Rootlessness

For a long while I have believed that in every generation there are a few souls, call them lucky or cursed, who are simply born not belonging, who come into the world semi-detached, if you like, without strong affiliation to family or location or nation or race; that there may even be millions, billions of such souls, as many non-belongers as belongers, perhaps; that in sum, the phenomenon may be as "natural" a manifestation of human nature as its opposite, but one that has been mostly frustrated, throughout human history, by lack of opportunity. And not only by that: for those who value stability, who fear transience, uncertainty, change, have erected a powerful system of stigmas and taboos against rootlessness, that disruptive, anit-social force, so that we mostly conform, we pretend to be motivated by loyalties and solidarities we do not feel, we hide our secret identities beneath the false skins of those identities which bear the belongers' seal of approval. But the truth leaks out in our dreams; alone in our beds (because we are all alone at night, even if we do not sleep by ourselves), we soar, we fly, we flee. And in the waking dreams our societies permit, in our myths, our arts, our songs, we celebrate the non-belongers, the different ones, the outlaws, the freaks. What we forbid ourselves we pay good money to watch, in a playhouse or movie theatre, or to read about between the secret covers of a book. Our libraries, our palaces of entertainment tell the truth. The tramp, the assassin, the rebel, the thief, the mutant, the outcast, the delinquent, the devil, the sinner, the traveler, the gangster, the runner, the mask: if we did not recognize in them our least-fulfilled needs, we would not invent them over and over again, in every place, in every language, in every time.

- Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet -

The Captive Armies of the Earth

But love is what we want, not freedom. Who then is the unluckier man? The beloved, who is given his heart's desire and must for ever after fear its loss, of the free man, with his unlooked-for liberty, naked and alone between the captive armies of the earth?

- Salman Rushdie, The Ground Beneath Her Feet -

Earth Poem

"A dull evening in a run-down village
Eyes half asleep
I recall thirty years
And five wars
I swear the future keeps
My ear of corn
And the singer croons
About a fire and some strangers
And the evening is just another evening
And the singer croons

And they asked him:
Why do you sing?

And he answered:
I sing because I sing....

And they searched his chest
But could only find his heart
And they searched his heart
But could only find his people
And they searched his voice
But could only find his grief
And they searched his grief
But could only find his prison
And they searched his prison
But could only see themselves in chains"

 - Mahmoud Darwish -

The Silent Poet's Song

“Bluebird” by Charles Bukowski

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say, stay in there, I’m not going

to let anybody see

you.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I pour whiskey on him and inhale

cigarette smoke

and the whores and the bartenders

and the grocery store clerks

never know that

he’s

in there.

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too tough for him,

I say,

stay down, do you want to mess

me up?

you want to screw up the

works?

you want to blow my book sales in

Europe?

there’s a bluebird in my heart that

wants to get out

but I’m too clever, I only let him out

at night sometimes

when everybody’s asleep.

I say, I know that you’re there,

so don’t be

sad.

then I put him back,

but he’s singing a little

in there, I haven’t quite let him

die

and we sleep together like

that

with our

secret pact

and it’s nice enough to

make a man

weep, but I don’t

weep, do you?

“The Silent Poet” by Connell Green

there’s a poet at the bar who

likes to drink alone

but we talk sometimes,

because I know

he prefers argument to

conversation

so I argue with him

about the best dogs

to bet on.

there’s a poet at the bar who

likes to drink alone

but I pour whiskey in him

and he talks

slowly

like he doesn’t quite know where his

words are going

but he knows exactly

where they’ll never go,

he’s always walking the line

between anger

and

silence.

there’s a poet at the bar who

likes to drink alone

but he watches you with eyes

that see too much

because they’re so far

away.

there’s a poet at the bar who

likes to drink alone

but I’ve read his poetry

so I know

there’s a bluebird in his heart that

wants to get out

but he’s too tough for it,

and, though I long

to hear

its song,

perhaps the appeal

is in their

secret pact

of silence,

and anyway I know

he’ll never let it

sing, will he?

Are you worried about the world?

Are you worried about the world?
Do you think that it needs your guidance?
Don't the heavens turn by themselves?
Don't sun and moon find their places?
What masterminds all this?
What creates all the connections?
What, without any effort,
makes everything happen in its time?
Is there some hidden mechanism
that makes life be as it is?
Do things just happen to turn out
exactly the way they do?
Do clouds make the rain, or is it
the rain that makes the clouds?
What force puffs them and punctures them?
The winds rise in the north,
they blow now west, now east,
and wander across the heavens.
What, without any effort,
stirs up this unfathomable joy?

- Lao Tzu, The Second Book of the Tao, translated by Stephen Mitchell -

Cleverness and Knowledge step forth

When the great Tao is forgotten,
goodness and piety appear.
When the body's intelligence declines,
cleverness and knowledge step forth.
When there is no peace in the family,
filial piety begins.
When the counry falls into chaos,
patriotism is born.

- Tao te Ching -

can't faze Black Stacey

Black Stacey
They called me Black Stacey
I never got to be myself
'cause to myself I always was
Black Stacey
They didn't think it'd faze me
but it did
'cause I was just a kid.

- Saul Williams -

the Truly Creative Mind

The truly creative mind in any field is no more than this: A human creature born abnormally, inhumanely sensitive. To them... a touch is a blow, a sound is a noise, a misfortune is a tragedy, a joy is an ecstasy, a friend is a lover, a lover is a god, and failure is death.

Add to this cruelly delicate organism the overpowering necessity to create, create, create -- so that without the creating of music or poetry or books or buildings or something of meaning, their very breath is cut off... They must create, must pour out creation. By some strange, unknown, inward urgency they are not really alive unless they are creating.

- Pearl Buck -

Poems in the Sky

Tress are poems that the earth writes upon the sky. We fell them down and turn them into paper so that we may record our emptiness.

- Kahlil Gibran-

Seven Time have I Despised my Soul

Seven times have I despised my soul:

The first time when I saw her being meek that she might attain height.
The second time when I saw her limping before the crippled.
The third time when she was given to choose between the hard and the easy, and she chose the easy.
The fourth time when she committed a wrong, and comforted herself that others also commit wrong.
The fifth time when she forbore for weakness, and attributed her patience to strength.
The sixth time when she despised the ugliness of a face, and knew not that it was one of her own masks.
And the seventh time when she sang a song of praise, and deemed it a virtue.

- Kahlil Gibran -

Love

They say the jackal and the mole
Drink from the self-same stream
Where the lion comes to drink.

And they say the eagle and the vulture
Dig their beaks in the same carcass,
And are at peace, one with the other,
In the presence of the dead thing.

O love, whose lordly hand
Has bridled my desires,
And raised my hunger and my thirst
To dignity and pride,
Let not the strong in me and the constant
Eat the bread or drink the wine
That tempt my weaker self.
Let me rather starve,
And let my heart parch with thirst,
And let me die and perish,
Ere I stretch my hand
To a cup you did not fill,
Or a bowl you did not bless.

- Khalil Gibran -

Locusts

Taken from the novel Ishmael by Daniel Quinn:

One day the gods were considering the administration of the world in the ordinary way, and one of them said, "Here's a spot I've been thinking about for a while--a wide, pleasant savannah. Let's send a great multitude of locusts into this land. Then the fire of life will grow prodigiously in them and in the birds and lizards that will feed on them, and that will be very fine."

The other thought about this for a while, then one said, "It's certainly true that, if we send the locusts into this land, the fire of life will blaze in them and in the creatures that feed on them--but at the expense of all the other creatures that live there." The others asked him what his point was, and he went on. "Surely it would be a great crime to deprive all these other creatures of the fire of life so that the locusts and the birds and the lizards can flourish for a time. For the locusts will strip the land bare, and the deer and the gazelles and the goats and the rabbits will go hungry and die. And with the disappearance of the game, the lions and the wolves and the foxes will soon be dying too. Won't they curse us then and call us criminals for favoring the locusts and the birds and the lizards over them?"

Now the gods had to scratch their heads over this, because they'd never looked at the matters in this particular light before but finally one of them said, "I don't see that this presents any great problem. We simply won't do it. We won't raise a multitude of locusts to send into this land, then things will go on as before, and no one will have any reason to curse us."

the Echoes of Silence

"Fools" said I, "You do not know

Silence like a cancer grows.

Hear my words that I might teach you,

Take my arms that I might reach you."

But my words like silent raindrops fell,

And echoed

In the wells of silence.

—from "The Sound of Silence"

by Paul Simon—

In an effort to get people to look

into each other's eyes more,

and also to appease the mutes,

the government has decided

to allot each person exactly one hundred

and sixty—seven words, per day.

When the phone rings, I put it to my ear

without saying hello. In the restaurant

I point at chicken noodle soup.

I am adjusting well to the new way.

Late at night, I call my long distance lover,

proudly say I only used fifty—nine today.

I saved the rest for you.

When she doesn't respond,

I know she's used up all her words,

so I slowly whisper I love you,

thirty two and a third times.

After that, we just sit on the line

and listen to each other breathe.

—"A Quiet World"

 by Jeffrey McDaniel—

When I first met him, Mitch the Cat did not speak.

His public reason was a vague and complicated spiritual one (if he did not deign to answer a question, he would not, and you would have no idea, either).

His private reason was that he only had so many words in him, and each had a possible price tag.

But the true reason for an incredibly witty and charming man to impose a vow of silence upon himself? Hell, I don't know. However, I do know that he didn't know either. Noemi probably did.

Perhaps he craved simplicity (we all do). Perhaps he found his image of himself in a social context too painful to be constantly reminded of. Perhaps... well, perhaps it is better—certainly easier—to accept that neither of us will ever know. Though we do both wonder.

He once told me:

Fervour

I wanted to--still want to--write you a letter. It would contain half of everything I ever wanted to tell you and couldn't--(didn't?). The half that could be relayed in words.
I'm so sorry. It's so hard to live. So painful. Why do we have to care so much?

There is so much misunderstood sadness in the world, sometimes I feel as though it will smother me: drown me and sweep me away to my own self-sown hell.

"She let out a laugh, and then she put a hand over her mouth, like she was angry at herself for forgetting her sadness."
- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close -

"I am committed to truth, not consistency."
- Ghandi -

The meaning of enlightenment: to know truly who you are.

"I thought about all of the things that everyone ever says to each other, and how everyone is going to die, whether it's in a millisecond, or days, or months, or 76.5 years, if you were just born. Everything that's born has to die, which means our lives are like skyscrapers. The smoke rises at different speeds, but they're all on fire, and we're all trapped."
- Jonathan Safran Foer, Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close -

I have never known the fervour of a fanatic.

Blind Mary

Spread the Whisper

Talkin bout a revolution
It sounds like a whisper

-Tracy Chapman-

Just a Thought

All I want is your understanding
As in the small at of affection
'Why is this my life?'
Is almost everybody's question

And I've tried, everything but suicide
But it's crossed my mind

I preferred peace
Wouldn't have to have one worldly possession
But essentially I'm an animal
So just what do I do, with all the aggression?

Well, I've tried, everything but suicide
But it's crossed my mind

Life is a one way street, ain't it?
If you could paint it, I'd chalk myself going in the right direction
So I go all the way, like I really really know
But the truth is, I'm only guessing

And I've tried, everything but suicide
Ohh, but it's crossed my mind, just a thought

It's even dark in the daytime
It's not just good, it's great depression
When I was lost I even found myself
Looking in the gun's direction

And so I've tried, everything but suicide
But yes, it's crossed my mind, but I'm fine


- Cee Lo Green of Gnarls Barkley -

Scratching

I can paint a picture with a pen
But a song will only scratch the skin

-Gnarls Barkley-

The Hollow Me

Between the intention
And the action
Between the promise
And the fulfillment
Falls the procrastination.

The Hollow Men

Between the idea

And the reality

Between the motion

And the act

Falls the shadow

Between the conception

And the creation

Between the emotion

And the response

Falls the shadow

Between the desire

And the spasm

Between the potency

And the existence

Between the essence

And the descent

Falls the shadow

-T.S. Eliot-