Donna Donna

On a wagon bound for market
There's a calf with a mournful eye
High above him there's a swallow,
winging swiftly through the sky.

"Stop complaining!" said the farmer,
Who told you a calf to be?
Why don't you have wings to fly with
like the swallow so proud and free?

Calves are easily bound and slaughtered,
never knowing the reason why
But whoever treasures freedom
like the swallow has learned to fly.

Mark Twain

"Kindness is the language in which the deaf can hear and the blind can see."

Good Feeling

Vague sketch of a fantasy,
laughing at the sunrise
Like he's been up all night
Oh slippin' and slidin'
What a good time but now,
have to find a bed
that can take this wait

Good feeling,
won't you stay with me just a little longer

violent femmes

Le Vent Nous Portera

I asked you a question

Tell everybody waiting for Superman
That they should try to hold on best they can
He hasn't dropped them, forgot them, or anything
It's just too heavy for Superman to lift

flaming lips

what dreams may come

Thought is real. Physical is the illusion. Ironic, huh?

This is what you shall do:

Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men-go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers or families-re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.

walt whitman

Michael Caine

Elliot: For all my education, accomplishments and so-called wisdom, I can't fathom my own heart.

hannah and her sisters

somewhere i have never traveled

somewhere i have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

ee cummings

The Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life

“A human being may well ask an animal, ‘Why do you not speak to me of your happiness but only stand and gaze and me?’ The animal would like to answer and say, ‘The reason is I always forget what I was going to say,’ but then he forgot that answer too, and stayed silent.”

The Uses and Disadvantages of History for Life Nietzsche

Gloomy Planets

I don't blame it on the front row
don't blame it on them ruin class
cause i know they stay
don't blame it on the signals
don't blame it on the logbooks
cause i know they stray
like all the cars in new york
like all the lights on new year
like all these gloomy planets
you know they stay
anyway

notwist

My Blueberry Nights

Dear Jeremy,

In the last few days I've been learning how to not trust people. And I'm glad I failed. Sometimes we depend on other people as a mirror to define us and tell us who we are. And each reflection makes me like myself a little more.

Elizabeth

Cyrano de Bergerac

... but sing, dream, laugh,
move on, be alone, have a choice,
have a watchful eye and a powerful voice,
wear my hat awry, fight for a poem if I like
and perhaps even die

Never care about fame or fortune and even travel
to the moon
Triumph by chance on my own merit
Refuse to be the clinging ivy nor even
the oak or the lime.
Perhaps I'll not get far
But I'll get there alone.

Be Near Me When My Light Is Low

Be near me
When my light is low
When the blood creeps
And the nerves prick and tingle
And the heart is sick
And all the wheels of being slow
Be near me
When the sensuous frame
Is wracked with pangs
That conquer that...
And time
And manic scattering dust
And life
Of fury slinging flame
Be near me
When I fade away
To point the term of human strife
And the twilight
Of eternal days
And on the low dark verge of life.

lord alfred tennyson

Young Folks

usually when things has gone this far
people tend to disappear
no-one will surprise me unless you do

peter bjorn & john

Emily Dickinson

Ample make this bed
Make this bed with Awe
In it wait till Judgment break
Excellent and Fair.

Be its Mattress straight
Be its Pillow round
Let no Sunrise' yellow noise
Interrupt this Ground.

Daphne Du Maurier

"Happiness is not a possesion to be prized. It is a quality of thought, a state of mind."

Karen Eiffel

"As Harold took a bite of Bavarian sugar cookie, he finally felt as if everything was going to be okay. Sometimes, when we lose ourselves in fear and despair, in routine and constancy, in hopelessness and tragedy, we can thank God for Bavarian sugar cookies. And, fortunately, when there aren't any cookies, we can still find reassurance in a familiar hand on our skin, or a kind and loving gesture, or subtle encouragement, or a loving embrace, or an offer of comfort, not to mention hospital gurneys and nose plugs, an uneaten Danish, soft-spoken secrets, and Fender Stratocasters, and maybe the occasional piece of fiction. And we must remember that all these things, the nuances, the anomalies, the subtleties, which we assume only accessorize our days, are effective for a much larger and nobler cause. They are here to save our lives. I know the idea seems strange, but I also know that it just so happens to be true. And, so it was, a wristwatch saved Harold Crick."

stranger than fiction

Better Together

There's no combination of words
I could put on the back of a postcard
No song that I could sing
but I can try for your heart
Our dreams and they are made out of real things
like a shoebox of photographs
with sepiatone loving

jack johnson

Endgame

"You're on earth. There's no cure for that."

samuel beckett

love & some verses

Love is a dress that you made long
To hide your knees
Love to say this to your face
I'll love you only
For your days and excitement
What will you keep for to wear?
Someday drawing you different
May I be weaved in your hair?

Love and some verses you hear
Say what you can say
Love to say this in your ear
I'll love you that way
From your changing contentments
What will you choose for to share?
Someday drawing you different,
May I be weaved in your hair?

Pedro Calderon de la Barca

For all life is a dream, and dreams themselves are only dreams.

bob's 1965 tour

In waiting room at London Airport, 1965

Reporter: How long is it since you were last in London?
Dylan: About a year.
Reporter: What's the lightbulb for?
(Dylan holds up an enormous industrial lightbulb)

Dylan: What's the lightbulb for? I thought you would ask me that. No I usually carry a lightbulb. Somebody gave it to me, you know.
Reporter: Sorry, I didn't quite catch the answer
Dylan: Someone gave it to me... a very affectionate friend.
Reporter: Oh, I see.
2nd Reporter: (to Bob Neuwirth) Are you folk?
Neuwirth: Who, am I folk? No, not me. I'm not folk.
3rd Reporter: (to Dylan) What is your real message?
Dylan: My real message? Keep a good head and always carry a lightbulb.
Reporter: Have you tried?
Dylan: Well, I plugged it into my socket and the house exploded.

clip from Don't Look Back

The Origin of Love

Last time I saw you
We had just split in two.
You were looking at me.
I was looking at you.
You had a way so familiar,
But I could not recognize,
Cause you had blood on your face;
I had blood in my eyes.
But I could swear by your expression
That the pain down in your soul
Was the same as the one down in mine.
That's the pain,
Cuts a straight line
Down through the heart;
We called it love.
So we wrapped our arms around each other,
Trying to shove ourselves back together.
We were making love,
Making love.
It was a cold dark evening,
Such a long time ago,
When by the mighty hand of Jove,
It was the sad story
How we became
Lonely two-legged creatures,
It's the story of
The origin of love.
That's the origin of love.

john cameron mitchell