The Passing of the Year

By Robert William Service



My glass is filled, my pipe is lit,
My den is all a cosy glow;
And snug before the fire I sit,
And wait to feel the old year go.
I dedicate to solemn thought
Amid my too-unthinking days,
This sober moment, sadly fraught
With much of blame, with little praise.

Old Year! upon the Stage of Time
You stand to bow your last adieu;
A moment, and the prompter's chime
Will ring the curtain down on you.
Your mien is sad, your step is slow;
You falter as a Sage in pain;
Yet turn, Old Year, before you go,
And face your audience again.

That sphinx-like face, remote, austere,
Let us all read, whate'er the cost:
O Maiden! why that bitter tear?
Is it for dear one you have lost?
Is it for fond illusion gone?
For trusted lover proved untrue?
O sweet girl-face, so sad, so wan
What hath the Old Year meant to you?

And you, O neighbour on my right
So sleek, so prosperously clad!
What see you in that aged wight
That makes your smile so gay and glad?
What opportunity unmissed?
What golden gain, what pride of place?
What splendid hope? O Optimist!
What read you in that withered face?

And You, deep shrinking in the gloom,
What find you in that filmy gaze?
What menace of a tragic doom?
What dark, condemning yesterdays?
What urge to crime, what evil done?
What cold, confronting shape of fear?
O haggard, haunted, hidden One
What see you in the dying year?

And so from face to face I flit,
The countless eyes that stare and stare;
Some are with approbation lit,
And some are shadowed with despair.
Some show a smile and some a frown;
Some joy and hope, some pain and woe:
Enough! Oh, ring the curtain down!
Old weary year! it's time to go.

My pipe is out, my glass is dry;
My fire is almost ashes too;
But once again, before you go,
And I prepare to meet the New:
Old Year! a parting word that's true,
For we've been comrades, you and I --
I thank God for each day of you;
There! bless you now! Old Year, good-bye!

more ramblings

-ultimate season is starting. ooo rah.
-Some Negatives of Gemini:
Renown for their duel personalities, their moods can change from moment to moment. Having a somewhat quick temper. Sometimes will argue just for the sake of arguing, and can be somewhat fickle at times.
too true.
-worst match for Gemini is Virgo

These are not the two signs made in zodiac heaven. Gemini is too calculating and logical, while the Virgo mate is critical and demanding. Virgo will find themselves at constant odds with their Gemini’s trait of the never ending desire for change. But do not despair most often there is a mutual desire to want the same things in life, such as friends, family and associates who engage them in their intellectual and artistic pursuits.

-postscript: hahaha, shiou jie, we both want musicians from virginia...and #8

[sic]

mmm, might be too big for the blog. click it. check it out.

Were I to Wring a Rag

—no matter how much
muscle I might have
mustered—my mother
was like to come along
behind, reach around
me to take it up again
from where I'd left it,
lift it back into my line
of vision and in one
practiced motion from
that strangle in her bare
hands and thin air work
a second miraculous
stream of silver dishwash
into the day's last gleam ...


by Todd Heap



So true. Countless times.

Zheng shiou jie de ge

This is a song for the one that I love
I haven’t met them yet
But I’m quietly confident

Although what if like you said
All I’m looking for
It doesn’t exist
Oh I have to believe it does

Cause it’s okay to fall down
It’s okay to crumble
I’ve seen this before
I have seen this before

And you said you wanted to crawl down deep inside
But at this point of the last year I am happy to be alive and

Like that good Hole album
I could live through this
I can live through worse
So play it back in reverse
Oh play it back in reverse

Cause it’s okay to fall down
It’s okay to crumble
I’ve seen this before
I have seen this before and

You wanna camp out and I wanna screw around
In the dark
In the dark

But my hips won’t give anything away
Not tonight not to you
but I think we both know you will stay

And I am surprised how this fits together
I’m surprised how we fit together
And that I will remember
Oh and that I will remember

Cause It’s okay to fall down
It’s okay to crumble
I’ve seen this before
I have seen this before
And you wanna camp out and I wanna fuck around
In the dark
In the dark

But you need to know I’d do this all again
Just to get where I am
Just to get where I am
And I let you know I’d do it all again
Just to get where I am
Just to get where I am

Kaki King

Simply amazing. I think I'm in love.

She play's guitar like no one I've ever seen. Saying it's like a smoothie with two scoops Thao-ish folk strumming, one cup of Priscilla Ahn loop machining, and a hint of Rodrigo y Gabriella instrumental tapping flavor would be the understatement of the week. She's as musically talented as the best of them.

Back to musing. Yea, whatever. Glimpses. It will have to do. Inspiration comes and goes, but I'll make lemonade. I'm going to play this one pretty close to the chest. An extremely high risk-reward situation and I'm going to pull the trigger. Hopefully I'm still motivated when the time comes. Oh, mysterious nameless. I hate thee like ice cream. Should I undergo apoptosis under the uncertainty? Tissue engineering sucks.

On a side note, here's some indexed genius from ms. hagy.

Flight 180, Bishop Allen

it's like you took the giant christmas tree
at rockafella center and
you spread it paper thin
but you were careful not to break a bulb
and then you mirrored it a million fold
to shine
and shine
and shine along

and there's a tap on my knee
bring up your seat back please, she says
but I know she means
if you feel like dancing
dance with me

some of the lights below
shine directly on the people I know
their lives take such strange shapes
but how together they appear from above
I guess that could be love
my friends
my friends
I'm coming home

and then the captain speaks
it's clear and 44 degrees
but I know he means
if you feel like dancing
dance with me

but I been out past the lights
where the jagged black begins
i let my heels sink in the sand
and the ocean sucked it's teeth
and the cold cuts through my feet
and stretched out on and on and on

how disconnected I can feel on the ground
it's like I'm shining all alone
and i don't wanna be
so
before i go to bed tonight
i'll signal up to the passing flight
hit the lights
the lights
the lights
the lights

and now the man in the middle seat
recites the times tables audibly
but i know he means
if you feel like dancing
dance with me
if you feel like dancing
dance with me


They also did a wonderful recording for Daytrotter Sessions. Find it here.

By Craig Arnold

from A Place of First Permission

AT a still point of the turning floor
there is a dancer you would know her
even across a crowded room
the way she sways is so familiar
She weaves with the easiness and grace
of someone so completely in
possession of her body the beat
she lays down with her hands and feet
is all that keeps the cosmos in its groove

She is a lash of flame
spiraled to fire-colored hair
Her hands unfold a flower out of the air
If you reached out to take it if you came
closer you would liquefy like wax
pooled in a candle's crater you would spill
past possibility of shame
She says
Smoke me a bass line to go with that
thick as blackstrap molasses she says
Give me the buzz of oboe between your lips
the tingling tambourines the sweet
percussive patter of palm on palm she says
The whole world is poured into the deep bowl of my hips

Now get on up she says and shake
the creases out of your clothes she says
Your life is nothing but the thread
you spin behind you every step
a turn a loop a figure-eight
until the day that blind witch Fate
opens her scissors and snips you dead

What would you do if you could take it
between your fingers if you could feel
every knot and snag and tangle
loosen and gather softly round the spool
What would you do with such permission
how far would you wind it what decision
you made or didn't make

You can sit the next one out together
here at this table you can share
a glass of white vermouth pretend it's absinthe
green as venom green as Eden
seawater wormwood pine-needle
and watch the dramas and the comedies
playing around you you can ease
into one of those silences
that never feel the need to fill
And you can say what you've been so afraid
to put in words what's tied your tongue
for years of useless reasons and excuses
the apology you never made

Love from you I learned
to dance you taught me with your body
and not words your movement answered
mine and mine yours you gave me back
to my own body we passed between us
all the speechless gestures of admiration
of those early in love who aren't yet
careful to say so much and no further

But each time we kissed you kept your lips
closed however much I pleaded
Open the petals of your mouth for me
you never let them part I thought your heart
too was closed I was afraid to see
how happily you would have offered
everything had I done the same

Love forgive me all I've given
has been a form of taking
talking over a table of scarred wood
talking always about the table
I've held out my hand and drawn it back
in case you took it always afraid
to take away the table altogether

You laid a coal on my lips you made me
bend my chromatic into blue
You taught me how to spin my line
back and forth in a broken prayer
and give it to the all-assuming air
Now here it is my gift to you
if you will take it oh my Ariadne
my muse my lady jane my valentine

She takes your hand her thumb circles
lightly over the backs of your fingers
How have you never noticed
the sweetest galaxy of freckles
scattered across the fine skin of her wrist

Outside the ragged trickle of the rain
the dark snarl of branches the blades of grass
bend and flutter caught in the wind
that sweeps over the wake you leave behind
As if it all were bowing briefly
toward your passage nodding as if to say
Yes you're going to get away
with everything
As if the dancers
happy or disappointed loving or leaving
their voices the red velvet curtain
swaying from side to side the broken glass
the girl you loved and you and the whole train
were nothing but a line of thread
licked twisted drawn through
the eye of a needle and slowly pulled
another stitch in the cloth of the world
that is all stitches a piece of string
lost in the weave never to be untangled

Look did you see it
The eye blinks
and the bud of the moment blows open
shakes off its sleepy petals
and you are sitting there
listening to a girl in a pink sweater
gossip into a phone
and she gets off
at the next stop (there is no keeping her)
leaving a dimpled seat a hole
shaped like her in the air a long blonde hair

and the smell of rain in wet wool