There'll come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you
As nothing in this life that I've been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying
Do you believe me?

There'll come a time when all your hopes are fading
When things that seemed so very plain
Become an awful pain
Searching for the truth among the lying
And answered when you've learned the art of dying

But you're still with me
But if you want it
Then you must find it
But when you have it
There'll be no need for it

There'll come a time when most of us return here
Brought back by our desire to be
A perfect entity
Living through a million years of crying
Until you've realized the Art of Dying
Do you believe me?



-George Harrison

O boundless, boundless evening

O boundless, boundless evening. Soon the glow

Of long hills on the skyline will be gone,

Like clear dream country now, rich-hued by sun.

O boundless evening where the cornfields throw

The scattered daylight back in an aureole.

Swallows high up are singing, very small.

On every meadow glitters their swift flight,

In woods of rushes and where tall masts stand

In brilliant bays. Yet in ravines beyond

Between the hills already nests the night.

-Georg Heym

Trans. Christopher Middleton

Straights Lines

There's a sound
Across the alley
Of cold metal
Touching skin
And you can see
If you look in her window
That she has gone and cut
Her hair again.

In straight lines

Those soft golden lights in the morning
Are now on her wooden floor
The wind has swept them through the apartment
She won't need them
Anymore

She's cut down
On her lovers
Though she still dreams
Of them at night
She's growing straight lines
Where once were flowers
She is streamlined,
She is making her way far from the light
To see the straight lines

She wants to cut through the circles
That she has lived in before
She wants to finally kill the delusions
She won't need them
Anymore.

But there's a sound
Across the alley
Of cold metal
Too close to the bone
And you can see
If you look in her window
The face of a woman

Finally alone.




~Suzanne Vega

Love is

A rain of diamonds
in the mind

the soul’s fruit
sliced in two

a dark spring
loosed at the lips of light

under-earth waters
unlocked from their lurking
to sparkle in a crevice
parted by the sun

a temple
not of stone but cloud
beyond the heart’s roar
and all violence

outside the anvil-stunned domain
unfrenzied space

between the grains of change
blue permanence

one short step to the good ground

the bite into bread again.

-May Swenson

Da hab' ich gar die Rose aufgegessen,
Die sie mir in die starre Hand gegeben!
Daß ich noch einmal würde Rosen essen,
Hätt nimmer ich geglaubt in meinem Leben!

Ich möcht' nur wissen, ob es eine rote,
Ob eine weiße Rose das gewesen?
Gib täglich uns, o Herr! von deinem Brote,
Und wenn du willst, erlös' uns von dem Bösen!

~Gottfried Keller

Now have I fed and eaten up the rose,
Which then she laid within my stiffcold hand
That I should ever feed upon a rose
I never had believed in liveman's land

Only I wonder was it white or red?
The flower that in the darkness has been my food
Give us, and if Thou give, thy daily bread,
Deliver us from evil, Lord, Amen.



~Gottfried Keller
Trans. James Joyce

The prison guard has finally opened the cage.

After the Fall

In an anonymous rendezvous
Where the forbidden lovers repair
They're burning down another damn candle
They're melting the tables and chairs.
Beneath them applause from the balcony
Whenever they'd accomplished making love.
Other times they thought they heard laughter
Coming from the balcony above.
She lies to his right and she carelessly recites
All of her brand-new apatites
She seems brittle and small
It don't sound like her at all
Since she came back to him,
After the fall.

She said, you never visit the countryside
So I made you the country to order.
She put up a little tent in the bedroom.
Crickets played on a tape-recorder.
The ceiling was festooned with phosphorus stars
She noticed his skin turning cold
Burning all his clothes on the bonfire.
"Relax" she whispered and tightened the blindfold.
She lies to his right and she carelessly recites
All of her brand-new apatites.
She seems brittle and small.
It don't sound like her at all.
Since she came back to him after the fall.

You've changed but not for the better, babe.
I'd tell you why but what's the use?
Cause it's the same kind of pity
A drunkard gives as his excuse.
You were sharp and ideal as a bobby-pin
Now your eyes are deserted and quiet.
We both look like those poor, shattered mannequins
Thrown through the window in the riot.
She lies in his arms, and without any qualms
Revels in shallow delights.
She seems brittle and small it don't
Sound like her at all
Since she came back to him
After the fall.





~Elvis Costello