Writing at a whim

Sunday, February 11, 2018

Funeral Blues

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message 'He is Dead'.
Put crepe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last forever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now; put out every one,
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun,
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood;
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

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/5:41 PM


If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so 
Time only knows the price we have to pay; 
If I could tell you I would let you know. 

If we should weep when clowns put on their show, 
If we should stumble when musicians play, 
Time will say nothing but I told you so. 

There are no fortunes to be told, although, 
Because I love you more than I can say, 
If I could tell you I would let you know. 

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow, 
There must be reason why the leaves decay; 
Time will say nothing but I told you so. 

Perhaps the roses really want to grow, 
The vision seriously intends to stay; 
If I could tell you I would let you know. 

Suppose the lions all get up and go, 
And the brooks and soldiers run away; 
Will Time say nothing but I told you so? 
If I could tell you I would let you know.

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/1:38 PM

Thursday, April 7, 2016

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field

White Owl Flies Into and Out of the Field by Mary Oliver

Coming down out of the freezing sky
with its depths of light,
like an angel, or a Buddha with wings,
it was beautiful, and accurate,
striking the snow and whatever was there
with a force that left the imprint 
of the tips of its wings — five feet apart —
and the grabbing thrust of its feet,
and the indentation of what had been running
through the white valleys of the snow —
and then it rose, gracefully,
and flew back to the frozen marshes
to lurk there, like a little lighthouse,
in the blue shadows —
so I thought: 
maybe death isn't darkness, after all,
but so much light wrapping itself around us  

as soft as feathers —
that we are instantly weary of looking, and looking,
and shut our eyes, not without amazement,
and let ourselves be carried,
as through the translucence of mica,
to the river that is without the least dapple or shadow,
that is nothing but light — scalding, aortal light —
in which we are washed and washed
out of our bones.

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/10:43 PM


Something Beautiful

Something Beautiful by Mary Oliver

It doesn't have to be
the blue iris, it could be
weeds in a vacant lot, or a few
small stones; just
pay attention, then patch

a few words together and don't try
to make them elaborate, this isn't
a contest but the doorway

into thanks, and a silence in which
another voice may speak.

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/10:40 PM

Saturday, February 6, 2016

At The Pond

One summer
     I went every morning
        to the edge of a pond where
           a huddle of just-hatched geese
would paddle to me
     and clamber
        up the marshy slope
           and over my body,
peeping and staring—
     such sweetness every day
        which the grown ones watched,
           for whatever reason,
serenely.
     Not there, however, but here
        is where the story begins.
           Nature has many mysteries,
some of them severe.
     Five of the young geese grew
        heavy of chest and
           bold of wing
while the sixth waited and waited
     in its gauze-feathers, its body
        that would not grow.
           And then it was fall.
And this is what I think
     everything is all about:
        the way
           I was glad
for those five and two
     that flew away,
        and the way I hold in my heart the wingless one
           that had to stay.

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/9:23 PM

Thursday, April 30, 2015

SingPoWriMoDay28

Here, one must learn that light 
cannot be understood by skin. It does
not push back, as surfaces do. It is 
edgeless; it cannot sing. I
am only a transistor: the signal 
is created elsewhere. If I spoke
of the wine-dark sea it would be
more sense than sight, more
tenor than color. Light cannot
rhyme; it is all glances. And color
is the syntax that declaims without
meaning, the distant echo
of a trap snapping shut
in the trees. One sleepwalks
through darkened anterooms, while
fingers of light through the window speak.

/8:25 PM


SingPoWriMoDay09

Across the bay evening dips into the water, a leg over the lip of the bath.
A corpse in the bath is worth two in the hand. Who
said that? Probably someone who tired of birds, of cupping
a heart attack between palms. Though that seems to be the 
way people want to go, a fistfight in an alley and dust in the eyes. 
Love, war and a back-alley scuffle: pick two and make them
vehicle and tenor. Metaphor is, after all, a man in the bath, 
dead, and all the doors in the house left open.

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/8:25 PM

about me

vanessa.
boring and inscrutable.
satirical and opinionated.
sardonic but innocuous.
enigmatic and taciturn.
pococurante but caring.
neurotic but with equanimity.
you wouldn't get me at all,
cause I wouldn't let you.

quote

"Let me tell you this: Some of life's questions you have to answer, some you just have to dance your face off and scream "no comment."" --- John Mayer

drop a line

previously
my past


you people

3 of us
Cell
Desiree
Eunice
Freesia
Janice
Jasmine Wee
Jessie
Jiaying
Kristal
Pearlly
Shiyun
Tingen
Wanwen
Weilien
Xinyi