When I Woke by Dylan Thomas


When I woke, the town spoke.
Birds and clocks and cross bells
Dinned aside the coiling crowd,
The reptile profligates in a flame,
Spoilers and pokers of sleep,
The next-door sea dispelled
Frogs and satans and woman-luck,
While a man outside with a billhook,
Up to his head in his blood,
Cutting the morning off,
The warm-veined double of Time
And his scarving beard from a book,
Slashed down the last snake as though
It were a wand or subtle bough,
Its tongue peeled in the wrap of a leaf.

Every morning I make,
God in bed, good and bad,
After a water-face walk,
The death-stagged scatter-breath
Mammoth and sparrowfall
Everybody’s earth.
Where birds ride like leaves and boats like ducks
I heard, this morning, waking,
Crossly out of the town noises
A voice in the erected air,
No prophet-progeny of mine,
Cry my sea town was breaking.
No Time, spoke the clocks, no God, rang the bells,
I drew the white sheet over the islands
And the coins on my eyelids sang like shells. 

     via patrickwolfpalisade

i search in snow, in vain
for your footsteps trail
i have to kiss them
with my scalding tears
until i see the ground




     (soap&skin)

Kleines Liebeslied


Weil deine Augen so voll Trauer sind,
Und deine Stirn so schwer ist von Gedanken,
Laß mich dich trösten, so wie man ein Kind
In Schlaf einsingt, wenn letzte Sterne sanken.

Die Sonne ruf ich an, das Meer, den Wind,
Dir ihren hellsten Sommertag zu schenken,
Den schönsten Traum auf dich herabzusenken,
Weil deine Nächte so voll Wolken sind.

Und wenn dein Mund ein neues Lied beginnt,
Dann will ichs Meer und Wind und Sonne danken,
Weil deine Augen so voll Trauer sind,
Und deine Stirn so schwer ist von Gedanken.




     mascha kaléko

trouble you are perfect
in all your imperfection
i see myself
in your reflection
as you walk fear street
keep sturdy feet
or be
dancing on and up
through pain and judgement
sweet one
forget all you’ve been told
the waggling tongue
the eminent cold
you are the passion
that breaks the mould




      trouble   by patrick wolf (2011)

Den Todeskuchen backen; das Mehl ist aus
Ich spucke aus. Vom Herzen raus? Dreck
Als Kind habe ich immer mit ihm gespielt
und gedacht es sind kleine Pferde
zerstampft habe ich sie, dann haben sie gequietscht
und hast du das gehört? Ich hab verloren
Denn immer wenn ich sing, sagen alle es wäre schlimm
Niemand mag es wie ich sing




     (soap&skin - inter view feat. heartmill)

let me… let me go!

with a hired plane
and no names mentioned
tonight’s the night of the flight
before you know, i’ll be over the water
like a swallow


but you’re not a swallow




     (kate bush - suspended in gaffa)

i wander thro’ each charter’d street,
near where the charter’d thames does flow,
and mark in every face i meet,
marks of weakness, marks of woe.

in every cry of every man,
in every infant’s cry of fear,
in every voice, in every ban,
the mind-forg’d manacles i hear.

how the chimney-sweeper’s cry
every black’ning church appalls;
and the hapless soldier’s sigh
runs in blood down palace walls.

but most, thro’ midnight streets i hear
how the youthful harlot’s curse
blasts the new born infant’s tear,
and blights with plagues the marriage hearse.




      london   by william blake

and did those feet in ancient time
walk upon england’s mountains green?
and was the holy lamb of god
on england’s pleasant pastures seen?

and did the countenance divine
shine forth upon our clouded hills?
and was jerusalem builded here
among these dark satanic mills?

bring me my bow of burning gold!
bring me my arrows of desire!
bring me my spear! o clouds unfold!
bring me my chariot of fire!

i will not cease from mental fight,
nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
till we have built jerusalem
in england’s green and pleasant land.




      and did those feet in ancient time   by william blake

i’m going to stay out all night
and i don’t want to hear a word from you
sometimes, don’t you want to not be you?
and i’m not going home
sun-rays are a cage
and i could never live-up to the rules
i finally found some friends
who can fly too
and we’re not flying home

if you’d rather be like them
if you’d rather have a sense
that’s common, you can be like them
and got suspicious

so, it’s 11:30 p.m.
i should be winding down
i should be pulling the sheets down
go to bed!
but
if i go to sleep, it means i have to get up
another day is gone

that’s why it’s gonna stop right here
time is going to stop right now
i’m diving into the dark
and i’m covering-up in the sound
it’s so dark-loud i can’t hear-see
all my bad memories
morning may never come
immortality

if you’d rather be like them
if you’d rather have a sense
that’s common, you can be like them
and got suspicious
you can be like them
you can be like them all day long
you can be like them and get
night blindness

i’m not going home
i’m not going home
i’m not going




     (kristeen young - night blindness)

especially when the october wind
with frosty fingers punishes my hair,
caught by the crabbing sun i walk on fire
and cast a shadow crab upon the land,
by the sea’s side, hearing the noise of birds,
hearing the raven cough in winter sticks,
my busy heart who shudders as she talks
sheds the syllabic blood and drains her words.

shut, too, in a tower of words, i mark
on the horizon walking like the trees
the wordy shapes of women, and the rows
of the star-gestured children in the park.
some let me make you of the vowelled beeches,
some of the oaken voices, from the roots
of many a thorny shire tell you notes,
some let me make you of the water’s speeches.

behind a post of ferns the wagging clock
tells me the hour’s word, the neural meaning
flies on the shafted disk, declaims the morning
and tells the windy weather in the cock.
some let me make you of the meadow’s signs;
the signal grass that tells me all i know
breaks with the wormy winter through the eye.
some let me tell you of the raven’s sins.

especially when the october wind
(some let me make you of autumnal spells,
the spider-tongued, and the loud hill of wales)
with fists of turnips punishes the land,
some let me make of you the heartless words.
the heart is drained that, spelling in the scurry
of chemic blood, warned of the coming fury.
by the sea’s side hear the dark-vowelled birds.




     especially when the october wind    by dylan thomas