Written by
Leonard Cohen |
(co-written by Sharon Robinson)
Baby, I've been waiting,
I've been waiting night and day.
I didn't see the time,
I waited half my life away.
There were lots of invitations
and I know you sent me some,
but I was waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
I know you really loved me.
but, you see, my hands were tied.
I know it must have hurt you,
it must have hurt your pride
to have to stand beneath my window
with your bugle and your drum,
and me I'm up there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
Ah I don't believe you'd like it,
You wouldn't like it here.
There ain't no entertainment
and the judgements are severe.
The Maestro says it's Mozart
but it sounds like bubble gum
when you're waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
Waiting for the miracle
There's nothing left to do.
I haven't been this happy
since the end of World War II.
Nothing left to do
when you know that you've been taken.
Nothing left to do
when you're begging for a crumb
Nothing left to do
when you've got to go on waiting
waiting for the miracle to come.
I dreamed about you, baby.
It was just the other night.
Most of you was naked
Ah but some of you was light.
The sands of time were falling
from your fingers and your thumb,
and you were waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come
Ah baby, let's get married,
we've been alone too long.
Let's be alone together.
Let's see if we're that strong.
Yeah let's do something crazy,
something absolutely wrong
while we're waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
Nothing left to do ...
When you've fallen on the highway
and you're lying in the rain,
and they ask you how you're doing
of course you'll say you can't complain --
If you're squeezed for information,
that's when you've got to play it dumb:
You just say you're out there waiting
for the miracle, for the miracle to come.
|
Written by
David Lehman |
"My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way:
anyone who understands them eventually recognizes them as
nonsensical, when he has used them -- as steps -- to climb
up beyond them. (He must, so to speak, throw away the ladder
after he has climbed up it.)" -- Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus
1.
The first time I met Wittgenstein, I was
late. "The traffic was murder," I explained.
He spent the next forty-five minutes
analyzing this sentence. Then he was silent.
I wondered why he had chosen a water tower
for our meeting. I also wondered how
I would leave, since the ladder I had used
to climb up here had fallen to the ground.
2.
Wittgenstein served as a machine-gunner
in the Austrian Army in World War I.
Before the war he studied logic in Cambridge
with Bertrand Russell. Having inherited
his father's fortune (iron and steel), he
gave away his money, not to the poor, whom
it would corrupt, but to relations so rich
it would not thus affect them.
3.
On leave in Vienna in August 1918
he assembled his notebook entries
into the Tractatus, Since it provided
the definitive solution to all the problems
of philosophy, he decided to broaden
his interests. He became a schoolteacher,
then a gardener's assistant at a monastery
near Vienna. He dabbled in architecture.
4.
He returned to Cambridge in 1929,
receiving his doctorate for the Tractatus,
"a work of genius," in G. E. Moore's opinion.
Starting in 1930 he gave a weekly lecture
and led a weekly discussion group. He spoke
without notes amid long periods of silence.
Afterwards, exhausted, he went to the movies
and sat in the front row. He liked Carmen Miranda.
5.
He would visit Russell's rooms at midnight
and pace back and forth "like a caged tiger.
On arrival, he would announce that when
he left he would commit suicide. So, in spite
of getting sleepy, I did not like to turn him out." On
such a night, after hours of dead silence, Russell said,
"Wittgenstein, are you thinking about logic or about
yours sins?" "Both," he said, and resumed his silence.
6.
Philosophy was an activity, not a doctrine.
"Solipsism, when its implications are followed out
strictly, coincides with pure realism," he wrote.
Dozens of dons wondered what he meant. Asked
how he knew that "this color is red," he smiled
and said, "because I have learnt English." There
were no other questions. Wittgenstein let the
silence gather. Then he said, "this itself is the answer."
7.
Religion went beyond the boundaries of language,
yet the impulse to run against "the walls of our cage,"
though "perfectly, absolutely useless," was not to be
dismissed. A. J. Ayer, one of Oxford's ablest minds,
was puzzled. If logic cannot prove a nonsensical
conclusion, why didn't Wittgenstein abandon it,
"along with the rest of metaphysics, as not worth
serious attention, except perhaps for sociologists"?
8.
Because God does not reveal himself in this world, and
"the value of this work," Wittgenstein wrote, "is that
it shows how little is achieved when these problems
are solved." When I quoted Gertrude Stein's line
about Oakland, "there's no there there," he nodded.
Was there a there, I persisted. His answer: Yes and No.
It was as impossible to feel another's person's pain
as to suffer another person's toothache.
9.
At Cambridge the dons quoted him reverently.
I asked them what they thought was his biggest
contribution to philosophy. "Whereof one cannot
speak, thereof one must be silent," one said.
Others spoke of his conception of important
nonsense. But I liked best the answer John
Wisdom gave: "His asking of the question
`Can one play chess without the queen?'"
10.
Wittgenstein preferred American detective
stories to British philosophy. He liked lunch
and didn't care what it was, "so long as it was
always the same," noted Professor Malcolm
of Cornell, a former student, in whose house
in Ithaca Wittgenstein spent hours doing
handyman chores. He was happy then.
There was no need to say a word.
|
Written by
D A Levy |
When i was a little kid
my parents never told me
i didn't find out until
i got out of high school
then when people asked me,
I ASKED THEM,
"Nationality or Religion?"
When i was a little kid
my parents brought me up as a christian
that when i discovered,
i was different
i wasnt THAT sick!
so at sixteen
still being a virgin forest
i decided
i must be a buddhist monk,
Then when people asked me
I TOLD THEM, i told them
"Not me, man, i don't belong to No-thing
In the navy
a swabby once asked me,
if i wanted to go to the
temple with him,
i told him
"NOt me, man, im the last
of the full blooded american indians."
it became confusing
so after a while
when people inquired
"Hey..ah..you arnt……are you?"
i answered,
"with a name like levy,
what the hell do you think i am?"
A Ritz Cracker? A flying bathtub?
An arab? etc.
But now its getting pretty hip
to be a jew
and some of my best friend are
becoming converted to halavah,
even the crones who suddenly
became World War 2 catholics are
now praising bagels & lox
i still dont feel on ethnic things like
"Ok, we all niggers so lets hold hands."
&
"OK, we're all wops so lets support the
mafia,"
&
"Ok, we're all jews so lets weep on each
others shoulders."
so now when people smile and say,
"Hey, you're one of us,"
i smile and say,
"**** you, man,
im still alive."
|
Written by
Marilyn Hacker |
For Sára Karig
"You are so wise," the reindeer said, "you can bind the winds of the world in a single strand."—H. C. Andersen, "The Snow Queen"
She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.
She could find the world's words in a singing wind.
She could lend a weird will to a mottled hand.
She could wind a willed word from a muddled mind.
She could wend the wild woods on a saddled hind.
She could sound a wellspring with a rowan wand.
She could bind the wolf's wounds in a swaddling band.
She could bind a banned book in a silken skin.
She could spend a world war on invaded land.
She could pound the dry roots to a kind of bread.
She could feed a road gang on invented food.
She could find the spare parts of the severed dead.
She could find the stone limbs in a waste of sand.
She could stand the pit cold with a withered lung.
She could handle bad puns in the slang she learned.
She could dandle foundlings in their mother tongue.
She could plait a child's hair with a fishbone comb.
She could tend a coal fire in the Arctic wind.
She could mend an engine with a sewing pin.
She could warm the dark feet of a dying man.
She could drink the stone soup from a doubtful well.
She could breathe the green stink of a trench latrine.
She could drink a queen's share of important wine.
She could think a few things she would never tell.
She could learn the hand code of the deaf and blind.
She could earn the iron keys of the frozen queen.
She could wander uphill with a drunken friend.
She could bind the world's winds in a single strand.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Don't jeer because we celebrate
Armistice Day,
Though thirty years of sorry fate
Have passed away.
Though still we gaurd the Sacred Flame,
And fly the Flag,
That World War Two with grief and shame
Revealed--a rag.
For France cannot defend to-day
Her native land;
And she is far to proud to pray
For helping hand.
Aye, though she stands amid the Free,
In love with life,
No more her soil will shambles be
In world-war strife.
Still we who tend the deathless Flame
Of Verdun speak;
It is our glory and our shame,
For we are weak.
We have too much of blood and blight
To answer for . . .
No, France will never, never fight
Another war!
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
There were two brothers, John and James,
And when the town went up in flames,
To save the house of James dashed John,
Then turned, and lo! his own was gone.
And when the great World War began,
To volunteer John promptly ran;
And while he learned live bombs to lob,
James stayed at home and -- sneaked his job.
John came home with a missing limb;
That didn't seem to worry him;
But oh, it set his brain awhirl
To find that James had -- sneaked his girl!
Time passed. John tried his grief to drown;
To-day James owns one-half the town;
His army contracts riches yield;
And John? Well, search the Potter's Field.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Gas got me in the first World War,
And all my mates at rest are laid.
I felt I might survive them for
I am a gardener by trade.
My life is in the open air,
And kindly is the work I do,
Since flowers are my joy and care,
And comfort too.
My flowers are a fairy sight,
Yes I'm an ugly, warped old man,
For I have lived in Fate's despite
A year beyond one's mortal span;
And owe my health no gentle toil
From dawn to dark, contented hours,
Of loving kinship with the soil,
A friend of flowers.
My dahlias are my pride today,
And many my creations be.
They're worth a fortune, people say,
But what does money mean to me?
Their glory is my rich reward,
And as their radiant heads they raise,
I dedicate them to the Lord,
With love and praise.
I grieve to think that sullen Powers
On bombs and guns their might depend;
If man had heart for growing flowers
Then would we all be friend and friend.
The glory of the world is his
Who seeks salvation in the sod,
And finds that golden sunshine is
The laugh of God.
|
Written by
Robert William Service |
Wars have been and wars will be
Till the human race is run;
Battles red by land and sea,
Never peace beneath the sun.
I am old and little care;
I'll be cold, my lips be dumb:
Brother mine, beware, beware . . .
Evil looms the wrath to come.
Eastern skies are dark with strife,
Western lands are stark with fear;
Rumours of world-war are rife,
Armageddon draweth near.
If your carcase you would save,
Hear, oh hear, the dreadful drum!
Fly to forest, cower in cave . . .
Brother, heed the wrath to come!
Brother, you were born too late;
Human life is but a breath.
Men delve deep, where darkly wait
Sinister the seeds of death,
There's no moment to delay;
Sorrowing the stars are blind.
Little Brother, how I pray
You may sanctuary find.
Peoples of the world succumb . . .
Fly, poor fools, the WRATH TO COME!
|
Written by
Carl Sandburg |
WANDERING oversea dreamer,
Hunting and hoarse, Oh daughter and mother,
Oh daughter of ashes and mother of blood,
Child of the hair let down, and tears,
Child of the cross in the south
And the star in the north,
Keeper of Egypt and Russia and France,
Keeper of England and Poland and Spain,
Make us a song for to-morrow.
Make us one new dream, us who forget,
Out of the storm let us have one star.
Struggle, Oh anvils, and help her.
Weave with your wool. Oh winds and skies.
Let your iron and copper help,
Oh dirt of the old dark earth.
Wandering oversea singer,
Singing of ashes and blood,
Child of the scars of fire,
Make us one new dream, us who forget.
Out of the storm let us have one star.
|
Written by
Vachel Lindsay |
The old man had his box and wheel
For grinding knives and shears.
No doubt his bell in village streets
Was joy to children's ears.
And I bethought me of my youth
When such men came around,
And times I asked them in, quite sure
The scissors should be ground.
The old man turned and spoke to me,
His face at last in view.
And then I thought those curious eyes
Were eyes that once I knew.
"The moon is but an emery-wheel
To whet the sword of God,"
He said. "And here beside my fire
I stretch upon the sod.
Each night, and dream, and watch the stars
And watch the ghost-clouds go.
And see that sword of God in Heaven
A-waving to and fro.
I see that sword each century, friend.
It means the world-war comes
With all its bloody, wicked chiefs
And hate-inflaming drums.
Men talk of peace, but I have seen
That emery-wheel turn round.
The voice of Abel cries again
To God from out the ground.
The ditches must flow red, the plague
Go stark and screaming by
Each time that sword of God takes edge
Within the midnight sky.
And those that scorned their brothers here
And sowed a wind of shame
Will reap the whirlwind as of old
And face relentless flame."
And thus the scissors-grinder spoke,
His face at last in view.
And there beside the railroad bridge
I saw the wandering Jew.
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