(Provided by my dear friend Littlerock)

Time ---- Bill Graham

The sadness of the present

is locked and set in time.

travelling towards the future

is a slow and painful climb.

feelings that are now so vivid

and so real

cannot hold their intensity

as time begins to heal

no wound so deep will ever go entirely away

yet every hurt becomes a little less

day by day

Nothing can erase the painful imprints

on the mind

but there are softer memories

that time will let you find

though the heart would not

let the sadness simply slide away

the echos will diminish

even though the memories stay.

The Clod and the Pebble ---- William Blake (1757 - 1827)

"Love seekth not Itself to please,

"Nor for itself hath any case,

"But for another gives its ease,

"And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair."

So sings a little Clod of Clay

Trodden with the cattle's feet,

But a Pebble of the brook

Warbled out these metres meet:

"Love seekth only Self to please,

"To bind another to Its delight,

"Joys in another's loss of ease,

"And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite."

A Feeling ---- Robert Creeley

However far

I'd gone,

it was still

where it had all begun.

What stayed

was a feeling of difference,

the imagination

of adamant distance.

Some time,

place,

some other way it was,

the turned face

one loved,

remembered,

had looked for

wherever,

it was all now

outside

and in

was oneself again

except there too

seemed nowhere,

no air,

nothing left clear.

When You are Old ---- W. B. Yeats

When you are old and grey and full of sleep,

And nodding by the fire, take down this book,

And slowly read, and dream of the soft look

Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;

How many loved your moments of glad grace,

And loved your beauty with love false or true,

But one man loved the pilgrim soul in you,

And loved the sorrows of your changing face;

And bending down beside the glowing bars,

Murmur, a little sadly, how Love fled

And paced upon the mountains overhead

And hid his face amid a crowd of stars.

Long Distance, II ---- Tony Harrison

Though my mother was already two years dead

Dad kept her slippers warming by the gas,

put hot water bottles her side of the bed

and still went to renew her transport pass.

You couldn’t just drop in. You had to phone.

He’d put you off an hour to give him time

to clear away her things and look alone

as though his still raw love were such a crime.

He couldn’t risk my blight of disbelief

though sure that very soon he’d hear her key

scrape in the rusted lock and end his grief.

He knew she’d just pooped out to get the tea.

I believe life ends with death, and that is all.

You haven’t both gone shopping; just the same,

in my new black leather phone book there’s your

name

and the disconnected number I still call.

Life ---- Heather Williams

As I sit here thinking

Of life and its Meaning

"What is the purpose of it all?"

I ask myself.

I look out the window

of life

And watch as the world

marches by.

It continues on its way

not paying attention to me.

Caring not of my feelings,

but worrying only of itself

"How could the world be so cruel?"

I ask myself fiercely.

Then I realize it is not the world,

but the people in it that makes life Hell.

Complex ---- Richard Fein

Squashed against the doors I hoped wouldn't fly open, I

was condemned to stand for twenty stations, but there

were compensations,

for after the dark tunnel a view exploded.

Usual sunset business.

Of course being pubescent what I really wanted

was a glimpse of an intimate bedroom scene

from one of the houses that seemed to wobble by.

But the subway was passing at dinnertime,

too early for lawful connubial bliss,

too late for adultery, with husbands home soon.

A line of two family homes, with kitchen lights and

aproned women.

A hairpin curve, squeaking brakes, we stopped.

There, fifty feet away, beyond the chasm of door to

window,

I saw one of my first loves.

Oh, she was fully clothed, any undressing was in my

mind.

About my age. We swapped smiles. She turned her face

from side to side

as if modeling. She could have. Pretty.

The car door parted. I floated

across the gulf, to her bedroom window, almost.

A sudden jerk, I fell on a muscular shoulder.

An annoyed stare robbed me of my last look.

The train made its turn around the curve,

and each passing car was in turn bathed by her

bedroom light.

I noted the place and for the next three weeks

happened to be walking down that street.

But the Hollywood coincidence didn't occur, almost

never does.

Boy, the time I wasted when I was young!

Years after, in fact just last week, with wife and

child in the car,

I managed a wrong turn. Behold! The street!

They asked me where I was going; I didn't really know.

I knew the house had long since been demolished;

a towering co-op complex now casts its shadow on the

turning tracks.

Shades of Grey ---- Kristen Schimmoler

Beware of the man who steps on a snail,

But leaves a bee to sting.

He will cut you...and leave you to bleed,

But bow humbly before the King.

Beware of the man who wields the knife,

With dullness in his eyes.

He knows nothing of love or lust,

And does not care who dies.

Beware of the man in all his forms,

For he is many shades of grey.

Truth is such a fantasy word,

But fear is here to stay.

Preludes ----T. S. Eliot

I

The winter's evening settles down

With smells of steaks in

passageways.

Six o'clock.

The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

And now a gusty shower wraps

The grimy scraps

Of withered leaves across your feet

And newpapers from vacant lots;

The showers beat

On empty blinds and chimney-pots,

And at the corner of the street

A lonely cab-horse steams and

stamps.

And then the lighting of the lamps.

II

The morning comes to consciousness

Of faint stale smells of beer

From the sawdust-trampled street

With all the muddy feet that press

To early coffee-stands.

With the other masquerades

That time resumes,

One thinks of all the hands

That are raising dingy shades

In a thousand furnished rooms.

III

You tossed a blanket from the bed,

You lay upon your back, and waited;

You dozed, and watched the night

revealing

The thousand sordid images

Of which your soul is constituted;

They flickered against the ceiling.

And when all the world came back

And the light crept up between the

shutters

And you heard the sparrows in the

gutters,

You had such a vision of the street

As the street hardly understands;

Sitting along the bed's edge, where

You curled the papers from your

hair,

And clasped the yellowed soles of

feet

In the palms of both soiled hands.

IV

His soul stretched tight across the

skies

That fade behind a city block,

Or trampled by insistent feet

At four and five and six o'clock,

And short square fingers stuffing

pipes

And evening newspapers, and eyes

Assured of certain certainties,

The conscience of a blackened street

Impatient to assume the world.

I am moved by fancies that are

curled

Around these images, and cling:

The notion of some infinitely gentle

Infinitely suffering thing.

Wipe your hand across your mouth

and laugh;

The worlds revolve like ancient

women

Gathering fuel in vacant lots.

The Sound of Trees ---- Robert Frost

I wonder about the trees:

Why do we wish to bear

Forever the noise of these

More than another noise

So close to our dwelling place?

We suffer them by the day

Till we lose all measure of pace

And fixity in our joys,

And acquire a listening air.

They are that that talks of going

But never gets away;

And that talks no less for knowing,

As it grows wiser and older,

That now it means to stay.

My feet tug at the floor

And my head sways to my shoulder

Sometimes when I watch trees sway

From the window or the door.

I shall set forth for somewhere,

I shall make the reckless choice,

Some day when they are in voice

And tossing so as to scare

The white clouds over them on.

I shall have less to say,

But I shall be gone.

Fate ---- Ralph Waldo Emerson

DEEP in the man sits fast his fate

To mould his fortunes, mean or great:

Unknown to Cromwell as to me

Was Cromwell's measure or degree;

Unknown to him as to his horse,

If he than his groom be better or worse.

He works, plots, fights, in rude affairs,

With squires, lords, kings, his craft

compares,

Till late he learned, through doubt and fear,

Broad England harbored not his peer:

Obeying time, the last to own

The Genius from its cloudy throne.

For the prevision is allied

Unto the thing so signified;

Or say, the foresight that awaits

Is the same Genius that creates.

Summer ---- John Clare

Come we to the summer,

to the summer we will come,

For the woods are full of bluebells and the

hedges full ofbloom,

And the crow is on the oak a-building of her

nest,

And love is burning diamonds in my true

lover's breast;

She sits beneath the whitethorn a-plaiting of

her hair,

And I will to my true lover with a fond

request repair;

I will look upon her face, I will in her

beauty rest,

And lay my aching weariness upon her lovely

breast.

The clock-a-clay is creeping on the open bloom

of May,

The merry bee is trampling the pinky threads

all day,

And the chaffinch it is brooding on its grey

mossy nest

In the whitethorn bush where I will lean upon

my lover's breast;

I'll lean upon her breast and I'll whisper in

her ear

That I cannot get a wink o'sleep for thinking

of my dear;

I hunger at my meat and I daily fade away

Like the hedge rose that is broken in the heat

of the day.

A Lecture upon the Shadow ---- John Donne

Stand still, and I will read to thee

A lecture, love, in love's philosophy.

These three hours that we have spent,

Walking here, two shadows went

Along with us, which we ourselves produc'd.

But, now the sun is just above our head,

We do those shadows tread,

And to brave clearness all things are

reduc'd.

So whilst our infant loves did grow,

Disguises did, and shadows, flow

From us, and our cares; but now 'tis not so.

That love has not attain'd the high'st degree,

Which is still diligent lest others see.

Except our loves at this noon stay,

We shall new shadows make the other way.

As the first were made to blind

Others, these which come behind

Will work upon ourselves, and blind our eyes.

If our loves faint, and westwardly decline,

To me thou, falsely, thine,

And I to thee mine actions shall

disguise.

The morning shadows wear away,

But these grow longer all the day;

But oh, love's day is short, if love decay.

Love is a growing, or full constant light,

And his first minute, after noon, is night.

The Last Leaf ---- Oliver Wendell Holmes

I saw him once before,

As he passed by the door,

And again

The pavement stones resound

As he totters o'er the ground

With his cane.

They say that in his prime,

Ere the pruning-knife of Time

Cut him down,

Not a better man was found

By the crier on his round

Through the town.

But now he walks the streets

And he looks at all he meets

Sad and wan,

And he shakes his feeble head,

That it seems as if he said,

"They are gone."

The mossy marbles rest

On the lips that he has pressed

In their bloom,

And the names he loved to hear

Have been carved for many a year

On the tomb.

My grandmamma has said --

Poor old lady, she is dead

Long ago --

That he had a Roman nose,

And his cheek was like a rose

In the snow.

But now his nose is thin,

And it rests upon his chin

Like a staff,

And a crook is in his back, And a melancholy crack

Is in his laugh.

I know it is a sin

For me to sit and grin

At him here;

But the old three-cornered hat,

And the breeches, and all that,

Are so queer!

And if I should live to be

The last leaf upon the tree

In the spring,

Let them smile, as I do now,

At the old forsaken bough

Where I cling.

She ---- Stevan Brasel (1976- )

She weilds heaven like so much clay at the tips

of her fingers

to view her resting is to behold the face of God

yet to behold her angered, is to view the first

of the Fallen

She is the pinnacle of juxtaposition,

a voice as melodious as an angel

a form as seductive as a demon

In her eyes is the reflection of tomorrow,

of hope In her mouth are the echoes of yesterday,

of despair

In her touch is ecstasy,

In her absence, agony

One would follow wherever she leads,

if only one could fly

Yet to understand her is to comprehend destiny

to touch her is to feel the universe

easy to happen, hard to see to it's completion

one can follow wherever she leads

if only one can fly.

think how sad you'll be....

if an individual dies before hearing

what you've always wanted to tell him.

~ASHLEIGH BRILLANT PG 94~

you can give without loving,

but you can never love without giving.

~~~~

i am responsible for what i see

i choose the feelings i experience

and i decide upon the goal i would achieve

and everything that seems to happen to me,

i ask for, and receive as i have asked....

~~~~

in the real world as it is in dreams

nothing is quite what it seems.

~~~~

~~~~

we are who we are,

if we run away from that,

that's shameful.

~~~~

~~~~

Dig beneath the depths of you

As a physical human being

You owe it to yourself, to me

Eyes are not only for seeing

~~~~

Live your life each day

As if it were your last

Think not of tomorrow

Nor of your past.

Being here now, for today

Is so important

Tomorrow may not come around

Feel the joy, it lays dormant.

keep laughing at death

and you may at least eventually die laughing.

~ ashleigh brillant 1995 pg 156~

i don't know what life is~

but there's one thing i'm sure it isn't:

IT ISN'T EASY.

~ashleigh brillant 1995

~~~~

Life is what goes by

while you're watching television....

~~~~

Maybe tomorrow,

A new romance.

No more sorrow,

But that's the chance

You've got to take,

If your lonely heart breaks.

And all the wonders made for the earth

And all the hearts in all creation

Somehow i always end up alone

always end up alone

~Bee Gees

"We've been blessed by the children

Black, yellow and white

They believe in the things we try to deny

So throw down your weapons

But continue the fight

And let's love one another on this holy night"

He who gains victory over other men is strong,

but he who gains a victory over himself is all-powerful.

~Lao-Tze

All truly great thoughts are conceived while walking

~Friedrich Nietzsche

alone, alone, all all alone,

ALone on a wide wide sea!

And never a saint took pity on

My soul in agony.

-Samual taylor Coleridge, The rime of the Ancient Mariner

For, you see, each day I love you more,

Today more than yesterday and less than tomorrow.

- Rosemnde Gerard.

Love and a cough cannot be hid

- George Herbet, Jacula Prudentum

It is amazing how complete is the delusion

that beauty is goodness

- Leo Tolstoy, The kreutzer Sonata.

All the lonely people...

Where do they all come from...

~ Lennon and McCartney

Yesterday is History

Tomorrow is a Mystery

And Today?

Today is a gift

that's why we call it The Present

"My only love sprung from my only hate

Too early seen unknown and known too late

A prodigious birth of love it is to me

That I must love a loathed enemy."

Romeo & Juliet

by William Shakespeare

Shared joy is double joy.

Shared sorrow is half sorrow.

It is me who is my enemy....

~ Paula Cole

Why is it that when we talk to God we're said to be

praying, but when God talks to us we're schizophrenic?

-- Lily Tomlin

"The best inspiration is not to outdo others,

but to outdo yourself"

~Anonymous

Beautiful young people are accidents of nature;

but beautiful old people are works of art.

To handle yourself use your head; to handle

others use your heart.

No matter how thin you slice it there are always two sides.

Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events;

small minds discuss people.

He who loses money loses much; he who loses a

friend loses more;

he who loses faith loses all.

The tongue weighs practically nothing but

so few people can hold it

Some Love Poems

Love's Philosophy ---- Percy Bysshe Shelley ( 1792-1822 )

The fountains mingle with the river

And the rivers with the Ocean,

The winds of Heaven mix for ever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

Why not I with thine? ---

See the mountains kiss high Heaven

And the waves clasp one another;

No sister-flower would be forgiven

If it disdained its brother;

And the moonbeams kiss the sea:

What is all this sweet work worth

If thou kiss not me?

The Bargain ---- Sir Philip Sidney ( 1554-1586 )

My true love hath my heart, and I have his,

By just exchange one for another given;

I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss,

There never was a better bargain driven:

My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

His heart in me keeps him and me in one,

My heart in him his thoughts and senses guides;

He loves my heart, for once it was his own,

I cherish his because in me it bides:

My true love hath my heart, and I have his.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love ---- Christoper Marlowe ( 1564 - 1593 )

Come live with me and be my Love,

And we will all the pleasures prove

That hills and valleys, dales and fields,

Or woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,

And see the sheperds feed their flocks

By shallow rivers, to whose falls

Melodious birds sing madriglas.

And I will make thee beds of roses

And a thousand fragrant posies;

A cap of flowers, and a kirtle

Embroider'd all with leaves of myrtle.

A gown made of the finest wool

Which from our pretty lambs we pull;

Fair-lined slippers for the cold,

With buckles of the ourest gold.

A belt of straw and ivy-buds

With coral clasps and amber studs:

And id these pleasures may thee move,

Come live with me and be my Love.

The sheperd swains shall dance and sing

For thy delight each May morning:

If these delights thy mind may move,

Then live with me and be my Love.

Silent Noon ---- Dante Gabriel Rossetti ( 1828-1882 )

Your hands lie open in the long fresh grass, ---

The finger-points look through like rose blooms:

'Neath billowing skies that scatter and amass.

All round our nest, far as the eye can pass,

Where the cow-parsley skirts the hawthorn-hedge.

'Tis visible silence, still as the hour-glass.

Deep in the sun-searched growths the dragon-fly

Hangs like a blue thread loosened from the sky:--

So this wing'd hour is dropt to us from above.

Oh! clasp we to our hearts, for deathless dower,

This close-companioned inarticulate hour

When twofold silence was the song of love.

Give All to Love ---- Ralph Waldo Emerson ( 1803-1882 )

Give all to love;

Obey thy heart;

Friends, kindred, days,

Estate, good fame,

Plans, credit, and the Muse----

Nothing refuse.

'Tis a brave master;

Let it have scope:

Follow it utterly,

Hope beyond hope:

High and more high

It dives into noon,

With wing unspent,

Untold intent;

But it is a god,

Knows its own path,

And the outlets of the sky.

It was never for the mean;

It requireth courage stout,

Souls above doubt,

Valour unbending:

Such 'twill reward;----

They shall return

More than they were,

And ever ascending.

Leave all for love;

Yet, hear me, yet,

One word more thy heart behoved,

One pulse more of firm endeavour----

Keep thee to-day,

To-morrow, for ever,

Free as an Arab

Of thy beloved.

Cling with life to the maid;

But when the surprise,

First vague shadow of surmise,

Flits across her bosom young,

Of a joy apart from thee,

Free be she, fancy-free;

Nor thou detain her vesture's hem,

Nor the palest rose she flung

From her summer diadem.

'Though thou loved her as thyself,

As a self of purer clay;

Though her parting dims the day,

Stealing grace from all alive;

Heartily know,

When half-gods go

The gods arrive.

Love Is Enough ---- William Morris ( 1834-1896 )

Love is enough: though the World be a-waning.

And the woods have no voice but the voice of

complaining,

Though the sky be too dark for dim eyes to

discover

The gold-cups and daisies fair blooming

thereunder,

Though the hills be held shadows, and the sea a

dark wonder

And this day draw a veil over all deeds pass'd

over,

Yet their hands shall not tremble, their feet

shall not falter;

The void shall not weary, the fear shall not alter

These lips and these eyes of the loved and the

lower.

'How do I love thee? Let me count the ways'

---- Elizabeth Barrett Browning ( 1806-1861 )

How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

I love thee to the depth and breath and height

My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight

For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.

I love thee to the level of everyday's

Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.

I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;

I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.

In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.

I love thee with a love I seemed to lose

With my lost saints, ---- I love thee with the

breath,

Smiles, tears, of all my life! ----and, if God

choose,

I shall but love thee better after death.