flahute

KEEP THE MOTH OUT OF THE FLAME

When you are trying to help someone, you have to have humor, self-existing humor, and you have to hold the moth in your hand, but not let it go into the flame. That’s what helping others means. Ladies and gentlemen, we have so much responsibility. A long time ago, people helped one another in this way. Now people just talk, talk talk. They read books, they listen to music, but they never actually help anyone. They never use their bare hands to save a person from going crazy. We have that responsibility. Somebody has to do it. It turns out to be us. We’ve got to do it, and we can do it with a smile, not with a long face.

From “Helping Others,” in GREAT EASTERN SUN: THE WISDOM OF SHAMBHALA, page 180.

NOVEMBER NIGHT

Listen. . .
With faint dry sound,
Like steps of passing ghosts,
The leaves, frost-crisp’d, break from the trees
And fall.

  — Adelaide Crapsey

IT IS THE TIME OF RAIN AND SNOW

It is the time of rain and snow
I spend sleepless nights
And watch the frost
Frail as your love
Gathers in the dawn.

  — Izumi Shikibu, translated by Kenneth Rexroth

COMING TO THE MORNING

You make me remember all of the elements
the sea remembering all of its waves

in each of the waves there was always a sky made of water
and an eye that looked once

there was the shape of one mountain
and a blood kinship with rain

and the air for touch and for the tongue
at the speed of light

in which the world is made
from a single star

and our ears
are formed of the sea as we listen

  — W.S. Merwin (b. 1927), American poet and translator.

RANCID – LAST ONE TO DIE

Everybody saying we gotta take a chance
And telling me what the hell went wrong
We only listen to the words that we sing
Now a million are singing along

(Last one)
We got it right, you got wrong,
We’re still around (Last one to die)
We’re going up, you’re going down
We’re still around (Last one to die)

The ones that counted us out
Regret that they picked the fight
We sit on top of the world
And were proving it every night

(Last one)
We got it right, you got wrong,
We’re still around (Last one to die)
We’re going up, you’re going down
We’re still around (Last one to die)

Thru the storm and the gigs
And the good and the bad
There ain’t no doubt
We knew from the very first show, what it was all about

(Last one)
We got it right, you got wrong,
We’re still around (Last one to die)
We’re going up, you’re going down
We’re still around (Last one to die)

(Last one to die)
(Last one to die)
(Come on)
(Come on)
(Come on)
(Last one to die)
(Come on)
(Come on)
(Come on)

Continuing a tradition wherein the cover version of a song is more powerful than the original … or at least different enough that it stands on it’s own as a new work.

GARY JULES/MICHAEL ANDREWS – MAD WORLD

All around me are familiar faces
Worn-out places, worn-out faces
Bright and early for the daily races
Going nowhere, going nowhere
The tears are filling up their glasses
No expression, no expression
Hide my head, I want to drown my sorrow
No tomorrow, no tomorrow

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very, very
Mad world
Mad world

Children waiting for the day they feel good
Happy birthday, happy birthday
And they feel the way that every child should
Sit and listen, sit and listen
Went to school and I was very nervous
No one knew me, no one knew me
Hello teacher, tell me what’s my lesson
Look right through me, look right through me

And I find it kind of funny
I find it kind of sad
The dreams in which I’m dying are the best I’ve ever had
I find it hard to tell you
I find it hard to take
When people run in circles it’s a very, very
Mad world
Mad world
Enlargen your world
Mad world

Just for comparison here’s the original Tears for Fears version:

I definitely think I like the cover version better, although I did dig Tears for Fears a lot back in the early-to-mid 1980s.

Tomorrow (Tuesday) is the next major primary, which could ultimately decide which Democratic candidate gets the nomination. It’s do-or-die for Hillary Clinton, because right now Barack Obama what seems to be a commanding lead, if not in delegates, then in the support of the people …

But what is still most important … no matter which candidate you support, you must get out and vote.

Just vote.

It’s not just a privilege that we have as Americans, but is truly a duty … one that everyone should do, every opportunity they get; for when the people don’t speak up, how are we to get our government to listen?

Solitude looms high,
         alone in the canyons, silence—
      take time to listen.

Copyright © 2007, Steven L. Sheffield