Wednesday, February 22, 2012

The Theory Behind Silver Bullets

Blood in an old lady's lungs
she can no longer
wheeze out thoughts
about life or death

A doctor rises cool
Dracula to night
to float a grave of corridors
bite her neck and leave

Stretchers sigh towards
a cape of red and white
fleetingly passing
rooms full of waiting

Hands so small
clocks tick recklessly on

Saturday, February 11, 2012

Possibilities - Wislawa Szymborska

Possibilities

I prefer movies.
I prefer cats.
I prefer the oaks along the Warta.
I prefer Dickens to Dostoyevsky.
I prefer myself liking people
to myself loving mankind.
I prefer keeping a needle and thread on hand, just in case.
I prefer the color green.
I prefer not to maintain
that reason is to blame for everything.
I prefer exceptions.
I prefer to leave early.
I prefer talking to doctors about something else.
I prefer the old fine-lined illustrations.
I prefer the absurdity of writing poems
to the absurdity of not writing poems.
I prefer, where love's concerned, nonspecific anniversaries
that can be celebrated every day.
I prefer moralists
who promise me nothing.
I prefer cunning kindness to the over-trustful kind.
I prefer the earth in civvies.
I prefer conquered to conquering countries.
I prefer having some reservations.
I prefer the hell of chaos to the hell of order.
I prefer Grimms' fairy tales to the newspapers' front pages.
I prefer leaves without flowers to flowers without leaves.
I prefer dogs with uncropped tails.
I prefer light eyes, since mine are dark.
I prefer desk drawers.
I prefer many things that I haven't mentioned here
to many things I've also left unsaid.
I prefer zeroes on the loose
to those lined up behind a cipher.
I prefer the time of insects to the time of stars.
I prefer to knock on wood.
I prefer not to ask how much longer and when.
I prefer keeping in mind even the possibility
that existence has its own reason for being.

By Wislawa Szymborska
From "Nothing Twice", 1997
Translated by S. Baranczak & C. Cavanagh

Sunday, February 5, 2012

Who Can I Turn To - Sammy Davis Jr

Who can I turn to when nobody needs me?
My heart wants to know and so I must go 
where destiny leads me 
With no star to guide me
and no one beside me 
I'll go on my way and, after the day, 
the darkness will hide me  
And maybe tomorrow 
I'll find what I'm after 
I'll throw off my sorrow, 
beg, steal, or borrow my share of laughter 
With you I could learn to, 
with you what a new day 
But who can I turn to if you turn away?  
With you I could learn to, 
with you what a new day 
But who can I turn to if you turn away?