the prince of a prince,

the middle of a side pocket,

the private circle of a pyramid,

the points of a camera,

the answer of a question,

somehow, the shot doesn’t work.

Professions of a professional.

The spirit of a downward misty street.

Whispering, not once knocking loudly.

Never leaving a trail lightly.

Calculations by candle light in the a.m. hours,

patient all thru the moonrise,

never pounding or stopping.

Receiving word of a long story.

A smile begets the questions.

A quest near the conclusion,

the old tribute of a new birth,

A straight side of a cup fills the scroll with a quiet song.

The song of a soft drum.

Long goodbyes waved from a young kid.

The lion too big for its cage.

A sister too old for the house,

The book too dusty for a shelf.

A buddha older than a buddha,

Somebody’s purse too tiny to hold,

A sandwich left uneaten,

A chair facing the corner.

There she sits wondering how,

She sees a road to nowhere.

A loud radio plays nothing,

The soft lovely scent of scraping metal.

The light touch of flowers in the summer,

A cold winter night near by a fire.

Somewhere out in the open of a dark subway,

In a major city a little girl sleeps soundly.

it is my impression that marriage has no grounds to be restored on. a respectable aim in life? no, not anymore. reasons? it has became a concern over several years to me about the popularity of marriage on reality tv shows. i remember it became pivitol in MTV’s hit show “real world” in the nineties. from there it want on to bigger stations and grander ideas. i think one of the names of one were: “who wants to marry a millionaire?” it got out of hand. americans love to see marriages both work and not work on tv. it means nothing anymore.

want another reason? how about the highest divorce rate ever? who hasn’t been divorced? no doubt the percentage is not as big as it used to be. 

so what does marriage mean in general to our populous now a days? do everyone a huge favor and drop what doesn’t affect your personal life and let people be. worrying about one groups personal lives who do no physical harm to you, anyone you know, or anyone in general should not be judged differently from other groups of the community. it’s bad energy, stop contributing to the bad energy that’s already in our violent tv loving country. no on prop eight. yes on prop one. vote yes on every basic human right if at least because you never know when your lifestyle will fall out of favor. 

california 2008

then some of dave’s mates showed up. we were planning on leaving for a long time i remember. where? what throws off the middle part of that section in the long night was when these two very old, very stale and wrinkled old drunk hookers showed up. i think one of them took her teeth off at one point. i tried my hardest not to find out who they came for or left with. it worked. i have no idea.

anyways dave got the grand idea to load up everyone plus the picnic bench into the back of his truck while he drove us to where ever in the hell we were going. we quickly agreed and tossed the bench into the bed of his pick up. after we loaded up our drunk asses, we happily took our spots as safely as possible on the bench and took a nice drive. we stopped over to one of the hookers moms house for some more beer. one of the hookers, i think the dark haired one, lived with her aging mother. surprisingly, her mother remembered us. i asked dave why she would have remembered us and he said that we’ve been there before and that i must have blacked out because we sure raised hell the last time we were there. now i get why she remembered us so well.

anyway they were taking forever and i knew dave and i just needed to find a liquor store and quick! we gave them a few second chances but hay, shit happens right? i had no reason to really pry into their private lives and comprehend what their real reason was for staying. besides, the bright lights of the circus liquor kept blinking. we hurried off.

during the drive dave’s pick up sounded like it had been rode as hard as those hookers had. someone must have been feeding it too much beer in the tank and it finally threw its last fit somewhere in the middle of the country a few miles or so away from the nearest county line. we ditched the truck but didn’t make it too far until dave thought he’d jump on a horse without warning me. he took off on an impressive black colt and jumped a little white picked fence. i saw a friendly horse and followed. she rather liked me and was very tame and trained for new riders. i never was very experienced in managing the beasts you see, so we had a good thing going pretty quick. my confidence was up and i decided to see if she would jump the little white picked fence too. she nailed it smoothly with ease and i named her coco.

coco followed dave and his beast. i had a good view of his decision making and i decided that he was drunk driving at best. all of his directions seemed random and over confident. he gave that horse hell and i rode like fair to keep up. he sloshed through the rice pads and tore up thousands of crops. i followed but soon realized i was in at least as worse shape as him. there was no other reason to trust him. well, i was into it now. there was a foot of mud. i wiped the mud from his horse’s feet off of my face and watched him try to jump over a five foot wooden fence. his horse went right through the bastard with ease. this made it pretty easy to get through the fence as you can imagine. next he jumped a good sized barbwire fence and coco scored another ten. it was prime time highlight moments for the two pure breads. 

there were some jumps lastnight that i honestly was shocked he was drunk enough to try, but coco keep right on following. i will admit, coco was not as big and as in shape as the black beast was, but i didn’t lose him, even after some more crops were destroyed. it had gotten to be too much. the cops came and i realized the farmers probably had enough. i pictured them with guns and duck hunting caps looking to take a crop prankster out with one blow. i encouraged dave to slow down and he finally ceased when he saw the flashing lights following our tracks down the road. 

suddenly, we came across a break in a hill where a dump site sat. an old fifty-two foot trailer and mack truck sat rusting. trash was everywhere near by and on top. it started a trend and knew there was nothing it could do as a retired old fart to stop the mess. dave put his horse into an old dumpster. he insisted i follow. i put coco in that mess and the next thing i knew dave was hiding in an old dumpster of his own. i tried it out for a few seconds and knew that if i stayed in that stinky old thing i was gonna die.

i opened the lid and got us the hell out of there. we got the horses and slowly but surely we all walked to our makers. they were gonna make us pay and we all walked into the main farmers home. when we arrived the pissed off old fart threw his gun on the ground and his shells in his truck and approached us with concern. once he saw dave he smiled. what they were in nobody knows. but apparently it was a show for the cops. he said he didn’t want to press charges until they talked to the insurance company or something like that.

he had some whisky sours and i don’t really like to pretend i know what happened the rest of the night when i don’t really know.whoa. here’s dave now.

“what are you doing?” said dave

“still trying to get my head off that horse ride.”

“oh that,” said dave, “that’s been taken care of. let’s get the hell out of here.”

“ok dave.”

we left and there was nobody around. the only question i asked was “where’s the bloody mary’s?” he directed me to the bar and i had my breakfast to go. his truck was up and running. while leaving i recognized the picnic bench was on top of the bon fire pile. it was truly a vitreous bench and i was confident that it would keep somebody warm. 

coco and the black beauty said goodbye on our way out and we chatted it up for a second. the beast didn’t want anything to do with dave. his knees were band-aided and he was hanging in the shade. coco confirmed her friendship with some hugs and kisses. what a beautiful animal i thought, as i stroked her forehead and main. 

we took off and headed west. coco will be the best bet to hear a more accurate story if you want the real truth about last night’s ride. i mean, if you’re lookin and all. seriously. you should try animal psychology. one told my cousin about her dogs feelings. she never met the doctor in her life and through the dog she explained the layout of the backyard. next she deciphered the staircase and told my cousin that she would love the new place if it didn’t have any steps. if dogs can relate reliable requests, i know horses can tell a good story. i mean, if you’re looking and all.

II.

later on in the dark dreary night, coco came to rescue me. she smelt really raw and there were indian markings on her side. she had been through a trench and back. she forced me on her back and i realized it was pointless to resist. things had worked out within minutes. next we were at the queen mary pub and i had a free pint on the house. sunday roast was the real reason coco came for me.

“do you want to eat,” she said

“tengo hambre,” i replied

“would you order for me?”

“si.”

she had an appetite for the ages. hell i could eat a horse. anybody could understand that.

Pied Beauty lines 2-4

“For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;”

It’s fun to see how Gerard is using the words like music in language. He is going for a bizarre language in poetry. He is appreciating the beauty in the world. He is the most modern of the victorians and I wonder if he influenced Dylan Thomas.

Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion, Act 1

“The Flower Girl:…I never spoke to him except to ask him to buy a flower off me.”

I like how Shaw uses this dialogue between classes to show the suspicious traces of prostituion. Flower girls were usually one step away from prostitution, and this was an easy way to discredit someone.

Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion, Act 1

“The Note Taker: You see this creature with her kerbstone English: the English that will keep her in the gutter to the end of her days. Well, sir, in three months I could pass that girl off as a duchess at an ambassador’s garden party. I could even get her a place as lady’s maid or shop assistant, which requires better English.”

Ohhh…this is the qoute of the play! This is the essential foreshadowing that will change the lives of all the characters involved outside the church at this moment. This is an exact recipe for a perfect first few pages of a play.

Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion, Act 2

“Higgins:…I shall make a duchess of this draggletailed guttersnipe.”

Something about draggletailed guttersnipe I just thought was so funny. It alludes a bit to a snake I think, hanging about in the dirty gutters up to no good. What a funny set of words to call somebody. I wonder if he made it up of if this is a common thing at the time to call a flower girl.

Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion, Act 4

“Liza: I sold flowers, I didn’t sell myself. Now youve made a lady of me I’m not fit to sell anything else. i wish youd left me where you found me.”

And it all comes toward a close. They played with her like a doll after they bought her. Now she has grown up as they expected, and like a couple of kids who don’t know what to do with a grown up, they want to leave her to figure it out for herself by giving up. What a crude couple of chaps.

Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion, Sequel

“Higgins:…If you cant appreciate what youve got, youd better get what you can appreciate.”

I just thought this was a good moral lesson that Higgins learned. Also it is a good instruction from Shaw through his character for readers. Nice.

Bernard Shaw

Pygmalion, Sequel

“…Weak people want to marry strong people who do not frighten them too much: and this often leads them to make the mistake we describe metaphorically as ‘biting off more than they can chew.’ They want too much for too little; and when the bargain is unreasonable beyond all bearing, the union becomes impossible: it ends in the weaker party being either discarded or borne as a cross, which is worse. People who are not only weak, but silly or obtuse as well, are often in these difficulties.”

I think it is totally true. We see all too often marriages gone wrong. What is wrong? Are we as a whole rushing into marriage simply to live up to society’s expectations, or is Shaw right? Many many other things, things that most don’t like to face, must be considered before the joining of a union other than just “I love you and you love me and this makes sense.” Then again, what the hell do I know. I’ve never been married.

William Butler Yeats

The Wild Swans at Coole lines 15-16

“All’s changed since I, hearing at twilight,

The first time on thisi shore,”

W.B.Y. has changed; life is different. He sees nature as more profound I think. Remenisent of William Wordsworth.

T.S. Eliot

The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock line 6

“Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels”

Sounds like an old motel 6…what, they had motel 6′s back then? I picture a noir scene, smoke in the room, a one night stand. Very picturesque.

Virginia Woolf

A Room of One’s Own.

“…any woman born with a great gift in the sixteenth century would certainly have gone crazed, shot herself, or ended her days in some lonely cottage outside the village, half witch, half wizard, feared and mocked at.”

Terrible oppression over women for too many centuries. Even worse for slave women who had no rights to live basically. Nobody cared about them. Imagine if a great big voice like Arethra Franklin’s were suppressed. How hard that must have been for so many women to contain.

Caliban upon Setebos lines 172-173

“Who made them weak, meant weakness He might vex.

Had He meant other, while His hand was in,”

First of all I love this poem. What a great experiment to attempt to play God. Anyways, these lines made me wonder if he was saying that if man or any animal has physical weaknesses, than that is what “God” intended therefore that animal is weak. Since humans are meant to be weak, than have we, if you subscribe to God making us, than we have done more than what God intended therefore we are dammed for stepping outside of our boundaries of nature? Who knows? Who cares, eh?

Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market lines 5-9

“Apples and quinces,

Lemons and oranges,

Plump unpecked cherries,

Melons and rasberries,

Bloom-down-cheeked peaches,”

I like how this gives us a glimpse into the world of victorian eating and splendor, mixed with the temptation of something sweet…the sweet virginity.

Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market lines 187-188

“They lay down in theiri curtained bed,

Like two blossoms on one stem,”

Is this lesbian eroticism? A lot of people in this century seem to think that this is a very erotic poem. It was in the introduction for sure. It’s kind of funny. How many lesbian sisters were there back in those days? Was this the author’s aim? I think sleeping together must be taken into context for the time. Brothers and sisters slept in the same bed a lot, especially when poverty was concerned. It’s not very different today either. I think the sisters here are only about sixteen or seventeen anyways. Why is a mature innocent relationship so far fetched? Maybe it is our culture’s love for eroticism that makes the poem appeal to those senses?????

Christina Rossetti

Goblin Market line 562

“For there is no friend like a sister”

So what is the moral of the story? Cleary it can’t just be about this one line here near the end of the poem, I mean, would she have to invent this kind of story to tell that moral? Or, would she? Is it about virginity and the enticement of it? –We will never know what authors mean by their poetry. Our interpretations reflect us and our time just as the author is reflected through his poetry.

Oscar Wilde

Preface to The Picture of Dorian Gray

“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault.

Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.”

I just like this quote. I’m not really sure I can pin it down as to why though, haha. Oscar Wilde was so full of intellegent things to say. Even if one doesn’t agree, you have to respect that kind of thinking a little bit. Hell why not? It’s not like he’s the president or anything.

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

“Algernon: Why is it that at a bachelor’s establishment the servants invariably drink the champagne? I ask merely for information.

Lane: I attribute it to the superior qualilty of the wine, sir. I have often observed that in married households the champagne is rarely of a first-rate brand.”

This made me laugh out loud here. This is berly at the end of the first page of the play. Algernon and Lane here go into a question/answer about marrage, and it is a great introduction of the character of Algernon. It is a funny style throughout the entire play, and I love how it plays on so many human textures.

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

“Algernon: I really don’t see anything romantic in proposing. It is very romantic to be in love. But there is nothing romantic about a definite proposal. Why, one may be accepted. One usually is, I believe. Then the excitement is all over. The very essence of romance is uncertainty. If I ever get married, I’ll certainly try to forget the fact.”

This is on the second page. Foreshadowing I suppose, but it is just another of the many hilarious comments to come. Brilliant!

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

“Lady Bracknell:…Ignorance is like a delicate exotic fruit; touch it and the bloom is gone….”

Beautiful! Again, he’s full of witty comments through his characters. I think his characters helped him grow and examine life too. Of course he had his agendas, but naturally they came to life on the pages and took on personalities and opinions of their own.

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest

“Algernon: All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That’s his.”

Oh man I could go on with these kind of quotes. These are all from act one. These are profound. I would love to see this performed, or act in it. I’ll put in another one next I suppose…now I feel like reading this play all over again, or better yet, finding more by Oscar.

Oscar Wilde

The Importance of Being Earnest, Act 2

“Miss Prism: We must not be premature in our judgements.”

Ahhh…if only the world practiced this. I think that is what Oscar is hoping for. Probably he is a bit sick of being judged prematurely. I know for sure it happens a lot in every country, including England. I witnessed it myself many times there. I’ve witnessed it many times myself here. I think that is the most tragic, and probably gets us into the most trouble. Yet, we still do it. Why?

I like the aim of these lines. It can be seen as a life definition, or the ultimite goal of somebody’s life. Maybe it is because it certainly pertains to the way I have always lived mine. As well, line 9 helps him to remember triumphs and losses which give appreciation for a full life.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
Ulysses lines 60-61
“To sail beyond the sunset, and the baths
Of all the western stars, until I die”

Again this caught my eye as a sort of goal for life. I think he is trying to tell us of a good life that he has had and make it sound appealing for the ultimite happiness of others if they take up this life too.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson
In Memoriam A.H.H. lines 15-16
“‘Tis better to have loved and lost
Than never to have loved at all”

Of course I had to include this famous qoute. Most people never know where this came from, as well as they will never know that it is from a man to a man–best friends. Beautiful!

Robert Browning
Porphyria’s Lover lines 41-42
“And strangled her. No pain felt she;
I am quite sure she felt no pain”

In my notes I wrote No! no no no! It is remindful of Poe. He immortalized her and put her on the pedastool he thinks and possibly society thinks she deserves. It is also a power control issue, which alludes to his possible lower class.

Robert Browning
Porphyria’s Lover lines 53-56
“So glad it has its utmost will,
That all it scorned at once is fled,
And I, its love, an gained instead!”

Why? The love is always there now. She sounded so beautiful; he got a truly shocked reaction out of me. This ends up becoming a goal for artists in the coming century. Fun. He is brilliant at investigatiing the human psyche. I’m sure he had a lot of questions to answer when he was walking the streets of London at this time.

Robert Browning
My Last Duchess lines 55-56
“Taming a sea-horse, thought a rarity,
Which Claus of Innsbruck cast in bronze for me!”

What a novel of a poem. Almost like a novel in just one page, there is a lot there and we get a strong sense of character. You don’t even notice the rhymes either. Final question: Is it a warning to the father in law to control his daughter and a display of his need of trophy wives? Fun.

Robert Browning
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came lines 1-2
“My first thought was, he lied in every word,
That hoary cripple, with malicious eye”

A fiery tale? The guy goes out to look for something. Has a dream like quality. He takes the persona of the hero with the first person. Interesting, never before done in this way.

Robert Browning
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came line 65
“‘Tis the Last Judgement’s fire must cure this place”

I wrote in my notes, because I am confused by the word “cure” as I usually am with redemption and these matters with religion: Is that what is supposed to take place? Is that what the “fear of God” means? -too confusing

Robert Browning
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came line 84
“He must be wicked to desserve such pain.”

Karma or divine punishment? Again, very confusing this religion stuff. Kind of a huge turn off reading all these poems with religious context, though alluding into the times I know. I’m trying.

Robert Browning
Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came lines 202-203
“I saw them and I knew them all. And yet
Dauntless the slug-horn to my lips I set,”

Kind of an ambigious poem. He is not willing to give us a conclusion. That’s fine and all. It’s serious, the hero doesn’t triumph, no easy obvious solution, no resolution. People today need this, they wanna think life is not always the same. Final question though: Is the road in the poem the road of life? They knew that they didn’t know, not too far removed from us in our society. Cool.

All things we see in this fallen sculpture, we still have them now. Moral: all things that are great do not last.

John Keats
When I Have Fears lines 1-2
“When I have fears that I may cease to be
Before my pen has glean’d my teeming brain,”

This proved to be the start of a challenge for me. Assignment: write a sonnet on this theme. John Keats theme was to write about his fears before a predictible early death. I don’t like the thought of early death. I think that is just bad vibes to put out. So I changed my theme to rebirth combined with the fear of being a misunderstood member in society, due to societies impulseful fears, and more. I hope it worked out, time will tell.

John Keats
The Eve of St. Agnes lines 201-204
“She clos’d the door, she panted, all akin
To spirits of the air, and visions wide:
No utter’d syllable, or, woe betide!
But to her heart, her heart was voluble,”

Keats had eroticism, passion and the dedication to emotion and delicate imagery. He was devoted to beauty not politics. What an inspiration! I seem to get on the political side with my thoughts, but my girlfriend is my muse to go the other way. I am trying Keats, oh thankyou for your beautiful writing!

John Keats
The Eve of St. Agnes lines 377-378
“The Beadsman, after thousand aves told,
For aye unsought for slept among his ashes cold.”

Remorse. What if the beadsman is actually Porphyo looking back on his life and the dream, or the Eve, that never happened? Maybe he lusted after this virgin for years, and always wished he had acted on these impulses. We’ll never know…

John Keats
La Belle Dame sans Mercy lines 17-24
“I set her on my pacing stee,
And nothing else saw all day long;
For sideways would she lean, and sing
A fairy’s song.

I made a garland for her head,
And bracelets too, and fragrant zone;
She look’d at me as she did love,
And made sweet moan.”

I liked how the footnote says that these stanzas are transposed with each other. It’s worth reading into. I read each line with the other stanza several times and it is interesting. Fun!

John Keats
This Living Hand lines 1-2
“This living hand, now warm and capable
Of earnest grasping, would, if it were cold”

This is the beginning of a very emotional metamorphisis between the living and dead. Who is he addressing? we will soon ask. It goes on to suggest a relationship of vampirism or maybe the love that will not be forgotten after death. Take advantage of the now I think he is saying. Is it a suicide note? It has the subtext of a warning to somebody. Maybe something like be careful not to reject me. It displays a troubled relationship between him and someone, or his readers.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese #21 lines 12-14
“Say thou dost love me, love me, love me–toll
The silver iterance!–only minding, Dear,
To love me also in silence with thy soul.”

I really liked this sonnet, and the idea of the title of the sonnets to keep readers off track of her and her future husband’s courting. This one is nice, and I like her excitement to be in love because she had been longing for what may have seemed forever. A lonely heart gets what it deserves.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Sonnets from the Portuguese #43 lines 3-4
“I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight”

It is beautiful. She was thirty nine at the time of her courtships. Very inspirational for writing to a loved one.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh lines 165-166
“In her last kiss upon the baby-mouth
My father pushed down on the bed for that,–”

I think she is powerfully expressing her dislike for her Father refusing his kids the right to marry. I think he felt that after his wife died, all his frustration of that turned into jealousy of his kids possible happiness and he felt that: if I can’t have love anymore, neither can you kids. Very very poor parenting.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Aurora Leigh from Book 2 [Woman And Artist] lines 1-2
“Times followed one another. Came a morn
I stood upon the brink of twenty years,”

This reminds me of how fast our lives pass us by which I have always thought John Lennon quoted best in a song when he said: “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.”

A red star has imprisoned the sun and moon,

The high snow-peaked mountains are cloaked in the darnkess of a poisonous wind;

The peaceful valleys have been shattered by the sound of artillery.

But the dignity of the Tibetan people competes with the glory of the sky.