants to share
This beauty, an indiscriminate love
For growing things. Not knowing I am still incapable
Of loving that way. |
|
|
| Home |
[May. 24th, 2004|09:06 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  calm | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Jet Boy, Jet Girl by The Damned | ] |
I've been home for a little over a week. It's something I usually dread. Mostly I prefer to be at school. But coming home felt right this time. And has proven to be so. I think it's the first time since I've lived here I've really felt like I was a part of my friends. It's settling and calm. |
|
|
| "'They called me the hyacinth girl.'" |
[Apr. 26th, 2004|04:13 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  anxious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Radio Cure by Wilco | ] |
Yeah springtime. Things are well. I figure I'll start using this thing again maybe. It'll last a week.
Some boy is supposed to call me. How could he not call me?! I'm ADORABLE. Maybe. okay bye. |
|
|
| These things... |
[Feb. 28th, 2003|04:38 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  stressed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Waiting Room by Fugazi | ] |
fuck it. let's rock! |
|
|
| Tender Moonlight |
[Dec. 30th, 2002|04:11 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  frustrated | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Taste Your Own Medicine by Dystopia | ] |
I've resigned to the fact that
sleep is impossible. To sleep is to forget
if only for
a while. The pen-- blue, which I have
dissolving faith
will absolve me of this
wakefulness rolls lamely off
the bed, propelled by
the crushing weight
of my elbow on softened, white
mattress. You know, I could
always fall asleep
with your breath upon me, drugging each
other into limpid oblivion, cerulean
and pink. Moonlight, tender
out the dirty window
glares obscene
like the light of blurred television against
the page. There's always that
rising feeling that this is not
where I belong-- anywhere. So, maybe,
it's not your absence
that's keeping me awake tonight. Maybe,
it's the history of the whole world
in general.
The bedsheets turn hot and
cold against aching
skin. Revelation. How many times
has the sunset
left me dissatisified in
its wake? To not remember anything,
ever--
the insomniac's dream. |
|
|
| Icarus Lives |
[Aug. 20th, 2002|11:08 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thirsty | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Type-O-Negative - Everything Dies | ] |
Madness! forewarned by
the parent, the authority.
'What a waste.' They shake
their heads. But I was
close. This close.
The maze of angst
dissolves as I stare off
into the distance and
pick at my own
waxen feathers.
Where did it come from?---
that turmoil. Screaming
at the clouds, calling forth
as I reach out
to the pristine blue---
neverending,
vowing never to follow
the trail that was left for me.
Free! flying, floating---
if only for a hundredth
of a second. My spirit
has never felt this light,
burning the fuel of my
heart--- a technicolor ascent---
but it feels so real! alive.
To shed my body, so heavy,
and fly forth in soul and
essence to that
Blinding Star---
a euphoria beyond all others.
Dreams! I am living my
Dream; I am my dreams,
melded with reality, lined with
Golden Fire.
Sweat pours from my
brow, ignoring the too
Earthly scent of melting
candles and roasting
flesh. The water spins
closer in front of me,
blue-black, a single
plummet. Crash!
lungs bursting, exploding.
No one is watching,
looking my way. Even if
they were to turn
their heads, no one
would dive in to save me---
the plowman, the fisherman,
no boat would sail
this way--- my ears
would ring with the
same laughter I've known
all my life. Not cast out---
but too far away from the start.
Now, hazy, thick, nightmarish
blue and clear filling
my flawed body. Drowning!
Blood red--- sinking---
with perfect Fire still
flickering at the edges
of my mind. |
|
|
| No doves fly here |
[Nov. 25th, 2001|01:11 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  full | ] |
| [ | music |
| | No Doves Fly Here by The Mob | ] |
The sky is empty and it's turning different shades of colour;
It never did before and we never asked for war.
My mind is empty and my body different shades of torture;
It never was before and we never asked for war.
The buildings are empty and the countryside is wasteland;
It never was before and we never asked for war.
The playgrounds are empty and the children limbless corpses;
They never were before and they never asked for war.
No one is thinking;
No doves fly here.
No one is moving;
No doves fly here.
No one remembers beyond all this fear.
No doves fly here.
--the mob |
|
|
| roar |
[Nov. 11th, 2001|05:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Sunshine Wards by Amebix | ] |
Roses are red. sometimes violets are blue
But we're always puking on cider and glue
People say that we're twisted, you know it's not true,
We just get so bad when there's fuck all to do
Life in this building is freezing and wet,
If I once had a brain then I seem to forget
'Cos just when I caught it, it slipped through the net,
Now we sedate ourselves slowly no time for regret
Sunshine wards laughing, the inmates are here,
Filling our lives full of sulphate and beer
We've tried every way to make "real life" less clear
As stupidity sets in the truth disappears
Sunshine wards screaming, we crawl to the door
Reality creeps back, I can't take no more
There is no more stairway we're stuck on this floor
And fear digs in deep, as the patients hands claw
The happy dream shatters and falls to the floor
The doubt crawling in that we can't just ignore
Should we carry this farce on just as before?
Or start living for life's sake, away from the ward? |
|
|
| a poem |
[Oct. 18th, 2001|04:39 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  devious | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Major General Despair by Crass | ] |
It's A Woman's World by Eavon Boland
Our way of life
has hardly changed
since a wheel first
whetted a knife.
Well, maybe flame
burns more greedily
and wheels are steadier
but we're the same
who milestone
our lives
with oversights-
living by the lights
of the loaf left
by the cash register,
the washing powder
paid for and wrapped,
the wash left wet.
Like most historic peoples
we are defined
by what we forget,
by what we never will be:
star-gazers,
fire-eaters.
It's our alibi
for all time
that as far as history goes
we were never
on the scene of the crime.
So when the king's head
gored its basket-
grim harvest-
we were gristing bread
or getting the recipe
for a good soup
to appetize
our gossip.
And it's still the same:
By night our windows
moth our children
to the flame
of hearth not history.
And still no page
scores the low music
of our outrage.
But appearances
still reassure:
That woman there,
craned to teh starry mystery
is merely getting a breath
of evening air,
while this one here-
her mouth
a burning plume-
she's no fire-eater,
just my frosty neighbor
coming home.
(1982) |
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