James Wright - "To the Muse"

It is all right. All they do
Is go in by dividing
One rib from another. I wouldn’t
Lie to you. It hurts
Like nothing I know. All they do
Is burn their way in with a wire.
It forks in and out a little like the tongue
Of that frightened garter snake we caught
At Cloverfield, you and me, Jenny
So long ago.

I would lie to you
If I could.
But the only way I can get you to come up
Out of the suckhole, the south face
Of the Powhatan pit, is to tell you
What you know:

You come up after dark, you poise alone
With me on the shore.
I lead you back to this world.

Three lady doctors in Wheeling open
Their offices at night.
I don’t have to call them, they are always there.
But they only have to put the knife once
Under your breast.
Then they hang their contraption.
And you bear it.

It’s awkward a while. Still, it lets you
Walk about on tiptoe if you don’t
Jiggle the needle.
It might stab your heart, you see.
The blade hangs in your lung and the tube
Keeps it draining.
That way they only have to stab you
Once. Oh Jenny.

I wish to God I had made this world, this scurvy
And disastrous place. I
Didn’t, I can’t bear it
Either, I don’t blame you, sleeping down there
Face down in the unbelievable silk of spring,
Muse of black sand,
Alone.

I don’t blame you, I know
The place where you lie.
I admit everything. But look at me.
How can I live without you?
Come up to me, love,
Out of the river, or I will
Come down to you.

- James Wright, from Shall We Gather at the River

Virginia Woolf - Two passages from "The Journal of Mistress Joan Martyn"

[I]

The state of the times, which my mother tells me, is less safe and less happy than when she was a girl, makes it necessary for us to keep much within our own lands. After dark indeed, and the sun sets terribly soon in January, we have to be safe behind the hall Gates; my mother goes out as soon as the dark makes her embroidery too dim to see, with the great keys on her arm. ‘Is everybody within doors?’ she cries, and swings the bells out upon the road, in case any of our men may still be working in the fields. Then she draws the Gates close, clamps them with the lock, and the whole world is barred away from us. I am very bold and impatient sometimes, when the moon rises, over a land gleaming with frost; and I think I feel the pressure of all this free and beautiful place—all England and the sea, and the lands beyond—rolling like sea waves, against our iron gates, breaking, and withdrawing—and breaking again—all through the long black night. Once I leapt from my bed, and ran to my mother’s room, crying, “Let them in. Let them in. We are starving!’ ‘Are the soldiers there, child,’ she cried: ‘or is it your father’s voice?’ She ran to the window, and together we gazed out upon the silver fields, and all was peaceful. But I could not explain what it was that I heard; and she bade me sleep, and be thankful that there were stout gates between me and the world.

[II]

The dawn, even when it is cold and melancholy, never fails to shoot through my limbs as with arrows of sparkling piercing ice. I pull aside the thick curtains, and search for the first glow in the sky which shows that life is breaking through. And with my cheek leant upon the window pane I like to fancy that I am pressing as closely as can be upon the massy wall of time, which is for ever lifting and pulling and letting fresh spaces of life in upon us. May it be mine to taste the moment before it has spread itself over the rest of the world! Let me taste the newest and the freshest. From my window I look down upon the Church yard, where so many of my ancestors are buried, and in my prayer I pity those poor dead men who toss perpetually on the old recurring waters; for I see them, circling and eddying forever upon a pale tide. Let us, then, who have the gift of the present, use it and enjoy it. That, I confess, is part of my morning prayer.

Fiona Apple - "Largo"

I was recently rid of a man again
So I caught me a cab to see Flanagan
I told the cabbie 'To the alley in back'
I told myself coming would keep me intact

Flanny shouts from the second floor
As I crossed the lot to the kitchen door
I see Guillermo and give him some lip
And I cross to the bar, Ellen pours me a nip
And I look to the stage it's the rock of rage, as Jon is on

And how could I listen without wanting to be with them,
And how could I have thought that I was ever alone?

I feel like singing and drinking and stuff
And I don't wanna care if I stumble or cry
Handle me like family and that'll be enough,
To keep me from dying when I want to die

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

I'm hopping scotches with Loretta and Bob,
But, but barely containing my rapturous song
Jon's calling names here like Santas reindeer
On Palmer on Leisz on Sarah on Sean

I love watching the Watkins when there rocking with Garza
I want to be part of the band though
And when Mr. Tench is on the bench I want to be the piano

I feel like singing and drinking and stuff
And I don't wanna care if I stumble or cry
Handle me like family and that'll be enough,
To keep me from dying when I want to die

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

When over the rainbow's too far
Go to Lar-go to Lar-go to Largo

From the Gospel of Luke

“AND when he was demanded of the Pharisees when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation. Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.”

- Luke 17:20-21

Anti-war Poem

“It’s 5 below zero in Iowa City tonight.

This year I found a warm room
That I could go to 
                                  be alone in

& never have to fight.”

- Ted Berrigan, from “Anti-war Poem”

Antoine de Saint-Exupery - from "Letter to a Hostage"

“…lulled by the comings and goings of the deferential maid, we drank with the bargees like worshippers of the same church, although we could not say which one. One of the two bargees was Dutch. The other was German. The latter had previously fled the Nazis, pursued over there for being a Communist, or a Trotskyite, or a Catholic or a Jew. (I cannot recall for which label the man had been outlawed). But at that moment the bargee was far from being just a label. It was the man inside that mattered. The human essence. He was, quite simply, a friend. And we were in agreement, as friends. You agreed. I agreed. The bargees and the maid agreed. Agreed upon what? About the Pernod? About the meaning of life? About how pleasant the day was? We did not know how to express this either. But the depth of this agreement was so fully and solidly established, so biblical in its essence, even though impossible to put into words, that we would have gladly upheld this flag, sustained a siege and died behind machine guns to protect this essence.

What essence…? I have to admit it is difficult to explain! I fear I can only capture the reflections, not the essential elements. The inadequacy of my words will obscure my truth. It would be equivocal to claim that we would have readily fought for a certain quality of the bargees’ smile, and your smile and my smile, and the maid’s smile, which by some miracle of this sun, despite great adversity over so many millions of years, culminated, through us, in the quality of a convincing smile. As often as not the essential is weightless.”

- Antoine de Saint-Exupery - from "Letter to a Hostage"