Attention

She doesn't pay attention to me,

Nor does she to anybody.

She never does, unless she must.

She passes her days

In a blissful daze

Only minding the urgency

Or what will impact her life

in the next five

minutes.

One day she'll pass away

quite unmindful

of the sad disarray

of the hassle

she'll leave

behind.

Metarie - Brendan Benson

Met a girl, introduced myself
I asked her go to with me and no one else
And she said "I'd really like to see you everyday
But I'm afraid of what my friends might say.
You need a bath, and your clothes are wrong,
You're not my type; I can tell we wouldn't get along."
I just laughed — what else could I do?
Just then her friends chimed in, sayin' "Get a clue.
Get a life, put it in your song." (Put it in your song.)

There's something I've been meaning to say to you
I've run out of gas and I'm stuck like glue

I'd had enough; I couldn't take it anymore, yeah
So I turned and I ran straight for the door
Bought some mags on my way home
For later on, you know, when I'm all alone
Bottle of wine and some cigarettes
A racing form, maybe, maybe I'll make some bets
I know a guy - lives in Los Angeles -
Sometimes his life there makes me so jealous
I'd like to move out of this place
Change my name, get a new face
Get a life, put it in my song (put in in my song).

There's something I've been meaning to say to you
I've run out of gas and I'm stuck like glue

I'd like to move out of this place
Change my name, maybe get a new face
Sleep all day, stay up all night, yeah
Everybody I meet thinks I'm alright.

Get a life.

Reap what you sow

"Flatter me, and I may not believe you.
Criticize me, and I may not like you.
Ignore me, and I may not forgive you.
Encourage me, and I will not forget you."

William Arthur Ward, college administrator, writer (1921-1994)

Someone

I need someone.

I need someone in my life, someone I can trust, travel with, chat with. Someone open-minded enough to look ahead. It's as simple as that. Just that, really? I don't think so. I'd like someone who's keen enough to stay around me and stay with me and not do anything else someone attached to me someone who will not go astray someone who loves me enough to leave whatever she has to leave and not look behind and ready to live in autarky someone with golden brown hair with eyes the tessitura of the sun and the texture of the leaves in spring someone who is like me like me like me and who doesn't give a damn and who's ready to hence the next day feeling only enthusiasm someone who's ready to follow as much as to initiate the impetus someone who's knowledgeable and keen and ready readiness is all someone who's not afraid of the dark and who tasted blood and who didn't wince someone who when all is said and done when all is weighed and measured is capable of looking back and smile at either success or failure someone who's ready to move on to go on to open her eyes someone who'll make love to me and will beg to have me make love to her someone who will love to love someone who will love me and someone who will let me love her someone who will share and love to share someone who live to share and share her will someone who will walk walk with me walk usque ad finem walk until everything ends not with a bang but with a whisper or a whimper someone who will call and answer the call someone who will find her way someone who could roam the wild and not be scared someone who could walk blindfolded on a rope tied across the deep and just follow the sound of my voice because she knows i'll follow hers as the next rope ensues someone who is not scared not scared and who'll not waste her time and waste her time someone who will come empty-handed someone who will choose offer advice and take it and sing sing sing even though i sing like there were no tomorrow no tomorrow someone who'll move mountains heaven and earth if need be someone who'll question and argue and maintain and settle someone who'll fondle my buttocks as the night comes someone who'll direct my hand to her bosom and will want me to quench my thirst at her round and supple breasts someone who won't be ostentatious and vain someone simple enough to be and look simple someone who'll disdain eccentricity yet embrace modernity someone who'll crave me as i'll crave her someone who dies as i'm absent as i die when she's absent someone who dies because i die from love someone who'll spend days chatting and drinking and eating and living the good life someone who's there there and not anywhere else someone who won't be afraid to receive my love someone who will make change seem unnecessary and make it seem natural someone who will show me the way someone who'll be happy and who'll make me happy not because i made her happy but because happiness is a gift we all freely give someone someone someone my love i'm waiting for you waiting for you waiting waiting waiting for you some time ago you were there or i thought you were there but you went or you disappeared perhaps i disappointed you or you found that your love wasn't strong enough or that you had something better to do so i closed my eyes and you only left a trace of you in remanence imprinted on the inside of my eyelids before the sun or perhaps you grew tired of me tired of loving tired of living so you left and i never saw you again mayhap your shadow infiltrated my waking dreams and faint as it was i could feel it feel it i did for i had no choice sometimes the echo of a memory is more deafening than a thousand waterfalls of senses roaring so you left and i never saw you again or perhaps once but i wasn't paying attention probably as probably the river was too close and i love the river no matter what i do the river flows in my heart and you had to go past it to invade my heart of hearts you had to you had but you didn't crossing proved too difficult or too perilous or too demanding or useless for many a thing many a one prove useless in the end this is why keeping one's eyes open and one's feet going is fundamental and so many used to walk and see now they're blind and crippled blind and crippled they are forsooth no one deserves should give up give in but give give give for our pitiful and lonely sakes for to give is the only reality there ultimately is to give the good in you is what matters i gave and i am still giving and will always give until i am worn thin and someone who will transform the act of writing someone whom i'll miss someone kind and whose visage i'll look kindly upon some people are stuck yet give an impression of movement so many couples mirage an impression of happiness yet strain crack and often break inside for they wither and expected too much and were disappointed and yet everybody thinks they move on and smile for there's no smile without fire yet they simply chose the easy path due to a slightly above average sleight of hand yet crying does not cure does not help does not abate anything it hones it sharpens the silhouette of solitude looming in the slender shadow of the chiaroscuro tree someone has to pay for the damage nice to look at nice to hold once broken consider it sold someone who will comfort the shiver someone who will expect it for i have and will comfort and expect it someone stupid enough to love me someone foolish enough to bear with me someone who'll ride the venetian gondolas and give fate the middle finger someone who will be my special someone my shard of sleep when i'm sleepless my break of day to behold from the pillow my morning tea my everything someone tender someone caring someone whom life cannot reach life hangs by a thread on the edge of a scalpel and on the scales weighed by infinitesimal degrees of tiredness, alcohol, frustration and innate skills lies the entire safety of humankind where and into whose hands should we put ourselves nothing is less certain than the instant instinctive ability to save ourselves now that so many someones passed before my life like shadows of marigolds upon a wall i'm waiting for that someone that someone who'll make my day make my life and i crave for the night to come for i'm sure you'll come under cover of darkness someone who will not go away tiptoe across the bedroom and out and never to be heard of again someone whose in-between-ness rivals that of inanna someone i'll love unconditionally someone who won't be just someone to me someone worth waiting for fighting for dying for and perhaps i've never been as honest as this in the wreck of my years but now please i'm ready i beg you come come come

The wave

the day has come

it came a long age ago

already

upon a wave of slate-coloured horses

crashing on the break of day

shafting through the tide

of upright and slender trees

upright and slender as pencils

the day has come

and we're marching on

marching on marching

on the back of elephants

through the savannah

of newly-built watchtowers

march–

for the day has come

with-out the wave

it might never have

come it did

how many of us ended

up gloating at the end

of a rope

swinging and squealing

in the wave

of slate-coloured manes

how many of us

to all intents and purposes

impregnable

now quieted

now sweeping past the sheds

the houses of calm

passed the Sleeping Peoples

grim, mud-covered,

follow we follow

trudging along we make a hell of a noise!

whilst the wave amidst

us pours and pours

ploughs forth

gathers momentum

and branches and coals

mélanged with corals

from distant shores

we are taken away

pinched by the mentum

like renegade schoolchildren

we cannot but follow

follow we follow

taken away

following

on the arch of the wave

of slate-coloured chargers

breaking through dawn

like there was no tomorrow

and pregnant women smile

through the contractions

the stampede is a good omen

always have, always will be

and our contraptions

waiting for us in the half-light

half-flight before time ends

waste of daylight

capering in convincing happiness

they weren't pregnant women

with hindsight

but someone had to smile

so we chose those whom the horses

chose to ignore

and bade them smile

not simper or smirk

but smile genuinely

and we bowed down and curtsied

scared mindless

while the wave wound past us

swashed our toes

in the pallid

morning when all unbroken dreams gone astray

are gathered

before the break of day

as of yore

to be swept away

to be swept away

as of yore

to be swept away

in a furore.

Spice

"There is a foolish corner in the brain of the wisest man."

Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)

Cascando (1936)

1

why not merely the despaired of

occasion of

wordshed

is it not better abort than be barren

the hours after you are gone are so leaden

they will always start dragging too soon

the grapples clawing blindly the bed of want

bringing up the bones the old loves

sockets filled once with eyes like yours

all always is it better too soon than never

the black want splashing their faces

saying again nine days never floated the loved

nor nine months

nor nine lives

2

saying again

if you do not teach me I shall not learn

saying again there is a last

even of last times

last times of begging

last times of loving

of knowing not knowing pretending

a last even of last times of saying

if you do not love me I shall not be loved

if I do not love you I shall not love

the churn of stale words in the heart again

love love love thud of the old plunger

pestling the unalterable

whey of words

terrified again

of not loving

of loving and not you

of being loved and not by you

of knowing not knowing pretending

pretending

I and all the others that will love you

if they love you

3

unless they love you

Samuel Beckett (1906 - 1989)

Arak

I raised my head on the rampart,

my gaze fell on a corpse drifting down the river, afloat on the water:

I too shall become like that, just so shall I be!

The heart feels pain.

Names are being written upon water

or are traced upon the sands.

Carvèd stones turn to dust

and the vainglories of old are but all forgotten.

Words befuddle memories,

dreams stupefy our impressions and make history.

Seldom rivers disgorge the interred kings of yore;

oftener men determine the rightful

in full fathom five of water.

the wronged are doomed to sail silently to the sea –

the laws of nature and of men equally distrustful.

He who watches rivers exposes himself to such doubt.

And all our visions are frustrated

bewildered

and we come to wander the wild

for we fear death.

The heart, must I remind thee, deals pain

to whoever listens to the beatings

at the dark of the dark of night,

when love has absconded for the day.

The shaking of my hands

stopped on the grip the rampart.

I need an istikan of arak.

HE MOURNS FOR THE CHANGE THAT HAS COME UPON HIM AND HIS BELOVED, AND LONGS FOR THE END OF THE WORLD

"Do you not hear me calling, white deer with no horns?

I have been changed to a hound with one red ear;

I have been in the Path of Stones and the Wood of Thorns,

For somebody hid hatred and hope and desire and fear

Under my feet that they follow you night and day.

A man with a hazel wand came without sound;

He changed me suddenly; I was looking another way;

And now my calling is but the calling of a hound;

And Time and Birth and Change are hurrying by.

I would that the Boar without bristles had come from the West

And had rooted the sun and moon and stars out of the sky

And lay in the darkness, grunting, and turning to his rest."

William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), from The Wind Among the Reeds (1899).

The last

They're all that's left of my family,

The last remnants of a ragged house.

Tree bereft of branches and leaves.

Life passing by in fury or drowsily.

They're all that come at night and rouse

Me from slumber, the hours bundled in sheaves.

They're naught more than shadows.

They might be ghosts, roaming the meadows

Before my tired eyes, they might be.

They might be dead, for all I know.

They might be. They might be.

They come and stand at the threshold,

not undaring, not unimpatient.

As old as the world they are, as old,

and wroth they are, and uncomplaisant.

Yet only they remain of those I loved,

once, long ago, when I was young.

Oh, how many a lonely day has passed

since then! Beyond count and unsung

they are. Hours and shadows now glassed,

time having reclaimed them from the deep.

Time slowly through my pores seep

and all I can see are shadows, shadows

around me. They have come – in fact

they have never left. They tell me I owe

them my eyes, stipulated in some obscure contract.

There are talks now the debt to halve

For after this they said they'd leave

And those shades are all the family I have.