The Wreck of Time

About suffering they were never wrong,
The Old Masters: how well they understood
It's human position; how it takes place
While someone else is eating or opening a window
Or just walking dully along...

In Brueghel's Icarus, for instance: how everything turns away
Quite leisurely from the disaster; the ploughman may
Have heard the splash, the forsaken cry,
But for him it was not an important failure; the sun shone
As it had to on the white legs disappearing into the green
Water; and the expensive delicate ship that must have seen
Something amazing, a boy falling out of the sky,
Had somewhere to get to and sailed calmly on.


~ W H Auden

Nacht (Passacaglia)

Finstre, schwarze Riesenfalter
Töteten der Sonne Glanz.
Ein geschlossnes Zauberbuch,
Ruht der Horizont-verschwiegen.

Aus dem Qualm verlorner Tiefen
Steigt ein Duft, Errinrung mordend!
Finstre, schwarze Riesenfalter
Töteten der Sonne Glanz.

Und von Himmel erdenwärts
Senken sich mit schweren Schwingen
Unsichtbar die Ungetüme
Auf die Menscherherzen nieder...
Finstre, schwartze Riesenfalter.

-Albert Giraud

Night

Dark, black, giant butterflies
killed the sunshine.
Like a closed magic book,
the horizon rests-hidden.

From the smoke of forgotten depths
wafts a fragrance, killing the memory!
Dark, black, giant butterflies
killed the sunshine.

And from heaven toward earth
sink with heavy swinging
the invisible monsters
down upon the hearts of mankind...
Dark, black, giant butterflies.

~Albert Giraud
Part of "Pierrot lunaire"
A song cycle by Arnold Schoenberg,
Trans. Unknown

My Purpose

Open my eyes everyday and I see the same sky.
The same darkness and same light.
I pass every moment as my last.
But why was I put on this world?
I walk the dark streets and gaze at the distant mountain peaks.
Only to see that it holds no meaning to my soul or to my needs.
I can smoke every cigarette and take every pill.
I can fly up to ecstasy every night and come down by morning.
But when it all comes down to it,
Life's empty paths and broken promises only cast regret.
Regret that a soul carries, multiplied and spread over years.
I only hope that I will one day realize my purpose.
Sooner or later, it will all come back to haunt me.

~Ethesham Zafar

I see leaves of green;
Red roses too.
I see them bloom
For me and you.
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.

I see skies of blue
And clouds of white,
The bright blessed day,
The dark sacred night,
And I think to myself,
What a wonderful world.

The colors of the rainbow
So pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces
Of people going by
I see friends shaking hands,
Saying how do you do?
They're really saying
I love you

I hear babies cry
I watch them grow
They'll learn much more
Than I'll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.

I see leaves of green,
Red roses too
I see them bloom
For me and you.
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.


-George Weiss / Bob Thiele

Within Four Walls

My room is small, quiet, pleasant;
The shadows are impenetrable and unanswering.
My thoughts are deep, my song melancholy,
yet in my beating heart hope lies hidden.

The moments fly swiftly by, one by one,
while my eyes are fixed on distant happieness,
full of doubts, I wait patiently,
thus it is, this night, my night of loneliness.

-Arseny Golenishchev-Kutuzov
(From Sunless, a song cycle by Mussourgsky)

The yellow petals live
Within the broccoli flower
I eat only the flowers.
How different it tastes
To only eat flowers
I wonder if all flowers
Taste like broccoli.
I wonder if all broccoli
Tastes the same.

I the K to the M to the V to the R,
Shall smite thee!
O broccoli of old!

She sat on her mountain,
eating spinach in the hopes of getting ecoli,
and smil'd.
She smil'd not because life made any more sense
Now, than it did before.
Nor because of the smell of chocolate cake.
The moon knew that the sun had come.
She knew because it was Dawn.

Love is like water.
It is all around us.
It's easily contaminated,
But when purified it can heal anything.
It can be a powerful flood that destroys everything.
It can be what makes you grow.
Without it we cannot survive.

From a certain travel

The sun is beginning to inch,
unwillingly toward the door.
As the first hesitant beam approached the threshhold,
the peace was shattered.
The griffins, then, set the task ahead of them,
that they must pick up the peices.
Papers were strewn about the room,
covering every inch of floor space,
and the griffins were the only ones
to survive the brutal book attack.
And the dying sun peeked in,
promising to return,
sending the mon and a legion of stars to watch in it's stead.

-Baueradley

I sat there, troubled by the night
Idle, staring, pondering, alone
And have decided that of course!
The heart is made of stone.
The heart is made of stone,
I said, in case you didn't hear,
No laughter is the price, you see,
One pays for no more tears.
No more kisses, to give or take
Now all is calm at least
And focus, for me my drive,
And I'll wish you to find peace.

Opus 6