Outside of Ithaka

Exam Time

2006-12-07T15:53:00.000-05:00

We are all discerners of spirits. That diagnosis lies aloft in our life or unconscious power. The intercourse of society, -- its trade, its religion, its friendships, its quarrels,--- is one wide, judicial investigation of character. In full court, or in small committee, or confronted face to face, accuser and accused, men offer themselves to be judged. Against their will they exhibit those decisive trifles by which character is read. But who judges? and what? Not our understanding. We do not read them by learning or craft. No; the wisdom of the wise man consists herein, that he does not judge them; he lets them judge themselves, and merely reads and records their own verdict. ~Emerson

Not yet complete

2006-11-11T21:44:00.000-05:00

Something I'd like to say dissolved
just now into the atmosphere;
Into the sphere of atoms.
It poured out of my soul and into the
green automobile waiting at my
door step, and just drove away
Across America.
Before I could grasp it
and hurl it at you, lovingly of course.

But here's what remains tonight to be said
To the faces unrepresented by Time
but bound by Eternity;

To the Homesick Transcendentalists,
emerging from the subway at
Farragot Square, dreaming of
blades of grass, consecutive or pooled together;
arriving only to find megaphone wielding anarchists
preaching scripture and apocalypse...

My Latest Embarrassment

2006-08-09T17:23:00.000-04:00

Read about it here: http://suburbanskies.blogspot.com/2006/08/sometimes-you-wanna-go.html

Could it get any better?

2006-08-04T16:35:00.000-04:00

The Beatles perform "Pyramus and Thisbe"

If He Could Only Speak English

2006-08-02T09:52:00.000-04:00

I'm sure he'd be saying something like, "Seriously, another picture, it's a hundred freak'n degrees out here! Why don't you go in the barn and fix my dinner?!"

What I Did on My Summer Vacation, by Aunt Lizzy

2006-07-26T09:56:00.000-04:00

For my summer vacation I drove up to visit my nephew Jack in Michigan. We played hard for a whole week and had so much fun! Here are the highlights.

First we played with cement mixers and diggers... Then we walked around the lake to the local ice cream shop... Jack really, really liked his chocolate cone...Luckily he decided to share some with Aunt Lizzy... Then we were so tired we read a few stories before going off to bed.

This will be me on Saturday

2006-07-13T15:14:00.000-04:00

My new motto, "If you're going to hell anyway, you might as well dress nice"

Shameless Nostalgia

2006-07-11T15:39:00.000-04:00

When I moved from the house where I grew up in Grafton, WI, I secretly took with me the knob from our front door. We had to replace the old locks anyway so I rescued the the handle from the garbage where my dad had tossed it. I still have it in a box under my bed at home. I’m not sure what it is exactly that makes it so sacred to me. There’s something about all of the people who have touched that handle over the years as they entered our home and my life. Most of them I probably won’t see again, though they played a large part in my life as I grew up. I remember standing at that door waiting for my dad to come home from work, watching out the window for my brother to bring the car back so mom could drive me to dance class, peeking to see how deep the snow was, or accidentally slamming a basket ball into it. Every major event of my life to the age of 14 was preceded by a photo taken in front of that door.

So today, over my lunch hour, I stopped in to look around the architectural antique shop at 13th & Mst. And it’s a heavenly spot. It’s filled with old doors and windows and light fixtures, molding, and columns, sinks, and bathtubs with feet. And it’s as if someone opened their front door and invited you in to snoop around for a while. Rooms filled with doors, and every one of them has inhabited hundreds of lives. And I kind of feel better about loosing my door, because so many are preserved here, lost by someone, but found again in some manner in this place.

Pearls Before Swine

2006-06-21T10:18:00.000-04:00

Ah, Summer!

2006-06-09T10:14:00.000-04:00

Current and Most Favorite Song

2006-06-08T11:42:00.000-04:00

Aside - by the Weakerthans

Measure me in metered lines, in one decisive stare, the time it takes to get from here to there. My ribs that show through t-shirts and these shoes I got for free; I'm unconsoled, I'm lonely. I am so much better than I used to be. Terrified of telephones and shopping mall, and knives, and drowning in the pools of over lives. Rely a bit to heavily on alcohol and irony. Get clobbered on by courtesy, in love with love, and lousy poetry. And I'm leaning on a broken fence between Past and Present tense. And I'm losing all these stupid games that I swore I'd never play. And it almost feels okay. Circumnavigate this body of wonder and uncertainty. Armed with every previous failure, and amateur cartography, I breathe in deep before I spread these maps out on my bedroom floor. Leaving. Wave goodbye Losing, but I'll try, with the last ways left, to remember. Sing my imperfect offering.

Happy Birthday Mom

2006-06-05T20:47:00.000-04:00

I'm so thankful that you're my mother. To bad no one can tell that we are related!

Happy Birthday to Me, Walt, and Jeremy

2006-05-30T14:38:00.000-04:00

Tomorrow I will be 24 years old. Never being one who is comfortable as the focus of attention, I thought it would be a good time to point out two very special people who will also celebrate a birthday tomorrow.

The first is Walt Whitman. Walt is the father of the American voice (as I hear it). His writing celebrates life, death and everything in between. He’s the kind of writer who writes things that make you feel a little less alone in this world once you’ve read them. I choose to view our shared birth date as a cosmic sign that our souls are interconnected.

The second is Jeremy Kloehn. Jeremy and I were born on the same day, in the same year, and quite possibly in the same hospital. Jeremy and I both attended Woodview Elementry School in Grafton, Wisconsin. He is perhaps best known for being sent to the emergency room not once but on two separate occasions for stapling his own finger. I choose to view our shared birth date as a cosmic sign that the cosmos has a sense of humor.

Complaint of the Skeleton to Time

2006-05-09T15:17:00.000-04:00

Take my love, it is not true,
So let it tempt no body new;
Take my lady, she will sigh
For my bed where’er I lie;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take my raiment, now grown cold,
To give to some poor poet old;
Take the skin that hoods this truth
If his age would wear my youth;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take the thoughts that like the wind
Blow my body out of mind;
Take this heart to go with that
And pass it on from rat to rat;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

Take the art which I bemoan
In a poem’s crazy tone;
Grind me down, though I may groan,
To the starkest stick and stone;
Take them, said the skeleton,
But leave my bones alone.

.................... Allen Ginsberg

No History, only Biography

2006-04-03T10:53:00.000-04:00

I believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Palestine, Italy, Spain and the Islands, -genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, in my own mind.Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself, - must go over the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it will not know.................................................Emerson

Rainy Day Sunday

2006-04-02T16:20:00.000-04:00

Oliver agrees with me that the best thing to do on a rainy day is to stay in bed.

Happy 30th Birthday Eric !

2006-03-15T00:23:00.000-05:00

A moment with Walt and Ralph

2006-03-10T16:06:00.000-05:00

From Walt Whitman's Journal
Concord, Mass.
Oct. 10–13.—I spend a good deal of time on the Common, these delicious days and nights—every mid-day from 11.30 to about 1—and almost every sunset another hour. I know all the big trees, especially the old elms along Tremont and Beacon streets, and have come to a sociable-silent understanding with most of them, in the sunlit air, (yet crispy-cool enough,) as I saunter along the wide unpaved walks. Up and down this breadth by Beacon street, between these same old elms, I walk’d for two hours, of a bright sharp February mid-day twenty-one years ago, with Emerson, then in his prime, keen, physically and morally magnetic, arm’d at every point, and when he chose, wielding the emotional just as well as the intellectual. During those two hours he was the talker and I the listener. It was an argument-statement, reconnoitring, review, attack, and pressing home, (like an army corps in order, artillery, cavalry, infantry,) of all that could be said against that part (and a main part) in the construction of my poems, “Children of Adam.” More precious than gold to me that dissertation—it afforded me, ever after, this strange and paradoxical lesson; each point of E.’s statement was unanswerable, no judge’s charge ever more complete or convincing, I could never hear the points better put—and then I felt down in my soul the clear and unmistakable conviction to disobey all, and pursue my own way. “What have you to say then to such things?” said E., pausing in conclusion. “Only that while I can’t answer them at all, I feel more settled than ever to adhere to my own theory, and exemplify it,” was my candid response. Whereupon we went and had a good dinner at the American House. And thenceforward I never waver’d or was touch’d with qualms, (as I confess I had been two or three times before).

Happy Thought for the Day

2006-03-04T13:49:00.000-05:00

Jack and his mom are coming to visit in 17 days and counting!

II

2006-02-24T15:59:00.000-05:00

I chased Neal Cassady all across the prairie
From one endless sea to the next
And back again
And somehow I got left here.

He was never the one for me, though.
There was never any real connection,
When the road ended he was gone.
I don’t know what Jack saw in him.

No, that’s a lie
Cassady had a fantastic madness that
Made one wish for things that one rarely finds

And I’ve stopped looking for those things
For fear of disappointment.

I

2006-02-19T11:33:00.000-05:00

Not Wide, but Deep and Underneath
and always, always looking up,

Ishmael has taken to the sea
and Whitman's Barbaric Yawp
has become Allen's Howl.

And where do I hide but
beneath my covers,
newspapers and magazines,
and books, but all the right ones you know.

I seek that silence where my own thoughts can seep back in.

I hear people talking all the time.
I nod and gesture
and take down notes.
When the phone rings I listen to myself
say things that others have told me.

I make sounds that are less
and less recognizable.

People, all of these people
sweep in and out of my periphery.
I have a blog, a cell phone
a tv, and three email accounts.
I am very easy to contact, but impossible to reach.

I hear ringing in my sleep and the
steady tapping of keys in the waking
stages of my dreams.

And if Williams is right, and "there
are no ideas but in things" than I
have ideas enough to drown in.

Far beneath the surface of where I lie
Things have become Ideas.
Doc Williams, what am I to do
but laugh until I break through?

Valentine

2006-02-13T23:40:00.000-05:00

Here is my nephew
Here is his love and here is his drawing
Here is his beauty

Why wait any longer for the world to begin?

2006-01-29T15:14:00.000-05:00

Not like Dante
discovering a commedia
upon the slopes of heaven
I would paint a different kind
of Paradiso
in which the people would be naked
as if they always are
in scenes like that
because it is supposed to be
a painting of their souls
but there would be no anxious angles telling them
how heaven is
the perfect picture of
a monarchy
and there would be no fires burning
in the hellish holes below
in which I might have stepped
nor any alters in the sky except
fountains of imagination
.................Lawrence Ferlinghetti, A Coney Island of the Mind

Let’s go berry picking, don’t forget your hat

2006-01-27T19:43:00.000-05:00

That’s my grandmother Helen K. sitting in the front with the big sun hat. My great grandfather Jacob Leonard is standing on the far left and my great grandmother Katherine Leonard is second from the right.

To H.C.Osterman, with love and thanks

2006-01-09T13:36:00.000-05:00

What do you think has become of the young and old men?
And what do you think has become of the women and children?

They are alive and well somewhere,
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the
end to arrest it,
And ceas'd the moment life appear'd.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

.................Walt Whitman

You will search, babe, At any cost.But how long, babe,Can you search for what's not lost?

2006-01-06T15:08:00.000-05:00

This week I began a new job working for a Nebraska State Senator. Here is where the action happens.

This past year brought more change and stress and happiness and worry and calm than any year of my life that I can remenber. To recap, I have settled into my first job, settled into a new city, met all sorts of new people from all over the world, struggled with depression, been in love, found the strength to pull myself out of that relationship, learned that I really like who I am, survived the LSAT, supported my mother through breast cancer, lost my grandfather in person but not in spirit, moved half way across the country, moved home, started a new job...and even though I still don't have a good idea of what I want to do with the rest of my life, some how I feel more relaxed, more confident, and more sure of myself than I have in a long while.

Here's to the New Year! What ever it may bring.

Happy Holidays from Liz and Jack!

2005-12-28T15:16:00.000-05:00

2005-12-13T12:54:00.000-05:00

In the wide open evening of the day
I lay my head upon the floating ground
Close my eyelids and look up to the swirling sky
Etched in my soul these things reflect in blue
And I know I have to leave here and keep on my way

various lost causes of the human soul remembered

2005-11-29T11:14:00.000-05:00

evenin's empire

2005-11-22T13:11:00.000-05:00

Down the foggy ruins of time, far past the frozen leaves,
The haunted, frightened trees, out to the windy beach,
Far from the twisted reach of crazy sorrow.
Yes, to dance beneath the diamond sky with one hand waving free,
Silhouetted by the sea, circled by the circus sands,
With all memory and fate driven deep beneath the waves,
Let me forget about today until tomorrow.
....dylan

Observation from my White House tour

2005-11-17T10:57:00.000-05:00

Official Portraits of the First Ladies

..............1961.........................1974.....................1981..............
..................................... ........2000.........

I Love that She Wore a Pant Suit

But Sometimes you have to moan when nothing seems to suit you

2005-11-15T11:02:00.000-05:00

Well I left my happy home to see what I could find out
I left my folk and friends with the aim to clear my mind out
Well I hit the rowdy road and many kinds I met there
Many stories told me of the way to get there

So on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
There’s so much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out

Well in the end I’ll know, but on the way I wonder
Through descending snow, and through the frost and thunder

Well, I listen to the wind come howl, telling me I have to hurry
I listen to the robin’s song saying not to worry

So on and on I go, the seconds tick the time out
There’s so much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out

But sometimes you have to moan when nothing seems to suit you
But nevertheless you know you’re locked towards the future

So on and on you go, the seconds tick the time out
There’s so much left to know, and I’m on the road to find out
...Cat Stevens

Maude, do you pray?

2005-11-14T13:24:00.000-05:00

Harold: Maude, do you pray?

Maude: Pray? No, I communicate.

Harold: With God?

Maude: With Life!

Oyez, Oyez, Oyez

2005-11-08T15:15:00.000-05:00

I began my day by participating in Washingtonians’ favorite pastime, (and no, I don’t mean political spin) by waiting in line early in the morning, for several hours, in the cold and dark, in order to pass through several layers of security… but it was all worth it when the buzzer sounded, the crimson curtains parted and everyone in the chamber stood up so that I couldn’t see what was happening.
But when the crowd was seated and I was able to stretch and peer over the heads of those in front of me I saw them, and it was for real. For a moment I had to fight the urge to jump up and down and scream while flailing my hands in the air like one would do at Stones concert. I know I’m a bit of a dork but believe me it was that exciting.
Things that surprised me about the Supreme Court:
1) How many people are able to fit into that tiny, tiny room.
2) How fast everything goes. When the lawyers stand up to argue they don’t even introduce themselves, they just start arguing. There is very little in the way of time consuming ceremony.
3) How concerned and attentive Chief Justice Roberts’ can make himself look just by wrinkling his brow, and how long he can keep his face in that intense expression.
4) That no one has told Justices Scalia and Thomas that when they lean that far back in their chairs people in the back can’t see their faces behind the bench. And besides they run the risk of falling and cracking their heads open.
5) That people in the audience had the gall to laugh when Justice Breyer started a sentence with “If I were a difficult person…” And then that the Justice laughed at himself.
6) That Justice Scalia is so good at faking out lawyers and getting laughs.
Lawyer: “And if we look at the Piggy Park (commonly accepted abbreviation for a case called Nelson v. Piggy Park) precedent we see…”
Justice Scalia: “Counsel (in a completely serious tone and straight face), in order to preserve the honor of this court I think we should stop referring to this case as Piggy Park and refer to it Nelson instead”.
Lawyer: (Pauses, completely unsure whether Justice Scalia is serious, turns a little green)
Audience: (laughs hysterically, first at the Justice’s dead pan delivery and then at the lawyer’s reaction) (This gag continues to get a big laugh each time the lawyer refers to the case as “Pig…I mean Nelson”)
7) That Justice Thomas actually asks questions (or, more precisely, a question).
8) That the Justices argue with lawyers from both sides with equal vigor.
9) That the lawyers are able to keep their argument on track despite the interruptions of nine Justices who each want him to discuss a different point.
10) That Justice Ginsburg is also so witty.
(Justices debate whether a search of a marital home may take place if one spouse consents while the other spouse objects)
Chief Justice Roberts: “ So lets look at this from another angle. Let’s say that your child opens the door and allows the police to search your home”.
Justice Ginsburg: “Or your Mother-in-law”

Everyone Needs a Friend Named Borris

2005-11-07T14:44:00.000-05:00

Overheard while waiting in line in front of the Capital for 5 and a half hours to pay my respects to Rosa Parks

2005-10-31T12:31:00.000-05:00

5pm: “Well I called my sister down in Kentucky and she said ‘Tell her thanks from me, for pavin’ the way’”

6pm: "I wish she could see all of us out here"

7pm: " This line is moving along pretty good"

7:30pm: "We haven't moved in over a half an hour"

8pm: "Somebody call an ambulance she's passed out"
A few minuets later...
Paramedic: "Is anyone with this woman?"
Woman: " I am"
Paramedic: " How old is she?"
Woman: "82"
( I immediatly tell my self to stop complaining about how much my legs hurt because so many people in line (like this woman) are elderly, walking with canes, yet still standing out in the cold dark in their Sunday best and heels)

9pm: Woman standing behind me to a young 3rd or 4th grade girl(whom she has just met) behind her in line: "Do you know what the bus boycott was?"
Young Girl: "Yes. My teacher taught us a song about it."
Woman: "Oh, can we here it?"
Young Girl in a beautiful little voice:
If you miss me from the back of the bus
And you can’t find me nowhere
Come on up to the front of the bus
I’ll be riding up there

If you miss me from the Thrifty Drug Store
And you can’t find me nowhere
Come on over to Woolworth’s
‘Cause I’ll be sitting in there

If you miss me from the picket line
And you can’t finde me nowhere
Come on down to the jailhouse
I’ll be rooming down there

If you miss me from the front of the bus
And you can’t find me nowhere
Come on up to the driver’s seat
I’ll be driving up there

Woman behind me: “That’s very good, do you know what it means?”
Young Girl: “Yes”
Woman: That’s good because lots of times we sing songs and we don’t know what the words mean.”

10pm: " This is our pilgrimage"

10:30: Inside the Rotunda: ...silence...

Vandals took the handles

2005-10-28T14:03:00.000-04:00

Don't follow leaders
Watch the parkin' meters

Ah get born, keep warm
Short pants, romance, learn to dance
Get dressed, get blessed
Try to be a success
Please her, please him, buy gifts
Don't steal, don't lift
Twenty years of schoolin'
And they put you on the day shift
Look out kid
They keep it all hid
Better jump down a manhole
Light yourself a candle
Don't wear sandals
Try to avoid the scandals
Don't wanna be a bum
You better chew gum
The pump don't work
'Cause the vandals took the handles

(Subterranean Homesick Blues- Bob Dylan )

It is like what we imagine knowledge to be

2005-10-25T13:09:00.000-04:00

At the Fishhouses
...............Elizabeth Bishop
Although it is a cold evening,
down by one of the fishhouses
an old man sits netting,
his net, in the gloaming almost invisible,
a dark purple-brown,
and his shuttle worn and polished.
The air smells so strong of codfish
it makes one's nose run and one's eyes water.
The five fishhouses have steeply peaked roofs
and narrow, cleated gangplanks slant up
to storerooms in the gables
for the wheelbarrows to be pushed up and down on.
All is silver: the heavy surface of the sea,
swelling slowly as if considering spilling over,
is opaque, but the silver of the benches,
the lobster pots, and masts, scattered
among the wild jagged rocks,
is of an apparent translucence
like the small old buildings with an emerald moss
growing on their shoreward walls.
The big fish tubs are completely lined
with layers of beautiful herring scales
and the wheelbarrows are similarly plastered
with creamy iridescent coats of mail,
with small iridescent flies crawling on them.
Up on the little slope behind the houses,
set in the sparse bright sprinkle of grass,
is an ancient wooden capstan,
cracked, with two long bleached handles
and some melancholy stains, like dried blood,
where the ironwork has rusted.
The old man accepts a Lucky Strike.
He was a friend of my grandfather.
We talk of the decline in the population
and of codfish and herring
while he waits for a herring boat to come in.
There are sequins on his vest and on his thumb.
He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty,
from unnumbered fish with that black old knife,
the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water's edge, at the place
where they haul up the boats, up the long ramp
descending into the water, thin silver
tree trunks are laid horizontally
across the gray stones, down and down
at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
element bearable to no mortal,
to fish and to seals . . . One seal particularly
I have seen here evening after evening.
He was curious about me. He was interested in music;
like me a believer in total immersion,
so I used to sing him Baptist hymns.
I also sang "A Mighty Fortress Is Our God."
He stood up in the water and regarded me
steadily, moving his head a little.
Then he would disappear, then suddenly emerge
almost in the same spot, with a sort of shrug
as if it were against his better judgment.
Cold dark deep and absolutely clear,
the clear gray icy water . . . Back, behind us,
the dignified tall firs begin.
Bluish, associating with their shadows,
a million Christmas trees stand
waiting for Christmas. The water seems suspended
above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.
I have seen it over and over, the same sea, the same,
slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones,
icily free above the stones,
above the stones and then the world.
If you should dip your hand in,
your wrist would ache immediately,
your bones would begin to ache and your hand would burn
as if the water were a transmutation of fire
that feeds on stones and burns with a dark gray flame.
If you tasted it, it would first taste bitter,
then briny, then surely burn your tongue.
It is like what we imagine knowledge to be:
dark, salt, clear, moving, utterly free,
drawn from the cold hard mouth
of the world, derived from the rocky breasts
forever, flowing and drawn, and since
our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

This is just to say

2005-10-24T16:22:00.000-04:00

I have eaten
the plums
that were in
the icebox

and which
you were probably
saving
for breakfast

Forgive me
they were delicious
so sweet
and so cold
.........William Carlos Williams

A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of.

2005-10-21T15:21:00.000-04:00

..........Ogden Nash

Salvador Late or Early

2005-10-20T13:39:00.000-04:00

Salvador with eyes the color of caterpillar, Salvador of the crooked hair and crooked teeth, Salvador whose name the teacher cannot remember, is a boy who is no one’s friend, runs along somewhere in that vague direction where homes are the color of bad weather, lives behind a raw wood doorway, shakes the sleepy brothers awake, ties their shoes, combs their hair with water, feeds them milk and corn flakes from a tin cup in the dim dark of morning.

Salvador, late or early, sooner or later arrives with the string of younger brothers ready. Helps his mama, who is busy with the business of the baby. Tugs the arms of Cecilio, Arturito, makes them hurry, because today, like yesterday, Arturito had dropped the cigar box of crayons, has let go the hundred little fingers of red, green, yellow, blue, and nub of black sticks that tumble and spill over and beyond the asphalt puddles until the crossing-guard lady holds back the blur of traffic for Salvador to collect them again.

Salvador inside that wrinkled shirt, inside the throat that must clear itself and apologize each time it speaks, inside that forty-pound body of boy with its geography of scars, its history of hurt, limbs stuffed with feathers and rags, in what part of the eyes, in what part of the heart, in that cage of the chest where something throbs with both fists and knows only what Salvador knows, inside that body too small to contain the hundred balloons of happiness, the single guitar of grief, is a small boy like any other disappearing out the door, beside the schoolyard gate, where he has told his brothers they must wait. Collects the hands of Cecilio and Arturito, scuttles off dodging the many schoolyard colors, the elbows and wrists criss-crossing, the several shoes running. Growing small and smaller to the eye, dissolves into the bright horizon, flutters in the air before disappearing like a memory of kites.
..........Sandra Cisneros

I'll know my song well before I start singin'

2005-10-19T12:02:00.000-04:00

From Song of the Open Road

The earth—that is sufficient;
I do not want the constellations any nearer;
I know they are very well where they are;
I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

(Still here I carry my old delicious burdens;
I carry them, men and women—I carry them with me wherever I go;
I swear it is impossible for me to get rid of them;
I am fill’d with them, and I will fill them in return.)

You road I enter upon and look around! I believe you are not all that is here;
I believe that much unseen is also here.

...........Walt Whitman

Girl of the North Country

2005-10-18T14:16:00.000-04:00

She was filled with nobility and goodness, told me once that happiness isn’t on the road to anything. That happiness is the road. Had also instructed me to be kind because everyone you’ll ever meet is fighting a hard battle.

.............Chronicles:Volume One

Last Thoughts on Woodie Guthrie

2005-10-17T10:07:00.000-04:00

.......Bob Dylan
When yer head gets twisted and yer mind grows numb
When you think you’re too old, too young, too smart or too dumb
When yer laggin’ behind an’ losin’ yer pace
In a slow-motion crawl of life’s busy race
No matter what yer doing if you start givin’ up
If the wine don’t come to the top of yer cup
If the wind’s got you sideways with with one hand holdin’ on
And the other starts slipping and the feeling is gone
And yer train engine fire needs a new spark to catch it
And the wood’s easy findin’ but yer lazy to fetch it
And yer sidewalk starts curlin’ and the street gets too long
And you start walkin’ backwards though you know it’s wrong
And lonesome comes up as down goes the day
And tomorrow’s mornin’ seems so far away
And you feel the reins from yer pony are slippin’
And yer rope is a-slidin’ ’cause yer hands are a-drippin’
And yer sun-decked desert and evergreen valleys
Turn to broken down slums and trash-can alleys
And yer sky cries water and yer drain pipe’s a-pourin’
And the lightnin’s a-flashing and the thunder’s a-crashin’
And the windows are rattlin’ and breakin’ and the roof tops a-shakin’
And yer whole world’s a-slammin’ and bangin’
And yer minutes of sun turn to hours of storm
And to yourself you sometimes sayI never knew it was gonna be this way
Why didn’t they tell me the day I was born
And you start gettin’ chills and yer jumping from sweat
And you’re lookin’ for somethin’ you ain’t quite found yet
And yer knee-deep in the dark water with yer hands in the air
And the whole world’s a-watchin’ with a window peek stare
And yer good gal leaves and she’s long gone a-flying
And yer heart feels sick like fish when they’re fryin’
And yer jackhammer falls from yer hand to yer feet
And you need it badly but it lays on the street
And yer bell’s bangin’ loudly but you can’t hear it’s beat
And you think yer ears might a been hurt
Or yer eyes’ve turned filthy from the sight-blindin’ dirt
And you figured you failed in yesterdays rush
When you were faked out an’ fooled white facing a four flush
And all the time you were holdin’ three queens
And it’s makin you mad, it’s makin’ you mean
Like in the middle of life magazine
Bouncin’ around a pinball machine
And there’s something on yer mind you wanna be saying
That somebody someplace oughta be hearin’
But it’s trapped on yer tongue and sealed in yer head
And it bothers you badly when your layin’ in bed
And no matter how you try you just can’t say it
And yer scared to yer soul you just might forget it
And yer eyes get swimmy from the tears in yer head
And yer pillows of feathers turn to blankets of lead
And the lion’s mouth opens and yer staring at his teeth
And his jaws start closin with you underneath
And yer flat on your belly with yer hands tied behind
And you wish you’d never taken that last detour sign
And you say to yourself just what am I doin’
On this road I’m walkin’, on this trail I’m turnin’
On this curve I’m hanging
On this pathway I’m strolling, in the space I’m taking
In this air I’m inhaling
Am I mixed up too much, am I mixed up too hard
Why am I walking, where am I running
What am I saying, what am I knowing
On this guitar I’m playing, on this banjo I’m frailin’
On this mandolin I’m strummin’, in the song I’m singin’
In the tune I’m hummin’, in the words I’m writin’
In the words that I’m thinkin’
In this ocean of hours I’m all the time drinkin’
Who am I helping, what am I breaking
What am I giving, what am I taking
But you try with your whole soul best
Never to think these thoughts and never to let
Them kind of thoughts gain ground
Or make yer heart pound
But then again you know why they’re around
Just waiting for a chance to slip and drop down
Cause sometimes you hear’em when the night times comes creeping
And you fear that they might catch you a-sleeping
And you jump from yer bed, from yer last chapter of dreamin’
And you can’t remember for the best of yer thinking
If that was you in the dream that was screaming
And you know that it’s something special you’re needin’
And you know that there’s no drug that’ll do for the healin’
And no liquor in the land to stop yer brain from bleeding
And you need something special
Yeah, you need something special all right
You need a fast flyin’ train on a tornado track
To shoot you someplace and shoot you back
You need a cyclone wind on a stream engine howler
That’s been banging and booming and blowing forever
That knows yer troubles a hundred times over
You need a greyhound bus that don’t bar no race
That won’t laugh at yer looks
Your voice or your face
And by any number of bets in the book
Will be rollin’ long after the bubblegum craze
You need something to open up a new door
To show you something you seen before
But overlooked a hundred times or more
You need something to open your eyes
You need something to make it known
That it’s you and no one else that owns
That spot that yer standing, that space that you’re sitting
That the world ain’t got you beat
That it ain’t got you licked
It can’t get you crazy no matter how many
Times you might get kicked
You need something special all right
You need something special to give you hope
But hope’s just a word
That maybe you said or maybe you heard
On some windy corner ’round a wide-angled curve

But that’s what you need man, and you need it bad
And yer trouble is you know it too good
Cause you look an’ you start getting the chills

Cause you can’t find it on a dollar bill
And it ain’t on macy’s window sill
And it ain’t on no rich kid’s road map
And it ain’t in no fat kid’s fraternity house
And it ain’t made in no hollywood wheat germ
And it ain’t on that dimlit stage
With that half-wit comedian on it
Ranting and raving and taking yer money
And you thinks it’s funny
No you can’t find it in no night club or no yacht club
And it ain’t in the seats of a supper club
And sure as hell you’re bound to tell
That no matter how hard you rub
You just ain’t a-gonna find it on yer ticket stub
No, and it ain’t in the rumors people’re tellin’ you
And it ain’t in the pimple-lotion people are sellin’ you
And it ain’t in no cardboard-box house
Or down any movie star’s blouse
And you can’t find it on the golf course
And uncle remus can’t tell you and neither can santa claus
And it ain’t in the cream puff hair-do or cotton candy clothes
And it ain’t in the dime store dummies or bubblegum goons
And it ain’t in the marshmallow noises of the chocolate cake voices
That come knockin’ and tappin’ in christmas wrappin’
Sayin’ ain’t I pretty and ain’t I cute and look at my skin
Look at my skin shine, look at my skin glow
Look at my skin laugh, look at my skin cry
When you can’t even sense if they got any insides
These people so pretty in their ribbons and bows
No you’ll not now or no other day
Find it on the doorsteps made out-a paper mache?
br> and inside it the people made of molasses
That every other day buy a new pair of sunglasses
And it ain’t in the fifty-star generals and flipped-out phonies
Who’d turn yuh in for a tenth of a penny
Who breathe and burp and bend and crack
And before you can count from one to ten
Do it all over again but this time behind yer back
My friend
The ones that wheel and deal and whirl and twirl
And play games with each other in their sand-box world
And you can’t find it either in the no-talent fools
That run around gallant
And make all rules for the ones that got talent
And it ain’t in the ones that ain’t got any talent but think they do
And think they’re foolin’ you
The ones who jump on the wagon
Just for a while ’cause they know it’s in style
To get their kicks, get out of it quick
And make all kinds of rnoney and chicks
And you yell to yourself and you throw down yer hat
Sayin’, christ do I gotta be like that
Ain’t there no one here that knows where I’m at
Ain’t there no one here that knows how I feel
Good God almighty
That stuff ain’t real

No but that ain’t yer game, it ain’t even yer race
You can’t hear yer name, you can’t see yer face
You gotta look some other place
And where do you look for this hope that yer seekin’
Where do you look for this lamp that’s a-burnin’
Where do you look for this oil well gushin’
Where do you look for this candle that’s glowin’
Where do you look for this hope that you know is there
And out there somewhere
And your feet can only walk down two kinds of roads
Your eyes can only look through two kinds of windows
Your nose can only smell two kinds of hallways
You can touch and twist
And turn two kinds of doorknobs
You can either go to the church of your choice
Or you can go to brooklyn state hospital
You’ll find God in the church of your choice
You’ll find woody guthrie in brooklyn state hospital

And though it’s only my opinion
I may be right or wrong
You’ll find them both
In the grand canyon
At sundown

Ithaka

2005-10-14T16:09:00.000-04:00

.....Constantine Cavafy

As you set out for Ithaka
hope your road is a long one,
full of adventure, full of discovery.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,angry
Poseidon-don't be afraid of them:
you'll never find things like that on your way
as long as a rare excitement
stirs your spirit and your body.
Laistrygonians, Cyclops,
wild Poseidon-you won't encounter them
unless you bring them along inside your soul,
unless your soul sets them up in front of you.

Hope your road is a long one.
May there be many summer mornings when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you enter harbors you're seeing for the first time;
may you stop in Phoenician trading stations
to buy fine things,
mother of pearl and coral, amber and ebony,
sensual perfume of every kind-
as many sensual perfumes as you can;
and may you visit may Egyptian cities
to learn and go on learning from their scholars.

Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you're destined for.
But don't hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you're old by the time you reach the island,
wealthy with all you've gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you a marvelous journey.
Without her you wouldn't have set out.
She has nothing left to give you now.

And if you find her poor, Ithaka won't havefooled you.
Wise as you will have become, so full ofexperience,
you'll have understood by then what these Ithakas mean.