lighthousekeeping

But today when the sun is everywhere, and everything solid is nothing but its own shadow, I know that the real things in life, the things I remember, the things I turn over in my hands, are not houses, bank accounts, prizes or promotions. What I remember is love - all love - love of this dirt road, this sunrise, a day by the river, the stranger I met in a cafe. Myself, even, which is the hardest thing of all to love, because love and selfishness are not the same thing. It is easy to be selfish. It is hard to love who I am. No wonder I am surprised if you do.

Jeanette Winterson, Lighthousekeeping

Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed
Everybody knows that the war is over
Everybody knows the good guys lost
Everybody knows the fight was fixed
The poor stay poor, the rich get rich
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking
Everybody knows that the captain lied
Everybody got this broken feeling
Like their father or their dog just died

Everybody talking to their pockets
Everybody wants a box of chocolates
And a long stem rose
Everybody knows

Everybody knows that you love me baby
Everybody knows that you really do
Everybody knows that youve been faithful
Ah give or take a night or two
Everybody knows youve been discreet
But there were so many people you just had to meet
Without your clothes
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

And everybody knows that its now or never
Everybody knows that its me or you
And everybody knows that you live forever
Ah when youve done a line or two
Everybody knows the deal is rotten
Old black joes still pickin cotton
For your ribbons and bows
And everybody knows

And everybody knows that the plague is coming
Everybody knows that its moving fast
Everybody knows that the naked man and woman
Are just a shining artifact of the past
Everybody knows the scene is dead
But theres gonna be a meter on your bed
That will disclose
What everybody knows

And everybody knows that youre in trouble
Everybody knows what youve been through
From the bloody cross on top of calvary
To the beach of malibu
Everybody knows its coming apart
Take one last look at this sacred heart
Before it blows
And everybody knows

Everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Oh everybody knows, everybody knows
Thats how it goes
Everybody knows

Everybody knows

蒙馬特

by 夏宇

書店裡的貓。
酒館裡的狗。
玻璃矇著霧氣。
為了擦拭。
為了看見我走過。
為了這盲啞的對視。

是不是我們曾經一起死過。
大家看起來都那麼眼熟。
有人上階梯。
有人下階梯。
都知道從此以後要去那裡。
有人辯稱那是假死。

阿北士路落著雨。
酒館裡吵鬧的煙和話語。
這些樓和窗子都是單面的。
是有人會架起梯子。
把它們捲起來。
帶走。

我跑著經過那個廣場和街道。
被雨打濕了套頭毛衣。
先我過了馬路的男人回頭看我。
對我說一句話。

為了再聽一遍。
我隨他走進一間打鑰匙和做鞋底的店。
我問他您剛才說什麼。
他重複。
他知道重複可以讓我幸福。

A Valediction Forbidding Mourning

by Adrienne Rich

My swirling wants. Your frozen lips.
The grammar turned and attacked me.
Themes, written under duress.
Emptiness of the notations.

They gave me a drug that slowed the healing of wounds.

I want you to see this before I leave:
the experience of repetition as death
the failure of criticism to locate the pain
the poster in the bus that said:
my bleeding is under control

A red plant in a cemetary of plastic wreaths.

A last attempt: the language is a dialect called metaphor.
These images go unglossed: hair, glacier, flashlight.
When I think of a landscape I am thinking of a time.
When I talk of taking a trip I mean forever.
I could say: those mountains have a meaning
but further than that I could not say.

To do something very common, in my own way.

wild geese

by Mary OLIVER

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting--
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

only the crossing counts

by C.D. Wright

It's not how we leave one's life. How go off
the air. You never know do you. You think you're ready
for anything; then it happens, and you're not. You're really
not. The genesis of an ending, nothing
but a feeling, a slow movement, the dusting
of furniture with a remnant of the revenant's shirt.
Seeing the candles sink in their sockets; we turn
away, yet the music never quits. The fire kisses our face.
O phthsis, o lotharian dead eye, no longer
will you gaze on the baize of the billiard table. No more
shooting butter dishes out of the sky. Scattering light.
Between snatches of poetry and penitence you left
the brumal wood of men and women. Snow drove
the butterflies home. You must know
how it goes, known all along what to expect,
sooner or later … the faded cadence of anonymity.
Frankly, my dear, frankly, my dear, frankly

I Wouldn’t Thank You for a Valentine

By Liz Lochhead


I wouldn’t thank you for a Valentine.
I won't wake up early wondering if the postman’s been.
Should 10 red-padded satin hearts arrive with sticky
sickly saccharine
Sentiments in very vulgar verses I wouldn’t wonder if
you meant them.
Two dozen anonymous Interflora red roses?
I’d not bother to swither over who sent them!
I wouldn’t thank you for a Valentine.

Scrawl SWALK across the envelope
I’d just say ‘ Same Auld story
I canny be bothered deciphering it –
I’m up to hear with Amore!
The whole Valentine’s Day Thing is trivial and
commercial,
A cue for unleashing clichés and candyheart motifs to
which I personally am not partial.’
Take more than singing Telegrams, or pints of
Chanel Five, or sweets,
To get me ordering oysters or ironing my black satin sheets.
I wouldn’t thank you for a Valentine.

If you sent me a solitaire and promises solemn,
Took out an ad in the Guardian Personal Column
Saying something very soppy such as ‘Who Loves Ya,
Poo?
I’ll tell you, I do, Fozzy bear, that’s who!’
You’d entirely fail to charm me, in fact I’d detest it
I wouldn’t be eighteen again for anything, I’m glad I’m
past it.
I wouldn’t thank you for a Valentine.

If you sent me a single orchid, or a pair of Janet Reger’s
in a heart-shaped box and declared your Love Eternal
I’d say I’d rather not be caught dead in them they were
politically suspect and I’d rather something thermal.
If you hired a plane and blazed our love in a banner
across the skies;
If you bought me something flimsy in a flatteringly
wrong size;
If you sent me a postcard with three Xs and told me
how you felt
I wouldn’t thank you, I’d melt.

the papin sisters

Don't know why I have been so fascinated with this murder case. I am collecting all the related films and books.

给我讲一个故事

　　by Robert Penn Warren
(I translated it for fun)

　　A
　　很久以前，在肯塔基，我，一个男孩，
　　立在泥泞的路边。在夜幕初临的时候，
　　听到北飞的雁群的鸣叫。
　　
　　我看不见他们，没有月亮，
　　星光寥落。我听到了它们。
　　
　　彼时我不知我内心所发生的变动。
　　
　　那是接骨木开花之前的时节，
　　所以它们会飞往北方。
　　
　　叫声一直蔓延向北。
　　
　　B
　　给我讲一个故事
　　在这个狂躁的世纪与时刻。
　　
　　给我讲一个故事。
　　关于遥远的距离以及星光。
　　
　　故事的名字会是时间。
　　但你不可说出它的名。
　　
　　给我讲一个沉静愉悦的故事。

tell me a story

by Robert Penn Warren

A

Long ago, in Kentucky, I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.

I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse.I heard them.

I did not know what was happening in my heart.

It was the season before the elderberry blooms,
Therefore they were going north.

The sound was passing northward.

B

Tell me a story.

In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.

Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.

The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.

Tell me a story of deep delight.

The Rain

The afternoon grows light because at last
Abruptly a minutely shredded rain
Is falling, or it fell. For once again
Rain is something happening in the past.

Whoever hears it fall has brought to mind
Time when by a sudden lucky chance
A flower called “rose” was open to his glance
And the curious color of the colored kind.

This rain that blinds the windows with its mists
Will gladden in suburbs no more to be found
The black grapes on a vine there overhead

In a certain patio that no longer exists.
And the drenched afternoon brings back the sound
How longed for, of my father’s voice, not dead.

[From Dreamtigers, by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Harold Morland]

雨

　　
　　By Borges 陈东飚译
　　　　
　　突然间黄昏变得明亮
　　因为此刻正有细雨在落下
　　或曾经落下。下雨
　　无疑是在过去发生的一件事
　　　　
　　谁听见雨落下 谁就回想起
　　那个时候 幸福的命运向他呈现了
　　一朵叫玫瑰的花
　　和它奇妙的 鲜红的色彩。
　　　　
　　这蒙住了窗玻璃的细雨
　　必将在被遗弃的郊外
　　在某个不复存在的庭院里洗亮
　　　　
　　架上的黑葡萄。潮湿的暮色
　　带给我一个声音 我渴望的声音
　　我的父亲回来了 他没有死去。