Ned Hayes's Blog, page 95
June 11, 2014
"My shelf of books! I love them so!
They take me where I want to go.
Adventure, deeds of every..."
My shelf of books! I love them so!
They take me where I want to go.
Adventure, deeds of every age,
Lie captured on the printed page;
Through them I hear the swish of seas,
The wind in lofty mountain trees;
Their magic brings before my gaze
Heroes of stirring, ancient days.
Here in my chair, through day or night,
They lend me wings for daring flight.
I love my shelf of books, they are
Pathways to sun…and moon… and star.
- Katherine Edelman (via wordpainting)
June 10, 2014
June 9, 2014
Great Oscar Wilde quote!
Great Oscar Wilde quote!
“On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our...
“On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our camp, around us echo faint sounds of that other hidden world—the one of meadow and forest in the night. The melody of whip-poor-will, the cry of hunting owl, the scurrying rush of vole and chasing fox. This night, the land is empty. The silence is deep in stark and open heath. The woods carry no sound. Our horses survive on wisps of straw we pull from the cart. The oats were used up on the first day. We cooked it long, we ate it rough, and now we have nothing. It is as if some great razor scraped the life from this sheet of white-edged vellum, leaving only blank.”
June 8, 2014
June 7, 2014
"Romance and sleep, in this they are alike: Each arrives only when you’re looking the other way."
- Fenton Johnson, Geography of the Heart (via verbix)
“The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide...
“The sound of a distant ocean covers me with surf, that tide that bears me back into the past, back to the place where I was born. People come through the whiteness, through the bright light, but all of them are ghosts.”
PHOTO: asapm0b:
June 6, 2014
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, as read by T.S. Eliot at...
The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock, as read by T.S. Eliot at Harvard University in 1947
June 5, 2014
“On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our...
“On most nights under the winter moon when we have made our camp, around us echo faint sounds of that other hidden world—the one of meadow and forest in the night. The melody of whip-poor-will, the cry of hunting owl, the scurrying rush of vole and chasing fox. It is as if some great razor scraped the life from this sheet of white-edged vellum, leaving only blank.”
PHOTO SOURCE: untitled by goawaynikolai on Flickr.
Poem - Sometimes a Wild God
POEM from TOM HIRONS
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine.
When the wild god arrives at the door,
You will probably fear him.
He reminds you of something dark
That you might have dreamt,
Or the secret you do not wish to be shared.
He will not ring the doorbell;
Instead he scrapes with his fingers
Leaving blood on the paintwork,
Though primroses grow
In circles round his feet.
You do not want to let him in.
You are very busy.
It is late, or early, and besides…
You cannot look at him straight
Because he makes you want to cry.
The dog barks.
The wild god smiles,
Holds out his hand.
The dog licks his wounds
And leads him inside.
The wild god stands in your kitchen.
Ivy is taking over your sideboard;
Mistletoe has moved into the lampshades
And wrens have begun to sing
An old song in the mouth of your kettle.
‘I haven’t much,’ you say
And give him the worst of your food.
He sits at the table, bleeding.
He coughs up foxes.
There are otters in his eyes.
When your wife calls down,
You close the door and
Tell her it’s fine.
You will not let her see
The strange guest at your table.
The wild god asks for whiskey
And you pour a glass for him,
Then a glass for yourself.
Three snakes are beginning to nest
In your voicebox. You cough.
Oh, limitless space.
Oh, eternal mystery.
Oh, endless cycles of death and birth.
Oh, miracle of life.
Oh, the wondrous dance of it all.
You cough again,
Expectorate the snakes and
Water down the whiskey,
Wondering how you got so old
And where your passion went.
The wild god reaches into a bag
Made of moles and nightingale-skin.
He pulls out a two-reeded pipe,
Raises an eyebrow
And all the birds begin to sing.
The fox leaps into your eyes.
Otters rush from the darkness.
The snakes pour through your body.
Your dog howls and upstairs
Your wife both exults and weeps at once.
The wild god dances with your dog.
You dance with the sparrows.
A white stag pulls up a stool
And bellows hymns to enchantments.
A pelican leaps from chair to chair.
In the distance, warriors pour from their tombs.
Ancient gold grows like grass in the fields.
Everyone dreams the words to long-forgotten songs.
The hills echo and the grey stones ring
With laughter and madness and pain.
In the middle of the dance,
The house takes off from the ground.
Clouds climb through the windows;
Lightning pounds its fists on the table.
The moon leans in through the window.
The wild god points to your side.
You are bleeding heavily.
You have been bleeding for a long time,
Possibly since you were born.
There is a bear in the wound.
‘Why did you leave me to die?’
Asks the wild god and you say:
‘I was busy surviving.
The shops were all closed;
I didn’t know how. I’m sorry.’
Listen to them:
The fox in your neck and
The snakes in your arms and
The wren and the sparrow and the deer…
The great un-nameable beasts
In your liver and your kidneys and your heart…
There is a symphony of howling.
A cacophony of dissent.
The wild god nods his head and
You wake on the floor holding a knife,
A bottle and a handful of black fur.
Your dog is asleep on the table.
Your wife is stirring, far above.
Your cheeks are wet with tears;
Your mouth aches from laughter or shouting.
A black bear is sitting by the fire.
Sometimes a wild god comes to the table.
He is awkward and does not know the ways
Of porcelain, of fork and mustard and silver.
His voice makes vinegar from wine
And brings the dead to life.
