creative souls
Neil Hilborn: The First Time I Saw Her
Vale Gene Wilder
Gene Wilder was and always will be *my* Willy Wonka. RIP Mr. Wilder, and thank you for your lovely contribution to us all. 💜
We are the music-makers,
And we are the dreamers of the dreams;
Wandering by lonely sea breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams.
World-losers and world-forsakers
On whom the pale moon gleams,
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.
With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities,
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown,
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample an empire down.
We, in the ages lying
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing
And Babel itself with our mirth.
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth –
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or a new one, coming to birth.
– “Ode”, Arthur O’Shaughnessy
Henry Rollins – All you got is life time
know it sounds cliché, but time is so short. We can’t guarantee how long we’ll be here. And yet we waste time getting our ducks in a row, or doing the things we think we “have” to do.
As I get older, I have less and less tolerance for bullshit, and the more precious my time becomes. I don’t want to waste it in a job I hate, in a relationship that doesn’t work, in a friendship that’s toxic. I want to make dents in my bucket list, not excuses!
And of course, Henry Rollins is bae. :D
Pablo Neruda – Saudade (Longing)
Because I am feeling melancholy tonight.
SAUDADE
Saudade -Qué será?… yo no sé… lo he buscado
en unos diccionarios empolvados y antiguos
y en otros libros que no me han dado el significado
de esta dulce palabra de perfiles ambiguos.
Dicen que azules son las montañas como ella,
que en ella se oscurecen los amores lejanos,
y un noble y buen amigo mío (y de las estrellas)
la nombra en un temblor de trenzas y de manos.
Y hoy en Eca de Queiroz sin mirar la adivino,
su secreto se evade, su dulzura me obsede
como una mariposa de cuerpo extraño y fino
siempre lejos -tan lejos!- de mis tranquilas redes.
Saudade… Oiga, vecino, sabe el significado
de esta palabra blanca que como un pez se evade?
No… Y me tiembla en la boca su temblor delicado.
Saudade…
LONGING
Longing – What is it? … I do not know … I have searched in a few dictionaries dusty and old
and in other books that that have not given me the meaning of this sweet word of ambiguous profiles.
They say that blues are the mountains like her,
that in her darken the distant loves,
and a noble and good friend of mine (and of the stars)
she named in a tremor of braids and hands.
And today in Eça de Queiroz without watching the fortune teller, her secret escapes, her sweetness obsesses me as a butterfly of fine and strange body
always far – so far! – from my quiet nets.
Longing… Hear! Neighbor, do you know the meaning
of this white word that like a fish escapes?
No… And it trembles me in the mouth its delicate tremor…
Longing…
~ Pablo Neruda en Obras Completas I. De “Crepusculario” a “Las uvas del tiempo” 1923-1954. English translation by Thayne Tuason 2012
thinking on Bowie
I heard about Bowie’s death yesterday evening and have still yet to fully process it. I wouldn’t have ever called myself a “huge fan” but I have literally been brought to tears because David Bowie’s contribution to the arts was so pervasive that you didn’t need to be a “fan” in order to have been influenced by his work. Jareth the Goblin King was my first fantasy crush, and I’ve had “Dance Magic Dance” in my head since yesterday. Snatches of his music that I didn’t even know I knew have come into my head at random moments, along with a “Oh yeah, I’d forgotten that was one of his songs!”
As I’ve been reading articles and details of his life I’ve been really touched. David Bowie genuinely cared about people, he lived to challenge people, in his life and in his music, to dream big and have the strength to reach for those dreams, to love yourself and accept yourself just as you are. The world has not lost “just another musician”; we have lost a hero, we have lost a friend and an ally. We have lost someone who kept his illness a secret, preferring to spend his last days in the studio to leave us a very special parting gift. So RIP David Bowie, and in your own words: “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”
Phenomenal Woman (A Tribute)
Still I Rise
You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.
Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.
Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.
RIP Maya Angelou (1928-2014)
Marty Schoenleber III – Propane Poet
Amazing!
Watched the Melbourne comedy festival on tv tonight… the last act was AMAZING, you have to see this guy!!
Raymond Crowe – Shadow hands performance
Kabir – selected poems
I love Kabir and early Eastern mystic poems and writing in general. I came across some interpreted poems of his and wanted to share. :)
Interpretations of Kabir poems
From “Love Poems From God” by Daniel Ladinsky
I Just Laugh
If I told you the truth about God
You might think I was an idiot
If I lied to you about the Beautiful One
You might parade me through the streets shouting,
“This guy is a genuis!”
This world has its pants on backwards.
Most carry their values and knowledge in a jug
That has a big hole in it.
Thus having a clear grasp of the situation
If I am asked anything these days
I just laugh.
What Kind of God?
What kind of God would He be
If He did not hear the bangles ring
On an ant’s wrist
As they move the earth
In their sweet dance?
And what kind of God would He be
If a leaf’s prayer was not as precious to Creation
As the prayer His own son sang
From the glorious depth of his soul – for us.
And what kind of God would He be
If the vote of millions in this world could sway Him
To change the Divine law of love
That speaks so clearly with compassion’s elegant tongue,
saying, eternally saying:
“All are forgiven – moreover, dears,
No one has ever been guilty.”
What kind of a God would He be
If He did not count the blinks of your eyes
And is in absolute awe of their movements?
What a God – what a God we have.
Soon We May Be Kissing
There is dew on these poems in the morning,
And at night a cool breeze may rise from them.
In the winter they are blankets, in the summer a place to swim
I like talking to you like this.
Have you moved a step closer?
Soon we may be kissing.
How Humble is God?
How humble is God?
God is the tree in the forest that
Allows itself to die and will not defend itself in front of those
With the axe, not wanting to cause them shame.
And God is the earth that will allow itself to
Be deformed by man’s tools, but He cries; yes, God cries,
But only in front of His closest ones.
And a beautiful animal is being beaten to death,
But nothing can make God break His silence
To the masses and say:
“Stop, please stop, why are you doing this to Me?”
How humble is God?
Kabir wept when I knew.
The Past’s Lips are not Deceased
Why not look at the beauty your memory holds,
So nourishing that light can be.
The past’s lips are not deceased.
Let them comfort you if they can.
It Stops Working
Look –
What happens to the scale
When love holds it;
It stops working.
Cadence Poetica 