Sunday, February 22, 2009

John Greenlief Whittier

For of all sad words of tongue
or pen

The saddest are these ," It might
have been!"

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Oscar wilde Epigrams

I suppose society is wonderfully delightful. To be in it is merely a bore. But to be out of it simply a tragedy.

I never travel without my diary. One should always have something sensational to read in the train.

All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy.No man does. That's his.

I hope you have not been leading a double life,pretending to be wicked and being really good all the time. That would be hypocrisy.

Nowadays most people die of a sort of commonsense.

To be modern is the only thing worth being nowadays.

Each time that one loves is the only time one has ever loved. Difference of object does not alter singleness of passion. It merely intensifies it.We can have but one great experience at best, and the secret of life is to reproduce that experience as often as possible. (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

A man cannot be too careful in the choice of his enemies. (The Picture of Dorian Gray)

Always forgive your enemies; nothing annoys them so much.

The way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.

The only thing to do with good advice is pass it on; it is never of any use to oneself.

Ah, well, then I suppose I shall have to die beyond my means. (Oscar Wilde's last words)

My own business bores me to death. I prefer other people's.



One should always be a little improbable.

Education is an admirable thing, but it is as well to remember that nothing that is worth knowing can be taught.

The bond of all companionship, whether in marriage or in friendship, is conversation.

To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance.

To be popular one must be a mediocrity.

There is no sin except stupidity.

It is a much cleverer thing to talk nonsense than to listen to it.

We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

A cigarette is the perfect type of a perfect pleasure. It is exquisite, and it leaves one unsatisfied.

Time is a waste of money.

Friendship is much more tragic than love. It lasts longer.

Anything becomes a pleasure if one does it too often.


Farewell Angelina- Lyrics-Bob Dylan -1965

Farewell Angelina
Farewell Angelina
The bells of the crown
Are being stolen by bandits
I must follow the sound
The triangle tingles
And the trumpet play slow
Farewell Angelina
The sky is on fire
And I must go.
There's no need for anger
There's no need for blame
There's nothing to prove
Ev'rything's still the same
Just a table standing empty
By the edge of the sea
Farewell Angelina
The sky is trembling
And I must leave.
The jacks and queens
Have forsaked the courtyard
Fifty-two gypsies
Now file past the guards
In the space where the deuce
And the ace once ran wild
Farewell Angelina
The sky is folding
I'll see you in a while.
See the cross-eyed pirates sitting
Perched in the sun
Shooting tin cans
With a sawed-off shotgun
And the neighbors they clap
And they cheer with each blast
Farewell Angelina
The sky's changing color
And I must leave fast.
King Kong, little elves
On the rooftoops they dance
Valentino-type tangos
While the make-up man's hands
Shut the eyes of the dead
Not to embarrass anyone
Farewell Angelina
The sky is embarrassed
And I must be gone.
The machine guns are roaring
The puppets heave rocks
The fiends nail time bombs
To the hands of the clocks
Call me any name you like
I will never deny it
Farewell Angelina
The sky is erupting
I must go where it's quiet.

Eretz Israel-Lynn Gordon-November 1983

Bleak and black your baslt mountains
Towering arcs, sweep broad and high.
By Jordan's shores lie fields and valleys
Lush beneath an Azure sky

On parched vast slopes of rolling desert
Arid barren hillside soil
Earth is watered; crops are planted
A feat of guts and grit and toil

On your west bank, in Judea
Ghosts of camps the eye can see.
Frightened people, fleeing bloodshed
Far and wide, the mind can see.

You are plunder, pillage, battle
bombing in the dead of night.
Wreakage, rubble, ruins and ashes
Sobbing victims, desperate flight.

You are phantom fighter gliding
Silent, silver bird of prey.
Symmetry of sleek shark soaring
Overhead, fins glinting gray

O land of beauty: Land of Passion:
My hear rejoices as I gaze
On windswept plain, on green-flecked valley:
I pray for peace, I sing your praise.

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Closing time-Lyrics-leonard Cohen

Closing Time"Ah we're drinking and we're dancing and the band is really happening and the Johnny Walker wisdom running high/ And my very sweet companion she's the Angel of Compassion she's rubbing half the world against her thigh/ And every drinker every dancer lifts a happy face to thank her the fiddler fiddles something so sublime/ all the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots/ and it's partner found, it's partner lost and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:/ it's CLOSING TIME/ Yeah the women tear their blouses off and the men they dance on the polka-dots/ and it's partner found, it's partner lost/ and it's hell to pay when the fiddler stops:/ it's CLOSING TIME/ Ah we're lonely, we're romantic and the cider's laced with acid/ and the Holy Spirit's crying, "Where's the beef?"/ And the moon is swimming naked and the summer night is fragrant with a mighty expectation of relief/ So we struggle and we stagger down the snakes and up the ladder to the tower where the blessed hours chime/ and I swear it happened just like this:/ a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss the/ Gates of Love they budged an inch /I can't say much has happened since /but CLOSING TIME I swear it happened just like this:/ a sigh, a cry, a hungry kiss the Gates of Love they budged an inch/ I can't say much has happened since/CLOSING TIME/ I loved you for your beauty but that doesn't make a fool of me: /you were in it for your beauty too and I loved you for your body there's a voice that sounds like God to me declaring, declaring, declaring that your body's really you /And I loved you when our love was blessed and I love you now there's nothing left but sorrow and a sense of overtime/ and I missed you since the place got wrecked/ And I just don't care what happens next /looks like freedom but it feels like death it's something in between,/ I guess it's CLOSING TIME

Sunday, February 8, 2009

VERSES WRITTEN ON SAND-M. RAVITCH

In the garden. Summer's end./ Evening On a bench.The second highest tower burns in the west./The night wind has risen and with the rake I begin to compose a poem in the sand:/We are destructive, and friends' blood is as thin as water to us./Can I ask God or man why this is so?/It seems relatively easy to be good./Like the slaughterer's knife we are always in the right./I ask you again, God or man/It seems so difficult to fully give way to strife./We destroy, but who else sings on about turning the other cheek to the oppressor/--And under our jackets we can hardly hide the newly acquired weapon./In the garden. Summer's end. /Evening. I rise from the bench/The darkness has eclipsed the last of the towers./ simply say farewell to the emptiness/and in the darkness trample on my poem written in the sand.