Poem of the Day

[Tillamook]

 

Song of the Andoumboulou: 85 By Nathaniel Mackey

 

Came now to another crossroads.

Stick people stood awaiting us, to

the left, straight ahead, to the right.

What was that song you sang,

they

asked, spoke without sound sound’s

immanence, not without song but

only one song, the one song summon­-

ing song’s eclipse... The one song

sang

song’s inconsequence, crooned it

could not’ve been otherwise, song

song’s own lament... The one

song sang song’s irrelevance, we

were

exhausted, we looked straight ahead,

left,

right. The stick people’s question fa­-

tigued us, glyphed riddle whose

decipherment they said we’d someday

be,

exegetes against our will... Lack,

reluctance, pallor, eidolon. Crossroads

cryptogram, they themselves were sing-

­ing, nothing not what could be seen they

said,

soul not sign if not eyelight, song more

what could be seen than they could

say, wan unwillingness they said... Slick

stick

people, tricky, soul a sick thing they said...

Signs all said Stick City. Stick City straight

ahead, to the left, to the right, signs pointed

every

which way... Stick sublimity sent us reeling,

a we that wasn’t we against one that was. Mass,

intangible we it was we were, beads thrown off

in a row... We’d have given anything to get to

Stick

City and there we were. Whatever way we

took would take us there. Stick City loomed

ahead and to the left and to the right, any which

way but in back of us, Stick City meant no

turning back... Signs all said Stick City. We

read

them all out loud, “Stick City.” “Styxicity,”

Itamar

quipped... It wasn’t water we crossed, it wasn’t

hell we were in. Stick City housed our hearts’

desires we were told, Stick City stood without

end or assistance, line long since what stuck...

Line

was all point, point all extensity, stick’s own

deictic drop... No longer point less point than

point’s target, Stick City made them one and the

same... So it was on to where the signs said next,

Stick

the one place we were yet to arrive at, Diddie Wa

Diddie’s twin. A winding road it now was we were

on, so curved we could see our backs. No work,

no worry up ahead we heard, music’s utopic

stir...

Hogs lay stuck with knives and forks, chickens

likewise we heard. A wall of beats for backup, Stick

City

way off somewhere... As quick as that we were there,

Stick City. It wasn’t the way we heard it was. Everyone

limped, walked with a cane, no way how we heard it

was...

As quick as that there we were. Stick City lay before

us, lied about. Legbaland it might’ve been... Diddie Wa

Diddie’s non-identical twin if twin it was, no way the

way

we heard it

was

 

 

 

•

 

Stick-figure escorts ushered us in,

pointed out what was what. Stick

people's gait was flawless, they

said, unstick people limped on

sticks...

A strand of horsehair lay in the

road, hair from a horse's tail. Come

rain it became a snake, would-be stick

though

Stick City said no... It was getting

to

be late again, the arcade's light less

intense... Come night we lay under

a horse, shouted voiceless trying

to wake each other up and woke up,

coiled

hair stiffened with earwax, as if at last

we were Stick City's own... Not

so we saw soon enough. No home, no

haven was it, noise what of it we could

keep...

West L.A. it might've been, Saint-Pierre

it might've been wélélé no matter where

we were... Stick symphony. Ictic sashay...

Head bob atop watery neck, nod homage,

noise,

names came loose. What of it we kept we

kept in name only, “Stick City” ours

to hold on to. Chance it might've meant,

I Ching, no place but we were long since

gone...

Where sign had been sound X marked it,

stick bisected stick. Signal some said, noise's

alternate, half where we were nowhere near

where

we were, were where's discontent... It was getting

to be light again, noise the new day's largesse.

Sound was what sign turned out from, sound

itself exed out... What the song was we sang

no

longer what we were asked, stick inquisitors

gathered, mum to the bone. Frown, furrowed

brow, grimace the glyphs met us, faces

lined up in a row. Line was what pressed us,

point egged us on, what the song was we

sang

no song we sang, what the song was we sang

moot... The strand-of-horsehair-become-a-snake

became a rope around our necks, rope what the

song we sang was. We'd have given anything

to

say Stick City was where we were... Breath it

was

we gave, rope round our necks... We were neck-

less, bobbing heads, barbershop xtet, calabashes

hit with sticks. Whatever we were, whatever

noise there was we made ours. “This is our

dispatch,” we said... Euphemistic necktie,

eu-

phemistic float. Horsehair tickling the tops

of our throats. Wet, euphemistic scruff... As it was

getting to be noon we got our necks and bodies

back. A cartoon watch dog bit us, a pinscher

with

painted lips. We were stick people now, initiates.

Stick

legs only a blur, we were running, pant legs and hem-

lines ripped... Cross. Chiliasm. Crisis. Stick bisected

stick. More hopeless the less we needed it, less

real the more shot with stick vaccine, less real the

more

stick we were... Stick inquisitors fell away as we went

in. Stick City disappeared as we ran deeper. Too

late to turn back, we were twigs, kindling, dispatch

gone

up in smoke... We were jíbaros, hicks, cuatro ping

in

back of us, howled, “Aylelolay lolelay.” We stood

absorbed in what felt like advent. We stood on a plane

cut thru an adverse cone. Low, rummaging burr, the

sound we sought sought us, we the make-believe dead

more

dead than we knew... Syllabic run was more alive than we

were, bass clack bugling disaster, brute sun outside the

nod

house door

 

 

 

______________

 

Crossroads though it was it seemed an

impasse, stick as in stuck we thought. Stick

as in stone's accomplice, Quag's bone-

yard remit... Insofar as there was an

I it fell in, a brass bell's everted lips

now

convergent, shush we were hollowed by.

Insofar as there was an I it was as each of us

insisted, as far as there was an I, stick

beating stick, there was an X... Crux...

Cross...

Crutch... Legs' Osirian soulstrut lost,

Legbaland it was and we limped on, limped

in, Stick City's outskirts endless it

seemed, no matter we leaned on sticks...

Were

there an I it stood like a stick, mum-stuff

crossing itself. Insofar as there was

an I it was an X taking shape, there but

to be gone if not no sooner there than gone,

glass

house holding

its own

 

 

 

______________

 

We knew we wore skeleton suits. We knew

we walked holding placards. “Dead from

Day One” they read, part requiem, part

rebuke... What lay around us had the

sound

of steam. Low-motion lurk. Time-lapse cascade.

Stick City city limits notwithstanding, glass

intangibles allowed what was lost otherwise,

gripless

in the house outside the house... It slipped

away and we slipped away and it slipped away,

Stick

City a mirage nod concocted, not to be be-

lieved but we did though it receded, nod Nub's

emic

retreat

 

[Tillamook]

The Belle of the Ball by Winthrop Mackworth Praed

 

YEARS, years ago, ere yet my dreams

Had been of being wise or witty,

Ere I had done with writing themes,

Or yawned o’er this infernal Chitty,—

Years, years ago, while all my joys

Were in my fowling-piece and filly;

In short, while I was yet a boy,

I fell in love with Laura Lilly.

 

I saw her at the county ball;

There, when the sounds of flute and fiddle

Gave signal sweet in that old hall

Of hands across and down the middle,

Hers was the subtlest spell by far

Of all that sets young hearts romancing:

She was our queen, our rose, our star;

And then she danced,—O Heaven! her dancing.

 

Dark was her hair; her hand was white;

Her voice was exquisitely tender;

Her eyes were full of liquid light;

I never saw a waist so slender;

Her every look, her every smile,

Shot right and left a score of arrows:

I thought ’t was Venus from her isle,

And wondered where she ’d left her sparrows.

 

She talked of politics or prayers,

Of Southey’s prose or Wordsworth’s sonnets,

Of danglers or of dancing bears,

Of battles or the last new bonnets;

By candle-light, at twelve o’clock,—

To me it mattered not a tittle,—

If those bright lips had quoted Locke,

I might have thought they murmured Little.

 

Through sunny May, through sultry June,

I loved her with a love eternal;

I spoke her praises to the moon,

I wrote them to the Sunday Journal.

My mother laughed; I soon found out

That ancient ladies have no feeling:

My father frowned; but how should gout

See any happiness in kneeling?

 

She was the daughter of a dean,—

Rich, fat, and rather apoplectic;

She had one brother just thirteen,

Whose color was extremely hectic;

Her grandmother for many a year

Had fed the parish with her bounty;

Her second cousin was a peer,

And lord-lieutenant of the county.

 

But titles and the three-per-cents,

And mortgages, and great relations,

And India bonds, and tithes and rents,

O, what are they to love’s sensations?

Black eyes, fair forehead, clustering locks,—

Such wealth, such honors Cupid chooses;

He cares as little for the stocks

As Baron Rothschild for the muses.

 

She sketched; the vale, the wood, the beach,

Grew lovelier from her pencil’s shading:

She botanized; I envied each

Young blossom in her boudoir fading:

She warbled Handel; it was grand,—

She made the Catilina jealous:

She touched the organ; I could stand

For hours and hours to blow the bellows.

 

She kept an album too, at home,

Well filled with all an album’s glories,—

Paintings of butterflies and Rome,

Patterns for trimmings, Persian stories,

Soft songs to Julia’s cockatoo,

Fierce odes to famine and to slaughter,

And autographs of Prince Leeboo,

And recipes for elder-water.

 

And she was flattered, worshipped, bored;

Her steps were watched, her dress was noted;

Her poodle-dog was quite adored;

Her sayings were extremely quoted.

She laughed,—and every heart was glad,

As if the taxes were abolished;

She frowned,—and every look was sad,

As if the opera were demolished.

 

She smiled on many just for fun,—

I knew that there was nothing in it;

I was the first, the only one,

Her heart had thought of for a minute.

I knew it, for she told me so,

In phrase which was divinely moulded;

She wrote a charming hand,—and O,

How sweetly all her notes were folded!

 

Our love was most like other loves,—

A little glow, a little shiver,

A rosebud and a pair of gloves,

And “Fly Not Yet,” upon the river;

Some jealousy of some one’s heir,

Some hopes of dying broken-hearted;

A miniature, a lock of hair,

The usual vows,—and then we parted.

 

We parted: months and years rolled by;

We met again four summers after.

Our parting was all sob and sigh,

Our meeting was all mirth and laughter!

For in my heart’s most secret cell

There had been many other lodgers;

And she was not the ball-room’s belle,

But only Mrs.—Something—Rogers!

[Tillamook]

Echo and the Lover by Anonymous

 

Lover. Echo! mysterious nymph, declare

Of what you ’re made, and what you are.

 

Echo. Air!

 

Lover. Mid airy cliffs and places high,

Sweet Echo! listening love, you lie.

 

Echo. You lie!

 

Lover. Thou dost resuscitate dead sounds,—

Hark! how my voice revives, resounds!

 

Echo. Zounds!

 

Lover. I ’ll question thee before I go,—

Come, answer me more apropos!

 

Echo. Poh! poh!

 

Lover. Tell me, fair nymph, if e’er you saw

So sweet a girl as Phœbe Shaw.

 

Echo. Pshaw!

 

Lover. Say, what will turn that frisking coney

Into the toils of matrimony?

 

Echo. Money!

 

Lover. Has Phœbe not a heavenly brow?

Is not her bosom white as snow?

 

Echo. Ass! No!

 

Lover. Her eyes! was ever such a pair?

Are the stars brighter than they are?

 

Echo. They are!

 

Lover. Echo, thou liest, but can’t deceive me.

 

Echo. Leave me!

 

Lover. But come, thou saucy, pert romancer,

Who is as fair as Phœbe? Answer!

 

Echo. Ann, sir.

[Tillamook]

Bitter and Sweet by Ahmed I. Diriye Qasim,

 

 

Consider the aloe - how bitter is its taste!

Yet sometimes there wells up a sap so sweet

That it seems like honey in your mouth.

 

Side by side the sweet and bitter run

Just as they do, my friends, in me,

As I switch from sweet to bitter

And back to sweet again.

 

My two hands, right and left, are twins.

One twin gives food to strangers and to guests,

It sustains the weak and guides them.

 

But the other is a slashing, cutting knife -

As sharp to the taste as myrrh,

As bitter as the aloe.

 

Do not suppose I am the kind of man

Who walks along one path, and that path only.

 

I go one way, and seem a reasonable man,

I provoke no one, I have the best of natures

I go another, and I'm obstinate and bold,

Striking out at others without cause.

 

Sometimes I seem a learned man of God

Who retreats in ascetic zeal to a seclude sanctuary -

I turn again and I'm a crazy libertine,

Sneakily snatching whatever I can get.

 

I am counted as one of the elders of the clan,

Esteemed for my wisdom, tact and skill in argument,

But within me there dwells a mere townee, too -

A no-good layabout he is, at that.

 

I'm a man whose gullet will allow no passage

For food that believers are forbidden to eat,

And yet I'm a pernicious, hardened thief -

The property of even the Prophet himself

Would not be safe from me.

 

I have my place among the holy saints,

I am one of the foremost of their leaders,

But at times I hold high rank in Satan's retinue,

And then my lords and masters are the jinns.

 

It's no good trying to weigh me up -

I can't be balanced on a pair of scales.

 

From this day to that my very colour changes -

Nay, I'm a man whose aspect alters

As morning turns to evening

And back once more to morning.

 

Muslims and infidels - I know their minds

And understand them through and through.

 

"He's ours!" the angels of Hell proclaim of me

"No, ours!" the angels of Heaven protest.

 

I have, then, all these striking qualities

Which no one can ignore -

But who can really know my mind?

 

Only a grey-head who has lived for many days

And learned to measure what men are worth.

 

And now, my friends, each man of you -

If either of the paths I follow

Takes your fancy and delights your heart,

Or even if you cannot bear to lose

 

The entertainment I provide,

Then come to me along the path -

You're free to make a choice!

 

- Translation

by, B. W. Andrzejewski with Sheila Andrzejewski

 

 

***** ***** **** **** ***** *****

Original Somali version:

 

Macaan iyo Qadhaadh ... Gabaygii Axmad I. Diriye Qasim(Eebe Jano Fardawso ha ka waraabiyee)

 

1. Dacartuba marbay malab dhashaa ood muudsataa dhabaqe

 

2. Waxan ahay macaan iyo qadhaadh meel ku wada yaalle

 

3. Midigtayda iyo bidixdu waa laba mataanoode

 

4. Midi waa martida soora iyo maata daadihise

 

5. Midina waa mindiyo xiirayiyo mur iyo deebaaqe

 

6. Masalooyin talantaalliyaan maandhow leeyahaye

 

7. Nin majiira keliyuun qabsada hay malayninae

 

8. Marbaan ahay muddeex camal san oon maagista aqoone

 

9. Marna macangag laayaanahoo miiggan baan ahaye

 

10. Marbaan ahay muftiga saahidnimo mawlacaw gala'e

 

11. Marna Mukhawi waashoo xumaha miista baan ahaye

 

12. Marbaan ahay nin xaaraan maqdaxa aan marin jidiinkise

 

13. Marna tuug mu'diya baan ahoon maal Rasuul bixinne

 

14. Marbaan ahay maqaam awliyaad maqaddinkoodiiye

 

15. Marna mudanka shaydaanka iyo maal jinbaan ahaye

 

16. Marbaan ahay murtiyo baanisaba madaxda reeraaye

 

17. Oo ay weliba muuniyo dulqaad igu majeertaane

 

18. Marna reer magaal Loofaroon muuqan baan ahaye

 

19. Waxan ahay nin midabbeeya oo maalinbays rogae

 

20. Muuqaygu gelinkiiba waa muunad goonniyahe

 

21. Miisaanna ima saari karo nin i maleeyaaye

 

22. Muslinka iyo gaalada dirkaba waan micna aqaane

 

23. Malaa'iigta naartiyo jannadu waygu murantaaye

 

24. Ninkii maalmo badan soo jiree madaxu boosaystay

 

25. Ee inan rag maamuli yiqiin waa I maan garanne

 

26. ninkasta halkii kuula mudan ee ay muhato laabtaadu

 

27. Ee aanad madadaaladeed ugala maarmaynin

 

28. Iska soo mar waa kuu bannaan marinkad doontaaye

[Aroori]

i wonder if there is a Vogon style somali gabay somewhere out there.

[Tillamook]

Break Of Day In The Trenches By Isaac Rosenberg

 

 

The darkness crumbles away -

It is the same old druid Time as ever.

 

Only a live thing leaps my hand -

A queer sardonic rat -

As I pull the parapet's poppy

To stick behind my ear.

 

Droll rat, they would shoot you if they knew

Your cosmopolitan sympathies

(And God knows what antipathies).

Now you have touched this English hand

You will do the same to a German -

Soon, no doubt, if it be your pleasure

To cross the sleeping green between.

 

It seems you inwardly grin as you pass

Strong eyes, fine limbs, haughty athletes

Less chanced than you for life;

Bonds to the whims of murder,

Sprawled in the bowels of the earth,

The torn fields of France.

 

What do you see in our eyes

At the shrieking iron and flame

Hurled through still heavens?

What quaver - what heart aghast?

Poppies whose roots are in man's veins

Drop, and are ever dropping;

But mine in my ear is safe,

Just a little white with the dust.

[Tillamook]

A Poison Tree by William Blake

 

I was angry with my friend:

I told my wrath, my wrath did end.

I was angry with my foe:

I told it not, my wrath did grow.

 

And I watered it in fears,

Night and morning with my tears;

And I sunned it with smiles,

And with soft deceitful wiles.

 

And it grew both day and night,

Till it bore an apple bright.

And my foe beheld it shine.

And he knew that it was mine,

 

And into my garden stole

When the night had veiled the pole;

In the morning glad I see

My foe outstretched beneath the tree.

[Tillamook]

All The World's A Stage by William Shakespeare

 

All the world's a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first, the infant,

Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side;

His youthful hose, well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank, and his big manly voice,

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

[Tillamook]

Dulce Et Decorum Est by Wilfred Owen

 

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned out backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame, all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

 

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys! - An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime.-

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

 

In all my dreams before my helpless sight

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

 

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin,

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,-

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.

[Tillamook]

Ways of Rebelling By Nathalie Handal

 

Who needs to be at peace in the world? It helps to be between wars, to die

a few times each day to understand your father's sky, as you take it apart

piece by piece and can't feel anything, can't feel the tree growing under

your feet, the eyes poking night only to find another night to compare it to.

Whoever heard of turning pain into hummingbirds or red birds—

haven't we grown? What does it mean to be older? Maybe a house with-

out doors can still survive a storm. Maybe I can't find the proper way to

rebel or damn it, I can't leave. I want to, but you grow inside of me. And

as I watch you, before I know it, I'm too heavy, too full of you to move.

Maybe that's what they meant when they said you shouldn't love a country

too much.

[Tillamook]

Churchill's grave by Lord Byron

(A fact literally rendered)

 

I stood beside the grave of him who blazed

The Comet of a season, and I saw

The humblest of all sepulchres, and grazed

With not the less of sorrow and of awe

On that neglected Turf and quiet stone

With no name clearer than the names unknown,

Which lay unread around it; and I asked

The Gardener of that ground, why it might be

That for this plant strangers his memory tasked,

Through the thick deaths of half a century;

And thus he answered––“ Well, I do not know

Why frequent travellers turn to pilgrims so;

He died before my day of Sextonship,

And I had not the digging of this grave.”

And is this all ? I thought,––and do we rip

The veil of Immortality, and crave

I know not what of honour and of light

Through unborn ages, to endure this blight?

So soon and so successless ? As I said,

The Architect of all on which we tread,

For earth is but a tombstone, did essay

To extricate remembrance from the clay,

Whose minglings might confuse a Newton’s thought,

Were it not that all life must end in one,

Of which we are but dreamers ;––as he caught

As ’twere the twilight of a former Sun,

Thus spoke he,––“ I believe the man of whom

You wot, who lies in this selected tomb,

Was a most famous writer in his day,

And therefore travellers step from out their way 30

To pay him honour,––and myself whate’er

Your honour pleases:”––then most pleased I shook

from out my pocket’s avaricious nook

Some certain coins of silver, which as ’twere

Perforce I gave this man, thought I could spare

So much but inconveniently:––Ye smile,

I see ye, ye profane ones! all the while,

Because my homely phrase the truth would tell.

You are the fools, not I––for I did dwell

With a deep thought, and with a softened eye,

On that old Sexton’s natural homily, Kanzelrede

In which there was Obscurity and Fame––

The Glory and the Nothing of a Name.

 

[Haatu]

@Tillamook

said:

Bitter and Sweet

by Ahmed I. Diriye Qasim,

 

 

***** ***** **** **** ***** *****

Original Somali version:

 

Macaan iyo Qadhaadh

... Gabaygii Axmad I. Diriye Qasim(Eebe Jano Fardawso ha ka waraabiyee)

 

1. Dacartuba marbay malab dhashaa ood muudsataa dhabaqe

 

2. Waxan ahay macaan iyo qadhaadh meel ku wada yaalle

 

3. Midigtayda iyo bidixdu waa laba mataanoode

 

4. Midi waa martida soora iyo maata daadihise

 

5. Midina waa mindiyo xiirayiyo mur iyo deebaaqe

 

6. Masalooyin talantaalliyaan maandhow leeyahaye

 

7. Nin majiira keliyuun qabsada hay malayninae

 

8. Marbaan ahay muddeex camal san oon maagista aqoone

 

9. Marna macangag laayaanahoo miiggan baan ahaye

 

10. Marbaan ahay muftiga saahidnimo mawlacaw gala'e

 

11. Marna Mukhawi waashoo xumaha miista baan ahaye

 

12. Marbaan ahay nin xaaraan maqdaxa aan marin jidiinkise

 

13. Marna tuug mu'diya baan ahoon maal Rasuul bixinne

 

14. Marbaan ahay maqaam awliyaad maqaddinkoodiiye

 

15. Marna mudanka shaydaanka iyo maal jinbaan ahaye

 

16. Marbaan ahay murtiyo baanisaba madaxda reeraaye

 

17. Oo ay weliba muuniyo dulqaad igu majeertaane

 

18. Marna reer magaal Loofaroon muuqan baan ahaye

 

19. Waxan ahay nin midabbeeya oo maalinbays rogae

 

20. Muuqaygu gelinkiiba waa muunad goonniyahe

 

21. Miisaanna ima saari karo nin i maleeyaaye

 

22. Muslinka iyo gaalada dirkaba waan micna aqaane

 

23. Malaa'iigta naartiyo jannadu waygu murantaaye

 

24. Ninkii maalmo badan soo jiree madaxu boosaystay

 

25. Ee inan rag maamuli yiqiin waa I maan garanne

 

26. ninkasta halkii kuula mudan ee ay muhato laabtaadu

 

27. Ee aanad madadaaladeed ugala maarmaynin

 

28. Iska soo mar waa kuu bannaan marinkad doontaaye

 

:D This is one of the most entertaining Somali poems I have ever read. Are there any more gabayo like this one?

[Tillamook]

A Worker Reads History by Bertolt Brecht

 

Who built the seven gates of Thebes?

The books are filled with names of kings.

Was it the kings who hauled the craggy blocks of stone?

And Babylon, so many times destroyed.

Who built the city up each time? In which of Lima's houses,

That city glittering with gold, lived those who built it?

In the evening when the Chinese wall was finished

Where did the masons go? Imperial Rome

Is full of arcs of triumph. Who reared them up? Over whom

Did the Caesars triumph? Byzantium lives in song.

Were all her dwellings palaces? And even in Atlantis of the legend

The night the seas rushed in,

The drowning men still bellowed for their slaves.

 

Young Alexander conquered India.

He alone?

Caesar beat the Gauls.

Was there not even a cook in his army?

Phillip of Spain wept as his fleet

was sunk and destroyed. Were there no other tears?

Frederick the Great triumphed in the Seven Years War.

Who triumphed with him?

 

Each page a victory

At whose expense the victory ball?

Every ten years a great man,

Who paid the piper?

 

So many particulars.

So many questions.

[Tillamook]

 

"Ball Of Confusion (That's What The World Is Today)" by The Temptations

 

1, 2... 1, 2, 3, 4, Ow!

 

[Eddie:]

People moving out, people moving in. Why, because of the color of their skin.

Run, run, run but you sure can't hide. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.

Vote for me and I'll set you free. Rap on, brother, rap on.

Dennis: Well, the only person talking about love thy brother is the...(preacher.)

And it seems nobody's interested in learning but the...(teacher.)

Segregation, determination, demonstration, integration, Aggravation, humiliation, obligation to our nation.

Ball of confusion. Oh yeah, that's what the world is today. Woo, hey, hey.

 

[Paul:]

The sale of pills are at an all time high.

Young folks walking round with their heads in the sky.

The cities ablaze in the summer time.

And oh, the beat goes on.

 

[Dennis:]

Evolution, revolution, gun control, sound of soul.

Shooting rockets to the moon, kids growing up too soon.

Politicians say more taxes will solve everything.

 

[Melvin:]

And the band played on.

So, round and around and around we go.

Where the world's headed, nobody knows.

 

[instrumental]

Oh, great googalooga, can't you hear me talking to you.

Just a ball of confusion.

Oh yeah, that's what the world is today.

Woo, hey, hey.

 

[Eddie:]

Fear in the air, tension everywhere.

Unemployment rising fast, the Beatles new record's a gas.

 

[Dennis:]

And the only safe place to live is on an Indian reservation.

 

[Melvin:]

And the band played on.

Eve of destruction, tax deduction, city inspectors, bill collectors,

Mod clothes in demand, population out of hand, suicide, too many bills,

Hippies moving to the hills. People all over the world are shouting, 'End the war.'

 

[Melvin:]

And the band played on.

 

[instrumental]

Great googalooga, can't you hear me talking to you.

Sayin'... ball of confusion.

That's what the world is today, hey, hey.

Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya.

Sayin'... ball of confusion.

That's what the world is today, hey, hey.

Let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya, let me hear ya.

Sayin'... ball of confusion.

 

[Tillamook]

Fire and Ice By Robert Frost

 

Some say the world will end in fire,

Some say in ice.

From what I’ve tasted of desire

I hold with those who favor fire.

But if it had to perish twice,

I think I know enough of hate

To say that for destruction ice

Is also great

And would suffice.