V - So That You Will Hear Me
So that you will hear me
my words
sometimes grow thin
as the tracks of the gulls on the beaches.
Necklace, drunken bell
for your hands smooth as grapes.
And I watch my words from a long way off.
They are more yours than mine.
They climb on my old suffering like ivy.
It climbs the same way on damp walls.
You are to blame for this cruel sport.
They are fleeing from my dark lair.
You fill everything, you fill everything.
Before you they peopled the solitude that you occupy,
and they are more used to my sadness than you are.
Now I want them to say what I want to say to you
to make you hear as I want you to hear me.
The wind of anguish still hauls on them as usual.
Sometimes hurricanes of dreams still knock them over.
You listen to other voices in my painful voice.
Lament of old mouths, blood of old supplications.
Love me, companion. Don’t forsake me. Follow me.
Follow me, companion, on this wave of anguish.
But my words become stained with your love.
You occupy everything, you occupy everything.
I am making them into an endless necklace
for your white hands, smooth as grapes.
——
X - We Have Lost Even
We have lost even this twilight.
No one saw us this evening hand in hand
while the blue night dropped on the world.
I have seen from my window
the fiesta of sunset in the distant mountain tops.
Sometimes a piece of sun
burned like a coin in my hand.
I remembered you with my soul clenched
in that sadness of mine that you know.
Where were you then?
Who else was there?Saying what?
Why will the whole of love come on me suddenly
when I am sad and feel you are far away?
The book fell that always closed at twilight
and my blue sweater rolled like a hurt dog at my feet.
Always, always you recede through the evenings
toward the twilight erasing statues.
——
A Song of Despair
The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.
Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!
Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.
In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.
You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!
It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.
Pilot’s dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!
In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!
I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.
Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.
Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.
There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.
There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
There were grief and ruins, and you were the miracle.
Ah woman, I do not know how you could contain me
in the earth of your soul, in the cross of your arms!
How terrible and brief my desire was to you!
How difficult and drunken, how tensed and avid.
Cemetery of kisses, there is still fire in your tombs,
still the fruited boughs burn, pecked at by birds.
Oh the bitten mouth, oh the kissed limbs,
oh the hungering teeth, oh the entwined bodies.
Oh the mad coupling of hope and force
in which we merged and despaired.
And the tenderness, light as water and as flour.
And the word scarcely begun on the lips.
This was my destiny and in it was my voyage of my longing,
and in it my longing fell, in you everything sank!
Oh pit of debris, everything fell into you,
what sorrow did you not express, in what sorrow are you not
drowned!
From billow to billow you still called and sang.
Standing like a sailor in the prow of a vessel.
You still flowered in songs, you still brike the currents.
Oh pit of debris, open and bitter well.
Pale blind diver, luckless slinger,
lost discoverer, in you everything sank!
It is the hour of departure, the hard cold hour
which the night fastens to all the timetables.
The rustling belt of the sea girdles the shore.
Cold stars heave up, black birds migrate.
Deserted like the wharves at dawn.
Only tremulous shadow twists in my hands.
Oh farther than everything. Oh farther than everything.
It is the hour of departure. Oh abandoned one!
About a year ago I watched a video of Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Melon University. He was participating in a lecture series there called “The Last Lecture”, in which professors delivered a speech as if it were their last. And in his case, it was. He was terminally ill with cancer and was only left with a few months of good health.
This made me consider my life from a different perspective- as if I only had months to live too. I considered what I would say to the people I love most, and to people I’ve never met.
I’d tell people to find the heroes in their lives, and thank them endlessly. I think one of the most important principles in life is to find a hero that you have direct contact with, someone who is actually a part of your life. As much as society admires the untouchable people in the world, I find that it’s so much more important to find unbelievable qualities in the people you already know. They’re a lot cooler than they may seem.
There are a few people in my life that I wish I could share with the entire world, and these are the people I call my heroes. They’re people I see and speak to regularly, and have directly influenced my decisions and growth as a person. I’m so lucky to have had so many wonderful people influence me, and I sincerely believe that every other living thing would only benefit from having known them. I almost feel guilty for not being able to share them more broadly.
I would tell people to catch themselves when they say “I’ve always wanted to…” and write down those things. And make sure you find time to do them, regardless of cost or inconvenience. I believe it’s so important to live a life full of wonderful and spontaneous things that you cherish as your most genuine memories. Even the simplest of activities, like wanting to catch your first fish, can be something you’ll carry with you forever because you made the decision that it was something you wanted, and you made it happen. Although it doesn’t seem like a big deal, it is. Because you’re seeing yourself putting plans to action.
I would recommend that people not make decisions about another person based on anything negative. Randy said in his own speech that if you wait long enough, even seemingly bad people will surprise you- eventually they will have to show you their good side. I believe this to be absolutely true. The people in my life who I have doubted, resented and fought against most are the ones I’m closest to and most trusting with now. If you wait long enough, these people will be worthwhile, and in my case they have been a large reward of a little bit of patience.
I would tell people not to resort to bitterness and sarcasm as a coping mechanism. This means you’ve lost a great deal of respect for someone you once cared about, and really it’s more of a loss to you than it is to the other person. When you become bitter you stop appreciating anything positive that that person had ever done in the past, and any moments you once cherished having spent with them. I don’t believe that the bitterness is ever worth the loss of the appreciation you once felt towards this person for simply being a part of your life. Although your relationship may have altered, this doesn’t mean it needs to be seen as negative. There are certain people in our lives that are only meant to be there for short periods of time- enough time to show us a part of ourselves that we hadn’t known before. To be bitter with these people for leaving you is only doing yourself a disservice. You really need to be thanking whatever higher power you believe in for sharing that person with you, and appreciating how your life has benefitted from having known them.
Finally, I would tell people not to be afraid to fall in love. I read in a novel once that one person can claim to love two different people at the very same time, without betraying either of them. It sounds horrible really, but it’s a matter of perspective. There are endless different kinds of love, and no matter how much you analyze it, we love every person in a completely different sense. Even romantic love varies so deeply, as we fall in love with people for different reasons. People avoid the word love because of a weight they feel that it comes with, a sense of burden- when really, love isn’t a burden at all. Love is a sense of freedom, and it becomes true when you admit to yourself that it’s real.
My dear friend Chris, in a short documentary made by his mother while attending Vancouver Film Academy.
SLAM spoken word poetry by mike mcgee called ‘a letter to neil armstrong’. one of my favorites.
I’ve done a lot in a year. I moved away from home for the very first time, which proved to be both completely exhilerating and terrifying at the same time. I lost a very dear friend and teacher whose death opened my eyes to so many beautiful aspects of my life that I forgot mattered. I joined a new pipe band, where I’ve met some seriously wonderful people and had the most fun memories of my life with only one year under my belt and many more to follow. I lost and eventually let go of some people who I trusted and loved greatly. And looking back at the things I wrote a year ago, I’ve realized that I don’t feel the same about a lot of those things now. I don’t claim my ideas were wrong, because at one point in time they were exactly how I saw things. My ideas now are just different, and comparing them brings into perspective just how much a year in your life is worth in terms of personal growth.
I spent a good portion of this year believing that there were certain people in my life that I was indebted to. It wasn’t really a conscious belief, but once I recognized that it was there I could clearly see all the ways it manifested itself in my relationships. Gratitude is one thing, but the truth is, none of us owe anything to anyone else for our achievements. The mentality that someone else has gotten you to where you are today is jaded. No matter how much assistance, support, or encouragement you may have acquired from other people, your achievements are yours to cherish. Devoting your life to someone other than yourself is so dangerous because it happens subconsciously. Luckily, I had someone very dear in my life approach me in complete honesty, afraid that I didn’t see what was happening. It’s not at all simple to begin to reverse, but just acknowledging it and actively reminding yourself that you deserve your accomplishments is a huge step.
In the words of Deepak Chopra, “The quickest way to be happy is to make someone else happy.” I have always been an absolute believer of this statement. And not necessarily because I look for the fast track to happiness, but because I just honestly feel more truly happy when I do someone for the benefit of others rather than just myself. I’ve had wonderful, intelligent, and wise people try to convince me that this kind of mentality only jeopardizes my relationship with myself, but I don’t believe it. There would only be one person on the planet if God (or whoever) intended for human beings to be completely self-reliant. I’ll admit that I’vehad a lot of relationships where I’ve ended up caring a great deal more about someone than they cared about me, and of course it hurt, but caring mostly comes naturally and one can’t blame themselves for what is natural. When caring is seen as a choice, that’s when blame can become attached to it. I’ll admit that I’ve blamed myself this year for letting myself care too much about certain people, but it’s really just a case of recognizing when it happens and being aware that you’re putting more into the relationship than you can expect to get back. It’s at that point of awareness when caring becomes a choice.
| Stewart: | I'm actually extremely impressed by the song. |
| Ashley: | really? |
| Stewart: | Like seriously, |
| This beat is sick | |
| I wanna take a ride on your disco stick | |
| Fucking where did I leave my shotgun? |
my lovely friend ellen plays amy. it was made in res. impressive, right? also check out their interpretation of lady gaga’s ‘love game’. golden.
