So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 19 & 20
I forgot to post yesterday, so today you get two for the price of one!
Both by yours truly.
Scatter
I keep choosing the wrong soul shatterers, soul scatterers
My soul is broken. Bloodless, cracked open.
I can't bear the weight of everything I want to do
that I'll never be able to
And all the things I don't want to do
that I'll have to
You might not take me with you
You might not take me with you
I don't want to be with me either.
Every time I am left bare
Laid there
My penance every lifetime.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Echos of You
All around me are the echoes of you. Still.
So many lifetimes later you come to knock on my subconscious house
of tiny secret dreams in the tiny secret pocket of my soul.
My heart, my marrow, my memories.
Mine.
Yet each night I dream of water, of you, of her.
Only there and only then I try to remain but involuntary escape is inevitable.
How symbolic. How metaphysical. How cliche.
From: http://www.poetrybydeenamarie.blogspot.com/
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
Apr 20, 2012
Apr 18, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 18, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 18
This has stuck with me for years, having had to memorize it for a speech class in Acting School.
I love it!
When You’re Lying Awake From Iolanthe
Libretto by William S. Gilbert, Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan
Sung by Lord Chancellor
When you’re lying awake
With a dismal headache,
And repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use
Any language you choose
To indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire—
And the bedclothes conspire
Of your usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes,
And uncovers your toes,
And your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles—
You feel like mixed pickles—
So terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you’re hot, and you’re cross,
And you tumble and toss
Till there’s nothing ’twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep
To the ground in a heap,
And you pick ’em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns
And politely declines
To remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose
In the form of a doze,
With hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems
With such horrible dreams
That you’d very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing
The Channel, and tossing
About in a steamer from Harwich—
Which is something between
A large bathing machine
And a very small second-class carriage—
And you’re giving a treat
(Penny ice and cold meat)
To a party of friends and relations—
They’re a ravenous horde—
And they all came on board
At Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey
You find your attorney
(Who started that morning from Devon);
He’s a bit undersized,
And you don’t feel surprised
When he tells you he’s only eleven.
Well, you’re driving like mad
With this singular lad
(By the by, the ship’s now a four-wheeler),
And you’re playing round games,
And he calls you bad names
When you tell him that “ties pay the dealer”;
But this you can’t stand,
So you throw up your hand,
And you find you’re as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks
(The black silk with gold clocks),
Crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew
Are on bicycles too—
Which they’ve somehow or other invested in—
And he’s telling the tars
All the particulars
Of a company he’s interested in—
It’s a scheme of devices,
To get at low prices
All goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors),
By treating retailers
As though they were all vegetables—
You get a good spadesman
To plant a small tradesman
(First take off his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root,
And his fingers will shoot,
And they’ll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree—
From the greengrocer tree
You get grapes and green pea,
Cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastrycook plant
Cherry brandy will grant,
Apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys—
The shares are a penny,
And ever so many
Are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few
Are allotted to you,
You awake with a shudder despairing—
You’re a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head’s on the floor, and you’ve needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg’s asleep, and you’ve cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that’s intense, and a general sense that you haven’t been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it’s daylight at last, and the night has been long—ditto ditto my song—and thank goodness they’re both of them over!
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 18
This has stuck with me for years, having had to memorize it for a speech class in Acting School.
I love it!
When You’re Lying Awake From Iolanthe
Libretto by William S. Gilbert, Music by Sir Arthur Sullivan
Sung by Lord Chancellor
When you’re lying awake
With a dismal headache,
And repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use
Any language you choose
To indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire—
And the bedclothes conspire
Of your usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes,
And uncovers your toes,
And your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles—
You feel like mixed pickles—
So terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you’re hot, and you’re cross,
And you tumble and toss
Till there’s nothing ’twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep
To the ground in a heap,
And you pick ’em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns
And politely declines
To remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose
In the form of a doze,
With hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems
With such horrible dreams
That you’d very much better be waking;
For you dream you are crossing
The Channel, and tossing
About in a steamer from Harwich—
Which is something between
A large bathing machine
And a very small second-class carriage—
And you’re giving a treat
(Penny ice and cold meat)
To a party of friends and relations—
They’re a ravenous horde—
And they all came on board
At Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey
You find your attorney
(Who started that morning from Devon);
He’s a bit undersized,
And you don’t feel surprised
When he tells you he’s only eleven.
Well, you’re driving like mad
With this singular lad
(By the by, the ship’s now a four-wheeler),
And you’re playing round games,
And he calls you bad names
When you tell him that “ties pay the dealer”;
But this you can’t stand,
So you throw up your hand,
And you find you’re as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks
(The black silk with gold clocks),
Crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:
And he and the crew
Are on bicycles too—
Which they’ve somehow or other invested in—
And he’s telling the tars
All the particulars
Of a company he’s interested in—
It’s a scheme of devices,
To get at low prices
All goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors),
By treating retailers
As though they were all vegetables—
You get a good spadesman
To plant a small tradesman
(First take off his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root,
And his fingers will shoot,
And they’ll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree—
From the greengrocer tree
You get grapes and green pea,
Cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastrycook plant
Cherry brandy will grant,
Apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys—
The shares are a penny,
And ever so many
Are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few
Are allotted to you,
You awake with a shudder despairing—
You’re a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head’s on the floor, and you’ve needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg’s asleep, and you’ve cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that’s intense, and a general sense that you haven’t been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it’s daylight at last, and the night has been long—ditto ditto my song—and thank goodness they’re both of them over!
Apr 17, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 17, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 17
Figured it was time to start posting a few of my own.
You want a girl by Deena Marie Manzanares
you want a girl who's seen and not heard
heard and not seen and won't speak
or speak up
you want a girl who keeps her body tense
and won't move forward
or reach out
or is reached to
you want a girl who stifles her image
who chokes on her soul
and glazes over her dreams
and will deny herself her destiny
you want a beautiful exoskeleton
and a mutated suffocated inside
you want a girl who's seen and not heard
http://www.poetrybydeenamarie.blogspot.com
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 17
Figured it was time to start posting a few of my own.
You want a girl by Deena Marie Manzanares
you want a girl who's seen and not heard
heard and not seen and won't speak
or speak up
you want a girl who keeps her body tense
and won't move forward
or reach out
or is reached to
you want a girl who stifles her image
who chokes on her soul
and glazes over her dreams
and will deny herself her destiny
you want a beautiful exoskeleton
and a mutated suffocated inside
you want a girl who's seen and not heard
http://www.poetrybydeenamarie.blogspot.com
Apr 16, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 16, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 16
Another favorite, the words "there, art thou happy" go through my head often.
A phrase that has stuck with me as I navigate through my life and choose the directions it takes.
From "Romeo & Juliet" by William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 3 Friar Laurence
Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And stay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skitless soldier's flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
Romeo is coming.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 16
Another favorite, the words "there, art thou happy" go through my head often.
A phrase that has stuck with me as I navigate through my life and choose the directions it takes.
From "Romeo & Juliet" by William Shakespeare
Act 3, Scene 3 Friar Laurence
Hold thy desperate hand:
Art thou a man? thy form cries out thou art:
Thy tears are womanish; thy wild acts denote
The unreasonable fury of a beast:
Unseemly woman in a seeming man!
Or ill-beseeming beast in seeming both!
Thou hast amazed me: by my holy order,
I thought thy disposition better temper'd.
Hast thou slain Tybalt? wilt thou slay thyself?
And stay thy lady too that lives in thee,
By doing damned hate upon thyself?
Why rail'st thou on thy birth, the heaven, and earth?
Since birth, and heaven, and earth, all three do meet
In thee at once; which thou at once wouldst lose.
Fie, fie, thou shamest thy shape, thy love, thy wit;
Which, like a usurer, abound'st in all,
And usest none in that true use indeed
Which should bedeck thy shape, thy love, thy wit:
Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,
Digressing from the valour of a man;
Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,
Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skitless soldier's flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismember'd with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead;
There art thou happy: Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slew'st Tybalt; there are thou happy too:
The law that threaten'd death becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile; there art thou happy:
A pack of blessings lights up upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
Go, get thee to thy love, as was decreed,
Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:
But look thou stay not till the watch be set,
For then thou canst not pass to Mantua;
Where thou shalt live, till we can find a time
To blaze your marriage, reconcile your friends,
Beg pardon of the prince, and call thee back
With twenty hundred thousand times more joy
Than thou went'st forth in lamentation.
Go before, nurse: commend me to thy lady;
And bid her hasten all the house to bed,
Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:
Romeo is coming.
Apr 15, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 15, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 15
A muse of mine recently reminded me of this one...
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 15
A muse of mine recently reminded me of this one...
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost
Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.
My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.
He gives his harness bells a shake
To ask if there is some mistake.
The only other sound's the sweep
Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.
Apr 14, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 14, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 14
From one of my biggest inspirations,
"Out Beyond Ideas" by Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase
each other
doesn't make any sense.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 14
From one of my biggest inspirations,
"Out Beyond Ideas" by Rumi
Out beyond ideas of wrong-doing and right-doing,
there is a field.
I'll meet you there.
When the soul lies down in that grass,
the world is too full to talk about.
Ideas, language, even the phrase
each other
doesn't make any sense.
Apr 13, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 13, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 13
"I Sing the Body Electric" by Walt Whitman
1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)
8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 13
"I Sing the Body Electric" by Walt Whitman
1
I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.
Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?
And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead?
And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
2
The love of the body of man or woman balks account, the body itself balks account,
That of the male is perfect, and that of the female is perfect.
The expression of the face balks account,
But the expression of a well-made man appears not only in his face,
It is in his limbs and joints also, it is curiously in the joints of his hips and wrists,
It is in his walk, the carriage of his neck, the flex of his waist and knees, dress does not hide him,
The strong sweet quality he has strikes through the cotton and broadcloth,
To see him pass conveys as much as the best poem, perhaps more,
You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side.
The sprawl and fulness of babes, the bosoms and heads of women, the folds of their dress, their style as we pass in the street, the contour of their shape downwards,
The swimmer naked in the swimming-bath, seen as he swims through the transparent green-shine, or lies with his face up and rolls silently to and fro in the heave of the water,
The bending forward and backward of rowers in row-boats, the horseman in his saddle,
Girls, mothers, house-keepers, in all their performances,
The group of laborers seated at noon-time with their open dinner-kettles, and their wives waiting,
The female soothing a child, the farmer’s daughter in the garden or cow-yard,
The young fellow hoeing corn, the sleigh-driver driving his six horses through the crowd,
The wrestle of wrestlers, two apprentice-boys, quite grown, lusty, good-natured, native-born, out on the vacant lot at sun-down after work,
The coats and caps thrown down, the embrace of love and resistance,
The upper-hold and under-hold, the hair rumpled over and blinding the eyes;
The march of firemen in their own costumes, the play of masculine muscle through clean-setting trowsers and waist-straps,
The slow return from the fire, the pause when the bell strikes suddenly again, and the listening on the alert,
The natural, perfect, varied attitudes, the bent head, the curv’d neck and the counting;
Such-like I love—I loosen myself, pass freely, am at the mother’s breast with the little child,
Swim with the swimmers, wrestle with wrestlers, march in line with the firemen, and pause, listen, count.
3
I knew a man, a common farmer, the father of five sons,
And in them the fathers of sons, and in them the fathers of sons.
This man was of wonderful vigor, calmness, beauty of person,
The shape of his head, the pale yellow and white of his hair and beard, the immeasurable meaning of his black eyes, the richness and breadth of his manners,
These I used to go and visit him to see, he was wise also,
He was six feet tall, he was over eighty years old, his sons were massive, clean, bearded, tan-faced, handsome,
They and his daughters loved him, all who saw him loved him,
They did not love him by allowance, they loved him with personal love,
He drank water only, the blood show’d like scarlet through the clear-brown skin of his face,
He was a frequent gunner and fisher, he sail’d his boat himself, he had a fine one presented to him by a ship-joiner, he had fowling-pieces presented to him by men that loved him,
When he went with his five sons and many grand-sons to hunt or fish, you would pick him out as the most beautiful and vigorous of the gang,
You would wish long and long to be with him, you would wish to sit by him in the boat that you and he might touch each other.
4
I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment, what is this then?
I do not ask any more delight, I swim in it as in a sea.
There is something in staying close to men and women and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well,
All things please the soul, but these please the soul well.
5
This is the female form,
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot,
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction,
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor, all falls aside but myself and it,
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed,
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it, the response likewise ungovernable,
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands all diffused, mine too diffused,
Ebb stung by the flow and flow stung by the ebb, love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching,
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice,
Bridegroom night of love working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn,
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.
This the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, man is born of woman,
This the bath of birth, this the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.
Be not ashamed women, your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest,
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.
The female contains all qualities and tempers them,
She is in her place and moves with perfect balance,
She is all things duly veil’d, she is both passive and active,
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters.
As I see my soul reflected in Nature,
As I see through a mist, One with inexpressible completeness, sanity, beauty,
See the bent head and arms folded over the breast, the Female I see.
6
The male is not less the soul nor more, he too is in his place,
He too is all qualities, he is action and power,
The flush of the known universe is in him,
Scorn becomes him well, and appetite and defiance become him well,
The wildest largest passions, bliss that is utmost, sorrow that is utmost become him well, pride is for him,
The full-spread pride of man is calming and excellent to the soul,
Knowledge becomes him, he likes it always, he brings every thing to the test of himself,
Whatever the survey, whatever the sea and the sail he strikes soundings at last only here,
(Where else does he strike soundings except here?)
The man’s body is sacred and the woman’s body is sacred,
No matter who it is, it is sacred—is it the meanest one in the laborers’ gang?
Is it one of the dull-faced immigrants just landed on the wharf?
Each belongs here or anywhere just as much as the well-off, just as much as you,
Each has his or her place in the procession.
(All is a procession,
The universe is a procession with measured and perfect motion.)
Do you know so much yourself that you call the meanest ignorant?
Do you suppose you have a right to a good sight, and he or she has no right to a sight?
Do you think matter has cohered together from its diffuse float, and the soil is on the surface, and water runs and vegetation sprouts,
For you only, and not for him and her?
7
A man’s body at auction,
(For before the war I often go to the slave-mart and watch the sale,)
I help the auctioneer, the sloven does not half know his business.
Gentlemen look on this wonder,
Whatever the bids of the bidders they cannot be high enough for it,
For it the globe lay preparing quintillions of years without one animal or plant,
For it the revolving cycles truly and steadily roll’d.
In this head the all-baffling brain,
In it and below it the makings of heroes.
Examine these limbs, red, black, or white, they are cunning in tendon and nerve,
They shall be stript that you may see them.
Exquisite senses, life-lit eyes, pluck, volition,
Flakes of breast-muscle, pliant backbone and neck, flesh not flabby, good-sized arms and legs,
And wonders within there yet.
Within there runs blood,
The same old blood! the same red-running blood!
There swells and jets a heart, there all passions, desires, reachings, aspirations,
(Do you think they are not there because they are not express’d in parlors and lecture-rooms?)
This is not only one man, this the father of those who shall be fathers in their turns,
In him the start of populous states and rich republics,
Of him countless immortal lives with countless embodiments and enjoyments.
How do you know who shall come from the offspring of his offspring through the centuries?
(Who might you find you have come from yourself, if you could trace back through the centuries?)
8
A woman’s body at auction,
She too is not only herself, she is the teeming mother of mothers,
She is the bearer of them that shall grow and be mates to the mothers.
Have you ever loved the body of a woman?
Have you ever loved the body of a man?
Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?
If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,
And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted,
And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face.
Have you seen the fool that corrupted his own live body? or the fool that corrupted her own live body?
For they do not conceal themselves, and cannot conceal themselves.
9
O my body! I dare not desert the likes of you in other men and women, nor the likes of the parts of you,
I believe the likes of you are to stand or fall with the likes of the soul, (and that they are the soul,)
I believe the likes of you shall stand or fall with my poems, and that they are my poems,
Man’s, woman’s, child’s, youth’s, wife’s, husband’s, mother’s, father’s, young man’s, young woman’s poems,
Head, neck, hair, ears, drop and tympan of the ears,
Eyes, eye-fringes, iris of the eye, eyebrows, and the waking or sleeping of the lids,
Mouth, tongue, lips, teeth, roof of the mouth, jaws, and the jaw-hinges,
Nose, nostrils of the nose, and the partition,
Cheeks, temples, forehead, chin, throat, back of the neck, neck-slue,
Strong shoulders, manly beard, scapula, hind-shoulders, and the ample side-round of the chest,
Upper-arm, armpit, elbow-socket, lower-arm, arm-sinews, arm-bones,
Wrist and wrist-joints, hand, palm, knuckles, thumb, forefinger, finger-joints, finger-nails,
Broad breast-front, curling hair of the breast, breast-bone, breast-side,
Ribs, belly, backbone, joints of the backbone,
Hips, hip-sockets, hip-strength, inward and outward round, man-balls, man-root,
Strong set of thighs, well carrying the trunk above,
Leg fibres, knee, knee-pan, upper-leg, under-leg,
Ankles, instep, foot-ball, toes, toe-joints, the heel;
All attitudes, all the shapeliness, all the belongings of my or your body or of any one’s body, male or female,
The lung-sponges, the stomach-sac, the bowels sweet and clean,
The brain in its folds inside the skull-frame,
Sympathies, heart-valves, palate-valves, sexuality, maternity,
Womanhood, and all that is a woman, and the man that comes from woman,
The womb, the teats, nipples, breast-milk, tears, laughter, weeping, love-looks, love-perturbations and risings,
The voice, articulation, language, whispering, shouting aloud,
Food, drink, pulse, digestion, sweat, sleep, walking, swimming,
Poise on the hips, leaping, reclining, embracing, arm-curving and tightening,
The continual changes of the flex of the mouth, and around the eyes,
The skin, the sunburnt shade, freckles, hair,
The curious sympathy one feels when feeling with the hand the naked meat of the body,
The circling rivers the breath, and breathing it in and out,
The beauty of the waist, and thence of the hips, and thence downward toward the knees,
The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones,
The exquisite realization of health;
O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul,
O I say now these are the soul!
Apr 12, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 12, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 12
Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 12
Do not go gentle into that good night by Dylan Thomas
Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light
Apr 11, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 11, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 11
April 11 is a special day for me. One year ago today I was getting ready to go somewhere, doing my makeup in the bathroom and had the bedroom tv on so I could have some noise. Oprah was on. Her guest that day was Shirley MacLaine. She was on to promote her new book, "I'm over all that". Things she was saying struck me to the core. Having been in a bit of an emotional jumble for awhile, I knew my life was about to change. I even made a mental note right then to remember the date. I knew I was supposed to be hearing her. I went out and bought her book immediately. One thing has led to another since. One book linked to another, to conversations and documentaries I might not have been aware of before. I found myself spiraling into a new path of spirituality. I have never learned as much, felt as comforted and as aware as I have, spiritually, than the last year. I am still just at the beginning, but a new world and way of thinking has been opened to me. Everything happens for a reason. Every person plays a central role in the history of the world. We are each others teachers. We are all one.
This passage taken from, "I'm over all that" by Shirley MacLaine
I will never get over the thrill of live performing
When you are performing live, your health is everything. Your entire life is prioritized according to what is expected of you on stage that night. There can be no running for a cab in the rain, in case you slip and fall; no wine at lunch or dinner; no screaming with laughter until you're hoarse. No love affair that renders you anxious or unhappy, and no love affair that makes you want to hurry through the show and get back to making love. There is no other life when you are performing live. But the rewards are worth it. When a live audience is moved to silence in a theater, the Greeks used to say they were experiencing their Godhead. That's why it's divine. Silence is your new "God-speak," when you understand and have proof that you've captured their attention completely. But you have to be healthy or you can't do it night after night.
Performing live in front of an audience is the ultimate test of self-identity. The audience want's to know who you are above all else. They will never respond to an artifice or show business trickery. They just want the real you.
That means you have to be willing to tell them. You have to become ultra-aware of everything around you. You see no one out there in the dark when you are performing, and yet you are one with them. You are one with the big happy giant seated in front of you, and you are a Big Happy.
The Miraculous magic of self-expression and the appreciation the audience feels overrides everything. You and they are one, a conglomeration of souls, simultaneously giving and receiving. Souls creating a new reality with a subliminal awareness that we are all one. You bend and flow and soar with the music. You allow it to carry you aloft. You begin to fill every space with body language; no movement is meaningless.
The lights amplify what you are doing and you know the audience can see everything. You are completely exposed. There are levels of subtlety in the music you never realized were there. You forget all the pain you ever felt. You forget technique, anxiety, and everything you ever learned. In fact, you forget who you are, because you have become one with the audience, one with the music, the lights, and the collective spirit of the audience. They send you energy. You send it back. You participate with each other. You are dancing and moving in the light with God.
Yes, it is better than sex. It is being One with all there is.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 11
April 11 is a special day for me. One year ago today I was getting ready to go somewhere, doing my makeup in the bathroom and had the bedroom tv on so I could have some noise. Oprah was on. Her guest that day was Shirley MacLaine. She was on to promote her new book, "I'm over all that". Things she was saying struck me to the core. Having been in a bit of an emotional jumble for awhile, I knew my life was about to change. I even made a mental note right then to remember the date. I knew I was supposed to be hearing her. I went out and bought her book immediately. One thing has led to another since. One book linked to another, to conversations and documentaries I might not have been aware of before. I found myself spiraling into a new path of spirituality. I have never learned as much, felt as comforted and as aware as I have, spiritually, than the last year. I am still just at the beginning, but a new world and way of thinking has been opened to me. Everything happens for a reason. Every person plays a central role in the history of the world. We are each others teachers. We are all one.
This passage taken from, "I'm over all that" by Shirley MacLaine
I will never get over the thrill of live performing
When you are performing live, your health is everything. Your entire life is prioritized according to what is expected of you on stage that night. There can be no running for a cab in the rain, in case you slip and fall; no wine at lunch or dinner; no screaming with laughter until you're hoarse. No love affair that renders you anxious or unhappy, and no love affair that makes you want to hurry through the show and get back to making love. There is no other life when you are performing live. But the rewards are worth it. When a live audience is moved to silence in a theater, the Greeks used to say they were experiencing their Godhead. That's why it's divine. Silence is your new "God-speak," when you understand and have proof that you've captured their attention completely. But you have to be healthy or you can't do it night after night.
Performing live in front of an audience is the ultimate test of self-identity. The audience want's to know who you are above all else. They will never respond to an artifice or show business trickery. They just want the real you.
That means you have to be willing to tell them. You have to become ultra-aware of everything around you. You see no one out there in the dark when you are performing, and yet you are one with them. You are one with the big happy giant seated in front of you, and you are a Big Happy.
The Miraculous magic of self-expression and the appreciation the audience feels overrides everything. You and they are one, a conglomeration of souls, simultaneously giving and receiving. Souls creating a new reality with a subliminal awareness that we are all one. You bend and flow and soar with the music. You allow it to carry you aloft. You begin to fill every space with body language; no movement is meaningless.
The lights amplify what you are doing and you know the audience can see everything. You are completely exposed. There are levels of subtlety in the music you never realized were there. You forget all the pain you ever felt. You forget technique, anxiety, and everything you ever learned. In fact, you forget who you are, because you have become one with the audience, one with the music, the lights, and the collective spirit of the audience. They send you energy. You send it back. You participate with each other. You are dancing and moving in the light with God.
Yes, it is better than sex. It is being One with all there is.
Apr 10, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 10, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 10
From the movie "Chelsea Walls"
Another all time favorite, still one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
I want to be a lost poem in a stranger’s coat pocket,
that conveys the importance of you.
To assure you of my desire, to assure you of dreams.
I want all the possibilities of you in writing.
I want to give you your reflection, I want your eyes on me,
I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there,
and I want everything before you…
…everything before you to follow us like a trail behind me.
I want never to say goodbye to you, even on the street corner or the phone.
I want, I want so much… I’m breathless.
I want to put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket so I can sew it.
I want my words to scream through you. I want the poem not to mean that much.
And I want to contradict myself by accident, and for you to know what I mean.
I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close,
I want endless days when it’s day and… nighttime never to end when it’s night.
I want all the seasons in one day.
I want the sun to set before us and come up in front of us.
I want water up to our waists and to be drenched by the rain,
up to our ankles with holes in our shoes.
I want to think your thoughts because they’re mine.
I want only what’s urgent with you.
I want to get in the way of the barriers
and I want you to be a tough guy when you’re supposed to, like you do already.
And I want you to be tender, like you do already.
And I want us to have met for a reason and I want that reason to be important.
And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us.
I want to forget. I want to remember us.
And when you say you love me
I don’t want to think you really mean New York City,
and all the fun we have in it.
And I want your smile always, and your grimaces too.
I want your scar on my lips, and I want your disappointments in my heart.
I want your strength in my soul and I want your soul in my eyes.
I want to believe everything you say, and I do.
And I want you to tell me what’s best when I don’t know.
And when you’re lost I want to find you.
And when you’re weary I want to give you steeples
and cathedral thoughts and coliseum dreams.
I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you
exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us…
and…
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 10
From the movie "Chelsea Walls"
Another all time favorite, still one of the most beautiful things I've ever read.
I want to be a lost poem in a stranger’s coat pocket,
that conveys the importance of you.
To assure you of my desire, to assure you of dreams.
I want all the possibilities of you in writing.
I want to give you your reflection, I want your eyes on me,
I want to travel to the lightness with you and stay there,
and I want everything before you…
…everything before you to follow us like a trail behind me.
I want never to say goodbye to you, even on the street corner or the phone.
I want, I want so much… I’m breathless.
I want to put my power into a poem to burn a hole in your pocket so I can sew it.
I want my words to scream through you. I want the poem not to mean that much.
And I want to contradict myself by accident, and for you to know what I mean.
I want you to be distant and for me to feel you close,
I want endless days when it’s day and… nighttime never to end when it’s night.
I want all the seasons in one day.
I want the sun to set before us and come up in front of us.
I want water up to our waists and to be drenched by the rain,
up to our ankles with holes in our shoes.
I want to think your thoughts because they’re mine.
I want only what’s urgent with you.
I want to get in the way of the barriers
and I want you to be a tough guy when you’re supposed to, like you do already.
And I want you to be tender, like you do already.
And I want us to have met for a reason and I want that reason to be important.
And I want it to be bigger than us, I want it to take over us.
I want to forget. I want to remember us.
And when you say you love me
I don’t want to think you really mean New York City,
and all the fun we have in it.
And I want your smile always, and your grimaces too.
I want your scar on my lips, and I want your disappointments in my heart.
I want your strength in my soul and I want your soul in my eyes.
I want to believe everything you say, and I do.
And I want you to tell me what’s best when I don’t know.
And when you’re lost I want to find you.
And when you’re weary I want to give you steeples
and cathedral thoughts and coliseum dreams.
I want to drag you from the darkness and kneel with you
exhausted with the blinding light blaring on us…
and…
Apr 9, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 9, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 9
Snippets from my favorite book of all time
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
*If you haven't read this book and you're planning to, you might want to skip this blog entry :)
I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you
I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.
What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life. And now go where you must. You have known the confined freedom of a zoo most of your life; now you will know the free confinement of a jungle. I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you , that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.
I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 9
Snippets from my favorite book of all time
"Life of Pi" by Yann Martel
*If you haven't read this book and you're planning to, you might want to skip this blog entry :)
I'll be honest about it. It is not atheists who get stuck in my craw, but agnostics. Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we. If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" then surely we are also permitted to doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.
I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you
I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart.
What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? I'll tell you, that's one thing I have about my nickname, the way the number runs on forever. It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day. I wish so much that I'd had one last look at him in the lifeboat, that I'd provoked him a little, so that I was on his mind. I wish I had said to him then - yes, I know, to a tiger, but still - I wish I had said, "Richard Parker, it's over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express I couldn't have done it without you. I would like to say it formally: Richard Parker, thank you. Thank you for saving my life. And now go where you must. You have known the confined freedom of a zoo most of your life; now you will know the free confinement of a jungle. I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you , that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.
I was giving up. I would have given up - if a voice hadn't made itself heard in my heart. The voice said "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen everyday. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen
Apr 8, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 8, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 8
Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 8
Lady Lazarus by Sylvia Plath
I have done it again.
One year in every ten
I manage it--
A sort of walking miracle, my skin
Bright as a Nazi lampshade,
My right foot
A paperweight,
My face a featureless, fine
Jew linen.
Peel off the napkin
O my enemy.
Do I terrify?--
The nose, the eye pits, the full set of teeth?
The sour breath
Will vanish in a day.
Soon, soon the flesh
The grave cave ate will be
At home on me
And I a smiling woman.
I am only thirty.
And like the cat I have nine times to die.
This is Number Three.
What a trash
To annihilate each decade.
What a million filaments.
The peanut-crunching crowd
Shoves in to see
Them unwrap me hand and foot--
The big strip tease.
Gentlemen, ladies
These are my hands
My knees.
I may be skin and bone,
Nevertheless, I am the same, identical woman.
The first time it happened I was ten.
It was an accident.
The second time I meant
To last it out and not come back at all.
I rocked shut
As a seashell.
They had to call and call
And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.
Dying
Is an art, like everything else.
I do it exceptionally well.
I do it so it feels like hell.
I do it so it feels real.
I guess you could say I've a call.
It's easy enough to do it in a cell.
It's easy enough to do it and stay put.
It's the theatrical
Comeback in broad day
To the same place, the same face, the same brute
Amused shout:
'A miracle!'
That knocks me out.
There is a charge
For the eyeing of my scars, there is a charge
For the hearing of my heart--
It really goes.
And there is a charge, a very large charge
For a word or a touch
Or a bit of blood
Or a piece of my hair or my clothes.
So, so, Herr Doktor.
So, Herr Enemy.
I am your opus,
I am your valuable,
The pure gold baby
That melts to a shriek.
I turn and burn.
Do not think I underestimate your great concern.
Ash, ash--
You poke and stir.
Flesh, bone, there is nothing there--
A cake of soap,
A wedding ring,
A gold filling.
Herr God, Herr Lucifer
Beware
Beware.
Out of the ash
I rise with my red hair
And I eat men like air.
Apr 7, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 7, 2012
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 7
The song "Love Changes Everything" from "Aspects of Love"
Love,
Love changes everything:
Hands and faces,
Earth and sky,
Love,
Love changes everything:
How you live and
How you die
Love
Can make the summer fly,
Or a night
Seem like a lifetime.
Yes, Love,
Love changes everything:
Now I tremble
At your name.
Nothing in the
World will ever
Be the same.
Love,
Love changes everything:
Days are longer,
Words mean more.
Love,
Love changes everything:
Pain is deeper
Than before.
Love
Will turn your world around,
And that world
Will last for ever.
Yes, Love,
Love changes everything,
Brings you glory,
Brings you shame.
Nothing in the
World will ever
Be the same.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 7
The song "Love Changes Everything" from "Aspects of Love"
Love,
Love changes everything:
Hands and faces,
Earth and sky,
Love,
Love changes everything:
How you live and
How you die
Love
Can make the summer fly,
Or a night
Seem like a lifetime.
Yes, Love,
Love changes everything:
Now I tremble
At your name.
Nothing in the
World will ever
Be the same.
Love,
Love changes everything:
Days are longer,
Words mean more.
Love,
Love changes everything:
Pain is deeper
Than before.
Love
Will turn your world around,
And that world
Will last for ever.
Yes, Love,
Love changes everything,
Brings you glory,
Brings you shame.
Nothing in the
World will ever
Be the same.
Apr 6, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 6, 2012
April is National Poetry Month!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 6
The Lady of Shallot by Lord Alfred Tennyson
I discovered this in Acting School in NYC and it's remained a favorite
and an inspiration ever since.
My favorite painting of Lady of Shallot of all time is by Natalie Shau. Look it up!
But if you're a regular reader here, then none of that is news to you :)
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow-veil'd
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott".
PART II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the 'curse' may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights,
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half-sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A redcross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom;
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
'The Lady of Shalott.'
And down the river's dim expanse--
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance--
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right--
The leaves upon her falling light--
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot;
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot;
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
'The Lady of Shalott'
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott".
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 6
The Lady of Shallot by Lord Alfred Tennyson
I discovered this in Acting School in NYC and it's remained a favorite
and an inspiration ever since.
My favorite painting of Lady of Shallot of all time is by Natalie Shau. Look it up!
But if you're a regular reader here, then none of that is news to you :)
On either side the river lie
Long fields of barley and of rye,
That clothe the wold and meet the sky;
And thro' the field the road runs by
To many-tower'd Camelot;
And up and down the people go,
Gazing where the lilies blow
Round an island there below,
The island of Shalott.
Willows whiten, aspens quiver,
Little breezes dusk and shiver
Thro' the wave that runs for ever
By the island in the river
Flowing down to Camelot.
Four gray walls, and four gray towers,
Overlook a space of flowers,
And the silent isle imbowers
The Lady of Shalott.
By the margin, willow-veil'd
Slide the heavy barges trail'd
By slow horses; and unhail'd
The shallop flitteth silken-sail'd
Skimming down to Camelot:
But who hath seen her wave her hand?
Or at the casement seen her stand?
Or is she known in all the land,
The Lady of Shalott?
Only reapers, reaping early
In among the bearded barley,
Hear a song that echoes cheerly
From the river winding clearly,
Down to tower'd Camelot:
And by the moon the reaper weary,
Piling sheaves in uplands airy,
Listening, whispers "'Tis the fairy
Lady of Shalott".
PART II
There she weaves by night and day
A magic web with colours gay.
She has heard a whisper say,
A curse is on her if she stay
To look down to Camelot.
She knows not what the 'curse' may be,
And so she weaveth steadily,
And little other care hath she,
The Lady of Shalott.
And moving thro' a mirror clear
That hangs before her all the year,
Shadows of the world appear.
There she sees the highway near
Winding down to Camelot:
There the river eddy whirls,
And there the surly village-churls,
And the red cloaks of market girls,
Pass onward from Shalott.
Sometimes a troop of damsels glad,
An abbot on an ambling pad,
Sometimes a curly shepherd-lad,
Or long-hair'd page in crimson clad,
Goes by to tower'd Camelot;
And sometimes thro' the mirror blue
The knights come riding two and two:
She hath no loyal knight and true,
The Lady of Shalott.
But in her web she still delights
To weave the mirror's magic sights,
For often thro' the silent nights
A funeral, with plumes and lights,
And music, went to Camelot:
Or when the moon was overhead,
Came two young lovers lately wed;
"I am half-sick of shadows," said
The Lady of Shalott.
PART III
A bow-shot from her bower-eaves,
He rode between the barley sheaves,
The sun came dazzling thro' the leaves,
And flamed upon the brazen greaves
Of bold Sir Lancelot.
A redcross knight for ever kneel'd
To a lady in his shield,
That sparkled on the yellow field,
Beside remote Shalott.
The gemmy bridle glitter'd free,
Like to some branch of stars we see
Hung in the golden Galaxy.
The bridle bells rang merrily
As he rode down to Camelot:
And from his blazon'd baldric slung
A mighty silver bugle hung,
And as he rode his armour rung,
Beside remote Shalott.
All in the blue unclouded weather
Thick-jewell'd shone the saddle-leather,
The helmet and the helmet-feather
Burn'd like one burning flame together,
As he rode down to Camelot.
As often thro' the purple night,
Below the starry clusters bright,
Some bearded meteor, trailing light,
Moves over still Shalott.
His broad clear brow in sunlight glow'd;
On burnish'd hooves his war-horse trode;
From underneath his helmet flow'd
His coal-black curls as on he rode,
As he rode down to Camelot.
From the bank and from the river
He flashed into the crystal mirror,
"Tirra lirra," by the river
Sang Sir Lancelot.
She left the web, she left the loom;
She made three paces thro' the room,
She saw the water-lily bloom,
She saw the helmet and the plume,
She look'd down to Camelot.
Out flew the web and floated wide;
The mirror crack'd from side to side;
"The curse is come upon me," cried
The Lady of Shalott.
PART IV
In the stormy east-wind straining,
The pale yellow woods were waning,
The broad stream in his banks complaining,
Heavily the low sky raining
Over tower'd Camelot;
Down she came and found a boat
Beneath a willow left afloat,
And round about the prow she wrote
'The Lady of Shalott.'
And down the river's dim expanse--
Like some bold seër in a trance,
Seeing all his own mischance--
With a glassy countenance
Did she look to Camelot.
And at the closing of the day
She loosed the chain, and down she lay;
The broad stream bore her far away,
The Lady of Shalott.
Lying, robed in snowy white
That loosely flew to left and right--
The leaves upon her falling light--
Thro' the noises of the night
She floated down to Camelot;
And as the boat-head wound along
The willowy hills and fields among,
They heard her singing her last song,
The Lady of Shalott.
Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darken'd wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot;
For ere she reach'd upon the tide
The first house by the water-side,
Singing in her song she died,
The Lady of Shalott.
Under tower and balcony,
By garden-wall and gallery,
A gleaming shape she floated by,
Dead-pale between the houses high,
Silent into Camelot.
Out upon the wharfs they came,
Knight and burgher, lord and dame,
And round the prow they read her name,
'The Lady of Shalott'
Who is this? and what is here?
And in the lighted palace near
Died the sound of royal cheer;
And they cross'd themselves for fear,
All the knights at Camelot:
But Lancelot mused a little space;
He said, "She has a lovely face;
God in his mercy lend her grace,
The Lady of Shalott".
Apr 5, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 5, 2012
April is National Poetry Month!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 5
This poem is found in the novel, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
by Stephen Chbosky
I just finished this book and fell in love with it. Read it!
Once on a yellow peice of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
and he called it "chops"
because that was the name of his dog
and thats what it was all about
his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
and his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts.
that was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
and he let them sing on the bus
and his little sister was born
with tiny nails and no hair
and his mother and father kissed alot
and the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
and his father always tucked him in bed at night
and was always there to do it
once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
and that's what it was all about
and his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
and his mother never hung it on the kithcen door
beause of the new paint
and the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
and left butts on the pews
and sometime they would burn holes
that was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
and the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see santa claus
and the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed alot
and his father never tucked him in bed at night
and his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it
once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
and he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
and thats what it was all about
and his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
that was the year Father Tracy died
and he forgot how the end
of the Apostles's Creed went
and he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
and his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
and the girl around the corner
wore too much make up
that made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
becuase it was the thing to do
and at 3 am he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly
that's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
and he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
because that's what it was really all about
and he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
and he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didnt think
he could reach the kitchen----
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 5
This poem is found in the novel, "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"
by Stephen Chbosky
I just finished this book and fell in love with it. Read it!
Once on a yellow peice of paper with green lines
he wrote a poem
and he called it "chops"
because that was the name of his dog
and thats what it was all about
his teacher gave him an A
and a gold star
and his mother hung it on the kitchen door
and read it to his aunts.
that was the year Father Tracy
took all the kids to the zoo
and he let them sing on the bus
and his little sister was born
with tiny nails and no hair
and his mother and father kissed alot
and the girl around the corner sent him a
Valentine signed with a row of X's
and he had to ask his father what the X's meant
and his father always tucked him in bed at night
and was always there to do it
once on a piece of white paper with blue lines
he wrote a poem
he called it "Autumn"
because that was the name of the season
and that's what it was all about
and his teacher gave him an A
and asked him to write more clearly
and his mother never hung it on the kithcen door
beause of the new paint
and the kids told him
that Father Tracy smoked cigars
and left butts on the pews
and sometime they would burn holes
that was the year his sister got glasses
with thick lenses and black frames
and the girl around the corner laughed
when he asked her to go see santa claus
and the kids told him why
his mother and father kissed alot
and his father never tucked him in bed at night
and his father got mad
when he cried for him to do it
once on a paper torn from his notebook
he wrote a poem
and he called it "Innocence: A Question"
because that was the question about his girl
and thats what it was all about
and his professor gave him an A
and a strange steady look
and his mother never hung it on the kitchen door
because he never showed her
that was the year Father Tracy died
and he forgot how the end
of the Apostles's Creed went
and he caught his sister
making out on the back porch
and his mother and father never kissed
or even talked
and the girl around the corner
wore too much make up
that made him cough when he kissed her
but he kissed her anyway
becuase it was the thing to do
and at 3 am he tucked himself into bed
his father snoring soundly
that's why on the back of a brown paper bag
he tried another poem
and he called it "Absolutely Nothing"
because that's what it was really all about
and he gave himself an A
and a slash on each damned wrist
and he hung it on the bathroom door
because this time he didnt think
he could reach the kitchen----
Apr 4, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 4, 2012
April is National Poetry Month!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 4
Another fav of mine, for years
From "A Night Without Armor" by Jewel
I Keep Expecting You To
I keep expecting you
to fade
to wake up one morning
and not care
so I
keep myself
one carefully measured step away
in anticipation
of your love's decline
so when your cheek turns
and your attention
wanders
elsewhere
my heart will not be left all awkward
hanging
from an elastic thread
you forgot to pull off your old pair of socks
for it's in your nature to
lose interest suddenly
we are both artists
who suck the marrow out
of each lovely bone
It just happens to be
my lovely bones
this time
How bare
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 4
Another fav of mine, for years
From "A Night Without Armor" by Jewel
I Keep Expecting You To
I keep expecting you
to fade
to wake up one morning
and not care
so I
keep myself
one carefully measured step away
in anticipation
of your love's decline
so when your cheek turns
and your attention
wanders
elsewhere
my heart will not be left all awkward
hanging
from an elastic thread
you forgot to pull off your old pair of socks
for it's in your nature to
lose interest suddenly
we are both artists
who suck the marrow out
of each lovely bone
It just happens to be
my lovely bones
this time
How bare
Apr 3, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 3, 2012
April is National Poetry Month!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 3
From "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke"
LAMENT
Everything is far
and long gong by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is-
which one, at the end of it's beam in the sky,
stands like a white city...
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 3
From "The Selected Poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke"
LAMENT
Everything is far
and long gong by.
I think that the star
glittering above me
has been dead for a million years.
I think there were tears
in the car I heard pass
and something terrible was said.
A clock has stopped striking in the house
across the road...
When did it start?...
I would like to step out of my heart
and go walking beneath the enormous sky.
I would like to pray.
And surely of all the stars that perished
long ago,
one still exists.
I think that I know
which one it is-
which one, at the end of it's beam in the sky,
stands like a white city...
Apr 2, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 2, 2012
April is National Poetry Month!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 2
What a Piece of Work is Man
A song from the musical "HAIR" taken from "HAMLET"
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculties
In form and moving
How express and admirable
In action how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals
I have of late
But wherefore I know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame
The earth
Seems to me a sterile promontory
This most excellent canopy
The air-- look you!
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
Why it appears no other thing to me
Than a foul and pestilent congregation
Of vapors
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?
Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 2
What a Piece of Work is Man
A song from the musical "HAIR" taken from "HAMLET"
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How infinite in faculties
In form and moving
How express and admirable
In action how like an angel
In apprehension how like a god
The beauty of the world
The paragon of animals
I have of late
But wherefore I know not
Lost all my mirth
This goodly frame
The earth
Seems to me a sterile promontory
This most excellent canopy
The air-- look you!
This brave o'erhanging firmament
This majestical roof
Fretted with golden fire
Why it appears no other thing to me
Than a foul and pestilent congregation
Of vapors
What a piece of work is man
How noble in reason
How dare they try to end this beauty?
How dare they try to end this beauty?
Walking in space
We find the purpose of peace
The beauty of life
You can no longer hide
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Our eyes are open
Wide wide wide!
Apr 1, 2012
National Poetry Month! April 1, 2012
April is National Poetry Month!
So to celebrate (and you knew I'd be all over this), I'm going to post everyday this month...words that inspire. Words, quotes, poems, songs and passages of books. Maybe some of my own writings will be included.
Read! Post! Share YOUR words that inspire!
Tweet me: @DeenaMarie
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Day 1
This poem comes from "Blood Sugar" by Nicole Blackman. I discovered this book many, many years ago and clung to this poem in particular in times of need. I have lost and bought this book three different times. I can't be without it on my shelf.
GIRLS
When he leaves,
he leaves a space,
a big or little airless place
that begs to be filled.
A part of the weekend that says
What are you going to do now?
And you think if you fill it up
you'll survive.
So you work and clean and call
and cook and write and drink
and read and sleep and shop
and say This is fine this is fine.
You can do this.
Laugh and go out drinking
with your friends when it's over.
Call everyone you know and say
whatever.
Shrug, clear your throat.
It's kind of like losing a dog.
You'll miss him
but maybe it's better this way.
His friends are still your friends
sometimes
and they watch you
because they send him messages
about how you're doing.
Sometimes they figure now is their chance
and they tell you they've always had it bad
for you.
Be careful with his friends.
So cut your hair
and learn to play guitar.
Walk fast and yell back
at bike messengers who tell you
what they'd do to you
if you were theirs.
Stop wearing his coat and sell his CDs.
White out his name in your address book.
Buy new perfume and learn to masturbate
with the shower head.
Turn the pain into something you can use.
And when it feels like you're imploding,
like you're the only one
who wants to like down in the street,
know that there will always be girls
who stream through this city
with their mouths slightly open
trying to breathe
and waiting to be kissed.
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