i want to go to there

jack rose - kensington blues (2005)

two tramps in mud time

out of the mud two strangers came
and caught me splitting wood in the yard,
and one of them put me off my aim
by hailing cheerily, "hit them hard!"
i knew pretty well why he had dropped behind
and let the other go on a way.
i knew pretty well what he had in mind:
he wanted to take my job for pay.

good blocks of oak it was i split,
as large around as the chopping block;
and every piece i squarely hit
fell splinterless as a cloven rock.
the blows that a life of self-control
spares to strike for the common good,
that day, giving a loose my soul,
i spent on the unimportant wood.

the sun was warm but the wind was chill.
you know how it is with an april day
when the sun is out and the wind is still,
you're one month on in the middle of may.
but if you so much as dare to speak,
a cloud comes over the sunlit arch,
a wind comes off a frozen peak,
and you're two months back in the middle of march.

a bluebird comes tenderly up to alight
and turns to the wind to unruffle a plume,
his song so pitched as not to excite
a single flower as yet to bloom.
it is snowing a flake; and he half knew
winter was only playing possum.
except in color he isn't blue,
but he wouldn't advise a thing to blossom.

the water for which we may have to look
in summertime with a witching wand,
in every wheelrut's now a brook,
in every print of a hoof a pond.
be glad of water, but don't forget
the lurking frost in the earth beneath
that will steal forth after the sun is set
and show on the water its crystal teeth.

the time when most i loved my task
the two must make me love it more
by coming with what they came to ask.
you'd think i never had felt before
the weight of an ax-head poised aloft,
the grip of earth on outspread feet,
the life of muscles rocking soft
and smooth and moist in vernal heat.

out of the wood two hulking tramps
(from sleeping god knows where last night,
but not long since in the lumber camps).
they thought all chopping was theirs of right.
men of the woods and lumberjacks,
they judged me by their appropriate tool.
except as a fellow handled an ax
they had no way of knowing a fool.

nothing on either side was said.
they knew they had but to stay their stay
and all their logic would fill my head:
as that I had no right to play
with what was another man's work for gain.
my right might be love but theirs was need.
and where the two exist in twain
theirs was the better right--agreed.

but yield who will to their separation,
my object in living is to unite
by avocation and my vocation
as my two eyes make one in sight.
only where love and need are one,
and the work is play for mortal stakes,
is the deed ever really done
for heaven and the future's sakes.

/robert frost, 1934

i sell the shadow to support the substance

going through a heavy my bloody valentines phase because of this one mind-bendingly beautiful girl. she makes me want to achieve impossibilities and i can't get through to her, so it's just like a song from the late 80s. thanks to music once again for being the perfect inspiration and repository for most of my emotions.

my bloody valentine - tremolo ep (1991)


my bloody valentine - loveless (1991)


my bloody valentine - ecstasy and wine (1989)


my bloody valentine - isn't anything (1988)


my bloody valentine - sunny sundae smile ep (1986)


in other news: phosphene dream is my favorite thing since my last favorite thing, which is cheese.



phosphene, n.
a sensation of light caused by excitation of the retina by mechanical or electrical means rather than by light, as when the eyeballs are pressed through closed lids.

[french phosphène : greek phōs, light; see phos- + greek phainein, to cause to appear, to show.]

it is especially fun to move the image around with your cursor on the computer screen. the most fun of all is when you do that WHILST listening to the album.

he is like a torpedo

elvis:



a supremely fuzzy, handsome, feline, torpedo-legged torpedo.