Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Melancholia” by Charles Bukowski

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry1 Comment

the history of melancholia
includes all of us.

me, I writhe in dirty sheets
while staring at blue walls
and nothing.

I have gotten so used to melancholia
that
I greet it like an old
friend.

I will now do 15 minutes of grieving
for the lost redhead,
I tell the gods.

I do it and feel quite bad
quite sad,
then I rise
CLEANSED
even though nothing
is solved.

that’s what I get for kicking
religion in the ass.

I should have kicked the redhead
in the ass
where her brains and her bread and
butter are
at …

but, no, I’ve felt sad
about everything:
the lost redhead was just another
smash in a lifelong
loss …

I listen to drums on the radio now
and grin.
there is something wrong with me
besides
melancholia.

 

~Charles Bukowski, from The Pleasures of the Damned

“We Are Not Alone (Lessons From 2014)” by Mary Gauthier

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  1. There is no such thing as an ordinary life.
  2. Songs are more than songs–they are the great human connectors of our time.
  3. Songs transcend all manner of boundaries. They speak a universal language.
  4. Songs heal. They are pieces of the soul reaching through eternity, to heal the heart.
  5. Resonance is my/our deepest desire.
  6. An emotionally-true song resonates to the core, to the central, innermost, or most essential part of us.
  7. Emotional truth is not about the facts. It is about being genuine, authentic, and vulnerable.
  8. At our center, we are the same. Songs are conduits for compassion and empathy, a road map into a stranger’s heart, which upon inspection – mirrors our own heart.
  9. A three-and-a-half minute song can temporarily bring us us to a place that does not yet exist here on earth, a place where we are safe, connected, and of one heart.
  10. At their best, songs breathe life into a precious idea: that we are not alone, that other people have felt and feel the way we do, and that all of humanity is made of the same mysterious, electrical, spirit infused stardust. And songs are the people’s instrument of choice- to express the wonder of it all.

~ Mary Gauthier, singer-songwriter, via her on-line journal at MaryGauthier.com

 

“The Thrill is Gone” by B. B. King

On By Christina's WordsIn Music, Quote

“The Thrill is Gone” by B. B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015)

*

“I don’t have a favorite song that I’ve written. But I do have a favorite song: “Always on My Mind,” the Willie Nelson version. If I could sing it like he do, I would sing it every night. I like the story it tells. It go, I may not have written you–he’s talking about a lady–when maybe I should have. Or maybe I didn’t take you to dinner, didn’t call you when I should have, or didn’t love you as I should have. But you was always on my mind. I felt that way a lot in my life. I think every person feels it. That’s one of the things about being an entertainer. What we do–it’s just sharing the thoughts that many people have. You go to see a movie, and you sit up and cry–it’s because something is happening in there that just done happen to you or somebody you know. It’s the same thing with what I do. Don’t matter if you’re gay or straight, black or white, you still have the same problem. It’s love. It’s universal.”

~ From interview with Esquire magazine, “B.B. King: What I’ve Learned” January 2006.

“Mars and Venus” by Kathleen Diane Nolan

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so one night I was walking up Madison after the rain and this homeless man was sitting on the sidewalk sobbing so I got him soup and a sandwich and that didn’t seem like enough so I got a brownie too and when I told the cashier it’s for the guy outside she gave me a cup of coffee light and sweet  I brought the food and the coffee to the guy and he said don’t think I’m going to thank you and I said I don’t care if you thank me and he said, bullshit, you do yes you do  truth  he asked if I was from Mars or Venus because I looked intergalactic baby and what do you do up there all day anyway he wanted to know and no way was I saying social work so I said I was a poet and he said he was a poet too  he told me to sit and I did even though the pavement was wet and everything smelled like shit and sour milk  then we watched the skyline crossing the stars for a long time and he said Venus this is not how things are supposed to be and I said yes I know and he said no you don’t you do not  then he told me to remember three things always  we are all transparent with no skin or bones  diamonds come from ashes and hair of the dead  hope is the thing with claws not feathers  he told me to put all of this in a poem and not to walk near Madison and 38th Street ever again  this is my corner he said

—from Rattle #44, Summer 2014; Kathleen Diane Nolan

“Looking Back” by Sarah Brown Weitzman

On By Christina's WordsIn Poetry

I meant to return
long before this
but in looking back
we learn too much
of loss.
I dreaded that.

Now going through the house
and my parents’ lives
too revealed
by what they saved
what they left behind
for me to find
I feel nothing
but pain for the past
trying to separate
like old clothes
crumbling in a chest
what does not last
from what I can keep
trying to understand
how I fell
so short of what I intended
to do with my life.
How life twists and turns
against us. How a childhood
is not really understood
until it is lived
a second time
in memory.
How wonderful
and how terrible
it seems now
because it is gone
and because it was mine.

–Sarah Brown Weitzman

from Rattle #14, Summer 1999