Friends

"The Shortest Day"
Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And now so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

---

I am working on a project for my grandmother and am in search of poetry relating to grief, continuing with life after a spouse's death, Alzheimer's/loss of memory, loneliness, love, heaven, et cetera. I hope that makes sense. Anyway, I would love any help you could give me with poetry relating to those topics. If I've posted the poem before that's fine, since there are 700+ poems and I can't recall every one. Thank you so much.

Questions done by bivouack 

1. Pirates or Ninjas? Explain your choice.
2. Favourite Harry Potter character?
3. If you could be a mythological creature, what would you be?
4. What do you like best about yourself/think is your greatest quality? And the obligatory...
5. What got you into the Green Day fandom?

1. Ooooh my choice is easy; Pirates. Why? Three words: Captain Jack Sparrow. I really can't lie about my infatuation for Johnny Depp, so pirates will forever win my vote. Sexy, scheming, and dirty. Mmmmm. Just my type.

2. Ahhhh Severus Snape. Just because he's misunderstood. I mean, sure, he had issues with Harry and company that he maybe should have kept to himself, but dude. James did kinda bully him, and he was all ~in love~ with Lily and he went with his arch enemy. And Dumbledore trusted him. So you had no choice but to trust him really. And then there's that empathy thing. . . I dunno I love Snape XD

3. Ahahahaha I've never given it too much thought! I don't know of many mythological creatures. . . How about a Liger? XD Dynamite was very popular when I was in middle school so. I'll say Liger. With skills.
 
4. Ummmm. I don't know. I guess I'd say that I'm a good friend. I love my friends, and for my closest ones, I'd do near to anything for 'em. And I know it's reciprocated so it's a never ending cycle of win. I dunno I guess that's it XD

5. I was eleven. I mean, sure, I grew up hearing all their music on the radio but I didn't really care until Holiday was released. It was catchy, the video was kickass, and when I bought American Idiot, I actually become aware of the world around me and started paying some attention. Stopped letting my parents and teachers tell me what to think and formed my own ideas. They molded who I am and what I believe in, and after five years, they still occupy seventy-five percent of my heart and my mind. I've fallen for 'em, from Billie Joe's lyrics, to Mike's sweetness, to Tre's unique ability to make me laugh even when I feel like weeping. They came into my life at the right time, have stuck in my life, and the day I saw them live, in concert, and made actual eye contact with my heroes? Pretty much an indescribable feeling - not to mention the point of no return.

How I got into fanfiction is a whole other story. I was googling Billie Joe Armstrong's name to see what came up, and I stumbled across this link to a Quizilla profile. I still remember her name - Mrs.BillieJoeArmstrong (XD) and hers was the first fanfiction I ever read; Love Is In Da Air~. I can't believe I still remember it, but I do. It snowballed from there. The first slash I read? Coming Clean, by breakingthehabitLPfan, also on Quizilla. Not long after, I started writing my own slash, and I think I was twelve XD It was a Billie/Tre; my old slash OTP. Ohhhh how things change.

/novel

Leave me a comment saying "QUEEN".
- I'll respond by asking you five questions so I can satisfy my curiosity.
- Update your journal with the answers to the questions.
- Include this explanation in the post and offer to ask other people questions.

(I don't anyone on my f-list will do this, buuuut you never know.)

Title: Black Holes and Revelations [1/?]
Author: Molly
Pairing: Billie/Mike (Adrienne/Billie)
Rating: R overall
Notes: Work in progress, but I'm more than determined to finish this piece. Just completed part five, so. It's written in third person, but some parts will either be more Billie-centric or Mike-centric. This first part is Mike-centric. So yeah~
Summary: His voice was muffled, due to the fact that his face was nuzzled against Mike's warm chest, but what he said sounded very clear to Mike, "I miss you too."  

( It was obvious to Mike that there was something not right with Billie. ) 

"Track Conditions"
Eireann Corrigan

After you decide again that every fortune
unfurled from a cookie means me and I decide
that every song on the jukebox means you,
I travel from college to see you in your first
new apartment. Save thirty dollars taking the train
first from the city to Trenton, then from Trenton
to Philadelphia. Four hours to shuttle eighty miles.
And somewhere on the way out of Jersey,
that first train trembles and slides into a long,
screaming skid. Lights falter off and the bags
On the overhead racks hit the floor. The man
across from me surrenders his handkerchief
to the woman behind him with the nosebleed
and the mother in front of me unbuckles her baby
from his stroller to take him in her arms and
Mr. Handkerchief says That's not safe--
Leave the kid in the carriage. And she says Who
do you think you are? And we sit bickering in dark
panic until the man who collected our tickets
picks his way through the aisle. He has a flashlight
and calls us folks. He says Folks, please keep calm.
And I notice he calls the person we hit
an unfortunate soul. He says An unfortunate soul
stepped out on to the tracks and our brakeman
did not have enough warning to stop. For some
reason, I want to turn to that woman
with the nosebleed and say If the paramedics
had given up, then the boy I'm going to visit would count
as an unfortunate soul. But then the fluorescent lights
choke on and that ticket collector speaks again,
says Folks, a member of our crew is understandably
distraught. We'll just wait a few minutes for relief
to arrive from the next station. And I wonder
if the shaken brakeman will lower himself
into a passenger seat and ride, staring out the window.
Or maybe the jeep that delivers his replacement
will ferry him home. He'll sit with his head
across his wife's lap and bunch her skirt in his fists,
the way you have mine those nights you've said prayers
before unbuttoning my dress. Who do you think
I am? By the time we arrive in Trenton,
I've missed my connection, am already an hour and
a half late and when that train to Philadelphia staggers
to a stop, I already know the news the conductor will crackle
over the intercom, just like when the girl who told me
you'd pulled the trigger, when that same girl telephoned again
one year later, I knew she'd say something I didn't want
to know. Tonight, I sit on the second train as quietly as I sat
at Ben's funeral, worried that someone might recognize me
as the one common thread. Ben took me out the night
you held a gun to your head and fired. I knew he loved me
because he'd drive me to the hospital and sit in his car
while I sat by your bed. It takes more than an hour
for the police to arrive and clear the tracks ahead of our train.
It's a Friday night in May, warm enough to wait on the platform
without a jacket and two men in two states have stepped into
the brightening lights as decisively as you'd step off
a highrise. What are the statistical chances of all this?
This time the whole stoic crew stays on and the electricity
didn't even flicker. How can one death cause less of anything?
At first, when that girl called, all I could be was grateful
that she wasn't calling with news of you. Who could
forgive me for that? My father carried me out of my dorm
and that night, I dialed your telephone number at college
and said Daniel shot himself in the head. And you said
What? And I said Ben drove his car into a tree. And
when I told you it meant that there was something I
must have done to both of you, you asked Who do you think
you are? Right now i am dizzy -- I want to close my eyes
against you and bite the collar of your shirt. By the time
I arrive at the station, you've given up waiting on those benches.
I describe you at the window and the man there remembers
you perfectly. He tells me you had him call my name over
and over the loud speaker. He says He was so disappointed--
he thinks you changed your mind. It's almost midnight.
I can't tell you why the whole trip took seven hours
or you'll end up on your knees, weeping into me for
your own good fortune, for those men and their dismal
lack of miracles. So when the taxi finally delivers me
to your drive, you are angry but less angry
than you'll be later on in out lives, worried but less
worried then you have been before. Now I remember
how you held my face in your hands that night -- like
it was a face you had had stapled a sketch of on every
telephone pole across the city. And now, when we kneel, each
at our separate beds, we thank and pray for other things.
Who do we think we are? In my mind, the brakeman walks away
from the train into that darkened tunnel, his head
bent down, his cap in his hands.

It's 10 am. My grandma just phoned. My great-grandma passed away in the night.

She had just moved in with them. 93 years old you tough old bird. I don't know really how I feel. I mean, I'm sad because she's gone, but it wasn't a shock u know, cuz of her age. Plus, I dont know really, she would've have something funny and bitter to say about it u know. I feel, sad, but I'm not crying you know...sorta one of those things....I dunno, can't really describe it. She was a complete agnostic, and always had questions and thoughts you know, especially after my great-grandpa died. I just hope she found that wonderful thing/place/person she was constantly searching for.

Gramma Findley and baby Jesse, xmas 2008




I'll be seeing you
In all the old familiar places
That this heart of mine embraces
All day through.

In that small cafe;
The park across the way;
The children's carousel;
The chestnut trees;
The wishin' well.

I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day;
In every thing that's light and gay.
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.

I'll be seeing you
In every lovely summer's day;
In every thing that's light and gay.
I'll always think of you that way.

I'll find you
In the morning sun
And when the night is new.
I'll be looking at the moon,
But I'll be seeing you.


One of my fav versions of this song...Rod Stewart is amazing

"Untitled"
Stephanie Bolster

Come to the edge of the barn the property really begins there,
you see things defining themselves, the hoofprints left by sheep,
the slope of the roof, each feather against each feather on each goose.
You see the stake with the flap of orange plastic that marks

the beginning of real. I'm showing you this because
I'm sick of the way you clutch the darkness with your hands,
seek invisible fenceposts for guidance, accost spectres.
I'm coming with you because I fear you'll trip

over the string that marks the beginning, you'll lie across the border
and with that view--fields of intricately seeded grain and chiselled mountains,
the cold winds already lifting the hairs of your arm--you'll forget your feet,
numb in straw and indefinite cow dung, and be unable to rise, to walk farther.

My fingers weave so close between yours because I've been there
before, I know the relief of everything, how it eases the mind to learn
shapes it has not made, how it eases the feet to know the ground
will persist. See those two bowls of milk, just there,

on the other side of the property line, they're for the cats
that sometimes cross over and are seized by sudden thirst, they're
to wash your hands in. Lick each finger afterwards. That will be
your first taste, and my finger tracing your lips will be the second.

---

I've been told that the first line is "one of John Ashbery's "37 Haiku" in A Wave."

"1999"
Kevin A. González

We were driving to your funeral
& our father was not crying
because he has a way
of tying ribbons around grief.
It was the year we learned
the piercing that prefaces the blood
holds the most delicate of darknesses.
Then it was the year we opened
all our faucets & waited for the sea
to bleed to death. Then it was the year
we set fire to your mitt. Then, suddenly
the year we started to believe
every thorn was just a bridge.
Then the year all we talked about
was boxing. Then the year
my stomach hurt all year, & then
the year no one spoke of you.

If there were an antonym for suicide
we could all choose when to be born.
I would have been born after that day
so I could not remember you.
So my fingers would stop pointing
at all the things that aren't there.

"Untitled (In the slaughterhouse of love)"
Jalaluddin Rumi

In the slaughterhouse of love they kill only
the best, none of the weak or deformed.
Don't run away from this dying.
Whoever's not killed for love is dead meat.

Interpreted by Coleman Barks

"Ask Me"
William Stafford

Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made. Ask me whether
what I have done is my life. Others
have come in their slow way into
my thought, and some have tried to help
or to hurt: ask me what difference
their strongest love or hate has made.

I will listen to what you say.
You and I can turn and look
at the silent river and wait. We know
the current is there, hidden; and there
are comings and goings from miles away
that hold the stillness exactly before us.
What the river says, that is what I say.

"A Bitterness"
Mary Oliver

I believe you did not have a happy life.
I believe you were cheated.
I believe your best friends were loneliness
and misery.
I believe your busiest enemies were anger
and depression.
I believe joy was a game you could never
play without stumbling.
I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.
I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.
I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your
bitterness.
I believe you lay down at last none the wiser and unassuaged.
Oh, cold and dreamless under wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of
the hillsides.

"The First Dream"
Billy Collins

The Wind is ghosting around the house tonight
and as I lean against the door of sleep
I begin to think about the first person to dream,
how quiet he must have seemed the next morning

as the others stood around the fire
draped in the skins of animals
talking to each other only in vowels,
for this was long before the invention of consonants.

He might have gone off by himself to sit
on a rock and look into the mist of a lake
as he tried to tell himself what had happened,
how he had gone somewhere without going,

how he had put his arms around the neck
of a beast that the others could touch
only after they had killed it with stones,
how he felt its breath on his bare neck.

Then again, the first dream could have come
to a woman, though she would behave,
I suppose, much the same way,
moving off by herself to be alone near water,

except that the curve of her young shoulders
and the tilt of her downcast head
would make her appear to be terribly alone,
and if you were there to notice this,

you might have gone down as the first person
to ever fall in love with the sadness of another.

"Milos"
Anis Mojgani

( Read more... )

Borders is closing. There is exactly one Borders store in Southampton, and it's already rather well denuded, with half-empty shelves and a board with photos of the fixtures because they're selling everything down to the walls. I wandered over there just to browse after work cuz I had to hit the Boots nearby, and discovered a rapidly emptying store.

This is not helping my "fuck Christmas" mood.

Fuck my life.
1.I missed Allison Iraheta at my school WHATTHEFUCK
2. Angels and Airwaves are playing instruments at a festival.
3.I had an elaborate plan for my gf thwarted by a game of Texas Hold 'Em.
4.I MISSED FUCKING ALLISON
5. Alice in Chains is winning over Blink
6. My stat test

Good things.
1. BassHunter on Never Mind the Buzzcocks (getting spanked)
2. The radio station crew party/ seeing "The Room" the film*
3. Learning to play/winning Texas Hold 'Em with Leslie
4. I'm done with finals
5. There's going to be a Green Day Rock Band (yes!)
6. Jared Leto

*"The Room" in summary: I have breast cancer, how's your sex life? Denny! Johnny's my best friend. Football. You can't support yourself financially because you're a woman. Denny!

Adam Lambert, why have you kidnapped revid's brain and common sense, and what have you done with them?

In typical network TV chickenshit fashion, ABC cancelled the not-to-be-trusted Adam Lambert from their NY Rockin' Eve hosted by Ryan Seacrest and the remarkably life-like shell of what used to be Dick Clark, because I dunno, he makes Ryan a little nervous that he'll kiss Adam or sumpin'. But once again, like a phoenix from the ashes, Adam rises, and comes out looking like he planned it this way all along.

He just got the headliner gig at the Gridlock LA NYE party, a humongous event held on the Paramount studio lot in Los Angeles annually, with multiple stages, fireworks, and all the alcohol you can drink with 5000 of your closest friends. I see the trade-off this way:

Downside: No national TV exposure

Upside: A full 40 minute set of his own, instead of 1 or 2 songs; no FCC to worry about; much better coin than the ABC gig; alcohol and an over 21 crowd live right in front of the stage; five miles from his home instead of across the country; a good 30 to 40 degrees warmer than NYC; and best of all, MY PRESENCE IN THE AUDIENCE.


YOU GUYS....it's Adam's very, very first ever post-idol headliner concert...playing HIS songs, from HIS album. How could I say no? Never mind that I've spent less on entire vacations!...So I got my ticket, (and a plane ticket, and a rental car) and I'm meeting up with a bunch of cool people from hooplamagnet and I'm so freakin' excited I can hardly stand it.

Which leads me back to my original question. Adam, I love you baby, but please, please, please, can I have my common sense back some day? Pleeeeeease?

"To his lost lover"
Simon Armitage

Now they are no longer
any trouble to each other

he can turn things over, get down to that list
of things that never happened, all of the lost

unfinishable business.
For instance… for instance,

how he never clipped and kept her hair, or drew a hairbrush
through that style of hers, and never knew how not to blush

at the fall of her name in close company.
How they never slept like buried cutlery –

two spoons or forks cupped perfectly together,
or made the most of some heavy weather –

walked out into hard rain under sheet lightning,
or did the gears while the other was driving.

How he never raised his fingertips
to stop the segments of her lips

from breaking the news,
or tasted the fruit

or picked for himself the pear of her heart,
or lifted her hand to where his own heart

was a small, dark, terrified bird
in her grip. Where it hurt.

Or said the right thing,
or put it in writing.

And never fled the black mile back to his house
before midnight, or coaxed another button of her blouse,

the another,
or knew her

favourite colour,
her taste, her flavour,

and never ran a bath or held a towel for her,
or soft-soaped her, or whipped her hair

into an ice-cream cornet or a beehive
of lather, or acted out of turn, or misbehaved

when he might have, or worked a comb
where no comb had been, or walked back home

through a black mile hugging a punctured heart,
where it hurt, where it hurt, or helped her hand

to his butterfly heart
in its two blue halves.

And never almost cried,
and never once described

an attack of the heart,
or under a silk shirt

nursed in his hand her breast,
her left, like a tear of flesh

wept by the heart,
where it hurts,

or brushed with his thumb the nut of her nipple,
or drank intoxicating liquors from her navel.

Or christened the Pole Star in her name,
or shielded the mask of her face like a flame,

a pilot light,
or stayed the night,

or steered her back to that house of his,
or said “Don’t ask me how it is

I like you.
I just might do.”

How he never figured out a fireproof plan,
or unravelled her hand, as if her hand

were a solid ball
of silver foil

and discovered a lifeline hiding inside it,
and measured the trace of his own alongside it.

But said some things and never meant them –
sweet nothings anybody could have mentioned.

And left unsaid some things he should have spoken,
about the heart, where it hurt exactly, and how often.

"Sonnet 14"
Elizabeth Barrett Browning

If thou must love me, let it be for nought
Except for love's sake only. Do not say
'I love her for her smile—her look—her way
Of speaking gently,—for a trick of thought
That falls in well with mine, and certes brought
A sense of pleasant ease on such a day'—
For these things in themselves, Beloved, may
Be changed, or change for thee,—and love, so wrought,
May be unwrought so. Neither love me for
Thine own dear pity's wiping my cheeks dry,—
A creature might forget to weep, who bore
Thy comfort long, and lose thy love thereby!
But love me for love's sake, that evermore
Thou mayst love on, through love's eternity.

---

Thank you very much to those who responded to my comment on the last entry. Your kindness and support mean a lot.

If I read a book [and] it makes my whole body so cold no fire ever can warm me I know that is poetry. If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry. -Emily Dickinson

In case y'all hadn't seen them, there's quite a lovely set of photos of Mr Lambert here, taken by Robin Roemer. I have no Adam icons so I'm using the one that has the most guyliner in it. *g*

You’re so transparent, vain like a screen door;
no matter how much sunshine filters through you,
the fact remains that you’re still covered
in a myriad of tiny holes.
You pour your words, smooth and warm
as a shot of Southern Comfort,
down my quenched ears, and you expect an answer
just as golden as the rest of your liquid promises.
Well, I am so terribly sorry to disappoint,
but I am not your goddamn southern belle.
This winter wonderland is not an invitation
for you to dress up my body in your hands;
your sticky kisses, like sap,
belong elsewhere besides my lips.
They certainly are not sorry to watch you walk away.
And to think, I felt so much more beautiful before I met you.