Morning Is Yellow Like A Desk Is Square
He always wanted to explain things. But no one cared. So he drew. Sometimes he would draw and it wasn't anything. He wanted to carve it in stone or write it in the sky. He would lie out on the grass and look up in the sky. And it would be only him and the sky and the things inside him that needed saying. And it was after that he drew the picture. It was a beautiful picture. He kept it under his pillow and would let no one see it. And he would look at it every night and think about it. And when it was dark, and his eyes were closed, he could still see it. And it was all of him. And he loved it. When he started school he brought it with him. Not to show anyone, but just to have with him like a friend. It was funny about school. He sat in a square brown desk Like all the other square brown desks And he thought it should be red And his room was a square brown room. Like all the other rooms. And it was tight and close. And stiff. He hated to hold the pencil and chalk, With his arm stiff and his feet flat on the floor. Stiff. With the teacher watching and watching. The teacher came and spoke to him. She told him to wear a tie like all the other boys. He said he didn't like them. And she said it didn't matter. After that they drew. And he drew all yellow and it was the way he felt about morning. And it was beautiful. The teacher came and smiled at him. 'What's this?' she said. 'Why don't you draw something like Ken's drawing? Isn't it beatiful?' After that his mother bought him a tie. And he always drew airplanes and rocket ships like everyone else. And he threw the old picture away. And when he lay alone looking at the sky, It was big and blue and all of everything, But he wasn't anymore. He was square inside. And brown. And his hands were stiff. And he was like everyone else. And the things inside him that needed saying didn't need it anymore. It had stopped pushing. It was crushed. Stiff. Like everything else.
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Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I'm not cute or built to suit a fashion model's size But when I start to tell them, They think I'm telling lies. I say, It's in the reach of my arms The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It's the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can't touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them They say they still can't see. I say, It's in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I'm a woman
Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
Now you understand Just why my head's not bowed. I don't shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing It ought to make you proud. I say, It's in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need of my care, 'Cause I'm a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That's me.
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Her eyes beginning to water, she went on, So I would like you all to make me a promise. From now on, on your way to school, or on your way home, find something beautiful to notice. It doesn't have to be something you see it could be a scent - perhaps of freshly baked bread wafting out of someone's house, or it could be the sound of the breeze slightly rustling the leaves in the trees, or the way the morning light catches the autumn leaf as it falls gently to the ground. Please look for these things, and cherish them. For, although it may sound trite to some, these things are the stuff of life. The little things we are put here on earth to enjoy. The things we often take for granted. We must make it important to notice them, for at any time...it can all be taken away. The class was completely quiet. We all picked up our books and filed out of the room silently. That afternoon, I noticed more things on my way home from school than I had that whole semester. Every once in a while, I think of that teacher and remember what an impression she made on all of us, and I try to appreciate all of those things that sometimes we all overlook. Take notice of something special you see on your lunch hour today. Go barefoot. Or walk on the beach at sunset. Stop off on the way home tonight to get a double-dip ice cream cone. For as we get older, it is not the things we did that we often regret, but the things we didn't do. Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.
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The quietly pacifist peaceful always die to make room for men who shout.
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Books, books, books had found the secret of a garret-room piled high with cases in my father's name; Piled high, packed large, --where, creeping in and out among the giant fossils of my past, like some small nimble mouse between the ribs of a mastodon, I nibbled here and there at this or that box, pulling through the gap, in heats of terror, haste, victorious joy, the first book first. And how I felt it beat under my pillow, in the morning's dark. An hour before the sun would let me read! My books!
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After the cheers have died down and the stadium is empty, after the headlines have been written and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser and all the pomp and fanfare has faded, the enduring things that are left are: the dedication to excellence, the dedication to victory, and the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.
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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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More than 20 years ago, President Kennedy defined an approach that is as valid today as when he announced it. So let us not be blind to our differences,'' he said, but let us also direct attention to our common interests and to the means by which those differences can be resolved.''Well, those differences are differences in governmental structure and philosophy. The common interests have to do with the things of everyday life for people everywhere. Just suppose with me for a moment that an Ivan and an Anya could find themselves, oh, say, in a waiting room, or sharing a shelter from the rain or a storm with a Jim and Sally, and there was no language barrier to keep them from getting acquainted. Would they then debate the differences between their respective governments? Or would they find themselves comparing notes about their children and what each other did for a living?Before they parted company, they would probably have touched on ambitions and hobbies and what they wanted for their children and problems of making ends meet. And as they went their separate ways, maybe Anya would be saying to Ivan, Wasn't she nice? She also teaches music.'' Or Jim would be telling Sally what Ivan did or didn't like about his boss. They might even have decided they were all going to get together for dinner some evening soon. Above all, they would have proven that people don't make wars.People want to raise their children in a world without fear and without war. They want to have some of the good things over and above bare subsistence that make life worth living. They want to work at some craft, trade, or profession that gives them satisfaction and a sense of worth. Their common interests cross all borders.
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So if I asked you about art you could give me the skinny on every art book ever written...Michelangelo? You know a lot about him I bet. Life's work, criticisms, political aspirations. But you couldn't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You've never stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling. And if I asked you about women I'm sure you could give me a syllabus of your personal favorites, and maybe you've been laid a few times too. But you couldn't tell me how it feels to wake up next to a woman and be truly happy. If I asked you about war you could refer me to a bevy of fictional and non-fictional material, but you've never been in one. You've never held your best friend's head in your lap and watched him draw his last breath, looking to you for help. And if I asked you about love I'd get a sonnet, but you've never looked at a woman and been truly vulnerable. Known that someone could kill you with a look. That someone could rescue you from grief. That God had put an angel on Earth just for you. And you wouldn't know how it felt to be her angel. To have the love be there for her forever. Through anything, through cancer. You wouldn't know about sleeping sitting up in a hospital room for two months holding her hand and not leaving because the doctors could see in your eyes that the term 'visiting hours' didn't apply to you. And you wouldn't know about real loss, because that only occurs when you lose something you love more than yourself, and you've never dared to love anything that much. I look at you and I don't see an intelligent confident man, I don't see a peer, and I don't see my equal. I see a boy. Nobody could possibly understand you, right Will? Yet you presume to know so much about me because of a painting you saw. You must know everything about me. You're an orphan, right? Do you think I would presume to know the first thing about who you are because I read 'Oliver Twist?' And I don't buy the argument that you don't want to be here, because I think you like all the attention you're getting. Personally, I don't care. There's nothing you can tell me that I can't read somewhere else. Unless we talk about your life. But you won't do that. Maybe you're afraid of what you might say.
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A woman must have money and room of her own if she is to write fiction
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Dear Signore Direttore,
Now I am a-tella you a story wot I was a-treated at your hotella.
I am a-comma from Roma as tourist to London an stay as a-younga cristan man at your hotella.
When I comma in my room I see there is no shit in my bed - how can I sleep whit no shit i my bed? So I calla down to the receptione and tella: 'I wanta shit'. They tella me: 'Go to toilet'. I say: 'No,no I wanta shit in my bed'. They say: 'You better not shit in your bed, you sonna-wa-bitch'. What is sonna-wa-bitch?
I go down for breakfast into restorante. I order bacon and egga and two pissis of toast. I getta only one piss of toast. I tella waitress, and point at toast: 'I wanta piss'. She tella me: 'Go to toilet'. I say: 'I wata piss on my plate'. She then say to me: 'You'd bloody not piss on the plate, you sonna-wa-bitch'.
That is the second person who do not even know me calla me 'sonna-wa-bitch', an why is your staff replying 'Go to toilet', is that a modern tella? I do no understand, Please tella me!
Later I go for dinner in your restorante. Spoon and knife is laid out, but no fock. I tella waitress: 'I wanta fock'. And she tella me: 'Sure, everyone wanta fock'. I say: 'No,no you dont understanda me, I wanta fock on the table'. She tella me: So you sonna-wa-bitch wanta fock on the table? Get your ass out of here!
How comma this cristian hotel tella the guest in such bad manner?
So I go to receptioneand ask for bill, I no wanta stay in this hotel no more. When I have paid the a-billa the portier say to me: 'Thank you and piss on you'. I say: 'Piss on you too, you sonna-wa-bitch, I go back to Italy'.
Direttore, I never gonna stay in your hotella no more, you sonna-wa-bitch.
Sincerely
Dicci Elgre
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Americans will listen, but they do not care to read. War and Peace must wait for the leisure of retirement, which never really comes: meanwhile it helps to furnish the living room. Blockbusting fiction is bought as furniture. Unread, it maintains its value. Read, it looks like money wasted. Cunningly, Americans know that books contain a person, and they want the person, not the book.
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After the cheers have died down and the stadium is empty, after the headlines have been written and after you are back in the quiet of your room and the championship ring has been placed on the dresser and all the pomp and fanfare has faded, the enduring things that are left are the dedication to excellence, the dedication to victory, and the dedication to doing with our lives the very best we can to make the world a better place in which to live.
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This is a terrific addition to our portfolio of sports ventures. We're thrilled Caesars Palace has joined with NBC Sports to showcase this increasingly popular event in Caesars' new poker room.
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A room without books is like a body without a soul.
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The present-day mentality, more perhaps than that of people in the past, seems opposed to a God of mercy, and in fact tends to exclude from life and to remove from the human heart the very idea of mercy. The word and the concept of 'mercy' seem to cause uneasiness in man, who, thanks to the enormous development of science and technology, never before known in history, has become master of the earth and has subdued and dominated it. This dominion over the earth, sometimes understood in a one-sided and superficial way, seems to leave no room for mercy....
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No one knows what to say in the loser's locker room.
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We were just a one-room bookstore; we didn't have any money for lawyers.
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There was a girl knocking on my hotel room door all night! Finally, I let her out.
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This moment exhibits infinite space, but there is a space also wherein all moments are infinitely exhibited, and the everlasting duration of infinite space is another region and room of joys.
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When I find myself in the company of scientists, I feel like a shabby curate who has strayed by mistake into a room full of dukes.
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Breathe deep the gathering gloom Watchlights fade from every room Bedsitter people look back and lament Another days useless energies spent Empassioned lovers wrestle as one Lonely man cries for love and has none New mother picks up and settles her son Senior citizens wish they were young Cold hearted orb that rules the night Removes the colors from our sight Red is gray and yellow white But we decide which is right And which is an illusion
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This is an elegant hotel! Room service has an unlisted number.
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Love all love of other sights controls, And makes one little room an everywhere.
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It’s cold in the room, Mommy. It’s cold and all I have to wear is a yucky-green smock that matches the yucky-green walls. All the walls are cold, the metal table is cold, and the doctor’s fingers are cold as they hold my hand and tell me not to worry. But I’m worried, mommy. The doctors say that I might not wake up…they’re saying that I have a ninety percent chance of dieing, and I’m scared: I don’t want to go away, mommy; I don’t want to leave you behind. There’s a big clock on the wall, and it says it’s 3:15 in the afternoon. Ms. Loughlin just let class out for the day…Billy and Jeff are probably wrestling just outside the classroom, waiting for their daddies to pick them up so they can go home and eat dinner and do their homework and sleep. I wish I was there, mommy…I wish I was anywhere but here. I’m crying, mommy. I promised you I wouldn’t, but I’m crying and I can’t stop. The doctors are going to give me the medicine now to make me sleep so I don’t feel anything, so you won’t have to worry about me hurting anymore. But mommy, they said they had to take Teddy from me…they had to give him to you…mommy, please, hold him, hold him, and promise me, mommy, promise me if I don’t wake up you’ll keep him for me: he’s going to miss me a lot, and he’ll need someone to hug. And mommy… Goodbye, mommy.
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It's very surreal. When we were little we would watch the pageant as a family, and my sister and I would go into the utility room and play Miss America in our heels.
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One time my cousin Walter got this cat stuck in his ass. True story. He bought it at our local mall, so the whole fiasco wound up on the news. It was embarrassing for my relatives and all, but the next week, he did it again. Different cat, same results, complete with another trip to the emergency room. So, I run into him a week later in the mall and he's buying another cat. And I says to him, 'Jesus, Walt! You know you're just gonna get this cat stuck in your ass too. Why don't you knock it off ?' And he said to me, 'Brodie, how the hell else am I supposed to get the gerbil out ?' My cousin was a weird guy.
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Just now the lilac is in bloom, All before my little room; And in my flower-beds, I think, Smile the carnation and the pink...
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The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision.
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A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the center of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said 'What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise.' The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, 'What is the turtle standing on' 'You're very clever, young man, very clever,' said the little old lady. 'But it's turtles all the way down.'
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