new tune:
everythingatonce
‘62 ford in the yard
secret life of death
steel string guitar
past lives stacked
books on the floor
i want everything at once
and more
boxes filled with the Taj Mahal
memories of the fall
Les Fleurs du Mal
ancient birds in a volcanic sky
i want to live forever
before we die
on the road to Eleusis without a map
we felt so useless on the great highway
we’d become a nuisance unto our selflessness
i want everything at once
and then i want you
i want it all out the way
so we can play
on the road to Eleusis without a map
we think we got it made
but it’s already been made before
she says there’s nothing to do
just be you
that’s All.
closed caption music…
a bunch of notes
i read on the screen
deaf to yer beauty
when first i heard your moon sing
and your crescent smile shine
through your sunny skin
now this plasma scream
abyss
not to dis your beautiful blacks
but its time i turn my back
follow the dream in my ears
ringing the prelude of deafness
everybody has ambition
like a number tattoo.
The Times Literary Supplement is one of my favorite book reviews. They do a poem every week, often from their archives. This first appeared in the TLS in 1971 and is translated by Max Hayward and Jon Stallworthy. The poem is introduced by Andrew McCulloch; to read his introduction, go here.
A Poem
I drink to Hussars’ epaulettes, and to all the rumours about me:
to astrakhan coats, and to asthma, to St. Petersburg ennui,
to the music of Savoyard pines, and the fumes of the Champs-Elysées,
to Parisian oils, and to roses on the seat of a Rolls coupé.
I drink to a jug of Swiss cream, and to Biscay’s sparkling wave,
to the hauteur of red-headed memsahibs, and quinine from the White Man’s Grave.
I drink, but I have not yet decided for which I should clap
my hands: ebullient Asti Spumante, or Chateauneuf du Pape.
OSIP MANDELSTAM (1931)
This was a (reactive) response (which they wouldn’t publish) to an article in the New York Times’ Lede Blog about the possible pornographic nature of new x-ray machine; the article spun off into other issues of security (see here):
Why should travel be safe? If you are afraid to die, don’t fly. And if all this nonsense continues, don’t fly if you don’t want them to use their x-ray glasses on you. Think: 100 years ago, there were no passports as we know them today (link). And we think we’re evolving as a species? We’re rigid with fear, I mourn the loss of our freedom and our willingness to take risks. Why should it be safe to fly? Ride the high seas, risk the storms, the pirates. There are killers on the road. There always will be. Watch the news: the cops are a joke. The politicians, too. Me, too. No one can stop these acts with technology. You can’t obliterate “terrorists” any more than you can obliterate the air. What a reactive rant you think? These “unbalanced” comments or the “authorities’.” We are all responsible for this atmosphere. All a big scam. There is no authority except your heart. When it stops living we’re finished. This life isn’t about being made safe by government agencies. We choose to fly, no matter how much you think you have to. Play into the hands of the fear mongers on all sides. If you think you need protection, protect yourself. Don’t run to some agency to do it for you. ANd if you can’t “protect” yourself, live in hole. Down with fear perpetrated on humanity by the “good” and the “bad.” They’re playing the same game. Why not pioneer for a private air system unregulated by government agencies. To live is to take your life into your hands. And what about the health risks of these stupid machines? Like CAT scans, they will be revealed in the future to radiate those who pass through their eyes. Enough with this morbid sentimentality, with clutching our blanky of life and there-by not living.
