Well I actually studied that in A level Theatre Studies but I don't remember that from those days. It's funny how things come around.
Yeah. We did Mother Courage in high school. But that was a long time ago. Funny how some things evaporate and some stay.
No Self is True Self The man in whom Tao acts without impediment Does not bother with his own interests And does not despise others who do He does not struggle to make money And does not make a virtue of poverty. He goes his way without relying on others And does not pride himself on walking alone. While he does not follow the crowd He won't complain of those who do. Rank and reward make no appeal to him; Disgrace and shame do not deter him. He is not always looking for right and wrong Always deciding "yes" and "no." The ancients said, therefore: "The man of Tao remains unknown. Perfect virtue produces nothing No-Self Is True-Self And the greatest man is nobody" Chuang Tzu
Pretty women wonder where my secret lies. I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size But when I start to tell them, They think I’m telling lies. I say, It’s in the reach of my arms, The span of my hips, The stride of my step, The curl of my lips. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. I walk into a room Just as cool as you please, And to a man, The fellows stand or Fall down on their knees. Then they swarm around me, A hive of honey bees. I say, It’s the fire in my eyes, And the flash of my teeth, The swing in my waist, And the joy in my feet. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Men themselves have wondered What they see in me. They try so much But they can’t touch My inner mystery. When I try to show them, They say they still can’t see. I say, It’s in the arch of my back, The sun of my smile, The ride of my breasts, The grace of my style. I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Now you understand Just why my head’s not bowed. I don’t shout or jump about Or have to talk real loud. When you see me passing, It ought to make you proud. I say, It’s in the click of my heels, The bend of my hair, the palm of my hand, The need for my care. ’Cause I’m a woman Phenomenally. Phenomenal woman, That’s me. Xoxo my fav Maya Angelou
I've always loved this particular poem by Bukowski. When I first read it, it reminded me of the relationship I was in at the time. When I read it now, it reminds me of a darker time, and I'm glad I no longer feel the visceral response to the poem, but rather a gentle and benign nostalgia. Heck, reading it again right now, though, I still get a little teary. But I'm super emotional today anyway. "I'm In Love" she's young, she said, but look at me, I have pretty ankles, and look at my wrists, I have pretty wrists o my god, I thought it was all working, and now it's her again, every time she phones you go crazy, you told me it was over you told me it was finished, listen, I've lived long enough to become a good woman, why do you need a bad woman? you need to be tortured, don't you? you think life is rotten if somebody treats you rotten it all fits, doesn't it? tell me, is that it? do you want to be treated like a piece of shit? and my son, my son was going to meet you. I told my son and I dropped all my lovers. I stood up in a cafe and screamed I'M IN LOVE, and now you've made a fool of me. . . I'm sorry, I said, I'm really sorry. hold me, she said, will you please hold me? I've never been in one of these things before, I said, these triangles. . . she got up and lit a cigarette, she was trembling all over.she paced up and down,wild and crazy.she had a small body.her arms were thin,very thin and when she screamed and started beating me I held her wrists and then I got it through the eyes:hatred, centuries deep and true.I was wrong and graceless and sick.all the things I had learned had been wasted. there was no creature living as foul as I and all my poems were false. Charles Bukowski
Bukowski is a bit bleak. But i like him More 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 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?
Henry Beston We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals. Remote from universal nature, and living by complicated artifice, man in civilization surveys the creature through the glass of his knowledge and sees thereby a feather magnified and the whole image in distortion. We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and greatly err. For the animal shall not be measured by man. In a world older and more complete than ours they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth.