So daddy, I'm finally through. The black telephone's off at the root, The voices just can't worm through. If I've killed one man, I've killed two -- The vampire who said he was you And drank my blood for a year, Seven years, if you want to know. Daddy, you can lie back now. There's a stake in your fat black heart And the villagers never liked you. They are dancing and stamping on you. They always knew it was you. Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.
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We held hands on the last night on earth. Our mouths filled with dust, we kissed in the fields and under trees, screaming like dogs, bleeding dark into the leaves. It was empty on the edge of town but we knew everyone floated along the bottom of the river. So we walked through the waste where the road curved into the sea and the shattered seasons lay, and the bitter smell of burning was on you like a disease.In our cancer of passion you said, 'Death is a midnight runner.' The sky had come crashing down like the news of an intimate suicide. We picked up the shards and formed them into shapes of stars that wore like an antique wedding dress. The echoes of the past broke the hearts of the unborn as the ferris wheel silently slowed to a stop. The few insects skidded away in hopes of a better pastime. I kissed you at the apexof the maelstrom and asked if you would accompany me ina quick fall, but you made me realize that my ticket wasn't good for two. I rode alone. You said,'The cinders are falling like snow.' There is poetry in despair, and we sang with unrivaled beauty, bitter elegies of savagery and eloquence.Of blue and grey. Strange, we ran down desperate streets and carvedour names in the flesh of the city. The sun has stagnated somewhere beyond the rim of the horizon and the darkness is a mystery of curves and line.Still, we lay under the emptiness and drifted slowly outward,and somewhere in the wilderness we foundsalvation scratched into the earth like a message. the untitled poem--afi
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I never thought that heav'n would lose its blue And sullen storm-clouds mask the gentle sky; I never thought the rose's velvet hue Would pale and sicken, though we said good-by. I never dreamed the lark would hush its note As day succeeded ever-drearier day, Nor knew the song that swelled the robin's throat Would fade to silence, when you went away. I never knew the sun's irradiant beams Upon the brooding earth no more would shine, Nor thought that only in my mocking dreams Would happiness that once I knew be mine. I never thought the slim moon, mournfully, Would shroud her pallid self in murky night. Dear heart, I never thought these things would be- I never thought they would, and I was right.
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He ate and drank the precious Words, his Spirit grew robust; He knew no more that he was poor, nor that his frame was Dust.
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I went to a party, Mom, I remembered what you said, You told me not you drink and drive, Mom, So i drank sprit instead I felt really proud inside, Mom, The way you said I would. I didn?t drink and drive, Mom, Even though the others said i should I know i did the right thing, Mom I know you are always right. Now the party is finally ending, Mom, As everyone drives out of sight. As i got into my car, Mom, I knew i would get home in one piece Because of the way you raised me, Mom, So responsible and sweet. I started to drive away, Mom, But as I pulled onto the road The other car didn?t see me, Mom, And it hit me like a load. As I lie here on the pavement, Mom, I hear the police say, The other guy was drunk, Mom, And now I?m the one who will pay. I?m laying here dying, Mom, I wish you would get here soon. How come this happened to me, Mom? My life bursted like a ballon. There is blood all around me, Mom, Most of it is mine. I here the paramedics say, Mom, I?ll be dead in a short time. I just wanted to tell you, Mom, I swear i didn?t drink It was the others, Mom, The others didn?t think He didn?t know where he was going, Mom, He was parably at the same party as I, the only difference is, Mom He drank and I will die. Why do people drink, Mom? It can ruin my whole life. I?m feeling sharp pains now, Mom, Pains just like a knife. The guy who hit me is walking, Mom, I don?t think it?s fair. I?m lying here dying, Mom, While all he can do is stare. Tell my brother not to cry, Mom, Tell daddy to be brave. And when I get to heaven, Mom, Write ?Daddy?s Little Girl? on my grave. Someone should have told him, Mom, Not to drink and drive. If only they have taken the time, Mom I would still be alive. My breath is getting shorter, Mom I?m becoming very scared. Please don?t cry for me, Mom Because when i needed you, you were always there. I have one last question, Mom, before i say good-bye. I didnt ever drink, Mom So why am I do die? This is the end, Mom, I wish I could look you in the eyes, To say these final words, Mom, I love you, and Good-bye.
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They laid their hands upon my head, They stroked my cheek and brow; And time could heal a hurt, they said, And time could dim a vow. And they were pitiful and mild Who whispered to me then; The heart that breaks in April, child; Will mend in May again. Oh, many a mended heart they knew; So old they were, and wise. And little did they have to do To come to me with lies! Who flings me silly talk of May Shall meet a bitter soul; For June was nearly spent away Before my heart was whole.
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His ignorance was as remarkable as his knowledge. Of contemporary literature, philosophy and politics he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done. My surprise reached a climax, however, when I found incidentally that he was ignorant of the Copernican Theory and of the composition of the Solar System. That any civilized human being in this nineteenth century should not be aware that the earth travelled round the sun appeared to me to be such an extraordinary fact that I could hardly realize it. You appear to be astonished, he said, smiling at my expression of surprise. Now that I do know it I shall do my best to forget it. To forget it! You see, he explained, I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones. But the Solar System! I protested. What the deuce is it to me? he interrupted impatiently: you say that we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or to my work.
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I think of you often and make no outward show, But what it means to lose you, no one will ever know You wished no one farewell, not even said good-bye, You were gone before I knew it, and only God knows why. You are not forgotten nor will you ever be, As long as life and memories last, I will remember thee. To some you may be forgotten, to others a part of the past, But to me who loved you dearly, your memories will always last. Nothing can be more beautiful than the memories I have of you. To me, you were someone special, God must have thought so too! If tears could build a staircase and memories a lane, I would walk all the way to Heaven, and bring you back again.
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One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice-- though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. Mend my life! each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do-- determined to save the only life you could save.
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Socrates: Would this habit of eating animals not require that we slaughter animals that we knew as individuals, and in whose eyes we could gaze and see ourselves reflected, only a few hours before our meal? Glaucon: This habit would require that of us. Socrates: Wouldn't this [knowledge of our role in turning a being into a thing] hinder us in achieving happiness? Glaucon: It could so hinder us in our quest for happiness. Socrates: And, if we pursue this way of living, will we not have need to visit the doctor more often? Glaucon: We would have such need. Socrates: If we pursue our habit of eating animals, and if our neighbor follows a similar path, will we not have need to go to war against our neighbor to secure greater pasturage, because ours will not be enough to sustain us, and our neighbor will have a similar need to wage war on us for the same reason? Glaucon: We would be so compelled. Socrates: Would not these facts prevent us from achieving happiness, and therefore the conditions necessary to the building of a just society, if we pursue a desire to eat animals? Glaucon: Yes, they would so prevent us.
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Good work, Mary. We all knew you had it in you.
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O if we but knew what we do when we delve or hew -- hack and rack the growing green! Since country is so tender to touch, her being so slender, that like this sleek and seeing ball but a prick will make no eye at all, where we, even where we mean to mend her we end her, when we hew or delve: after-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
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A petty sneaking thief I knew - / O! Mr Cr-, how do you do?
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Have you ever been out for a late autumn walk in the closing part of the afternoon and suddenly looked up to realize that the leaves have practically all gone? And the sun has set and the day gone before you knew it
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What a good thing Adam had. When he said a good thing he knew nobody had said it before.
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I had an apartment and I had a neighbor, and whenever he would knock on my wall I knew he wanted me to turn my music down and that made me angry 'cause I like loud music... so when he knocked on the wall, I'd mess with his head. I'd say Go around! I cannot open the wall! I dunno if you have a door on your side but over here there's nothin'. It's just flat.
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Just once I knew what life was for.
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Dr. Joel Fleischman in nature. Not exactly the man you knew. He couldn't see past the Hudson River if he tried. He liked his fish smoked or preferable hand sliced from Zabars on a sliced bagel served with onions. Nature, to him, was an irritant. Birds didn't sing, they woke him up. A body of water wasn't life, it was a golf hazard..
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My family, frankly, they weren't folks who went to church every week. My mother was one of the most spiritual people I knew but she didn't raise me in the church, so I came to my Christian faith later in life and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead.
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As far as I knew white women were never lonely, except in books. White men adored them, Black men desired them and Black women worked for them.
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If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?
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It appears that the first intention of the Maker was to have men live on a strictly vegetarian diet. The very earliest periods of Jewish history are marked with humanitarian conduct towards the lower animal kingdom...It is clearly established that the ancient Hebrews knew and perhaps were the first among men to know, that animals feel and suffer pain.
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There were plenty of role models for us. My mother believed in education and she put all three of us through college at Grambling. She did not have a high school education, but it was something she impressed upon us. After I graduated, I left Texarkana for California, because I knew I could not get a job here. I was in business with certification and accounting, so I figured it was best to go out West. So I went there. It was still tough to get in that field, but things opened up for me.
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Before I was shot, I always thought that I was more half-there than all-there -- I always suspected that I was watching TV instead of living life. Right when I was being shot and ever since, I knew that I was watching television.
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Everyone likes to think that in the past everything was so quaint, so charming. Neighbors knew each other. Kids didn't have sex. It's a freakin' fairy-tale. Life sucked then, too. It just sucked without indoor plumbing.
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Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
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I knew I belonged to the public and to the world, not because I was talented or even beautiful, but because I had never belonged to anything or anyone else.
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I maintain that, if everyone knew what others said about him, there would not be four friends in the world.
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They're a good basketball team and we knew they wouldn't quit. They handled our pressure very well in the first quarter and we couldn't get our run going.
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I graduated pretty quickly. When I was eleven or twelve a close friend of the family got lynched. I guess he was about forty years old, married, and we used to play with his kids. I remember the Saturday night a bunch of white men beat him to death at the Decatur fairgrounds because he sassed back a white woman. They just left him dead on the ground. Everyone in town knew it but never said a word in public. I went down and saw his bloody clothes. They left those clothes on a fence for about a year. Every Negro in town was supposed to get the message from those clothes and I can see those clothes now in my mind's eye.... But nothing was said in public. No sermons in church. No news. No protest. It was as though this man just dissolved except for the bloody clothes.... Just before I went into the Army I began wondering how long I could stand it. I used to watch the Saturday night sport of white men trying to run down a Negro with their car, or white gangs coming through town to beat up a Negro.
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