NEW PORNOGRAPHERS - MYRIAD HARBOUR

I took a plane, I took a train.
Ah! Who cares? You always end up in the city.
I said to Carl: “look up for once,
See just how the sun sets in the sky.”
I said to John: “do you think the girls here
Ever wonder how they got so pretty?”
- Well, I do. -

Look out upon the Myriad Harbour
Look out upon the Myriad Harbour
Look out upon the Myriad Harbour

All the boys with their homemade microphones
Have very interesting sounds.
All the girls fall into ruin
Droppin’ out of school, breakin’ Daddies’ hearts
Just to hang around.

I walked into the local record store
And asked for an American music anthology
It sounds fun.
They tore at my skirt and stuck it on the walls at PS1.

I took a plane, I took a train.
Ah! Who cares? You always end up in the city.
Stranded at Bleecker and Broadway
And looking for something to do.
Someone somewhere asked me: “is there anything in
particular I can help you with?”
All I ever wanted help with was you.

Look out upon the Myriad Harbour
Look out upon the Myriad Harbour
Look out upon the Myriad Harbour
Look out upon the Myriad Harbour

GOSPEL NOBLE TRUTHS

Born in this world        Sit you sit down
You got to suffer        Breathe when you breathe
Everything changes        Lie Down you lie down
You got no soul        Walk where you walk

Try to be gay        Talk when you talk
Ignorant happy        Cry when you cry
You get the blues        Lie down you lie down
You eat jellyroll        Die when you die

There is one Way        Look when you look
You take the high road        Hear what you hear
In your big Wheel        Taste what you taste here
8 steps you fly        Smell what you smell

Look at the View        Touch what you touch
Right to horizon        Think what you think
Talk to the sky        Let go let it go slow
Act like you talk        Earth Heaven & Hell

Work like the sun        Die when you die
Shine in your heaven        Die when you die
See what you done        Lie down you lie down
Come down & walk        Die when you die

New York Subway, October 17, 1975

  — Allen Ginsberg (1926 - 1997), American poet

THE TROPICS OF NEW YORK

Bananas ripe and green, and ginger root
    Cocoa in pods and alligator pears,
And tangerines and mangoes and grape fruit,
    Fit for the highest prize at parish fairs,

Sat in the window, bringing memories
    of fruit-trees laden by low-singing rills,
And dewy dawns, and mystical skies
    In benediction over nun-like hills.

My eyes grow dim, and I could no more gaze;
    A wave of longing through my body swept,
And, hungry for the old, familiar ways
    I turned aside and bowed my head and wept.

Claude McKay (1889 - 1948), Jamaican writer and poet.

XTC - SENSES WORKING OVERTIME

Hey, hey
The clouds are whey
There’s straw for the donkeys
And the innocents can all sleep safely
All sleep safely

My, my
Sun is pie
There’s fodder for the cannons
And the guilty ones can all sleep safely
All sleep safely

And all the world is football-shaped
It’s just for me to kick in space
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste
And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to taste the difference ‘tween a lemon and a lime
Pain and pleasure and the church bells softly chime

Hey hey
Night fights day
There’s food for the thinkers
And the innocents can all live slowly
All live slowly

My, my
The sky will cry
Jewels for the thirsty
And the guilty ones can all die slowly
All die slowly

And all the world is biscuit-shaped
It’s just for me to feed my face
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste
And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to taste the difference ‘tween a lemon and a lime
Pain and pleasure and the church bells softly chime

And birds might fall from black skies (woo-woo)
And bullies might give you black eyes (woo-woo)
But to me they’re very, very beautiful (England’s glory)
Beautiful (a striking beauty)

And all the world is football-shaped
It’s just for me to kick in space
And I can see, hear, smell, touch, taste
And I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to tell the difference ‘tween the goods and grime
Turds and treasure
And there’s one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to take this all in
I’ve got one, two, three, four, five
Senses working overtime
Trying to taste the difference ‘tween a lemon and a lime
Pain and pleasure and the church bells softly chime

  — justin.barrett

Five more minutes, and I’m off-work for the next four days … must be nice you say?

Well … if it weren’t for those damned pesky birthdays (my 41st is on Sunday/Earthday), it would be … instead I get to look forward to being firmly IN my forties; of being a forty-something, instead of just being 40.

Woo-HOO!

THE SNOW STORM

Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm.

Come see the north wind’s masonry.
Out of an unseen quarry evermore
Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer
Curves his white bastions with projected roof
Round every wayward stake, or tree, or door.
Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work
So fanciful, so savage, nought cares he
For number or proportion. Mockingly,
On coop or kennel he hangs Parian wreaths;
A swan-like form invests the hidden thorn;
Fills up the farmer’s lane from wall to wall,
Maugre the farmer sighs; and, at the gate,
A tapering turret overtops the work.
And when his hours are numbered, and the world
Is all his own, retiring, as he were not,
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind’s night-work,
The frolic architecture of snow.

  — Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882), American author, poet, and philosopher.