Monday, April 12, 2010

Dylan, of sorts


Not that Dylan, THIS Dylan

Don't know why this occurs to me, but it's been gnawing at the back of the brain all evening.

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.


And as long as I'm being a cheerful bastard, how about a little Adonais from Shelley?

Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep,
He hath awaken'd from the dream of life;
'Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep
With phantoms an unprofitable strife,
And in mad trance, strike with our spirit's knife
Invulnerable nothings. We decay
Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief
Convulse us and consume us day by day,
And cold hopes swarm like worms within our living clay.

4 comments:

  1. Will you speak before I am gone? Will you prove already too late?
    The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me.... he complains of my gab and my loitering.
    I too am not a bit tamed.... i too am untranslatable.
    I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
    The last scud of day holds back for me.It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadowed wilds,
    It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.
    I depart as air...I shake my white locks at the runaway sun,
    I effuse my flesh in eddies and drift it in lacy jags.

    I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
    If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

    You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
    But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
    And filter and fibre your blood.

    Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
    Missing me one place search another,
    I stop some where waiting for you.

    - from "Song of Myself" Walt Whitman

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  2. Oh, that Dylan!

    I like your smile and your finger tips
    I like the way that you move your lips
    I like the cool way, you look at me
    everything about you is bringing me misery

    little red wagon, little red bike
    I ain't no monkey, but I know what I like
    I like the way, you love me strong and slow
    I'm taking you with me, honey baby, when I go.

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  3. Or this Dylan...

    Now I'm goin' back again
    I got to get to her somehow.
    All the people we used to know
    they're an illusion to me now.
    Some are mathmeticians
    Some are carpenters' wives
    Don't know how it all got started
    Don't know what they're doin' with their lives

    And me, I'm still on the road
    headin' for another joint
    We didn't always feel the same
    we just saw it from a different point
    of view....

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  4. Or maybe it was this Dylan?

    Love is so simple to quote a phrase
    You've known it all the time I'm learning it these days
    Oh I know where I can find you
    In somebody's room
    It's a price I had to pay
    You're a big girl all the way.

    A change in the weather is known to be extreme
    But what's the sense of changing horses in midstream ?
    I'm going out of my mind
    With a pain that stops and starts
    Like a corkscrew to my heart
    Ever since we've been apart.

    By Christ the man is good...

    ReplyDelete