Moonlight
Bob Dylan

The seasons they are turning
And my sad heart is yearning
To hear again the songbird's sweet melodious tone
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone

The dusky light the day is losing
Orchids, poppies, black eyed susan
The earth and sky that melts with flesh and bone
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone

The air is thick and heavy
All along the levee
Where the geese into the countryside have flown
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone

Well, I'm preaching peace and harmony
The blessings of tranquility
Yet I know when the time is right to strike
I take you 'cross the river, dear
You've no need to linger here
I know the kinds of things you like

The clouds are turning crimson
The leaves fall from the limbs and
The branches cast their shadows over stone
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone

The boulevards of cypress trees
The masquerade of birds and bees
The petals pink and white, the wind has blown
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone

The trailing moss in mystic glow, the purple blossom soft as snow
My tears keep flowing to the sea
Doctor, lawyer, indian chief, it takes a thief to catch a thief
For whom does the bell toll for, love?
It tolls for you and me

Old pulse's running through my palm
The sharp hills are rising from
Yellow fields with twisted oaks that grow
Won't you meet me out in the moonlight alone

Yesterday, I bought a copy of the greatest, funniest, saddest, thickest work of fiction I ever read, David James Duncan's The Brothers K. The title plays off Dostoevsky's Karamazov, but has many more meanings besides. These are explained, partway through the book, in a short ditty titled, quite simply, A Definition, composed in the tale by one of the titular brothers(who happens to be, arguably, the funniest and most self-destructive one). This piece could also very well be used as a summary (of sorts) of what the book is about. I quote it here, with thanks to the author.

A Definition

K verb, K'ed, K'ing. 1. baseball: to strike out. 2. To fail, to flunk, to fuck up, to fizzle, or 3. to fall short, fall apart, fall flat, fall by the wayside, or on deaf ears, or on hard times, or into disrepute or disrepair, or 4. to come unglued, come to grief, come to blows, come to nothing, or 5 go to the dogs, go through the roof, go home in a casket, go to hell in a handbasket, or 6. to blow your cover, blow your chances, blow your cool, blow your stack, shoot your wad, bitch the deal, buy the farm, bite the dust, only 7. to recollect an oddball notion you first heard as a crimeless and un-K'ed child but found so nonsenically paradoxical that you had to ignore it or defy it or betray it for decades before you could begin to believe that it might possibly be true, which is that 8. to lose your money, your virginity, your teach, health or hair, 9. to lose your home, your innocence, your balance, your friends, 10. to lose your happiness, your hopes, your leisure, your looks, and, yea, even your memories, your vision, your mind, your way,
11. in short (and as Jesus K. Rist once so uncompromisingly put it) to lose your very self,
12. for the sake of another, is
13. sweet irony, the only way you're ever going to save it.

The Song of Wandering Aengus
W.B. Yeats

I WENT out to the hazel wood,
Because a fire was in my head,
And cut and peeled a hazel wand,
And hooked a berry to a thread;
And when white moths were on the wing,
And moth-like stars were flickering out,
I dropped the berry in a stream
And caught a little silver trout.

When I had laid it on the floor
I went to blow the fire a-flame,
But something rustled on the floor,
And someone called me by my name:
It had become a glimmering girl
With apple blossom in her hair
Who called me by my name and ran
And faded through the brightening air.

Though I am old with wandering
Through hollow lands and hilly lands,
I will find out where she has gone,
And kiss her lips and take her hands;
And walk among long dappled grass,
And pluck till time and times are done,
The silver apples of the moon,
The golden apples of the sun.

Harold And Kumar Go To White Castle is a classic. For real. Go see it.

"...
The moon, all too fair, in your russet-red hair sets a sparkling crown
The moon, all too red with glory, is spread on your poor, tattered gown
The moon, all too white, caresses the light in your world-weary eyes
Princess of the street, do allow me to greet you, my broken heart cries

Les escaliers de la butte
sont durs aux miséreux
les ailes des moulins
protègent les amoureux
..."

Complainte De La Butte

Plain

ever had a day
that hurt and hurt
but no-one twists the knife
ever had a day
you saw the world
its parody of life
you saw the world
its stupid rhymes
its angry skin
its dying shit
its lying dreams
its crying dogs
its raped and
bleeding babes

you don't believe;
you see the world;
you see it
like it's true.
you don't believe;
you see the world;
recieve it
like it's true.

all you are
is broken truth
but all
I
want is you

And Now For Something Completely Different

When I was a kid, I spent a great deal of time by myself, alone with my thoughts, watching other people, asking myself questions about them that had no answers. They weren't questions about specifics, like who this person was or where that person was from, but just the same general questions over and over again.

Look at all those people.
Where did they all come from?
Look at all the lonely people.
Where do they all come from?

I grew up, I kept seeing these people. Blank looks on their faces, screaming at their kids, sitting by the side of the road, missing a hand, missing an eye, holding a half-dead baby, whatever. I'd walk past, maybe gave them some change to make myself feel better, said a prayer, but I walked past, and I'd wonder. What if I was that person? What if I gave up some of my time to actually help? What'd he do to deserve that life? Same questions, really, all of them, when I think about it.

What the fuck?

Let me elaborate. What the fuck? What the fuck was that? How the fuck is it I'm fed, clothed, and dreaming of being relevant while some other poor fuck two meters away from me is living that shithole existence? Who came up with this shit, and why are people wired to let shit happen? Why do I keep running into shit like this that makes me feel like a complete asshole? Who designed this fucking guilt-trip of a world, stuck me in like a poppyseed on a giant fucking lemon poppyseed cake, and proceeded to start taking bites of all the fucking nameless poppyseeds around me?

You hear all kinds of things people come up with to explain this shit. There's the spark of love in everyone. We learn compassion this way. No one is without hope. All we need is luuuv. Okay. Sure. I'll run with that. I had compassion for these people. Yeah, I did. And the fact that I had compassion made me feel better about doing nothing. Where's my cof-fay.

Then Christ found me, and after a long process of discovery, I learned the following things. We fucked it all up. We did. We're fucked up. Every one of us, fucked since birth. Here's the clincher, though: we don't have to be fucked up. There is hope for the fucked. All who come to Christ and believe in Him may be saved. All others... well they're still fucked.

Woah, my brain said. Wait a minute. We were fucked at the start? Dude in the Mercedes and the business suit, just as fucked as single starving mom and dying baby on the street? Ho-kay. Never would've guessed that on my own. Blue-collar schmoe here in front of me ordering a Big Fucking Happy Meal at McFuckingDees, completely fucked and doesn't even know it? Half-dying-soon-to-be-dead one-year-old with her fucking crackwhore mom, fucked here on earth and, probably, if no one else doesn't say to her the right words soon, fucked in the afterlife? Well, a part of me said, it's so fucking ridiculous you can at least be sure no human being made it up. Well, the rest of me said, it's fucking ridiculous, so fuck that.

Then God put a word in. That's how it is, He said. You don't see it all yet. You see only in part, as through a glass darkly. I am the God you met. I am the God who met you. I love you. Again, you do not see my love clearly.

You can deny that what I say is true.

You cannot deny that I AM the God you met.



Back when I first heard that, I pretty much said "Oh". This morning I woke up, and I was wondering what "Oh" meant, exactly.

Welcome to the blog of hope.