Farewell

a world I never imagined

- a world without you -

has descended upon us

cold

sudden

& crushing

and little of it makes

sense

it hurts not to have said

goodbye

but I know

you wouldn't have wanted it

any other way

I wish I could have said

so much more

but I know

words never meant

much to you

I just hope to have made it clear

how much I love you

how much I always will

how much you mean to me

your smile

your voice

your eyes

your warmth

are within me forever

you loved life

you were life

and the beauty of your

heart & mind & soul

higher than anything else

is every day a small miracle to me

to think of how much you gave me

of how much you were

were you ever fully happy

or understood?

I guess I'll never know

but I do know the

beautiful flame

within you

never flickered

not judging many of those

who judged you

contemplating

feeling

smiling

living & loving

each day

more human than any of us

I hope to have made you

proud

if nowhere near as much

as you made me

I hope you realize I would

be nothing

& have nothing

had I not glimpsed

the treasure behind your eyes

I want you to know

in every word & gesture & look

how much I love you

and I always will

farewell

Refugee

We got somethin', we both know it,
We don't talk too much about it.
Ain't no real big secret all the same,
somehow, we get around it.

It don't really matter to me, baby,
You believe what you want to believe,
You don't have to live like a refugee.
(Don't have to live like a refugee)

Somewhere, somehow,
Somebody must have kicked you around some.
Tell me why you wanna lay there and revel in your abandon.

It don't make no difference to me, baby,
Everybody's had to fight to be free,
You see you don't have to live like a refugee.
(Don't have to live like a refugee)

Baby, we ain't the first.
I'm sure a lot of other lovers been burned.
Right now this seems real to you,
But it's one of those things you gotta feel to be true.

Somewhere, somehow,
Somebody must have kicked you around some.
Who knows? Maybe you were kidnapped,
Tied up, taken away, and held for ransom.

It don't really matter to me, baby,
Everybody's had to fight to be free,
You see you don't have to live like a refugee.

- Tom Petty

Into starlight.

The unbearable lightness of being

'Why?' The word dangles from the child's lips. Scanning, searching, groping everywhere. Doors opened towards everything and nothing. Simple, natural, irrepressible impulse. Then fading. Not the end of questions, but the 'why?' becomes 'when?'. Or 'how much?'. The end of 'why?' and no more questioning. Everything given, taken for granted, claimed by birthright. Not even a 'what for?'. And that's our shame, a winding - but not the only - road. To stop questioning. No 'why?' for choices. For words. Tongue. Daylight. Summer wind. Kisses. The ocean. Silence. Music. Shoes on your feet. No flies on your skin. No poison in your well. No well, in fact, just running water. But no 'why?'. And we walk - no, we run - with no questions asked. To leave the questions behind - or to choose which ones to leave behind - is everyone's choice. And it is more than an exercise in self-pity. But it is simpler than that. Maybe just a gaze at the sun with air-filled lungs in a spring morning. Or maybe less. So it goes.

Into starlight.

A want of shade

'If I lied to myself,' said he, 'I should have the feeling I was lying to you as well. And I couldn't bear that.'
'Yes,' said Marcelle; but she did not look as if she believed him.
'You don't look as if you believed me?'
'Oh yes I do,' she said, nonchalantly.
'You think I'm lying to myself?'
'No - anyway, one can't ever know. but I don't think so. Still, do you know what I do believe? That you are beginning to sterilize yourself a little. I thought that today. Everything is so neat and tidy in your mind: it smells of clean linen: it's as though you had just come out of a drying-cupboard. But there's a want of shade. There's nothing useless, nor hesitant, nor underhand about you now. It's all high noon. And don't ell me this is all for my benefit. You're moving down your own incline: you've acquired the taste for self-analysis.'

- Jean-Paul Sartre

Into twilight.

In the name of hip

I understand how it must sound, when I say I'm sick of being judged by the ignorant, the pretentious and the lazy - especially all rolled into one. I'm tired of mouths that can never be shut, especially with nothing to say. I'm tired of rubbing shoulders with the filth and looking the other way, all in the name of kindness and civility. I'm tired of ignoring huge, immense, ridiculous gaps that keep showing up between grand words and foolish deeds. I think I must be extremely old-fashioned in believing in the virtue of silence over pretentious ignorance. Or, in simpler terms, believing that you should keep quiet when you know shit about shit. But I am amazed and tired of the general apathy & consent, the silent acceptance of idiocy - all the name of hip. Because it's all about being hip. Being hip stands up for the absence of many things - including hard work, intelligence, talent - or just a sense of purpose.
It scares me to think that 50 or 60 years from now people will look back at our generation as one with very little to show in terms of such things - in contrast with a big mouth and an unwavering belief in its own God-given right to fame and recognition. For what? Your guess is as good as mine...
All in the name of hip.
Amen.

Into starlight.

The Hitchhiker

Let me tell you about heartache and the loss of god

Wandering, wandering in hopeless night

Out here in the perimeter there are no stars

Out here we is stoned

Immaculate.

(...)

Thoughts in time and out of season

The Hitchhiker

Stood by the side of the road

And leveled his thumb

In the calm calculus of reason

Hi. How you doin'?

I just got back into town L.A.

I was out on the desert for awhile

Yeah. In the middle of it

Right...

Hey, listen, man, I really got a problem

When I was out on the desert, ya know

I don't know how to tell you

but, ah, I killed somebody

No...

It's no big deal, ya know

I don't think anybody will find out about it, but...

Just, ah...

This guy gave me a ride, and ah...

Started giving me a lot of trouble

And I just couldn't take it, ya know

And I wasted him

Yeah

- Jim Morrison

Into twilight.

The Gentlest Groove

asleep? no

just dreaming...

Into twilight.

So Many Roads, So Many Trains

So many roads, so many trains to ride
So many roads, so many trains to ride
I've got to find my baby, 'fore I'll be satisfied

I was standin' by my window, when I heard that whistle blow
I was standin' by my window, when I heard that whistle blow
You know I thought it was a Streamline... but it was a B & O

It was a mean ol' fireman and a cruel ol' engineer
It was a mean ol' fireman and a cruel ol' engineer
That took away my baby and left me standin' here

- Otis Rush

Into twilight.

Sixth Column

the world dissolving
at dawn
a misty silence
creeping up from
the riverbank
and rifles
being counted on
both sides

in the shadow of the vulture
gathering
for the winter
a hyena cackles
loudly at the edge
of the woods
while old guns die
silent in the moss

I am curious
but guess what?

It was all my fault

Into twilight.

Mists of solitude

Impossible, I realize, to enter another’s solitude. If it is true that we can ever come to know another human being, even to a small degree, it is only to the extent that he is willing to make himself known. A man will say: I am cold. Or else he will say nothing, and we will see him shivering. Either way, we will know that he is cold. But what of the man who says nothing and does not shiver? Where all is intractable, where all is hermetic and evasive, one can do no more than observe. But whether one can make sense of what he observes is another matter entirely.
I do not want to presume anything.
(…)
The important thing is this: I realized that even if I had done all the things I had hoped to do, his reaction would have been exactly the same. Whether I succeeded or failed did not essentially matter to him. I was not defined for him by anything that I did, but by what I was, and this meant that his perception of me would never change, that we were fixed in an unmoveable relationship, cut off from each other on opposite sides of a wall. Even more than that, I realized that none of this had anything to do with me. It had only to do with him. Like everything else in his life, he saw me only through the mists of his solitude, as if at several removes from himself. The world was a distant place for him, I think, a place he was never truly able to enter, and out there in the distance, among all the shadows that flitted past him, I was born, became his son, and grew up, as if I were just one more shadow, appearing and disappearing in a half-lit realm of his consciousness.

- Paul Auster

Into starlight.

Oh, Golgotha

mercy

everyone
searches for a
cross
bigger than the
neighbour's

Into twilight.

Master Misery

Squinting one eye, Oreilly poured himself another drink; the clownlike twist of his mouth hardened into a line of scholarly straightness. “That is a million-dollar question, kid. Why don’t you ask something easy, like how to cure the common cold? Yes, kid, what does it mean? I have thought about it a good deal. I have thought about it in the process of making love to a woman, and I have thought about it in the middle of a poker game.” He tossed the drink down his throat and shuddered. “Now a sound can start a dream; the noise of one car passing in the night can drop a hundred sleepers into the deep parts of themselves. It’s funny to think of that one car racing through the dark, trailing so many dreams. Sex, a sudden change of light, a pickle, these are little keys that can open up our insides, too. But most dreams begin because there are furies inside of us that blow open all the doors. I don’t believe in Jesus Christ, but I do believe in people’s souls; and I figure it this way, baby: dreams are the mind of the soul and the secret truth about us. Now Master Misery, maybe he hasn’t got a soul, so bit by bit he borrows yours, steals it like he would steal your dolls or the chicken wing off your plate. Hundreds of souls have passed through him and gone into a filing case.”

- Truman Capote

Into starlight.

Rain

breathing wondering quietly awaiting the big storm and the lustful rain trembling and once the pain was gone nothing left to roam there are voices in the hall you say and no one to listen and so we STOP wait and listen again and always thinking of the rain wishing waiting wavering the rain the damned rain and who’s to fall but you I hear buzzing in the halls behind the walls and everyone sleepwalks to and fro there’s a shadow in the ocean you say again I think of the rain and shudder but lightly no more than that oh well the rain I suppose

Into starllight.

Many rivers to cross

Many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering I am lost
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover

Many rivers to cross
And it's only my will that keeps me alive
I've been licked, washed up for years
And I merely survive because of my pride

And this loneliness won't leave me alone
It's such a drag to be on your own
My woman left me and she didn't say why
Well, I guess I'll have to cry

Many rivers to cross
But just where to begin I'm playing for time
There have been times I find myself
Thinking of committing some dreadful crime

Yes, I've got many rivers to cross
But I can't seem to find my way over
Wandering, I am lost
As I travel along the white cliffs of Dover

Yes, I've got many rivers to cross
And I merely survive because of my will...

- Jimmy Cliff

Into starlight.

Vanitas

sedated white noise and voices voices voices talking with so little to say talking jackpots selling what they don’t have bargaining free for all is it? I’m amazed at the crawling single file of wankers a parade a charade a masquerade and words words words oh my raining down on the hungry mob thankful worshipping I am constantly consistently amazed and still I wonder what else is there to come wrapped in rubber tainted pink or whatever the iron gaze flickers interspersed with kind words and always an excuse reeking of coffee cigarettes and bullshit fronting realms of nothing look around listen and tell me is it me?

Into twilight.

Right out of your hand

Please forgive me
If I appear unkind
But any fool can tell you
It's all in your mind

Down in the meadow
The old lion stirs
Puts his hand 'cross his mouth
He has no use for words

Poor little girl
With your handful of snow
Poor little girl
Had no way to know

And you've got me eating
You've got me eating
You've got me eating
Right out of your hand

I mean you no harm
When I tell you you're blind
Give a sucker an even break
He'll lose it all, every time

The airborne starlings circle
Over the frozen fields
The hollyhocks hang harmlessly
And the old lion yields

And you've got me eating
You've got me eating
You've got me eating
Right out of your hand

- Nick Cave

Into starlight.

Sleepless Eyes

for eyes like
yours

honey at sundown
emeralds
trapped in
amber

for gold
spiralling round
your face
resting sweetly
on your
shoulders

for eyes like
yours
and no other
gently staring and
soothing
over stars
and
scars

Into starlight.

Lucky Town

House got too crowded clothes got too tight
And I don't know just where I'm going tonight
Out where the sky's been cleared by a good hard rain
There's somebody callin' my secret name

I'm going down to Lucky Town
Going down to Lucky Town
I wanna lose these blues I've found
Down in Lucky Town
Down in Lucky Town

Had a coat of fine leather and snakeskin boots
But that coat always had a thread hangin' loose
Well I pulled it one night and to my surprise
It led me right past your house and on over the rise

I'm going down to Lucky Town
Down to Lucky Town
I'm gonna lose these blues I've found
Down in Lucky Town
Down in Lucky Town

I had some victory that was just failure in deceit
Now the joke's comin' up through the soles of my feet
I been a long time walking on fortune's cane
Tonight I'm steppin' lightly and feelin' no pain

Well here's to your good looks baby now here's to my health
Here's to the loaded places that we take ourselves
When it comes to luck we make our own
Tonight I got dirt on my hands but I'm building me a new home

Down in Lucky Town
Down in Lucky Town
I'm gonna lose these blues I've found

- Bruce Springsteen

Into twilight.

Have yourselves...

...a merry little Christmas.

Into twilight.

Take This Waltz

Now in Vienna there's ten pretty women
There's a shoulder where Death comes to cry
There's a lobby with nine hundred windows
There's a tree where the doves go to die
There's a piece that was torn from the morning
And it hangs in the Gallery of Frost
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz with the clamp on its jaws

Oh I want you, I want you, I want you
On a chair with a dead magazine
In the cave at the tip of the lily
In some hallways where love's never been
On a bed where the moon has been sweating
In a cry filled with footsteps and sand
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take its broken waist in your hand

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz
With its very own breath of brandy and Death
Dragging its tail in the sea

There's a concert hall in Vienna
Where your mouth had a thousand reviews
There's a bar where the boys have stopped talking
They've been sentenced to death by the blues
Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture
With a garland of freshly cut tears?
Ay, Ay, Ay, Ay
Take this waltz, take this waltz
Take this waltz it's been dying for years

There's an attic where children are playing
Where I've got to lie down with you soon
In a dream of Hungarian lanterns
In the mist of some sweet afternoon
And I'll see what you've chained to your sorrow
All your sheep and your lilies of snow
Ay, Ay, Ay, AyTake this waltz, take this waltz
With its "I'll never forget you, you know!"

This waltz, this waltz, this waltz, this waltz ...

And I'll dance with you in Vienna
I'll be wearing a river's disguise
The hyacinth wild on my shoulder,
My mouth on the dew of your thighs
And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,
With the photographs there, and the moss
And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty
My cheap violin and my cross
And you'll carry me down on your dancing
To the pools that you lift on your wrist
Oh my love, Oh my love
Take this waltz, take this waltz
It's yours now. It's all that there is.

- Leonard Cohen

Into twilight.